From the first link, i found only sadness :( From the contract the workers have to sign (non catholic descrimination) to the ignorance of not understanding Darwin or Dawkins

But the most precious thing was this: "And how did he pass the exams? "I never lied, but if I was asked a question about the age of the universe, I answered from my knowledge of the topic, not my beliefs."

:|

I would recommend psychiatric help and soft cushioned walls for those people...

Gosh... That first link is really disturbing. I agree with you Jurek - psychiatric help needed indeed. Just have to check that the psychiatrists themselves aren't so ignorant.

I visited some friends of my family recently. Kids I grew up with, haven't seen them in years.

They feel so "Blessed" because their daughter's been to Brazil to spread the "good news" twice already. And she's apparently very much into "spiritual dancing"... (good sign something is wrong...)

We're chatting, and all of a sudden out of the blue I hear them ask me "How old is the Earth?". Now I wasn't really paying attention to the conversation, so I only heard that bit. They were actually talking about some nutcase Christianoid DVD with "proof" that the Earth is 6000 years old.

I said, "I'm sorry, are you asking me?" They looked at each other and said, yea.. So I said, "Well, current scientific evidence seems to indicate that the Earth is around 4.5 Billion years old."

They looked a bit nervous, and they conversation got really awkward after that. I found an excuse to leave and hopped on my bike and rode away.

Ignorant fools.

That was an interesting interview (Humphrys and Ramadan). Thanks Norm.

The "Two Who Hopped off the Faith Train" article seems to miss the whole point of what the writer is debating. He seems to feel that Dawkins doesn't explain things in a magnificent enough way... isn't that the point? It's about disproving mysticism, not embracing it.

As for the Creationist Museum, here's a link to a video about it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wzjjxi7f0Oc

Thanks for that link, Stupid Git. I loved that reporter.

I had almost entirely the opposite reaction to the Sagan/Dawkins article. I thought it was far more insightful than anything I expect to see in a mainstream publication.

The reason for this is simply that I am naturally more inclined towards Sagan's approach than Dawkins'. Not that I have substantive disagreements with anything Dawkins writes, but he often does not cut a very sympathetic figure.

I would direct budding skeptics towards The Demon Haunted World without question before The God Delusion, specifically because of the way Sagan manages to come across as being as "spiritual" as one can possibly be without actually believing in something ridiculous. To Sagan the material universe itself is such an awesome, majestic place that making up silly stories so as to pretend to understand it can only cheapen it. This sentiment resonates strongly with me.

The problem with Sagan's purism is that it comes across as equivocal and easily dismissed by believers, who actually love quoting his line about absence of evidence not being evidence of absence, despite its providing no meaningful addition to the debate whether anything supernatural exists. Atheism presented Sagan-style has kept atheists cornered by an intellectual honesty not shared by their opposite number.

I sometimes wonder if that's not really the problem Dawkins is tackling. I imagine he might have resolved to take it on the chin as the "uncompromising firebrand atheist," so as to legitimize the debate and allow more temperate Sagan-style atheists to express themselves without being dismissed as "merely" agnostic or undecided about religious matters. If there are people about whom believers can say, "he does not believe in God, but he's far more reasonable about it than that Dawkins guy" then that in itself is amazing progress.

For those interested in BBC's program, there is a link that you can use to hear it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/misc/insearchofgod.shtml