The kid interviewing him seems like he spent more time thinking about his fashion and hairdo than he did the subject matter he was addressing here.

The younger generation is all "laid back" and "chill" and "cool" and sees intellectual confrontation as "uncool," and that's a problem. It is conformist and weak to hold such a lily-livered view of what enlightenment means. It doesn't make you enlightened to be chill and laid back and cool. It makes you an idiot.

"Hey, if it gets them through the night, dude, what's wrong with religion?"

Being tolerant and accepting of religious faiths is fine except when the toleration isn't skeptical or critical of those who cross over the boundaries, as have the fundamentalist Christians in America.

You can be right or wrong. Religions are not exempt from rational discourse, or should be excused from critical examination any more than science, politics, culture, art, or any other human construct. Dawkins expresses this brilliantly.

He's not out "evangelizing" or even proselytizing atheism as his religious critics claim. He is not recruiting new atheists.

He's merely using the rational tools of the Enlightenment to attack religions at their philosophical core, especially in matters of "faith" where reason is completely ignored and replaced with blind acceptance of myth, legend, and fairly tales.

The very denial of reason and rationality that leads people to take religious leaps of faith is also what makes them extremely uncomfortable in religious discussions, or when their religious faith comes under any scrutiny or criticism. It’s rather difficult to defend the sillier religious tenets and dogma out there that so many take almost for granted in their leaps of faith. It’s sad too.

It’s sad that people give themselves so easily to unproven religious “truths” and certainty, yet cannot begin to grasp the proven (through scientific method and empirical observation) scientific ideas like evolution, simply because evolution doesn’t conform to their unproven dogma, or challenges their lack of intelligence or myopic and childish worldview.

I have grown weary of Dawkins’s critics painting his intellectual discourse and rational critique of religions as atheist proselytizing. Atheism isn’t a religious faith, folks. It’s the absence of faith. Atheists doubt everything and hold nothing with absolute certainty. Religious people aren’t allowed to doubt. And the dictatorship of certainty that guides their religion leaves little, if at all, room for debate and criticism.

I was about to write that the interviewer asked fantastic questions, independent from mat_scheck1's comment. and he did. the "cool" approach is an wide spread opinion towards religion, so as a good interviewer you give your guest a chance to answer to that. watch o'reilly if you want an interviewer expressing his personal opinion and only his personal opinion.

Although the interviewer is not appealing to me I am glad that others might find it appealing.

I'm an atheist from Canada. I admire both Richard Dawkins and George Stroumboulopoulos. Although I probably don't fit this show's demographics, I try to watch it whenever I can. Yes, George is young and hip. His style, whether real or affected, doesn't bother me. He's an intelligent young man who gives a better interview than most of his seasoned elders. That he might appeal to a younger audience interested in bigger things than Paris and Lindsay can only be a good thing. http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/

What was wrong with the interviewer? He asked basic questions that were appropriate for his audience - young people who may not have given the topic much thought.

You don't have to like his style. I suspect that if you don't you are either old or a snob.

Thanks for posting this Norm

I was in Montreal most of the Spring and watched the "The Hour" on several occasions. You are right, the audience is more inclined to watch an interview of "edgy" rock stars or "hip" actors, so Dawkins is a bit beyond the typical guest on the show.

Still, Stroumboulopoulos's line of inquiry was soft.

I've made the same criticism of John Stewart.

Three hundred years after the Enlightenment and finally people are able to openly criticize religion. Voltaire had to mask most of his contempt for the Church in metaphor and Darwin was coerced into buckling under to Christianity. Islam has permitted virtually no discussion among believers. I think that a lot of Americans would claim to be atheists if they had a bit more courage and encouragement and perhaps Dawkins is providing that support.

I don’t believe for a second John McCain’s ridiculous religious epiphany when he claims to hike the Grand Canyon. He makes these silly nods to religiosity out of fear, fear of the mob. The really sad part is that the mob is not directed by religion, but by those who control religion. It is these demagogues who decide for all of us that Dick Cheney and Bush are more moral (whatever the fuck that means) than Bill Clinton.

As a life-long atheist (I’m the only person I know who had “Atheist” on my military dog tags back in my youth) I am heartened by this Neo-Enlightenment. What took you so long?

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

-H.P. Lovecraft

Thanks for the Lovecraft quote Tankonersmate, I read some of his stories recently and they were great.

Did anyone see Dawkins on South Park? ;o)

I wish Dawkins wouldn't stutter so much.

Can't you take classes for that sort of thing?

Even though the interviewer bothered me, He did ask different questions from all the other interviews, such as "Is this your last religious book?", which i haven't heard in any other interview. Interesting.

The interviewer asked sensible questions, he appeared to have actually read the book, and the segment lasted for 12 minutes. What a complete contrast to O'Reilly's 3-minute hack-job.

If you closed your eyes and someone told you it was Jon Stewart doing the interview, you'd believe them for a few moments.

Damn Canadians are NOTORIOUS copycats. ;)

The younger generation is all "laid back" and "chill" and "cool" and sees intellectual confrontation as "uncool," and that's a problem.

I think that just might be the marijuana talking. Not all youngsters are "laid back" non-confrontational wimps. Take a look at the Youtube Blasphemy Challenges. The Rational Response Squad, aside from Brian Sapient (which I hope to see tomorrow on ABC's God debate), are all made up of young atheists. So I think it's a mixed bag. I don't think it's because he's young so much as because he's a host and hosts usually want to be liked by most everyone. He looks older than I am and I'm one of the biggest anti-religion assholes around here ;).

Did anyone see Dawkins on South Park? ;o)

Yes I did. I loved the part where he was fornicating Mrs. Garrison.

Yes I did. I loved the part where he was fornicating Mrs. Garrison.

No need to be so crude, Erick. He wasn't 'fornicating' her, he was "pounding" her "monkey-hole"...

XD LOL

Dawkins is delicious.

I think it is very important for Dawkins and his ideas to be exposed to as wide an audience as possible.

Judged in its' context, I think the interviewer did well. The context being considered is his audience.

His question re why should he challenge the personal religious beliefs of church goers and believers who aren't playing po0litics, was an important question and the way he asked it related to his audience. Plenty of his core audience is bright enough to handle a deeper discussion. But for many it is a good place to hear the answers, likely for the first time.

You go to pop culture media to reach a mass audience. Dawkins is pushing well beyond the boundaries of what might be called the atheist choir.

If a discussion about sacred cows is beginning to happen, it is partly because of attempt to popularize the ideas and the discussion.

Mass movements require mass exposure. That is how ideas become topics for everyday talk between people.

What was the Terry Shriver (name?) story without the mass media attention.

This is a real story and a real discussion that needs to be happening. Wide exposure of the ideas requires speaking to a variety of audiences. And suffering a variety of interviewers. :)

I think you mean Terri Schiavo. Although I must say Maria Shriver is close to being a vegetable for marrying Ahnuld.

I think you mean Terri Schiavo. Although I must say Maria Shriver is close to being a vegetable for marrying Ahnuld.

-- ErickNow, that made my day...

Leftbanker said "Voltaire had to mask most of his contempt for the Church in metaphor"

Have you read his Philosophical Letters which were printed in England in the early 1730s before they ever appeared in France? In France the printer was imprisoned in the Bastille and any copies of the Philosophical Letters were burned.

It seems that Voltaire never spoke against religion so much as he spoke against one state-sanctioned religion.

If there were only one religion in England, there would be danger of tyranny; if there were two, they would cut each other's throats; but there are thirty, and they live happily together in peace.

With his "Essay on General History and on the Customs and the Character of Nations" written in 1756, his contempt for the Church was not at all masked.

He never did claim to be an atheist though, and his writings present him as coming across as a deist.

"If there were only one religion in England, there would be danger of tyranny; if there were two, they would cut each other's throats; but there are thirty, and they live happily together in peace."

I've never used the word clueless to describe anything said by Voltaire but that statement is exactly that. I would have advised him to look at English rule in Ireland to see how poisonous English religous thinking was, and religous domination can be, both to the rulers and the ruled.

Voltaire may be right about the diversity of religions.

This worked somwhat well in America untill the religionists starting gaining political power.
By that I mean the rise of the mega-churches who by propaganda basically told people how to vote, what issues were important, and organising themselves on these issues.

Think this is a fairly modern phenomenon. It can work for progressive movements, like the civil rights movement, or regressive as in the current church based movements trying to tear down the wall of separation of church and state.

As for George (the interviewer), if you had the "honour" of seeing him day in and day out, you would agree that George here with Dawkins, is the the George with anyone.

He is very intellectual, quite verse and by no means a push-over. Fashion is clothing and style which are nothing more than fluff, they have no bearing on his questioning.

Don't be shallow, open up your mind and listen rather than look.

Strombo is no mimbo. He asked Dawkins the same questions every other interviewer asks. He's very casual—he's been a music journalist for most of his career—but that's just his style. If it makes a younger audience pay attention that's a good thing.

And at 35, he's no kid. That's old enough to be the acting White House press secretary.

Don't be shallow, open up your mind and listen rather than look.

I did listen and look and the host seemed vapid and shallow to me.

Apparently the host's audience, according to his defenders here, needs to be fed its information in soft shells and maybe have it pre-chewed for them, which furthers my original point, more or less.

He's very casual—he's been a music journalist for most of his career—but that's just his style. If it makes a younger audience pay attention that's a good thing.

A vapid host for a vapid audience. OK, thanks for clarifying that for me. I get it now.

LOL...before I get slammed for my comment above, I am sure the host of "The Hour" is, as you all say, a thoughtful and intelligent person.

Furthermore, I am sure his audience is not quite prepared for too much of the kind of intellectual gravitas that Dawkins represents.

When I was in Montreal I watched the show frequently and saw many of the promos for it too, which empahsized the "edgy" and "hip" style George Stroumboulopoulos brings to his celebrity interviews. "Intelligent" didn't seem to be emphasized.

Obviously, there's a major leap of intellectual gravitas from interviewing a celebrity like 50 Cent or Sarah Polley to one like Richard Dawkins.

Exposing someone like Dawkins to an audience that tunes in for the "hip" and "edgy" celebrities is probably a delicate proposition for a show like "The Hour," so you who defend the show and the host are correct.

But that doesn't change the fact that this diluted and puerile kind of intellectual dicourse is, as I said, vapid. And insipid.

Maybe you underestimate his audience. Maybe they can handle deeper subjects with more attention than they pay to the Foo Fighters promoting their latest record.

And one more note. Perhaps my criticism of "The Hour" and its host, George Stroumboulopoulos (and his audience), sounds snobby and even elitist. It is, as a matter of fact, elitist of me to expect more.

But I cite the words of Richard Dawkins when addressing his critics who call his argumentative style elitist:

It's certainly elitist. What's wrong with being elitist, if you are trying to encourage people to join the elite rather than being exclusive? I'm very, very keen that people should raise their game rather than the other way around.

Exactly.

Mat, I understand the point you are making and even agree that it was a very low level interview. For you or I it may feel like it was a waste not to go deeper.

However, we are part of the choir and Dawkins in making a very real, and I think successful effort to reach a much wider audience than writers like him will normally reach.

Dawkins has said more than once that consciousness raising is his goal. He says it in the quote above.

When your argument is always at the A level, the so called elitists will be your only audience. America is in desparate need of real dialog on this subject. To do this consciousness raising thing, you have to try to talk to everyone.

I certainly agree that a significant section of that program's audience is capable of dealing with a more complex disccusion but the host is usually trying to reach his "core" audience, not just the bright ones.

Insipid? Yes, for many of us your description is quite accurate. But for many in that audience the questions were asked at just the level they are often thinking. Can they function at a higher level. Of course most of them can. Do they want to, are they willing to? That is a different question and sometimes you really do have to lead the horse to the water.

On a personal level, these pop interviews are very unsatisfying but the politico in me understands that it is part of consciousness raising, on a mass scale.

ThomasMcCay,

Point taken.

Of course, I 'd love to see our culture raise the cultural esteem level of public intellectuals like Richard Dawkins to a higher level than vapid pop stars, professional athletes, and celebrities. Or, for that matter, a majority of the moronic news" pundits" spewing their piffle on the public airwaves; there's a huge difference between a pundit and a real public intellectual. John Ralston Saul, the great Canadian thinker, is a public intellectual. Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity, et al. are just tedious windbags pandering to the mob watching their shows..

It's asking a lot, I know.

I think television tries too hard to dumb down its content, or panders too much to the lowest intellectual common denominator of the mob to "reach" people. Like Dawkins said, there should be an attempt to include people into the "elite," but you cannot do that with baby talk and trying too hard not to offend everyone in the audience.

Believe it or not, making people feel a little stupid, insulted, or uninformed can actually have a positive effect. It forces the kind of self-examination that, frankly, the lords or corporate commercialism detest.

They want you feeling insecure because you don't drive a Honda Accord or wear snazzy shoes or dress "hip" and “now” like the host of "The Hour."

They certainly don't want the audience to feel stupid, because being smart doesn't translate well into buying shit, which is the main goal of commercialism. Most commercials portray people as vapid, goofy, and neurotic. It's uncool to be too smart.

I hope this makes sense.

Makes sense, completely. That is why the promotional stuff relating to that show refers to the host as cool, hip, and edgy, but not intelligent. Intelligence doesn't sell sneakers or body spray

But you have to work what what is there. In a nation of people that are seriously caught up in pop culture. A huge percent of the population lives on a steady diet of commercial media.

In a country where much of the population knows more about Anna Nicole Smith than they do about their own family members, it isn't suprising that you have a dumbed down population filling their heads with a not stop deluge of dumbed down media.

I do understand what you are saying Mat. I just don't think it is an either or situation. The job is to talk to everyone, from the top of the 'elite' to the bottom of the pile and the the majority that are somewhere in between.

However, my view of this comes primarily from a political view, my perception of the mechanics how mass movements and mass consciousness raising happens.

Taste wise, I too am very unsatisfied by the superficial nature of these interviews in popular media.

A vapid host for a vapid audience. OK, thanks for clarifying that for me. I get it now.

There's no need for dickishness. Besides, Dawkins' answers weren't 'edited for coolness'. I don't see how the casual manner of the host affected Dawkins at all. He sounded pretty much the same as he always does.

But that doesn't change the fact that this diluted and puerile kind of intellectual dicourse is, as I said, vapid. And insipid. Maybe you underestimate his audience.

What you find vapid and insipid and puerile might be stimulating and challenging for young people who aren't usually interested in thinking too hard. Sure, there are plenty of smart, thoughtful kids out there, but plenty more who don't read books and aren't interested in ideas. If they're exposed to thinkers like Dawkins, that's a good thing.

There's no need for dickishness.

You can't come up with a more intelligent word than "dickishness"? Which isn't even a word, I might add. I've done a decent job here presenting my arguments with (some)eloquence and honesty, however offensive or disagreeable you may find that. It's not that I'm against the occasional vulgarity, but here it seems unnecessary since we're all not knee-jerk trolls and are, I think, in the same camp.

ThomasMcCay--

Your comments make me think of another great Canadian thinker, the great Marshall McLuan. His visionary look in the 60s at the growing mass media and its massive influence on the cultural consciousness has been hijacked by every marketing firm in the capitalist world.

Someone in an earlier thread complained about Sean Penn on the Bill Maher show, but at least Penn wasn't on there boorishly talking about himself and his "art," but was, in fact, holding his own in the socio-political conversation.

But the commenter was right to imply that we do raise celebrities to a higher esteem level than they often deserve, and in the case of the Bill Maher show, there are hundreds of public intellectuals who are more profound and wise than Sean Penn, but they aren't popular celebrities who would "grab" the attention of a celebrity-obsessed audience.

In conclusion, I guess I do apologize for besmirching the host as acridly as I did by holding him up to my lofty standards. Like I said, I watched “The Hour” on many occasions while in Canada recently, and it’s not a high-brow show by any accord, nor is it trying to be. However, those of you defending the show and the host have made cogent arguments about the attempt to provide a wide audience access to a public intellectual like Dawkins. Even if the content is diluted, it might convince many in the audience to at least think about a subject they might normally consider.

But it was still insipid and shallow. Let’s not kid ourselves. If this is what passes as “smart” for kids, we’re doing them a great disservice. On this idea I remain resolutely firm.

I don't normally hijack threads like this with my comments, but this has been a great conversation between kindred minds, so please do not take my critcicism of the show personally or attack me personally when I have not done that to anyone in this thread. I enjoy all your argumets and wish to keep this at a civil level instead of an acrimonious, anti-troll shit-flinging affair.

You can't come up with a more intelligent word than "dickishness"? Which isn't even a word, I might add.

It may not be a word, but I just used it as one, so there you are. I think it describes the unnecessary sarcasm of the comment I quoted.

I've done a decent job here presenting my arguments with (some)eloquence and honesty, however offensive or disagreeable you may find that.

I singled out that one comment, not the whole lot. I'm not offended by verbosity.

I'm not offended by verbosity.

There's no need for boogerosity either, you poopiebutt. So there you are.

TV? Vapid? Who would have thought to bring those together in a single sentence?

Hmm. This is one of the better interviews I have seen, if for no other reason, because Dawkins seemed to really enjoy it. He laughed and smiled more than usual, and appeared comfortable and relaxed, giving each question the same respectable scrutiny he always does.

The interviewer did a commendable job of keeping attention on the book and asking new questions or at least giving a fresh bend to the standard menu. To have ones book, especially a work as important as The God Delusion, included also within pop-culture cannot and should not be a negative, nor thought of as such, and I'm old

Overall it was the 'Dawkins the Professor in Casual Conversation with a Student' intimacy that gave the interview a uniquely candid and therefore legitimate flavor.

But that doesn't change the fact that this diluted and puerile kind of intellectual dicourse is, as I said, vapid. And insipid.

There's no need for boogerosity either, you poopiebutt. So there you are.

Oh my gawd, we've descended to vapid poopiebuttism, I'm absolutely astondigated, virtually flagerized with the boulder dashedness of it all.

For the most part this has been an interesting disccusion on the nature and use of pop media for popularizing this debade about god and religious belief. Great stuff.

I think yahweh expressed my idea better and more succintly than I. But after all, he is yahweh, creator of the universe and knower all worth knowing. :)

Well, Erick, if Ray's going to make up a silly word and defend its use...

Goose, meet gander. Pot, meet kettle.

And of course I was joking. I guess that's not allowed. Or is it vapid and puerile and insipid?

In other words: HUH?

re Mcluan' ideas being put to use by the marketing forces: That's the problem with knowledge, anyone can use it.

Them with power and bucks can use it on a grander scale.

I was merely pointing out idle chatter through the use of blockquotes and using your own words against you. You are allowed to make whatever jokes you want and even stoop to Comfort's level of intellectualism. I only find it humorous when the same person who passes judgment on a discourse as being vapid and insipid (and I don't necessarily disagree with you on this) also resorts to the same level of discourse. I apologize in advance for calling you on your duplicity.

...also resorts to the same level of discourse.

It does? I fail to see how joking about made-up, quasi-profane pejoratives sinks a conversation to a "vapid and insipid" discourse when, after all, this joking was in response to someone using a puerile argument to defend using a made-up, profane pejorative directed at me.

RE: "dickishness"

It may not be a word, but I just used it as one, so there you are.

Now, that seems rather puerile to me. And my response was obviously--in this context--ironic and joking. That doesn't "sink" the discourse (which Ray had already sunk by using "dickishness" mind you).

[Note to Ray: perhaps you meant "flippant" or "sarcastic." And your use of "verbosity" was GREAT, because I am a windbag, LOL!]

It certainly doesn't--as you claim with some rather knee-jerk logic--make me a hypocrite in the greater context of what I have been arguing in this thread.

But I admire your attempt at establishing arbitrary rules of rhetoric. It means you are thinking, which is heartening.

I love how people think Strombo is some young guy. I think he's 38 or something...

RD has a new program for CH 4 coming out and an I/V with Deepak Chopra cant wait to see that.