"As flies to wanton boys...
....are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport" writes Shakespeare in his darkest play, King Lear. The words are spoken by Gloucester after he has been blinded by Cornwall and Regan (Lear's daughter), and reveal Shakespeare's apparent contempt for a cruelly detached god - one whose existence he is seemingly willing to doubt.
In his latest book "The God Delusion" Richard Dawkins goes much further and puts together a carefully argued and unrelenting case against belief in god. I've not read the book yet, but would like to - so if you are looking to buy me a christmas present and can overlook the inherent irony - go ahead, and make my (christmas) day.
To whet my appetite for this forthcoming xmas treat, I've just watched these two video clips -
Richard Dawkins lecture - part 1 - in which he reads excerpts from his book during a lecture at a US university - the video lasts around 40 minutes
Richard Dawkins lecture - part 2 - Dawkins answers questions following the readings - the video lasts about an hour
Other atheistic and anti-fundamentalist stuff -
Why can't I own a Canadian? - the bible is apparently "gods will" made word and therefore to be taken literally - after reading this you may wish to adopt a more pic'n'mix approach.
And finally, if after all that you are still interested in 'getting religion' (or seeking an alternative to the one you've got) - try these for size -
- Invisible Pink Unicorn - articles and creeds, revelations, miracles and relics
- Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - the beliefs of the Pastafarians (see pic above)
- Celestial Teapot as revealed by St Bertrand
- god - as interpreted and revealed in a variety of extremist cults
Alternatively you can try the National Secularist Society - I think I might give it a go...
Three bits of inconsistency (well I never was much good at absolutely committing myself to any idea) -
- some of the people who I love and respect most of all, are people of faith - I hope they will still talk to me if they read this
- for a while in the eighties I was a Marxist zealot - which is as close as you get to an atheistic religion
- when I was young I was choir-boy
1 comment:
Wow - that's a meaty post. You've obviously been putting your sofa time to good use.
It's going to take a while to work my way through the links you've supplied.
Like most people, I'm a pretty sloppy thinker. I find comfort for my atheism in the fact that the bible is riddled with inconsistencies, but I couldn't actualy point to many of them.
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