The Root of all evil?

PZ Meyers is gloating, and rightly so. Not only does he have one of the best science-and-rationality themed blogs on the internet, he also seems to have luminaries like Richard Dawkins as occasional readers. I doubt that Dr. Dawkins is reading my blog, but then that's not surprising since I spend most of my time talking about what I had for breakfast and other such earth-shattering mundane things.

(Aside: I am continually amazed when I hear -- as I did again the other day -- that people actually do read my blog, even if its only people that know me. Hi everyone!)

The reason PZ is gloating is because out of the blue, Dr. Dawkins' sent him an autographed DVD copy of The Root of All Evil?, Dawkins' two-part documentary/rant about his concerns about religious faith gaining ground in the face of rational, scientific truth based on evidence. I was equally thrilled to find that Dawkins had made such a film, and recently managed to lay hands on it myself.

I'm sorry to say that I was disappointed. While my opinions on this matter are certainly exactly in line with Dr. Dawkins, the film just didn't have the sort of 'oomph' that I was hoping for. Overall, the narrative parts of the show are fine and work well, but the segments where Dawkins confronts various pastors, rabbis and imams are... well... weak. Dawkins may be "Darwin's Rottweiler" on paper, but he's nowhere near as fierce in person, certainly not as effective as the moniker would suggest. I think this is because he cares so passionately about the issue and he permits himself to get actually angry when, for example, a fundamentalist pastor makes ridiculous claims about evolution -- a subject upon which there are few more qualified experts than Dawkins himself. In his anger, his verbal arguments are less effective and come off a little trite.

Still, I will recommend the show if you're a Dawkins fanboy like myself (there's no better science writer alive, IMHO), or if you're interested in the subject matter. Don't go looking for "fairness" though. Dawkins doesn't waste his time giving a 'balanced' presentation of the issue. There is no balance: the Scientific Method is an overwhelmingly successful means for determining the truth, and the only truths that religion can offer are made-up, illogical, inconsistent, and require "faith", a dangerous process of non-thinking that -- especially in this day and age -- is putting our society in jeopardy.