Evil Grannies with Rucksack Bombs on My Internet!

Martin Dittus · 2006-03-12 · a new world, drop culture, pop culture · write a comment

A couple of days ago while looking for some cheap entertainment I found a two-part Channel 4 series called "The Root of All Evil?", a documentary on religious extremism around the world. Usually those kind of documentaries are a pretty safe bet: you know the positions beforehand, sometimes you even learn a bit, and they don't annoy you like bad movies do. Perfect bedtime entertainment.

Boy was I in for a surprise.

Because they fed me what I least expected: Atheist propaganda.

Yeah I too thought that this was a contradiction in terms. Now I know better.

dawkins.jpg

"Why should scientists tip-tope respectfully away? the time has come for people of reason to say enough is enough! Religious faith discourages independent thought, it's divisive, and it's dangerous!"

evil_grannies_1.jpg

"It looks lovely, doesn't it? inoffensive and gentle. But isn't that the beginning of the slippery slope that leads to young men with rucksack bombs on the tube?"

evil_grannies_2.jpg

"At Lourdes, in southern France, the assault on the senses appeals to us not to think, not to doubt, not to probe. [...] If you have the delusion that you're Napoleon it must be a fairly lonely feeling because nobody else agrees with you. [...] But these people here, thousands of people, all have exactly the same delusion. And that must give wonderful reinforcement to their faith."

I have to disclaim here that I've only watched the beginning of the first episode, and it may well be that this tone is merely a setup for an insightful discussion -- but I'm not sure if it's worth the time to actually find out. I have no patience for propaganda from either part of the spectrum.

After all, one of the best improvements the Internet brought into our lives is the ability to skip commercials.

*click*

You can download the films at mininova.

Update: 2006-03-16: I've now watched both films and have nothing to add except that Richard Dawkins in a number of ways is quite a bad interviewer (which is a pity since most of the time is spent interviewing people), and he fails miserably to get his point across without sounding just as monkey-brained as his interview partners. The films create the impression that Dawkins and Channel 4 were attempting to add a counterpoint to the intelligent design discussion -- their arguments are similarly flashy and void of actual insight. I'm not sure this adds anything insightful to the discussions -- but I guess sometimes shouting matches do entertain.

Oblig. Pop

last.fm tag of the day: fake jazz (open fake jazz tag radio).


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