BBC – BBC Four Documentaries – Jonathan Miller’s Brief History of Disbelief “In this first ever television history of disbelief, Jonathan Miller leads viewers on a personal journey exploring the origins of his own lack of belief and uncovering the hidden story of atheism.” via Blackbeltjones’ delicious

I am going to be using this blog to collect notes for a book, so postings may sometimes seem a bit random. The book will be about faith – a defense of atheism and an attack on ideology and blind faith, from religion to secular political doctrine and cults. This comes at a time when the US has suffered terribly from attacks justified entirely by faith, while at the same time becoming more religious than any other developed nation. The book will not beat about the bush, I aim to put forward the argument that faith is necessarily bad, something to be tolerated where it is itself tolerant but not to be respected. The aim is still to write something positive, something that contains not just an argument for science over superstition, but also argues for a richer culture based upon appreciating art without having to literally believe it.

What is astounding about the Gallup poll of belief in evolution is not that, as they conclude in the headline: “Third of Americans Say Evidence Has Supported Darwin’s Evolution Theory” it is that two thirds think that it has not or don’t know. Suppose the same poll were run about a theory that has a similar amount of evidence supporting it, namely that the earth revolves around the sun, and the results were the same. A news headline reporting a Gallup poll on the ‘theory’ of solar orbiting would reflect what would be strange and newsworthy – namely that educating people about a fact (not a theory) has been so manipulated by religious fascists, that a terrifying situation has been created where in an otherwise developed country, the majority of people still hold Bronze Age beliefs. via Kottke