To watch Part 2, click here
As a card-carrying member of the Freethinkers I can't get enough of Richard Dawkins and his excellent book "The God Delusion".
I had joined the German Freethinkers at the tender age of fourteen on the same day I was supposed to show up at church for my confirmation, much to my parents' embarrassment with their family and friends.
My parents were, at least nominally, Christians which made me a child of Christian parents; it did not make me a Christian child. Christianity did not convince me, and so I became an atheist without even knowing what that meant. If you think that's bad, bear in mind that we are all atheists because we all refuse to believe in the gods that the Vikings or the ancient Greeks worshipped. I just happen to go one god further.
In today's trawl through Moruya's op-shops, I found three of his DVDs: "Appearances & Events 2007 - 2008", "The Genius of Charles Darwin", and "Root of all Evil?". He adds a question mark to the latter's title which, in my opinion, is a very polite touch but totally unnecessary.
I shall watch them without guilt as I stopped embarrassing my parents when I emigrated to Australia five years after my failed attendance, nor will I embarrass them again as they are both dead and in a place where we are not likely to meet, as I, undoubtedly, will go straight to Hell.
"To an atheist there is no all-seeing, all-loving God who keeps us from harm. But atheism is not a recipe for despair. Quite the contrary. By disclaiming the idea of a next life, we can take more excitement in this one.
The here and now is not something to be endured before eternal bliss or damnation. The here and now is all we have, an inspiration to make the most of it. So atheism is life-affirming, in a way religion can never be.
Look around us. Nature demands our attention, begs us to explore, to question. Religion can only provide facile, ultimately unsatisfying answers. Science, in constantly seeking real explanations, reveals the true majesty of our world in all its complexity.
People sometimes say, 'There must be more than just this world, than just this life.' But how much more do you want? We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they're never going to be born.
The number of people who could be here in my place outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. If we think of all the different ways in which our genes could be permuted, you and I are quite grotesquely lucky to be here.
The number of events that had to happen in order for you to exist, in order for me to exist, we are privileged to be alive, and we should make the most of our time on this world."
So says Richard Dawkins, and I say "Amen" to that!
