Friday, April 3, 2009 | Reason : Commentary | print version

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Did Darwin Kill God?

by BBC 2

Update 4/4: As noted by several people this is now available on YouTube so those outside of the UK can also watch the series
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=15EABEE7BCA86CB0

Click on the link to go to the BBC video site if you are viewing from a UK location. The video is not playable outside of the UK but a reader has sent in the subtitle teletext for the deaf.

Reposted from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jhfwt

There are some who believe that Darwin's theory of evolution has weakened religion, fuelled in part by Richard Dawkins' publishing phenomenon The God Delusion. Conor Cunningham argues that nothing could be further from the truth.

Cunningham is a firm believer in the theory of evolution, but he is also a Christian. He believes that the clash between Darwin and God has been hijacked by extremists - fundamentalist believers who reject evolution on one side, and fundamentalist atheists on the other. Cunningham attempts to overturn what he believes are widely held but mistaken assumptions in the debate between religion and evolution.

He travels to the Middle East where he shows that from the very outset, Christianity warned against literal readings of the biblical story of creation. In Britain, he reveals that, at the time, Darwin's theory of evolution was welcomed by the Anglican and Catholic Churches. Instead, he argues that the conflict between Darwin and God was manufactured by American creationists in the 20th century for reasons that had very little to do with science and religion and a great deal to do with politics and morality.

Finally, he comes face to face with some of the most eminent evolutionary biologists, geneticists and philosophers of our time to examine whether the very latest advances in evolutionary theory do in fact kill God.

Note from Exec Producer, Jean Claude Bragard:

This programme, part of the BBC’s Darwin Season, came from the realisation that it would touch on issues raised by Richard Dawkins in his book 'The God Delusion'. The publishing phenomenon has fuelled a widespread perception that the theory of evolution makes belief in God redundant, even perhaps perverse. But how compelling was that argument? It was clear that many Christians have easily been able to reconcile their belief in God with the theory of evolution. How was this possible? This was the question we wanted to explore and so we invited Dr Conor Cunningham, a Christian but also an eminent philosopher and theologian from the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham, to show how it was possible to believe in Darwin and God. Cunningham has just completed a book 'Evolution: Darwin's Pious Idea' to be published in the autumn, so he was ideally placed to explore this question. His argument is that we have been witnessing an unnecessary cultural war between religion and evolution that is damaging to both religion and science. Cunningham reveals that since the early days, mainstream Christianity’s view of God and Creation has not been literal. The idea of reading the Book of Genesis literally is essentially a 20th century American phenomenon that had very little to do with science and religion and a great deal to do with the morality and politics of the time.

Jean Claude Bragard
Executive Producer

The video is not viewable outside of the UK but a reader has sent in the text of the teletext subtitles for the deaf

150 years ago,
his theory changed mankind's
perception of life on earth forever.

I believe religious alternatives
like creationism
and intelligent design are nonsense.
You may think that that would make
me an atheist, but I am a Christian.
I believe in God.

As a philosopher and theologian,
I write and lecture
on Darwinism and Religion,
and I am disturbed how the debate
has been hijacked by extremists.

On one side stands Richard Dawkins,
crusader against the belief in God.
Not only is it unscientific,
it doesn't do justice
to the grandeur of the universe.

Dawkins is the flag bearer
of a strand of Darwinism
called ultra-Darwinism,
which believes the theory
of evolution implies atheism.
There's no role
to play by a creative God,
an intelligent God,
a benign God of any sort.

who tell us evolution is wrong.

The Bible tells us...
the age of the earth. The universe
is only about 6000 years.

Posted: Friday, April 3, 2009 | Permalink

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1. Comment #359749 by Lapin Diabolique on April 3, 2009 at 12:43 pm

'The idea of reading the Book of Genesis literally is essentially a 20th century American phenomenon '

What is the polite word for bullshit again?

This falls under the, what I'd like to call, the 'Vaseline-greased weasel' apologetics from the moderate Xians.
Anything is compatible with the believe in Jeebus if you just squint hard enough and throw out all of your intellectual integrity.

It is also a flat-out lie.

Other Comments by Lapin Diabolique

2. Comment #359751 by Rodger T on April 3, 2009 at 12:48 pm

It`s a bit hard to kill something that has never existed.
But,if anything killed god I think the Beatles claimed they did.

Other Comments by Rodger T

3. Comment #359752 by ingodwerust on April 3, 2009 at 12:49 pm

I watched this and was constantly irritated by it. Typical apologist bullshit from start to finish.

Other Comments by ingodwerust

4. Comment #359761 by OrbitalMike on April 3, 2009 at 1:08 pm

What a crappy question, "Did Darwin Kill God?" It's impossible - the God character doesn't exist.

About as meaningful as asking "Who shot JR?"
(wow that dates me)

Other Comments by OrbitalMike

5. Comment #359763 by Diacanu on April 3, 2009 at 1:09 pm

To heck with JR, who killed Cock Robin!?!?!

Other Comments by Diacanu

6. Comment #359765 by paul fauvet on April 3, 2009 at 1:15 pm

To make any sense of this, we have to know what Cunningham understands by the term "God".

He tells us: "For me, God is the source of the gift of life, of all life. God is He in whom we live, move and have our very existence.
And this is what traditional Christianity tells us. God is existence itself. He is the creator of time itself".

This is meaningless waffle. Of course a god that is defined so vaguely cannot be killed by Darwin, Dawkins or anybody else.

Defining god as "existence itself" is not "traditional Christianity". It's not remotely Christian, and sounds more like pantheism to me.

The God that Cunningham worships is obviously not the malevolent tyrant of the Old Testament, and the Jehovah-lite of the New Testmane doesn't fit his definition either.

It's difficult to understand how such an obviously intelligent and well-read man as Cunningham can swallow such concepts as the incarnation and the atonement.

What really kills the Christian God isn't evolution, or the natural sciences at all - it's straightforward study of the Christian scriptures. They are such a contradictory mess, and are so full of violent and hateful ideas, that people like Cunningham have to use intellectually dishonest acrobatics in order to accept them.

Take the contradiction in Genesis, which Philo so ingeniously "solved". There is a much easier solution that anyone trained in literary studies
would immediately suggest. The two Genesis chapters contradict each other because they were written by different people and were run togeter by an incompetent editor.

If we apply to the Bible the same rules we would apply to any other test, the mysteries disappear. So does any reason to believe that it is anything more than a collection of old legends, plus highly propagandistic versions of bits of Jewish history, plus second or third hand accounts of what a radical preacher named Jesus is supposed to have said and done.

Look at the Bible like that and the foundations for belief in the Christian god just evaporate.

Other Comments by paul fauvet

7. Comment #359766 by Diogenes of Sinope on April 3, 2009 at 1:17 pm

Dawkins is the flag bearer of a strand of Darwinism called ultra-Darwinism, which believes the theory of evolution implies atheism

OF COURSE evolution (properly understood) implies atheism; only astonishing intellectual dishonesty can make it compatible with theism. Showing that complexity arises from simplicity deals theism a mortal wound, and keeping it alive through the faintly remote possiblity of compatibility involves the same twisted mental gymnastics as finding the basis for an acceptable moral code in the bible.

I guess this sillyness is an inevitable consequence of BBC neutrality..

Other Comments by Diogenes of Sinope

8. Comment #359767 by Tzsak on April 3, 2009 at 1:17 pm

Sure you can take a none literal interpretation of Genesis, but then you're still left with the brutality of natural selection to explain.

Other Comments by Tzsak

9. Comment #359769 by jon_bailey on April 3, 2009 at 1:21 pm

This programme made my blood boil, I felt frustrated and cheated. The BBC has aired some brilliantly entertaining and educational Darwin stuff recently. This one simply did not cut it ... Presented with poor arguments and distorted half truths in attempt to give credibility to the lie that Natural Selection was in fact part of God's big master plan.

Presenting Richard Dawkins (without interviewing him) and Dan Dennett as extremists Conor Cunningham comes across as a misguided fool. Come on BBC Lets get back to having proper objective educational informed programming. There is so much more to be gained from developing and exploring honest scientific ideas in this great Darwinian year rather than resorting to this kind of crap.

As somebody else has already commented, No Darwin didn't kill God .... God never existed!

Other Comments by jon_bailey

10. Comment #359770 by squinky on April 3, 2009 at 1:22 pm

So when Xtians finally trot out the Biblical allegory argument and then embrace science, they never genuinely do so. If they accept evolution then they MUST also accept that we are kin with modern apes as were early hominids. That means humans were never created (underscore Adam and Eve allegory) and so spontaneously occurred on the Earth. That means that there is no soul. When did God breathe the soul into Xtians£ In 2450 BC£

Harris had it right: religious moderates betray both religion and science equally with their disingenuity.

Other Comments by squinky

11. Comment #359771 by Tom Morris on April 3, 2009 at 1:22 pm

Yeah, it's a boring apologetic programme that doesn't get near the actual tough issues. "Darwin kills God" is silly. No, Darwin is one part of the argument against gods.

Why should you watch it? Some pretty nature pics, a few gawpingly stupid creationists to giggle over and some chat with Dan Dennett.

Other Comments by Tom Morris

12. Comment #359773 by Dhamma on April 3, 2009 at 1:26 pm

I'm getting increasingly annoyed they label us fundamentalists. I'm not saying god cannot exist, I just find the idea rather pointless as nothing suggests it.

I change my mind all the time on various issues, would fundamentalists do that? If new data suggests god may actually exist, I will be more than interested in it.

Evolution makes god unnecessary. If he exists and we're the pinnacle of his creation, I just wonder why it took him almost 15 billion years to create us. And when our species is dead, everything will continue without us. What's the point in that if everything was made for our existence?

God really WANTS us not to believe in him. Could he really blame us?

Other Comments by Dhamma

13. Comment #359777 by bjornove on April 3, 2009 at 1:34 pm

Just saw this program and actually found it quite entertaining in a rather annoying way. Basically, the same old NOMA nonsense we are used to from liberal theology. And I agree with Paul (#359765) that the concept of a deity or god argued in this program was just meaningless babble....
Just another example that theology is a non-subject and that theologians just make up stuff and have no real arguments based on evidence. Anyway, I actually recommend people to watch it just to get some insight into how intelligent people can get seduced by theology into believing fairy tales from a old desert religion. It's already out on torrent if you are not in the UK.

Other Comments by bjornove

14. Comment #359778 by ennui on April 3, 2009 at 1:35 pm

It was clear that many Christians have ~~easily~~ dishonestly been able to ~~reconcile~~ compartmentalise their belief in God ~~with~~ from the theory of evolution.

fixed.

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15. Comment #359779 by siflrock on April 3, 2009 at 1:39 pm

There's so much bullshit in this article, it's hard to know where to begin. Why would the BBC treat this retread of the old "where the bible does not conflict with science, it's fact. where the bible conflicts with science, it's powerful allegory and poetry" argument as if it were new or important? Sickening.

"It was clear that many Christians have easily been able to reconcile their belief in God with the theory of evolution. How was this possible?" Why, intellectual dishonesty, of course!

Other Comments by siflrock

16. Comment #359782 by Tom Morris on April 3, 2009 at 1:47 pm

Just watching the last section about memes, where the presenter suggests that if you accept memes you end up having to accept a kind of Agrippan scepticism about reality and personhood. That's just bullshit though. You can't be totally certain about reality, but you can accept it as a reasonable enough explanation.

I don't see that there's any incompatibility with memes and an epistemology that tracks truth. It may make certain epistemological stances untenable - and I would lean and say that it's probably more likely to make internalist epistemologies untenable than it is externalist ones - but that doesn't mean that it cuts through all epistemologies. It just gives us a natural unit of causal explanation for culture. The fact that you come to believe something for a 'memetic' rather than some other reason doesn't automatically make that false. Just as if you happen to come to believe that Tony Blair was the prime minister because it was mentioned in a soap opera or police detective show doesn't mean that this belief is wrong, but just not arrived at through a reliable and justifiable process.

The meme theory or something like it is surely right though: ideas do not spread through culture because of their truth value. In some areas of life truth is valued quite highly - scientific journals, maybe courtrooms. But the sort of memes likely to flourish inside the pages of Nature are selected for quite differently than the memes likely to flourish inside Hello! magazine. If all environments were all as susceptible to valuing truth, then there would be no need of argument. We'd have complete agreement everywhere - a society of informed, logical sceptics who believe nothing more than what the evidence allows. But beliefs spread on things other than truth value - they spread based on fashion, profit, gossip, propaganda, 'interestingness' and so on. We would have no notion of epistemic duties if this were not the case: if everyone was naturally wired to have only true beliefs all the time, then the idea that one would have to do one's intellectual duty to investigate things fairly and honestly before believing them - that concept would be as meaningless as a duty to breathe or a duty to drink water.

The meme section is really sloppy rubbish. Bloody piss-poor rubbish. 'Ultradarwinism' is a straw man.

Other Comments by Tom Morris

17. Comment #359783 by Duff on April 3, 2009 at 1:49 pm

This is just more of the same old "that is not my religion" hogwash. If they don't believe in the god of the old testament and don't accept everything about the god of the new, what is it exactly that makes them christians as opposed to deists?

Other Comments by Duff

18. Comment #359784 by BJPentecost on April 3, 2009 at 1:49 pm

If anything killed god it was his own sorry scientifically illiterate hate-filled Dumbies' Guide on how NOT to live your life otherwise known as the Bible.

Other Comments by BJPentecost

19. Comment #359786 by Metch on April 3, 2009 at 1:53 pm

Dhamma.. we both know that Mike Patton is God, wouldn't you agree?

...well at least the god of music.

Other Comments by Metch

20. Comment #359788 by notsobad on April 3, 2009 at 1:54 pm

And ironically, evolution is also responsible for these kinds of delusions.

Other Comments by notsobad

21. Comment #359790 by Harko on April 3, 2009 at 1:56 pm

I had a good idea, after thinking about this documentary for a few days:

Conor Cunningham suggests that it has always been Christian doctrine that Genesis was a metaphor, and it was only recently that it has started to be read literally.

The reason for his assertion? It was noticed early on that the biblical account of creation was not consistent. Even within Genesis itself, there were contradictions. Therefore, it _must_ be read metaphorically.

Where am I going with this?

Why don't we take the King James Bible, and the well published list of biblical contradictions and apply The Cunningham Principle (as it shall be called henceforth) ad nauseum? Anything that is contradictory must be read as a metaphor, not literal truth. I wonder what we have left "true" at the end of this process?

Jesus born of a virgin?
Is he resurrected?
Is he the son of God?
What about Moses and the 10 Commandments?
...the list goes on, and on.

My guess is that there is not much of Christianity left, other than one great, big, unholy METAPHOR!!

Other Comments by Harko

22. Comment #359791 by the great teapot on April 3, 2009 at 1:56 pm

The gist of the program was no one took the bible literally 150 years ago. So Darwin changed nothing.
Uhm.. it begs the question then just what in the bible is truth if some is and some isn't.
Perhaps it is just the shit written by the perfidious jew we shouldn't trust.
Darwin didn't kill god. No, but he did kill most peoples notion of what god is.
A non or sometiimes intervensionist god would never have survived 2 millenia and he knows it.
I suspect he is a disingenuous liar.

Other Comments by the great teapot

23. Comment #359793 by Spinoza on April 3, 2009 at 2:05 pm

Sounds like a nod to Nietzsche's Madman speech...

Other Comments by Spinoza

24. Comment #359794 by MrPickwick on April 3, 2009 at 2:08 pm

It's misleading to say that evolution implies atheism...

EVERYTHING implies atheism!

Other Comments by MrPickwick

25. Comment #359795 by the great teapot on April 3, 2009 at 2:10 pm

No Mrpickwick
Nothing implies atheism.
The big nothing we see when we look for evidence of god.

Other Comments by the great teapot

26. Comment #359798 by exchemist on April 3, 2009 at 2:11 pm

... in the drawing room with the candlestick!

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27. Comment #359799 by Mr DArcy on April 3, 2009 at 2:14 pm

My guess is that there is not much of Christianity left, other than one great, big, unholy METAPHOR!!

I think Harko hits it with one swing. I watched the programme. According to Cunningham, mainsream Christianity never believed the creation story of Genesis, therefore no conflict with evolution, they always knew it was "just a story". So if that crucial creation bit is "just a story", what about any, or all, of the other bits. At what point does metaphor or allegory end, and reality intrude?

It was a programme I loved to hate. I suppose the BBC made it in the interest of "balance".

Other Comments by Mr DArcy

28. Comment #359801 by stereoroid on April 3, 2009 at 2:22 pm

Calling Prof. D a "crusader"? Bzzzt: you just failed the test I apply to every article of this type I see. Use a word with a religious connotations to describe an atheist, I stop reading. Adios.

Other Comments by stereoroid

29. Comment #359802 by Ged on April 3, 2009 at 2:23 pm

At least it won't drive christians away from evolution. I think that's about all that can be said in its favour though, it was incredibly trite and pointless. Francis Collins has to be the most irritating part of the whole programme, that man never ceases to enrage me. Trotting him out as some kind of character witness seems to be a fixture of every argument for the compatability of religiosity (or at least christian religiosity) with science.

Other Comments by Ged

30. Comment #359806 by Steven Mading on April 3, 2009 at 2:31 pm

comment 1, by Lapin Diabolique
'The idea of reading the Book of Genesis literally is essentially a 20th century American phenomenon '

What is the polite word for bullshit again?

This falls under the, what I'd like to call, the 'Vaseline-greased weasel' apologetics from the moderate Xians.
Anything is compatible with the believe in Jeebus if you just squint hard enough and throw out all of your intellectual integrity.

It is also a flat-out lie.

If you spend much time in the forums here, you'll see plenty of "atheist butters" falling in line with that flat out lie (and usually with an undeserved haughty way as well, not noticing how it is that their citing of one person having noted that Genesis might not be literaly true does not constitute evidence that this was the norm. They also conveniently ignore the fact that the entire moral code of the Babble is dependant on the idea that obedience to god is key to being moral, so it cannot be the case that the book allegedly telling you what god wants is just meant to be a metaphor)

Other Comments by Steven Mading

31. Comment #359807 by NewEnglandBob on April 3, 2009 at 2:31 pm

The real question is:

Who killed logic and reason?

The answer:

People who call themselves a theologian and philosopher. There is nothing eminent about this apologist. What is unscientific?

There's no role
to play by a creative God,
an intelligent God,
a benign God of any sort.

There is no creative god, there is no intelligent god, there is no benign god.

There is no god.

Other Comments by NewEnglandBob

32. Comment #359808 by Pilot22A on April 3, 2009 at 2:33 pm

Just another example of someone hedging their bet, just in case the wacko theists are right.

Other Comments by Pilot22A

33. Comment #359809 by the great teapot on April 3, 2009 at 2:34 pm

I was interested to see that the fact that genes weren't running the show was held as proof that Dawkins selfish gene notion was incorrect.
Proof that a notion such as the selfish Gene placed in the wrong hands is a dangerous thing.
Life is a freak of nature controlled neither by the gene or anything else. It is because it is.
a water molecule in a cell is just as crucial and as in control as a strand of dna. Shit happens. Why can't people understand that.The gene has no desire to survive,it just exist because it does.

Other Comments by the great teapot

34. Comment #359811 by Mr DArcy on April 3, 2009 at 2:38 pm

Francis Collins has to be the most irritating part of the whole programme, that man never ceases to enrage me. Trotting him out as some kind of character witness seems to be a fixture of every argument for the compatability of religiosity (or at least christian religiosity) with science.

Collins' contribution was along the lines of "science explains the how, God explains the why". A totally meaningless tautlogy IMO. As Richard has argued in TGD, introducing a deity only introduces more whys and hows.

Other Comments by Mr DArcy

35. Comment #359812 by dougie on April 3, 2009 at 2:45 pm

What a laugh,the old god squad try any sort of spin to keep keep a bit of credit....Ghosts cant vote, deal with it Mr IM A BELEIVER ...these people are tiresome .

Other Comments by dougie

36. Comment #359813 by the great teapot on April 3, 2009 at 2:49 pm

He is doing more than hedging his bets, he is protecting his job.
Hedging bets is too kind.

Other Comments by the great teapot

37. Comment #359815 by nairbe on April 3, 2009 at 2:57 pm

It truly is impossible to disprove something that exists as an object of faith. Remember "I believe" means "I don't know". These are people that no matter their level of education or experience in life, are so frightened of death that to let go of the God delusion and accept their existence for what it is, also knowing that many questions will not be answered in their life time is far to difficult for them to reconcile. Holding on to their faith, no matter how much of an illusion it may be is central to their system of moral and social structure. If their is no God to answer to and no reward for being good in this life then they have no way of justifying the need to be socially and morally subservient to their communities and themselves.
This remains the greatest of all challenges to the advancement of rationalism. Despite all modern civilizations using the same basic moral and social values as the basis for a system of social justice, modern society is still convinced that their faith is the only thing holding the moral fabric of society together and that all other systems or beliefs are wrong and should be stamped out.
The answer i have found for myself is to live true to my way of conscience rationalism base on fact, not fantacy and consider others in my actions, and not just pay lip service to the cause on sites such as this, but am thankfull for the support it gives me in day to day life.

Other Comments by nairbe

38. Comment #359816 by Ivan The Not So Bad on April 3, 2009 at 2:59 pm

This was a complete outrider in what is otherwise proving to be a comprehensive and superb series of Darwin programmes broadcast on TV and radio by the Beeb.

A ghastly but perhaps sadly unavoidable sop to the religious, it is damned by mere comparison with the others.

And there was no need for the presenter to be so agressive and militant......

Other Comments by Ivan The Not So Bad

39. Comment #359817 by ripyossarian on April 3, 2009 at 2:59 pm

i was having a little bedtime debate with the girlfriend the other night, i said i was willing to accept any religous belief which was simply defended by stating that it all depended on simple blind faith, a bare faced rejection of any evidence to the contrary. i dont know why they bother trying to "reconcile" science and faith.
i think that is about as fair as i can get. this kind of stuff just annoys me, its hypocracy at best, and idiocy at worst.

Other Comments by ripyossarian

40. Comment #359818 by prolibertas on April 3, 2009 at 3:08 pm

Does the fact that reindeers can't fly 'kill' Santa Claus? If so, how do you explain all the children who are happily able to believe both? What's that, children are ignorant? Oh...

So I can't make myself believe that survival of the fittest and culling of the weak is a means of creation compatible with the existence of a loving God. Can't do it. That makes me a 'fundamentalist'?? Does this guy just dish out the 'fundamentalist' label to anyone who disagrees with him?

Other Comments by prolibertas

41. Comment #359820 by hillbilly78 on April 3, 2009 at 3:10 pm

I feel I have been mentally raped by the sequences of logical fallacies and blatant non-truths that the presenter Mr. Cunningham trotted out in this program.

"The theory of memes attempts to explain all human activity in evolutionary terms, including culture, religion and morality. It goes much further than saying there is no god, it concludes that there is no you or me".

Head in hands...do these theotards ever listen to themselves? It gets worse...

"If true, the theory of memes is devastating. Ultra-Darwinists say that everything is an illusion, and this includes our sense of self and all our beliefs. If our entire mental world is a product of meme colonisation, that means I believe in god because I have been colonised by the Christianity meme. In other words I am deluded and therefore god is not real". This guy must have been asleep during his elementary logic courses at university. I could have head-butted my monitor at this next killer knock-down argument...

"There is a fundamental flaw at the heart of the theory. Consider this, I also believe in evolution. Doesn't that mean I have also been colonised by the theory of evolution meme? How can I trust this meme to be any more true than any other meme? This may sound like clever word play, but this is a philosophical problem that confronts anyone who believes in the theory of memes." No I didn't think this was clever word play, but the ramblings of someone who has never constructed a sound argument in their life.

"As one atheist philosopher put it : Evolution does not care whether most of our beliefs are true". I am not sure which "atheist philosopher" said this, if any, it looks totally out of context to me, biological evolution vs. memes.

This program, as others have mentioned, has been a low point in the series the BBC have put together over the last few months surrounding Darwin and evolution. There was no real dialogue, the interviews that were done [notably missing RD] were sliced and diced and interspersed between the Alister McGrath-esque drivel.

Other Comments by hillbilly78

42. Comment #359821 by the great teapot on April 3, 2009 at 3:14 pm

fairyologist accuses non believers of fundamentalism.....
(yawn ,, special pleading for your own fairyology..)
I am being a little unfair he may well believe ALL other myths and fables regardless of there stupidiy and lack of evidence have as equal worth as his own. hopefully he can confirm this or shut the fuck up.
Love to hear from him.

Other Comments by the great teapot

43. Comment #359824 by Auraboy on April 3, 2009 at 3:28 pm

As a tv media type I should probably mention a couple of points as I did on several other threads that led to this programme.

One, the BBC has to, by dint of it's public licensing funding arrangement commission all programmes via it's departments for a popular strand. Many of the excellent programmes for the Darwin Strand have come from the world-class natural history department. This programme was one of the few to be commissioned within the religionðics department - which the BBC HAS to do to keep its funding (yes British TV watchers are paying for religious indoctrination programming, we don't have an option).

Also the Archbishop of Canterbury recently took the BBC Commissioning Director to task for more or less gutting the Religion & Ethics department and made a huge fuss about it.

Having worked within the BBC a lot I can mention that, generally speaking, at least at a basic editorial level, the Religious affairs department was generally merged down to become Religion & Ethics to essentially 'gut' it and reduce it to programmes 'about' religion as much as possible not 'for' religion. They even managed to get rid of practicing christians as the commissioning editors, which pissed the CofE off no end. Unfortunately, the public service commitment of the BBC does cause it overreact and throw up such spurious rubbish as this programme now and then.

They are also aware that it will piss off a lot of atheists and cause comment. And comment is the best TV documentary can hope for these days.

Sorry to diverge into media politics. Back to the actual pantheist dribble in this badly, badly made programme. (I'd suggest the poor compilation was partly to do with an editor who didn't give a fuck...I know I never did when dragged into R&E department work)

Other Comments by Auraboy

44. Comment #359825 by dochmbi on April 3, 2009 at 3:37 pm

Science pushes Christians further and further towards deism and pantheism.

Other Comments by dochmbi

45. Comment #359826 by Cartomancer on April 3, 2009 at 3:43 pm

When I watched this programme I noticed something telling. It answered the specific question "is belief in the theory of evolution compatible with belief in god". The answer, which is trivially true and obvious, is yes, one can quite easily believe in both at once. The real question, which it nowhere addressed in the programme, is whether one should.

The answer to that one is also very obvious. No. Belief in evolution is arrived at on the grounds of scientific understanding and acknowledgment of the evidence, belief in gods is arrived at with no evidence at all on the grounds of making stuff up (i.e. faith). Without reconciling this fundamentally irreconcilable epistemological divide, maintaining belief in both at once is completely inconsistent. The truly consistent and intellectually honest person should evaluate claims about the existence of gods using precisely the same criteria as they do the theory of evolution by natural selection. Once they do this, there is no way belief in gods can stand up.

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46. Comment #359829 by the great teapot on April 3, 2009 at 4:04 pm

Over an hour gone still no fairy or god proof. 24 hours to go and I call in the Lawyers.
~Some proof or piss off lads . We are waiting.

Other Comments by the great teapot

47. Comment #359832 by PaulJ on April 3, 2009 at 4:13 pm

This programme rang alarm bells as soon as Cunningham stated he was a philosopher and theologian. Maybe he's right about the historicity of the interpreted understanding of the Bible - I don't know enough about it to agree or disagree. But as all theologians do, he started his interpretation with the assumption that God exists. (He had to; without this assumption, all of theology crumbles to dust.)

To go a little further in interpreting the "apparently" contradictory stories in Genesis ("Adam and Eve" vs. "Adam, then Eve") - if these stories are not to be taken literally (which they can't be if they contradict each other), and instead are intended to be fables that reveal deeper truths, one might come to the conclusion that Adam and Eve never existed as real people.

Nor, then, did the talking snake exist, nor the fruit, nor the tree. Perhaps none of the characters portrayed in either story actually existed in the literal, or any, sense. An allegorical or metaphorical reading of Genesis, according to Cunningham's argument, does not require the reader to take any of it literally, including the existence of one other character in the stories - God.

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48. Comment #359833 by sbooder on April 3, 2009 at 4:13 pm

I am too lazy to type anything new, so here what I put on the program discussion board.

"The program put my heckles up within the first five minutes. The very first use of the term “Ultra Darwinism” made my blood boil. It is not a term I have heard before this program and I have been an atheist and Darwinist all my life.

I would like to know however which of any two or more conflicting passages of the bible are to be taken literally and which to be taken allegorically, because it seems self evident that; that decision in its self is open to interpretation.

And of course there are the conflicting passages from bible to Karan to Torah, and that is just the Abrahamic faiths. What about the conflict in writing between them and all the other dogma of the less mainstream faiths?

Did Darwin kill God?...No, Why?...because you cannot kill the nonexistent."

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49. Comment #359834 by ergaster on April 3, 2009 at 4:13 pm

Professor Cunningham must be the most deluded person I have seen on tv. I await news that he has been removed from any connections with higher learning.

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50. Comment #359838 by j.mills on April 3, 2009 at 4:28 pm

Ya wonder what Darwin was worrying about, all those years, and his wife thinking he was going to hell and all. Didn't they realise they were the only people silly enough to think the bible should be taken literally?

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