Monicks: Unleashed

Tag: Richard Dawkins

  • Richard Dawkins on the Big Debate

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-S7M0KZTsU]

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZllHfSLsRZg]

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzjnL4HVoMU]

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtUd7-tha_w]

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MPS_GLoNDk]

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndXYip6pdco]

    Jonathan Dimbleby and a panel of experts come together to debate the controversial subject of religion in Britain’s schools.

    The role of religion in education is a subject rarely out of the headlines. Despite Britain’s multi-faith society, schools are still required to include a collective act of worship of a Christian nature, while faith schools and religious academies have raised fears about community cohesion and covert selection.

    Claims by some religious educationalists that faith is the best way to teach moral values is challenged by others in schools who believe religious morality to be outdated and dangerous.

    Dimbleby is joined by Professor Richard Dawkins, Schools Select Committee chairman Barry Sheerman MP, and a multi-faith studio audience.

  • Richard Dawkins: Faith School Menace?

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulX8nZjeCXE]

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3lwa8faV9s]

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhbSVZ-XK9k]

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KNk6wNQjSU]

    Aired August 18, 2010

    The number of faith schools in Britain is rising. Around 7,000 publicly funded schools – one in three – now has a religious affiliation.

    As the coalition government paves the way for more faith-based education by promoting ‘free schools’, the renowned atheist and evolutionary biologist Professor Richard Dawkins says enough is enough.

    In this passionately argued film, Dawkins calls on us to reconsider the consequences of faith education, which, he argues, bamboozles parents and indoctrinates and divides children.

    The film features robust exchanges with former Secretary of State for Education Charles Clarke, Head of the Church of England Education Service Reverend Janina Ainsworth, and the Chair of the Association of Muslim Schools, Dr Mohammed Mukadam.

    It also features insights from child psychologists and key players in faith education as well as insights from both parents and pupils.

    Dawkins also draws on his own personal history as a father, arguing that the government must stop funding new faith schools, and urges society to respect a child’s right to freedom of belief.

  • “Should the pope resign?”

    No. As the College of Cardinals must have recognized when they elected him, he is perfectly – ideally – qualified to lead the Roman Catholic Church. A leering old villain in a frock, who spent decades conspiring behind closed doors for the position he now holds; a man who believes he is infallible and acts the part; a man whose preaching of scientific falsehood is responsible for the deaths of countless AIDS victims in Africa; a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence: in short, exactly the right man for the job. He should not resign, moreover, because he is perfectly positioned to accelerate the downfall of the evil, corrupt organization whose character he fits like a glove, and of which he is the absolute and historically appropriate monarch.

    No, Pope Ratzinger should not resign. He should remain in charge of the whole rotten edifice – the whole profiteering, woman-fearing, guilt-gorging, truth-hating, child-raping institution – while it tumbles, amid a stench of incense and a rain of tourist-kitsch sacred hearts and preposterously crowned virgins, about his ears.

    BY RICHARD DAWKINS

    Source