Richard Dawkins

 

For someone who doesn't believe in God, I thought it was highly ironical that he kept appearing "God-like" in all the photos I snapped

After spending the afternoon at Crafty Bastards with Smita, we hung out a bit at Union Market and then headed to Lisner for the Richard Dawkins talk. We were early, but with free seating, it was good. We got up close (6th or 7th row from the stage, I think).

The talk was very interesting, however, Jamila Bey (host of radio show The Sex, Politics And Religion Hour: SPAR With Jamila) was not good. Her questions were lack luster, there seemed to be quite a few points where she didn't know what to say and where were awkward pauses, and there was no rapport between here and Richard Dawkins. I wonder if she was just star stuck, and her questions are just that bad. As Smita said, the audience had better questions than she did. 

I didn't agree with what they said about religious people preventing their children from wondering and thinking about science. While, I agree that very religious people do do that. But, not every set of religious parents are like that. They do encourage science. 

Anyway, a couple of gems from Richard Dawkins, I managed to note down, that had me laughing:

- On discussing the Bush-Kerry Presidential debates: "Bush was elected, not in spite of being stupid, but because he was stupid."

- "There are 535 members of the congress. All of them are believers of some religion. How is that possible? Some of them are quite educated."

I managed to get his face once they turned the audience lights on and I underexposed. 

Before he came out, there was a slideshow of photos from his early years playing. I really liked this one.