Here's a pic from the inner sleeve - not a very flattering outfit really...
The album starts well but flags a litle towards the end. Despite the plaudits it's been receiving, I don't think it's as good as either "Music" or "American Life"...
I was able to burn this as my new cache of blank discs arrived by courier. I went to the back door followed by Meg the Black cat - she was intent on escaping into the back garden and was ultra confident of success - but when I opened the door and she saw the big yellow parcel and the scary man, she turned tail and ran upstairs...
The evening was taken up with telly....
Anne went to her keep fit class so we recorded the two episodes of "Coronation St". In the mean time I watched the first ever episode of "Due South" - I'd forgotten how entertaining this show was - during the commercial breaks I jumped over to "Third Rock From the Sun" and "Spin City" for a few more laughs...
At eight it was the concluding part of Richard Dawkins' "The Root of All Evil", my critique of which caused some consternation last week - but I stand by what I said. Some critics have laid the boot into Dawkins saying he comes across like a fundamental atheist - but surely there is no other kind and, after all, he's merely telling it how it is?
Despite the leaps science has made, militant faith is on the march around the world...
Beliefs which can lead to murderous intolerance, are kept alive by imposing religion on children as absolute truth. And of course children have no capacity to judge it for themselves so they will believe it...
We segregate them into sectarian religious schools, where they are taught superstitions drawn from ancient scriptures of dubious origin, which promote a contradictory and poisonous system of morals at odds with reality...
A Rabbi interviewed on the programme described science as one tradition, and Judaism as another. His students are taught about evolution and if only a minority end up believing in it, he says, this is not out of ignorance....
Faith schools are increasing - more than half the Government's proposed City Academies will be run by religious organisations and there's a growing number of private evangelical Christian schools....
ACE – Accelerated Christian Education – has developed a curriculum which includes a mention of God or Jesus on every page of its science text books...
The head of a school which uses this material argues that if there were no lawgiver, there would be no reason to see rape and murder as wrong!
The amazing thing for me, is that no one around these people seems to think they are being stupid in believing what they do. Even worse though, is that there's nothing to stop them propogating this inherent nonsense to young impressionable minds...
Transmitting such a warped reality to children is nothing less than indoctrination, because children are uniquely vulnerable and if they fail to question and shake off such superstition, they remain in a state of perpetual infancy - which I suppose is what organised religion wants...
Best quote of the programme was from Physicist and Nobel prizewinner Stephen Weinberg, who describes religion as an insult to human dignity....
'Without religion, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.'
The irony of this argument between religion and science, between faith and reason, is that science recognises the majesty and complexity of the universe while religion leads to easy, closed answers.
"Is there no more than just this life?" asks Richard Dawkins. "How much more do you want? We are lucky to be here", he says, "and we should make the most of our time on this world"...
So I spent the rest of the night lying on the settee with my leg up and an icepack on my ankle while I watched the end of "University Challenge" (managed to get a couple of questions right - always very gratifying), "Life On Mars" (while we taped a new "Law and Order" show, "Trial By Jury") then "The Thick of It" then Colin Powell grovelling in an interview with Jeremy Paxman on "Newsnight" and, finally, the highlights of the weekends SPL figures in "Scotsport"...
Highlight of the Day : Bating more believers...
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