A Murder of Crows

OK, this four -- Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens -- call themselves "the Four Horsemen", but I like the darker tones of "a murder of crows".

These four take on the religious establishment as a cabal of atheists plotting an overthrow of the established order with dark plots, just like crows descending murderously on the unsuspecting, innocent religious naifs. Shades of Hitchcocks "The Birds"!

Enough joking...

The lucky few in the Enlightenment were invited to the salons of the liberal aristocrats to listen to the "stars" of the day debate the issues of the day. Today we get to "listen in" via Google Video. It is wonderful how you can "virtually" rub elbows with leading academics and media stars. My only disappointment is that unlike the Friday Night Fights, these four are not dressed in tights and forced to leap from ropes and throw fake blows as they give this dispassionate debate. Where's the blood? How can the populace ever get wrapped up in the excitement of the debate without any flailing blows, eye gouging, or shrieks of pain. Do these guys realize that the public will find these four talking heads to be deadly boring? Oh well... I find them delightful!

Enough talk! You can watch the whole 2 hours here, as well as buy the DVD from this site.

Here's the first 10 minutes via an embedded video:



I enjoy the bit about 25 minutes into the first hour of the video when Dennett comments on "sophisticated theologians". He points out that, for these theologians, their own religion pays no attention to their conceptualizations and arguments. In my youth I was very caught up in the sophisticated intellectualizing of theology. In my excitement I brought these ideas to the minister of the rather large church to which I belonged. He patted me on the head and told me that while he "agreed with me" he dare not preach it to the congregation because it would upset too many of the older members of the congregation. This is when I realized that religion was a hypocritical institution run for the benefit of the institution.