[Myers] But the thing is things like a
campaign to remove In God We Trust
from coins catches the media's eye.
A campaign to say well, we shouldn't be
offering free kosher lunches at extra expense
in public schools doesn't. That's not very dramatic.
It's not something most people will care about.
But telling them oh we want to change the coin,
they've got a hook.
[Dawkins] Maybe the awareness that it raises
is an awareness of pettiness though as we
were suggesting a moment ago.
[Myers] Well yeah and that's what I am saying, is that
the media plays that up. The media would
rather publicize the trivial efforts of
atheists rather than the substantial ones
of people who are primarily secularists.
[Dawkins] That' a real danger. In my
[Myers] Yes.
Oxford College, whenever I happened to be the
Senior Fellow at dinner, the Senior Fellow has
to say grace. I say grace because I just
think it's polite and because it's a tradition.
It goes back rather a lot of centuries and
I think it would be petty to refuse to say
grace and I think it would get atheism a bad name.
And I think we've go to be, let's link
it to the earlier conversation we were having
about the right tactics to apply to evolution
and creation. I think that the Eugenia Scotts
of this world are wrong to be quite so softly
softly as they are on the big issue of
the teaching of evolution. But I think that
I am right to be softly softly on the trivial
issues of saying grace at dinner and singing
Christmas carols and things like that.
[Myers] Well let me just say in Eugenie's defense,
I don't thing she treads softly on
[Myers] the issue of teaching evolution.
[Dawkins] Oh certainly not. No no.
[Myers] But the idea of...on religion, yes. Yes.
[Dawkins] On the idea of religion she is very big on
[Dawkins] I don't know if we keep on using her but,
(laughter)
there are plenty of others. Religion and
evolution have absolutely no conflict. That
would be her view. I don't take that view
so I'm not an appeaser there, but I might be
described as an appeaser with respect to the
Ten Commandments in courtrooms or Gideon
bibles in hotels or something of that sort.
[Myers] Right. You know this is kind of useful
because now I can say that I am more fanatical
than Richard Dawkins. Because I do oppose
Ten Commandments in the courtroom because that-
[Dawkins] Ok. Well let's talk about that. I mean,
[Dawkins] I'm probably wrong. I could be taught better.
[Myers] Well you know that Ten Commandments.
[Dawkins] Yeah.
[Myers] They have nothing to do with the law.
Dawkins: Oh no. (laughter) Thou shalt not make any
graven image. Thou shalt have
no other God before me. Etc.
Myers: Which is particularly ironic since
they are putting a huge graven
[Myers] image there in the courtroom.
[Dawkins] Yes.
[Dawkins] Well most of the people who want the
Ten Commandments don't know
what they consist of anyway.
[Myers] That's right.
Dawkins: I mean all they know is
[Dawkins] Thou shalt not kill. Which is bloody obvious.
[Myers] Which is a good one. (laughter)
[Myers] Yeah, but It's sending the wrong message.
It's sending a message that there is preferential
treatment for Christians in the courtroom.
[Dawkins] Ok that's important.
[Myers] And I object to that. Yeah.
[Myers] Courtrooms should be safe places for
[Myers] everybody in society so I am all in favor of
[Dawkins] Yes, okay.
[Myers] removing that sort of thing. But yeah, you know the...
The idea of removing In God We Trust from the coins,
I'm not worried at all about that.
[Dawkins] Yes. I think it's been on the coins for
[Dawkins] rather longer. It was put on the notes in the early 50s.
[Myers] Yeah, right. Yes.
[Myers] But you know, in the same token,
why aren't people complaining about all that
[Myers] masonic symbolism on there?
[Dawkins] Yes.
[Myers] You know that strange pyramid? Yes.
[Dawkins] Oh and the eye and the...
[Myers] You know I've often thought that, you know,
what we ought to do to distract the christians is we
ought to point out these pagan symbols on the coins,
have them go off, or on the dollar bill,
have them go off into the courtrooms chasing those down.
[Dawkins] Do you think that the creationists have
changed their tactics as the decades have
gone by? Having been an observer of the scene?
Myers: Yeah. They have and they haven't.
It's the same mindset. It's the same people but they're
more conscious of the fact that they've got to
keep the word God out of the literature
they're pushing. And what you see now is
more and more efforts to simply cast doubt
on evolutionary biology, on biology in general.
So you don't...
Well the Dover trial told us a lot right? Because
in the Dover trial what happened was that you've
got the high level operatives of creationism.
People like the Discovery Institute and so forth
who are trying to be very, very circumspect and
quickly backed down the trial when they saw that
it wasn't going to be a nice polite trial.
And then you've got the masses underneath.
The people who are responsible for pushing
these ideas in the classroom and those people
underneath are all very dogmatically religious.
So it depends on where you're looking.
The core of the movement is the
same but there is this nice superficial
[Myers] veneer painted over on it to make it
[Dawkins] Yes.
[Myers] look shiny and new but it's really not.
[Dawkins] Yes, yes.
[Dawkins] So it's never actually specified that
the intelligent designer is
the God of the Jews and Christians.
[Myers] It's messy because you listen to, you know,
Bill Demski for instance when he goes off and
gives these private talks at baptist colleges
he will say that the designer is Jesus.
No hesitation.
[Dawkins] Jesus?! I mean, not God but Jesus?
[Myers] Yeah. (laughter)
[Myers] They are the same thing, right? (laughter)
[Dawkins] (mumbling)
[Dawkins] But I mean, does he actually use the word,
the word "Jesus" for the designer?
[Myers] I don't have the quote on hand but
[Dawkins] Okay.
[Myers] there is quote where the designer is the
logos and he goes on and talks about Jesus Christ.
Yeah it's in there. He's clearly in
that strong baptist tradition.
But, you know, read his books...
[Dawkins] Yes. That's right. I mean, they are very
[Dawkins] two-faced these people aren't they? They will
[Myers] Yes.
[Dawkins] present one face to a christian congregation
and another face. I once had a debate in the
Oxford Union. I very seldom do debates. I've
completely given them up now. But I did take
part with John Maynard Smith, a debate with
a couple of creationists. There was an old
fool called Wilder Smith who's,
a nice old chap but an idiot.
And he's dead now.
And another one called Edgar Whitehead who's
a rather unpleasant man.
Edgar Whitehead made his speech in which he
was very sort of, he was...
tuned it up to an Oxford audience so he was
talking about scientific method and philosophy
and probably naturalism and things. It was
all philosophical jargon. And you'd never
guess that he was a young earth creationist
who believed in Adam and Eve and eating the
apple and so on. So I got one of his books, and
began my speech by reading out passages
[Myers] Oh yes.
[Dawkins] of his books, which completely and utterly
[Dawkins] belied the whole tone of his speech.
And he got absolutely frantic. I mean, he was constantly
rising in his seat to try to get the
President of the Union to stop me
reading from his own book.
[Myers] Using his own words against him. That's unfair!
[Dawkins] Using his own words. And so...
[Dawkins] Exactly. And that's what they do
all the time. That's what you've described Denski
as doing. So it's one story for the sophisticated
intellectuals and quite another story.
And I think this is a major criticism that
I would have of the, not of the fundamentalist really
so much, but the bishops and the arch bishops
and the sophisticated theologians who will,
when they're talking to an Oxford or Cambridge
senior common room it's "oh of course we
don't believe in miracles or anything like that."
The ground of all being, things like that.
Then they go to church on Sunday and stand
up in the pulpit and talk to the congregation
and there it will be a very different story
and they'll talk about changing water into
wine and the parting of the Red Sea and
they'll say "Well it's kind of symbolic."
It'll be...but they don't say it's symbolic. They say,
What is the real meaning of Adam and Eve
sewing aprons to conceal their nakedness?
And they'll concoct some vaguely poetic
symbolic meaning. But the congregation isn't
told that that is what they are doing.
The congregation is never disabused of their
illusion that Adam and Eve really existed.
It's two faced again. And it's very very
common among sophisticated theologians.
[Myers] Yeah. This is a common objection.
If I give a talk against religion there will be
somebody in the audience who will rise up
and say, but my religion is nothing like that.
[Dawkins] Yes, exactly. Yes.
[Myers] The thing is the kind of religion
I'm railing against is the stuff that
[Myers] people are actually practicing. Not this highly
[Dawkins] Yes.
[Myers] rarified stuff that you'll find in an Oxford College.
[Dawkins] Yes. Yes, quite.
