The Root of All Evil - Ep1. The God Delusion

There are would-be murderers all round the world

who want to kill you and me and themselves,

because they are motivated by what
they think is the highest ideal.

Of course politics are important,

lraq, Palestine, even social
deprivation in Bradford,

but as we wake up to this huge challenge
to our civilised values

don't lets forget the elephant in the room,
an elephant called religion.

The suicide bomber is convinced
that in killing for his God,

he will be fast-tracked to
a special martyrs' heaven.

This isn't just a problem of lslam.

In this program I want
to examine that dangerous thing

that is common to Judaism
and Christianity as well

the process of nonthinking called faith.

I am a scientist, and I believe there is a profound
contradiction between science and religious belief.

There is no well-demonstrated reason
to believe in god

and I think that the idea of a divine creator
belittles the elegant reality of the universe.

The 21st century should be an age of reason, yet
irrational, militant faith is back on the march.

Religious extremism is implicated in the world's
most bitter and unending conflicts.

"We want the non-Muslims off the lands of
Mohammad. We want the kafir out of it."

America, too, has its own fundamentalists.

"The Issue for the next generation is
going to be the islamification of Europe."

And in Britain, even as we live
in the shadow of holy terror,

our government wants to restrict
our freedom to criticise religion.

Science, we are told, should not tread
on the toes of theology.

But why should scientists
tiptoe respectfully away?

The time has come for the people of reason
to say enough is enough.

Religious faith discourages independent thought,
it's divisive and it's dangerous.

Root of All Evil?

The God Delusion

lt looks lovely doesn't it?
Inoffensive and gentle.

But isn't this the beginning
of that slippery slope

that leads to young men with
rucksack bombs on the Tube?

If you want to experience
the mediaeval rituals of faith,

the candle light, incense, music,
important-sounding dead languages,

nobody does it better than the Catholics.

At Lourdes in southern France, the assault
on the senses appeals to us not to think,

not to doubt, not to probe.

And if we can retain our faith against the evidence,
in the teeth of reality, the more virtuous we are.

Pretty impressive sight isn't it? I could imagine
finding it very seductive,

partly because of the tremendous feeling of group
solidarity that there must be.

If you have the delusion
that you're Napoleon,

it must be fairly a lonely feeling
because nobody else agrees with you.

Your faith that you are Napoleon
needs a lot of shoring up.

But these people here, thousands of people all
have exactly the same delusion,

and that must give wonderful
reinforcement to their faith.

I used to think reason had
won the war against superstition

but it's quite shaking to witness the faithful
droves trooping through Lourdes.

This is a benign herd but it supports
a backward belief system

that I believe reason must challenge.

Daylight reveals more of this shrine,

where a myth is perpetuated that a virgin
who gave birth, Christ's mother Mary,

appeared here once to an impressionable,
and I do mean impressionable, young girl.

The faithful make the pilgrimage
here because they believe

that terrible afflictions can be cured by dragging
their poor bodies up to a pool of water

where the Virgin Mary made
her miraculous appearance.

In reality, they're probably more likely to catch
something from thousands of other pilgrims

who've wallowed in the same water.

Is it something that Catholics feel
they ought to do in their life,

rather like Muslims
going on the Hajj to Mecca?

Well no, but you don't have
to be a Catholic to do it you see,

I know a lot of people that are not
Catholics at all and they've been here.

And what are you hoping to get out of it?

Well I've got a lot out of it: I've got faith,
I've got trust and a belief that

there is a person out there who is
stronger than any medical person.

Right. What about a cure though?

It may seem tough to question these poor
desperate peoples' faith,

but isn't bracing truth better than false hope?

What is the evidence for any miracles?

There are actually 66 declared miracles, there
are about 2000 unexplained cures here,

but then we would say there are millions of people
who have been healed in different ways.

healed in some sort of mental way?

Healed in spiritual ways where people who have
come to terms with their own particular situation,

people who have rediscovered
God in their lives again,

people who have received
a new grace here in Lourdes.

So you tend to get
about 80,000 people per year?

About 80,000 sick pilgrims
who come here every year.

That's been going for more than a century now?
About a century and half? - Yes.

So, 80,000 per year, and of those 66
have been cured. I just want to ...

...you see the way I'm thinking.
- Yep.

So the hard fact is that over the years,

with their millions of pilgrims,
there have been 66 supposed miracles.

Statistically, it adds up to no evidence at all.

I cant help remarking that nobody has ever had
a miraculous re-growing of a severed leg.

The cures are always things that might
have got better anyway.

People lean on their faith as a crutch,

but I fear that the comfort it
provides is a shallow pretence,

and I want to look at how the suspension
of disbelief inherent in faith

can lead to far more
dangerous ideas beyond.

People like to say that faith and science can live
together side by side, but I don't think they can.

They're deeply opposed.

Science is a discipline of investigation
and constructive doubt,

questing with logic, evidence
and reason to draw conclusions.

Faith, by stark contrast, demands a positive
suspension of critical faculties.

Science proceeds by setting up hypotheses, ideas
or models, and then attempts to disprove them.

So a scientist is constantly asking questions,
being sceptical.

Religion is about turning untested
belief into unshakable truth,

through the power of institutions
and the passage of time.

Let me give you an example of this with
a story of the assumption of Mary.

Catholics believe that Jesus' mother Mary was so
important she didn't physically die.

lnstead, her body shot off into heaven when her life
came to a natural end.