This leads us to the classic slogan: “Science. It works, [female dogs].”

There may not be any *proof* against a god, but there is plenty of evidence that the current major world religions are false. Stealing myths and rituals from one another, laughable creation myths, incorrect history, incorrect science, persecution of people who spread provable facts. And if belief requires no proof, why are so many Christians hellbent on finding “proof” of Creationism? Because they, as they have since their inception, fear reality, fear knowledge, fear science, and fear truth.

Viel Dank for sharing. I’m sorry to report that the CNN clip is typical of American television when discussing issues. Public radio is better. Perhaps Public television (we have only one station) is as well, but I don’t watch it.

Most often they will last for about an hour and have a handfull of guests. The shows on the state-owned channels are on the average considered the better ones as they do not depend on the number of viewers as much as the private channels do. They are funded to a good extent by the state and are required to maintain a certain level. Also, after 8 pm, there are no commercial breaks on state-owned channels.

Yet, there are good and bad shows on all kinds of channels, of course. My favourite one is a weekly show on a state-owned channel. On the other hand, one of the shows that disturbs me the most is also on a state-owned channel. Depends heavily on the host and the composition of guests.

Although according to my viewing habits the CNN clips in this post are too fast with the guest hurrying through their answers, I still have the same problem with the German shows. They may be a full hour, it still isn’t enough. If the topic is interesting, why not talk for two hours, giving people some time to explain themselves?!

[Si]dragon complained about the hurrying format forcing the guests to ignore questions and break up their statements into several answers. I must tell you: It doesn’t get much better if you give them more time. I’m actually sick of people (especially politicians) coming to a show for the sole purpose of spreading their message, no matter what the original topic of the discussion was. A good host makes all the difference. My favourite (from the show mentioned above) is a woman called Maybrit Illner. She keeps coming back to her questions and cuts her guest’s speech if they start bullshitting. But of course, she also asks the right questions. I think the questions in the Dawkins interview were entirely stupid (except for the opener “Why are you an atheist?” but that was it). It was all about the christians vs. atheists issue and not about philosophy.

Religion is not a big issue on German TV, as far as I know. There are reports and discussions about lots of issues connected with islam (laden with prejudice, if you ask me), but nothing about the above-mentioned christians vs. atheists issue. The church (especially protestants) doesn’t feel threatened by atheists. They recognise that their flock is decreasing, but they don’t blame it on some kind of atheist campaign. They do freak out when the pope comes over for a visit (the “German” pope, my ass, he’s a vatican citizen now) but get back to daily life when he leaves.

Also, similar to Norway described by NewOne, the clergy is invited to discussions about ethical issues, stem cell resarch being the perfect example.

Now I’d like you Americans to answer a question: Is this clip from CNN typical for discussions on US television? Especially: Is the length of the clip the length of the total discussion? I hope it is not.

And Richard Dawkins, besides my criticism of the interview, doesn’t look so smart to me. His “there is no proof for God” argument misses the point of belief. Belief implies no proof. There’s no proof for God but there’s also no proof for not God. It is logically impossible to prove that God does not exist. So we are left with three choices:
1) Believe in God (or Gaia or a rebirth system, I don’t care). You may do so because of having been told but maybe with age you will find good reasons for keeping up you faith.
2) Give in to your incapability to know anything, call yourself an agnostic.
3) Don’t believe in God.
As long as the choice is made according to a certain reason that accounts for you and you don’t impose your belief on others, what’s wrong with that? Dawkins should accept that belief in science and reason is also belief. In my opinion, science does not interfere or compete with religion and religion does not interfere or compete with science. I was a christian but I chose not to believe in God. Simply for feeling better. The choice is not more rational than the choice of believing in God.
I must admit that all I know about Dawkins is the clip from this post and a newspaper article. So correct me if he has already stated something pointing in this direction.