Richard Dawkins is quite an outspoken secular humanist who is driven in his goal of encouraging complacent religious persons to critically address (and reject) their religious beliefs. He argues that religious moderation gives credence to religious fundamentalism which is potentially dangerous as it is based on faith rather than reason.
The BBC interview above is concerned with his latest book “The God Delusion“. The book is clearly part of his campaign to inspire and spread atheism in what he sees as a disturbingly religious world. Earlier in his mission, he also wrote and presented a 2 part television documentary called “The Root of All Evil?“. (Videos are available on the linked wikipedia page or on Google Video here and here).
I find that Dawkins’ frustration is very tangible in all of these videos. His emotional investment in this issue is plainly exposed; something that appears to be very difficult for someone who comes off as rather reserved. He clearly doesn’t like dealing with people who are nonchalant in regards to widespread support of an illogical premise: faith.
Video found via VideoSift.
“He argues that religious moderation gives credence to religious fundamentalism”
At first this sounded silly, because I know it’s not true of individual religious moderates, but maybe to _condone_ religious moderation does give fundamentalism credence – where could you draw the line, really?
Greg: He never said exactly that; it’s just my interpretation in my own words.
I do feel that identifying yourself as a member of a religion that you only nominally study or practise is an act of condoning that religion (or at least condoning participation in a religion without critical analysis).
At any rate, religious moderation gives religious groups the power of numbers to forward their (obviously religious) agenda, and validates faith-based (unreasonable) arguments.