Atheism's night in Little Rock
Saturday, Apr 28, 2007
By John Brummett
"Right there on the Bible Belt's buckle, they had to bring in extra chairs. Dawkins drew more than a thousand people to the Statehouse Convention Center, breaking Madeleine Albright's attendance record for lectures presented by the Clinton School of Public Service.
During the Q-and-A, a young man told Dawkins he chose to believe in a religion-based afterlife so that his departed loved ones would have a place to go where he could hope to see them again. Dawkins was not impolite, but direct, when he explained that what the young man described wasn't belief, but hope.
Dawkins also got asked about the uncommon preponderance of religious practice in the United States, where we have a far greater church-going population than any other developed and well-educated Western nation. His answer was surprising. He speculated it might have to do with our insistence on separating church and state.
In Britain, the state has an official religion, the Church of England, and children are required to be exposed to it. The result, Dawkins said, is that religion becomes "boring." Look inside a church in England, he said, and you'll see four old ladies - "cramming for finals," he joked, quoting an Austrialian friend.
To the contrary, he said that the United States, by separating religion from government, bestows the allure of freedom on religion and makes it a matter of "free enterprise, like selling soap flakes. And sell it they do."
Arkansas News
