Richard Dawkins reading at the UW

Last night evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins did a book reading at the University of Washington Hec-ed pavilion. Something over 5000 people turned up to hear him read from his latest book “The greatest show on Earth”.

Dr Dawkins is something of a controversial figure to many people and is sometimes known as “Darwin’s Rottweiler” in the media for his staunch and often eloquent defence of evolution.

During the Q&A session the first statement from someone in the crowd was an apology on behalf of Seattle for the Discovery Institute. Clearly this was not a crowd that was hostile to Dr Dawkins evolutionary/humanist/atheist point of view.

I have read a number of Dr Dawkins books, it started with the “The God Delusion”, a very challenging book. Any book that has so upset fundamentalists that 4 or 5 books were written to point out where the author got it wrong, clearly has something going for it.

I identify with Dr Dawkins athiest/humanist view. I don’t have faith, I don’t believe in a god or benevolent being, omnipotent or other wise. There is as much proof for the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Invisible Pink Unicorn as there is for any other all seeing deity.

It’s the engineer in me, I need to see some empirical evidence. I am staggered that something like 40% of the population believe in n earth less than 10,000 yeas old, despite all the evidence to the contrary. I am astounded the creationist/evolution debate even exists, let alone command the place it does in mainstream US life.

To be clear, I’m for personal beliefs and actually admire the way the creationist lobby have gained political power in some very specific places to even make this a debate. In the UK, a country with no separation of church and state, there is no creationism in school only Evolution, even a church school.

I grew up in a marginally christian house, my mother went to church semi regularly, we celebrated Christmas and for some reason my brother and I were sent to Church of England school for 4 years. Yet whenever I’ve been to church over the last 24 years for me it’s just never been there and I’ve felt like a fraud sitting there. I’m happy to share in the singing of the hyms, listening to the readings at weddings and funerals. I clearly identify as a cultural Christian, beyond that there is nthing there for me.