Speaking of religion, we watched a documentary last night on ABC entitled 'The God Delusion'. It was presented by a Professor from Oxford University (UK) named Richard Dawkins, and it was a profoundly disturbing show.

He visited New Life Ministries and spoke with a Rev. Haggard, who I found to be a seriously scary bloke. The power that he appears to wield over his incredibly large flock knows no bounds.

He cited figures that showed around 45% of Americans (135 million people) believed that the earth was less than 10 000 years old, in spite of the fossil evidence contradicting this.

He also showed a covert meeting of atheists somewhere in the US, where the participants discussed their 'outing' as atheists as though it were like being homosexual i.e. the stigma attached to being an atheist in the US drives people underground.

He then went to Jerusalem and spoke with a Muslim Mufti and an ex-American citizen turned Islam devotee. He was hoping the fellow from the US, having converted from Christianity to Islam, may be able to give some insight into the problems between the two religions. He was in for a shock - the guy went on an immediate attack blaming atheists for all of the worlds troubles, as they have no moral code that they live by and 'allow their women to dress like whores'! Whoa....

Part two airs next Sunday...

Here's a link to a review of the book of the same name: http://www.csicop.org/si/2007-02/review.html