The Four Horsemen, episode 1
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Put into readable transcript by: Aesthetic Atheist
From left to right (on screen):
[CH] Christopher Hitchens
[DD] Daniel Dennett
[RD] Richard Dawkins
[SH] Sam Harris
[RD] One of the things we've all met is the accusation that we are strident or arrogant, or vitriolic, or shrill. What do we think about that?
[DD] Hah! Yeah, well I'm amused by it, because I went out of my way in my book to address reasonable religious people. And I test-flew the draft with groups of students who were deeply religious. And indeed, the first draft incurred some real anguish. And so I made adjustments and made adjustments. And it didn't do any good in the end because I still got hammered for being for being rude and aggressive. And I came to realise that it's a no-win situation. It's a mug's game. The religions have contrived to make it impossible to disagree with them critically without being rude.
[RD] Without being rude.
[DD] You know, they sort of play the hurt feelings card at every opportunity, and faced with a choice of, well, am I gonna be rude or am I going to articulate this criticism? I mean, am I going to articulate it, or am I just gonna button my lip?
[SH] Right, well, that's what it is to trespass a taboo. I think we're all encountering the fact that that religion is held off the table of rational criticism in some kind of formal way even by, we're discovering, our fellow secularists and our fellow atheists. You know, just leave people to their own superstition, even if it's abject and causing harm, and don't look too closely at it.
[DD] Now that was, of course, the point of the title of my book is there is this spell and we gotta break it.
[CH] But if the charge of offensiveness in general is to be allowed in public discourse, then, without self-pity, I think we should say that we, too, can be offended and insulted. I mean, I'm not just in disagreement when someone like Tariq Ramadan, accepted now at the high tables of Oxford University as a spokesman, says the most he'll demand, when it comes to the stoning of women, is a moratorium on it. I find that profoundly … much more than annoying.
DEVAMI