BBC’s The Museum of Curiosity deals with religion (and zero and other topics)

October 9, 2011 • 4:38 am

by Matthew Cobb

I normally keep my guest posts here firmly limited to science – this is Jerry’s blog (sorry, website) and even if I generally agree with him on matters atheistic, the way he approaches them is very much his own. Today is a bit different – I thought WEIT readers round the world might appreciate this link to BBC Radio 4’s ‘The Museum of Curiosity’. This is a 30-minute comedy programme which invites guests to put various items into a non-existent Museum of Curiosity. In other words it’s an excuse for a bit of a chat, some odd facts and a few jokes.

Today’s episode (first broadcast last Monday) dealt – unusually – with the topic of religion. One of the guests, Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou, is a Senior Lecturer in Theology from the University of Exeter in the UK. Unlike  most people interested in theology, Dr Stavrakopoulou is an atheist, and approaches the history of religion from a materialist basis, with an interest in the archaeology surrounding the bible (she had a three-part series on BBC2 earlier this year called The Bible’s Buried Secrets, which I’m afraid I didn’t see – she had a miniblog about this here).

Anyway, her views about religion are quite refreshing (Christianity monotheistic? Think again. Yaweh used to have a wife, that talking snake was a good guy etc etc). I won’t spoil things, I don’t think, by saying that her contribution to the Museum is God.

Also on the programme is comic Jimmy Carr, who I don’t find very funny most of the time, but appeared in a new light when he described his abandonment of Catholicism (despite his accent, he’s Irish) and his realisation that there is no god. And writer Alex Bellos talks about numbers and zero and all that.

You can listen to the programme here, but you’ll have to be quick – the BBC will block access tomorrow evening UK time! The first 15 minutes are probably the most informative.

16 thoughts on “BBC’s The Museum of Curiosity deals with religion (and zero and other topics)”

  1. The serial number on my Curta is 70218. I used it for time-speed-distance road rallies in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

  2. That was absolutely wonderful, and I have only two things to say about it:

    0) The link in the statement “she had a miniblog about this here” is broken; and
    1) I will now have to read more of Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s work.

      1. I can see the “miniblog”/RSS couldn’t follow the BBC site link to the program — “not available in your area” (US in my case) but the YouTube link I posted is still working, and will lead you to all 3 programs.

    2. I cannot offer any literature, but here’s the address for the 1st of her three BBC shows on the Bible. They’re the most rational and skeptical things I’ve ever seen on the topic from TV. Not a lot of depth, but excellent considering they’re aimed at a general audience. Finding her publications would doubtless be worthwhile.

      www.
      youtube.com/watch?v=QGXemCRNNH4&feature=related

  3. That was magnificent. Very British, and not because of the accents, but the grown-up treatment of all the topics.

    I would imagine that here in the US, the god topic would have been couched a lot more.

  4. Really great! Ya gotta love the Brits.

    Can you imagine that being aired on any of the public networks here in the U.S.?

    Ms. S certainly knows her theological history.

  5. Google Ms Stavrakopoulou for some splenetic and entertaining articles from the Daily Mail and the Telegraph

  6. Believers of course reject Dr. S.’s claims on the history of the middle-eastern views on gods and thus try to write her off as marginal or nothing new. See the links at the end of that as well.

    The trouble for them is that people know that Dan Brown writes fiction (badly, if you ask me), whereas people can expect that Dr. S. works on facts and with scientific rigor.

  7. Dr. Stavrakopoulou’s BBC three-part TV series The Bible’s Buried Secrets was wonderful. Here’s a pic of the charming academic about to employ her trademark “I’m sc(k)eptical” lift-of-the-left-eyebrow.

  8. This is just to agree that Dr S’s TV shows are well worth a look, although the last one (on the Garden of Eden) was rather less convincing than the first two (David’s kingdom and God’s wife).

    Also worth a look are Robert Beckford’s programs for Channel 4 a few years ago. They were sort of “what Dan Brown got wrong”, and although he’s an (Anglican?) priest he’s clearly well up for a bit of revisionism.

  9. In the comments to her entry on the BBC TV blog I must admit to enjoying the tirade against her.
    All the old favourites were out in force.

    How the BBC continues its attacks on Chritians and the Christian foundation of the UK.

    How they(the Beeb) or she wouldn’t dare do a similar programme on the Quran.
    This one is precious as the people who say this never seem aware of how much of the Quran is just a muddled plagiarisation of the Bible, and any debunking of the received version of the Bible automatically debunks those parts of the Quran.

    The accusations of the BBC being anti-Israel, out to delegitimize the modern state of Israel.
    Plenty of accusations of anti-Semitism.

    All interspersed with screechy attacks on feminists/atheists/secular Humanists.

  10. Last time we heard from Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou, she was on a panel with Richard Dawkins for The Big Questions which erupted into a minor controversy over Dawkins’ usage of the word ignorant to describe whoever it was that authored the pieces included in the Bible. Stavrakopoulou at that time understood it to mean “stupid” and ended up joining the chorus of theists against her fellow atheist about that.

    However, the idea she presents us with this time of putting God in a museum I find quite catchy. It is much better than the typical “God is dead” response since a beloved fictional character can’t really die unless its development is controlled by a single party. No, it’s far better to frame it as a specimen of antiquity that humanity has grown past, which puts it in its rightful place amongst the numerous deities that have already been moved to the museums, frozen in time, for study and viewing. I wonder how active, believing participants in the Abrahamic religions would react to that idea that they are worshiping something bound to be in museums soon enough?

  11. Unlike most people interested in theology, Dr Stavrakopoulou admits to being an atheist,

    Fixed that for you

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