by Greg Mayer
English philosopher and humanist A.C. Grayling was interviewed last night on the Colbert Report on Comedy Central. The interview highlighted Grayling’s new book, The God Argument: The Case Against Religion and for Humanism, which Jerry has noted here at WEIT.
Grayling started with a nice definition of humanism that was appreciated by the audience. Colbert then tried Pascal’s wager on him, as Grayling had mentioned the multiplicity of gods, but it’s sometimes hard to produce a concise but thoughtful response in in these very short and comedic interviews.
The full interview is available here on Colbert’s website and via hulu.
Colbert is rebroadcast the next day (i.e. today, Thursday) at 6 PM Central time; check your local listing.
[JAC note: I just watched the short Hulu clip and was quite pleased. Grayling seemingly wasn’t attuned to Colbert’s schtick, but he answered very well, made as many good points as I think are possible in such a short time, and, most important, it looked as if the audience was on his side (note the applause when Grayling claims that religion does more harm than good).]
I tried to stay awake, but I faded out and came to again just as Colbert said good night.
What is it that Hulu has against Europe?
Buncha cheese-eating surrender monkeys?
Classy.
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Hey! Zat is djust us, not all ze Europians!
It is a shame he had to point out that religion does more harm than good. Once the harm religion does is brought to light, nothing else should matter. The claim some people make that the good religion does out weighs any of the bad has always puzzled me. That’s like saying its ok to beat your spouse if you take your kids for ice cream.
It is important to note that religion does more harm than good, but to me it is more important that, so far as we can tell, no religion is true. If we had overwhelming evidence that, for example, Jesus exists and is a being of inconceivable power, I would have to believe that some version of Christianity is true, in spite of the manifest harm that the various church’s teaching do to human society. The situation would be similar to what we now have with diseases such as cancer; we accept their existence but strive to mitigate their ill effects.
I should have said that the good a religion might do doesn’t matter instead of nothing else matters.
I went to The Colbert Report link from here in the UK where I see this amusing message:
🙂
P.S Viewing via comedycentral requires a payment to iTunes of £1.89/episode
Transcript here.
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Oh – sorry: That’s a much older ep.
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If you want to watch the Colbert Report or the Daily Show from Europe you need to use a US proxy server. Mano Singham at Free Thought Blogs has instructions.
Too bad Grayling didn’t give the quick answer to Pascal’s wager: But what if god rewards atheists with heaven, and punishes believers with hell? After all, that is possible, since god works in mysterious ways.
I think A.C. Grayling handled Colbert well, because he can be challenging. I also once again find myself admiring Colbert for how well he does his schtick. One of the better shows on regular TV in my opinion.
In Australia we get this amusing comment:
Sorry, but this video is unavailable from your location.
It’s one of the detriments of living under a monarchy.
But in case you can’t give up your VEGEMITE and move to America,
Watch clips from the Colbert Report at comedycentral.co.uk
This does only concern the Dutch:The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are broadcast on Comedy Central Extra,always a day later and(!)very well subtitled.
I had the privilege of seeing Prof. Grayling speak in person at my university yesterday. It was a great talk!