“What have you done lately?”: Dawkins talks to God

February 5, 2015 • 11:10 am

We heard Stephen Fry’s response when asked what he’d say to God were he to meet Him, but Richard Dawkins actually got the chance. Here he is in a new video with Mr. Deity. There are a lot of “ingroup” references here, so listen carefully. It’s one of the better Mr. Deity videos I’ve seen in a while.

One plaint: I don’t think the recurrent laryngeal nerve of the giraffe would be only 2 inches long if it didn’t loop down around the aorta. It would, I think, be substantially longer than that.

There’s a mock ad at the end, which is okay, but you won’t miss much by stopping at 5:50.

 

37 thoughts on ““What have you done lately?”: Dawkins talks to God”

      1. Haha! Amusing video, indeed. I´ve seen several of the Mr. Deity videos and many of them are quite good.

        I do agree with “sdufort”; Richard is really not a good actor. It all seem so feigned, and obviously so. However, the documentaries he makes where Richard Dawkins can be Richard Dawkins are actually pretty decent.

  8. How would you know you were talking to “GOD” ?

    “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
    – Arthur C. Clarke

    From that, it’s a very small step to say:
    “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from GOD.”

    And so my response to an interviewer who asked “what I would say to god” is “how would I know it was god?” – the annals of sci-fi are littered with explorations of the concept of aliens playing god or passing themselves off as god. Honestly if I felt truly trapped or impressed, and in the thrall of something calling itself God, my first statement would be
    “please don’t hurt me.”

    After that the conversation would have to go in whatever direction this entity / hallucination wanted it to go.

    1. How would you know you were talking to “GOD” ?

      Oh that’s easy. You say “hey God, tell me how to test you for divinity.” If he can’t describe a test that you can do and that would convince you, then he’s either not omnipotent or not omniscient. Either way, he’s not God. OTOH if he gives you a convincing test methodology and then doesn’t pass it, he’s also not God…also not very smart. Lastly, if he gives you some test methodology that would be personally convincing for you and then he passes it, then pretty much by definition you would be convinced you’re talking to God.

      Its sorta like the “one guy lies, one guy tells the truth, you have one question to figure out who is who” logical puzzle. You don’t try and evaluate the system independently, you use the system to evaluate itself.

  9. This is one of the funniest Mr Deity videos I have seen. I love the pauses when Deity is either caught or doesn’t understand.

  11. It feels like the set up to a joke:
    “It (is), I think, …substantially longer than that.”
    “How long is it?”
    “It’s so long…”
    I don’t know the punchline. Not a maker of the jokes.

    1. The Monty Pythonesque answer to “How long is it?” is to say “That is a bit personal!”

  12. I liked the “that’s what she said” Mr Diety throws in. I caught the kin selection jp joke but I didn’t get the Thor one.

  16. I disagree with RD’s supposed lack of theatrical talent. This performance was just meant this way, Mr Deity and the slightly awkward, but pertinent, professor of biology (b.i.o.l.o.g.y): perfect.

  19. A ‘Rube Goldberg style of designer’. I use that very same analogy when describing things like biochemical pathways. Life really really does look all cobbled together at the molecular level. This enzyme does this reaction, then hands off its product to another enzyme that does that reaction, and so on.. and ‘poof’, life.

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