Ricky Gervais is one of my favourite comedians. He’s quick, insightful, and his accent is entirely unmistakeable. Like Simon Pegg, he excels at comedy, and yet hides an amazing ability to pull drama out of the hat, before launching back into the world of funny again.
I always knew Ricky was an atheist. He’s been fairly upfront about it, right from the beginning. His early thoughts on Jesus are quite deep as well, and there almost appears to be a deep yearning in the way he speaks. Sure, the audience laughs, but I believe that Ricky is sharing something quite personal with us in this video clip.
And yet, in the last day, the world was greeted with this rather interesting jibe from Britain’s breakout comedy superstar:
Think before you tweet, Ricky.
A tweet that said “Dear Religion, This week I safely dropped a man from space while you shot a child in the head for wanting to go to school. Yours, Science.”
First and foremost, I would like to side with Ricky about the outrage that he appears to be communicating over the shooting of Malalal Yousafzai, the 14-year=old Pakistani girl who wanted an education – something that we here in the first world countries like to call a basic human right. She is currently being cared for in the United Kingdom, and it has been estimated that she has a 70 per cent chance of survival. Apparently the Taliban have threatened to murder her if she survives, and may they fail spectacularly in this endeavour.
Where he and I violently part ways is where he takes the best of the best of science, and the worst of the worst of religion, and declares to the world that this is what each of them is good for. It’s a terrifyingly simple generalisation, which has had some atheists on my Facebook feed cheering its rationality.
Of course, Gervais is a comedian, not a philospher. I’m not terribly worried about his statement, because I don’t take philosophical advice from comedians and actors, unless it already meshes with the advice that I got from, funnily enough, philosophers.
What concerns me are the tens of thousands of people out there who apparently cannot tell the difference between a comedian and a philosopher. There is a straw man in the room, and apparently nobody is equipped to spot him.
Apparently these two have already met?
For those still learning their philosophy, the Straw Man Fallacy is defined as refutation of a misrepresented argument. For example, the idea that while Science sets out to do amazing things like dropping a man safely from space, Religion sets out to shoot children who want basic human rights.
A similar Straw Man Fallacy might be to politely inform Science that, in modern times, science has given us the atomic bomb, anthrax and post-natal abortions, Religion has given us mission programs, soup kitchens and winter clothing drives. Thank you very much, game set and match.
Of course, that is an ugly generalisation, and if I actually meant any of it, you’d be welcome to line up to beat the stupidity out of me. Science has given us the atomic bomb, it’s also given us the MRI machine and antibiotics. Religion has given us ethnic cleansing and the subjugation of women and children around the world; it has also given us brave men and women who put their own lives on the line to help those in need.
The fact is, humanity is capable of doing great things, and horrific things. Religion (or lack of it) can be used to justify the very best and the very worst of these actions. Science enables us to do even greater things, or even worse things.
But the moment you start pitching these two against each other, that’s when things get ugly. After all, there’s a reason the original silver screen man of straw pined “If I only had a brain”.
