It is very odd that Dawkins (not just in this ad campaign, but also in his recent TV series <i>The Genius of Darwin</i> and before that with his book <i>The God Delusion</i>) should have such an obsessive emotional investment in 'exposing' his supposed theological enemies when he long ago amply demonstrated - and demolished - their erroneous arguments by the more rational means of evolutionary theory. The problem for Dawkins of course is that he has himself seemingly unknowingly sucumbed to the 'evolution as teleology' fallacy, of believing evolution as having some positive <i>purpose</i>, which couldn't be further from Darwin's fundamental findings, so presenting it as a more 'intelligent' and 'rational' alternative to religion.
The relation of religion and politics shouldn't be underestimated either: in the US since Carter's Democratic Presidency in the late 1970s, when he was largely elected because of his 'born again' rhetoric, every US presidential candidate who has ignored religion did so at his peril. Every subsequent president who has milked the 'religion factor' (whether disingenuously and cynically - like Reagan, Clinton, Bush II - or otherwise) has hugely benefited, which is why Obama - with his preaching of 'Redemption' - will have a landslide victory next month (McCain destroyed his chances by initially campaigning on an anti-religion ticket, then in a desperation-induced panic roped in the seriously consumerist-crazed Palin as a band-aid quick fix solution, but which fizzled away as quickly as it had been introduced). And in Britain everyone knew even before his election in 1997 that Tony Blair was a born-again looney, which was just as much the reason he won power as for any secular socio-economic strategies (I'm surprised the Tories via Cameron haven't yet copped on to this).
Coincidentally, two recent docs on these topics were broadcast on British TV, one on the US experience, the other on the British one.
[1] On BBC2 (aired earlier this evening):
The American History, A Future
<i>While the 2008 presidential campaign is in full swing, Simon Schama travels through America to dig deep into the conflicts of its history to understand what is at stake right now.
Simon explores the ways in which faith has shaped American political life. His starting point is a remarkable fact about the coming election: for the first time in a generation it is the Democrats who claim to be the party of God. It is Barak Obama, not John McCain, who has been talking about his faith. In Britain we have always thought of American religion as a largely conservative force, yet Simon shows how throughout American history it has played a crucial role in the fight for freedom.
Faith helped create America - it was the search for religious freedom that led thousands to make the dangerous journey to the colonies in the 1600s. After independence was won, that religious freedom was enshrined in the constitution; America was the first country in the world to do so. Simon also looks at the remarkable role the black church has played, first in the liberation of the slaves in the 1800s, and again in the civil rights movement of the 1960s; neither would have happened without its religious activists. It is this very church that has been the inspiration for Barak Obama, who traces the roots of his political inspiration to his faith.</i>
[2]
Channel 4's Dispatches doc on Christian Fundamentalism in the UK (from some months ago).