A brief update on disbelief
Kate alerts me that there will be a (nationwide) preview of A Brief History of Disbelief on tomorrow night's Bill Moyers Journal.
The clip is... not promising. Miller's tone is less confrontational than Dawkins, to be sure, but opening with "religion caused 9/11 and America is just as religious as the Middle East, therefore Christians and Muslims are all equally nuts and dangerous" (I'm paraphrasing, but accurately) isn't likely to convince anyone other than Christopher Hitchens. Certainly Miller's pronouncement that "It's inconceivable that [9/11] could have been done without religion, for it's only in the name some absolute assurance of a permanent life after death that someone would be able to undertake such an act," would be news to the Tamil Tigers.
Still it should be interesting to hear Miller discuss all this with the devout, but rational, Bill Moyers.
Update: Having watched the Moyers segment, it looks like the series, and Miller, will be pretty good after all. The clip they chose was pretty unrepresenative of Miller's tone, which is thoughtful and respectful (but not in any wimpy way). Interestingly, it sounds like Miller, though he doesn't know the category, is an ignostic, which is what I increasingly think of myself as, if forced to put a label on my "disbelief."