atheist a capella

Serenading Richard Dawkins over lunch today, David Cowan and the Hereby Chants choir, with an opportunistic halo overhead.

They took a fun twist on the lyrics to a Cole Porter song.

Dawkins just finished the first book in what is now to be a two-volume autobiography. He was keenly interested in the data I had from the Gates pledge on the largest philanthropic donors being mainly atheist.

Dawkins has done a number of surveys in the U.K. on true religiosity. For example, in the 2001 census, 72% self-reported as Christian, dropping to 54% in 2011. He surveyed those 54% self-reported Christians, and found that only 39% could name the first book of the new testament. And that was with a multiple choice set of four answers where 25% would be the result of random guessing. When asked why they said they were Christian in the census, few said it was because of belief; most said it was because they wanted to think of themselves as good people.

With data on atheists doing massive amounts of good, perhaps the sentiment could shift…