jonathan miller's brief history of disbelief

this is by far the best documentary series i've seen for some time. i was lucky enough to catch it on bbc4 a while back, but it's now getting an airing on bbc2 and, second time around, it's still captivating.

yes, it's a documentary where a smart and thoroughly likable chap talks to us like adults, and then chats with some other smart people too. that's right, they actually have intelligent adult discussion and develop thoughts and ideas - unlike most documentaries of late which seek instead to bamboozle you with pretty graphics so you don't notice the dearth of content. he even starts the first show with a little monologue about how there's definitely not going to be lots of pretty graphics. thank you jonathan!

my favourite titbits so far are a comment from bush snr being questioned on atheism:
"No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."

And Epicurus' rebuttal of god:
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

There's a bit more info on the beeb.