watching friends die on television is especially sad when they don’t believe in god

The other night, Linette and I were watching Great Performances on PBS. We hadn’t set out to watch it, but TIVO had saved it for us, so we thought that we’d at least invest a few minutes and see what it was about, before we just erased it and headed over to the season finale of America’s Next Top Model. We were happily surprised to find that the subject of this particular episode was clown/choreographer/actor Bill Irwin, a man who, with the help of our friend Doug Skinner, took Broadway by storm a few decades ago with his play Regard of Flight. So, we watched the show, hoping to catch glimpses of Doug. Having never seen Regard of Flight, we didn’t know what to expect. All we knew was that Doug, the co-writer and music director of the piece, appeared on stage for some portion of the performance. We didn’t know, however, as we’d soon find out, that Doug gets shot in the back (while playing piano) by Mr. Irwin… And now, I can say from experience, it’s fun to see your friends get shot on PBS.

As coincidence would have it, as I sat down here tonight to mention the fact that we’ve been watching our friend slouching over his keyboard and dying over and over again, said friend posted a comment at one of my earlier posts about the re-branding of Creationism as “Intelligent Design” … So, here, because I think it fits nicely, is the comment Doug just left.

For more on the agenda and techniques of the Intelligent Design movement — especially their master plan, The Wedge — here’s a link to the Introduction to “Creationism’s Trojan Horse“.

And here’s a review of the book, from the same site.

Personally, I don’t see any necessity for either God or Jesus. There’s not much evidence for either of them, and believing things that are untrue drives you nuts. If nothing else, you can point out that impregnating a virgin and killing the son to remove sin from the world was not only a sick idea, but remarkably ineffective.

I prefer to call myself an agnostic, since I have a deep distrust of human reason — whether applied to religion or to science. I’d be glad to treat christians with the same suspended judgment I use for UFO and Bigfoot believers. I’ve found, though, that christians make less sense, are more violent, and less fun at parties. To the lions with them!

So, I was wondering, are there any other folks in the audience who have appeared on an episode of PBS’s Great Performances?