On October 10, 2021, musician and comedian Tim Minchin received the Center for Inquiry’s Richard Dawkins Award in a live event at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, UK. The award was bestowed by Richard Dawkins himself, who delivered the following remarks to the sold-out crowd.

First, I should say a word about this place, for those not familiar with it. It was built between 1664 and 1669 and named after Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury who paid the entire cost of it. Bishops were the Bill Gateses and Warren Buffets of the time. The architect was a then inexperienced Christopher Wren, in his thirties. His model was a D-shaped Roman amphitheatre. But that would have been open to the sky and not suitable for our climate. So he had to put a roof on. Supporting pillars would have spoiled the Roman look, so he took the daring step of making a flat roof strong enough to span the necessary 70 feet.

The flat ceiling was painted by Robert Streater, “Serjeant Painter” to the newly restored King Charles II. It was painted in his London studio as 32 panels, which were shipped to Oxford by barge down the Thames and then assembled in place. The picture is titled Truth descending upon the Arts and Sciences, and it was supposed to depict the triumph of the Arts and Sciences over “brutish scoffing ignorance”. Very appropriate to this evening’s event.

Christopher Wren himself later became known as England’s leading architect. An artist, in other words. He was also a scientist distinguished enough to be elected President of the Royal Society. We are honouring this evening an artist—in this case a musician, composer and poet—who brilliantly uses his art to uphold the values of science. And the values of the Center for Inquiry: Reason, science, scepticism, secularism, truth, everything we associate with the Enlightenment.

I’ve presented this award to some pretty distinguished people in past years, but never before to such a multi-talented rock star as this. Musician, composer, poet, singer, children’s author, pianist, playwright, comedian, Tim Minchin is all these things. His biopic, Rock and Roll Nerd, shows him to be, in spite of all these talents, a creature of touching humility.

 But the side of him which is most relevant to us, and to this award, is that he is—as I just said —a staunch upholder of rationalism, secularism and scientific scepticism. This is epitomised in his famous beat poem, “Storm,” and I shall return to it. But first I’ll mention just three more from among his many creative contributions.

There’s his song “Come Home Cardinal Pell” which, quite apart from displaying his musical gifts as composer and pianist, also affirms his commitment to justice. I had my own encounter with George Pell on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. But that’s another story, which has no place here and I turn to Tim’s delightfully charming, faux-naive song, “Thank you, God, for fixing the cataracts of Sam’s Mum.”

In his show at the Albert Hall, he introduced the song with a preamble in which he tells how he was approached by a man called Sam, wearing a cross around his neck. You might wear a cross round your neck, he explains, “If you’re a fan of the apparatus by which first-century Romans put to death and tortured Jewish insurgents.” Sam tries to trick him with a challenge that we’ve probably all met. “Do you only believe in things for which there is evidence?”

“Yes”, is the answer we’d all give, and that’s the answer Tim gave.

Then Sam delivers what they all think is the killer question. “How about love? Do you believe in love?”

Tim answers, as we’d all answer, “Yes, I believe in love.”

“Aha!” Says Sam. “But you don’t have any evidence for love.”

So far, the conversation has run on entirely familiar lines. When I get to this point in the dialogue I say something like, “Well there’s plenty of evidence for love. Little looks in the eye, gestures, little catches in the voice.” But Tim’s answer was different”: “But, love without evidence is . . . stalking.” Now that’s genius, sheer genius. I intend to use it next time the occasion arises, as it inevitably will. I shall borrow it. With acknowledgment of course.

Then there’s the song itself. Tim pretends to be impressed by Sam’s anecdote that prayer cured the cataracts in Sam’s mum’s eyes. As we start listening, we think, “Hang on, Tim’s become a convert.” That’s probably what Sam did think. But Tim was being much more subtle. He was inviting the gullible believer to walk towards him gratefully, so that the punch, when it came, would have even greater impact.

It turns out that he is mocking the idea that God ignores the suffering of starving masses, of people suffering from incurable diseases, because he’s too busy curing Sam’s mum. Think about the parochial conceit of the Christian who thinks the Creator of the Universe, the Divine Physicist, the Cosmic Mathematician who dreamed up quantum theory and the fundamental physical constants, the designer of the majestic expanding universe, would bother his giant head with answering prayers about one man’s mum who happened to live in the Dandenong Hills, on this speck of dust in the cosmos. God doesn’t care about the millions of people, oppressed, or suffering painful diseases all around the world. No, but this “Omnipotent Ophthalmologist” does listen to prayers emanating from one particular church, belonging to just one out of hundreds of religious denominations, and swoops down to fix the eyes of Sam’s mum.

The third song I wanted to mention is “White Wine in the Sun”, with its refrain, “I really like Christmas.” It’s a wonderful riposte to those who think people like us are waging a war against Christmas. We aren’t. We may not believe in Jesus the Redeemer but we like the camaraderie of family all meeting together. We can like church music without believing in the words. We aren’t Scrooges or Grinches, and Tim is our poet minstrel to prove it.

But I said I’d come back to “Storm.” Many of us here will be familiar with it. It’s a lovely beat poem about a dinner party where a fellow guest called Storm spouts idiotic clichés about homeopathy, auras, and the soul. Tim listens until he can bear it no longer. And then lets her have it with both barrels.

He recites the story rather than sings it, but you almost don’t notice that because there’s so much music in the words: the rhythmic cadences, the witty rhymes and half-rhymes. Furthermore, the story, and the way he tells it is genuinely funny, an exhibition of concise, sharp wit.

The poem begins by setting the scene of the north London dinner party so vividly we can see every detail, even the details that aren’t mentioned—and that’s true artistry. We picture the foolish Storm herself, epitomised in the tiny detail of the tattoo at the base of the spine. We hear her whiny voice, beautifully rendered by Tim as she fires off clichés “With startling precision like a sniper using bollocks for ammunition”.

Even her name is wonderfully apt. I read it up and it turns out that it wasn’t her real name, so Tim’s creation of the nam “Storm” is another master stroke.

We feel for him as he holds himself back at the silent pleading of his wife, her eyes begging him to be nice. For a while he resists the temptation and silently endures the nonsense about homeopathy and auras and spiritualism and her misquoting Shakespeare. 

Then the dam bursts, he can hold it in no longer, and we are treated a glorious rant: a princely tirade against irrational nonsense. And finally we enter calmer waters: a lyrical paean to science, the beauty of scientific truth, the power of science to promote human welfare.

Not only are the words beautifully written. They are beautifully rendered. Tim shows himself an actor as well as a poet. The eye make-up is no affectation. His eyes communicate to the audience with an eloquence to match his words. Yes, there is no immortal soul, life is finite. But thanks to science, Tim concludes, I get to live twice as long:

Twice as long to live this life of mine

Twice as long to love this wife of mine

Twice as many years of friends and wine

Now that’s real poetry.

It is my honour to present this award to the bard from down under, Tim Minchin.