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Audio Transcript of the Dawkins/Lennox God Delusion Debate in Birmingham, Alabama
The Official Richard Dawkins Website ^ | 10/04/2007

Posted on 10/06/2007 2:38:18 PM PDT by SirLinksalot

Ladies and Gentlemen and All Interested Parties...This is in regards to the previously advertised debate announced here previously.

The audio transcripts of the debate are now available here

The debate featured Professor Richard Dawkins, Fellow of the Royal Society and Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University and Dr. John Lennox (MA, MA, Ph.D., D.Phil., D.Sc.), Reader in Mathematics and Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science, Green College, University of Oxford.

Dawkins, voted by Europe's Prospect Magazine as one of the world's most important intellectuals, is regarded by many as the spokesman for the "New Atheism." BBC has labeled him "Darwin's Rottweiler." He has written numerous best-sellers, most notable among them, his recent book, The God Delusion. TGD has been on The New York Times List of Best-Sellers for over thirty weeks. It is a no-holds-barred assault on religious faith generally, and Christianity specifically. According to Dawkins, one can deduce atheism from scientific study; indeed, he argues that it is the only viable choice.

Lennox, a popular Christian apologist and scientist, travels widely speaking on the interface between science and religion. Like Dawkins, he has dedicated his career to science, but he has arrived at very different conclusions. "It is the very nature of science that leads me to belief in God," he says. Lennox possesses doctorates from Oxford, Cambridge, and the University of Wales. He has written a response to the notion that Science has exposed the Bible as obscurantist in a book titled God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?. The book will be published this fall.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Philosophy; US: Alabama; Unclassified
KEYWORDS: atheism; dawkins; evolution; god; id; intelligentdesign
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To: Dr. Eckleburg; Frumanchu

ping to 100


101 posted on 10/08/2007 2:54:09 PM PDT by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain And Proud of It! Those who support the troops will pray for them to WIN!)
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To: UndauntedR
I wouldn’t call it a ‘moral absolute’ because you take that to mean that some bearded man in the sky told us not to. And that’s why you don’t rape children.

LOL, I like the imagery.

I would call it a universally human moral. No one would come out publicly to support child rape. Why? Because it is rejected by society. Why is it rejected by society? I think that’s clear.

No, it's not clear. In the materialist world run by determinism, there is no reason not to rape the children. You simply borrow the morality from the "bearded man in the sky" because you can explain why it is wrong to rape children. Nor can the rapist be held responsible for raping children because his actions were not his but simply a chain of causality since the beginning of time. A philopsophy clearly at odds with conservatism and individual responsibility by the way.

I don’t believe in moral absolutes which float around in the air and are always true in every single case at every point in time.

Your beliefs are your own but you are having a helluva time explaining why raping children is always wrong. Remember in the beginning of our discussion you agreed that raping children was always wrong, even when survival was at stake. Why?

I do believe that our history as a social animal has ingrained in our society a sense of respect and compassion which we use to define morals - collectively and universally in the sense that an astounding majority of individuals agree to the same basic moral code despite their religious creed.

Well, there you go. Society, Soviet Union style, decided killing millions to further the aims of the state was a moral act. Why were they wrong? Society, Khmer Rouge style, decided exactly the same thing. Their prime directive isn't the same as yours. What makes your society correct and theirs incorrect?

Religion does not dictate our morals.

Right, the "the bearded guy in the sky" does. Thou shalt not murder. Not hard to understand that command but incredibly hard for the atheistic determinist to both explain and hold accountable the murderers.

102 posted on 10/08/2007 6:50:09 PM PDT by jwalsh07
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To: Diamond; jwalsh07
However accurate the depiction of the long term impact of child manipulation is, it is still merely descriptive. It is not prescriptive; it does not say why one ought not to do that.

Because one does not wish to be in that position. Why would I wish it on someone else? If you're actually asking why people act on their morals at all... you get into psychology. The only operational explanation is that it satisfies us to do so. For lack of a better term, it's a selfish desire. When we see another in pain or suffering, our compassion - the strengthened human ability to put one's self in anothers' frame of mind - makes us feel bad. This is psychological negative reinforcement and we look for a way out of that situation. Possible solutions are making the events into something more satisfying or suppression of the stimuli.

but you do not say why historical development creates an obligation to refrain from causing unwanted human suffering.

"Selfish" reasons. The need to satisfy yourself. If you've ever stolen a candy bar, there's always that little pang in the back of your head telling you not to. Is the reward (candybar) greater than the cost (pained conscience, other physical punishment)? From this construct, it's easy to see how superstition/religion can develop evolutionarily as a social meme - by increasing the perceived cost of violating the conscience, among other reasons. This meme would be especially important as the organism becomes more and more self-aware, able to think abstractly, and is less confined by instinct.

Another example of this phenomenon is sex. Which animals have sex for pleasure? It's easy to identify animals who engage in sexual activities clearly not designed for reproduction. The most popularly known are dolphins, elephants, monkeys, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans. You've listened to me talk about elephants before, many people know that dolphins are considered very intelligent as well. All of these animals are considered intelligent. Could it be that the greater the intelligence, the less constrained by instinct, and evolution becomes more reliant on reward and punishment? This could be applied to understand the conscience, to understand elephants grieving for their dead, to understand dolphin sexual practices, etc.

doesn't address why one ought to act with altruism and a protective instinct for society's members and culture (land, rituals, etc), especially if doing do conflicts with one's self interest.

It's just the way it is. Nature has gone out of its way to encourage social behavior in certain situations. To accomplish this successfully with cognitively higher species requires more than just instinct. Although stealing may be in your self interest, you have to do so with some level of cognitive punishment - what we call guilt.

you are not saying why is there an obligation to be compassionate

There isn't of course. It's clear that any "obligation" to compassion/morals is broken all the time - resulting in antisocial behavior. We punish antisocial behavior because that behavior is not only detrimental to the individual victim, but to the society as a whole.

Thus, the "why do you act morally" has a number of answers. There's the selfish (alleviation of guilt/conscience/punishment), the social (instinct to uphold my society's standards), and compassion (being able to recognize others' states of mind - and the innate desire to help).

Why then is raping children always wrong and why do people/societies do bad things? Why are they wrong?

Well, Dr. Zimbardo has clearly shown that these safeguards can be broken (surprisingly easily) with the right combination of social pressure and group think. How then do we deem them wrong? We have to step outside of the pressures and use the most "objective" measure possible - something that almost everyone can agree on. That's the ultimate power of freedom, safeguarding society from the power of government and making objectivity more accessible by reinforcing the conduits of distinct opinion - making it harder to get lost in group think.

Rape is not a Budda-given no-no. Like you say, nature itself doesn't care one way or the other. (You'd think Budda/Allah/Yahweh would have no problem preventing ducks or scorpionflies from raping each other - you get to avoid the human freewill vs Big-Bro debate for free.) But it is a universally human no-no. It's VERY detrimental to society (trust, successfulness, productivity, happiness, anger, etc). Therefore, human culture has deemed it wrong. That and a heavy helping of compassion is way more than enough for me (and should be enough for anyone) to deem it wrong. The power of social memes is enormous and our success as a species is largely a product of our success as a social animal. We live and die (and reproduce or not) based on our social actions. Over the years, it's been programmed into us (and the fascinating part is that it's not just us - but recognizable pieces appear in other social animals as well.)
103 posted on 10/08/2007 8:12:55 PM PDT by UndauntedR
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To: jwalsh07
In the materialist world run by determinism...

We know the determinism debate is a whole 'nother beast. My point of view is that even if everything is deterministic (hmm... even if it's not... everything is still cause-effect + chance), we still have to punish those who violate the human social code. Even if we are big stimuli-response machines, we at least have the illusion of freewill (personal responsibility) and still have social expectations of others. I have no problem with punishing someone who is "wired incorrectly" - acts in a way that is detrimental to society and violates our trust/expectations.

I've never seen the possibility of determinism as a big hurdle to any of these moral arguements.

You simply borrow the morality from the "bearded man in the sky"

I've always thought all religions borrowed their morality from us. It's very easy (easier?) to recognize morality outside of religion - so... all religion does is cement existing morals as "moral absolutes" in alot of minds... which would be beneficial to society and social critters...

If religion didn't exist... and I was the evolution of social memes/cognitive thinking... you'd have a hard time convincing me NOT to create it.
104 posted on 10/08/2007 8:32:19 PM PDT by UndauntedR
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To: betty boop
Thank you oh so very much for that wonderful essay-post and for including the excerpt from Timothy!

I think the atheist believes that there is no human freedom unless a man can get “free” of God. Now a person like me, a believer in God, believes there is neither freedom nor reason — or sanity — without God. So you see, there is no way that a common ground can exist between the atheist and the theist such that any agreement could ever be reached, and not just on the question of God, but probably on any question at all.

Bottom line, the difference is the atheist wants freedom from something; the theist wants freedom for something. That is a huge psychological difference.

Well and truly said!

105 posted on 10/08/2007 8:49:32 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: UndauntedR
You state that free will is an illusion and that morality is borrowed from you. :-}

Absent free will my friend we can not be morally responsible folks.

You have what in known as a conundrum but if it is any consolation you are not alone, the world has plenty of atheistic determinist's who can't logically connect an absence of free will with a moral self, Dawkins versus Quinn (Or Massacre At Atheist Gulch). Those two propositions are totally illogical.

Good luck!

106 posted on 10/08/2007 9:07:11 PM PDT by jwalsh07
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To: Dr. Eckleburg
Thank you so very much for those excellent excerpts!
107 posted on 10/08/2007 9:28:44 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: jwalsh07
You state that free will is an illusion

I said 'if'. I'm not sure myself. For this discussion, I don't think it matters though. Read my last post a little closer. If you want me to expand, I will.

Thanks for the link, I'll read it soon.
108 posted on 10/08/2007 9:33:46 PM PDT by UndauntedR
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To: xzins
There can be no ultimate morality without a Supreme Being to declare it so. Otherwise, any morality would be situational.

Yet, I cannot expect a supporter of atheism to see that any more than I can expect a non-Christian to see the Kingdom of God.

Unless you are born again, you cannot even see the Kingdom of God.

Indeed. Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!

109 posted on 10/08/2007 9:37:11 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: grey_whiskers
I realized what Joebuck said in #69 was sarcasm towards you, but since you didn't take pains to refute his charge, ...

See #72. I didn't feel a need to refute his strawman.

Allow me to repeat myself - IMO moral systems are not merely a meme. That's not to say it isn't a meme, which I understand to mean a unit of culture. Obviously morality is that but it is more. Some units of culture like money are pure social inventions. Morality isn't pure social invention. I think morality is based on values of innate human nature.

What do you mean "it works better": for whom? Nazism worked pretty good for the Nazis,

In fact I don't think it did. For example, oppression of the Jews caused many German scientists to emigrate to the US. These scientists invented the atom bomb which would certainly have defeated Germany had the European war lasted a little longer.

But you're missing a key point. Moral systems should be weighed by the totality of their effects. Do you think Germans were happy under the Nazis or Russians et al under the Communists? I don't.

An in principle test of "works better" could go like this: if well-informed people can choose between two cultures where all else is equal except for the moral systems, which do they choose? That "all else equal" part keeps it from being a sure-fire practical test, but we can often get close enough. Was the function of the Berlin Wall to keep Westerners out or East Germans in?

[There are an infinite number of others which are more likely to be true] makes little sense to me...

Yes I had in mind the variations you mention and more. I can see how I confused you though. Where it says "more likely to be true" I had read "just as likely to be true."

I will try to be clearer. If your criterion is Truth, you are doomed to fail because Real Truth is unknowable. My suggestion is to settle for always trying to make things better but knowing someitmes you may mess up. People are fallible and irrational. Error is unavoidable. Your logic was wrong or there were unintended ill effects or criteria that worked so well in the past don't any more. But errors can be corrected and even good situations can be improved. I think that's what we should aim for.

110 posted on 10/08/2007 10:24:14 PM PDT by edsheppa
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To: Diamond
I am asking you what the materialist ontological foundation of good and evil is

Good is what makes people better off and evil is what makes them worse off.

When we feel we ought to do some things and not other things, is that obligation real? ...

The feeling that you're obliged to do A but not B is real. I think we can agree on that. It's part of that innate, objective human nature I talked about. We want to get along with others, it's normal.

But I think the answers to the rest of your questions are unknowable. Tell me what test I can do to decide if I have some real moral duty to the universe? Maybe someday it will be possible for us to answer the question. Maybe we'll discover the universe has a real moral rule. But maybe not. I can't say.

If morality is just convention...

It's not just convention as I thought I'd made clear in my first post to you on the thread.

But that isn't the whole story. I think there is a real, objective human nature, behavioral traits shared by all, some few abnormal people excepted. Hierarchical social structures is an example. Morality builds upon, or tends to respect, these shared values.

111 posted on 10/08/2007 10:37:24 PM PDT by edsheppa
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To: Diamond
I wonder if atheists believe that the Constitution is subservient to the moral law

I don't know what you mean exactly. Certainly law should not work gratuitously against morality. But not every moral precept should be encoded as law, some cannot be and law serves other purposes aside from morality.

112 posted on 10/08/2007 10:46:02 PM PDT by edsheppa
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To: edsheppa
We are in better agreement than I thought, but I have to get to work shortly, will reply later.

Cheers!

113 posted on 10/09/2007 4:17:44 AM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: Dr. Eckleburg; Alamo-Girl; metmom; Diamond; xzins; 1000 silverlings; blue-duncan
...the existence of the God of Christian theism and the conception of his counsel as controlling all things in the universe is the only presupposition which can account for the uniformity of nature which the scientist needs. But the best and only possible proof for the existence of such a God is that his existence is required for the uniformity of nature and for the coherence of all things in the world.

Van Til expresses this essential point most excellently, Dr. Eckleburg! Among other things, God is the ground of all being. The world is the way it is because its fundamental order was established by God in the Beginning. The Logos is God's Word, and it is not jibberish. By His Word, God created the world from nothing, and sustains it in good order to this day and forever.

This answers Leibniz's two great questions: "Why are things the way they are, and not some other way?" It also answers his other great question: "Why is there something, why not nothing at all?" (Because God wills it.)

Scientists must assume uniformities in nature; otherwise science has nothing to do. The fact that there is science at all is tacit proof of the existence of God.

I gladly stand corrected on the excerpt you quoted. :^)

Thank you so much for writing!

114 posted on 10/09/2007 6:35:57 AM PDT by betty boop (Simplicity is the highest form of sophistication. -- Leonardo da Vinci)
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To: jwalsh07; UndauntedR; Alamo-Girl; Diamond; hosepipe; Dr. Eckleburg; metmom; xzins
Nor can the rapist be held responsible for raping children because his actions were not his but simply a chain of causality since the beginning of time. A philosophy clearly at odds with conservatism and individual responsibility by the way.

The above is most definitely the consequence of metaphysical naturalist a/k/a scientific materialist doctrine. If all that there is is merely matter in its motions according to the physical laws; if there is no soul, nor even a mind (because these are immaterial things) -- if all the mind is is an epiphenomenon of the brain's neural activity which, being an epiphenomenon is incapable of causing anything -- then how could anyone ever be responsible for anything? Where do we find room or root for moral questions?

UndauntedR does point to an interesting significant fact: that the moral law really does appear to be universal, since peoples of all times and cultures appear to know about it; and the form it takes is strikingly uniform cross-culturally and in all time periods. (C.S. Lewis ably demonstrates this insight in an appendix to The Abolition of Man IIRC.)

But such recognition actually undercuts UndauntedR's allegation that morality is whatever a human society declares it to be. Ultimately, morality is rooted in human nature, or human souls if you will (the existence of which some scientists deny), not in human societies. But only those societies are good and just which are constituted by individual human souls that follow the moral law.

Thanks for your great post, jwalsh07!

115 posted on 10/09/2007 7:21:35 AM PDT by betty boop (Simplicity is the highest form of sophistication. -- Leonardo da Vinci)
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To: edsheppa; Diamond; Alamo-Girl; UndauntedR; Dr. Eckleburg; xzins
Tell me what test I can do to decide if I have some real moral duty to the universe?

Forgive me edsheppa, but it seems to me that you have no moral duty "to the universe"; your moral duty is owed to God -- who made you, and endued you with your human nature, making you in His image, and thus endowing you with reason and free will.

There is a "test" for this, BTW. But that test is not given in "this world"....

I'm very much enjoying your exchange of ideas with Diamond! Thank you for writing!

116 posted on 10/09/2007 7:30:23 AM PDT by betty boop (Simplicity is the highest form of sophistication. -- Leonardo da Vinci)
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To: edsheppa; Diamond; Alamo-Girl
Good is what makes people better off and evil is what makes them worse off.

Hi edsheppa! The above statement reduces morality to utility. Yet the moral law requires us to "do the right thing," regardless of utilitarian considerations. In a nutshell: The moral law says it is better to do the right thing even if it costs us, than to do the wrong thing and benefit from the wrong. Selfish people will tend to act for their own benefit regardless of considerations of how others may be harmed by their actions. Such behavior is justly condemned as immoral. A good and just society must condemn such behavior or the society would not long remain either good or just.

117 posted on 10/09/2007 8:23:37 AM PDT by betty boop (Simplicity is the highest form of sophistication. -- Leonardo da Vinci)
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To: betty boop; Dr. Eckleburg; Alamo-Girl
...one’s own assumed personal autonomy...

I stand chastened. You got me. Immediately when I read that phrase of Voegelin's I realized that I had forgotten my Cornelius Van Til!:^)

I think the atheist believes that there is no human freedom unless a man can get “free” of God. Now a person like me, a believer in God, believes there is neither freedom nor reason — or sanity — without God. So you see, there is no way that a common ground can exist between the atheist and the theist such that any agreement could ever be reached, and not just on the question of God, but probably on any question at all.

I was going to post something by Van Til but Dr. Eckleburg beat me to it:^)

Thanks for a great, great post, betty boop.

Cordially,

118 posted on 10/09/2007 8:31:53 AM PDT by Diamond
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To: Diamond

Thank you so much for your kind words Diamond! I’m just glad to be able to get this stuff “off my chest” on a thread that deals with Richard Dawkins.... :^) It just seems so fitting.


119 posted on 10/09/2007 8:43:39 AM PDT by betty boop (Simplicity is the highest form of sophistication. -- Leonardo da Vinci)
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To: Ferox
Hedonism becomes the default lifestyle.

Why? Do people who believe in a god have so little self-control, such a lack of an innate moral compass, that they would be come hedonists if convinced their god was not real? Is the only thing keeping a god-believer in line his belief in that god? If so, it would seem that the atheist is morally superior, since his moral sense is self-determined.

Without immortality, life is meaningless and absurd.

On the contrary, the knowledge that life is finite and that there is no afterlife imbues this life with all the deep, poignant meaning that brief pleasures generally bring.

120 posted on 10/09/2007 8:56:45 AM PDT by disrgr
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