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.
Some of Richard Dawkin’s notable quotes in this debate :
* “The one belief I would give to a child is skepticism.”
* “I cannot conceive of a logical path that says because I am an atheist therefore it is rational for me to kill or murder or be cruel.”
* “Everyone knows by common sense that “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” is moral. You don’t need a holy book to tell you to do that.”
* “We understand that we are here as a result of a truly hideous process. Natural Selection is an ugly process that has beautiful consequences.”
* “How do I know what is moral? I don’t on the whole.”
Cool, Thanks.
This quote alone, if he really believes it, makes this person an ignoramous. You have to know what is moral, because anything less purposely violates one's sanctity. Everyone knows exactly what is moral, what is right, and what is just. There is no excuse.
If a person chooses to IGNOR what is moral or listen to the lie, it is no excuse for their misdeeds.
He completley contradicts himself just in those statements.
-Do unto others: everyone knows.
-What is moral: noone knows.
Do unto others is statement of morality. Dawkins is a sophist — if you peel away the artful argument you find nothing. Not even the Emperor’s new clothes.
I shouldn't say "arguments"--they read much more like pronouncements, and he continues to go virtually unquestioned in England as an "authority" who really can't answer something as simple as the Kalam Cosmological Argument. (Dawkins cannot account for why the universe is here. Pretty fundamental, dontchathink?)
Dawkins enjoys this popularity over there because the Church of England has long since abandoned any semblance of Christianity--for those of you who bother to stay informed on subjects like this, you realize what I mean. There is virtually no one over there to debate with him. The press fawns all over him, and he's treated like a rock star.
I encourage all Christians to read (at least) the table of contents of his latest book. It's funny, too, that in the end, his own arguments in it rely upon nothing more than his own personal distaste for submission to a moral Creator. It's quite a letdown, really, as I had expected some "proof" rather than yet another pronouncement from Dawkins.
I found Dawkins' arguments to be self-refuting and contradictory, e.g., he argues (see prior post):
"Everyone knows by common sense that "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is moral. You don't need a holy book to tell you that."
Which we contrast with another of his own statements:
"How do I know what is moral? I don't on the whole."
Dawkins should read some C.S. Lewis, particularly Mere Christianity, where Lewis brilliantly explains how everyone--aborigines, cultured modern Europeans, ancient civilized Chinese--divergent, varied cultures throughout time, history, and geographic region, understood the difference between Right and Wrong.
Morality is programmed into us. We are imprinted with it within us. And the source of that morality is eternal. We were made in His image.
Socrates even argued for its existence--sensing that it was real. He referred to it as the "inner oracle," which guides our decisions. He argued forcefully for its existence.
Sauron
He's just another run-of-the-mill WONKERS
BUT, if you are an athiest and you can obtain the objects of your desire by using murder or cruelty (and you know you wouldn't get caught) there is no logical reason NOT to use these methods.
Ping
Try telling that to an atheist. I think you’ll find the same respect and compassion for other individuals (in some cases more respect and compassion than the religious) as you’ll find anywhere else.
Atheists acknowledge their humanity and are constrained by the same compassion for their fellow man as any religion acknowledges. The only difference is that we believe that this compassion is not dictated to us, but created by us for the common good.
How can you talk about what all atheists feel or believe unless you've interviewed every single one on the planet? You only know about the very small number of atheists you have come into contact with. There is no universally accepted atheist manifesto. Hitler, Mao and Stalin were atheists who definately didn't feel your way. Since most people tend to run in circles who feel as they do your personal observations are meaningless. You sound like the New York socialite who says she can't believe George W. Bush won the election because "nobody I know voted for him."
Hitler, Mao and Stalin were atheists who definately(sic) didn't feel your way.
Really?
"National Socialism and religion cannot exist together"
Adolph Hitler 1942
Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure."
Adolph Hitler 1941
"The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity...."
Adolph Hitler, 1941
"Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery...."
Adolph Hitler 1941
source: Hitler's Table Talk (Adolf Hitler, London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1953)
Doesn't sound like any Christian I've ever heard of. Although Hitler may have been a Catholic in his youth, he abandoned Christianity reletively early.
The point is widely debated, but most people agree that Hitler considered himself to be a Christian. And, many Christians were attracted to the Nazis in part because of the anti-Semitism, which of course was a Christian invention.
It is a convenient myth — created by atheists and other enemies of Christianity — to claim Adolf Hitler was a Christian.
IT IS A LIE.
Adolf Hitler was an occultist who tended to revere the mythical Aryan gods of his own mind. If you know ANYTHING about the Nazi’s, they were extraordinarily enamored of seances, occult symbols and eclectic spiritual pursuits with the goal of integrating whatever “power” they might have into the service af Nazism’s perverse and quite ANTI-CHRISTIAN ideology.
It is a convenient myth — created by atheists and other enemies of Christianity — to claim Adolf Hitler was a Christian.
Why? What makes the golden rule any more moral than doing onto others before they do unto you?
In fact, shouldn't the prime imperative be whatever the "Selfish Gene" wants it to be in the world of Dawkin's?
His acknowledgement is like air pie, there's nothing under the crust but hot air. Who cares what he acknowledges, we want to know why he places greater credence in the golden rule than the prime imperative.
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