Posted on 02/24/2012 10:12:20 AM PST by SeekAndFind
He is regarded as the most famous atheist in the world but last night Professor Richard Dawkins admitted he could not be sure that God does not exist.
He told the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, that he preferred to call himself an agnostic rather than an atheist. The two men were taking part in a public “dialogue” at Oxford University at the end of a week which has seen bitter debate about the role of religion in public life in Britain. Last week Baroness Warsi, the Tory party chairman, warned of a tide of “militant secularism” challenging the religious foundations of British society. The discussion, in Sir Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre, attracted attention from around the world. As well as being relayed to two other theatres, it was streamed live on the internet and promoted fierce debate on the Twitter social network.
For an hour and 20 minutes the two men politely discussed "The nature of human beings and the question of their ultimate origin" touching on the meaning of consciousness, the evolution of human language – and Dr Williams’s beard.
For much of the discussion the Archbishop sat quietly listening to Prof Dawkins’s explanations of human evolution.
At one point he told the professor that he was “inspired” by “elegance” of the professor’s explanation for the origins of life – and agreed with much of it. Prof Dawkins told him: “What I can’t understand is why you can’t see the extraordinary beauty of the idea that life started from nothing – that is such a staggering, elegant, beautiful thing, why would you want to clutter it up with something so messy as a God?”
CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
With God, all things are possible, right?
You and others may assert that the Torah was (chas vechalilah!) "written by man," but that assertion is not self-evidently true.
That you may very well be ignorant of the traditional understanding of the Torah as entirely written by G-d and then dictated to Moses letter-for-letter is lamentable, but understandable. However, with the Internet at your disposal there is no longer any excuse to remain uninformed on these topics. Please do a little research before posting further assertions.
Thank you.
Sure, why not? A belief isn’t really knowledge, is it?
An assertion is just that, nothing else.
Traditional understandings, are nothing more than assertions themselves, aren’t they?
Logical incoherence is not a Godly phenomenon.
To say something is not universal presumes the existence of the universal.
The existence of the universal refutes the existence of “many truths.”
I sounds like you’re stating that a belief is sort of knowledge and sort of not.
How do you know?
Maybe what you consider logical incoherence, is not that at all to God?
Perhaps it’s one of those things you mentioned earlier, that we just can’t understand about God?
The existence of the universal (God), does not refute the existence of different truths for different individuals.
ie, God, the universal truth, instills different truths in each of us. Those individual truths are universal only in that they are between God and the individual, not between all men.
Yes, to the individual, it probably is considered knowledge if one believes strong enough. To others, it’s not knowledge, but a belief.
God is the source of all coherence, logical or otherwise.
Examples of God’s idea of logical coherence (cause and effect) can probably be found in every page of the Bible.
Here’s one: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” (John 5:24)
And:
“ Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you shall go,
And you shall eat dust
All the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”
(Genesis 3:14-15)
OK, thanks
I think the “different truths” idea should be clarified with a specific example.
But why would a person desire to believe something that is both false and harmful to the believer?
What I believe and what you believe are individuallly different. If we believe in them enough, we call them truths.
I have no idea. You would have to ask someone that has a belief that is both false and harmful to them.
I heard once that that Genesis passage was the first prophecy of Christ, but I’ve never understood the connection.
It all comes down to whether or not you think the question of Gold's existence is inherently knowable.
If you think that God probably does not exist and that there's no evidence for a sentient Supreme Being, but also that we'll never know for sure, then you are both an atheist and an agnostic.
If you believe that God does not exist, you are an agnostic. If you KNOW he doesn’t, you are an atheist. I’ve “met” plenty of atheists on the internet. I’ve never personally met an Atheist, but I’ve meat plenty who claim to be - at first.
It’s interesting that nobody was making the distinction you make until relatively recently. I think it is the “refining” of the message as holes are found in it.
This is not an accurate description of agnosticism.
These are all semantic games anyway; these terms are all devised by men to describe certain belief systems, and since everyone's beliefs are relatively unique, blanket terms don't really frame good discussion.
Who cares what the word is? People can hold certain tenets of many different defined belief systems.
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