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 ...
Yeah, I’ll give you that whole post.
If you are afraid to give a concrete example because you realize it won’t stand up to scrutiny, don’t worry—I will only reply in a respectful and honest way.
Here’s how I understand it. Please keep in mind I’m a student and not an expert on this.
The seed of woman is Jesus Christ, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, not man. The woman is of course Mary.
I find it fascinating how it worked out. Adam disobeyed God, but Eve was merely deceived by the serpent. Because of this circumstance, Jesus as seed of woman is pure.
Christ dying on the cross represents the bruising of his heel, and Christ’s defeat of sin is the bruising of the serpent’s head. (Head injury = fatal injury).
No, that’s about a straight as it gets. You have your beliefs, I have mine, someone else has there’s...and there’s no way to prove them without taking the leap of faith that the other requires. Scrutinize all you want.
For an example, you believe it to be true, that Jesus came back from the dead, I don’t. You believe it to be true, that Jesus forgives sin, I don’t. Jews believe to be true, the tenets of their religion as do Hindus, Muslims, etc.
What would you consider to be a concrete example?
Yes, those are concrete examples, thank you.
Taking your example of Christ’s resurrection, we can see that it describes an event. So we can understand that it is either a real event or an unreal event.
Either the Resurrection happened, or it did not.
If I believe it really occurred in history but you believe it didn’t, only one of us can be right. We cannot both believe the truth while holding opposite views.
This explains how there cannot be multiple truths; reality provides exclusively for the contrary, that there is only one truth.
Careful, you’re both falling into the trap set by the left, it’s been happening for many years. Remember, every word that has ever been invented is a “blanket” term in that words are abstract representations of concrete realities.
Remember “It depends on what the meaning of the word is is” by Bill Clinton? The left thinks they can hoodwink everyone else if they deny the meaning of words, but their only real accomplishment is to reveal the meaninglessness of their ideology—thus fooling themselves.
Avoid this by letting the simple stay simple:
Atheism is the assertion that God doesn’t exist.
Agnosticism is the claim that one has absolutely no idea whether or not God exists.
—Atheism is the assertion that God doesn’t exist.
Agnosticism is the claim that one has absolutely no idea whether or not God exists.—
Thank you. And yes. You were right about us falling into the trap.
And I repeat, I’ve never actually met a “real” atheist face to face. They make the claim at first but on further questioning they ALWAYS say something like, “Well, I guess I’m really more agnostic than atheist.” Every single time.
But there are a LOT of “atheists” on the internets. ;-)
True, there cannot be multiple occurences of the same event. We’re not talking about physical events in this conversation though, are we? We’re talking about our souls, our beliefs, our moral truths if you will, right?
I don't feel the need to put myself into a category or define myself with a word that was invented by someone else.
Agnosticism is the claim that one has absolutely no idea whether or not God exists.
My definition is more accurate. It is not a belief that one "doesn't know" about the existence of god, it is the belief that the answer to such a question in "unknowable".
I'm not trying to start a huge argument about this, because like I said, these are just words.
But you're confused about what agnosticism means. It doesn't mean "I don't know".
To put it another way, atheists and theists (which includes all monotheistic religions) agree on something. They agree that the answer to whether or not God exists can be found by observing, studying, and critically analyzing the universe around us. They believe that the existence of God, or the non-existence of God is something that we can investigate and come to an educated conclusion. So atheists and theists agree that there is evidence in the universe that can allow them to make an educated assumption. They just disagree on the conclusion; the atheist says that evidence points to there being no God, and the theist says that evidence points to there absolutely being a God, one who has revealed himself.
Now, way out on the other end of the playing field, is agnosticism, and it's TOTALLY different. The agnostic says that there is no way that you could ever make an educated assumption about the existence of a God, because any such question is so far and above the ability of human understanding that the question is almost not worth asking.
Now, there's plenty of room for atheists and theists to have doubts about their positions. A lot of atheists will say that they don't believe in God, there's no evidence for a God, the belief in God is non-cognitive, etc., but there's no way to know for sure. And theists, Christians and the like, talk about doubt quite a bit.
But having a belief one way that is infused with doubt does NOT make you an agnostic.
Judge a tree by it’s fruit.
An atheist is dangerous to his fellow man, because of his spiritual viewpoint. He is his own god. And that makes him seriously dangerous to mankind. Think Pol Pot or Stalin.
An agnostic just isn’t sure. A Christian is, and an atheist is. If you’re not sure, then you are an agnostic.
Regarding Christians having doubt, it is the specifics of our belief in which we have doubt. e.g. I’m a mid-tribulationist, but I acknowledge that I may be interpreting prophesy wrong. That puts me in very good company, however, because even the apostle Paul, religious scholar though he was, didn’t “see the lignt”, literally until confronted by Jesus himself.
There are very few atheists.
This is just absolute crap. You're demonstrating that you also don't understand atheism either.
An agnostic just isn’t sure. A Christian is, and an atheist is.
This whole idea of being "sure" is something you've invented in your mind. NOBODY is sure, and not being sure doesn't make you an agnostic, as I've already explained in detail; detail which you chose to ignore.
In your worldview, the non-believer is more dangerous than the child molester. While the child molester might violate the child in this life, a non-believer could state an opinion that changes your child's mind about Christianity, and damn their souls for eternity. You would then, by all rational accounts be justified in killing someone so dangerous, simply because they have a different opinion about the existence of God.
So no buddy, actually your viewpoint is more dangerous to mankind, and we have several millennia of religious wars, conflict, and genocide to prove it.
And don't regurgitate this crap about Pol Pot and Stalin killing in the name of atheism. They co-opted religious idealism and transplanted it to a cult of personality; Stalinism and the Khymer Rouge were religious fanatics, to the religion of the state.
I challenge you to tell me where men have committed genocide in the name of Einstein, Spinoza, Jefferson, Paine, and Carl Sagan. Don't look long, because you won't find them.
Sir, I respect you and your opinion. For this reason I would like to offer you what I think is the truth.
Let’s look at the Greek roots of “agnostic.”
“a” means without
“gno” means to know
“ic” means like or having the nature of
So agnostic means “having the nature of that without knowledge.” There is no Greek root in there meaning “ability” or “ability to have knowledge.”
Friend, this is not about defining you, it’s about defining words.
We’re talking about something internal—our beliefs, in the context of how they are necessarily dependent on something external—for example an object, or in this case a physical event.
Whether a belief (internal) is true depends on whether the object (external) is factual.
Dawkins is a believer just like I am. We simply have different belief systems. He believes in the power of nothing to create universes and morality. I believe that the Good Lord did that. I am agnostic in the power of nothing to do anything and faithful that when I pass my agnosticism in nothing will be justified.
Lol, religious belief requires a deity, your Godless commie, amoral examples do not fit that bill. The bill they fit along with Mao, Lenin and Trotsky was atheistic murdering bastards who killed more human beings in a month than all religions combined killed in history.
The species we are did not come about in one or two generations.
Nice Yarn...
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