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 ...
If that is what you prefer to believe about my comments, fine.
While I’m sure the documents themselves are, but are you sure the content of those documents describing the events, are valid? Did a man write them?
How do you even know the supernatural exists? You have factual evidence?
It’s not very hard to believe that a man lived in Rome, is it?
Is it necessary to keep the truth of your beliefs a secret? If I misinterpret them, please correct me.
All documents of history were written by a man, or a woman.
In the first picoseconds of the Big Bang, the laws of nature were being created. They were created by something other than themselves, which establishes the necessary existence of the supernatural.
It’s not hard to believe Julius Caesar lived in Rome because it is documented historically, just as the Resurrection is documented historically.
http://www.harvardhouse.com/correlate_1.htm
By the way, there are no items from the Old or New Testaments that have ever been contradicted by archeological evidence discovered over the centuries. None!
I don’t have any truths about my beliefs, they are what they are...beliefs, not truths. Please, feel free to interpret them any way you wish, as it really doesn’t matter.
Of course all documents were written by man. Just as you interpret what I say as you do, others interpret things as they do...or even embellish things they write!
As I said, it’s not hard to believe a man lived in Rome, but it is hard, to millions of people over the years, that a man came back from the dead. Don’t ask just me why, ask everyone that doesn’t believe it.
There is archeological evidence that your sins were forgiven by a man that was born to a virgin, performed miracles, and came back from the dead?
I would rather you state your beliefs, instead of me having to interpret them.
The accuracy and reliability of any individual historian can be established. The New Testament writers are considered by the vast majority of scholars to be highly reliable and accurate.
There is historical and forensic evidence for the forgiveness of sins, for the virgin birth of Jesus, and for the Resurrection.
All the arguments I’ve seen against the particulars of this evidence go out of their way to avoid facing concrete details. They simply don’t give their opposing response for example to the empty tomb, or to the fact that it belonged to Joseph of Arimathea, or to the behavior of the disciples in the weeks and years following the crucifixion.
Again, I believe that God instills in each of us the individual beliefs that He wants us to have according to His plan.
Forensic evidence for the forgiveness of sins? Please explain.
Forensic evidence for the forgiveness of sin:
1. relevant prophesy and statements by Jesus in Holy Scripture
2. ownership of Christ’s tomb by Joseph of Arimathea
3. Christ’s empty tomb
4. the behavior of the disciples following the crucifixion
The last piece of the puzzle here has to do with the fact that the above evidence points to the most likely explanation which is that Christ rose from the dead.
So in the larger scheme, we have the Creator sending his son to die on the cross and then raising him from the dead while offering the promise that this will bring forgiveness of sin to all who believe. Once it’s established that God came through on his promise to raise Jesus from the dead, the most rational thing by far is to take God at his word that the part about forgiving sin is also true.
And none of that requires a leap of faith, right. You have to actually establish that God did raise Jesus from the dead. Unfortunately, people say they don’t believe it.Then where are you? Youthen have to establish that what the book said was right, then people ask to prove that, all of this reqires leaps of faith. It’s circular, because all someone has to say is prove it, and you say because it’s written, then people say prove what was written is correct...etc
If that is what you call forensic evidence of the forgiveness of sins,I hope your not a lawyer. It’s not even posible to prove sin exists!
I’m sorry, but your just not going to be the one human on earth that can prove any of this and end up with millions of converts that finally believe. This conversation has been going on forever, you have nothing new to bring to the table.
I know this means a lot to you, so you should of course keep pursuing it, there are worse windmills to be tilting at.
Good nite and thanks.
The nature of the motive for sharing my opinion with you could be (primarily) one of two types: internally directed or externally directed.
That is, either I’m doing it for myself or I’m doing it for something other than myself. Other than myself could include the sake of God, your sake and the sake of truth.
As we discussed earlier, belief initiates not from intellect but from will.
They say the very demons themselves know the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ factually, but they reject belief in the sense that they reject the ethos of belief in Christ. Like “Do you believe in Rock and Roll” doesn’t mean do you think it exists, it means are you with it in your heart.
Some hearts choose to deny God. Some only think they do this, not knowing that down the road they will turn to Him, for whatever reason explainable only through the mystery of free will, a reason known only by the Holy Spirit.
You said that belief initiates not from intellect but from will, not me.
Who are they, that actually, really know, anything factual about demons?
To say that belief initiates from will before intellect is simply another way of describing the principle of bias, which is well established in modern science. It’s the principle behind what’s used almost universally in research known as the “double blind” method. The purpose is to eliminate the bias of the observer due to the fact that belief initiates from will before intellect.
Whether or not demons are fact or fantasy doesn’t matter here. The point is to illustrate that it’s possible to believe in the fact of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour while refusing to believe in the ethos of it.
ok
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