“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.”
Rational mantis
Richard Dawkins - AlJazeera English
watching this is like watching a kid being told that there is no Santa Clause.
Fighting The Good Fight
Richard Dawkins Explaining Evolution to Students
Richard Dawkins on ‘the arrogance of religious persons’
The atheist and author of a new book on evolution talks with On Faith’s Sally Quinn about how evolution may have led to religion and belief in God.
Debate: Intelligence Squared - Atheism is the new fundamentalism. feat. Richard Dawkins.
For the first time, this Intelligence Squared debate was live-streamed over the internet, allowing people to watch, and participate, from anywhere in the world. The online audience’s vote is included below.
Initial Vote: For 333, Against 675, Undecided 389
Final Vote: For 363, Against 1070, Undecided 85
Final Online Vote: For 37, Against 889, Undecided 12
The motion proposes that “atheism is the new fundamentalism”, i.e., atheism has replaced religion as the new faith of the secular age, exploring the notion that modern atheism is itself guilty of the very dogma and belief in its own infallibility which it scorns in the religious community.
Speaking for the motion are Richard Harries and Charles Moore.
Richard Harries outlines the features and the history of fundamentalism, arguing that many of the criteria required for it are in fact apparent in today’s atheists. He portrays a set of people with narrow views, arguing against a specific view of God, who forget that some of the greatest philosophy, art, poetry and music has been inspired and supported by Christianity – the very belief system that is accused of restricting the creative process by its refusal to allow for ‘the grand perhaps’ (Browning).
Charles Moore insists that his opponents cannot see the true complexity of the argument, and that they emphasise the physical and the scientific aspect of humanity at the cost of any spiritual understanding. He criticises Richard Dawkins for embodying this crude and narrow pursuit of literal truth above all else.
Opposing the motion are A.C. Grayling and Richard Dawkins.
Professor Grayling maintains that since 9/11, the nature of the debate on religious commitment has become far more serious. He distinguishes between atheism, secularism and humanism. He refutes Moore’s suggestion that atheists cannot fully understand the complexity of the religious experience, insisting that many atheists understand it all too well, having been brought up in a religious family or community.
Richard Dawkins defines fundamentalism as the following: blind obedience to scripture regardless of evidence, allied to extremism. He argues that far from being entrenched fundamentalists, atheists have a commitment to exploring evidence, and a readiness to embrace change, and that we should not mistake the passion of their arguments or their refusal to remain silent for fundamentalism.
video here - intelligencesquared
Richard Dawkins on evolution. CNN
Richard Dawkins’ singing debut!
Children who front Richard Dawkins’ atheist ads are evangelicals
“I think it is hilarious that the happy and liberated children on the atheist poster are in fact Christian.” - Gerald Coates, the leader of the Pioneer network of churches,
The two children chosen to front Richard Dawkins’s latest assault on God could not look more free of the misery he associates with religious baggage. With the slogan “Please don’t label me. Let me grow up and choose for myself”,…
Their father, Brad Mason, is something of a celebrity within evangelical circles as the drummer for the popular Christian musician Noel Richards…
He said: “It is quite funny, because obviously they were searching for images of children that looked happy and free. They happened to choose children who are Christian. It is ironic. The humanists obviously did not know the background of these children.”
He said that the children’s Christianity had shone through. “Obviously there is something in their faces which is different. So they judged that they were happy and free without knowing that they are Christians. That is quite a compliment. I reckon it shows we have brought up our children in a good way and that they are happy.”….
continue reading…Times Online
Dr. Richard Dawkins Mocks Ray Comfort (the Banana-Wielding Retard).
At Richard Dawkins’ lecture regarding his new book, “The Greatest Show on Earth,” he was asked a question pertaining to one of Ray Comfort’s more stunningingly idiotic undertakings. Dawkins’ reply is quite humorous. The lecture was held at the Isabel Bader theatre in Toronto, on September 29th, 2009.
Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins on the case for evolution, interviewed by Allan Gregg
“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people…. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.”
