Posted on 07/01/2007 1:31:54 PM PDT by SirLinksalot
"The God Delusion" Debate
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
The Alys Stephens Center
Birmingham, Alabama
Remaining true to our goal of engaging secular culture on critical issues in a thoughtful, respectful manner, Fixed Point Foundation will sponsor a debate on what is arguably the most critical question of our time: the existence of God. The decision one makes regarding this question has implications that reverberate throughout eternity to be sure, but it also affects temporal existence from government policy to the individual. Historically, man’s belief in the transcendent has served as a restraint on his conduct and provided hope for his future. Now, it is argued, “God is dead”, and man can do very well without him.
The debate will feature 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 the Bible? The book will be published this fall.
The debate will center on Dawkins' views as expressed in his best-seller, The God Delusion and their validity over and against the Christian faith. This will be the first significant discussion on this issue in the "Bible Belt." Consequently, we believe that it will focus much public attention on this important issue.
For more information, contact us at info@fixed-point.org.
Here is a background of Dawkins’ debating opponent (including his picture):
http://www.ttf.org/index/about/lennox/
Dr. John Lennox is a Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy and Chaplain at Green College Oxford and Senior Fellow of the Whitefield Institute in Oxford.
He studied at Cambridge University, from which he holds the degrees of M.A. and Ph.D. and was subsequently Reader in Pure Mathematics at the University of Wales, where he was awarded the DSc degree. Dr. Lennox has been a Senior Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Universities of Wuerzburg and Freiburg in Germany and a visiting professor at Universities of Vienna, Alberta and Bar Ilan. He has lectured in many universities abroad, including in the former Soviet Union (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Kiev, Minsk, etc.) as an invitee of the Academy of Sciences. He has published over 70 articles on Algebra (Group Theory) and co-authored one major research monograph. He is currently writing a further major research monograph for Oxford University Press and lectures in the Mathematical Institute of Oxford University.
As Senior Fellow of the Whitefield Institute, Dr. Lennox is interested in the frontier areas of Science, Philosophy, and Theology and has lectured on Christian apologetics (particularly on the Science-Religion debate) in many universities and Academies of Science. He has also written articles on such topics for the secular press, particularly in Russia. He is co-author of a number of books including: Christianity: Opium or Truth?, Key Biblical Concepts, The Bible and Moral Education, and The Definition of Christianity, each of which has been published in a number of languages.
He and his wife Sally have three grown-up children and live near Oxford.
I also think that it is not "bashing" to critique a religion (or anything else). Many christians think that (their) religion should be allowed more sway in our government and society, and atheists would naturally be opposed to that. But merely stating those objections and the reasons for them cannot truthfully be called "bashing".
“atheism is short for autotheism.”
you said it. dangerous people when the “electorate” falls for the party line. of late, it seems that more than 50 percent of them are swallowing the hook, along with the line and sinker. (can’t wait to see what happens in the next election.)
I didn’t know we had a “community”.
Ok. Fellowship of nonbelievers?
Community, fellowship...whatever works for you.
And until you start paying your membership dues to me, you'll both continue to be excluded from all our atheist field trips and shall be threatened with a non-eternity of non-suffering in the non-great picnic of the afterlife, where you won't be turned into a KFC Chicken & Biscuit Bowl and cast down into a mass of slightly inebriated demons armed with insatiable appetites and beryllium sporks.
Remember - united we find things to argue about, divided we find more important things to do with our lives.
Mmmm... biscuits.
UNLESS he was made that way from the beginning.. and did not evolve at all.. Either way, man seeks God and as far as recorded history tells us, he always did.. Maybe those that DO NOT seek God are operating on a primitive level.. You know, like an animal..
It was just a thought.. but as possible as Survival of the fittest.. actually MORE probable..
ABSURD!! They are too chicken shit to knock Mohammed and his cult
Mostly we look at believers like all of us at FR look at Hillary Clinton supporters-- total bewilderment at how their mind processes information.
Because Allah, and Islam, are no threat. It is Christ who triggers rage in the hearts of men who don't know Him because, as He said:
19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, (Romans 1: 19,20).
God has instilled in the heart of every man, woman, and child knowledge of Him and holds man inexcusable for denying Him. However, the more a person rejects God, the more blinded he becomes:
3 But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. (2 Corinthinians 4:,4)
The reason why atheists do not target Islam is because the god of Islam is not the God of Scripture and does not trigger the visceral anger that Christ does and because the god of Islam is the god who does not hold men accountable for sin and who does not make atheists feel uncomfortable.
Satan has to shut Christ up to keep as many people as possible away from Him and doomed for eternity, and that's why they go after Christ and the people who love Him and follow Him.
“I would, if they were trying to install sharia law in the US.”
Many of them are. Much more so than the Christian community within the West.
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