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 ...
Perhaps He creates souls, but what you call our knowledge of Him, is inaccurate. Perhaps our free will is pre-determined and the idea of our having faith really doesn’t matter to Him.
It’s not clear what you mean by that. Please give an example of the difference between the scenario in which there is one truth and the alternative.
The idea that God doesn’t care about people having faith is an idea without any sense. It’s like saying Shakespeare didn’t care about writing stories. If you didn’t realize it made no sense, then I hope you enjoy knowing it can now be discarded.
But if nonsense is your goal, then please come out and admit it from the beginning.
So how do you think you could make someone believe what you believe, regarding this particular topic of discussion?
News Flash to Dickie Dawkins:
If you sincerely talk to God, tell Him you want to know the truth, and ask Him to reveal Himself to you; He will. He will speak to your spirit, and/or lead you to get into His Word, the Bible, and in a relatively short while you will KNOW that He is real. From that point, just submit to His Word and the leading of His Spirit in your inner man.
Gods gives each of us our own truth (perhaps soul) when He creates us. These truths are not all the same. God is in each of us, in His and our, own, unique way.
Why is it without sense? Is it knowledge of that or a belief? Is it a knowledge that you can impart to someone without their having to make a leap of faith?
It’s not at all like Shakespeare. It’s God, not a man, we’re talking about. Can you really compare the two?
Why would I even try?
Why do you post these comments?
God is a person, known from history to the present.
A known person has known characteristics. These define who the person is.
To say God doesn’t want faith is to change who God is. It’s to say God is not God, which is logically incoherent.
I know there are academics and philosophers, like Jacque Derrida and his followers, who taught people to be logically incoherent, but this technique only lead to the opposite of what these philosophers sought in the first place. Maybe you’re influenced by Derrida, this can happen without a person realizing it. It’s the nature of his silly ideology.
You speak of God as one truth. This is a final and absolute contradiction of the “many truths” idea, because to speak of God is to speak of “that than which nothing greater can be thought.” (Anselm)
Because it’s a subject that I find interesting.
Why did you respond to my comment out of nowhere, 6 months after the thread stopped? If you didn’t want to read what I had to say, you shouldn’t have addressed me.
To be accurate, you should replace known with believed in.
A believed in person also has characteristics...any characteristics that people care to assign.
As you say, the truth is the truth. Obviously then, what people say about God, really can’t change who He is, can it?
I’ve never heard of Derrida.
One truth per individual soul...many truths for mankind
Here's your proof. Of course, western civilization is based on chr*stianity which is based in "faith," so no wonder everyone is so confused.
Why do you use the word “God” when speaking of that than which nothing greater can be known?
It’s because you’re using conventional knowledge, which is the same source that tells us God desires people to have faith.
If you’re going to reject the use of conventional knowledge, then you cannot use the name “God.” You can’t use language, period.
But this makes no sense. How can there be only one truth for a believer in many truths?
Are the many truths not in fact truths? In that case, the many truths theory cannot exist.
Do you think it’s possible that a person can desire a belief to be true, even when the belief is both false and harmful to the believer?
A very old book, written by man, is not really the kind of proof that can convince non-believers, obviously. The Torah requires a belief that this really happened and that it is accurate, doesn’t it?
What word should I use?
Conventional knowledge, apparently is not universal.
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