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Atheist author Richard Dawkins has made it loud and clear that he believes faith has no place in science and that a public debate between him and a creationist – of any type – is out of the question. “The objection to having debates with people like that (creationists) is that it gives them a kind of respectability,” Dawkins said during a recent appearance on the Michael Medved show. “If a real scientist goes onto a debating platform with a creationist, it gives them a respectability, which I do not think your people have earned,” he told Discovery Institute President...

We commissioned Karen Armstrong and Richard Dawkins to respond independently to the question "Where does evolution leave God?" Neither knew what the other would say. Here are the results. Karen Armstrong says we need God to grasp the wonder of our existence CLICK ON THE ABOVE LINK TO READ WHAT SHE HAS TO SAY... Richard Dawkins argues that evolution leaves God with nothing to do CLICK ON ABOVE LINK TO READ WHAT HE HAS TO SAY...

The author of The God Delusion and The Selfish Gene, whose new book, The Greatest Show on Earth, is serialised in The Times next week, has topped bestseller lists all over the world but never in a predominantly Muslim country. None of Professor Dawkins’ books, on evolution as well as religion, has ever been translated into Arabic, and his work has been heavily censored in Turkey. In an interview with The Times, he said that popularising evolution in the Islamic world, where creationist beliefs are strong, was a challenge he is keen to take up. “To be a bestseller in...

Video: RDF TV - Show me the intermediate fossils!

The so-called New Atheists are attacking the mantra of science and faith being compatible. Others in the science community question the value of confrontation.This fall, evolutionary biologist and bestselling author Richard Dawkins -- most recently famous for his public exhortation to atheism, "The God Delusion" -- returns to writing about science. Dawkins' new book, "The Greatest Show on Earth," will inform and regale us with the stunning "evidence for evolution," as the subtitle says. It will surely be an impressive display, as Dawkins excels at making the case for evolution. But it's also fair to ask: Who in the United...

Dawkins Supports First UK Atheist Kids' Camp by Christine Dao* The God Delusion author Richard Dawkins has sponsored a week-long summer camp geared towards making atheists out of children...

Britain’s Leaders Warn of the Loss of Common Values The decline of Christianity and moral values in general is reaching new lows in Britain. While the number of faithful has been decreasing for some time now, warnings about the situation are starting to come from all quarters. Britain is no longer a Christian nation, affirmed Anglican bishop, Paul Richardson, in an article published Jun. 27 in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper. The Anglican prelate was also critical of his fellow bishops for not understanding just how serious the change is in contemporary culture, and for their lack of action in dealing...

Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion, has helped launch an atheist summer camp for children. Alongside the more traditional activities of tug-of-war, swimming and canoeing, children at the five-day camp in Somerset will learn about rational scepticism, moral philosophy, ethics and evolution. Camp-goers aged eight to 17 will also be taught how to disprove phenomena such as crop circles and telepathy. In the Invisible Unicorn Challenge, any child who can prove that unicorns do not exist will win a £10 note - which features an image of Charles Darwin, the father of evolutionary theory -...

We're increasingly uncomfortable with religion these days. As a society, we tolerate pastors, priests, rabbis and other religious folks, so long as they confine their message to a vanilla "God is love" theme and bless babies, brides and caskets. But when religious leaders speak out on the issues of the day -- especially using morally tinged language -- the elite gatekeepers of public opinion in the media, government and academia warn shrilly that a new Dark Age is upon us. More and more, we see outright hostility to religion -- particularly to Christianity. Consider the wild popularity of a recent...

Evolutionary scientists feels Darwin's theory incapable of understanding scumbags  Noted atheist and evolutionary scientist Richard Dawkins believes that John Edwards is damned to hell.Dawkins, author of the God Delusion and the Selfish Gene, as well as host of The Family Feud, said the former Senator, presidential candidate, and one-time human being should be forced to pay eternally for philandering while his wife lay stricken with breast cancer.Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, has written an account of the infidelity called, Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life's Adversities. The working title, "I hope my husband's testicles drop off," was passed...

In recent days a lot of energy has been put forth by me and the site's regular contributors in an effort to keep everyone up to speed on how quickly - and demonstrably - we are moving toward the complete fulfillment of God's promise that the last days would be as they were in the days of Lot. (Luke 17:28-30) We've also discussed how there is an effort underway to silence Christians and, in doing so, the Word of God itself. As I'm going to demonstrate today, we are on the front lines of a spiritual battle here in the...

Dawkins and Design by David Catchpoole Romans 1:20 states that everyone should be able to understand that there is a Creator from what has been made, “so that men are without excuse”. But in this “Year of Darwin”, there’s no shortage of outspoken Darwin adulators who unashamedly proclaim the world was not created. Surely the best known of these is Richard Dawkins. In his book The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins wrote: “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose”, then proceeds to argue that they were not. Dawkins has vociferously continued...

-- snip -- The atheist bus campaign began in England with London comedy writer Ariane Sherine and signs that read "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." Funds were collected by the British Humanist Association, and Richard Dawkins pledged to match donations up to £5,500. The ads are on some 600 buses and in many tube stations. So far only one bus driver has refused to drive his bus because of the ads. -- snip -- The idea for an atheist bus campaign is now global and includes nations in Europe, Australia, North America, and South...

Alas, poor Richard. Ever since being thrashed by Ben Stein in Expelled he's just gotten more and more nonsensical. Then, it was that there is no intelligent design of life, except of course maybe alien-directed intelligent design. Now, it seems he has decided to follow some recent sage advice and avoid using the “d” word. And, he’s scrapped his previous idea of using designoid as a replacement. Then Dawkins got to the essential framework of the rest of his talk, making a distinction within purpose between the purpose that comes about as adaptation via natural selection, which he called “archi-purpose”,...

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Seven-time Pro Bowl safety Brian Dawkins had a hard time not looking back Saturday after signing with the Denver Broncos following a 13-year run with the Philadelphia Eagles.

  Professor Richard Dawkins told the launch ceremony that the existence of God was as likely as the tooth fairy     The archsceptic professor Richard Dawkins today launched Britain's first atheist campaign posting the message: "There's probably no God. So stop worrying and enjoy your life" on the side of 800 British buses. The posters – launched in conditions cold enough to freeze a presumably non-existent hell over – co-incided with the Christian feast of the Epiphany, when according to tradition three magi from the East presented the baby Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Dr...

How real are you? Mary MidgleyHas science shown that people are, in some sense, an illusion? According to Mary Midgley, that is precisely what some scientists now preach. Focusing particularly on a claim made by Richard Dawkins, she explains why she believes these scientists are making a serious mistake.On being a semi-illusionAre you quite real? Are you (that is) at least as real as the parts that you are composed of - your cells, your genes, your molecules and electrons and quarks and the notions that are passing through your mind? Or are they more real than you? This may...

Antidisestablishmentarianism is on the march. Which is odd, considering there is only the faintest whiff of disestablishmentarianism to fight. The Archbishop of Canterbury set this hare running with his usual confused mumbling into his beard. To disestablish the church would be "by no means the end of the world", he said bravely. He hastened to add that he did not want the church sundered from the state right now. And he would oppose "secularists [boo, hiss] trying to push religion into the private sphere". This sent the Telegraph and Mail into a spin, claiming a devilish distestablishment plot on the...

God has had a lot of bad press recently. The four horsemen of atheism, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, have all published books sharply critical of belief in God: respectively, The God Delusion, Breaking the Spell, The End of Faith, and God Is Not Great. Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens pile on the greatest amount of scorn, while Dennett takes the role of good cop. But despite differences of tone and detail, they all agree that belief in God is a kind of superstition. As Harris puts it, religion “is the denial—at once full of hope and...

Some years ago, the evolutionist and atheist Richard Dawkins pointed out to me that Sir Isaac Newton, the founder of modern physics and mathematics, and arguably the greatest scientist of all time, was born on Christmas Day, and that therefore Newton’s Birthday could be an alternative, if somewhat nerdy, excuse for a winter holiday. Think of the merchandise! Newton is said to have discovered the phenomenon of gravity by watching apples fall in an orchard. (His insight came after pondering why they always fall down, rather than upwards or sideways.) Newton’s Birthday cards could feature the great man discovering gravity...