I am switching out media players (an arduous process) and came across this old post, a favorite. I suppose for me, listening to Richard Dawkins is like for others, experiencing their God.
I gained a new reverence listening to Richard Dawkins intellectually crushing however kind and eloquent responses to some of the pitifully desperate questioners from neighboring Liberty University who so creatively tried to trick Dawkins into admitting that God might exist.
Many of the questioners announced themselves as either students or faculty from Liberty, rather than from Randolph Macon which was my host institution. One by one they tried to trip me up, and one by one their failure to do so was applauded by the audience. Finally, I said that my advice to all Liberty students was to resign immediately and apply to a proper university instead. That received thunderous applause, so that I almost began to feel slightly sorry for the Liberty people. Only almost and only slightly, however.
I highly recommend listening to the whole thing here .
Religious fundamentalism is a real threat to religious expression and the survival of The Planet, especially Christian fundamentalism. You are a Christian fundamentalist if you cannot separate science and religion. That means you reject science whenever it conflicts with your particular interpretation of a bible story.
Such stubborn righteousness will kill us one way or another. Why can’t people see that religion does not belong in politics? Why can’t people find and express their inner spirituality privately? The Jews figured this out long ago.
Once upon a time it was forbidden in Judaism to even say the name of God out loud. So strong was this principle that God was spelled using a combination of Hebrew letters that were impossible to pronounce. The reason for this was that Jews believed that one’s relationship with God was so personal that the very sound of his name would contaminate that relationship.
There seems to be no shortage of Christian fundamentalist who do not know that the first five books of the Old Testament are the Jewish Torah.
I think we could all take a lesson from this. The most profound spirituality can only be found in the privacy of the inner self. The more you talk about it, the further away it goes. IOW, keep it to yourself for the sake of The Planet.
#1 by Lynette on April 7, 2007 - 9:56 pm
Major Smack Down,
The questioner says “I thank you for putting yourself on the firing line insofar as you’ve taken on God and have the opportunity that God might win.”
Firstly, the arrogance that this guy somehow knows that God might decide Dawkins loses let alone the idea that if God did exist, he would disagree with Dawkins.
Consider for a moment, if God did exist, given the fact that he has given us zero indication of his existence, would he punish the non believers?
Wouldn’t a benevolent God make himself known to the none believers (not to mention the believers) and give them a chance to change their minds instead of punishing them first for not believing a bunch of fat old men who claim some authority to be able to confirm not only that God exists, but also what God means?
#2 by The Damned on April 7, 2007 - 10:57 pm
Excellent post. I listened to the entire Dawkins speech and Q&A. I’ve never really considered the social implications of being a closet agnostic (and until now, never considered myself one). But being a disconverted Mormon, it’s often difficult for me to spend time with people who are active Mormons. They often get all Jesussy, and refer to their “father in heaven” as if it’s perfectly normal, perfectly acceptable. And knowing it will do no good to object to these people, I just nod and try to politely leave.
The other fresh thought Richard Dawkins stirred was his definition of a fundamentalist Christian as any Christian who uses his faith to refute scientific data. That was outstanding.
#3 by eye of horus on April 9, 2007 - 9:27 am
You might want to read what Russell had to say in Why I am not a Xian.
If God did exist, it would be necessary to denounce “him”.
#4 by Frank Staheli on April 9, 2007 - 10:12 am
Damned,
Are you saying that the Mormons you are around are trying to re-convert you to Mormonism? Or is it more of the type of “Jesus this” and “Heavenly Father that” because they simply think everyone is or should be just like them? If you’re not interested, I think they should lay off.
I also agree with your comment (and Cliff’s and Richard Dawkins’) that we are fundamentalist if we think that our faith must trump scientific data. I think there are (many?) Mormon fundamentalists, but I think that these are they who either don’t study the LDS gospel in very much detail, or who hold dogmatically to the LDS gospel without seeing how it compares with the world out there.
Hopefully I’m not considered by others to be a fundamentalist Mormon, but then we all have self-crafted blinders. I hope my horizons are a bit broader than what would be considered knee-jerk fundamentalism. (Cliff, et al–feel free to take pot shots if my self-analysis seems unsound!)
I haven’t watched Cliff’s video link yet, but I plan to later today. I have seen an interview of Mr. Dawkins before, and was actually very impressed with it.
I have written on Simple Utah Mormon politics about my study of his book, The God Delusion. If you are interested, you can see what I had to say by clicking here and here.
#5 by Coldbringer on April 9, 2007 - 11:53 am
I agree. Organized religion is harmful and divisive. What does keeping one’s spirituality to one’s self entail, though? Not discussing God and one’s perceived relationship to God in public, period? If that be the case, then the major players in the Torah were not very good Jews. (Moses?)
Dawkins seems to be a relatively smart guy, scientifically speaking. I wouldn’t call him a genius or anything. Philosophically speaking? I find him to be annoyingly short-sighted and rudimentary in thought. It’s somewhat less than impressive to see him debate fundamentalist Christians on the existence of God.
You would have to trick Richard Dawkins into conceding that there “might” be a God? Of course there might be a God. Trickery isn’t necessary; it’s just an obvious truth. He has admitted himself that he’s never had a spiritual experience, so why trust him to know what spirituality and belief in God entail? How would any non-believer know what it is like to believe and what evidence of the paranormal one experiences through belief?
#6 by panda on April 10, 2007 - 3:00 am
If there was a god than ,he knows he made one big mistake. And that is to put humans on this earth. He would have known that we are doomed to destroy all what lives.
And if there was a god he would have killed off all humans for the sake of this planet.
#7 by Adam Thompson on April 12, 2007 - 12:03 pm
@Panda:
Actually, if there was a God, and it was truly “all-knowing” and knew everything that was ever going to happen already, it would have known all the evil and horrors humans were going to introduce into the world, and scrapped the project before it began.