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  • If the bible was the perfect book, it shouldn't need interpretation, it should be perfect for all time

  • francesca is my deity

  • Richard Dawkins is nothing more than a puppet of satan on earth. He is deeply deceived and the power of satan over him is so obvious. The problem is he has gained and convinced many in the lies he believes. The bible can never and will never be replaced simply because its the inspired Word of God, and there is nothing you or him behind you can do Richie.

  • The religious folk really don't get it. Morals do not come from the bible!

  • BURY

  • This s a very interesting debate. Thanks for uploading.

  • Cant understand why some people class the bible as proof that god exists and take it so seriously. Some old man who lived on top of a mountain a couple of thousand years ago may have written it for a laugh

  • apparently Brad Shoemaker was in the audience

  • God is very real. And deserves total and complete respect and honor. Like wise, His only Son, Jesus Christ. I know when He returns. I'm going to bow down to worship Him. That , my friends is the only way you can understand, what God is saying in the Bible. All the secrets of the world and its history God has freely given to thous that love His Son

  • @JDrosa1982 Kill yourself.

  • Problem is not the bible, the problem is the people, who take the bible literally.

  • If the bible is revised and our views on it changes every generation, therefore it is reasonable to suggest in the future parts of the bible will be rejected. Therefore some of the lessons learnt from the bible now will later be discovered as wrong. So how can we judge our morality on a book which we say is the absolute truth whilst knowing that in the past it has been wrong and will most probably be wrong in the future?

  • The bible, a lawbook of morals and ethics, open for interpretation.

    Well what does modern people do with laws that can be interpretated. We change them or chuck them out and make new ones. That's exactly where the bible needs to be in any other context than cultural and perhaps historically. The trashbin.

  • Uh oh Richard Dawkins is a genius!!! RUUUUN!!!

  • Dawkins is full of........ SENCE!

    Love his Comments

  • athiests are lowlife scum they are possessed by satan they are deluded and only the love of jesus can save them

  • @daveywhippet How Christian of you.

  • I have to say that after listening to all the Arguments, despite being an Anti-Theist, that Francesca is Gorgeous.

  • The Right Reverend Stephen Lowe made the Brilliant argument on behalf of all Atheists. The Bible was written in the Past, and for the Past.

  • I wish Dawkins would Hulk out and smash all these people.

  • I actually kinda liked the scholar chick up to now, when she proved she didn't even understand what "ignorant" means.

    Poor Richard. What a headache-inducing waste of time for him.

  • I'm speechless .. Game Over..

  • I love the way RD speaks!

  • I'm a Christian but the girl in white is really cute.

  • what is the difference between doing what the bible says and doing what god or jesus says? I mean isn't what they said what the bible says? The religious people seem retarded.

  • I've watched near enough every Richard Dawkins video on YouTube and that terrible tie has made too many appearances, I think they should debate that instead.

  • my very worst experiences in life have all been with religious people. They have had by far the very lowest moral standards both in dealing with other people at a personal level and also in fields such as business ethics. I strongly suspect this comes from, or is conveyed by the poor moral qualities found in the bible frankly.

  • @trident3b

    I totally agree - my older brother is gay and so is my cousin, and it drives me up the wall to see in the US how religious people are dedicated to ruining their lives by constantly fighting against their inalienable right to be recognized as human, deserving of legal and social equality.

  • At 1.17 "and that's why we need to be constantly re-examining etc." this then proves that the document is basically useless. Imagine looking at a bus timetable and re-examining it all the time. Either it has meaning or not. Otherwise we can write anything we want, even a new bible, and then just keep re-examining it and reinterpreting it to suit our purposes over the next few million years. This whole business is so out of place in a modern world.

  • @pressatodie i was thinking the exact same thing...the huge irony is that those who were offended by the term 'ignorant' seem to be ignorant of the very meaning of the word...it also kills me how professor dawkins is often accused of being strident, when it's the religious apologists who are constantly interrupting and raising their voices, while he remains a perfect gentleman the whole time.

  • @dubcrisis Absolutely agree

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  • I wish when they would talking about replacing or rewriting the bible, someone would have pointed out that it has been alter throught the centuries already. I take dawkins,Humanist and the primatologist on this one. You cant follow a book that had been changed by people and have picked and choose what when in and out of it hundreds of years after the fact and say it was from god! As per usual the religous people used circular reasoning to defend there positions.

  • That's what the Mormons do. That is why they are so successful. They keep updating. However, in the 21st century, we should get to a point to not need a god to tell us what is right and what we should do.

  • Why did Dawkins put up with 3:00? He could have put the intellectual smack down on everyone there. The people back then didn't know what Atoms were. Hell they didn't even know what Germs were. They were shockingly ignorant.

    The people on the show all jumped on the word ignorant as a base for an attack, he should have just whipped it out from under them. They would be left with a leg to stand on.

  • @PressA2Die I agree.When the lady said they have different knolage back then and dawkins says its just plain wrong, he was so write.The world was alot different back then. people learned through science about the world and now the bible seems to have gone though a guide book into heaven now into a book of interpretation messages,even though it has been edited and changed for centuries.How can anyone say this is knolage after they learn about the bibles history.God still needs to be proven anyway

  • weve got people here who are experts in truth and experts in myth

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  • 11:01 - 11:03 - damn she's hot

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  • Could someone tell the rabbi it's time to take her christmas cracker hat off?

  • genius, yeah right....

  • Francesca is more relevant than the Bible ;-)

  • "Every human being has a moral sense implanted in them by God" 7:49

    This statement is the quintessence of the ignorance of the religious. There is no anthropological evidence that 'God' has implanted a moral code into each individual.It is a basic survival instinct, dictated through the principles of kin-altruism. What other way would a tribe be most likely to survive other than to work in a co operative manner?The Bishop is transplanting his own world view onto a subject he knows little of.

  • @FieldHag LOL!

  • It's really funny of the bishop saying that Christianity is growing in Africa, Latin America, Asia. All parts of the world of Third world countries where economy and education is lacking. Why didn't he mention Europe or North America? Or East Asia? I know why because Christianity is in decline in the first world where people are more and more educated.

  • I doubt humans left to themselves will last 2000 years. They would have committed global suicide way before then, through nuclear war and whatever else.

    In fact I doubt humanity would make it to the 22nd century.

  • None of these people should even speak about the Bible. Not even the Christians or

    so called Christians, because they clearly don't understand it.

    Understanding is the Key. To obtain that key you have to approach it with a different attitude.

  • I love when I leave a comment summarizing a video and come back months later to see it's the highest rated.

  • It must have been so hard for Dawkins to sit through that. No wonder he didn't say much, there was not much of a point to! They are never going to get it...

  • Lol 'these geniuses that put the bible together': I've never laughed so hard! Yeah what a good idea! Fucking desert einsteins!

  • "canabalism" among Indigneous peoples in South America? Same ol' hateful lies christians have and still are promoting in the 21st century. That's why christianity is a hateful belief system used to demonize ''others'' of their humanity.

  • Reinterpreting the text? why bother...just write some new shit! 

  • This is a competition of words, not thoughts. With an audience like that, we need to summon the hitch

  • Francesca almost challenged Dawkins' thinking. Got to give her props for that. I seriously doubt that anyone else has gotten that close to making him challenge himself. (Dawkins kicks ass)

  • @nivekeryas

    Yea she did, but it was based upon a misinterpretation of what Dawkins said. He used the word "ignorant" which everybody assumed to be pejorative. What he meant to say (I believe), was that they were ignorant in the sense that they lacked the knowledge we have today of science.

    So it was just a communication hindrance of misinterpretation.

  • Empathy and love are such wonderful feelings which developed in hundreds of thousands of years. I think it is utterly disgusting putting wizadry behind those feelings and denying where they really come from.

  • Hang in there folks. By mid century the religious will be in the minority, at least in Western culture. All the Fox News types will have passed away. The people in this video will have come and gone. The zealots in the audience will all be underground. The current generation of children, young adults, twenty-somethings etc. will be middle aged and elderly secularists. Creationism/ID will be historical in the same way that mind control experiments from the 20th century are today. Dogma will die.

  • so the bishop thinks about 80% of Japanese are immoral. Hm good to know.

  • I have no idea how, Dawkins keeps his cool around these people.

  • i want to punch that brown kid in the face

  • In Italy, where I live, people use reason more than in England.....English people have all my solidariety...we are the country of the pope but only 22% of all Italians go to church and believe seriously to the bible and most of our youth becomes atheist easly, so this mean that religion in our country is dying....we can do this, you can do too....

  • @AsherUnderneth

    Hello AsherUnderneath,

    I can assure you it's actually the same here - this show is just not a good example of it, as the audience seems overwhelmingly Christian.

    I think the church-going population here is probably a lot lower than 22%, actually. Put it this way: I don't know anyone who goes.

    But yeah, this show is a very bad example, and I feel very sorry for Dawkins, who was stuck in a room with a bunch of blithering idiots.

  • The Level of bullshit on this panel is m ind blowing! No.... Ass blowing! How then do they think morality changes? The freaking society learns more about living together that is how morality changes.

  • the indian bishop makes me want to die

  • Shit, I miss Hitchens here....

  • It could have been such a good debate given better self control... especially the indian looking priest who just had to interupt everyone with HIS point of view. Honestly, perhaps the only way to debate such matters without it turning into a 'rabble' is by putting them all in sound proof boxes & switching on the microphones when it's THEIR turn!!!

  • @theduckster1980 He was very hypocritical wasn't he. Demanding that other people let him speak and then butting in on them. I just wish Dawkins had been allowed to address every single point. Maybe it would have been a bit one sided, but he would have made some great points!

  • Face. Palm.

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  • What a horribly stupid discussion. How did Dawkins not get up and leave?

  • @131Guy tons of booze.

  • @131Guy He's brave and sticks up for us ^_^ lol

  • On the other hand, if Francesca is made in God's image, I might have to worship after all. =)

  • Also, the Jewish woman is annoying and I take offense at her suggestion that we're all made in God's image. I wasnt made in the image of her monster God, I was "made" in the image of my parents, if anything.

  • Hmm, according to the Indian guy, for a hundred thousand years humans were raping and killing each other and all kinds of evils things, until the Bible came around and gave us its morality. Hmm, no I dont think so. And Dawkins is right on, how do you determine which parts of the Bible to accept? That's right, we use our innate sense or morality. Lets face it, the Bible offers no objective morality, it's only subjective according to he who is reading it.

  • Why is it okay for these people to volley back and forth between "the Bible has immeasurable benefits, where would we be without it?" and "we don't worship the Bible"? WTF, yes you do! You'd have no idea what Jesus even said if you didn't have it. Gosh, what is wrong with religious people that they'd contradict themselves repeatedly and actually believe the bullshit they've been spewing and have the unmitigated gall to expect everyone else to do the same?

  • Francesca is aesthetically pleasing.

  • they talk about constantly revising the bible, and then talk about how its a historical document.

    if you are constantly revising, wont you distort 'history'?

  • Poor dawkings is beeing drowend by bullshit.

  • It was never relevent, for it to be relevent it has to be demonstrated to be true. Until that happens it is a story book.

  • Further, no theist attending this debate would have evaded stoning or burning or other ingenious torture by those on their side of the argument...and not a thousand years ago. What they are trying to do in effect, is to devise a new religion as the heinous nature of the original is now indefencible.

    Proof positive that those already enslaved are lost and that our focus must be in denying these people the chance to indoctrinate children before their minds are mature and discerning. God.B.Less

  • Defending the indefencible. It grew ever more obvious that those with theistic backgrounds believe that saying something often enough regardless of it sense or truth is sufficient.They spoke of cherry-picking as though mentioning the evil barbarism committed by their God was unfair.There is nothing in the bible that bronze age men couldn't have said without the aid of the creator of the universe. If a God inspired such a book, imagine how it would stand out as a moral beacon against human effort

  • I've never seen such a huge gathering of stupidity in one place. The lack of logic on the panel, outside Dawkins, was simply staggering. For anyone to claim that a book that promotes slavery, genocide, oppression of women, etc, is the ultimate source of morality is absolutely disgusting. Trying to write it off as "it was a different time with different values" implies that those things were at some point moral, which is stupid on a level that cannot be put into words.

  • Excuse me Bishop, let Francesca finish.

    

  • I wonder how many children lives have been destroyed by these two Bishops.

  • This show is horrible.

  • 2000 years? Doesn't the world end this Saturday?

  • Aw, Francesca was doing so well until she starting exposing some worrying relativism.

  • THE ASSERTIONS! THEY ARE OVERWHELMING!!! *drowns in apologetic nonsense*

  • Lol! I had the exact same thought as the show host when the bishop started arguing to keep reinterpreting the Bible and put it in to context. "Why not revise it"

    No, of course not. The would defeat the purpose, eh bishop? And we wouldn't want people to start becoming more rational and not require faith any longer.

  • sorry for Richard.

  • You can use the Bible to be a loving understanding person who preaches understandnig and peace. You can also justify being a holy terror, condemning all who disagree to eternal punishment, hating homosexuals, subjugating women and killing heretics. The problem is that whatever your personal prejudice you can find support for it in the scriptures, That is why faith is error.

  • Hitches would've told these religious nutsacks to shut up whenever they applauded.

  • What's wrong with being idealistic? Because it's wrong! WOW!!!

    The laughter that came after meant a lot :)

  • God put some stuff in words, and then He kept creating "jUsTiFicAtiOnsssss" ever after...

    :))

  • dont worry that is probably every religious person in england in that room religion is dead here everyone just laughs and takes the piss out of it

  • @mcdinkity

    Can I come to England?:[

  • this isn't a debate its a blurting of bigotry and preset ideas...true discussion is being honest with the issues and not using nonsense to refute logic.

  • Man.... When Richard mentioned "Cosmos", I thought where is Carl Sagan when you need him... I would've so wanted to see him take part in these kind of things. He spoke to humanity as one.

  • there are better things in this world to be worried about than religion and god

  • @naniv

    Why are atheists so worried about religion and God?

  • @PortVienna80 they're not worried....they're just constantly scrutinised for being non-believers...i'm not an atheist if that''s what you're implying :-)

  • @naniv are there? If fundamentalists manage to obtain nuclear weapons this might spell the end for us all, and I'm not talking about random groups, in the middle east there are entirely fundamentalist governments which believe they are appointed by god.

  • one point these people forgot to mention is how religion was/is simply a political instrument used by leaders from the past and present to gain the attention and support of the majority....or to further divide people ....but these leaders didn't realise what effect this would have on the minority i.e. various uprisings, wars, political takeovers, new religions etc.

    the bible was simply a self-help book for ancient civilisations, not so much self-help but rather 'take our advice or go to hell'

  • I was waiting for RD's head to explode from the amount of stupidity in that room.

  • "Bible has taken to where and what we are now?" WHAT a load of SHIT!

  • I feel like slapping the religious people here and say "Wake the fuck up".

  • Thank you, Richard, for inserting reason in an otherwise very unreasonable conversation. Education is the key here, folks. Teach and revere critical thinking.

  • Folks still hear what they want to hear and talk past each other, - the Jewish lady says 'respect my opinion' but says how some other text that another guy likes is 'just rubbish' - You know, there's no discussion with religious folks who don't 'Reason' they "Preach" Richard Dawkins has too much patience with these frighteningly closed minded people. They need to be Christopher Hitchenized. :)

  • It would be nice if we had a program like this in the U.S.

  • @bloodhoof1000 Geraldo! :D

  • The winners = Richard Dawkins + The Humanist + The primatologist (bearded guy in the audience) + Dr. Fran. (hot scholar woman)

    The losers = Indian bald priest, Jewish woman in purple, and all of the imbeciles clapping in the audience

  • @JQisAwesome yeah humanists dawkins who plagiarizes humanists principles from a judeo-christian culture that he seems to despise. ironic that atheist try to have humanism as a replacing moral guide to religion, when many of the people who founded a lot of the tenets of modern humanistic traditions like Thomas more, Erasmus and others were devout, religious, christian believers....

  • @JQisAwesome He is not Indian. He is a douche. I am Indian. LOLL, <3 Dawkins.

  • @JQisAwesome lmfao you legend

  • @JQisAwesome sorry but Francesca was an idiot in this part, she was good in the others, devolved to idiot status in the first 6 minutes of this one

  • Don't know why so many folk are down on Dr Fran. She basically said that the bible has very little history and few events described actually happened and we don't need it as a moral tool. Anyone who has studied western euro history knows the importance of religion in understanding it

  • I have to say these theists are very depressing and I am ashamed of them. I am a Christian, bordering on Pantheism. I tend to believe God has all different names including Thor and Zeus and Mithras, even god could be a woman. No the bible is not relevant because its laws and rules are from the bronze age. Richard is, as always a brilliant and mature man. But sometimes I think he thinks himself of being a god, I've both the God Delusion and God is not Great.

  • that bitch in the purple needs shot.

  • I feel so sorry for Richard here - too much stupid coming at him from all directions. I despair for our future if there are too many dumb people roaming the planet - which seems to be the case. Oh well global warming will wipe us all out I guess.

  • If the bible has any chance of lasting, it better stick with the King James Version because once it gets turned into modern English everybody can read it and see what nonsense it is.

    LMAO, steeeeee-rike!

  • A shame that Dr Francesca had to blurr the whole discussion, undoing any progress made. Its a fucking crime that we still have to deal with this, it mires us and limits our progress - i share Richards frustration, these people "debate" like children because their minds are scrambled by the very thing they defend. At the very least religious texts are an impedement for leading a moral life and reaching any kind of truth.

  • these mother fuckers are crazy!!!

  • @Ician100

    I don't know enough about Hitchens' views to have an informed opinion, but I was just pointing out that when it comes to debating and calling people out when they're being stupid, Hitchens has a bit of a reputation.

  • I'm watching the bishop speak and I can't believe there are adults that base their lives and careers around the bible. Grown-ass adults.

  • WOW!...It just hit me...After all of these years of thinking how best to explain the critical thinking process to religious people...I saw it in Richard's face...You just can't...They're a combination of gullibility, conditioning and in some cases stupidity...There's no point!..Ahhh...I feel soooo much better.

  • "But they had a knowledge that was different from ours"... I keep hearing a religious friend of my father who loved saying "that's my truth."

  • Poor Richard.

  • This has got to be the messiest forum in which to have a proper discussion about such important topics as this.

  • Only when we leave the bible behind will humankind be able to reach its potential.

  • These people just get away with murder. Spouting complete nonsense with no repercussions at all. Dawkins just kinda gives up in this debate. He looks so tired and annoyed. I couldn't imagine how exhausting it must be for him to have these types of crazy discussions.

  • That pastor is really dumb. He basically was saying that the parts of the bible that support slavery, genocide, and the oppression of women doesn't apply today because nowadays society knows that it's wrong. But he still thinks that the parts of the Bible that discriminate against homosexuals still applies because it's in the Bible. What if homosexuality became okay in mainstream society? Would it be any more or less "moral" then?

  • 3 vs 1 is always a fair fight.

  • @R0YB0T

    2 atheists vs 2 religious people?

    "hurr durr i'm on youtube comments and i can make false statements"

  • @jddrewes She, "Dr. Francesca Stavrakopoulou" did more damage than good. Also this "debate" showed how poorly Dawkins holds his own sometimes. Sure he was right but debating is a skill in itself. A Sam Harris type of atheist was needed here to compliment Dawkins.

  • @R0YB0T

    alright, fair enough.

    yeah, Richard Dawkins is a brilliant man but when it comes to debating he doesn't come close to Hitchens

  • Why did god create the devil? Why did he create hell? Why does he want to punish us eternally for the personality traits that he ingrained us with?

  • 07:44 The priest have no education on European history. His ignorance is astonishing.

    One of the longest wars in Europe was the 30-year war where Christians fought Christians. Prior to this war there was almost constant warfare in Europe. Up to 900 ad the church systematically demolished all non-Christian groups and smaller Christian denominations. WW2 was between Christians vs Christians as well.

  • Could someone shut off the babbling baboon, i.e. the priest in the pink shirt. All he does is rudely interrupt and make assertions.

  • Critically analyze the 10 commandments. Write agreements and objections under each of them.

    Now repeat with the 8-wheel of Buddhism.

    I believe the majority of people from the Western Civilization would agree with almost the entire wheel at face value, while they would reject or have problems with most of the commandments.

    Yet the wheel is not from the Western Civilization and possibly as old as the commandments.

    The commandments are really badly written.

  • This isn't you video to copyright you fucking idiot.

  • Good job Richie!!!

  • Education and people who think critically are desperately needed in this world!! Richard Dawkins is a hero of mine.

  • The nice Biblical scholar has drifted off, as Dawkins says - they were wrong!!! By definition, ignorant - though not stupid.

  • This was almost painful to watch. So much stupidity and blind alliance to a mythological book

  • STOP CLAPPING all the time. Please...

  • where is hitch when you need him.

  • lol, we go from needing the bible for morality to it being "inserted into us by God"

    what a crock of shit

  • I like how they confuse ignorance w/ stupidity

  • This entire conversation is boring and a waste of time for everybody who has figured out that you should be a good person for the sake of being a good person. I can't even imagine how Richard Dawkins feels sitting through an hour of moot points that go nowhere. This conversation has been had a billion times over and is not interesting.

  • Help us, Richard Dawkins. You're our only hope.

  • If we need to change our interpretation on the Bible in order to match today's society, then we don't need to use it as a moral guideline. I understand its significance because of its influence on human society, and how it has caused good and bad in the world. Honestly, it doesn't deserve to have the status that it does but since Christianity has dominated human civilization, and we have to be aware of this in order to better our society away from religion.

  • I quit. I just quit. I've been struggling with believing in god, and slowly identifying myself as an atheist.... now I just plain quit religion. Religion is foolish, and those who support it blind.

    Dawkins ftw!

  • I feel like Richard's wasting his time on these losers.

  • I think I literally felt my mind slowly seep away while watching this.

  • The very scary thing is that these people are all very well educated and they still defend the Bible as a book that is essential to human morality. Think then how those with little or no education, low intelligence, etc. understand the Bible. Blind faith to a out-dated and horrifyingly limiting text...that is truly frightening in our modern world.

  • that evangelical guy is one nut. completely refuses to think for himself, and seems to take satisfaction in telling people that he'll believe anything written in some medieval book of tales.

  • "Without the Bible, I will not be a human-being at all" WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF­FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

  • @mcsmay that man is from india. most probably a convert from a "low caste". historically the "low caste" were treated like shit. in his words unlike humans. so what he is trying to say is without christianity, he would be like shit.

  • How can Dawkins keep so calm.. I am impressed with his patience.. I think I would have exploded.. or just refused to speak to anyone..

  • @kyriew agreed. that was a pretty lop-sided (towards religion) audience who would clap at any of the nonsense (and I mean 'nonsense') spoken by the rabbi, nazir ali or the other christian apologists. RD came across as genuinely dismayed by their sheer ignorance and intellectual laziness. I don't blame him. Mind you, this was a pretty weak panel compared to what he has faced before. that nazir ali guy is one obnoxious intolerant so-an-so.