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From: richarddawkinsdotnet
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  • I wonder why people try to disprove others, or change their belief on things like religion. The ONLY thing that will come of it is conflict. Their job is nothing but egotistical, they think that their thoughts on things are the most important or correct, when they have no proof. All they want is to cause conflict and get coverage. How sad.

  • @guilemaster147 No proof? You must be new here. Welcome to Science.

  • @n00bzorr Enlighten me. Where is the empirical evidence presented by this guy?

  • @guilemaster147

    You remind me of Wendy Wright:

    - Where are the transitional forms?

    -- Obviously I do not carry fossils on me, but you are free to visit any larger museum which do display them.

    - But still. Where are the transitional forms? You have no evidence! haha

    -- I told you to go look at the evidence and you completely ignored what I said.

    - Where is the evidence? Not even one fossil haha!

    -- Pointless discussion..

    Educate yourself mate. If you want to know, then free yourself!

  • The chance of one's existence is so tiny as to be next to nothing. Could not a sense of self re-occur in other individuals at different times in the same way that someone could have a similar eye colour or shape of ear?

  • An awesome answer to the ultimate concern.

    

  • I've been reading The God Delusion recently. It's nice to see the man himself presenting and speaking about some of the topics covered. Helps set the tone (a lot of humour but also anger at the injustices) for the book.

  • Dawkins: if you strike me down, i shall become more powerful than you can ever imagine!

  • @dejawolf Obi Rich Dawkskobi?^^

  • OMG hes so moving, that last quote was sooo inspirational, everyones informed clapping right on queue was soo inspirational.

  • Wonderful statement at the end. Inspiring.

  • It amazes me that at almost every critique or argument that Dawkins is faced with eh can respond with a rational truthful and well thought response..why do people feel they can argue against this man? is he wrong? yes about a great many things..but his core truths about science and religion? All but unassailable, he is unimpeachable and I eagerly devour what he says questioning it and turning it over..and I am happy to be found wrong when teh prof is irrefutable

  • Urgency is very real. Don't be ignorant. Observe the situation on a global scale. If you don't see the urgency you really need to wake up. And by the way, how else to enlighten. Slower?!?

  • What does it matter whether one uses religion, cleansing the Aryan race, or "re-educating" the bourgeoisie as justifications for murder?

    As for people needing religion, what does it matter if it's false? What's the urgency to enlighten them if religion is a sociological phenomenon, just as in earlier times? It's pretty clear that US culture will evolve on its own time, or not, and that no amount of logic or reason will result in a large-scale conversion of the masses to scientific thinking.

  • The truth of the matter as it happens is... the idea of going back to "nothingness", a grand finally of ending is just as scary as "hell" to many and it is a NORMAL human trait.

    Many find it personally more rewarding to live in their own little fantasy bubble and have the capacity to do so. This will never change in typical humanity.

  • My (e)X isn't comforting :P

  • I really think Dawkins spends his days fighting against a god he' s invented for himself to disapprove of. I' m Christinan and I absolutely don't feel offended by anything he says - he denies the existence of some hypothesis from the enlightment age (the watchmaker), whitch was uprooted many ceturies ago and is in no way a part of any religious faith .And the violence thing -the Hitler argument is absolutely valid if he chooses to pick up extemists and say God does this, isnt it?

  • @wagner8646 The watchmaker argument is still used by people all the time. I just heard it used at work a few weeks ago, you don't know what you are talking about. Plus, dawkins never used extremist and said "god does this". He did, however, explain that when people believe a 'god' is either condoning or ordering bs behaviour they are likely to do it. If you remove god and replace rational thought, extremist events would not happen, at the very lest not as frequently. Hitler was catholic, btw....

  • Religion is all about the fear of death. Seriously. The idea of hell is pretty scary. No need to believe it.

  • Carl Sagan saved us from the luring God of Cosmos, Dawkins saved us from the God of Intelligent Design. I will always look up to these people for inspiration.

  • FANTASTIC! 

  • my god that final part of the speech moved me and ethralled me. thats one of the deepest, wisest and emotional metaphors i've ever heard

  • I have the newly bought paperback of the God Delusion infront of me.. but I wanna hear him finish this talk before I start

  • @BerryAPA most of what he talks about in this lecture is repeated in the preface of the book (just a heads up). I'm not saying it's a bad thing though.

  • Very great last words

  • If he ever came to speak at my university, I'd be absolutely ecstatic. Of course, he'd have to write another book first! He's wrapping up his book tour in the US this month. :(

  • I can only aspire to be half as intelligent and verbos, and am proud to be alive during the lifetime of such a great mind! This man has really brought me out of the darkness of religion with the bright light of reason and logic.

  • I'm an atheist vegetarian... uh oh.... :)

  • @nicko147 YOU NAZI!  LOL JUST KIDDING

  • @nicko147 hahaha send the SS Hunters!

  • 5:01 Exactly the straw that broke the camels back for me to become an atheist. My father was strictly raised a Roman Catholic...growing up in a Catholic boarding school. On his death bed, he confided in me that he was afraid he would not get into heaven...not because he himself didn't qualify, but because perhaps God thought that he didn't raised his kids to fear God as he did. What a fucked up organization to plant such guilt into a person that menaces them all the way to their last breath.

  • I was always uncomfortable with religion, even as a young child. Now, in my 50s, completely without religion or the god delusion, I am at peace with myself and with mankind as a whole. In the words of Mark Twain, "I was dead for billions of years before I was born", and will become dead again one day, which will be recorded in public records, as an indication of my existence. Over 20 years ago, Professor Richard Dawkins made sense, which released me from the 'god' thing.

  • aModernDandy, you are a very intelligent man, not to be herded, so I am, since I became Atheist after a long battle agaisnt my religious convictions.

  • Woot for death

  • The lines from unweaving the rainbow really are beautiful.

  • There are like 10 quotes from just this section of the video that I want to add to my favorites. Especially that bit about death at the end.

  • "We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that state, from which the vast majority have never stirred?"

    I think I have a new favorite quote.

  • I would disagree with Dawkins on one point, where he quoted Mark Twain comparing death to the time before birth. I would simply say that what's ahead of us is always more relevant than what's behind us.

  • @KeroroGunsouTX Not really. The universe will be no different after your death than it was before your birth, you will have had no effect on it. Your loved ones, of course, will mourn, but other than that, it means nothing. No relevance.

    Unless, of course, you're religious, and in that case, you really don't have a point.

  • Thank you for making this video available to us. I am so glad to live in the age of Dawkins. We have a slim chance to save the species now.

  • good audience

  • Richard repeats an urban legend at 1:11. Despite the popular myth, Hitler was not a vegetarian.

    Squab was one of Hitler's favorite meats. In addition to historical accounts from multiple 1st-hand witnesses, there are 2 books specializing on the topic:

    "Hitler Was a Vegetarian And Other Tales" by Ron Ferguson (ISBN-10: 0905489713, ISBN-13: 978-0905489711) or Rynn Berry's book "Hitler: Neither Vegetarian Nor Animal Lover" (ISBN-10: 0962616966, ISBN-13: 978-0962616969)

    Add a text correction?

  • @SaganAppreciationSoc , It doesn't matter. That is besides the point. Thank you though, I learned something today from you.

  • When a person of considerable import repeats an absurd urban legend, it becomes important to correct.

  • makes allot more sence, I dont get why he would be a vegetarian if he was fine with killing other humanbeings, I need to educate myself more on this subject

  • @SaganAppreciationSoc

    Maybe you could email this to Dawkins himself. He might appreciate it.

  • WOW!

  • His last quote simply blew me away. wow

  • @krjo4215

    sad

  • I always tried to disagree with Dawkins. I studied Religion as a main subject in my last two years of school, and Philosophy as an additinal subject. And whenever we discussed Dawkins I frantically tried to disagree with him. But ever since I left school half a year ago I kept thinking about his arguments and his thories and I realized that I do agree with him.

    Now I watched these videos and I have to say they were brilliant - and I'm glad that I can acknowledge that now.

  • @aModernDandy BRAVO

  • @aModernDandy Don't stop trying to disagree with Dawkins. Thats what he has been trying to teach us all along: DON'T ever stop questioning! :)

  • @aModernDandy Deciding to dis/agree with someone merely based on their name or vague knowledge of their ideas is always problematic.

    The fact you agreed Dawkins later tells me nothing. What you rejected was your own abdication of responsibility in not having meaninfully constructed your own conlusions on those topics previously. Rightly so.

    Each individual must research and draw their own reasoned conclusions, not merely dis/agree with perceived 'luminaries'.

  • @aModernDandy good morning and welcome to the real. It takes a great mind and a strog heart to admit error

  • @aModernDandy well said

  • That last part made me cry. It is so beautiful, so inspiring, so tragic and still so uplifting. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!

  • @chiggevara I COULD NOT AGREE MORE

  • Beautiful and so true.

    Our life is finite, and that makes it worthwhile.

  • that twain quote is pretty brilliant.

  • @TheRioterKiss TOTALLY AGREED

  • It's always comforting to me to hear someone else say what's been on my mind for years, especially someone who can put it into words so elegantly. It's also comforting to hear the roar of applause he gets, which makes me feel there are many others out there who can think freely and aren't so easily programmed.

  • "Man's unfailing capacity to believe what he prefers to be true rather than what the evidence shows to be likely and possible has always astounded me. We long for a caring Universe which will save us from our childish mistakes, and in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary we will pin all our hopes on the slimmest of doubts. God has not been proven not to exist, therefore he must exist." -Academician Prokhor Zakharov.

  • "I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." - Mark Twain

    That is one absolutely brilliant quote.

  • sorry i make some mistakes you sould read throughtout my 30 years of study not 50 years of suty

  • Okay, I've listened to all of the videos and have come to the conclusion that SOMEONE is very full of himself.

    And I find it sad the he himself is proselytizing to his own flock of the faithful, but doesn't know it.

  • Faith means strong, unquestioning belief, in the absence of evidence. It would be idiotic to suggest that "fans" of a scientist would be guilty of that, especially considering what he "preaches".

    Dawkins is a teacher. So let him teach. His so-called arrogance is completely irrelevant.

  • can someone explain mark twains quote, i kinda understand it but idk

  • He means that you are just as dead, and arguably in the same state, before you are born, as you are after you live and finally die.

  • that mark twain quote was brilliant.

  • UC Berkely is one of few universities that he could speak to in the US. Most colleges in Tennessee seem to be feeled with conservative republican morons.

  • If true,that's very sad.

  • Not any surprise about US. Ignorant sheeps.

  • @ShredTheGnar690 The University of Oklahoma is in the very middle of the Bible Belt and we managed to get him here. Even the Oklahoma Legislature tried to brownbeat him. But we got him here either way and it couldn't have been more amazing.

  • This was a very good presentation, but then I often enjoy Dakwins' words.

    I have always been interested to hear his take on conversion TO religion--what is it that makes someone able to accept fairy tales that were not pounded into their skulls from a young age, but are still ridiculous.

  • NO U

  • Comment removed

  • Don't say that, retard.

  • Comment removed

  • No, I don't believe in talking snakes. I'm an atheist. You said Dawkins is a god. That was retarded. Therefore, I am justified in calling you a retard.

  • Comment removed

  • EXCELLENT.

    RICHARD DAWKINS is an inspiration.

  • The new one Interrelation Theory is simply wrong.

    It's incorrect to think that a living being can change things within itself to enable better survival, nor can it change it's offspring for the same reason.

  • No, you don't understand and you are wrong. It is observable that all organisms interrelate, not change, in the surroundings. Dead beings cannot change nor interrelate. They're already dead. Change in Interrelation Theory is acquiring new defense mechanism. Maybe you need to read it again especially the six mechanisms of Interrelation Theory.

  • I looked through your website...I suspect you were sitting there thinking "I wanna make a scientific breakthrough!" And came up with your theory, even though you probably dont believe it.

  • I believe it. If I don't, it wil never be published.

  • I thought there was a question section

  • true, but most southerners were christians, including the civil rights demonstrators.

  • The Eulogy at the end was Beautiful

  • Is there a magic equation for the stock market? Why cant economic science explain the stock market with an equation? I as a physicst understand that you can Model as close to reality as possible, but it does not equate with proof

  • Ooh ooh ohh!!! I have a better question for you Mr. Phyicist. Why do you have to argue in circles , making yourself look less intelligent and more ignorant? Why do you use something with known variants to describe what you have deemed a constant. So did you get a flashy degree in hypocrisy aswell? I would appreciate your prompt responce to my question seeing as you know so much! Or maybe you can just tell me that your degree says god will magically "show me the way."

  • Also for a college graduate I would have hoped to have AT LEAST seen some grammatical fluency of your language. IE capitalizing improperly, misspelling words , aweful sentence structure and so on. Maybe you should also go back to grade school with my kids so you can say you're both a phyicist AND you got a gold star in third grade! I might actually respect you by a small margin at that point....But that's only because your arguements wouldn't be seemingly encrypted in idiocy

  • I do have a degree in physics. What do you have. I can point out some grammatical mistakes in your paragraph:

    Exhibit 1: IE is being followed after a period in all capitals, look up an english book if you know how to read

    Exhibit 2: You misspelled awful as "aweful" in line three

    What you need to do is join your own kids in your grade school. Before picking on small minor mistakes why dont you come to my university and actually debate me on physics. Infront of the whole auditorium.

  • And now you use an arguement that makes you seem like you're willing to go out on a limb and have a direct confrontation but you and I both know that myself showing up at your university will never happen. So thumbs up to you on again not proving any points but attempting to make yourself appear like you know what you're talking about <3. As for joining my kids in grade school so I dont get overly picky on subject matter which are attempting to argue?

  • Hey you are the one who decided to pick on grammar here. This is not your 3rd grade english class, we are discussing physics here. If you want to discuss that, why don't you raise your common sense. This is not an english grammar class and no one cares for that matter.

  • I have seen no physics in any of your comments only a fine demonstration of "internet trolling" and or "E-Thugging"

    When you wish to have a debate on physics maybe you should base your agruement upon such a subject.

  • Are you saying I should bring myself down to other peoples level so that their point should make more sense instead of having humanity strive in a better direction to learn and have pride in their opinion? I think your university would also agree with the standpoint I have brought up seeing as your degree is indeed a degree of science why should they or anyone applaud your "blind faith" that cant be proven correct? Or has science itself changed to no longer need evidence to prove a conclusion?

  • No you need to bring yourself up to my level. Explain to me what existed at T<10^-43 sec before the universe? Do you have proof? Can you prove what was there before?

  • Hmmm your right it seems a bit odd that the variable of time can be discussed before we deemed that time was established. Could you raise your common sense :)?

  • So you're saying to your specific knowlege both points to you are unknown. Well I guess ignorance to such an answer is generally acceptable. But you also study in a feild that allows itself to grow and expand. unlike the basis of your religion which is forcing your understanding of all situations of science to regress and distort the facts. This misinformation is what causes people like yourself to believe that since you're at a univiersity you are above others on almost an enlightened level.

  • We can tell you what existed "before" the universe but first what is with that magical number of yours? Anyway science is getting more and more evidence so in a matter of time we can tell you what came about at said time. And as far as the "do you have proof?" question, do you have proof that it was god? Can you prove he was there "before"? Its only a matter of time before your god is scurying into another gap of knowledge that all gods love to live in.

  • That number is what we can only calculate how far back after the birth of the universe we are able to model. It gets harder at a time less than that.

  • Your pervasive logic seems to be that as long as someone else cannot prove what existed prior to the known universe, God must be the answer. That is a very poor argument to make, even more so coming from a self-proclaimed college graduate.

    You also seem disturbingly immature for someone who is an alleged physicist, getting into petty squabbles over grammar and the likes.

    And nobody but an insecure charlatan would point out their own intelligence instead of letting other people discover it.

  • Sorry for not being more immature, but I simply cannot get over how childish you behave in your dialogue with "satansfist69". You actually quote his misspellings in order to devalue his argument.

    This kind of behaviour makes you appear prepubescent at best.

    I doubt you have the clear-sightedness to see that I am not trying to make a fool out of you, a feat you are quite capable of achieving without my assistance, but I really am not. You're just so damn entertaining, that is all.

  • If you read the thread, he picked on my spelling mistakes first. Go read it first and then come back to me. I give you an F for not knowing the information.

  • It isn't important who did what to whom first, that is the type of thing that a child would direct attention towards.

    satansfist69 casually pointed out that your spelling was sub-par for someone with a degree, a point he was right in making. Immediately after you seemed to take great offence, proceeding to list his misspellings as if to devalue his initial comment. That type of behaviour is exactly what makes you seem childish in the eyes of others, and also why I doubt your degree is very real

  • Quit all the worthless bitching please. Just because atheists/science cannot explain where the universe came from or how it was created doesn't mean you or religion can. For someone who clearly watches Dawkins's videos you for some reason have very little knowledge of most (at least that I know of) atheists' point of view that simply saying god did it doesn't prove anything because then god itself must be explained otherwise you might as well say that the flying spaghetti monster did it.

  • ultima3210. You're missing the point. Your grammar is not on trial here, your behavour is.

    You argue and react in ways one would expect from a kid, perhaps even a teenager, but certainly not from a college graduate.

    Your lie is as transparent as your college diploma. You are a kid, at least mentally. It is quite clear that your interests lie not in the way of discovering what is true, or even intellectually stimulating.

    I wish no more to debate you than I wish to receive a trepanning.

  • I'm not going to wait around for you to photoshop your name onto a diploma you found via Google. Give me fifteen minutes on the internet and I'll give you proof that I'm the arch bishop of Canterbury.

    On the internet, people can only judge you based on how they perceive you. In a situation such as this, people judge you from what and how you write.

    You should give that some thought. I am not the one in need of toys to play with.

  • I have a Phd, a Bsc, two BAs, an LLd and a D.Phil. These laser printers are wonderful.

  • so in your world only people who have a degree in english, are able to write proper english ?

  • If you have a physicsd degree you wouldn't ask that question.

  • Sorry for the poor grammer, forgot to backspace. Meant to say "you still have your..."

  • You have your still have your physics books? Wow then you must be a genius. Ok then time to prove me wrong, open your physics book and tell me where it states this universe was created by god of sorts. Please state the book and where in it you found it. But you cant. Do you know why? Because you sir are a fraud.

  • you're too much of a fucking rude asshole to be an educated physicist.

    :]

  • Also what exisited 10^-43 seconds before the birth of the universe? Go ask any physicist. The answer to that question is we just dont know at this point. Our laws have only allowed us to reach this far.

  • First of all theories have arose to explain what was ""before" the big bang. Second of all using the term before is a not one to be used when discussing the birth of the universe. There was the singularity, then there was a big bang which is the beggining of time. There was no "before" seeing as there was no time.

  • What a gooden!

  • Thanks for uploading this lecture. I was surprised by it in that I actually agree with many of the things he says.

    However I don't recongnise the picture of Christianity he describes although I can't comment on Judaism or Islam as I have no experience of them. I particularly liked the use of the comedian in his lecture.

    It would have been interesting if the Q&A afterwards (I assume there was one) was posted.

    Very interesting lecture.

  • Damn that last poem he recited was fucking amazing.

    speechless

  • That passage choked me up as well. I've got that book. I was going to read another first but I don't know if I can wait now!

  • The last quote from his book is one of the best quotes I've heard

  • I prefer Dawkin's tombstone quote over Shakespeare's

    "Good Friend, for Jesus sake forbear

    To dig the dust enclosed here:

    Blessed be the man that spares these stones,

    And curst be he that moves my bones. "

  • Cyrus the Great, Lord of Persia, has on his tomb, 'In Life I was Lord of the Earth. In death allow me this small space'. It's a humble tomb.

  • the images of how destructive religion is from the 5/6 clip were moving, troubling, and disturbing.

  • Wow I loved that closing quote. Thats being said at my funeral, and now its my favorite quote.

  • yeah I totally agree. Very inspiring quote. loved it.. Anyone write it out?

  • "We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die, because they are never going to be born. The potential people who couldve been here in my place, but who will, in fact, never see the light of day; outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers...

  • ... the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds, it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth, against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority had never stirred?"

  • merci beaucoup.

  • EXCELLENT.

    PROFESSOR RICHARD DAWKINS IS THE WISE MAN OF THE 21st CENTURY.

    HE IS AN INSPIRATION FOR ALL OF US.

  • YEAH MAN SPREAD THE MESSAGE

    lol richard dawkins is god (jk)

  • nowone is god, not even dawkins.

  • well it wouldn't hurt to watch your back if you are jewish!!!! lol

  • check out all his other videos, the documentaries he made.. EVERY single one is awesome!!  Proud to be from England!!!.. God bless Richard (LOL)

  • LOL!!!!!! I'm in america, but am SOOO UK! :D

  • does anyone know where to find a lecture schedule for dawkins?

  • I would love that to be said at my funeral

    as well. *sniff sniff*

    Fantastic speech! So much of it mirrored my

    exact thoughts almost all of my life since I

    was about 8. Especially Mark Twain's

    thoughts on death.....it's exactly how I think

    of it! I was born and raised Catholic in

    Ontario, Canada. The Agnostic scale was

    very interesting as well and I realize I sit at

    about 6 myself.

  • Of course, even from an atheistic perspective, it's possible (ironically) that our universe may in fact still have been created. Ever heard that we may be living in a Matrix-like computer simulation?

  • Professor Dawkins has touched upon the matter. Even if that is true, the "real" world would need a complex creator of "this" world. That creator would need an origin.

  • The last part of that speach was amazing. It's refreshing to hear a new perspective on things from someone who's not afraid to share it.

  • Never had I been more fulfilled by a lecture the way I have been by this one.

  • 7:25

    Is that man holding a pillow?

  • jacket.

  • Sir Richard ...I was born a muslim 47 years ...you are Truly My Hero ...

  • i think i've watched this 10 or 15 times. If everyone on earth could watch this once, and change the opinions of a few, it would be worth it.

  • I wanted to cry when I heard that ending quote. I am eternally grateful for my spot on this planet and my ability to LIVE for just this short period of time.

  • When people talk about Atheism as inspiration for hitler, I ask why the vast majority of Nazi's were Christian and why neonazi's without fail are Christian.

  • Dear God, yes Amanda! Lock your door and wait for the police to arrive.

    Yep Pedantic. Religion should only have a legal issue when it breaks the same laws that govern other ideas and philosophies. It'd be a grim world if we legislated against people having strange ideas that harm no-one but themselves.