Beyond Belief 2006 - Session 01of10 (part 1-11)

Session 1
Steven Weinberg, Lawrence Krauss, Sam Harris, Michael Shermer
November 5, 2006

Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival, the first of the The Science Network's annual Beyond Belief symposia, held from November 5 to November 7, 2006, was described by the New York Times, as "a free-for-all on science and religion," which seemed at times like "the founding convention for a political party built on a single plank: in a world dangerously charged with ideology, science needs to take on an evangelical role, vying with religion as teller of the greatest story ever told." According to participant Melvin Konner, however, the event came to resemble a "den of vipers debating the issue, "Should we bash religion with a crowbar or only with a baseball bat?
Speakers included physicists Steven Weinberg and Lawrence Krauss, author Sam Harris, biologists Joan Roughgarden and Richard Dawkins, and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Cardinal Schonborn
• Catholicism
• Clash of Cultures
• Darwin
• Einstein
• Evolution
• Galileo
• God
• Intelligent Design
• Islam
• Morality
• Newton
• Richard Dawkins
• Two Cultures
• religion
• atheism
• atheistic
• atheist
• disbelief
• belief
• truth
• reason
• science
• education

[SvendsenAtheist]

very few view these important vids...thanks for the upload btw!

[bowman2062]

@SvendsenAtheist

Seveal thousends have seen them .. only its the third upload :) My former channels were flagged down by fundamentalists .. muslims as well as christians

[philosage]

@bowman2062 anything we can do to keep them up?

[bowman2062]

@philosage

Copy them and reupload them werever you like. (Use the free realplayer downloader = google for chip online realplayer download)

[torontoBluejays87]

Weinberg is great! He is way more intelligent than the God of the Old Testament.

[TomFynn]

@benthemiester I don't give flying monkey's whether he was eventually released. The fact remains that his freedom was curtailed not for murder or rape or robbery or any serious crime. He was sentenced, because he spoke his mind. He was sentence for what Orwell called thought crime. This is the hallmark of a totalitarian rule.

And I consider the allegation that I "altered the words" as a personal insult of the lowest level.

[benthemiester]

@TomFynn “We condemn you to formal imprisonment in this Holy Office at our pleasure” because he “believed a doctrine which is false and contrary to the divine and Holy Scripture”.

Are you sure those are the exact words or did you alter them? I never denied he was put under house arrest (which by the way was in a beautiful villa with servants at hand) and as I said before he also was eventually allowed to continue his studies in his own personel lab. It had nothing to do with his science.

[TomFynn]

@benthemiester According to the official documents of the time, the sentence against Galileo was that “We condemn you to formal imprisonment in this Holy Office at our pleasure” because he “believed a doctrine which is false and contrary to the divine and Holy Scripture”.

So he *was* imprisoned for contradicting the official woo.

Your point?

PS: Darwin had to teach his theory critically since he lacked the mechanism behind it. Which we have now. It's called DNA.

[benthemiester]

@TomFynn

Critical teaching has always been related to scientific progress. Even Darwin taught his theory critically. Yes there is controversy concerning the neo Darwinian/modern synthesis, and within the general scientific community itself. If you want evidence I can cite it for you and show you exactly where it's at and by whom, including atheist and agnostics who dont even have a religious bone to pick.

Wasn't trying to spam but only had 500 words per thread to re.

[benthemiester]

@TomFynn "And it's alright to put someone under house arrest as with Galileo simply because his facts contradicted the official woo?"

This is like the myth that Columbus men thought they were going to fall of the edge of the world......

[benthemiester]

@TomFynn cont...While many in the cosmological community have perpetuated this myth about Galileo, for hundreds of years historians have been telling us how wrong the myth is. Galileo work was welcomed and even encouraged by the church. He was put under temporary house arrest for breaking a promise. It was actually the secular faction of his colleagues that even refused to look into his telescope and conspired

[benthemiester]

@TomFynn cont..... against him seeking the help of a sympathetic Cardinal who failed at convicting him of heresy. After his initial house arrest for breaking a promise and meddling in church affairs which he admits he did, and latter admitted in his own personal and private writings that he had been treated very well. He was eventually given back all freedoms to his laboratory and remained an honored guest of Popes and Cardinals. I would encourage you to research "The Galileo Myth

[TomFynn]

@benthemiester And it's alright to put someone under house arrest as with Galileo simply because his facts contradicted the official woo?

And no, the proponents of Creationism and Intelligent Design are not skeptical. They want the woo in their heads to be taught in school as if it was a well-documented fact like evolution. They conflate astrology with astronomy. Under a false flag like "teach the controversy". That is not even anti-science anymore. That is called lying.

[benthemiester]

It wasn't until recently that some have falsely proposed that religion is anti science. The best e.g is that many religious & even some not so religious are skeptical of neo Darwinism, but being skeptical of a theory does not mean you hate all science. It is also historically inaccurate & wrong to perpetuate the Galileo myth. It wasn't Galileos science that got him in trouble, but his broken promise not to meddle in church dogma that did. He still remained an honored guest of Popes & Cardinals.