Richard Dawkins in Five Minutes from the BBC

Evolutionary biologist, atheist and author Richard Dawkins gets interviewed in a very amenable, agreeable, non-threatening way in exactly five minutes by Matthew Stadlen in a series for the BBC News website.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Richard
• Dawkings
• atheism

[XN0R]

In philosophical terms, Atheism is a "reductio ad absurdum":

Atheism claims in absolute terms, that there is no absolute. [ A=~A, oxymoron - QED]

@1:11-1:30 Dawkins says we are all "Agnostic"

...hang on, I thought he was an "Atheist"?

(make your mind up Richard)

[xn0r]

[peterdunkley]

I'm studying for a Masters in Philosophy at the moment - if only you were right and these huge issues could be reduced to: A=~A, oxymoron - QED

I think that "In philosophical terms, Atheism is a reductio ad absurdum" is only an argument from a certain strand of theists - it's hardly uncontested!!

[XN0R]

I can't see how you can contest:

"I am uncertain of certainty"

(including that statement itself?)

All Atheism does is cause a paradoxical reduction to "I don't know".

Which is what Dawkins implies by "technically we're all Agnostic".

It's like UFO's - we know they exist, we just don't know what they are!

Lack of evidence to the contrary is no excuse either - if we can't agree on terms.

It's Form vs Function.

Metaphysics is key.

[xn0r]

[peterdunkley]

As I said, that might be compelling from your perspective, but you are actually suggesting that all atheists define their non-belief in a particular context. Only you are contesting "I am uncertain of uncertainty"

Why do you think that atheism creates a paradoxical reaction to "I don't know"?

Do we know UFOs exist? That surely depends upon defining the meaning of 'UFO'.... You have a raised an issue for the philosophical language pedants that could run for years!

[peterdunkley]

I'm not sure what you mean by evidence to the contrary, either. Surely, an atheist sees no evidence of a god - or they would be a agnostic by definition?

[peterdunkley]

Nice to have a chat, though!! I should point out that I only posted this video to help someone out!

[ExCreationist]

@XN0R "Gnosis" refers to knowledge. "A"gnosis means lack of knowledge. "Theist" refers to belief in a deity. "A"theist means lack of belief in a diety. Richard Dawkins does not believe in a deity, but he is not positive. There can also be an agnostic theist (not sure, but believes in god), a gnostic atheist (sure there is no god), or a gnostic theist (sure there is a god).

[worldsworstjukebox]

Your question may have been sufficiently answered by now, but you can be both agnostic AND atheist; they're not mutually exclusive. I'm an agnostic atheist. I don't claim to know for certain that a god of some kind does or doesn't exist (agnostic), but at the same time I have no belief that any do (atheist).

[minkr1]

oh. the last thing he said is "the only reason for disproving god is that many people believe in him..".

i wonder what he would have said if the time went on.

[jazzx251]

He describes himself as technically agnostic - he can not disprove any deity or fairies or hobgoblins. All have the extremely unlikely possibility of existing considering there's no evidence for them.

But - all of them are so unlikely that "atheist" is the correct definition.

That's how we get terms such as "strong atheist" and "weak atheist"