Richard Dawkins Q&A Session "God Delusion"

The last part of a three part series of videos. This video is the Q&A session of the Philadelphia lecture. Richard Dawkins is the worlds leading science writer. His newest book is called "The God Delusion." Visit his new website: www.RichardDawkins.net

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• Dawkins
• atheist
• atheism
• evolution
• physics
• science
• cosmology
• religion
• god
• Jesus
• Christ
• irrational
• delusional
• philosophy

[MrKGatl]

@MechanizedFantasy Blashemy!!! We all know that there is one true god, and Mother Goose is her name. I even have a book, which was written by Mother Goose, my god. Come on, its so obvious that Mother Goose created the world.  Nursery Rhymes are the written word of the lord and should be followed as true doctrine.

[carlosewm]

@CristinaFernandez

1) Religious beliefs are what Mediterranean people are killing each other for. I agree that it wouldn't eliminate all conflicts, but it would surely lessen the amount of them.

2) Well that's just prejudiced and uninformed idea from that cartoon and I really hope it was just a form of making humor, atheists can be religious and many atheists have a religion, atheism is merely the absence of belief in one or more deities.

[JacobMorrisNinetyTwo]

@TomFynn Religion can act as a motivating force for someone who would've already been corrupt in the first place. If religion didn't exist, the corrupt person would just use something else to justify their crimes. Which is where we return to the USSR example.

A) Please clarify your point.

B) It's still idealistic. You're asking for a major paradigm shift involving all of humanity, which would at best take a few hundred years.

C) That is not justification for your own intolerance.

[TomFynn]

@JacobMorrisNinetyTwo Religion is completely independent from power abuse? Sorry, but there is no better way to corruption, and indeed any complete disregard for your fellow man than absolute knowledge in the fact that "God Wills It". And absolute knowledge in the fact that "God Wills It" *is* Religion.

[TomFynn]

@JacobMorrisNinetyTwo A) How can the statement that there is no God since the necessary evidence *for* the proposition that there is, is nil, be *for* anything? How does anything follow logically from "X does - to the best of our knowledge - not exist"? Especially celebrity worship?

B) Hope for a certain kind of future is not wishful thinking. It's simply hope.

C) Coexistence? Tell that to Michell Bachmann, Rick Santorum and their ilk.

[JacobMorrisNinetyTwo]

@JacobMorrisNinetyTwo Would've also pointed out in that comment if it weren't for the character limit that we should deal with religious extremism and power abuse in religious societies in the same way we would deal with *any* human corruption. Religion is completely independent from that sort of thing.

[JacobMorrisNinetyTwo]

@TomFynn Atheism is specifically the lack of belief in god, it can be for any number of reasons - it is not specifically a stance against fooling yourself/wishful thinking. That sort of thing is found all over the place in our culture (take celebrity worship, for example). Ironically, wanting a world without religion is also wishful thinking - it's idealistic and not a logical, reasonable aim. It's far easier to coexist with religious people, even if we don't understand their faith.

[TomFynn]

@JacobMorrisNinetyTwo And as I pointed out, the SU is indistinguishable from a theocracy, based on the same exact impulses and drives that are subsumed under religion: The desire to fool oneself and wishful thinking. If we could rid humanity of these, would there be no problems? Unlikely. Would the solutions of the problems be easier, if the absolute certainty of the wishful thinking that is religion would be made to disappear? Oh, yes.

[JacobMorrisNinetyTwo]

@TomFynn That wasn't the point that my comment about the soviet union was directed at. There's a common misconception among atheists that a world without religion would have no killing, suffering, fighting, dictatorships, etc - but this is simply not true (and also something that was a major theme in that episode of South Park previously mentioned). I am an atheist for its basic statement, but blaming religion for suffering is like blaming metal for guns.

[TomFynn]

@JacobMorrisNinetyTwo My point is that the impulse of religion, the desire to fool oneself, is so strong that it has no need of supernatural entities. As George Orwell noted, totalitarian systems are indistinguishable from theocracies.

Oh, and how is the dictatorship in the SU functionally related to the basic statement of atheism that all claims towards supernatural entities are to be regarded as null and void until evidence is provided?

[JacobMorrisNinetyTwo]

@TomFynn The soviet union was still atheist nonetheless no matter how you compare it, my point being that anyone can create a corrupt leadership, regardless of belief (or lack of).