Richard Dawkins Answers Students and Teachers Lynchburg VA

professor professor Dawkins we'll take questions we'll ask you to line up at the two microphones introduce yourself and concisely ask your question it possible to have the house lights up a bit so I can see people are asking questions hello is this microphone on I'm a dr. Howell it's good to have heard your talk I really appreciated hearing this I should like to hear more of you because the more you talk the more you convince me that there is a God and you crystallize our need for him I'm glad I have some effective as a scientist I'm a bit disturbed that you would go on a tirade for 40 minutes against God so he couldn't let me go clearly I can't sure as a scientist I'm a bit odd set by the fact that you would go on a 40-minute tirade against God and then begin talking of science as if to put the authority of science into what you said but I do have a question about your long discussion about morality and it coming from the Bible and that you you accuse people I suppose Christians of saying that we get our morality from the Scriptures but clear this cannot be the case because humanity from every civilization throughout time has a sense of morality and clearly most of them have had not have not had access to the Bible so I'm curious then what you think is the origin of this morality if someone comes in here with a gun and began shooting all of us we would call that bad why why is that bad um I think we probably agree that people don't as a matter of fact get their morality from scriptures and that's what I was actually saying people get their morality from somewhere quite other than the scriptures and to the extent that they do get their morality from the scriptures as I was saying they pick and choose now if you're asking me where we get our morality from I think that's an extremely complicated question and one that I'm very interested in I've got a whole chapter on it in the book which I didn't have time to read from I think that a sort of bedrock of it probably comes from our Darwinian heritage as a kind of misfiring byproduct of our Darwinian past when we lived in small villages or small roving bands which meant that we were surrounded by close kin and that as you no doubt know is one good prerequisite for the evolution of altruism under Darwinian rules and also in those small villages or roving bands we would have been surrounded by people whom we're likely to meet again and again throughout our life which provides the basis for the other main Darwinian reason to be moral or altruistic that I think is the Darwinian origin and I suspect that although we no longer live in small bands the same rule of thumb rules of thumb which were honed in our Darwinian past are playing themselves out under the alien conditions of modern urban society the rule of thumb used to be be nice to everyone you meet because everyone you meet is likely to be either a cousin and or somebody you're going to meet again and again and therefore in a position to reciprocate Darwinism doesn't forecast doesn't suggest that we should be all wise and do what is actually going to be best for our selfish genes instead it says that it builds into our brains rule the thumb which worked in our ancestral past that rule of thumb unites to everybody is still in our brains it is a lust which is rather similar to sexual lust which is still in our brains even though we may use contraception and therefore are not actually using copulation to reproduce the same rule of thumb persists and that is also true of the lust to be good the lust to be nice that I think is the Darwinian origin but I think that it's become modified and refined through culture through civilization until it shows itself in the much more sophisticated and actually much more pleasant rules for being nice that we see today wherever else it comes from it certainly doesn't come from Scripture and that was the only point I was trying to make from that particular reading well hello there welcome to welcome to America I've been reading your book I've been reading your book and I think you're a terrific writer and I got to say listening to you in person in that accent everything man I just think you're brilliant but I thought that'd be about you I know I well it's it's Lynchburg well I am I am a theist you'll be disappointed to know but he might you know how Bertrand Russell you know said that if he faced God he'd ask you know where you know he didn't give enough evidence where was the evidence on a couple pieces of evidence that I would just kind of be interested to hear hear what you think about pertaining to this issue of ethics I read this chapter on ethics in your a book and I found it interesting I mean you were dealing with the the origin of our moral science more so than I think the origin of morality itself you'd probably agree right so so you know you still wonder what is it about the world that makes some things you know right and and something's wrong something's good something's bad and you know you want to retain the language of some things are evil and you give a lot of religious examples and I'm in agreement with you and some of you know but if we're going to retain these categories these very strong you know moral categories it seems to me that naturalism is going to be very hard pressed to kind of provide an account for where real good and evil would would be I mean I'm not sure how how entirely we can simply assert the existence of value without providing a deeper account for it and one other moral freedom as well it seems to me that if the naturalist is kind of shackled you know I mean a naturalistic world it would seem as if we're just bound and determined to behave just the way that we do right if morality is all about ought and ought applies can how can we ever do anything other than exactly what it is that we do so I'd be real interest in your responses to this well I think it's a problem for all of us I mean not not just for naturalist I think it is actually a fairly baffling where our morality comes from and why we're in fact as nice as we are in the professionals in this field are moral philosophers and moral philosophers that the majority of them are are not theologically inclined I mean they tend to develop ideas the simplest of all the one the one we all know about is that is the Golden Rule it behaved to others as you would wish they should behave to you and moral philosophers have developed other such principles always oppose suffering always behave as if you didn't know whether you were going to be at the top of the pecking order or the bottom these are all moral precepts which moral philosophers have developed now it's a genuinely difficult question why any individual should wish to follow such moral precepts if I ask myself I'm actually a very moral person I think I'm sure most of you are - if I ask myself why I don't steal why I pay my taxes why I do that all the things that keep society going I suppose it's slightly irrational feeling that I wouldn't wish to live in the kind of society where people behaved in the sort of ways that I wouldn't wish them to bit to behave in and therefore I shouldn't behave in those ways either that isn't entirely rational because if I behave in an anti-social way then that doesn't actually stop anybody else doing the nice things to me that well it maybe it does and that that could could be the problem but it is a genuinely difficult problem why we are moral all that I wish to assert today is that is that religion certainly doesn't help or if it does I mean if there's anybody here who thinks that their moral purely because they're frightened of what God might do if they're not mean that's a pretty contemptible reason to be moral and and I don't think we probably have much respect for people who only behave well because of the great surveillance camera in the sky so I think that that I'm sure all all of us here are moral for better reasons than than that although I quite agree with the questioner it's genuinely difficult to decide why why we are thank goodness we are leaving professor Dawkins my name is Thomas Lacaze I come from Thomas Jefferson's University here to ask you a question Richard atheists have a PR problem they are among the most distrusted minorities in the u.s. many people equate atheism with immorality and pessimism they ask what good has atheism done atheism is so cold I don't find any comfort from those who do not believe in God some have attempted to answer these criticisms with new life stances such as humanism or the Church of reality they assert there will be there will not be widespread apostasy until there is a replacement for religion Sam Harris says we must find ways of meeting our emotional needs that do not require the abject embrace of the of the preposterous further he says we must learn to invoke the power of ritual and to mark those transitions in every human life that demand profundity birth marriage death without lying to ourselves about the nature of reality so my question is do you what is your view of that assertion that there will not be widespread apostasy until we find a replacement for religion yes thank you that's an extremely interesting question a very important one if it is the case that people find consolation and comfort in religion then I'm not in the least surprised but note that that doesn't in any way imply that religious beliefs are true what is comforting and what is true are two entirely different things important to get that out of the way first because there are people I'm sorry to say who can't tell the difference between that which is comfort and that which is true if you don't see the point imagine a doctor telling you you're absolutely fine when actually you've got terminal cancer there are people who would wish their doctor to lie to them but those people who would not wish their doctor to lie to them should not be sympathetic to the idea that the rift that religion has value simply because it is comforting more consoling now the questioner quotes Sam Harris as by the way I strongly recommend his books on the end of faith and letter to a Christian nation both utterly brilliant books Sam Harris says we need to replace the various roles of religion comfort might be one of them ritual might be another rites of passage marriages funerals and so on might be another to the extent that humans do need ritual and do need public meetings to signal things like births marriages and deaths I don't see any reason why we shouldn't put on secular equivalents of the religious ceremonies that mostly dominate our lives at the moment I have myself organized one secular funeral for a very dearly loved colleague and being too many others and what what we did and what is normally done is too obvious dispense with all prayers but you retain music you retain poetry you can have readings from the deceased person's favorite books eulogies by people who knew and loved the deceased person this is not difficult to arrange it has the smack of sincerity about it in a way that prayers which are for the same prayers for everybody regardless of who they are the smack sincerity comes from the fact that they're individually tailored to the individual who's died whenever I've been to religious funerals which have an element of the non-religious about them religious funerals which include eulogies which include the deceased favorite poetry etc I don't know about you but my experience is that the prayers for absolutely flat whereas the eulogies and the poems are intensely moving my wife even says thank goodness for the prayers they are the one thing that stops her from crying and keeps her um amused almost rather than rather than being sad about the loss of the much-loved dead person the questioner is absolutely right in his preamble when he says that at least in American society atheists are on the least-loved least respected major group that's something that's got to change because atheists are far far more numerous than most people realize and that's mostly because they won't come out of the closet it's obvious that in an intelligent educated audience such as this University I stress this University who was it thought who was it saw fit to give them accreditation I'd like to know in a place like this I have not the slightest doubt but there are a very large number of atheists and agnostics what is wrong with everybody in that position throughout the country standing up recognizing each other joining together and forming I won't say a lobby because somebody suggested that organizing atheist is rather like herding cats they are on the whole too intelligent and independent minded to lend themselves to being herded but if a if an atheist Lobby could be got together which showed a small fraction of its numerical strength it would outnumber for example the Jewish lobby which is formatively and notoriously powerful in this country there are more secularists agnostics and atheists in this country than there are Jews but do they have a voice in politics is it possible for an atheist to get elected to high office in this country no the Congress of this country is presumably at least partly derived from the intelligent educated wing of the country that being so it is statistically almost inconceivable that a substantial number of members of Congress are not atheists obviously many of them must be and yet not single one of them will admit it they are forced to dissemble even to lie about their religious convictions because that's the only way they can get elected well isn't that something that the American electorate ought to be doing something about so I accept the questioners premise and suggest that it's up to I'm not an American citizen so it's unfortunately not up to me but up to all of you to do something about it and to change the status of atheists in this country and to change the electability of atheists in this country good evening my name is Amy LeMay Hammond I'm a first year student at our MWC and sorry I didn't hear that my name is Amy LeMay Hammond I'm a first year student at our MWC thank you and firstly I'd like to thank you for recognizing that there are probably many atheists in this room and that we are not morally dangerous or have no morals my question is in the case of sort of mock religions such as the invisible pink unicorn and such which I'm sure you're familiar with do those help the Atheist cause or do they actually hurt it by creating sort of hilarity about religion okay they do they do one good thing they answer one question and it's a very important question because it's a very ubiquitous one it's the following question you cannot disprove the existence of God now amazingly there are a lot of people who think that's a powerful argument you cannot disprove the existence of God which somehow seems to suggest to them oh well therefore the existence of God must be about equally likely to the to the non-existent existence and non-existence must be approximately equally likely and the point about the invisible pink unicorn on the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the celestial teapot and all those examples is simply to demonstrate that it's just not the case that because you cannot disprove something therefore that makes it the slightest bit likely and so that that's that that's the sole purpose of them it is a very important purpose thank I'm stockings um my name is Zack Smith I happen to be from Liberty University and I just want to applaud your uh your uh atheist wit because I have never at the same time been so insulted but amused at the same time so I just want to say does a good one but um my uh I had to forego my original question with the P R state of the ACA atheists that uh you've you know implied that there's some kind of social justice issue at stake here by saying that it's you know wrong or that that ought to be and that kind of language kind of implies that there is some kind of moral standard now I'm wondering if if you know from from your perspective what kind of moral standard could be a basis for that kind of social justice if if indeed there's no higher power I just oh well um first I don't understand why you should feel insulted I didn't insult you I insulted God and that's very different but but then the question of of social justice in the in the in their in the rights of atheist to be considered citizens and to be considered electable I don't think the issue is is quite that they should be elected because they are atheist that wasn't the point the point is that being an atheist should not debar you any more than being black to go back in history to being black or Jewish or Catholic or a woman or any of the other things which historically have tended to make somebody unelectable and no longer do I'm delighted to say that that atheists and indeed homosexuals which at which of which are the next one made most difficult lot to get elected but atheists are the other sort of the last major group to be embraced in this charmed circle of the electable I'm not saying they should be elected because they're atheists I'm saying that that that they should be free to openly say what their religious conviction or lack of conviction is and not thereby instantly be unelectable that that's all right that's all I meant I didn't mean anything more than that thank you I just would like to say at the outside a thank you for for coming and putting yourself in a sense on the firing line insofar as you've taken on God you have always the opportunity that God might win so I would like just to call your attention to something that in my hearing of your your talk you mentioned in a sense of ridicule about the Trinity and it's affront to reason very difficult to understand even make sense of and what you know why would a person even try for that matter but you interestingly enough you finished your lecture with quantum strangeness which in fact is the same problem for scientists as the Trinity is for believing Christians who have a need to understand just making that comment and and I'm recalled I spent most of my life being an atheist or non-believer in that sense and I've seen the world through that lens and I understand the logic of it and and so on when I became a believer I also noticed that the same world out there was being viewed through a different metaphysical lens and I would suggest to you that there's a burqa as well for metaphysical reality you can shift up and look through faith or you can shift down and look through human intelligence or human understanding call it reason or intuition or whatever but I would call to your attention that there is a whole new reality that comes it's not supernatural in the sense but it's a shift and understanding yes I think that's a very interesting point and I can answer it with reference to how you began which was the comparison between quantum theory which is deeply mysterious and the mystery of the Trinity and you implied that there's a sort of comparability between those that they are both deeply mysterious oh why should one prefer one over the other the answer to that is actually very simple quantum theory yields experimental predictions which have been verified to an accuracy number of decimal places so accurate that the great theoretical physicist Richard Feinman compared it to the accuracy of predicting the width of North America to the accuracy of the width of one human hair that is why quantum theory has to be taken seriously and it doesn't matter what he does matter but it's some one can take in one stride because of the brilliance of the experimental verification it doesn't matter that quantum theory is so mysterious that as Fineman himself once said if you think you understand quantum theory you don't understand quantum theory it is true that the human mind and I believe the reason is that the human mind evolved in middle world where the strangeness of quantum theory never impinged upon human life it is true that the human mind cannot grasp cannot visualize cannot imagine the assumptions that quantum theory needs to make but human physicists doing experiments can verify the predictions of quantum theory to an accuracy which is utterly stupefying and which leaves one in no doubt that in some sense quantum theory must be right nothing remotely like that could ever be claimed for the doctrine of the Trinity nor by the way is the doctrine of the Trinity anything like so interesting in mysterious as quantum theory hello thank you for coming to Lynchburg My name is Matthew Warner I'm a grad student at Liberty University I've won one question going back to ethics and morality you essentially said that the Darwinian reason we have morality is that back in the day you had cousins and people you want beat them to reciprocate in order to act like that you would have to make decisions the decisions would have to be based on critical thinking I was wondering if you have a Darwinian response or explanation for how critical thinking um relates to Darwinian is right I think I understand you your the question is not really about morality that the question is about is there a similar Darwinian account of critical thinking which is at the basis of your explanation for morality in my mind my explanation for everything else because able to be as well not not not just morality well I mean critical thinking is is something which isn't universally an attribute of the human mind it's I I don't think it's very very hard to imagine that I imagine ways in which critical thinking could have benefited the survival of our ancestors I mean I I think that taking a rational view of evidence would probably have helped our ancestors to survive in a world of the saber-tooth Tigers and ice ages and drying up water holes and all the other things which all the other hazards which threatened life I would have thought rather the reverse that the problem that faces us is how do we explain uncritical lack of thinking why is there such a lot of that about and I mean I do have a chapter explaining that but I should have thought that was that was a rather harder problem than than the one about about critical thinking hi my name is Carl Swenson and I'm going to tip my hand right off the start like the other brave questioners and say that if if theories and ideas around things like intelligent design creationism are scientifically all but dead they just haven't fallen over yet then I see something else waiting in the wings scientifically that needs that would could be a problem for science and that's until I ask your opinion about this thing's like you've used the word mind a lot we think of mind as some dimensionless thing in the middle of our head which tells us what to do and is separate from the brain which is similar to the soul another popular notion so what is science or philosophy at this point have to say about this about that about the mind about yeah about the existence of it yeah or the soul or the popular notions well I mean my view would be a materialistic one not everybody's would and and my view would be that mind and soul and consciousness and all those sorts of words are they describe something which is a manifestation of the material brain and doesn't have any existence outside material brains where material brains could at some future date perhaps include silicon brains not not just neuronal brains but there has to be some sort of physical medium doubtless highly complicated highly interconnected a network of of complicated wiring diagram which by some means which neurophysiologists are now working on results in the phenomena which psychologists study and which we colloquially give names like mind and even soul - so I don't think that the mind is an immaterial thing that has any existence outside the material world I March Nandita I'm a sophomore at randolph-macon Woman's College majoring in biology and environmental science Mike my question is in no way controversial it's not intended to be so and it basically Springs out of what the point you made in your hypothesis about God do you imply that we may evolve to become God or do we share a common ancestry with God well um I don't think it's very helpful to suggest that we are likely to evolve to become gods I do think that there may very well be somewhere in the universe being evolved beings which are so far advanced compared to us that we would if we saw them we might very well be tempted to call them gods and it is also possible by the same token that if our species goes on evolving either genetically and/or culturally for a sufficient number of millenia our descendants might become so advanced that we would be tempted to call them gods however I don't think I would wish to call them gods because however advanced they are however ingenious however intelligent however their technology would strike us with awe they would still be evolved beings they would be beings that had evolved by a process of slow gradual incremental evolution and that to me is the diagnostic feature of a God and God doesn't evolve and God just happens and God is just there and so I think my answer to your question is it's an interesting thought but in but but actually I don't think it would be a helpful use of the word God any more than if a Stone Age hunter were to suddenly be transported into the 21st century and would of course be awestruck by computers and mobile phones and Boeing 747s and helicopters and rockets to the moon that Stone Age hunter might be tempted to call us gods but I think it's a temptation that he should resist and so should we dr. Dawkins I am a professor at Liberty University of a non subject religion right but according to your book and I've been reading your book and it's helped me to understand atheists mine and I appreciate that I have a whole group of my students here tonight they've been in the back there and because I wanted them to hear what you have to say and we want to be careful not to set up straw men about atheists which you know are done and I want them to avoid very much okay sue but I wanted to read from your book you'd be reading from your book and I find it interesting this footnote on page 82 we might be seeing something similar today in a over publicized forgiver sation of the philosopher anthony flue who announced in his old age that he had been converted to belief in some sort of deity now I want to read that footnote before I went question right you would consider yourself a de facto atheists leaning toward a strong Aegeus category six leaning towards seven apparently because you would say the evidence demands your being an atheist not the theist for you the evidence makes the existence of God highly improbable so my question is what evidence would you need to conclude that God's existence at least was as probable as that of extraterrestrials and why did you relegate Anthony flu to a footnote with with him being such an eminent philosopher and finding design in the DNA an indication yes um Anthony flu is a is a british philosopher who has long been a champion of atheism and he has as the questioner remarks announced in his old age that he has been converted to a form of deism not allowed theism a form of Diaz where he thinks there probably is some kind of mysterious intelligence at the at the universe many great people have thought the same what disappointed me about Anthony flus reasons for that is that he publicly admitted publicly announced that what had convinced him was the idea of intelligent design and specifically the book of Michael Behe well that doesn't argue for the surviving powers that Antony flew once had as an intellectual no serious thinker could possibly be positively impressed by the arguments of the so-called intelligent design creationists there may be good reasons for believing in a god and if there are any I would expect them to come from possibly modern physics from cosmology from the observation that as some people claim the laws and constants of the universe are too finely tuned to to be an accident that would not be a wholly disreputable reason for believing in some form of supernatural deity I think there's a very good argument against it and I've developed much of my chapter four to as I think refuting that argument if at only fluid said that then I think we could have a serious argument with him but what he actually said was that he was convinced by intelligent design in biology and anybody who knows anything about biology and will immediately see that that is ridiculous I'm sorry to be so I'm sorry to be so harsh but when I last saw Antony flu he he didn't endear himself to me because he actually went about promulgating the legend that Darwin himself had a deathbed conversion and that really is a ridiculous story which was long long ago disposed of by the Darwin family and it led me to somewhat discount other things that Antony flew is now saying he once was a great philosopher it's very sad good evening my name is Ryan Thomas I'm a biology major at Liberty University and I kind of have a tube I kind of have it sorry I having a hard time hearing oh I'm sorry I my name is Ryan yams I'm a biology major at University at Liberty University right now and I have a two-part question for if you don't mind my first question would be do you draw a distinction in between blind faith and reasonable faith okay is there a distinction do I draw a distinction between blind faith and reasonable faith no it's it's it's interesting that you say that because just through my own study suit through my my investigation into this matter I have come to the conclusion there is no such thing as proof right that there is reasonable faith and there is blind faith when I when I drop a ball you know to the ground on earth it's reasonable for me to believe that the ball will fall the very next time that I drop it but I can't prove it just as I can't prove that you exist yeah I believe that you exist based on a reasonable faith because I can see you because I can hear you but our senses can sometimes deceive us people on cocaine feel bugs in their skin but that doesn't make it real if people that are taking for listening and see things but it doesn't make it real ok so I think it's interesting that you denying the the line between reasonable fears I mean I think we agree I think we're just using words in a different way I think it's it's a semantic thing something like when you when you drop a ball it falls and when you drop another ball it falls and when you drop another ball it falls I don't think I would wish to use the word faith for your belief that the next time you drop it it will fall I don't think that's what I would use the word faith for I think that's that's that's normal science I mean that's based upon Newton's laws it's based upon a tremendous body of theory it's based upon scientific evidence so I would not use the word reasonable faith the way you're using it seems to be you're using a reasonable face for basing beliefs upon upon evidence so if if you're using reasonable faith to mean belief based upon evidence then there's no disagreement we're just using words in a different way i define faith as as belief that's not based upon evidence ok and that's why I answered your first question in the way that I that I did I don't think we actually disagree and I'm sure we disagree at other things but anything we disagree about this in that in in an other than semantic way ok then my second question I'm sorry I didn't expect you to answer no actually to the first one but yeah the surprises every day my second question is considering then that we must believe what's based on reason and reason of course it's based on experience correct you know reason is is based on the fact that when I when I drop the ball that it falls every time so it's reasonable to believe next time I drop the ball it's going to fall why then is it reasonable considering our experience concerning the law of cause and effect concerning the fact that we our experience tells us that everything which has an effect has a cause how is it that it's more reasonable to believe that the universe created itself because when confined to the natural laws because nature is bound by its own limits which which are the natural laws and if nature is bound by the laws which say that matter can't create itself then how do you get around this issue that there must have been something outside outside the system it is it is very difficult it is of course a very difficult question to ask how things began at the very beginning of the universe it's very difficult to even know what the word beginning even means with respect to the universe that any physicist any biologist any scientist any reasonable person would accept however when you ask what's the alternative if the alternative that's being offered to what physicists now talk about a big Big Bang a spontaneous singularity which gave rise to the origin of the universe if the alternative to that is a divine intelligence a creator which would have to have been complicated statistically improbable the very kind of thing which scientific theories such as Darwin's exists to explain then immediately we see that however difficult and apparently inadequate the theory of the physicist is the theory of the theologians that the first cause was intelligence is even more difficult to accept they're both difficult but the theory of the cosmic intelligence is even worse what Darwinism does is to raise our consciousness to the power of science to explain the existence of complex things and intelligences and creative intelligences are above all complex things they're statistically improbable Darwinism raises our consciousness to the power of science to explain how such entities of the human brain is one how such entities can come into existence from simple beginnings however difficult those simple beginnings may be to accept they are a whole lot easier to accept than complicated beginnings complicated things come into the universe late as a consequence of slow gradual incremental steps God if he exists would have to be a very very very complicated thing indeed so to postulate a God as the beginning of the universe as the answer to the riddle of the first cause is to shoot yourself in the conceptual foot because you are immediately postulating something far far more complicated than that which you are trying to explain now physicists cope with this problem in various ways which may seem to you they even seem to me somewhat unconvincing for example they suggest that our universe is but one bubble in a foam of universes the multiverse and each bubble in the foam has a different set of laws and constants and by the anthropic principle we have to be since we're here talking about it we have to be in the kind of bubble with the kind of laws and constants which are capable of giving rise to the evolutionary process and therefore to creatures like us that is one current physicist explanation for how we exist in the kind of universe that we that we do it doesn't sound so shatteringly convincing as say darwin's own theory which is self-evidently very convincing nevertheless however unconvincing that may sound it is many many many orders of magnitude more convincing than any theory that says complex intelligence was there right from the outset if you if you have problems seeing how matter could just come into existence try thinking about how complex intelligent matter or complex intelligent entities of any kind could suddenly spring into existence its many many orders of magnitude harder to understand sorry you've had three already hi my name is Amber Maura from Liberty University as well I have two questions for you how can you believe in extraterrestrials as a higher being and not believe in a god could you just say that again how can you how can you believe as extra extraterrestrials as a higher being and not believe in a God how can I believe that an extraterrestrial is a higher being and not believe in them as a as an advanced higher being yeah I understand um the words of your question an extraterrestrial higher being if one exists comes into existence as the end product of a long slow gradual incremental process of evolution just like the one that gave rise to us that's the explanation for why the extra-terrestrial if it is indeed an advanced being is an advanced being it's a very sensible easy to understand explanation it's a gradual explanation you start from simple beginnings and you work up God isn't like that God is a being that is not supposed to evolved God is a being that has always existed and therefore does not have the benefit of that kind of sensible rational gradual istic explanation that is an absolutely crucial difference I suspect that on other planets there probably are beings as I said before which are so far advanced relative to us that they might as well be gods except for this one absolutely crucial respect that they came into the universe by slow gradual degrees they didn't just happen nothing as complicated as that just happens they didn't just happen and therefore they it or he or she could not be responsible for designing the universe fashioned this is probably going to be the most simplest one for you to answer but what if you're wrong well what if I'm wrong I mean anybody could be wrong we could all be wrong about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the pink unicorn and the flying teapot um you happen to have been brought up I would presume in the Christian faith you know what it's like not to believe in a particular faith because you're not a Muslim you're not a Hindu why aren't you a Hindu because you happen to be in brought up in America not in India to being Waterman Hindu in India you'd be a Hindu if you were brought up in in Denmark in the time of the Vikings you'd be believing in what an and Thor if you were brought up in in classical Greece you'd be believing in Seuss if you're brought up in central Africa you'd be believing in the great juju up the mountain in there's no particular reason to pick on the judeo-christian God in which by the sheerest accident you happen to have been brought up and asked me the question what if I'm wrong what if you're wrong about the great juju at the bottom of the sea in continuation of the last fellow's questions the problem is that you're applying natural laws to God whereas he claims to exist outside of them therefore he does not necessary to be in until I mean you you tope your way out of having to provide a rational argument by just decreeing by feared that God that God simply declares himself outside matter and therefore doesn't need the same kind of argument as as anything else me if you're convinced by that kind of thing you're welcome my name is Kay Goodman and I'd like to hear your thoughts on whether or not there is a god or gods what effect has it upon humankind upon the orders of the world upon men and women that we rather consistently refer to God as a male well that's a perfectly fair point and I I mean to me to me though there is no difference between a non-existent male and a non-existent to the extent that to the extent that god or gods has sociological psychological political significance then I could easily imagine that if one could somehow begin account of a female God it might well have a very improving of effect upon human society I'm nervous amber Dawn's student here at randolph-macon thank you for that previous answer I'll give you a bit of reprieve I am NOT challenging you in any way shape or form and I only wrote this down because I know I'd forget what I want you as someone coming from a religious family especially in an area with such a dominant religion and a particular figurehead how does someone find their own way when leaving is not quite an option I didn't quite the last sentence yes how does one find their own way when leaving just yet is not quite an option okay first and I have a small I think this is a very serious question because I've had I've had letters from really quite a lot of people in especially in America and they say things like I I'm actually an atheist but I don't admit it I'm frightened of my family I'm frightened of my parents I'm frightened of my minister I read an article the other day about a boy in a small town in Texas who didn't want to be confirmed and the priest said well that's okay you don't have to be confirmed but you have to write down your reasons for not being confirmed why did the boy have to write down his reasons for not being confirmed into that particular Church you didn't have to write down his reasons for not being bar Mitzvahed as a Jew it just so happened that he was born into a Christian family and therefore the presumption was made that he'd better have a good reason for not being confirmed into the religion of his parents or else and that's one of the main problems we have is the assumption that our society makes regardless of whether we are religious or not we all buy into the convention that children belong to the religion of their parents you will see newspaper article talking about Christian children and Muslim children and Jewish children children who maybe as young as three or four years old and who are therefore obviously much too young to know what their beliefs are about the cosmos and humanity and religion there is no such thing as a Christian child there is only a child of Christian parents whenever you hear the phrase Christian child or Muslim child or Protestant child or Catholic child the phrase should great like fingernails on a blackboard just as the feminists have raised our consciousness to phrases like one-man one-vote you can't hear that phrase now without sort of at least wincing slightly because you realize it should be one-person one-vote at present we haven't had our consciousness raised about the labeling of children with the religion of their parents that's just one aspect and it shows itself to return to the questioner it shows itself in a great deal of difficulty that any young person has in any person of any age has in departing from the religion of their parents there are social groups their grandparents their uncles and aunts and so on it might be a bit like getting divorced and it's sort of something that raises real social problems there's a magnificent one-woman show by the comic actress Julia Sweeney called letting go of God in which she describes her own journey from Catholic upbringing to the mature and balanced atheist that she is today and she describes the difficulty of admitting to her family that that she had become an atheist directly was reported in in a newspaper and her mother read it and screamed down the telephone and dualists we need is very witty a very funny performance she does she says that her mother was absolutely horrified not believing in God was one thing but an atheist I don't know what the answer is the I mean the president of gay people is one that one can vaguely bear in mind I mean homosexuality is now much much more accepted in our society than it was when I was young when I mean homosexuality was actually illegal in Britain up until I think the 1960s believe it or not and the great British mathematician one of the two fathers of the modern computer Alan Turing who arguably because of his brilliance in solving the German Enigma codes in the Second World War did more to win the second world war than either Churchill or Eisenhower Alan Turing was arrested for homosexual behavior in the 1950s and was essentially driven to suicide that has now changed and now people can be openly gay the word gay has become a word used with pride rather than with shame I think that we do have to have a shift in social attitudes to atheism which will mirror that towards homosexuality it is after all just a view about the cosmos and about there is other things about humanity about morality is really quite extraordinary that somebody's view about such an academic matter as whether there exists as supreme intelligence should reflect upon their the way they looked at in society the way their family and their friends look at them it is quite remarkable that that should be the case once again it's something we've all got to do something about last question very simple is anger a common symptom of a person who is going through the deconditioning process of their parents religion I didn't go too close to the microphone I said is anger a common symptom of a person who is going through the deconditioning process of their parents religion is anger a common symptom of a person who's going through the deconditioning process from their parents religion I don't know I have never occurred to me does anybody else have personal I think sort of fear is is probably more common I mean fear fear of of what their parents are going to think rather than anger but but I could be wrong and I'm interested in that if if that's that's question is based on personal experience I'd be interested to hear more is that a common experience Wow and anger on the part of the person who is undergoing the deconversion themselves anger against whom or what all the authority figures to push this at the norm and a thematic to the child's reason right well thank you that's extremely interesting I've learned something this evening thank you hi I'm Ron I'm Ron Fineman I love physics - two quick two questions if I may at Liberty University they have on display some fossils that they say are I might be off by a factor or by a thousand years or so but they say these fossils of dinosaurs are 3000 years old maybe 4000 maybe 5,000 my my question the first question to you is what what could they do to really prove to scientists that those fossils are indeed that old only that's number one and then number two would you be willing to elucidate a little bit further your arguments against creation by design and maybe give us some better sense of cosmological time just how long it really is right the the belief that dinosaurs are only three thousand years old and that the universe is only six thousand years old how to give an idea of the real timespan of the world when what one way to put it which I've recently been think thinking about is that if somebody believes that the world is only six thousand years old or of the order of a few thousand years old when the true age of the earth is of the order of a few billion years old that means they're out by a factor of a million which is not a trivial error it's I mean I am not very good at arithmetic and I calculated that it's equivalent to believing that the distance from New York to San Francisco is seven hundred yards but I received a letter from a mathematician who done is done the sum again and he said I got it wrong it's actually equivalent to believing that the distance from New York to San Francisco is 28 feet either way it gives you an idea of the scale of the error the questioner asked what would the people of Liberty University have to do in order to demonstrate that these dinosaur fossils really were three thousand years old or what they would have to do is to find igneous rocks which were found in proximity to or sandwiching the the fossils and date these by radioactive dating several different half a dozen at least different forms of radioactive dating all of which give independent estimates of the date of these fossils and all those different methods of doing it should point to an age of 3000 years in fact of course what those methods of dating all show is that dinosaur fossils are hundreds of millions no less than 65 million years old not just one method of radioactive dating lots and lots of different methods of radioactive dating different clocks clocks working on completely different principles that that all point to the same order of magnitude of age of these dinosaur fossils if it's really true that the museum at Liberty University has a dinosaur fossils which are labeled as being 3000 years old then that is an educational disgrace it is divulging the whole idea of a university and I would strongly encourage any members of Liberty University who may be here to leave and go to a proper University with your with elucidating on chance versus natural selection versus intelligent design and give us a sense of rajma logical time chance and natural selection and intelligent design one of the biggest fallacies in popular understanding of Darwinian evolution by natural selection is that it is a theory of random chance it is not it's the it's the very opposite and this is one of the most important things to understand about it there is a certain chance element in it the mutation is is a process of random charges random with respect to improvement things don't tend to get better as a result of mutation the important step in the Darwinian theory of evolution is natural selection natural selection is a non-random process natural selection is the non-random survival of randomly varying genetic codes the reason why some genetic codes survive better than others is their phenotypic effects via the processes of embryogenesis on phenotypes on bodies which make them survive or not survive reproduce or not survive and the ones that do survive and reproduce pass on the genetic coded instructions that built them and equipped them and made them good at surviving and reproducing that's the idea that is the explanation for the apparent adaptive design that the illusion of design which all living things show it is a non-random process it does not involve design of any sort and it produces an illusion of design it is hard for people to grasp for various reasons and one reason the questioner has pinpointed is the sheer length of time involved geological time is larger than most human minds are capable of grasping one there various metaphors have been used to and convey the sheer magnitude of geological time one that I like which I didn't invent is you hold out your hand to represent the the length of geological time and if say the middle of my tie is the origin of life and the tip of my finger is the present then the dinosaurs which went extinct 65 million years ago lived about there most of this is bacteria you have you have multicellular life evolving about here dinosaurs about there humans at my fingernail and the whole of recorded human history everything from the Egyptians biblical times the Romans the Assyrians the Greeks all of human history disappears in the dust from one stroke of a nail file that's the the scale of human history is the dust from one stroke of a nail file on the same scale as the time that's available that has been available for evolution that is one of the reasons why people find it so hard to understand there are many reasons I've written about eight books on the subject which preceded the God Delusion and it's a little hard to condense it into a few minutes thank you very much I'm sorry I don't know when we're supposed to stop and write we went to Professor Dawkins is going to sign books for us after this data dribble lounge which is downstairs to give you a few minutes to get there but I think we probably better stop here here for this evening okay thank you very much very many thanks thank you

Channel: Nightmares of Jesus

Views: 902,239

Rating: 4.8359427 out of 5

Keywords: Richard Dawkins, God Delusion, Liberty University, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Creationism

Id: zPsmYWbY-VA

Length: 70min 5sec (4205 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2013