Why are there so many ugly people?

Richard Dawkins on the Colbert Report show [HT uncommon descent]

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Richard Dawkins
www.colbertnation.com
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Lennox and Dawkins debate audio

The audio of Richard Dawkins' third encounter with John Lennox can be downloaded here.
It took place on 21st October 2008 at Oxford university Museum.

Ruse on Dawkins

The trouble with Richard Dawkins from CPX on Vimeo.

New edition of Dawkins's book

[HT Thinking Christian]

Dawkins, clergymen, the Royal Society and Monty Python

Professor Richard Dawkins compared putting a clergyman in charge of education at the Royal Society to a Monty Python sketch, according to the Daily Telegraph...

...mmmm, weren't many of the founders of the Royal Society clergymen?

It also happens that this 'clergyman' has written extensively about the principles and practice of science education at both primary and secondary level; has directed a number of research, evaluation and curriculum development projects funded by:

• the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour
• British Council, British Ecological Society
• Department for Education and Skills
• Department for Children, Schools and Families
• Economic and Social Research Council
• Field Studies Council
• Gatsby Charitable Foundation
• Institute of Physics
• London Challenge
• London IDEAS Genetics Knowledge Park
• National Endowment for Science
• Nuffield Foundation, Technology and the Arts
• Nuffield Foundation, Planet Science
• Qualifications and Curriculum Authority
• Society of Chemical Industry
• Wellcome Centre and Wellcome Trust.

He edited the Cambridge University Press Advanced Biology Series and was previously a Vice-President of the Institute of Biology.

For more on Reiss see here.

Royal Society's press releases: here and here

Reiss's essay Science lessons should tackle creationism and intelligent design
Audio here

Dawkins's letter here

Lennox-Dawkins debate

The Lennox-Dawkins debate is now available to watch on-line:

http://www.dawkinslennoxdebate.com/

The Dawkins Letters

David Robertson, the author of The Dawkins Letterss:

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The four horsemen

Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens in a round table discussion. [Ht Internet Infidels/ Debunking Christianity]

Hour 1 - Google Video | Quicktime (78.7 MB) | Torrent | Audio Only (mp3, 26.6 MB)
Hour 2 - Google Video | Quicktime (73.6 MB) | Torrent | Audio Only (mp3, 27.1 MB)

The most popular posts of the last year

The most popular posts in the last year were:

1. The link for the audio of the Lennox-Dawkins debate
2. The Dawkins links
3. The anthroposophical worldview - even though it was written more than a year ago
4. Calvin Seerveld
5. Review of Frank Viola's Pagan Christianity
6. A Christian view of work
7. Dawkins's article in Private Eye

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Rowan Wiliams on Dawkins

The Telegraph has a piece on Rowan Williams' take on Dawkins:

Dr Rowan Williams responded to critics of religion by arguing that atheists had missed the point and failed to understand what Christians really believe in.
In a fierce attack on the Oxford professor and other leading atheists, he said: "There are specific areas of mismatch between what Richard Dawkins may write about and what religious people think they are doing."

He added: "There are few things more annoying than people saying 'I know what you mean'." Dr Williams described Prof Dawkins as a "lively and attractive writer" but said his arguments were not fully engaging with religion.

He suggested that Prof Dawkins, the author of the best-selling The God Delusion and a leading Darwinist, was a good scientist but a poor philosopher.

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Lennox-Dawkins debate audio

The debate between John Lennox and Richard Dawkins can be listend to here:

Part 1 (47:28, 13.6 MB)
Part 2 (44:01, 12.62 MB)
Part 3 (27:28, 7.87 MB)
[HT Debunking Christianity]

Dawkins in Private Eye

.. courtesy of Simon Kolstoe


To see full article click on image.

On Dawkins - a compilation of links

A reducio ad absurdum: The Dawkins Delusion


Dawkins' websites

• RichardDawkins.Net
• Dawkins' Resource page
• The world of Richard Dawkins
• Homepage at Oxford University
  

God Delusion

• William Lane Craig examines Dawkin's 'argument for atheism' here.
• Macht has started to blog through Dawkins' God Delusion. I and II. As always, Macht has some insightful comments.
• Alister McGrath 'The Dawkins delusion'

Reviews

• Andrew Brown in Prospect
• Tim Challies
• Terry Eagleton 'Lunging, flailing, mispunching'
• Tom Gilson 'What's going on in the God Delusion'
• Tom Gilson 'Religion isn't bad for kids'
• Nicholas Lash in New Blackfriars [HT Macht]
• Jonathan Luxmore in Commonweal
• Mary Midgely in New Scientist
• H Allen Orr in New York Review of Books
• Alvin Plantinga 'The dawkins confusion'
• Skeptical Christian
• Thinking Christian [Steve Parker] Book review
• Mark Vernon in Philosophy Now [HT Macht]

In general

• Christians in Science links
  
• Chris Knight 'Dawkins delusions; faith and evidence'
  
• Alister McGrath 'Has science eliminated God?: Richard Dawkins and the meaning of life'
• Links complied by Michael Penfold: atheistdelusion
• Nick Pollard 'The root of all evil? - the problem with Richard Dawkin's faith' part 1 part 2
  
• Michael Poole 'A critique of aspects of the philosophy and theology of Richard Dawkins' Dawkins response; Poole's reply
• Mark Roques 'Richard Dawkins and reason'
• Nick Spencer 'Dawkins' god'
  
• Melvin Tinker 'What would God say to Richard Dawkins?'
  
• Brian Trapp 'Done with Dawkins'
• Peter S Williams 'Faith based Dawkins'
• Peter S Williams 'Darwin's rottweller and the public understanding of scientism'
  

Book responses to Dawkins

• Richard Appignanesi and Chris Horrocks (eds) Postmodernism and Big Science (Icon books, 2002)
  
• Thomas Crean OP A Catholic replies to Professor Dawkins (Family Publications, 2007)
• Kathleen Jones Challenging Richard Dawkins (Canterbury Press Norwich, 2007)
  
• Alister and Joanna McGrath The Dawkins Delusion? (SPCK, 1997)
  
• Alister McGrath Dawkins' God (Blackwell, 2004)
• David Robertson The Dawkins' Letters (Christian Focus Publications, 2007)
  
• Roger Steer Letter to an Influential Atheist (Authentic, 2003)
• Andrew Wilson Deluded by Dawkins? (Kingsway, 2007)
  

Audio

• God Delusion Debate David Quinn vs. Richard Dawkins Click Here to listen
• Is God a Delusion? Atheism and the Meaning of Life Alister McGrath Click Here to listen
• God Delusion Debate Alister McGrath vs. Richard Dawkins Part 1 and Part 2.
• Dawkins and McGrath chaired by Joan Bakewell here.
  

Video

• Dawkins Q&A session on the God Delusion:

• Dawkins interviews McGrath

Dawkins answering questions

More on Dawkins

Richard Dawkins has started to look at new age therapies on a UK TV (Ch4) programme due to go out tomorrow: details here.

In today's Observer Neil Spencer one of Dawkins's 'enemies of reason' responds.


Nigel Calder in an interview on 'orthodoxies and experts' given on an Australian programme decribes Dawkins's view of evolution as 'out of date':
http://www.idnet.com.au/files/pdf/ssw_20070811.mp3
[HT Uncommon Descent]

William lane craig examines Dawkin's 'argument for atheism' here.

A new webiste from Michael penfold: atheistdelusion

I now regard Richard Dawkins as a dangerous enemy of truth, not the 'advocate for disinterested truth' he likes to style himself. As for my humble biology teacher, he is to be pitied for uncritically believing and teaching what he saw in the textbooks. It's the Dawkinses of this world who are the real culprits in this deception. For a number of years I quietly contemplated 'doing something about it' but my annoyance at Dawkins never went any further - that is, until September 2006, when his book The God Delusion came out. After carefully reading through it I concluded there was a need for a comprehensive website exposing Darwin's Rottweiler Charles Simonyi calls him. You're on that site now.

"A Rocha: "Why Should Christians Care for Creation?" (10:05min)"

A Rocha: "Why Should Christians Care for Creation?" (10:05min)

10 min 5 sec -
Description: A Rocha is an international Christian nature conservation NGO working to show God's love for all creation. This video features theologians (John Stott, Alister McGrath, James Jones) and scientists (Ghillean Prance, Simon Stuart) who talk about the biblical basis for creation care.

If you're having trouble watching the video, try copying the following URL into your browser:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2887099263216835896&q=McGrath+Dawkins&pr=goog-sl

Rocky's favourite questions to ask atheists

My friend Mark "Rocky" Roques has complied a list of 30 questions to ask atheists (any others?)

Rocky’s Favourite Questions to ask Atheists

1. Would you agree with Desmond Morris and Richard Dawkins who assert that sexual promiscuity is normal and natural among Alpha males?

2. Would you agree with Nietzsche that exploitation and cruelty is the fundamental fact of human existence?

3. Would you agree with Prof Eric Pianka that humans are no better than bacteria?

4. Would you agree with Susan Blackmore who argues that Darwinism leads inexorably to the conclusion that our existence is illusory?

5. Richard Dawkins has stressed that goodness and evil cannot exist in a Darwinian universe. In the light of Auschwitz would you agree with him?

6. Emotivists, like Alfred Ayer, argue that ethics boils down to human expression of feeling? If a society of committed cannibals expressed positive collective feelings about torturing and then eating people, would this be ok?

7. Suppose that the majority of people living in the U.K. voted for the death penalty for ‘gingers’. Would you go along with this?

8. Cultural relativism flows directly from Darwinian assumptions. The cultural relativist asserts that it is intolerant to judge cultures that engage in systematic cannibalism and torture. Would you agree with this position?

9. Would you agree with Bertrand Russell when he argued that cannibalism is a duty for some people?

10 Would you agree with some atheists that consensual cannibalism is perfectly valid?

11. Would you agree with evolutionary psychologists who argue that rape and infanticide are normal and natural because that’s how some humans have been hardwired by natural selection to behave?

12. Is it possible to be an ‘authentic’ cannibal?

13. Is there anything wrong with a consenting man marrying a consenting goat? Should we change the law so that humans can legally get married to animals?

(May 1998 - The Jerry Springer Show had an episode titled "I married a horse". The show was ultimately not aired by many stations on the planned date, apparently due to concerns about the acceptability of broadcasting an episode in which a man admitted to a long term emotional and sexual relationship of this kind. The man and his horse later participated in a British documentary on the subject.)

14. Is there anything wrong with an open marriage? It is very popular with Hollywood stars like Will Smith. Shouldn’t we abolish Christian marriage?

15. Is there anything wrong with polygamy? Isn’t it only natural for strong, aggressive males to enjoy the sexual delights of the well-stocked harem?

16. Is it possible to object to the Hindu practice of burying widows alive when this moral conviction has evolved very successfully in that particular culture? (Eyewitness accounts have observed children burying their own mothers in the early 19^th century)

17. Nazi scientists used to experiment on "sub-humans" like Jews and gypsies. Should we object to this in the light of the simple fact that we are no better than bacteria?

18. The full title of Darwin’s famous book is this – On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. In the light of this frank title is there anything wrong with racism?

19. Would you agree with Richard Dawkins’ assertion that moral notions of responsibility are illusory because all human behaviour is determined by the impersonal laws of physics?

20. Is it possible to believe in both rationality and a view of science that reduces everything to Physics? In other words doesn’t science worship destroy rationality?

21. In his disturbing novel The Wasp Factory Iain Banks presents us with an Anti-hero, Frank Cauldhame who delights in torture and murder of both humans and animals. The novel is written in such a way that this way of life is intimately connected to evolution by natural selection. Question – Would you agree with Banks’ gruesome worldview and if not where has he gone wrong?

22. How would you respond to Nietzsche’s challenge that if you get rid of the Christian God you must also get rid of Christian morality?

23. How would you respond to philosopher Patricia Churchland who argues that Darwinism radically destroys science’s ability to produce true statements. We believe things because they help us to survive. Natural Selection couldn’t give two figs about the truth.

24. When scientists begin breeding human-chimpanzee hybrids, do you think we should grant them the same rights as human-beings or can we simply treat them like slaves and instruments? What is the moral basis for how we relate to hybrids?

25. Are you a hard-headed atheist like Nietzsche or a mystically inclined one like Richard Dawkins? (Nietzsche says - go with the cruelty of evolution and Dawkins tells us that we have the power to rebel against our selfish genes and embrace altruism and goodness.)

26. What is the moral basis for love and tolerance? (Good question to ask when Christians are accused of being intolerant.)

27. Politicians like Tony Blair are often telling us that terrorist atrocities are ‘unacceptable’. Would you agree with him about this?

Could you explain what is meant by this term ‘unacceptable’? Who are we speaking about here? All human beings? All rational human-beings? All British people? Or just stamp collectors in Burnley?

28. In 2004 a woman in the Netherlands got married to herself! Perfectly legal in Holland. Is there anything wrong with this? If marriage is a social construct then why not? What about a marriage with three people in it? Two gay men and a lesbian. And there are growing numbers of people who would like to get married to dolphins and their pets. Isn’t it intolerant not to allow such conjugal bliss?

29. Missionaries like William Carey, James Chalmers and Amy Carmichael fought such social evils as suttee, cannibalism and religious prostitution. Were they wasting their lives? Were they being intolerant of indigenous ‘customs’?

30. Would you agree with Columbine killer Eric Harris when he wrote the following?

“just because your mummy and daddy tell you blood and violence is bad, you think it’s a f-g law of nature. Wrong, only science and math are true, everything else, and I mean every f-g thing is man made.” (From one of Eric’s notebooks)

The Dawkins Delusion

[HT parableman]

Talking philosophy on Dawkins

A new blog from the editors of TPM, Talking philosophy, has an interesting post on Dawkins:

Message to Dawkins: If you want to take on religion, then there is something to be said for taking on the best versions of the arguments that can be made in its favour, not the worst versions.

At least it's not just the theists who think Dawkins is shooting atheism in the foot.

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Atheism - a faith position?

Stephen Law (editor of Think and lecturer at Heythrop College, London) argues that it's not here and here.

Is atheism a "faith position"? Anything can be, of course. But I challenge anyone to show that my atheism - or Dawkins' atheism - is a "faith position". It's not. I'll be explaining why in next blog.

In the next post he writes:

Is atheism a "faith" position? If by "faith position" we mean can't be proved beyond all doubt, then yes, it is. But then so is the belief that there are no fairies and that the sun goes round the Earth. It doesn't follow from the fact that both theism and atheism are "faith positions" in this sense that they are equally reasonable.

If by "faith position" we mean can't be proved beyond reasonable doubt, then I certainly don't accept that atheism is a "faith position". The evidence for atheism is overwhelming (though of course not everyone can see the evidence is overwhelming - this sort of evidence-blindness is an interesting feature of religious belief. That religion certainly does have the power to blind people to the obvious is demonstrated by the fact that in just 50 years, some 100 million US citizens have come to accept both that the entire universe is six thousand years old and that this is consistent with the empirical evidence).

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Plantinga on Dawkins's God delusion

Alvin Plantinga has a review of Dawkins’s God Delusion here.

He writes:

Now despite the fact that this book is mainly philosophy, Dawkins is not a philosopher (he’s a biologist). Even taking this into account, however, much of the philosophy he purveys is at best jejune. You might say that some of his forays into philosophy are at best sophomoric, but that would be unfair to sophomores; the fact is (grade inflation aside), many of his arguments would receive a failing grade in a sophomore philosophy class. This, combined with the arrogant, smarter-than-thou tone of the book, can be annoying. I shall put irritation aside, however and do my best to take Dawkins’ main argument seriously.

He concludes:

The God Delusion is full of bluster and bombast, but it really doesn’t give even the slightest reason for thinking belief in God mistaken, let alone a "delusion."

The naturalism that Dawkins embraces, furthermore, in addition to its intrinsic unloveliness and its dispiriting conclusions about human beings and their place in the universe, is in deep self-referential trouble. There is no reason to believe it; and there is excellent reason to reject it.