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Dr. Richard Dawkins On Education, 'Innocence of Muslims,' and Rep. Paul Broun
In this video interview (with transcript), Dr. Richard Dawkins discusses religious exceptionalism with regard to the teaching of evolution, and the chilling effect of fundamentalism on the production of scientists and engineers. He says, "I can think of no other reason why, of all the scientific facts that people might disagree with or disbelieve, [evolution] is the one they pick on. Physics gets through OK. Chemistry gets through Ok. But not biology/geology, and I think it's got to be because of religion." He also addresses the recent comments from Rep. Paul Broun, who denounced evolution and the Big Bang theory as "lies straight from the pit of hell," and the recent Innocence of Muslims video that led to unrest in various parts of the world. "Freedom of speech is something that Islamic theocracies simply do not understand. They don't get it. They're so used to living in a theocracy, that they presume that if a film is released in the United States, the United States Government must be behind it! How could it be otherwise? So, they need to be educated that, actually, some countries do have freedom of speech and government is not responsible for what any idiot may do in the way of making a video." He also has some very insightful comments about religion as one of the most arbitrary labels by which people divide themselves when involved in conflict. Hit the link below for the video.
Well, I can drop a book and it falls to the ground, I can light a paper on fire and it burns... I can pour salt on a snail and it dies.. but evolution is just a poorly defined theory.
I don't believe in spontanous generation, I am a creationist, but I am also a scientist, and the fact is that there are too many loopholes in Dr. Dawkins' theories.
It isn't that I don't want to believe it, is just that I look at things with a critical eye. How is it possible that we can build the LHC and find the Higgs Boson, we may soon discover a cure for cancer, but no one is able at any point to spontaneously create life from inanimate objects? You would think that would be a rather academic activity in our time?
When you can spontaneously create life from raw materials, in a lab, let me know and I'll believe you, until then I'll keep up with my current belief system.
I would instruct all influential Atheists to model Michio Kaku.
And become shameless self promoters?
Like your lives like Mother Teresa who instructed people "to find your own Calcutta".
By inflicting your cult of suffering upon the helpless and hopeless?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I got death threats from Christians for being an atheist.
No, you didn't.
Where are those "peaceful Christians" that you're talking about, and more to the point, where have they been hiding in the previous two millennia?
They aren't hiding. I'm here, and they've been present throughout those two millenia. Doing activities you'd expect if you dropped your selective focus, like preserving the existence of science via the monasteries--since the charitable work you can't avoid being aware of, merely by reading the names of hospitals and other institutions, are apparently not of interest to you.
Rather than go down the road of noting that the Crusades are directly contrary to Christianity per its definition, and therefore -not Christian-, would you like to avoid context-dropping (yes, I know you learned the "my nonexistent, nondefined context is better" game from Dawkins) and compare to the behavior of the Roman Empire?
You have no idea what the word "Darwinian" means.
I knew perfectly well what it means. Nice, if totally content-free, try.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
You're making us all look bad
Go away. Were you actually Christian, you'd know there is only one opinion that matters in terms of "looking bad". Step up, coward.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?