If your ever going to watch one video,watch this one ('The Greatest Story Ever Told')

That was an interesting conversation ( i only watched 30mins of it). But still I think that I will always side with evidence rather than wishywashy philosophical beliefs.

Anyway, that is all besides the point. I'm not talking about weather God exists as such (yes, it it obviously related), im talking about religion and how it is clearly a load of recycyled nonsense, used numerous times throughout the ages to same effect - for power and control.
You can jump on little points here and there on this argument (i dont even see it as one in many cases, it is more undisputed fact), but the main point is look at the religion from an outsider's viewpoint and you can surely see how absurd it really seems, when you realise that the same trick has been used throughout time. So what makes this current incarnation so right? Why not believe in *insert another God here*?

Andi

what your asking is a very valid point,

my belief comes from i guess Jesus himself, and all that implies, there was a man called jesus, he had a floowing, he taught forgiveness of sins, died and all the rest we dont have to over. i could point you down to the quote i have down below from C.S. Lewis.

but actually if you watch more into that video Dawkins actually asks him the question why you believe in God, why this faith, McGarths answer isnt near perfect but i thought i was resonable answer, he even mentions the quote i have as well! its later in the interview there,

have to say it is a very plesenst debate! most ones i see the people really getting worked up but this is the second interveiw iv seen with these men and they just seem to bounce of eachother!

here is another audio interveiw, also long im afriad (granted you cant make this discussion short lol) but its just as interesting, done i think after that interview

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/aud...cle1570989.ece

But the chap Dawkins is talking to in that first clip keeps giving very vague and open philosophical answers. He doesnt answer a question directly half the time (he'd make a good politician!), for instance when Richard challenged him on Gods intervention in Natural Disasters and 9/11 etc when, if a child is saved, it is a miracle and praise be to God etc yet thousands of other people may die. The guy keeps giving circular arguments, none of them based on ANY conclsuive evidence apart from subjective experiances/faith.
I could make any claim and use the same arguements to substantiate them. There would be no proof of my claims, but I would beleive in them. Or i could look at the evidence.

Again, in this thread i would rather focus on religion and its absurdity, rather than the question of weather god exists or not. God for all I know could be sitting up there in Heaven with his head in his hands, saying ''What on EARTH are those bloody humans up to now? You've all got it wrong! Stop killing eachother and making up silly religions about me!''

Once you realise how religion was created by man, and has been in numerous other incarnations, you should realise that it cannot be any more than that - a creation, a myth, nonsense. And then you must realise the serious consequences of such beliefs, in the brainswashing of minds and all the other negative attributes often associated with religion.

The clear demonstration in the original video that I posted shows how a religion can be created. The ease of which people buy into such nonsense worries me. Scientology anyone?


Andi

i know the religion part of chrisitanty was set up by man, its the human side of god so to speak, jesus said to peter, you are the rock on which i bulid my chruch. Jesus didnt set it up, it was started by Peter and the 12 apostles as a sect in the jewish faith, then Paul broke away from the jews when they rejected Jesus, started chrisitianty, than that split into the RCC and orthodox chruch, then came Protestants and the rest.

Im a catholic because i believe they best represent the views that are in the bible, some of them i agree with some of them i dont. God is God, the church is man made, so it can make mistakes and fail, but i dont see to other religions preaching forgiveness and love, and you speak of the negatives, what about the positives?

i dont know i think the man seemed to give very good answers, and richard dawkins seems to take them as acceptable, but of course challengeable. the one about the gilr i thought he answered very weakly, the rest i though he done well on,

you should check out the other interview, its a bit better of a discussion than that interview was.

actually you posting that first video has actually led to me to finding a lot more interesting discusses with RD and religious people


i have to say from these interviews hes not as attacking as a lot of his followers are but i think that makes him maybe that little bit less impressive!

If you're a religious person you've gotta feel like an absolute putz when you watch something like this which actually explains why virtually no religious person would ever change their mind when presented with such a thing.

Precisely because what they believe is so absurd when presented in the light of day, it would obviously be percieved to the individual as a very painful experience to admit how wrong they had been, especially if they have invested a lot of their time and money in it, so they subconciously decide to ignore it, dismiss it, rationalise it, whatever they have to do so as they can avoid having to say "Wow, I was wrong. What I believed in for so long was so wrong" because they think people will think they're stupid. Sadly nothing could be further from the truth.

Andi, on the toic of religion I'd reccomend a new book from Christopher Hitchens called "God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything". When I got it I thought the subtitle was a bit sensationalist and over the top but after reading it he has absolutely convinced me. Obviously, given the title, it isn't about whether God exists or not but about the severly detremental effect religion has on society (now before anyone jumps in and says, "Well religion does a lot of good too", one I disagree and two, and much more importantly, even if that were true it doesn't in any way erase the horror it causes.)

On Alister McGrath; I watched the first half of the conversation with Richard Dawkins last week, and I've come across a few Dawkins/McGrath debates recently and I've also read his shockingly bad "Dawkins Delusion" and what is so obvious about McGrath's position, and the position of the faithful, is how he consistenly highlights how weak his position is by use of his language. He answers everything with some variation of;

"It appears to me....."
"It seems to me......"
"It makes sense to me to look at it in this way......"
"When I view it in this way........."
"It gives me great comfort to look at it............"

All he's saying is: I want to believe God exists because it gives me comfort and makes me feel special. I would love Christianity to be true becuase things make sense to me if it were true. I just really, really want what I believe to be true to be true, so I choose to believe it is true. That's it and wrapping it up in cricular philosophical BS doesn't make it any less childish.

Compare that language to the language used by Dawkins:

"The evidence states......"

Asshole scientist always looking for evidence .


The second link you posted with the conversation between Richard and the Bishop of Oxford is a joy to watch and just compare the two types of religious people. McGrath makes me want to take a great big cheese-grator to my ear drums just so I don't have to hear his shit for another second while listenig to Richard Harris makes me want to go to church to hear him speak.

ill agree that Harris was better to watch than Mcgarth was, tho the reaction from Dawkins seems to be the same to both, he seems to be accept the answers understand them, but of course they are open to challenging them. i actually agreed with harris on nearly all the points he makes, he puts forward his views well, understands what the questions are and is able to answer them very well

i think its a case of a well educated person whos a religious man first, id like to see RD doing this type of thing a lot more with these type of people, i believe they will prove more formidable than the re-formed athesits

mcgrath is a scientists and former atheist, so not really as good maybe ojn the religious side, unlike harris

what Mcgarth has is an understanding about the topics that Dawkins picks up on, and the audio interview he is better than in the video, which are a good time apart from what i believe

tell me what do u think of Arthur Peacocke??

EDIT: what i found interesting in the McGarth video was RD saying he would believe in a God who had evolved. rather than a god who had always been there.

I've no idea who he is.

Seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to say. A super intelligence simply happening into existence before the universe was created is impossible. A "god" who evolved is reasonable to believe in depending on your definition of what that god is. What it wouldn't be is anything at all similar to the Judeo-Christian, Muslim God or share it's supposed attributes. It would essentially be equal to believing in a vastly superior alien species, which is reasonable and likely.

You are still left with asking how the universe came into being. You can't have a god evolve and then create the universe, because if so, where and when did that god evolve?

hesa on eof the "good scienctists" ad describe by RD that believge in god, give him a quick wikipedia search, he has an interesting theory.


as impossible as the universe coming into existence from nothing, we also have to ask what was the universe doing before the big bang? as life evolving on a planet from nothing as well (and im mean coming formt he big bang, not creationism). i take it you believe that life is only on this planet?