"The God Delusion" Debate (Dawkins vs. Lennox)

[loco]

Anybody here catch this debate live on radio or online yesterday evening, 10/3/2007?  How was it?

http://www.fixed-point.org/billboard/billboard.asp?ItemID=41

The debate will feature Professor Richard Dawkins, Fellow of the Royal Society and Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University and Dr. John Lennox (MA, MA, Ph.D., D.Phil., D.Sc.), Reader in Mathematics and Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science, Green College, University of Oxford.

Dawkins, voted by Europe’s Prospect Magazine as one of the world’s most important intellectuals, is regarded by many as the spokesman for the “New Atheism.”  BBC has labeled him “Darwin’s Rottweiler.”  He has written numerous best-sellers, most notable among them, his recent book, The God Delusion.  TGD has been on The New York Times List of Best-Sellers for over thirty weeks.  It is a no-holds-barred assault on religious faith generally, and Christianity specifically.  According to Dawkins, one can deduce atheism from scientific study; indeed, he argues that it is the only viable choice

Lennox, a popular Christian apologist and scientist, travels widely speaking on the interface between science and religion.  Like Dawkins, he has dedicated his career to science, but he has arrived at very different conclusions.  "It is the very nature of science that leads me to belief in God," he says.  Lennox possesses doctorates from Oxford, Cambridge, and the University of Wales.  He has written a response to the notion that Science has exposed the Bible as obscurantist in a book titled God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?  The book will be published this fall.

[columbusdude82]

I listened to it.

Lennox basically went through the current arguments for God as preferred by Christian apologetics:

1. The argument from design, particularly in physics.
2. Begging the question (There has to be a designer, there has to be a designer...)
3. The argument from willful stupidity (So you mean to tell me that all this came about...)
4. The argument from pretentious indignation (So you, Richard Dawkins, only love your wife because the atoms in your brain bounce around in a certain way...)
5. The argument from Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao
6. "Infinite Regress" arguments (Who was the first cause? Who was the prime mover?)
7. The argument from the Resurrection (Without the resurrection of Jesus, we have no science, no logic, no common sense, no art, no beauty, no purpose...)

Basically, RD was way more polite than I would have been.

[loco]

I listened to it.

Lennox basically went through the current arguments for God as preferred by Christian apologetics:

1. The argument from design, particularly in physics.
2. Begging the question (There has to be a designer, there has to be a designer...)
3. The argument from willful stupidity (So you mean to tell me that all this came about...)
4. The argument from pretentious indignation (So you, Richard Dawkins, only love your wife because the atoms in your brain bounce around in a certain way...)
5. The argument from Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao
6. "Infinite Regress" arguments (Who was the first cause? Who was the prime mover?)
7. The argument from the Resurrection (Without the resurrection of Jesus, we have no science, no logic, no common sense, no art, no beauty, no purpose...)

Cool! How can I listen to it? 

Basically, RD was way more polite than I would have been.

Good for Dawkins.  He gets my attention more when he is polite than when he is not.  Why do you say this?  Is being rude and hostile in a debate better to you?

[columbusdude82]

The link is available at RichardDawkins.net

And no, I don't mean RD should have been rude or hostile. I mean that the other guy's arguments were so weak (If you don't believe in the resurrection, you don't believe in anything), contradictory (He is both for and against intelligent design: he nominally supports Darwinism but is for intelligent design in everything else), and insulting (If you don't believe in the supernatural, next thing you know you'll be killing people by the millions).

If I were RD, I would seriously have said: "I came all the way from England to Alabama and this is the best guy you could find to debate me?"

[loco]

The link is available at RichardDawkins.net

And no, I don't mean RD should have been rude or hostile. I mean that the other guy's arguments were so weak (If you don't believe in the resurrection, you don't believe in anything), contradictory (He is both for and against intelligent design: he nominally supports Darwinism but is for intelligent design in everything else), and insulting (If you don't believe in the supernatural, next thing you know you'll be killing people by the millions).

If I were RD, I would seriously have said: "I came all the way from England to Alabama and this is the best guy you could find to debate me?"

Thanks, columbusdude82!  Isn't Dr. John Lennox from England too?  "Lennox possesses doctorates from Oxford, Cambridge, and the University of Wales"

[columbusdude82]

Northern Ireland.

[Deicide]

Northern Ireland.

82 you should listen to that wind bag Mcgrath debate Dawkins...man is he bad...same shit...only worse...

[columbusdude82]

Mcgrath is senile...