Speaking of 'The Greatest Show on Earth'... Maher Interviews Richard Dawkins

[tomm2thumbs]

Run time: 05:51 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUPXMKHlpYk   Posted on YouTube: October 09, 2010 By YouTube Member: geric555 Views on YouTube: 185   Posted on DU: October 09, 2010 By DU Member: tomm2thumbs Views on DU: 1962

 
Just under 6 minutes of the full interview... Richard Dawkins speaks on evolution & religious issues in the history of the world. Dawkins speaks of Christine O'Donnell's views about evolution being a myth as 'Spectacularly Stupid'.... not mincing words. Great interview - what is available that is.

update* link to full version/lesser quality, but if you want to pick it up about 6:34 to continue where the above version ends -- that might help
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik3F4TdXF8U


*While it lasts

** I'm told it might not be the best idea to go to the website advertised scrolling on the video, just FYI... not sure why but sharing it as I have seen that advice posted before.

[RandomThoughts]

1. People that are trained to hate other groups.

Is not from a religion, but from a bias that can use a religion as an excuse.

Anyone that believes in Christianity also knows Jesus is of the line of David and Jewish. And many Catholics and Christians also protected Jewish people, and fought for the allies.

It is not the relgion, but how you view it in your heart, a feeling of superiority in any religion, by thinking it is some other religion that is the issue, not the feelings in a person in a religion, creates the problems.

Every religion has some messed up people, and some better people, it is when the messed up people use the religion to control the better people that problems occur. So people have to find ways to find the meaning of their own beliefs based on thinking and feeling also, not just doing as someone says.

Many people that say they are of a religion are actually Machiavellian where they use a religion to be liked by groups, but do not follow those religions themselves.

Machiavellian religion cuts across every religion and includes any person, of any religion, that uses religion for gain from people for themselves, not for the teachings of any religion.


There is also something called show doctrine, where the world is a stage. I think 'showing' is about using what ever skill or ability you got to do what you can to make a difference where you think things are important. Also the concept of 'it is not what you got, but what you do with it that matters'

'show up' is more to that idea, not just to be seen, but so what you think and feel is best can also be seen, it is being part of society by adding your thoughts and feelings to society by sharing them, or showing them.

You can't change society without showing what you believe. It might be as simple as being seen by people, to share what you feel and think is best. If you are correct, people will see that, if wrong, people will also learn from that. Courage to express, is to show. Although if a person can not express themselves without using ways they themselves think are bad, then they would also learn from those things. If you show up with anger, then you also show yourself what part of yourself is, as would you if showing with thoughts that most think are better.

However both are part of passion, showing what you believe, and being willing to be seen for it.

[denimgirly]

2. LOVE IT!! Thankt for the Updated Video Link!!

Great interview...truly amazing how backwards religion is.

[Raoul]

3. Oh go

sc%ew yourself or something will ya? I've seen you come on before and attack theists with your snarky self righteous know it all crap about theism.
While I would agree about religion being backwards, mixing it up with true spirituality as you being the typical atheist have done in other posts, shows your incredible lack of intellectual honesty.

Oh, and Dawkins is nothing more than what the Nation's resident scholar Hedges calls a 'fundamentalist atheist' which is identical in modus operandi as a fundamentalist Muslim and/or Christian. Dawkins' arguments against a god are specious, shallow, and purely subjective. When a neocon moron like Ben Stein can paint him right into a corner regarding creation of the universe, as was done in a recent debate, it shows how non-brilliant Dawkins really is.

But you're free to worship little gods like Dawkins if he and they prop up your fantasy regarding First Causal effects of the universe and the mathematical impossibility of infinite regress ad infinitum.

[PADemD]

4. Ben Stein vs Richard Dawkins

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKpAZHrpD2k

Thanks for mentioning the Stein-Dawkins debate. I wasn't aware of it. Very interesting.

[Creationismsucks]

5. Nobody is "Worshipping" Dawkins

It's the believers who are into the worship--not so much the atheists. Merely agreeing with Dawkins is not worship.

I think we need to distinguish between respecting people and respecting their ideas or beliefs. I think the religious ideas are at the very least confused and at the most dangerous. Religious people, however, are far too varied a bunch too make any general statement about. But disagreeing strongly with their beliefs, out loud, is great. Nonsense it nonsense. I very much doubt that you and I will ever agree on the truth of religious belief, but shouting down those you disagree with doesn't argue your case. It rather implies that you have no case to make.

[ZombieHorde]

15. Some theists like to call atheists religious names because religious names are the

worst insult they can come up with.

[laurel46]

6. Sorry Raoul, atheists are differentiated by intelligence.

In a Study by Sam Harris, the national academy of sciences were surveyed and 98% were atheist or strongly agnostic. Belief in god nonsense is due to lack of education and low intelligence. Why is it that the mythologically oriented cannot see that the atheists are usually smart?

Why do you argue with atheists when atheism is due to lack of gullibility? You cannot be debated when you do not have the ability to understand the difference between what you would like to be true and what is true. Also, the peer pressure to believe in god is difficult for most people to overcome without knowledge; you mistake beliefs with facts.

I feel that the problems of the world are fanned by religion and it is time to end this barbaric belief system and stop tolerating mass delusions aimed at persecuting people to promote the power of religious leaders. The faithful are being conned and robbed as well as becoming a major pain in the ass.

[tomm2thumbs]

8. Hawkins draws a great analogy to debating in this clip

I won't spoil it with text -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhmsDGanyes

[dem mba]

9. would you call MLK Jr an idiot? or an anomaly?

surely he was a religious man, a Christian. The civil rights movement grew out of the churches, and I don't think any of the leaders would be classified as stupid in any sense of the word.

I think you're painting with way too broad a brush. Besides, many people are faithful for emotional reasons, not logical or rational reasons. Intelligence doesn't even enter into the equation.

[laurel46]

10. You think ministers are true believers?

I am either a statistical improbability or there are more atheist/agnostic ministers than you think! I have known four ministers as friends or family and they were atheist or agnostic. The ones who go through mainstream seminary school have a difficult time believing after seeing the evidence Dawkins and others have presented. This evidence of corruption of the bible is overwhelming and places like Harvard Divinity or Cal Lutheran ( a close friend teaches there and is an atheist (privately) but still a minister). However, enough with anecdotal evidence, there has been research and studies on this and education correlates with belief. I respectfully disagree that intelligence doesn't even enter the picture. I am not knocking spiritualism nor Einstonian religion using god as a metaphor.

In Sweden, 85% of the population claim scandinavian lutheranism while 65% are atheist/strongly agnostic. If one looks around a bit at the rest of the educated world, education correlates with atheism.

BTW, if anyone is interested, I am an atheist and a big fan of Jesus and believe in his philosophy, in that scandinavian way I mentioned. Jesus means a lot to me, I just don't buy the magic.

[Raoul]

12. Don't

expect a response regarding MLK from the alleged 'enlightened' ones over here okay? It's too awkward a question for them to cohesively reply with anything other than condenscending nonsense of some kind.

[Raoul]

11. You forgot

to write Sam Harris the ATHEIST... LOL
Hmmm, I think this is what I meant by 'intellectual dishonesty' and it's hysterical because it's very similar to something that happened to me decades ago while I was battling the atheistic hordes. {G}
Some of the discussions became very, shall I say, acrimonious in nature? Ad hominems flew back and forth like confetti. In the middle of one of the many battles going on one of the atheists actually conducted a poll among the other atheists. The question was 'do you think Raoul is mentally disturbed?'

Of course it was unanimous - I was found to be completely crazy among the people with 'knowledge' aa you put it. Know what made it even more hysterical? All they had to do was ask my wife about me and she would have exclaimed something like "Of course he's freaking nuts - he spends so much time debating with all of you aholes that he neglects the things that have to be done around the house!" ROFL

And on a more serious note - please drop the 'delusions' crappola - it's a Dawkins mantra and it's sad to see atheists blindly fall into line like right wing neocons. To infer that ALL theists including those with high IQs such as myself (tested by Mensa) are deluded actually points to delusion on your part...

[bowens43]

7. the difference between

'fundamentalist atheist' and ' fundamentalist Muslim and/or Christian':

the atheists have truth and reality on their side, the religious fundis have nothing but ridiculous mythology....


seriously, in this day and age how can any reasonable person believe in invisible, Omnipotent, little old men sitting up in the clouds smiting some and blessing others.

belief in this kind of nonsense has dumbed down the human race for too long.

[Raoul]

13. Care

to share some of that 'truth and reality' with those of us living in the dark ages? If you're talking about the truth and reality regarding the nature of man evolving without a god than all I gotta say is bring on the ignorance. If the society we find ourselves in today is an example of truth as you put it - with all of the greed and avarice, etc., I'll take ignorance any day of the week.

[gadjitfreek]

14. I don't know whether there is a God or not...

...but I have no problem with the idea of God. Maybe we are just characters in some cosmic wunderkind's Matrix game, I really don't know and it doesn't matter to me or how I live my life from day to day. What I have a BIG problem with is what people have done and continue to do in this God's name.

[ZombieHorde]

16. Are you talking about this "debate?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKpAZHrpD2k

I put the word "debate" in quotes because the exchange does not contain any arguments.

[CrawlingChaos]

18. I agree with Raoul about so-called "New Atheists"

And I say this as a person with no religious leanings whatsoever. The whole "movement" has disturbingly right wing authoritarian tendencies, and has been guilty of relentlessly stirring up hateful Islamophobia, serving the cause of warmongers (they never fail to single out Muslims as the supreme threat). I agreed with Chris Hedges take on them, and here's another good article on the subject:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-wright/why-the-new-atheists-are_b_230448.html

Plus I'm just so sick of Richard Dawkins, period. He DOES acts like a guru (not exactly conducive to free thought), and he's not even a good scientist -- the conclusions he draws are so tainted with his own silly ideologies, it would make Darwin cringe. And all those badges and pledges and crap... Jesus Christ on a Ritz Cracker, it's just plain obnoxious (does it not go without saying that anyone who suggests you go around calling yourself a "Bright" is a colossal douche?). I recently saw him defending his position that atheists should openly taunt and ridicule religious people wherever they find them. He says this is a good idea because bystanders will see the religious person being mocked and not want to become the subject of such treatment themselves. Seriously.

I can't for the life of me fathom why Dawkins is so respected and admired, except that he's riding a wave of backlash resulting from the horror of the Bush years.

[Tx4obama]

17. Here's a link to the interview that hasn't been pulled 'yet' below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik3F4TdXF8U