Richard Dawkins Stumped by John Lennox on Faith: The Debate's Critical Moment
The most important point in the debate gets thrown off track. What went wrong? What was left out, not said? Together lets unravel this tangled mess from one of the greatest debates on Atheism and Christianity in our time.
Join the debate on faith and science with Richard Dawkins and John Lennox. Explore the clash between neo-Darwinism and Christianity in this thought-provoking discussion.
@ElevatedReflections @PuritanReflections
by Kingdom Response
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11:49 That's plain equivocation, because "I presume you have faith in your wife" is not a question applicable for a comparison with the kind of faith Dawkins is arguing against.
I can answer that question too: I don't need to have faith to believe that my wife exists. I have evidence that my wife exists. I have evidence and other people have experience of the existence of my wife, I have video and photographic evidence of her existence, and legal and medical records of her existence.
As for her devotion and loyalty (which is something I also believe in), well, those things are dependent on her existing, and again, for her existence we have evidence.
For GOD, we don't have evidence of existence, and only testimonies which cannot be confirmed of His devotion. So, in order to believe the former and validate the latter, you need religious faith, which is merely delusional.
Evolution is a proven and even directly observed fact, and most Christians world-wide accept it as a fact.
The insistence on creationism does nothing but harm to Christianity.
At the end of the day what matters is truth. Truth is the set of facts about reality, and if that's our goal the only way to reliably know truth is evidence (detections of reality). We don't have evidence of a god. We do have some illogical arguments, but bad logic isn't evidence. So ultimately conversations about what "faith" is are irrelevant. They're distractions. What matters is whether we have good reason to believe, and we don't.
To hit a few of the most common arguments, explaining why they're illogical:
1. Either (A) everything or (B) not everything has a cause, and if it's A then an uncaused god is impossible, but if it's B then cause-based arguments for god cannot insist things (like the universe) need causes.
2. We don't have evidence of objective moral values, nor would it necessarily be true that if objective morality existed it's best explained by a god, and so the moral argument similarly goes nowhere.
3. We don't have evidence of a god doing anything to the universe, so arguments that involve the universe being a certain way ("fine tuned") similarly go nowhere.
12:59 I disagree with your read here, then you share over to the monitor.
4:01 So this is your fear of a new religion?
Worry about your teaching of factual evidence.
1:47 He was a scientist and He had confusion, Charles Darwin quotes in a private letter, "The Forest is an Abominable Mystery". I personally study on my own a Supernatural energy here on earth not from the heavens or outer space. Ian Armstrong. Supernatural Beings of Earth. 8th year of study going strong with factual material for your examination.
Faith is trust.
hahahah John Lennox. The man who just go "Ifffff there is a god, then we would seee, bla bla bla bla" it lts like me saying, "if there are sock eating pixies in washing machines we would experience socks go missing when we wash em. HUUUUH I do actually sometomes loose a sock when I do laundry, then I guesss sock eating pixies must be real.
Ism's are not necessarily religions.
Tribalism, socialism, journalism.
Try harder.
The reason religion has fooled so many people is because the human brain is very susceptible to Pareidolia, apophenia , hallucinations, and gullibility.
I have real trouble imagining that Lenn could ever stump Dawkins on anything, but I'll watch.
He was using the favorite Christian terminology, 'Darwinism' is not a thing it is "The theory of evolution by natural selection" the fact that darwin was the first one credited with it is irrelevant, If there is evidence that contradicts it is can be falsified and changed, religion does not have that ability to improve over time.
The simple fact is faith is just an excuse for someone to pretend their personal point of view is 'from a god' (so must be respected) when it is always just an individual's personal view, and it is really easy to prove.
If I claimed god had communicated with me and and told me to tell everyone something that a theist personally disagrees with they will ignore god's update, there are no questions they could ask or answers I could give that could convince them that I am telling the truth. Theists have absolutely no method to distinguish true prophesy from delusion or lies except their desire that the bits they personally choose to 'accept' are true. If a theist cannot accept the claim of an update from god passed on by a living prophet they have nothing but their own lusts to accept the claims of the long dead.
The resurrection is an obvious myth, (and again easy to demonstrate). Romans used crucifiction as a message more that just a means of execution, Bodies were not removed from the cross until they had rotted, they were not given a grave, the rotted carcass was dumped on the midden pile The Romans would not waste the time and effort to string someone up in public and then take away the message a day or two later. The Spartacus slaves were crucified along the Appian Way as a "Don't mess with the Romans" message. 6000 crucifixions would have taken weeks to accomplish, there was no group following a few days behind taking them down and burying them. Some who were beheaded (a slightly more honorable death) were sometimes given a burial with their head between their knees, but never the crucified. The same has applied to other methods of execution over time, the wheel, the gibbet, quartering, Heads on Traitor's Gate the message is always the same "Don't fork with us or this is what we will do to you" they are left up until they fall down.
Something interesting to note with what Dawkins says towards the end. He claims when speaking about evolution, that this is an “undirected” process, but you can’t say it’s “by chance”. That doesn’t follow logically. First off, genetic code is literally direction. It’s “directed” by RNA. If it wasn’t directed, then yes this would be chance. If I am traveling by car to a specific address, either I am using directions like a map or GPS, or I arrive there by chance. It can’t be a third way.
Whether we believe that there is an immaterial mind undergirding genetic code (God) or that the code is completely autonomous, the code is quite literally guided by a set of directions within the genetic code built on survival, mutation and adaptation to environment.
All of that being said, here is a video expressing an emergent idea backed by research that genetic reductionism cannot account for the origins of life.
https://youtu.be/DT0TP_Ng4gA?si=NGgj1m5Vj9KgpO5w
Dawkins isn't stumped here at all. Dawkins is the one explaining the equivocation to Lennox and he either dismisses or doesn't understand the point.
Struggling with the interuptions.