I honestly absolutely love this debate and found it so refreshing. Its so common to see religious zealots resort to being loud and even as an atheist I loved the way Rowan Williams spoke. It was like actually listening to two intellectuals speak and have such a casual discussion.
I often 'cringe' while watching such debates (being an atheïst myself). This however is a joy to watch! Two smart people who are actually listening to eachother, both giving good arguments without any nonsense.
This is how a debate should come about. No "right" or "wrong" - just two sensible and reasonable people presenting their position in order "to push the issue." We seem to have lost this style of discourse in western society - what a tragic loss - it robs us all of life's potential and understanding, which keeps us from moving forward onto the next plateau of our ascent. Such a wonderful presentation. Thank you for sharing this.
Thank you for posting this lecture on humanity and the origin of the universe. This is Oxford University at its best. It was so good to hear again Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who served as the external reader of my doctoral dissertation, and Anthony Kenny, who taught me the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. I once conversed about the gospel with an Oxford atheist, and it pleasantly surprised me that he too found Anglican liturgy helpful, as Dawkins alluded here. It was, furthermore, good to see the world’s leading Baptist theologian, Paul Fiddes, in the audience. Again, thank you for posting this.
Such a civilised debate!! Look at current debates on any news channel and one realises how a small change in our liking for more and more adversarial positions and acrimony in debates has led us to the current shouting matches that go on 😅
There is such a fine line between debate and argument...We let emotions overide our logical processes...Nice to see a CALM and collective conversation using rational thought processes...Therefore coming to some rational conclusions about some hard guestions from both sides...Choosing to believe or not believe needs to be rationally backed...In order to reach some logical conclusions...
I disagree with Professor Dawkin’s ‘soft’ stance here. The moderator, was constantly debating against atheism and this turned to be a 2v1 debate. I love and deeply respect Professor Dawkins but those 2 needed Christopher Hitchens to set them right, not Dawkins.
Enjoyed every bit of it, both of them are great debaters and they are so elegant and sophisticated human beings, even though I don't agree with Sir Anthony Kenny worldview but I respect that mentality and the reason he has, and that he didn't argue the fact of evolution for that Sir I Take my Hat of for you as respect. I would really love to see more of these type of well educated and Respectable people debating their point of views
I think that the crux comes up from 1:09:00 onwards but get waylaid by the agnostic scale discussion. I.e. is it reasonable to give authority to Genesis as being the inspired word of a creator god (even if just morally/spiritually)? Why give 2800+ yr old writings from a small part of the middle east precedence over serious consideration of millions/billions of hours of subsequent human research and knowledge taken from vastly greater knowledge base?
I just read Dawkin's "God Delusion" and he is much more censored here unfortunately but nonetheless I enjoyed the debate. It is near impossible to meet someone who can even hold a rational debate about anything.
Members of the crow family have language. They are able to tell other members of their "murder" where food sources are, which humans gave them food, which humans were cruel to them, and they can warn others of any danger that might affect them. They are so smart. So, maybe we aren't so unique after all. I think that would be nice.
I really enjoyed the debate. I think that the archbishop did an excellent job in holding his ground on some of the more difficult questions, for instance the existence of a soul and what it actually is. Ultimately I would agree more with Dawkins opinions. The universe is obviously a very complex puzzle. However more pieces of the puzzle are being put together every day. To put an almighty being or 'god' anywhere in the equation isn't necessary and adds unwanted confusion. In my opinion of course.
Consciousness is a side effect of an evolutionary process that enabled us to both memorize and conceptualize physical and temporal models in our minds. What we call consciousness is a persistent mental model, an idea we are having constantly.
Paul Donovan An incidental ability based on our adaption that improved our ability to hunt,track,enumerate and navigate. In this case unlike other adaptations that gave us back pains and lactose intolerance. This one had a real benefit, to animals with grasping digits and the ability to make tools. The side effect allowed us to be the planet's most successful predator. It will also help us find clean alternatives to hydrocarbons.
+Calvin George It would seem that most living things have side effects to their adaptations that are advantageous to evolution. It might already be too late to stop the damage done by hydrocarbon emissions.Only the by-products of humans have no silver lining.
The rules don't dictate the final outcome. He was making the point that variation between siblings (representing random game play in chess) is filtered by natural selection (representing the rules of the game), which by it's definition isn't random.
Religion was born simultaneously with the fear of the unknown and the feeling of incomprehension in the face of the life and the death. As we face our fears and explain the unknown, religion starts to make less sense. It is a long way and there will always be causes for fear and for reacting to the unknown with superstitions.
The question remains. What proof is there that there is a deity living in the sky watching over us ? Simply believing it may bring people peace of mind and happy thoughts and feelings. But that is not proof.
If the average preacher had a thorough grasp on philosophy, logic, and critical thinking, non-Christians would have a much less critical view of Christianity, since one of the main issues is a lack of ability to defend their beliefs in any rational or structured manner. I thought Rowan Williams did a great job with that in this debate.
A very engaging and thought-provoking conversation. It is an engagement of a topic very profound to understanding our very existence within the boundaries of our social, biological, and metaphysical intellectual endeavors. Might I add though, that our existence is understood more thoroughly and closer to perfection by engaging the mathematical principles that found this very existence. They give rise to the physical laws that govern and regulate our universe, our galaxy, our solar system, our earth, the lunar orbits, the weather patterns etc... Moreover, it is of arrogance for any religious person, regardless of his or her position of authority, to argue with absolutes when engaging giants of the scientific world. And the same is applied to the scientists who arrogantly debate in absolutes. The religious figures, as much as they reference their religious books or engage logical arguments, cannot prove the existence of God. Similarly, scientists who adopt an atheistic belief, as much as they use scientific references and engage logical arguments, cannot disprove the existence of God. Hence, when debating origins of existence, arguments based on absolutes only relay the arrogance and ignorance of the debaters.
I wish Richard Dawkins knew a bit more chemistry. His early remarks about the laws of physics leading to the creation of life seems to miss the point. The question is really a chemist's question. Saying as he does later in the discussion that "it only has to happen once" shows that he does not seem to understand the Second Law of Thermodynamics as applied to chemical reactions. The small molecules that compose DNA simply CANNOT join spontaneously into a large complex molecule like DNA. That would be a violation of the entropy principle at the heart of the Second Law. Entropy must increase in any spontaneous process. A large number of small molecules joining together reduces entropy and does not increase it - one large molecule holding its component parts in a fixed relation to each other is more orderly and has lower entropy than those same small molecules moving about freely. By asking for this to happen "only once" is asking for a breach of a fundamental law of science - that is the definition of a miracle. I believe only God is capable of such a thing! In case anyone thinks my remarks are motivated by religious feelings, I can assure you they are not. I used to be a research chemist and like Sir Anthony Kenny I am an agnostic.
Many great points, and lot more questions. is consciousness the interaction between software and hardware? Our body doesn't know the limit of our mind and we don't know the limit of our bodies, only the limitations we place on what we believe we are capable of. Is the hardware, that will create the special interaction that will enable us to know what consciousness is, as yet to evolve?. Will we reach a point, where we fully understand and define consciousness, make us believe/know that a calculator has consciousness? TLDR: I feel a little high right now.
This discussion is rather interesting. Wouldn´t it be relevant to bring in the energy principle in the discussion? The energy principle states that no energy can be created nor destroyed, rather distributed from one place to the next. So where did the first amount of energy come from? The Big Bang is the view of the scientific world, but where did the energy for the Big Bang come from? Does anyone know? And, could Einstein´s E =mc^2 be useful in the discussion?
Reply to ryan king: No-one has any idea how the information processed by electro/chemical activity of the brain produces subjective experience.They all believe in logic, but avoid non material subjective experience. They all must have subjective minds which they know dynamically, even if they can't prove it.
34:00, that argument Sir Anthony Kenny presents simplifies determinism immensely. Because a human being's decision is being determined by so many factors more than just what a person tells you to do. And in a way, he is applying scenario x's results on scenario y (which is similar but slightly different) and making it seem like the scenario y therefor disproves scenario x.
The role of science is definitely praiseworthy, but it's not the only thing that makes the world go round. There are other spiritual things like love, faith that are indispensable for human progress. The issue that some people have with the idea of God and their lack of faith in a supernatural creator is more than a scientific problem, it's a philosophical qua existential dilemma. Is not faith & religious dogmas part and parcel of our general spiritual evolution toward the ultimate cosmic Truth?
Love and faith are not spiritual things. Faith and religious dogmas, in the context, you mean, are crutches that some humans use to make sense of the world -- it has been inculcated into them. The only path to the truth is to try to understand reality, i.e. the way the world works by rational methods.
The entire energy content of the universe was condensed into a singularity. It's not as if there was no energy, and then all of a sudden it spontaneously appeared. It is theorized by scientists like Lawrence Krauss that we actually live in a flat universe in which all positive energy is cancelled out by negative gravitational potential energy. As the universe expands, energy flows from the gravitational field to the inflation field. Inflation energy increases as gravitational energy decreases.
Let's face it; the scientist can't explain with certainty how the universe was created, as much as we can't prove, other than within, our connection to our creator...
I'm thoroughly convinced that the esteemed Richard Dawkins is somewhat deranged and I say this for one reason alone: that he has somehow convinced himself of his own exalted worthiness in so far as having never contemplated the infinitesimal chance that he may in fact be wrong.
The cameraman is a racist, or so I have the impression. Why else would he focus so much on the disproportionately few people of colour in the audience?
I honestly absolutely love this debate and found it so refreshing. Its so common to see religious zealots resort to being loud and even as an atheist I loved the way Rowan Williams spoke. It was like actually listening to two intellectuals speak and have such a casual discussion.
Both of these speakers have beautiful voices, chocolate for the ears!
I often 'cringe' while watching such debates (being an atheïst myself).
This however is a joy to watch! Two smart people who are actually listening to eachother, both giving good arguments without any nonsense.
This is how a debate should come about. No "right" or "wrong" - just two sensible and reasonable people presenting their position in order "to push the issue." We seem to have lost this style of discourse in western society - what a tragic loss - it robs us all of life's potential and understanding, which keeps us from moving forward onto the next plateau of our ascent. Such a wonderful presentation. Thank you for sharing this.
Thank you for posting this lecture on humanity and the origin of the universe. This is Oxford University at its best. It was so good to hear again Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who served as the external reader of my doctoral dissertation, and Anthony Kenny, who taught me the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. I once conversed about the gospel with an Oxford atheist, and it pleasantly surprised me that he too found Anglican liturgy helpful, as Dawkins alluded here. It was, furthermore, good to see the world’s leading Baptist theologian, Paul Fiddes, in the audience. Again, thank you for posting this.
Disappointed that Ali G turned down the opportunity to take part in this
What i took from this is that: “if there is a God, there would be a lot of questions, and if there is no God, there would be a lot more questions”
Such a civilised debate!! Look at current debates on any news channel and one realises how a small change in our liking for more and more adversarial positions and acrimony in debates has led us to the current shouting matches that go on 😅
I want Rowan Williams to narrate my life. His voice is amazing.
Fantastic debate, leaves me thinking that the theological argument gets divided and divided until the answer is science.
Their British, Oxford accents makes them sound so proper and educated...You can imagine Newton himself explaining his theories on the same stage...lol
There is such a fine line between debate and argument...We let emotions overide our logical processes...Nice to see a CALM and collective conversation using rational thought processes...Therefore coming to some rational conclusions about some hard guestions from both sides...Choosing to believe or not believe needs to be rationally backed...In order to reach some logical conclusions...
I just love Dawkins' logics and I also love his Oxford English
That archbishop is the example of a very good believer. This debate couldn’t happen if there was a dogmatic religious on the panel.
I disagree with Professor Dawkin’s ‘soft’ stance here. The moderator, was constantly debating against atheism and this turned to be a 2v1 debate. I love and deeply respect Professor Dawkins but those 2 needed Christopher Hitchens to set them right, not Dawkins.
Excellent debate with both sides being open minded. Refreshing.
Enjoyed every bit of it, both of them are great debaters and they are so elegant and sophisticated human beings, even though I don't agree with Sir Anthony Kenny worldview but I respect that mentality and the reason he has, and that he didn't argue the fact of evolution for that Sir I Take my Hat of for you as respect. I would really love to see more of these type of well educated and Respectable people debating their point of views
I think that the crux comes up from 1:09:00 onwards but get waylaid by the agnostic scale discussion. I.e. is it reasonable to give authority to Genesis as being the inspired word of a creator god (even if just morally/spiritually)? Why give 2800+ yr old writings from a small part of the middle east precedence over serious consideration of millions/billions of hours of subsequent human research and knowledge taken from vastly greater knowledge base?
Feuerbach had a simple explanation of religion which is worth considering. Gods are human projections.
I just read Dawkin's "God Delusion" and he is much more censored here unfortunately but nonetheless I enjoyed the debate. It is near impossible to meet someone who can even hold a rational debate about anything.
I don’t feel like the archbishop believes what he’s saying. I think he knows everything he believes requires a huge leap of faith.
Members of the crow family have language. They are able to tell other members of their "murder" where food sources are, which humans gave them food, which humans were cruel to them, and they can warn others of any danger that might affect them. They are so smart. So, maybe we aren't so unique after all. I think that would be nice.
Could you get them to give an interview using true syntactic language?
However, I think I have previously heard Dawkins argue (I can't think where) that we probably have no free will i.e. the rules do dictate the game.
I really enjoyed the debate. I think that the archbishop did an excellent job in holding his ground on some of the more difficult questions, for instance the existence of a soul and what it actually is. Ultimately I would agree more with Dawkins opinions. The universe is obviously a very complex puzzle. However more pieces of the puzzle are being put together every day. To put an almighty being or 'god' anywhere in the equation isn't necessary and adds unwanted confusion. In my opinion of course.
Consciousness is a side effect of an evolutionary process that enabled us to both memorize and conceptualize physical and temporal models in our minds.
What we call consciousness is a persistent mental model, an idea we are having constantly.
What do you mean by side effects? Something undesirable like the exhaust fumes which are the result of the process that allows a car to move?
Paul Donovan An incidental ability based on our adaption that improved our ability to hunt,track,enumerate and navigate. In this case unlike other adaptations that gave us back pains and lactose intolerance.
This one had a real benefit, to animals with grasping digits and the ability to make tools.
The side effect allowed us to be the planet's most successful predator.
It will also help us find clean alternatives to hydrocarbons.
+Calvin George
It would seem that most living things have side effects to their adaptations that are advantageous to evolution. It might already be too late to stop the damage done by hydrocarbon emissions.Only the by-products of humans have no silver lining.
our complex brains are capable of mapping a certain degree of complexity.
The rules don't dictate the final outcome.
He was making the point that variation between siblings (representing random game play in chess) is filtered by natural selection (representing the rules of the game), which by it's definition isn't random.
That was absolutely fascinating thank you so much for the upload
Religion was born simultaneously with the fear of the unknown and the feeling of incomprehension in the face of the life and the death. As we face our fears and explain the unknown, religion starts to make less sense. It is a long way and there will always be causes for fear and for reacting to the unknown with superstitions.
Wish I was there.
Wonderful question. One of my University professors posed that question to the lecture hall. Not a soul responded, and it wasn't answered.
Saruman the White was a different kind of wizard before Sauron got to him. His name was Rowan Williams.
The question remains. What proof is there that there is a deity living in the sky watching over us ? Simply believing it may bring people peace of mind and happy thoughts and feelings. But that is not proof.
Beautiful! I wish I was one of these chaps.
It's 2021. Go Team Dawkins!
Dear Academics - There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
If the average preacher had a thorough grasp on philosophy, logic, and critical thinking, non-Christians would have a much less critical view of Christianity, since one of the main issues is a lack of ability to defend their beliefs in any rational or structured manner. I thought Rowan Williams did a great job with that in this debate.
A very engaging and thought-provoking conversation. It is an engagement of a topic very profound to understanding our very existence within the boundaries of our social, biological, and metaphysical intellectual endeavors. Might I add though, that our existence is understood more thoroughly and closer to perfection by engaging the mathematical principles that found this very existence. They give rise to the physical laws that govern and regulate our universe, our galaxy, our solar system, our earth, the lunar orbits, the weather patterns etc...
Moreover, it is of arrogance for any religious person, regardless of his or her position of authority, to argue with absolutes when engaging giants of the scientific world. And the same is applied to the scientists who arrogantly debate in absolutes. The religious figures, as much as they reference their religious books or engage logical arguments, cannot prove the existence of God. Similarly, scientists who adopt an atheistic belief, as much as they use scientific references and engage logical arguments, cannot disprove the existence of God. Hence, when debating origins of existence, arguments based on absolutes only relay the arrogance and ignorance of the debaters.
I wish Richard Dawkins knew a bit more chemistry. His early remarks about the laws of physics leading to the creation of life seems to miss the point. The question is really a chemist's question. Saying as he does later in the discussion that "it only has to happen once" shows that he does not seem to understand the Second Law of Thermodynamics as applied to chemical reactions. The small molecules that compose DNA simply CANNOT join spontaneously into a large complex molecule like DNA. That would be a violation of the entropy principle at the heart of the Second Law. Entropy must increase in any spontaneous process. A large number of small molecules joining together reduces entropy and does not increase it - one large molecule holding its component parts in a fixed relation to each other is more orderly and has lower entropy than those same small molecules moving about freely. By asking for this to happen "only once" is asking for a breach of a fundamental law of science - that is the definition of a miracle. I believe only God is capable of such a thing!
In case anyone thinks my remarks are motivated by religious feelings, I can assure you they are not. I used to be a research chemist and like Sir Anthony Kenny I am an agnostic.
Many great points, and lot more questions. is consciousness the interaction between software and hardware? Our body doesn't know the limit of our mind and we don't know the limit of our bodies, only the limitations we place on what we believe we are capable of. Is the hardware, that will create the special interaction that will enable us to know what consciousness is, as yet to evolve?.
Will we reach a point, where we fully understand and define consciousness, make us believe/know that a calculator has consciousness?
TLDR: I feel a little high right now.
This discussion is rather interesting. Wouldn´t it be relevant to bring in the energy principle in the discussion? The energy principle states that no energy can be created nor destroyed, rather distributed from one place to the next. So where did the first amount of energy come from? The Big Bang is the view of the scientific world, but where did the energy for the Big Bang come from? Does anyone know? And, could Einstein´s E =mc^2 be useful in the discussion?
The „fine-tuning“ god is just ridiculous if you see „him“ as an „almighty“ entity. Actually it‘s self-contradicting.
Reply to ryan king: No-one has any idea how the information processed by electro/chemical activity of the brain produces subjective experience.They all believe in logic, but avoid non material subjective experience. They all must have subjective minds which they know dynamically, even if they can't prove it.
34:00, that argument Sir Anthony Kenny presents simplifies determinism immensely. Because a human being's decision is being determined by so many factors more than just what a person tells you to do. And in a way, he is applying scenario x's results on scenario y (which is similar but slightly different) and making it seem like the scenario y therefor disproves scenario x.
what did he mean by using the chess analogy? i'm pretty sure the rules of chess does dictate the game or else it wouldn't be chess.
Here after Dawkins mentioned Williams on Rogan.
Unfortunately the Archbishop got less time to speak. Would like to have heard more from him.
is it hard to understand british subtitles too or would you like them to be american for example? :p
The role of science is definitely praiseworthy, but it's not the only thing that makes the world go round. There are other spiritual things like love, faith that are indispensable for human progress. The issue that some people have with the idea of God and their lack of faith in a supernatural creator is more than a scientific problem, it's a philosophical qua existential dilemma. Is not faith & religious dogmas part and parcel of our general spiritual evolution toward the ultimate cosmic Truth?
17:05 Double Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm
the god delusion was born from the fear of death plain and simple
What I got from this conversation:
'Richard Dawkins really likes Kangoroos'
Love and faith are not spiritual things. Faith and religious dogmas, in the context, you mean, are crutches that some humans use to make sense of the world -- it has been inculcated into them. The only path to the truth is to try to understand reality, i.e. the way the world works by rational methods.
What is consciousness? The Archbishop should answer very clearly but I think he did not.
this still doesnt answer anything.
49:18 purple preacher ftw
I think I'll become a pastafarian. Should solve the whole problem.
Britain accent is so hard for me to understand (( Subtitles in english at least would great.
Please share this brief video with other people: Atheists and Agnostics Need This
The entire energy content of the universe was condensed into a singularity. It's not as if there was no energy, and then all of a sudden it spontaneously appeared.
It is theorized by scientists like Lawrence Krauss that we actually live in a flat universe in which all positive energy is cancelled out by negative gravitational potential energy. As the universe expands, energy flows from the gravitational field to the inflation field. Inflation energy increases as gravitational energy decreases.
Let's face it; the scientist can't explain with certainty how the universe was created, as much as we can't prove, other than within, our connection to our creator...
Pretty boring and complacent. A lesson on how to discuss and argue about undefined and vague concepts like consciousness.
i cant stand listening to the religious guys preach for half the video, thanks for upload though
I'm thoroughly convinced that the esteemed Richard Dawkins is somewhat deranged and I say this for one reason alone: that he has somehow convinced himself of his own exalted worthiness in so far as having never contemplated the infinitesimal chance that he may in fact be wrong.
Of course computers and software are binary.
GOD IS REAL. RELIGION IS BEAUTIFUL. ATHEISTS WILL GO TO HADES.
Darwin is the god of Dawkins Dawkins has no knowledge of his own. All he knows comes from Darwin.’
...no need to argue...
..
see," YOU", later..😄😵🎃👁️
Wow
The cameraman is a racist, or so I have the impression. Why else would he focus so much on the disproportionately few people of colour in the audience?
hahahaha so now you believe in the satan of pre christianity, Hades?