Showing posts with label atheism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label atheism. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Reason rally or passion party?

So the Reason Rally has invited members of the Westboro Baptist church to their event. 


Well in response to a request to attend the rally in an effort to foster dialogue between two groups on either side of the theistic divide, the rally's organizers said:

"Those who proselytize or interfere with our legal and well-deserved enjoyment will be escorted to the 1st Amendment pen by security, which will be plentiful, where you can stand with the Westborough [sic] Baptists and shout yourselves hoarse."

The Reason Rally will have thought police on hand and is trying to create its own version of a Two Minutes Hate by penning up Westboro members who might foolishly attend, so that the reasoned individuals who attend can point and laugh derisively at them.

If you want to have a rally of like minded individuals, go ahead. If you want to have an information booth available at the rally to pass along literature to like minded people, great. If simply don't want to engage with those you oppose, to not have a conversation with your neighbors (as David Silverman himself says in this video) that is up to you.Why then would you purposefully invite a group such as Westoboro?

That message was sent to a hate group whose tactics and beliefs are rejected by the vast majority of Christians as much as by atheists or anyone else — a group that few would seriously expect to enhance reasoned dialogue between Christians and non-Christians.
That is what makes this thing so disingenuous. The organizers want a dialogue alright, its just that the dialogue they want is a one-sided one with a group that one can easily revile and ridicule.

Of course if this were about real constructive dialogue rather than a close minded circle jerk, then they would be taking advantage of Richard Dawkins' presence to have a live debate with a person such as William Lane Craig, but we know that that won't happen.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Dawkins and Williams, agnostics at heart

So apparently Richard Dawkins, world renowned herald of Atheism, has admitted during a discussion with Rowan Williams (the Archbishop of Canterbury) that his certainty in atheism was not 100%.

There was surprise when Prof Dawkins acknowledged that he was less than 100 per cent certain of his conviction that there is no creator.
...

Prof Dawkins said that he was “6.9 out of seven” sure of his beliefs.
“I think the probability of a supernatural creator existing is very very low,” he added.
This I can understand. I think that if you are going to hold that science is the only basis through which truth can be known, and science is a never ending process of acquiring a greater degree of knowledge, then the best one can hold to would be agnosticism as one could never say that science can never learn anything more about a certain subject; even God.

What I find more interesting is the stance of Rowan Williams, the head of the Church of England and believer in God, who said:

During a wide-ranging discussion the Archbishop also said that he believed that human beings had evolved from non-human ancestors but were nevertheless “in the image of God”. 
He also said that the explanation for the creation of the world in the Book of Genesis could not be taken literally.
I wonder what else he does not take literally? Is it merely held to the creation account? Even just a portion of the creation account?

Rowan Williams does not need to answer to me, but I would be interested to know what portions of the Bible he thinks are believable and which portions aren't.