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mack the knife
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: standing right behind you...
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 Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 9:51 pm Post subject: Religion vs. Atheism: Dawkins vs. Collins |
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FANTASTIC article in the latest issue of Time magazine.
Two doyens of the scientific community square off, and the game is ON!
My favorite part:
Reporter: "Both your books suggest that if the universal constants....had varied at all, it would have made life impossible....Can you provide an example?"
Collins: "....When you look at the evidence, it is very difficult to adopt the view that this was just chance...."
Dawkins: "....The problem is that this says, because something is vastly improbable, we need a God to explain it...."
FANTASTIC!
Both of them know their stuff, and both debate convincingly. It's like Godzilla meets King Kong, and it ROCKS. |
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gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
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| Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 10:17 pm Post subject: Re: Religion vs. Atheism: Dawkins vs. Collins |
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| mack the knife wrote: |
| FANTASTIC article in the latest issue of Time magazine. |
Recent, yes, latest, no. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 10:21 pm Post subject: |
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Great article. Too bad it wasn't twice as long. The very last line by Dawkings was interesting:
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| If there is a God, it's going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed. |
This is exactly the position of a lot of theists.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1555132-1,00.html |
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mack the knife
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: standing right behind you...
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| Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 10:40 pm Post subject: |
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Whuh? I just bought the January 15, '07 Time and it's right there, big and bold on the front page "GOD VS. SCIENCE: A SPIRITED DEBATE"
Maybe it's so damn good they just had to print it twice.
Where the hell are these "theists"? I've never, to my knowledge, met a "theist". Every person I have ever met was either practicing a particular religion or not. End of story. And let's not mince words...you can't be a true believer in say, Jesus or Mohammed, and be a closet theist at the same time. That goes against the fundamental principles of any organized religion I know about. |
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gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
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| Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 10:50 pm Post subject: |
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| mack the knife wrote: |
| Whuh? I just bought the January 15, '07 Time and it's right there, big and bold on the front page "GOD VS. SCIENCE: A SPIRITED DEBATE |
Well everyone else's Jan 15th covers look like this:
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mack the knife
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: standing right behind you...
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| Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 11:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Mine is the ASIAN version of Time (the only one you can get in Korea). You guys are looking at the U.S. version, online. Interestingly, the main story and picture are the same, but not the other headlines. |
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SirFink
Joined: 05 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 11:07 pm Post subject: |
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| mack the knife wrote: |
Where the hell are these "theists"? |
theist = someone who believes in a god or gods
atheist = someone who doesn't believe in any gods
Whether someone is religious or not has nothing to do with one's belief or lack thereof in gods. It's possible to be a religious atheist (some Buddhists, for example) though I suppose a non-religious theist isn't really possible.
Agnostic is a bit different. The gnostics were an ancient religion (though some contemporary folks claim to be modern-day gnostics -- gnosis.org). I think it was Aldous Huxley who coined "agnostic," i.e. the opposite of the gnostics who believed that one could know everything. An agnostic, conversely, believes one can never truly know everything, including whether or not there's a god. |
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gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
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| Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 11:11 pm Post subject: |
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| mack the knife wrote: |
| Mine is the ASIAN version of Time (the only one you can get in Korea). You guys are looking at the U.S. version, online. Interestingly, the main story and picture are the same, but not the other headlines. |
Hmm, according to the TIME website, all editions of the magazine including the Asia edition have the same cover this week.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/asia/0,9263,501070115,00.html
I hope you're not pulling a Junior, mack. If you accidentally bought a two month old issue of TIME thinking it was current no-one will think less of you.
Or perhaps there is a Korea-only English edition that is using up old articles from last year though. That seems possible. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 11:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Or perhaps there is a Korea-only English edition |
This would lend credence to the theory that Korea is indeed occupying a special niche in the universe. |
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mack the knife
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: standing right behind you...
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| Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 12:19 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| theist = someone who believes in a god or gods |
Should have seen that coming.
Thank you, Captain Obvious.
We're talking specifically about people who believe in "God" whilst disposing of all the religious baggage. Again, I've never met ONE.
In fact, I'm what you might call a dye-in-the-wool atheist, and yet I come closer to the definition of a theist (that is, one who believes in a god but not necessarily an established religion) than most religious people! Why? Because I leave open the possibility that some sort of "god" exists, whereas most religious people say "Nope, our [insert deity] is the ONE".
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| This would lend credence to the theory that Korea is indeed occupying a special niche in the universe. |
BOOM! You nailed it! And yes, my copy is the current edition plus or minus a few articles, so I'm going to sell it on Ebay and make TENS OF DOLLARS and all you wasters can KISS MY ASS FOREVER! Woo-hoo!!! |
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Junior
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: the eye
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| Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 3:24 am Post subject: |
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| Great source for my creationist thread, ta. |
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gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
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| Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 3:37 am Post subject: |
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| Junior wrote: |
| Great source for my creationist thread, ta. |
Try reading the article champ - Collins isn't a creationist, and agrees with Dawkins' account of evolution. Sorry buddy, no support for the literal interpretation of the Herbrew creation myth there. |
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mack the knife
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: standing right behind you...
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| Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 7:19 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Collins isn't a creationist |
Per se. He does believe that the hand of God is ultimately behind everything, which is creationism on a macro scale. When I read him, it sounds like he simply doesn't believe that God micro-managed the creation of earth and its inhabitants. |
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gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
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| Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 2:50 pm Post subject: |
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| mack the knife wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Collins isn't a creationist |
Per se. He does believe that the hand of God is ultimately behind everything, which is creationism on a macro scale. When I read him, it sounds like he simply doesn't believe that God micro-managed the creation of earth and its inhabitants. |
Right. Unlike Junior, he doesn't believe that the Earth is 6000 years old and that people and dinosaurs coexisted in some kind of Flintstonian epoch. |
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Troll_Bait
Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Location: [T]eaching experience doesn't matter much. -Lee Young-chan (pictured)
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| Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 4:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Junior wrote: |
| Great source for my creationist thread, ta. |
Sorry, but you're *beep* out of luck.
I own and have read Francis Collins' book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, and like 99.9% of all life scientists, he believes in evolution. In fact, in his book, he refutes several creationist "criticisms" of evolution, such as the notion that the eye is too complex to have evolved. It's just that he also happens to believe in God. Like most reasonable people, he believes that God created evolution, and that evolution in turn created humans.
Better luck next time. |
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