Richard Dawkins/Alister McGrath Debate

[Rational Agnostic]

I watched this debate between Richard Dawkins (Atheist) and Alister McGrath (Christian) today. I enjoyed it because it was a very civilized, calm discussion. In my opinion, Richard Dawkins clearly won the debate, because he made solid arguments, while McGrath basically just stated his beliefs without giving much evidence for them. But, still, it's worth watching. There were some original arguments by Dawkins made in this debate that I had not heard before, and you can tell that Dawkins is a very honest, truth-seeking man.

 

[SESMeT]

I re-watched this recently, actually. I agree that Dawkins won the debate ... but I do think that McGrath had at least half of a good point. Namely, when he said, to paraphrase from memory, "Probable or improbable... the question is *is* there a God?" .... the part that I think is half correct is that I don't think focussing too strongly on how probable it is for God, a human eye or anything else to pop into existence when nothing like that works anyway, is that important and I think that the real question is whether it makes sense for there to be such a God at the beginning. Dawkins at one point alluded to the fact that some theists think that God is actually ultimately simple. He pointed out that an ultimately simple God probably can't do the sorts of things that the God of Christianity is supposed to do ... but I still think that is the most interesting question. And I think that the half of McGrath's point that he got wrong is that it's not really the case that probable *or* improbable the question is is there a God because if God is *completely* probable or *completely* improbable then that's clearly relevant to whether a God absolutely does or doesn't exist or not because absolute probability and absolute improbability is just one and the same thing as absolute existence or nonexistence. But I'm sure he meant to exclude a probablity of 100% or 0% when he was asking an absolutist question anyhow.

I agree it's an interesting discussion. I watched it many times back in 2008-2010 back when I was one of Dawkins' millitant sorts of 'New Atheists' after reading his book 'The God Delusion' when I was younger. Nowadays I am much less militant, much more apatheistic and much more philosophical and although I'm technically an atheist I don't see my atheism as important anymore ... I rather just see my atheism as a probable side effect of other things that are important to me (e.g, empiricism and rationalism) rather than it being something that is anything valuable in and of itself.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

I re-watched this recently, actually. I agree that Dawkins won the debate ... but I do think that McGrath had at least half of a good point. Namely, when he said, to paraphrase from memory, "Probable or improbable... the question is *is* there a God?" .... the part that I think is half correct is that I don't think focussing too strongly on how probable it is for God, a human eye or anything else to pop into existence when nothing like that works anyway, is that important and I think that the real question is whether it makes sense for there to be such a God at the beginning. Dawkins at one point alluded to the fact that some theists think that God is actually ultimately simple. He pointed out that an ultimately simple God probably can't do the sorts of things that the God of Christianity is supposed to do ... but I still think that is the most interesting question. And I think that the half of McGrath's point that he got wrong is that it's not really the case that probable *or* improbable the question is is there a God because if God is *completely* probable or *completely* improbable then that's clearly relevant to whether a God absolutely does or doesn't exist or not because absolute probability and absolute improbability is just one and the same thing as absolute existence or nonexistence. But I'm sure he meant to exclude a probablity of 100% or 0% when he was asking an absolutist question anyhow.

I agree it's an interesting discussion. I watched it many times back in 2008-2010 back when I was one of Dawkins' millitant sorts of 'New Atheists' after reading his book 'The God Delusion' when I was younger. Nowadays I am much less militant, much more apatheistic and much more philosophical and although I'm technically an atheist I don't see my atheism as important anymore ... I rather just see my atheism as a probable side effect of other things that are important to me (e.g, empiricism and rationalism) rather than it being something that is anything valuable in and of itself.

That's true that either God/gods exist or they don't. Probability really can't be assigned to something that is already true but unknown.

I agree about "apatheism." I'm also becoming more apathetic about the topic, mainly because there's really no satisfaction in arguing over the existence of gods or constantly obsessing over the topic. However, I still do enjoy watching debates about God's existence for the entertainment value, and to hear new ideas.

 

[rational experiences]

If a prophetic human behaviour pattern as designed by the human male psyche mind who introduced the pattern design MACHINE that took away his owned original natural spiritual conscious self said....the man of the apostasy owns a human mind/psyche description to claim God does not exist.

You would ask why so many males psyches are stating, God does exist, and you brothers have to believe that God exists in the current day scientific model about knowing everything in space and then reacting that condition space?

For science says space is his answer to everything.

Males would be proving to their own selves that they have to convince our brother that O God the planet, being the actual science explanation of God the stone philosophy does exist.

For God the man is stated in the bible to not be real.....yet science conditioned to the design of his machine, which all substances came from stone is proven possessed by it.

 

[questfortruth]

Richard Dawkins clearly won the debate

McGrath has kept the faith. Richard has attacked his faith, but the faith was strong enough.

Theorem: if Omnipresent One is probable, then He exists.
Proof: Probability is defined as the relation between the needed cases/tests/observations and the total amount of realized cases. Thus, if God is probable, then He is real somewhere and somewhen. Now, because He is omnipresent, He is real everywhere.

 

[rational experiences]

McGrath has kept the faith. Richard has attacked his faith, but the faith was strong enough.

Theorem: if Omnipresent One is probable, then He exists.
Proof: Probability is defined as the relation between the needed cases/tests/observations and the total amount of realized cases. Thus, if God is probable, then He is real somewhere and somewhen. Now, because He is omnipresent, He is real everywhere.

Relativity, a natural one human self as a conscious quote says I own everything natural, and therefore I own everything.

In relativity of natural itself, I only own my own one human self. When I die I own a belief that I still own one higher spirit than a bio life in the eternal. Lots of human own that belief and science cannot disprove it.

Most humans talk about spiritual faith that they are rewarded for having lived a life in sacrifice, meaning pain and suffering of human life. Science however tries to tell everyone not to believe that theme....for they own causing an increase in the suffering of life claiming that they owned the eternal in science....and lied.

If Jesus is the promise of eternal life, then as said, science all statuses of believed in human sacrifice. The teaching of relativity of natural self versus an occultist.