Richard Dawkins on Paula Zahn Now

Run time: 03:56 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-jjDLKMswM   Posted on YouTube: April 17, 2015 By YouTube Member: YouTube Help Views on YouTube: 12180171   Posted on DU: February 17, 2007 By DU Member: Az Views on DU: 1472

 
Finally Richard Dawkins appears on the show.

K and R

Could Paula be any more disinterested in this?

No comments about how naive, ignorant or misguided the religious are. No snide remarks stating that those who even tolerate religion in other people are fools.

He certainly made the best of his CNN opportunity.

this is why people mistrust atheists "this is the only life you're ever going to get". That is depressing to a lot of people, including me, even though I tend to believe it. People living with depression or poverty or other problems cling to the thought that it will all get better if they just read their bible and go to heaven. The thought that they either have to get out and DRASTICALLY change this world NOW or live your life in misery and just die is very depressing.

**on edit.

This is why I am a socialist. I believe that realistically, this is the only life your gonna get. I think 100% social and economic equality is the only way to ensure that the highest number of people have the best life they possibly can.

I always appreciate hearing someone's philosophy about such issues.

I also agree. I'm agnostic at best, and I've had many discussion about religion with my kids. My most aggressive son cannot comprehend why anyone would believe in God -- Christian or otherwise. I explain to him that we shouldn't judge those who turn to religion to find comfort or hope. I'll have him read your comments the next chance I get; he will trust a total stranger's opinion more readily than mine (sigh... life with college kids).

And should be lived fully. That's not so depressing.

Besides, atheists don't claim to have the market cornered on the truth when it comes to what happens after we die. It's just belief and opinion. We won't know until we get there. :-)

than for other people. That's why for the poor the idea of perhaps getting a second chance sometime is particularly attractive.

in other words. As Marx pointed out, religion is a tool with which the ruling class oppresses everyone else. As long as there's cake and pie in heaven, it doesn't matter if you're getting fucked six ways 'til Tuesday in the present life. Oy.

I want, "If it weren't for Religion, the Poor would KILL the Rich."

Makes me wonder if my mind is going dead, cuz you know, only dead fish always swim with the current.

This was the title of a book Dawkins wrote concerning the attitude people have towards science and atheists. The title was based on the reaction Isaac Newton recieved when he discovered the properties of light by passing it through a prism. It separated normal white light into the spectrum of light. In this way we discovered how rainbows were made. People accused him of destroying the beauty of the rainbow by unraveling the mystery of it. They said he had unwoven the rainbow and destroyed it.

But the rainbow is still beautiful. To this day it is still a wonderous thing to behold. And from the discovery of what makes a rainbow we have uncovered untold beauties since then. Not only has the discovery enabled us to percieve deeper beauties but it has also enabled us to make works of art ourselves from the properties of light.

Just because the mystery of something is unraveled does not mean it ceases to have any meaning. By peering into the mysteries of life we are not shrinking the number of wonders in the world. In fact we are increasing them. Each mystery unveiled reveals countless more wonders to marvel at.

Roses are still beautiful. Rainbows still steal our breath. Love is still a many splendored thing. Even though science and reason have unveiled much of the inner workings of these things.

Not a man, generally, who suffers fools gladly.

She has to do something about her attitude in that piece, she seemed very snide at some moments and almost like she was humoring him or doing this because she was told to.

he makes those idiots on the "panel" look like they have the jerks they are.

:kick:

I'm not saying he was right. It just looked like he realized what insane people were on that panel and that he had to stick up for athiesm somehow, only he didn't know how to do it. All in all completely ridiculous.

At least he seemed to somewhat realize how insane the rest of his panelists were insane.

damn athiests expecting themselves to be represented in discussions about them! I guess we're going to have to appease them now.

He says what many of us have been thinking for years and he does so with great eloquence. If he seems "caustic," that is only because religious people aren't used to having their beliefs scrutinized. If you replaced "religion" with any other topic, Dawkins would sound positively genteel to anyone's ears.

His written work involves words and ideas that strike hard at beliefs. But his personal and public self is a very soft spoken and gentle persona. I happen to know that he somewhat laments the caustic persona as it has cost him the ability to reach out to the religious community with science and reason. But he believes that a strong voice is needed in this society as well and that is the cause for much of the words he uses in print.

the atheist view given some time. Letting other see we don't have horns and tails may take some of the political punch away from the right. I have had a friend or two argue with me that there is no way I am an atheist ..I am to nice an share to many of the same values they have. It takes a while but they got used to the fact that I am an atheist and I think have a better opinion of atheism in general for it.

He did a great job squeezing sense into the sound bytes alloted to him.