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Dawkins warns of human extinction

Sun, 04/06/2008 - 02:59 — NLN

God does not exist, people who believe the earth is 6000 years old are "loonies and idiots" and teaching children to fear the fires of hell is plain evil. Just a few of the contentious opinions put forward by outspoken atheist Professor Richard Dawkins to an 850-strong audience in Inverness on Wednesday.

The world-famous evolutionary biologist and Oxford don spoke on "Science and The God Delusion" at the free talk at Eden Court Theatre.

In response to questions about population growth, the environment and the future of humanity, Professor Dawkins said the threat of extinction was real and very disturbing.

Read full story at The Inverness Courier.


Average: 5 (2 votes)

Comments

Sun, 04/06/2008 - 04:15 — quantum_flux

Hard to fight society

Religion is everywhere and people are only killing themselves with it, it's not as if they have anything important to do so they make up these notions that god loves them and that their life has meaning, when it actually doesn't. It is very hard to convince people that they being detrimental to everything that is good about life. People are just confused monkeys with powerful technology and they don't know how their technology works or even what the consequences of their ignorance of science truly is. What is to stop us taking matters into our own hands, metaphorically speaking, and stopping them from all this insanity that they reap?

Fri, 05/09/2008 - 20:28 — Discardead

Hard to fight stupidity/ignorance

Good post. I concur. We need an "Atheist crusade" if I may say so. People who don't believe in God should be more outspoken about that and try to convince the others as well. And I'm referring to the business people and politicians, not scientists.
Recent studies show that mine is the most religious of all countries from the EU. Damn! I'm moving to Sweden the first chance I get. The government recently approved the construction of the "People's Cathedral" a monster that will be built downtown Bucharest and will cost (an estimated) 600 million euro. WTF?! No comment!

Sun, 05/11/2008 - 18:08 — terren

missionary

Nothing wrong with trying to convince people of something, but the word crusade is loaded, I don't care what side of the fence you're on. OK, you're on a mission. But if you're going to be a missionary for atheism, you've got to have more than arguments. You've got to understand the deep human needs that religion fulfills, and be able to offer alternative methods for people to meet those needs. People cling to religion for a reason - why?

Why are Christian missionaries successful? They go into some African country, teach people how to read and write, along with other skills, and teach them religion at the same time. They're clearly providing benefits, whether or not you agree with what they're doing. What benefits would you provide?

I hear a lot about why religion is terrible. There's truth to that (even if it's not the whole truth). But I never hear atheists talk about how they would help people find ways to fulfill the needs that religion meets so easily.

Mon, 05/12/2008 - 01:41 — Mary Lee

Religion as the Matrix

Religion is sort of like the movie, The Matrix. It may meet people's needs and make them feel good, but it's not the truth. Nothing about religion is based upon evidence. Religion takes responsibility for personal happiness *away* from the individual. If it meets some people's needs, it meets them by thrusting a pre-existing belief structure upon them. To be "content," one must swallow this belief structure hook, line, and sinker.

I would rather discover my *own* reason for existence; create my *own* happy life, discover my *own* truth.

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