Richard Dawkins Q&A session

Setesh · Post by **Setesh** » 2006-12-09 04:07pm

Exactly what the title says, Richard reads some of his book then has a Q&A session with college student. Its in Lynchburg Virginia at Macon.

DawkinsSchools

My favorite moments:

Q:Do you see a differance between blind faith and reasonable faith.

A:No.

After finding out about LibrtyU's '3-5000 year old dinosaurs:

"I would suggest the students leave for a real university."

Sorry if this has been posted before my search didn't find it.

Post by **Surlethe** » 2006-12-09 05:37pm

IIRC, Pick was actually there. This just makes me a bit more jealous. (As an aside, I'm about a sixth of the way through The God Delusion; it's rocking my socks off).

Tolya · Post by **Tolya** » 2006-12-09 06:30pm

Im about 1/4 through the movie...
Its excellent. I need to get this book.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2006-12-09 06:35pm

Oh Hell.

1:15:00 or so in, some kid comes up with "In my own study, my own research, I've come to the conclusion that there's no such thing as proof."

Of course he's a Biology Major from Liberty University. Wow. I didn't think people actually believed that shit. I thought it was a big philosophical joke. It hurts my brain.

Tolya · Post by **Tolya** » 2006-12-09 06:39pm

1:15:00 or so in, some kid comes up with "In my own study, my own research, I've come to the conclusion that there's no such thing as proof."

Of course he's a Biology Major from Liberty University. Wow. I didn't think people actually believed that shit. I thought it was a big philosophical joke. It hurts my brain.

ROFL. I truly hope that the very moment his "research" hits the desk of his professor, it gets decimated, along with the monkey that produced it.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2006-12-09 06:44pm

He's going to Liberty University, which is just a front for pumping out scientists of faith. Admittedly, with people like "There is no reality, I can't even prove you exist" (a paraphrase, he really said he couldn't be sure of Dawkins' existance) as their Biology students, it's not hard to see why this douchebag isn't getting his ideas hammered by their professors.

It's soooo maaany Liberty kids. One after another after another. One girl said "How can you believe in extraterrestrials as higher beings but not belive in God," and they say it with such conviction, as if they believe these to be shatteringly insightful questions.

Tolya · Post by **Tolya** » 2006-12-09 06:47pm

41:47 - The first guy asking questions just got pwned. Lovely.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2006-12-09 06:50pm

Okay, at 1:27:30, another goddamn liberty kid comes up and does an "in continuation" bullshit for some kid before them. We've already been introduced to a Liberty professor here to analyze the athiest mind with his kids, so this seems like an Evangelical raid on Dawkins--all of which are flattening themselves against the windshield of reason though he's being politer than he was to Pastor Ted and folks--so I'm wondering if they have some sort of assignment to ask questions or if they're working from a list. It seems like they have X questions to get through and they all take two. Kinda retarded.

Tolya · Post by **Tolya** » 2006-12-09 06:56pm

What is cool about Dawkins is that he actually steps in front of everyone in a respectful manner and says "Alright, atheist or theist, ask your questions, let's talk".

And then he actually answers the questions.

Imagine a creationist fundie doing that.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-12-09 07:53pm

This is a fantastic video. So smart and funny, yet quite striking.

It also amuses me greatly how precisely so many of the questioners precisely reinforce a few points, such as the bias towards religion and the blind eye for it's bad parts.

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2006-12-09 08:48pm

He's doing his Q + A at Liberty University? The school that was founded by Jerry Falwell? Good for him, although I imagine he was not surprised to get these kinds of questions.

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2006-12-09 09:22pm

NO! He did NOT go to Liberty! He can to Randolph-Macon Woman's College, my college.

I was in the seventh row, the first to the right of the isle. I got two chances to meet him in person and he took his picture with me. He's such a charming guy!

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2006-12-09 09:28pm

Pick wrote:NO! He did NOT go to Liberty! He can to Randolph-Macon Woman's College, my college.

I was in the seventh row, the first to the right of the isle. I got two chances to meet him in person and he took his picture with me. He's such a charming guy!

Right. It's just that so many people came from Liberty to interrogate him.

Nate_A · Post by **Nate_A** » 2006-12-09 09:42pm

I was delighted a while back to run across this on C-SPAN 2 while channel surfing. I don't think I'd ever seen an atheist presentation on television before.

Pick wrote:NO! He did NOT go to Liberty! He can to Randolph-Macon Woman's College, my college.

I was in the seventh row, the first to the right of the isle. I got two chances to meet him in person and he took his picture with me. He's such a charming guy!

I am extremely jealous!

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2006-12-09 09:42pm

Precisely, since we had an open-door policy to the public.

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2006-12-09 09:43pm

Pick wrote:NO! He did NOT go to Liberty! He can to Randolph-Macon Woman's College, my college.

I was in the seventh row, the first to the right of the isle. I got two chances to meet him in person and he took his picture with me. He's such a charming guy!

Oops.

That's what I get for mis-reading. Still, Liberty University IS in Lynchburg.

Walsh · Post by **Walsh** » 2006-12-09 11:30pm

I've seen the Q&A session before, but I hadn't seen the half hour speech that Dawkins gave beforehand.

The first guy to ask a question was a total fuckwit, I wanted to slap him when he tried to make small of Dawkins with his "is this microphone on?" comment, which Dawkins had jokingly asked when he first spoke. Then the jackass goes on to speak at an incredibly slow rate when asked by Dawkins to speak more clearly. His jackassery is not yet complete as he then goes on to state how people could not possibly get their morality from religious scriptures, which was Dawkins' whole fucking point. Throw his dumb ass out.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2006-12-09 11:33pm

Guardsman Bass wrote:
Pick wrote:NO! He did NOT go to Liberty! He can to Randolph-Macon Woman's College, my college.

I was in the seventh row, the first to the right of the isle. I got two chances to meet him in person and he took his picture with me. He's such a charming guy!
Oops. That's what I get for mis-reading. Still, Liberty University IS in Lynchburg.

Yeah, and he makes a comment about that. "Not that OTHER..." and the "Who gave them accredidation?" Spellcheck on isle 3? But yeah, I found that pretty reprehensible, to be honest. All these dicks from Liberty, and dicks indeed as they were male, while the Woman's College has to wait until the end to get their bit out. Pretty lame, especially since the actual questions asked weren't even really coherent. Just 20 questions about morality and ethics. Blagh. I'm glad the people actually from the college got a chance to talk to him though, and get their pics occasionally.

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2006-12-10 01:01am

I'm reading TGD now, and indeed most of it is indeed Very awesome (Barring a bit of minor over-written pontification). (Ace was drooling over it on Friday

).
Is there a transcript available?

On a side note what "percent" of the audience was hostile? I'm curious as to whether he came to "convert" (A horribly innapropiate word given the context

) or to "preach" to a hostile audience.
From the fact that Pick's there I can guess that there was at least one fan, but I'm curious as to his exact motives (I'm trying to get an insight into his personality, "converting" in a single speech is effectively impossible and a totally hostile audience is not going to be converted, pointing towards Pointification, though I hope that's not the case)

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2006-12-10 01:32am

He was preaching to the choir, honestly. The women from the women's school were all quite pleasent and several were non-theistic and angry at the theists themselves, if you watch it to the end. The bible-bangers were either general Virginians or the invading horde from Liberty. Nearly every single fundie identified himself as from Liberty, so really the hostility level would have been as low as if he came to talk to us. To their credit, the college let the whackjobs in, and to his credit Dawkins didn't dismiss them out of hand. But I get the feeling, from his introduction and from the women from the Women's College, that without Liberty or with a school-only audience that it would have been very nonconfrontational.

sketerpot · Post by **sketerpot** » 2006-12-10 02:47am

Pick wrote:I was in the seventh row, the first to the right of the isle. I got two chances to meet him in person and he took his picture with me. He's such a charming guy!

What? But I'd heard that he was a raving, distainful, arrogant, rude, Fundamentalist atheist crusader! [/sarcasm]

Seriously, I've always been utterly baffled by how people can listen to Richard Dawkins and come to the conclusion that he's rude and arrogant. Do people just get a ridiculously thin skin when he happens to be talking?

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2006-12-10 03:36am

sketerpot wrote:Seriously, I've always been utterly baffled by how people can listen to Richard Dawkins and come to the conclusion that he's rude and arrogant. Do people just get a ridiculously thin skin when he happens to be talking?

I think people get infuriated at someone so capable of being so charming and harmless-looking as they annihilate your worldview utterly rather in the same methodical and gentle manner as I carefully flayed the meat off last night's turkey carcass, leaving nothing but a skeleton behind...

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2006-12-10 03:47am

The outside people were the troublesome ones. The girls at my school are not confrontational to guests, as we are very diligent in upholding the respectability of our institution. Even though a few students were very unhappy about his lecture, they would never personally call him on it in a disrespectful manner (and didn't.)

Also because they're not stupid enough to think they could win.

Medic · Post by **Medic** » 2006-12-10 04:28am

Since we're on the subject of Dawkins: Nice Guys Finish First. (Google Video link)

Details how evolution can favor cooperation over pure survival-of-the-fittest. Haven't read The Selfish Gene, but it's made around that time; Dawkins video attempt to articulate some of the points therein as I gather it.

mr friendly guy · Post by **mr friendly guy** » 2006-12-10 07:45am

sketerpot wrote:
Pick wrote:I was in the seventh row, the first to the right of the isle. I got two chances to meet him in person and he took his picture with me. He's such a charming guy!
What? But I'd heard that he was a raving, distainful, arrogant, rude, Fundamentalist atheist crusader! [/sarcasm]

Seriously, I've always been utterly baffled by how people can listen to Richard Dawkins and come to the conclusion that he's rude and arrogant. Do people just get a ridiculously thin skin when he happens to be talking?

I am debating some one on the RichardDawkins.net who thinks Dawkins is intolerant. Strangely enough opponents can give examples of even Christian moderates being intolerant in the sense they deny other groups civil rights, yet strangely he can't show Dawkins is intolerant except that he disagrees with said person's views. So there are plenty of morons out there.