Live webchat with Richard Dawkins, Wed 23 June, 10am-11am

[GeraldineMumsnet]

We're pleased to welcome Richard Dawkins for a webchat on Wednesday 23 June from 10am-11am. Richard is a celebrated evolutionary biologist and atheist, and author of the best-selling God Delusion.

He has presented programmes on Channel Four that range from enthusing about the Genius of Charles Darwin to arguing against religion in Root of All Evil?

His latest project is taking a long hard look at education and the role religion continues to play in it.

He wants to hear first-hand from Mumsnetters what faith and church schools are really like. How successful are they? Are they selection by another means? Are they divisive? And are they making hypocrites out of non-believing parents who go to church just to send their children to them?

If you can't make the discussion but want to contribute, please post your views here.

Thanks and hope you can join us.

Now now now Pofaceddragon, I am not a "hater of religion" I am, in fact, the proud owner of a first class degree in Religious Studies.

tiktok

"The thing that truly winds me up is when people ask for your religious views and when you say you're an Atheist, they say you're offending them!"

Does that actually happen? IMO any tolerance in society seems to be way against religion, (IMO Christianity in particular), than against no religion, or Atheism.

tiktok: oh that made me laugh!

"The biscuits are selecting themselves, based on how biscuitly-effective they are. The most biscuitly-effective ones will subtly attract RD by way of extra chocolateyness ..."

LOL slug. I am getting ranty due to dcs wailing for attention. Guilt.

Another piece of nonsense equating fairies with Christ. Christ initiated the values that make up much our liberal society. Fairies don't. you have no idea what society might have been if Christ hadn't come up. Hopefully Buddhism would have spread, but who knows.

And you're quite right, of course. Only God chooses his own biscuits.

I don't hear people saying protestant and catholic children. You need evidence, remember? And saying 'Oh yes I've heard them saying it' is about as scientific as someone else saying 'God told me to do it'

Erm no, Pofaced.

Most of what makes up modern Christanity was hijacked from older religions.

Druzhok, because of my own personal experience and the experience of others. This doesn't mean that I look at the whole doctrine of any given religion unquestioningly, it's simply that I do see validity in some of the concepts. I'm trained as a scientist, and recognise that a good deal of our current body of scientific knowledge is nascent, incomplete or at worst, wrong, but that doesn't mean that we should all abandon science, which holds a place of fundamental importance in our cultural existence.

It's pointless to argue about who is more arrogant or correct. These are two fundamental world views which are currently in conflict. Dawkins chooses, with a courage I can't help but admire, to hold the extreme end of one of those views in the cultural debate.

In my Hegelian mindset, I think both are right, just as I can see that the Copernican and pre-Copernican models of the solar system are both correct. At some point in the future I have, shall we say, faith, that the conflict will be resolved.

Indeed, Druzok.

Any actual outside selection would have to be done by Intelligent Design.

Unless of course we take the alternative view that biscuits were created on the seventh day, 4,000 years ago or summat...

Christ took much from Buddhism and Judaism. But they way he brought social responsibilty and compassion together was totally new and revolutionary actually.

"Christ initiated the values that make up much our liberal society" - disagree!

Which values?

Sorry, refering to you saying how religious belief is 'protected'.

And BTW, zazizoma, people being Atheists and putting their faith in science is NOT fundamentalism. That is just spouting the silly, inflammatory rhetoric of religious sorts and anyone who thinks there is such a thing as 'scientific fundamentalism' should be embarrassed to not be able to think logically for themselves.

Subjective experiences that support religion are rightfully rubbished. Are you seriously suggesting that just because someone says 'I heard god speak to me', the scientific community should immediately apologise and accept that God exists. Someone saying they hear God makes me think they are mentally ill and need treatment, not that I must be wrong about my views.

I don't think you even understand what science is - it is trying to understand things and proves facts: subjective views and experiences cannot play a part of that. If I had a psychotic break and believed that Zippy from Rainbow revealed himself as the Messiah to me, would science then have to accept this as truth just because that was my subjective experience?!

Banging on about subjective experiences being ignored as proof just reaffirms my belief that religious believers have a part of their brain that doesn't progress beyond a child's level of analytical perception about reality and the world around them.

pofacedagain - take a look at the admissions policies for most Catholic schools and you will see 'Catholic Child' written everywhere.

Pofaced - the '[insert religion] child' thing is only a tiny part of RD's thinking. I happen to be aware that this does happen. a lot, but I accept you have not heard it.

And he doesn't think something up and then construct evidence to support it.

That's what religion does.

Druzhok - compassion, social justice, revolutionary power of forgiveness.

Scorpette, the existence or non-existence of God is in no way a scientific matter. The two things have nothing whatsoever to do with each other, and those who invoke science in promoting their belief the universe is godless are as misguided as those who talk about "Intelligent Design".

We can accept that Christ brought together different philosophies and brought a refreshed set of values to the world. We can accept his ideas were revolutionary. We can think he was a great guy, and influential and all the rest of it.

That is different from saying he was divinely-conceived and is the Son of God.

"Christ took much from Buddhism and Judaism"? Apart from the fact that there is no absolute proof that the figure we call Jesus actually existed (most common male name at time and many religious 'prophets' at the time were saying much the same thing as the things we see in the Bible - which is a mass of propaganda from the men who've rewritten and rewritten it over the centuries), could you explain to me how Christ took anything from Buddhism? Because I must have missed the bit about Jesus riffing on Buddha in my RE lessons at school And seeing as he was a Jew, then it goes without saying that he took much from Judaism

Or... no, it couldn't just be one of those confused snippets of bullshit that religious types come out with to try to feebly reinforce their case, could it? In another 10 years will people be claiming that Jesus went for a ride in a spaceship with L Ron Hubbard?!

Titok - Dawkins claimed it happened here - I merely proved it had not. Science does quite often actually think something up and then find the evidence to support it. Though I accept this is not the same as 'construct'

Christ was not interested in constructing evidence to support anything. He was interested in teaching humanity the right way to live. That is what speaks to me and makes him different to fairies.

Is that the same as saying "I prayed to a dead person and now I'm healed"

What a load of rubbish. Not only that but the Catholic church then falls over itself to make them a saint. More rubbish.

Nothing rational about that.

well clearly scorpette you don't need any reading in theology

Pofaced, that is called a hypothesis. It is a perfectly rational approach. An idea is put forward and then tested. That is how science works.

Religion puts forward an idea.... and that's about it.

Christian views happen to be compatible with liberal western views. You're right, this isn't a coincidence. We've picked and chosen the bits that fit in best with society as it has evolved. Over time the fashionable bits have changed, don't forget the Spanish inquisition was an idea that came from the bible too. If you read the bible you'll see a hell of a lot of bits that we gloss over nowadays.

Anyway, even if all our ideas of morality came from the bible, that doesn't make it true in it's entirety and it doesn't mean we should respect it. Fictional works can impart important moral tales, so I don't see your point. Fairy and folk stories also impart morality, so yes believing in God is as ludicrous as believing in fairies.