Perhaps there is a journalist in Australia who is brave enough to ask it.
Why won’t he debate creationists?
If he is so sure of his science as he continually says, and creationists are so ignorant and ill informed, then why not have it out once for all? Even some of his fans from his web site are puzzled by his refusal.
Why does he pick off pastors, politicians, and bishops. Is it because they are a soft target?
It would be interesting to know. I wonder if any journalist in Oz has the courage to ask.
Or better still, is there anyone who would try to set up a discussion between Dr Dawkins and an informed creationist, such as ex-atheist Carl Wieland, or the scientist, Jonathan Sarfati, who has just refuted Dawkins’ book with “The Greatest Hoax on Earth: Refuting Dawkins on Evolution“.
What an excellent opportunity when Dawkins, Wieland and Sarfati will all be in Melbourne on the same weekend (see Countering the Rise of Atheism).
Sue
I guess I may as well declare my hand altogether.
Please find a completely different Illuminated Understanding of God, religion, science and everything else, via these references.
[Thanks for advising where you are coming from. I’ve snipped the references though. Tas]
Grahame Gould
My illumination comes from the Bible through the Holy Spirit.
Thank you for this website and maybe there will be a journalist brave enough to ask that question and may God continue to guide that one (e.g. John Safran or Andrew Denton) to Himself, if they are willing to take that first step.
And I also pray that Dawkins himself will come to an understanding of the true God instead of the gods of his own making.
Ben
Richard Dawkins has stated that debating the Creationists simply gives their theory “air time”, and somehow in their eyes validates it. As has been seen countless times, they outright refuse to look at the evidnece objectively – they don’t care that they come off looking completely stupid.
As he has also staed, if you are an expert in the field of Geography, you wouldn’t bother getting into a debate with someone who claimed the Earth was flat.
Ross
“Some time in the 1980s when I was on a visit to the United States, a television station wanted to stage a debate between me and a prominent creationist called, I think, Duane P Gish. I telephoned Stephen Gould for advice. He was friendly and decisive: “Don’t do it.” The point is not, he said, whether or not you would ‘win’ the debate. Winning is not what the creationists realistically aspire to. For them, it is sufficient that the debate happens at all. They need the publicity. We don’t. To the gullible public which is their natural constituency, it is enough that their man is seen sharing a platform with a real scientist. “There must be something in creationism, or Dr So-and-So would not have agreed to debate it on equal terms.” Inevitably, when you turn down the invitation you will be accused of cowardice, or of inability to defend your own beliefs. But that is better than supplying the creationists with what they crave: the oxygen of respectability in the world of real science.” (http://richarddawkins.net/articles/119)
Tas Walker
Hi Ross,
Obviously Dawkins is not dumb. Gish would have thrashed him. He has a pattern of picking soft targets. Indeed, he admitted as much at the Melbourne atheist convention when he explained why he won’t attack Islam the same way he attacks Christianity.
Tas Walker
Ben,
Richard Dawkins has a number of tactics he uses to avoid having to deal with objections to his ideas. By the way, the shape of the earth is an issue that can be settled by observation. But molecules-to-man evolution cannot be settled in that way. It’s a speculative story about the unobserved past.
Jennifer Parfenovics
Tasman, I think the moment in the video ” From a Frog to a Prince ” where Dawkins fails utterly to answer the question , Can you give one example where new information is added to the genome …..is precisely the moment when Dawkins decided never to get himself in that vunerable position ever again. Could you link to this for Ben in particular ?
Dawkins lacks the guts to debate true defenders of Biblical Young Earth 6 day 6000 years ago Creation predicated on the authority of the Word of God. The scientific evidence and data fits the Creation / Fall / Flood model and in contrast the evolution story is wild speculation and fairytales told to adults.
There is an excellent article by Jerry Bergman ( I seem to remember ) in the Journal of Creation ,access via creation on the web or http://www.creation.com where he gives an historical perspective of the flat earth myth and how it is still invoked even today as Ben has just demonstrated and used to mock Christianity. Yet another straw man and failure like Dawkins, to engage with the issues at hand. Mockery is hardly a scientific argument !
Science
Jennifer, is the Earth one of the first things ever created in the universe? If so, the distance to the stars which can easily be measured by scientific means, came millions of years before the Earth then, just due to their distance and the speed of light.
If the Earth came much later, then at least you’re in an accurate and real universe.
Tas Walker
Hi Science,
Yes, distant starlight is a problem for big bang cosmology, which is why they have invented the idea of inflation. (See Light-travel time a problem for the big bang.)
Distant starlight withing the biblical 6,000-year framework is discussed here.
J. Seljuk
Reading through your feedback and comments, you must censor the opinion of people who disagree with you. Are your arguments so fragile they cannot withstand criticism?
You twist reality to fit your beliefs, irrelevant of the beliefs of others. Are your opinions that much superior than everyone else? How do you reconcile your differences with the holy roman church, who has upheld god’s word for almost 2000 years? Are you stating that your word and your beliefs are greater than every saint who has laid his life down in martyrdom in the name of the lord?
Jack
Tas Walker
Hi Jack,
You can’t have read many comments yet because if you had you would have found many there by people who do not agree. I check every post and post most of them. But I don’t approve spam or stupidity. It’s important to read and think about this issue and not just accept something because someone else says so. I hope you keep reading.