The Archbishop of Canterbury's Question to Richard Dawkins

This is an extract - See the full speech here:
• The Archbishop of Cant...
During a Question and Answer session which followed a lecture in Lincoln Cathedral entitled "Faith, Hope and Charity in Tomorrow's World," on Saturday 6 March, The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams is asked by an audience member what question he might ask outspoken atheist author Richard Dawkins, if given the opportunity.

This lecture took during the Archbishop's visit to Lincoln as part of the centenary celebrations for Bishop Edward King, 1829-1910

[@WorkOverTime]

I am thoroughly impressed with this man's eyebrows.

[@kimshaw-williams]

Me too...not much else, though...

[@Xenon777channel]

If I asked them that, sometimes the answer is "Yes, sometimes we are the same person". I.e. they can share sensations, feelings or thoughts in different locations. This means consciousness is non-physical. This makes sense since it will never be identified as physical. This justifies the existence of the non-physical. I don't think consciousness needs to be justified at all, it simply exists, but if you want to deny your own existence then be my guest.

[@hirak123456]

Well one answer I assume is ... "Yes that is not a mere description that is a love with the universe and that comes from my scientific understanding of it"

[@eikons]

Dawkins and the Archbishop had an hour long debate yesterday. I think it will be on youtube soon. Not surprisingly, the bishop did not actually pose this question. It was a pretty mild discussion, with a surprising amount of agreement between the two.

[@Faidros62]

The reason I´m in love with the universe is because I´m a part of it. No need for for my love to come from any where but my relation to the universe it self.

[@-Redemption-]

@gulbirk And what is the answer ?

[@prskaloo1]

One of the main reasons i believe is the first cause. We now have strong evidence to believe that the universe had a beginning and is not infinite in the past, that being said it literally means (if that is the case) that it stared out of nothing, so that would mean that there was something outside of time (because time didn't exist) powerful enough to create universe from nothing.

[@somethingness]

I am in the universe and the universe is in me. Why wouldn't I love it?

[@mciklic]

i think the thing to do would be to indeed ask where love comes from rather than assuming it is supernatural in some way.

[@Gwaithmir]

So, why isn't Dawkins reply included?

[@annaarkadyevna]

Love Rowan Williams. :D

[@prskaloo1]

and sorry for my bad spelling, i am not a native speaker :)

[@stefanoprotti6340]

"Consiousness exists..." You should think about the following thing before saying so: How can you be sure about someone else, besides you, being conscious? You simply can't, you can only be sure about your own consciousness, right? As well as your own rage, love, happyness, memories and thoughts. Now you would say: "we all have empathy, so we can know what the other people feel". Sure, but we will never have direct access to what the other people feel: we can only see facial expressions...

[@prskaloo1]

to refute my statements. Let me ask you something, do you agree with me that if the universe had an absolute beginning that that then means it had a cause ?

[@prskaloo1]

@Shiftee88 and why is that? is it some kind of logical law?

[@andruh99]

While I am not in agreement with the Archbishop's outlook on reality, I liked this video for it's honesty and point for discussion. For my take on things, I think that the beauty of the universe around us is infinitely more valuable in the absecnce of a creator. That it has come to be what we see and that we are here to see it at all makes us very fortunate to simply be alive and aware.

[@prskaloo1]

i think i explained it already; if you have an absolute beginning of the universe then that means before that there was nothing, no energy no space, no fluctuation in vacuum, no gravity, no time. And if that is the case then there is a cause to universe because everything that comes to exist has a cause. But in order to 'come to exist' you need time because it is a temporal event, is it so ?

[@PureAwesamness]

I said that his bodily resurrection was taught. I didn't conclusively say one way or the other if that meant he was divine or not. And I don't intend to give my own personal thoughts on the matter because they're not relevant to the discussion.

[@apotropoxyz6685]

The cleric raises the old 'this universe is just too amazing to be brought about by natural forces' wheeze. Maybe we're amazed because the limits of our brains are the problem?

[@fourbabies1]

@sh3rv thanks for the correction.

[@kubrox91]

As much as I like Rowan Williams, I was hoping he'd come up with a better question.

[@gulbirk]

@sh3rv man, look it up in google, i dont wnat to transelate it from norwegian into english . because im not that good at english, it would probably just come out wrong.

[@danieleden7150]

I made an error :o replace of "existence of life" with "meaning of life"

[@scentofdawn]

@RationalConclusion "Love is simply a word that we use to describe a particular emotion caused by brain function." Is that supposed to make it less real or less powerful? Love is not just something that happens to us, it is also a dynamic force that determines our actions and decisions. If I have the chance to do something wrong, but out of love I choose to do something good instead, doesn't that make my love more of a "cause of" than a "caused by"?

[@thomasey2]

So now we need to raise the question: is the love that I feel equal to the love that anybody else feels? And if I feel something called love .... Who can provide prove from what originated that love.... well . Seams a unique experience, that felleing: love

[@hotstixx]

im afraid thats as good as it gets from this crowd.

[@CaprimusicGLP]

@leitros The beauty of the Large Hadron Collider?

[@LBTennis]

I know 15 year olds that easily respond to this question and make this man look like a fool.

[@Shiftee88]

i think you'll find he's a world leading expert on evolutionary biology.

[@-Redemption-]

@gulbirk Thats fine, im not saying you have, i just wanted to get an understanding of what you think love is. Is it just a chemical reaction in the brain or something deeper?

[@bonnie43uk]

Richard Dawkins would be chomping at the bit to answer Rowans question. The sheer wonder and awe of the universe is something to behold and be amazed at. Compare that with all the dogma's and superstitions of religion, which, when you examine their doctrines more closely( christianity in particular), you will find it's been built on very unstable foundations. Of the 2 men, it's Rowan Williams who seems to be struggling with answers to the meaning of life.

[@leitros]

How can such a learned man be so confused. I could write a paragraph or two extolling the beauty of the Large Hadron Collider. Now where the blazes would that come from?

[@solomoncobb1542]

I think that if you take a look at how radiometric dating, especially carbon dating, works, then we can both agree that the math doesn't add up, when we can see that the atmospheric fraction of C14 has changed in just the short time that C14 dating has been used to date organic materials, such as these dinosaur bones. But, there are writings from ancient times referencing dragons, which i would say makes pretty decent sense, considering the finding of these bones.

[@sumguy8]

Just because a person exists doesn't mean they are divine or holy.

[@PureAwesamness]

We've got loads of them. Ancient history tells us that Jesus' crucifixion is one of those events that we can be absolutely certain of. Furthermore, scholars like James D. G. Dunn and Bart Ehrman, will tell anyone that early Christians taught his bodily resurrection extremely close to the cross. The whole "Jesus was a myth" thing has been pretty well-refuted by even the most sceptical of historians.

[@stefanoprotti6340]

As to the article, have you actually read it? 1st We were talking about twins, the article has nothing to do with them. 2nd The article belongs to "Alternative and complementary medicine" section, which itself invalidates it... but I will do my best to comment on it as objectively as I can 3rd The study described is a non double-blinded study (5th line, DESIGN AND...): "the reciever was instructed to "remain open to recieve any image/thought from his/her partner". This completely invalidates it.

[@VulcanFleet]

"Does that really suggest nothing to you?" Pantheism Maybe, but mostly just Awesomeness. "Does that really suggest that the last word lies with left-brain analytical thought?" Yeah, because that's what shows us this beauty. And right-brain thought too, if that's how we draw joy from it. But accurate thought about the world is the source of so much happiness. ...I love that phrase, "in love with the universe." It describes that happiness so well.

[@dvfer444]

not believing in god(s) does not mean denying existence of love and emotion. He seems to suggest all atheists have no feelings but logic.

[@brotherpingu]

As much as I don't agree with him, you can't doubt this man's eyebrows.

[@5anthonys]

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Richard Dawkins.

[@Xenon777channel]

Those equations are not my field or relevant to our discussion unless you disagree with the second law of thermodynamics, the principle is that energy is chaotic and will eventually lead to "heat death of the universe (wiki)". If physics says the universe will achieve heat death, AND physics says energy is eternal, then those two principles seem to be in conflict, so one of them should be incorrect. I mean can you explain to me how something will end which has existed forever?

[@badpictureman9638]

I don't understand the low rating of this video. He made a terrific point. Does quantity equal quality? Existentially both of these possibilities would manifest themselves in different ways. How does Richard know that quantity equals quality? In terms of material mathematics this could it might seem objectively true that quantity equals quality, but unfortunately for material mathematics (the language of science) it is itself irrational as a tool in proving its own epistemological absoluteness.

[@Xenon777channel]

""eternal universe of energy and chaos" This is just nonsense." I'm missing which part is nonsense, energy is ETERNAL, it can't be made nor destroyed, it is chaotic (second law of thermodynamics) and we (our existence) is a random accident. Well, I think that's what most scientists would say.

[@stefanoprotti6340]

"Ancient texts", "historical writing"? I think we both acknowledge that the first written documets date back to 3000 b.c. and dinosaurs have estinguished 65 millions of years ago. How could someone have seen them?

[@stefanoprotti6340]

...movements of the body, inflection and pitch of his/her voice and so on, and we "translate these things into" the proper sentiments, according to our everyday experience. Same goes for consciousness: when it comes to someone else's consciousness, you cannot tell... What we can actually tell is that we are made of neurons flash and bones, and "outside ourself", there is no such thing like consciousness, love, fear, happyness, memory and thoughts: these "thing" are concept, no more than that...

[@vbirdieb]

@CarlosMarti123 Sorry, I think I misunderstood your response. It should've been directed at the other guy.

[@sancholer]

Theological liberalism has a country cousin. It is perfectly consistant for these two gentleman to agree. The bigger issue is; Dawkins concession, that he cannot rule out the possibilty of the existance of God albeit "very low" Finally ! some intellectual honesty from beezlbub himself

[@HrMerrlol]

@Pwnagemerchant No, he didn't talk about earth (which can be explained through evolution, adapting to ones environment). He was talking about the universe. This is entirely different, especially when any of the constants altered either way make intelligent life completely unable to be formed. Right now people are believing in either an unmoved mover or multiple universes (multiverse). I can see how this might be easily confused.

[@jenius124]

@scentofdawn Uh? No? You seem to have totally missed what RationalConclusion was attempting to say, that love is nothing more than a process that takes place in the brain. He was explaining how love exists, not how it controls what we do.

[@PureAwesamness]

Okay, I follow - but I don't see how such evidence can be any more reliable. To give an example, there's the James Ossuary. It's 2000 years old, which puts it in the right time period, but you may have heard about the trial its inscription stirred up. While many believe its inscription is a forgery, the judge ruled, "there is no evidence that any of the major artefacts were forged, and that the prosecution failed to prove their accusations beyond a reasonable doubt." (cont.)

[@stefanoprotti6340]

1) I think I should first address the terminology you use: "energy is chaotic" doesn't mean anything. Energy is a number. All we can say about it is that it is almost constant. The thing about the "heat death of the universe" may or may not be true, but... whatever it is, it doesn't make our existence more or less meaningful than an "eternally ordered universe" would, ok? 2) As to the conflict between 2nd principle and conservation of the energy... well, it's not a conflict... because...

[@WorkOverTime]

First of all, I wasn't being critical, I was commenting on his awesome eyebrows. Second, I'm not here to debate about a < 2 min KZbin video where the response space has a maximum of 500 characters :P

[@PureAwesamness]

Alright then, let me ask a very simple question. What specific things would count, in your book, as archeological evidence of a person's existence? Just list them off.

[@solomoncobb1542]

There is no way to accurately say that Uranium has not changed in a sample of rock over any amount of years longer than the history of recorded scientific data. To say that it works perfectly is a belief based on an assumption, and i am sure it has much to do with whom you respect in terms of researchers. Fossilization has been proven to be able to occur much faster than even a few thousand years, under the right conditions, such as a flood, or mudslide. Saying it takes longer is untrue.

[@Shiftee88]

The fact u ask that question means u didnt understand what i wrote at all. Read it again.

[@gulbirk]

@sh3rv its a chemical reaction in the body, which releases a certain chemical stuff, that gives a feeling of what we call "love". that triggers something in the brain, and makes you think differently.

[@Shiftee88]

@prskaloo1 I could answer that question but its too long for a youtube comment...

[@lamkdndjfek]

Good old Rowan, proper harmless Church of England. I think Dawkins would agree that he finds the universe beautiful - no real argument here.

[@stefanoprotti6340]

(b) "This means consciousness..." Of course consciousness is non-physical: is just a f****** concept! It's an abstraction, as well as love, rage, happyness, fear and so on, a concept that ceases to "exist" when you die, and which is meaningless once you are dead. So, when I say that, in order to explain consciousness, you need to do it by mean of our fundamental neurological mechanisms, I mean that neurons are the only things that remain after our death and the only things upon which sentiments,

[@prskaloo1]

If you notice my statesmen you will see that what i claim is that the universe had a cause to it's existence (if it had an absolute beginning ) ... If it had an absolute beginning nothing existed before it, so there are no other universes before that absolute beginning. Absolute beginning means start to everything material. And that is pretty much all I said, plus some a attributes that this cause would need to have. I didn't notice you disagreeing with it, or giving me any rational reasoning..

[@-Redemption-]

@gulbirk Your English seems very good. I wanted to get your opinion on the question but never mind, : )

[@prskaloo1]

you are saying that absence of evidence is evidence it self ? we have reason to believe that something supernatural does exist, but no reason to believe in Leprechauns.

[@Xenon777channel]

We on earth, as humans, without evidence, are given the gift of free will to choose to believe in the deities / supernatural out of faith or feeling, or not to believe, if we wish, this determines our path in the afterlife, it's special since it determines where we end (no not paradise or punishment, just different places). If it's pitiful, sure, well an ETERNAL universe of energy and chaos with NO afterlife, only darkness, isn't very meaningful either, at least a test has some meaning I think.

[@5anthonys]

If, a few 1000 years ago, I came up with a religion that said: "do unto others as others do unto you, love your neighbour, stay out of trouble & when you die you just turn into dirt," tell me if you think that concept would have taken off? We need God 'cose we are the only creatures on this planet aware we're going to die. Go on and live the next 80 years knowing that at the end there's a big fat zero. The only way people can wrap their brains around it is by lying to themselves & creating a God

[@kasuskasus]

Just say you're a pantheist and everything pans out harmoniously.

[@stefanoprotti6340]

A turtle shell evolves as well as all the other bones, as well as the color of the fur of a bear, as well as the length of the teeth of the tiger and the neck of the giraffes, as well as the fin of a fish and as well as the brain of primates. Everything evolves thanks to the same exact process. If you are really willing to learn how it happens, I could try to explain you the few things I know, but it would be better if you read a good book of biology. Your choice

[@curleyteeth]

Lets face it,none of us know, and probably never will, so why bother about it all.Go out ,or stay in for that matter, and enjoy yourselves.

[@prskaloo1]

It is not speculation, it is pure science and logic. If the universe had an ultimate beginning then that means there was nothing before it, if there was than it is not the ultimate beginning, but then again it had to had had a cause because everything that comes to existence has a cause. I'm sorry but this is not speculation.

[@danieleden7150]

People also wrote about Thor and how he would throw lightning bolts down to Earth. Do you believe in Thor?

[@solomoncobb1542]

Read your comment. It is not any answer to what i asked. Tell me the process of a turtle shell evolving based on the discoveries made to back it up. Tell me what the intermediate fossils looked like, and what the previous stages of the shell were helpful to the turtle for. Tell me what a giraffe looked like before it became what it is now, based on the fossil evidence. Tell me how it could be determined that the fur was not on an intermediate fossil of the naked bear before it had fur.

[@zt2max]

@splchk No problem, you're right, it's ok not to agree, when it turns personal then it becomes silly. Thanks

[@MrKohlenstoff]

Woah those eyebrows. Spectacular!

[@PureAwesamness]

Now, I'm not trying to tell you that the NT is inspired or that everything in it is accurate. What I -am- saying is that critics and historians -will- use it because they believe it holds some good pieces of data. If they didn't think it was reliable in any way, they wouldn't give it a second glance.

[@pjtron41]

i wasn't quite correct there, some people are trying to prove his existence using science, the intelligent design movement, but so far this has not been proven to be any where near a good enough alternative.

[@pjtron41]

its very important if you're a theist or a deist. if you're a theist you believe all kinds of wacky stuff, like people used to live for 900 years, man was made from dirt, magic, talking bushes, answering prayers ext.... a Deist is a little more sane, but still has some explaining to do. Why can a cause not be material and why has it got to be out of time?

[@Rory_Arlo]

We Atheists and believers cannot possibly know the answer to that question. However, science continues to explain how the universe works, and the origins of what is within it. Religion dictates that God created the universe despite a total lack of evidence. Any knowledge that religious believers claim to have about where the universe has come from is in no way of any use to furthering our understanding of the universe, or is it a valid logical explanation for the origin of the universe.

[@kubrox91]

@newgeorge yeah the one I would have asked would have been: If your daughter called you up and said: Daddy, I'm getting married! and you found out that the gentleman's family was full of devout orthodox Jews who believed in Creationism....?

[@CHistrue]

Funny, but I never heard him talk about hell, belief, blind myths, questioning or blasphemous anything. I heard him discuss "why" and that is enough for me. I am not Anglican, or Christian, so I cannot vouch for what he believes. The answer to your question is that neither faith nor evidence is the way to approach "why" questions. They are questions of teleology. They must be approached through some mixture of logic and speculation. In fact, how YOU approach them is individual.

[@Shiftee88]

@derth12546 No, Dawkins is a scientist who can give strong logically sound backing for his arguments.

[@-Redemption-]

@fourbabies1 Ok thanks for the reply, btw its 'their' offspring not 'there' offspring, just thought id help you out with that one : )

[@TheRationalizer]

*sigh* "Where does love come from?" Oh well, if you put it that way, Jesus MUST have walked on water!

[@prskaloo1]

it doesn't say about the number of causes; Occam's razor solves that problem. >and a number of universes?? even if there is a number of universes, we have strong scientific evidence that tell's us that the universe had an absolute beginning

[@prskaloo1]

because then it means it had to had had a cause to it's existence, but it is not the only reason.

[@Never3rd]

@DarknessLPs That's low... but true.

[@53dumey]

You have to admit that passage does have a hint of Religon in it. People say Darwin gave up his Religon and became Agnostic in his 20's. Did he ? If Dawkins lives to be 85, will he Die an Atheist ? Probaly, simply because he was never religous to begin with.

[@PureAwesamness]

Now, I willingly concede that many experts are sceptical about its authenticity (and, personally, I myself don't know what to make of it) but just roll with me on a hypothetical. Suppose we -did- figure that the inscription was also 2000 years old. Would that prove to you that this really was Jesus' brother? Or, would you question whether or not the inscription might have been a mistake or a prank done in the ancient past? Just curious to know.

[@stefanoprotti6340]

1st carbon dating cannot be used for objects older than 50.000 year: carbon half life is 5000 y and you wouldn't find enough of it. I'm talking about Uranium and I assure you that there are no fluctuations during history due to the atmosphere, being uranium inside the rock. it works perfectly; 2nd what writing are you talking about? 3rd are there writing about their extinction too? 4th fossilisation takes more the few thousand years. Conclusion: humans and dinosaurs have never seen each other

[@scentofdawn]

@RationalConclusion As far as my imperfect understanding goes, the idea that love is from God or that God is love does not come from rational deduction but from mystical revelation. Many mystics of all religions have had visions of that place of infinite love and beauty where every contradiction is reconciled. Many have perceived it as a presence. Although their descriptions are often awkward, they do agree on one thing: everything else seems dull and poor when compared to it.

[@solomoncobb1542]

How many people wrote testimony to the actions of Thor? How many corroborating testimonies are there to the life, death, and resurrection of Christ?

[@derth12546]

@Shiftee88 The same could be said for Dawkins I suppose

[@CHistrue]

I think it is a fair question. I mean, I am not a fan of State Religions but this one particular State Religious leader is pretty liberal and England does not exactly persecute witches any more. There should be an answer to the question. If you speak of the Universe's design then you are speaking of some kind of teleology. It may or may not imply "intelligent" teleology but it does beg the question of "Why?"

[@solomoncobb1542]

What is your reason for living? Is it survival? Then why do things that are pleasurable, and endure things which are not to get rewards that are? Why be cordial to someone? Why not just go nuts and walk around naked murdering people? What actions serve your evolutionary ideology? Having life after our flesh dies is reward enough to do what is right, and strive against evil, principalities and powers that defy virtue and ethics, beside the latter reward, there is also an immediate one felt.

[@prskaloo1]

ok... you say there is no scientific proof that pray works or that miracle happens. that is not evidence that it doesn't happen. the lack of evidence doesn't say anything about a hypothesis. you have to have evidence against it in order to reject a hypothesis.

[@stefanoprotti6340]

I don't know what conscousness is... it's a fascinating topic, so If you already know it, I'd be happy if you explained it to me. Make sure you provide a proper definition for it and make sure that your explanation be based on the fundamental neurological mechanisms, otherwise you don't explain anything...

[@stefanoprotti6340]

"There is no way to accurately..." There is no way to accurately do anything, but you don't need to be accurate to say that the rocks at the bottom of the Canyon are billions of years older than those at the top. and that the fossiles you find inside those rock must have the same age of the rock surrounding them. Of course they are COARSE estimations, but there are no coarse neither accurate estimation that say that dinosaurs fossiles are few thousands years old.

[@rccaulfield]

Thats it??? Where does his sense of beauty come from?

[@PureAwesamness]

Okay, let me just ask what you're saying here. By this kind of logic, are you saying that *every* historian who isn't writing in the first person about people they directly know is unreliable and, therefore, shouldn't even be given a second look? I think that's ridiculous. We think of Arrian and Plutarch as great source for Alexander and they wrote hundreds of years after he died. Why, then, should we distrust Suetonius, who's much closer to Jesus?

[@johnnyM809]

Something s beautiful and awesome as the universe or the human body has to have been created by something. We can't just have emanated from nothing. The creater God is beyond all human understanding as is his complete and utter love for his creation.

[@stefanoprotti6340]

This is pure circular reasoning, the greatest fallacy: in the previous post ("if you need evidence...") you were trying to argue the existence of a supernatural being with consciousness... and now ("why basic chemicals...") you are trying to argue the existence of consciousness with a supernatural god. Either you say consciousness is given by god, but you still need to justify god... or you say god exist because there is consciousness, but you still need to justify consciousness...

[@PureAwesamness]

Perhaps - but then I never said anything regarding the potential supernatural nature of Jesus. I was arguing in favour of the existence of the historical person.