The Mystery of Existence: Part 1 - Richard Dawkins, Richard Swinburne, Jessica Frazier, Silvia Jonas

Swinburne walks into the room educating these folks.

Sorry to be rude but the lady in white was exhausting to listen to. Speaking a lot without saying anything…

Jesus said that people in the end times will think they are so wise, but in reality they are just fools.
Think again that Jesus, so long ago, could foresee the behavior of atheists.

If they had a Pagan Sun worshipper straight from having a few beers and a dance around Stonehenge you would instantly have a panel member with more cred and valid point than the others combined. That is fact

I think we have to have a theory that is balanced with both howness and whyness at the same time. Limiting knowledge to one of them is not enough for knowing reality. 
Howness and whyness have different logical directions and that is why their results are compatible. If they had the same epistemic direction (both top-down or bottom-up), they would show incompatibility. Describing how biology is made through evolution and suggesting that it does not need a designer is like describing how a computer is made of components and suggesting that it does not need a designer. The final outcome of biology shows its designer as the final outcome of computer shows its designer.
Showing scientific howness indirectly points to God (by refuting the inherent complexity) whereas showing whyness directly points to God (by showing irreducible complexity and its concomitant intelligent design). In other words atheists have chosen an indirect approach to God whereas theists have chosen a direct approach to God.

Graham Oppy criticizes this intelligent design by attributing inferrence from computer to our background knowledge. But the point is that, if we face a new computer as opposed to the one that we had attributed design previously, we will attribute design to this new computer too. Similarly we can attribute it to biology too. Because we seem to have found a basic similarity between computer and biology which is complexity. In other words we seem to have extracted the following formula:
Probability of intelligent design= degree of initial simplicity × degree of final complexity.
This formula shows that biology is even more likely than computer to have an intelligent designer.

The question humanity have to ask oneself is "why the most emblematic remark of atheism is "who created god?" with "god" in lower case? God is the creator of the universe and the question "does God exist?" means "was the universe created by an intelligence that gave purpose to the creation?" and doesn't mean what they made you believe from childhood it means. Atheism is a logical fallacy that assumes God is the religious idea of the creator of the creation to conclude wrongly no creator exists because a particular idea of God doesn’t exist. I am tired and I need to rest. To end the war in Ukraine the discovery that atheism is a logical fallacy has to be news.

dawkins doesn't have a clue

The important part of this intellectual journey is: a deep sense of skepticism, humility and wonder, as the two ladies remind us in the implications of what they argue. Sadly, the two gentlemen fail that test.

What if there is no answer to the WHY??? Are we ready to accept that!!!!

Consider this analogy: you cannot find meaning in separate letters of my sentences but a word as a whole has a meaning that is non-existent in its single letters. Also a sentence as a whole has a new meaning in whose single words cannot be found. If you describe scientifically how you write a sentence by grammatical rules and words, you are not denying its writer. Similarly when you are describing how biology is made through natural selection you are not denying its designer. We have to disntinguish between syntax and semantics in language and similarly we have to distinguish between howness (evolution) and whyness (design) in biology.

Consider this analogy: you cannot find meaning in separate alphabets of my sentences but a word as a whole has a meaning that is non-existent in its single letters. Also a sentence as a whole has a new meaning in whose single words cannot be found. If you describe scientifically how you write a sentence by grammatical rules and words, you are not denying its writer because of the whole meaning. Similarly when you are describing how biology is made through natural selection you are not denying its designer because of the whole intelligence.

Poor theist…doesn’t realize his time is passing by…hanging on against the ever growing mountain of evidence in favor of a naturalistic beginning and ongoing existence and the reliance on the supernatural is waning!

Aren't we all some apes, using our ability to make complex noises, trying to understand what the f is going on? Just imagine 2 very wise chimps arguing if the banana is holy or not. First: "banana obviously holy, no banana no chimp! 🤌" Second: "banana obviously not holy, banana just a banana". *uninteligible chimp screams and bananas flying everywhere

Read the end of the CTMU paper "A New Kind of Reality Theory".

The CTMU and Intelligent Design
Design theory, which traces its origins to traditional theological “arguments from design” holding
that nature was more or less obviously designed by a preexisting intelligence, maintains that the
observed complexity of biological structures implies the involvement of empirically detectable
intelligent causes in nature. Intelligent Design, the most recent scientific outgrowth of Design
Theory, is a scientific research program based on a more philosophically neutral, and therefore
scientific, search for instances of a clear, objective, standard form of biological complexity.
According to William Dembski, one of the movement’s leading spokesmen, this has led to “a
theory of biological origins and development” according to which “intelligent [and empirically
detectable] causes are necessary to explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology.”
In view of the informational nature of complexity, Dembski observes that “information is not
reducible to natural causes…the origin of information is best sought in intelligent causes.
Intelligent design thereby becomes a theory for detecting and measuring information, explaining
its origin, and tracing its flow.”

etc.

Richard, I honestly do not know how you can stand listening to such rubbish. WEAK. One point I want to make is that even you--have some sort of mysterious soft spot. It is true that we don't know how this all began, but it doesn't take away from reality. We know we are Great Apes. We know as you know. But with my anthropological background our brains expanded and consciousness derived from larger brain structure. Most people are not consciously aware, so that always makes me laugh when these superstitious control freaks use that. Silly. (You're wrong about technological expansion. It is NOT making us smarter and more selective animals.) Hats off to you though for all that you have done!! Except for vaccines. They have made people retarded which goes right back to my former point.

See this will not answer our question answers has to come from factual spirituality

BO-ring!

The shamans and oracles are still pretending they have hidden knowledge. Some of us are only interested in listening to those who can prove what they claim, even if the conclusion is unsatisfactory.

I think monty python want to check this for copyright. The guy in the fetching cream suit is definarely plagerising the life of brian.Although he may be trumped by the ordinary mid sized object on the right. I have no idea which side she was even arguing for. Just hilarious 😂.

There is nothing funnier than seeing new atheist acolytes whose entire philosophical grounding is in Dawkins/Hitchens/Harris (none could be bothered to read Dennett) commenting about how some of the most educated people in the world are “dumb/stupid/ignorant/etc.”

This is the lasting influence of the new atheists. Discourse is dead. Atheists are (mostly) stupid.

Oh my Universe! What is Richard Dawkins doing mixing around with bad company (loonies)?

An entity who can read 8 billion individual thoughts simultaneously and process them and take actions on these thoughts is simpler than an electron! Who let Swinburne out of the asylum?

Beautiful woman close to semi-crazy Swinburne .... is she single in 2023?

Yes, I do think that the emerging scientific evidence does point to some kind of intelligent agent behind the universe but I think that is as far as you can go. This cosmic intelligence may not necessarily be very nice of course, on the evidence of what we see in the natural world. I am suspicious of all religious writings.

Swinburne says "probable" many times. Probabilities are calculated COUNTING facts. He dilutes the meaning of that word talking about his fanciful wishes as facts.

Swinburne wants something simpler to be the answer. There you go, that's why god is one, perfect, unchanging, eternal, etc.
Lazy minds created god.

Richard really does drone on and on. The mic is AWFUL...every pen click, every heavy sniff..

I still can't figure out how anybody takes Richard Dawkins seriously. He STILL argues against some version of the cosmological argument that nobody believes in or has ever believed in, nor has anyone ever written. He fully did not understand Thomism. He literally understands NONE of the major arguments for God's existence (maybe he understands the ID arguments, but these are much newer and hard to defend).
How is it that someone who literally doesn't understand a subject become seen as an expert on the subject?

Makes you wonder if Dawkins ever listens to himself 🤨
What an absolute moron 🤪

It amazes me how the woman at the left side of Dawkins is a philosophy professor, probably PhD and still has some basic flaws in her philosophy fundamentals, for instance, implying that there's a conflict between science and religion and thinking that Swinburne is talking religion. Gosh! Theism does not equals religion. Dawkins can be labeled as a naturalist here so the real dichotomy is Theism vs naturalism, that's something that should be basic knowledge for a philosophy professor. I know this and I'm a dentist.

Un debate muy interesante.

In one of his books, Dawkings tries to prove „evolution from nothing“ via a computer program (code). However, after I studied the code, it became evident that the program had initial values and thus was not providing anything „from nothing“. After this obvious charade/fallacy, I became sceptical of him. Afterwards I found philosophy where I could find many answers to fundamental questions. I don‘t think Dawkins has really developed as a person, he‘s stuck in the 80s.

Richard Dawkins has stopped reading and thinking for years or something? He has nothing else to talk about or give except No no no no! Not simple, not simple, not simple!

The brain is a Mandelbrot set complex as it’s morphology.

Consider:

Sufficient to the description is the reality

If I describe a square or a triangle, a house or a flower… you would recognize by the description what I am describing… that is to say you would understand the reality of the object, shape, emotion.. etc that I am describing by your awareness of its existence. You would not mistake my description of a square for a triangle. You would not misunderstand my description of a house as a flower. I can describe a human but with more detail I can come close to describing an individual but you would only recognize the description if you knew that individual. Furthermore a picture of the individual would be more helpful than a verbal description.
Now consider :
If I describe something as having a beginning and an ending, as well as being both infinite and simultaneously finite…. That this is in everything and everywhere and that it is what creates all forms and things from the quarks to the grandest structures of the universe, that it is the image in which you are made what am I describing?

There are so many better atheists/agnostics that could stand in for Dawkins. Dawkins is a terrible philosopher and really is only as nuanced on the debate as a fundamentalist creationist. Get Graham Oppy, Michael Huemer, I'd even take Alex O'Connor.

Having Richard Dawkins talk about the mistery of existence is like having a plant tell you about what it means to be a dog 😂

The blonde is stupid

The women were a joke.

Why couldn't you guys simply have Swinburne v Dawkins? That is all we care about here.

Professor Dawkins was completely out of his depth in this discussion.

how is the man with a donkey Brain ..? Richard donkey

Silvia Jonas’ unwillingness to even consider the causal argument isn’t helpful. It just avoids the question because it’s uncomfortable.

Dawkins has argued himself in a corner, God is a single entity, and he can be very simple in his essence while also being able to accomplish large tasks, just like Swinburne explains that a simple particle of matter can impact many things. His only answer is “so what?” He is blind to the fact that it’s his own bias against God that he can accept atomic complexity but not allow that same logic for an idea of God.

Jessica never answered the question of whether Hinduism can answer the question. Hinduism’s foundation of the origin of the universe is at odds with all on the stage.

I find the irony of the one person on the stage that doesn’t believe in God trying to be the arbiter of the definition of God.

Awareness is known by awareness alone.

Silvia Jonas was meant to make a contribution to this discussion sort of in the middle of the two big ideas: theism and naturalism. But she only seem to support the view some have about philosophy, which is that philosophy is only words, starting from everywhere and arriving nowhere.

Not Worth the Hype

I'm a big fan of Premier, but this was not one of their best moments.

Ruth Jackson and the textual blurb greatly over hype the event and the participants, leading to diminished credibility. Including Richard Dawkins in the “brilliant philosopher” bracket is a joke. Whatever his various talents might be, philosophy is not one of them.

As for the participants:

Richard Dawkins was, well, Richard Dawkins.
Silvia Jonas, the “Jewish” representative sounded more like a Dawkins with some philosophy thrown in.

Richard Swinburne was supposed to be holding up the Christian end.
Is he even a Christian? A theist absolutely.
But NOTHING he said in this debate was distinctly Christian; indeed, his comments on heaven and hell were completely antithetical to orthodox Christianity.
And he swallows enthusiastically the whole evolution narrative without even addressing the colossal problems of the development of consciousness and reason (see for example Alvin Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism). Obviously Swinburne is not a naturalist, but there are still plenty of problems even if you chuck God into the mix and try and shoe-horn the resulting mishmash into Biblical theology...

Even though I disagreed with most of what she said, Jessica Frazier did actually represent her position.

I have always found the Eastern religions to be generally more sophisticated and interesting in their approach to why there is something rather than nothing.