Richard Dawkins on the Late Late

Oh! I missed that we went onto another page.

Silverhog7 wrote: »

but he has not convinced me of atheism, which I’m starting to get the impression from his fans is becoming a religion of its own.

ARGH.

"Atheism as a religion". Atheism is a religion the same way not collecting stamps is a hobby.

I have not read the extent of this thread, but since last night have meant to see if there was a discussion about last night's show. Sorry if I repeat anything that has already been covered. Tubridy is an astoundingly bad interviewer. He doesn't listen, barrels on with his own agenda, is misinformed, impolite and downright uncomfortable with his position as presenter of the Late Late Show. He asked the same question twice, actually created 'quotes', misrepresenting RD, ('Vatican is a Toytown' and 'God is credible as the Easter Bunny' are both sweeping statements right out of Tubridy's mouth), and he went about ambushing RD, using the Irish general public to bear the offence again RD's beliefs when actually, as someone mentioned above, it seemed as if it was hitting a little close to home for Tubridy himself. He's a disgrace. Not once did he ask an intelligent or leading question, but merely took the p~ss out of his guest, of whose opinions many people would have been interested in hearing about. Then the cringe-worthy poll taking on who believes in God from the Audience. At least the priest featured offered a valuable input. It would have been an interesting slot to see a debate between him and RD, both of whom seemed to respect each others' beliefs - rather than the immature, nonsensical crap Tubridy was dishing out.
I think some of the RTE bosses recoiled in the screening room last night, as they probably did a couple of weeks ago when Brian Cowen was basically told he was an alko. Tubridy does have one skill however - he manages to make absolutely anyone else communicating around him seem like a voice of reason.

Kinda had a brief read through the whole thread.

I lit up when I saw that Dawkins (hey if you replace the K with an r, switch the r with the w and drop the s you get Darwin) was on the Late Late, but I was disappointed with the interview, Ryan was very childish .

Why did he have to bring his poxy band to the Late Late too?

I'm still proud to be Irish, I wouldn't pay any heed to a showing of hands, hands up to anyone who doesn't want to give me a sponge bath!

Dades wrote: »

I guess I'm one of the few that actually appreciated Pat Kenny. It's that type of interview that he was great at.

Instead we had that debacle (after which, afaic, the only one who can hold their head high is Jimmy Carr).

Let's be fair - the Pat Kenny/Richard Dawkins interview was pretty bad too. Not as bad as that, mind, but still pretty poor.

Just catching up on this now on RTE's player thingy.

Just a few minutes in and already surprised at the tone Tubridy's taking. Invoking the vatican as if it's some sort of authority you shouldn't question, or something? All his questions so far seem purely aimed at bringing Dawkins to the point of mocking (religion), as he'll happily do...really going over old ground rather than discussing the theme of his new book.

edit - good lord, he looks at him like has two heads when talking about how he'd like to die...whilst there was a slight suggestion of euthanasia there in the case of a painful death, he basically said what most would - that he'd like to die painlessly, in his sleep (be it a natural or 'artificial' sleep i.e. anasthetic). How annoying!

Jakkass wrote: »

Sam Vimes: I believe Hurín and others have brought this point into discussion on numerous occasions here. I haven't been the only advocate of such a viewpoint. Science to me is useful, but it by no means should be put on a pedestal above all other forms of inquiry. the priest is right to say that Dawkins does believe in science, he has a certain level of faith in it. Not that that's a bad thing, but this faith doesn't warrant it being higher than other fields of academia.

DoireNod: It's on the Late Late Show site, 1 hour 4 minutes through Sept 18th -
http://www.rte.ie/tv/latelate/

The only field which tests its hypotheses is science. The only way to make something anything more than a hypothesis is to test it. Just because something fits nicely in your brain or seems 'obvious' doesn't mean its true, it must be shown to be true and for that you need science

This forum has so many chips on shoulders, it's like there was an explosion at Burdocks.

Anyway, Dawkins is a dick, literally. I've insulted your messiah, so come get me with your Atheist Fatwah!

Jakkass wrote: »

Morgans: Your post assumes that Evolution and a Creator God are in opposition to one another. It would have been somewhat of a logical fallacy to pose such a question.

Evolution and the christian god are in opposition to one another because the bible has its own version of how we got here and at no point does it mention a gradual change over billions of years from single celled organisms to humans and all the stages in between. It does however mention that every animal was wiped out except those on Noah's ark, something we know didn't happen

But of course people don't want to acknowledge that so they all get together and decide that these parts are clearly not meant to be taken literally because if they were the bible would be wrong and it can't be wrong. But all that other supernatural stuff that we can't disprove because they're just claims like some dude turned water into wine (pointing out that that's impossible isn't enough to disprove it apparenty), that's all meant to be taken literally.

The falsifiable stuff is allegorical and the unfalsifiable stuff is literal. Simples

Tubridy is an absolute fool and a horrible, unprofessional interviewer. His questions were so immature and childish and he displayed so many logical fallacies in his reasoning.

Tubridy seems to think that because there are lots of Christians, Christianity = true. No Tubridy, quantity does not equal truth.

Perhaps Tubridy should have asked how many in the audience believe in Allah, or Zeus, or Hindu gods. So Tubridy... believers of all those gods are deluded but of course believers in YOUR god aren't?

Jakkass wrote: »

He never said anything of the sort, nor did he even promote the Christian God throughout. He is merely saying that Dawkins seems so sure that there isn't a God yet many people live their lives trying to find some form of purpose in Him. It's a reasonable question to ask someone who is that certain.

You seem so sure that scientology is wrong yet many people live their lives trying to find some sort of purpose in it. Could it be that the number of people that believe in something has no bearing on whether its true or not, regardless of how strongly they believe it or if they think it makes their lives better?