Richard Dawkins Interviewed by Al Jazeera

Hemant,
 
Thank you for posting this video. By chance do you know if Dr Dawkins answer that last question (via Twitter or another format)?

I said it on the previous discussion about NDT. Agnosticism is a philosophical position. Atheism is a belief position. The two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, any honest atheist has to admit that he or she truly doesn’t know. An atheist who claims to “know” there is no God is no better than a theist who claims to know there is one.

if you need to fear a god to be a good person, you are not a good person!!

Great post. Thanks. Is it just me or does like look like Richard Dawkins has a bad sunburn.

Unlike Tyson, he calls himself an atheist. But Dawkins ought to be educated enough to know that agnostic doesn’t mean unable to prove there’s a god. By that definition, everybody is agnostic, and the word loses all meaning. An agnostic believes the question is one that cannot be answered. Not being able to prove the existence or nonexistence of a deity, or remaining open to the question, is not an agnostic position, but simply one of skepticism and intellectual honesty.

 I was thinking the same thing, He needs to stay out of the sun, or be a little more diligent about applying the SPF protection!

Yeah, I really think the word “agnostic” needs to be reserved for people who are around 50/50 when it comes to God’s existence. If you think that there is no evidence for God and that he probably does not exist, then you should accept the term “Atheist”. There are some like Sam Harris that don’t like the term Atheist but at least he accepts that there needs to be a term to separate it from agnostic. 

 That’s the technical definition. Culturally and philosophically, it implies more.

 So you can accept a good Hollywood visual effect specialist as Jesus.

he doesn’t shy away from calling himself an atheist and that is all.
if he wants to call himself an agnostic, Bright (ugh), non-believer, scientist, humanist, … too that is irrelevant

He posted over at “Why Evolution is True” saying that it was their lighting and that his skin was not red.

The atheists should be Up Front about their ATHEISM…and the fact that they think all believers are stupid, deludional, and immoral if not evil.

That is what we have learned from the Midwest Skeptics in Kansas City.

Have some guts, spill it!

Calling oneself an agnostic atheist is a lot more clear than simply calling oneself an atheist.  The most popular misconception about atheists is that they are asserting that there definitely are no gods.  I get that all the time if I say I am an atheist, and people always say things like “How can you prove that?” , “You are just having faith in that, like a religion”, etc…

Honestly, I am an atheist because I don’t believe there are any gods, but that position is based on the fact that there is no good, persuasive evidence that there are any gods.  If there were, I am open to changing my mind, because that’s the kind of person I am – one who bases his views of the world on evidence.  So, that makes me an agnostic atheist.

I don’t know with 100% certainty, but I still don’t believe because there isn’t enough good evidence to convince me.

It doesn’t imply anything of the sort. There are atheists who aren’t sure if there’s a god or not. There are atheists who are absolutely sure there are none. There are atheists who leave open the possibility, but don’t currently believe in one. Some atheists are raging misogynists, while others are feminists. Some atheists don’t believe in marriage equality, but many others do. Some atheists believe that aliens are among us, that 9/11 was a conspiracy, that the moon landing was a hoax, that Bigfoot is real, etc. Others don’t.

Atheism doesn’t imply anything more than not believing in any god or gods.

 No, you are making belief sound like it is like a light switch which is either on or off. That’s not how it works. There is a real difference between people who are completely unsure whether God exists and treat each possibility as equally likely (agnostic) and those who say that there is no evidence for God and therefore we should assume he does not exist until evidence is shown otherwise (atheist). And these people are very different from the Christians who occasionally doubt the existence of God but who believe in him most of the time. If we ignore those differences, we are just over inflating our numbers and giving a false picture of what the population truly believes.

I thought that Hemant’s initial criticism of Neil is that Neil doesn’t just sidestep the word “atheist”, he also reinforces negative stereotypes of atheists and atheist organizations.

I really think the word “agnostic” needs to be reserved for people who are around 50/50 when it comes to God’s existence.

Definitely not! That totally destroys the utility of the word. Agnosticism is not related to either theism or atheism, and certainly can’t be placed on some sort of scale between them. It represents a philosophical viewpoint on the knowability of some question (most often, the existence of a god). Basically, an agnostic takes the position that the question cannot be answered. That does not mean an agnostic does not have an opinion on the matter, objectively or subjectively derived. An agnostic may lie anywhere on the scale from highly theist to highly atheist.

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How is that Al-Jazeera can have a female commentator who appears on screen without a head covering?  WTF? 

Scientists are agnostic on very few questions. An agnostic believes a question can’t be answered, not that there isn’t enough information to answer with 100% certainty. The distinction is subtle, but not insignificant. Scientists believe that most questions can be answered, that most things are knowable.

Dawkins is an atheist- he says so himself, and any knowledgeable person would easily infer that from his books and speech. He is also rational, so he does not make the assertion that there are definitely no gods. His position is clear: as an atheist, he does not believe in any gods (which is just the definition of “atheist”); as a person who has studied the objective evidence, he believes it is highly probably that there are, in fact, no gods. Nothing in any of that tells us whether he’s agnostic or not.

To the question ”
Is Dawkins getting away with something we didn’t let Neil deGrasse Tyson get away with?” I have to say no and a resounding no.  NGT threw the entire atheist community under a bus and treated it like something vile.  I used to have a lot of respect for NGT but now I find I can’t stand to even look at him.

There’s a lot of definitions of Agnosticism. The original one is pretty much don’t pretend conclusions are certain when they are not demonstrated or demonstrable. The two common current ones are I believe the existence of gods to be unknowable and I believe the existence of gods to be unknown. Dawkins fits at least 2 out of 3.

Not sure… they shouldn’t be. I’ll see what I can do.

*facepalm*

Not every Arab satellite channel is run by conservative Muslims. Me thinks you’re confusing Al Jazeera with Al Manar TV.

That makes about as much sense as saying, “I dislike both gay activists and homophobes with a passion.”

You mean a magician?  No not the kind of stuff that can be faked easily in person in real time.   I mean real miracles like healing an amputee and turning an arbitrary object of my choosing into solid gold with a snap of his fingers.

Nice straw-man there, N. The definition of feminism is equality for both sexes, while recognizing the inherent patriarchy in our society that makes this difficult. There is no definition of feminism that includes special protections or allowances for women.

 Not at all. It doesn’t matter how much “faith” you claim to have or not have. It doesn’t matter if you claim zero evidence, or don’t understand the meaning of the word. The fact is, any atheist who claims to KNOW, beyond doubt, that a god or gods do not exist is being intellectually dishonest with himself or herself. And yet, that in no way impedes that person from stating they don’t BELIEVE a god or gods exist.

 I disagree. The degree of uncertainty need not be high at all. I am as certain as it is possible to be that a god or gods do not exist. Yet I would never claim to “know” such a thing. I am very strongly atheistic, yet I am an avowed agnostic, on the question of god and all other questions that exist. Knowledge is an abstract concept suitable for discussion in University philosophy classrooms, but has no place in the contemplation of a reality based universe.

 I’m sure there there are a few atheists that are “raging misogynists” but it is a very small percentage, not the huge numbers that you often hear claimed by some commenters on the far left (and I say this as a moderate progressive)

I consider myself a feminist in that I believe in gender equality, believe women have historically faced the most sexism, and believe it is important to reduce gender roles. Does that mean that I agree with every post on every feminist blog? No. You can find posts that are not supported by the facts and accuse others of discrimination without providing evidence to support their claims. Not only is this unfair to those being accused, it also drives away people like N above who probably would gladly support the feminists on the blogs if they made sure every claim was well documented (national groups such as NOW are generally better than what you find on the blogs because NOW knows that they are going to be fact checked.)

 I think it is important to combat sexism but we need to make sure that we are able to provide evidence to back up our accusations. I find that too commonly on Atheists blogs those on the far left often take any claim of discrimination against a minority group on faith without asking for proof. We need to learn that skepticism applies to all parts of life, not just religion.

We can use whatever word works best for people, but there NEEDS to be a word to separate those who are completely unsure one way or the other about whether God exists and are 50/50 on the matter  and those who don’t believe there is evidence for God and therefore assume he doesn’t exist until there is evidence otherwise. There is a large difference in thinking between those two mindsets. Gnostic Atheists are almost nonexistent so really the only people who are gnostic about God are the Fundamentalists meaning that the term agnostic, as you use it, isn’t of much use because it describes nearly everyone and doesn’t help us make distinctions.

 What about “agnostic atheism”, if you need to be spccific? No, I don’t think that we need to coin new terms for every possible meanings of a term.

These to meanings of agnosticism are allready established, and known by a lot of people. If it ‘s important to point out that you are either theist or atheist (if you are either of those), just add it.

 No, because “agnostic atheist” means someone who says that you can’t be sure whether there is a God or not, but since there isn’t evidence, you should assume that there isn’t until there is evidence, the same thing you would do for Bigfoot or the Lock Ness Monster. This definition fits almost all atheists. What it DOESN’T fit is the people who feel that there is no evidence for God, therefore we should treat the possibility of God’s existence or non-existence to be 50/50. That is a very different mindset and it describes a significant group of people in the world. The terms “agnostic theist” or ‘agnostic atheist” don’t fit these people and that is why I believe that the term “agnostic” should describe only them while the term “atheist” should describe the agnostic atheists.