Thursday 16 August 2012

Richard Dawkins vs Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins has engaged in a fourth debate with John Lennox, which I have yet to see.  But it is very interesting to see Professor Dawkins getting involved with Professor Lennox.  This is obviously a different Richard Dawkins who refused to debate William Lane Craig last year!

Richard seems to have either a short memory or a split personality, because he repeatedly, blatantly and embarrassingly contradicts himself (for example - see here and here).  Dawkins is prepared to debate Lennox (again), despite the fact that pretty much every excuse he offered for not debating Craig would equally apply to Lennox!  John Lennox would believe the same as William Lane Craig when it comes to creation, the slaughter of the Canaanites, the miracles of Christ, etc. etc.  Furthermore, Lennox is not a bishop!

But Richard Dawkins has far more serious self-contradictions than those related to whom he will or will not debate. 

Here is a man who masquerades as a materialist, saying there is no good or evil, yet he condemns people for immoral behaviour and belief. 

Here is a man who condemns William Lane Craig for his views on the conquest of Canaan, yet says that, in certain circumstances (i.e. saving the child a terrible death later in life), he would "be in favour of infanticide" (here).  So when WLC says that God (who has the right to take life) takes the children to heaven, thus saving them from a life which He knew would be filled with horror and misery, that is an abominable view in RD's opinion, but when RD says that one year olds should be killed because they may have a terribly painful death, that is supposed to be admirable!

Here is a man who speaks about the many ancient historians who dispute where Jesus of Nazareth ever existed, and then when the slightest bit of pressure is put on him he backtracks (see here from 8:46-9:25). 

Here is a man decries the argument from incredulity when Christians say they find it impossible to believe that everything popped into existence from nothing without a cause, that mind comes from matter, that there is no good and evil, or that the evidence for the resurrection of Christ can be dismissed in his off-hand manner, but he employs the argument from incredulity because he thinks it inconceivable that a Creator and Designer of the universe would be interested in what we do, would listen to our prayers, forgive our sins, and become incarnate in first century Israel.

Here is a man who says we shouldn't use arguments from emotion, such as it is terrible to think the universe has no purpose so God must exist (by the way - who uses that argument?), yet he continually uses emotional outbursts as some kind of evidence God doesn't exist (see here).

The man is a mass of self-contradictions, but this is where denying the existence of the God of Scripture takes you.  Only a Biblical worldview allows you to live consistently with reality.  If you deny the God of the Bible you have to lie to yourself and contradict your professed beliefs with your behaviour every single day.