Dawkins made a good point at about 01:16:00 where Lennox was implying that Stalin for eg did the terrible things he did because he was an atheist. Dawkins pointed out that Lennox was an atheist with regard to Thor and Zeus, which is same as Dawkins being an atheist regarding Yahweh, but that Lennox wasn't committing terrible deeds because of his atheism towards Zeus, as Dawkins wasn't.
I'm not sure what that has to do with Stalin and his atheism that guided him to turn churches into museums.
Just from a quick look at the internet on the subject:
From 1932 to 1937 Joseph Stalin declared the 'five-year plans of atheism' and the LMG was charged with completely eliminating all religious expression in the country. Many of these same methods and terror tactics were also imposed against others that the regime considered to be its ideological enemies.
Although
Article 124 of the 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union ostensibly guaranteed “[f]reedom of religious worship and freedom of antireligious propaganda,” the reality both before and after 1936 belied the ideas encoded in Soviet law.
Militant atheism, or the state-sanctioned assault against religious believers and institutions, including the looting and destruction of houses of worship and executions of priests, characterized Soviet antireligious policy of the 1920s and 1930s under both Lenin and Stalin.
Although Article 124 of the 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union ostensibly guaranteed “[f]reedom of religious worship and freedom of antireligious propaganda,” the reality both before and after 1936 belied the ideas encoded in Soviet law.
www.wilsoncenter.org
I just watched it again and I don't think he was mocking.
That's because his sarcasm is so dry
I take it you don't sanction slavery, which the Bible does. I take it you don't think apostates whether from Christianity or Islam should be killed, which the Quran does. If I'm right about this, which I'm sure I am, then on these matters alone you have a moral standard independent of the Bible.
I don't believe that God is for slavery. I can only speak to the teachings of Christ found in the Bible by him and his disciples.
I really don't think zeitgeist is a supernatural phenomenon. I think it refers to the prevailing attitudes of the time.
That is likely true. Tell that to Dawkins. He calls it a "force". My thoughts are that he was getting past his prime when it came to debating.
I broadly agree that in our evolutionary past living in small kin groups would encourage cooperation and good behaviour as it would be beneficial for survival. I can see that empathy can bring about good behaviour, and empathy seems a part of our nature.
It is still just conjecture. How would he prove it since he wasn't there? You should hold the same standards you use for Atheists that you use for Christians.
But I think something else is going on as well regarding morality. Good and evil, right and wrong are abstract concepts that will occur to creatures such as ourselves capable of abstract reasoning. It's really not hard to realise that something is unfair, therefore wrong. It's not hard to realise that causing others pain and suffering is wrong because of what pain and suffering is, and we know we wouldn't want it for ourselves.
The hard part is realizing that a mindless, amoral process can bring about such creatures.
See above for foundations for a secular concept of being good.
You have to be more specific. I'm don't know what you are talking about.
And in the context of what Dawkins is talking about, the universe itself, that is exactly what we see.
????
Lennox seems to miss something here, Dawkins was talking about the universe we find ourselves in, he is not talking about us as self conscious creatures who because of our intellect can understand the concepts of right and wrong. With practice and education, our minds can rise above just dancing to our DNA.
Lennox isn't missing a thing, imo.
This is the conclusion Lennox came to after reading Dawkins "...
The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.”
And he further concluded "if good and evil don’t exist, there is no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference, how can it possibly make sense to talk of the evils of religion or of the good of atheism? Now I know that you suggest elsewhere that we have to rebel against our genes, but that creates to my mind an immense problem with what you say because if we are nothing but our genes dancing to the tune of our DNA, what part of us can rebel against them?
So I want to suggest this, that far from atheism delivering an adequate explanation for morality it dissolves it, and it’s a problem that’s been around for centuries. How can something mindless and impersonal like the universe impose a sense of morality upon us? And David Hume, a philosopher whom you quote, pointed this out very clearly. He said: “You just cannot get an ought from an is. You cannot derive morality and ethics from matter and energy. You can not go from facts to values.”
If Lennox's conclusions are true, then Dawkin's description of the world is not true. Something is missing and that something is God.
Of course there is no basis for morality in the universe itself, but there is a basis for morality in our minds that are capable of understanding the concepts of fairness, right and wrong.
How are our minds capable of knowing good from evil, right from wrong if the mindless process that made us has no concept of these things?
Where do those concepts come from?
Cat's are not morally accountable for cruelly playing with their prey before they kill it, because they aren't capable of understanding the consequences of their actions. We are morally accountable creatures because we are capable of understanding the consequences of our actions.
I agree. Children are the same as cats when it comes to morality when they are first born.
