Richard Dawkins
Evolutionary Biologist, Atheist, and Author, Richard Dawkins came to the University of Texas and spoke on his book The God Delusion Wednesday evening. The event didn't start until 7pm, but when I got in line at 5:20, there were probably already 700 people in front of me. Luckily though, I happened to be on the side of the building that Dawkins came in on. Look how close I was:
Anyway, the lecture was amazing. I wish I could have videoed the whole thing, but they asked us not to video at all, and I looked very funny holding my camera up for like 50 seconds anyway. Here's a clip of an answer to a question about why Atheism is important:
His voice is so cute. ;)
He also used a clip from comedian Marcus Brigstocke in his lecture. I found it on YouTube. This video is over 7 minutes long, but Dawkins only used the first 3:15. Its really pretty funny.
Dawkins has also started the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science and has included a great list of goals and priorities for the foundation. These include fighting the epidemic in the science classroom, research on things like why people are more interested in astrology than astronomy, and at what age a child is most impressionable, maintaining a database of available lecturers and thereby supporting the next generation of freethinkers, publishing books in America or Britian that may only be published in one country, supporting The Out Campaign, and raising consciousness about the religious label imposed on young children who no more identify with Christianity or Islam than they do with Marxism. These aren't all, but these are my favorites. :)
The Out Campaign is pretty cool... they sale Scarlet Letter T-Shirts w/ a big Atheist A on the front... How cute is that?
Also, through links from Dawkins's Site, I found a fund to help finance security for Ayaan Hirsi who was born into the Islamic faith, and now speaks out and condemns it for many different reasons, including its treatment of women. The death threats may not come in such a large number if Ayaan Hirsi was simply a dissenter who spoke out every once in a while. However, she happens to be a fierce politician, an author, and one of the mind's behind Theo van Gogh's 11 minute film titled "Submission Part 1." van Gogh was murdered because of his views, and his killer left a 5 page letter to Ayaan Hirsi impaled on the corpse. In any case, she is a freethinker whose free speech is coming with a large price. How can she marry? How can she raise a family? She has to be surrounded by security and practically running from one place to the next. This story disgusts me. If you'd like to help her out donate Here. If you'd just like to read a pretty good Time's article on her, then go Here.
Anyway, Dawkins is great, so is Sam Harris, Carl Sagan, Christopher Hitchens and all the other emerging freethinkers... Go watch some videos of them, you'll enjoy it. :)
I'll leave you with a Dawkins quote:
"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here."
Anyway, the lecture was amazing. I wish I could have videoed the whole thing, but they asked us not to video at all, and I looked very funny holding my camera up for like 50 seconds anyway. Here's a clip of an answer to a question about why Atheism is important:
His voice is so cute. ;)
He also used a clip from comedian Marcus Brigstocke in his lecture. I found it on YouTube. This video is over 7 minutes long, but Dawkins only used the first 3:15. Its really pretty funny.
Dawkins has also started the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science and has included a great list of goals and priorities for the foundation. These include fighting the epidemic in the science classroom, research on things like why people are more interested in astrology than astronomy, and at what age a child is most impressionable, maintaining a database of available lecturers and thereby supporting the next generation of freethinkers, publishing books in America or Britian that may only be published in one country, supporting The Out Campaign, and raising consciousness about the religious label imposed on young children who no more identify with Christianity or Islam than they do with Marxism. These aren't all, but these are my favorites. :)
The Out Campaign is pretty cool... they sale Scarlet Letter T-Shirts w/ a big Atheist A on the front... How cute is that?
Also, through links from Dawkins's Site, I found a fund to help finance security for Ayaan Hirsi who was born into the Islamic faith, and now speaks out and condemns it for many different reasons, including its treatment of women. The death threats may not come in such a large number if Ayaan Hirsi was simply a dissenter who spoke out every once in a while. However, she happens to be a fierce politician, an author, and one of the mind's behind Theo van Gogh's 11 minute film titled "Submission Part 1." van Gogh was murdered because of his views, and his killer left a 5 page letter to Ayaan Hirsi impaled on the corpse. In any case, she is a freethinker whose free speech is coming with a large price. How can she marry? How can she raise a family? She has to be surrounded by security and practically running from one place to the next. This story disgusts me. If you'd like to help her out donate Here. If you'd just like to read a pretty good Time's article on her, then go Here.
Anyway, Dawkins is great, so is Sam Harris, Carl Sagan, Christopher Hitchens and all the other emerging freethinkers... Go watch some videos of them, you'll enjoy it. :)
I'll leave you with a Dawkins quote:
"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here."
posted by DM @ 10:55 AM
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