Richard Dawkins in my home town
Offline Just reporting that I last night (March 4) attended a presentation by Richard Dawkins in my city of Brisbane in Australia.
He pretty much filled a 2000 seat theatre. It was said to be sold out, but there were empty seats - not many.
He was basically talking about what he had written in his latest book, "The Greatest Show on Earth", but he did make a number of his more general observations, of course.
It was basically about evolution, at least partly as a tribute to the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species last year.
It was good, standard Dawkins, went over well, had a bunch of good questions at the end which I thought he handled pretty well.
I was almost disappointed there were no really anti-evolution questioners, might have been more exciting.
The book was on sale in the foyer, as well as The God Delusion, and a couple other recent ones.
I picked up a copy of The God Delusion for Brian37, so that RD could sign it, all under strict instruction and pain of being verbally beaten up, and spent the rest of the evening talking with a bunch of fellow non-believers, mostly from our local Atheist Meetup group.
In summary, a great night out.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
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Nice work Brian37. I've seen Dawkins get pretty heated on tv shows - maybe having archbishop george pell in the crowd might have increased the excitement levels...
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
He's lying, I wouldn't have beaten him up. I would have hired a hit man. You might want to ask Bob about a Darwin license plate before you judge me for being so harsh on him.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Bob, glad you had fun. I knew you were looking forward to this.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Very cool. I hope he makes it to NYC one of these days. I'm sure he has a calendar of appearances somewhere, I should watch it.
I'm curious, does Dawkins know about this forum (I guess he does now)? Does anyone know if he's ever visited? I think I've seen a member named "RichardDawkins" but I assumed that was just an homage.
There is a video on this site with Richard Dawkins in studio with Brian Sapient, KellyM and Rook I don't know how to que it up for you but it is here.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
Brian37 just informed me that the fourth signature was Sam Harris.
Not to devalue Ali, but how could I have forgotten that?! I love Sam!
After all this time since we talked about it, all the 'big names' mentioned in the context of that conference, I could not sort out the ones which were on the trophy.
The other three were reasonably 'decipherable', but Sam's was far from clear apart from two strong vertical strokes which now 'obviously' belong to the 'H'.
The trophy, and the signed title page
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
I looked around, but unfortunately I couldn't find it either. I feel really stupid though, because I had seen the debate with Kirk Cameron and whats-his-face before I was a member here. I had no idea that was Brian Sapient...der.