Richard Dawkins in University of Kansas

I had the opportunity to go & listen to Richard Dawkins at KU. It was amazing. His lectures & his writing makes one think, ask questions , seek proof.

After the speech, I had the chance to speak with Victor Bailey, Director of Hall Center for the Humanities. I asked him about my thought, my theory. I came from a very conservative religious background. I recon at one point in life I, myself was also very religious, God fearing & conservative. So, for me to say/accept/think there's no God is still difficult. My analogy is, What if God just like a programmer created us. Evolution is part of the process (note here, I believe in evolution, I think it's an on-going process) & now he's just watching everything without intervening at all. We are the elements of the program. He (God, the programmer) knows what the outcome will be. By that I mean, whether if we chose right or wrong, it doesn't matter. We don't know what the result will be, but God already knows how his created program suppose to end. And that is why he doesn't need to intervene. Dr. Bailey's response to that was, essentially you are still believing in God without a proof. We are assuming that there is a programmer, a God who created everything. And then he recommended Richard Dawkin's "The Blind Watchmaker" on this matter.

During the QA session, someone had asked Dawkins about the fact/belief that being religious makes one ethical as well, isn't that a good thing?! His answer to that was religion does not teach people ethics. It is the society that teaches ethics, it is the society that outlines what is & isn't ethical. Richard made reference to the first & second testament. According to Steven Pinker, it's the society & gene that teaches ethics. I asked Dr. Bailey about that as well & he agreed that yes it is both gene & society that teaches someone to ethical, not the society alone. Afterwards, I had the opportunity to meet, greet & talk with Richard Dawkins myself. I must say he is a very intelligent person. I am glad I went to listen to him even though I was tired & had just gotten off from work that evening.

Here's a link to that lecture:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,229,Lawrence-Kansas--Speech,Richard-Dawkins

Here's a BBC interview of RD on his new book "The God Delusion" that he was promoting at KU:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7693473384477811817&q=richard+dawkins