Thursday 13 September 2012

Lord Sacks, Prof. Dawkins, Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama

Introspection 709731

Just a quick one today - a link to two fantastic videos:
  1. Yesterday the BBC broadcast the best program I have ever seen about the science-religion relationship, following Lord Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, talking to three non-believing scientists: Baroness Greenfield, Prof. Al-Khalili and Prof. Dawkins. I have to say that I fully agree with Lord Sack’s view, which in fact is pretty much what I got to in an earlier post. The most impressive thing to me was how he and Richard Dawkins arrived at consensus precisely about the need for rational, good-willed people to work together regardless of their religious or areligious views. I am now officially a huge fan of Lord Sacks (see also my post on one of his blog posts on how hatred and liberty cannot coexist).

    If you are in the UK, you can see the program on iPlayer here and I'll look for a source accessible from outside the UK later.

    To whet your apetite in the meantime, here are just a couple of quotes:
    “Science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean.” Lord Sacks
    “There's nothing quite as frightening as someone who knows they are ‘right’.” Michael Faraday (quoted by Baroness Greenfield)
    “For me religion at its best involves asking questions and challenging conventional assumptions.” Lord Sacks
    “The answer to bad religion is good religion, not no religion.” Lord Sacks

  2. A while ago Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama had a chat via the Google+ ‘hangout’ videoconferencing feature. It is somewhat lengthy, but a joy to watch two friends having a great time. One of the gems was:
    Desmond Tutu: “Do you have an army?”
    Dalai Lama: “Yes, at the spiritual level! No weapons, but wisdom!”
Enjoy! :)

No comments:

Post a Comment