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50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God

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By Barry Ritholtz - July 27th, 2011, 8:00PM

Hat tip Brainpicker

Speakers in order of appearance:

1. Lawrence Krauss, World-Renowned Physicist
2. Robert Coleman Richardson, Nobel Laureate in Physics
3. Richard Feynman, World-Renowned Physicist, Nobel Laureate in Physics
4. Simon Blackburn, Cambridge Professor of Philosophy
5. Colin Blakemore, World-Renowned Oxford Professor of Neuroscience
6. Steven Pinker, World-Renowned Harvard Professor of Psychology
7. Alan Guth, World-Renowned MIT Professor of Physics
8. Noam Chomsky, World-Renowned MIT Professor of Linguistics
9. Nicolaas Bloembergen, Nobel Laureate in Physics
10. Peter Atkins, World-Renowned Oxford Professor of Chemistry
11. Oliver Sacks, World-Renowned Neurologist, Columbia University
12. Lord Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal
13. Sir John Gurdon, Pioneering Developmental Biologist, Cambridge
14. Sir Bertrand Russell, World-Renowned Philosopher, Nobel Laureate
15. Stephen Hawking, World-Renowned Cambridge Theoretical Physicist
16. Riccardo Giacconi, Nobel Laureate in Physics
17. Ned Block, NYU Professor of Philosophy
18. Gerard ‘t Hooft, Nobel Laureate in Physics
19. Marcus du Sautoy, Oxford Professor of Mathematics
20. James Watson, Co-discoverer of DNA, Nobel Laureate
21. Colin McGinn, Professor of Philosophy, Miami University
22. Sir Patrick Bateson, Cambridge Professor of Ethology
23. Sir David Attenborough, World-Renowned Broadcaster and Naturalist
24. Martinus Veltman, Nobel Laureate in Physics
25. Pascal Boyer, Professor of Anthropology
26. Partha Dasgupta, Cambridge Professor of Economics
27. AC Grayling, Birkbeck Professor of Philosophy
28. Ivar Giaever, Nobel Laureate in Physics
29. John Searle, Berkeley Professor of Philosophy
30. Brian Cox, Particle Physicist (Large Hadron Collider, CERN)
31. Herbert Kroemer, Nobel Laureate in Physics
32. Rebecca Goldstein, Professor of Philosophy
33. Michael Tooley, Professor of Philosophy, Colorado
34. Sir Harold Kroto, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry
35. Leonard Susskind, Stanford Professor of Theoretical Physics
36. Quentin Skinner, Professor of History (Cambridge)
37. Theodor W. Hänsch, Nobel Laureate in Physics
38. Mark Balaguer, CSU Professor of Philosophy
39. Richard Ernst, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry
40. Alan Macfarlane, Cambridge Professor of Anthropology
41. Professor Neil deGrasse Tyson, Princeton Research Scientist
42. Douglas Osheroff, Nobel Laureate in Physics
43. Hubert Dreyfus, Berkeley Professor of Philosophy
44. Lord Colin Renfrew, World-Renowned Archaeologist, Cambridge
45. Carl Sagan, World-Renowned Astronomer
46. Peter Singer, World-Renowned Bioethicist, Princeton
47. Rudolph Marcus, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry
48. Robert Foley, Cambridge Professor of Human Evolution
49. Daniel Dennett, Tufts Professor of Philosophy
50. Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate in Physics

PERMALINK
Category: Philosophy, Video.

Comments

Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.

11 Responses to “50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God”

  1. Sunny129 Says:
    July 27th, 2011 at 8:18 pm

    More Money/Wealth has been spent for ‘Here afterwards’ (?) than here on EARTH on the ‘living’ fellow humans!

    HUMANISM surpasses all the rest of the ‘ISMS’ on Earth!

  2. overanout Says:
    July 27th, 2011 at 9:04 pm

    Here’s someone you missed: Richard Dawkins who urges all atheists to openly state their position — and to fight the incursion of the church into politics and science. A TED talk link:

    http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_dawkins_on_militant_atheism.html

  3. lburgler Says:
    July 27th, 2011 at 10:03 pm

    The debate about God is ultimately about human freedom.

    If we live in a causal universe, then it makes no sense to say that you or I DID something or CHOSE something. Instead, we would say, “The circumstances making up my material being and psychological situation resulted in the thing that just happened to me that I incidentally call action.”

    To a trained philosopher, a lot of these luminaries just sound really male and, frankly, a little bit silly.

    Freedom is a paradox. Choice and action make no sense either in terms of a non-causal being, or an absolutely causal being. If there were no restrictions on a person’s causality, his will would be his command. If there were absolute restriction, he would have no will.

    It’s incidentally what we generally misunderstand about “freedom.” It doesn’t mean doing WHATEVER you want.

    God killed himself on the cross so that we can be free. The only way to resurrect the holy spirit is through love. Where there is love, there he shall be. If God had not abandoned his children by forsaking his only son, we would all be Gods, or sand. In any case, freedom is neither good nor bad as a gift, but is the potential for good (and evil).

  4. psmith03 Says:
    July 27th, 2011 at 11:38 pm

    Many of these people have logically compelling arguments about human rationale as the sole criterion of truth. However when you start to peel the onion, you start to find their views on religion are a mixture of misunderstanding, anger and a refletion of past negative experiences with religion, often within their own family setting.

    Several spoke about the dangers and wars that religions have created. These assumptions are taken as dogma by illuminated people, without taking the time to seriuosly understand historical context and generally accepted bigotry. They confuse the existence of God with human meddling in its attempt to manipulate the idea of God, sometimes for political purposes. It may come as a surprise to even some of these esteemed people, that the scientific method was developed by a Catholic priest and accepted by the Catholic church as a valid approach to understanding science – so much for supression of science by religion.

    I can’t prove to you that God exists. But all I have to do is accept that he does and accept the fact that I don’t have the tools to even come close to understand the elegence of the Divine Creator. I am simply open to the Spirit in my life and have seen the results.

    What has always confused me about atheists is that they believe that because they can explain how someting works, they believe that they can remove the “origin” of its existence. I would also say that it is a stretch to apply Darwin’s theories of evolution (which I believe are valid) to physics and the development of the universe. Darwinism applies in a closed system, where the universe is for practical purposes (and depending on what model you subscribe to), is unbounded. The flaw in applying evolution outside of the biological world, is at best, a flaw in elegant thinking .

    I would ask that in your “big picture” thinking, that you now post a 30 minute video of 50 pre-eminent scientists and social thinkers on the exixtence of God. Religion and science should come to the same conclutions if done so in a spirit of openess. If he doesn’t exist, you don’t have anything to lose.

    PSmith

  5. contrabandista13 Says:
    July 27th, 2011 at 11:58 pm

    It’s nice for me to know that I’m not alone…. However if I had to choose between being alone and the company of fools, I would surely choose loneliness…

  6. JB7456 Says:
    July 28th, 2011 at 12:05 am

    Science is a discipline of reasoned men…like the ones who believed Kepler’s theory of the sun revolving around the earth for about 2000 years. When evolution becomes a law then it will get my attention. As for the radical atheism I would hesitate a bit before I got too carried away. Anthony Flew was the most incisive, highly educated, literate atheist ever and to this day. Before he died he acknowledged the existence of God. Anyone at that level as an atheist may deserve a nod but there aren’t any.
    Scientists get all full of themselves when they hold hands and talk about the Big Bang Theory. They have their own language and use it to explain how something arises out of nothing. It’s just confusion but at a higher level.
    Jesus said, “I am the Truth”. For a human to say that all existence resides in Himself is the eternal conundrum that confounds the confused but is eternal peace and security here, now, before, and forever for the wise.

  7. lunartop Says:
    July 28th, 2011 at 4:45 am

    Wonderful find!

    IMHO religion feeds on fear and uncertainty. Which is why when I look at the US, one of the most religious yet wealthy nations on Earth, I puzzle about the source of those two things.

  8. wally Says:
    July 28th, 2011 at 9:35 am

    God – invented by man in his own image.

  9. Greg0658 Says:
    July 28th, 2011 at 10:04 am

    hum – I sorta think of our God is nothing more than words to live better with each other by .. but I understand everything I sense (5 or 6 senses / maybe more) is a body function that we humans are doing our best to cloan

    5 senses
    http://www.google.com/search?q=5+senses&hl=en&biw=1048&bih=464&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=h2sxTo2MH-2EsAL_34yFCw&sqi=2&ved=0CDUQsAQ

    aquarium terrarium combo
    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=1048&bih=464&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=aquarium+terrarium+combo&oq=aquarium+terr&aq=2&aqi=g3&aql=&gs_sm=c&gs_upl=58315l61744l0l64031l13l13l0l2l2l0l233l1491l1.9.1l11l0

    I hope we keep growing intellectually tho

  10. Oh Yes, Dear Troll, Please Do Comment « thinktosurvive Says:
    July 29th, 2011 at 4:31 pm

    [...] This is from the post /  50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God [...]

  11. seth edenbaum Says:
    July 30th, 2011 at 12:48 am

    The question is faith. Dualism is founded in a variant of transubstantiation. Are we to assume that is founded on science?
    The fight between Galileo and the Church was between precedent and evidence. So are we to throw out the doctrine of precedent from our own legal system?

    The problem with the simplistic atheism of those like the Brights, is that they prefer reason to the rule of law.

    There is no god. The Pope doesn’t believe in god, neither do the cardinals. Whatever they may claim, the evidence says they believe in the Universal Church and that’s not the same thing. In the US some people “believe in” the Constitution.

    The video includes Colin McGinn, who wrote the following

    Toqueville’s point is that democracy presupposes that each person is as competent and virtuous as any other. But of course this is false: people differ widely in intelligence and virtue. Note that he says “considered” not “really”. So democracy rests on a lie. How, then, to defend democracy? Well, if truth, reason, virtue, etc are not objective qualities that people exemplify to varying degrees, but are rather relative to each person, we have a way out: everyone is as smart and good as anyone else to himself. Then democracy rests on no lie, since everyone really is cognitively and morally equal. Relativism steps in to save democracy from its noble lie. Thus relativism finds a foothold. But relativism is rubbish; so where does that leave democracy?

    Any response to that Mr Ritholz?

    It also includes Steven Weinberg, who bemoans: “the surprising opposition to Zionism among western liberals

    “Every Friday and often after school on other days, Israeli soldiers fire tear-gas and sonic bombs at the Palestinian children as they approach a spring. It sits in a valley that separates Nabi Saleh, an Arab village of 500 people half an hour’s drive north of Jerusalem, from Halamish, a religious Jewish settlement. On most nights jeeps roll through the village; over the past 18 months the Israeli army has detained 32 of its children, some as young as eleven. Many have been taken from their beds, kept in pre-trial detention for months, and brought to court in shackles, there to be convicted of stone-throwing.
    For some of Halamish’s settlers, irritated by the tear-gas that wafts into their living rooms from across the hill, this is not harsh enough. “The soldiers don’t maim enough Palestinians,” complains Iran Sega”

    Why should I argue about the existence of god, with people who want to replace god not with godless law but with themselves?

    The debate between Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens was a debate between warmongers over the existence of a deity. What’s more important, the question of god or the question of war?
    Narcissism is not a valid form of politics.

    Yesterday at this spot the Israelis shot eight young men, six of whom were under the age of eighteen. One was twelve. This afternoon they kill an eleven-year-old boy, Ali Murad, and seriously wound four more, three of whom are under eighteen. Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered—death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo—but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport.

    The author, Chris Hedges, has a Harvard degree in theology. I’m an atheist. Given a choice would I pick you, or him?

    This post is stupid. You’re wasting your time. You’re wasting my time.

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