Product Description

Fixed Point Foundation hosts a second discussion between Professor Richard Dawkins and Professor John Lennox this time in the UK at the Oxford Museum of Natural History. An enthralling topic for scientists, skeptics, and Christians for nearly 150 years, the answer to this question has implications that reverberate through-out public and private live, from government policy and medical ethics to individual choices made every day. Two scientists return to the Oxford Museum of Natural History, the famed site of the 1860 Evolution debate between Huxley and Wilberforce. Discussing an issue the BBC calls 'as fierce as ever,' the two go head to head in a remarkable match of intellect.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12089 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-07-20
• Rating: Exempt
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 1

Synopsis
Oxford Museum of Natural History hosts this fascinating and controversial debate on the existence of God. Professor John Lennox explains how science points to an intelligent creator and Richard Dawkins offers a counterargument.

About the Actor
Holding the Atheistic position is Prof. Richard Dawkins, celebrated author of the God Delusion and regarded by many as the spokesman for the 'New Atheism.' Opposing Dawkins is fellow Oxford Professor John Lennox. Lennox like Dawkins, has dedicated his career to science, but arrives at very different conclusions. 'It is the very nature of science,' he says, 'that leads me to belief in God.'

Customer Reviews

Good solid discussion. Lets have more of the same please...
So often these sorts of presentations descend into slightly ridiculous scenarios where a highly polished academic athiest is pitched against someone with religious convictions but totally unequipped to debate the issues at the same level. Athiests then use this as further evidence that people with religious beliefs are in the main, poorly-educated weak-minded sheep. However, I'm pleased to say this is certainly not the case here.
The two men debate on practical issues of whether our growing understanding of the world and universe around us through scientific advances undermines the case for a Creator God and the need for a Messiah. The material being debated gets slightly heavyweight here and there, but on the whole I would say it remains understandable to a layperson.
I think most people watching this will have pre-determined views one way or the other, but hopefully it will provoke thought and further discussion. There is no real bias either way and both protagonists put forward decent, thoughtful, intelligent answers.
The interesting things that came out of it for me were: 1. Neither side of the debate has all the answers. 2. The debate is actually more evenly balanced than the liberal media would like you to believe. 3. Both camps should embrace and not be scared of rigorous debate and probing difficult questions.
Please keep these type of debates coming. It can only be a good thing.

Admissions by Dawkins make it worth the watch
A good discussion between these two minds. Lennox's book is far more persuasive than his side of the discussion.In fact the discussion didn't really cover the main subject matter of the book.

Having read both the 'God Delusion' and 'Has Science Buried God' I know which contains the most science!

Lennox gets Dawkins to admit that Jesus did exist. Also, he admits that currently science can only explain one out of the three big questions posed by our existence... 1) How did the universe come to be how it is 2) How did life come about and finally the one that science, Dawkins believes, has answered 3) How did we get to humans from initial life forms.

Lennox unfortunately weakens his case, particularly in Dawkins eyes, by believing that God, in the form of Jesus, came to earth and died on the cross. When the Bible teaching can be understood that Jesus was a unique person - formed from genetic contribution from Mary and God - and he was in reality the son of God (not one part of a pre-excistent trinity). This has far greater explanatory power and is logically more consistent. The Christadelphians (formed in the mid 1800's) hold this belief.

Creationists suffer from the propoganda that they do not believe in evolution. The aspect of evolution that has been proven, and is accepted by Creationists, is that of survival of the fittest and natural selection. The problem arises when evolution is used to explain the explosion of intelligent information that is required to move from simple (actually far from the case) to more intilligent forms. This is well covered in Lennox's is book.

I'm sure those buying this DVD will have read the book. If not I would highly recommmend it as it is an excellent and contempory evaluation of where science has taken us to.

It no way lives up to the claims made for it
Firstly let me point out that this DVD is produced and published by The Fixed Point Foundation, which clearly states that it is committed to publicly defending Christianity through education [and] events and this is evident in the whole approach to the debate. The debate is presented by and "chaired" by Larry Taunton who is founder and executive director of the foundation, and the director is Michael Lennox, whilst Carson Lennox is another member of the production team - in charge of Location Production Services. A pure coincidence or keeping it in the family?

Dawkins has commented regarding an earlier debate organised by the same organisation, the "God Delusion" debate in Birmingham, Alabama, prompted by his book of the same name, that the format was rather strange, in that it ensured that Lennox got the last word on every single issue. The fact that the foundation produced this debate is very evident in the framing of the debate to constantly require Dawkins to be defending his position, whilst Lennox is never once required to do so.

My most important objection to this DVD is that it failed to deliver what it promised. Based on the description given, I was looking forward to hearing a well-constructed scientific argument that challenged the science put forward by Dawkins. Whether it was more convincing than Dawkins' arguments or not would remain to be seen, but I had expected, from the description, that it would at least challenge me to think it through very carefully. Furthermore, I really wanted to present this to my teenage children, who have already heard Dawkins' arguments, so that they would have a balanced set of arguments on both sides of the debate, in order for them to reach their own conclusions.

In practice, I never once heard Lennox put forward any scientific argument for anything. He constantly waffled around statements of his belief, but without ever providing any substance to support them. One other review says that Lennox's book is far more persuasive than his side of the discussion. Well, if that is the case, it is not only a shame that this debate didn't present those elements, but, given its description, in my opinion downright misleading. After seeing this debate and finding it fall so far short of my expectations, I most certainly do not feel inclined to throw more money away by spending it on his book, so it is an opportunity lost.

As for previous reviews, so Dawkins "admits" that Jesus did exist. Those who have read his books would not be in the slightest bit surprised by this as he has always confirmed this to be the case. His issue with Christians is not about the existence of Jesus but about the claim that Jesus was supernatural. So Dawkins admits that science only explains one of the three big questions posed by our existence, but this is only because he is being completely scientific by not claiming a hypothesis, however scientifically feasible, as being a scientific explanation if no evidence has been found (yet) to confirm it. Both of these big quesions have had highly feasible hypotheses proposed (big bang and primordial soup) and there are even a number of scientific observations that provide strong pointers to these hypotheses but Dawkins quite rightly is not ready to claim these as sufficient to treat the hypotheses as proven explanations.

As Dawkins points out in his summing up, the fact that an explanation has not yet been offered does not justify the conclusion that "in that case it must be magic". If the same rigourous requirements for evidence were applied to the "feelings" presented by Lennox, he would have had to make exactly the same admissions about his theist beliefs. Based on his contribution to this debate one could only conclude that not only could no evidence be presented to support the theist view of these questions, but that there do not even exist feasible hypotheses to lead us in their direction, only his beliefs and those of like minded folk. He certainly didn't present any scientific hypotheses, unless we count his simple statement of beliefs as a hypothesis, and based as these are on significant supernatural elements, they can't help but lack the credibility level of those hypothesis. On this basis, Dawkins inability to provide (admissible) explanations of these two big questions is far from providing automatic victory for the theist viewpoint of them.