Richard Dawkins at KU
I just had the privilege to watch Prof. Richard Dawkins speak in person. He is a well-spoken, brilliant man. He came to the University of Kansas as part of a lecture series regarding the intersection of nature and culture. He went over arguments about intelligent design, especially as reason to believe in God, and spoke over the role of religion and science in society. Of course, having read several of Dawkins’ books (I’m currently reading The God Delusion), I was already familiar with many of the arguments he was making. Nevertheless, it was a very entertaining lecture and I encourage anyone (not just atheists, anyone) to go and hear him speak.
The only other item I will make note of here is that the audience seemed to be mostly in agreement with Dawkins on most of what he spoke. It was greatly rewarding to see that many people (the lines to get in went to the street, and it was packed inside) with secular/pro-science views in Kansas (I sometimes get disillusioned as to the state of society living here), however, I was also hoping for people who might not already agree with Dawkins to be able to hear him speak. Who knows, maybe there were people with contrary views in attendance, but they were all swayed by his logic by the end of the lecture (yeah right).
I haven’t finished it yet, but I imagine I will be buying several copies of The God Delusion for Christmas gifts this year.
Update: Joshua Rosenau has a more detailed description of the talk.
Update 2: Video of Dawkins’ speech
