Richard Dawkins Tells Theology Student Why His Degree is Useless

Is a degree in theology useless? I see it as a good starting point: armed thus, you may wade deep into religious nonsense OR perceive truth in secularism... Studying theology for 3 years is probably going to challenge belief!

Two high intellect people discussing whether you should know something about the subject you are criticising. This is the epitome of “claiming to be wise they became fools”

Every degree and everything that exists is useless on an atheistic worldview.

As an atheist, I dislike Dawkins's ultimate response here. While I agree with him philosophically I think his approach here is weak. "I don't have time for that, I've got science to do"? Fine, then don't spend your time debating religious people.

Useless in the sense that anyone can start a "church" and begin to scam their flock without any kind of degree.

,Ретко лош човек ,одише ароганцијом и поганошћу, невероватно како што је старији све више има грознији поглед пун мржње и зла

I wish we, as the human race, could just grow up, and put away our imaginary friends

Well theology is part literature, part history, part philosophy--but is unique in how much it suspends the question of truth of what it is investigating

His neck was beautiful here.

Moral truth is elusive because it boils down to respect for mankind and the rights of mankind, and there's not a lot of that left. Look what happened on October 7th. The consensus was that the Jews were allowed to fight back. By October 8th, the consensus was that the Jews aren't allowed to fight back. Enough said!

Theology = mythical history , good for writing stories for teenage movies.

It's the end of the roadddddd lol

Act like u believe the bullshit so ur kids aren't kidnapped or murdered while still in the womb.

Rip son.

Never stood a chance. There is no god.

May as well study Ancient Greek or Roman mythology.

Thank you Dr. Dawkins ❤

The bottle of wine is sitting on a glass table...

Obviously he doesn’t have better things to do if he’s arguing against religion and God.

Just like all those journalism and sociology and all those bullshit, they are good only to make money behind a degree.

I am a beliiever in Yahweh and Yeshua/Jesus his son. Richard Dawkins cannot even explain how the BIG BANG was even accomplished? I guess it came from nowhere? If the universe created everything, how did it begin? Who/What/How was it started? Crickets...................We live in an enclosed world CREATED by the Father Yahweh. Listen, if you think that is a fairy tale and there is just some strange figure above that created us all, AND that gave us FREE WILL TO CHOOSE whether we accept HIM or do not to accept HIM then you will have to decide.

What a sick man Dawkins was...and useless.

A theology degree for an atheist is not useless, as Alex's own career shows.
He is well-informed enough to take on any theist and easily get the better of them.

The same can be said of much of psychology, which is a soft science.

Studying fairies for a phd. Not the history of fairies in culture but actual real fairies. Dawkins is correct

Clickbait thumbnail.

That's not what he said.

If a person tells me that theology is a useless subject for me to study its pretty obvious to me that people have their own opinions and i just don't give a shit what their opinion is

So is a psychology degree useless, or a business degree worth anything really? By the way he talks about science as being about "truth". Nope, science is a part of truth. It depends which evidence you look at. Why are scientific theories revised?

On the contrary @greenman3464 Richard Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist and author, a Professor for Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford 1995 to 2008 and would be highly sought in any class of biology or science.

I tend to agree with dawkins here. I know that most americans are christians, even if the more religious ones often consider the wordly ones to be fake. So i do think that theology degrees have value both for antheopolgical purposes and for understanding american religious culture, but i don't think that most of what is taught is purposeful. Most of it is just twisting the meanings of ancient manuscripts to suit whatever denominational philosophy your school falls under. That's not learning, its fabricating.

Hey Richard, what if YOU are wrong?
...

If your concept of "God" doesn't include the entire Universe and that which created it, then it is too small!
The moment a particle is a wave; it has to be a conscious wave!
Gravity is the conscious attraction among waves to create the illusion of particles,
and our experience-able Universe.
Max Planck states: "Consciousness is fundamental and matter is derived from Consciousness".

Life is the Infinite Consciousness, experiencing the Infinite Possibilities, Infinitely.
We are "It", experiencing our infinite possibilities in our finite moment.
Our job is to make it interesting!

Yeah, youd prefer not to use the word truth mecause you have no moral truth.

“I do science, I’m not required to know what I’m talking about when I insult worldviews that I think disagree with science”

Classic case of "I don't understand X, therefore X isn't real." Appeal to personal incredulity fallacious reasoning like this is common among atheists.

He made a fair point. If you are debunking the Christian creation myth [for example], it helps to know exactly what it claims. Then you can argue that the order of creation is technically wrong, because it does not work that way in nature. In fact it is essential. Sure, you can criticise around the edges, and there are some important 'edges". Like, how did this creator-god come to be, or how do you know that the bible is the word of god, and so on.
And you can get into the ethics of this god. For example, some humans disobeyed him, so he drowned the world? A 'good god" OK, sure, a good bloodthirsty childish, jealous tyrant.

the title of this video seems quite misleading.

Dawkins is clueless about spiritual matters. He conflates all religious and spiritual traditions with the pronouncements of literalists.

It's great how Alex is able to challenge Richard Dawkins in a way that is not insulting or dishonest, but instead stir up conversation.

Just the fact that we exist and our surroundings is proof of a greater power! GOD!!!

I think the young man did well, but I really lost respect for him when he asked Dawkins why he, Dawkins, hadn't studied the theological literature on why God chose to torture and kill his own son. The young man seemed to suggest that you can't have an opinion on these things unless you have studied theology. I'd say it's enough to have read the Bible. In Daniel 12:2 it says that "Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt." So Jews at the time of Jesus would have been aware of the idea of resurrection, but they would have thought of it as a general resurrection in preparation for the Last Judgement. So when Jesus either disappeared from his grave, or there were rumors that his body had disappeared, some people may indeed have concluded that the resurrections had started and the Last Judgement was on its way. When nothing further happened, however, interest waned. But Paul the future apostle came to investigate. On his way to Damascus, he had a sunstroke or an epileptic attack, and he saw a blinding light and seemed to hear the voice of God (or the voice of Christ). Paul was bursting with religious conviction and made it his life's mission to spread his own take on "Jesus Christ". (We may note that Paul was completely uninterested in anything that Jesus said and did in the Gospels, except something that Jesus supposedly said during the Last Supper.) The idea that God had tortured and killed his own son in order to save (parts of) humanity is mostly Paul's, and it most likely stems from a Mediterranean tradition of using scapegoats to rid individuals or populations of sin. But for those of you who don't believe that you can rid yourself of your own transgressions by transmitting them to another living being and then destroying the sins by destroying the hapless receiver of your sins, I don't see why you would honestly even consider the proposition that God tortured and killed his own son because that was the only way to atone for the sins of the people.

Theology as a degree is the same thing if someone made up a degree to study comic books.

Theology is fiction

His own absolutism is contrary to the scientific method he represents.

Even if you look at religion as myth, it is worth studying, in the same way anthropology is worth studying.

I don't find it necessary to make deep dives into any particular theology in order to figure out whether it's true or not. Even practitioners can't agree on their own theology. How many versions of Christianity must one know to argue against it? Religionists waste everyone's time, their own mostly, begging questions rather than engaging in honest debate. I wish people would take their own side and admit their particular faith is... wait for it... faith-based and be done with it. This is why Dawkins is frustrated. Furthermore, morality based on adherence to a faith is completely amoral. Of course it is. That's the point. It's maddening.

... so his argument is that theology is only useful so that you can argue with theologists? That's a little ridiculous.