February 28, 2012
Richard Dawkins, the controversial Oxford University professor billed by many as the "world's most famous atheist" now says he is not 100 percent sure God doesn't exist -- but just barely, the Religion News Service reports. In a debate with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams Feb. 23, Dawkins conceded a small bit of doubt that there was no such thing as a creator; the evolutionary biologist quickly added that he was "6.9 out of seven" certain of his long-standing atheist beliefs. "I think the probability of a supernatural creator existing [is] very, very low," he said. Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and other bestsellers, is a leader of the "new atheist" movement that aggressively challenges belief in God and religion. "What I can't understand is why you can't see [that life started from nothing] and is such a staggering, elegant, beautiful thing, why would you want to clutter it up with something so messy as a God?" he said.