beer good
Well-Known Member
Your logic does not resemble our Earth logic.
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Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion
- Thread starter StillILearn
- Start date
Your logic does not resemble our Earth logic.
ylris611203
New Member
beer good
Well-Known Member
Is logic not logic? otherwise it would be illogical
Logic is logic, of course. It was your post that was illogical.
This is apparently mostly true. (I haven't gotten around to reading it yet, mind, though I've seen/read quite a few summaries, interviews etc.) Dawkins is arguing that religion is irrational and harmful. (Anyone who's read the book, feel free to correct me here.)
How is this relevant if the book is indeed NOT primarily about proving the existence of gods, but arguing the benefit/harm of religion? Your first and second sentences contradict each other. Surely we can agree that religions exist?
In what way exactly? It's not like the dVC was the first - or even the 10,000th - book/movie/song/painting ever to upset the religiously minded, and it's certainly not the most significant. Does the mere fact that a non-fiction book upsets Christians somehow make it just another poorly-written sensationalist conspiracy thriller?
text_maniac
Member
It's about both, the title of one of the chapters is something like 'Why God Almost Certainly Doesn't Exist'. But why not judge by reading the book, instead of this thread?
libris
kickbox
From my understanding, it's an argument against a personal god; a god that bends the laws of physics and biology to interfere with the lives of individuals. I've heard interviews where Dawkin's states that he doesn't have a problem with an impersonal or pantheistic god. Science really can't assess the existence of an impersonal god, as you say. However, a god that can step outside the bonds of physics to grant a prayer request or perform a "miracle" can be examined in a round about way.
Any statement which can be proven false can be studied via the scientific method and is therefore within the realm of science. So while we cannot address the existence of a god outright, we can test some of the claims made by those believing in a personal god, like "my statue of Mary is bleeding" etc...
Of course, I haven't read the book so I'm only assuming Dawkin's intent here. I can't wait to read it, I can tell the discussion here is going to be great!
Any statement which can be proven false can be studied via the scientific method and is therefore within the realm of science. So while we cannot address the existence of a god outright, we can test some of the claims made by those believing in a personal god, like "my statue of Mary is bleeding" etc...
Of course, I haven't read the book so I'm only assuming Dawkin's intent here. I can't wait to read it, I can tell the discussion here is going to be great!
SFG75
Well-Known Member
text_maniac
Member
I've read most of Dawkins' work, and I have to say I think that anyone who has this impression is badly mistaken. Dawkins is arguing against any God, up to an including Uncreated Creators who are deemed responsible for Man/Life/The Universe etc. There is no more reason to believe in a creator than in a teapot orbiting the sun, or fairies at the bottom of the garden. The God Delusion has gone back to the library now, and I forget what he had to say on the Separate Magisteria argument. But if you read A Devil's Chaplain you will find an essay in which he makes it abundantly clear that he considers religion and science fundamentally incompatible.
text_maniac
Member
My internet access is rationed to an hour in the local library, so I haven't had time to read your references. A fundamental difference between science and religion is that scientists can usually accept the answers that they didn't want to hear, they wouldn't have made any progress otherwise. My point was that if religion persists with one "What's bad is false" argument for hundreds of years, there's not much reason to suppose they won't do so with another. So long as religion can't see the fallacy of what's bad is false (and what's good is true), they are doomed to repeat their mistakes.Actually, Rome has mostly stayed out of the evolution debate, and John Paul II went on record accepting it, so the Vatican isn't really the issue. (Link.) Today, it seems to me this whole kerfuffle is mostly (though in no way completely) an American affair.
(And to be completely fair to the Vatican, it didn't take them 400 years to acquit Galileo of heresy. Only 360.)
libris
kickbox
Then you need to read this book more carefully, because in chapter one he clearly states he is not arguing against non-personal or pantheistic gods. I never said he did consider science and religion of a personal god compatible, I stated that he did not argue against a naturalistic (non supernatural) god.
from page 20 If you read the previous section he equates Einsteinian religion with a pantheistic/non-personal god.
beer good
Well-Known Member
Oh, I agree completely. All I wanted to point out is that different churches have different agendas, and that on the Vatican's, the creationism-evolution "controversy" doesn't rank very highly just now. (That doesn't mean the Vatican can't be hopelessly behind in other questions, obviously.)
And also, that in many secular nations across the world, this really isn't an issue except to a few percent of hardline theists; AFAIK, it's mostly in the US that this is still a question that's debated on a political level - if a leading politician over here were to suggest including Bible stories in science studies, he'd be laughed out of town and lumped together with the Flat Earth people and moon landing hoaxers. I've yet to hear anyone try to explain why scientific facts become less reliable depending on which country you're currently in.
libris
kickbox
I do concede he's harder on the god issue than I thought at first, I tend to follow Gould's NOMA. I had forgotten that Dawkins and Gould fought about this issue as well as the finer points of evolutionary theory. Still, Dawkins has a point, we can examine the Earth's center indirectly by developing testeable hypothesis based on it's proposed structure, it should be possible to do this with "The God Question" as well.
Still, he clearly makes room for a non-personal god in his work.
Still, he clearly makes room for a non-personal god in his work.
libris
kickbox
if a leading politician over here were to suggest including Bible stories in science studies, he'd be laughed out of town and lumped together with the Flat Earth people and moon landing hoaxers. I've yet to hear anyone try to explain why scientific facts become less reliable depending on which country you're currently in.
Now I really want to live in Europe. Oh why did I ever move to the buckle of the bible belt
SFG75
Well-Known Member
The problem is that supernatural theists and scientists use the same terminology for different things. When Einstein and others wrote of "God," "religion," and "believing," they were talking about the wonders of the natural world, not the wonders of a physical earth and laws interfering deity. Dawkins debunks patently false notions of Einstein believing in a personal god and Darwin converting on his converting death bed. I've even seen quotes by Jefferson being used grossly out of context on the part ot literalists. By using a few key sentences, Jefferson no longer becomes the man who created a Bible that omitted all supernatural events and appearances. It also negates the fact that up until the 1840s, many of his books weren't allowed in public libraries as he was branded an atheist. It appears that a good number of scientists are merely admirers of the natural world and who honor it with religious language. They have a profound respect and admiration for the beauty of the natural world and it's appearances. They don't however, read anything more into it other than aesthetic beauty.
mehastings
Active Member
June 2007 Book of the Month
From Publisher's Weekly:
From Publisher's Weekly:
text_maniac
Member
In The Great Convergence, reprinted in A Devil's Chaplain, Dawkins makes it very clear that he considers that non supernatural gods are not gods at all, and that awe of nature is not religion.
Here are a few apt quotes:
“Ursula Goodenough's lyrical book, The Sacred Depths of Nature, is sold as a religious book, is endorsed by theologians on the back cover, and it’s chapters are liberally laced with prayers and devotional meditations. Yet, by the books own account, Dr Goodenough does not believe in any sort of supreme being, does not believe in any sort of life after death; on any normal understanding of the English language she is no more religious than I am…..As far as I can tell, my ‘atheistic’ views are identical to Ursula Goodenough’s ‘religious’ ones. One of us is misusing the English language, and I don’t think it’s me.”
“[Stephen Hawking’s] much quoted phrase ‘The Mind of God’ no more indicates belief in God than does my ‘God knows!’ (as a way of saying that I don’t)….Paul Davies, however, adopted Hawking’s phrase as the title of a book which went on to win the templeton prize”
“If ‘religion’ is allowed such flabbily elastic definition, what word is left for real religion, religion as the ordinary person in the pew or on the prayer mat understands it today; religion, indeed, as any intellectual would have understood it in previous centuries, when intellectuals were religious like everybody else? If God is a synonym for the deepest principles of physics, what word is left for a hypothetical being who answers prayers; intervenes to save cancer patients or help evolution over difficult jumps; forgives sins or dies for them? If we are allowed to re-label scientific awe as a religious impulse, the case goes through on the nod. You have redefined science as religion, so it’s hardly surprising if they turn out to ‘converge’.”
“I suspect that my friend the Professor of Astronomy was using the Einstein/Hawking trick of letting ‘God’ stand for ‘That which we don’t understand’. It would be a harmless trick if it were not continually misunderstood by those hungry to misunderstand it.”
SFG75
Well-Known Member
What are the opinions about his mini-rant towards ceding religion ground that we don't allow other ideas? For example, when a religious group says they want to use medicine to reach contact with God, we allow it(at least, we Americans do under the 1st amendment.) Yet, as he rightly points out, medicinal marijuana is against hte law. Another example would be that if a group of people who appreciate art stated that they needed the drugs to understand a given piece of art, no one would take them seriously. Yet, medicinal marijuana has scientific research behind it, which is more than the other two examples could ever dream of. I thought it was a very strong argument.
text_maniac
Member
I don't see why anybody with any opinion shouldn't compete on a level playing field. The idea that you can't challenge religion "because you just can't" is absurd. People with irrational positions usually are offended by a rational argument, so if they're backed into a corner they will usuallly try to silence their opponents by accusing them of being offensive.
In his essay Dolly and the Cloth Heads, Dawkins also has a very funny dig at the way the religious are often invited to public debates whether they know anything about the subject or not.
In his essay Dolly and the Cloth Heads, Dawkins also has a very funny dig at the way the religious are often invited to public debates whether they know anything about the subject or not.
beer good
Well-Known Member
I thought one of the best points he made on that subject was the remark that if the apartheid South African government had just been smart enough to claim that they were keeping races apart for religious reasons rather than political ones, they would probably have been treated with more respect (viz the "religious freedom" argument being used to defend racist/homophobic opinions). That it's more acceptable to hate and even hurt another human being as long as you have a 2000-year-old book supposedly saying you're allowed to hate and hurt, rather than just doing it because you're a mean-spirited bigot.