More Dawkins critism

Tim Robbins

William Reville piece in the Irish Times this week.
Some interesting points and worth a read.

Prof Dawkins should target PC rather than religion

Under the Microscope / Prof William Reville: The proselytising atheist and scientist Richard Dawkins summarises his attack on religion in his latest book The God Delusion (Bantam Press, 2006). As we know from previous books, Dawkins can brilliantly explain complex scientific concepts to a general audience. He displays this ability in patches in this latest book, but all too often he lapses into cynical rhetorical dismissal of his adversary. I believe in time he will regret writing this book.

Dawkins is Oxford University Professor of the Public Understanding of Science. One might therefore think that his opposition to religion is the official stance of science on this matter. This is not so. When Dawkins writes on religion he represents his personal opinion. There is nothing wrong with this but other scientists, as eminent as Richard Dawkins, have opposite opinions.

For example Stephen Jay Gould the eminent science writer and Harvard evolutionary biologist held that science and religion operate out of "non overlapping magisteria" and that science has nothing to say about religion. Francis Collins, leader of the public venture to sequence the human genome, is a devout Christian and has just published a book, The Language of God (Free Press, 2006), explaining how religion and science can be entirely compatible.

Dawkins debunks the "exaggerated respect" society affords to religious beliefs, no matter how ridiculous some of these beliefs seem to be. He has a point here, but exaggerated respect is no worse than complete lack of respect. In more than 400 pages I could scarcely find one instance where Dawkins admits that any aspect of religion might have done any good at any stage.

About 40 per cent of scientists believe in God. Some of these scientists are the most famous who ever lived, which naturally irritates the hell out of Dawkins. Albert Einstein believed that the physical laws that govern nature were formulated by an impersonal Grand Designer. Dawkins goes to considerable lengths to convince us that Einstein was really an atheist who used poetic language. But Einstein vehemently denied being an atheist and his position seemed to hover between deism and pantheism.

Dawkins is at his worst when dealing with the traditional proofs of the existence of God. He is ignorantly contemptuous of St Thomas Aquinas and St Anselm. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) lived in a pre-scientific age but used reason to formulate arguments for the existence of God. Aquinas conceived of a God who created a world with its own ordering and processes. This prepared the ground for the development of the natural sciences in the later Middle Ages.

St Anselm (1033-1109) of Canterbury made a famous ontological argument for the existence of God in 1078. It states that it is possible to conceive of a being greater than whom nothing can be conceived. Such a being must therefore exist since existence is greater than non-existence. This argument has challenged philosophers for centuries. Dawkins dismisses Anselm's argument with a sneer.

There is dilute scientific evidence in favour of God. Principally this amounts to the fact that if the values of many physical constants (eg the strong nuclear force) in the universe differed ever so slightly from the values they have, life would never have arisen. One explanation for this striking coincidence is that the basic properties of matter and energy were chosen by God to allow a universe to evolve under its own steam. Dawkins, of course, doesn't agree, opting instead for the "many worlds" hypothesis. This proposes that our world is just one of an infinite number of worlds, established at the beginning, each with its own unique physical constants and laws. In this infinite variety it would be inevitable that some worlds, such as ours, would be hospitable to life. But, the "many worlds" hypothesis is little more than speculation compared to the conventional picture that we live in the only world that exists.

Dawkins rails against the excesses of fundamentalist religion, ranging from creationism to suicide bombers. All moderate religious people would agree with him here. But he goes on to call for the rejection of all religion, the thoughtful moderate kind along with fundamentalism. He reasons that moderate religion makes the world "safe" for extreme religion by endorsing faith.

Dawkins' reasoning is wrong. If we applied it generally we would get rid of many good things because of the extreme behaviour of the few. For example science "made the world safe" for the development of eugenics, nuclear and biological weapons, and so on. Therefore, the only way to ensure we have no monstrous developments in future is to abolish science!

Fundamentalists are not impressed by the arguments of atheists. The best weapon to use against fundamentalism is moderate religion. Dawkins only distracts moderate religion from its task. Why doesn't he take on the new secular religion of political correctness (PC) which has silently taken over public life in recent decades? PC is anti-scientific, makes people afraid to think certain thoughts, closes down whole areas of debate, publicly vilifies people who diverge from accepted beliefs, and is rife on university campuses. Dawkins sharp tongue could make a real difference here.

William Reville is associate professor of biochemistry and public awareness of science officer at UCC

There is dilute scientific evidence in favour of God. Principally this amounts to the fact that if the values of many physical constants (eg the strong nuclear force) in the universe differed ever so slightly from the values they have, life would never have arisen.

Pft. But it did arise, so playing what-if games is irrelevant.
Given just the right kind of weather I can go out and fly a kite... it really doesn't mean the weather is being controlled just for me to be able to fly it.
There is not any scientific evidence in favour of god, there is "I don't know so it must be god" from people who want to believe in god anyway, so far as I've seen.

I do think dawkins is a bit much sometimes though

Maccattack

Tim Robbins wrote:

St Anselm (1033-1109) of Canterbury made a famous ontological argument for the existence of God in 1078. It states that it is possible to conceive of a being greater than whom nothing can be conceived. Such a being must therefore exist since existence is greater than non-existence.

Sorry. for the dummies... What is he saying here??

Maccattack

Maccattack wrote:

Sorry. for the dummies... What is he saying here??

If I'm reading it correctly, "we can imagine a perfect being('greater than whom nothing can be conceived' => 'perfect'?), therefore one must exist"

Scofflaw

bluewolf wrote:

If I'm reading it correctly, "we can imagine a perfect being('greater than whom nothing can be conceived' => 'perfect'?), therefore one must exist"

Let us say that God is the most perfect being we can imagine - which seems reasonable.

Existence is a necessary part of perfection. Therefore, the atheist, who imagines a God that does not exist, is imagining a less perfect being than the God imagined by the theist - whose conception of God obviously includes existence.

Therefore the God conceived of by the theist is more perfect than that conceived of by the atheist.

Since God is the most perfect being imaginable, the atheist's conception of God is not God - the theist's is, because more perfect.

Therefore God exists.

As far as I can make out, Dawkins neither refutes this argument, nor attempts to. Instead he dismisses it as logic-chopping and word-games - an approach that will appeal strongly to many of our posters, but is almost certainly intellectual laziness.

cordially,
Scofflaw

robindch

> Instead he dismisses it as logic-chopping and word-games - an approach that
> will appeal strongly to many of our posters, but is almost certainly intellectual
> laziness.

While it may be intellectual laziness, it does save Dawkins from having to write a similar logic-chopping word-game to refute. Having read Anselm's argument in the past, I must say that it leaves me cold -- it doesn't seem to say much more than "if I can think of something bigger than you can, then my thing exists". Wikipedia's entry doesn't look too bad, but a bit of a plough through nonetheless.

With some Cantorian polishing, I'm sure that the same "proof" could be used to prove the existence of an infinite number of increasingly powerful deities and the existence (but not the location) of the perfect pint. Today, it sounds like P and NP by another name, but that could be my flu speaking.

It does seem like word games to me.
I don't see how the concept of perfection automatically makes something exist or why it can't just stay a concept. And if two people imagine something, one saying existence and the other saying non existence hardly have any great weight on their side. It almost sounds like your summary of jc's argument in the creationism thread. "I think god exists => god exists" is what it boils down to.

pH

Scofflaw wrote:

Let us say that God is the most perfect being we can imagine - which seems reasonable.

Existence is a necessary part of perfection. Therefore, the atheist, who imagines a God that does not exist, is imagining a less perfect being than the God imagined by the theist - whose conception of God obviously includes existence.

Therefore the God conceived of by the theist is more perfect than that conceived of by the atheist.

Since God is the most perfect being imaginable, the atheist's conception of God is not God - the theist's is, because more perfect.

Therefore God exists.

As far as I can make out, Dawkins neither refutes this argument, nor attempts to. Instead he dismisses it as logic-chopping and word-games - an approach that will appeal strongly to many of our posters, but is almost certainly intellectual laziness.

Rather than get bogged down in silly word games about if non-existent objects have properties etc. one way of dealing with this rather silly argument has always been the "overload objections" which show that *exactly* the same argument can be used to prove the existence of perfect islands, hats and cakes.

Gaunilo's Island

Zombrex

bluewolf wrote:

Pft. But it did arise, so playing what-if games is irrelevant.

I agree, I can't stand that argument. It drives me nuts.

It implies that us arising was some kind of ultimate goal, that we had to exist. And therefore the odds of this randomly happening are so small that since we have to exist something must have made sure that we did exist.

It is the ego-centric idea that seems to domainate theist thinking, that we as a species, or even life in general, are some how very special and important to the universe. We are the "end goal", we are the reason the universe exists

If you say that no we are actually just a rather interesting chemical reaction that can happen if certain conditions are met, but in the grand scheme of things not a whole lot more important to the universe than any other chemical reaction that takes place, people go "that is so cold. I suppose you want to kill babies now, atheist Nazi!"

bluewolf wrote:

I do think dawkins is a bit much sometimes though

So do I. I think Dawkins is terrible at convincing people of his argument who are not already convinced.

On the other hand when I read the backlash against Dawkins it reminds me of why having someone like Dawkins around is still (unfortunately) necessary. If Dawkins does nothing else he exposes and challenages, through the negative rants against him that ancient theist thinking still dominates society and culture, despite the advances made in science and philosophy.

Zombrex

Scofflaw wrote:

As far as I can make out, Dawkins neither refutes this argument, nor attempts to. Instead he dismisses it as logic-chopping and word-games - an approach that will appeal strongly to many of our posters, but is almost certainly intellectual laziness.

That does seem to be a common complaint against "The God Illusion" (which I have not read yet), that Dawkins doesn't spend enough time arguing logically against theists positions, instead simply dismisses them as nonsense. He might be correct, but it isn't going to convince someone who doesn't understand why he is correct.

Which would suggest that he is simply preaching to the choir.

Scofflaw

pH wrote:

Rather than get bogged down in silly word games about if non-existent objects have properties etc. one way of dealing with this rather silly argument has always been the "overload objections" which show that *exactly* the same argument can be used to prove the existence of perfect islands, hats and cakes.

Gaunilo's Island

I am so glad I remembered to add the "is almost certainly intellectual laziness" to the end of that post. Like a red rag to bull (sic).

The "overload objection" is good, but: (a) it neglects that God is a universal, rather than a local, object; (b) it neglects the question of whether God's mode of existence is a material one; and (c) it is derived not from science but from exactly the same sort of philosophical discourse as Anselm's argument.

If we have to use philosophical argument to refute philosophical claims, it is clear that we do not simply dismiss all philosophy. If we are not dismissing all philosophy, it seems we are simply dismissing philosophy we don't like.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Esmereldina

bluewolf wrote:

It does seem like word games to me.
I don't see how the concept of perfection automatically makes something exist or why it can't just stay a concept.

I think, to put it a little more simply (or this at least was how I remember it being explained in my philosophy class years ago) : God is a perfect being, ie a bieng in possession of all the qualities necessary for existence. Therefore he cannot lack any of the qualities of beings; the most obvious and necessary quality being existence, ergo a perfect God (which the western christian god is at least) must exist...

a word game it is... but treating it within its own system of logic it does make sense.

My own response would probaly be along the lines of, 'Yes that's really very nice, but... '

Talliesin

robindch wrote:

Having read Anselm's argument in the past, I must say that it leaves me cold -- it doesn't seem to say much more than "if I can think of something bigger than you can, then my thing exists".
[...]
I'm sure that the same "proof" could be used to prove the existence of an infinite number of increasingly powerful deities and the existence (but not the location) of the perfect pint.

No, Anselm's argument can only argue in favour of the kind of deity imagined by some monotheistic faiths - it depends upon omnipotence.

It completely fails to do so in my opinion, but the attempt was an important milestone in attempting to increase the use of reason in thinking about important things and as such has an important place in the history of ideas. Indeed it has a place in the move towards the secular scientific age in which Atheism is an acceptable worldview to publicly identify with.

Dawkins on the other hand attempts to sound reasonable in support of his irrational views, cites poor sources (really, citing Frazer on anthropology! After the umpteen times arguing against atheists that assume that because I'm a modern Pagan I take Frazer seriously here's an atheist quoting The Golden Bough as if it is taken at all seriously by modern anthropologists. Sorry, but like Anselm, Frazer is historically important in the role he played and his works are interesting, but this is supposed to be a learned work by a professor, not something dashed off by an undergraduate) argues against strawmen, rails against the evils of "the other lot" while fudging the evils done by his lot (Stalin is far from a historical blip to be discarded, and if he is then what about Mao or Pol Pot) and after dismissing the value of artistry in literature has to quote a much more poetic Atheist (John Lennon) to give his work a bit of punch.

Do other Atheists really take this man seriously? I just figured we all have lunatic co-religious to deal with and he was your cross to bear (to borrow a metaphor from yet another religion).

Zombrex

Step 1 - A property of God is that he is perfect.
Step 2 - To be perfect one must exist.
Step 3 - ????
Step 4 - Therefore God exists.



To me there are a few initial flaws -

Firstly, the idea that existence must be a property of perfection. Is that really true? A perfect circle by its own definition, doesn't and cannot exist beyond a imaginary mathematical construct (though Plato would argue that this also "exists")

Carrying on from this, secondly it works on the assumption that a perfectly perfect thing can exist. There would be a bit of argument that that isn't true, that by the very nature of existing something is not perfect. A truly perfect thing cannot exist. Therefore God either doesn't exist or cannot be perfectly perfect. This of course hinges on how you define perfection.

Thirdly it assumes that we can imagine something that is perfectly perfect. What if we cannot imagine something that is perfectly perfect? We therefore cannot categorise a perfectly perfect thing and any concept we have of God is invalid.

Talliesin

Yeah, it pretty much falls down at point 3, doesn't it!

Scofflaw

Talliesin wrote:

No, Anselm's argument can only argue in favour of the kind of deity imagined by some monotheistic faiths - it depends upon omnipotence.

It completely fails to do so in my opinion, but the attempt was an important milestone in attempting to increase the use of reason in thinking about important things and as such has an important place in the history of ideas. Indeed it has a place in the move towards the secular scientific age in which Atheism is an acceptable worldview to publicly identify with.

This is what got the poor Pope into so much trouble. The Christian belief in a rational creator underpinned the birth of science - most other religions have an arbitrary god, rather than a rational one.

Having said that, it is probably true that we owe our concept of a rational God to Greek pagan philosophy and the Roman concepts of virtue - Christianity had to appear intellectually respectable against that competition, and mystery religions had a bad record, and worse press, in Rome.

This is why I have always countered the argument that Europe is primarily a Christian culture with the argument that we are a Graeco-Roman culture. The main value of Christianity was that it transmitted Graeco-Roman thought to the barbarian conquerors.

Talliesin wrote:

Dawkins on the other hand attempts to sound reasonable in support of his irrational views, cites poor sources (really, citing Frazer on anthropology! After the umpteen times arguing against atheists that assume that because I'm a modern Pagan I take Frazer seriously here's an atheist quoting The Golden Bough as if it is taken at all seriously by modern anthropologists.

What about Mauss, as a matter of interest?

Talliesin wrote:

Sorry, but like Anselm, Frazer is historically important in the role he played and his works are interesting, but this is supposed to be a learned work by a professor, not something dashed off by an undergraduate) argues against strawmen, rails against the evils of "the other lot" while fudging the evils done by his lot (Stalin is far from a historical blip to be discarded, and if he is then what about Mao or Pol Pot) and after dismissing the value of artistry in literature has to quote a much more poetic Atheist (John Lennon) to give his work a bit of punch.

Omar Khayyam would be better.

Talliesin wrote:

Do other Atheists really take this man seriously? I just figured we all have lunatic co-religious to deal with and he was your cross to bear (to borrow a metaphor from yet another religion).

No comment!

cordially,
Scofflaw

Sangre

Talliesin wrote:

argues against strawmen, rails against the evils of "the other lot" while fudging the evils done by his lot (Stalin is far from a historical blip to be discarded, and if he is then what about Mao or Pol Pot)

By definition of atheism there can be no 'lot' whether his or ours. Its not really conceptually possible to lump a group of people together whose only common ground is they don't belief in a deity. Of course this would be fair if this non-belief logically followed onto to something else like low morals but it doesn't.

The point regarding Stalin becomes even weaker because we have no idea what motivated his tyranny. If you can show that his line of thinking was 'I don't believe in God, therefore I'll send this lot to a Gualag' the point obviously stands but I think most would imagine it was 'I seek power, I will destroy my enemies by sending them to a Gualag'. One might argue that he wouldn't have done this if he had believed in a higher being but of course we know that didn't stopped countless people before him.

Atheism, is just that, atheism. It contains no notions on morals or ethics (rather than it has no morals on ethics). Atheism is indifferent to morality. The deeds of one atheist really have no bearing on another. Its like comparing the morals of anyone who is left-handed. The same can of course be said of believers but not to the same extent imo, especially those believers who commit despicable acts in the name of their religion. While their acts don't invalidate the merits of religion they do weaken the arugement that religion is a passive, loving force for all and that it is only a beneficial element of society.

aidan24326

I can't believe anyone actually takes that Anselm argument seriously. It is philosophy at it's absolute worst (and I'm not tarring all of Philosophy with the same brush). Nothing more than a fancy word game and Dawkins is quite right to dismiss it as the bullsh1t that it is.

Btw, Dawkins has another two-part special coming up on C4 in the next week or two. This time he's attacking all other forms of irrationality besides religion, especially those that are ever-eager to get people to part with their cash such as mystics, tarot readers, faith healers, palmistry, fortune telling etc etc
It's called 'The Rational Enquirer'.

Though for a thorough debunking of all that mystical and new-age gibberish, he should urge people to read 'The Demon-Haunted World' by Carl Sagan.

Sapien

Talliesin wrote:

... rails against the evils of "the other lot" while fudging the evils done by his lot (Stalin is far from a historical blip to be discarded, and if he is then what about Mao or Pol Pot)

I think the differences between atrocities committed by people who happen to be atheists and those perpetrated in the name of a religion are clear, and have been made clear by Dawkins whenever he is met with that particular chestnut. If it weren't for the fact that Karl Marx had an obscure and relatively unimportant theory relating to religion, atheism would never have become so strongly associated with Marxist dogma, and would not have become such a prominent aspect of subsequent communist regimes. It was totalitarian nationalism, not atheism, that allowed Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot to leave morality aside with such catastrophic effects, and totalitarian nationalism has a lot more in common with religion than atheism.

Talliesin wrote:

Do other Atheists really take this man seriously? I just figured we all have lunatic co-religious to deal with and he was your cross to bear (to borrow a metaphor from yet another religion).

I am very grateful for the existence of Richard Dawkins - he is doing something very important. Quite aside from propagating the debate to a greater degree than anyone who came before, and getting up the noses of fundamentalists with his entirely conscious polemical extravagances, he is slowly stripping away the layers of glamour that surround religious belief - demonstrating that just because an opinion involves the existence of supernatural beings, it doesn't mean it should be any less open to criticism. Revile ends his piece referring to "PC" as an emergent religion, without realising that for a long time the most potent form of PC has been that protecting religion from its detractors.

Dades

Sapien wrote:

Revile ends his piece referring to "PC" as an emergent religion, without realising that for a long time the most potent form of PC has been that protecting religion from its detractors.

That was what struck me immediately on finishing the article.
So according to Revile it's all right to attack the PC brigade - as long as religion is left unchallenged.

Schuhart

aidan24326 wrote:

I can't believe anyone actually takes that Anselm argument seriously.

Indeed. I hadn’t come across it before, and didn’t see any intrinsic reason for it to be given more than a dismissive wave. It seems to imply to anything that can be conceived of exists. I’ve tried this out, but it’s still not any bigger.

Sapien wrote:

Quite aside from propagating the debate to a greater degree than anyone who came before, and getting up the noses of fundamentalists with his entirely conscious polemical extravagances, he is slowly stripping away the layers of glamour that surround religious belief

He’s creating an amount of exposure for the topic, and there is a certain satisfaction is seeing anyone just saying the feckin thing. But I’d see at least two problems with his approach. He can’t deal with people who feel religion is a good thing in their lives, and he seems to assume that people follow religion because they think it’s true.

Also, there is that vacuum about what the programme is. Marxism was the atheist vision. It had to do with creating the perfect society where human potential would finally be realised, freed from the fetters of superstition. It vanished up its ass. Small wonder that people are carrying crystals, going to fortune tellers, asserting the world is ten thousand years old, or any other old ****e that seems entertaining.

Sapien

The Atheist wrote:

That was what struck me immediately on finishing the article.
So according to Revile it's all right to attack the PC brigade - as long as religion is left unchallenged.

There can be no more bathetic a signature of the common-or-garden conservative talking head than an attack upon "political correctness". Why "Madam" sees fit to let this goon sully her broadsheet with his second-rate religious musings, and under the title "Science Today", I don't know.

Sapien

Schuhart wrote:

He can’t deal with people who feel religion is a good thing in their lives, and he seems to assume that people follow religion because they think it’s true.

He deals with the question of "soft theism" regularly, and relatively convincingly, I think. If people feel that religion gives them something that they can't get anywhere else, then it is a bad thing.

Schuhart wrote:

Marxism was the atheist vision.

Atheism is the lack of belief in deity. It has nothing to say about economics, morality or social engineering. Marxism was the vision of atheists, sure - but most of them were atheists because Marx was an atheist, because they were supposed to be. And I think, though they may take a bleak view of superstition, most communists would opine that capitalism and the aggrandisement of the middle classes are the more important fetters from which to be freed, in creating a perfect society.

Schuhart

Sapien wrote:

If people feel that religion gives them something that they can't get anywhere else, then it is a bad thing.

I think he doesn't deal with the possibility that religion gives people something they can't get anywhere else, and if atheism offers no alternative to those needs it will be ignored as an irrelevance.

This does knit back in to Marxism. It was a challenge to religion because it was a complete philosophy.

Focussing on one footnote within a religion does very little to convince people one way or the other. And belief in God looks like it is just a footnote in religious practice.

Sapien

Schuhart wrote:

I think he doesn't deal with the possibility that religion gives people something they can't get anywhere else, and if atheism offers no alternative to those needs it will be ignored as an irrelevance.

He rejects the idea, as do I. As I said, if people believe that religion offers something that cannot be got elsewhere, that is a bad thing. What benefits would you uniquely attribute to religious involvement?

Schuhart wrote:

This does knit back in to Marxism. It was a challenge to religion because it was a complete philosophy.

Exaclty. The real importance of atheism in communist regimes is to elimenate external, or to use the most apposite word, ultramontane loyalties. Atheism in and of itself has no particularly propinquity to Marxist philosophy. I am an atheist and a fan of capitalism - it would amuse me for people to try to find an inconsistency in that.

Schuhart wrote:

Focussing on one footnote within a religion does very little to convince people one way or the other. And belief in God looks like it is just a footnote in religious practice.

I don't think atheists will be your greatest problem when it comes to convincing people of that. Should religion not be evaluated at face value?

Scofflaw

Sapien wrote:

He rejects the idea, as do I. As I said, if people believe that religion offers something that cannot be got elsewhere, that is a bad thing.

I assume you mean that they are wrong, and that their belief "that religion offers something that cannot be got elsewhere" is the bad thing.

Have you some way of proving your assertion?

Sapien wrote:

What benefits would you uniquely attribute to religious involvement?

The sense of belonging? The sense of importance? The sense of meaning? The sense of morality?

I'm not arguing that those things cannot be got elsewhere - but that that might be the case for any given individual. You may derive all those from atheism - I do myself (well, combined with natural arrogance) - but someone else might not be able to.

Sapien wrote:

Exaclty. The real importance of atheism in communist regimes is to elimenate external, or to use the most apposite word, ultramontane loyalties. Atheism in and of itself has no particularly propinquity to Marxist philosophy. I am an atheist and a fan of capitalism - it would amuse me for people to try to find an inconsistency in that.

Yup. I don't agree that "Marxism was the vision of atheists" - Marxism was the vision of Marxists.

Sapien wrote:

I don't think atheists will be your greatest problem when it comes to convincing people of that. Should religion not be evaluated at face value?

What is "face value" for religion?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Schuhart wrote:

Indeed. I hadn’t come across it before, and didn’t see any intrinsic reason for it to be given more than a dismissive wave. It seems to imply to anything that can be conceived of exists. I’ve tried this out, but it’s still not any bigger.

Actually, it's kind of interesting if you reverse it - Wicknight's comment on Platonic forms made me think of it.

We can all agree that there is such a thing, notionally, as a perfect circle. There may also be a perfect pizza, a perfect island, etc etc.

However, I think we would also agree that you cannot realise these things in reality. Any circle that actually exists is non-perfect - it is an approximation to a circle, however good. A perfect island will always suffer from some problem or other (the perfect climate will almost certainly not produce the perfect vegetation, say, or there'll be places where it's too hot, or too cold), as will the perfect pizza.

So it seems likely that existence implies imperfection, and that perfection requires non-existence.

Therefore, if God is perfect, He doesn't exist. If He exists, He will be imperfect.

Schuhart wrote:

He’s creating an amount of exposure for the topic, and there is a certain satisfaction is seeing anyone just saying the feckin thing. But I’d see at least two problems with his approach. He can’t deal with people who feel religion is a good thing in their lives, and he seems to assume that people follow religion because they think it’s true.

Worse - "scientifically true and empirically provable".

Schuhart wrote:

Also, there is that vacuum about what the programme is. Marxism was the atheist vision. It had to do with creating the perfect society where human potential would finally be realised, freed from the fetters of superstition. It vanished up its ass. Small wonder that people are carrying crystals, going to fortune tellers, asserting the world is ten thousand years old, or any other old ****e that seems entertaining.

Quite right and proper. We may find it ridiculous, but it's not really very threatening, because it lacks any intellectual coherence.

I would prefer, myself, some sort of utilitarian secular vision - increased happiness, environmental friendliness, etc. Sort of like Iain M. Banks Culture.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Sapien

Scofflaw wrote:

I assume you mean that they are wrong, and that their belief "that religion offers something that cannot be got elsewhere" is the bad thing.

Have you some way of proving your assertion?

I would have thought it self-evident. To believe that one has nowhere else to turn for a complete life, that one must be religious, whatever that entails, or be somehow less of a person? A very limitting, potentally injurious thing to believe. In other words, bad. It's really more of an opinion, or judgement, than an assertion.

Scofflaw wrote:

The sense of belonging? The sense of importance? The sense of meaning? The sense of morality?

I'm not arguing that those things cannot be got elsewhere...

Well, that's what I'm asking. If people are unable to get the things you list outside of religion, I would suggest that that is because religion has prevented them from being able to, which ultimately redounds to Dawkins' view.

Scofflaw wrote:

What is "face value" for religion?

I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure belief in God would come into it. One may very well theorise that many people maintain religious practice without believing in God, but that isn't exactly how religious communities present themselves to the world.

aidan24326

Scofflaw you know very well that he (sapien) can't prove such an assertion, and nor does he have to. The onus of proof lies with he who makes a positive assertion, not the negative.

And Sapien is right in saying it's a bad thing. If people are plain wrong what's good about that? And so many religious believers do hold the view 100% that they can't get those things (morality etc) anywhere else than religion. They can, if such a thing can be got at all. As for 'meaning', for example, well there doesn't appear to be any in the ordinary sense of how we ascribe meaning.

That a majority of the human population should choose to believe in fairytales to fill the gaps only suggests to me that we humans aren't nearly as clever as we think we are. It only makes it all the more ironic when many of the same people who believe that we humans are the greatest of 'god's creations' are themselves as thick as two short planks and incapable of using their own mind other than to absorb the latest rant from Pat Robertson about how all gays should be exterminated or some such.

Scofflaw

aidan24326 wrote:

Scofflaw you know very well that he (sapien) can't prove such an assertion, and nor does he have to. The onus of proof lies with he who makes a positive assertion, not the negative.

Not at all. His assertion is positive - he positively asserts that believing you can only get something (whatever it is) out of religion is bad.

Whatever about God, I'm pretty certain that religion exists, and Sapien is making a definite, positive claim about it. The onus lies on him to prove it.

aidan24326 wrote:

And Sapien is right in saying it's a bad thing. If people are plain wrong what's good about that? And so many religious believers do hold the view 100% that they can't get those things (morality etc) anywhere else than religion. They can, if such a thing can be got at all. As for 'meaning', for example, well there doesn't appear to be any in the ordinary sense of how we ascribe meaning.

Well, a lot of people hold the view that you can't get certain kinds of satisfaction outside love, or sex, or chocolate, or whatever - and they are probably right.

To claim otherwise is to claim that all human experience/emotion is interchangeable - that you can get intellectual satisfaction out of a cushion, or comfort out of a desk lamp. Are you making such a claim?

If you are not making such a claim, then you accept that all human experience/emotion is not interchangeable - that there are certain kinds of pleasure/satisfaction you can only get out of certain things/experiences. If that is generally the case, why does it suddenly stop being the case just because we are talking about religion?

aidan24326 wrote:

That a majority of the human population should choose to believe in fairytales to fill the gaps only suggests to me that we humans aren't nearly as clever as we think we are. It only makes it all the more ironic when many of the same people who believe that we humans are the greatest of 'god's creations' are themselves as thick as two short planks and incapable of using their own mind other than to absorb the latest rant from Pat Robertson about how all gays should be exterminated or some such.

...and the stupid will always be with us. Even if we accept the idea that only stupid people are religious (not true by a long chalk), what are you suggesting they should do otherwise? Or do we simply say "tough, Captain Capslock, you're stupid, and so even though you would derive pleasure from religion, you can't have it"?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Sapien wrote:

I would have thought it self-evident. To believe that one has nowhere else to turn for a complete life, that one must be religious, whatever that entails, or be somehow less of a person? A very limitting, potentally injurious thing to believe. In other words, bad. It's really more of an opinion, or judgement, than an assertion.

It is certainly injurious if someone believes this about other people - in other words, asserts that no-one can get morality except through religion (and religion being what it is, that's usually "through my specific brand of religion").

However, if someone said "I find an emotional satisfaction in Catholicism that I have not found elsewhere", why should you assume that they are simply wrong, or holding a false belief? Would you argue the same case if they said "I find an emotional satisfaction in good literature that I have not found elsewhere"? That they hold a "very limiting, potentially injurious" belief?

Sapien wrote:

Well, that's what I'm asking. If people are unable to get the things you list outside of religion, I would suggest that that is because religion has prevented them from being able to, which ultimately redounds to Dawkins' view.

I don't agree. Faith, and religious experience, seem to have their own forms of satisfaction. As far as I know, it's been scientifically studied - and what most people respond to is the experience of "worship" in a group setting. It's a particular kind of buzz.

Sapien wrote:

I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure belief in God would come into it. One may very well theorise that many people maintain religious practice without believing in God, but that isn't exactly how religious communities present themselves to the world.

Obviously, no religious community can present themselves as a sham. However, one may well observe that many people maintain religious practice without examining their concept of God too closely, in case it should turn out to be silly. They believe, but in what they generally can't say - however, the belief that they believe is important to them, and they will abandon a "faith" that admits it is a sham, because it can no longer offer an "authentic" religious experience.

cordially,
Scofflaw