Richard Dawkins

Turtwig

PDN wrote: »

Hey, great way to save us all this big long thread! Let's just dispense with discussion and label each other as blind. Then those who blindly follow Dawkins can agree to disagree with those who blindly dismiss his arguments.

In fairness, PDN, you very much assumed the worst of that post. Now, I don't know if the poster thinks all Christians who dismiss Dawkins are blind. Only he can clarify that, but I do know that there's an awful lot of misinformation out there about Dawkin's said and many people seem to just swallow up that misinformation like no there's no tomorrow. The same applies for many people's arguments against Christianity. I'm no fan of Dawkins, but I do think some his arguments are blindly dismissed by some.

(Unfortunately, I have definitely met one Christian poster here on boards that hasn't read Dawkins' books. He practically admitted that he never would. I'm pretty sure Jakkass knows who I am talking about as we both spent, oh I don't know, five maybe ten pages trying to explain to him why his policy is a very very bad thing.)

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

Well think of it this way, the tomb must have been empty because if it wasn't then the first thing that would have been done to stop a bunch of guys preaching that somebody rose from the dead would be to produce the body. That surely makes sense yes? If that had actually happened in those early days of the preaching it would have been impossible for the apostles to convince anyone that not only was Jesus risen from the dead but that He was God incarnate to boot. So with the absence of any historical evidence that the body had been produced in this way we must infer that the tomb was in fact found empty.

Now we must explain how it got empty.

If the disciples stole the body then they were liars who made the whole story up. But as we explained earlier there a very few historian both secular and Christian who think the disciples didn't genuinely believe what they preached, which means that they might have been deluded but they were not lying. So they at least didn't steal the body.

Who else? The Jewish leaders?

For one, why would they have stolen the body? And if they did they would have produced it in an instant and destroyed the preaching of the resurrection of this Jesus whom they had crucified. They above all would have produced the body and yet there is not one single shred of any evidence in history that this happened.

The Romans might have stolen the body but they too would have produced it in order to appease the Jewish authorities and to keep order. If the Jewish leaders were influential enough to prevail upon the Roman authorities to have Christ crucified and to have a seal put on His tomb they would have been influential enough to have the Romans produce the body if in fact they had stolen it. So it wasn't them, and if it was, where is the evidence in any historical text? The Christian movement is scoffed at in many secular texts but the claim that the corps of Jesus was paraded through the streets to shut up his stupid apostles is never made and had that happened this would have been recorded.

So who else had the vested interest and courage to steal the body? If there were any others then were they friend or foe? If friend, then why didn't they tell the apostles? And where is the evidence from history? If foe then why didn't they produce the body? And if they did, again where is the evidence for this? There isn't any. So if the tomb was in fact found empty then were did the body go? The tomb was empty and this must be explained because Christianity could not have gotten off the ground in the very city where Christ was crucified had there been a corpse rotting in that tomb. Impossible!!!

The absence of any historical source which claims that the body of Jesus was publicly paraded through the streets of Jerusalem in order to put a stop to this dangerous new movement is a very good indication that it never took place. And if it didn't take place then the question must be asked: Why didn't it take palce? Because the body was gone, they were simply not able to do it. So where did the body go?

If you have a better explanation than the resurrection (which was the original explanation) which changed the apostles from a bunch of faithless cowards to brave faithful martyrs then I'm all ears and would love to see whatever historical evidence you have to back it up.

It is this sort of stuff that makes someone like Dawkins arrogant.

Soul Winner, all that is simply guess work and confirmation bias on your part.

For example, the tomb must have been empty because otherwise they would have produced the body?

Really, that is the only possible explanation is it? That is the only possible scenario that could have taken place? Nothing else could have happened?

Unless nothing else could have happened then that is an unfounded assertion, and since you build your others on that unfounded assertion the whole thing falls like a house of card.

This sort of stuff is why we have science in the first place.

prinz

Wicknight wrote: »

They are, all the time. :rolleyes:

Actually I was aiming closer to home on this one. I have lost count of the number of people, largely atheists who will discuss Christianity by starting with "Well, I believe Jesus as a man existed... he was just a happy go luck hippy sort....". Why do they believe Jesus existed at all?

Zombrex

prinz wrote: »

Actually I was aiming closer to home on this one. I have lost count of the number of people, largely atheists who will discuss Christianity by starting with "Well, I believe Jesus as a man existed... he was just a happy go luck hippy sort....". Why do they believe Jesus existed at all?

Some don't

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus

Most are happy with "We don't know"

The only people this really matters to are Christians. If you aren't a Christian Jesus is just another possible historical figure who may or may not have existed, and the Bible is just another ancient religious book.

It is not like we are picking Christianity out specifically, I'm as troubled by the idea that Jesus didn't exist as I am about the idea that Troy didn't exist, or Homer didn't exist.

prinz

Wicknight wrote: »

Some don't...

Dawkins frequently speaks about Jesus as a real historical figure. I wonder how he comes by this conclusion.

Grumpypants

prinz wrote: »

Dawkins frequently speaks about Jesus as a real historical figure. I wonder how he comes by this conclusion.

Isnt it that historical records show a man called jesus lived in that location at around that time. Or something like that.

cypharius

Grumpypants wrote: »

Isnt it that historical records show a man called jesus lived in that location at around that time. Or something like that.

No, there were several thousand Messiahs running around the middle east at that time.

Jesus(Literal translation "God Delivers") was a common enough name around the time as well, in fact we know of at least 3 different Jesus' who thought who claimed to be the messiah not so long after the Jesus you're all thinking of supposedly died.

Jesus Ben Sira
Jesus Justus
Jesus ben Ananias

Many historians agree that the Jesus told of in the bible is actually several people mixed together to create a more significant "messiah".

Zombrex

prinz wrote: »

Dawkins frequently speaks about Jesus as a real historical figure. I wonder how he comes by this conclusion.

http://salvomag.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/dawkins-and-hewitt-on-the-historical-jesus.html

HH: On the person of Jesus Christ, did He exist?

RD: I suspect He probably did. I suspect there are lots of itinerant preachers, and one of them was probably called Yehoshua, or various other versions of Jesus’ name, but I don’t think that a miracle worker existed.

HH: How do you rate the evidence for Christ’s existence, manuscript evidence, eyewitness evidence, things like that?

RD: As I said, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if a man called Jesus or Yehoshua existed. I would say the evidence that He worked miracles, He rose from the dead, He was born of a virgin, is zero.

prinz

Wicknight wrote: »

http://salvomag.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/dawkins-and-hewitt-on-the-historical-jesus.html

That's the ultimate cop out.

Zombrex

prinz wrote: »

That's the ultimate cop out.

It is? Why exactly?

prinz

Wicknight wrote: »

It is? Why exactly?

I heard a story about John Joe the tiler. There are lots of John-Joes and lots of tilers. Does make my story probably true?

Rev Hellfire

prinz wrote: »

I heard a story about John Joe the tiler. There are lots of John-Joes and lots of tilers. Does make my story probably true?

Depends what you're claiming John the tiler did.

genericguy

drkpower wrote: »

Ah yes, the entity will deal with the non-believer harshly himself, right? So thats ok then.....:eek:



Why is it fundamentalist to criticise a viewpoint which you find to be entirely without logical or scientific foundation, and which can, in some people's minds, lead to violence?

Is it fundamentalist to disagree loudly, firmly with a political view that you disagree with strongly? Or should we stay silent to avoid polarisation?

fundamentalism means that your opinion will not be changed even in the face of compelling evidence. dawkins is not a fundamentalist, he is a scientist, as am i. i'm perfectly happy to ridicule religion, because I am armed with facts, which are facts because they are supported by evidence. however, if evidence were produced tomorrow which was contrary to my beliefs (or lack thereof) I would be happy to stand corrected and have some humble pie for lunch. on the other hand, the god squad have had evidence thrown at them for the past 2 thousand years, evidence which has accumulated to such an extent as to render their belief system a complete laughing stock, yet they'll still stand in your face and tell you you are wrong.

prinz

Rev Hellfire wrote: »

Depends what you're claiming John the tiler did.

Why does what he did have any bearing on whether a particular person existed?

Zombrex

prinz wrote: »

I heard a story about John Joe the tiler. There are lots of John-Joes and lots of tilers. Does make my story probably true?

Cults tend to have leaders, it fits the normal model of a cult. Assuming the early Christians had a leader seems a some what safe bet.

You will notice though that Dawkins didn't say he knows they did. It is also plausible, though less likely, that they didn't.

vodafoneproblem

I came across this interesting (29 pages but they're short pages with big spaces) paper pointing out some of the errors Dawkins makes in his TGD book and thought some of you might be interested in reading it.

It's by this this guy "If you want to become an atheist you'll have to find reasons better than the ones Dawkins gives." who as you can see has high level qualifications in science and philosophy. (Ph.D in chemistry, double major in physics and philosophy, and more)

The paper is here http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00004652/01/argument_from_improbability.pdf

Anyway, he basically argues against Dawkins 'improbability argument' about God in TGD on three grounds, using some nice maths and science and philosophy along the way! To quote from his abstract at the beginning of the paper, his objections to Dicky-boy's improbability arguments are

"(1) The argument is inapplicable to philosophical conceptions of God that reduce most of God’s complexity to that of the physical universe. (2) The argument depends on a way of estimating probabilities that fails for the probability of an entity that creates natural laws. (3) The argument supposes
that complexity arises from past physical causes; however, some forms of complexity known to mathematics and logic do not arise in this way." He has a few other bits and pieces in there too.

All-in-all, it's a fun read if you enjoy Pope Dawkins being shown to have somewhat less than full attire in both the scientific and philosophical areas. It's a tiny bit heavyish in maths/science in some areas (which is great) and sort of requires you to be familiar with various famous philosophers in others but it's still very readable.

Here's a nice quote from it. "God is not like the teapot or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, because God (if there is one) might well be the source of natural laws and hence might not have a well-defined probability. We can’t conclude that God is improbable by using the same reasoning that tells us Russell’s teapot is improbable. Someone might try to get around this rebuttal of Dawkins by creating a new teapot or monster example in which the object is defined so that it doesn’t have to obey natural laws. This desperate gambit will not work, because teapots and flying monsters, unlike the theists’ God, are objects within the physical universe."

He also has a set of blog articles called "The Anti-Dawkins Papers" (lol!) but I've only started reading them.

drkpower

vodafoneproblem wrote: »

"God is not like the teapot or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, because God (if there is one) might well be the source of natural laws and hence might not have a well-defined probability. We can’t conclude that God is improbable by using the same reasoning that tells us Russell’s teapot is improbable. Someone might try to get around this rebuttal of Dawkins by creating a new teapot or monster example in which the object is defined so that it doesn’t have to obey natural laws. This desperate gambit will not work, because teapots and flying monsters, unlike the theists’ God, are objects within the physical universe."

The FSM is not within the physical universe; it is outside of the physical universe and it created the universe's laws. So clearly you cant use natural laws to deny his existence. Yawn......

Shame he wrote a 29 page paper which says pretty much nothing at all.

monosharp

prinz wrote: »

Like much of ancient history. Funny how other things aren't called into question on this basis however.

Not much for history then ?

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method

Jesus, rather the details about Jesus, don't pass it.

vodafoneproblem

drkpower wrote: »

The FSM is not within the physical universe; it is outside of the physical universe and it created the universe's laws. So clearly you cant use natural laws to deny his existence. Yawn......

Shame he wrote a 29 page paper which says pretty much nothing at all.

...that quote is not the 29 pages! Perhaps you should have a read of the paper or even the rest of my post before pronouncing judgement so quickly! It shows Dawkin's book to be quite flawed. And the Anti-Dawkins Papers, of which that paper constitutes the second of eleven, show Dicky-boy's book to be even more flawed!

To re-quote: "If you want to become an atheist you'll have to find reasons better than the ones Dawkins gives."

drkpower

vodafoneproblem wrote: »

...that quote is not the 29 pages! Perhaps you should have a read of the paper or even the rest of my post before pronouncing judgement so quickly! It shows Dawkin's book to be quite flawed. And the Anti-Dawkins Papers, of which that paper constitutes the second of eleven, show Dicky-boy's book to be even more flawed!

I read (most of) the rest. Its pretty much all based on the same kind of logical error.

vodafoneproblem wrote: »

.To re-quote: "If you want to become an atheist you'll have to find reasons better than the ones Dawkins gives."

Thats another good example - you dont 'become' an atheist; we are all atheists until we choose to believe in one God or another - then we become Catholic, Muslim, a Viking, whatever.

Morbert

vodafoneproblem wrote: »

...that quote is not the 29 pages! Perhaps you should have a read of the paper or even the rest of my post before pronouncing judgement so quickly! It shows Dawkin's book to be quite flawed. And the Anti-Dawkins Papers, of which that paper constitutes the second of eleven, show Dicky-boy's book to be even more flawed!

To re-quote: "If you want to become an atheist you'll have to find reasons better than the ones Dawkins gives."

The paper assumes Dawkins's argument is "God would be complex, therefore God is improbable." Dawkins is actually saying "Attributing complexity to God does not explain the complexity."

vodafoneproblem

Hmm, drkpower. You answered my post 7 minutes after I wrote it so forgive my scepticism of you reading most of his paper, or even any of it...

Also, it's not a logical error. Rather, on this one issue, the issue of the improbabilty of God, it shows the monster to be in the same boat. So, really, you actually got Mr. Sharlow's point that Tricky Dicky is in error with his probabilty estimate!

And IF you'd read his paper, you'd see that point 1. "The argument is inapplicable to philosophical conceptions of God that reduce most of God’s complexity to that of the physical universe. " is perfectly logical because Dicky Boy (cf Del Boy, who also claimed more about what he was peddling than was justified...) does not address all philosophical conceptions of God in his book! And therefore it's another way to show Dawkins hasn't won the argument! And also point 3. "The argument supposes
that complexity arises from past physical causes; however, some forms of complexity known to mathematics and logic do not arise in this way" which he demonstrates nicely with fractals is also well founded and is another nail in Dawkin's c..offin!

And of course you become an Atheist, whether by converting from another religion, or through whatever sort of upbringing you have. You can't say for sure what a baby believes when it's born.

drkpower

vodafoneproblem wrote: »

Hmm, drkpower. You answered my post 7 minutes after I wrote it so forgive my scepticism of you reading most of his paper, or even any of it...

You are forgiven. I had come across it before when I was specifically looking for some ''anti-Dawkins' stuff when I first read TGD and wanted a bit of balance. Didnt impress me much at the time.

Still doesnt.

vodafoneproblem

drkpower wrote: »

You are forgiven. I had come across it before when I was specifically looking for some ''anti-Dawkins' stuff when I first read TGD and wanted a bit of balance. Didnt impress me much at the time.

Still doesnt.

*squints*

drkpower

vodafoneproblem wrote: »

*squints*

Google atheist, Dawkins and critique, it wont take more than a few hits to find it.......:rolleyes:

Or you could just accuse me of lying, whatever helps you feel better:eek:

Soul Winner

Wicknight wrote: »

Depends on what they were verifying.

They could certainly verify the tomb was empty. It is easy to make a theoretical model of an empty tomb and then test this model through experiment. An model of an empty tomb is one without a body, and you verify this by testing that the tomb didn't have a body. Which they did.

The issue becomes when they conclude from that that he has risen.

"He has risen" is a hypothesis, an untested theory. To become a scientific theory it has to be test and be able to be tested in a manner that is falsifiable.

In science you never actually test that a theory is true, you test over and over and over that it isn't false, and if you have done that enough time you build confidence that it is accurate.

In order to do this you must be able to actually test that it is false, ie it must be falsifiable.

That doesn't mean it must be false, just that it must be possible that it can be demonstrated to be false if it is.

The theory of the empty tomb is easily falsifable. A prediction of an empty tomb is that there isn't a body in it. If you go to the tomb and see there is a body in the tomb you have just falsified your theory, and you start again from the theory of the not empty tomb.

In order for a resurrected Jesus to be considered a scientific model the detalis of the model must be falsifiable. This is harder than you would think, so perhaps it is better to not start with such a difficult theory and focus on something easier to test.

Ignore the idea that Jesus is resurrected, and start small. Jesus was dead and is not living.

That is a theory that is testable to a scientific standard, it is falsifiable because each part of that model make predictions about what should happen if it was true (if Jesus was dead he should not have a working heart, or blood, or brain etc)

So you can test this (hyopthetically assuming we were around back then). Measure his body to assess that he is dead and then measure his body afterward when he is alive to see if you can demonstrate your theory wrong.

If you do that enough times and you find you can't then you can say your model of Jesus dead then alive is pretty accurate. You haven't proven it is true, you have just had a lot of trouble proving it is wrong.

So you can say you have established that Jesus was dead and is now alive. The next thing to try and test is how that happened.

That is when things get pretty non-scientific. You can say God did it, and that would be your hypothesis. But what is the falsifiable test to demonstrate that God didn't do it? Remember in science you are not looking to make a test that shows God did do it, you are looking to make lots and lots of tests to show that he didn't do it, and if your theory survives these test you can be confident that he probably did do it, because every time you test your theory and you don't demonstrate it wrong it is more likely to be correct.

The problem is I can't think of one, I would be very interested if anyone else can.

So you are left with the problem that if you can't test that God didn't do it you can't build up an idea of how confident you are, scientifically, that God did do it

You can simply accept he did, but that is pointless from a scientific point of view, since you could just be wrong. It is no better than a guess.

So scientifically testing the claim of a resurrection (an hypothesis) fails pretty soon in the process.

Again, as I said to lmaopml, people can say they don't care, which is fair enough, but that is basically saying that we are going to simply ignore all this stuff in science. Which is hard then to put together with the idea that they are not ignorant of science.

I don't know how people reconcile that with the fact that you don't ignore it when you are actually doing science (and thus produce useful things like a working theory of electricity)

They seem to not understand the reason they don't ignore that when doing science, and thus are happy to throw out science when it is inconvenient.

If the resurrection of Jesus happened the way it was reported then even if we lived back then with all the technology we have today we would still not be able to scientifically verify that it actually happened. Nowhere do they profess that the resurrection of Jesus was a natural occurrence, in every case that the resurrection is mentioned it specifically states that God raised Him up. That by definition is a supernatural happening. And in order to scientifically verify it, you must first scientifically verify that God exists. But if this supernatural God does actually exist then how could we, using merely natural means, verify this? We can't. We must use other means in which to draw such conclusions logically. And just because we can't scientifically verify such things does not mean that we can use this failing on our part as an argument against the truthfulness of what it is we are trying to verify.

All we can do is either believe the original reports or not believe them. When you find enough internal evidence in the records to convince you either way you then make the jump from that to the logical conclusion. If they were lying then of course He wasn't raised. But where in their writings can you point to which convinces you that they were lying? They had to be either lying or telling the truth. All other options are closed. If they merely believed what they were saying but were deluded, then all that needed to happen in order to prove to them that they were deluded was a simple little trip to the tomb to show them the body. If they were lying then it should become very apparent in their accounts. I don't think we can find any evidence for that though, in fact if we are proceed on that basis then the evidence weighs heavily on the side that they were telling the truth as they experienced it.

So what we are left with is a story which is either true or not true. Most people who don't believe in it do so on the basis that such things can't happen, that they are physically impossible. But that is a philosophically biased position to take, because that assertion is based on the assumption that how you see the world is the right way to see it. That all there is is nature. Please tell me how this can be scientifically verified? But even if we concede the point (and we do) that these things are physical impossibilities, that does nothing to the original claim of the Gospel writers that it was God who raised Him up. That is the point of it all. It wasn't a natural occurrence. And it wasn't that a man was raised from the dead either that was the big deal, it was the fact that it was Jesus who was raised. They had all been totally convinced that He couldn't have said what He said and did what He did with God on His side to be then executed in such a humiliating manner as He was. The resurrection from the dead by God vindicated Him and His prior claims. So it wasn't that someone was raised from the dead which was a big deal, but rather that it was this Man who caused such a stir and dividing of people's opinions who was raised. If you were unsure before the resurrection then the actual resurrection should vindicate His claims for you.

If you made the claims that Jesus made and were crucified in the manner that He was and then three days later I seen you vital and alive and then ascend into the blue, I'd take another look at what you said prior to that in order to anchor my life by your words. And that's what all Christians are supposed to be doing. Becoming convinced that He was raised (as scientifically impossible as that is) as the the basis of their faith, and then simply give their lives over to Him in an act of trust. It is not a blind faith position, it should be a well thought out and researched process in order to make a well informed decision based on the available evidence either way and once convinced of the truth of it all from this, you can then consciously choose whom to give your allegiance to in your life.

If you wait around until science is able to verify it for you I think the universe will have run it's course and by then it will be too late. Science is a great thing and all but I wouldn't put all my faith in it as some are blindly prone to do.

Anyway, getting back to Dawkins. Why won't he debate with William Lane Craig?

monosharp

Soul Winner wrote: »

If you wait around until science is able to verify it for you I think the universe will have run it's course and by then it will be too late. Science is a great thing and all but I wouldn't put all my faith in it as some are blindly prone to do.

Yes .... why bother with facts when we can just believe whatever we want and claim its the truth.

I'm of the opinion that science will never fully explain everything, I'm also of the opinion that it doesn't matter and I don't care.

Anyway, getting back to Dawkins. Why won't he debate with William Lane Craig?

Because he's a creationist/intelligent designist and has got no arguments. Dawkins refuses to debate creationists/intelligent designists for the same reasons many historians refuse to debate holocaust deniers.

AtomicHorror

vodafoneproblem wrote: »

It's by this this guy "If you want to become an atheist you'll have to find reasons better than the ones Dawkins gives." who as you can see has high level qualifications in science and philosophy. (Ph.D in chemistry, double major in physics and philosophy, and more)[/url]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

We can all chuck in our qualifications after our names but it doesn't have much baring on our credibility, especially when some of them are unrelated to the topic at hand. Unless God is a chemical?

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

If the resurrection of Jesus happened the way it was reported then even if we lived back then with all the technology we have today we would still not be able to scientifically verify that it actually happened.

Correct. You say that though as if that is a flaw with science, science doesn't give me the answer I want, science is stupid.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Nowhere do they profess that the resurrection of Jesus was a natural occurrence, in every case that the resurrection is mentioned it specifically states that God raised Him up.

That is some what of an irrelevant point since if God exists and is a fact of nature then a resurrection is a natural occurrence, since God is the source of everything. Fundamentally there is no difference between God making gravity or atoms than raising the dead. Everything is either natural or supernatural depending on your point of view, but there would be no difference between them.

The issue is not what is or is not natural, but what we can and cannot determine or know through testing.

It is not that the resurrection was not natural that means we can't know, it is that the hypothesis cannot be tested.

There are plenty of things that you would call natural that we cannot test and thus cannot know.

Soul Winner wrote: »

And in order to scientifically verify it, you must first scientifically verify that God exists. But if this supernatural God does actually exist then how could we, using merely natural means, verify this? We can't. We must use other means in which to draw such conclusions logically.

Other means that are deeply flawed and error prone and that do not over come any of the problems that science attempts to address

Good luck with that. When you find a way to verify your conclusions get back to me because you will be doing science.

Soul Winner wrote: »

And just because we can't scientifically verify such things does not mean that we can use this failing on our part as an argument against the truthfulness of what it is we are trying to verify.

Of course it does. If you have no clue if your model/concept/idea/hypothesis of something, such as God, is accurate you have no idea how true it is. God may be completely different to how you think he is and you would be none the wiser.

If you figure out a way to properly test how accurate your model is then you are doing science. Simple choosing to ignore other possibilities because they are not the one you want is not doing science.

Soul Winner wrote: »

All we can do is either believe the original reports or not believe them. When you find enough internal evidence in the records to convince you either way you then make the jump from that to the logical conclusion.

The problem what that though is your "logical conclusion" is my "logical fallacy"

People see the answer they want to see. Which is exactly the sort of thing that science attempts to over come.

Can you explain how your methodology over comes this as well?

Soul Winner wrote: »

They had to be either lying or telling the truth. All other options are closed.
...
If they were lying then it should become very apparent in their accounts.

That is a logical fallacy.

For all you know they were being controlled by aliens. You have no way of testing one theory from another, so you simply pick and choose which ones to accept and which ones to "close"

You are not systematically ruling out other possibilities through testing ("falsifiability", the word we keep coming back too), you are simply choosing to ignore them based on some really dodgy conclusions and conjecturer.

Which makes all this pointless conjecturer. What is the point of speculation if you have no idea if you are correct or not?

Soul Winner wrote: »

So what we are left with is a story which is either true or not true. Most people who don't believe in it do so on the basis that such things can't happen, that they are physically impossible.

No they don't, they don't believe in it because there are a whole lot of other explanations that don't involve invoking a god to make them work that you simply ignore because you want to reach a particular conclusion.

So you say things like it is not reasonable to conclude they were lying. Why not? Cause people who are lying don't die for their lies. Says who?

Even if we assume they normally don't why not make a special case for this story? Is that more or less reasonable than invoking a god and a man coming back from the dead?

Soul Winner wrote: »

It is not a blind faith position, it should be a well thought out and researched process in order to make a well informed decision based on the available evidence either way and once convinced of the truth of it all from this, you can then consciously choose whom to give your allegiance to in your life.

I would have thought that someone who is interested in whether something is true or not would not use so many logical fallacies to reach the conclusion that it is.

Soul Winner wrote: »

If you wait around until science is able to verify it for you I think the universe will have run it's course and by then it will be too late.
Science is a great thing and all but I wouldn't put all my faith in it as some are blindly prone to do.

Imagine if someone said that about the next aeroplane you get into

Lads, if we try and scientifically verify if this thing will stay in the air we will be here for weeks. Lets just go with our feelings on this one ... :rolleyes:

People are all for science when it is building bridges that won't fall down, or computers that don't go on fire, but are happy to abandon the principles when it inconviences their religious beliefs.

You are right, the universe will probably end before we figure out a way to test if God exists or not.

So what? How does that change anything? The principles remain the same, reason people don't just guess about if your plane stays in the air remain the same.

Simply abandoning the principles of science because it doesn't give you the answer you want is the definition of anti-science.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Anyway, getting back to Dawkins. Why won't he debate with William Lane Craig?

Because Craig doesn't accept the same starting position as Dawkins so such a debate would be pointless.

Morbert

vodafoneproblem wrote: »

Hmm, drkpower. You answered my post 7 minutes after I wrote it so forgive my scepticism of you reading most of his paper, or even any of it...

Also, it's not a logical error. Rather, on this one issue, the issue of the improbabilty of God, it shows the monster to be in the same boat. So, really, you actually got Mr. Sharlow's point that Tricky Dicky is in error with his probabilty estimate!

And IF you'd read his paper, you'd see that point 1. "The argument is inapplicable to philosophical conceptions of God that reduce most of God’s complexity to that of the physical universe. " is perfectly logical because Dicky Boy (cf Del Boy, who also claimed more about what he was peddling than was justified...) does not address all philosophical conceptions of God in his book! And therefore it's another way to show Dawkins hasn't won the argument! And also point 3. "The argument supposes
that complexity arises from past physical causes; however, some forms of complexity known to mathematics and logic do not arise in this way" which he demonstrates nicely with fractals is also well founded and is another nail in Dawkin's c..offin!

And of course you become an Atheist, whether by converting from another religion, or through whatever sort of upbringing you have. You can't say for sure what a baby believes when it's born.

Once again, he has completely misunderstood Dawkins's point. Dawkins was showing us precicely why the argument from complexity/improbability was not a satisfactory argument for the existence of God. He was exposing the double standards philosophers often employ.

Also, physical complexity like fractals and chaotic behaviour emerge from simple dynamical rules.