[Darkwatch]

For once a thread in the Religion sub-forum isn't filled with anger, hate and shame.
I think we can let this slide, someone will come along and make it "serious" again.
Besides Cougar backed up the silliness thus it is mod approved.

[Grand Goombah Graeld]

I'm so angry and filled with hate for evryone who doesn't agree with my POV. They should all be ashamed.

Thread fixed.

[Happy Cat]

What is your evidence for there being no God?

[Grand Goombah Graeld]

Don't have any. Don't have any evidence there is one either. Just don't believe there is.

[Terez]

Darkwatch, on 15 October 2009 - 05:22 PM, said:

For once a thread in the Religion sub-forum isn't filled with anger, hate and shame.
I think we can let this slide, someone will come along and make it "serious" again.
Besides Cougar backed up the silliness thus it is mod approved.

I should probably avoid joining in the fun, then, or else all these posts will be gone next time you look!

[Happy Cat]

Terez, on 17 October 2009 - 03:57 AM, said:

Darkwatch, on 15 October 2009 - 05:22 PM, said:

For once a thread in the Religion sub-forum isn't filled with anger, hate and shame.
I think we can let this slide, someone will come along and make it "serious" again.
Besides Cougar backed up the silliness thus it is mod approved.

I should probably avoid joining in the fun, then, or else all these posts will be gone next time you look!

Do what the politicians do: Put up one small part of truth relating to this thread, than let roll with whatever. Seems to be off track for awhile, but no-one is shooting at any-one.

[Shinrei]

I hadn't even noticed. When and why did you step down Morgy?

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Looks like I've come to this discussion late, so please forgive the size of this post. I'll try not to pick up on things that are too minor.

For the record (before I begin), I am an atheist, and just completed my MA in philosophy (which will do doubt explain some of my stances). I also think that Dawkins is a hack trying to make a quick buck by self-righteously riding a stream of outrage. Hitchens is a little better, but just as wrong. Neither author has thought very deeply about religion, and that fact is reflected in their books on the subject, which attack the weakest positions in the crudest ways imaginable. They consistently fail to demonstrate the application of the scientific (and critical thinking) principles that they then turn around and ram down the reader's throat. The result is a position as intolerant and intransigent as that which they criticize, and it's one that also lacks any sophistication. It's good for making them money, but not much else. Reading them as an academic, I could not help but splutter and cringe. Thinking is, apparently, anathema to them when it comes to religion. God forbid (well, I guess not) they should stoop to attacking strong points rather than weak (debunking a strong argument, after all, is much more effective than debunking a weak one), or that they should bother to avoid straw person caricatures! Ultimately, it seems to me that they're more likely to alienate theists than to welcome them into a new world--and that's not a recipe for a productive discussion.

Now, I know a fair few members here disagree about Dawkins' shameless self-promotion for book sales. The only alternative that I can think of to explain his childish discussion of the subject is that he wants to reach as many people as possible, and so is appealing to the lowest common denominator. If that's the case, however, then it's a shame, because it ultimately leads him to make such crass generalizations (e.g. he only ever attacks the notion of a personal God) that he ends up being just as intolerant as those he criticizes--hardly a welcoming gesture. Frankly, I prefer to believe the former, since it's more flattering.


The ad campaign on the buses is quite clever, it's just unfortunate that it's going to help them sell their novels (yes, novels).

Urb, on 03 December 2008 - 11:30 PM, said:

I saw him in a debate once, and it seemed he was mostly concerned with teaching children about all the different alternatives, instead of indoctrinating them into only one. Sort of like it was a crime to take the child's choice away. He's quite fun to listen to. Doesn't hold back on anything <img src="http://forum.malazanempire.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

From what I have read by Dawkins, his film, and the interviews that I've followed, Dawkins is not, in fact, concerned with "teaching an alternative"--that would imply that the various options have a relatively equal standing and, unfortunately, Dawkins believes (or at least regularly claims) that anyone who is a theist must also be a moron. The one exception is in the introduction to a recent edition of The God Delusion, where he acknowledges that he has only taken on the easy arguments (e.g. the age of the earth, dinosaurs, Jesus vs. Odin, etc.), rather than the deep theological issues. While that may be more entertaining (and thus more lucrative), from an academic standpoint it's what you expect of a first-year student. For a man who preaches against the intolerance of religion, Dawkins has a funny way of engaging it in debate. For a bullhorn calling for critical thinking, Dawkins displays an astonishing lack of it.

Cause, on 05 December 2008 - 12:19 AM, said:

Brood he has far more arguments than just that alone. Also as I have already stated your deluding yourself if you think you mock creationism but accept or possibly accept, the resurection of the dead, holy communion, heaven, virginal birth. All oppose science and natural reason. They are all miracles. They all have equal evidence.

And yet if you just dismiss them outright without examining their roots, then you've just used as much critical thinking as is required to believe in miracles: zero. The miracles themselves aren't particularly interesting, certainly not from an academic point of view: what's interesting is the real story. A man preaches, gathers a following, is crucified. Communion is an opportunity to enter a certain state of mind. An "innocent" (i.e. immature, wrongheaded, or disabled) woman gives birth to the preacher mentioned earlier... Once the miracles are stripped away, you're still left with the essence of the message, and it's a far more interesting message since it's grounded in entirely human activity. Attacking miracles is easy, and Dawkins has not said a single thing more on the subject than Hume did three hundred years ago. Why re-hash what has already been done better? It would be far better, in my opinion, to pursue new avenues of thinking, and thinking critically about what's left once we strip those miracles away would be one good option, I think.

H.D., on 24 December 2008 - 09:31 PM, said:

Mr. Dawkins should move his campaign to the U.S. it seems to me.

Well, in fairness, he explicitly states in The God Delusion that he's aiming his book mostly at Americans. And the bus campaign has made it here to Canada, so I assume it's in the US too. It's just not very visible here, and probably not there either.

Since it was at this point in the posting that discrimination against atheists came in, I may as well throw in my two cents now: I have never felt discriminated against because I am an atheist, and I've lived in a fair few Canadian provinces. I readily engage in discussions with theists, and even if they are uncomfortable with my religious orientation (I sat beside a retired priest on the bus once, and he was fairly concerned), the discussions have always been polite, respectful, and deep. If you treat the issue as a debate, you are going to ruffle feathers. If you treat it as a conversation or a discussion, then you should be fine. That's why Dawkins and Hitchens have so much trouble--they walk in with their guns blazing, and don't bother checking for pulses after they've teleported out.

H.D., on 28 December 2008 - 07:28 AM, said:

Justice, which can be seen as the penultimate apex of ethics has absolutely no foundation in religion.

I would actually contend that "justice" and ethics are different concepts altogether. But that's a different issue, and we probably don't want to get into it. But I'm happy to if you'd like--it could be a thread, here, or in PM form.

Gem Windcaster, on 28 December 2008 - 02:33 PM, said:

But you're making a mistake in assuming philosophy is that different from religious views. Those guys was metaphysicians, and they asked questions about the metaphysical world as much as the physical world. The images and ideas they used are very similar to religious images in a way. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

As a philosopher, I kind of chafe at that statement. Philosophy has far more to do with science theology than religion. And theology has very little to do with religion, except insofar as it studies religions. Philosophy is a rigorous academic discipline--religion, however, is not. I don't mean to call you out--I just want to leave that out there for anyone else who might bother to read my post. Call it a neuroticism.

Quote

But my point came from the fact that I saw atheism as a recent thought, and therefore it hasn't (yet) started any ethical debates in society (if you discount the crusade against religion) that has had time to make a mark. It will probably come - what do I know.

Well, plenty of ancient Greeks were atheists (like Democritus--and it's plausible that Socrates and Plato were). Kant gave what he thought was a basis for ethics that stemmed from reason alone, and that was over two hundred years ago. He was wrong, of course: the first comprehensive (Western) break from religion in ethics came, as far as I am aware, with Schopenhauer's On the Basis of Morality, which also spends a fair bit of time explaining Kant's failure.

jitsukerr, on 20 August 2009 - 09:35 AM, said:

The 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence' argument gets very tired very quickly. Especially as it cannot be supported logically. And 'infer' above -- it is to laugh.

I'm interested to hear why you think it isn't supported logically. From my perspective, it is supported logically precisely because the argument that it attacks is clearly not a valid inference. If I were to use the following argument structure

1 - No positive evidence of X's existence has been found
:: X doesn't exist

I would fall flat on my face, because it's missing quite a few premises. More importantly, uncertainty is built into premise 1, which serves to undermine the conclusion, which makes its claim with absolute certainty/authority. Even if we don't think about the missing premises, the argument essentially uses different quantifiers (in this case, I don't mean literally, although I think the correct formulation would use a particular quantifier for the conclusion--what I am referring to, in fact, is the "certainty" I mentioned a moment ago) in each of its two statements, which causes a problem for deduction. Induction still works, but it obviously doesn't have the same authority as deduction.

Now, judging from a post of yours a little further on, you're resting your claim precisely on the fact that deductive arguments simply aren't always possible. And that's fine, but I still want to point out that the "evidence of absence" line works perfectly fine on an assumption of induction so long as we don't abuse it to the point of rejecting parsimony--and as long as it's taken as a point about remaining open to paradigm change. Abuse can occur at both ends of the spectrum, and it's important to avoid it in all instances.

That, of course, does not change how tired we may or may not be of Sagan's (it's his, right?) sound-bite. And you should know that I think I'm on your side here, despite my quibbles.

[Terez]

Goaswerfraiejen, on 16 January 2010 - 06:18 AM, said:

Since it was at this point in the posting that discrimination against atheists came in, I may as well throw in my two cents now: I have never felt discriminated against because I am an atheist, and I've lived in a fair few Canadian provinces.

Yeah, I have a feeling it is not as bad most places as it is here, in the Deep South of the US. I have had some interesting conversations about theology with a few educated religious folks, sometimes preachers, and there have even been a couple that were happy to help me research church history even knowing that I wasn't going to be re-converted to Christianity in the process. But in general, prejudice against non-religious folks is normal here.

As an aside, I'm taking a course on logic this semester, so I might hit you up for a conversation on that subject later, if you're still around.

This post has been edited by Terez: 19 January 2010 - 09:48 PM

[Goaswerfraiejen]

[quote name='Terez' date='19 January 2010 - 05:48 PM' timestamp='1263937680' post='721020']
[quote name='Goaswerfraiejen' date='16 January 2010 - 12:18 AM' timestamp='1263622684' post='720151']

As an aside, I'm taking a course on logic this semester, so I might hit you up for a conversation on that subject later, if you're still around.
[/quote]


I'm always around, I just don't post much.

[Terez]

Yeah, I see your join date now.

[Jaghut Engine]

I honestly think that Dawkins is the natrualist equivalent of a religious nutter because of his undying determination to convert everyone to be like him. Seems a bit of a contradiction when it is mentioned that his parents were scientists of sorts so I wonder if that had any influence on his own views?
Funny that he has never touched on psychology which could help explain his cause on WHY or WHAT makes people believe what they do, who says there isn't something more than what we can hear,see,feel and touch??
Essentially, his is just an opinion like yours or mine , religious or otherwise...

[Prince Jelarkan]

Jaghut Engine, on 28 April 2010 - 11:02 PM, said:

I honestly think that Dawkins is the natrualist equivalent of a religious nutter because of his undying determination to convert everyone to be like him. Seems a bit of a contradiction when it is mentioned that his parents were scientists of sorts so I wonder if that had any influence on his own views?
Funny that he has never touched on psychology which could help explain his cause on WHY or WHAT makes people believe what they do, who says there isn't something more than what we can hear,see,feel and touch??
Essentially, his is just an opinion like yours or mine , religious or otherwise...

I totally disagree when was the last time Dawkins threaten kill any one in the name of Atheism. Dawkins bases his arguements on cold hard factsand dont see psychology relevance to the debate of the debate of gods existence or non existence. It is only related to why people beleive in god. Which is in many circumstances because they have been indoctrinated by there parents.

[Cold Iron]

Their parents.