大象传媒

Feel free to comment here - I'm told the blog is now receiving comments!

I had a look but could not find the "feisty debate". My understanding of a debate is that there are at least some dissenting voices. From what I could see there was a pretty uniform group of responses made by obvious Dawkins "groupies", usually rounded off by something like "nice one Richard".

That pretty much sums it up paul. The debates at Dawkins website seem to be like that for the most part.

SG

don't know what happened to my last post...

William - do you believe in God?

tom.

tom as much as i'd like to know the answer to that too (!!) dont u think its a bit personal to just ask that kind of question on here?

Tom- Are you related to PB?

Re 4:

Tom:

Would you define the 'God' about which (whom?) you are enquiring?

Regards,
Michael

Personal? not at all. I have noticed that you guys chat about this stuff all the time. it's a fairly tame question.

I'll answer it myself: I'm an atheist. im just wondering what background william is coming from.

john - i have no idea who or what pb is. is that an insult?

michael - lets not play stupid games.

tom

I've looked at the Dawkins site a few times. It appears to be inhabited by groupies who have no problem with telling Richard how much they 'love' him!

In post #8 tom wrote:

michael - lets not play stupid games.

Tom:

May I ask why as an atheist (category 6 I presume or have you made it all the way to 7?) you reject a simple question under the assumption that I am inviting you to play a 'stupid game'?

What was your basis for that conclusion?

Regards,
Michael

Michael:

I asked a reasonable question. you asked a ridiculous counter-question. when people ask "do you believe in god" they mean any god at all. at least all rational people i've ever met ask the question or receive it according to that meaning.

"which god do you mean" was an idiotic response.

please don't speak to me again unless you have something remotely intelligent to add.

William: do you believe in god - ANY god.

FFS!!!

tom

Second try after a "comment submission error" message. A previous posting on another topic got a file server unavailable error but was posted anyway. This site still isn't completely fixed yet.

It sounded to me like a primer course in rational thought for the masses 101. Nothing new here as far as I can tell. I don't expect it to carry much weight though in a land where almost the entire population seems so enfatuated with one of two competing theologies that neither side barely acknowledges the other's right to remain alive let alone entertain the notion that their own point of view might be badly flawed. I regret that Dawkins retreated from his prior position than religion and belief in god is a mental disease. I expect he did this to try to avoid completely alienating his entire audience, not because he actually changed his position. About all that can be said about the existance of god or that will ever be able to be said is that to any objective rational mind, there is not one credible shred of evidence to suggest that god exists. The strong commitment to belief in one anyway even to the point of willingness to be self destructive by generously donating the proceeds of one's labor, giving one's time, and going off to fight the religion's wars at the risk of life and limb is proof that this is a mental disease just as self destructive behavior for any other reason is considered a mental disorder. The widespread belief in supernatural dieties all over the world in many diverse and isolated cultures strongly suggests that this mental disorder is one to which human beings are genetically predisposed and arises spontaneously rather than having been spread by a single central contagion. It's a disorder for which treatment is extremely difficult but the victims often seem unwilling to even recognize that they suffer from it or want to be cured. Is indoctrination into religion child abuse? I agree with Dawkins that it is, and one which has had fatal consequences for countless millions, witness the corpses resulting from jihads, crusades, and inquisitions, not to mention "the troubles." I think Dawkins is wasting his time. He will convince nobody who doesn't already agree with him, and to those who do, he is preaching to the choir.

Re 12:

Mark:

I have had trouble too. Maybe our postings are too long. I have posted the same thing three ways cutting it shorter each time to no avail.

Michael

"Second try after a "comment submission error" message. A previous posting on another topic got a file server unavailable error but was posted anyway. This site still isn't completely fixed yet."

Mark: the UK internet has been particularly slow today, for whatever reason.

Sorry your post got timed-out (and then published). Length of comments shouldn't matter. To reassure you: it's got nothing to do with this site.

In post 11 Tom continues to avoid addressing my question and he has asked me not to speak to him again - so I won鈥檛.

However, for the rest of you he asserted:

鈥淚 asked a reasonable question. you asked a ridiculous counter-question. when people ask "do you believe in god" they mean any god at all. at least all rational people i've ever met ask the question or receive it according to that meaning. "which god do you mean" was an idiotic response. please don't speak to me again unless you have something remotely intelligent to add.鈥�

I would have asked Tom the question in more depth assuming that he also didn鈥檛 hold forth on biology with "only a knowledge of the subject from the Book of British Birds". I wonder if he was asking about the 鈥楪od鈥� that Dawkins seems so disturbed about in his book 鈥楾he God Delusion鈥�? Was he enquiring about 鈥榯he supersized chap鈥� or the 鈥榗elestial teapot鈥� version?. Maybe it was the 鈥楿ltimate Boeing 747鈥� version?

Now we may never know!

In the March 3, 2007 NY Times in an article entitled 鈥楤ooks on Atheism Are Raising Hackles in Unlikely Places鈥� Peter Steinfels mentions some of these particular 'Gods". The article states in part:

Begin quote: Why is the new wave of books on atheism getting such a drubbing? The mother of these reviews was published last October in The London Review of Books, when Terry Eagleton, better known as a Marxist literary scholar than as a defender of faith, took on 鈥淭he God Delusion.鈥�

鈥淚magine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds,鈥� Mr. Eagleton wrote, 鈥渁nd you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.鈥� H. Allen Orr is an evolutionary biologist who once called Mr. Dawkins a 鈥減rofessional atheist.鈥� But now, Mr. Orr wrote in the Jan. 11 issue of The New York Review of Books, 鈥淚鈥檓 forced, after reading his new book, to conclude that he鈥檚 actually more of an amateur.鈥�

It seems that these critics hold several odd ideas, the first being that anyone attacking theology should actually know some. 鈥淭he most disappointing feature of 鈥楾he God Delusion,鈥� 鈥� Mr. Orr wrote, 鈥渋s Dawkins鈥檚 failure to engage religious thought in any serious way. You will find no serious examination of Christian or Jewish theology鈥� and 鈥渘o attempt to follow philosophical debates about the nature of religious propositions.鈥� Mr. Eagleton continued, 鈥淲hen it comes to theology any shoddy old travesty will pass muster.鈥�

In The New Republic last October, Thomas Nagel was much more patient. Extracting a theoretical kernel of argument from the thumb-your-nose-at-religion chaff, Mr. Nagel had to point out that what was meant by God was not, as Mr. Dawkins鈥檚 argument seemed to assume, 鈥渁 complex physical inhabitant of the natural world.鈥� (Mr. Eagleton had less politely characterized the Dawkins understanding of God 鈥渁s some kind of chap, however supersized.鈥�). Nor was belief in God, Mr. Wood explained two months later, analogous to belief in a Celestial Teapot, the example Mr. Dawkins borrowed from Bertrand Russell.

Mr. Orr, for example, noted the contrast between Mr. Dawkins鈥檚 skepticism toward traditional proofs for God鈥檚 existence and Mr. Dawkins鈥檚 confidence that his own 鈥淯ltimate Boeing 747鈥� proof demonstrated scientifically that God鈥檚 existence was highly improbable.

鈥淭he fear of religion leads too many scientifically minded atheists to cling to a defensive, world-flattening reductionism,鈥� Mr. Nagel wrote. 鈥淲e have more than one form of understanding,鈥� he continued. We have no reason to dismiss moral reasoning, introspection or conceptual analysis as ways of discovering the truth just because they are not physics.鈥� End quote

Dare I wonder if Tom believes in string theory and multiple universes? If so you should leave him with his belief in 'string' and hope that he will leave you with your belief in 'God'.

Regards,
Michael

Re post 15 Hull writes:

"Dare I wonder if Tom believes in string theory and multiple universes? If so you should leave him with his belief in 'string' and hope that he will leave you with your belief in 'God'."

Good point. He probably doesn't understand string theory either. In the same vein Robert P Crease is chairman of the Department of Philosophy, Stony Brook University.

He writes in PhysicsWeb

about Euler鈥檚 and Einstein鈥檚 famous equations

ei蟺 + 1 = 0 and E = mc2

that the spell cast by equations can tempt us to think that all knowledge can and ought to be couched in the form of equations, with neat packages, balanced amounts and simple units. Equations have, for example, been composed for making perfect sandwiches, workable relationships and successful sitcoms. These are, however, illegitimate attempts to create algorithms for things that cannot be quantified.

If equations have a dark side, it is that they can also lead us to think that knowledge resides in the equation itself, rather than in the ongoing processes of construction and renovation. They can promote the erroneous view that science consists of a set of facts or beliefs to be memorized, rather than a quest for greater understanding that is achieved by moving beyond existing facts or beliefs to new ones that we suspect are on the horizon.

So goes Dawkins!

Peace,
Maureen

Maureen #16
Before you dismiss mathematics and science to live life as a Luddite, consider that mathematical equations as models for the physical universe are far more precise and less subject to interpretation than metaphors. The manipulation of these mathematical models allow scientists and engineers to not only understand how the physical universe works but to put their knowledge to practical use. Look around you. Almost everything you come into contact with from the moment you wake up in the morning to the moment you go to sleep at night is the product of engineering based on mathematical models provided by scientists. To compare it to what the world would be like without them, go back to life a few hundred years ago or look at people who lived in the most remote parts of the world where mathematics was never developed. Their lives consisted of hunting with spears, gathering fruits and nuts, living uncomfortably in grass thatched huts or caves, and dieing young of painful injuries and diseases they couldn't do anything about. Their understanding of existance was limited to their voodoo superstitions. And that's just about how it is for creationists today.