Richard Dawkins - Anti -Christ or Great Thinker?

i dunno. plato and aristotle both seemed pretty sure that they had proven the existence of god.

and dally i can see that dawkins is usually careful abt his concept of god, but comments about theology like that irritate the shit out of me!

we all know NASA's probes have found the teacups all over Mars but they're COVERING IT UP

At the point where God can be anything, you've moved the discussion out of the realm of western thought and culture, and made it an impossible issue to argue.

this may or may not be the case, but what i mean to say is just that saying shit like "im an atheist" or "people who believe in god are stupid" doesnt make much sense unless you specify "im an atheist about THIS god," or "people who believe in THIS idea about god are stupid"

Well good for them.

Anyway, I think the current god or no-god debate is one of the better ones of new millenium. It hasn't happened before on this level, at least not in America. I'm very encouraged by Hitchens and Dawkins having stateside bestsellers on the subject. Maybe the one good thing to come out of GWB's wretched presidency is that people will be even more turned off religious fundamentalism of all stripes than they were before.

i mean, really, i don't really mind anyone's belief in God, as long as they're not in charge of anything

plus remember that augustine and thomas aquinas, probably the two most influential christian theologians, were scholars of plato (well, of plotinus) and aristotle, respectively--it strikes me that if dawkins cant be bothered to read augustine or aquinas he probably shouldnt read the greeks either!

rw do you mean that you dont want anyone to be in charge of anything, or that only ppl who reject every concept of god (this would be nietzsche, i think) should be in charge?

He spends a good amount of God Delusion systematically demolishing Aquinas's "proofs." Read the book before freaking out.

haha now i want to read it, ppl have spent a long time trying to outwite aristotle and aquinas and its VERY difficult

Max, we (you, me, Dawkins, Shakey, RW, etc.) were all raised in a Judeo-Christian culture that now has to include Islam (from the same tradition). There's no need to be absolutely specific all the time, because if someone was referring to an outsider belief system, it would be noted.

and dally otm: this is why, at the end of the day, i don't really mind that dawkins/hitchens are churlish meanies. xposts

xp ha, no, i just mean that people who take seriously the personal, supernatural God shouldn't be allowed to be in charge of, say, me.

yeah but milo w/in the abrahamic religions there's still a whole multitude of concepts of god ie augustine vs. aquinas vs. spinoza vs. avicenna vs. meister eckhardt vs. levinas vs. derrida--i still think that specificity is important

And the fact that they are meanies makes them all the more entertaining. Why would anyone want a mild and kind Christopher Hitchens?

He specifically says that he's talking about belief in a supreme, supernatural being who created the universe, hears prayers, takes an active interest in human events, decides where your soul goes after you die, and has specific beliefs about what you should eat and who you should have sex with

^^^ this is the main concept, max. the finer points maybe interesting and worth debating, but if a "belief in God" boils down to this, then that's Dawkins' major beef.

I would hope that the contention that monomaniacal assholes shouldn't be in charge goes without saying

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you'd think so, right!

Just for the record: The original Sumerian writing system was derived from a system of clay tokens used to represent commodities. (That's from Wikipedia, so take it as you wish, but it accords with most early writing, which was used to store data. The entire idea of using writing to convey abstract thought was not an obvious jump, nor is it directly evidenced in the records for several centuries.

He specifically says that he's talking about belief in a supreme, supernatural being who created the universe, hears prayers, takes an active interest in human events, decides where your soul goes after you die, and has specific beliefs about what you should eat and who you should have sex with

this is a very very narrow conception of God and I think its highly debatable the percentage of people in the world who really literally subscribe to it

I mean basically I think its willfully naive and excessively reductionist to say that that's what a belief in God boils down to, cuz it really doesn't.

Max, wouldn't it be fair to say that 2/3 of those aren't mainstream religious or theological figures - is Spinoza a readily-named influence on western Christianity's theology?
And Augustine and Aquinas do meet the "supreme, supernatural beings' standard, don't they?

Spinoza is huge, come on

Just a quick point to something mentioned upthread: writing was not initially about religion, all the oldest texts are bureaucratic stuff like keeping track of stock, payments etc.

"im an atheist about THIS god."
That doesn't make much sense.
And yes, Dawkins is very clear that he's only railing against the clearly supernatural theistic gods that are actively involved with people etc, not the pantheistic god ala how he describes Einstein's etc.

xpost: and now I see Savonarela has said exactly what I really posted for. Ooph.

Spinoza is not huge at the Southern Baptist Conference or in my uncle's Pentecostal church.

that's probably because he's JEWISH

spinoza & derrida probably arent "mainstream" (tho they are v. influential and widely read at many divinity schools to the best of my knoweldge) but id argue that all of the rest are to their specific traditions (and oftentimes outside of them--jpII is a well-known fan of levinas)--and augustine and aquinas meet the "supreme, supernatural beings" standard in a sort of vague sense that id argue falls much more on the side of "god as the form of the good" for augustine and "god as the telos of the universe" (or something) for aquinas

"im an atheist about THIS god."
That doesn't make much sense.

why not? if there are multiple conceptions of god or belief in god, why cant i say "well, i dont believe in fred phelps's god, but i sort of believe in spinoza's god?"

i mean to say "im an atheist" and MEAN it (from my perspective) youd have to claim disbelief in truth, goodness, teleology, etc--youd have to be nietzsche.

actually arguably youd have to be spinoza and he says he DID believe in god, so who the fuck knows.

Just a quick point to something mentioned upthread: writing was not initially about religion, all the oldest texts are bureaucratic stuff like keeping track of stock, payments etc.

I think its debatable to consider these "texts" in any formal sense, as they don't express ideas - its more like binary code (101101110111)

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I remember refs to Spinoza in Hebrew school as a child, and he came up again in college (philosophy, jewish lit, etc.)

i mean this isnt EASY to say and im tying myself up in knots but my main point is that belief in god is incredibly complex and diverse (as is the practice of religion) and I KNOW that dawkins is careful about this but honestly almost 100% of philosophical writing before the enlightenment (when we started to make the distinction btw. "religion" and "philosophy") could be classified as "theology" so when he calls that contentless it makes me wonder if hes even paying attention!

Because that's not the common usage of the word "atheist"? It would make more sense to just say "I do not believe in THIS god". It doesn't make sense to me to modify the word atheist with an "about," since you're saying "I'm godless about THIS god." If you're not atheist about a different god, you're not an atheist. I will agree that this is just nitpicking though.

Oh well, it's late and I do believe in the importance of sleep.

I think its debatable to consider these "texts" in any formal sense, as they don't express ideas - its more like binary code (101101110111), yes but that's precisely my point. They were very functional pieces of "technology", if you will. But religion did not create writing, as was alleged upthread.

that's probably because he's JEWISH

Influential in a specific tradition or in God Grad School is one thing - but that's like assuming that a PhD candidate's literary interests bear a resemblance to or influence the rest of the world, when Stephen King and Harry Potter are the depth of many home libraries.

Just a quick point to something mentioned upthread: writing was not initially about religion, all the oldest texts are bureaucratic stuff like keeping track of stock, payments etc.

OTM...I wish Dawkins only wrote about the controversies and damage done by early water rights' bills or cattle ownership regulations.

actually you could make a great argument that it WAS precisely such private property accounting which has irrevocably fucked humanity in the ass (see Rousseau etc). It would make more sense than Dawkins' weird misconceptions about religion, anyway.

wait, has he ever writtena bout that, abbott?

I CONCUR, and would much rather read early laws based not on Christianity or MOses' laws.

He hasn't written about that AFAIK, but it is a wish.

Not someone who's played a role in defining God or religion for the masses.

spinoza is read by divinity students >>>>>> divinity students then give sermons influenced by spinoza

Influential in a specific tradition or in God Grad School is one thing - but that's like assuming that a PhD candidate's literary interests bear a resemblance to or influence the rest of the world, when Stephen King and Harry Potter are the depth of many home libraries.

wait - so because he's a massively influential thinker on the actual organizers of religion (priests, rabbis, etc.) and not a populist like the Left Behind guys means he's inconsequential? Does not compute. I guess Plato doesn't count for shit either. Or Marx or Adam Smith.

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i think i would wish for that, too.

Yes, Shakey, fundies like the Left Behind guys are a far greater influence - and more important from the perspective of someone arguing against religion - than Spinoza and Derrida and Islamic spiritualists.

btw, has anyone actually read the Left Behind books? I might have to give it a shot.

But religion did not create writing, as was alleged upthread.

I didn't "allege" anything of the kind but thanks for repeating the misconception - I said religion "was at the root of the written word". WORDS, not accounting. ("in the beginning was the word" haha) And I think this is borne out in the historical record, specifically in Egypt, where the earliest writings are expressing what Dawkins would consider religious ideas, about death, about the origins of the world, about power and authority, etc. This is not to say that Religion Created Language or anything like that, but just to point out that religious thought went hand-in-hand with the foundations of humanity's intellectual traditions, which begin with writing down ideas and communicating them to future generations.

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Yes, Shakey, fundies like the Left Behind guys are a far greater influence - and more important from the perspective of someone arguing against religion - than Spinoza and Derrida and Islamic spiritualists.

eh maybe in the immediate short-term. those books will be forgotten and/or ridiculed in 10-20 years. Spinoza and Derrida and Rumi will still be on the "required reading" list for anyone who wants to really understand the traditions involved.

Allege does not get you out of legal complications when claiming or stating something. Shakey: go to court on yr kangaroo!

xp

If it wasn't for religion, how the hell would I have known How the Raccoon Got Its Stripes? Or Why Mosquitos Buzz In Your Ear?

If only most people wanted to 'really understand the traditions involved' in their religion. But they don't.

oh wait

for what its worth, just because more people believe in tim lahaye's conception of god than spinoza's (and frankly i think this is totally arguable w/out hard data--just b/c lahaye sells more than spinoza doesnt mean that religious people in this country couldnt or wouldnt articulate a pantheistic, natural idea of god that would be in line w/ spinozas w/out explicitly being spinoza's) doesn't mean that there aren't multiple concepts of god