Richard Dawkins - Anti -Christ or Great Thinker?

no no no read what Aquinas is saying - unless things regress infinitely there has to be a termination point. that termination point is called God. for the purposes of this argument, there is no need to ascribe any other characteristics to God beyond that. If there is a terminus, call it God.

The other option is to accept that things regress infinitely, which is kind of beyond human comprehension (not coincidentally, another concept that is often associated with God - "the limit of human understanding")

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how much more complex & nuanced than the bible

Except Wilde meant it as an ironic joke. You don't get too many of those in the Bible.

the one guy:

I made a very bad mistake and inadvertandly left off the beginning of the sentence:

We are not immune to the lure of wonder and mystery and awe: We (Atheists) have music and art and literature..."

the problem with that is, when Dawkins reads the word "God" his mind immediately conjurs the image of the white-bearded-father-in-the-sky listening to prayers and whatnot. One would hope he could avoid that particular trap, but apparently he can't.

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http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_244.html

Philip found Nathanael and said unto him, "We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" [Joke!] Philip said to him, "Come and see!" [Boom!] Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile" ["Hey, here's an honest Jew"--joke]. Nathanael [not getting it] said to him, "How do you know me?" Jesus answered him, "Before Philip called you, I saw you yesterday, standing under a fig tree." Nathanael said [losing his cool], "Rabbi, you are the son of God! You are the king of Israel!" Jesus answered him, "Because I said I saw you standing under a fig tree, believest thou?" [Big joke! Gets laughs!] "You shall see greater things than these." [Release.] And he said to him, "Truly, truly I say unto you, you shall see the heavens opened and the angels of the Lord ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." [Boom!]

I don't know what the fuck you people are trying to refute here. I don't read for Moral Instruction, but there's a succor that I get from literature, in part because you don't get answers. It's frustrating too, naturally, but that's the rub.

succor = "Look at these people as stupid, troubled, and fucked up as me. Let's see what happens next."

No, in the Bible you get deep advice on how it's wrong to covet your neighbors's woman and/or slave.

Shakey: You're missing the whole point, Dawkins is purposefully talking a very specific kind of religious belief that continues to seriously fuck up the world. He's not talking about belief in "mystery," or "something more," or even people who consider themselves "spiritual."

Haha max I was just about to post that! :D

then why is he trying to refute Aquinas???!??

I said this on some other thread but I think Dawkins basic problem is with language and semantics - he has problems accepting or understanding conceptions of God that don't fit the fundie loony tunes model (see ref to Einstein and his conception of God way upthread. Dawkins has no problems with it, but apparently also doesn't think its valid or properly religious, even though it is SPECIFICALLY rooted in religious language and tradition)

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There's a succor born every minute.

*rimshot*

He tries to refute Aquinas because a lot of people believe Aquinias's proofs prove the existence of god, and they don't.

The Bible's full of great stories though. Part of my problem during the Stephen Dedalus uber-Catholic phase of my adolescence was reconciling my fascination with Greek mythology and the equally ridiculous stuff in the Old Testament. Except I had to believe in the latter.

He tries to refute Aquinas because a lot of people believe Aquinias's proofs prove the existence of god, and they don't.

But Aquinas' proofs about God have NOTHING to do with the silly fundie God you're saying Dawkins has a problem with wtf.

al i think we're in agreement, except for when you said that no one was claiming we should read dostoevsky for moral instruction when dally's paraphrasing of hitchens seemed to imply that

the one guy:

I made a very bad mistake and inadvertandly left off the beginning of the sentence:

We are not immune to the lure of wonder and mystery and awe: We (Atheists) have music and art and literature..."

-- dally, Wednesday, October 3, 2007 12:14 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yes that totally refutes my point about the history of western art and music being intimately bound up with the history of the church.

and literature if we're being honest. like it or don't but the english *language* -- and literature too -- owes a shitload more to donne and bunyan and the king james bible than to, say, schiller. this is historical fact more than a matter of taste.

Is there an emotional side to the intellectual enterprise of exploring the story of life on Earth?

Yes, I strongly feel that. When you meet a scientist who calls himself or herself religious, you'll often find that that's what they mean. You often find that by "religious" they do not mean anything supernatural. They mean precisely the kind of emotional response to the natural world that you've described. Einstein had it very strongly. Unfortunately, he used the word "God" to describe it, which has led to a great deal of misunderstanding. But Einstein had that feeling, I have that feeling, you'll find it in the writings of many scientists. It's a kind of quasi-religious feeling. And there are those who wish to call it religious and who therefore are annoyed when a scientist calls himself an atheist. They think, "No, you believe in this transcendental feeling, you can't be an atheist." That's a confusion of language.

we went over this upthread where milo was talking about how no one reads Aquinas and the popular conception of God is the Left Behind-type and that that's what Dawkins is really aiming at I mean come ON

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That's a confusion of language.

Yeah, YOUR confusion.

Dawkins telling people what is and is not actually religion = teh lolz

gotta love a guy who refuses to read/investigate theology dictating to other people what traditions their beliefs stem from

Reading that interview only made me like Dawkins more, actually.

yeah see that's dawkins trying to limit "god" to a single concept right there--really annoying especially because, like, why does he have such a problem with scientists calling themselves religious? if i was one of these religious scientists id be mighty pissed at dawkins for trying to limit my ability to express myself.

like it or don't but the english *language* -- and literature too -- owes a shitload more to donne and bunyan and the king james bible than to, say, schiller. this is historical fact more than a matter of taste.

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, October 2, 2007 7:25 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Which goes nowhere towards proving the existence of god. In other words, so what?

"Instruction" was probably the wrong word; what Hitchens means is that ethical and moral dilemmas are dealt with better in literature than they are in the dogmatic ancient superstitious scriptures from the Bronze age.

yeah see that's dawkins trying to limit "god" to a single concept right there--really annoying especially because, like, why does he have such a problem with scientists calling themselves religious? if i was one of these religious scientists id be mighty pissed at dawkins for trying to limit my ability to express myself.

-- max, Tuesday, October 2, 2007 7:33 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

No, he's not limiting god to a single concept, he's establishing the paramaters of his argument. Again, he's talking about a very specific manifestation of religion.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/sam_harris/2007/10/the_problem_with_atheism.html

Let's not thank Bunyan. He's terribl!

yes that totally refutes my point about the history of western art and music being intimately bound up with the history of the church.

Pointing to the great religious art of history is kind of meaningless when religious/aristocratic patrons were the primary work available if you were a painter, sculptor or musician.

"there was some books....one was pilgrim's progress, about a man that left his family, it didn't say why." - huckleberry finn

^----a better diss of religion than anything hitchens or dawkins will ever dream up

Harris>>>>>>>>>>>>>Dawkins

So, apart from just commending these phenomena to your attention, I’d like to point out that, as atheists, our neglect of this area of human experience puts us at a rhetorical disadvantage. Because millions of people have had these experiences, and many millions more have had glimmers of them, and we, as atheists, ignore such phenomena, almost in principle, because of their religious associations—and yet these experiences often constitute the most important and transformative moments in a person’s life. Not recognizing that such experiences are possible or important can make us appear less wise even than our craziest religious opponents.

^^ totally OTM

(he's referring to meditation/contemplative spiritual experiences btw)

Ok, hands up if you know someone who's had an 'experience'.

http://i1.sell.com/1/197/112907/37/214/2437504-m.jpg

Just about everyone I've known who has had an 'experience' was on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

Ok, hands up if you know someone who's had an 'experience'.

-- aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, Wednesday, October 3, 2007 6:11 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

hey let's all be sneery cunts.

Just about everyone I've known who has had an 'experience' was on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

-- dally, Wednesday, October 3, 2007 7:58 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

hey let's all be sneery cunts pt 2.

Don't mock my post-nervous-breakdown epiphanies!

exactly.

I thought that was a joke... I mean, I can't count the number of people I've met/known who have had some kind of meaningful experience/epiphany with meditation, from all kinds of different backgrounds.

Seriously, mine JUST come from nervous breakdowns or before I was on my meds, from delusional states (NB these epiphanies were generally worthless: "OH. MY. GOD...I hate chatbots.")

and I'm talking perfectly functional well-adjusted people who have, like, jobs and families and whatnot.

I think Harris' "imagine if everyone who wanted to study astronomy had to build their own telescope" analogy is very apt. If you never even entertain the notion of putting yourself in this particular kind of mental space, basically you have no fucking clue what you're talking about.

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"OH. MY. GOD...I hate chatbots."

hahaha

and the clouds parted

I've had many transcendent moments, I just don't ascribe a supernatural cause to them.

Harris isn't talking about ascribing a supernatural cause, read the link

Of course he isn't.

I'm curious: does it bother you so much if people don't believe in god? I mean you really seem to take it personally.

I don't give a shit what anyone else believes, really. I have more of an issue with Dawkins and Hitchens' unbelievable arrogance and willful ignorance than anything else.

How can you hate this guy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkAPaEMwyKU

married to the chick from vampire circus

Carol Blue?

Arrogance is a good way to respond to people who condescend to you when informed that you're an atheist, Shakey.