Dawkins Demolished

[John Skelton]

What about The Ditchkins Delusion? Any thoughts on Terry Eagleton's critique of Dawkins and Hitchens?

Richard Seymour, of Lenin's Tomb http://leninology.blogspot.com/2010/...pitalists.html

[Richard Tarleton]

Richard Dawkins' "The Ancestor's Tale" is a much more enjoyable read than "The God Delusion". (Full title, for Dr Fraser: "A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life"). This pilgrimage is some 4 billion years long. The planet has survived around 5 mass extinctions. Man has been around for the blink of an eye, in evolutionary terms about 100,000 years).

Without wishing to be facetious or disrespectful in any way to the views of others, but in a spirit of wishing to challenge (and as I've asked before):

What was God doing in the 14 billion years the universe has been in existence?
Does he have a purpose, and is Man central to it?
What was he doing (for example) during the 300 million years that trilobites ruled the earth?
Has he other projects on the go in the billions of other galaxies in our expanding universe?

That's just for starters. Unfortunately theologians never engage with this sort of honest puzzlement.

Off to work now, so shan't hear of my excommunication and anathemisation until later

[vinteuil]

... or indeed - as the great biologist JBS Haldane apparently put it when some theologians asked him what could be inferred about the mind of the Creator from the works of His Creation: "An inordinate fondness for beetles."

[heliocentric]

As I understand it, science "starts" with an observation, followed by a series of further observation and/or experimentation which try to determine what conditions create what's been observed. This leads to a Theoretical conclusion (which is not the same as a hypothesis) which is published and distributed to others to recreate, modify or disprove. If the Theory is supported by repeated testing, then it is accepted.

Actually that's somewhat back to front. It always "starts" with a hypothesis, and the purpose of experimentation is not to establish or prove something but to exclude something, a famous example being the Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887 which excluded the possibility of there being a "luminiferous aether" and thus leading directly to Einstein's Special Relativity. (Mathematics is the only science that deals in "proofs" and even these need an axiomatic framework in order to make any sense.) At least according to Karl Popper, whose profound ideas regarding the philosophy of science are too often ignored on both sides of arguments about atheism.

If you believe in a god there is simply no kind of argument or evidence that would convince you that there's no such thing, and if you believe there's no god there's no kind of argument or evidence that would convince you there is. There's a difference between not believing in such a thing and (as Dawkins seems to) believing in its nonexistence. The former seems to me more compatible with a scientific outlook than the latter. Dawkins has done some beautiful and important scientific work, but his statements on religion seem to me more often to use "science" as a smokescreen to cover up a highly dubious authoritarian and imperialist political agenda. (edit: I see that the Richard Seymour article linked above by John Skelton makes a similar point with more detail and eloquence!)

[amateur51]

At it's basic level, a knowledge and a serious attempt at obeying (if sometimes far from successfully) the Ten Commandments will surely do for starters. The rest depends on many things not least individual circumstances.

Christ championed the poor and underprivileged, not comfortably-seated religious bookworms.

Were there many books around in biblical times, scotty

And I wonder how many people, religious or not, could recite/name the Ten Commandments?

[french frank]

Richard Seymour, of Lenin's Tomb http://leninology.blogspot.com/2010/...pitalists.html

Thank you John Skelton - I found that very interesting. A minor, though favourable, reference to Eagleton, then.

RT

Unfortunately theologians never engage with this sort of honest puzzlement.

I'm sure they do, if you read their books; though it's true theologians on the whole don't tend to move about among the people, explaining to the honestly puzzled. I'm lucky that there is a theologian in the family to whom I am able to refer for my own 'facetious' questions. Being something of a pathological agnostic the answers don't cause me to believe, but they do show that theologians wrestle with exactly the same questions as we do but at a rather higher level.

Full title, for Dr Fraser

I do think people should stop getting at Fraser on this point. It was Dawkins' poll which asked people to name the first book of the New Testament and decided it was astonishing that so many couldn't and this went towards demonstrating D's argument that many self-proclaimed Christians were not real Christians at all.

Fraser's question was not designed to demonstrate that if Dawkins couldn't give the the full title of On the Origin of Species, then he wasn't much of a Darwininian (as Dawkins unwittingly illustrated) but that it was quite irrelevant, just as knowing the title of the first book of the NT was not essential to being a Christian, astonishing though it is to anyone of my generation that anyone would not know: it's education, not religion. I didn't think Fraser was at all impressive but he did get one over on Dawkins there - helped by Dawkins himself who thought he knew the answer and publicly found he didn't.

[Lateralthinking1]

I am persuaded by the arguments in John Skelton's link. The majority of the horrible abuses listed never occurred in the Catholic Church. Most people would completely condemn those. It is an intriguing personality that seeks to convey the impression that they have largely resided in that one place. That personality becomes even more intriguing when its immense hatred for religion is allied with a high profile theory of evolution based on science. You could easily hate the organisational structures of religions and their consequences and yet not need to develop a detailed alternative view of creation. Actually it requires a giant leap in rationality to link those two things. It is a manipulative belt to go with the braces. The most interesting question is "why the obsession?"

I am of the view that places of heavy authoritarianism - and Catholicism cannot be excluded - are more likely to lead to the grossest human abuses. These are inflicted on the naturally most vulnerable - children, minorities, the poor. Pure liberalism though is hardly squeaky clean. We underestimate the extent of abuse that is felt by the victims of general looseness, unfaithfulness, divorce and minorities behaving badly towards other minorities. Such things are believed to be considerably less abusive because they occur between what we choose to describe as equal adults with freedom of choice. That is not an argument that is convincing to me, even though this is how we are told we must think by almost all. There are always losers. Most feel pain.

Christopher Hitchens was probably at his most ridiculous when tubthumping against religion in the round. He himself was not devoid of questionable behaviour and to some extent he revelled in it. He was also bright enough to know the difference between a Quaker and an Islamic Terrorist. However academic people might be, or not, I think you also have to look at the levels of anger in them sometimes and separate that anger out from its attachments. In his case, I am firmly of the view that it went inwards as well as outwards. What I can't quite decide is whether all the outwards stuff was his undoing or if it helped to water down what would have gone inwards and finished him off sooner if it had not been externalised onto concepts of religion. I doubt he knew himself.

He was, I think, at his most profound when declaring that fundamental Islamism was a greater threat with fascist connotations even than the United States and rampant capitalism are to our ways of life. He did try to separate out ordinary Islam from fundamentalism which was to his credit given his feelings about all religion. I never believed that he had been converted politically on the road to Washington, Damascas, whatever the cosy chats with Gingrich and his ilk. But the sweeping anti-religiosity was an intellectual noose around his neck. All he needed to do really from a liberal perspective was oppose oppressive authoritarianism. Dawkins could easily do the same and I think he would do so if there wasn't another motive based on (authoritarian?) ego.

[Richard Tarleton]

(A moment or two before things get busy)

... or indeed - as the great biologist JBS Haldane apparently put it when some theologians asked him what could be inferred about the mind of the Creator from the works of His Creation: "An inordinate fondness for beetles."

Also, when asked what would destroy his faith in evolution, he replied "fossil rabbits in the Pre-Cambrian"

[amateur51]

I am of the view that places of heavy authoritarianism - and Catholicism cannot be excluded - are more likely to lead to the grossest human abuses. These are inflicted on the naturally most vulnerable - children, minorities, the poor.

And most significantly women, Lat

[amateur51]

I think what surprises me in the Lenin's Tomb piece that John Skelton usefully referred us to is the absence of revulsion at the Catholic Church's serious attempts to hide the crimes for which its priests have been responsible but also its attempts to prevent the due process of the law.

And now we have the spectacle of Michael Gove adjusting the law to permit section 28-style anti-gay stuff in schools and Eric Pickles racing through enactment of legislation so vague that it will allow Christian councillors to hold prayers before council meetings in the chamber.

[Lateralthinking1]

And most significantly women, Lat

For sure. I go on enough as it is so it is difficult to put in all the detail. But when I referred to the poor, one of the things I had in mind was contraception, any opposition to which is almost impossible to defend. That impacts on all in various ways - population numbers, illness - but arguably particularly women.

I agree with you on the cover-ups. Disgraceful. I don't agree with you on prayers in the council chamber. I think secularists should be addressing the million and one significant problems we have rather than playing games and that councillors should be dealing with potholes.

On section 28, is it really necessary for that to be revised yet again? I think that Gove too should be concentrating on real problems. Is he a Catholic incidentally? A lot of Protestants (Muslims, Jews, Hindus etc) are more than capable of ludicrous tangents, although in every case crucially far from all.

[heliocentric]

Also, when asked what would destroy his faith in evolution, he replied "fossil rabbits in the Pre-Cambrian"

Although even if fossil rabbits were found in Pre-Cambrian rock strata, a scientist's initial hypothesis would be that there was an explanation within the interconnected network of scientific theory rather than that one should throw the whole thing out (ie. not just evolution, but also geology and thus by a chain of logical connections materials science, particle physics, astrophysics, cosmology...) because of a single anomalous observation. Only if this hypothesis failed to provide an explanation would one then begin to rethink the foundations of science, or maybe to suspect that there might be something supernatural going on.

And all of this would be happening not because scientists "believe" in science and wish to hang on to it in the same way as believers hang on to their faith, but because all of science is connected, in so far as any given area of it is supported not just by evidence in that particular area but by other areas too, which in turn are supported not just as independent entities but by a still wider range of areas, and so on. So: the theory of evolution is accepted as our best theory of the origin of species not just because Darwin said so but because no discovery or theory in any area of science has so far contradicted it. If anything ever did, the theory would be thrown out, as Lamarck's theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics was before it.

[amateur51]

Although even if fossil rabbits were found in Pre-Cambrian rock strata, a scientist's initial hypothesis would be that there was an explanation within the interconnected network of scientific theory rather than that one should throw the whole thing out (ie. not just evolution, but also geology and thus by a chain of logical connections materials science, particle physics, astrophysics, cosmology...) because of a single anomalous observation. Only if this hypothesis failed to provide an explanation would one then begin to rethink the foundations of science, or maybe to suspect that there might be something supernatural going on.

And all of this would be happening not because scientists "believe" in science and wish to hang on to it in the same way as believers hang on to their faith, but because all of science is connected, in so far as any given area of it is supported not just by evidence in that particular area but by other areas too, which in turn are supported not just as independent entities but by a still wider range of areas, and so on. So: the theory of evolution is accepted as our best theory of the origin of species not just because Darwin said so but because no discovery or theory in any area of science has so far contradicted it. If anything ever did, the theory would be thrown out, as Lamarck's theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics was before it.

Thank you, heliocentric, thank you!

[french frank]

I think what surprises me in the Lenin's Tomb piece that John Skelton usefully referred us to is the absence of revulsion at the Catholic Church's serious attempts to hide the crimes for which its priests have been responsible but also its attempts to prevent the due process of the law.

I don't think the style of the piece permitted 'revulsion'. The writer agreed with Dawkins on the general point, as it related to the Catholic church and the Pope in particular.

[amateur51]

I don't think the style of the piece permitted 'revulsion'. The writer agreed with Dawkins on the general point, as it related to the Catholic church and the Pope in particular.

Since you've brought up 'style' french frank, I found this article's style very clotted and it took me ages to get to the kernel. The point I'm making is that it expressed distate (is that better than revulsion?) for the sex:power crimes but it did not express disgust for the attempts locally and internationally and at the highest level to hide the perpetrators from the flinty majesty of the law.