Dawkins Demolished

[Serial_Apologist]

Anyone can criticise or disagree with the 'teaching' and 'laws' of particular religions; and condemn the outrageous atrocities and injustices perpetrated in the name of and in pursuance of such religions. That isn't atheism, nor does atheism follow a logical conclusion from them.

Not automatically for many, true, but since religion is something one learns about, usually from ones elders and betters, rather than spontaneously revealed *in vacuo*, it would reasonably follow, one would think, that if one ostensibly attractive idea in the teaching (for example unselfishness) connects indissolubly with others (salvation through only one pathway; sin defined in certain ways; eternal damnation for non-believers), as tends to be the case in self-justificatorily incontrovertible religious doctrines, then the whole shebang can be subject to question.

[Lateralthinking1]

Anyone can criticise or disagree with the 'teaching' and 'laws' of particular religions; and condemn the outrageous atrocities and injustices perpetrated in the name of and in pursuance of such religions. That isn't atheism, nor does atheism follow as a logical conclusion from them.

This is what I find so dubious. It would be quite logical to think that there was never a God and yet on balance that religion was more a good force than a bad one. Atheists always think religion is more bad than good and conflate the theory of our beginnings with condemnation of religious influence. I just don't understand why modern atheists/evolutionists need the politics. Did Darwin?

Similarly, those who believe in creation cannot ever believe that the world could be a better place without religion. This is because they believe God has a plan but I don't see any logical reason why they couldn't accept the possibility that there might be, for example, fewer wars without God and religion.

When bias is more apparent than rationality, you have to question the extent of the convictions.

[Serial_Apologist]

I just don't understand why modern evolutionists need the politics.

In order to withstand political scrutiny in debate forums such as this one?

[Lateralthinking1]

In order to withstand political scrutiny in debate forums such as this one?

No. I can't disagree with that. Damn.

[aeolium]

If I write a book advancing a theory of religious delusion, if I begin an entry on the website for the foundation which bears my name - The John Skelton Foundation for the Dissemination of Enlightenment and Feeling Very Superior to People Who Aren't Enlightened - with "Given that Islam is such an unmitigated evil" the latter statement is not a footnote to the book. It doesn't refer to the book, it isn't some cryptic formulation which requires hours of diligent research in other of my publications to decode it. It is a stand-alone statement which is as unambiguous as a statement can be (with the exception of that interesting word "evil" and here I am grateful to Christopher Hitchens for explaining that henceforth "evil"as in "Axis of Evil" is to be glossed after Hannah Arendt, and contains no trace of theological reference. Especially (?) when used by George W. Bush Jr.).

And if that statement was all you read of Dawkins' writings - together with the slogan on the bus - you might not be very well informed about his arguments against the existence of God, put forward at length in the book. And that debate - about those arguments being 'demolished' - was surely what this thread was about.

[amateur51]

Just back from food shopping. I wasn't meaning to sound critical. More disappointed. I try to learn from contributors as well as giving opinions, hopefully being thought provoking in the best sense and trying a bit to arbitrate. Cardinal Bertone isn't someone I know.

Thanks for making my point for me, Lat

Cardinal Bertone was mentioned quite often on the old Board, I think. He is the Vatican's Secretary of State. Here's an example of a brou-ha-ha over one of his pronouncements.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8620135.stm

Had Hillary said, that, had William said that, you would have remembered, Lat. You are a well-read, intelligent man, very interested in the world and its workings, but you don't know about Bertone. Those remarks by Bertone have clouded my life and from time to time they still do.

[Lateralthinking1]

Those remarks by Bertone have clouded my life and from time to time they still do.

I am genuinely sorry to hear that Ams. If there had been a quiz question "Who is the Vatican's Secretary of State?" I would not have been able to say Bertone. I had assumed from your comments that he was controversial, and reprehensible, because of comments on child abuse. I thought his comments would have been about underemphasising abuses inside the Catholic Church but he has probably made those too. I am aware of the very serious issues that have arisen. I would like to think that the vast majority of Catholics would condemn his comments as I do along with millions of others. I also try see the positives in religion. I therefore tend not to dwell on the individuals who I would see as far removed from what a religion is supposed to be.

Hence, while anyone would have to have been living on a different planet not to know Osama bin Laden, when it comes to, say, Israel, there are names and names. For me, those who support Israel unequivocally are just not worth getting to know. Those who support it while condemning many of its actions in Palestine are. Again, I know the various arguments. The moment that someone is doing something that might make a difference for the better is the one when I take the name on board. The others are to be dismissed for what they are.

It is of course also true that I will accentuate the wrong doing of MPs here and name those MPs. That is a relatively recent phenomenon. For decades, I would have been far more likely to have spoken about heroes than villains. I liked to think that there were still answers to be found in Parliamentary democracy. In some ways that was remarkable. It is elements of this country's state apparatus that have had the most detrimental and damaging effects on me at key points of my life. The turning point was MPs' expenses when well over 500 were remiss. I suppose just as you see no merits in the institution of the Catholic Church, I see hardly any in the British state. It remains the case that a punch up in Westminster, thoroughly objectionable though it is, is not in the same league as the other matters I have mentioned. There is a part of me that looks to the few aspects of Britain I can see as having benefits and probably over-idealistically hopes for institutional reform.

In conclusion, I still go back to the point that when powerful individuals are completely beyond the pale, they don't deserve huge personal publicity even if the matters themselves need to be discussed. In fact, to my mind their stances just don't make them credible although there is good reason to mention them as a warning to other people. I am sure that someone would be able to construct an argument as to why they are a consequence of God but I doubt that I would ever find that convincing. They exist in all walks of life. They don't say anything to me about faith and the debate on whether there was creation or evolution.

[Serial_Apologist]

In conclusion, I still go back to the point that when powerful individuals are completely beyond the pale, they don't deserve huge personal publicity even if the matters themselves need to be discussed. In fact, to my mind their stances just don't make them credible although there is good reason to mention them as a warning to other people. I am sure that someone would be able to construct an argument as to why they are a consequence of God but I doubt that I would ever find that convincing. They exist in all walks of life. They don't say anything to me about faith and the debate on whether there was creation or evolution.

Whereas to me the two issues you mention here are inextricably linked; the upside of religion in all its variants (Buddhism apart but for me it isn't a religion) may briefly have outweighed the downside in the 18th and 19th centuries, insofar as providing the main thrust behind abolitionism and social reform, but imv rarely since - eg liberation theology - but what happened to that??. The good works of Christian mission always preach the peaceful road to change even where blatantly impracticable and end upholding political status quos; any good served by religious individuals arrives by default, imo, not because of.

Afraid I don't share your somewhat rosy views on religion, Lat.

[Pianorak]

Turnup for the books?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9102740/Richard-Dawkins-I-cant-be-sure-God-does-not-exist.html

[Lateralthinking1]

Turnup for the books?

Apparently, this is consistent with previous statements. To rule (a) God out would be to take "a faith position". Does anyone know where the debate can be viewed? Has anyone done so yet?

[subcontrabass]

Apparently, this is consistent with previous statements. To rule (a) God out would be to take "a faith position". Does anyone know where the debate can be viewed?

http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for providing the link, SCB.

A good debate within the terms set by the protagonists, though marred by problematic semantics almost from the start: Dawkins making himself a target for the sorts of criticisms that have emerged in this thread for resorting to anthropormophisms, eg speaking of elements "conspiring" to produce evolution: poetic metaphor only served to cloud the issues.

Was the person delivering the closing speech a character from a missing episode of Morse?

[subcontrabass]

Thanks for providing the link, SCB.



Was the person delivering the closing speech a character from a missing episode of Morse?

Professor John Hedley Brooke, now retired, formerly Andreas Idros Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford University ( http://originsofnature.com/John-Brooke.html )

[Lateralthinking1]

http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/

Thanks scb. My heart sank when I saw the title "The nature of human beings and the question of their ultimate origin". I thought that the discussion about origins would be distorted by questions like "Why does religion cause so many wars?". Fortunately that didn't happen. Interestingly, we heard that Darwin had refused to emphasise human behaviour on the basis that to do so was to encourage bias. Good for him. I remain convinced that all of Dawkins's sojourns into the politics of religion do him few favours. Perhaps it could be said with hindsight, and kindly, that Hitch was a bit of a bad influence. While the introduction and the debate itself were a little slow in pace, what we did get was balance, thoughtfulness, humour, humility and depth. This was a better Dawkins as he was not weighed down by the usual self-promotion. Williams would be best described as true to form which is mainly if not wholly for the good. Still, early on, neither Dawkins nor Williams really got to grips with consciousness. The first accepted that he couldn't explain its existence with physics. The latter didn't convince on how it could be linked to the human soul. As was pointed out to him, consciousness isn't only found in humans. It is also in other animals. He answered this by suggesting the manifestation of soul could be self-consciousness but it didn't feel to me as if that connection was absolute.

They then argued a bit about whether consciousness was an illusion or the very opposite. At one point, Dawkins moved into the area of psychology which to my mind is not an area for which he has flair. He said that babies are thought by many to have several personalities which consciousness brings together in an illusory sense. It was noticeable that he didn't say he necessarily believed that to be the case. As the initial wrestling with the anthropic principle continued - the philosophical argument that observations of the physical universe must be compatible with the conscious life that observes it - it was perhaps inevitable that we would hear about computers. What could they say about free will? The mediator Anthony Kenny, a philosopher and an agnostic, felt that everything done by computers was programmed and hence pre-ordained. Dawkins said that this wasn't a problem for any analogy. Experiments on the human brain showed that when a human being lifts a glass, the decision has been taken in an organic sense seconds earlier. The Archbishop felt that this example was as simplistic as the binary system on which computers are based. Life was altogether more complex. Dawkins retorted that his mentioning of the binary system was a red herring. What is important to computers is the complex software and so the example of a glass could be a microcosm of the bigger picture.



I don't know why it should do but it worries me that the Professor married an actress from Dr Who who he met through Douglas Adams. One hopes that he is not over-enamoured with science fiction. He was weak on the subject of multiverses. Not only had he no science to support their existence but he couldn't say why he felt that they should be taught in schools when intelligent design should not be. Other than in this, he was strongest in the second half of the debate. Williams floundered somewhat over the book of Genesis. It sounded to me as if he felt it was a bit of a fairy tale. Certainly, he didn't fully answer why adherence to any biblical allegory was needed. This is not to say that Dawkins was ever wholly compelling. Throughout he held to a view that evolution was gradual. However, he often argued against it. According to him, recursive syntax may have arrived with a giant leap. The same was true with any transfer of information that started the evolutionary process. We heard that DNA was a splendid replicator but a lousy candidate for the enzyme role in life. Protein is the reverse. The latest popular theory is the RNA World Hypothesis which some scientists believe "might" have been the link between the two. As this was only really taken forward in 2001, a cynic might ask how the most staggering answer to everything is frequently recent and in the proponents' own lifetimes.

Three people are looking at the same street scene. One is wearing blue shades, one has yellow shades and the other red. A visitor asks each of them for directions to the station. One mentions the pubs en route, the next the shops and the third the churches. No one is right and no one is wrong. The visitor gets to the station either by remembering the buildings that are most symbolic to him or by recalling one pub, two shops and three of the churches. Funnily enough, the route is not at all how he envisaged it but then again he isn't wearing any shades. At times during the course of this debate, I felt rather like that visitor witnessing three comprehensible viewpoints. But pushing all that philosophy aside, one of the principal differences seemed to be about attitudes towards pain. A woman asked about a child dying with unfulfilled potential and what that might say about all of our origins. Williams sounded sympathetic and took the time to discuss the matter. Dawkins effectively said "oh well that's nature". Perhaps at the end of the day, any outlook partially depends on what you want to hear. What else do you want to be told by the guys with the shades on? Williams would have advised "be careful, there's quite a lot of traffic on the high street". Dawkins would have said laughing "yeah, it's a place where many people get run over" before adding "but the station is easy to find".

[aeolium]

I suspect that neither Dawkins nor Williams will have felt that this debate allowed them much scope to develop their arguments as it tried to cover too much (and sometimes incorporated questions from the audience that were more distracting than helpful). The discussion on consciousness and free will was ended just as it was about to get interesting - and Dawkins seemed unconvincing on the question of free will (and indeed the question of multiverses near the end of the debate). Williams seemed less than convincing on the divine role in the origins of the universe, and the problem of suffering.

On Dawkins' apparently callous response to the question from the floor about unrealised potential and lives cut short, I understood him to be saying the theory of evolution was not teleological and that the suffering endemic in the natural world was indeed an essential, unavoidable part of the evolutionary process. It was no part of the theory of evolution to be consolatory, in the way religion is consolatory (though it is then of course a problem for the theologian to account for the immense suffering throughout the natural world being the work of a beneficent creator).