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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: DawkinsWatch - 2007
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
1) Can you defend the argument regarding suicide bombers? The charges against it are:
a) he doesn't mention that the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka are atheists and until recently had contributed the majority of the world's suicide bombers. If he doesn't know that, he hasn't done his research.
b) the conclusion he should reach from the premises he gives is: 'only religion and love for one's family have the power to inspire such atrocities.'
c) he does nothing to justify the word 'only'.
The passage you cite seems to be from page 303 (of the hardback). It is talking about a specific incident – the 7/7 London bombs – used precisely because it is not a typical example of a suicide attack. The point is that the bombers had no expectation of any advantage for their families, or any advancement of their cause. The sole motivation for it – if we take Muslim suicide bombers at their word – is a religiously inspired love of martyrdom for its own sake, in expectation of purely spiritual reward.
Thus:
a) While Dawkins does not explicitly say that the Tamil Tigers are atheist, they are mentioned as a contrast to the London bombers twice (page 303 and page 306). The first contrast is that unlike the London bombers Tamil suicide bombers can expect their families to be admired and supported because of their sacrifice. The second contrast is that the Tamil bombers have extremist motivations based on national/ethnic views, not religious views – it explicitly makes the point that religion is not the only source of extremism (though Dawkins thinks it an especially effective source).
b) If the question was “What can make someone a suicide bomber?” then this is his conclusion, more or less (though he includes love of country or ethnic group as other possible motivators). However that isn’t the question that is answered by “only religion”. That question is “When suicide bombing makes no tactical sense, will ruin your family, outrage the morals of your society, harm your cause, increase the vilification of your community, and gain no advantage for you or anyone you love in this world – what could possibly still make someone sane yearn to martyr themselves in this way?”. The answer, “religion”, is simply correct. The London bombings – the specific case in point – are simply inexplicable outside a religious world-view.
c) The example is specifically chosen as one with no earthly motivation – a Palestinian suicide bombing, for example, would not have serve. Dawkins is not expressing a view on what generally motivates suicidal attacks – and where he deals with the point briefly on page 306, he gives the Japanese kamikazes and Tamil Tigers as non-religiously motivated counterexamples. He is saying that when all earthly motivations are absent, religion can still be a powerful force for such atrocities. You have read him as saying “only religion can motivate someone to be a suicide bomber”. He’s not saying that at all.
quote:
Originally posted by Noiseboy:
Eliab - Dawkins' documentary last year was called Religion - The Root Of All Evil. Does the God Delusion (published a few months later) deviate from that stance?
Yes. But the relevant passage is deeply buried on page 1 of the Preface, so you can be excused for missing it.
(The Root of All Evil? [note the question mark] was not Dawkins’ own title, he disliked it, and does not think that the implicit “yes” would be true).
quote:
Also I am struggling with the idea that if atheism is true (a statement of fact) why science would not lead to it? On what other grounds is it true?
If so, what’s your objection to Dawkins saying it?
He certainly thinks that science removes grounds for religious belief. Indeed, he has said he would have found it hard to be an atheist (and impossible to be an intellectually satisfied atheist) before 1859. And he thinks that science provides in truth the comfort, satisfaction and sense of awe that religion promises. And he thinks that proper scientific scepticism, properly applied to the God hypothesis, will give the answer that it is very unlikely to be true. I am not aware that he ever says that science “necessarily” leads to atheism (which was your point) and he is clearly well aware that in actual fact (though comparatively rarely) a good scientist may be a religious believer.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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moron
Shipmate
# 206
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Posted
My apology if if I've overlooked a link to this interview in this thread but it's worth a read:
quote:
Again, I lob in the words “transcendent” and “numinous”, which I believe sum up what he is trying to describe. God, in other words. “I suspect they don’t mean anything at all,” he says. But being a good scientist, he leaps from the sofa for a dictionary. He reads: “Numinous: divine, spiritual, revealing or indicating the presence of a divinity, awe-inspiring.” A moment’s pause. Then: “I’ll go along with awe-inspiring. Also, aesthetically appealing, uplifting. I’ll go along with aesthetically appealing and uplifting. Those aspects of it, yes. Let’s look for transcendent.”
He finds a definition to do with lying beyond the ordinary range of perception. “That’s probably all OK and I could go along with that. Going beyond the range and grasp of the presently experienced. Maybe transcendent would be a good word to adopt.”
So there we are. Dawkins sums up our conversation: “I don’t think you and I disagree on anything very much but as a colleague of mine said, it’s just that you say it wrong.”
But his crusade will not be stopped, even if it can be proved that he and half the bishops of the Christian Church believe the same thing. “I do think that intelligent, sophisticated theologians are almost totally irrelevant to the phenomenon of religion in the world today. Regrettable as that may be.” Why so? “Because they’re outnumbered by vast hordes of religious idiots.”
Posts: 4236 | From: Bentonville | Registered: May 2001
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Mad Geo
Ship's navel gazer
# 2939
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
And one has to realize that this concern for purely "natural" Zen Buddhism is rather Western anyway. One cannot read Mahayana sutras without encountering a Tathagata whose cosmic deeds make Christ's miracles look like child's play. And the Zen tradition has festivities like O-bon, which is basically the equivalent of having a mass said to get your loved ones out of purgatory. And once one starts talking about the practices of Asian laypeople, rather than monks, one surely finds at least as much superstitious contamination as one may find in Christianity. The sanitization of the traditional Zen Buddhism in the West, which includes the monk-ification of the laity and the re-interpretation of anything that could be deemed "supernatural" as mental metaphor, is quite fascinating. IMHO it remains to be seen whether the shunyata baby has been thrown out with the supernatural bathwater...
This analysis is rubbish sitting on a pile of trash.
"Purely natural zen buddhism is rather western anyway" has to be the worst analysis on a thread of same anyway, including my "Worst of". Way to throw out an entire sect (Zen) with bathwater you pissed in.
Since I can talk about my particular school of zen with some experience, we do not say any kind of mass over anything. We sit facing a wall and count our breaths, and if you can find some pseudotheological babble to work out of that I'll be entertained to point out where your argument is full of crap. I have it on good authority (My Teacher) that I am not an atheist, but neither am I a theist. So if you can find a Mass in all that, than you must be practicing some kind of mass that I doubt catholicism would be happy to find out about.
Whatever sect of Buddhism you were ostensibly practicing was way more "religious" than any Zen I have heard about or experienced, so maybe you should specify the one you know (As I did) and stay away form the ones you clearly don't. Every time you talk about it, you arguments sound ignorant.
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Diax's Rake - "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true"
Posts: 11730 | From: People's Republic of SoCal | Registered: Jun 2002
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Noiseboy
Shipmate
# 11982
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Posted
The trouble with these threads is that they take so long to read and even longer to reply to. Dave Marshall, I am well aware that I am missing some specific replies (and almost certainly you too Elaib and Mad Geo) but time precludes at the moment.
In the five minutes I have, a couple of points that lept out:
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
I actually watched a interview of dawkins yesterday where a student asked him "Do you see a difference between reasoned faith and blind faith"
Hi hillarious answer:
"No". (May have had to be there)
I do not see the distinction either btw. I think that lots of religious people like to delude themselves into thinking that their faith is reasoned, we have certainly seen it here. But that is not possible IMO. At some point, if you drill down into a debate on anything faith-related you will come to something that requires an intuition/gut-feeling/emotion/human-based something intangible that is for all intents "blind". God is a faery/FSM/Pink Unicorn/etc. Full stop. To believe anything that is said about god, you have to leap that there is one at all. Everything that follows is based on that blind leap, and is therefore also blind faith. Anything.
I am not sure I understood what you even meant "theists use terms In a metaphorical sense". After having been thoroughly deeply steeped in a Christian religion, I sometimes don't know where Christians stop metaphor and begin facts. I'm not sure anyone can, including you. Sure you could pick your flavor of Christianity and there would be three other forms that would render it metaphor, or not. Hard to address that.
Well, that certainly answers my question re faith and blind faith! Also, your expansion on it is illuminating. "Blind Faith" means your favourite faeries FSM stuff - believe whatever you like no matter what the evidence. "Faith" means something totally different. I have a very simple picture of reason on the one hand, and truth on the other, with reason always trying to arrive at truth. For all of us (IMH0) faith is what fills the void in between. It may be made up of intution, hunches and guesswork deductions in all sorts of combintations. It may well be full of unknows and questions (especially for the agnostic). This I'm sure is TOO simple a definition, but I have to go to work and time precludes!
There is also the point about metaphor, which I think is very important. An obvious simple example is creation - whether or not you or I believe in the Biblical account, it's very hard to defend its interpretation being literal. It is a myth - a metaphor to make a wider point. But I was more thinking about even wider implications. Dawkins seems to imagine that monotheists imagnine God to be "some sort of chap" (in Terry Eagleton's marvellous phrass) - probably the Simpsonsesque caracature with a white beard sitting on a cloud. Add in his son Jesus literrally sitting at his right hand. I consider myself a theist, but I think there is a 0% chance of the above picture being literally accurate. Pictures of father / son etc are just that - pictures to make anthropomorphic sense of the imponderable. Personally I also think Budhism may better describe things in a more literal sense, though since it too is a metaphor I'm not sure it is a more helpful approach.
Arrrgh, gotta go to work.
But the final main point is the Dawkins quote kindly supplied by 206, which I did find incredibly illuminating. My reading of it is that under all the rhetoric, we are not nearly so far apart as it seems. But Dawkins is very keen on then a) continuing to use terms which he must know are widely understood to mean totally different things and b) making sweeping assumptions about the vast majority of people in the world.
Posts: 512 | From: Tonbridge | Registered: Oct 2006
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Noiseboy:
quote:
Eliab - Dawkins' documentary last year was called Religion - The Root Of All Evil. Does the God Delusion (published a few months later) deviate from that stance? Also I am struggling with the idea that if atheism is true (a statement of fact) why science would not lead to it? On what other grounds is it true?
Forced on him by his editors, apparently.
OK, I concede. I saw a copy of the book going cheap, so I'll spin through it in the next couple of days or so. So far I've had a look at the preface to the paperback edition (which is an extended version of the Times Article in the OP) and the Preface. So far he's complained about religion, among other things, causing the destruction of ancient statues - well, I suppose that mentioning the Bamyan Buddhas by name might have undermined the rhetorical effect. He also complains about the lack of influence that atheists have on US public life despite the fact that there are probably more atheists than Orthodox Jews and goes on to say "Unlike Jews who are the notoriously one of the most effective political lobbies in the United States today atheists and agnostics have zero influence". You know, I'd really rephrase that, Professor, if you are referring to groups like AIPAC. More later as I get further though I cannot forbear to mention the passage I came across as I was flipping through it in a shop. Apparently, bringing one's child up as a Catholic may be more damaging than having your child tampered with by a Catholic priest.
[ 27. May 2007, 14:46: Message edited by: Callan ]
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Yet when pushed not that hard by a journalist, he seems completely open about his belief in what I'd say is the universally defensible reality of God. He just objects to what I guess he might call the sophistry of religion.
This is interesting. Can you elaborate?
If you mean the universally defensible reality of God, I'm not sure I can directly. It may be something you either get or you don't. Dawkins seems to get it, as does Mad Geo, as do many Christians. The problem is we get it through different 'carriers' and are prone to confusing what is the reality with how we appreciate it. We especially seem to confuse the reality with the carrier we first detect it through.
The carrier might be religion, but it might also be art, or science, or philosophy, whatever gives meaning to our life. For me it's a metaphysical theory, a way of imagining how the universe is being created. The reality though is not something in anyone's mind, not an interpretation of history or any religious observance. It's the fact that the universe is. If God is real, space and time are the evidence. If not, there can be no real God, only idols for which empty claims are made.
The universally defensible reality of God is the fact of the universe and what can be shown to follow from that. The sophistry I suggested Dawkins might refer to would be religious claims that God is or requires anything else.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
Thanks Callan, that just makes me want to read the book so much more... ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Actually, I will pick up a copy if I see on for a couple of squid in a charity shop. I could use a laugh.
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Infinite Penguins.
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Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Apparently, bringing one's child up as a Catholic may be more damaging than having your child tampered with by a Catholic priest.
Without wanting to detract from the trauma of physical child abuse, I'd have thought there are enough guilt-ridden Catholics about to suggest he may not be far wrong.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Apparently, bringing one's child up as a Catholic may be more damaging than having your child tampered with by a Catholic priest.
Without wanting to detract from the trauma of physical child abuse, I'd have thought there are enough guilt-ridden Catholics about to suggest he may not be far wrong.
Yes, taking your child to church sure is the same as repeatedly raping them, is it not? So anyone who has ever taken their child to church (that'll be most shipmates with kids then, I assume) might as well have sexually molested their children?
I see. Exaggerate much?
[ 27. May 2007, 15:23: Message edited by: Papio ]
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Infinite Penguins.
My "Readit, Swapit" page
My "LibraryThing" page
Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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Mad Geo
Ship's navel gazer
# 2939
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Noiseboy:
The trouble with these threads is that they take so long to read and even longer to reply to. Dave Marshall, I am well aware that I am missing some specific replies (and almost certainly you too Elaib and Mad Geo) but time precludes at the moment.
I certainly wouldn't know anything about that! ![[Smile]](smile.gif) quote:
In the five minutes I have, a couple of points that lept out:
Well, that certainly answers my question re faith and blind faith!
Also, your expansion on it is illuminating.
Glad to finally be of service. quote:
"Blind Faith" means your favourite faeries FSM stuff - believe whatever you like no matter what the evidence. "Faith" means something totally different.
Not sure I agree, and that comes out of 2x years of trying to tease out the difference myself. I want to emphasize that I do not see "blind faith" as the perjorative that you might. Too me blind faith is a blessing. My mom has blind faith and regularly uses it when she can't explain something using reason. I get that. There's nothing "wrong" there. Becuase IMO, Dawkins perspective is right. All faith is based somewhere on a blind faith. quote:
I have a very simple picture of reason on the one hand, and truth on the other, with reason always trying to arrive at truth. For all of us (IMH0) faith is what fills the void in between. It may be made up of intution, hunches and guesswork deductions in all sorts of combintations. It may well be full of unknows and questions (especially for the agnostic). This I'm sure is TOO simple a definition, but I have to go to work and time precludes!
I think you stated it well. "Faith is what fills the voids." that is not reason-able. A scientist such as Dawkins trys to fill the voids with data and theories and then tries to prove them. They have filled many god-voids over the years and many more will fall in our lifetimes. Some may not, but the scientist should naturally be suspicious of attempts to fill voids with "Here there be dragons". It's just not a reasonable step to take, unless you are religous and look at the void filling as an Art. quote:
There is also the point about metaphor, which I think is very important. An obvious simple example is creation - whether or not you or I believe in the Biblical account, it's very hard to defend its interpretation being literal. It is a myth - a metaphor to make a wider point.
Yes, you and I agree it is a myth. It is unquestionable. Except an insane number of Americans (which Dawkins also is addressing if not in entirity) think, nay, know otherwise!
This shows that while you are personallly taking offense at Dawkins, he may not be really talking to you, although I admit he takes you out with the insane american fundie bathwater. He deals with the wackjobs Christians all the time.
Lastly I like Dawkins look at the bible and interpretations of same and keep seeing myth pop up. Creation is a clear cut example, as is Job, but what about the rest? Virgin births? Walking on water? Parting of Red Sea? Isreal wandering around forever and leaving no tracks at all? Where does "truth" begin and "myth" end. You can give me your opinion, I have mine, but I guarantee for every opinon you have there is someone, probably 10 someones that think your myth is "real" "truth", and would freak out on you and Dawkins at even suggesting it was a myth. I think it is more myth than fact. Thus my opinons on art and it being mostly blind faith. Jesus Existed, wandered around for a while, was tried, and died plus about 4 other facts. Everything else if up for debate.
quote:
But I was more thinking about even wider implications. Dawkins seems to imagine that monotheists imagnine God to be "some sort of chap" (in Terry Eagleton's marvellous phrass) - probably the Simpsonsesque caracature with a white beard sitting on a cloud.
I would wager that most Christians (closer to all than to none) believe that God is a chap. A big chap maybe, an awesome chap, but a chap. We anthropomorphise our cats and dogs for Zeus sake, you actually think we exmpt god? quote:
Add in his son Jesus literrally sitting at his right hand. I consider myself a theist, but I think there is a 0% chance of the above picture being literally accurate. Pictures of father / son etc are just that - pictures to make anthropomorphic sense of the imponderable. Personally I also think Budhism may better describe things in a more literal sense, though since it too is a metaphor I'm not sure it is a more helpful approach.
Zen Buddhism deasl in the here and now. That's very literal. quote:
Arrrgh, gotta go to work.
But the final main point is the Dawkins quote kindly supplied by 206, which I did find incredibly illuminating. My reading of it is that under all the rhetoric, we are not nearly so far apart as it seems. But Dawkins is very keen on then a) continuing to use terms which he must know are widely understood to mean totally different things and b) making sweeping assumptions about the vast majority of people in the world.
Dawkins may be making sweeping generilzaitons, but that doesn't mean he deosn't have a point or three.
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Diax's Rake - "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true"
Posts: 11730 | From: People's Republic of SoCal | Registered: Jun 2002
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Apparently, bringing one's child up as a Catholic may be more damaging than having your child tampered with by a Catholic priest.
Without wanting to detract from the trauma of physical child abuse, I'd have thought there are enough guilt-ridden Catholics about to suggest he may not be far wrong.
Yes, taking your child to church sure is the same as repeatedly raping them, is it not? So anyone who has ever taken their child to church (that'll be most shipmates with kids then, I assume) might as well have sexually molested their children?
I see. Exaggerate much?
I do apologise. I see Dawkins hasn't said that it is the same thing. He has said that rasing your kids to believ in God is worse. ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
I do wonder what people who suffered sexual abuse as children might think about that? (rhetorical question).
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Infinite Penguins.
My "Readit, Swapit" page
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Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
Since I can talk about my particular school of zen with some experience, we do not say any kind of mass over anything. We sit facing a wall and count our breaths, and if you can find some pseudotheological babble to work out of that I'll be entertained to point out where your argument is full of crap.
Read for comprehension. I did not say that you or indeed Japanese Zen Buddhists are saying mass (although you've obviously never experienced a full-blown Zen ritual, oh well...). I was talking about the intent behind the O-Bon festivities. Since your "Zen master" is a Western Catholic priest, it doesn't particularly surprise me that you've never even heard of O-Bon. But you could at least look it up on Wikipedia or something.
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
Whatever sect of Buddhism you were ostensibly practicing was way more "religious" than any Zen I have heard about or experienced, so maybe you should specify the one you know (As I did) and stay away form the ones you clearly don't. Every time you talk about it, you arguments sound ignorant.
I was practicing in an official Australian Zendo of the Sotoshu, the biggest Zen sect in Japan and the world, which has carried on the tradition of Dogen Zenji (and Keizan Zenji) for almost eight hundred years. My former teacher, a Japanese, was trained as monk in Japan at Eheiji, was assistant to and is Dharma heir of the former Abbot of Zuioji and Vice-Abbot of Eheiji, Ikko Narasaki Roshi. (Eheiji is one of the two head temples of Sotoshu, and its abbot is basically the head adminstrator of the entire sect.) My former teacher led a training monastery for foreign (non-Japanese) monks in Shogoji, was Practice Director at Zuigakuin Temple, etc. I think I've had a fairly authentic taste of the original Bendoho (way), Soto style. I was once part of the local Shika Ryo, i.e., I introduced basics of Zen practice to first timers. I did not get enlightened, but I sure have done enough time on a zafu to have an opinion.
Of course, your "Three Jewel" Zen tradition is slightly over 50 years old, and has become quite popular in the West, notably in America, thanks to the popular American teachers Kapleau Roshi and Aitken Roshi. Kapleau Roshi is actually quite good, re-read what he has to say about bompu zazen in his Three Pillars. (I assume you have at least read the most important book of one of the most important figures of your sect, haven't you?)
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Mad Geo
Ship's navel gazer
# 2939
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Posted
My "priest" is also an authorized Zen teacher. I don't have to justify anything to you. But then I am not badmouthing your flavor of zen either.
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Diax's Rake - "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true"
Posts: 11730 | From: People's Republic of SoCal | Registered: Jun 2002
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Yet when pushed not that hard by a journalist, he seems completely open about his belief in what I'd say is the universally defensible reality of God. He just objects to what I guess he might call the sophistry of religion.
This is interesting. Can you elaborate?
If you mean the universally defensible reality of God, I'm not sure I can directly. It may be something you either get or you don't. Dawkins seems to get it, as does Mad Geo, as do many Christians. The problem is we get it through different 'carriers' and are prone to confusing what is the reality with how we appreciate it. We especially seem to confuse the reality with the carrier we first detect it through.
The carrier might be religion, but it might also be art, or science, or philosophy, whatever gives meaning to our life. For me it's a metaphysical theory, a way of imagining how the universe is being created.
I was actually trying to ask for your evidence that Dawkins is open about his belief in a "universally defensible reality of God", though your reply is also interesting.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
I see Dawkins hasn't said that it is the same thing. He has said that rasing your kids to believ in God is worse.
Yeah, but if you read the book you'd know that by God he means his caricature of God. The one that's a dead ringer for the fundamentalist God, and is uncomfortably close to the one that an awful lot of non-fundamentalist Christians appear to believe in.
You think a life-time in fear of eternal damnation because of what and how you were taught from a young age by the Church is not something worth objecting to?
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
My "priest" is also an authorized Zen teacher.
Inka shomei in the Yasutani Roshi line, that is?
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
But then I am not badmouthing your flavor of zen either.
Good to know that 'way more "religious" than any Zen I have heard about or experienced', with which you characterized the Zen I was 'ostensibly practicing', was meant in an entirely neutral fashion. What I said about your sect is true, and the only value judgment I explicitly made was that Kapleau Roshi (RIP) was quite good. Let me ask you again, did you actually ever read anything by either Aitken Roshi or Kapleau Roshi?
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I was actually trying to ask for your evidence that Dawkins is open about his belief in a "universally defensible reality of God", though your reply is also interesting.
I was thinking mainly of the interview that 206 quotes near the top of this page. But it's been there, and I've always thought carefully included, in most over what I've heard and read directly from him (as opposed to filtered through the comments of his detractors).
[ 27. May 2007, 17:03: Message edited by: Dave Marshall ]
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
a) While Dawkins does not explicitly say that the Tamil Tigers are atheist, they are mentioned as a contrast to the London bombers twice (page 303 and page 306).
The first page was the one I was thinking of.
I will grant you this one.
quote:
b) If the question was “What can make someone a suicide bomber?” then this is his conclusion, more or less (though he includes love of country or ethnic group as other possible motivators). However that isn’t the question that is answered by “only religion”. That question is “When suicide bombing makes no tactical sense, will ruin your family, outrage the morals of your society, harm your cause, increase the vilification of your community, and gain no advantage for you or anyone you love in this world – what could possibly still make someone sane yearn to martyr themselves in this way?”. The answer, “religion”, is simply correct. The London bombings – the specific case in point – are simply inexplicable outside a religious world-view.
Yes, but if you analyse that statement logically, what it comes out as is:
'if someone has no other motivation to be a suicide bomber but religion, then the only motivation they have is religion.' And that is a tautology.
It is exactly parallel to the claim that if suicide bombing runs contrary to someone's religion, the moral sense of their society, and ruin your family, then the only possible motivation is some political cause.
If the specific point is that nobody does anything with no real prospects for tactical success except for religious motivations, then that's not true. People vote for the Green Party; they go on protest marches against the Iraq War; they let loose bombs in Spain for Basque independence; they invade Lebanon or Iraq; they trespass onto American airbases to sabotage jets; they go on shooting sprees on American campuses; and so on. With hindsight the London bombings had no tactical success[1]; but given the reaction to the Spanish government to the Madrid bombing it wasn't completely unrealistic to suppose that they might affect UK policy.
Dafyd
[1] Unless you count provoking an overreaction by the UK authorities, further undermining their claims to moral superiority and building up antagonism to the UK authorities among young Muslims - which one might do.
[ 27. May 2007, 17:15: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Mad Geo
Ship's navel gazer
# 2939
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
My "priest" is also an authorized Zen teacher.
Inka shomei in the Yasutani Roshi line, that is?
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
But then I am not badmouthing your flavor of zen either.
Good to know that 'way more "religious" than any Zen I have heard about or experienced', with which you characterized the Zen I was 'ostensibly practicing', was meant in an entirely neutral fashion. What I said about your sect is true, and the only value judgment I explicitly made was that Kapleau Roshi (RIP) was quite good. Let me ask you again, did you actually ever read anything by either Aitken Roshi or Kapleau Roshi?
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
Again, I do not have to answer anything to you. No need. Your posts speak for themselves. What you said about my "sect" was so fallacious I have no further need to address it here. I do not have the bias against your (current) chosen religion that you have disaplyed of mine repeatedly here on the ship. Your ignorance is only exceeded by your arrogance.
Feel free to drop it and ignore any posts of mine here. I will do likewise for yours.
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Diax's Rake - "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true"
Posts: 11730 | From: People's Republic of SoCal | Registered: Jun 2002
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Basket Case
Shipmate
# 1812
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Posted
from Mad Geo:
quote:
The antagonism and offense is completely irrational. On both sides. It comes (IMO) from trying to define in logical terms that which is not.
I agree with you here, though I think Dawkins is a narrow-minded, arrogant academic.
Here's why: When someone believes in God, the God who sent his son to redeem us and show us the way (I think every Christian religion would agree on those tenets) but then
thinks it is "unreasonable" to believe in modern miracles (such as well-documented Fatima),& thus rejects them out of hand, I wonder what they really believe in. I realize it may just be different personality types, but in this case, ISTM that their elevation of their own reason above their own faith might be more of a hindrance than a help to them (IMHO only, and I mean that sincerely and deeply)
Posts: 1157 | From: Pomo (basket) country | Registered: Nov 2001
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J. J. Ramsey
Shipmate
# 1174
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Posted
I have read TGD and am not so impressed with it overall. He gets a lot right but mars his credibility by doing idiotic stuff like arguing against the Trinity with a false statement followed by a statement which is either false or badly written, followed by another false statement bolstered by a fallacious appeal to Thomas Jefferson's authority. I've blogged on this at length, FWIW.
In general, I'd say that Dawkins bears two hallmarks of the ideologue: he demonizes his opposition (e.g. "dyed-in-the-wool faithheads"), and he gets sloppy with his arguments.
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I am a rationalist. Unfortunately, this doesn't actually make me rational.
Posts: 1490 | From: Tallmadge, OH | Registered: Aug 2001
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Mad Geo
Ship's navel gazer
# 2939
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Basket Case:
from Mad Geo:
quote:
The antagonism and offense is completely irrational. On both sides. It comes (IMO) from trying to define in logical terms that which is not.
I agree with you here, though I think Dawkins is a narrow-minded, arrogant academic.
Here's why: When someone believes in God, the God who sent his son to redeem us and show us the way (I think every Christian religion would agree on those tenets) but then
thinks it is "unreasonable" to believe in modern miracles (such as well-documented Fatima),& thus rejects them out of hand, I wonder what they really believe in. I realize it may just be different personality types, but in this case, ISTM that their elevation of their own reason above their own faith might be more of a hindrance than a help to them (IMHO only, and I mean that sincerely and deeply)
I have seen miracles myself. Penn and Teller do them all the time.
One does not elevate reason over faith. Reason is superior to faith as a means to "truth". One requires proof, the other requires leaps. Of course if you were to redo your argument to say "Faith is like art, I prefer them to reason", well then I would not be able to argue with you and might have to agree, in fact. There are times I prefer art to reason, but I try hard (not always succeding) to not delude myslef, I am choosing to elevate art over both.
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Diax's Rake - "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true"
Posts: 11730 | From: People's Republic of SoCal | Registered: Jun 2002
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
You think a life-time in fear of eternal damnation because of what and how you were taught from a young age by the Church is not something worth objecting to?
No. I simply think that trying to portray taking children to church as worse then sexual abuse is idiotic in the utmost extreme.
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Infinite Penguins.
My "Readit, Swapit" page
My "LibraryThing" page
Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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The Atheist
Arrogant Bastard
# 12067
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Apparently, bringing one's child up as a Catholic may be more damaging than having your child tampered with by a Catholic priest.
Without wanting to detract from the trauma of physical child abuse, I'd have thought there are enough guilt-ridden Catholics about to suggest he may not be far wrong.
Yes, taking your child to church sure is the same as repeatedly raping them, is it not? So anyone who has ever taken their child to church (that'll be most shipmates with kids then, I assume) might as well have sexually molested their children?
I see. Exaggerate much?
Now you're on it!
This is where Dawkins really shreds his original spelling and becomes Dorkins. What a load of crap. I would certainly argue that bringing children up to believe that to commit sin is to invite an eternity in hell, or cancer in this life, is akin to child abuse, but those people are - fortunately - still in the severe minority.
There is good evidence for a few repressed Catholics around, but it's a bullshit argument to suggest it's happening nowadays. Catholic schools are a far cry from those of the 1950s and the evidence of current NZ Catholic schools is overwhelmingly positive. (Bugger them!)
I think it's a dishonest argument.
Posts: 2044 | From: Auckland | Registered: Nov 2006
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Atheist:
I would certainly argue that bringing children up to believe that to commit sin is to invite an eternity in hell, or cancer in this life, is akin to child abuse, but those people are - fortunately - still in the severe minority.
This was the kind of thing I was thinking of.
I don't doubt the Church has moved on now. The fact remains though that all the old stuff, the mortal sins, the need to involve the Church in getting them fixed, etc etc, is still in place.
But you're right. It wasn't a fair comparison. Neither I suspect was Callan's original comment without it's context.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
Nobody seems to have a problem with parents teaching their children to look out for cars before crossing a road, or teaching them to obey traffic lights and pay attention to street signs. Because if they do not do that, there's a decent chance that the child will get run over by a car and be maimed or die. This does cause occasional guilt in adults who have just crossed a street in spite of a red light, and surely there are some pathological cases which cannot set a foot out of the house for fear of getting run over. Yet teaching the traffic rules generally is seen as a duty of parents, not as something terrible they do to their children.
Parents teaching children about (mortal) sin are just the same, except they are concerned with the eternal welfare of their children. Unless one can prove that there is no heaven and hell, then that would be like teaching traffic rules while living in the wilderness. But one cannot show that, and hence all this critique really boils down disbelief. It is not freedom if parents tell their children to play on the road however they please. It's gross negligence. Similarly it is not freedom if parents tell their children that sin has no consequence - if judgment, heaven and hell, is reality.
Surely mistakes have been made in the past concerning how to teach God's "traffic rules". An overemphasis on the punitive aspects is not healthy, but I'm not sure that it was Catholics who were most guilty of that. In fact, God's "traffic rules" say that one can get run over by a car any number of times, and always be restored to perfect health again by the Physican, but only for a limited time. Once that time is up, whether one is dead or alive, that's what one is going to be for eternity. The cat has nine lives, but not ten...
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
quote:
But you're right. It wasn't a fair comparison. Neither I suspect was Callan's original comment without it's context.
Ooh, I thought this was a fight to the death between those of us who have read the book and those of us who can't be bothered. Anyway, if you can think of a context that would justify such a remark do let me know. The only one I can think of is that it is a justified criticism. Which you've just conceded isn't the case.
I'm currently enjoying a lamentably bad examination of the Five Ways. This is shaping up to be the worst book I have read since Dembski's "Intelligent Design - A Bridge Between Science And Theology".
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Bonaventura
Wise Drunkard
# 1066
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I'm not sure that one follows from the other. It seems to me that there is one simple question 'Does a "God" exist?' to which there are three possible principle reactions: 'Yes' (theist), refusal of a clear answer (agnostic), and 'No' (atheist). But one reaction is not inherently more open than the other, even the agnostic reaction isn't really more open.
I not sure it is as straightforward as that, since atheism is not a self-contained system it becomes imperative to know which God is being rejected and why. The God some atheists reject, I reject as well. The atheist and theist have to agree on the meaning behind the proposition "God exists", in order to sort out whether the theist is affirming what the atheist is denying. There has to be some sort of conceptual ground-clearing here.
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“I think you are all mistaken in your theological beliefs. The God or Gods of Christianity are not there, whether you call them Father, Son and Holy Spirit or Aunt, Uncle and Holy Cow.” -El Greco
Posts: 473 | From: Et in Arcadia requiesco | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Parents teaching children about (mortal) sin are just the same, except they are concerned with the eternal welfare of their children. Unless one can prove that there is no heaven and hell, then that would be like teaching traffic rules while living in the wilderness. But one cannot show that, and hence all this critique really boils down disbelief. It is not freedom if parents tell their children to play on the road however they please. It's gross negligence. Similarly it is not freedom if parents tell their children that sin has no consequence - if judgment, heaven and hell, is reality.
No, this line of thinking reduces to absurdity. If you only have to show that beliefs are not false, you have no (logical) basis for not teaching your children to bow to the FSM on the way to school out of respect for the spirit of pasta.
Sin, judgement, heaven and hell have no more universally defensible reality than anything else that has no empirical base. A parent who does not at the appropriate stage in the child's development distinguish between what is personal belief and what can (and cannot) be known for sure is the one who IMO (and I think Dawkins') is grossly negligent.
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
I'm currently enjoying a lamentably bad examination of the Five Ways. This is shaping up to be the worst book I have read since Dembski's "Intelligent Design - A Bridge Between Science And Theology".
I don't think anyone has suggested The God Delusion is a literary work of art. The question seems to be whether the book as whole misrepresents religion.
My reading is that from the point of view of a religious outsider, it does not. And expecting Dawkins to write from any other point of view seems unreasonable. Taken like that, whatever the book's literary limitations (and I appreciate you'll be more sensistive to these than me), I suggest it can provide the church with insights it rarely if ever sees, let alone has to consider, in its own internally-generated thinking.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
If you only have to show that beliefs are not false, you have no (logical) basis for not teaching your children to bow to the FSM on the way to school out of respect for the spirit of pasta.
quote:
I don't think anyone has suggested The God Delusion is a literary work of art.
Actually I think we're all willing to concede that it's very well written. In fact, I think our worry is that Dawkins is a rather better writer than he is a logician. Wherever there is a hole in the argument, there comes a patch of fine writing denouncing irrationality and the hole is covered over.
I fail to see why you think Dawkins' strictures against the Flying Spaghetti Monster fail to apply to your belief in the 'universally defensible reality of God'. If, as you say the universally defensible reality of God is only an assumption - and you could equally well assume another way - what makes it any more defensible that the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Nicene Creed? Nothing.
The difference is that as a believer in the Nicene Creed I can be honest about my historical roots, and I can point to areas in which my beliefs have been genuinely fruitful in generating innovations in ethics, philosophical anthropology, and in building the groundwork for the scientific method.
From the point of view of an atheist outsider, your belief really just is as indefensible as the FSM.
Dafyd
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
No, this line of thinking reduces to absurdity. If you only have to show that beliefs are not false, you have no (logical) basis for not teaching your children to bow to the FSM on the way to school out of respect for the spirit of pasta.
I call this absurdity "freedom of religion". I'm not aware of anyone developing the FSM from dimwit mockery to a full-blown religion which includes worship and morals. But if someone does, then neither you nor the state have any right to stop that person from teaching their children to bow to the spirit of pasta. The state has a right to limit religion where it represents a clear and present danger to the state and its governance. The state may have a right to limit the expression of religion in the public sphere, where that disrupts public order - although here the situation is getting far from clear (e.g., does the state have the right to force Muslim girls to attend co-ed sports lessons at school?). Finally, the state may interfere even with family life if the well-being and life of one of its citizens is clearly threatened - but here the danger must be so undeniable that the gross violation of privacy is justifiable (e.g., religious honor killings, refusal of life-saving blood transfusions, etc.). Other than that it's the state's job to protect the freedoms of its citizenry, not to take them away.
It is an obvious right of parents that they can teach their children their point of view of the world, including their religious views. Through public education and mass media the state and private individuals, respectively, have already take over a big chunk of that. To tighten thought control further would make an Orwellian police state inevitable. But in fact it's tactically very stupid of atheists to demand that the state should interfere with religious education at home. Religions like Christianity do not get weakened by persecution, they are never stronger and faster growing than when they are under serious external threat. What weakens Christianity is rather indifferent religious laissez-faire.
If you think children should be raised without religion, then there's a very simple way of achieving that: have children and raise them without religion.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Sin, judgement, heaven and hell have no more universally defensible reality than anything else that has no empirical base. A parent who does not at the appropriate stage in the child's development distinguish between what is personal belief and what can (and cannot) be known for sure is the one who IMO (and I think Dawkins') is grossly negligent.
Dawkins (and perhaps you too?) is lacking a fundamental mental category: believing for sure. It is understandable that with such a mental handicap faith becomes difficult to grasp. It cannot be a requirement for religious parents to privilege their knowledge over their faith, for that would imply a doubt about the certainty of their beliefs which they simply do not have if they have faith. What is a requirement, as correctly worked out after centuries of struggle, is to make a distinction between knowledge and faith concerning what can be expected of other people. I can expect other people to know what I know, or at least to learn what I know once that becomes important, but I cannot expect other people to believe what I believe for sure. This is precisely why there must be freedom of religion. Hence parents are not required to teach their children that some belief is doubtful because it is not knowledge, rather they are required to teach their children that others can disagree with this belief without being insane or deceitful.
Of course, at some point children turn into "other people" as far as these things go. Legally, they do so latest at 18 years of age in most Western countries. Practically, parental control over the point of view of their children usually starts slipping by 12-14 years of age. I would actually welcome a law that says that as far as religion is concerned, full adult rights are attained at the age of 14 years (*). That is, from this age onward parents would not be able to force religious education and worship on their children. (Given the many means of pressure parents still have over 14 year olds, this law may in many cases be difficult to enforce. But at least the legal intent is clear.) But prior to that I think parents have the right to raise their children as they see fit concerning religion.
(*) I think that adulthood is "biologically" supposed to start around that age, and that many problems with teenagers arise because they are artificially kept in childhood. I do not know how to change in general the educational, social and economical constraints that require a prolonged childhood, but I see no good reason for that in religion.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
For the sake of clarification, Religious education is a compulsory part of the curriculum in British schools up to the age of 18 unless the parents, not the children, opt out.
However, RE in Britain is education ABOUT religion, not nurture into it.
Therefore, I don't think people should have any more right to opt out of RE than they do of History, Science etc.
[ 28. May 2007, 13:57: Message edited by: leo ]
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
For the sake of even further clarification, when I wrote of being able to reject further religious education at 14 years of age, I primarily meant RE by the parents at home (or RE through the direct agency of the parents, e.g., through sending their child to Sunday school). As far as RE at public schools is "indoctrination" (for the want of a better word), I would obviously also have the same law apply. Whether RE at public schools in the sense of learning about religion is necessary, and necessary as a separate course from for example history or philosophy, is a different question.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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moron
Shipmate
# 206
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Dawkins (and perhaps you too?) is lacking a fundamental mental category: believing for sure. It is understandable that with such a mental handicap faith becomes difficult to grasp.
I'm not comprehending you: would you explain exactly what 'believing for sure' means, and how its lack is a mental handicap?
Posts: 4236 | From: Bentonville | Registered: May 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
For the sake of even further clarification, when I wrote of being able to reject further religious education at 14 years of age, I primarily meant RE by the parents at home (or RE through the direct agency of the parents, e.g., through sending their child to Sunday school). As far as RE at public schools is "indoctrination" (for the want of a better word), I would obviously also have the same law apply. Whether RE at public schools in the sense of learning about religion is necessary, and necessary as a separate course from for example history or philosophy, is a different question.
RE is necessary in its own right, taught by theology/RS graduates and not subsumed under history - but this will become a tangent.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by 206:
I'm not comprehending you: would you explain exactly what 'believing for sure' means, and how its lack is a mental handicap?
It means assigning certainty to a particular mental concept or mental state by an act of will, in spite of not being able to determine this certainty sufficiently from known data by reason. This certainty is expressed through the concrete thoughts, words, and actions that flow from it - a serene emotional state is however not always implied. The act of will generally comes about through trusting information given by someone else.
For example: Your brother has gone missing for months. A good friend of yours reports that he has seen your brother destitute in Novosibirsk. Your friend is sure, he has never lied to you, and you know that he recently traveled to Siberia, but of course this is not sufficient to determine that your brother is indeed in Novosibirsk. You have very limited funds, so going to Novosibirsk will mean no other rescue mission for the foreseeable future. If you travel to Novosibirsk nevertheless, you demonstrate by your action that through an act of will you have attained faith ("belief for sure") that your brother is in Siberia needing your help, and that you did so on the strength of the word of your friend.
The difference to knowing that your brother is in Novosibirsk is not really clear cut, but most people would agree that if you recognized your brother clearly in a recent TV documentary on beggars in Novosibirsk, then your trip to Siberia would be based on knowledge instead of faith. As it stands however, your trip is not inescapably reasoned for. Given your tight finances, Mr Spock would probably advise to stay home and await further information. However, I'm sure that you feel the strong pull of hope in this case, and also perhaps have a sense that having faith here is more than just not unreasonable, it even seems reasonable in a strange way: "Sometimes one has to take a chance."
And herein lies the mental handicap of those who find faith generally difficult or impossible. Sometimes one has to take a chance and act wholeheartedly as if something were true, or one will be reduced as a human being. Mere ratiocination is not sufficient to deal with life well, in particular where situations become complex and relationships are concerned.
Three final points: First, certain Christian groups tend to make serenity the only hallmark of faith. This is going too far, it turns faith from an objective state entirely into a subjective feeling. If you sit in that airplane to Novosibirsk wrecked with worries and doubts, you still took that airplane. Second, faith is of course not in the least a guarantee of truth. You may arrive in Novosibirsk and find that your brother is not there. Faith can also be foolish, obviously misplaced. If a known conman is trying to sell you tickets to Novosibirsk claiming that your brother may have been seen there by someone, it would be foolish to have faith. Third, clearly none of this demonstrates that one must have faith in God. But I think it does demonstrate that we are not simply a computer evaluating hard evidence, and that it is not actually a humane ideal to resemble one as closely as possible. That I have faith in Christ may turn out to be a mistake in the end, but then I will regret the mistake, not that I dared to have faith.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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moron
Shipmate
# 206
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Posted
quote:
And herein lies the mental handicap of those who find faith generally difficult or impossible. Sometimes one has to take a chance and act wholeheartedly as if something were true, or one will be reduced as a human being.
And somehow Dawkins (and perhaps Dave Marshall) doesn't do this?
Posts: 4236 | From: Bentonville | Registered: May 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by 206:
quote:
And herein lies the mental handicap of those who find faith generally difficult or impossible. Sometimes one has to take a chance and act wholeheartedly as if something were true, or one will be reduced as a human being.
And somehow Dawkins (and perhaps Dave Marshall) doesn't do this?
Dave can answer for himself. I think likely that some people have more "talent for faith" than others, just as with all other human features. And I think it is quite possible that Dawkins is a the extreme "untalented for faith" end of spectrum, it would explain a lot (and excuse him to a large extent). Replace "talented for faith" by "gullible" and "untalented for faith" by "sceptical" to see that it is far from clear where the "optimum" concerning faith is. It seems very unlikely though that Dawkins would lead the life he is leading if he had no faith in anything, he certainly does not appear to be socially dysfunctional enough.
So what to make of his critique of religious faith? Why is it OK for Dawkins to have faith that his wife is not sleeping with other men behind his back, a faith he hopefully has, but it is not OK for me to have faith in God? Dawkins does not have unequivocal empirical data or scientific proof that his wife is always true to him, I assume. Dawkins uses some knowledge, experience and observations about his wife to make sure that his hope for fidelity is not absurd - and then he makes the leap of faith necessary to keep his marriage going, in spite of not being able to determine this strictly by reason. I would claim much the same about my faith in God, though admittedly how I secure my hope against foolishness is more abstract (metaphysics, contemplation, ...).
Is Dawkins thus a hypocrite? Or is he simply too blinkered to see how much he depends on faith himself? Or is he in fact handicapped in the faith department and cannot move his mind to faith in anything but the simplest things? I do not know.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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moron
Shipmate
# 206
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Posted
quote:
Or is he simply too blinkered to see how much he depends on faith himself?
IMO that's as far as you can go.
And on my good days I think we all are equally blinkered.
Posts: 4236 | From: Bentonville | Registered: May 2001
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I fail to see why you think Dawkins' strictures against the Flying Spaghetti Monster fail to apply to your belief in the 'universally defensible reality of God'. If, as you say the universally defensible reality of God is only an assumption - and you could equally well assume another way - what makes it any more defensible that the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Nicene Creed? Nothing.
You confuse a choice of explanation - created or accidental universe, God or no God - with theories about the nature of the creator God if that is our choice. The universal defensible reality of God - the fact of the universe and what can be shown to follow - is the limit of what we can reasonably claim is inferred by choosing the created explanation.
You're right in one respect: there is no difference between the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Nicene Creed in terms of their basis in physical reality.
quote:
as a believer in the Nicene Creed I can be honest about my historical roots, and I can point to areas in which my beliefs have been genuinely fruitful in generating innovations in ethics, philosophical anthropology, and in building the groundwork for the scientific method.
I don't see how believing in the Nicene Creed makes you honest about anything. The evidence for your beliefs being fruitful in the way you suggest is all theory, the evidence circumstantial at best. As a philosopher or an historian you may well be able to construct in your mind a personal map of reality that includes the claims of the Nicene Creed as fact. To adapt your signature, that doesn't make it so.
We have no alternative about created or not: it has to be a faith choice. Describing and acknowledging as such the universally defensible reality of God requires no additional faith, only recognition. Nicene Christianity, well, that requires faith in people, just like the ones who make up the Church today.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I'm not aware of anyone developing the FSM from dimwit mockery to a full-blown religion which includes worship and morals. But if someone does, then neither you nor the state have any right to stop that person from teaching their children to bow to the spirit of pasta.
I totally agree. I echoed your use of 'grossly negligent' for symmetry in my reply, not to suggest any state action. Apologies for missing the context in your post.
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Dawkins (and perhaps you too?) is lacking a fundamental mental category: believing for sure. It is understandable that with such a mental handicap faith becomes difficult to grasp.
No need to be offensive. I could equally suggest that your refusal to acknowledge the artificial nature of your particular believing for sure category indicates some kind of mental deficiency.
The reality is that believing for sure is normally reserved for cases where the evidence has been shown or shown itself to be reliable over time. You make a special case for evidence you receive from the Church because, well, the Church says it's a special case. There's not a shred of anything hard and empirical, but it has to be reliable, the Church knows it's been revealed by God because, er, the Church says so. And no-one can prove it's false. Any more than the Church can prove it's true.
I could go on, but you've chosen to believe the Church. I think history suggests that's not a wise choice. But I won't accuse you of being mentally deficient for making it.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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The Atheist
Arrogant Bastard
# 12067
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Nobody seems to have a problem with parents teaching their children to look out for cars before crossing a road, or teaching them to obey traffic lights and pay attention to street signs. Because if they do not do that, there's a decent chance that the child will get run over by a car and be maimed or die. This does cause occasional guilt in adults who have just crossed a street in spite of a red light, and surely there are some pathological cases which cannot set a foot out of the house for fear of getting run over. Yet teaching the traffic rules generally is seen as a duty of parents, not as something terrible they do to their children.
Parents teaching children about (mortal) sin are just the same, except they are concerned with the eternal welfare of their children. Unless one can prove that there is no heaven and hell, then that would be like teaching traffic rules while living in the wilderness.
Wow. You're a hard case, mate. On one hand, I was blown away by one of your posts the other day, then you come out with this, which is sheer and utter bullshit.
No sane person would argue that there is potential for a child to die on the road. There is no similarity at all. That is a proven and factual situation - child gets hit by Hummer doing 100 km/h = dead kid. If and what happens after death, is at this stage, at the very, very best, unproven.
Even worse, christians could hardly be said to agree on what actually happens after death. From eternal hellfire to universal joy, what do you teach them? God's going to be pissed right off if he's a universalist and you go around teaching your kids that wanking will make you go to hell!
Plus, I have this strange sense of deva vu that you're the bloke who belaboured me with not going to hell because ignorance is allowed. Saulus, I think he was...
There is no reason, scriptural, commonsense or rational, to ram whatever version of "truth" is being rammed. Let 'em be kids.
Posts: 2044 | From: Auckland | Registered: Nov 2006
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
I think IngoB's heart is in the right place with regard to teaching children to live safely. At what age would he accept that children are able to make up their own minds about (a) crossing the road and (b) being a Christian?
Obviously, the risks of jay-walking don't decrease as children get older. But they do learn to make their own risk assessments and act on them. Being careful about crossing roads, drinking alcohol, experimenting with sex and so on will be interpreted in a number of ways - some more or less valid than others.
But how do they learn to make their own judgment about eternal salvation? They will, if you have taught them well in other matters, trust your judgment for some time. But if they want to test it, would that necessarily be an evil thing? If not, ho would they actually do that?
[ 28. May 2007, 22:36: Message edited by: pimple ]
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
Posts: 8018 | From: Wonderland | Registered: Nov 2005
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
We have no alternative about created or not: it has to be a faith choice. Describing and acknowledging as such the universally defensible reality of God requires no additional faith, only recognition.
Dawkins says that there is no such thing as a faith choice: either you stick to the evidence or you go beyond the evidence with faith. And if I had to choose between you and Dawkins, I'd have to choose Dawkins. Because if the choice is as you describe it, the intellectually honest thing is to do without God.
Dafyd
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Dawkins says that there is no such thing as a faith choice: either you stick to the evidence or you go beyond the evidence with faith.
Then in that respect, as far as I can tell without any context, Dawkins, with IngoB, is wrong.
Ingo's 'believing for sure', which seems to be what you're talking about, in a typical faith position (say 'Jesus is God') does not imply some binary split in behaviour between those who believe and those who don't. It's an abstract expression of allegiance some of you like to hang your hats on.
That belief only becomes 'for sure' in the practical decisions you make that to some degree depend on it. With that variable degree of influence comes the impossibility of knowing whether your notional faith position is actually reflected in any particular choice. Or are the visible, measurable things, holding the orthodox line in public or whatever, all that count towards 'for sure'?
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if I had to choose between you and Dawkins, I'd have to choose Dawkins. Because if the choice is as you describe it, the intellectually honest thing is to do without God.
Huh. I'm afraid you're less than convincing as a good judge of what is or is not intellectually honest.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Atheist:
That is a proven and factual situation - child gets hit by Hummer doing 100 km/h = dead kid. If and what happens after death, is at this stage, at the very, very best, unproven.
Actually, it is certain. Just not by criteria which you accept as relevant, which however does not worry me one bit. You still believe that because I'm not stupid, I somehow must inhabit your world view. But I do not, at least anymore. Get over the culture shock already... But perhaps the analogy was not so helpful, because it made you - once more - reduce life to mere evidence. The point was rather about teaching one's children what one thinks is right and good.
Let's use a different analogy to consider what good evidence does. Assume you are the nuclear technician on a US submarine. In a storm your submarine gets smashed to bits on a reef and you, the only survivor, get washed upon the shore of an island where you are saved by a stoneage people. When you come to, to your horror you discover that this tribe is using the nuclear fuel elements from the sub as light and heat source. They absolutely love the stuff, the radioactive glow is in every hut. What are you going to do? You know that by the time they will get symptoms serious enough to convince them to abandon this "gift from the gods", they will already be dying of radiation poisoning. But you have no means of forcing them to accept what you know. Even if they get a headache or a skin lesion or need to throw up, they blame it on bad food or evil spirits. They do not want to believe that it comes from their fantastic new light and heat source. In desperation, you finally fire your signal pistol to demonstrate that you have some knowledge and power they do not have. Indeed, a few then listen to you talking about the rules from the HQ about radiation safety and abandon the radioactive warmth and light and follow you away from the village. But most don't, and eventually perish.
A dozen generations later, you are now a strong believer in the Technician, Son of the HQ. Animals and the elements have wiped out all traces of those who died of radioactivity back then. But some enterprising warriors have gone to the forbidden zone and found the fuel elements, still glowing almost as strong as before. Now they brought them back to their huts, where they are cherished once more for the light and warmth they bring. It's all just like in the story of the Technician, you tell them. Can't they see that it violates the rules of the HQ? But they laugh at you, for what evidence have you got but old stories? You don't even have a signal pistol to impress them. Now you take your son and tell him that this is what the Technician has warned about, and that you must flee the village for the jungle. Clearly, this is a strange form of child abuse, for are you not depriving your child of the light and warmth of the fuel elements, not to speak of the company of the others? And all that because of old stories with not a shred of evidence in sight. Now what?
Evidence is great, if one can get it. But there's no guarantee that in this life, we are given sufficient evidence to make perfectly informed choices about all things that are important. Unfortunately, kids are sponges concerning social behavior, they soak up what's around them. If you go for a strict "hands off" approach, they will source their behavioral norm elsewhere. So if you do believe that sins can harm their eternal destiny, then as a responsible parent you have little choice but telling them in due time. How one should do so is a different question. And I'm fairly certain that I won't be shouting about eternal damnation a lot. Perhaps I will tell a little story about radioactivity when it is time. How well I'll fare with that we will see, but I do feel that it is my duty to try.
quote:
Originally posted by The Atheist:
Even worse, christians could hardly be said to agree on what actually happens after death. From eternal hellfire to universal joy, what do you teach them? God's going to be pissed right off if he's a universalist and you go around teaching your kids that wanking will make you go to hell!
I'm always puzzled by this argument that everything must be wrong because some things are contradicting each other... It's a non sequitur and my experience in science tells me otherwise: most likely then one thing is right, and what contradicts it is wrong. I'm certain God will judge me with justice and mercy, even if I teach falsely about something of such tremendous importance as wanking...
quote:
Originally posted by The Atheist:
Plus, I have this strange sense of deva vu that you're the bloke who belaboured me with not going to hell because ignorance is allowed.
I have no idea whether you'll go to hell or not. I hope not. But I believe that your atheism does not automatically doom you to hell.
quote:
Originally posted by The Atheist:
There is no reason, scriptural, commonsense or rational, to ram whatever version of "truth" is being rammed. Let 'em be kids.
There's no such thing as "just being kids", Monsieur Rousseau. Humans never just are, that's their greatness and their tragedy.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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The Atheist
Arrogant Bastard
# 12067
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Unfortunately, kids are sponges concerning social behavior, they soak up what's around them. If you go for a strict "hands off" approach, they will source their behavioral norm elsewhere.
Well, your analogy's still exactly the same, because you've got a 100% death rate in one instance and a scenario based upon your faith on the other. As a scientist, you should know all about science and metaphysics and why never the twain may meet. I know you're certain of the outcome, but you're only as right as I am - within the confines of our own minds; what we think may influence others, but we can't think for them.
Just regarding the piece I quoted, now you're conflating behaviour with spirituality and the two needn't be linked at all. I'd much rather kids were taught their moralistic viewpoint from a "Do unto others... [before they do you ]" approach, without any recourse to supernatural beings. Far better for kids to have morals because they're right than because a god might get uptight about it.
Posts: 2044 | From: Auckland | Registered: Nov 2006
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Atheist:
Well, your analogy's still exactly the same, because you've got a 100% death rate in one instance and a scenario based upon your faith on the other. As a scientist, you should know all about science and metaphysics and why never the twain may meet.
First, science and metaphysics not only can, but must meet - that's why it's called metaphysics. Second, my belief in heaven and hell is not metaphysical. Metaphysics has some limited overlap with natural theology, but it cannot go that far. Third, I have never seen myself any traffic accident involving a child (lucky me). So the similarity is even stronger: in both cases my teaching is based on theory, not on experience. It is just that one theory has a faith component, the other has not.
quote:
Originally posted by The Atheist:
I know you're certain of the outcome, but you're only as right as I am - within the confines of our own minds; what we think may influence others, but we can't think for them.
No. Either you are right, or I am, or neither of us. But two contradictory statements about the same thing at the same time cannot both be true. Just because I, or you, speak the truth does not necessarily mean that every reasonable listener will agree.
quote:
Originally posted by The Atheist:
I'd much rather kids were taught their moralistic viewpoint from a "Do unto others... [before they do you ]" approach, without any recourse to supernatural beings. Far better for kids to have morals because they're right than because a god might get uptight about it.
You say either/or, I say both/and. Further, there are topics where "Golden Rule" morals just do not say anything, but religious morals do. For example, is IVF moral?
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Then in that respect, as far as I can tell without any context, Dawkins, with IngoB, is wrong.
There's a quotation from Dawkins on the subject earlier in the thread.
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Huh. I'm afraid you're less than convincing as a good judge of what is or is not intellectually honest.
Discussing these things with you would be much more fruitful if you didn't throw in remarks like that from time to time.
Hmm... I think I did use some language about your position (like 'wacky') which I shouldn't have used. Could you consider whether that language is really stronger than the language you regularly feel free to use about creedal Christianity?
Dafyd
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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The Atheist
Arrogant Bastard
# 12067
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
No. Either you are right, or I am, or neither of us. But two contradictory statements about the same thing at the same time cannot both be true. Just because I, or you, speak the truth does not necessarily mean that every reasonable listener will agree.
Yep, that was my point.
quote:
Originally posted by The Atheist:
You say either/or, I say both/and. Further, there are topics where "Golden Rule" morals just do not say anything, but religious morals do. For example, is IVF moral?
Sure it is. The golden rule certainly applies there - science allows childless couples (and women) to have children. People generally want to have children and I wouldn't want to deny someone the opportunity. Why should those couples miss out on all the fun? The dirty nappies, puddles of puke, all-night watches over sick ones, bad school reports & suspensions, fights, head lice... it's only fair that people who would otherwise escape this torture should share it with the rest of us!
Posts: 2044 | From: Auckland | Registered: Nov 2006
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Dinghy Sailor
Ship's Jibsheet
# 8507
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Posted
In the case of IVF, The Atheist, you're only applying the Golden Rule to the adults involved. If you consider the embryos which get destroyed to be humans too, you've got to apply the golden rule to them, and hence not kill them. What is the right course of action now?
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Preach Christ, because this old humanity has used up all hopes and expectations, but in Christ hope lives and remains.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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