Yes of course. Not if you don't use your credentials to misrepresent what you are promoting. Perhaps you are right about the objectivity, since I also find fault with his meme theory and this was before I read any of his other books. I find Dawkins to be rather simplistic in his conclusions and his approach to science offends my ideas of how scientific reasoning is applied. He seems to me to have applied concepts from the physical sciences to philosophical abstractions without comprehending the ontology of those abstractions; which is probably why in general it is those with philosophical training who find issue with his reasoning. In philosophical constructs and in theological abstractions they could be nothing more than opinions. If you introduce science into this paradigm, then the essential principle in science is the ability to disprove a hypothesis. This is my view of it. To claim otherwise, in whatever context, is a faulty approach and redefines scientific reasoning in a way that is specious to the scientific approach even if it may be right to promote the ideas that he wishes to promote. Sort of like fighting terrorism with terrorism, who has the higher moral ground there? The argument is that religion has no place in science. I claim that neither has atheism. Ok. . Which is why scientific principles cannot be used for theistic or atheistic arguments. Philosophical ones can, of course, because they recognise the framework of argument which is both constructive and productive. Same example of the Old Testament God. Dawkins is attacking a belief system by using a scientific interpretation of the Bible. The Bible is an allegorical text and most if not all Christians recognise it as such. Those who do not suffer either from a lack of religious education or have vested interests in alternative interpretations. By using the literal interpretation he is arguing against a belief which is not prevalent in the majority of Christians and this serves only to alienate them and is ultimately of greater harm since it fogs up the issue from one of education and reasoning abilities to one of theistic vs atheistic arguments. There can in reality be no "strength of arguments" only validity of relative conclusions. For example, a lot of people believe Hinduism to be a polyeisthic religion. This is based on their colorful interpretations of godly attributes and their various representations of personal gods. This is the individual level at which Hiduism is practised. However, all Hindus recognise that their personal gods are interpretations of a single consciousness and so they say Bhagwan (God) when they address this idea of consciousness. Paradoxically, they also say Bhagwan when addressing their personal gods or a saintly person. So if I focus on the individual gods and their representations as a means of claiming that they are polyeisthic and ignore their belief systems entirely am I being honest in my approach or assessment? Dawkins is like the historian who attempts to write the history of a place he will not deign to visit because he does not wish personal experience to obscure his objectivity. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! What does that matter? As you say belief or faith cannot be free from personal bias, so denigrating his view of the Christian representation of God is completely different from denigrating the Christian belief in God. He is using the one to attack the other. This is similar to the current trend of quoting Quranic verses to denigrate terrorists. It serves mainly to alienate the moderates who then refuse to participate in controlling terrorism merely because they see the attacks on their belief system as specious to the fight against terrorism and become more involved in defending themselves from perceived threats to their belief systems rather than defending themselves from terrorists. What this also does is provide justification for those who wish to recruit more terrorists so ultimately the means used to fight a threat becomes its best recruiting tool. This is what I see happening with Dawkins reasoning. He confuses the priorities of the issues so that the real problems are swept aside and meaningless debates become paramount, which cannot reach any reasonable conclusion because the premise of his argument is misleading i.e. Either you think there is a personal God, a superhuman Creator who made the world according to the Book of Genesis, or you are a rational believer in the scientific method. Another example of his specious reasoning: Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop being so damned respectful! In other words he ascribes a religious motivation to an issue that is so contentious and complicated that there can be no unbiased or objective viewpoint put forward without causing emotional repercussions in a wide variety of people. I have read the Old Testament. I consider it an allegorical text that uses parables to drive home certain messages. Dawkins is drawing "sensible" conclusions from a text which has been the target of philosophical debate and which provides a wide range of flexible interpretations of God to a majority of people on this planet. There must be a whole slew of personal explanations of God on the market. There has certainly been no lack of them over the years. But ultimately that is what they are: the view of one person based on his approach to the Bible and his personal views on God as represented there. Considering the wide range of flexibility on both of these, there is no reason to claim his is the only one possible. My issue is not with his being an atheist. My issue is with his claims that his views are representative of theistic beliefs when his arguments show that he has very little knowledge about the issues he waxes on. e.g. Only if he were writing a book about it and claiming to be an authority on the subject. Same as I would for anyone else doing the same on any other subject. His entire premise is a misuse of science. Stephen Jay Gould says it best: "The Darwin bashers and boosters can both be refuted with simple and venerable arguments. To the bashers, I can assert only that Darwinian evolution continues to grow in vibrancy and cogency as the centerpiece of the biological sciences - and, more generally, that no scientific truth can pose any threat to religion rightly conceived as a search for moral order and spiritual meaning." In other words there is no logic in trying to disprove the existence of something for which there is no empirical evidence anyway. One might as well say why does anything exist at all? And try to use science to do it. It is intellectually dissatisfying. Plus statements like this: Well you might want to read more of his stuff to reach that conclusion: He seems to have a very limited view of the world then: You mean he claims his interpretation of the Christian God is the only right one? But a complete waste of funding nevertheless. No my argument is that he has a very selective bias against religion and that distorts his views. Consider this: Has he managed to isolate and study them separately then? Or is he going by generalisations, as usual? Thats why its called faith. It is still his idea of God. I agree. I said rabid anti-theism, not rabid atheism. The two are not the same. Perhaps I simply find his reasoning to be limited and hence specious, is that so hard to believe?Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! One could simply take a picture from outer space. Like I said, the basis of science is the ability to disprove a hypothesis. I have nothing against challenging religious claims. But only if they are within the purview of scientific rationale. Thats funny. Maybe we should ask them about the string theory next.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
the same could be said about atheists. the reason some people might be afraid to challenge their beliefs is because their beliefs make them happy, and if it makes them happy it doesn't matter if something is "more true" than their belief. what is true and what is not is often very subjective. I have a better question for you: why should a claim be immune to religious criticism just because it's scientific? Science is religion (belief) masquerading as science (knowledge). ID just means that we give consciousness a bigger role in the universe. Who knows if mind comes from matter, it could be that the matter is our mind (like in dreams) and some kind of consciousness controls atoms like it controls insects.
James R.: That is indeed a worthwhile question. It depends: Can the majority of Atheists be Atheists and yet have an objective or, at least, well-reasoned and supported notion of ethics and politics? For Atheism in light of Marxist philosophy invariably lief-destroying.
Mr. Dawkins is preaching to a dead horse. Belief is a powerful thing. We are mortal beings sitting on a rock in the coldness of space. What do we know in the grand scheme of things? I say "grand scheme" because everything has a purpose. ie: All the animals on this planet serve a purpose, Our sun has a purpose, ect. What purpose does the Universe serve as a whole? Whatever the Universe is; I'm sure it can't be explained by an atheist.
lol You can't see how these two contradict each other??? A ridiculously vapid stance. At best, define your usage of the term 'purpose'; at worst, you have to explicate a teleological universe. But they would have a significantly better chance than a theist.
samcdkey: I must admit, I'm not a huge fan of memes, either, though I find it difficult to put my finger on why, exactly... Dawkins has never set out to "disprove" God. He knows very well that such a task is impossible. In fact, this is why God is a non-scientific concept, as I'm sure you'll agree. On the other hand, there seems to be very little, if any, objective evidence that god(s) exist, so on scientific grounds there is no good reason to believe in them. Do you agree with that? It is difficult to see how anybody could describe a lack of belief as having a "place" in any field of knowledge. Does my lack of belief that a giant teapot orbits the Sun have a place in science? Surely science is built on positive evidence, not lack of evidence? It is, of course, quite easy to check some claims made by people of faith in a scientific manner. If somebody claims a statue of the Virgin Mary is weeping blood, then I can take a sample of the "blood" and test it in the lab to find whether it is, in fact, blood or not. And that is an unambiguous scientific finding relating to a theistic belief. Dawkins addresses this argument at length in his book, too. Of course the majority of "moderate" Christians today say that some of the bible stories are allegorical, just as you do. But the question then naturally arises: which parts of the bible are we to take as allegorical, and which ones are we to take literally, and who decides? For example, a common argument is that morality is based on the bible. But a brief reading of the old testament has some appalling stories meant to illustrate moral principles - principles that few, if any, modern people agree with these days. People like yourself might say "Well, in the modern world, that morality no longer applies." But why, then, if the bible is the source of morality, do some of its morals apply and others do not? If religious people are picking and choosing from the bible, then wherever they are, in fact, getting their morality, it certainly isn't from the bible. Christianity is based on the bible, is it not? If it is, then surely people who do not follow the bible are not true Christians. Compare Islam. Can people who do not follow the principles outlined in the Qu'ran really be called Muslim? I agree, of course, that there are moderate Muslims and fanatical Muslims, just as there are moderate Christians and fundamentalist Christians. I agree that it is unfair to tarnish moderates by assuming they are the same as fanatics. So does Dawkins. But he also thinks that if there wasn't a religion in the first place, then there could not be any fanatical religious people. When you add in "according to the Book of Genesis", it is true to say that you cannot at the same time subscribe to the scientific theory of evolution and to the literal truth of the bible Creation story. The two are fundamentally incompatible. If you want to water down the Creation story to an allegory, as many moderate Christians do, then you no longer have this particular conflict with science. But then, you're picking and choosing your religious beliefs, too. Isn't it disingenous to claim that religion plays no part in terrorist acts, such as the 9/11 attack, or the recent Sunni/Shiite conflict in Iraq? Religious differences, if nothing else, give people a convenient banner behind which to group. I agree, and Dawkins agrees, that other factors are in play. People tend not to go to war on the basis of religion alone. But the extent and duration of conflicts is probably the worse because of religious splits. Religion is one more excuse for war and terrorism. Do you think all those messages are positive? What do you think about the Old Testament proclamations about homosexuals, for example? Good moral guidance for today's world? Or, are these views one of those that we can choose, for some reason, to disregard in today's world? What about adultery? Death penalty, as prescribed in the Old Testament? Sure, but do you think Palestinian suicide bombers, for example, would be as ubiquitous as they are without their religious beliefs? And yet, virtually every video we see of a suicide bomber's final message mentions "martyrdom" and the paradise the bomber expects after his or her death. Gould's view is commonly referred to by the acronym NOMA, for "non-overlapping magisteria". He asserted that science and religion are completely separate, and science can't deal with any religous claims. Your views seem to be similar, as far as I can tell. Dawkins asks which religious claims are actually exempt from scientific enquiry. For example, does religion have a monopoly on cosmology? Should science stay right away from questions such as how the universe came into existence? If so, why? And what about moral issues? Are you claiming that the only field that should be allowed to make pronouncements on moral issues is religion, and science should just stay out of it? If so, who decides which parts of religious morals should be chosen as paramount? And how do they decide? And what if, by some amazing coincidence, scientific evidence was found that Jesus was, in fact, born of a virgin, just as the bible says? Would religious people then say "Well, we'll ignore that, because science can't tell us anything about religion. They are separate fields." I don't think so. If a self-professed Christian believes that God does not answer prayers, that Jesus performed no miracles, that Jesus did not rise from the dead and that there is no heaven, can he or she really claim to be a Christian at all? Surely there must be some core beliefs in any religion? Dawkins does not set up a rigid interpretation of Christianity, for example, that is unrealistic. He looks at what Christians themselves claim. What do you think he ignores about religion that he should take notice of? I think this fails to distinguish the Jewish religious beliefs from the Jewish cultural identity as a people. Dawkins is respectful of cultural contributions (e.g. art, literature etc.) inspired by religion, but those can arguably be separated from respecting the religion itself. Want specific examples? A few examples of theocracies should be enough to convince anybody that religion does not promote good government in and of itself. Take the Taliban, for example. Take the Sunni/Shia split in Iraq, again. All religions promote faith as a great virtue. None of them want people to question the basics - that god(s) exist, that there is life after death, etc. And if they do question, they are at fault, because they don't have enough faith. People should just accept the teachings of religion without question, right? In his book, Dawkins sets out to disprove several hypotheses, such as: * Religion is the source of morality. * Religion is primarily a positive force in society. * Religion is a consolation. * Religion is the only possible source of inspiration about the "big questions". Perhaps you should read the actual decision before you make flippant comments about it. You might learn something. Read a summary here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District The actual decision can be downloaded as a .pdf file, linked at the bottom of the page I have linked here.
Religion has attempted to challenge scientific claims many times. In every case I can think of, the evidence has come down on the side of science. But maybe you know something I don't. A non-sensicle statement, as far as I can tell. Atheism is not tied to Marxism. You can be atheist but not Marxist. The notions of "atheist politics" or "atheist morality" are odd ones. Atheism isn't a belief system. It doesn't prescribe any particular political or moral outlook. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in gods. Can somebody be atheist and moral? Of course. Can they have a logical, self-consistent moral system? Of course. Even most religious people don't get their moral ideas from their religion. Er... I think he knows people believe things. Some things, at least. The existence of your computer, for a start, shows that we know quite a bit about electricity and how that works. How do you know the sun has a purpose? What makes you so sure? Why don't you read Dawkins' book? Are you afraid?
Because you prefer to think that humans are free agents, rather than simply breeding grounds for memes? The analogy is an interesting one, though. Some of the most successful biological creatures are simple, single-celled organisms or simpler virii... Some of the most successful memes are elementary, black and white ideas. Was it Goebbels who said something to the effect of "keep it simple and repeat it often"?
You two statements appear to contradict each other.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! There are a lot of things beyond the purview of science. Only if you link the two together. Thats not my view of it. I believe science is based on the ability to disprove a hypothesis. If the null hypothesis is false, that is indirect evidence that for now, the theory holds true. Later evidence may cause us to refine or change the theory. Sure. Like I said, I have nothing against the examination of religious claims within the purview of science. Morality is a changing continuum based on changes in society. The way I see it, what is considered right today may be considered wrong tomorrow and this is based on what a majority of people agree is right/wrong. The perception of what iis right and wrong is itself based on needs of the society. e.g. if all the world cheered as the US occupied Iraq, would the Americans still consider it wrong? I'm not sure if you've read the Quran, but the text is very flexible to interpretation (as is obvious from a wide range of scholarly work of the last 1400 years). There are even four schools of legal jurisprudence in Islam (called Madhabs) to cover the wide range of possibilities present. And the ONLY requirement to be a Muslim is belief in God and in Mohammed as a messenger. That sort of gives tremendous leeway to what a Muslim is. And this is where I find fault with him. He's supposed to be a biologist. Is there an absence of fanatics in non-religious societies? Was Hitler religious? Was Stalin? Are the LTTE? I need only subscribe to the creation theory if I take a limited view of the Bible. The Quran does not deal with creation in the same way and I am free to choose what I believe. I believe it is. It is also an effective way to lose sight of the real issues. One tends to forget that Sunnis and Shias are not just two sects in Islam but two clans in the Middle East. People of the same clan happen to share the same religious beliefs. They are not however fighting over their ideological differences. They have had one experience before where they were promised their own countries and duped by those who looked out for their own economic gains. The Sunnis are currently the minority in Iraq. They are also moderate in their beliefs and have a closer relationship to the West than the Shias (who detest the US both for Mossadegh and for Saddam). Not only that historically the Shias have always been suppressed in their own country since even the Ottomans played the same game with them as the West did. The Ottomans also placed Sunnis in administrative positions to rule over the Shias. This time, I presume, the Shias want to make sure they are the rulers of their people. Its a group of people with shared beliefs who want the liberty to administer themselves. Is this religious or political? But by focusing on religion rather than the issues at hand, people like Dawkins do a disservice to humanity. Such people also tend to provide justification for the atrocities (notice how the religious proclamations by clerics always follow the Western media rather than the other way around). That assumption has been amply proven wrong by communist regimes in Russia, China, Vietnam and even by the communist Tigers in Sri Lanka. Absence of a religious ideology does not guarantee absence of clannishness. The observations of primates themselves refutes this. We can, because the agreed upon majority view says so. Does that mean our faith is changed? Do people believe in God more or less depending on how many people they can stone to death in a day or whether they can send at least a few men to death row on a regular basis? Th idea of religious scriptures is to provide a moral framework. If people want to reach the same ends (a stable society) with more benevolent means that is not against religion. I'm not so familiar with the Bible to comment on it, but in the Quran, every time a statement about the extent of compensation for a crime is made it is always accompanied by the statement that to choose forgiveness and patience over retribution is always the best way. So I see the scriptures as providing two extremes. e.g. for thievery one may either cut off the hands or forgive the person entirely. The gray area between the two extremes is tremendously vast. That itself indicates to me that one must use reason when demanding criminal accountability. Depending on the type of society we live in people have different ideas about what constitutes right or wrong. The question now is how much right do we have to enforce our beliefs on anyone else? They run a poor second to the LTTE who are secular in their beliefs and have the same issues regarding land and rights. So yes, I do believe they would. This is what I call ignorance. There are certain sentiments that are automatically expressed in Muslims from the ME which reflect linguistic habits rather than actual sentiments. e.g. frequently while arguing, I've heard people say Allahu Akbar!! If you hear the argument, it may seem odd to you that they would suddenly feel the neccessity to declare the greatness of God in the middle of a curse fest. But that is because they speak like that. You ask anyone a favor and if he says Insha'allah (if God wills) it probably means he has no intention of doing it and God is a convenient prop who maintans the status quo by not offending anyone. To ascribe religious motivations on the basis of general exhortations used by people whose entire language is built around Subhan'allah, Masha'allah, Hamd'lillah, Astagfirullah, ie who use God as an intermediate in every conversational gambit proclaims an ignorance of the people's mindset. Hence my comparison of Dawkins to the historian (of which Mills is an excellent example) Science should do what it does and publish its findings. Anyone who has issues should be invited to study the evidence. Good question. But before chasing after religion, scientists should first examine the ethical connotations of their own work. The ability of a mullah to stir unrest is far far eclipsed by the ability of the scientist to design a weapon. One should first clean house before attempting to save the world. No and why should they. Since the fact that scientists are actually investigating Jesus' birth would indicate that they are working to either prove or disprove a religionist claim. The claim however is still from religion and if science either proves or disproves it, it does not appropriate it. Sure. The only claim to being a theist is belief in God. Whatever structure a person chooses to frame his/her belief is irrelevant. Yes, a belief in God. That sort of takes care of the most important part. Everything else is just a way of expressing or following that belief. I've read some of his stuff. He misrepresents the majority by focusing on the extreme. Poor impression of a scientist if you ask me. I meant he should realise that the negatives he ascribes to religion are a whole lot more involved than he supposes them to be. He ignores history, geography, ethnicity, politics, biology, sociology and focuses on religion to the exclusion of all else. Its really surprising in a man who claims to be rational. So if there is no belief in God, there is still a cultural identity? See, how obvious it is? The Taliban is an offset of a group of like minded fundamentalists given power by their core group the mujahideen. They started with the Muslim brotherhood in Iraq ( a group under Syed Qutb a fervent anti-American) who then took the opportunity to take the training offered by the CIA to fight the communists during the cold war. They turned on the US because they became wise to the war games being played in the Mid-East. In fact, if you read up on it, its mostly ME men who have an education and who venture out of the ME who are becoming terrorists. Is this religion? No actually it is the people who don't study religion who have misconceptions about it, the ones who actually study their religion (and those of others) have no such problems. Well then he should have no trouble at all convincing people to give it all up, should he?Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Sorry about the flippancy. I just think its incredibly funny that a judge with probably no background in science or religion should decide what is science and what is religion. I have an inopportune sense of humor.
samcdkey: I see no contradiction. The normal course in science is not to believe in anything by default. The onus is on the claimant to provide some evidence in favour of the existence of phenomenon X. Science doesn't start from a point of view "Believe everything, until/unless it is proven false." Moreover, your own approach to science, you claim, is that hypotheses need to be in principle falsifiable in order to be scientific. Clearly, an "Einsteinian" God is unfalsifiable, and so is unscientific. On the other hand, a particular God who is supposed to appear by magic at 6 pm every Thursday at my local church is eminently falsifiable, and hence would be amenable to scientific investigation. That's fair enough. Then, since a general God is not disprovable, a general God is non-scientific. Agreed? But then, it follows that there's no scientific reason to believe in God, is there? Then, you would agree, presumably, that religion is not the basis of morality. Is that correct? If so, you agree with Dawkins. What about the five so-called "Pillars of Islam", such as daily prayer, fasting and so on? Are they optional in Islam? I am guessing you take a fairly liberal attitude to Islam compared to many Muslims. I doubt many would agree with you that the Qu'ran is as flexible as you claim. Dawkins does not claim that the only fanatics are religious fanatics. He claims that religion tends to produce, tolerate and reward fanaticism. Dawkins discusses Hitler and Stalin in his book, too. It is arguable whether or not Hitler was religious. I personally think that Hitler used religion as a means of controlling people, just as he used many other beliefs that the German people held. Stalin was clearly not religious. But why is this relevant? Are you claiming that Hitler and Stalin did evil because they were atheists (assuming they were)? It is perhaps worth noting that evil atheists tend not to commit their evil acts in the name of atheism. Evil theists on the other hand... Does the Qu'ran give you absolute freedom to choose what you believe? The way you talk, it sounds like you have a very generalised idea of your religion. What makes Islam right and Christianity wrong, in your view? Do you even think Islam is a "superior" religion to Christianity? After all, if you're really free to interpret Islam however you like, as you claim, then why can't you interpret it to encompass Christian beliefs, say? What makes you so sure that Islam is the One True Religion, and all other religions are wrong? That is interesting in itself, is it not? Why is it, do you think, that the most reliable predictor, by far, of a person's religious beliefs, is the beliefs of his or her parents? It certainly suggests indoctrination to me. Not at all. The fact that not all wars are fought in the name of religion does not at all disprove the fact that some wars are fought in its name. Nor does it address at all the notion that religion tends to escalate the extent and duration of wars. Nobody claimed that it does. But Dawkins shows convincingly that religion does not provide the moral framework you claim it provides. You yourself admit to picking and choosing some parts of your religion to follow, while you ignore or take as "allegories" the inconvenient moral rules your favorite religious text espouses. The bottom line is that your moral outlook does not come from your religion. You just think it does. In fact, you have the moral outlook you have for other reasons, and you pick and choose the parts of your religion which support the way you like to argue moral issues. So, you agree that the penalty for thievery is not specified by your religion. You must decide the appropriate penalty using other means, because your religion is too vague about it. I must say, it seems to me that many Muslims would strongly disagree with your point of view. Their are some who assert that Islam absolutely requires the cutting off of hands for thievery, and that this how justice ought to be administered in such cases. If you live in a society in which most people claim to follow one religion, then everybody should have the same ideas about right and wrong, at least if those ideas really come from the religion. This is yet more evidence in favour of Dawkins' argument, isn't it? So, you don't think Muslim suicide bombers have any religious motivation for their actions, really? It's just a habit? I think you're drawing a very long bow, there. Surely, it takes an immense conviction to something to lay down your life for it. Would suicide bombers really lay down their lives so willingly, as they shout "Allahu Akbar!", if they didn't think it had something to do with their religion? A weapon is a tool, though. People decide whether to use weapons or not. And those decisions, by and large, are not made on the basis of scientific arguments. I don't think you can blame science for the dropping of the atomic bomb. But religion and suicide bombers? Is there not a more direct link there? So Christianity is as good and right as Islam, or Buddhism, or Hinduism or tribal animism? I can only repeat that you ought to read his book. Belief in God is not a necessary prerequisite for culture or society. Do you think it is? Yes, I think it is. Often, it is found that the most intelligent people are also the ones who are most devoutly committed to religious ideas and similar abstractions. This is especially true when intelligent people do not have access to (or choose not to access) a wide range of available information and views, perhaps because they come under the influence of a charismatic leader. Religious cults and sects are notorious for "brainwashing" intelligent people into a single-minded fanaticism, in whose name they can commit all manner of crimes and/or self-destructive acts. You assume people are reasonable and rational. When it comes to religion, that is far from a given. Many religious people will try with all their might to avoid reading his book, in case it damages their faith, while all the time asserting that their faith is steadfastly unshakeable. Many will rail against the book and against Dawkins, much as you have done, without ever actually reading what he has to say. They will make assumptions about what he is arguing, what he knows of religion, and so on, much as you are doing. In short, many religious people will not approach what he has to say with an open mind. But some will. Dawkins expresses his purpose in writing the book as follows: Judges decide questions of fact all the time. To help them, they draw on the testimony of expert witnesses - in this case experts on science and religion. It is part of a judge's job to evaluate evidence for and against a case and come to an informed decision. In laughing at this judge's decision, you simultaneously laugh at all the expert witnesses who fed their expert opinions into the debate. I suppose that you think you would have been better qualified, or something. Who knows?
Then if you think about it one could even say that the Einsteinien concept(or Poppers theory) is unfalsifiable and hence unscientific.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! There are a lot of things that science itself takes on faith simply because there is no way of finding out. One cannot always answer the "whys", usually only the "hows" with science. Only if you believe that the structure of society itself is devoid of religious influence. Some effects are so well entrenched, one may not realise their roots at all. No they are obligatory, but the responsibility to carry them out is individual. In other words, if a person does not pray, fast etc, he is considered a non-practising Muslim, but a Muslim nevertheless. Considering there are two sects and four schools of jurisprudence in Islam with no compulsion as to which one to choose or follow, you might be surprised at the reality of how diverse Muslims are. I am actually pretty much representative of the urban Indian educated Muslim. I tend to believe that people find justification for their actions any which way. If you find a group of people who wish to undertake actions that are inherently wrong they will find a reason for it: they may use ethnicity, nationalism, politics, sentiment, religion any form of rationalisation that gives them validity. Were the KKK religious? What about the CIA? Are they religious? People commit atrocities for several reasons and one cannot exclude religion from human influences. The question is, does the removal of religion lead to a change in human nature? Will people become less desirous of power, control and resource grabbing? Can one crusade in the name of what is not there? Pol Pot arguably destroyed many in order to achieve a communist society. One may term that as an atheist philosophy since it does not permit for the practice of religion. Stalin too justified his gulag as an elimination of the undesirable portion of society in order to achieve perfection. Hitler too considered eugenics to be the future. All these atrocities to achieve a perfect society! One may consider that they are atheists gone wild (especially after reading the posts of some atheists on this forum). But Islam is not a new religion, nor does it claim to be. Muslims believe that all the world's religions started out as monotheistic and were modified into what they are today. You mean why do most people follow the religion of their parents? Primarily because they are too lazy to study their religion and simply preserve the status quo. There are also people who study their religion and decide to stick to it and people who study their religion, decide it does not fulfill their spiritual requirements and either turn atheists or find another religion which does. The very fact that atheists can arise from religious parents and religious children from atheistic parents suggests that for those who choose to think about it, religion is not a matter of indoctrination. But I would think that is true for morals, values and principles as well. One tends not to fix something that ain't broken. One would be hard put to say that with such assurance. The Ottomans and Mongols had no compunction of establishing centuries long rule over Arabia, despite being Muslims. The British, French, Dutch had no compunctions in colonising people for centuries without any religious undertones. Both sought power and economic gain. The so-called secular countries who are coming down so hard on Islamic terrorism are the same ones who have been supplying weapons to them all this time. Dawkins cannot prove that a nonreligious society would have the same moral framework either. Like it or not much of our notions of right and wrong are based on religion. In fact all what we currently call modern morality (which encompasses sexual freedom, abortion, divorce etc) is also leading to a lack of a social framework for the younger generation. As a society we are moving away from the community and towards individualism, with greater social isolation and less accountability. It would be interesting to look 100 years into the future to see the effects of these changes on communal harmony. Its strange how atheists have such rigid ideas about how religion should be followed. I've worked in Saudi Arabia following the same beliefs. They may have disapproved of some of my interpretations but could not find issue when I gave them chapter and verse from the Quran. I would say that education, cultural and family pressures have a greater role to play in religious flexibility. I've met educated Muslims from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and now even the US. Not surprisingly we have a lot in common. Does that mean we are no longer Muslims? Or that education gives us a better understanding of the scriptures? Yes, and that is the right way, is it not? Religion should aid in social intercourse not determine it because then there is no requirement for reason. Quite possibly. You would however find that their social power structure probably depends on the extreme to maintain itself; they probably have differences in their exposure to other societies and in their requirements for social order. If the people themselves are happy with the status quo, should one then enforce one's ideas of morality on such a people? Can one transfer one's ideas of morality onto those who are unfamiliar with it? What do you think? Its a foolish argument. If one lives in a society where most people are democratic does everyone have the same ideas about democracy? Does everyone believe freedom of expression includes the burning of flags? Or support the right to arms? Or consider environmental concerns should override personal comfort? Or desire to legalise drugs? Etc. Its surprising to me how much atheists have in common with religious extremists. I wonder if extreme belief and disbelief are mirror images ideologically. Do they follow a normal distribution, perhaps? When I see two sets of people, in Sri Lanka and Palestine, communist and Muslims, both of whom are suicide bombers; when I look at the statistics of the Lebanese suicide bombers and discover they include communists and Christians, it drives me to look at what's common amongst them,and its not religion. Considering that suicide is absolutely forbidden in Islam? Hmm could it be possible that they would use martyrdom to justify what they are doing? And that this justification would be given them by religious leaders who support their cause? Is there a history of suicide bombers in all practitioners of the religion from all places? A weapon is a tool made specifically for the purpose of killing people. This is akin to the argument used by people who support the right to bear arms. Consider however that if the arms manufacturers were not supplying weapons to the regions where politics, economics and social circumstances have led to war. Would as many people be killed? Could Saddam have gassed a million Kurds without the toxic gas supplied to him by the West? Could Hitler have conducted "experiments" on people without the complicity of the scientists with their interest in eugenics? Could the US have killed over 300,000 Japanese people if not for the atomic bomb? Can one provide the ways and means for destruction and murder and then disclaim all responsibility for it? Sure I believe every religion has something to commend it and everyone has the right to follow whatever they wish. I hold all religions to be one of several paths to God. Ok, but he seems terribly overboard and preachy to me, from past experience. I'm pretty certain that it may work. But man has an abstract inner world as well as a concrete physical one. I've seen that societies with lower religious values tend to have higher drug and alcohol abuse. Not everyone is the same. One tends to find a way to fulfill one's needs, regardless of what one believes. Sometimes its easy to miss the forest for the trees: http://www.amconmag.com/2005_07_18/article.html http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/wash.2006.29.2.117?cookieSet=1 http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/09/06/the_educated_terrorist/ http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i39/39b01001.htm I suggest you have another look at some of the atheists on board here. Hmm is that why its a bestseller? Because most people are not religious? I'm reacting to his interviews and what I've heard him say. Unless he's misrepresenting himself there. No I understand the judicial system (my grandfather was a judge), so I understand the process of course. It was just funny that's all. Perhaps law is the best platform for scientific debates with religion.
I disagree, he makes a lot of sense to a lot of people, and his enthusiasm promotes change Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!.
Yup, you could. edit: The fact that Einstein revolutionalized science doesn't mean that everything he believed in was true.
I like that Sam thinks that by being condescending and using smiley faces and rolley eyes at the end of her nonsensical paragraphs makes her arguments valid. It's quite charming.
ooh is that a strawman? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The assumption being that hands are tools specifically made for the purpose of killing people? So do animals with no hands not kill? PS do you support the right to bear arms (arms=guns, not hands)?
It's as much a strawman as your argument. Since when is eugenics specifically a tool for killing people? Tsunamis kill too, it's a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not for theists.
