51% of the British Population Believes in Creationism - Dawkins Says That They're "Pig-Ignorant"

Einstein was a pantheist. And often made the same arguments that Dawkins makes.

johnfás wrote:

What is interesting about Dawkins is his constant avoidance of issues, whilst at the same time maintaining he examines things in a truly scientific nature. I believe that philosophy is as important as science, not in explaining how it is that an organism evolves but why it is. I have no problem with Richard Dawkins putting forward a different view but what annoys me is his attempts to mask his philosophical approaches as purely scientific in nature. You can see this throughout his books. One simple example is the fact that Dawkins regularly makes reference to Einstein's research but seldom notes that Einstein in fact did report that the integrated complexity of the world led him to believe that there must be an intelligent design (I use those two words independently of the American movement of the same description) behind it. Of course many physicists do not come to the same conclusion as Einstein, but it seems awry on Dawkins part to use Einstein's research on the one hand, yet ignore his conclusions on the other.

Dawkins, as it appears from his writings, is not so much concerned with truth as he is with discrediting ideological opponents by any means. It is for this reason that I say yes there are plenty of people who can construct logical arguments about the existence of God, but I don't believe Dawkins comes near to that category. The God Delusion, it was quite apparent on reading, was not a scholarly work attempting to discover the positive or negative existence of God - it was an evangelical work to spread the author's own convictions. Again, no problem with this but he should at least apply his claim to wholly scientific endeavour to his book as well, or be honest about its more philosophical, and indeed improvable scientific, overtones. The man just needs to be more honest with his audience.

I have to admit I haven't read any of Dawkins work on religion. If there is a short essay or similar that anyone could recommend I would read it: otherwise, I have a stack of stuff that at the moment seems more urgent.

I am basing my view of Dawkin's ideas on religion on one long interview and discussion he took part in on RTE radio. From listening to him, it was evident that he was agnostic (confirmed by other posters here) rather than an atheist. This would make one wonder why he is making such a fuss about religion: it is a matter of uncertainty for him anyway.

The other impression I got was that he had given no scientific or systematic thought to what religion was, how it was developed, and why it is such a strong element of human history and in most societies. He seems to think it is just a matter of a wrong idea, and that if he tells people they are wrong, that will be the end of religion.

As a child I became aware that there were many different religions and types of religion in the world, that were not consistent with each other and that the believers in each faction thought that they were right and all other religions wrong. My conclusion was that there was something socially necessary and useful about religious belief to some societies, but that they couldn't all be right, so in probability they were all wrong. Everything I see and know about religion suggests that it consists of belief systems that provide social and personal structures and supports that have been very valuable to humanity in the past (as well as providing grounds for much death and destruction), but that beliefs of unseen, unseeable/unknowable entities have so foundation in objective reality i.e. do not exist. Belief exists, the thing believed in does not.

Hermes wrote:

Einstein was a pantheist. And often made the same arguments that Dawkins makes.

Einstein had the hair for it, he smoked a pipe and he had the odd useful thought, redeeming factors sadly lacking in your friend Mr. Black.

tonys wrote:

Hermes wrote:

Einstein was a pantheist. And often made the same arguments that Dawkins makes.

Einstein had the hair for it, he smoked a pipe and he had the odd useful thought, redeeming factors sadly lacking in your friend Mr. Black.

Mr. Black ?

tonys wrote:

Hermes wrote:

Einstein was a pantheist. And often made the same arguments that Dawkins makes.

Einstein had the hair for it, he smoked a pipe and he had the odd useful thought, redeeming factors sadly lacking in your friend Mr. Black.

I cannot argue against Einstein's appeal. I am vanquished.

cactus flower wrote:

tonys wrote:

Hermes wrote:

Einstein was a pantheist. And often made the same arguments that Dawkins makes.

Einstein had the hair for it, he smoked a pipe and he had the odd useful thought, redeeming factors sadly lacking in your friend Mr. Black.

Mr. Black ?

Aye, he’s the depressive half of a well known double act along with a Mr. White.
No imagination, not a positive bone in his body, a dullard if ever there was one.

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

tonys wrote:

Hermes wrote:

Einstein was a pantheist. And often made the same arguments that Dawkins makes.

Einstein had the hair for it, he smoked a pipe and he had the odd useful thought, redeeming factors sadly lacking in your friend Mr. Black.

Mr. Black ?

Aye, he’s the depressive half of a well known double act along with a Mr. White.
No imagination, not a positive bone in his body, a dullard if ever there was one.

Thank you tonys. But I thought that Dawkins was a hedonist, is he not ?

cactus flower wrote:

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

tonys wrote:

Hermes wrote:

Einstein was a pantheist. And often made the same arguments that Dawkins makes.

Einstein had the hair for it, he smoked a pipe and he had the odd useful thought, redeeming factors sadly lacking in your friend Mr. Black.

Mr. Black ?

Aye, he’s the depressive half of a well known double act along with a Mr. White.
No imagination, not a positive bone in his body, a dullard if ever there was one.

Thank you tonys. But I thought that Dawkins was a hedonist, is he not ?

I don’t know, but you spark my interest, perhaps all is not yet lost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonism

If I understand rightly, he equates religion with fear and misery and thinks he is liberating people from unwarranted restrictions and ogres.

I notice, off-topic, that Epicurous equated the highest pleasure with a simple, moderate life spent with friends and in philosophical discussion

But I relish a challenge...

johnfás wrote:

... Dawkins has never cited a major religious writer or thinker who agrees with his definition so I don't see how he can claim it as a definition of faith. It is an intentional move on his part to try and link religious faith with intellectual buffoonary. I don't know any intelligent Christians who have this kind of faith nor can it be defended by reference to most of the world's major religions. The definition is constructed according to Dawkin's own philosophical agenda, however legitimate that philosophical point of view may be. Again, I have never met a religious person who feels that Dawkin's prescriptive definition of faith reflects their own understanding of faith or indeed there own faith. A useful definition of faith from a Christian point of view can be seen in that provided by Griffith-Thomas, an Anglican professor who wrote:

Quote :

Faith affects the whole of man's nature. It commences with the conviction of the mind based on adequate evidence; it continues in the confidence of the heart or emotions based on conviction, and it is crowned in the consent of the will, by means of which the conviction and confidence are expressed in conduct.

That's not a definition of anything. If this is how Christians define faith, then I'm not surprised you accuse Dawkins of intentionally avoiding definitions of your faith. For the purposes of comparison, here's my definition of Sadness:

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Sadness affects the whole of man's nature. It commences with the conviction of the mind based on adequate evidence; it continues in the confidence of the heart or emotions based on conviction, and it is crowned in the consent of the will, by means of which the conviction and confidence are expressed in conduct.

Here's my definition of Anger:

Quote :

Anger affects the whole of man's nature. It commences with the conviction of the mind based on adequate evidence; it continues in the confidence of the heart or emotions based on conviction, and it is crowned in the consent of the will, by means of which the conviction and confidence are expressed in conduct.

Meaningless drivel. It seems to me the refutation of the charge of blind faith amounts largely to individuals exclaiming

Quote :

I'm not blind but I have faith. QED

johnfás wrote:

Dawkins simplistic argument recognises only two evidential outcomes, that is zero probability, or 'blind faith' and 100 per cent probability, or belief caused by overwhelming evidence. This is a funny argument given that a whole host of scientific research is based on probability or assumptions on current available evidence. It is strange when you set this against what is most striking about Richard Dawkins - the inevitability of his atheism. This is surely incompatible with his requirement for evidence in his field of science. I once read a book part of whose content concerned Richard Feynman, the Nobel Physics Laureate. He once said, regarding science:

Quote :

scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degree of certainty - some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain

I don't think there is a conflict between Dawkins' position and Feynman's. Dawkins does allow for the possibility (albeit vanishingly tiny) of a God but refutes utterly the organised religions that have sprung up to enslave the minds of millions for thousands of years. Like Hermes, I found that Eagleton piece to be unreadable rubbish, but I did get as far as:

Quote :

Dawkins has an enormous amount in common with Ian Paisley and American TV evangelists. Both parties agree pretty much on what religion is; it’s just that Dawkins rejects it while Oral Roberts and his unctuous tribe grow fat on it.

Personally, I think it is a little dishonest of theists to ridicule Dawkins' allegedly cartoonish understanding of faith while disavowing its identical expression by some of the leading proponents of same. Theists siezing on the literal difference between the words 'atheism' and 'agnosticism' to suggest a dishonesty in Dawkins' avowed atheism is a little lame. The difference between atheism and sceptical agnosticism are irrelevant for the purposes of debunking the Bible, the Quran, the Book of Moroni or whatever you're having yourself.

johnfás wrote:

... How can he deduce such certainty when science is not deductive in its method?

Dawkins deals in probabilities. He reasons that the likelihood of there being an all knowing interventionist God is so vanishingly miniscule as ought to be dismissed. He is almost certainly correct in this. He is certainly doing a better job of demolishing the dogma that sustains dozens of major religious sects than they are doing at demolishing, for example, the theory of evolution by means of natural selection.

cactus flower wrote:

... he has no idea what religion is, or how or why it came about. He seems to think it is an individual error in thinking. The correlation between income and belief shown in the graph linked in the last post would strongly suggest that is is social and historical.

Not true. His work does investigate the evolutionary and anthropological origins of religion. His view is simply that religion is no longer a useful adaptation and we'd all be better off without it. Maybe his error is in thinking he can speed the process along and forgetting how long it's taking homo sapiens to do away entirely with the vestigial tail?

What you, and Dawkins, fail to realise is that "faith" unlike an apple is merely a descriptive term. Dawkins attempts to prescribe his own definition and uses that to beat people who have faith whilst at the same time ignoring that his definition of faith is entirely separate to theirs. A far better example than those which you give above is me calling you a rugby but then at the same time giving an entirely separate definition of the word than anyone who plays rugby would recognise. In fact what you do is play basketball, but nevertheless I will maintain that you are a rugby player.

Hermes wrote:

I've tried to read what Eagleton has had to say on the subject of Dawkins, but I cannot do it. I've tried many times and have never gotten more than half way. I find Eagleton's piece to be a self indulgent piece of pap that not only doesn't deal with a single thing that Dawkins has said, it deals exclusively with promoting an ad hominem without even trying to understand the argument. It comes from seeing himself as an authority, when no such authority exists other than in the imagination. He starts out from the position (the deeply flawed position) that everything he believes is true and that anything that might contradict it, is irrelevant. He is as guilty as he presumes Dawkins to be. But at least Dawkins was humble enough to start out from a position where he might have been proven wrong. Not so with Eagleton.

What little argument Eagleton does presume to comment on could just as well be applied to the God Zeus or the God Baal. In a not so subtle way, Eagleton morphs the creature that he is talking about from being a non denominational entity into the Christian God. Very sloppy, very obvious and not in the least, very arrogant.

At some point in his soliloquy, Eagleton 'argues' that Jesus was murdered and not sacrificed by God. He makes this argument to dispossess Dawkins of his point about the Christian God being bloodthirsty. Not only does Christian dogma and doctrine see the death of Christ as a sacrifice, it was an act of suicide (see, I'm quite willing to go much further than Dawkins ).

The implications of what Dawkins (and many others, lot's of them being more enlightened) has to say are very profound and no amount of singing out loud with one's fingers lodged in one's ears will change that. The argument is not a confined one, not in the least. It goes well beyond scientific rigor and into general and philosophical argument too. The results of which are quite profound, especially for theists. The upshot of which is, that unless a theist accepts that it is blind faith that is the foundation of their belief, then they too are agnostic.

Allow me to demonstrate this with a simple thought experiment:

Imagine a magnificent creature appearing before you. Imagine that this creature said to you that it was the God that you believe in. Only blind faith would allow you to accept this creature as God.

Let's go further. This creature might show you some of its powers. What if it raised the dead? Would you believe then? Could it be Satan? Might it be some super advanced space alien?

What is it that this creature could do, short of zapping your brain into belief mode, that would convince you that it is the entity that you believe in and have worshipped?

Blind faith? Or agnostic?

I don't understand why it's not enough for us to say, 'sure, you don't believe in God and you may be right'. I totally disagree with you about Eagleton who has a pretty formidable intellect. Eagleton has given Dawkins a taste of his own medicine. You have to read his article if you're going to criticise it, surely? Also Eagleton has solid knowledge of theology having studied it as a young man. He is well placed to defend religion and makes a number of valid points about how little Dawkins understands the thing he is criticising - which is of course why Dawkins finds it so incomprehensible.

There are a number of things you're claiming Eagleton is either saying/not saying which ain't so. Eagleton explicitly states that there is a good case to be made for saying that God doesnt exist, eg. In fact he is ambiguous about his own view - I think he stopped practicing himself a good while ago, though he has been writing recently about the worth of religion in a political context. Surely, he's as entitled to be as insistent and forceful about his view as you are about yours! Dawkins has picked a fight with religion, which he is entitled to do of course and the debate is worthwhile if for no other reason than it makes plain to religionists how religion is so poorly practiced and understood. A great deal of rubbish has been promoted in the name of religion and it's the ministers of many different faiths who have been mostly responsible for it. Most believers reject that sort of religion too. And it's also true that a lot of it has been promoted/manipulated for political rather than true spiritual purposes. It has earned itself a well deserved bad name in many ways.

Critically, though, the same thing is true of anything that people are involved in. In the end H, you guys just don't 'get' the heart of religion/faith and the more we try to explain it to you the crosser you all become. At the end of it all, there is nothing self-evidently true about either position. Dawkins has in the end merely constructed his own, aggressive dogma out of his rejection of certain religious attitudes.

The thought experiment you offer is unanswerable because it is just a parody of the entity people think of as God. If I thought God was something as stupid as that, I wouldn't believe in it either. For many of us it goes way beyond anything like that. Proof of God is irrelevant to faith. That's the sort of statement that material rationalists get apoplectic about and I totally understand why, from their perspective. It requires a leap of faith to be able to understand it, paradoxically. It's not a question of having to see in order to believe but of believing in order to be able to see. Unless you are prepared to grapple with that idea in a neutral way, you're not going to understand what it is really all about.

johnfás wrote:

What you, and Dawkins, fail to realise is that "faith" unlike an apple is merely a descriptive term. Dawkins attempts to prescribe his own definition and uses that to beat people who have faith whilst at the same time ignoring that his definition of faith is entirely separate to theirs. A far better example than those which you give above is me calling you a rugby but then at the same time giving an entirely separate definition of the word than anyone who plays rugby would recognise. In fact what you do is play basketball, but nevertheless I will maintain that you are a rugby player.

OK fair enough. I don't want to be glibly literal, but 'faith' is a noun and you ought to be able to produce a definition that a reasonably bright 10 year old can grasp. If not, then we shouldn't be wasting our time filling poor 10 year old heads with such philosophy. The likes of Paisley have a very clear idea of what they mean, which I will render as

Quote :

There was this man nailed to a tree and if you don't do as he says he will come and get you.

It's not hard to dismiss that view as ridiculous fantasy. It is admittedly a lot harder to put a nail in something like

Quote :

Faith affects the whole of man's nature. It commences with the conviction of the mind based on adequate evidence; it continues in the confidence of the heart or emotions based on conviction, and it is crowned in the consent of the will, by means of which the conviction and confidence are expressed in conduct

but I would argue that is because the 'definition' is so vague and ambiguous rather than because of any inherent undeniable truth contained therein.

The point about God not being Santy for grown ups is well made, but flawed nonetheless. Some people have come to a belief in God in adulthood but that does not render any more respectable or rational such awakenings than those who come to realise that Xenu is the ruler of the Galactic Confederacy. By all means, explore these awakenings to their fullest, but don't attempt to convince the rest of us that they have any more 'meaning' or 'truth' than Lord of the Rings. Which is not to say they are entirely devoid of such, just that whatever meaning or truth they reveal is entirely a product of man.

I would argue that those who come to such awakenings do so only in the context of a massive supporting architecture supplied by those convinced (brainwashed) from childhood. Those who come to similar awakenings regarding non-established 'faiths' are generally considered nuts.

If God was not Santy for grown ups, imo people would have done away with the idea of him long ago.

So, does this mean I have to read a whole book by Dawkins or is there a handy potted version that would do him justice?

Aragon wrote:

I don't understand why it's not enough for us to say, 'sure, you don't believe in God and you may be right'. I totally disagree with you about Eagleton who has a pretty formidable intellect. Eagleton has given Dawkins a taste of his own medicine. You have to read his article if you're going to criticise it, surely? Also Eagleton has solid knowledge of theology having studied it as a young man. He is well placed to defend religion and makes a number of valid points about how little Dawkins understands the thing he is criticising - which is of course why Dawkins finds it so incomprehensible.

I'm not claiming that Eagleton doesn't have a formidable intellect, he may well have. I'm claiming that he's been very dishonest in what he's written. From what I've read of it anyway. He hasn't addressed any claim made by Dawkins and refuted it. Rather he has come at it and pointed, in very vague terms, and then simply dismissed it as being wrong. Eagleton may well have a solid knowledge and training of theology, but that doesn't even begin to qualify him in the argument he's dismissing out of hand. Theology as its starting point accepts the existence of the divine and moves on from there. I've a pretty decent grasp of theology and can argue most experts in the field around in circles, due to the self evident limitations in the discipline. Dawkins himself is no slouch with regard to theology, but that's hardly the point. The point is that before theology even begins to be pertinent, there are major stumbling blocks to the validity of any assertion that there is a God. It is these arguments that Eagleton has glibly avoided and glossed over as if they had no importance.

Quote :

There are a number of things you're claiming Eagleton is either saying/not saying which ain't so. Eagleton explicitly states that there is a good case to be made for saying that God doesnt exist, eg. In fact he is ambiguous about his own view - I think he stopped practicing himself a good while ago, though he has been writing recently about the worth of religion in a political context. Surely, he's as entitled to be as insistent and forceful about his view as you are about yours! Dawkins has picked a fight with religion, which he is entitled to do of course and the debate is worthwhile if for no other reason than it makes plain to religionists how religion is so poorly practiced and understood. A great deal of rubbish has been promoted in the name of religion and it's the ministers of many different faiths who have been mostly responsible for it. Most believers reject that sort of religion too. And it's also true that a lot of it has been promoted/manipulated for political rather than true spiritual purposes. It has earned itself a well deserved bad name in many ways.

I don't agree. I'm going to quote a paragraph from Eagleton's piece and attempt to show the dishonesty I speak of:

Eagleton wrote:

Dawkins holds that the existence or non-existence of God is a scientific hypothesis which is open to rational demonstration. Christianity teaches that to claim that there is a God must be reasonable, but that this is not at all the same thing as faith. Believing in God, whatever Dawkins might think, is not like concluding that aliens or the tooth fairy exist. God is not a celestial super-object or divine UFO, about whose existence we must remain agnostic until all the evidence is in. Theologians do not believe that he is either inside or outside the universe, as Dawkins thinks they do. His transcendence and invisibility are part of what he is, which is not the case with the Loch Ness monster. This is not to say that religious people believe in a black hole, because they also consider that God has revealed himself: not, as Dawkins thinks, in the guise of a cosmic manufacturer even smarter than Dawkins himself (the New Testament has next to nothing to say about God as Creator), but for Christians at least, in the form of a reviled and murdered political criminal. The Jews of the so-called Old Testament had faith in God, but this does not mean that after debating the matter at a number of international conferences they decided to endorse the scientific hypothesis that there existed a supreme architect of the universe – even though, as Genesis reveals, they were of this opinion. They had faith in God in the sense that I have faith in you. They may well have been mistaken in their view; but they were not mistaken because their scientific hypothesis was unsound.

Eagleton starts out here by posing the claim that Dawkins is arguing that God is a hypothetical that is open to rational demonstration. Firstly, Dawkins argues that God is a hypothetical that isn't open to rational demonstration. This might be a simple error on Eagleton's part and in the big scheme of things is somewhat unimportant. However, in order to refute the argument that he hasn't even started to capture in its totality, he immediately moves the goalposts. He tells us what God is not, rather than tell us what he is. When one is trying to prove the feasibility of a non described and more importantly a non defined entity, one is off to a flying start if one can avoid the defining terms. Dawkins has dealt with this type of dishonest obfuscation many times. I'll have a go, and I'll stick to theological argument to make my point.

Eagleton claims that Christianity teaches that belief in God is reasonable but that this is not the same as faith. And therein lay the seeds of destruction to the half baked point that Eagleton is assuming to make. He's basically arguing that it is not necessary to derive faith from reason. Aquinas is the chap who dealt with the limitations that logic imposes upon the divine. Aquinas' argument can be summed up by saying that God can do anything that it is logically possible to do. This was in answer to the quandry: "Can God create a rock so heavy that he himself cannot lift it." Therefore, even according to possibly the most respected theologian of all time, God is limited by the possible and by simple logic. Now we have Eagleton attempting assert that believers in God are not limited by the logically possible, in other words that they are more powerful than God. That's not very bright is it? All assertions of man are open to rational discussion and examination, even and including love (I note that in the next paragraph, Eagleton meanders into this old sausage too and uses it to further his display of ignorance or dishonesty on the subject).

Okay, Eagleton aside. I'd never criticise anyone for being passionate in their arguments. Truth be told, I'd be suspicious if it were otherwise. And I know that you're the same. Eagleton has the passion, but he has no argument. He's merely attempting to punish Dawkins. I must say that I don't think Dawkins felt the slap. I most certainly didn't.

Aragon wrote:

Critically, though, the same thing is true of anything that people are involved in. In the end H, you guys just don't 'get' the heart of religion/faith and the more we try to explain it to you the crosser you all become. At the end of it all, there is nothing self-evidently true about either position. Dawkins has in the end merely constructed his own, aggressive dogma out of his rejection of certain religious attitudes.

Ah come on now Aragon, you're as old a hand at this as I am. You're telling me that I don't understand something because I don't understand it, because I won't understand it. There is nothing whatsoever dogmatic about the findings of Dawkins, or more correctly, the finding of atheists in general. All assertions are open to falsifiability and all assertions are set down in non evasive terms. Self evidence doesn't really come into the argument, at least from the atheist perspective. If all were self evident, there'd be no need for debate or explanations. I'd never get cross at anyone trying to explain something to me. Frustrated maybe, at times, but never cross. You know me from my time on Indy. True, I savaged trolls without a shred of mercy and offered them no patience whatsoever. But it wasn't the same with those who didn't understand me or indeed with those who genuinely disagreed with me. We disagree on some stuff (religion being an example) but it hasn't stopped me from seeking your counsel and it wouldn't stop me from doing so in the future. In regard to any religion or philosophy, there is a certain point of argument that cannot be enlightened upon, the singularity, and it is at this point that one becomes a follower or one rejects it. Sympathetic resonation. I get that. But this in no way impedes the discussion or the relevance of such a discussion, about the existence or non existence of divinity. Nor does it impede such an examination of faith. But we're very far from bumping into such a singularity at this point and I argue, respectfully, that the likes of Eagleton prevent us from even approaching it.

Aragon wrote:

The thought experiment you offer is unanswerable because it is just a parody of the entity people think of as God. If I thought God was something as stupid as that, I wouldn't believe in it either. For many of us it goes way beyond anything like that. Proof of God is irrelevant to faith. That's the sort of statement that material rationalists get apoplectic about and I totally understand why, from their perspective. It requires a leap of faith to be able to understand it, aradoxically. It's not a question of having to see in order to believe but of believing in order to be able to see. Unless you are prepared to grapple with that idea in a neutral way, you're not going to understand what it is really all about.

Neutral? That's way too close to the word "balanced." One cannot be a neutral in such a venture. One can be open-minded though but that's hardly the same. My thought experiment did not focus on describing God at all. Rather it looked at our own limitations. Indeed there are many instances in the bible where similar things happen. Moses and the burning bush for example. Surely, Moses' acceptance that this was the God of Israel was a leap of faith. It could easilly have been some other ancient God capitalising on the popularity of the Jewish God. I'm not trying to be asinine or childish here, I'm genuinely trying to make a point. But you've made it for me with your 'leap of faith' point. This leap is a leap into darkness (not metaphorically ). That's the blind faith I speak of and it's nothing to be ashamed of or defensive about. Trust by its very nature takes an element of blind faith. But we must agree that the result of this trust, or indeed the commencement of it are open to rational examination. We cannot learn or progress otherwise. It is this blind faith, that theists, like Eagleton wish to do away with. Dawkins and other atheists, like myself insist that it cannot be swept under the carpet. There are a lot of theists out there who wish their entity to be a scientifically viable creature. This imo is a rejection of their own faith. And the fact that Dawkins will savage them for it shouldn't be used to suggest that he's wrong, dishonest or that he doesn't understand. That's the problem, he does understand.

I'd recommend 'The Selfish Gene'. It is a modern classic and in no way 'evangelical' or preachy like 'The God Delusion', though it is not primarily concerned with the topic at hand. 'A Devil's Chaplain' is probably your best bet - it's a collection of essays and articles, so you can dip in and out at your convenience.

coc wrote:

I'd recommend 'The Selfish Gene'. It is a modern classic and in no way 'evangelical' or preachy like 'The God Delusion', though it is not primarily concerned with the topic at hand. 'A Devil's Chaplain' is probably your best bet - it's a collection of essays and articles, so you can dip in and out at your convenience.

for balance (and a good laugh), can I recommend the Screwtape Letters?? The selfish gene, blind watchmaker etc are all good; Dawkins is at his best when he sticks to evolutionary theory.

Atheism is a faith, just like all the others.

Dawkins is getting as rabid as some of the US preachers and Muslim fundies he interviewed on his TV programmes. He gave the Bishop of Oxford no time at all, and cut him off when he looked about to say something intelligent....as an ex-atheist, I think he could have made the atheism argument much more subtly. I mean, it was ridiculous, he tried to blame the Holocaust and Hitler's hatred of Jews, on Christianity, when many of Hitler's "cabinet" were into astrologers and dabbled in Satanism. Finally, Hitler abused DARWIN's theories, not Christ's to argue that the Jews were "untermenschen" and therefore that they should be subject to "the final solution". The flawed theory of eugenics was a sorry offshoot of evolutionary theory, not Christianity (or any other religion). Dawkins claim that religion was the cause of the biggest massacres of human history is also just plain wrong. Stalin and Mao claimed to be atheists. if he had said "ideology", he would have been closer. But not all beliefs relate to religion or the supernatural.

Disclaimer: I don't blame Darwin for Hitler, nor do I blame Marx or Engels for Stalin and Mao.

expat girl wrote:

Atheism is a faith, just like all the others.

I'm an atheist, and I partially endorse that message.

Hermes - we are going around in circles a bit. As I said before, within the parameters of the discussion as you define them, your arguments all make perfect sense to me - give or take a few points. I can't persuade you that the debate is wider than you believe it is. For all I know you may be right, but you don't persuade me you are for now. The problem I have with this exchange is that you have a view of faith very much at odds with what many people who practice it believe it is - we're not talking about the same thing and so you're shooting at something other than what I'm talking about. It's impossible to persuade you of this so I'm going to leave it at that. I certainly don't want to get into trying to convert anyone to my point of view . Besides I have a very unorthodox sort of faith anyway - an anarchist's faith in some ways - a bowdlerisation of about 20 different things and some other stuff of my own tacked on - but centred around a very loose almost humanist quakerism. At the same time, I feel fully entitled to participate in any kind of faith service whose central creed is a message of peace and love - which most are.

ibis wrote:

expat girl wrote:

Atheism is a faith, just like all the others.

I'm an atheist, and I partially endorse that message.

Boo! Join Catholicism where you get money, fun and salvation!

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

ibis wrote:

expat girl wrote:

Atheism is a faith, just like all the others.

I'm an atheist, and I partially endorse that message.

Boo! Join Catholicism where you get money, fun and salvation!

I'm always up for someone trying to convert me. I have to warn you, though, I'm an extremely tough nut.

ibis wrote:

expat girl wrote:

Atheism is a faith, just like all the others.

I'm an atheist, and I partially endorse that message.

I don't understand that.

Atheism is a disbeleif in god. A - Theo. God NOT. So to call Atheism a faith is surely a piece of paper stuck in a printer.

dISBELIEF CANNOT EVER BE A BELIEF. wHICH IS WHAT A FAITH IS.

OOps sorry, me CAPS lock went on there.

Atheism is not a faith. Calling it a faith is rubbish.

ibis wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

ibis wrote:

expat girl wrote:

Atheism is a faith, just like all the others.

I'm an atheist, and I partially endorse that message.

Boo! Join Catholicism where you get money, fun and salvation!

I'm always up for someone trying to convert me. I have to warn you, though, I'm an extremely tough nut.

First Communion and Confirmation immediately sets you up for €3000 which is a nice wedge in this recessionary and post-liquidity times.

I also find the splendour of the Easter season to be a good bit of fun. The passion plays are interesting, the darkness of the Church on Easter Saturday captivating and the whole story of our salvation through Jesus Christ's sacrifice uplifting. As well as that, musical compositions like Gloria and Hallelujah are wonderful.

Finally, there is the salvation. If you sign up now you're putting down a nice deposit on life in the New Jerusalem. Think of Pascal's Wager, it's a sure-fire guarantee!

Yeah well, where is Pascal now?