• Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more

EPIC FAIL: The God Delusion

Why is it so hard to grasp that some people would indeed replace religion with something else?

I mean, what is all this new age garbage we have today? How many cults enlightment groups keep suckering more and more people?

What about the environment? The fact that people actually refer to Al Gore as a prophet speaks in and of itself about it being a replacement for religion.

Not to mention where current religion simply transformed itself. AA isn't "religion", it's a "cure for a disease". Creationisim isn't "religion" it's "science"*.


* I don't think it's humanly possible to put enough quotes on that one.
 
HansMustermann said:
Oh dearie me, please don't tell me you're actually rehashing the fundie argument that we need religion to give the masses morals.

If you just need a justification for why have morals at all, enlightened self-interest already does that better than any religion does.
Click to expand...

Yes, dearie you, I am 'rehashing.'

I'm not sure what world you live in, but in the world I live in - college educated and very smart people commonly use the "I believe in belief" argument ALL the time. Sorry to be the one to break the news to you bud, but the "enlightened self-interest" argument penetrates nothing. It shuts minds down, it does not open them.

The terms 'boring' and 'useless' come to mind when this approach is taken. As I've said before, entrenched idealists do not make useful allies.

I believe in co-existence. I believe in sincerity, respect, and a genuine and an earnest attempt at building bridges. Now, I will admit that I myself participate in ridiculing the ridiculous, but there comes a time when all that should be put aside.

If our intention is to be taken seriously, if we truly want ourselves to be thought of as 'progressive' and 'intellectually aggressive,' then it should behoove us to get creative. Let us use our humanity. Let us use our knowledge. Let us remember our compassion. Then, and only then will be be able to crack a wall here and smash a wall there.
 
SusanB-M1 said:
A few years ago, I joined the British Humanist Association, not because I felt a need to replace a religion - I'd stopped believing long since - but because if change is to be effected, an Association with a substantial number of members is more likely to be able , e.g., to influence Government opinion. This the BHA does.
Click to expand...

A lovely 'cheers' to you, Susan. Keep the love moving. Trust that you have reinforcements coming.

Peace Love
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
One needn't understand science if we present the proper message, science is successful, god beliefs are not.

As long as the skeptic message is about the lack of evidence for gods, theists will continue to believe they are gaining something from their god beliefs that atheists just don't get. But if we shift the message to one of, "You pray. I'll take modern medicine, thank you", or similar messages, I expect progress will be quite a bit faster. It still means decades, maybe centuries or more, but it seems to me that evidence of science's success is the message to promote, not evidence against gods existing.
Click to expand...

This is what I actually said:

"Religion is required if we are to keep the dregs in order. Most people are too stupid to understand science anyway."

 It doesn't take a Nobel Laureate to dissect what is happening here. The reality is, what it is.

Pick your side. I've picked mine. Gimcrack simply will not fly with me, so, be authentic - and please, decide what your feelings are about compassion.


 
Maia said:
[...]

Just to look at it from a pragmatic POV, does it really do any good to put the overwhelming majority of the population on the defensive to the degree that Dawkins did with TGD? Virtually everyone, aside from the rare exceptions, is only going to dig their heels in further. It's all very nice to come up a list of individual people who had their minds changed that way, but I think we're at too much of a turning point right now with public awareness to be satisfied with isolated invidual exceptions to the rule.

[...]

The great majority of Americans consider themselves to be Christians. That's just the reality of the situation. The real question is how these perceptions will be shaped, and how they might be changed. Aggressive confrontations will not work. Everyone has the right to do what they want-- but in reality, some approaches work, and some just don't.

[...]
Click to expand...

Sorry, but.. I detect smelly feces from a male cow here.

Dawkins is little more than a role player. His Oxford microphone serves a purpose. The good scientist is a knife, slashing open puss-infested nonsense with flair. Not everything he claims (as he himself admits), is water tight. The goal is to open conversation.

What he does not bend on though, is nonsense. Truth, no matter what, is the goal.

I am still undecided as to what anyone else's true intentions are. What I can say for myself is that, I give a ◊◊◊◊. I love, I care, and I give a ◊◊◊◊. And I don't write people off based on their current beliefs. A heart is a heart, a mind is a mind, and chance is a chance.
 
cienaños said:
Yes, dearie you, I am 'rehashing.'

I'm not sure what world you live in, but in the world I live in - college educated and very smart people commonly use the "I believe in belief" argument ALL the time. Sorry to be the one to break the news to you bud, but the "enlightened self-interest" argument penetrates nothing. It shuts minds down, it does not open them.

The terms 'boring' and 'useless' come to mind when this approach is taken. As I've said before, entrenched idealists do not make useful allies.

I believe in co-existence. I believe in sincerity, respect, and a genuine and an earnest attempt at building bridges. Now, I will admit that I myself participate in ridiculing the ridiculous, but there comes a time when all that should be put aside.

If our intention is to be taken seriously, if we truly want ourselves to be thought of as 'progressive' and 'intellectually aggressive,' then it should behoove us to get creative. Let us use our humanity. Let us use our knowledge. Let us remember our compassion. Then, and only then will be be able to crack a wall here and smash a wall there.
Click to expand...

So, you'd rather have allies who are on your side only as long as some invisible sky daddy tells them to, but might run off with pencils up the nose and do something counter-productive when someone convinces them that said sky daddy said something else?

Sorry, I'd rather have allies who do stuff because it's the objectively rational thing to do. Just replacing one piece of garbage with another, won't change the fact that "Garbage In, Garbage Out" will still apply to any logic that takes such garbage for a fact. It being a more palatable piece of garbage for your taste doesn't change it.

Plus, I'd first like to see any actual evidence that that's where morals come from, as opposed to, say, these mirror neurons we now know about. Otherwise, solving a problem that may not even exist kinda smacks me as Tooth Fairy Science.

Plus, boring as it may sound to you when formalized, essentially enlightened self-interest is what most members of society apply. They do something for neighbours X, Y and Z in the hope that they'll get something in return when they need it. You don't need any boring formalism to explain to a housewife ideas like "if you're nice to people they might help you move" or "... they might help you find a job for your son" or "if you don't go to the wedding of A's son and B's daughter, nobody will come to your kids' wedding." In fact, you may find that she had those ideas all along, and religion had exactly zero to do with it.

Networking as a way to land a better job, for example, is all but formalized for even the most unenlightened and least philosophical people, for example.

Heck, by now even in games people understand ideas like that if you want 24 people to help you raid for your epic equipment in WoW or EQ2, you have to help them get theirs. Or that if you do antisocial stuff like ninja-looting, you're forfeiting any such help from them in the future. That's the most basic form of enlightened self-interest right there.

But ultimately, even that's basically rationalization. People are nice first and foremost because for some 97% of the population the mirror neurons work as designed. We have that "treat others like you'd want them to treat yourself" built right into the brain's wiring. You actually see what's happening to them partially as if it were happening to you.

You may need some rationalization to explain why you're doing something nice, but you'd likely do it without a rationalization anyway.

Heck, most rules and systems weren't needed to get humans to play nice, they were needed to convince people that sometimes they should go against that instinct and be a-holes. The hard part wasn't to get people to lend a few berries to a neighbour who's starving, but that sometimes the right thing to do is to go kill half the neighbouring tribe. Or that you're actually doing the right thing by sitting and spinning your prayer wheel instead of giving some food to a starving soul, because you'd be interfering with their karma if you did help.
 
"What are you gonna replace it with?"
Click to expand...

Nothing. When you pull a tick off your ankle, do you ask yourself, "What am I going to replace this bloodsucking parasite with?"
 
Marduk said:
Hey wait

did someone mention Hitler
Click to expand...
Yes, Marduk mentioned NAZIS. I merely brought up specific one.

Your continuous accusation of me bringing up Hitler -- both in thread an in PM's, -- gets you nowhere. You derailed the thread, not I.
 
If someone actually needs to replace Religion with something else, that already tells me they are still not prepared to accept reality as it is. In the end, they just want to switch one Wishful-thinking-based-ideology for another and thus they haven't really moved anywhere.
 
caniswalensis said:
There is no doubt that Dr. Dawkins desrerves much respect for his accedemic achievments and scientific works. I would never want to take that away from him.

However, I do find his general tone towards believers to be rude and insulting.

That is why I view the book as a fail. No disrespect to you, Cienaños, but I can not imagine an acceptable replacement for religion. I believe anything that filled that sociological niche would be sufficiently like religion to make it equally undesirable.

The god delusion is a great example of Dr. Dawkins poor behavior towards those that hold religious beliefs. It's very title is a put down. It is an eminently readable book, in which he puts forth many fine arguments. I believe that almost anyone could benefit from reading it, but his insulting tone garauntees right froom the cover that those he wishes to reach the most will see it as a hostile and probably very personal attack. Their backs will be up and they will not be open to his message.

As Cienaños put it, the end result is simply more preaching to the choir.

Regards, Canis
Click to expand...
You're not the only person who feels this way. Theres a famous African American astronomer whose name I forget and I ought to be ashamed of myself who said to Dawkins the very same thing your saying in here. Dawkins is right but he needs to be a bit more polite. I'll post the video if I can find it on youtube. I'm at my company computer which blocks youtube or I'd do it now.
 
Jeremy Hardy, How to have faith
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t0qy9

Available for 6 days, in the UK at least.

paraphrase:

"I would rather listen to a speech by MLK than Dawkins -- a secular zealot who wrote a whole book to explain that god doesn't exist. It should have been easy. Page one: God doesn't exist. Page two, Index: God; non-existence of, see page 1. Page 3 acknowledgemnets: thank god for nothing."
 
FireGarden said:
Jeremy Hardy, How to have faith
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t0qy9

Available for 6 days, in the UK at least.

paraphrase:

"I would rather listen to a speech by MLK than Dawkins -- a secular zealot who wrote a whole book to explain that god doesn't exist. It should have been easy. Page one: God doesn't exist. Page two, Index: God; non-existence of, see page 1. Page 3 acknowledgemnets: thank god for nothing."
Click to expand...

The God Delusion wasn't about the evidence against God per se. It was a book on why the arguments for his existence are so weak.
 
Mark6 said:
Yes, Marduk mentioned NAZIS. I merely brought up specific one.

Your continuous accusation of me bringing up Hitler -- both in thread an in PM's, -- gets you nowhere. You derailed the thread, not I.
Click to expand...

Ok so who was the first person in this thread to mention Hitler Mark ?
I know it wasn't me
also
get a sense of humour would you, my pm to you was totally friendly and sent as humour, as a result of your post I have spent half my posts in this thread denying that I said that Hitler was an atheist at any point and I mentioned Nazis only to illustrate my point that Both leaders of the Allied powers in WW2 used the perception that the Nazis were Godless as a rallying call, which was very relevant to this thread as it answered the OPS question directly, your obsession with Hitler in this thread however I can now see was a deliberate attempt to derail as you are so strenuoulsy denying it by attempting to unfairly pass the buck
:D
Personally I really don't care about Hitler, but I'm getting a bit resentful that you are trying to pass off your love of the man onto me, when it comes to fascist dictators I am much more into Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon said:
A man cannot become an atheist merely by wishing it.
Click to expand...
:p
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

ISF - Join now!

Every member here is approved by hand. No bots, no spam, just people who care about evidence and honest debate.

Membership is free!

Create your free account

Back
Top Bottom