Now talking as one that has been an atheist since I can remember.
Sorry, but to me that is so funny and so sad. Why would one with all that is know today and seeing that the bible has so many holes and doesn't really show any so-called god with morals, turn blindly away from knowledge, unless they themselves couldn’t handle the truth.
I don't understand. I was explicitly trying to make the point that I was NOT saying "I was an atheist but I got better" (a ludicrous position in terms of argument) How you quoted me in this post makes it look like that was exactly what I was saying...
As to not being able to handle the truth, I suspect I have a rather less clear cut view of what "the truth" means, and where truth resides than you Paul. Still, no harm there - we just differ in our understandings of how things work, and I see some relevance to the Biblical depictions of reality (there are a number, often contradictory) -- you don't - but this is not th thred for that.
I still so no reason why Dawkins should have to offer a universal panacea or a systematic programme to replace theisms - it's not strictly speaking necessary. I quite like
The God Delusion, though I have argued long and about parts of it.
If you where a atheist, it was not for the right reasons and now that you say aren't, as far as I'm concerned it is not for the right reasons.
I was just a natural atheist, in that religion struck me as a child as rather silly --
http://beyondyourken.com/phoenix/Pages/5341-1.html - describes my unbringing. I remained an atheist, and became a better read, rather more rational one until much later in my life. I formulkated my reasons latr as follows --
"OK, arguments for atheism number 2.
Number 1, without any question is the
problem of Evil : particularly natural evil - disease, mental illness, death, famine, volcanoes, earthquakes, etc, etc I don't think that really needs saying.
A few more arguments for atheism - they are not much cop but obvious I'm not an atheist, but these are ones i had to overcome in my journey to theism...
So
number 2:
False Nature/Culture divide. Theism postulates generally that human beings matter. Do ants matter? Daisies? Fleas? Bacterium? What is the line at which one decides something matters to God? We have defined ourselves and our creations as something other than natural, but to me New York City is as natural as an ant hill, for we are part of nature, and the false division leads to a bizarrely arrogant view of the world. What makes hairless apes special? Why should my demise on a universal scale matter more than a grain of sugar dissolving in my tea? Do sugarcubes have an afterlife? Like Feurbach, I think man looked to the heavens and wrote himself thereupon.
Number 3:
function. If any theistic scheme is on the money, then we might expect those who pursue it to be more successful, just as modern medicine is more successful than say folk charms. So one might expect a true religion to win through utility, and the improved lives, morals and self evident success of its adherents lives. The fact that this does not seem to occur in many cases might be an argument that God was not there; of course one can find many cases where it might be said to apply. Nonetheless, many theologies have been tried, and if a deity existed some might therefore be presumed to be more useful than others, and therefore have gained pre-eminence from utility, just as technology and science are now ubiquitous. the fact there appear to be few successful theologies may imply that the deity does not exist?
Number 4: Atheism. If a deity exist one assume she wants us to have a purpose, or direction. Most people at some point struggle to find meaning or contentedness in an apparently senseless universe. So why would a deity obscure her existence, allowing this to occur? In what sense is Free Will rendered negligible by God revealing herself? Why not reveal herself, and allow humans free agency to accept or deny her? Why allow for atheism, which appear unjust, a form of entrapment?
Number 5: Redundancy - why do we need to believe in a deity when other explanatory mechanisms appear to provide us with all the explanation we need, if we assume a primarily pointless universe, in which the only meanings are those we impose? If there is no deity, why not set about building our own if we need one, rather than believing in one that does not exist? If a deity is not actually required to understand the world, why do we postulate one? What evidence is there?"
Whether those are good reasons or not, they were those I offerred. BUt every atheist has their own reasons for disbelieving, jut as every believer in whatever religion has their personal reasons. I fear we have straye from RD's book here
Anyway Paul, interesting to chat
cj x
