bokonon
Illuminator
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2007
- Messages
- 4,438
For those outside of Los Angeles who have likely never heard of Dennis Prager, he is an author and the host of a syndicated AM talk radio show. In my opinion he is intelligent and reasonable, though often wrong. Unlike many who operate on America's airwaves, he doesn't attempt to shout down his opponents.
A self-proclaimed Christian on this forum has argued that Richard Dawkins is afraid to subject his ideas to Dennis Prager's searing on-air criticism. I think it's more likely that Dawkins is simply too busy with other activities. Prager has reportedly debated Dawkins in absentia anyway, so I thought it might be fun to do the same: search Prager's website for mentions of Dawkins, and offer my own commentary here. If anyone else is similarly inclined, please feel free to jump in.
The first hit I got was this one, in which Dawkins' name appears only incidentally. But I don't make the rules -- I make the rules, then slavishly follow them. And so it begins.
The article presents a "gotcha" question with which Prager enjoys confronting atheists: "If you were in an American city that you were not familiar with, alone, late at night, and you couldn't find your car, in a bad neighborhood, and you saw 10 men walking toward you, would you or would you not be relieved to know that they had just attended a Bible class?"
The purpose of the question is to force those who argue that religion is irrelevant to moral behavior to confront the fact that they would be relieved, thereby demonstrating that, hoho, religion is not so irrelevant after all, is it?
Of course, anyone who is willing to give this hypothetical a moment's thought immediately realizes that it is an example of the fallacy of the false cause. Prager wants you to conclude that it's the Bible and all the morality which it presumably imparts that is the key to your relief, when in fact what the men have been studying is almost irrelevant. The mere fact that they are coming from a study group -- an intellectual, secular pursuit -- would occasion relief in most people.
Since he's been posing this question for almost 20 years, he's heard this objection many times:
First of all, I question the truth of this assertion. In the real world, in bad parts of our cities, you're unlikely to encounter ten men who just finished studying the Bible late at night. The scenario is completely fictitious to begin with, so by what logic do we accept that these imaginary men could reasonably have been discussing Ecclesiastes, while rejecting as outlandish the notion that they could just as easily have been meeting with a credit counselor or learning computer skills?
Second, Prager's rebuttal misses the point -- regardless of whether they're "more likely" to be studying the Bible or something else in that setting, our relief is derived entirely from the fact that they're coming from a study group, not from the putative morality of the subject matter being studied.
Third, suppose the ten men were coming from a Bible study group which had been organized by the Aryan Brotherhood:
How relieved would you be then, Mr. Prager?
A self-proclaimed Christian on this forum has argued that Richard Dawkins is afraid to subject his ideas to Dennis Prager's searing on-air criticism. I think it's more likely that Dawkins is simply too busy with other activities. Prager has reportedly debated Dawkins in absentia anyway, so I thought it might be fun to do the same: search Prager's website for mentions of Dawkins, and offer my own commentary here. If anyone else is similarly inclined, please feel free to jump in.
The first hit I got was this one, in which Dawkins' name appears only incidentally. But I don't make the rules -- I make the rules, then slavishly follow them. And so it begins.
The article presents a "gotcha" question with which Prager enjoys confronting atheists: "If you were in an American city that you were not familiar with, alone, late at night, and you couldn't find your car, in a bad neighborhood, and you saw 10 men walking toward you, would you or would you not be relieved to know that they had just attended a Bible class?"
The purpose of the question is to force those who argue that religion is irrelevant to moral behavior to confront the fact that they would be relieved, thereby demonstrating that, hoho, religion is not so irrelevant after all, is it?
Of course, anyone who is willing to give this hypothetical a moment's thought immediately realizes that it is an example of the fallacy of the false cause. Prager wants you to conclude that it's the Bible and all the morality which it presumably imparts that is the key to your relief, when in fact what the men have been studying is almost irrelevant. The mere fact that they are coming from a study group -- an intellectual, secular pursuit -- would occasion relief in most people.
Since he's been posing this question for almost 20 years, he's heard this objection many times:
First of all, I question the truth of this assertion. In the real world, in bad parts of our cities, you're unlikely to encounter ten men who just finished studying the Bible late at night. The scenario is completely fictitious to begin with, so by what logic do we accept that these imaginary men could reasonably have been discussing Ecclesiastes, while rejecting as outlandish the notion that they could just as easily have been meeting with a credit counselor or learning computer skills?
Second, Prager's rebuttal misses the point -- regardless of whether they're "more likely" to be studying the Bible or something else in that setting, our relief is derived entirely from the fact that they're coming from a study group, not from the putative morality of the subject matter being studied.
Third, suppose the ten men were coming from a Bible study group which had been organized by the Aryan Brotherhood:
How relieved would you be then, Mr. Prager?
