What's Wrong With Richard Dawkins?

[CFLarsen]

Like I said, "I guess you were right, Larsen".

Rubbing it in is rather unnecessary at this point.

I thought the "Uh huh. Really?" was sarcastic. My bad.

 

[Lonewulf]

It was. I forgot to edit it out when I discovered I was wrong. My bad.

Either way, I cede the point. Moving on, I'm not sure what you're trying to prove with the "invisible friend" analogy. While having an "invisible friend" might be an important part of child development, I'm not sure if it's something that should be encouraged in adulthood.

 

[Michael C]

From here

Deists pray, but only to express their appreciation to God for his/her/its works. We do not ask God for special privileges or do it out of fear of damnation. Prayer is between the believer and God, and we certainly don't make a show of it on national television. (Didn't Jesus say something about this?)

That article on Deism makes a difference between "secular/atheist Deism" and "classical/theistic Deism". The writer of the article (Lewis Loflin) makes it clear that he is against the "secular/atheist Deism":

Secular Deism is the dictionary definition (written by the Christian majority and their enemies) that says God created the universe, went away, and doesn't care about or interact with Creation. Thus God is in reality dead and we have little more than atheism with a mindless machine maker or as fundamentalists call it the "blind watchmaker."[...]If that's the kind of Deism one wants or to just bash other religions, that is not what I deal with here.

Loflin clearly considers himself nearer to "classical" Deism, and quotes Lord Herbert of Cherbury who described the "Five Articles" of English Deists in 1624:

1. belief in the existence of a single supreme God
2. humanity's duty to revere God
3. linkage of worship with practical morality
4. God will forgive us if we repent and abandon our sins
5. good works will be rewarded (and punishment for evil) both in life and after death.

That looks more like Theism to me.

It seems that deists have a dilemma: if they accept the "bare bones" definition of a creator who makes a universe and just lets things happen, they are indistinguishable from atheists. If, however, the deists start accepting ideas such as those above - that God would actually reward a good deed, or that they might have a "duty" to revere God - they can be classed among the theists.

 

[CFLarsen]

It was. I forgot to edit it out when I discovered I was wrong. My bad.

We're both bad, then.

Either way, I cede the point. Moving on, I'm not sure what you're trying to prove with the "invisible friend" analogy. While having an "invisible friend" might be an important part of child development, I'm not sure if it's something that should be encouraged in adulthood.

I'm not saying it should be encouraged. I'm saying that there is nothing unskeptical about believing in a deist god: There is no claim to test.

 

[Lonewulf]

I'm not saying it should be encouraged. I'm saying that there is nothing unskeptical about believing in a deist god: There is no claim to test.

That doesn't make any sense. While the claim can't be tested, there still is a claim, just as there would be a claim if I said that there was an invisible elf in my back yard.

To believe that this claim is automatically true strikes me as behavior that is not exactly skeptical.

 

[CFLarsen]

It seems that deists have a dilemma: if they accept the "bare bones" definition of a creator who makes a universe and just lets things happen, they are indistinguishable from atheists.

No, because atheists don't say that God created the universe. It may be a fine point, but a point it is.

If, however, the deists start accepting ideas such as those above - that God would actually reward a good deed,

No, because if the reward was something tangible - a new car, job, kid, burger - then he wouldn't be a deist, but a believer of an interventionist god.

If the reward was knowing that you acted the way you imagine your god would approve of, then the concept of an interventionist god would still hold up.

or that they might have a "duty" to revere God - they can be classed among the theists.

No, because there is nothing tangible about merely revering God.

 

[articulett]

If you believe "an immaterial form of consciousness exists or existed"-- that is a claim... it's subject to scrutiny and rightly rejected and mocked. This is true whether it's the invisible pink unicorn, demons, or an imaginary friend you call god. You can keep it from scrutiny by making no verbal claims about it-- but we can still reject the claim as useless or delusional or vague or wrong. Just because you've garbled god, doesn't make it a nonclaim nor a non belief or anythng that a skeptic can't dismiss along with demons and Scientology and psychic powers.

 

[CFLarsen]

That doesn't make any sense. While the claim can't be tested, there still is a claim, just as there would be a claim if I said that there was an invisible elf in my back yard.

Sure you can. You merely said he was invisible, but not corporeal.

Yes, your example is Sagan's Dragon-in-the-garage. But one of Sagan's points (after he points out the moving-of-goal-posts thing) is precisely that if there is nothing to test, what the heck do we do, as skeptics? We can't do anything - except say "We don't know".

However - and this is crucial - what we can't say is "We know there isn't one".

 

[CFLarsen]

If you believe "an immaterial form of consciousness exists or existed"-- that is a claim... it's subject to scrutiny and rightly rejected and mocked. This is true whether it's the invisible pink unicorn, demons, or an imaginary friend you call god. You can keep it from scrutiny by making no verbal claims about it-- but we can still reject the claim as useless or delusional or vague or wrong. Just because you've garbled god, doesn't make it a nonclaim nor a non belief or anythng that a skeptic can't dismiss along with demons and Scientology and psychic powers.

You are not a skeptic: You exclude the possibility of saying "We don't know".

 

[Lonewulf]

Sure you can. You merely said he was invisible, but not corporeal.

Yes, your example is Sagan's Dragon-in-the-garage. But one of Sagan's points (after he points out the moving-of-goal-posts thing) is precisely that if there is nothing to test, what the heck do we do, as skeptics? We can't do anything - except say "We don't know".

However - and this is crucial - what we can't say is "We know there isn't one".

So it's perfectly skeptical to say there is one?

You are not a skeptic: You exclude the possibility of saying "We don't know".

While I'm all impressed that you have the power to say who is and who is not a skeptic, I'll have to agree with Articulett. When there is no evidence for something and it is an unfalsifiable claim, then I might as well reject it instead of saying, "It's perfectly skeptical to believe that that is entirely true". And I would encourage anyone else to do the same.

 

[CFLarsen]

So it's perfectly skeptical to say there is one?

If you aren't making a testable claim. If there isn't a testable claim, we can't do anything about it.

While I'm all impressed that you have the power to say who is and who is not a skeptic, I'll have to agree with Articulett. When there is no evidence for something and it is an unfalsifiable claim, then I might as well reject it instead of saying, "It's perfectly skeptical to believe that that is entirely true". And I would encourage anyone else to do the same.

When do you have to say "We don't know", then? Never?

 

[articulett]

Oh the irony of Claus...
He accuses of me of claiming to determine who is and isn't a "true skeptic" when I've never done so-- and here is doing what he has accused me of! But an opinion is not a fact. And Claus's opinions of me matters even less to me than my opinions of him matter to him.

We need more people like Dawkins to handle the too many people like Claus.

 

[cj.23]

To return to the original topic --

Nothings wrong with Dawkins is there? He is a fine writer, with some interesting ideas, and we share a liking of Jesus...

http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,20,Atheists-for-Jesus,Richard-Dawkins

it's not an unusual Christian response to think Dawkins has much positive and interesting to say- see this Christian website review of The God Delusion --

http://www.ship-of-fools.com/features/2006/dawkins.html

I wrote my second silly sermon actually on how Dawkin's book The Selfish Gene actually was a factor in converting me to Christianity --
I may as well post it, though it's masked as (bad) humour it is deadly serious --

(you can skip this unless you like my bad efforts at humour)

In this, the second of my Sunday sermons, I would like to take a moment to thank you all for the stunned silence which met my first sermon. At least I would like to think it was stunned silence -- I suspect in reality it was either utter indifference, or an unwillingness to sit through a lengthy exposition. With these thoughts in mind I will now ask Mr Grimble on organ to play "Anarchy in the UK", and for us to reflect deeply on the moving sentiments of that 20th century divine, the Rev. J. Rotten.

Thank you, especially to the choristers whose enthusiastic moshing brought a tear to my eye, especially that low aimed kick from Scrubbage minor.Let us proceed.

This evening, as we have all just witnessed, I received a right kick in the balls. And as I reeled around clutching my testes (and let us not forget testament derives from the same root, from the Roman custom of swearing veracity upon the testicles: still I know many of you know this for i have frequently heard you refer to the New Testament as "bollocks", a knowledge fo ancient linguistics I find surprising in this remote village, but which assures me of your intellectual fervour and that my sermonizing has some effect...) Anyway, I was moved to think by Scrubbages attack on my manhood, "how often in life do we need a sharp metaphorical kick in the nads; and how often do we recieve it without asking."

Now it is fashionable these days to decry old fashioned notion of good and evil, and to pretend that evil and sin simply do not exist. How can such nonsense persist in a culture filled with learned scientists, dedicated to truth and rationality? Empirically i can assure you that sin and evil exist - for evil even now dwells within my nads, a nagging ferocious pain, and the look of ferocious malice and delight on Scrubbages face as he kicked me left me no doubt that he has a black sadistic soul, and a sadistic streak which would put the divine Marquis to shame: in short that he is exactly of the normal character of choir boys everywhere. If there is one error popularly ascribed to Rome I can have no understanding of, it is the often claimed propensity of their priests for choir boys. I doubt it can be more than a myth, as would anyone with even passing acquaintance with the breed who sing here.

Now does any here doubt the existence of evil? Scrubbage will deliver empirical evidence to your satisfaction, if you would care to come forward? He has a most excellent right boot? No? Why are my altar calls so unpopular these days? Very well, let us proceeed...

It would be easy for me to administer my wrath upon the unfortunate Scrubbage, were it not that I too was once a boy, and know that the urge to aim a kick a pompous old balding jackass in a cassock in the balls is one not lightly resisted. This is part of that burden of sin we all face -- the urge to do what comes naturally, but what one really should not, for the benefit of others. I don't care much if you want to spend an evening with the entire Welsh Rugby team high on drugs in a San Francisco bathhouse: what you do in the privacy of your own head is none of my business. Despite rumours about me climbing a ladder to stare in to the voluptuous Edna Nibbins bedroom window, I can assure you what you do in your bed rooms is no concern of mine. Looking at the size of most of you reared on a diet of MacDonalds and super-sized choco milkshakes, oozing out of your sunday best, buttons straining against cheap polyester even imagining your sex lives renders me nauseous. I'd prefer to develop a mental lens cap when it comes to your vices - solitary, communal, or with the goat the fetters and the lard.

What bothers me is when you do not act in a spirit of love, charity and forgiveness. Note I say ACT. You can mentally act like a James Bond Villain for all I care, torturing unfortunates, sleeping with a bevy of beautiful women and winning the Church Bingo four weeks running. If however your actions bring misery upon others, then we have a problem. To think about such things - well it's none of my business, and who am I to know? Yet to act with malice, to bring about deliberate evil, that is to engage in sin. And the problem with dwelling on evil thoughts is one tends to get rather caught up in them, like a girl trying to work out where her boyfriend was on tuesday night after the pub, after Chastity Entwhistle gave him a lift home. She thinks and thinks and thinks: Chastity is a slapper, as many here can attest (nods to Chastity), and Brian a Dork - but Fiona's mind dwells upon it till she calls Chastity a slag in public. Oh how easy it is to sin! See, I just did!

Now we often sin quite inadvertently. and cause misery to others. We should be sincerely repentant, and do our best to make amends - Chastity, did i forget to mention the Miss Joyful Prize for Raffia Work you won this has had the five pound prize replaced with a mini-break to Disneyland? - and we should sincerely ask for forgiveness, which looking at the surly pout on Chastity's prize haddock face may be some time in coming. Damn! I did it again! Er, Chastity, see me after the sermon...

So why does evil come, when all we desire is good?

SEX. (well the sex act that led to you...)

Yes, you heard me, it's all down to SEX. And I am deadly serious. For in the act of sexual reproduction, we take on Original Sin, the base mammalian traits and survival characteristics encoded in our Selfish Genes. And let us never forget the stirring final chapter of the Book of our Prof, in which RD tells us a great truth - that we are by nature, naughty, wicked and inclined to act like irritating little *****, like in fact, choir boys. Yet RD reminds us that we have a true Grace, a chance of Redemption, for we alone of the greater primates (excluding possibly choir boys - I understand one once acted altruistically, a little angel in South Park Colorado called Eric Cartman, though others have expressed doubts) are capable of making moral choices, seeing ahead, and acting for the good of others - in short repudiating our selfish genes, and embracing loving kindness through imaginative sympathy with our neighbour.

Miss Jones! Mr Louder! Not that kind of embracing and loving! there is a place for that sort of thing - its the vestry cupboard, through that little door over there! And yes the flying helmet and the wet stick of celery is imaginative, but not that imaginative - I watched 'Allo 'Allo too!

Anyway, lest I drone on till the older members need funerals and someone decides to try and get a discount rate, yes, I can see you yawn. Yes, this is an awful lot like Christianity, and the teachings of Jesus and Paul. Yet if CS Lewis can get a Hollywood blockbuster deal, and so can JRR with his trilogy, well there has to be a place for crypto-Christian messages in todays society. And unlike those gentleman, I'm here and happy to be called a boring old fart and answer back.

Now if we can all sing Hymn no. 23 I fell in Love with a Starship Trooper - I trust you all brought your torches??? - I will just take Chastity outside for some much needed personal catechism.

May Your Mods be WIth You...

cj x

 

[articulett]

I don't think Dawkins or anybody say "evil" and "sin" don't exist-- just that they are man defined things that people don't agree on... same with justice and "god" and so forth. There is no evidence that there is some outside thing declaring something "good" or "bad" like some universal Santa Claus with his invisible eye watching this speck in space. Sure, lots of people think there is... but none of them agree on the basics of who that someone is or what he wants or what is good or bad or right or true--

Yet they are all sure that the one they believe in is.

That's a problem for those of us who don't see evidence that your any religion is more likely to be true than Scientology, rain dancing, or astrology. It's especially hard since believers feel special and extra super righteous for believing whatever it is they've come to "believe in". Their credulity trumps evidence and truth. That's fine if they kept it to themselves and didn't expect us to respect it or defer to it more than the beliefs they find wacky, but they do not.

 

[Mobyseven]

You are not a skeptic: You exclude the possibility of saying "We don't know".

Epistemology. Ontology. Look them up. Learn the difference.

 

[articulett]

Indeed. We don't "know" that Scientology isn't true... nor demons... there's an infinite of things that are unfalsifiable...

We can dismiss such notions until or unless any evidence becomes available suggesting any of them have merit. The same goes for gods. A consistent skeptics can sweep away god notions with the same hand (and for the same reasons) the above stuff can be dismissed. I don't care what claims you make about your supernatural beliefs or magical entities or divine powers--like Dawkins, I find them all delusional. Any evidence why I shouldn't? Even the onces you don't voice claims about-- I find them unworthy of belief for the same reason the stuff I mentioned in my first paragraph is unworthy of belief.

Why has Claus derailed yet another thread with his "deism" and "no true skeptic" argument again. The thread was about Dawkins. Is Claus trying to make himself feel like the uber skeptic because of his "deistic" beliefs whatever the hell that is? If that god isn't a delusion... then why does it matter if others think it is or find the concept useless, incoherent, and apologetic?

 

[DeusPhasmatis]

Some atheists (as far as I can tell, exclusively the weak-atheist category, but I'd need a study to prove it) dislike Dawkins because he rocks the boat. I like Dawkins. But I'm a skip, hop, and a jump from grabbing a pitchfork and overthrowing the Bourgeoisie anyways...

 

[articulett]

Some atheists (as far as I can tell, exclusively the weak-atheist category, but I'd need a study to prove it) dislike Dawkins because he rocks the boat. I like Dawkins. But I'm a skip, hop, and a jump from grabbing a pitchfork and overthrowing the Bourgeoisie anyways...

Yeah... I think they think, "we have to be extra nice and deferent so people won't think we're those mean old atheists." I think the woo and apologists will be looking for reasons to dislike us and make up stuff no matter how nice we are--it makes them feel nicer and more diplomatic to do so, perhaps-- to indulge the fantasy of others.

Dawkins says, "why" must we defer? Why should we encourage magical thinking? What good is this "faith in faith" meme? What good is faith??? Why should what someone believes matter more than what is true? Why must we be extra nice or coddling to a delusion? What purpose does it serve? Why can't we scrutinize, mock, or demand evidence for religious woo? To cover for it just allows the "breathtaking inanity" to spread unchecked --and infect new young trusting minds potentially damaging them so that their reasoning faculties are damaged?

Whose voice needs to be heard more and louder--the truth tellers or more self important blow hards claiming to be "in on" divine truths and ready to find fault in anyone who dares to challenge the BIG LIE-- the notion that there are "divine truths" that someone or other has-- that humans have to believe to be "saved". What primitive nuttery.

If faith is not good, useful, or true-- and people are threatening kids with hell for lack of faith or promising salvation for faith-- isn't the kindest thing to call the lie on what it is? Isn't he doing what RSL is doing for psychic woo? People find Dawkins irksome because they have learned to treat religious woo differently than other woo... and yet there is no good reason to do so. If you don't think Scientology is good, useful, or true and you don't find it harsh to speak out against it-- then you ought to feel the same about all religions-- and if not, you owe it to yourself to explain why.

 

[Lonewulf]

If you aren't making a testable claim. If there isn't a testable claim, we can't do anything about it.

Of course I can't disprove it, but at the same time saying that it DOES exist makes just as much sense as saying for sure it DOESN'T. In fact, with no evidence and no actual way to come to that knowledge, it makes far less sense.

When do you have to say "We don't know", then? Never?

Plenty of times. I'm not saying that we DO know for sure. However, doubt is perfectly skeptical when the claim is outrageous. Outrageous claims require outrageous evidence. That's another thing Sagan was big on. A perfect lack of doubt and a blind acceptance to any claim that can't be tested for or against is antithetic to doubt, and therefore to me, antithetic to skepticism.

The thing you have to learn is that there is a difference between saying "We don't know" and "I don't know, but it's perfectly fine for you to live your life and affect my own life thanks to it".

You can't tell me for sure that there isn't a teapot circling saturn. You can't tell me for sure that there isn't an invisible elf in my backyard. So, according to your arguments here, I can say that, for sure, there IS, they DO exist. The elf in my back yard tells me that the internet poster known as Larsen is a blasphemer and is being invisibly controlled by his arch nemesis, the Invisible Dwarf.

Nothing testable here, so therefore you can't say that I can possibly be wrong. After all, if it's not testable, therefore I must be right.

 

[articulett]

Well... to be fair, Lonewolf... "we don't know" if you could be right.

But, yeah, you could be. Larsen could well be a blasphemer controlled by the Invisible Dwarf.