Richard dawkins and the slayers of god

[Aquagem]

I'll be back on later to try to catch up with all of this...

 

Hey, Irish -- Here's the perfect place to continue our conversation on the struggle between science and religion! This topic is the central one in my studious little mind, and I've got some interesting resources to help frame the question as we all search for an answer - neuroscience; mri scans of meditating mystics; spatial reasoning abilities; the biology of belief; metaphor formation; and on and on. Let the games begin!

[Freethinker]

Wow, some interesting comments so far. Unfortunately they ALL expose a specific highly biased POV. The very one I am always out to correct. And this may be a particularly good place to push that along.

 

Notice the very subject topic"richard dawkins and the slayers of god". Can't even get past the title line. We start off with ad hominem attacks. No one bothers to ask, how can we slay something that doesn't even exist in the first place? No, we are introduced to a group of people who's goal is to KILL something. Something others claim to respect above everything else. What horrible people are we going to talk about? How dare they!

 

This is the a priori accepted stance we are to take. That god DOES exist and blind faith acceptance IS a GOOD thing. This has nothing to do with how many peole or what percentage f the population accepts this.

 

Remember when the question was "Should we give blacks the right to vote?" The question was NOT what it SHOULD have been, "Why don't they already have it?", but it was based on a prejudicial approach of there being some blanket acceptance that has to be disproved first. Now the US is asking the same question about Gay marriage. And the structure of the question is coming with the same bias from the same source, Christians, believers.

a while ago i happen to see a program about mr. dawkins in which he was using the example of a bottom dwelling fish to show how the universe is not the result of design and a moment of absurdity hit me when the camera closed in on a young boy in the audience. here is a man demonstrating to children why there is no god.

WOW! What a HORRIBLE thing! A picture of a boy getting a factual education from an established and credentialed authority on the subject in an interesting thought provoking manner. I can see why you reacted so negatively! No bias or prejudice there!

 

Now that perhaps we can begin to understand the biases exposed at this point, and Mom, I do not mean to single you out. It is the norm and I have brought it up here before. It often is the cause of my being considered and even called at times, a grumpy old man or such. Because I take offense at the obvious prejudicial assumptions believer so typically utilize and when I point it out they get angry. And that I dare to question all the arbitrary and unsupportable claims. "Black" used to be an insult. "Gay" sometimes still is. And "Atheist"!

 

So let's look, based on this framing, at some of the other comments.

i believe human awareness and the resulting fear of cessation is not intentional and can be detrimental to the ability of the average brain to function neccesitating belief in an afterlife where the conscious mind remains intact.

OK, while I strongly disagree (and intend to expose), it is just a simple statement of personal belief. As such a good starting point. But not a single response so far has challenged you to show any reason for us to accept this claim. Why should it at this point be accepted any more credibly than your claiming monkeys fly out of your... well you probably know how the rest goes...

 

Some may make slight effort to contradict it. But why should it be up to anyone to refute a claim you ahve not shown to be credible. Especially when the strong prejudicial bias up to that point makes it highly questionable?

 

Perhaps because everyone is so brainwashed that they did not even recognize the biased lead up to it.

unless people begin to alter themselves radically through genetic experimentation i think this will remain the case.

I mean seriously. Just how much slapping around is my POV supposed to quitely accept?

i am interested in a discussion concerning the idea that religion should be expunged from society.

You want an example of WHY?

 

You just gave us all a doozy!

[Freethinker]

sorry but if you can see nothing positive in religion than your thinking is quite narrow minded in my view.

Fine, then it should not be a problem for you to provide a few specific documented examples of how religion provides something to society that can not be provided as well or better in some other way.

 

Give us ONE to start and we'll go from there.

 

Meanwhile show us how we do better in learning to deal with existence in the only physical world we actually know to exist, through a faith based, rather than factual based philosophy. SHow us how learning to deal with real situations thru unprovable methods is better than through ones we can provide valid support for.

[Freethinker]

there is no evidence whatsoever that there is no

OK, let me guess first..

 

Toothfairy?

Leprechauns?

Lock Nessy?

Big foot?

life after cessation of the body or no god for that matter.

OK, add those to the list if you wish. They all fall under the same lack of simple reasoning.

but even if such evidence were to exist i personally know of more than one person who has been very helpful to others who would not be alive to do so if scriptural writings has been denied them.

Ah OK, and a cute anecdotal story shows us what? As they obviously DIDN'T DIE, any other conclussion you draw from it other than they are not dead is arbitrary, not causally related.You are welcome to invent the connection if you so desire, but that does not make it valid. One can delude themselves into accepting connections that they can not factually support and may even run contrary to facts or logic. The term for this deluding of oneself is "self-delusional".

and if there is no life after death or god than being helpful to others and easing suffering seems to be the only 'good' thing in this world to me.

WOW, that was great! Yes I agree! Once someoone can drop the ultimate in selfishness, Christianity, then they can see that the best thing they can do with the only life they actually have is "being helpful to others and easing suffering"

[motherengine]

ok if the gloves are off then allow me to be brutally honest here. my post has an intentionally provocative title that is factually accurate. richard dawkins does believe religion should be erraticated from society. are there children here that i need to coddle with placating language or can i just get to the point of the matter? my mentioning about the program i watched was to give perspective on my QUESTION about the issue and was in no way the fundamentalist nightmare scenario you dreamed up (possibly because you came into this thread with your own personal bias). and unless you saw the program yourself maybe you should not be so sure of the 'factual' elements involved. so what if richard dawkins has credentials, does this mean that what he is stating is somehow gospel? this is actually a critical thinking error [appeal to authority] not sound reasoning. as far as your other comments are concerned, maybe you should have read more of this thread before you began your elaborate digression from the fundamental point which is for us to have a rational discussion about a PHILOSPHICAL issue. i am not religious in any way shape or form and so you cannot make my question seem like an invalid argument by mocking the manner in which it was delivered. ;)

[maddog]

... that all people are not capable of finding comfort in atheistic science. thoughts?

 

What makes science "Atheistic" ? Science is the logical reduction of hypthesis to theory corroborated by

evidence to fact. So where did disbelief get in here. Unless we hyptothesize that God does not exist.

Great! Then how do you go about disproving that (or proving the nonexistence of that ? Kinda' starting to sound no longer scientific and

to sound like a witch hunt. There are witches, y'know... ;)

 

Right along with the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, Harvey the 6' rabbit, aliens in my root cellar (that I don't have). ;)

 

Maddog

[Freethinker]

Harvey the 6' rabbit,

Hey don't go picken on my pooka.

[motherengine]

freethinker are you actually asking me to prove to you that religion has positive attributes for individuals? how about you prove to me that atheism has such attributes. or that christianity is 'the ultimate in selfishness'. where exactly is the proof that religion causes violence as opposed to influencing it? it is dawkin's OPINION that religion causes violence and so should be erraticated. it is my opinion that he is denying the positive aspect of religion for many people. oh, he has a degree in antropology so when he has opinion it is somehow more reliable than mine. if you need a scientist to study the brain chemistry of someone when they are praying and show you the results to believe that it is helping them then self-delusion would be a step up the rung brother.

[motherengine]

What makes science "Atheistic" ?Maddog

 

reread what i actually said. in its own context i thought it was quite obvious that i was refering to a particular kind of scienctific mindset and not at all suggesting that science is in and of itself atheistic.

[motherengine]

SHow us how learning to deal with real situations thru unprovable methods is better than through ones we can provide valid support for.

 

death is a real situation.

comfort is a way to ease stress and fear.

belief in life after death comforts someone whose mother has died.

how can you not understand this?

 

would you rather this person take a sedative?

[Stargazer]

sorry but if you can see nothing positive in religion than your thinking is quite narrow minded in my view.

Ok, there might be positive things in religion, but even at best it offers something that is not based in reality, and that's bad enough for me. If we remove science today, everyone would be affected. If we then let religion and superstition decide everything we do, then we're in deep trouble. On the other hand, remove religion, and how will that affect us in a bad way?

 

there is no evidence whatsoever that there is no life after cessation of the body or no god for that matter.

Of course not. But what is important here is that there is no reason to believe there is life after death. Especially since it would be hard to make it fit into biology and evolution. When and how did we evolve the ability to live after we're dead? How can certain genes give such ability?

 

but even if such evidence were to exist i personally know of more than one person who has been very helpful to others who would not be alive to do so if scriptural writings has been denied them. and if there is no life after death or god than being helpful to others and easing suffering seems to be the only 'good' thing in this world to me.

Being helpful and kind to others seems like a good idea. We are the ones who can make this world a better place, and I don't like the idea that I would need a god to tell me to do that.

[Stargazer]

i am not trying to overpost here but i just had to point one thing out. lots of atheists are raised by atheist parents. does this mean that atheism is somehow 'wrong'?

If that is true, then how come there are more atheists today than "yesterday"? (In Sweden at least, not sure how it is in USA.) Oh, and by the way, we're all atheists until told to become something else.

 

and by the way, atheism is a belief system.

It's a lack of belief. I wonder if people have any idea how annoying it is to hear this all the time. You'd think someone would've realised it's not true, by now!

 

i just cannot figure out how anyone can think that they know a universal mind, or god does not exist.

The same way you can't figure out how anyone can think that they know there are no invisible pink unicorns. Therefor, the belief in invisible pink unicorns is perfectly valid, and the notion that there is no evidence for the IPU is in itself a belief system.

 

No, atheism is the lack of belief in any of the gods, simply based on the fact that there is no evidence to support the theistic claim, and that some of those claims are illogical anyway.

[IrishEyes]

Hey, Irish -- Here's the perfect place to continue our conversation on the struggle between science and religion! This topic is the central one in my studious little mind, and I've got some interesting resources to help frame the question as we all search for an answer - neuroscience; mri scans of meditating mystics; spatial reasoning abilities; the biology of belief; metaphor formation; and on and on. Let the games begin!

Aquagem,

I was really looking forward to this discusion, and this forum seemed an ideal place, but I'm not so sure now, after reading what has happened here since I left. Maybe you can start a thread that deals with the same information, not call it anything that will piss anybody off before the first post, and we can try ti there? I am REALLY interested in your thoughts, and your research, and I appreciate how you are willing to share facts.

 

Here's to a quiet thread sometime soon... ;)

 

oh, and what did you do for your birthday, by the way? I meant to send you an e-card, but couldn't find one I thought was appropriate. hope your day was happy and bright!

[Tormod]

Hey guys! Cut mother engine SOME slack, okay? It's quite acceptable to pose a question without being thrown into a deep well and then get a ton of rocks dumped on top of you.

[pgrmdave]

sorry but if you can see nothing positive in religion than your thinking is quite narrow minded in my view.

 

Fine, then it should not be a problem for you to provide a few specific documented examples of how religion provides something to society that can not be provided as well or better in some other way.

 

No, it's not up to motherengine to show positives that cannot be gotten elsewhere, only that there are positives. While I know you have a bias against religion, especially christianity, even you must admit that sometimes, christians do good things, and that sometimes, the various churches do good things. To say that there is absolutely nothing good about organized religion is argumentative and rude. Motherengine started this thread to show that religion can be comforting, don't try and argue that it's not because I've been comforted by it, and that science rarely is, and for some people cannot be comforting.

[Tormod]

that science rarely is, and for some people cannot be comforting.

 

Sorry if I'm reading you wrong, Dave, but is this your opinion or are you quoting someone. Science is of course not a set of beliefs and as such is incomaparable to religion when it comes to HOW this comfort is brought to the individual.

 

Science is what makes it possible to take tranquilizers...so science can indeed be comforting - in a *physical* sense.

 

Also, to ME, science can be very comforting for the mind. Learning about new discoveries, for example, can give me tremendous joy. As can great achievements - when Huygens landed on Titan I felt a real surge of satisfaction and comfort!

 

But, that said, I do not agree with Freethinker that religion is unable to give people comfort - nor that religious people cannot provide people with something that brings comfort. That is a generalization which is quite unnecessary.

[pgrmdave]

all minds are not alike and that all people are not capable of finding comfort in atheistic science.

 

I was paraphrasing motherengine, and agreeing with it, although I see your point that religion is a belief structure and science is a meathod for learning about our world, and thus shouldn't be compared like that. I suppose it would be better to say that some people find atheism to be uncomforting, and other, such as yourself, find science to be comforting in atheism, and I'm sure that some people don't feel the need to have any comforting beliefs/thoughts/ideas.