Dawkins and childish assumptions

@memester,

memester;121266 wrote:

Dawkins idiotically denies the existence of STD's in order to make his silly argument.
In essence he is saying that taking your child to church once a week is worse than taking him to be molested.

IN fact, most of the abused children have been in the 11-15 year old category.

dawkins is what we call a "liar"

liar, is a strong word for someone who is mistakenly making the wrong comparison. If his a liar what does that make the education system that condones brainwashing our youth with lies? What does that make the churches that produce so many sick pedos?

1 Reply

@xris,

xris;121270 wrote:

liar, is a strong word for someone who is mistakenly making the wrong comparison. If his a liar what does that make the education system that condones brainwashing our youth with lies? What does that make the churches that produce so many sick pedos?

liars, too, if they say that the children were too young to notice and that no physical harm can come from molestation. STD's are physically harmful. he's a scientist..thus he is shown as a liar, because he knows about STD

1 Reply

@memester,

Didymos Thomas wrote:

But how can we generalize so grandly about religion? 'Oh, it's too dogmatic', but what are we talking about? Surely each tradition is a bit different, surely each denomination a bit different, each Bishopric, each individual parish, each set of parents.

Yes, they are each differently dogmatic. The moral principles are based on tradition and are not to for the believer to decide upon. The ten commandments are set in stone as it were.

Quote:

But this all goes back to another point I made: you do not seem to be criticizing religion at its best, but religion at its worst.

For example, instead of saying the Sermon on the Mount is beautiful because it is good teaching, that it is so insightful that the man giving the sermon must be very holy (never mind exactly what that means right this moment), you heard something like 'He's holy, dammit, and that's final!' But that's unskillful religion. Instead of telling you that 'the Sermon is important because Jesus is authoritative', you should have been taught something like 'Jesus is authoritative because he gave great teaching like the Sermon'.

Well, we agree on religion at it's worst. But see, in your last sentence you still have the conclusion "Jesus is authoritative". If the sermon is a great teaching, then they can eventually be taught why, and the reason surely can't be because Jesus said it.

Any time you teach children morals, it's going to be a kind of "this is how it is", with some stories to help perhaps. They aren't going to read mill as you said. You can teach them a moral framework with stories etc in the way you are describing good religion. What isn't necessary is the concepts of god, heaven and hell that come along with it. Belief in the supernatural is not necessary.

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I was raised in the Episcopal Church, yet managed to have ample freedom to reject all religion, look into Buddhism and other faiths, come back to Christianity outside of denominations. In other words, I was raised in a very normal religious community, yet I think I have as much religious freedom as a person can possibly enjoy. Is this a personal bias, or am I on to something: is it possible that raising children in a particular spiritual environment does not typically restrict their religious freedom?

You did, but when raising a child how do you know that they will not feel obligated to stick with the religion they were taught? And if you agree that freedom is a good thing then why religion at all?

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Besides, unless we are instilled with the belief that all other metaphysical perspectives are wrong, there does not seem to be much danger here. If we are taught to be understanding and considerate of different perspectives, then we can accept and welcome these different perspectives, learn from these different perspectives, and live harmoniously with these different perspectives. Instead of different perspectives being the catalyst of division, they become the banquet of friendship as we learn from one another with genuine, enthusiastic curiosity.

Moral disagreement isn't the same as other disagreement. If I say I like dill pickles and you say you like bread and butter, neither of us care about the disagreement. If you say stealing is wrong and I say it isn't, then we aren't just disagreeing.

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Because we all develop metaphysical understandings of things, even if we do not give them much thought. It's human nature, it's why there is a whole field of study called metaphysics. We're wired to think in metaphysical terms from time to time. Using a particular religious metaphysical perspective gives a group of humans, a community, a shared language through which we can more easily understand one another when we have the all too human metaphysical-existential crisis.

And do atheists have trouble with this? There is metaphysical philosphy without religion.

I don't really see a strong argument for religion being taught to children, unless you wish to expand or water down the definition of religion.

---------- Post added 01-20-2010 at 03:09 PM ----------

memester;121266 wrote:

Dawkins idiotically denies the existence of STD's in order to make his silly argument.
In essence he is saying that taking your child to church once a week is worse than taking him to be molested.

IN fact, most of the abused children have been in the 11-15 year old category.

dawkins is what we call a "liar"

More like "moron" :perplexed:

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@memester,

Zetherin;121237 wrote:

Sunday school can of course be brainwashing.
Imagine a young child of six years being told that believing in God is the only way to righteousness - and this being reinforced every single week. After a while, beliefs will be imposed. I've witnessed and been victim of this. Now don't get me wrong, I do agree that religious parables can be excellent tools used to instill morality in a young person, but from what I've seen, this often comes at a price. And this is because religion, at least the Christian denominations I've been exposed (and I speak of these because you noted Sunday school), focus not only on moral instruction but the worship of God. And I don't think anyone before the age of reason should be forced to worship a God. This is absolutely not necessary to expose and reinforce morals.

Of course Sunday school could be used as brainwashing, but that would require rather extreme, cultish examples.

I'm not even talking about what is necessary for learning morals. No instruction is necessary for learning morals. However, instruction is useful. And religious instruction is by and large useful for learning morals.

You don't think anyone before the "age of reason" should be coerced into worshipping God. Okay. I disagree. I see absolutely nothing wrong with pushing a child into practicing the community faith just as I see nothing wrong with pushing a child into taking a bath or learning to read when they'd rather play outside in the mud (not that I have anything against playing in the mud). Unless we are talking about some remarkably violent community faith, pushing a child into that faith will bring them social interaction and a group basis for growing into maturity. Humans are, after all, social animals. Humans have, after all, done exactly what I am supporting since humans have existed. Remember Lascaux.

Zetherin;121237 wrote:

Most children are scared into acting the right way, because of this God element. And this is disgusting, we don't want submissive obedient worshippers. We don't want people doing the right thing because they're scared to go to hell, we want people doing the right thing because they want to do the right thing, don't we?

Are they? Are you so sure of that? Can you be sure of that? Is it impossible for a young child to be instructed in religious thought in such a way as to love God, so that the child acts in accordance with God's law out of love for God rather than out of fear for God?

I'm not going to defend inept teaching, but I'm also not ready to say that all religious instruction, or even the bulk of it, is so inept as to turn children into fearful little rodents running from the thought of an angry God. I don't know when you last witnessed a Sunday school class, but the children do not cower in their seats, wetting themselves. By and large they sing happily.

Zetherin;121237 wrote:

If we removed the God element in Sunday school, I'm all for it. Though, we probably wouldn't consider it religious per se anymore, would we? Moral integrity school, or something of the like.

There is plenty of religion without God. And that's great.

But apparently this goes back to some disagreement you have with God. I'll be the first to admit that God is not necessary for moral instruction, but we're not simply talking about what is necessary. Again, instruction is not necessary for a person to learn morals. It just so happens that instruction is typically useful. It also seems to be the case that using God in that instruction is often times productive, useful, helpful, a benefit to the student.

Dave Allen;121246 wrote:

And, alike to my point regarding Christ, I think to affirm the stories regarding his position in a heavenly bureacracy alongside, or in preference to, what can be gleaned from his ideas is a mistake.

Okay, so you think so, that's grand. But I do not follow why it is a mistake. You say that the Golden Rule was thought of without Jesus, and that's quite true. But how do we go from this tidbit of fact to the conclusion that teaching the Golden Rule through Jesus' expression of it, is somehow a mistake?

Dave Allen;121246 wrote:

Because they aren't in a child-friendly format.
The KJB isn't in a child-friendly format either.
Hence Children's bibles that focus on the more visual stories, avoid the more morally suspect bits (David killing Goliath is often featured, David forcing his lust object's husband to fight in the front rank of his armies is not) and difficult/boring stuff avoided or abbreviated.
And the same could easily be done for moral philosophers.

Get to work, I'm all for it. One Hundred percent behind you.

But I still don't get your point. So we can teach morals without religion, without Jesus, ect. Okay, that's true. But it does not mean that teaching morality with Jesus, with religion, is somehow mistaken or more dangerous than with the moral philosophers. Just as we could provide children's versions of Mill, we do this with religion.

Is Mill somehow less dangerous than religion? I don't think so. Recall how easily Nazi's manipulated brilliant philosophy into a dangerous ethic of elitism? This happens in religious circles, too. One is no more safe than the other.

Both religion and moral philosophy must be taught well, else both become dangerous and harmful.

2 Replies

@Didymos Thomas,

So would you send your child to a mosque if one was close to your home? With your attitude the faith of a child depends on his locality. Your telling me a belief system does not depend on the truth of its god but its location.

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@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas;121951 wrote:

Okay, so you think so, that's grand. But I do not follow why it is a mistake.

I think the important matter is the moral message, not the fact that the messenger was somehow supernatural.

Quote:

Get to work, I'm all for it. One Hundred percent behind you.

I can criticise a meal without planning to become a chef.

And say whether or not I liked a movie without planning on directing a film.

So I think I'm entitled to bemoan an aspect of education without any motivation to teach.

FWIW - I think the "Introducing..." series of illustrated books does the job fairly well for a slightly older age group, and I've a notion to attempt something similar in a different format. Though it's not a priority.

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Recall how easily Nazi's manipulated brilliant philosophy into a dangerous ethic of elitism?

I personally feel they assembled a patchwork of justification from which appeals to philosophical pondering, occult intrigues, mythological ideals, appeals to authorities both secular and religious, scientific discoveries where it suited them, dismissals of scientific discoveries where it suited them, historical fact where it suited them, denials of historical fact where it suited them, expedient real politik and hysterical fear mongering went hand in hand.

It all the more reason, I feel, to encourage critical thinking and a seperation between the subjective and objective.

But that's the thing with evoking the Nazis as an example - because they used a bit of everything to justify themselves - they can be held up as evidence of why using any particular justification is a bad thing.

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@xris,

I saw Dawkins interviewed recently by Australia's answer to Michael Parkinson, Andrew Denton. Dawkins was very genteel, polite, rational, and well-spoken, as one would expect. He made his outlook very clear from the very first sentence:

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RICHARD DAWKINS: I'm a scientist. I believe there is a profound contradiction between science and religious belief. There is no well demonstrated reason to believe in God and I think the idea of a divine creator belittles the elegant reality of the universe.

One thing that came across very clearly was that he was uncomfortable with any questions directly about himself. For example:

Quote:

ANDREW DENTON: When do you laugh at yourself?

RICHARD DAWKINS: ...Are all the questions going to be like this?

ANDREW DENTON: Not all... do you find these very difficult?

RICHARD DAWKINS: Yes.

ANDREW DENTON: Well, why is that?

RICHARD DAWKINS: Um ... because they're about me, I suppose.

ANDREW DENTON: Some of the questions are about you and some are about your observation of other people.

RICHARD DAWKINS: Yes...

ANDREW DENTON: If you like I can come back to that and we can talk more generally.

I suppose we could attribute this to modesty. His disposition did indeed seem modest, although I think his complete conviction that anyone with a religious belief must be hallucinating demonstrates something very close to bigotry:

Quote:

ANDREW DENTON: Of course if somebody says to you well, I have a love of a God, I don't need to explain it, that, that is my belief. How does your logical brain respond to that?

RICHARD DAWKINS: Well, I think what you're getting at is that even if God doesn't exist the person has an experience an internal experience, which feels to them as real as my love for another human being or a dog, and I don't doubt that the experience that they feel is real to them in the same way as my experience of loving a, a person is, is real. The thing that they love doesn't exist, but that doesn't stop them loving it. I mean in, in a sense you could say it's a hallucination, but it will feel very real to them.

I have been reading Albert Einstein's biography by Walter Isaacson recently. Einstein was certainly not religious in the conventional sense, but he frequently referred to his sense of the Divine Intelligence, in sayings such as 'God does not play dice', and his oft-quoted ruminations on the sense of the mystical. He angrily and forthlightly rejected atheism and described atheists are 'those who still feel the weight of their chains'. I have also been reading the philosophical writings of phycisists Heisenberg, Pauli, Schrodinger, Eddington and James, several of whom won Nobel prizes, and all of whom I believe have contributed considerably more to "man's knowledge of the Universe" than have any of the popular science writers.

None of them, to my knowledge, were conventionally religious, but I also don't think any of them would describe the idea of the divine intelligence as 'an hallucination'. Nearly all of them were very sympathetic to the idea of some kind of cosmic intelligence in a kind of Platonic or Pythagorean sense and certainly all of them were aware of, and quite deferential towards, the mystic vision of the nature of reality.

My feeling about 'Dawkins on religion' is that he is honestly, deeply, seriously and profoundly out of his depth in what he thinks religion actually is and does. After all, if it were like he says it is, then we would have no choice but to agree with him. That is because he only sees evil and stupidity in it. This is why his 'examples of religious thinking' are always very easy targets like the now-disgraced Pastor Ted Haggart and numerous young-earthers and creationist pamphleteers whose claims are so obviously childish and outlandish.

Dawkins main argument against Deity is that it is not something that he can imagine, so to believe in it must be a nonsense (on the dubious philosophical grounds that 'anything that designs something must be more complex that what it designs'; see The God Delusion.) However, as Terry Eagleton has noted, his knowledge of theology is barely non-existent, something which can't worry him, as he presumes from the outset there is nothing to know. Biologist H. Allen Orrnotes, in a similar vein:

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There's an irony here. Dawkins's main criticism of those who doubt Darwin-and it's a good one-is that they suffer a similar failure of imagination. Those, for example, who argue that evolution could never make an eye because anything less than a fully formed eye can't see simply can't imagine the surprising routes taken by evolution. In any case, part of what it means to suffer a failure of imagination may be that one can't conceive that one's imagination is impoverished. It's hard to resist the conclusion that people like James and Wittgenstein struggled personally with religion, while Dawkins shrugs his shoulders, at least in part because they conceived possibilities-mistaken ones perhaps, but certainly more interesting ones-that escape Dawkins.

But his reticence about certain areas of discourse; certain subjects and topics he won't consider; his discomfort in the face of certain lines of questioning: it leads me to believe that he is completely alienated from certain areas of his own being; and that maybe this could be thought of as The Soul. He certainly struck me as an intensely conventional man, very much the ivory towers academic, certain in his authority and the pool of light cast by his intellect.

But I don't feel - and I am certainly not saying this in a spiteful way - that he is someone who has ever experienced either tragedy or esctacy, or stood on the wilder shores of love, or had his whole understanding of the world turned upside down with an encounter with something quite beyond his imagining. And that is the zone from which many of the denizens of the religious consciousness emerge. Granted, we have now tamed and domesticated these beings into 'Our Father which Art in Heaven' and so on. And also I can quite readily agree that many of the 'religious forms' which have come down to us are worthy of being melted down in entirety, and re-cast. This, however, is quite a different thing to abandoning them.

But the real genius of the religious consciousness, that esctatic vision which actually has plumbed the depths of being and been reborn in the vision of the sacred, is completely lost to our modest, rational, shy and self-effacing Professor Dawkins.

Perhaps he will find it in some other life.

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@jeeprs,

If you had a pendulum of believers one side and non believers on the other, the extremes of views would be on the believers side not the non believers. Dawkins is on a mission but his mission is not so extreme as I see on a daily basis by those who believe. I find the arrogance and certainty of believers much more sickening then anything Dawkins proclaims. Count the fundamentalist you see and the Dawkins and this opinion you give is unfounded. We need balance and he helps provide it.

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs;122050 wrote:

This is why his 'examples of religious thinking' are always very easy targets like the now-disgraced Pastor Ted Haggart and numerous young-earthers and creationist pamphleteers whose claims are so obviously childish and outlandish.

I suspect Dawkin's is a lot more incensed at such examples - due to the professional conflict of interest as much as anything else.

However, he has conversed with much more sophisticated figures, such as this series with the bishop of Oxford - with whom he seems friendly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ0WinCWtLs
Or Alistair McGrath
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxc0NpTZE18&feature=related

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@xris,

Dawkins was classmates with Alister McGrath, who is his most effective philosophical critic. Here are some breif reviews of McGrath's Dawkins God: Genes, Memes and the Meaning of Life.

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"In Dawkins' God, McGrath has written a brilliant book, and it is difficult to think that the exposition of Dawkins' writings and their religious implications, will ever be better stated, explored and criticised... at once dispassionate, robust and readable." Richard Harries, Times Higher Education Supplement

"Alister McGrath's book Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes and the Meaning of Life does a fair and sophisticated job of summarising my position." Richard Dawkins, Times Higher Education Supplement

"Lucid and brief, without being perfunctory or dismissive, and fulfils the role of guide to the educated layperson without eliciting boredom from the academic familiar with the field ... The end result of this effort by McGrath is that, once again, I would have no hesitation in recommending the book as a basic text for A-level or first-year undergraduate students looking for their appetite to be whetted for a number of connected fields of scholarship, or indeed for the 'educated layperson' seeking a grasp of the issues without having to wade through hundreds of pages of science and theology ... A very finely judged piece of writing." Kaleidoscope

As I said, I think Dawkins comes across very well. And if he was campaigning to keep religious studies out of science classes, or criticizing fundamentalism, or the oppression of women and democracy by religious authoritarianism, I would applaud every effort. But he has gone much further than that, and I think he is operating well beyond his areas of competency in the debate he has chosen to embark on.

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs;122189 wrote:

But he has gone much further than that, and I think he is operating well beyond his areas of competency in the debate he has chosen to embark on.

I think it's the right of people to say what they believe and why - and if it attracts celebrity it's the right of people to oppose it - posterity will judge.

Given the rhetoric of the likes of, say, Pat Robertson or Ian Paisley I fail to see why any of the celebrity atheists even raise an eyebrow. There are real bigots and fascists to oppose.

Unless - as they claim - you simply can't give a frank negative opinion of religion without people crying foul.

Which would make the celebrity athiests' cause a laudable one (on the whole) purely in the name of a level playing field.

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@xris,

But I see the current 'celebrity atheists' very much as secular counterparts to Paisley, Robertson, and so on. Dawkins whole tone and attitude towards anything spiritual is one of thinly veiled contempt. It is exactly the tone of a smug fundamentalist who is certain his critics are destined to hellfire.

Dawkins effectively invites us to imagine a world without its religious past. But if we do indeed try to imagine a world with no religion, where does it all end? The world as we know it is inconceivable without its religious past. Thus, apart from houses and fortifications, there can be very few buildings or monuments over a few hundred years old anywhere in the world that are not, in some sense, religious.

Or take the science that Dawkins goes on about so much. Science is as rooted in the religious past as are the arts. For instance, it is pointed out that Arab scholars transmitted Greek learning to the European Middle Ages. Those scholars were part of a culture that would not have existed without the rise of Islam. Medieval philosophy, which laid the groundwork for the scientific revolution, was explicity theistic in its view; were it not for the now-superseded intellectual principles and laws which arose in the scholastic disciplines, modern science itself could not have gotten off the ground. (See God's Philosophers, by James Hallam.)

Even Oxford University, where Dawkins has been ensconced most of his life: the colleges there are mostly religious foundations, as some of their very names tell you. Indeed the Churches were instrumental in the formation of the entire University system (not only in Europe, either; the Buddhist Nalanda University was arguably the very first university in civilization, founded entirely for the teaching of Buddhist doctrine.) They were also instrumental in the formation of the idea of the individual, the hospital system, and a great deal of the foundation of civil law and ethics.

This idea that 'religion' is an historical error into which the species has strayed due to ignorance is in itself highly questionable. Religion (and spirituality, and the metaphysical aspects of philosophy) are integral parts of culture. In fact, Dawkins himself is undoubtedly as bound up in religion as anybody: otherwise, why would he spend so much time talking about it? But I believe we have to do is not to try to destroy religion, but to transform it so as to help us make a better world - re-interpret it, look at what it means, and re-imagine it.

Dawkins unknowingly echoes many of the voices of puritan fundamentalism for whom the Catholic church, with its worship of saints, relics and icons, was a deviation from the austere and simple truth of God's Word. But in Dawkins outlook, he has transposed religion generally into the position that Catholicism occupied for the puritan divines: that of a diversion from the pristine truth of the holy texts (Descent of Man and Origin of Species) into blasphemous and grevious error which forever obscures our view of The Truth.

As I said at the outset, Dawkins has no knowledge of religion - he sees only an evil superstition which causes terrorism and brainwashing. And he attracts many people who, for one reason or another, would like to think this is true. Whenever you ask them about, for example, the hundreds of millions of people who are fed and given medical treatment by religious charitiies every day, they will always have an argument which proves, to their satisfaction anyway, that any real good in any of this cannot possibly be attributable to religion.

And this itself is a religious belief.

My theory is that there really is 'a meme' of antireligion. For one reason or another, many people would like to imagine a world devoid of all spirituality. Why? I ask. I have spend time on the Dawkins forum. There are some patient, scientifically-oriented contributors on it who will debate the issue on its merits. There are many more for whom any mention of anything spiritual is a red rag to a bull. This has gone far beyond opposition to biblical creationism and fundamentalism.

(For a further elaboration of the above points, see THE PROTESTANT ATHEISM OF RICHARD DAWKINS, from which I have adapted some of the above text.)

1 Reply

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;122247 wrote:

Dawkins effectively invites us to imagine a world without its religious past. But if we do indeed try to imagine a world with no religion, where does it all end?

Dunno.

Back when they banned slavery they didn't know where it would end, and the same when they stopped burning witches.

It's not necessary to continue with a tradition just because it's a tradition.

Hence why arguing about the pros and cons of the tradition is an important exercise.

To make it clear I don't support his every utterance, and I say again his quest is quixotic.

And I only compare religion with slavery for illustrative purposes.

However, I think Dawkins et al are part of a literary tradition of atheism - or at least advocating spiritual/intellectual independance - which has brought a lot more to the table than the likes of Pat Robertson or Ian Paisley - rather retrograde thinkers.

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@xris,

well if you're saying that Prof. Dawkins is preferable to Pat Robertson or Ian Paisley, I agree, although can't help but think it is a case of 'damned with faint praise':bigsmile:

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@jeeprs,

mcgrath was a big fail in that video argument with Dawkins...he didn't pursue areas where he could have prevailed, instead agreeing with points raised by Dawkins...McGrath was not fighting, but Dawkins was, although not displaying hostility to McGrath.
McGrath did not go after any of Dawkins' known errors, or anything like that.

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@xris,

maybe, I didn't watch all of it. But his books are pretty good from what I have read of them. Of course, if you're on Dawkins side, you will say Dawkin's books are the real deal, and McGraths books just tired apologetics, etc etc. People basically believe what they want to believe, unless maybe something comes along that forces them to re-think. But for me, I would rather be part of a divine plan than part of a meaningless fluke.

1 Reply

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;122287 wrote:

maybe, I didn't watch all of it. But his books are pretty good from what I have read of them. Of course, if you're on Dawkins side, you will say Dawkin's books are the real deal, and McGraths books just tired apologetics, etc etc. People basically believe what they want to believe, unless maybe something comes along that forces them to re-think. But for me, I would rather be part of a divine plan than part of a meaningless fluke.

McGrath could have asked Dawkins how he rationalizes his missionary kind of drive for atheism, if in fact, there is no meaning or purpose to Life.

why is it that the "altruistic" tendencies are so strongly showing, too ?

McGrath could have asked if that was altruism, or if Dawkins actually was seeking higher status as being a caring individual campaigning for the unfortunate children of the religious. Or maybe seeking more profits and notoriety ?

but McGrath is not that kind of opponent.

dawkins:" Alistair, How is it, being in the camp of A-holes ?"
mcgrath: " Well, yes, I'm concerned. and violent people can be atheist, too."
Very Happy

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@xris,

Actually my theory about Dawkins success is that it is all driven by paper-mill owners. They realised years ago that writers such as him would be very popular in the years to come and invested accordingly. Now he has been a big hit. This validates my theory that the real driving force behind the book industry is actually paper manufacturers. Books in themselves are only the ways that paper mills make profits and ensure that they survive into the future.

---------- Post added 01-25-2010 at 02:08 PM ----------

only kidding of course. Actually I have found another video of Dawkins debating McGrath, and I must say, when I watch Richard Dawkins, and listen to him speak, I like him a great deal more than when I read his polemics. I still think him incorrect, but I think I am getting close to the point where I can show why I think that, in reasoned terms, and so I shall keep going with this investigation.

---------- Post added 01-25-2010 at 02:18 PM ----------

In fact I think Dawkins has an honest misunderstanding of the meaning of the word 'God'. He often says - in fact his main argument against God - is that, if God existed, then he must be 'infinitely complex'. Why? Because it is assumed that for one being to design another, then the being that designs must be more complex than the one that is designed. Opposed to this is the idea that beings evolve by a number of relatively simple steps over billiions of years, to give the appearance of being designed, when in fact, they are not designed at all, but have simply evolved according to the theory of natural selection.

This in a nutshell is Dawkins whole argument.

Now Dawkins asks McGrath why it is that theologians don't agree that 'God is complex'. For some reason, McGrath doesn't answer this question. However, it is very clear that according to the Summae Theologica, which I will deem the authoritative text in matters of theology, God is simple. By this is meant, among other things, God is not composed of parts, does not begin or end in time, and requires nothing else in order to exist.

Therefore it is clear that, according to traditional theology, the existence of God is different in kind to the existence of any type of creature.

Dawkins is imagining God as very much the 'super-human', a designer in the same sense that a human would be - which is quite an understandable depiction, but wholly untrue. Nowhere in orthodox theology is God depicted in this way. In fact this is one of the major weaknesses of 'intelligent design' - to depict deity in this way. I don't think it is the orthodox portrayal of God, at all. It is a recent distortion of the very nature of Deity.

So what this indicates is that what Dawkins thinks of as God, and makes subject to all of his arguments, is not actually God. So his book should really be called 'Delusions about God' - of which his notion of Deity is but one example.

Anyone got a view on this?

1 Reply

@jeeprs,

well, yes, Dawkins notions are so absurd in this area.
when asked about our world's design, he replies about bad design of giraffe neck instead.
Of course, in a live system, there must be disadvantage to every advantage; trade offs; gaining in speed but losing in armour, etc etc.

but Dawkins thinks that if he can find any of what he thinks is weakness in any specimen, ever, or any species, since the beginning of Life, that it
is poor design.

this neglects to take into account that if every organism lived forever, and reproduced, and never could be killed and so on, it would not be such a greatest show on earth.

Dawkins thinks that a static picture of perfection, unable to have downsides, would be good design.
and it would have to be that way from the start. But what would be perfect? If an animal could run 300, 700 mph ? run fast enough to tear it's hide off ?
but it has a perfect hide that cannot be torn off ? and run for what reason ? nothing can harm it and it can harm nothing else, or it's..poor design.

this is why I think Dawkins is living his childhood terrors out loud, nightmares caused by Lord Tennyson's questioning, and his "Nature, red in tooth and claw" lines.

Wiki

Quote:

This poem was published before Charles Darwin made his theory public in 1859. However, the phrase "Nature, red in tooth and claw" in canto 56 quickly was adopted by others as a phrase that evokes the process of natural selection. It was and is used by both those opposed to and in favour of the theory of evolution

Quote:

Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed

what the question on "creation of our world" is asking, really is about Great Zoo Design, or Biosphere Design...and in those designs, things must get eaten, things must die if babies are to be happening. there's only so much space

inane ? yup. Dawkins takes the cake. he's dismissive of giraffe neck design, and yet goes all freaky over the beauty, complexity, perfection of the whole system.

and that is his REAL answer. he was a sensitive child, and now he's angry at the injustice. angry at God. so he loves God. but he does not see why he has to die, it's not fair.
Let me bring the Rabbi Kushner for him.

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@xris,

I agree with you - actually I think your last point is spot on - but it would be good to develop the argument without the sense of exasperation which mirrors Dawkin's own. I am going to work out some more details on this particular point: that Professor Dawkins misapprehends the nature of Deity by anthropomorphising it. This is a fairly clear and direct argument to make, because it doesn't really deal with the unanswerable question of whether God exists or not: instead, it asks only whether the depiction of God provided by Prof. Dawkins is an accurate one. For if the depiction is not accurate, the critique is groundless.

---------- Post added 01-25-2010 at 04:16 PM ----------

Actually Dawkins says in this interview with McGrath that he could accept the idea that God might be ultimately simple, but how then, could he DO what we expect of him? The way he says it, I am sure that he is sincere. I am not very happy with McGrath's answer and actually I do agree that McGrath is too deferential to Dawkins also. But I am encouraged by the tone of the debate between Dawkins and McGrath. And Dawkins does consistently show that he really doesn't or maybe even can't understand what Christianity means. It is as if he is trying, but just can't. And I think the kind of attitude he has makes it impossible for him to understand it. But of course, that is kind of a religious argument, isn't it?

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Dawkins and childish assumptions

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