Richard Dawkins

Morbert

vodafoneproblem wrote: »

While people may argue that a philosophical argument doesn't give definitive proof, if it can help lead us another step or two along the way, then it's worth keeping in mind. Like the 'Uncaused Cause' line of thinking.

Again, you're arguing from an "ends justify the means" perspective. Whether or not the argument helps people become Christian doesn't change the fact that the argument is ineffective as a rebuttal to atheism, which is Richard Dawkins's point.

No, I'm talking about something more than being convinced by a sales pitch. I'm talking about coming to a realization of something, which is why I mentioned something 'clicking' inside. Maybe you could look at it
as something being switched on inside a person. Perhaps the idea of resonance. Not being convinced by the experiences of others, and not having your own, does not mean these personal experiences aren't real and valid ways of becoming a believer in God, so I think Dawkins is wrong to dismiss them.

I don't want to labour the point, but again its all about defending atheism. Personal conviction might click, but that does not make it real to others.

Obviously PW isn't a proof in any way. But hey, even if people get to the right place by obscure trails, they're still in the right place.

The problem is PW doesn't even lead to the right place. Consider the difference between someone who supports communism because they think it's a great idea with the right ideals, and someone who says they support communism just in case communists gain power. They are very different places even if, superficially, they look the same.

Morbert

peccavi wrote: »

I am certain every member of this forum, and indeed every member of Irish society has very dark skeletons in their cupboards. It is not surprising that there are some skeletons in the Church. The Church is a hospital for sinners, not a club for the perfect.

People aren't looking for perfection. They're just looking for accountability. What do you do with a hospital when the doctors are ill, and did not address their illness for the better part of a century?

Is it not ironic that the same people who are most hateful and vitrolic about the wicked Church and the plight of the poor children, are the same people who would have abortion wheeled into this country in the morning if they could? That speaks volumes. And before you say, 'oh but that is different' - it's not. The poor little innocent baby is equally the victim as a child that has been abused.

Addressing this whitewash would require a brand new thread. But let's assume it's true for the moment. Critics of the Church may be hypocrites, but that doesn't really change the value of their criticism.

fuelinjection

Dawkins is just a lazy scientist.
"I can't prove God doesn't exist, so He does not exist." Q.E.D.
Also this intellectual superiority complex over believers hints to some kind of nervous breakdown he has had.

Zombrex

fuelinjection wrote: »

Dawkins is just a lazy scientist.
"I can't prove God doesn't exist, so He does not exist." Q.E.D.
Also this intellectual superiority complex over believers hints to some kind of nervous breakdown he has had.

Is that a direct quote? :rolleyes:

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

Is that a direct quote? :rolleyes:

Wicknight, if you don't feed him he'll probably go back under the bridge again.

Armas22

After reading one of his books, the last thing I would call Dawkins is lazy. His writing is lucid and the theories he describes are elegant and persuasive. The great thing about science is that it is (or should be) self-correcting - today's theories give way to better theories tomorrow. For me, Dawkins seems to be unable to consider any possibilities outside of what can be measured or made to fit in with prevailing theories. That's ok to a point, but it seems to me that he could be more open-minded and at least conceive of the possibility that God could exist, and may not wish His existence to be measured.

Sam Vimes

Armas22 wrote: »

After reading one of his books, the last thing I would call Dawkins is lazy. His writing is lucid and the theories he describes are elegant and persuasive. The great thing about science is that it is (or should be) self-correcting - today's theories give way to better theories tomorrow. For me, Dawkins seems to be unable to consider any possibilities outside of what can be measured or made to fit in with prevailing theories. That's ok to a point, but it seems to me that he could be more open-minded and at least conceive of the possibility that God could exist, and may not wish His existence to be measured.

Dawkins does conceive of the possibility that god could exist. As he says he is agnostic but only to the extent that he is agnostic about the fairies at the bottom of the garden. But if a god does exist and does not wish its existence to be measured then its existence is irrelevant because we cannot establish anything about this god with any level of certainty and we end up with thousands of religions all declaring themselves to be true.

cypharius

fuelinjection wrote: »

Dawkins is just a lazy scientist.
"I can't prove God doesn't exist, so He does not exist." Q.E.D.
Also this intellectual superiority complex over believers hints to some kind of nervous breakdown he has had.

No, if there is no proof for something the scientific method dictates that there is no reason to believe it exists, as we Atheists have said thousands of times, you have to give evidence, we do not. There is no proof for raptor-jesus but there isn't any way to disprove him either.

vodafoneproblem

Morbert wrote: »

Again, you're arguing from an "ends justify the means" perspective. Whether or not the argument helps people become Christian doesn't change the fact that the argument is ineffective as a rebuttal to atheism, which is Richard Dawkins's point.

I'm saying that the Uncaused Cause is helpful because it leads us back to the creation of the universe. It's not any old random argument.

I don't want to labour the point, but again its all about defending atheism. Personal conviction might click, but that does not make it real to others.

I've said what I wanted to say on personal experience and miracles and I stand by it. Ultimately he can't say that in all cases it's not valid proof, nor that it's not a valid reason for believing. It's just a judgement call by him to dismiss. Don't forget he's arguing that no-one should believe, not just himself.

The problem is PW doesn't even lead to the right place. Consider the difference between someone who supports communism because they think it's a great idea with the right ideals, and someone who says they support communism just in case communists gain power. They are very different places even if, superficially, they look the same.

In the case of your politics example, someone could start supporting something for practical reasons, but then because of being exposed to it, and considering further the actual case for it, could come to a true belief in the system. We can't say this hasn't happened to anyone using PW as a starting point.

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Dawkins does conceive of the possibility that god could exist. As he says he is agnostic but only to the extent that he is agnostic about the fairies at the bottom of the garden. But if a god does exist and does not wish its existence to be measured then its existence is irrelevant because we cannot establish anything about this god with any level of certainty and we end up with thousands of religions all declaring themselves to be true.

Typical ridiculous arrogance from Dawkins. There are an awful lot more reasonable arguments, and, a lot would argue, evidence, for God, than there is for Dicky Boy's fairies and the rest of his silly examples.

Sam Vimes

vodafoneproblem wrote: »

Typical ridiculous arrogance from Dawkins. There are an awful lot more reasonable arguments, and, a lot would argue, evidence, for God, than there is for Dicky Boy's fairies and the rest of his silly examples.

Yes a lot would argue that there is more evidence and good arguments for the christian god than for the fairies at the bottom of the garden but Dawkins doesn't agree with any of them and I've yet to see any of these good arguments or evidence myself. I've seen a lot of arguments alright about mountains of evidence but none of it that I would class as good. It's mostly of the aforementioned Flake equation type as far as I can see. You are perfectly entitled to accept these arguments and evidence if you want but he is equally entitled to dismiss them without being branded as arrogant for disagreeing with you

philologos

vodafoneproblem wrote: »

Dawkins hasn't shown all the arguments for God's existence to be groundless. For example, he says Thomas Aquinas' 'Uncaused Cause' is 'at best unhelpful and at worst perniciously misleading'. That's his own judgement call and I think a lot would disagree with him there. He's also not saying the argument is groundless.

Having studied Aquinas in more detail (my university takes particular emphasis on Thomas Aquinas, I'll be studying an entire module dedicated to his thought next year) I still find his work to provide some of the most consistent argument for the existence of God. I've never actually heard any atheist systematically go through the arguments themselves and ultimately refute them. Not even Dawkins does this.

The Third Way in particular makes a lot of sense to me.

There are two types of existence:
1) Contingent existence - Can either exist, or not exist, and it's existence is dependant upon some necessary being.
2) Necessary existence - Has to exist, and is the underlying reason as to why all things exist.

This argument distinguishes God's existence which is eternal, from finite existence such as that of the universe which is around 13.7 billion years old. Therefore the universe couldn't have caused itself, or brought itself into its own creation, as it has only been here for a certain period of time.

The finite age of the world, demands a necessary cause as Aquinas discussed in the First and Second Ways. As God has existed eternally, it is at the very least a sound possibility for how the universe came into being.

Such a distinction also refutes the infinite regress argument, which in itself is nonsensical. As if the chain of causation went back to the beginning, the chain of causation would have never been fulfilled. However, since the earth exists, and since we exist, the causation involved in Creation, must already be completed. It makes no logical sense in terms of time, that it would be any other way. This makes Aquinas' insistence on an Unmoved Mover, or First Cause much more reasonable than the infinite regress argument. Then again, nobody postulates the infinite regress argument as a real possibility.

In short, Dawkins doesn't do Aquinas justice in his God Delusion.

Morbert

Jakkass wrote: »

Having studied Aquinas in more detail (my university takes particular emphasis on Thomas Aquinas, I'll be studying an entire module dedicated to his thought next year) I still find his work to provide some of the most consistent argument for the existence of God. I've never actually heard any atheist systematically go through the arguments themselves and ultimately refute them. Not even Dawkins does this.

The Third Way in particular makes a lot of sense to me.

There are two types of existence:
1) Contingent existence - Can either exist, or not exist, and it's existence is dependant upon some necessary being.
2) Necessary existence - Has to exist, and is the underlying reason as to why all things exist.

This argument distinguishes God's existence which is eternal, from finite existence such as that of the universe which is around 13.7 billion years old. Therefore the universe couldn't have caused itself, or brought itself into its own creation, as it has only been here for a certain period of time.

The finite age of the world, demands a necessary cause as Aquinas discussed in the First and Second Ways. As God has existed eternally, it is at the very least a sound possibility for how the universe came into being.

Such a distinction also refutes the infinite regress argument, which in itself is nonsensical. As if the chain of causation went back to the beginning, the chain of causation would have never been fulfilled. However, since the earth exists, and since we exist, the causation involved in Creation, must already be completed. It makes no logical sense in terms of time, that it would be any other way. This makes Aquinas' insistence on an Unmoved Mover, or First Cause much more reasonable than the infinite regress argument. Then again, nobody postulates the infinite regress argument as a real possibility.

In short, Dawkins doesn't do Aquinas justice in his God Delusion.

The problem, as I mentioned before, is with the assumption that, because time is finite, the universe must have a cause. This assumption is not a necessary truth.

philologos

Finite things do not come into being in and of themselves. I have seen no exception to this rule. Can you explain any other situation apart from causation?

Morbert

Jakkass wrote: »

Finite things do not come into being in and of themselves. I have seen no exception to this rule. Can you explain any other situation apart from causation?

The finite nature of the universe is not the same as the finite nature of, say, a cloud. A cloud comes into existence in the sense that there was a time when there was no cloud before there was a cloud. With a little further consideration, we can argue that something therefore caused the cloud to come into existence. Einstein's field equations which describe the finite nature of the universe, on the other hand, describe a manifold not embedded in any time. We therefore cannot say there was a time when there was no universe before there was a universe, as time itself is a facet of the universe. In this language, the big bang is not the start of the universe, but rather a location with a geometry such that all lines curve towards it, experienced as "the beginning" to beings like ourselves.

philologos

Morbert wrote: »

The finite nature of the universe is not the same as the finite nature of, say, a cloud. A cloud comes into existence in the sense that there was a time when there was no cloud before there was a cloud. With a little further consideration, we can argue that something therefore caused the cloud to come into existence. Einstein's field equations which describe the finite nature of the universe, on the other hand, describe a manifold not embedded in any time. We therefore cannot say there was a time when there was no universe before there was a universe, as time itself is a facet of the universe. In this language, the big bang is not the start of the universe, but rather a location with a geometry such that all lines curve towards it, experienced as "the beginning" to beings like ourselves.

This doesn't bring us any closer to saying that the universe in all actuality doesn't have a cause though. It is in effect semantics surrounding the concept of time.

axer

vodafoneproblem wrote: »

Typical ridiculous arrogance from Dawkins. There are an awful lot more reasonable arguments, and, a lot would argue, evidence, for God, than there is for Dicky Boy's fairies and the rest of his silly examples.

where? I have yet to come across real evidence.

There are plenty of books written about fairies and plenty of books written about gods but no real evidence of either. Why should I believe either then?

I think the over all point Dawkins is making is that there is no evidence but yet people believe. He shows how powerful the mind is and the tricks it can play on people and irrational many people are as a result.

Morbert

Jakkass wrote: »

This doesn't bring us any closer to saying that the universe in all actuality doesn't have a cause though. It is in effect semantics surrounding the concept of time.

You have said the universe needs a cause because it is finite. I have said the universe, although finite in extent, is different to finite things in a very fundamental and important way, as its structure is timeless. This is not semantics. This is highlighting the very big problem with "first cause" arguments.

philologos

Morbert, how could the universe both be 13.7 billion years old and eternal?

Morbert

Jakkass wrote: »

Morbert, how could the universe both be 13.7 billion years old and eternal?

To say the universe is eternal is to say it is embedded with infinite duration in some timeline. This is, in many ways, the exact opposite of what I said. I said the structure of the universe is not embedded in any timeline, as the timeline is itself a facet of the universe. So when we say the universe is 13.7 billion years old. We mean the timelike paths extend to 13.7 billion years in length before curving into a singularity. But these paths themselves are simply facets of a timeless structure. We have all seen pictures like the one below



This is an example of a spacetime manifold (with the time and space dimension implicit), showing how space and time curve. The process of moving from the past to the future is equivalent to tracing out a path on this structure. Notice then that it makes no sense to say the structure itself moves from the past to the future, as that would imply the structure carving a path on itself, which makes little sense.

philologos

The question, even if we aren't talking of timelines, of why or on what grounds does the universe exist is still one that is pertinent to the discussion.

Armas22

"There are plenty of books written about fairies and plenty of books written about gods but no real evidence of either. Why should I believe either then?"

Many people have had personal experiences that lead them to believe in God. None of these experiences, by their nature, are ever going to be observable in an experimental space, as science requires. The experiences at Fatima or Lourdes, for example, are not going to ever be repeated just so scientists can look at them.

Science requires experiments to be repeatable in order to verify observations. So science can never, ever deal with experiences like these, other than to dismiss them as mass halucinations or delusions, an attitude which in itself is very unscientific!

axer

Armas22 wrote: »

"There are plenty of books written about fairies and plenty of books written about gods but no real evidence of either. Why should I believe either then?"

Many people have had personal experiences that lead them to believe in God. None of these experiences, by their nature, are ever going to be observable in an experimental space, as science requires. The experiences at Fatima or Lourdes, for example, are not going to ever be repeated just so scientists can look at them.

Science requires experiments to be repeatable in order to verify observations. So science can never, ever deal with experiences like these, other than to dismiss them as mass halucinations or delusions, an attitude which in itself is very unscientific!

That is why I put in this:

axer wrote: »

He shows how powerful the mind is and the tricks it can play on people and irrational many people are as a result.

People really under estimate the power of the mind. It can make you see, smell, feel, taste and hear things that are not there. This has been proven time and time again.

Scientists will dismiss them as mass halucinations or delusions because there is no evidence to the contrary.

An example would be if a person with mental illness hears voices. Are those voices real? Surely if we are to believe those who have "experienced" God then we should believe these people too since they *are* hearing voices (at least from their point of view).

Morbert

Jakkass wrote: »

The question, even if we aren't talking of timelines, of why or on what grounds does the universe exist is still one that is pertinent to the discussion.

Of course. General Relativity might emerge from some other paradigm (More than likely quantum mechanics.) But the notion of "First Cause" as an argument for the existence of God is what I am arguing against.

philologos

So there must be a cause of some form, you just happen to reject God as being a reasonable cause? Then we still are on the same track as we started on before invoking Einstein?

axer

Jakkass wrote: »

So there must be a cause of some form, you just happen to reject God as being a reasonable cause? Then we still are on the same track as we started on before invoking Einstein?

I would expect Morbert is rejecting God as the definitive cause.

Morbert

Jakkass wrote: »

So there must be a cause of some form, you just happen to reject God as being a reasonable cause? Then we still are on the same track as we started on before invoking Einstein?

No, no and no. Where have I said anything even remotely like that?

You said the following:

There are two types of existence:
1) Contingent existence - Can either exist, or not exist, and it's existence is dependant upon some necessary being.
2) Necessary existence - Has to exist, and is the underlying reason as to why all things exist.

I am saying that, just because the universe has a structure with finite timelines doesn't meant he universe itself falls into category 1). The universe could very well have to exist. Now we might not have yet discovered that fundamental level of the universe (i.e. General Relativity might not be a fundamental theory) but the fact remains that the universe may be, in a very important sense, timeless, as is suggested by current cosmology.

You could ask "Why is the universe timeless?" but that would be like asking "Why is God timeless?"

Armas22

axer wrote: »

That is why I put in this:


People really under estimate the power of the mind. It can make you see, smell, feel, taste and hear things that are not there. This has been proven time and time again.

Scientists will dismiss them as mass halucinations or delusions because there is no evidence to the contrary.

Also, the mind can miss things that are there. We certainly should not underestimate the power of the mind to re-rationalise the world around it. The unscientific part of Dawkins' attitude is assigning these kind of phenomena to mental illness of some sort, simply because no other acceptable explanation springs to mind. At the very least, it would be scientific to say that to date, we have no evidence for or against God, but we can explain a great deal of what we see in the world through the following natural laws and processes...

Funny thing is, science acknowledges limits. For instance, scientists have no idea what constitutes the majority of the substance of the universe (dark matter and other physical exotica), and yet some folk think science has the answers to everything, right here and right now. The fact is that science is always growing and always correcting itself - one of the great strengths of science - so don't be too surprised that new knowledge gained in the coming years may stand current cosmological theories on their heads. And that might just include evidence of the existence of a Deity, or at least, acknowledgement that science cannot answer all the questions.