If the Creation myth is wrong then what is left to believe in?

antiskeptic wrote: »

Have you read Terry Eagletons dismantling of The God Delusion. I can recommend it highly. I particularily like where he describes Dawkins as 'theologically illiterate'. True - but something his fans don't quite seem to appreciate why that is supposed to mean anything significant against his points.

Fixed that for you

plaasjapie wrote: »

I am surprised you find his book had errors, since it is mostly about widely accepted biblical textual critisism. Everybody who has studied at a seminary can confirm this.

"Everyone who has studied at seminary". Really? So which seminary did you study at?

Just because a book is 'about' a subject doesn't mean it is free from errors.

As to Dawkins book, you cant refute any points he makes by saying he has no place commenting on theology, since most protestants seem to critisise the basis for modern biology as a matter of course.

I didn't say he had no place commenting on theology. I said it was what I would expect from someone who knows little or nothing about the subject.

If your statement about 'most Protestants' was true (which it isn't, of course) then I would expect their views on biology to be equally abysmal.

I am not interested in reading books by theologians.

And yet you seem to be praising a book by a theologian (Ehrman). Having a bit of difficulty working out what you believe?

I would agree with that. Dawkins often makes the mistake of trying to tackle "got-chas" in theology. This is a mistake because Christianity has existed for 2,000 years, there are no "got-chas" left. There is nothing Christians haven't seen already, thought about and developed a response to, then informing Dawkins that he is "theologically illiterate" (as if that is a bad thing ).

This provides easy pickings for "responses" to the God Delusion, such as Eagletons reply. They of course wildly miss the mark in tackling the central arguments of Dawkins and other atheists, probably on purpose because they don't have actual responses.

You can't argue that there isn't thousands of religions in the world, each viewing the others with suspicious and criticism that is rarely applied to their own religion.
You can't argue that there isn't problems with history and the various holy books lining up.
You can't argue that there is scientific explanation for religious feelings that don't require God to exist.
You can't argue that the human mind isn't prone to supernatural thinking.
You can't argue the scientific explanations for the development of life don't require God.
You can't argue that appeals to nature really on God of the gaps and are ignorant anthropic principle.
etc etc.

These are the central arguments of the God Delusion and none of these argument rely on gotcha theological arguments. There are of course attempts in the God Delusion to attempt theological gotchas. So people say Dawkins got the details of the Bible wrong and is missing important theological positions. Which is often correct, but wildly missing the mark.

Which is like arguing that someone who thinks Han didn't shoot first has no authority to claim Star Wars never really happened. What?! You think Jesus said this? Moron! He actually said this, so clearly Christianity is correct, God does exist and Jesus was resurrected!

As Morbet says Dawkins himself invites a lot of this on himself, but it is still rather bizarre to see people claim that books like the God Delusion have been refuted when the vast majority of the responses tackle at best 5% of the book and don't even attempt to tackle the core arguments.

As such it should come as no surprise to people that someone who read the God Delusion embraces atheism afterward or that the common "rebuttals" about theological misunderstandings didn't have much effect on them.

Oh sorry, Fanny missed your post.

Brigadier, this is discussed all the time on the A&A forum, so if you are looking for more information pop over there, you will find a few threads dealing with the issues.

Ultimately atheism simply boils down to "I don't believe you"

"You" being what ever theist happens to be making what ever supernatural claim. All religious claims are made by humans, and an atheist is simply someone who has found no good reason to accept any of them as being true.

Jakkass wrote: »

Isn't it a bad thing unless you are arguing against Christianity. It is always better to know what one is arguing against no?

Up to a point, but it depends on how crucial that knowledge is to your central arguments. Dawkins central arguments are not based on gotchas in the Bible, so how relevant rebuttals to his theological misunderstands are to his central arguments is debatable.

For example is it "bad" to argue that Jedi is not a real religion if you have not see the Star Wars movies and think that Spock was a central character?

I think a lot of Christians like to think that by dealing with Dawkins short comings with regard to Biblical knowledge and common Christian interpretation they have some how dealt with him and his arguments as a whole. It is interesting that when a poster here said they had left Christianity in part because of the God Delusion the replies were to check out the responses to Dawkins theological arguments, as if those were the things that would have made the person leave the Christian faith, when in fact they make up a tiny amount of The God Delusion an Dawkins over all arguments.

Ill advised I think is a better description. It opens Dawkins up to dismissal from people who are more interested in dismissing him than actually responding to his points. He ends up producing by-proxy memes (quite common on this forum for example) that the God Delusion has been "dismantled" or "rebuffed" though replies that highlight Dawkins theological misunderstandings. A lot of Christians I would imagine never get far beyond those, neither reading the book itself nor the replies but simply being satisfied at the claim that the book has been rebuffed and they don't have to worry about it.

I've seen Dawkins make genuine mistakes with regard to theology, and I've seen him simply not toe the "party line" so to speak, such as Eagleton's article which confuses Dawkins not understanding Christianity with Dawkins simply thinking it is ridiculous made up nonsense. Its like someone saying Scientology is about money making to have the response be you don't get scientology at all it is really about helping people. No, that is what Scientologists tell themselves, but it is really about money making.

Eagleton may wax lyrically about what Christians think God is really like, but that wasn't central to Dawkins point about the ridiculousness of the notion. It seems more the Eagleton misunderstood Dawkins than the other way around.

Don't get me wrong, Dawkins does make mistakes with theology, and by jove Christians like to point out exactly when and where he does, so it is easy to spot.

But I've yet to see a mistake of Dawkins that actually means anything in relation to his central arguments. If I read the God Delusion and then read Eagleton, or something like The Case for God, I would find nothing as a response to Dawkins, just nit picking in an attempt to dismiss through association. Well he doesn't understand how you are supposed to interpret this passage of this book in the Bible, so clearly he is not worth bothering with.

Again it is like dismissing someone who thinks Han didn't shoot first when they say that Star Wars is make believe. You don't have to know every line in Star Wars of by heart to make a compelling case for why it isn't real. Equally it seems rather unnecessary to be intimately familiar with every passage in the Bible to make a case that it isn't real, nor will becoming intimately familiar with the Bible provide some hidden revelation as to why it is in fact all real.

Dawkins should focus less on attempting to highlight inconstancies or gotchas in the Bible and more on simply making the over arching argument. After all even if the Bible is the most coherent work of literature in existences where there were no disputes about any passages or apparent contradicts, that still means little to whether any of it is true or not.

You can make a solid case for why Christianity is not true without even having to mention the Bible at all, in the same way you can argue Star Wars never happened without having to quote a single line from the story.

Jakkass wrote: »

I don't really agree with you. Even if one didn't refer to the Bible explicitly one would have to know what Christianity from a scriptural point of view proclaimed. If one didn't the argument would get pretty hollow pretty quickly.

Why would one have to know this? If you had never seen Star Wars and didn't know a thing about the plot it is still pretty easy to argue it was a film released in 1977 made up by George Lucas.

Equally there is ample evidence from human psychology to justify dismissing Christianity as simply another religion humans produced, one of many.

I don't need to know the ins and outs of some obscure African tribe's supernatural beliefs to know they aren't real. Equally it is rather irrelevant to know the ins and outs of Christianity to come to the same conclusion.

You simply have to know that humans make up religions, and believe supernatural things that aren't true.

Jakkass wrote: »

Flick through the "Arguments from Scripture" section where he tries to use John's Gospel to demonstrate that Jesus wasn't born in Bethlehem. It's not the best he could have done. That section in particular I found quite flawed when I read it.

That is sort of my point. If Jesus was born in Bethlehem does that mean he was the son of God and Christianity makes tons of sense? No, of couse not. L Ron Hubbard was definitely a real person, doesn't make Scientology real.

Dawkins should avoid these issues, they are not relevant to the central points about religion as in invention of humanity, and Christians have had 2,000 years to come up with answers that are satisfactory to them.

Jakkass wrote: »

Well Wicknight, the basic reasons are obvious why one should adequately know what they are talking about before coming into a discussion.

I think Dawkins does adequately know what he is talking about, but what he is talking about is human psychology, evolution and neuroscience.

The details of one particularly religion is secondary to this point. Again I agree with you that it is foolish for Dawkins to dip into the realm of gotcha theology, but equally it is a rather minor subject compared to his over all arguments.

Jakkass wrote: »

You may not be even making a valid argument against the beliefs of another person

The validity of Dawkins gotchas in relation to the specifics of Christian theology is again rather irrelevant to the central points of the God Delusion. After all Dawkins is not simply against Christianity.

Therefore supplying a "rebuttal" that deals solely with these is rather missing the mark, certainly falling short of a complete rebuttal as some of stated these are.

Jakkass wrote: »

I don't think that there is. Otherwise there wouldn't be any psychologists who are Christian. It seems you're taking liberty with the science again! :pac:

Sure there would, just like there are biologists who are Young Earth Creationists. Just because there is evidence and science to support something doesn't mean everyone will accept it.

Jakkass wrote: »

It assumes that the content of both are equivalent which is not the case. Both need separate assessment.

Not really since both are humans. Supernatural thinking and agency projection are properties of humanity, it is found throughout humanity. It is not therefore necessary to know the ins and outs of every single instance where this is found to understand what it is, any more than it is necessary to learn every single language on Earth to study linguistics.

I appreciate that you believe your religion is unique and special, but that is in itself a Christian believe, most religions have members who believe their religion is unique and special. It is no more necessary to accept this about Christianity than any other religion.

Jakkass wrote: »

How do we know they are not true?

Various reasons, the most compelling of which is that the vast majority of them are mutually exclusive. For example Christianity and Greek mythology cannot both be true. Both God and Zeus can't both exist.

The idea that humans make up religions is not in dispute, even among believers themselves. Its just that each believer thinks they are the exception. The reasons given for why they are the exception though tend to all sound very familiar.

One of the most amusing passages in the God Delusion is Dawkins describing a group of Church of England men dismissing the religious beliefs of a Pacific tribe under the sarcastic comment "People will believe any nonsense", unaware of the irony that their faith is based around the claim that an ancient middle eastern carpenter was the "son" of God and was resurrected after his death. One wonders what the Pacific tribe would have thought of that claim.

Jakkass wrote: »

You can argue "oh theres no evidence" but actually that simply wouldn't be good enough for someone who has already been a Christian for any significant length of time in order to make them reconsider their position.

Well apparently it will for a lot of them. But I agree that for some people it won't. They believe what they believe for what ever reason and there is little hope changing that position.

But Dawkins himself in the God Delusion says they are not the target of the book. He is under no delusions (ha!) that he can convert a fundamentalist Christian by simply pointing out the obvious to him.

antiskeptic wrote: »

No .. but Zeus and the myriad of other sky fathers can. In the sense of being similar peas from the same pod.

Roll up the various pods (of sea, sky, earth and water, hopless cases and virgin mary apparitions) and you'll arrive at a Pretender for the position of God. Or so the Christian message goes.

Which isn't the Greek message. So someone is believing something that is wrong, which was my original point. All religions cannot be correct, some (if not all) believe with all sincerity in things that are fantasy.

Whether you attribute that to Satan or evolutionary biology doesn't change this. And at the moment evolutionary biology is doing a much better job at explaining this.