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Richard Dawkins is a bloody hero. We need more scientists that have the guts to tackle religious lunacy. There seems to be an insidious politically correct notion that religious faith should be respected, placing it beyond criticism. Why? Dawkins tackles this question and many others in his superb documentary: 'The root of all evil?' Here are the links to the rest of the show: UPDATE: Finally, the entirety of Episode 2: The Virus of Faith, at Google Video. | ||
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| My office computer system disallows me getting the videos on this website. But I managed to track down a loadable version elsewhere.
My main gebneral gripe is that Dawkins, a scientist I have much admired, is currently so full of fury that he has become narrow minded. He argues that religion narrows the mind, and harms society. But he has interviewed mainly extremists. Dawkins in this mood reminds me of the witch burners in Salem or the Nazis blaming the Jews for everything. Religion offends every bone in Dawkins's rational body so he's out to see it buried, whatever it takes. He focuses on the worst excesses of religions. It's like declaring all atheists are killers because Pol Pot was. It's just silly. \ Dawkin's arguments are emotional and don't address the strongest claims of faith. It just ain't scientific. His philosophy that religion and reason are inherently opposed is absurd. Religious belief is, at its best, a considered imaginative and creative judgement not a blind game of chance based on fear. Interestingly, the number of scientists who believe in God is apparently about the same percentage as the rest of the community. I would think that science and God are not mutually exclusive. But perhaps science and religion seem to be at times. Dawkin'sargument is that there is horrible death and suffering in the world, and he would not allow death and suffering in the world if he were God. Therefore there is no God. That's just bad logic. Science cannot prove religion to be just hot air, and should therefore remain, at worst, angostic. | |||
| Posted by BryanP | |||
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| BryanP,
I think you're missing the basic premise that religion is not necessarily based on fear but that god IS fear. If god can be love, why not hate or fear? Who created the devil? God. Who gave the devil the same powers on earth that god has? God. Who admonished us that if we take the devil's side, we will suffer eternal damnation in hell? Well, it was god. Apparently... Of course, all the books were written by men, not god, although they would have told you that god told them what to write (we call people like that crazy today). In most cases, they were also men who had power so we can pretty much read into religion anything we like, and because god is an ideal invented by man, we can make anything up and call god the author. Dawkins is right, just look at the Mary myth. I'm interested in your comment "Don't address the stongest claims of faith." What claims? There's no point making a claim like this then not presenting anything to back it. That's what religions do. Science can't prove that god doesn't exist simply because there's nothing there to be proven. I would say, given the "claims" that religions have made over the millenia, that the burden of proof rests squarely with them. | |||
| Posted by plonka | |||
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| I must say that I have gone off Dawkins a bit for the same reasons that BryanP has quoted.
While I love his work, it seems more and more to me that he's getting a bit overheated in his approach. This can put people off, but it also seems that he's increasingly preaching to the coverted. Also I could have picked my words a little more carefully in that final sentence. Incidentally, Plonka, it has been suggested that as a theist belief has been the dominant philosophical paradigm for several thousand years, it has been suggested that the burden of proof actually lies with atheism to prove that God doesn't exist. Theists ironically quote a scientific precedent to back up this argument - when the clitoris' size and shape was properly defined in 1998 the burden of proof was on the researchers to prove the new dimensions - even though the original dimensions were only based on an assumption in the first place!! Hmm. Never thought I'd put God, clitoris and science in the same 500 words. | |||
| Posted by dikkii | |||
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| Dikkii,
LOL. Thank god for the humble clitoris eh? I look at it from the Douglas Adams perspective: Ok, science proves god exists, but proof denies faith and without faith, god is nothing. "Oh..." said god, and promptly vanished in a puff of logic (Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy)... We can but hope... | |||
| Posted by plonka | |||
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| Plonka,
That is without a doubt my favourite quote from that book. You cannot believe how much I love that quote. | |||
| Posted by Anonymous | |||
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Yeah love Hitchiker's Guide. But...... Science is absolutely neutral with respect to anything that is beyond matter. The essential thing is that science and faith are two independent human experiences of knowing. Science has its methodology. Theology and philosophy, supporting religious faith, have theirs. But they have to dialogue, since the truth is one. I mean, you say I can't prove God exists 100 per cent. But surely no one can say 100 per cent that God doesn't exist. No one knows the absolute truth here. So in a sense we are ALL agnostics. Cheers brothers and sisters BP | |||
| Posted by BryanP | |||
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| Bryan,
I'd contend that faith isn't knowing, but believing. I think there is a very large and fundemental difference between the two. I'd also contend that philosophy is used to support both. Not sure if I'm totally correct there, but I reckon it can certainly be argued. | |||
| Posted by plonka | |||
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| Yeah Ted,
I think you're right about that difference between faith and knowing. Science tells us what can and cannot occur, provided the system we are talking about is a casually closed one. The problem is that no science branch has discovered by empirical investigation that the physical universe is casually closed. in other words, that nothing affects it that is not part of it. Look, I know that's a philosophical argument as well but how else do you discuss non proveable theories. Hell, now my brain hurts. Cheers | |||
| Posted by BryanP | |||
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| Well then, I guess we'd best be careful. I take it from the comments here that we all know what happened "at the next zebra crossing"...:-) | |||
| Posted by plonka | |||
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| Hello everyone,
Sorry I haven't been replying to your comments; I've been offline for the past week or so. I'll take it from the top. Hi Bryan, Glad you found a downloadable version. Would you mind sharing the link? I've been having some difficulty finding the entirety of episode 2. I wouldn't describe Dawkins as angry, but frustrated (although he does get justifiably angry at times, especially with that nut Pastor Haggard). It's ridiculous that we are still dealing with religious excesses and encroachments in our lives, considering the exponential rise in our knowledge level over the past century, much of it rendering religion into absurdity. Your criticisms echo those of many other religious views on the documentary, especially that he interviewed only extremists. Dawkins responded to such criticisms thusly: "The antis (critics) complain that I failed to do justice to "both sides", and that I interviewed fundamentalist extremists rather than the Archbishop of Canterbury. The balance is (over-) provided by Thought for the Day, Prayer for the Day, Songs of Praise, the Daily Service, Faith to Faith, Choral Evensong, Sunday Half-Hour, The Story of God, Belief, Beyond Belief, and others. Mine was a brief opportunity to put the other side. As for my "extremist" interviews, would that Pastor Ted Haggard were extreme. In neo-con America, he is mainstream. President of the 30 million-strong National Association of Evangelicals, he has a weekly phone conversation with Bush. My other "extremist", Yousef al-Khattab (Joseph Cohen) of Jerusalem, was supposed, as an American Jew turned Israeli settler turned Muslim, to see both sides and give a balanced perspective. Wrong! We did invite the Archbishop of Canterbury - and the Chief Rabbi and the Archbishop of Westminster - to be interviewed. All declined, no doubt for good reasons. Happily, the Bishop of Oxford accepted, and he was as delightful as ever. But you can't judge by example. We don't judge Christians by Hitler's claim to be one, and it is equally irrelevant that many Christians, like many atheists, are nice people. The point is that faith, even moderate faith, is pernicious because it teaches that believing something without evidence is a virtue. Moderates, as Sam Harris shows in his devastating book, The End of Faith, "provide the context in which scriptural literalism and religious violence can never be adequately opposed". Or, in Voltaire's words, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"." On to some of your other comments: "It's like declaring all atheists are killers because Pol Pot was. It's just silly." Dawkins already addressed this point above, but there is an additional point that needs to be made. Pol Pot's actions were not due to his atheism; he did not kill for his null-God. Much of the violence in human history, however, is a direct result of religious belief. People kill for what they insanely think their God would want. Thus, God can used as a rationalisation for just about any atrocity. "Dawkin's arguments are emotional and don't address the strongest claims of faith." Dawkins arguments are not even remotely emotional; they are based on evidence and logic. Just because Dawkins gets emotional at times, it does not invalidate his arguments. And, as Plonka said, what are these strongest claims of faith to which you refer? "Strongest claims of faith" borders on the oxymoronic. In order to have a strong claim, one must have evidence, whereas faith is believing where evidence is absent. "His philosophy that religion and reason are inherently opposed is absurd." This is not absurd, but a fact. As I pointed out to you in my original Herald Sun letter, faith is irrational by its very definition. There is no reasonable, logical or rational reason to believe in God because not a shred of evidence exists. Not one; it all comes down to: I believe because I believe (or more accurately in most cases, I believe because my parents taught me to). If you'd like to tell us why you believe in God, I'd be perfectly willing to listen. "Religious belief is, at its best, a considered imaginative and creative judgement not a blind game of chance based on fear. " I wouldn't say belief is based on fear or chance, but ignorance and, in almost all cases, indoctrination. "Interestingly, the number of scientists who believe in God is apparently about the same percentage as the rest of the community." I imagine you've been looking at some very biased figures that attempt to include just about everyone with a degree as a scientist in order to fudge the figures (such as those with political science or IT degrees). From a Nature article about a survey of scientists in the American National Academy of Sciences: "Our latest survey finds that, among the top natural scientists, disbelief is greater than ever — almost total. Disbelief in God and immortality among NAS biological scientists was 65.2% and 69.0%, respectively, and among NAS physical scientists it was 79.0% and 76.3%. Most of the rest were agnostics on both issues, with few believers. We found the highest percentage of belief among NAS mathematicians (14.3% in God, 15.0% in immortality). Biological scientists had the lowest rate of belief (5.5% in God, 7.1% in immortality), with physicists and astronomers slightly higher (7.5% in God, 7.5% in immortality)." "Dawkin's argument is that there is horrible death and suffering in the world, and he would not allow death and suffering in the world if he were God. Therefore there is no God. That's just bad logic." This comment makes me suspect that you haven't yet watched the documentary as Dawkins did not use this argument at all (from what I rememeber). In fact, he's not a big fan of that argument because he thinks it's perfectly obvious that the God of the Old Testament was evil. He has this to say: "I have never found the problem of evil very persuasive as an argument against deities. There seems no obvious reason to presume that your God will be good. The question for me is why you think any God, good or evil or indifferent, exists at all. Most of the Greek pantheon sported very human vices, and the ‘jealous God’ of the Old Testament is surely one of the nastiest, most truly evil characters in all fiction. Tsunamis would be just up his street, and the more misery and mayhem the better. I have always thought the ‘Problem of Evil’ was a rather trivial problem for theists, compared to the Argument from Improbability which is a genuinely powerful, indeed knockdown argument against the very existence of all forms of unevolved creative intelligence." "Science cannot prove religion to be just hot air, and should therefore remain, at worst, angostic." Science has proven just about every testable claim of religion to be hot air, but cannot prove that God does not exist. But we cannot prove the non-existance of an infinity of potential phenomena, so should we remain agnostic about all of those as well? Thanks, once again, Bryan for commenting. I hope you don't think I'm being unnecessarily harsh. As I've said before, your comments are very welcome here. Since this turned into such a long comment, I'll leave it here and reply to the rest in a new comment. | |||
| Posted by Adam | |||
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| Hi Dikki,
I recall comments on your blog that you had gone off Dawkins a bit because he is a little rabid in his approach. I'm looking forward to your post on the issue. You say he's preaching to the converted? Obviously, Dawkins is not going to convince any fundamentalists, but it's the people in the middle who may be amenable to his arguments. I don't think he'd put those people off too much. But what else is he to do? Tippy toe around the subject and not go straight to the truth? People have been taking this politically correct approach for a long time and its had no effect. The other problem is that other prominent scientists steer clear of the issue. Dawkins is one of the few to actually speak out, and I admire the hell out of him for that. We need people like Dawkins to break down this PC shield of respect that religion enjoys so it's not so taboo to criticise religion. Look what's happened with South Park, both here and America; a Catholic episode censored and a picture of Mohammad censored. Why? Is their faith so flimsy that they may lose it to a cartoon. Isn't their self-righteous belief that they will be the only ones to enjoy heaven enough? "it has been suggested that the burden of proof actually lies with atheism to prove that God doesn't exist." It may have been suggested, but it's still bullshit. Plonka and Anonymous, Thanks for reminding me of that great quote from Douglas Adams. It was absolutely criminal that they left that out of the movie. Bastards. Actually, I thought the whole film pretty much sucked. I don't know how you can make such an average film with such genius source material. Oh well, I'm sure they'll try again in 20 years or so. | |||
| Posted by Adam | |||
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| You wrote:
"it has been suggested that the burden of proof actually lies with atheism to prove that God doesn't exist." Quite right but the clitoris precedent is both the most persuasive argument they've come up with to date and the funniest one too, rolled into one. Can you imagine Kent Hovind trotting this one out? Actually, I can't. Hovind would rather have Charles Darwin's naked body tattooed onto his willy than say "clitoris" in public, methinks. | |||
| Posted by dikkii | |||
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| Whoops I misquoted you.
I meant to cut and paste this for what you wrote: " "it has been suggested that the burden of proof actually lies with atheism to prove that God doesn't exist." It may have been suggested, but it's still bullshit. " That was what I was agreeing to. Incidentally, I honestly think that Dawkins doesn't even reach the middle ground. When the secular critics don't even give his TV show the honour of a review, and the middle audience would rather watch repeats of movies with Tom Cruise in, bloggers such as myself stand by their assessments that Dawkins is not reaching any new ears. | |||
| Posted by dikkii | |||
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| I've often wondered just how the Big Three being The Chosen Ones-Jews, The Peacemakers-Christians and The Faithful-Muslim dare criticize Atheists when the examples that they have shown the world for emulation have been 8 centuries of murder and mayhem in the laughably named "Holy Land". The "Holy Land" is one of the apex icons of their futile hypocrisy and faith system failures. | |||
| Posted by Liberal Patriot | |||
| Entry 11 of 42 |
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