I'm Halfway Thru Dawkin's "The God Delusion," And It's Tremendous

I got my copy from Amazon today. A good and easy read. Life affirming, and not in the sense that atheists need
affirmation of their beliefs. I recommend it whole heartedly.

It's the best Xmas present I've ever given...myself.

I read it last month and was left with renforcement to what I had already conceived on my own over the years, but not in the way Dawkins explains it.

You need to goto this website and watch the program:

www.beyondbelief2006.org

If you think THE GOD DELUSION is good, just watch what if discussed there. Its almost mind numbing, because its alot to take in.

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I found it slow going. His arguments on some points are just wrong (the abortion debate is not about the sanctity of the precious preborn poppet; if it were, the antiabortnoids would not allow abortion in cases of rape or incest, as the precious preborn poppet is just as sacred if the woman was forced or had sex willingly; gets "love thy neighbor" wrong; etc) and doesn't go far enough exploring why humans are so willing to except the great sky daddy reasoning. Then again, I came to the same conclusions about religion the book does when I was about 16 (more than a quarter century ago) so it was a lot of things I've already heard or have thought of, and not enough new material.

at his word. It's meant to be read by the religious, though he knows that many religious types won't bother. As an author,
he needed to keep his target audience in mind, so it's not surprising that longtime atheists won't find anything new here.

I'm reading the book to have a first-hand knowledge of it. I've occasionally had friends and family ask for recommendations
on books that I believe explain atheistic beliefs, and I'll be damned if I'll make such a recommendation before reading the
book itself. So far, this looks like it will be easily recommendable.

BTW - as far as slow going, I read the first 160+ pages in a couple of sittings today. I would chalk that up to what you mentioned, ie: that
a lot of the material was not new to me, so I didn't have that feeling of plowing through a time-consuming intellectual exercise.

For a time there he was worried he had lost his ability to reach the religious with science because he had so strongly associated himself with atheism in the public eye. He thought he might have served the community better if he had kept his atheism closer to his vest such as Gould had. Seems as though he has decided to go full speed ahead.

Indeed there are many atheists that need reaffirmation of their faith and this book, the God delusion, together with Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris, and the DVD The God Who Wasn't There by God Who Wasn't There, should help those that need to be properly churched so as to understand their faith.

Whatever you do, keep your local atheists away from books like Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life by Alister E. McGrath, The Science Of God: An Introduction To Scientific Theology by Alister E. McGrath, C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason by Victor Reppert, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis S. Collins, and about 100,000 other titles.

This Xmas I'm giving Christian friends that enjoy having their faith affirmed by rational argument in books in the popular press The Strongest Defense of Christianity by Rhett Ellis, the Harold Kushner's classic When Bad Things Happen to Good People, and If God Is Good, Why Is The World So Bad? by Benjamin Blech.

Seems fair to present other books for Christmas in this thread - right?

Sigh ... so General Discussion is now the religious forum and yet another place for the atheist evangelist to post on DU -

Seems politics, and discussing the Democratic Party, without posts trying to convert others to atheism, is to be limited to GD -Politics - eh?

no matter - DU is a great site! :-)

Atheists have arrived at that conclusion because of rational thinking. There is no evidence at all to suggest an invisible sky being. None whatsoever. If you want to be deluded go right ahead.

if you have not even read the books listed there? Has Dawkins said that there is zero evidence and you are believing him on faith?

Whether atheism is a religion, Dawkins certainly seems to want to replace religion with science:
"Science can offer a vision of life and the universe which, as I've already remarked, for humbling poetic inspiration far outclasses any of the mutually contradictory faiths and disappointingly recent traditions of the world's religions."

Yet if science offers a vision, is that vision based on evidence? My reasoning mind tells me that any philosophy, even the one that typically goes with science - scientism, is ultimately based on postulates which must be accepted on faith. Anybody who denies that seems deluded to me.

Perhaps I should write a book - The Scientist Delusion.

Or maybe I just missed the sarcasm. It's late.

and I probably flunked it too, both quantum mechanics and electrodynamics sorta blew my mind. We social scientists, what I have studied since are not totally keen on the scientific method, except in theory. But we are, as Heilbroner famously declared - worldly philosophers.

The scientific method is not in question here. It is ideologically neutral. However, when scientists, such as Dawkins, stray from the scientific method into philosophy, they usually assume a materialistic scientism as rational and inexorably tied to the scientific method.

Contrast the two statements:

"Most religions offer a cosmology and a biology, a theory of life, a theory of origins, and reasons for existence. In doing so, they demonstrate that religion is, in a sense, science; it's just bad science. Don't fall for the argument that religion and science operate on separate dimensions and are concerned with quite separate sorts of questions." Dawkins

"As a religious person, I don't rely on science to tell me what is right and wrong or what love means or why my life is important. I understand that such questions cannot be answered through empirical observations." Lerner

Dawkins seems to want to either extend science into religious questions, or simply deny the validity of religious questions. He is free to do so, but doing so is not a scientific inevitability. It is a leap of faith, a personal decision.

I'll read it again tomorrow. G'night :-)

Of the areas he gives, "cosmology and a biology, a theory of life, a theory of origins" are all clearly areas of science. "Reasons for existence" is an area that might be said to be scientific, or might be said to be religious - if it means "why do humans exist, rather than unicorns" then it's scientific; if it means "why does the universe exist" then it probably is something science cannot answer, since evidence would be outside the universe.

What religious questions is he denying the validity of?

"religion is, in a sense, science; it's just bad science. Don't fall for the argument that religion and science operate on separate dimensions and are concerned with quite separate sorts of questions..."

According to that there are no religious questions that science cannot answer. He admits that science does not have alot to say about ethics, but that does not mean he is content to let religions handle ethical questions:

"When the religious education class turns to ethics, I don't think science actually has a lot to say, and I would replace it with rational moral philosophy."

It's just that religion-based answers are not, since they lack supporting evidence.

Religion talks about 'should'. Science talks about 'is'. You cannot get from an 'is' to a 'should'. Not without calling on a value system. When it comes to values, there is no such thing as 'supporting evidence.'

In that speech I quoted, Dawkins admits that science has little to say about ethics, which is (or should be :evilgrin:) IMO the core of religion. "When the religious education class turns to ethics, I don't think science actually has a lot to say, and I would replace it with rational moral philosophy." He does not, however, clearly admit that his 'rational moral philosophy' is not scientific. It is just another religion.

Sometimes they coincide with it.

As for religion saying what 'should' be, sure - like Christianity's bible calling for how owners should treat their slaves, for example.

Not terribly enlightening. The good stuff, "love your neighbor" and all, wasn't an amazing new insight, either. Teachings like that existed way before Jesus allegedly walked the earth.

To adapt the old saying, "What's original about Christianity isn't good, and what's good isn't original."

"What's original about Christianity isn't good"

Doesn't that depend on your definition of 'good'? And where do those definitions come from? Biology class? Math? Physics? Chemistry? Law?

Is Law a science? Or just a secular source for rules?

I'm not that concerned with the origins of ethics, only that religion seems to teach them now whereas science either ignores or disparages them. Religion also teaches alot of what somebody else called Christmas kitsch and also what I would call sexual repression. There is plenty of dirt in the bathwater, but there's a baby too - a baby which cannot be scientifically or rationally established.

Lerner doesn't say where he has learned about right and wrong or what love is. I doubt that he was ignorant of these things before he studied the bible or whatever. Empirical means based on observation and experience. Is Lerner stating that observation and experience have no part in love or ethics? That would make him kind of stupid, wouldn't it? Has he revealed why his life is important? Do you need religion for that?

Are you echoing that claim, that experience and observation have nothing to do with love and ethics?

I've had dogs that knew love and could sense right and wrong without being religious or deeply philosophical.

--IMM

If dogs are sensing 'right' and 'wrong' aren't they getting the meaning of that from their god? Wrong being something which will displease god and bring punishment, and right being something which will please god and bring reward. How else are they defining it?

Whether dogs can love is debatable. It's pretty hard to get them to share.

I will echo Lerner's claim, since it seems logically sound to me, that you cannot get an "ought" statement out of an "is". No amount of factual observation can tell you what you 'ought' to do. Not until it is combined with your ethical standards. It is not that they have nothing to do with each other, but that the ethical standards are not derived from empirical observation.

To say that dogs learn that stuff from a supreme, perfect, supernatural being, really begs the question. They learn it from the same place people learn it. When did you receive rewards and punishments for your behavior from god?

Certainly those behaviors are observed in elephant, apes and other more highly evolved species which never read a bible or went to church. Dogs sacrifice, and other species share.

Ethical standards are the result of socialization not the cause. Also you are using logical where you really mean reasonable.

--IMM

learning ethics the same way people do.

I said their "god". Small g. Meaning their owner is like a god to them. My god, is, unfortunately, a little more distant.

"Falstaff accompanied him, a brand new dog, but as faithful as a lifelong companion. Odd. The finest qualities of character - rare in humankind and perhaps rarer still in what other intelligen species might share the universe - were common in canines. Sometimes, Jack wondered if the species created in God's image was, in fact, not the one that walked erect but one that padded on all fours with a tail behind." Winter Moon

Humans are very poorly socialized. Certainly we commit more mass murders than dogs, although mine can be pretty destructive when they get bored or hungry. I had to stop my friendly dog from joyfully tearing a baby rabbit to pieces. Humans also have more capacity to reject what we have been taught, or to live, like Hobbes said of Calvin, by the 'principle' of 'total self indulgence'.

Are you saying you learned good behavior directly from god, or God as you put it? How much direct contact did you have? What language did he speak? Was his voice like thunder? Did he smite you with a rolled up newspaper when you misbehaved?

OK, let's be real. Humans and dogs are generally civilized by their environment and contact with an authority figure, who would be a human in either case. Other high functioning mammals are socialized by contact with their own species. It's pretty certain that the capacity to discern right from wrong is wired into our makeup through evolution. There is a ton of scientific evidence for this, described by Michael Shermer in his book, "The Science of Good and Evil."

I have contact with dozens of humans every day, and those contacts are almost always civil. I've never seen anybody get murdered, and I've been around for a long time. Humans may have the capacity to reject what they have been taught, but where did they get taught in the first place? It wasn't by god. It was by people and community. It may have been under the guise of religion, but religion was invented by people as well, and good behavior precedes the advent of religion. Were it not so, our species would not have survived long enough to institutionalize imaginary beings. If your opinion of humanity is that low, you might wonder why your god is doing such a shitty job.

--IMM

Scientists have the right to bloviate about Life, the Universe and Everything just like everybody else.

in the realm of physics and chemistry. Which does not necessarily hold in the world of philosophy.

Indeed the idea that it is all nothing but empty bloviating seems to be one of the key tenets of scientism.

Party 20-30 years ago and no one was paying attention which is why the party got hijacked by a bunch of religious nut cases. I hope the same thing doesn't happen to the Democratic party.

They are really fun reads for people like me who know a lot about, and study, evolution. Then comes the numbing realization that these people are serious. Collins book made me feel especially sad...that a man with that much potential could waste his mind on that tripe.

I've also read Philip Johnson's book, Darwin on Trial. A bigger piece of shit than that, demonstrating vast, almost superhuman, amounts of pure ignorance, is hard to find.

Have you actually read Dawkins book, Papau? Did you read Sam Harris's books as well?

Whatever an "atheist evangelist" might be.



That sounds an awful lot like you would prefer that "atheists evangelists" not be allowed to post on DU at all. I guess you could either complain to the mods about our presence, or perhaps you could finally just accept the fact that we're here, and we're not going away.

Sid

I read his "The Blind Watchmaker" years ago--not an easy read. Did you read "The End of Faith" by Sam Harris, and if you did, is "The god Delusion" a similar animal?

But longer, and a lot more self-consciously cuter.

Dawkins while tackling the same subject matter. "Letter to a Xian Nation" is very much in the face of
the reader. I can't imagine a Xian not feeling insulted or put off by Harris' tone.

Has he ever been on Leno?

You can imagine why you have not heard of him. Atheists don't tend to get a lot of press in the US. He wrote The End of Faith, and A Letter to a Christian Nation.

I remember years back hearing about Bertrand Russell who was a noted philosopher and atheist. He would get in the news from the UK by being arrested for opposing the Bomb or Viet Nam war etc. I wonder if we would hear more of Harris were he to do something like that even if he is from "across the pond."

he is American. You may start hearing more about him as there seems to be a small explosion of atheist texts getting into the mainstream awareness right now. Both Dawkins and Harris are making some waves over here.

Frankly I disagree with the manner in which they represent the argument. It is the continued use of ideas such as delusions that causes them trouble. There are more diplomatic ways to convey that we don't think those who think they are communing with God are actually doing so. As a result they provide a lot of material for the religious right to rail against. But I am glad to see some atheist text making it into the mainstream at any rate.

and this ingrained notion we have the religion and the murderous rampage it has brought upon the world over the centuries is beyond being criticized and held to account. He fully understands that in the nuclear age we simply can't afford this if we expect to survive. And he is right, we are way beyond the time of playing nice e nice. It is time to expose these people for what they are, delusional, and if that offends some, tough luck, most of them are simply beyond reason and logic anymore.

I found Harris' book hard going in the middle. Dawkins is much easier to read...light-hearted in a way without being
condescending or trite. He has a way of stating things simply that I enjoy.

Is there any irony in that?

the holiday season.

..It was Harris first book and I think you will find that "LETTER TO A CHRISTIAN NATION" is much better even though it is shorter.

I also find Harris's attitude toward organized religion welcoming. Why does anyone have to appeez to ideology that they find socially threatening? No one has to approach religion with "kids gloves" and I frankly will not give religion special treatment.

Most religionists get seriously bent out of shape when anybody says anything negative about their religion. But ask them to criticize another religion - and they will give you an earful. But they all deny being hypocrits....

Religionists are so naive to believe the world would be wonderful if everybody subscribed to their religion. The problem with this argument is that religion is not based on morals, laws, facts or even faith. Every religion is based on the acquisition of money and power. It's impossible to have a single faith when competing power brokers break off and found their own religion.

So I will get the book. It will be interesting to learn more about how these religionists brainwash people into believing there is a big invisible man who lives in the sky.

Of course if I had the likes of bible-god (the spiteful fan of genocide who is all loving) watching my every move I too would want to be seen taking a stand against those who would anger bible-god. Anything to be spared the wrath of that all loving entity.

;-)

Julie

sounds good, i'll read it.

besides I'm in love with Richard Dawkins



:loveya:

Cuz its reporting 57 replies and there are only 30 here.

A whole sub-thread was removed.

you are surreptitiously trying to seek proof of Gods existence without telling anyone. You "sense" something is missing in your life and try to seek proof where none exists.
I suspect enlightenment is around the corner.

Unitarianism awaits with open arms and a very very thin slice of cake.

TRYPHO
(why would a whole sub-thread go missing unless the Devils working for DU?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCS1twX2i6s

The subsequent parts are in the video response. His arguments are often fairly subtle -- it actually helps to hear his tone and see his body language.

Specifically, the trilogy "Where God Went Wrong", "Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes" and "Who is this God Person Anyway?"

Sounds like a true visionary.

(from Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe")

possibility of God. God works for me. Religion doesn't. Science is wonderful. I am not conflicted over either. Consider that God came before religion and will be there after. I also believe that one cannot disprove God anymore than they can prove him. Each person has to take that road and find for themselves what they need and want.

tooth fairies, or unicorns, or Santa Clause, or dragons, any more than you can prove them. Does not mean that they are likely to exist? The parity you cite is not there. Because something is a comforting thought, has nothing to do with its reality.

--IMM

--IMM

Your statement didn't deserve more.

--IMM

It is indeed a great read.