The God Delusion
discussion
agnostic: the way to go.
Dawkins, and a few others seem to feel they can do what other scientists clain you can not do. His position is impossible. One can #1: believe there is a God/god, be it nature (intelligent or otherwise) or whatever; #2: not believe there is a God, or #3: understand that, what can not be proven NOR disproven, is not knowable.
Dawkins needs to stick with biology, I've seen a LOT of his interviews with others, and he has difficulties outside his field at times, and religion is the thing he knows the least about (his views are more narrow then the Catholic church), IMHO
Mike wrote: "One can #1: believe there is a God/god, be it nature (intelligent or otherwise) or whatever; #2: not believe there is a God, or #3: understand that, what can not be proven NOR disproven, is not knowable. "There is an immediate problem here, in my view, which is that you consider anything "unknowable". That means it is not even possible to know it, rather than just that we don't know it now. Except that if people approached life in that way we'd still be living in caves because everything was unknown at some point before we decided to begin trying to understand it. In fact, we'd never have mastered fire since it would have been declared "unknowable" based on the idea that it isn't known for perfect certainly at that moment.
Declaring things "unknowable" is a kind of intellectual cowardice. It's true that there are things we don't yet know (lots and lots and lots of them), but to consider anything to be entirely unknowable is to give up on progress in general.
Regarding #1, you're taking two or three things and calling them one thing, which doesn't make much sense. If it's "nature" then it has nothing to do with any practical usage of the word "god". If you mean a kind of poetic notion of "god", then that too has nothing to do with any practical usage of the word. Version 2 or 3 really share no commonalities with your first version of #1. I'm not really sure why you put them together.
Regarding #3, inability to disprove something is essentially meaningless. There are endless numbers of things which cannot be disproven (especially when the question is rigged, as it is in this case, to force it to be so), but none of those things are taken seriously as ideas. Why should this idea be taken seriously as a possibility at all?
I'm also not sure what you mean when you say "his position is impossible". Please explain.
Unknowable in SCIENCE means it can not be #1: tested, or/nor #2: it not falisifiabe. Any scientific stance on anything that meets these two criteria is impossible. This is the stance of all my colleagues...
Daniel wrote: "Maxine wrote: "And that's the thing for me - whenever so-called religious events are examined closely, there is always something much more pragmatic happening and it is almost always about economic..."Daniel, I don't disagree with what you are saying and I was definitely not defending the Bible. I was trying to say, although clearly badly, that religion itself, and that includes the books, is irrelevant when given a closer scrutiny. Nobody actually follows the books - they cherry pick what they like and ignore the rest - adultery is a big no-no in the Bible, much bigger than homosexuality or family planning, but no one is suggesting we stone Rush Limbaugh (well,OK, I guess I would kinda enjoy that). Actually, one of my favourite passages in the King James Bible is, I believe (I may be off by a couple of verses), Psalm 137:9 but I doubt that dashing my little ones (if I had any) against a rock would make me any happier than I am today and certainly the right-to-lifers, as far as I know, don't recommend it. And before someone tells me I am interpreting this passage wrong, either the Bible is the exact and immutable word of God or it isn't and, therefore, cannot be open to interpretation regardless of what verse or, for that matter, Bible you are looking at. Yes, there are many different versions of the bible and they may say different things but they must all be right because, well, never mind, some religious defender can explain that 'cause that's way over my head.
Admittedly, it's been a lot of years since I read the Bible but I still cringe when someone brings up the story of Lot. All I can think of is him offering his daughters to be raped by the crowd instead of some visiting angels. I mean, really, angels - wouldn't you think they could defend themselves given the amount of smiting they do in other parts of the Bible?
I guess what I was trying to say was that religion has always been used as an excuse for all kinds of horrible acts that are really the result of man's own worse impulses but what's making it such a problem today in my mind is its open melding with Ayn Rand objectivism (we atheists are not completely without sin) among so many on the Right - the Paul Ryan budget is a case in point.
But, and here's the problem for me, the books exist and short of banning, burning, or censoring, I don't know how you can stop people from reading them. So blaming the books is fine but it's a bit like the atom - left alone, they are just a bunch of fairy tales most much older than the Hebrew Bible, whose interest should really only be to historians and fiction writers, no threat to anyone; it is only when placed in the wrong hands that they become dangerous.
cs wrote: "Hazel wrote: "Not being Shaun, I can't say for certain what he was "trying to prove", so instead of trying to hypothesise what his intentions were, I'll let him answer. I was just interested in see..."At no time have I asked you to prove the existence of god.
This is not the same as the god exists/doesn't exist claim, for which I am happy to acknowledge there is no evidence either way.
No, my original claim was based on historical record. Factual events. Things that happened. You *don't* get to casually contradict that without providing any counter-evidence. If what you claimed about the resolution of conflicts between church and science is true, then you should easily be able to find one example. You have failed to do so.
I made a statement, and provided examples of when my statement was true.
You made a counterstatement disagreeing with mine and yet refuse to back that with a single example.
It is not unreasonable to assume, then, that the reason you have yet to give an example is that you simply don't have one. That you made a bold claim based on no evidence whatsoever.
In otherwords, you have identified yourself as somebody who argues without evidence, and seriously damaged your credibility as a debater.
You have failed to provide evidence of a claim you made.
You have also claimed that I made absolute statements about god, and again, failed to provide a single bit of evidence to back up that claim.
You have claimed you need a creator in order to understand why we are here, but at the same time postulate a creator whose motives cannot be understood.
You have thus made at least 3 (and probably more if I stopped to count) unfounded claims. And every time you are called to provide some basis for these claims you evade the issue, claim you are being unfairly picked upon, attack other people semantically, or simply ignore the question.
In short, you have demonstrated that nothing you say should be relied upon as there is every chance that you just made it up to fit with your own narrow world view.
Why should we believe a single word that you type?
I was going to make a post addressing a few things, but Shaun has said all I was going to, so just wanted to make sure cs didn't think I just wasn't replying, when I don't feel the need to repeat what has already been said.
cs wrote: "The relevant definition is the one that applies to the sentence it was in. "And the sentence it was in only makes sense with one of those definitions. Which strongly implies that was the definition intended, yes? Context is everything.
And as the writer of the sentence as intended, I can confirm that I was using the definition "conjectural consideration of a matter; conjecture or surmise: a report based on speculation rather than facts."
No oxymoron.
But again, we see a prime example of you trying to deflect the debate away from the issue at hand.
Rather than admit you made a pair of statements that are contradictory, or try to explain your thinking, you instead launch into an unfounded attack not on the other persons position but on their choice of words - a choice of words that you have to actually deliberately twist in order to provide a basis for your attack
Maxine wrote: "But, and here's the problem for me, the books exist and short of banning, burning, or censoring, I don't know how you can stop people from reading them. So blaming the books is fine but it's a bit like the atom - left alone, they are just a bunch of fairy tales most much older than the Hebrew Bible, whose interest should really only be to historians and fiction writers, no threat to anyone; it is only when placed in the wrong hands that they become dangerous."I've never recommended burning or anything like that. I just think honest people acknowledging that they are severely immoral books is a step in the right direction.
You don't believe that a religion can ever be wrong?
Maxine wrote: "Daniel wrote: "Maxine wrote: "And that's the thing for me - whenever so-called religious events are examined closely, there is always something much more pragmatic happening and it is almost always..."I think I should clarify one point. I agree that very often people in power use religion as an excuse to do horrible things and don't remotely believe in any of it themselves. I don't think I quite believe that it is ALWAYS true. I think some people do believe it or at least I think its possible that they do. Bin Laden, for example, was already rich and powerful. Why give that up to live in caves if you don't actually believe at all?
The part where we disagree (I think) is that I don't think it's fair to say that a religion can never hold any blame for anything no matter what just because people are the ones who do things. Surely doing things "in it's name" overlaps some with saying "because of it".
Otherwise, it would be like saying that a religion which taught that all infants should be eaten is not to blame when it's followers eat infants because the people in charge "probably don't believe in the religion anyway and are just using it to get the power/wealth that they want".
Shaun wrote: "cs wrote: "The relevant definition is the one that applies to the sentence it was in. "And the sentence it was in only makes sense with one of those definitions. Which strongly implies that was ..."
Regarding your previous post (above) you only seem able to debate from the one blinkered Philosophical point of view. It is similar to a religious person quoting the bible or other religious works at the expense of logic. You seem well trained in asking questions but reluctant to answering them.
Regarding this post the 'definition' oxymoron saga.
Quote Shaun: Rather than admit you made a pair of statements that are contradictory,......
Quote Shaun: you have to actually deliberately twist in order to provide a basis for your attack.....
You are doing what you are accusing me of. Pot and Kettle come to mind.
cs wrote: "Regarding your previous post (above) you only seem able to debate from the one blinkered Philosophical point of view."Well, my point of view is that you like to make statements that are either provably false or not demonstratably true, and that when called to task on this you try to change the subject.
I don't see why I should change that point of view unless presented with evidence to the contrary.
cs wrote: " Shaun: you have to actually deliberately twist in order to provide a basis for your attack.....
You are doing what you are accusing me of. Pot and Kettle come to mind."
Really? When did I twist your words in order to launch an attack upon them instead of answering your question? Could it be that for the 4th time (at least) you are making a statement without evidence to back it up?
Or did you find evidence of me making an absolute statement about god yet? Or did you find a counter example vis the point about religion/science yet? Or explain in what curious way "creation" met the criteria set out in the original question? Or did you explain how postulating a creator with unknowable motives helps you to understand why we are here, yet?
5 questions you have been asked, all asked in response to you own posts, 5 questions that you are unable to answer with any meaning. Prove me wrong and I shall revise my "point of view".
Shaun wrote: "cs wrote: "Regarding your previous post (above) you only seem able to debate from the one blinkered Philosophical point of view."Well, my point of view is that you like to make statements that ar..."
quote Shaun: When did I twist your words
As I have stated above, regarding definition & oxymoron
cs, it was SHanna who defined oxymoron, not shaun.And it was i who defined speculation.
ANd all shaun did was clarify for you which definition of speculation was the one he was intending when he made his statement about speculation without evidence, as Shaun is the only person who knows what his intentions and what definition he was using.
So.I say that you have engaged in (and I quote) "pure speculation without a shred of evidence to back it up"
You claim that is an Oxymoron.
Hazel points out that one of the definitions of speculation is "conjectural consideration of a matter; conjecture or surmise: a report based on speculation rather than facts" and therefore it isn't an oxymoron.
You state "You are listing 4 definition and then picking one you like regardless if it is relevant or not. The relevant definition is the one that applies to the sentence it was in."
I point out that since only the 4th definition makes sense in the context of the sentence, it is, in fact, the definition that I had in mind when I wrote the sentence, and thus no oxymoron is involved.
At what point have I twisted your words? or is this, as I already suggested, just another case of you pulling an unfounded statement out of thin air to go with the other ones you have made and been unable to back up with evidence?
Hazel wrote: "cs, it was SHanna who defined oxymoron, not shaun.And it was i who defined speculation.
ANd all shaun did was clarify for you which definition of speculation was the one he was intending when he..."
Check message 255.
ok, checked. Your point?
Hazel wrote: "ok, checked. Your point?"Does that not define Oxymoron
it gives one dictionaries definition, yes. Your point?
Shaun wrote: "So.I say that you have engaged in (and I quote) "pure speculation without a shred of evidence to back it up"
You claim that is an Oxymoron.
Hazel points out that one of the definitions of specu..."
quote Hazel; 4.conjectural consideration of a matter; conjecture or surmise: a report based on speculation rather than facts.
speculation rather than facts.
the words before the word 'speculation' does not alter the meaning of speculation. So you original statement that included the Oxymoron is incorrect.
Hazel wrote: "it gives one dictionaries definition, yes. Your point?"you message 274 saying cs, it was SHanna who defined oxymoron, not shaun.
It was neither.
first, not my statement. You can at least attribute things to the correct people. And we return to "your point?"So stop arguing semantics, as I'm sure you're not so stupid that you didn't know what Shaun meant. You're simply trying to change the subject, and distract from the fact that you're not able to provide evidence for several statements you've made, by attacking how Shaun said something.
You're trying to reduce this to an argument of semantics. The only reason to do so is to distract from the actual point being debated.
So drop the semantic argument, and provide the evidence that Shaun has asked for, or admit that you made unsubstantiated claims.
cs wrote: "Hazel wrote: "it gives one dictionaries definition, yes. Your point?"you message 274 saying cs, it was SHanna who defined oxymoron, not shaun.
It was neither."
Who cares? Stop avoiding the actual debate point. Answer Shaun honestly.
Hazel wrote: "first, not my statement. You can at least attribute things to the correct people. And we return to "your point?"So stop arguing semantics, as I'm sure you're not so stupid that you didn't know wh..."
This is your message, message 274 by Hazel, you are Hazel.....
message 274: by Hazel (last edited 2 hours, 42 min ago) (new) - rated it 5 stars 2 hours, 48 min ago
cs, it was SHanna who defined oxymoron, not shaun.
And it was i who defined speculation.
ANd all shaun did was clarify for you which definition of speculation was the one he was intending when he made his statement about speculation without evidence, as Shaun is the only person who knows what his intentions and what definition he was using.
reply | flag *
So what do you mean by 'first, not my statement'?
right, putting my foot down. Its irrelevant, I obviously thought you meant one statement, while you were meaning another. Who cares? Its not germane to the point of this debate. Semantics is not the point of this debate.
Answer Shaun, if you can provide evidence for your statements, do so, if you cannot, then say so. Stop using avoidance tactics.
Hazel wrote: "right, putting my foot down. Its irrelevant, I obviously thought you meant one statement, while you were meaning another. Who cares? Its not germane to the point of this debate. Semantics is not ..."
So you also have made a mistake and like Shaun would rather ignore your own errors.
That I may have made a mistake semantically is not germane to the conversation, I apologise if I have, but its irrelevant to the conversation.Answer Shaun, or admit that you can't back up your statements.
Hazel wrote: "That I may ahve made a mistake semantically is not germane to the conversation, I apologise if I ahve, but its irrelevant to the conversation.Answer Shaun, or admit that you can't back up your st..."
No 'if' you have.
Shaun likes to play with words, he will ask questions but does not seem to reply to many. So its good to point this out to him, when he does not say what he thinks he means and it was also good to see you leap to his defence, which gave him a way out, of sorts.
You and he keep saying stick to the point, but it is his point, his rules, and maybe I do not view things his way.
In a debate like this it is always the atheist who thinks he/she has the upper hand with the questions. A load of text book questions that are asked to any one who says they have a belief in a creator. Of course no answer will ever be good enough for the atheist and he / she will always have the pat answer to fall back on. A belief in philosophy.
What should be a friendly kick about (in football terminology)turns out with Shaun to be 'it's my ball so play by my rules or I will have my ball back.
if you can't provide the evidence, just say so. You made statements, the onus is on you to support them. If you can't, admit it, if you can do so then get on with showing the evidence, if you don't want to provide evidence, then retract the statements. You challenged something that Shaun said, it wasn't a question, he made a statement, he provided evidence, you challenged him, yet have done so without providing evidence.
I'm out....relavency on both sides has gone out the window. Bye.
Pretty hard to have a friendly kick about when one friend refuses to kick the ball, because the other is wearing the wrong shoes, the ball is the wrong colour, doesn't like the way the other is kicking the ball, and is constantly moving the goal posts or denying the existence of the goal posts, the need for goal posts or the definition of the goal posts....
cs wrote: "Shaun likes to play with words, he will ask questions but does not seem to reply to many."Tell you what, you make a list of questions I have failed to answer, I'll make a list of questions you have failed to answer, and we will take turns answering them.
Does that sound fair?
cs wrote: "You and he keep saying stick to the point, but it is his point, his rules, and maybe I do not view things his way. "
But many of the questions you have been asked have been for you to explain or back up your own statements. How can that be 'my point, my rules'?
You chose to make statements. When asked to back up those statements, you twisted and turned and evaded and made accusations and made new statements and outright lied but at no time did you ever back up the statements you made.
And not all of them were even about theism/atheism - some were simply asking you to back up the accusations you had made about other posters with evidence. And you steadfastly refuse to do so.
cs wrote: "What should be a friendly kick about (in football terminology)turns out with Shaun to be 'it's my ball so play by my rules or I will have my ball back. "
Really? Because from where I sit, it looks more like a friendly kick about where whenever you get tackled, you cry foul and want to play a different game, or suddenly grab the ball and carry it and then act all surprised and hurt when we try and point out that soccer is not played that way.
cs wrote: "So you also have made a mistake and like Shaun would rather ignore your own errors."Which errors would those be? Feel free to make a list.
Or is this unverifiable statement number 6?
I actually would like to admit to a mistake. I made a mistake in allowing the semantics argument to start in the first place, instead of nipping it in the bud as soon as cs started it.
Mike wrote: "Unknowable in SCIENCE means it can not be #1: tested, or/nor #2: it not falisifiabe. Any scientific stance on anything that meets these two criteria is impossible. This is the stance of all my coll..."I'm a Popper fan, but it's important to recognize that (1) just because we don't know what would qualify as falsification does not mean that it is not possible to falsify something. (2) We certainly don't assume that anything that has yet to be disproven has any serious probability of being correct. In other words, one does not say "you cannot disprove X, therefor X remains a hypothesis with a high probability of being correct." That would mean that virtually everything imaginable should be assumed to be likely to be true.
What threw me off about your comments is the clear indication that you are commenting on a book you haven't read. That's why I didn't respond at first. It's very odd. Why would you do that?
Mike wrote: "Unknowable in SCIENCE means it can not be #1: tested, or/nor #2: it not falisifiabe. Any scientific stance on anything that meets these two criteria is impossible. This is the stance of all my coll..."It's worth pointing out that even Popper admitted to being partially wrong on this definition. If people had not moved forward on studying natural selection by inductive means (the positivist approach), they'd never have discovered the method of falsification. For most of his life, Popper had denied that natural selection was science on the basis that you are using to remove this question from science (by calling it unknowable) only to later admit that a method of falsification did arise eventually. He happily reversed his position on natural selection.
The point is that his definition of science might be better called "eminently answerable questions of science" since his method would have already excluded key discoveries. The world would indeed be much poorer if they'd listened too carefully to Popper all the time. That's partially why his definition is not the mainstream definition at all. I happen to think his ideas are still hugely useful, but not to exclusion of all other approaches.
I do feel like he eliminates too much from the field of science with his narrow view. To me, a more apt definition of Scientific Questions is whether there is, in fact, a correct answer one way or the other. Ultimately, we seek evidence that leads to a need for testing the hypothesis and eventually hope to discover a falsification methodology to crown the achievement (so to speak).
Of course, if there is no evidence to support a hypothesis (as in this case), then there isn't much need to test it. If we tested hypotheses which didn't even have a basis to suggest they might be true, no real science would ever get done because the list of things for which there is no evidence is, by definition, endless.
There are other important reasons to consider Popper in this context but we can leave them aside for the moment.
Shaun wrote: "cs wrote: "So you also have made a mistake and like Shaun would rather ignore your own errors."Which errors would those be? Feel free to make a list.
Or is this unverifiable statement number 6?"
Hazel wrote: "That I may ahve made a mistake semantically is not germane to the conversation, I apologise if I ahve, but its irrelevant to the conversation.
and once again, people are getting off the point.Shaun, stop replying to cs about semantic errors, its irrelevant, and you're simply giving him more bullshit ammunition.
cs, why did you address that post, and not the one above it, the one that you know is germane to the conversation. I suspect its yet another avoidance tactic.
Reply to shaun on the points that are relevant to the discussion.
Hazel wrote: "and once again, people are getting off the point.Shaun, stop replying to cs about semantic errors, its irrelevant, and you're simply giving him more bullshit ammunition.
cs, why did you address ..."
Doing a bit of research..........
Research is good, take your time, we want you to be as thorough as you can be.
Truth be told, if there is evidence of such a thing, I'd like to know about it.
Shaun wrote: "cs wrote: "Shaun likes to play with words, he will ask questions but does not seem to reply to many."Tell you what, you make a list of questions I have failed to answer, I'll make a list of quest..."
See message 2521 (Would you rather live in a world without science...or in a world without religion?)
I have replied a few times but that one will do, to show you how far back I answered your question.
I do dispute your statement, as I have said. Unless you can list all the conflicting answers you are talking about, and you only gave three, then I do dispute it, because unless you prove it, it seem to be a very 'sweeping' statement to make. You did say 'Every time'. Do you have a list of all the times?
msg 2521 on that thread doesn't answer the question. Its another avoidance answer.All you say is that unless Shaun lists EVERY example of the scientific answer being the one that both science and religion have accepted as the correct one, then he is wrong. An unreasonable request, when all you have to do to prove him wrong is to provide a single example of when the religious answer was accepted as correct by both science and religion.
Hazel wrote: "msg 2521 on that thread doesn't answer the question. Its another avoidance answer.All you say is that unless Shaun lists EVERY example of the scientific answer being the one that both science and..."
I did not say he was wrong, I dispute, question the validity of the statement. It is rather a 'sweeping' statement to make.
and all you have to do to prove him wrong, is to provide one example, as he asked, of something that religion and science used to disagree on, that they now agree on, and for which it is the religious answer that was accepted by both parties.
cs wrote: "Do you have a list of all the times? "I'll post such a list after you post your *single* instance of the reverse. After all, I asked first.
Then maybe you can move on to backing up the other 4 statements you made with no evidence,
Hazel wrote: "and all you have to do to prove him wrong, is to provide one example, as he asked, of something that religion and science used to disagree on, that they now agree on, and for which it is the relig..."Why would I want to prove him wrong?
cs wrote: "Why would I want to prove him wrong?"in order to show that your disputing of his statement holds water, its a much quicker way of doing so than expecting him to list the entire history of all scientific discoveries.
cs wrote: "Why would I want to prove him wrong? "Because a falsifiable hypothesis is held to be "most likely true" until proven wrong.
My statement is eminently falsifiable, and you claim that it is, indeed, false - and yet refuse to share the evidence that would validate your claim and destroy mine utterly.
I am intrigued as to why that would be the case. The amount of effort you have expended in evading the issue has now exceeded manifold the effort required to simply answer, and also damages your credibility as a debater. Assuming you are in possession of such evidence, of course.
As of now, I am simply going to assume you are not, and that your statement was just a simple kneejerk reaction to the idea that scientific explanations are historically 100% more reliable than those that supposedly came from the gods.
Quote Shaun: "most likely true".Is it true or not?
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You understood me just fine, Daniel. You're right that I don't believe in elves or mistrust gravity. My experience with gravity is pretty definitive; I don't fly off this whirling ball. (I think you can tell that I don't challenge scientific fact; I'm fascinated by what science has been able to prove and what it's still exploring) And I've never experienced any inklings of elves in my life, nor have I ever met a serious person who has.
And yes, I choose uncertainty in matters of religion mostly because it's more interesting and because the experience of other people - the Dalia Lama, Ghandi, ML King - tell me that thoughtful, intelligent, serious people experience something inexplicable (for now at least) by science, something ineffable that for them is real and powerful. There are lots of possible explanations for that and I don't rule out any of them. I'm comfortable letting it be a mystery, being curious.
I disagree with you about at least some atheists. Some of my atheist friends (and they're pretty numerous in my life) are quite adamant about being sure that they're right and in fact, feel quite bent on proselytzing others to their point of view, much like fundamentalists. But I agree that there are also many atheists who simply say what they think, live accordingly and are happy to let others do the same.