Dawkins - God Delusion....

[squidette]

Hi

I am half way through reading Richard Dawkins new book, The God Delusion, and loving it. I am finding myself laughing and smiling in that 'phew! someone else thinks the same thing!' kind of way that i had when reading Russell's Why i am not a Christian lectures.

I was wondering if anyone else has read it and what their thoughts were.

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i think that is part of my problem - many of his comments are very provocative. tbh, that puts me off reading his book. from what i have read about this, i am much more keen to read the russell lectures already cited here. and i see the opposite of what you see - the atheist fundamentalists seem, as i said further down this thread, wilfully obtuse...

and i think a true scholar of philosophy/theology/history/anthropology - because this discussion could cross a number of disciplines - would have been a lot less populist in tone...

aargh - i only came up here to get another load of laundry!!!

pruni, how patronising! i do understand the scientific knowledge behind ivf etc - but certain disciplines, as you seem to have trouble grasping are not quantitative but qualitative (should i explain that further, or have you had enough of your own medicine now?) - knowledge in these disciplines is usually extended by philosophical discourse. but dawkins and his adherents on this thread appear to want to put themselves outside ordinary academic discourse!

I totally agree with Bossykate's posts

Dawkins has lots of fans because he just slags off christianity, and that's what lots of people think is huge fun, because they have personal issues with christianity. But he always seems like just another atheist with an axe to grind. He has no understanding of what it is like to be a theologian. He isn't going to persuade anyone who is "a believer", he is just playing the game because he likes hearing cheers from the sidelines. From a philosophiscal point of view, he is just a bludgeoner.

I have no problem with ID being taight in RE lessons. What ID isn't is science. It basically says, 'This is all too complex to have happened by chance, so God must have done it'

This is not science, and it will be a cold day in hell when it gets taught in my lab! Asking science teacher to teach ID is akin to teaching French to kids in a German lesson and telling them it is actually German.

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oh yes Bertrand Russell is great bossykate

Dawkins books are like those books that tell you that Jesus was really a Gnostic who ate magic mushrooms, or was sent by UFOs or that there is a secret code in your Dyson vacuum cleaner instructions. When you read the books, they make sense, but if you actually study the subject properly, you realise it is just a load of baloney.

This is a great thread and I am torn. I love Terry Eagleton and he is a Marxist so doesnt accept God hook line and sinker and thought the review was in many ways brilliant. Also love Dawkins! Oh dear am going to have to read it now. AM always being given the argument that because I do not believe in the existence of God I therefore have faith!

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Let's face it, if you have devoted the time and energy to become a "true scholar" of theology, I hardly think you're objective enough to stand back and decide dispassionately that it's all bollocks.
I'm no "true scholar" of anything but to me , a belief in God is as strange and illogical as a belief in fairies or the fact that tarot cards can divine the future. I can see how much support many people get from their religious beliefs and I have sometimes been humbled by that but it still seems rather fanciful.

mb, i love you, but i think your references to id etc have muddied the waters on this thread. no-one has referred to id as anything other than a bad thing here. the vast majority of theologians and religious people in this country would agree. please extend the same courtesy to us! - i.e. demand the same rigour in the discussion of religion that you are perfectly right and entitled to expect in the discourse of science!

"Let's face it, if you have devoted the time and energy to become a "true scholar" of theology, I hardly think you're objective enough to stand back and decide dispassionately that it's all bollocks."

Well Bertrand Russell managed this rather well I think

I may be much mistaken, but it seems that kathy is the only one that has read the book?

bossykate, i liked your very insightful point of, quote

'i can't believe it is so controversial to say that someone should have a pretty good grounding in a particular subject before holding themselves out as someone whose views are worthy of respect!'

This thread does seem to demonstrate that point, in as much as its not a necessary requirement that in order to comment on a topic one must be an expert in the subject, as it is possible to have an opinion on that subject from wider reading and investigation.

There were some nice thoughts about 'faith' and what this has to do with athesim - for me, i have faith in a number of things - myself, my children, that if i work hard i may find fulfilment and enjoy the rewards that it brings are a few of the things i have 'faith' in. My faith is certainly present in many things - its just as a atheist and humanist, it does not involve a faith in the supernatural.

If anyone is interested, Dawkins is speaking at the Oxford Union in a fortnight as part of the promotion of the book.

Am agreeing with bk.

My issue with Dawkins is not that he denies the possibility of God existing (which is a completely plausible and indeed quite compelling argument) but that he dismisses with a sweep of the hand a belief system which, whatever the truth of its underlying premise, has motivated some outstandingly good thinkers to produce a great deal of high-quality philosophy and theology, not to mention most of western art, music and literature, and a strong philanthropical tradition as well. By dismissing the entire history and philosophy of Christianity, ie. pretty much the whole of post-classical western civilisation as 'fairiology', Dawkins is essentially refusing to recognise or engage with any system of thought before his own.

I think the arrogance of that is what weakens his arguments so fatally. Any institution or community is more than the sum of its worst parts -- by Dawkins' logic we could find ourselves arguing that we should abolish parliamentary democracy because it's given us the Iraq war and the Poll Tax.

I agree frogs

If only Dawkins had spent his life studying philosophy and theology I'm sure he would be a hugely fun voice in the debate. As it is, he's just embarassing.

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Ks, yes of course it's possible to believe in God and evolution (unless you're a US-style biblical literalist). The Catholic church teaches that evolution does not present any conflict with church teachings the bible is a complicated book containing various kinds of writing philosophical, historical, literary -- about different aspects of god, the world and humans. It's not intended to be a biology textbook.

Evolution is just one more scientific discovery, that tells us more about God, rather than less.

Devil's advocate...

Oh and can someone point me in the direction of an argument for the plausibilty of god existing?

Not being flippant, would be interested to read.

try this little scarer

Thanks

So poor at putting my point forward eloquently, I would like to respond to Frogs quote here...

"My issue with Dawkins is not that he denies the possibility of God existing (which is a completely plausible and indeed quite compelling argument) but that he dismisses with a sweep of the hand a belief system which, whatever the truth of its underlying premise, has motivated some outstandingly good thinkers to produce a great deal of high-quality philosophy and theology, not to mention most of western art, music and literature, and a strong philanthropical tradition as well. By dismissing the entire history and philosophy of Christianity, ie. pretty much the whole of post-classical western civilisation as 'fairiology', Dawkins is essentially refusing to recognise or engage with any system of thought before his own."

With a quote from Dawkins here...

Quote "Theology is a respectable discipline when it studies such subjects as moral philosophy, the psychology of religious belief and, above all, biblical history and literature. Like Bertie Wooster, my knowledge of the Bible is above average. I seem to know Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon almost by heart. I think that the Bible as literature should be a compulsory part of the national curriculum ? you can?t understand English literature and culture without it. But insofar as theology studies the nature of the divine, it will earn the right to be taken seriously when it provides the slightest, smallest smidgen of a reason for believing in the existence of the divine. Meanwhile, we should devote as much time to studying serious theology as we devote to studying serious fairies and serious unicorns."

yeeeeeeeees see that's not very grown-up is it?

Dawkins thinks that there seems to be, on the one hand, nice, rational, good, jolly scientists, and on the other, crazed religious nutters.

It's like me saying that Darwin's theory of evolution seems obviously bollocks to me, so I won't bother studying biology because it's clearly all based on rubbish and those scientists are all brainless idiots