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Dawkins - God Delusion....

228 replies

squidette · 30/10/2006 17:30

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.

OP posts:
UnquietDad · 31/10/2006 11:51

Dawkins continually has to defend the allegation that his atheism is as much a "faith" as any religion. He does so robustly.

Essentially, the difference is that his atheism is arrived at through an intellectual process of weighing up the evidence, without the element of blind faith which is necessary for a religious belief.

He states that if anyone could present him with evidence that God existed, he would happily look at it and, in the correct manner of a scientist, weigh it up against the evidence against. He is on record as saying he would change his views if the evidence proved to be in favour. As yet, he hasn't done so because nobody has given him that evidence. It's a bit like James Randi's Million-Dollar Paranormal Challenge .

If anyone wants to hear RD argue, there is an interview from Jeremy Vine's programme here - surprisingly objective and fair, given JV's Christian tendencies.

The interview is a sort of "Dawkins 101" - he's given the opportunity to run through all his basic arguments, from the Blind Watchmaker through to Mount Improbable and the God Delusion. Nothing new, but all very interesting.

UnquietDad · 31/10/2006 11:59

And why do we need to psychoanalyse him and presume it's all down to something in his relationship with his parents or an early bereavement? That seems to patronise and undermine the rigorous intellectual basis of his arguments.

Theists wouldn't like it if we speculated that their "relationship" with God was all there to fill the gap left by a lack of a relationship with a father-figure, or similar. And there is just as much (little) basis for doing that.

Heathcliffscathy · 31/10/2006 12:07

unquietdad, have you read the ward article i've linked to below? i think it makes a pretty robust case for the totally lack of intellectual rigour in dawkins' argument.

Heathcliffscathy · 31/10/2006 12:09

and i said that our relationship with god is given context and influenced by our relationship with our parents or primary caregivers and most specifically our relationships with our fathers. that applies to theists and atheists. to say no, i don't believe in you, is as much a relationship as i love and believe in you isn't it?

Heathcliffscathy · 31/10/2006 12:09

that should read 'total lack of intellectual rigour'. i'm not doing very well on the syntax front am i

UnquietDad · 31/10/2006 12:17

sophable - do you therefore have a relationship with Thor, which consists of saying "no, I don't believe in you" to him? And is this something to do with your relationship with your father?

Or with Zeus/ with Apollo/ with Horus / with unicorns/ with the Flying Spaghetti Monster?...

Why do you not believe in these gods and beings? Is this something to do with your relationship with your father?

I'm not for a second implying that it is, so forgive the heavy-handedness. But you see the point I'm making. It's one that Dawkins makes too. In order to be a Christian, you've already got to have a certain amount of scepticism to disbelieve in the rest of the pantheon of gods and celestial beings. All that the people who some call "atheists" do is to disbelieve in one more god. You disbelieve 99, we disbelieve 100. It's not a huge step.

I haven't read the article yet. I will do so.

beatieBoo · 31/10/2006 12:46

"Perhaps Beatie, we should rather question why there ARE no islands where people don't believe in God?"

If I asked my 4 year old how the world was made,with a lack of scientific knowledge, she would most likely invent some fantasy being as the creator.

Why don't the gods and religions of different parts of the world match? Why the vast discrepancies?

LittleScarer · 31/10/2006 14:00

I don't remember having any moment of absolute connection, or god feelings! I certainly have feelings of awe of nature, of human spirit and so on, but these - to me - have absolutely no connection with a god.

GoingQuietlyMad · 31/10/2006 14:19

bossykate: "gqm, to offer some potential answers to your question - the enlightenment, science, logical positivism, rationalism, fashion.."

No - you can't assert that I have "faith" in any of these philosophies just because I am an atheist.

Most religious philosophers/theologians back to Thomas Aquinas have tried to come up with a convincing logical proof for the existence of God. Whether empiricist (Berkeley) or rationalist (Descartes), they have all failed. Hence the concept of "faith" - by definition something that cannot be proved logically.

It is necessarily true in all possible worlds that 1+1=2. It is not necessarily true that there exists a God. Therefore God can only be invoked as a starting premise, either existing or not. I choose not, but this is not faith, this is the absence of faith. I am not postulating the existence of anything for which I do have any evidence, empirical or otherwise. I don't object to anyone choosing to believe in a God, but I do object to being told that my position is a "faith" as well.

texasrose · 31/10/2006 15:38

Pruni, sorry that you felt I was patronising you / lumping everyone together (9.39 a.m. post). That cetrainly wasn't my intention.

It's just that in all honesty I've never met anyone whose rejection of faith is 100% intellectual - the people I've met have all got some emotion driving their desire to take God out of the equation.

Eg - when i was in hospital with pnuemonia last yr one patient on the ward with me said "There can't be a God because if there were we wouldn't be fighting for our lives here". At the root of that statement was anger at her illness and a real feeling that God had let her down - so the best way for her to retaliate was to deny him altogether. I've talked to lots of young people who say that God can't exist because if he did, their dad wouldn't have left / their gran wouldn't have died / the world wouldn't be so crap. Again it comes down to a sense of being let down.

Also I don't think you can separate out emotions, intellect, morals and soul / spirit - we are complex beings and what we feel informs what we think and vice versa. While it's important not to get carried away with 'feelings' (as in 'i feel it's true so it must be' - that way leads to cults) it's equally wrong to dismiss feelings altogether or to say that they have no place in debate (not that you said that, I'm just extrapolating my position!)

It's complex. Human beings are complex. Religion, and the reasons why people do or don't believe, are complex. I don't have all the answers.

Pruni · 31/10/2006 15:50

Message withdrawn

Iklboo · 31/10/2006 15:58

I've not read these books yet (DH has them ordered) BUT

Is he rejecting the Christian idea of God, or the Gods of ALL religions?

Pruni · 31/10/2006 16:06

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Pruni · 31/10/2006 16:07

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UnquietDad · 31/10/2006 16:18

it was Prof Dawkins's Thor analogy - I just quoted it!

Pruni · 31/10/2006 16:22

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UnquietDad · 31/10/2006 16:27

"the world in which I live rattles on very well without recourse to God or gods of any description" is a pretty good encapsulation, Pruni. Agree it is very hard to explain it without negatives.

I like to invite Christians to tell me why they don't believe in, say, astrology. Or Celestial Teapots. I then ask them to consider that this is why I don't believe in God.

KathyDCLXVI · 31/10/2006 16:29

Same as Pruni, I think I'm a rational atheist.
I was never beaten by nuns, have a great relationship with parents, never experienced particular suffering or tragedy - but have thought hard about the arguments and came to the conclusion that the ones for not believing are better than the ones for believing.
(Pity because unlike Dawkins I do think religion does a lot of good and I would quite like to be part of a nice church, or more probably Quaker meeting.)

I do think the argument that we are all atheists for emotional reasons is pretty silly, but then Dawkins does do a bit of a similar thing in reverse with regard to believers, so I suppose we can't complain

Pruni · 31/10/2006 16:34

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bossykate · 31/10/2006 16:38

lol, that is interesting - i've had a similar conversation with dh! except we are both practising "cradle" catholics...

he would be cofe or jewish and i would be quaker!

KathyDCLXVI · 31/10/2006 16:39

Zoroastrianism sounds fun.... I think my dh would just go for CofE for reasons of cultural continuity.

I don't think Quakers are that bothered about what you believe - certainly you never have to say any prayers or take part in any formal service.

Pruni · 31/10/2006 16:40

Message withdrawn

bossykate · 31/10/2006 16:42

Society of Friends (Quakers)

i think you have to believe in God as a minimum!

bossykate · 31/10/2006 16:43

hey, unlike mr dawkins, i'm not scared of debate with someone of a different persuasion!

joke!

UnquietDad · 31/10/2006 16:45

kathyDCLXVI - Prof Dawkins does a good summary in "The God Delusion" of weighing up the arguments as you describe in 'Why there almost certainly is no God'. He calls it a sort of reverse Pascal's Wager, similar to his argument here .

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