Why I don't recommend Dawkins?????

[_Phillip]

God help me, I'm turning into an apologist ...

[_DrW]

All I am saying is that when one takes over responsibility for their worldview (often a slow process), they are far better off to base their beliefs on objective physical evidence instead of superstition and tall tales told by their elders and others. And make no mistake about it, much or religion, and most of Mormonism, is little more than a collection of tall tales and "just so" stories.

But this is just rhetoric DrW, everyone thinks they have a worldview based off good evidence. It's way too easy to just label another worldview as nothing but superstition and tall tales, and requires a great deal of knowledge about any particular tradition to show with any kind of force that it's all just tall tales and just-so stories.

Again, I disagree. One only need look at the Old Testament, the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, or the creation myths that underlie the hundreds (thousands?) of religions that have come and gone in recorded history, to see belief sets that either test invalid or are unfalsifiable.

Many of these belief sets would substantially shorten your life expectancy, not to mention those of your wife and children, if you had the faith to follow their tenets.

Contrast the truth claims made in these books of "scripture" and creation myths to those contained in the works of folks like Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Alan Turing, Richard Feynman, and hundreds (or thousands) of others (including certainly Richard Dawkins).

Most truth claims made in the former theistic works are demonstrably false or unfalsifiable. Truth claims in the latter works are among the thousands from science that form the basis of the technology upon which our society is built and upon which we all depend, in one way or another, for our lives and livelihood.

You may see this as rhetoric. Nonetheless, you will have to agree that objective tests can be made for these truth claims, their practical value in understanding and interacting with our environment can be evaluated, and their predictive power can be assessed.

When one evaluates the theistic works, one is left to look at the value to society of Kolob, a global flood, a tower of Babel, assertions of ancient Semites who numbered in the millions in the New World yet left not a trace of DNA, cold blooded murders of defenseless human beings in their thousands, angry gods, demons, devils, devaluation of women, and blood sacrifice to name a few.

When one does the same for the works of science, one is left to appreciate modern medicine and agriculture resulting in the longest life spans humankind has ever enjoyed, rapid communications and safe high speed travel, safe and secure dwellings and the least violent society in recorded history.

Again Stak, these assertions can be objectively tested and compared and their predictive power can be ascertained. I claim that such comparisons are more than mere rhetoric.

And since I am sure that you know more than to start with the "ethics and morality come from God" canard (or apologetic), I will not bother to go there.

[_MrStakhanovite]

How can you objectively test that there was a guy named Moses who received revelation on a mountain top, 4,000 years ago?

ETA: You also create a false dichotomy between Science and Religion, as if they are ipso facto opposed to each other, which they are not.

[_marg]

Marg,

You keep asserting that theism has no explanatory power but it does. It offers an explaination of why there is a universe and why that universe has the broad form it does. It does so in a philosophically sophisticated manner that to some of us at least is coherent. The main competing explaination seems to be "the universe is just there, that's all"

By explanatory power..I mean a scientific explanation which offers how the world works..and offers predictive value which can be verified or potentially verifiable. God offers no predictive value which can be evaluated. So there is no way to test or verify a God theory and it offers no control over the environment.

Predictive power is something else. Here's one: for nearly 2000 years Christians have been claiming that the universe had a beginning. They even claimed that the universe was created with time not in time. This belief was contrary to Greek thought and to much of the modern scientific community until the 20th century and Big Bang cosmology.

And how long ago did Christians estimate the universe began..is that consistent with science which is evidence based? And are/were christian claims in line with scientific thought as far as age of the universe & our planet, the evolution of animals, appreciation of animals living on earth before modern man such as various other hominids, dinosaurs? It seems rather mundane to suggest the universe had a beginning... where did that conclusion come from, what evidence warrants that claim, what sort of beginning was it? To simply say the universe had a beginning is one of 2 options it either did or it didn’t..but that doesn’t explain much if anything simply stating without warrants one or the other.

You statement "Universe was created with time not in time"...created by whom? I know you are going to say God..but what’s the evidence. What does Christianity or the Bible say about time?

There are theories out there that try to get back to an eternal universe (perhaps motivated by the potential religous implications of a strict beginning to things), but for now they are just speculation. So on arguably one of the biggest questions of all, whether the cosmos is eternal or not, Christianity predicted something centuries ago that was only proven empirically in the last century.

I’m sorry what did Christianity predict that has been proven empirically?

[_marg]

I've actually spent some time studying the relationship between science and religion in in Western history. The idea that the Church consistently discouraged critical thinking and was fundamentally opposed to science and reason is a myth. There were tensions of course and the basic Christian dogmas were off limits (although still subject to analysis). Simply put, modern science would have never developed when and where it did without the Church's commitment to reason and education

Now is when you want to bring up Galileo...

Well the church wasn't necessarily opposed to science which was consistent with church teachings, not that it would promote science..but when independent researchers promoted science which contradicted or interfered with religious claims ...such as the sun being the center of the universe as opposed to the earth...then the church took issue. But as well the church did try to keep the masses ignorant and of course did not want the Bible available to the masses and did its best to prevent that. I think it's a bit of overblown propaganda to say the church was committed to reason and education. It was only committed to reason and education for the few who were being schooled to work for and support the church and perhaps vocations such as law..but it was not committed to promotion of science or education of the general public.

[_marg]

by the way Tarski this is the site http://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogs ... index.html which I quickly went through which discussed Swinburne and it was a result of EA's mention of Gwiazda. All I can say is why on earth should Dawkins waste any time in his book on this nonsense? As it is to some extent he did and he handled it extremely well by cutting to the chase with one quote. If people interested in this sort of philosophical word play wish to spend their time on it, fine but there is nothing of value in it which offers a legitimate argument worthy of respect for a God's existence. This sort of philosophy in my opinion is a waste of time and energy to take it seriously.

[_DrW]

How can you objectively test that there was a guy named Moses who received revelation on a mountain top, 4,000 years ago?

ETA: You also create a false dichotomy between Science and Religion, as if they are ipso facto opposed to each other, which they are not.

Among the truth claims in and regarding the scriptures mentioned, here is a sampling of those that can be objectively tested:
- The first humans magically appeared as a breeding pair upon the Earth less than 10,000 years ago and all modern humans are descended from this initial breeding pair.
- There was a global flood at the time of Noah.
- The sun gets its light from Kolob.
- A group of Semites left the Middle East 2,500 years ago and came to the new world on eight unpowered wooden semi-submersibles on a journey that required more than 300 days bringing with them all manner of animals and livestock, including honeybees.
- Another such group came to the New World from Jerusalem around 600 BC, and eventually numbered in the millions before disappearing without leaving a single marker in the pre-Columbian human genome of the New World.
- The Book or Abraham was originally written by the hand of Abraham upon papyrus.

As to your claimed false dichotomy between science and religion, well, you should know better. The mere claims of some LDS prophets such as Joseph Fielding Smith, apologists like bcspace (and no doubt any number of Christian apologists), that science and (their) religion are perfectly compatible, do not make it so.

Whether the opposition between science and religion is ipso facto or merely de facto makes little difference. The facto is that, in direct opposition to science, religion is based on unfounded belief including demonstrably false and unfalsifiable truth claims. Furthermore the means and methods by which religionists seek and confirm "truth" are an anathema to the scientific method.

Fundamentalist religionists tend to deny science when it conflicts with their core unfounded beliefs. The scientific community goes to great lengths to insure that religionist methods for evaluation of truth claims (such as promptings of the spirit, or the teachings of leaders, or scripture, or other means of generating unfounded belief) do not contaminate the scientific method or science itself.

If you think that the methods and aims of the Discovery Institute are not in direct opposition to the methods and aims of the Max Planck Institute, for example, or any other secular research university or legitimate scientific institute, then you need to get out more.

[_Some Schmo]

It's a bad comparison to place theology next to physics or biology. Apples and spark plugs.

The point of taking theology seriously has to do with epistemic humility and prudent strategy in the marketplace of ideas.

Remember when Blixa told us that when someone says something stupid and then quotes Derrida, she blames that person but not Derrida? It applies here as well. Theology is a huge and multidisciplinary field, it would be nuts to become familiar with a handful of theologians and then dismiss the whole field. There is a huge difference between saying something like:

“ Oh, I’ve read authors X, Y, and Z, and their ideas and theology didn’t do much for me. After that, I lost interest and moved on to other things.”

Versus

“lol theology is all b***s***”

Second, taking a casual and unwarranted confidence about Theism makes people complacent thinkers, which is why apologists like WLC can steam roll just about any atheist in a debate. We seem to assume that in every encounter, the theist is bringing a squirt gun to the water fight, when in fact, the theist is bringing a fire hose.

Amen and points to Aristotle Smith as well.

Religion is a lot more interesting to me at this point than Nü-atheism. That doesn't mean I'm believer, it just means that if I want to be taken seriously as a theorist of culture and narrative, I can't afford to jettison a large part of human narrative because OMG Science!

So basically, this whole thread is an admonishment to atheists to prepare to debate Craig, and if you can't do it, you're a thoughtless, overconfident atheist. Gotcha.

[_Chap]

Oh, religions are interesting things all right, and certainly warrant much attention and study (from those who have the taste for it) as part of our attempts to understand the richness (and sometimes, alas, perversity, cruelty and sheer imbecility) of human culture. Many of the most intelligent and thoughtful human beings to have existed (and some of the nastiest and most obstinate) have devoted their energies to explaining, justifying and celebrating their own religions, as well as attacking those of others. Anyone with an interest in appreciating art and music in their context can hardly avoid having to learn quite a lot about religions.

Did you notice, by the way, that I said religionS? You see, there are so many of them, and there is no very obvious reason why the various versions of Christianity should have any prior claim on our attention, apart from the fact that for most people reading this board they are the nearest to hand. On a world scale, the same goes for the Abrahamic religions in general, does it not? And let us not forget that at least one major world religion is essentially non-theistic ...

I hope I have made it clear that I have nothing against religions being the object of sustained intellectual study. On the other hand, I see no reason to believe that any religion has given me any basis for treating its claims about the universe as having any content other than what its believers choose to bring to them. So I am an atheist, or more broadly an apistic (meaning I lack belief in any distinctively religious propositions): I just don't see any benefit in introducing terms such as 'god' or 'nirvana' into any discussion where questions of the practical conduct of life are concerned, although I certainly do not spend my time going up to people coming out of religious buildings and telling them that they believe in fairy stories. But I certainly would NOT want to lead any child into the path of religious belief if the decision was down to me. Religions may be very, very interesting, but the core problem for me is that so far as they make verifiable claims about certain things being true, those things do not appear to be true (for many, many examples, see this board passim). Somehow I find that rather diminishes the attention I am prepared to pay to them. Am I unsufferably crude and philistine?

I am of course an anonymous coward, so anyone who wants to criticize me is welcome to believe that I know nothing about any religion at all, or about art, music or history, for that matter. Be my guest.

[Guest]

Among the truth claims in and regarding the scriptures mentioned, here is a sampling of those that can be objectively tested:
- The first humans magically appeared as a breeding pair upon the Earth less than 10,000 years ago and all modern humans are descended from this initial breeding pair.
- There was a global flood at the time of Noah.
- The sun gets its light from Kolob.
- A group of Semites left the Middle East 2,500 years ago and came to the new world on eight unpowered wooden semi-submersibles on a journey that required more than 300 days bringing with them all manner of animals and livestock, including honeybees.
- Another such group came to the New World from Jerusalem around 600 BC, and eventually numbered in the millions before disappearing without leaving a single marker in the pre-Columbian human genome of the New World.
- The Book or Abraham was originally written by the hand of Abraham upon papyrus.
...
Fundamentalist religionists tend to deny science when it conflicts with their core unfounded beliefs. The scientific community goes to great lengths to insure that religionist methods for evaluation of truth claims (such as promptings of the spirit, or the teachings of leaders, or scripture, or other means of generating unfounded belief) do not contaminate the scientific method or science itself.

And there we have it ladies and gentlemen, fundamentalist churches (of which the LDS church is a stellar example) conflicts with science, therefore religion conflicts with science. I couldn't possibly see any logical holes in that argument.

The only thing missing is to make the Harris-esque maneuver that only fundamentalists are valid as a religion. Moderate, liberal, and even many conservative churches are at best fake religions, or at worst aiding and abetting fundamentalist terrorism.

Seriously, this is why Stak is telling you people to get a little education on religion before spouting off. At best you make strawman arguments, at worst you come off looking ignorant.

Edited: changed "fundamentalist churches (of which the LDS church is a stellar example) conflicts with churches" to "fundamentalist churches (of which the LDS church is a stellar example) conflicts with science" which I hope was obvious to all was my original intention.