P.J. Moss:

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If our moral sense is rooted in our Darwinian past, predating religion, then, as Dawkins says, it should be possible to demonstrate some moral universals that have no apparent reliance on religious belief. He explores this by considering several hypothetical moral dilemmas and the responses of disparate groups of individuals, including that of a remote primitive tribe with no formal religion. The results seem to provide clear evidence that there is no statistically significant difference between atheists and religious believers in the type of judgments made when faced with such dilemmas.

His discussion of the abortion debate makes grim reading, although a reference might have been added to the evidence of a statistical link, revealed by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner in their book Freakonomics, between the introduction of abortion legislation in various states in the US and the marked drop in serious crime rates in those states as a result of the consequent termination of unwanted pregnancies, especially among poor and otherwise vulnerable women.

That society permits the religious indoctrination of young children draws his ire, as does the labelling of such children as Catholic or Muslim when they are merely children of parents holding those religious beliefs. Such indoctrination, whether the beliefs involved be Jewish, Christian or Muslim, often takes root, which suggests it is the process regardless of the message that is at work. This practice seems particularly reprehensible given evidence that children's brains are ill-equipped to evaluate such material.

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[ 21 November 2006: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

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The God Delusion is an important book that merits close reading.
....
There's no doubt that all faiths contain their share of claptrap. There's no doubt religion has done the world considerable wrong in the past and will cause more wrongs in the future. There's no doubt many believers are hypocrites or can barely describe the most basic tenets of the theology they claim to cherish. There's no doubt the religious often act as though they don't believe what they profess. In one of the best passages of The God Delusion, Dawkins asks why Christians mourn the righteous dead, when their faith holds that a perfect afterlife awaits, and Jesus taught not to fear death. "Could it be that [Christians] don't really believe all that stuff they pretend to believe?" he asks. (I've written pretty much the same thing myself. And there's no doubt that televangelists are a shameless, seedy group. If Jesus was moved to rage when he saw moneychangers in the temple, how would he feel about late-night religious charlatans with their 800 numbers flashing on the screen?

But The God Delusion overstates the case against religion by blaming faith for practically everything wrong with the world. Suppose we woke up tomorrow morning and found that every denomination had disappeared. The Israelis and Palestinians would still be at each other's throats: their conflict is about land, liberty, and modernity, not faith. (Israel is among the world's most secular nations; the fact that most Israelis are not particularly religious has hardly reduced tensions.) If neither Hinduism nor Islam had existed in 1948, the partition of the Subcontinent might still have occurred and been as awful. Very strong ethnic hostilities, combined with resource scarcity, were at work. September 11? The key fact is not that the United States was attacked that day by Muslims. The key fact was that the country was attacked by Arabs, and there would be radical Arab hostility to American suzerainty in the Persian Gulf even if religion vanished.

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[ 12 November 2006: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

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This is an excellent polemic from Britain’s leading atheist....

The God Delusion is a comprehensive collection of arguments against religious belief. The book is divided into ten sections. The first is titled, with seeming paradox, “A deeply religious non-believer”. In this section, Dawkins explains why the scientific world-view should be respected, while the respect given to religious opinions is baseless and even harmful. The third section examines the various classical arguments for God’s existence, all of which Dawkins dismisses in so succinct and precise a manner as to make one pity theologians who have wasted their intellects on such questions. Section five provides a Darwinian explanation for religious belief, with Dawkins arguing that religion is a misfiring of brain modules which evolved for entirely different evolutionary purposes (most specifically, a “mind-reading” module which allows us to discern other people’s intentions). Other sections show why we can be moral without religion; explain why religion causes evil acts; and argue that science can be a substitute for the wonder and comfort provided by religious belief.

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P.J. Moss: His discussion of the abortion debate makes grim reading, although a reference might have been added to the evidence of a statistical link, revealed by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner in their book Freakonomics, between the introduction of abortion legislation in various states in the US and the marked drop in serious crime rates in those states as a result of the consequent termination of unwanted pregnancies, especially among poor and otherwise vulnerable women.

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Watch another BBC interview with Dawkins about his book on YouTube.

[ 16 November 2006: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

[ 20 December 2006: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:
The problem with allowing consciousness to be described as another "substance", not simply a property of highly complicated (grey) matter, is that one gets all tangled up in dualistic twaddle. And then you have to explain how these two substances "react" with each other and other annoying problems of philosophical consistency or coherence.

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I've been following these threads, but haven't read any Dawkins outside certain possibly distorted excerpts, so I'll just ask if he actually states that religion is the root of all evil in the world, and theoretical non-belief the big answer(?) I'd also like to know if he ever considers other belief systems besides the organized monotheist forms that hardcore athiests generally prefer to attack...?

Reason I ask is because someone mentioned a "primitive tribe" that is supposedly without any religion at all, and therefore a useful comparison. I have a hunch I know which ones it is, and if so he's sadly mistaken. Most old anthropology I'm afraid is pure wastepaper, interesting only in the old cultural biases and blindspots it shows. Maybe a few useful field observations of practices nolonger practiced.

[ 22 November 2006: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]

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Originally posted by EriKtheHalfaRed:
I don't think consciousness is very often considered a "substance", so that point is kinda moot.

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Not by post-Newtonian science, no.

The old view of science, with Newton, said that atoms were the ultimate particles of matter - indestructable, hard, impenatrable and indivisible into smaller parts. Space, time, & matter was the Newtonian recipe for the universe with all obeying static laws. The scientist as observer was on the outside looking in on his scientific measurements.

But since the turn of the last century, astounding scientific advancements have taken place. Einstein's theory of relativity led physicists to disbelieve ideas of absolute time and space. The scientific observer is not apart from, but rather a part of the world of physics. Time and space are relative to the point at which observer is observing. Sometimes people tell others to step outside themselves for a minute and see the error in their reasoning or logic. Do they realize what it is they are suggesting people do ?.

And then Ernest Rutherford was responsible for discovering a whole new branch of physics. This led to Newtonian atomic theory of materialist views being displaced by the development of quantum mechanics by the likes of Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in the 1920's. So, the scientist as unobserved observer was tossed out, and the idea that atoms are balls of energy replaced atoms as indestructable bits of matter. This is why physicists of today are said to come close to the language of mysticism when describing material reality as a "cosmic dance of energy" rather than "stuff" or "substance."

[ 22 November 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by EriKtheHalfaRed:
...I'll just ask if he actually states that religion is the root of all evil in the world...

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Originally posted by Fidel:
...and the idea that atoms are balls of energy replaced atoms as indestructable bits of matter. This is why physicists of today are said to come close to the language of mysticism when describing material reality as a "cosmic dance of energy" rather than "stuff" or "substance."

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But you seem to be trying to sell the idea that atoms are energy, not matter. That's not orthodox 21st century physics.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
"The Root of All Evil" was the title of his TV documentary, but it was written by the producers of the show as an attention-grabbing device. Dawkins himself has disavowed the title and denies that religion is the root of all evil.

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That's good to know, as most evolutionary biologists now believe our more negative anti-social traits were also set by biological pressures. Just balanced by more positive ones, depending on circumstances, personalities and differing social norms. Maybe his arguments are more sophisticated than some of his critics admit, I'll have to add him to my growing reading list.

[ 22 November 2006: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
But you seem to be trying to sell the idea that atoms are energy, not matter. That's not orthodox 21st century physics.

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I said atomic theory doesn't look at atoms as indestructable bits of matter since Ernest Rutherford. You said that I said "atoms are not matter" and not energy, which is false-false. Get it straight yourself. The components of atoms are building blocks of energy, ie. electrons, photons and neutrons, which is post-Newtonian in concept.

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And don't be so ready to dismiss Newtonian physics. That's what we used to land probes on Mars.

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And a third of our modern economy(on 2nd thought, maybe not Canada's economy) is based on quantum physics. By the same token, I'm not ready to dismiss modern science either.

[ 22 November 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Fidel:
I said atomic theory doesn't look at atoms as indestructable bits of matter since Ernest Rutherford. You said that I said "atoms are energy" which is false, and false. Get it straight yourself. Atoms are building blocks of energy, which is post-Newtonian in concept.

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So, the scientist as unobserved observer was tossed out, and the idea that atoms are balls of energy replaced atoms as indestructable bits of matter.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
And now you're telling us that atoms are "building blocks of energy"? In which universe?

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Try Googling that phrase: you will find one other document on the entire World Wide Web (the same document occurs in two different places) that contains that expression.

Congratulations! You have just created what will eventually become document #2.

Newton knew nothing about atoms, and had the good sense not to try to make theories about them. You could learn a lot from Newton, Fidel.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:

Even your revised statement that "The components of atoms are building blocks of energy, ie. electrons, photons and neutrons..." is wrong. First of all, photons are not components of atoms.

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You must find it somewhat difficult to read technical jargon. Because you seem to be parsing and extracting one and two words of what I say, and pasting them together out of order to form sentences. I did not say, and read carefully, "Photons are components of atoms."
The ie. "in example" list refers back to the last or closest noun in the sentence not the first. You should think about it before jumping head-first into a hasty reply like that.

Photons exhibit wave-particle duality and are responsible for EM phenomena, which has both electric and magnetic components. Electric current contains electrical energy from electron flow. Quantum theory says disturbances in the electromagnetic fields are called photons. And the energy of photons is quantized.

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Second, there is no sense in which subatomic particles are "building blocks" of energy ... a particular kind of energy known as radioactivity, but other forms of energy, such as heat energy and kinetic energy, are not dependent on subatomic particles for their existence.

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It's almost as if you're providing a reply to something that no one here made mention of. Energy can be released at the subatomic level, as every physics book will tell us, by combining or splitting nuclei.

In fact, radioactivity is the occurrence of emitting radiation. That happens when atomic nucleus releases energy in order to shift to a more stable form. Perhaps you can post a link to whatever it was you were trying to paraphrase ?.

[ 23 November 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Fidel: Yes, that's right, "twaddle." I didn't know it was referred to as that. Very scientific.

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My point was that adopting a dualistic point of view leads one to hopeless philosophical entanglements and self-contradictions. For example: if consciousness (or spirit) and matter really are separate and independent substances ... then how could these two things, which have nothing in common between them, influence each other? How does the brain inform the conscious mind and how does the mind communicate its wishes to the brain? No one since Descartes has provided a satisfactory answer to that question.

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Fidel: Sir John Eccles postulated that the human psyche exists independently from the physical brain. And so did ...

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Originally posted by N. Beltov:
My point was that adopting a dualistic point of view leads one to hopeless philosophical entanglements and self-contradictions. For example: if consciousness (or spirit) and matter really are separate and independent substances ... then how could these two things, which have nothing in common between them, influence each other? How does the brain inform the conscious mind and how does the mind communicate its wishes to the brain?.[/qb]

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Yes, good question. I get the feeling that most neurobiologists are concerned with leading edge research nowadays not so much with proving or disproving consciousness.

But mass and extensions of mass are no longer thought of in the same crude ways as per the "old science." Physicist Fritjoff Capra says,

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In modern physics, mass is no longer associated with a material substance, and hence particles are not seen as consisting of any kind of 'stuff', but as "bundles of energy"

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I'm rather surprised that you would refer to such an idea approvingly - especially in a thread on Richard Dawkins. I doubt that there is a serious neuro-biologist in the world who would subscribe to such a view. Whatever differences I've had with Spector about Dawkins are tiny nuances compared to this claim. Without a brain ... there is no mind. Good luck trying to disprove that.

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Anywho N, there are hostile energies present in this thread. Our chat will have to transpire in another time and space relative to whichever point we happen to be making our stand.

[ 22 November 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
But you seem to be trying to sell the idea that atoms are energy, not matter. That's not orthodox 21st century physics.

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M's been snatched by Homer Simpson pods from outer space ?.

Forsmark: Atoms are Energy
Atomic Energy of Canada]

[ 25 November 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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With a four-headed fundamentalist hydra rending progressive social movements, co-opting populist anger, and marginalizing women and religious minorities around the world, one would expect a warm reaction among the liberal left to The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins's moving and articulate plea for reason, skepticism and Enlightenment values. Instead, Dawkins is being treated like a party guest offering Moses a golden calf for his birthday, or the purveyor of a beer-baked ham at a Saudi potluck.
...
The God Delusion is a declaration of secular humanism that excoriates religion, both moderate and extreme. It also attempts to outline a possible Darwinian origin for the emergence and prevalence of religious belief.

So what has the progressive reaction been? Not very, as it turns out. The November issue of Harper's magazine was emblazoned with a front cover notice calling attention to Pulitzer-winning author Marilynne Robinson's Dawkins critique "In Defense of Religion." Harper's, of course, certainly didn't mean a defence of Islam; the publication's continuing mockery of Muslim faith was recently cited by a writer friend of mine (at an Eid party marking the end of Ramadan, no less) as the reason she no longer buys the mag....

Meanwhile, in the London Review of Books, one of the great minds of serious Marxist and progressive literary criticism, Terry Eagleton launches a critique of Dawkins so histrionic you'd think it was his dad, and not Christ's, who was being insulted. After writing the first half of his review as though he hadn't read Dawkins's book (continuously raising objections that Dawkins himself had already brought up and demolished), Eagleton makes it to his one redeeming criticism: Dawkins's superficial grasp of politics and history. After that, it's back to grasping at straws.

There's even a sentence that could be taken as a bizarre threat, not unlike the ones from Christian fanatics reproduced in The God Delusion, when Eagleton says: "Dawkins may be relieved to know that I don't actually know where he lives." Eagleton then dismisses Dawkins's rationalism as a liberal trope of the English middle-class -- no word yet whether Eagleton's LRB essay was filed from a meatpacking plant or a more traditional coal mine, but his upcoming book, How to Read a Poem, promises to be a huge hit amongst inner-city Pakistani teens and white proletarian football hooligans.
...

This is necessary reading for everybody, if those of us without holy books are ever to stand a chance.

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[ 08 February 2007: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

But, since we're in the habit of posting reviews:

Lawrence M. Krauss in Nature

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I wish that Dawkins, who has a gift for making science — in particular, evolutionary biology — both exciting and understandable to a broad audience, had continued to play to his strengths, which are desperately needed now more than ever as we confront growing attacks on the teaching of evolution, not just in the United States but in the UK and Europe.

Dawkins the preacher is less seductive. And make no mistake: this book is, for the most part, a well-referenced sermon.
[...]
A less sympathetic reader than the author's wife (who apparently read the entire manuscript aloud to Dawkins for him to review) might have provided a more useful foil. Several indulgences detract from the flow, but more importantly, I was struck at how Dawkins' presentation, particularly in the early chapters where he builds his case against God, might offend those who, like myself, are quite sympathetic to his central thesis. I suspect that few thinking people of faith are unaware of the remarkable evil that has been done in the name of God, or the possibility that, although most cultures worship some god, this could be a mere reflection of the workings of the human brain rather than definitive evidence for God's reality. Yet Dawkins seems to suggest early on that even agnostics might never confront these issues and that he needs to "raise their consciousness", as he puts it. At the very least I find it doubtful that constantly questioning the intelligence of 'true believers' will be helpful in inducing any such reader to accept Dawkins' strongly argued thesis that both God and religion are nonsensical and harmful.

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and I am constantly tempted to award the Dunce Prize in PR to professional atheists for their preening and insistence on their own unbeatable intellects;
this was capped with the self-adoption of the term "brights" for skeptics

get it, get it?
the rest are "dulls", including notorious dullards like Plato, Pascal, Augustine, Kant, and much of the western canon, who could not quite grasp atheist arguments such as ....

a real argument treats one's adversaries with respect, but this debate seems to consistently lack that

[ 20 December 2006: Message edited by: Geneva ]

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Originally posted by Geneva:
[b]this was capped with the self-adoption of the term "brights" for skeptics

get it, get it?
the rest are "dulls", including notorious dullards like Plato, Pascal, Augustine, Kant, and much of the western canon, who could not quite grasp atheist arguments such as ....

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Geneva, buy yourself a dictionary for Christmas and look up the word "bright"; you will see that it has several meanings, the first of which is not "smart".

ETA:

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I am still not convinced that it was a mistake to go with bright. These things take time. Had Geisert and Futrell chosen some bland, mealymouthed term most would have forgotten it by now. The “in your face” quality of the term is, in my opinion, a piquant, but mild, antidote to the prevailing practice of hyper-deference paid to religions but to no other institution in the country. And I have reminded those who find the term objectionable that just as the antonym of gay isn’t glum, but straight -- another happy word -- they are free to choose a peppy antonym for bright. I recommend super, since, unlike us brights, they believe in the supernatural.

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[ 01 January 2007: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

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In spite of that polite coexistence, however, the current effort to increase the bonds between religion and science can present a problem, because it reinforces scientists' concern about offending religious sensibilities. Some sensibilities need to be offended.

Religious fundamentalists around the United States spout nonsense when they argue that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, and that fossils were spawned in the great flood -- yet those fundamentalists are flooded with donations instead of derision. U.S. Presidential candidates make untenable claims about a lack of evidence for evolution, yet the press continues to cover those claims as if they could be well-founded.
....

There is a war going on for the hearts and minds of the U.S. public, and science -- the driving force behind the technology that makes the modern world possible -- is losing because scientists often are too timid to attack nonsense whenever and wherever it appears.
....

Scientists must become evangelists, reaching beyond the traditional borders of academe to rebut such nonsense, which is demeaning to both science and theology. They must be prepared to give talks at local high schools and churches, write for newspapers, become members of school boards, and, in general, defend science in public with as much energy as fundamentalists use to promote their beliefs.

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And your weak point could have been made without the dig at Geneva's literacy level.

Edited to add: What you and Dawkins miss, Spector, and Krauss doesn't, is that there is a difference between fundamentalism and religion, and that there is a difference between fighting Creationism and insulting people who believe in God. No one here is arguing Krauss's position on the importance of fighting anti-evolution nonsense.

[ 20 December 2006: Message edited by: Catchfire ]

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Originally posted by Catchfire:
Give me a break, Spector, the implication is obviously that atheists are supposedly smarter than everyone else, despite Dawkins' insistence to the contrary. He's essentially saying "Call us all 'smarts,' but that just means we dress nicer." What a crock.

And your weak point could have been made without the dig at Geneva's literacy level.

Edited to add: What you and Dawkins miss, Spector, and Krauss doesn't, is that there is a difference between fundamentalism and religion, and that there is a difference between fighting Creationism and insulting people who believe in God. No one here is arguing Krauss's position on the importance of fighting anti-evolution nonsense.

[ 20 December 2006: Message edited by: Catchfire ]

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Anyone who spends a lot of time attacking the existance of an unprovable presence, in favour if an unprovable absence should read Don Quixote. I hardly think commiting a lot of time and energy to this project is worthy of a "great mind" and not evidence that one is operating either. The other way round frankly.

[ 20 December 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Over conceits of this sort the poor gentleman lost his wits, and used to lie awake striving to understand them and worm the meaning out of them; what Aristotle himself could not have made out or extracted had he come to life again for that special purpose.

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“There are no salmon on one level of existence. There is only the movement of God’s eyebrows. I’ve had the experience of transcending all duality. There’s only this kind of rush of consciousness, and a part of that consciousness becomes salmon, and a part of that consciousness becomes time. And the salmon thrive for millions of years, and they go extinct. There’s all this momentary burst of consciousness.” Because, the story goes, these creatures are nothing but a part of this illusory earth—a “movement of God’s eyebrows”—it doesn’t matter so much if these creatures are driven extinct. In fact, I’ve been told, there can be no extinction because the salmon don’t exist in the first place, or if there is extinction, then it is God’s will, God’s dream.

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Originally posted by Catchfire:
What you and Dawkins miss, Spector, and Krauss doesn't, is that there is a difference between fundamentalism and religion, and that there is a difference between fighting Creationism and insulting people who believe in God.

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What both you and Krauss also miss (apparently because neither of you has read the book's preface, where Dawkins makes this clear) is that the book is not aimed at the people Dawkins calls "dyed-in-the-wool faith-heads;" for, as he notes, they are "immune to argument, their resistance built up over years of childhood indoctrination using methods that took centuries to mature..." Rather, his target audience is the person seeking to come to terms with his or her own doubts about religious belief:

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I suspect - well, I am sure - that there are lots of people out there who have been brought up in some religion or other, are unhappy in it, don't believe it, or are worried about the evils that are done in its name; people who feel vague yearnings to leave their parents' religion and wish they could, but just don't realize that leaving is an option. If you are one of them, this book is for you. It is intended to raise consciousness - raise consciousness to the fact that to be an atheist is a realistic aspiration, and a brave and splendid one. You can be an atheist who is happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled.

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What if the realization came that our most sacrosanct beliefs -- both economic and epistemological -- were but a musky collection of antiquated myths? To survive, our blind faith-based suppositions must not be flattered by political opportunists (I'm looking at you, Hillary and Obama) -- but allowed to rot into compost then be buried. Because deep down, we already realize our allegiances to the imaginary gods and saviors of long dead, desert tribalists not only blind us to the dangers at hand but in large measure helped to contribute to our troubles in the first place. Ergo, It's a fact: Jesus will not descend and heal the earth's dying seas. We might as well hold out for Little Folk, adorned with gossamer wings, to appear from the gnome-haunted air and sprinkle Fairy Dust upon it.

Furthermore, there are no Chosen People -- nor does there exist an Omnipotent Sky Daddy above who could give a rodent's rectum about the oil-soaked real estate of the Middle East nor any other plot of disputed ground on this cosmological backwater of a planet.

It's time to wake up and smell the mythology. God has no will. God has no more of a plan than a tree has a financial portfolio. God does not say God bless you: Your life is not an eternal sneeze in need of a perpetual gesundheit. And there never was a character who rose from this sin-sullied earth and took up residence in the starry filament named Jesus Christ -- who will love you no matter how big of an asshole you are: That's the job of your dog.

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[ 20 December 2006: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

Meanwhile, the reviews for the Dawkins book just keep pouring in:

"Passionate religious irrationality too often poses serious obstacles to human betterment. To oppose it effectively, the world needs equally passionate rationalists unafraid to challenge long accepted beliefs. Richard Dawkins so stands out through the cutting intelligence of The God Delusion."
- James D. Watson, Nobel Prizewinner, Co-discoverer of the DNA Molecule

"At last, Richard Dawkins, one of the best nonfiction writers alive today, has assembled his thoughts on religion into a characteristically elegant book. The God Delusion puts the lie to the lazy and soothing platitudes that people embrace to escape the responsibility of thinking seriously about religious belief. If you think that science is just another religion, that religion is about our higher values, or that scientists are just as dogmatic as believers, then read this book, and see if you can counter Dawkins’ arguments — they are passionately stated, and poetically expressed, but are rooted in reason and evidence."
- Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor, Harvard University, author of The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, and The Blank Slate

"Oh, it's so refreshing, after being told all your life that it is virtuous to be full of faith, sprit and superstition, to read such a resounding trumpet blast for truth instead. It feels like coming up for air."
- Matt Ridley, author of `Genome' and `Francis Crick'.

"The God Delusion is written with all the clarity and elegance of which Dawkins is a master. It is so well written, in fact, that children deserve to read it as well as adults. It should have a place in every school library — especially in the library of every ‘faith’ school. Naturally, it won’t. But with any luck, the teachers in these ridiculous establishments will ban it from their shelves, and thus draw the attention of the intelligent pupils in their care to something that might be interesting as well as true."
- Philip Pullman, author of the children's trilogy His Dark Materials.

"Richard Dawkins is smart, compassionate, knowledgeable, and true like ice, like fire. But, that doesn't scare a guy like me. As soon as he says something wrong, I'm going to rip him apart. He just hasn't said anything really wrong yet. If this book doesn't change the world -- we're all screwed."
- Penn Jillette (Penn & Teller)

"I took the first 115 pages of The God Delusion on a short vacation, thinking this would be some heavy reading I might dip into. I'm normally a VERY slow reader. I burned through every page I'd brought, and kicked myself for not bringing more. You are the one author alive who could make an atheist polemic into a riot of vacation fun and a real page-turner."

P.S. There are numerous passages that made me laugh aloud. What a delight.

If there were a God, and he read this, he'd wish he were dead."
- Teller (Penn & Teller)

"In this book Dawkins with lucid simplicity exposes the intellectual poverty of the stratagems used by the propagators of fundamentalist religious ideas. . . . Unless the majority of ‘believers’ can reach some rapprochement with the rational arguments in this book and recognize the true humanity and spirituality implicit in them, the tightening grip of irrational mystical belief will not only extinguish the Enlightenment but also, in this age of monstrous weapons, the whole human race."
- Sir Harry Kroto, Nobel Prizewinner

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Originally posted by Catchfire:
I know precisely who Dawkin's book is meant for.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
I just find it bizarre that a person who claims to be an atheist would display such venom towards one of the most prominent atheists in the world....

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I want their arguments to make sense, to be comprehensible, and not to fall back on spurious tactics that people will see right through.

I'm an atheist, but I reserve the right to be wrong. There are an infinite amount of ways of thinking about the world and religion comprises many of those. Dawkins' problem is that he keeps trying to find a big white bearded guy with a staff and then debunk him, but that's just not kosher. What he fails to understand about Anselm's argument, for example--as if Dawkins was the first to notice its logical fallacy--is that God in that sense is a representation of the unquantifiable. Dawkins thinks because that can't be proven to exist, people who think that way are idiots. He's wrong.

I've never felt threatened about being an atheist. Those who threaten atheism usually threaten moderates of their own faith, which suggests respect for atheism--or its lack--is not the problem.

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Originally posted by Catchfire:

I've never felt threatened about being an atheist.

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Define "threatened".

As a young teenager (around 12), I never felt more alone and uncertain than the day it occurred to me that all the God stuff was bullshit. I had never really believed the supernatural stuff, despite my very religious upbringing and extensive religious education. But one day I thought: "If I were born next door, I'd believe in a different God." That was it for me, and I have never looked back.

But I couldn't talk about my feelings. I tried once, to a classmate. Result: I was called into the vice-principal's office and very gently and kindly interrogated about what I was saying to the other kids. Never threatened.

Then, at around the age of 14, I chanced upon and read Bertrand Russell's Why I am Not a Christian. I felt thrilled, alive. I felt like some of the wonderful testimonials M. Spector cited. Russell was one of my heroes, and he made it ok to be an atheist.

Re-reading that text, with decades of hindsight, I realize:

1. I wasn't even a Christian to start with.

2. Russell's account is not very profound.

But it made no difference. The title fascinated me. And it was the courage, the openness, and the in-your-face iconoclasm of the whole exercise that overpowered me.

No one can read a book and stop believing in God. That can only come from your own life-experience and introspection. But thank God for Russell and Dawkins. One day I hope science is able to count how many lost souls they have liberated.

ETA: For what it's worth, here it is:

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Introductory note: Russell delivered this lecture on March 6, 1927 to the National Secular Society, South London Branch, at Battersea Town Hall. Published in pamphlet form in that same year, the essay subsequently achieved new fame with Paul Edwards' edition of Russell's book, Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays ... (1957).

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[ 20 December 2006: Message edited by: unionist ]

[ 20 December 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Catchfire:
As Krauss asks, do you need social acceptance or respectability for your disbelief in Santa Claus?

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I'm an atheist, but I reserve the right to be wrong.

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There are an infinite amount of ways of thinking about the world and religion comprises many of those. Dawkins' problem is that he keeps trying to find a big white bearded guy with a staff and then debunk him, but that's just not kosher.

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What he fails to understand about Anselm's argument, for example--as if Dawkins was the first to notice its logical fallacy--is that God in that sense is a representation of the unquantifiable. Dawkins thinks because that can't be proven to exist, people who think that way are idiots. He's wrong.

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I've never felt threatened about being an atheist. Those who threaten atheism usually threaten moderates of their own faith, which suggests respect for atheism--or its lack--is not the problem.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
That's strange. After reading about Bertrand Russell and why he was not a Christian, my agnostic metre bounced a bit the other way.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
I just find it bizarre that a person who claims to be an atheist would display such venom towards one of the most prominent atheists in the world - for his attempts to gain social acceptance and respectability for the idea that there is no God!

Is there some bitter factional dispute among the atheist community that has escaped my notice?

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Perhaps its because arguing the case that there is no god is merely another religious position asserted in the paradigm of religious belief. Notice how it is that Dawkins book relies upon arguing logically against theology. Even in the counter position it still amounts to a theological critique.

A truly anti-religious position is agnostic, as that eschews the centrality of god to the discourse -- it doesn't matter if god exists or not.

[ 20 December 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:

A truly anti-religious position is agnostic, as that eschews the centrality of god to the discourse -- it doesn't matter if god exists or not.

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Originally posted by unionist:

Beg to differ. This is the 21st century. In this age, you are either for God, or you're against him. There's no room for middle ground.

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Originally posted by unionist:

Beg to differ. This is the 21st century. In this age, you are either for God, or you're against him. There's no room for middle ground.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Well I admit that I for one would be shocked over a bunch of giants swooping down on us riding sleds, giant isicles or whatever it is they get around on.

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Perhaps its because arguing the case that there is no god is merely another religious position asserted in the paradigm of religious belief. Notice how it is that Dawkins book relies upon arguing logically against theology. Even in the counter position it still amounts to a theological critique.

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Right on.

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A truly anti-religious position is agnostic, as that eschews the centrality of god to the discourse -- it doesn't matter if god exists or not.

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I disagree. To be honestly agnostic, you must be open to persuasion, equally, from both sides. The best position is to say God doesn't exist, but then not make a whole religion out of that. We don't argue apples fall from a tree because we don't have to. We don't need to argue that God doesn't exist, either.

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Secular humanism and atheism are not identical. One can be an atheist and not a secular humanist or humanist. Indeed, some thinkers or activists who call themselves atheists explicitly reject humanist ethical values (for example, Stalin, Lenin, Nietzsche, and others). Nor is secular humanism the same thing as humanism by itself; it is surely sharply different from religious humanism.

I should also make it clear that secular humanism is not antireligious; it is simply nonreligious. There is a difference. Secular humanists are nontheists; they may be atheists, agnostics, or skeptics about the God question and/or immortality of the soul. To say that we are nonreligious means, that is, that we are not religious; ours is a scientific, ethical, and philosophical life stance. I have used the term eupraxsophy to denote our beliefs and values as a whole. This means that, as secular humanists, we offer good practical wisdom based on ethics, science, and philosophy.
Paul Kurtz

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But atheism is only a position on the existence of God, not a comprehensive life stance. Nothing about atheism as such compels atheists to adopt any particular value system. British author Jeaneane Fowler noted that "while atheism is a ubiquitous characteristic of secular humanism, the most that can be said of an atheist is that he or she does not have belief in any kind of deity; the majority of atheists have no connection" with secular humanism.

The same is true for agnostics (who doubt God's existence on epistemological grounds) and freethinkers (who engage in systematic, rational criticism of religious doctrines). Like atheism, these stances are not morally self-sufficient. Freethinkers who call it unfair of God to condemn his creations to hell must reach outside of freethought to construct a concept of fairness. Secular humanism is unique among these life stances in that it contains within itself all the raw materials needed to construct inspiring value systems that are both realistic and humane.
Tom Flynn

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then

....

anyways, back to the subject above:
Merry Christmas, Mr Dawkins ! :
http://tinyurl.com/yxreag

On the contrary, in free countries, every faith must be allowed -- and every faith must be allowed to be questioned, fundamentally, outspokenly, even intemperately and offensively, without fear of reprisal. Richard Dawkins, the Oxford scientist, must be free to say God is a delusion, and Alistair McGrath, the Oxford theologian, must be free to retort that Mr. Dawkins is deluded; a conservative journalist must be free to write that the Prophet Mohammed was a pedophile (a reference to the alleged age of his wife Aisha), and a Muslim scholar must be free to brand that journalist an ignorant Islamophobe. That's the deal in a free country: freedom of religion and freedom of expression as two sides of the same coin. We must live and let live -- a demand that is not as minimal as it sounds, when one thinks of the death threats against Salman Rushdie and the Danish cartoonists. The fence that secures this space is the law of the land.

The interesting question is whether there is a kind of respect that goes beyond this minimal law-fenced live and let live, yet stops short of either a hypocritical pretense of intellectual respect for the other's beliefs or unbounded relativism. I think there is. In fact, I would claim I know there is -- and most of us practise it without even thinking about it. We live and work every day with people who hold, in the temples of their hearts, beliefs we consider certifiably bonkers. If they seem to us good partners, friends, colleagues, we respect them as such -- irrespective of their private and perhaps deepest convictions. If they are close to us, we may not merely respect but love them. We love them, while all the time remaining firmly convinced that, in some corner of their minds, they cling to a load of nonsense.

[...]
My quarrel with the Richard Dawkins school of atheists is not anything they say about the non-existence of God, but what they say about Christians and the history of Christianity -- much of which is true but leaves out the other, positive half of the story. And, as the old Yiddish saying goes, a half-truth is a whole lie. In my judgment as a historian of modern Europe, the positive side is larger than the negative. It seems to me self-evident that we would not have the European civilization we have today without the heritage of Christianity, Judaism and (in a smaller measure, mainly in the Middle Ages) Islam, which legacy also paved the way, albeit unwittingly and unwillingly, for the Enlightenment. Moreover, some of the most impressive human beings I have met in my own lifetime have been Christians.

"By their fruits ye shall know them." There is a respect that flows from the present conduct of the believers, irrespective of the scientific plausibility of the original belief. A multicultural society can, at best, be an open, friendly competition between Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, Jews, atheists and, indeed, two-plus-two-equals-fivers, to impress us with their character and good works.

British political writer Timothy Garton Ash is a professor of European studies at Oxford.

[ 22 December 2006: Message edited by: Geneva ]

What our right-rightist establishment objects to is Islam's preaching that usury and rent, two capitalist mechanisms for transferring a great deal of wealth from the very poor to the very rich, are evil. This is one of the reasons capitalists have been at war with Islam after having allied themselves with militant Islam throughout the 1980's and 90's.

And by what I understand of Dawkin's opinion of God, none of his scientific verses can be used to disprove the very thing he wants us to believe does not exist. And yet he is fascinated by mysteries that science hasn't explained yet. I think Dawkin's believes in taking advantage of people with a need to compare their own disbelief with his own lack of proof of anything in particular.

[ 22 December 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by EriKtheHalfaRed:
In case you didn't know, the "Selfish Gene" was one of the most reactionary intellectual inventions of the late twentieth century....

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It seems to me self-evident that we would not have the European civilization we have today without the heritage of Christianity, Judaism and (in a smaller measure, mainly in the Middle Ages) Islam, which legacy also paved the way, albeit unwittingly and unwillingly, for the Enlightenment. Moreover, some of the most impressive human beings I have met in my own lifetime have been Christians.

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I agree. Without "the heritage of Christianity, Judaism and (in a smaller measure, mainly in the Middle Ages) Islam" we may not have been able to convince ourselves we had the right to steal the land and lives of aboriginal peoples all over the globe. We may not have massacred hundreds of thousands, millions, in the name of God.

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Originally posted by EriKtheHalfaRed:
All progressive minded people should be very wary of all Darwinian explanations for human pyschology and behaviour, even ones which make minimal allowances for altruism having some evolutionary advantages too (limited towards kin and culture) or appear to offer a few reality checks to New Age romanticism.

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Alas, Dawkins is not a historical materialist. When he strays into the realm of politics and sociology, he tends to reduce national oppression to a matter of pure religious bigotry. Whether it concerns Irish nationalists in the British-occupied Orange statelet, or Palestinians under Zionist occupation, or Arabs and Muslims suffering harassment in North America and Europe, Dawkins fails to see, or at least to explain, that in capitalist class society the ruling elite fosters bigotry in an effort to justify social inequality, to lower their costs, to maximize their profits, and to divide so as to rule.

He does not attempt to explain the origins of Christianity, Islam, or any religion as an expression of distinct class interests at their genesis. One must look elsewhere for that, such as in Karl Kautsky’s seminal Foundations of Christianity (1908).

The God Delusion is an informed, articulate, humanist response to irrational, reactionary ideologies. It does not purport to be a guide to the new world that free thinking humanity yearns to create. Nor should it be regarded as an impediment to collaboration with Liberation Theologists, anti-imperialist Muslims or anti-Zionist Jews.

But it is an important component of what activists need today — ammunition against the Empire.

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Although I have read some of Dawkin's books, and many of his articles, I have never read "The Selfish Gene", and I have yet to get my hands on the "God Dellusion."

But I think many here know I have for some time viewed religious devotion as a kind of mental disorder, and the world would be better off if health care professionals and law courts started taking the same view.

The sticky point is just where do you make a determination about what is harmless dellusion (and, we all harbour some) and what is dellusion that needs medical attention.

Evolutionary psychology is, again, something highly charged, and always invites a knee jerk reaction from many portions of the left.

Many people interpret hypothesis about some behaviors as justifications for them, and that touches off a firestorm when we talk about things like rape in this context.

Here, I take Stephen J. Gould's views on this field of study seriously. He said that many of these hypothesis are "just so stories". That because we don't have a very clear idea of the conditions that gave rise to these behaviors, it's really impossible to make conclusions about them.

It's a good thing to temper the conjecture with.

From what I've read of it, 'Selfish Gene' also argues that there is as much evidence of altruism as there is of 'selfishness' in nature.

[ 18 February 2007: Message edited by: jas ]

I think the main problem with The God Delusion is that Dawkins himself compartmentalizes notions of God into defensible and indefensible categories, and accuses organized religion of clinging to the indefensible one.
He claims that a pandeistic god embedded in natural laws a la Einstein is a superior and distinct belief from the "religious" conception of God which he presumes to be a bearded, anthropomorphized interlocutor. But since we've all met religious people who have nuanced and complex ideas of what God is, his dichotomy doesn't really wash.
In doing so he paints religious people in a very condescending light, as if they all pray to his contrived straw man.
Not really a good peace offering for science/theology relations. If he were interested in actually fighting anti-science, he would take a less bull-headed tack. But I'm convinced that he doesn't care.

The Selfish Gene was really something though.

[ 18 February 2007: Message edited by: quart o' homomilk ]

[ 18 February 2007: Message edited by: quart o' homomilk ]

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Originally posted by quart o' homomilk:

In doing so he paints religious people in a very condescending light, as if they all pray to his contrived straw man.

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I'm offended. I believe in a PAD (Personal Anthropormorphic Deity, photo below), and I resent your calling Him "contrived". My religious beliefs are extremely nuanced and sophisticated.

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He claims that a pandeistic god embedded in natural laws a la Einstein is a superior and distinct belief from the "religious" conception of God which he presumes to be a bearded, anthropomorphized interlocutor. But since we've all met religious people who have nuanced and complex ideas of what God is, his dichotomy doesn't really wash.

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I don't think he made that claim at all. I believe he expressed disappointment that non-believers such as Einstein and others invoked the word "God" when they meant a force of nature beyond comprehension or something else. I think you completely misunderstood Dawkins.

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Originally posted by quart o' homomilk:

Even if it did argue that, (it doesn't), we would still have to evaluate it on the merits, not on whether it contradicts our worldview. (But again, it doesn't)

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I happen to be atheist myself, but I know many people, even in the big traditional religions, who use that kind of thinking. Dawkins would like that sort of outlook to be the terrain of what you call "non-believers", but these people don't *want* to embrace atheism. Why should they?
I think that those people are a very positive force in their faiths as well.

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You haven't read the book, have you? Those people were all atheists and what annoyed Dawkins is that religious evangelists and fundamentalists than used the quotations out of context to argue, for example, that Einstein believed in a personal God when he most certainly did not.

[ 18 February 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

[ 18 February 2007: Message edited by: M.Gregus ]