"However it is the vituperative style which Dawkins employs which I find most distasteful and counterproductive when it comes to what should be an intelligent discussion of an important topic."

OK, Madeleine, how do YOU think Dr Dawkins should regard people who fly planes into buildings full of people, mutilate children's genitals, cover up child sexual abuse in their organisations, and send mentally disabled women into crowded marketplaces to set off explosives strapped to their bodies?

Just mildly misguided? Perhaps all they need is a quick word or two of admonition? Or are they just expressing themselves in their own unique way? Should we just let them get on with it, because, after all, everyone's entitled to their beliefs, and it just doesn't do to be rude about them.

Does it?

It is impossible to either disprove or prove the existence of god. Those who promote a 'god of the gaps' type belief are finding less space, however as we will never understand all that there is to understand they will never be gone completely.

Atheists do not need a spokesperson, and those trying to set up Dawkins as some sort of leader do so in order to attack the man rather than the message. Atheism cannot be disproved, refuted or vilified as it is simply an absence of a belief, simple as that. No matter what Dawkins says most atheists are not going to change what the do or do not believe in. So who cares?

You say: "I had hoped to find some intellectually stimulating arguments for atheism". You do not need to look for arguments for atheism as you will not find them. You need to critically evaluate your belief in the existence of deities and determine if there is any rational argument for them. If you find there is not, then this is atheism.

A key issue is William Lane Craig's debating style - it seems he uses a mix of bare assertions and a smooth talking rhetorical style, with content that varies from debate to debate, yet an encylopaedic array of counter points.

"Craig is a skilled debater, an encyclopedia of facts and quotes, and a careful rhetorician. If you make a logical mistake, Craig knows exactly how to skewer you for it (and for this, I respect him). He holds prepared and persuasive responses to everything an atheist might say, and atheists usually fail to clearly point out the logical flaws in what Craig has to say. Also, Craig does a great job of summarizing the points and counterpoints that have been raised during a debate, and presents them in a way to show he has decisively won. His opponents are never that organized or clear."

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=392

And an ability to twist arguments to suit -
http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2011/08/why-reasonable-people-should-not-debate.html

Also http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=1437

If judged as a schoolgirl's essay, I'd probably mark it quite well for her use of language. But as a rational evaluation of an event on the other side of the world, it is far too soaked in self-importance to be an effective contribution.

"I would very much like to see more public debate on the existence of God in Australia, such as the debate between John Lennox and Peter Singer"

One has to wonder, why?

I seem to recall that the debate in question was a fizzer, with Lennox claiming that gravity was "proof" of God.

So maybe there's some lurking doubt in the author's mind, such that she feels the need to have her faith "tested" (I think that's the vogue term amongst Christians) by some charismatic non-believer? The simple reality is that atheists don't need leaders, in the manner that religious folk seem to.

It is not a crusade, with one winner from the debate, and a simple outcome where reason somehow shifts itself from favouring factual reporting, to supporting a narrow-minded belief system.

Which leads to the second misapprehension.

"Despite his standing as a champion of The New Atheism..."

Such an obvious straw-man. Dawkins represents himself, and offers his own views on the corrosive nature of religion. He "champions" nothing but his own book sales.

But it is in the nature of believers to conjure up "the enemy" at every opportunity, as a means to justify their beliefs. These adversaries range from their imaginary "devil", to leaders of faiths that are different to their own, to ordinary people who simply don't accept the existence of their God.

Or any of the many Gods that humans have dreamt up over the years.

Another blind alley the author takes us down is a classic.

"...given that Craig has double PhDs in Theology and Philosophy from two European Universities..."

Legitimacy, she infers, is gained from having studied "theology". Whose initial assumption must be that God exists. Sounds completely circular to me, Much like the contributions of the Peter Selleck of old...

Whatever happened to him?

Perhaps instead of this constant debate over fundamental unknowns (and "unknowables") we could embrace a middle path: http://possibilian.com/?

Might save everyone alot of time and pain...

Stezza is absolutely right. Atheists don't need a pope or a president, and if we did, Dawkins probably wouldn't be the right man for the job. Dawkins isn't the voice of atheism, he just happens to be perceived as the most prominent atheist at the moment.

He also isn't very good at live debate. That's not his strong suit, and a man should know his limitations. When his opponents leave him a solid opening, he never exploits it. He tends to cling to one idea and hammer at it, even if the debate has moved on. He doesn't explore his opponent's arguments, but prefers to defend his own, and generally speaking that's a tactical error. He also has a tendency to become visibly frustrated, which is always poor form.

He has solid arguments, and his scientific knowledge is great, but his abilities are just better suited to print. This is why he doesn't debate creationists OR people who are just professional debaters. Note that nobody said Craig was a creationist, that's just one of the two types of people Dawkins does not debate.

Or it could be that Dawkins has no wish to use his name to sponsor Craig's career. Win or lose, Craig would make a lot of money if Dawkins attended, but if the situation were reversed, the same would not necessarily be true. I would consider that to be a valid reason not to attend Craig's event.

Either way, it's intellectually dishonest for Craig to use Dawkin's refusal to attend as a selling point for his argument. The billboards and empty chair are really just empty theatrics intended to drum up business and lend false credence to what Craig has to say. Grandstanding is not the mark of an intellectual with a solid argument.

Madeleine, you seem to be already a brilliant writer and thinker! It goes to show that wisdom is not an exclusive of old age. Going deeper into both science and the "God or no God question" can never hurt us as individuals and as society. Your article sets a good example of that "intelligent debate" you propose us to have.

Dawkins does exist though.

It is easy to understand why Dawkins would not want to debate a Creationist. It would be the usual ciruclar illogical arguments. Why go round and round in the same pointless circle?

Dawkins does not represent atheism. He is not the leader of the Atheists, there is no such beast. That is a mistake some in the religious camps keep perpetuating. Atheism is a non-belief in a supernatural deity that is all. Any one person who declares themselves to be an atheist does not speak for all atheists. Those who hold more extreme views such as banning religion also do not represent atheism. Atheists like theists can also be secularists.

People are more than just their religion. Identity around religious beliefs or non-beliefs is overrated unless one lives in one of those restricted compounds in the Mid-West. Most people are just living normal lives as best they can while trying at best to uphold their own values and behaviours in how they relate to others. The true test of any person is his/her behaviour and how they treat others not what they say they believe in, theist and non-theist alike.

Negative media around Dawkins only adds to the perception of religious groupthink reactions as overplayed and verging on hysterical. (Not this particular author I would add who has approached the issue with less histrionics than some).

Why do theists see atheism as a threat? Religion appears to add something to many people's lives, I don't see this would change in a growing seclular world.

Never paid that much attention to Dicky Dawkins anyway - I'm more of a fan of Hitchens.

Apologies for my typos and lack of editing in the previous post.

Acolyte, yes Hitchens is far less acerbic in his approach.

Good effort young person. You're certainly on to one of the more interesting topics doing the rounds today.

The topic isn't atheism so much as it is Dawkins. The need for atheists like Dawkins to preach is one of the outstanding paradoxes of the whole argument. They are actually taking on the role of new religious leaders promising to free man from the chains of old beliefs, just the way religious leaders did in the past. Yet all they offer is a new belief system where man, a notably imperfect creature, is the beginning and end of all things which , in the end is a fairly miserable outcome. It is no co-incidence that harsh totalitarian regimes are essentially atheist regimes where the leader is the new God.

Oddly, atheists don't say God doesn't exist, they say God 'probably' doesn't exist. Its a strange each way bet as if they are leaving themselves an escape clause.

A nicely written article for a sixteen year old--I wonder if mum and dad helped with the editing, which would be fair enough--but I think in the interests of transparency the author ought to declare her own position. I can only infer she's a defender of a faith?

Personally, I'm not so much critical of what Dawkins is against--theism or the idea of intelligent design--as what he seems unwittingly for. Terry Eagleton very reasonably tagged Dawkins a liberal rationalist for his unspoken, yet uncritical, support for libertarianism.
Indeed I'm critical of all debates, whether between theism and atheism or identity polemics, that take the "context" for granted. I would have more respect for Dawkins if he was taking the institution of neoliberalism to task for instance, and the manifold evils it propagates and exacerbates. Or perhaps as a scientist he might highlight the fact that cutting carbon emissions via the wasteful and clumsy mechanism of free markets is delusional; that innovation and economic growth can only exacerbate carbon emissions. It's difficult for me to "rationalise" the silence of vocal liberal rationalists on this issue as other than their vested interest in the funding provided "by" new markets.
Of course if Dawkins was to come out and say he's pushing atheism because it's one of the pillars that supports conservative hegemony, and that by knocking it down we can gradually re-engineer a doomed system, I'd support him. But he's seemingly intent only on rationalising society for the sake of it, indeed institutionalising rationalism. He has no political agenda at all--which means he's politically conservative! For me that's bad enough, but his atheism is also near as credulous as theism in its "empirical faith" in the "known" universe: that is that that's all there is to it.
Perhaps material reality is all there is to it, but I don't think our liberal rationalists should be complacently declaring "case closed" based on such limited perspective, or the arrogance that's by-product of the kudos Dawkins and co enjoy.
My atheism is based on scepticism--which I also direct at myself and my culture--rather than conviction.

Atman,
The 'probably no God' thing came about for the bus signage because ...

>> " ..the word ‘probably’ helps to ensure that our ads will not breach any advertising codes. The Committee of Advertising Practice advised the campaign that "the inclusion of the word 'probably' makes it less likely to cause offence, and therefore be in breach of the Advertising Code."

"Ariane Sherine has said:

"There's another reason I'm keen on the "probably": it means the slogan is more accurate, as even though there's no scientific evidence at all for God's existence, it's also impossible to prove that God doesn't exist (or that anything doesn't). As Richard Dawkins states in The God Delusion, saying "there's no God" is taking a "faith" position. He writes: "Atheists do not have faith; and reason alone could not propel one to total conviction that anything definitely does not exist". His choice of words in the book is "almost certainly"; but while this is closer to what most atheists believe, "probably" is shorter and catchier, which is helpful for advertising. I also think the word is more lighthearted, and somehow makes the message more positive."

from - http://www.humanism.org.uk/bus-campaign - below "More of your frequently asked questions"

in 2009, The Christian Party’s ‘There definitely is a God. So join the Christian Party and enjoy your life’ became the [UK's] most complained-about non-broadcast ad ever, attracting 1,204 complaints
http://www.asa.org.uk/Regulation-Explained/History-of-Ad-Regulation.aspx
...................................................................
Most atheists simply "lack belief in god/s"

Dawkins became more outspoken after Sept 11, 2001 -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/sep/15/september11.politicsphilosophyandsociety1
.

Firstly Madeleine I hope you can ignore all the patronising remarks about your age. There is still a lot of discrimination against young people, which I think is mainly a legacy of past cultures, but really, there's no reason why your opinion should be any less valuable than anyone else's. I don't presume to understand what goes on inside your head, and nobody else should either.

I agree with previous commentators who point out that Richard Dawkins shouldn't be considered as some kind of spokesperson for atheism. From my scant perusing of his book and having seen him on TV a few times, my impression of him is primarily as a scientist (isn't he a molecular biologist or something?) who just happened to write this book, partly because he was angry, and partly because he could see an opportunity that nobody else was following. But ultimately it seems to me that he's not particularly interested in taking on the role of an atheist "pope", simply because, to him, the matter is so uncontroversial that it's barely worth arguing about, and he'd rather be in the lab dissecting frogs.

I have been interested in religion in the past. I think there is a lot of beauty and goodwill in religion, and I have seen how it brings meaning to many people's lives. But for me, my atheism comes not from having been convinced by the "against" argument, but by taking the position that, if you had hitherto absolutely no concept of religion or of a god, and you were set the task of coming up with an explanation for why the universe exists, you would never in your right mind imagine that it must have been created by this great big man up in the sky. It's just too much of a leap.

[cont]

Secondly my reading of religious texts is that, no matter how hard they try, they can't pre-empt the depth of human experience. It's just too big to pin down. And as life becomes more and more complex, religious doctrines fall further and further from the mark. That's why they are most heavily subscribed to amongst people in the least-developed countries.

And lastly, I just think that from the point of view of personal politics, to believe in a god is to abrogate your sense of responsibility for your own existence – and what kind of a nasty god would create such an unhealthy, depraved, dysfunctional animal?

I’m glad you’re asking these questions Madeleine. It’s something everyone needs to do for themselves. Just make sure you do it with the right intentions, and for your own intentions.

I take it from the article that Madeleine Kirk has not actually read Dawkins' book, because if she had, she would find why Dawkins is not prepared to debate Craig. Craig is a creationist, in that he promotes "intelligent design" which is creationism twisted to meet present day scientific facts. However, there is still no evidence to support intelligent design, and intelligent design is stranded without belief in a deity.

As a debate about belief has no chance of presenting any new information or rational argument, a debate with Craig only provides Craig with some legitimacy.

Dawkins is not trying to convert anyone to atheism only to show that atheists have no reason to be apologetic for their lack of belief, and that morality and goodness is founded on religion.

That's a bit patronising, Sam Jandwich.

>>...but really, there's no reason why your opinion should be any less valuable than anyone else's<<

Not to mention...

>>I’m glad you’re asking these questions Madeleine...<<

Which caused me to wonder... what questions?

There was not a single question asked in the entire article - not even the vaguest rhetorical one. Such presumption, such certainty, is not a good look. At any age.

The article does not provide us with any sense that she has researched the topic, but has instead taken it upon herself to stand on the sidelines and randomly snipe.

A cursory glance - no more than that - is all that it takes to unearth Dawkins formal position. It's on his web site.

"The mission of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is to support scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and suffering."

Nowhere is there a hint that his intentions include providing our author with "intellectually stimulating arguments for atheism". His stance is simply to deplore the damage that religion has caused, and continues to cause. Atheism is a given.

I suspect that if there were no religion-inspired hatred of gays and treatment of women as second-class citizens, no tax-free status for religious propaganda machines, no religious interference in scientific research, no inter-religious bigotry ("you can't build a mosque here"), and no killing of people in the name of one religion or the other, you'd never have heard of him.

As for his distaste for debate on the topic, I share his view wholeheartedly. I find any arguments "for" religion so totally preposterous, that they are impossible to attack. It's like trying to explain to a three year-old that Santa and the tooth fairy don't exist, when they know, from the evidence of their own eyes, what those magical beings can do.

The only "rigorous debate" possible on religion is between believers of different faiths.

But I guess when you're asked to decide between the tooth fairy and Santa, someone's gonna get hurt.

Atman;
You Say, "Oddly, atheists don't say God doesn't exist, they say God 'probably' doesn't exist. Its a strange each way bet as if they are leaving themselves an escape clause."

Atheists really do not say that. That was what was said on a bus advertisment so that it met advertising requirements. Atheists and non theists say, "There is no irrefutable evidence that any gods exist" Ninety nine point nine percent of the gods that once "existed" are no longer accepted as gods.

The author of the article needs to read and undersatand the science in Richard Dawkins' other book "The Greatest Show on Earth".

I watched the Craig debate with Hitchens as mentioned in McReal's earlier comment. Craig indulges in twists and turns that make sensible debate impossible so why bother.

Madeline,
John Dawkins never worrie me at any time.I for one am grateful to him for helping to destroy alot of the wolly thinking of theists. I applaud him.
Was he right?
No.
Did he ever have the right data to make his comments on and evaluate as a scientist?
NO!!
So he couldnt have done any harm.
No one has the relevant information to make any comment on God.

Pericles, don't forget that it was you who said "If judged as a schoolgirl's essay, I'd probably mark it quite well for her use of language. But as a rational evaluation of an event on the other side of the world, it is far too soaked in self-importance to be an effective contribution."

And while I'm at it, the author's "As a young Australian who has an interest in both science and intelligent debate over the existence of God" infers an element of inquisitiveness, wouldn't you say? Credit where credit's due. The article's about Richard Dawkins, not a treatise on the author's understanding of the universe and everything in it.

I quite enjoy some of the observations you make in your posts, but I haven't said so up til now, partly because it's always useful to have an Angry Young Man around the place to keep the nutters honest when nobody else can be bothered and I wouldn't want to diminish you. But also partly because your tendency to project, selectively interpret, and employ bad faith is obvious to all except yourself seemingly, hence it's a bit difficult to have a serious conversation with you.

Age and maturity being as they are mutually exclusive, I'd suggest you've got a bit of growing up to do.

Socratease, The worrying thing I remember John Dawkins' having done was to raise the tax on wine. Bastard!

The question does God exist or does God not exist is not subject to empirical evidence. Therefore no amount of debate can ever settle the argument. Nobody is capable of producing evidence that can be verified one way or the other. This in many ways makes the whole argument a waste of time.

Religious people turn to faith or revelation to support their beliefs. But since this is really subjective judgment not surprisingly different people come up with grossly divergent views. To take one example is God a single identity (viewpoint of Jews or Muslims) or is he three in one (the problem of the ‘trinity’ of most Christian sects). One can only say either one or the other or both are wrong.

I take my stand on plausibility. The concept of a God the creator conducting the human orchestra on earth, and assisted according to some sects by a host of heavenly creatures such as angles, archangels etc. is to my mind highly implausible. So implausible are the ideas of religion as not to be worth debating.

I am aware that scholars have built up extensive theological systems on the assumptions of the existence of a deity or deities. However, it is my view that no matter how learned the theological systems are, in the absence of empirical and verifiable evidence they have as much structural integrity as a house of cards.

Excellent essay for one, not so much young as inexperienced.

i see all the usual communazi international socialists are here barracking for their favourite ANTIchrist.

i will try to make your "loss of faith" easy for you all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism which = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism + http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialism which = mass murder of millions of innocent people for the glorious revolution.

Atheism = ANTIhumanism or the deliberate, premeditated destruction of society, or ANTIsocialism so that 1% of the world's population can own/control 100% of the "capital" & the other 99% of the population/slaves.

We all knew this half a century ago but still the blind followers of the old/new religion continue proseletising it.

read these books, articles & WAKE UP, before you end up in a "rehabilitation resource" with hard labour for life, see how easy it is to use "newspeak" when you are familiar with the PC, Thought Police.

http://www.torrents.net/torrent/324389/The-Naked-Capitalist-ocr'd-pdf/

http://www.downloadweb.org/search.php?acode=2d6cfcc00b464c7ee4408add5d864738&q=The%2520naked%2520communist

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/at-last-a-thorough-probe-into-what-drives-the-greens-machine/story-fn59niix-1226095160826

http://www.rense.com/general32/americ.htm

http://www.academia.org/the-origins-of-political-correctness/

enjoy, ladies & gentlemen, PROTESTANT christianity is the real revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Civil_War you counter revolutionaries need to WAKE UP to yourselves before it is too late to REPENT.

Queen Juliar Dillhard is dead or a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npjOSLCR2hE , long live King http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Katter , the http://www.ausparty.org.au/ & the royal commission on Closet Communazism.

It is not about what you believe, we all agree to disagree on the existence of a God or gods. It is simply an issue of freedom and democracy. It is about the societal structures that allow a varieties of beliefs to co-exist without fear of persecution or favouritism. Secularism allows this over any other system.

Secular detractors have not convinced me that society is reasonably better with one prevailing and influencing dogma when blind freddy can see the effects of this overseas.

The comments make me wonder about the agenda of some religious people given one OLO contributor has already called for the death of people whose views do not match his own. Clearly Christian principles are not doing much for him. If this is the sort of loony fascist society one aspires to we may as well go back to burning non-existent witches.

John,

Big shout-out for all the Hunter Skeptics: consistently the best contributors on this website... now on to your argument, specifically this bit: "Craig indulges in twists and turns that make sensible debate impossible so why bother."

Sensible debate is never impossible. Craig is good at rhetoric... but his logic is appalling. I'm pretty sure there are people in our camp who are not only better at logic than Craig, but also rhetorically gifted - sufficiently so to out-rhetoric Craig.

Dawkins and those in the atheist community have no belief in God or other supernatural interference in the real world, and to this end debate with Craig would like debating with someone that fervently believes that the earth is flat. It doesn't matter how articulate or knowledgeable the flat earther is, his opinion is flawed and worthless.

If Ms Kirk - or anyone else here for that matter - is wondering why William Lane Craig is not worth debating, then here it is in a nutshell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9DLcTfYBcQ

‘nuff said.

There is no point in spruiking Craig’s PhD in philosophy when he so readily abandons (or conveniently forgets) basic agreed-upon philosophical principals in order to fool and baffle the credulous.

If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS.

The guy is an unprincipled sophist and who earns a living by deceiving those who were never going to question what he said to begin with and should be regarded with contempt.

Well, if you're all so sure Craig is so wrong, then it should be even more reason for Hitchens to debate him. Should be a walk over and therefore a convincing demonstration of how poor the religious argument is.

The first post sums up the hypocrisy and foolish nature of the new atheist religion. Jon J writes

'OK, Madeleine, how do YOU think Dr Dawkins should regard people who fly planes into buildings full of people, mutilate children's genitals, cover up child sexual abuse in their organisations, and send mentally disabled women into crowded marketplaces to set off explosives strapped to their bodies? '

Suddenly the new atheist don't believe in moral relativism anymore. They are happy to pronounce absolutes which make them look very silly indeed. Are you sure flying planes in a building is wrong Jon J? I am sure there are millions of Muslims who disagree. Oh that's right the new atheist now make up the absolutes when they suite their arguement.

GrahamY,

This is undoubtedly the most intelligent thing you've ever said. Try to keep up the good work!

Thank you for reminding me of my opening lines, Sam Jandwich. I stand by both of them.

The language employed is of a high standard for one who self-describes as a "young Australian", writing "from the perspective of [a] sixteen year old". (I assume she incorporated that information for a reason).

However, to flatter the presentation of her thoughts merely because of her youth, is to do her a grave disservice. Encouraging sloppy, even lazy thinking, simply because she is still at school is, I would suggest, the height of patronising behaviour. "Such a clever girl".

Incidentally, having "an interest in both science and intelligent debate over the existence of God" is not, in my experience, particularly unusual in sixteen year-olds. But to use this interest as the basis of a piece that is manifestly driven by the need to display her already rusted-on belief system by slagging off a handy atheist-figure, is hardly praiseworthy.

There is, she should quickly learn, no such thing as an "intelligent debate" about the existence or non-existence of God, despite what Graham suggests. If you are a believer, you believe, despite a complete lack of evidence. If you don't believe, then you simply don't. Quite probably, because you regard that lack of evidence as an impediment. Any attempt by either party to dissuade the other from their position is pointless, providing nothing more than a platform for their own self-regard, whether atheist author or Doctor of Theology.

On the subject of "Doctors of Theology", I'm pretty sure Johann Becher would have drawn adoring crowds for his "discovery" of phlogiston. As, no doubt, did a whole lot of his disciples, all brandishing the equivalent of their PhD in phlogiston theory.

Hmmmm. Theology as twentyfirst-century phlogiston. A firm, unwavering belief in something that doesn't exist.

I suspect there may be a best-seller in that.

Firstly, beautifully well written and well argued piece here by young Madeleine Kirk. A factually accurate summary of the situation.

The plain fact of the matter is this: Dawkins is clearly and undoubtedly being dishonest about his reasons for not debating Craig.

It isnt because it "looks good on Craigs resume", on the contrary, Craig has already trounced Hitchens and Harris in debate. If anything, it would look good on Dawkins resume if he could debate the man who, as Harris says, strikes fear into the heart of many atheists and then beat him.

It isn't because Craig is a "creationist". Dawkins has debated John Lennox numerous times, and plenty of teleevangelists and preachers.

The real reason Dawkins is avoiding Craig is because 1. He doesn't want to get well beaten by a better opponent in a public debate. 2. Dawkins is more about persuading the public than real intellectual engagement. (This is clear from reading the preface to the paperback edition of TGD anyway. The reason Dawkins won't admit this in direct language at this point of the game is that it would lessen his credibility and make many of the general public question him, people who claim to have been convinced by his arguments).

Then again, plenty of people are dishonest about plenty of things so let's not cast the first stone! Plus, Dawkins's ideas will get scrutinised in a highly publicised lecture regardless of whether he turns up to defend them or not. And the whole issue has created an embarrassing situation for him due to the media attention, to the point where it would be arguably be better for him to actually front up and face Craig, even though he would be outclassed and his arguments would get shown up.

Taking an atheist position in regards to the Christian god is plausible.

Christianity is basically neo-Platonism. The Platonic 'forms' are the archetype of all phenomena; all 'things' in the phenomenal realm are, according to Plato, poor copies of the original 'forms' in the intelligible realm. Plato's argument requires that the mind/body split be a 'fact'; that the mind can be separated from the body and only when doing so is it capable of graping the 'forms'. The body is embodied in the phenomenal realm and therefore can only replicate the 'forms' in a poor manner.
Greek scholars - Clement, Origen, Ambrose, Augustine - in the Roman Empire used Plato's argument to justify the 'validity' of Christianity. God gets cast as the creator of the 'forms' and human beings become the poor replicator of the 'forms'; always striving for the archetypal 'good'. The mind/body split is recast as spirit/flesh. Romans 8:4 "Walk not according to the flesh but according to spirit". In Plato-speak that would be, "Walk not according to the phenomenal but according to the intelligible."

Enter Nietzsche. (Although Heraclitus had this idea before Nietzsche).

Nietzsche's argument is that we have no access to a 'intelligible realm' or things in-themselves. There is no mind/body, spirit/flesh split. Our mind is part of the body and is at all times completely embodied within the world of phenomena. There being no intelligible realm or mind/body split wipes out any connection human beings can have to a static reference point for absolute knowledge. Morals, 'truths', and 'understandings' are in constant flux because there is forever relations of power combating each other fighting for 'truth'. For Nietzsche, there is only tension points between warring sides. A 'truth' will only emerge if a dominant power can successfully introject it into the mass. Yet, this 'truth' will only be temporary, for a greater power will eventually destroy it and create its own, and so on ad infinitum.

Refuting the existence of the mind/body split sees Christianity come crashing down.

AJ Phillips is hilarous. He writes

'The guy is an unprincipled sophist and who earns a living by deceiving those who were never going to question what he said to begin with and should be regarded with contempt.'

I don't think you would need to be to honest to see High Priest Dawkins and co would make much more money from their deceit than William Lane Craig. There is certainly a lot more money available for those who jump on the new atheist faith movement or the global warming movement than a Professor from university exposing the lies of this new movement. Just ask Al Gore or our recent Aussie of the year. The new atheist movement also allows you to enjoy your guilt free life no matter how perverse. They detest the fact that they will face judgement one day and have refused the forgiveness God has offered to their sinful lives. Craig's attackers who dishonestly claim the world came from nothing are certainly the dishonest ones not those willing to think rationally.

Dawkins' proposition does not stand up to close analysis. He shows that he is hypocritical. He rubbishes God and intelligent design. But he believes in that god, CHANCE. He attributes CHANCE to be the cause of the original formation of cells in the sterile environment, and then the explanation for the evolution of those cells into all new species. Of course, this 'process' involved cell multiplication, development of the circulatory system needed for survival, sight, smell, hearing, digestive system, reproductive system , the evolution of new species, human intellect, orderly behaviour, etc.

Aristocrat:
<There being no intelligible realm or mind/body split wipes out any connection human beings can have to a static reference point for absolute knowledge. Morals, 'truths', and 'understandings' are in constant flux because there is forever relations of power combating each other fighting for 'truth'>

If this is true then it applies equally to empiricism, whose findings are processed by the same mind that confabulates all the other nonsense. Empirical experience, despite scientists' best efforts, is mediated by the same software that rationalises cultural/psychological values. If we are to place absolute faith in the sensual experience that the subjective/acculturated mind transcribes/rationalises, what is our rationale for dismissing our psychological/spiritual/impressionistic convictions? In other words, how or why is it that we should put our faith in the evidence of our crude and compromised physical senses, which is vetted by the same "mind" that also conceives "independently" of sensual input, and yet dismiss that mind's intangible convictions out of hand as delusion?
There used to be a bias in favour of supernaturalism, and now there's a bias in favour of naturalism. Empiricism is absolutely dependent on the body/mind split. Modern science is Cartesian!
I hasten to reiterate that this is not my rationale for faith, but for scepticism.
The far more important question is, "what state of material affairs does my ideological position serve?" And neither side is asking that!

I don't understand what all the fuss is about.
I actually ended up buying a copy of, "The God
Delusion," by Richard Dawkins. And quite enjoyed
reading it. I did not get the impression that he
was setting himself up as some sort of "Guru,"
or that he wanted to convert anyone. I found his
book informative and brilliantly argued. And
BTW - I'm a Catholic, (probably not a good one).
Hawkins did not convert
me but as I said - I enjoyed readintg his book very much.
I particularly liked his list of "ten commandments."

I also have bought and read - "Believ ers: Does Australian
Catholicism have a future?" by Paul Collins. And I enjoyed
that very much as well. We should all keep open minds
on a variety of subjects - including religion. How else
will we learn about the choices we have in life And
which ones to make?

[Deleted. Almost completely off-topic.]

Surely in the beginning of mankind's intellectual awareness, natural curiosity caused people to seek answers to the inexplicable, and to provide some potential explanations. It is also reasonable in those circumstances to "pray" or make offerings to contrived or "imagined" forces behind the elements, the seasons and the natural world.

Perhaps the answer to God's existence though, really lies within mankind, within the "miracle" of intellectual curiosity and ingenuity, of discovery and inventiveness; with offerings to "God" simply an expression of thankfulness for these "gifts".

From early beginnings it is clear that some leaders have sought to embellish, to give their followers hope, or explanation or reason for their decisions, rules or edicts - purportedly for the good of the group. It is clear that such embellishing has been taken to extraordinary lengths through mankind's history, and in some ways used and abused for selfish or protectionist reasons, with the inevitable result that "religion" has acquired an unholy reputation in some quarters. The best of intentions hijacked.

Religion should be a celebration of humanity, of being, of thankfulness, of community, and not a cause for division or divisiveness. Awareness, knowledge, material affluence and a high degree of future assurance has enabled many to cast off the inner intellectual connectedness with the greater community of mankind, and to focus only on the material world and on self. Where such preconditions do not exist, belief prevails, but sorely tainted by jealousy and covetousness. Corruption and material greed have displaced good intentions - the "God" of the cosmos replaced by the individual god, of self.

The "miracle" of our being, our Earth, and our universe may not be reason to believe in a creator, but surely to be thankful, and to express our gratitude for our good fortune by husbanding our environment and all its inhabitants including our fellow man. What purpose our abilities? To conquer? Or to serve? Selfish, or selfless?

Believing in some deity is not going to make us better people.If god does exist,why would he/she be bothered with such pathetic creatures as us, who wage war for profit and use a debt based monetary creation system to enslave and starve the planet.

The Catholic Church is said to worth over $ 200 trillion.Look at the injustices it has done in the name of god over the centuries.

GrahamY, Wednesday, 19 Oct, 3:24:36pm

Pls see my post @ 7:34:13am re Craig's ability to manipulate any argument ...

McReal, John Turner et al

Apart from the bus advertising issue in the UK which I accept, the fact that Dawkins argues that saying there is no God is also a position of faith, suggests that the answer is not definitive. I see that as a cop out. Religious leaders don't say there is 'probably' a God.

BTW 99.9% - show me how that number is worked out? Its simply ludicrous to quote a percentage.

It is my distinct impression that atheism is an attempt by some to alleviate their fear of a punishing God which is a primitive misinterpretation of religion.

I did see your post McReal, but it's a non-point. If that is what Craig does, then Dawkins should be able to make that abundantly obvious and therefore win the debate.

Mind you, I've only watched one video of Craig debating and he was honest and to the point about his position on creationism, so perhaps you could give us an example of how he has manipulated an argument.

Without that it could be just an unsupported assertion.

Graham Y,

http://www.youtube.com/profile?src_vid=o9DLcTfYBcQ&feature=iv&user=Th1sWasATriumph&annotation_id=annotation_268360#p/c/0/veB1uUOv6Vg

Craig is a snake oil salesman. His "proofs" of god's existence are based selectively excised quotes from various physicists and pseudo science packaged for the layman that on the face of it sounds plausible to the 90% of the population without a mathematics or science background who can tell that what he says is pure bullsh1t.

Just one example is his notion that before the big bang, there was nothing, and something cannot come from nothing, thus there is a super being, is flawed in so many ways:
1- General relativity shows that time is not a constant, space and time are linked, and that approaching singularities that it time is so distorted that entirely possible for eternity to be experienced in an instant.
2- Using GR as above, there is no time without space, and that there is not necessarily any before. A concept that most struggle with.
3- Quantum mechanics indicates that it is entirely possible for matter / energy to spring from nothing, with a balance of negative energy particles.
3- Hawkins postulated in "a brief history of time" that given the huge potential energy deficit of the proximity of matter in the universe, that the sum of all the mass/energy of the universe could well be zero. Thus nothing springs from nothing.

Craig is probably well aware of this, but gets more mileage and "donations" by saying what people want to hear. Giving him a platform with Dawkins would be giving him the recognition that he does not deserve.

I could go on but there is a word limit.

With all due respect SM, that is not "snake oil" but one of the fundamental mysteries of life.

I don't accept your analysis of relativity theory. A singularity bounds our understanding of reality because the equations break down at that spot. To say that because at the moment of a singularity time would seem eternal is not the same thing as saying that a singularity can just pop out of nothing.

I think you are using the word "nothing" in a different way to what Craig would be because in your definition fundamental laws of physics appear to be "nothing", and I think Craig would call them "something". Because it is fundamental laws of physics that allow matter and energy to appear where none previously existed.

His proof of a first cause is something that I think Thomas Aquinas thought of first. I don't find it particularly convincing, but I don't have an explanation for how the universe came into being either. It seems equally implausible that things have always been without beginning as to say there must have been a beginning.

Dawkins deals with the prime cause argument in his book, so surely he can deal with it in a debate. I think his argument is it is "turtles all the way down" to borrow a probably apocryphal phrase from someone else, but Craig and Aquinas argue that the turtles must be standing on something.

The god fanatical monotheists believe in is the same god the atheists don't believe in. Flip sides of the same coin. No engagement with intelligent debate on either side. The atheists conference will be an exercise in shooting fish in a barrel. Will they have a mosh pit?
Another thought: It seems to me that the fundamentalists are really afraid that the god they worship isn't real, while the atheists are afraid that he is.

Shadow Minister and GrahamY,

Finally a debate worth having. Hawkins postulates a theory that is the best description that fits our observations. As we discover more and more about the universe it appears that assumptions regarding our day to day earthly observations do not hold up to scientific scrutiny. This is why theories such as Hawkins' are hard to understand. Try and describe the quantum world in macro terms to someone with no physics knowledge.

In contrast, theists describe theories that explain both day to day observations as well as theories such as the beginning of the universe in terms that make sense on the simple macro level. i.e. if there is a god, then the explanation for everything is very simple - god did it.

So who would win the debate about the beginning of the universe, in front of a general audience- Hawkins or a theist? I believe the theist would as Hawkins argument doesn't make sense to many except those trained in physics. While Hawkins theory may change over time to fit mathematical and physical measurements of the universe, the theists' theory makes sense to more people as his arguments have been adapted over time to ensure that people believe it. If they do not, then it can change until it makes sense to the believers. This is why while scientists may be wrong, theists are not even wrong. For these reasons Dawkins does not have to debate any theists.

"When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

Isaac Asimov

Squeers
"In other words, how or why is it that we should put our faith in the evidence of our crude and compromised physical senses, which is vetted by the same "mind" that also conceives "independently" of sensual input, and yet dismiss that mind's intangible convictions out of hand as delusion?
There used to be a bias in favour of supernaturalism, and now there's a bias in favour of naturalism. Empiricism is absolutely dependent on the body/mind split. Modern science is Cartesian!"

Nietzsche is not Cartesian. While you are right that modern science reverts back to a form of Platonism by placing down maxims as if they existed independently of the mind, Nietzsche's position is that the mind is not at all separate from the body and therefore all "maxims" are complete human creations. Hence, 'truths' can better be described as something closer to "art" than science. Any "maxim" laid down will be a manifestation of the prejudices, psychological, physiological, biological, and cultural character of its creator.

However, science uses cause and effect relations to understand how a 'thing' works. Christianity will just say 'god' makes it work (although Christians believe in free will so that brings in a highly contradictory argument for their cause). Cause and effect relations can give us a better understanding of phenomena than a vague metaphysics can. For example, Christians will say the sting of conscience occurs because they have transgressed god's law, a scientific approach will look closer at how that idea of feeling guilty was put their in the first place. A (social) scientist will say guilt was introjected by parents, or societal mores, or teachers, or politicians, and not by god. We are not born with guilt, we are taught guilt. This is why guilt and shame changes across time and cultures, because it is subject to the whims of the Zeitgeist and not the supposed existence of a metaphysical entity.

Um, Graham.

<<…so perhaps you [McReal] could give us an example of how he has manipulated an argument.>>

I’ve already given an example of how Craig manipulates arguments. Here it is again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9DLcTfYBcQ

So win or lose, it would be demeaning and an insult to debate such a person.

Here’s a clip of Dan Dennett explaining some of Craig’s sneaky tactics if you’re interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb10QvaHpS4

<<It seems equally implausible that things have always been without beginning as to say there must have been a beginning.>>

I agree and I suspect most non-believers would too. To assume that the opposing explanation must necessarily be that things have always just “been” would be a false dichotomy. It’s possible that it doesn’t even make sense to ask what came before the singularity.

It’s like you raise this point to soften the blow of Craig’s failed cosmological argument by pointing to a strawman and saying, “Well hey, your theory ain’t too crash hot either.”

But it’s not just that Craig’s cosmological argument is unconvincing, it actually fallacious.

AJ, checked your YouTube link and I think it is your guy who is running the deception, not Craig. His understanding of physics is tenuous, to say the least.

I think I know why Dawkins refuses to debate Craig, and that is because his case against religion is built on straw men, and he realises that if he comes up against someone with a sophisticated understanding of theology then it will undermine his whole status in the debate because his straw men will become apparent.

Better to refuse on the basis that his opponent is not worthy and to keep touring and talking to those who buy his straw men than to run the risk that his prestige will be damaged.

It's pretty poor form, but a common public relations strategy.

GrahanY,
I posted in the wrong thread - http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12756&page=0#220465

Are you able to move it to this one?

I like turtles.

No Graham, it’s actually not.

<<I think it is your guy who is running the deception, not Craig. His understanding of physics is tenuous, to say the least.>>

He’s an astronomer so he has a sound grasp of basic physics. Could you please point out for me where his deception and what about his understanding of physics is tenuous? Or where he is being deceptive for that matter?

I don’t think you can.

So what about Craig's misrepresentation of the arguments against his premise of the cosmological argument? You have nothing to say about that? Odd considering you claim there is no deception on Craig's behalf.

Or what of the fact that that Craig - a PhD in philosophy - conveniently forgot about the concept of “I”?

You’re pretty silent on that too.

Simply asserting that the author of the video’s understanding of physics is “tenuous” doesn’t address any of this. It’s merely a diversion used to plant a seed of doubt in the minds of those who might view it - regardless of whether nor not it's true.

It's pretty poor form, but a common strategy used by laywers.

Popular atheism is dreadful when judged by philosophical standards.

As Madeleine shows, the goal of their writing isn’t to speak to theists, but to redefine atheism from being the quiet, live-and-let-live, intellectual, blue blood, male college professor enterprise that it has tended to be among English speakers to being a socially active and aggressive force that actively marginalizes others.

This is why they are raising so many social questions of manners, morals, and child rearing e.g. “is it child abuse to raise children in religious households?” or “should we allow any tolerance to public teaching of religious things?” or “Sure, Christianity is wrong, but should we respect Christians?”

This is why they must afford no intellectual respect to theism of any kind e.g caricaturing Craig as a Creationist – the whole point of their enterprise is to make Christianity (something like) the new racism, something that popular manners deems unworthy of respect since it can only be practised by the ignorant and dangerous. Racist attitudes weren't changed by reasoning with racists or by faithfully taking up and refuting their arguments, but by changing public manners and morals to recast the racist as an ignorant rube who deserved no intellectual respect.

The NA is the thin end of the wedge for a change in manners and morals, leading to new taboos. It doesn’t direct itself to converting classically trained philosophers, but to being for mass consumption to float “in the air” and change attitudes among cafeteria Catholics, the overwhelming percentage of teens who leave the faith to experiment, people who are bored with the vacuity of MegaChurches, etc. Previous to this, such people would just be mediocre Christians all their lives, since atheism was for white, unmarried, males who keep to themselves (as it still largely is).

If the NA succeeds in their actual goal, all that will change. Theism will become the new racism. Judged by demagogic rather than philosophical standards they are more effective.

Madeleine in your capacity for independent thought if you represent even a minority of young people I have newfound faith in humanity. Thank you.

GY,

Dawkins and other physicists freely admit that there are areas where present theories break down. They, however, don't say that it is thus impossible and need to fill the gap with a supernatural being.

Much of what Craig postulates also conflicts with present theoretical physics, and instead of modifying his "proofs" he continues with his pseudo science simply because it appeals to those without science degrees.

As Craig has yet to put forward anything that has any scientific merit whatsoever, giving him a platform with Dawkins would not further scientific debate, only give him some scientific credibility, which presently he lacks, and allow him to muddy the separation between science and emotion.

Perhaps Dawkins explains it best:

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/119-why-i-won-39-t-debate-creationists

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220448

Arjay, but that is exactly the point. Christianity provides businessmen with a moral compass. Jesus threw money changers/international banksters out of the temple.

the bible contains many references to men working at their trade/business in an ethical manner & caring for any poor in the community from profits, paying reasonable wages to staff &/or not charging "usury" interest rates.

Professional Atheists are in fact usually communazi international socialists destroying religion, society & the family so that they can "walk through the destruction, creators" Marx.

You cannot train "revolutionaries" to robotically follow the plan if they have a christian conscience &/or moral code that forbids committing EVIL acts for the glorious revolution.

God is dead, all hale the "dear leader".

I suspect Dawkins is genuinely afraid to debate Craig and the creationism argument is merely a distractor. As we all know, Creationism
is only a belief of a sub group of fundamentalist Christians. Dawkins need not discuus the topic of creationism with Craig and still debate the existence of God.

Extraordinary the amount of attention given to propositions that are quite obviously beyond proof!

I like what Buckminster Fuller has to say: “I am o’erwhelmed by the only experientially discovered evidence of an a priori eternal, omnicomprehensive, infinitely and exquisitely concerned, intellectual integrity that we may call God, though knowing that in whatever way we humans refer to this integrity, it will always be an inadequate expression of its cosmic omniscience and omnipotence.”

This obviously implies that believing is seeing, among other things. It also expresses his conviction that there is an order to the universe, which can be discovered but never described or proven. Or disproven.

Formersnag you write

'Professional Atheists are in fact usually communazi international socialists destroying religion, society & the family so that they can "walk through the destruction, creators" Marx.'

Don't forget they have indeed set up their own faith system through pseudo science. They are just to dishonest to admit to it.

Atman,

None of what Craig espouses has a foundation in science, and Craig himself has no grasp of the issues.

The existence of God is a matter of belief for which no one has yet found one iota of proof. Debate in this context with someone who has no belief is at best futile.

Attention Atheists, none of you have even attempted to answer the issue of "atheists" destroying religions like christianity for the specific purpose of replacing it with another "new/old" religion.

Allegedly Scientific, Dawkins style atheism serves no purpose in protecting anybody other than criminals from their concsience.

i will repeat it for you, i am not a fundamentalist christian. Australia & it's constitution were created by christian founding fathers, it is the basis of ALL our laws, the true antisocial purpose of atheism is to destroy our nation/morals/society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JihQw39hyG0 BIBLICAL constitutional law

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7HJI5Jwzt0&feature=related Nietzsche amoral.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3LyLUEX83o&feature=related REAL australian BIBLICAL law, watch it all, but especially this one

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luciferianism twisting truth to decieve

if you want NO rights, morals, or protection of law, then be an atheist/communazi with no conscience or morals.

if you WANT children to be neglected & abused, continue to destroy christianity

The problem with formal debates is that they are a poor format for constructive discussion because they allow both parties to waste valuable time rambling, regardless of whether or not what they’re rambling about is even relevant to the points of their fellow debaters.

Not only can this help to give the false impression that the person in the wrong may have a point, but it’s a waste of valuable time when each debater would otherwise be able to cut their opponent short and correct them when they already know where they’re going and thus robbing them of the opportunity to use the rhetoric and sophistry that is so often employed by the Craig and his ilk (that do nothing more than blur a otherwise simple issue) and preventing them from hammering out a bunch of misrepresentations that require their opponents to then waste valuable allocated time to correct.

Now, I’m not sure if this plays any part in Dawkins’ decision to avoid a snake like Craig but it certainly would for me.

Here’s a good example of just how much Craig fumbles and falters, with nowhere to turn, in a casual discussion when he no longer has the security and protection of a rigid formal debate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7g3lsFZ47Y

An absolute creaming there by Shelly Kagan.

Beautiful stuff!

Out of interest, Martin Ibn Warriq...

>>Madeleine in your capacity for independent thought if you represent even a minority of young people I have newfound faith in humanity.<<

I didn't notice any evidence of "independent thought" in the article. In fact, it was little more than a re-hash of content from the wealth of internet sites dedicated to "get Dawkins". Sixteen year-olds tend to get most of their copy online.

Much of Ms. Kirk's "independent thinking" seems to have originated here...

http://www.afaithtoliveby.com/tag/richard-dawkins/

or here...

http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/theres-probably-no-dawkins-now-stop-worrying-and-enjoy-oct-25th-at-the-sheldonian-theatre/

or here...

http://www.svchapel.org/resources/articles/22-contemporary-issues/587-the-new-atheism

...but frankly, they all seem to say much the same thing.

But please, if you do spot any evidence of independent thought, or originality, or in fact anything more than a few snide remarks, don't hesitate to draw them to my attention. I am always prepared to question my position, and learn something new in the process.

I'd be particularly interested to hear whether Ms Kirk has actually visited any atheist web sites. I know they are few and far between, since there is no belief system to promote, but I'm sure she could have found some if she had tried,

Madeleine
Anamele
GrahamY
.. et al

The 3 Laws of Thought are "fundamental axiomatic rules upon which rational discourse itself is based. The rules have a long tradition in the history of philosophy" and worth considering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_thought

Another ethical principle is the Burden of Proof - "He who avers, must prove".

WL Craig fails to do this
.

I do apologise Aristocrat, I’m indecently busy; I’ll get back to you, but for now I want to weigh in to the Craig debate.
It seems to me that where Shelly Kagan gets it wrong is when he hit’s those holier than though notes about accountability and saving a human life and the inspirational stuff about minimalist meaning, while simultaneously he is oblivious to the fact (apart perhaps from a show of hand-wringing) that his rationalism, his positivism, his progressivism (based on nihilism), his “funding”, is born of a rapacious system whereby the progressive element of humanity feeds off the rest, and all other fauna and flora—to no purpose or end they readily admit—we’re all just a flash in the pan. These rationalists rationalise as though they really were outside the ordinary moral (and material!) constraints that bother the theologian (whose position is also flawed, parasitic and self-interested of course). What is the rationalist’s ethical defence of the billions spent on space programmes and colliders and all the other exotic and fantastically expensive projects? while half of humanity starves and is denied the opportunity to indulge their passion for spoiled mature men’s toys? Rationalism is the ultimate in rationalisation; it allows their priests to indifferently (sorry “objectively”) develop nuclear weapons and gas chambers and whatever else is in demand. Not because they’re particularly fascinated by these innovations, but because that’s where the funding goes and that’s where they go—the ultimate in dumb conservatives! If Kagan is earnest in his insistence that he doesn’t need cosmological significance to infer meaning, why isn’t he more accountable about the speck of dust he helps to exploit? I felt sorry for Craig; we all have those moments when the eloquence goes on strike and we look like twits. But in his defence, Kagan had the advantage, the “common sense” is on his side, whereas it used to be on the other. The new common sense has no need of ethics, however much it pays lip service; it has cock-sure “confidence”!

@Pericles: Madeleine chose to invest her time thinking about a question of historically universal human significance - the question of God - a question that our 'culture' anxiously avoids posing. That judgment she exercised against conformism to the great tide of pop culture banality and hedonism particularly targeted at young people and financed by very powerful media conglomerates. That alone should merit encouragement especially from adult commenters.

Her argument was cogent and we should recognise that.

If you define independence as narrowly as you do then you have never had an independent thought and Eistein drawing from the pre-Socratics didn't either, or when Whitehead remarked “all Western philosophy consists of footnotes to Plato” Aquinas, Aristotle or Kant were not independent thinkers.

It is a mark of intellectual virtue to think with the best that humans have thought. Madeleine showed fine judgment drawing from resources on the internet informed by the whole scope of our philosophical tradition rather than ones that arbitrarily excise everything prior to the 17thC typical of atheist sites.

By refusing to think only in terms dictated by our anti-culture, the thing that has created the conditions within which NA can even be considered respectable, Madeleine shows a precocious independence of thought. And a virile man should not hesitate granting her that.

@AJ Philips I didn't see it that way at all. I'd be more than happy to use it as a teaching tool to introduce the superiority of moral theology over atheistic ethics. It saddens me you don't see the same thing.

Kagan's lack of fluency in theology was telling - philosophical debates on the tension between free will and Grace is thousands of years old. It goes to the prejudice in modern philosophy against Aristotle and Scholasticism and how divorce from God leads it into incoherence (eliminative materialism) and irrelevancy.

Maddie - excellent analysis and very well articulated.

Formersnag
"Attention Atheists, none of you have even attempted to answer the issue of "atheists" destroying religions like christianity for the specific purpose of replacing it with another "new/old" religion."

Christianty sowed the seeds of its own destruction. Once the Protestants took the power away from the clergy and gave it over to the people it was all over for Christianity. If you want people to be compliant, then don't teach them how to read and interpret the bible for themselves (as this is essentially what Protestantism did). Strict compliance relies on either ignorance, apathy, or force. Catholicism had the first and last achieved well.

Martin Ibn Warriq
"Kagan's lack of fluency in theology was telling - philosophical debates on the tension between free will and Grace is thousands of years old. It goes to the prejudice in modern philosophy against Aristotle and Scholasticism and how divorce from God leads it into incoherence (eliminative materialism) and irrelevancy."

Free will can easily be argued when you frame it in highly abstract metaphysical terms, however, when you bring it down to earth, like modern day materialists do, it becomes a highly complex issue, one where you have to try and use empirical means - observation, experiment - to try and see if it exists or not. Abstract metaphysics just claims it exists by presupposing we are fully conscious of our actions at all times, and that we are completely free to choose what course of action we ought to take in every moment of the day. Work into the unconscious by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Freud have put the free will debate to bed.
To say modern philosophy "divorce[d] from God leads it into incoherence (eliminative materialism) and irrelevancy" is ignorant at best. In fact, philosophy today is much harder because we no longer possess the naivety to use god as a "stop-gap" solution when problems cannot be reasoned out. Instead, we must suspend judgment until further evidence arrives.

The second line of my last post should have said "philosophers" were "materialists" are. As many modern day philosophers are not strictly materialists.

AJ Phillips, I have no idea what you are talking about, nor I suspect do you. Instead of link spamming us with YouTube videos why don't you take up the arguments that are in them and tell us what Craig says, and why he is wrong, and what your favoured authorities say, and why they are right?

From what I have seen of Craig, and I've only just come across him, he uses fairly traditional theological arguments and deductions. They are not snake oil, and if Dawkins wants to take on Christianity, as he says he does, then he should take them on, rather than concentrating on theological arguments that he invents.

If he is prepared to argue against versions that he invents, then he has no excuse for refusing to argue against someone who has a more sophisticated version and which are accepted as being within the ambit of what does constitute Christianity.

BTW, I'm not sure where anyone got the idea Craig is a creationist. He's not. So let's take that away as one reason for not debating him.

To do justice to Madeleine's piece I fear much commentary has concentrated on Craig v Dawkins rather than exploration of atheism v theism, which I perceived as the thrust of her article and her interest.

I also feel it essential to avoid reference to any particular religion or belief system, or to any consideration of the mechanisms of the human psyche, to conduct any fruitful analysis.

Neither scientific analysis nor historical texts can give us a "proof", but the question is should this then be an end to the discussion, or are there means to evaluate the probabilities?

For many, only a new "burning bush" could constitute "evidence". For others, canonisations for puportedly proven "miracles" (mostly medical) can provide sufficient "confirmation". It may be that the power of suggestion, combined with an amazing physiology, can account for such "miracles" - but may also be a proof of the efficacy of "faith". Faith in such circumstances appears to be a powerful vehicle. Is there room to allow that there may be more to faith than merely willpower?

Random evolution, intricate cosmological componentry and intricate operating physical bases, all from a measured beginning, not from nothing (as some have suggested) but from a balanced amorphism. Chance is marvellous, but is it truly compelling? We of course must accept the possibility, but there remains the question of how such an amazing "miracle" has occured, through the imponderable mechanisms of the beginning and the pre-beginning (and with the possibility that this may not be the first time around).

Our solar system is destined to eventually descend into chaos, and us with it - unless either the current science is wrong, or a radical change occurs - via an unforseeable "miracle".

"Proof" may be a long time coming. "Faith" is comforting, suggests order and purpose to the universe and our existence within it, and may be beneficial to our health (when not taken in too heavy a dosage). Reasons enough for many; whilst doubt and disbelief may only remain "cold comfort" for others.

Perhaps what Richard Dawkins says, as he did yesterday, might be relevant
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/20/richard-dawkins-william-lane-craig

Besides, it ought not be about the personalities; it ought to be about the arguments around premises, without fallacious 'appeals to authority', "strawman red-herrings" that WL Craig espouses, etc.

Note the comments below Dawkin's piece. Especially the reference to Craig's debating style - in the 2nd comment - the "Gish Gallop"
('epeeists' link to Stephen Law's blog about Law's recent debate with WL Craig does not work - the link is below*)

"The Gish Gallop is an informal name for a debating technique that involves drowning the opponent in such a torrent of half-truths, lies, and straw-man arguments that the opponent cannot possibly answer every falsehood that has been raised. ...[snip] ...

"The gallop is often used as an indirect 'argument-from-authority', as it appears to paint the "galloper" as an expert in a broad range of subjects and the opponent as an incompetent bumbler who didn't do their homework before the debate. Such emphasis on style over substance is the reason many scientists disdain public debates as a forum for disseminating opinions."

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop . Some bloggers use the Gish Gallop, and there is evidence on this thread.

* Stephen Law's argument v Craig sketch -http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2011/10/brief-sketch-of-my-overall-argument-in.html
from his blog http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/
.

Thanks for that McReal,

I'd never heard of William Lane Craig until this article....and judging by the quotes that Dawkins has included from Lane, I wouldn't want to share a stage with him either.

It's very sweet of you to be so defensive on the author's behalf, Martin Ibn Warriq. I'm sure she is very appreciative of your support, coming as it does from such a balanced, neutral point of view.

>>Madeleine chose to invest her time thinking about a question of historically universal human significance - the question of God - a question that our 'culture' anxiously avoids posing.<<

From the evidence of this forum alone, I'd suggest that our "culture" - far from anxiously avoiding the topic - actively and enthusiastically embraces it, every time it raises its head. The problem with that, of course, is that spending our lives debating the existence of something that can never be objectively defined, is a pretty pointless waste of time.

If that were the only problem, nothing would be gained or lost except a few brain cells destroyed in the process of banging themselves against a wall. Unfortunately - as Dawkins points out - the damage done to our world by religious adherents is tangible, and measured in the destruction of minds and bodies, over many centuries.

The case that Dawkins primarily makes - the carnage effect, if you will - is inevitably supported by a string of "how can you possibly believe in such nonsense" points. It is these points that the religionist refutes by saying "well, we do believe, so suck on that". Providing very little material for anyone not of the faith to argue with in any cogent fashion.

>>If you define independence as narrowly as you do then you have never had an independent thought and Eistein drawing from the pre-Socratics didn't either<<

Evidence of independent thinking does not exclude reference to previous ideas and concepts. But the lack of it here is glaringly exposed by the complete absence of balance - a weighing up, if you will, of the material you uncover, as opposed to the slavish regurgitation of someone else's predigested info-gobbets.

I respectfully suggest that "Eistein" did a little more than copy out someone else's views.

Wow. Dawkin's latest article....

That's not just bad, that's really bad.

Someone needs to give Dawkins some PR help and tell him that he would be well advised to lay low until Craig has left the UK and much of the furore has died down. This latest article has just continued his downward spiral. If he has any credibility whatsoever left, it has surely now shrunken to the point of being unrecognisable.

Making a completely nonsense and laughable statement yet again that it would "look good on Craig's resume but not mine", followed by an entire article based on a red herring and questioning Craig's character. Anyone with half a brain can see that Dawkins is running scared.

Trav,

It's more likely that Dawkins is reluctant to provide Craig with an ounce of credibility by appearing on the stage beside him.

"Anyone with half a brain can see that Dawkins is running scared."

Yes, but those of us with a whole brain can spot a publicity-seeking opportunist when we see one.

lol.

Are you being serious?

Dawkins is the opportunist. While Craig has been busy preparing for debates with the best philosophers scientists the UK has to offer, Dawkins has been busy on the publicity trail of his new books.

Besides, Craig is no opportunist. The point that Dawkins has conveniently not mentioned is that it ISNT WILLIAM LANE CRAIG who is organising this tour of the UK, it is two independent organisations- bethinking.org and Premier Radio. Craig is merely accepting the invitation to debate, something that Dawkins is too scared to do.

It's really getting embarrassing for him now. He writes a book called "The God Delusion", supposedly an analysis of the God question, but then he doesnt want his arguments to be scrutinised. Instead, he criticises someone's character on the Guardian website. "Oh, Craig believes this, therefore I won't debate him on a completely different question".

How sad. What a prideful old man. Just do yourself a favour Dicky, and lay low.

Graham,

You claim that Dawkins has made theological claims, however, having actually read the "god delusion" what is clear, even from the introduction, is that Dawkins is not trying to make any theological argument. He does not even claim that god does not exist. However, what he does say is that there is no evidence that god exists, and that he chooses on evidence to hand to accept that there is no god.

Further in the book he spends some time deconstructing creationism, "intelligent design" and other claims that organised religion has on morality and ethics. He challenges the concept that morality springs from religion, and charges that the influence of religion on common laws is to some extent detrimental to society.

Given that Craig openly claims that the first and over riding proof is his own spiritual experience and it over rides any evidence that others can provide, is there any chance of serious debate?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220509
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220516
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220520
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220523
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220533
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220535
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220536
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220538
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220552
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220554
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220555
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220559
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220565

AJ Philips, Pericles, McReal, Squeers, Aristocrat, Saltpetre & Poirot, so your "debate", or 3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_thought are,

Point #1, that it is GOOD when an atheist uses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophistry cheap tricks, BAD if a theist does it.

Point #2, evolution is GOOD when you are destroying religion, BAD when religion is evolving over time &/or improving its moral codes.

Point #3, when that does not work you "refuse to give them oxygen", how "getting in touch with your feminine side of you", or "lateral thinking", ignore the linear logic, facts & slither sideways, http://www.google.com.au/search?q=sheela+na+gig&hl=en&biw=1104&bih=621&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ar2gToSVMom4iQeR6-HtBg&sqi=2&ved=0CEgQsAQ perhaps you prefer pre-christian, tribal celtic religion.

World war, oppression & poverty over the last few centuries all have 4 plain, simple causes. There are 4 completely, totally & utterly evil religious cults in the world, all with a tradition of telling deliberate, premeditated lies or "manufacturing consent" among the sheeple.

CULT #1, international banksters/satanists/luciferians/atheists (in that they promote atheism to the sheeple while continuing to worship their DARK LORDS) rothschild=6redsigns & 1 single family owning half of all the worlds wealth as far back as 1850.

CULT #2, Zionism, is not judaism, http://www.savethemales.ca/000482.html but worshipping the devil, mamon, contains many joint members of the 1st CULT.

CULT #3, Islamism, Taqiyya in both the koran & hadith means lie to the infedel to further jihad whether it is violent or non violent & you will still go to heaven/paradise because "all is fair in love & war". And hey presto also contains many prominant persons holding joint membership of the first 2 CULTS, please tell me arab oil money is NOT "oiling" the wheels of wall street.

CULT #4, ANTIcommunazi, international ANTIsocialism, materialism, nietzsche, dialectical materialism, atheism (NO morals to get in the way of the glorious revolution), & hey presto the usual suspects are joint members of all the other CULTS, EG trotsky was a zionist friend of the rothschild/6redsigns family who got the early USSR into crippling debt for the sheeple/slaves to pay off, that is the REAL reason why stalin PURGED him.

Shadow, Dawkins may well have decided "on evidence to hand to accept that there is no god", but the major criticism that many atheists and theists alike have made is that he doesn't give the best evidence and arguments for God a fair shake in his book.

The Guardian article would've been a perfect introduction to Richard Dawkins for any of the uninitiated. The man can flat out write. Very rarely do I actually enjoy reading when I'm reading someone whose views I disagree with, and much less so on a topic which is close to my heart. However, Dawkins is a pleasure, he has fantastic command of the English language.

His problem though, is that his logic trails far behind his writing skill and rhetoric. This was even more clear in the Guardian article than in his book, again making it a good introduction for the uninitiated! What a laughable, inaccurate and poor set of excuses for not debating the man!

Eliphaz, Zophar, Bildad, Elihu - where are you now? Why so silent?

Never mind, I can tell you that things work out OK in the end.

Job

I've never heard of the "Gish Gallop" before, but would agree that many on this forum use versions of it - those long posts with cut and paste links to articles and videos that the commenter never seems to be able to summarise.

But it's a pretty simple thing to deal with in a rhetorical sense. You just keep to one or two points and keep bringing them back to it.

If that is Dawkins reason for not refusing the debate McReal, then it is an impoverished one.

Poirot, if Dawkins doesn't want to dignify Craig by debating him, why on earth did he dignify Christianity, and other world religions, by attacking them? The logic does not hold up. Either you venture into the field or you don't. And if you venture in, then you might as well take on someone with better than average credibility on the other side.

Martin Ibn Warriq,

Okay, so what were the highlights for you in the discussion? How do you think Craig demonstrated the moral superiority of theology?

As for Kagan, was it a “lack of fluency in theology” on his behalf, or did he simply realise that those philosophical debates are irrelevant? Because whether or not “divorce from God” leads to irrelevancy is very much the argument Craig failed to support in the video and I can’t think of what you could possibly mean by godlessness leading to incoherence.

Unless, by “incoherence”, you’re referring to the fact that secular morality actually requires one to think, whereas religious morality is for the lazy and thoughtless who need to be told what to do. Although I could see how secular morality would look like “incoherence” to those who would be fooled into thinking that something is right or wrong simply because of an edict attributed to another being.

But while those of us, who would prefer to think, are trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together, we don't need theists spilling their coffee all over the table as they try to force pieces together.

Especially since they seem to have brought pieces from some other puzzle.

Graham,

You’re dodging and weaving all over the place here. You tried to accuse an astronomer of having a weak grasp of physics and now that that’s fallen through, you pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about and suggest that I don’t either.

Nice try, but you know perfectly well what we’re on about here.

So again:

-In what way do you think the author of the video’s grasp of physics is tenuous?
-In what way were they “running the deception”?
-And if you don’t think Craig was being dishonest, then how do you explain the fact that a PhD in philosophy conveniently confuses the concept of “I” when it suits him?

<<…why don't you take up the arguments that are in them and tell us what Craig says, and why he is wrong…>>

You mean, like I’ve done many times before on OLO?

Continued…

…Continued

Why? The video already demonstrated why Craig was wrong with the fallacy of equivocation. Is it because it’s harder to do within the word limits, thus making it easier for those who disagree with me to draw this out and obfuscate?

Well okay, sure, one more time won’t hurt. Let’s deal with his favourite, shall we? The Kalam Cosmological Argument.

Firstly, the premise was shown to be flawed in the video that allegedly neither of us understand. But aside from the point made there, the premise of the argument assumes that reality can be divided into two sets: things that begin to exist and things that don’t. As if this wasn’t bad enough, it also gives the argument circularity since the things that don’t begin to exist must be pluralised, otherwise this thing that doesn’t begin to exist is just another term for “God” and then we’re just “Begging the Question”.

Speaking of pluralising, the argument never addresses why there is only one cause.

The argument is riddled with other fallacies too such as special pleading, the fallacy of composition and even a false dichotomy thrown in for good measure.

Would you like me to continue or expand on anything? I could if you’d like. Or perhaps we could cover the Ontological Argument? The Transcendental argument maybe..?

<<…if Dawkins wants to take on Christianity, as he says he does, then he should take them on, rather than concentrating on theological arguments that he invents.>>

Why would Dawkins need to - or even bother to - take them on when they’ve already been discredited many times over? You’re speaking as though Craig’s arguments are yet to be refuted.

Besides which, Dawkins does not attack strawmen or invent theological arguments, as theists like to pretend. He is talking about every version of god - from the unknowable transcendental god who is indistinguishable from nothing, to the bearded old man in the sky that creationists worship. Most of his arguments are broad enough to include them all - even the non-God of those Christians who don’t believe in one at all.

Problem is, Trav...

>>...he doesn't give the best evidence and arguments for God a fair shake in his book.<<

...there are many, many arguments "for God". They are "legion", to use the cliché.

But there is no actual evidence.

Surely, if there were any "best evidence", it would first be accepted, and welcomed, by theists.

But as we all know, these arguments are fiercest - not between the religious and the atheist - but between different categories of theist, each of which imagines their own God to be different from, and by definition superior to, other Gods.

If there were any evidence, it would be a simple matter to test it, in normal, well-understood conditions. It doesn't happen, because the entire structure of religion rests on the concept of "belief".

With belief, everything makes perfect sense. God made the world, somewhere between 14 billion years ago and Sunday, October 23, 4004BC. He either made all the animals at the same time, or they evolved - with his help - from the primaeval swamps. Jesus will either return (sometime soon?) in a flash of lightning, or he already arrived back in 1914, and will be with us until Armageddon, or - take your pick of any number of scenarios.

Don't get me wrong. I am very happy to accept that some people need to be religious. But to me, all those competing theories of "how God?", "when God?", and "where God?" - let alone "why God?" - militate against the possibility that any single one of them holds the answer. Given they are all promoting the same fundamental product, this would indicate - to me, at any rate - that there is in fact no product to sell.

Graham,

Since, as I was typing up my last response, you so vindictively insinuated that I employed the Gish Gallop tactic - when the video I linked to only contained several points and one main point (with the other links only being “out of interest” postings) - with the unfounded assertion that I wasn’t able to summarise the such a basic presentation, I’ll explain the video for you:

The KCA begins by invoking the fallacy of equivocation with the premise, “Everything that begins to exist has a cause”. Presumably, this means everything we see around us, but while we know that most things (such as that which we craft, celestial bodies, ect.) have a cause, the argument is more directed at creation ex nihilo - the creation of the “materials” or “star stuff” as Sagan would say.

Thus the YouTuber I linked to challenged the proponents of the KCA to point out something that has been shown to be anything other than a re-arrangement of pre-existing parts. Craig misrepresents the challenge by claiming that they had said that “nothing begins to exist”.

He then confuses creation ex nihilo and the concept of a conscious individual coming into existence by responding to the challenge with, “Did I always exist?” - a mistake so basic that the probability of a PhD in philosophy making it would be low enough to render it a blatant attempt to deceive.

So there you have it. Are you gracious enough to take any of your accusations back?

Honestly though Graham, I realise the more sophisticated theists can become nasty when presented with opposing arguments they find confronting and are unable argue against, but as the founder and moderator of OLO I would have expected more. Usually I enjoy my clashes on OLO but this has just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Formersnag
":CULT #4, ANTIcommunazi, international ANTIsocialism, materialism, nietzsche, dialectical materialism, atheism (NO morals to get in the way of the glorious revolution), & hey presto the usual suspects are joint members of all the other CULTS, EG trotsky was a zionist friend of the rothschild/6redsigns family who got the early USSR into crippling debt for the sheeple/slaves to pay off, that is the REAL reason why stalin PURGED him."

Is there an argument in there somewhere? Because I can't actually see one.
You need to make your points clearer.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220603

Aristocrat, to be honest with you i could have worded the last bit better but was running into the 350 words limit & time for an appointment.

However you could also try viewing it in context with the rest & also earlier comments. i will try repeating myself again.

A REAL atheist would not waste their time like Dawkins or yourself arguing the case against god, or proseletising atheism as a new religion, but would simply ignore christianity for example & be lawn mowing or shopping on sunday morning when christians are in church because christianity is not hurting anybody.

Almost ALL professional atheists are in fact promoting atheism/left wing politics as a new religion, "god is dead, all hail the dear leader, communazi international socialist party, revolution, dictatorship of the proletariat, etc".

Everything they say is deliberate premeditated lies from the beginning. Communism=ANTIcommunity, socialism=ANTIsocial, Nazism=left wing politics NOT right wing politics, atheism = nature = environmentalism = loony left = gaia = new religion which is devoid of moral principles so that DE humanised robot revolutionaries can rape, kill people, kill industries, kill jobs, create poverty, manufacture mental illness, torture children for the revolution without a conscience.

...or they could just be postulating that it's not necessary to believe in a supernatural deity in order to live a fulfilled, productive and creative life.

Aristocrat:
<Nietzsche is not Cartesian. While you are right that modern science reverts back to a form of Platonism by placing down maxims as if they existed independently of the mind, Nietzsche's position is that the mind is not at all separate from the body and therefore all "maxims" are complete human creations. Hence, 'truths' can better be described as something closer to "art" than science. Any "maxim" laid down will be a manifestation of the prejudices, psychological, physiological, biological, and cultural character of its creator>

Nietzsche is hardly the last word and in any case falls into the same trap as Hume, denying the validity of the very a priori reason he deploys in denouncing it; he is Cartesian, though he's in denial. Hume lionised empiricism in the act of transcending it; there is no empiricism without a priorism.
I'm tempted to agree that all maxims are nothing more than human creations, but let's not be hasty. We arrive at this conclusion because we have no hard evidence that maxims are anything but human inventions, and yet some of our verities are absolutely intuitive--the elegance of physics, the preciousness of innocence, or the sublime beauty of the blue planet. It's virtually axiomatic that these things should be protected. Are these feelings merely culturally constructed? I don't believe they are, they're too deeply and spontaneously felt. The absence of the human capacity for such feelings bespeaks psychosis rather than enlightenment. To deny the validity of these feelings, in themselves, is likely the real cultural construct, because they're universal. Just because the thing in itself is beyond our ability to rationalise, it is not necessarily a human construct--that's hubris.
But let's look at materialism on its own truth claims; what justifies the preconception that "some" materialist view "must" be "true"? If I acknowledge the problematics of Cartesian dualism, that's hardly a substantiation of materialism. Yet we have Dawkins dogmatically insisting on a materialist view, with religious conviction! And yet if he's correct, and Kagan is correct in his moral minimilism, why are they not pursuing modest ethics rather than grandiose science?

Squeers' last post has touched on a couple of ideas that we should consider at length. To perceive an object, action, relationship etc. as "elegant", "precious" or "sublimely beautiful" at such depth in the psyche can be powerfully compelling: these experiences are for many of us the source of moral imperatives upon which we base our lives.

I suggest that a common response to such experiences is to be thankful. (In older language we might say we consider ourselves to be "blessed".) Gratitude is basically a psycho-spiritual position one assumes and implies a relationship with an "other" -- i.e. with the source of whatever is elegant/precious/beautiful. I believe this position is experienced by all or most humans, but for many, most of the time, the experience is only admitted into consciousness fleetingly.

When we retain the gratitude in consciousness and reflect on its significance, the question arises of the nature of the "other". That's where much of the contemporary debate arises. Perhaps a lot of the anger and confusion would be avoided if we refrained from relying so much on words to "answer" the question or to communicate what we believe to be "the answer". Some powerful alternatives are music, visual arts, gardening and our everyday behaviour towards people and the natural world.

Sadly, Crabsy, these matters seem perennially beyond us to fathom, which is why I prefer the here and now. The objective and the subjective are the heads and tails of the matter. It strikes me that I'm the only poster here to take a by-partisan position, not preferring either side but critical of both. Bully for me, but it all falls on deaf ears.

In his book "The God Delusion" Richard Dawkins rails against a God that one does not recognise. It is almost as though he constructed a punchbag that he enjoys kicking about.

Theologians, in particular Wilberforce, (the Bishop of Oxford) challenged Darwinism that he did not know anything about. Now, Richard Dawkins and some other "scientists" are challenging theological arguments that they know nothing about.

Describing theists as creationist is incorrect.

It is an incrontrovertible fact that beleif systems prevailed in human societies since the year dot. It exists among Amazonian tribes who were not exposed to any Western influence. The tribes that have a strong beleif system (reflecting their own tradition), - happen to prosper. Those that do not have a strong beleif system happen to languish.

It is wrong to claim that any of the historical belief systems have been due to coercion. It was more of a an inbuilt and tacit acceptance of the need for a system of values, - a system of "moral" rules.

What is the source of the moral authority?

People have almost intuitively understood that the source of moral authority can not be in the control of any human being, - even if they happen to be a group of eminent scientists.

How do you describe this source of moral authority?

That is probably best referred to as an eternal quest.

Squeers,

I don't believe the feelings to which you referred are merely culturally constructed. They go deeper and are intrinsically linked to our condition as conscious beings reliant on our environment for material, emotional and intellectual succor. We instinctively recognise patterns and behaviours in our world even if they are only absorbed subliminally.

Istvan,

Morality is culturally constructed, whether it's ascribed to "God" or not. It's a matter of faith and belief whether one accepts that "the word" was transmitted to man from a supernatural entity - or merely devised by the messenger.

I found this by Craig on Creation. It displays the depth of his scholarly vigor - and his ability to construct his elaborate hypothesis.
http://www.lewissociety.org/creation.php

It all makes sense when you realise that Atheism a la Dawkins is a religion.The search for truth, wisdom, what is, which many people like to call God, is one of humanity's truly civilising traits. Only when people stop searching, and claim to have uniquely discovered the truth, does it becomes a religion. Fundamentalists of any religion, be it Christian, Hindu, Buddhists or Atheist are the problem, not God.

Dawkins rails against religion, not God. He makes that clear every time he opens his mouth - he doesn't realise that he's preaching to a mirror.

God Bless - or should I say The Force Be With You.

Poirot,
I'm not convinced by reductionist materialism's or culturalism and am inclined to agree with Charles taylor (also apropos Kagan) that:

"High standards need strong sources, This is because there is something morally corrupting, even dangerous,in sustaining the demand simply on the feeling of undischarged obligation, on guilt or its obverse, self-satisfaction. Hypocrisy is not the only negative consequence. Morality as benevolence on demand breeds self-condemnation for those who fall short and a depreciation of the impulses to self-fulfilment, seen as so many obstacles raised by egoism to our meeting of the standard. Nietzsche has explored this with sufficient force to make embroidery otiose. And indeed, Nietzsche's challenge is based on a deep insight. If morality can only be powered negatively, where there can be no such thing as beneficence powered by an affirmation of the recipient as a being of value, then pity is destructive to the giver and degrading to the deceiver, and the ethic of benevolence may indeed be indefensible. Nietzsche's challenge is on the deepest level, because he is looking precisely for what can release such an affirmation of being. His unsettling conclusion is that it is the ethic of benevolence which stands in the way of it. Only if their is such a thing as agape, or one of the secular claimants to its succession, is Nietzsche wrong".

This passage also highlights for me the complementary philosophical poverty of Dawkins's rationalism and his glib dismissal of theology.
What are Dawkins's ethics and what are their source?

Excuse my Freudian slip (?) in my transcription of Taylor above; in the middle of the passage it should read "...then pity is destructive to the giver and degrading to the receiver [not "deceiver"], and the ethic of benevolence may indeed be indefensible.

Anamele,

It would do you a great service to learn what a religion actually is.

<<It all makes sense when you realise that Atheism a la Dawkins is a religion.>>

Let me help http://tinyurl.com/3quobyg

<<The search for truth, wisdom, what is, which many people like to call God...>>

Well that's one I haven't heard before. I've heard of God being love, energy and the universe, but not a search. The problem is, however, that we already have words for these, so why create confusion by calling them "God"?

<<Only when people stop searching, and claim to have uniquely discovered the truth, does it becomes a religion.>>

Hang on, but you just said that "Atheism a la Dawkins" is a religion!

Oh, I get it. Like all theists who claim that Dawkins invents his own theology to attack stawmen, you're not even familiar with much of what Dawkins argues, are you? (It's easier to just assume some sort of dogmatic certainty.) Because the stifling effect of religion on discovery and growth is precisely what Dawkins et al abhor the most. The convenient answers that religions provide to those who just want them now, the gaps in our knowledge that a God can prematurely and unjustifiably fill and the comfort it provides to those who find 'not knowing' an unconscionable position, leave so many believers content to sit and fester in their own ignorance while the rest of progress.

You did get one thing right at least...

<<Dawkins rails against religion, not God.>>

But of course. How could one possibly rail against something that doesn't exist? Or more imortantly, something they don't believe exists?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220494

runner, correct, sorry for not getting back to you sooner.

http://www.downloadweb.org/search.php?acode=2d6cfcc00b464c7ee4408add5d864738&q=The%2520naked%2520communist have you read this book? in the process of destroying all the fallacious dross of communazi international socialism, atheism/materialism it also explains the moral beauty of christianity & "capitalism with a heart" as Australia had before 1972 with some of the best plain simple english & scripture. fantastic book, i cannot recommend it too highly.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-287163572862203022#docid=7924466177269730495 if you want a really good laugh check this out, these fools believe in "creation" BUT believe it is not god, rather "lady gaia", this new religion is very commonly adopted among RED/greens & feMANazis after professional atheists like Dawkins turn them away from christianity, i have even met people among these circles who have coverted to Sufi Islam & the false prophet mo-hammered.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220611

Squeers, i fully understand your bipartisan approach but that is the problem, luciferian equivocation, good is bad, bad is good, etc, regardless of whether you call it god or "the force", you either turn to the dark side, the emperor, Dawkins, the devil OR you turn towards the light, yoda, jesus & god.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220605

Poirot, your ignoring what i said, we live in a "dumbocracy", all of us have the right to be wrong, let's pretend for the sake of argument that Dawkins et al are correct, there is no god, why would you bother trying to convince me that my faith is wrong?

Christianity is not only, NOT hurting anybody , it is a force for good, the salvos, lifeline/uniting, spiritus/anglican & st vinnies/catholic do almost all of the charity/social work with addicts, the poor, etc, around here, NOT dawkins OR you.

Answer, simple, they are closet communazi, corporate paedophiles from the PC, Thought Police destroying moral christian family democracy, "so they can walk through the destruction creators", Marx.

If you say so, Formersnag.

[...there are many, many arguments "for God". They are "legion", to use the cliché.]

Yes, but only some are currently utilised rigorously by intelligent theistic scholars. Dawkins deliberately chose to construct straw men instead. Without doubt this was to the detriment of his own case, as many atheists and theists agree.

[But there is no actual evidence.]

That depends what you mean by evidence.

[But as we all know, these arguments are fiercest - not between the religious and the atheist - but between different categories of theist, each of which imagines their own God to be different from, and by definition superior to, other Gods.]

Red Herring. The context was whether God exists- God being a powerful creator and sustainer of the Universe. All theists agree on this, that's why we're called theists.

[If there were any evidence, it would be a simple matter to test it, in normal, well-understood conditions.]

Ah the truth emerges. You have a mistaken understanding of evidence- your statement presupposes that.

[It doesn't happen, because the entire structure of religion rests on the concept of "belief".]

The same can be said of anyone. You do believe things, don't you?

[With belief, everything makes perfect sense. God made the world, somewhere between 14 billion years ago and Sunday, October 23, 4004BC. He either made all the animals at the same time, or they evolved - with his help - from the primaeval swamps. Jesus will either return (sometime soon?) in a flash of lightning, or he already arrived back in 1914, and will be with us until Armageddon, or - take your pick of any number of scenarios.]

Why major in the majors if you can major in the minors? Nice.

Christians of all stripes agree on the basics, and disagree on relatively minor issues in comparison.

[But to me, all those competing theories of "how God?", "when God?", and "where God?" - let alone "why God?" - militate against the possibility that any single one of them holds the answer.]

Fair enough, but why? ie: What's your argument or evidence for believing this?

That was in response to Pericles. Computer cut out my first word...

Trav

The difference between science and philosophy, is that science requires proof, where philosophy requires conjecture.

If I propose that God does not exist, no one provide any concrete evidence that he does. The best that Craig can do is point to the gaps in existing knowledge and claim that this is proof. The reality is that it is none of the sort.

Craig's claim that nothing comes from nothing, thus the big bang is proof of a super entity is conjecture. Craig may be right, or there may be another explanation that we can't see yet. Craig has a theory without a foundation other than belief.

Dawkins refers this to "god of the gaps" This is belief masquerading as proof. Debating belief is futile.

Shadow Minister
“The difference between science and philosophy, is that science requires proof, where philosophy requires conjecture”.

Not so. Science also requires conjecture (“hypotheses”) and philosophy requires rigour--it doesn't deserve such abuse, especially from populist opinion makers.
Rarely is either science or philosophy vouchsafed an unqualified “proof”. That’s akin to “truth”.
It would do Dawkins good to acknowledge some of the "gaps" that science is not yet even close to closing.

Yes Madeleine, Dawkins is not a great debater. But to debate religion you need a knowledge of religion, and scientists like Dawkins don't credit religion with enough credibility to warrant the effort. Dawkins holds religion on a par with fairies, unicorns and orbiting teapots i.e. not worthy of investigation.

God is hard to define. It's hard to debate an ill-defined and imaginary concept. At the end of the day, us atheists can't say for sure that a god doesn't exist. Even Dawkins counts himself as technically agnostic, a 6.9 out of 7 on his theistic probability scale.

The Best Argument for Atheism: Emotional Attention
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VALzHQGxx_c

"Whilst some atheists confidently assert there is no God, most atheists are actually not 100 percent sure. Hence truth is not the final arbiter of their decision. Rather, emotion pushes an unsatisfying god out of attention... Humans are primarily emotional, not rational. As philosopher David Hume famously said: "Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions"."

Shadow, the Kalam argument is not a God of the Gaps argument. Believing so simply shows that either you've misunderstood the argument or you've misunderstood the concept of God of The Gaps. Or both.

"The difference between science and philosophy, is that science requires proof, where philosophy requires conjecture."
Posted by Shadow Minister, Sat 22 Oct, 3:49:06pm

Philosophy can be defined as "the study of how to think about ideas and ask questions about truth, right and wrong - includes ethics, history of philosophy, logic"* so it can be more than conjecture (or, perhaps, less than conjecture, depending on you point of view)

* http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/philosophy

Philosophy seems to have been misappropriated since the great philosophies of Aristotle.
...............................................

"It all makes sense when you realise that Atheism a la Dawkins is a religion."
Posted by Anamele, Sat 22 Oct, 8:57:53am

Religion, as defined by the High Court of Australia, invokes "the supernatural":

""Recommendation 14
"That the definition of religion be based on the principles established in the Scientology case, namely:
- belief in a supernatural Being, Thing or Principle; and
- acceptance and observance of canons of conduct in order to give effect to that belief."" http://www.cdi.gov.au/report/cdi_chap20.htm

a/theism = without god; without invoking "the supernatural"

Commentary on atheism as 'a religion' is a false position - a "strawman" fallacy; even a 'category error'.

"The search for truth, wisdom, what is, which many people like to call God."

Calling 'God' wisdom is another strawman - better to stick to objective philosophy and one of its key tools - the 'formal argument'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument

Another Dawkins-should-debate-Craig article -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/oct/22/richard-dawkins-refusal-debate-william-lane-craig

The first 50 comments are worth a read, too.

McReal

Like Einstein debating George W, or your good self attempting an intelligent discussion with Formersnag - achieves nothing. Besides many times Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, AC Grayling - many, many other people of great thought and intellect have indulged those such as Craig before. If someone believes in a supernatural cause for evertything, so be it - but let others who do not, live in peace and do not indoctrinate children into beliefs which limit human intellect and knowledge. And not demanding special privilege such as tax breaks would indicate a more altruistic reason for belief in a deity.

As for some arguments, such as 'who created the creator' being "as old as the hills", as author to your link descended to using. It is an old argument simply because it holds up. Science admits it does not know the answer for everything, where as religionists claim to have a single answer for everything - one for which there is no evidence at all.

So stop worrying and live and let live.

The Kalam cosmological argument as espoused more recently by Craig:

Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence.

The universe has a beginning of its existence. Therefore: The universe has a cause of its existence.

If the universe has a cause of its existence then that cause is God.
Therefore: God exists.

This is exactly what Dawkins was describing as "The god of the gaps" and can be read as:

The universe must have a cause. We don't know of a cause, therefore it must be god. (or if we use god to fill the gap, we have a complete theory)

This is not acceptable as proof in any scientific field. If this is proffered as proof, then there is no foundation to debate.

So much faux outrage…

In an article subheaded "Atheism needs a better spokesman than Richard Dawkins" Ms Kirk states, "My recent reading of Dawkins' The God Delusion was also something of a disappointment. I had hoped to find some intellectually stimulating arguments for atheism. What I found however was not much more than an expression of Dawkins' personal disdain for religion."

This is proceeded with criticism of Dawkins failure to accept an invitation to William Lane Craig's lecture "Is God a Delusion? A critique of Dawkins' The God Delusion."

Criticism of failing to engage, despite "However it is the vituperative style which Dawkins employs which I find most distasteful and counterproductive when it comes to what should be an intelligent discussion of an important topic."

So, without having to do anything (for which she is critical of him) Dawkins is doing what Ms Kirk wants – not speaking about atheism. At least on this occasion.

Atheism would need a better spokesman, though, if the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship organisers – to settle the matter once and for all – had booked God to make a personal appearance to debate his existence and Dawkins had still failed to show.

This is preceded with criticism of Dawkins failure to accept an invitation to William Lane Craig's lecture "Is God a Delusion? A critique of Dawkins' The God Delusion."

Is it Sod's Law applying when you notice that last typo only as you push the post comment button?

Trav,

It's amazing that you still find it in yourself to defend the Kalam Cosmological Argument. Were the fallacy of equivocation, the fallacy of composition, special pleading, begging the question and false dichotomy not enough for you?

Shadow, you have misrepresented his argument. No one argues that "it must be God", rather each attribute is justified individually- timeless, personal, etc.

But your main issue is your misunderstanding of God of the Gaps. Craig argues based on what we know from science (or what the scientific evidence suggests)- that the universe began to exist. He does not argue on the basis of what we do not know, by inserting God into any gap.

"The universe exists, therefore God exists"

Riiight...

Trav,

Speaking of equivocation fallacy, your response to Shadow Minister contained one with your use of the term “beginning”.

While the science suggests the universe had a beginning, we don’t know what came before. There could have been nothing, there could have been something or it may not even make sense to ask. Craig uses this unknown to plonk his God into and thus his argument becomes a God of the Gaps fallacy.

Your claim that Craig argues based on “what the scientific evidence suggests” is just something you’ve made up to award his argument some undue prestige.

I’m not sure why you feel it’s so important to show his cosmological argument to not be a God of the Gaps one though. The argument contains more fallacies than you can poke a stick at, but so long as it’s not the God of the Gaps fallacy, I guess that’s alright, eh?

Where there is effect, there is cause. Where we are unable to specify or to understand the cause, or even perhaps to fully understand the effect, then there is room to conjecture, to hypothesise. Thus does science and understanding proceed and progress.

Some mysteries may never be fully unravelled, though the investigation is destined to continue.

"God" will in all probability have to remain an idea or an ideal, as the intrinsic and extrinsic nature of "God" must always remain elusive, and will therefore inevitably elude specification within the limits of human comprehension.

To say some things just are, and are inexplicable, will always appear trite, "convenient" and evasive, and so will always remain subject to question. Such is the human condition and curiosity, and perhaps the human arrogance, imperfection and frailty.

Sounds like you're trying to have your cake and eat it too AJ! Why not list another few fallacies...I'm sure Craig commits those ones too.

This is like the atheist version of the so-called "Gish Gallop"- List as many fallacies as you can with a theistic argument and hope one of em will eventually stick!

Trav,

It took me a while to figure out what you meant by having my cake and eating it too, but I suspect you’re referring to the universe’s beginning. If my suspicions are right, then sorry, you’re wrong. What part of “equivocation” don’t you understand?

The science does not necessarily say that there was nothing at all before the big bang. We have all sorts of hypotheses about what - if anything - came before the big bang, but until we find a different method of investigation (which may not even be possible), we may never find out.

Nice try there too with your resurrection of the failed Gish Gallop accusation levied at me earlier. It is in fact you who has resorted to slinging something in the hope that it sticks.

The Gish Gallop tactic refers specifically to half truths and strawmen and I had already demonstrated, in my post to Graham, why the Kalam Cosmological Argument contained fallacies like equivocation, begging the question and potential circularity.

I had - in an almost prophetic manner - stopped short of going into detail about the rest of the fallacies I listed because the Gish Gallop had been mentioned earlier in the thread and I’ve dealt with theists (and even been one myself) for long enough to know what to expect. Yes, instead, I offered to go into them in further detail if Graham so desired. So even if we broaden the Gish Gallop to include arguments that are correct, your accusation still fails.

It never ceases to amaze me just how low you Christians will sometimes stoop when backed into a corner. This is exactly why I’m so against religion; it stops people thinking - to the point where, instead of considering an uncomfortable truth presented to them on a plate, they just start throwing stones, anything… so long as they don’t have to face reality.

It’s disgraceful. Are you at least big enough to take back your accusations?

I’m guessing not.

Our Universe had a beginning in its current form and is supposedly still expanding. That does not exclude the view that there is intelligence in happenings in the Universe.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220638

no Poirot, i am not SAYing anything, i am as usual, simply repeating well documented, scientifically proven facts & evidence.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220645
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220650
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220651
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220658
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220659
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220660
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220661
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220672
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220673
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220677
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220687
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220722

AJ Philips, WmTrevor, Shadow Minister, Ammonite, McReal, micheller & Squeers, please explain? none of you have even attempted to answer the question i have been putting to you, it is extremely simple, plain & easy, i will try again.

Question preamble, we live in a "dumbocracy" i & all the other christians have the right to be wrong, we are NOT hurting anybody, quite the opposite in fact, we (salvos, st vinnies, spiritus, lifeline) are doing almost all of the social work, rehabilitating addicts, homeless, etc, etc, etc, AND much more efficiently than any communazi social engineer/destroyer ever did.

Q, why would you waste your valuable time trying to convert theists to the atheist cause?

The only rational explanation i can come up with is equally simple, a hidden (in plain sight) agenda & Q, what do ALL the text books (bibles of loony left politics) say about the communazi international socialist revolutionary agenda (their ten commandments) say? Destroy religion, family, society & "walk through the wreckage creators".

Perhaps that is why they keep refering to Tony Abbott, another christian (who is in the business of UNdoing damage) as a "wrecker", the Luciferian religion & it's disciples delight in telling the biggest lies/spin.

Really Formersnag? The ONLY 'rational' explanation...is a 'communazi international socialist revolutionary agenda'?

I really don't want to quibble over the definition of rational, but I disagree.

I also often shake my head in disappointment when I read pages such as these and see what many apparently intelligent people decide to waste their brainpower on.

Formersnag,

A while ago I informed my then nine year-old that the tooth fairy wasn't real. He put two and two together and applied the same logic to Santa and the Easter Bunny. He was actually quite disappointed that these comforting entities weren't what he'd been led to believe.

Recently, for the first time in two years, he lost another tooth. He requested that even though he knew the tooth fairy wasn't real, if I could do what I used to do because it was comforting - so we pretended that the tooth fairy left a coin under his pillow...

Now there was no harm in him thinking that those entities were real, but because he was growing older and more informed about the workings of the world, I considered it was better he knew. Who's to say that human consciousness hasn't reached a point in Western secular society where to seriously and unabashedly question the belief in a theoretical entity as an all powerful supernatural force hasn't come of age?

I do take your point about the social work and charity undertaken by religious organisations.....however, the problems associated with our selfish society are more to do with a capitalist base and modern practice which destroys organic communities in favour of centralised planning and a more,more,more ethic than any leftist plot.

Formersnag,

It might come as a bit of a blow to your ego to learn that no one is trying to convert theists into atheists. There are sufficient of us, that we no longer feel that we have to apologist for not believing in the supernatural.

The things that irritate us is firstly theists who believe that because they have god on their side, they have the right to meddle in everyone else's affairs.

Secondly the same idjits feel their religion gives them the patent rights to morality and ethics and the right to determine these issues on everyone's behalf.

Finally the same idjits dredge up some pseudo science and pronounce to the world that that they have proof of a) creation vs evolution, b) god, and that they are prepared to debate this with real scientists.

As an atheist myself, I am content with my ethics and morality based on reason instead of doctrine, and science backed by peer review.

Craig with his reanimated 16th century philosophy dressed up as science wants to debate Dawkins. Dawkins has better things to do with his time than dignify this with a response.

“The things that irritate us is firstly theists who believe that because they have god on their side, they have the right to meddle in everyone else's affairs.”

Shadow Minister is making a very important point. It makes no difference to me if a person believes or does not believe in a God, that is an individual’s prerogative.

However, when a religious organisation or a non-theistic ideology such as communism gains political power, they prevail on the civil authorities to make laws favouring their ideology. Laws relating to compulsory worship (e.g. not driving a car on the Sabbath, or closing shops on a Sunday), laws regulating to sexual behaviour between consenting adults, laws relating to what is eatable and what is not (Friday was a at one time fish day).

Imposing these rules on outsiders is bad enough. But should a member of the congregation transgress then all sorts of psychological and even physical pressure is applied to the “sinner.” The priests and elders may form themselves into a quasi-judicial body, where accepted Western rules of evidence do not apply and punishments may be severe and barbaric.

In the days before modern medicine a compound fracture of the femur from “spearing” was a death sentence. In the media we read of horrific punishments awarded to women in some Muslim countries.

This is the unacceptable of face of religion and religious belief.

Many orthodox regard the beliefs of "American Folk Religions "as "Heresy".
'Religion' covers a big, heterogeneous range of belief systems. Having some sort of 'belief' covers most of the total human population.

Arguments premised on the, mostly unstated, assertion that the term 'religion', solely equals things like American folk religion belief structures e.g 'creationism' or the beliefs of analogous sub groups in other faiths e.g 'mutilating women', are arguments based on a very unscientific approach to 'Clade' - the science of Classification grouping - that is unforgivable in a scientist.

He is sampling a narrow skewed group and using it as though it was a broad sample group. If he was a sociologist he would have failed first year.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220742

Bugsy, "but i disagree" is not enough, while i accept we are both intelligent & disappointed, "denial is not a river in Egypt".

a question, who do you vote for?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220745

Poirot, the "capitalist base & modern practice" of which you speak was introduced into the land of OZ by leftists for the specific purpose of destroying christianity, family, society & creating poverty.

They speak glowingly all the time about the "reforms of the Hawke/Keating era" which also included Whitlam & all the others in the RED/green, getup, GAYLP/alp, socialist Alliance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc5E6pvDv2Y&feature=channel_video_title economic reforms

http://www.mailstar.net/xTrots.html more eCONomics designed to creat poverty

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8630135369495797236# social religious reforms

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/the-covert-comrades-in-the-alp/story-e6frg6zo-1225887087909 they are in OZ as well as the USA

http://www.rense.com/general32/americ.htm applies to OZ as well

a complete explanation of everything that has ever gone wrong in the land of OZ over the last half century, enjoy.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220750

Shadow Minister, JH & Mormon door knocking annoys me too, up to a point, namely i politely, quickly inform them i am not interested & they politely go away, which is somewhat different to an Islamist blowing up a train or bus i happen to be on. BTW, it is alleged atheists who want to bring muslims here, why?

Furthermore the PC, Thought Police are not christians but atheist communazis meddling in everyone elses affairs.

http://www.academia.org/the-origins-of-political-correctness/

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8630135369495797236# or try this version

Ever since primary school taught me English my senses have been assaulted by PC idjits telling me everything about everything, what an evil bastard i & all men are. Have you never lived in Australia since 1970 when Germaine Greer published her EVIL book on witchcraft.

i agree communazi idjits do feel their NEW religious dogma gives them rights to determine M & E issues on everyones behalf.

Finally yes, these same idjits have been dredging up pseudo science to pronounce atheism/communazism proofs of their doctrines.

As a christian i am content with my reasoned M & E based not on doctine but life & god's eternal truths, whereas your chosen OLO name suggests that your M & E comes from political party doctrine.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-287163572862203022#docid=7924466177269730495

Oh, it's not enough?

Oh dear, what am I to do.

Who do I vote for?

How rude (and irrelevant).

Squeers
"Nietzsche is hardly the last word and in any case falls into the same trap as Hume, denying the validity of the very a priori reason he deploys in denouncing it; he is Cartesian, though he's in denial. Hume lionised empiricism in the act of transcending it; there is no empiricism without a priorism"

Nietzsche was well aware of this problem. But he isn't Cartesian, neither is he a "hardcore" empiricist. For Nietzsche the world is forever becoming and never is, meaning, maxims are forever being destroyed, created, reinterpreted, imposed, and eradicated. The term "naturalist" and not "empiricist" would better describe some of Nietzsche's positions. Where he sides with the naturalists and not the Cartesians is where he sees the human being as a type of artist instantiating these maxims based on personal hidden unconscious mechanisms (psychological/physiological), and not, as the Cartesians would claim that the mind can directly intuit the world as it really is.

Squeers
"I'm tempted to agree that all maxims are nothing more than human creations, but let's not be hasty. We arrive at this conclusion because we have no hard evidence that maxims are anything but human inventions, and yet some of our verities are absolutely intuitive--the elegance of physics, the preciousness of innocence, or the sublime beauty of the blue planet. It's virtually axiomatic that these things should be protected. Are these feelings merely culturally constructed? I don't believe they are, they're too deeply and spontaneously felt."

These intuitions could have developed over time for evolutionary reasons: survival, utility, preservation.
They seem mystical because their origins are an absolute mystery to us. I would suspend judgment on what these intuitions are before putting in the plug of "it must be god".

Forersnag
"A REAL atheist would not waste their time like Dawkins or yourself arguing the case against god, or proseletising atheism as a new religion, but would simply ignore christianity for example & be lawn mowing or shopping on sunday morning when christians are in church because christianity is not hurting anybody.
Almost ALL professional atheists are in fact promoting atheism/left wing politics as a new religion, 'god is dead, all hail the dear leader, communazi international socialist party, revolution, dictatorship of the proletariat, etc'."

I should say right off the bat that I am not Marxist. In fact, I am anti-Marx.
That said, I don't see why Christianity should not be up for debate. It has underpinned moral, epistemological, and ontological debates for almost two centuries. I particularly take issue with its belief in free will, the belief that we intuitively can know right from wrong, that there is life after death, and that we all get judged on judgment day. These are all interesting and important philosophical issues that ought to be debated and questioned, rather than blindly accepted.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220775

Aristocrat, who said i blindly accept judgement day, life after death, or free will? Or that all christians do?

There are many differences over doctrine &/or scriptural interpretation among different churches.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220758

anti-green, i agree with most of your comment, but main stream christianity has not been doing any of that in Australia since before federation.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220768

Bugsy, your blogging anonymously with a nick name, i regularly openly, honestly, talk about my voting intentions. Why can't you? it is hardly a "rude" question & NOT irrelevant if you are "slavishly" following dogma/doctrine from a political rather than religious "party line".

That is my point i have never in any forum encountered an alleged atheist ranting about the evils of christian dogma without slavishly quoting their own version of party line dogma.

i repeat it is not good enough to simply deny, deny, deny. your last comment 20 words, mine 350.

Me 'ranting' about the evils of Christian dogma?
Hardly.

This post: 18 words
your posts: regularly 350 words
Who's ranting?

Aristocrat,

I'm a fan of Nietzsche's and don't presume to correct him, or even fully understand him, though I've trawled through most of his works and taken down numerous memorable quotes--and long before I enrolled at any university--but I find his perspectivism dogmatic, albeit persuasive. I've argued many times on OLO that there is no absolute truth in human terms, to me that's the merest banality; if there is any ultimate truth then it's no business of mine.
I don't know of any philosophers who would identify as Cartesian, and it might interest you to know that Hegel is these days more and more interpreted as naturalist.
The psychology is interesting and being a fan of Freud's and Lacan's I can certainly sympathise with the ingenious traps we set for ourselves, yet the fact remains that humans are capable of feats of interpretive and intuitive understanding--including being able to "process" empirical data.

I appreciate your appreciation of the issues, but then you say: <These intuitions could have developed over time for evolutionary reasons: survival, utility, preservation.
They seem mystical because their origins are an absolute mystery to us. I would suspend judgment on what these intuitions are before putting in the plug of "it must be god">
And so would I! You're not quoting me I trust? I'm a self-declared agnostic and unlike Dawkins, or theists, I'm more interested in the here and now--which is why I've asked some questions of liberal rationalism above (unanswered of course).
The other stuff's a hobby of mine and the fact remains that you can't substantiate materialism by ruling out other possibilities.
Herein I am a sceptic rather than a dogmatist. I believe wholeheartedly in ignorance!
You say: "I don't see why Christianity should not be up for debate".
I don't see why functionalism and liberal rationalism shouldn't be?

As others have said: nice style, content not so much. Just a few points within the word limit:

Dawkins has written a few books on biology? Michael Kirby wrote a few judgments too. Friedrich Hayek did a bit of on economics. The point: Lane Craig has written a lot, but to put him on the same level as Dawkins in terms of intellectual contribution to his topic is to grossly fail to understand who Dawkins is.

There are different views on whether Dawkins should debate people like Lane Craig. Dawkins has explained why, properly, lots of times; picking on a throwaway line is sloppy. The person who convinced Dawkins not to undertake these sorts of debates was Stephen J Gould - who was quit sympathetic to religion.

There is also a view that debates of these kinds are pointless and are unable to convince either side.

I've never, when asking Christians where Dawkins is wrong, had a concrete (except on the authorship of Hebrews). Authors like Keith Ward seem not actually to have read the book. Anyway: no, "I hope we get an answer" is not the key argument. I suggest a reread. The key argument is that there is no good answer to many basic questions, and absence of an answer doesn't allow us to say "god did it". Dawkins then hopes that we may have the answers one day through science. This argument is not original to Dawkins nor does he claim it to be. Notably there was Bertrand Russell. Wrote a bit on philosophy, did Bertrand. Actually, one of the greatest philosophers of all time. What's that about intellectually unsatisfying? I was a Christian, by the way, when I studied Russell at philosophy school and I had the same view about him then, even though my copy of "why I am not a Christian" is covered in my disagreeing comments.

Research, Madeleine, and understanding your topic. It's what makes the difference between being able to make a contribution to an important topic, and merely being able to impress those who don't understand the issues.

Squeers
"The psychology is interesting and being a fan of Freud's and Lacan's I can certainly sympathise with the ingenious traps we set for ourselves, yet the fact remains that humans are capable of feats of interpretive and intuitive understanding--including being able to "process" empirical data."

Interesting point. I believe Kant dealt with this problem when he tackled the empiricists. If my memory serves me correctly, he argued that the mind proccesses the empirical on an unconscious level even before we become aware of it. The empirical is derived from the mental representation the mind gives the empirical object in question. However, Kant is not a reductive materialist because he also talks about "sensuous concepts" and "pure concepts" which are not derived from the material. Kant seems more related to Descartes and Plato with the latter two explanations.

I am inclined to agree with Kant's explanation of "empirical objects." That we perceive an object and the mind then forms a concept on what the object is.

Also, taking another angle on this point, intuition and feats of interpretation could merely be by-products of something deeply psychological/physiological. Nietzsche called it "the will to power." Meaning, the soul/self strives for power and as a by-product of this primary drive concepts are formed in order for power to manifest itself. This means that there are no static objects 'out there,' but rather concepts are formulated as a symptom of the soul's drive for power. The formulated concepts may have no relevance to the referred objects, but rather be merely a symptom of the drive in man to instatiate his will on the world.
If we insert god into the argument here he becomes a pantheism.

"And so would I! You're not quoting me I trust? I'm a self-declared agnostic"

Don't worry, I wasn't quoting you. I was just having a go at the theists who like to claim "it is god" as soon as something becomes unfathomable.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220783

Squeers, still waiting for a counter argument about "no absolutes", of course there are no complete absolute systems that guarantee everything, but there are some "absolutes".

EG, "thou shalt not kill" which is why we no longer have the death penalty in Australia, murder is never good, rarely ever justified satisfactorily & there is no colder, more calculated murder than an execution.

However this argument/principle is usually abused by the left, blown out of all proportion, used as an excuse to question/destroy everything they disagree with &/or find INconvenient at the time, including basic M & E such as the above issue.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220781

Bugsy, thank you for proving my point. your post short, containing abusive language only, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sophistry without any rational debate or answering of simple questions in plain english.

My posts moderate, polite, well argued, simple questions asked & answered.

Formersnag,

"Thou Shalt Not Kill" may be seen as some sort of theoretical absolute, however, when applied in practical terms to the human condition, it's anything but. On the contrary, it seems that the history of mankind before and after Moses handed down this commandment is one long litany of debauchery and cold calculated savagery to "others" of the same species.

When a man with the power of George W. Bush can say (with a straight face) that God told him to invade Iraq, it does tend to make atheists shake their heads in dismay that so-called "absolutes" inscribed in the Bible seem to be disposable depending on the circumstances.

No Formersnag, not 'abusive' language, but rather 'dismissive' language.

I think that your last post was amusing though, nice use of the words 'polite', 'moderate' and 'well argued' in such an ironic context.

"The essence of Christianity is told us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the tree of knowledge. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on."

Knowledge is the enemy of religion.

"God" is essentially a construct, employed to induce Man to be less of an animal and more of a responsible law-abiding member of a Human community. "Human", another construct, employed to categorise Man as "something special", beyond the beast, and to justify the application accordingly of higher ideals of behaviour - your morals and ethics - these same morals and ethics which do Not come from the application of reason alone, but from the reasoned application of laws, rules and codes which have been constructed to moderate behaviour and to induce the "internalisation" of what it means to be a "good" citizen.

We may choose to disbelieve in the material or supernatural existence of "God", but we should Not disregard the "pure" objectives and motivations behind the employment of such a guiding "force" in the advancement of "civilisation". The fact that "uncivilised" and inhumane conduct continues to prevail demonstrates the inability of reason alone to overcome Man's underlying "base" instincts. The "beast" still exists, and reason alone is unable to banish it.

The God of love, understanding and forgiveness, or the God of fire, brimstone and damnation - equally valid vectors in the construction and perceived reality of the universe - equally valid in the application of law to human behaviour.

For all the emphasis on the psyche and intelligence, Man is still an animal, and animals perceive their environment in "real" terms, and not some metaphysical construct. Objects and motives are equally real.

"Thow shallt not kill" means "without just cause", and arguments against capital punishment remain subjective and emotive, rather than objective and reasoned. For example, Gaddafy killed, and was justly executed - and what rational alternative is truly warranted or justifiable?

It is clear that "God" is still not universal in spirit.

Is the bible fact or fiction, it discredits itself by saying some stories here might not necessarily be true. God does not live in heaven or any where else, it has been the biggest con of all time. The catholics don't believe in contraception! doesn't that make religion rather hard to practice. The world would be a far better place with out religion. It worked in the days when there was no immigration, and no means of distance travel. Since then there has been conflict, between differing religions. It is time to say the use of religious belief has run its course.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220827

Poirot, do 2 wrongs ever make it right?

is the broken promise &/or justification, better or worse when the quoted dogma is biblical or party line? asked the same question now, many times over with different wording & still waiting for an answer from anybody?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220828

Bugsy, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sophistry again with the cheap sarcasm & no attempt to debate anything or answer simple questions?

are you intellectually incapable of answering questions or morally incapable of admitting you have no answers?

i have on occasion been wrong & admitted it. how about you?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220836

Shadow Minister, au contraire, "the enlightenment" happened when PROTESTANT christians got access to cheap bibles in french, german, english, attacked corruption in the Anglican & Catholic churches, feudalism, democratised the 1st world & remained christians for several centuries.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220850

Saltpetre, correct & why all left wing politics, so far has failed, no moral compass.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220855

579, have you studied any ancient history at all? lots of wars, murders, mayhem before christianity ever existed. Over the last 2,000 years at least some people have tried to "do the right thing".

How about modern history? WW1 & WW2, Jehovah's Witness would refuse any service at all, while pacifist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers would volunteer for NON combat, medical roles like driving ambulance. Many served in some of the most dangerous battles with distinction, held true to their convictions in a positive manner.

this may come as shock to you 579, but i have spoken to many baby boomers who are looking back on the "sex, drugs, rock & roll" 1960's with regret & are returning to the church.

Social conservatism is growing, rather than dying.

The ruling elites of the loony left are about 1/2% of the population & losing touch daily.

What happened to polite?

Aristocrat,
My tardy replies are born of the exigencies of being an academic drudge

For the empiricists Kant was the last idealist philosopher who made sense, though I don't think they'd really moved on from Hume. Hegel trumped them both, seeing no need for a segregation of perception and thing in itself--that is making an arbitrary distinction between subjective and objective reality. The perception of the former being not so much unconscious as preprogrammed. However there can surely be no consistent distinction between spontaneous and mediated thought, since conceptualisation prefigures all cognition--at the very least there is no empirical evidence for the dedicated cosmological software the Romantics were so enamoured of. There were however "mystical" preconceptions and these were arguably the source of Kant's ingenious rationalisations.
You may be "inclined to agree with Kant's explanation of "empirical objects"", but how is this leap of faith superior to ascribing consciousness, and all that it entails, to non-random causes? Bearing in mind that apparent teleology is equally problematic for the materialist?
The empiricist can hardly be sceptical of subjective analysis without being equally so of empirical or objective data, since they amount to the same thing. This is what makes Hegel a naturalist rather than idealist; he didn't resort to contrived explanations for our otherwise unresolved capacity to make sense of the universe. Hegel inferred that according to the evidence we did have access to the thing in itself and therefore that humanist philosophy was valid beyond the constraints of empiricism. Moreover philosophy is vital to restraining the essentially stupid "progress" wrought by it.
One can see why Hegel saw religion as a form of immaturity, and empiricism as myopic.
The point though is that you last paraphrase of Nietzsche still relies on that Kantian rationalisation whereby sense perception is felicitously conceptualised, "independently" of any psychologised will to power--which is presumably an instinctual or cultural attribute?
You agree then, in effect, that reason seems preordained?

Squeers
"The point though is that you last paraphrase of Nietzsche still relies on that Kantian rationalisation whereby sense perception is felicitously conceptualised, "independently" of any psychologised will to power--which is presumably an instinctual or cultural attribute?
You agree then, in effect, that reason seems preordained?"

For Nietzsche, "sense perception" is part of the will to power; the will to power encompasses the human being as a whole - there is no separation of faculties for Nietzsche.
"Reason" or "rationality" is only a by-product or sublimation of the will to power. It has evolved over time as the most useful and successful tool in order for man to stamp his will on the world. "Reason" wasn't innate in man from the start, it evolved over time and has become dominant because it possesses the desirable human characteristics required in most situations or given Zeitgeist. Hence the often heard phrase "you're being irrational, you ought be more "rational."
Nietzsche is actually much closer to Darwin and Lamarck than any Cartesian.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220864

Bugsy, a question? is a question? is a question? i have never heard of a question being refered to as a statement, allegation or accusation.

still waiting for answers to any of them from any of you, including,

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220875
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220903

Squeers & Aristocrat, are equivocation, M & E relativism ever used as excuses for bad behaviour?

Has the spread of atheism decreased M & E standards in modern western society?

Were we better off morally & ethically say 50 to 100 years ago when PROTESTANT christianity was stronger than it is today?

AJ,

Given your history in our previous (very lengthy) OLO encounter, it is a tad rich of you to accuse anyone of "throwing stones" and stooping low. Your failure to apologise for your slight on my character, after being shown strong evidence against your accusation, simply reinforced my suspicion that you are more interested in dogmatic internet debate than thoughtful discussion. I've generally paid scant regard to your posts since that time.

My response this time was partly motivated by the fact that you addressed me directly, but nonetheless I no longer have any interest in substantively engaging in the issues with you- as you should've picked up by the flippancy and brevity of my two posts.

What happened to 'love thy neighbour' folks.

This is turning into a 'mine is better than yours' contest once again.

Sorry Trav, but I have not yet once had to resort to throwing stones and I challenge you to find one instance of me doing so.

This is nothing more than a smear designed to divert attention away from your false accusations, and failed attempts to defend Craig’s most prized argument.

<<Your failure to apologise for your slight on my character, after being shown strong evidence against your accusation, simply reinforced my suspicion that you are more interested in dogmatic internet debate than thoughtful discussion.>>

I wasn’t asking for an apology, just that you take back your demonstrably false accusations. Besides which, two wrongs don’t make a right.

Anyway, my accusation (or 'slight on your character' as you have so dishonestly referred to it) was well founded considering it had appeared that you blatantly mis-quoted a Wiki definition.

When you showed an archived page that adhered to your quote, I acknowledged the misunderstanding by saying that you could hardly blame me when we see so much intellectual dishonesty from theists on OLO on an almost daily basis. Just look at how much I’ve encountered in this thread alone!

So now we have two more unfounded accusations from you - one of dogmatic behaviour and another of stone-throwing.

Give it up, Trav. It won’t get you anywhere.

I agree with AJ that once again we get nothing of any substance in defence of the theist view. By substance I mean perhaps some theological argument--rather than just referring to Craig. But no, it appears to be "we just believe" and so there really seems no point going on with it.

On the other hand I've made political/ethical criticisms of Dawkins side that are have just been ignored.

Aristocrat,
I do however appreciate the philosophical debate and will get back to you.

Formersnag,
when you've got something intelligent to say that isn't elitist or paranoid in some offensive sense, you might get an intelligent response.

Aristocrat:
"Nietzsche is actually much closer to Darwin and Lamarck than any Cartesian".
That is of course if we assess Nietzsche on his own terms and accept the will to power as essential and essentialising being. But we can just as easily insist that he is using the mysterious faculty of reason in the very instance of rationalising it away; where is the empirical evidence of will to power (has the gene been isolated)? which sets us on an endless regress since each presuppose the other? Indeed it seems to me that if we are persuaded by post-metaphysical logic in general, as it's been (de)constructed since Nietzsche, then that's arguably because we accept the initial materialist premise of an instigating bias and evolving predilection in the first place (subsequently corrupted by culture--the symbolic order?).
I could also argue that if the will to power "has evolved over time as the most useful and successful tool in order for man to stamp his will on the world", that would suggest teleology, or even intention since evolution is supposed to be undirected?

More importantly, in terms of My Taylor quote above, the logic of this conception of reality tends toward an anti-ethicism whereby the usual verities--compassion, egalitarianism etc--amount to weakness and corruption, whereas liberal rationalism finds itself vindicated in its indifference and can look forward to the day it casts off its humanist baggage, and the concomitant burgeoning masses (an economic booster rocket), to pursue its own post-evolutionary destiny (admittedly this is arguably not as bad as it sounds).
Nietzche said "the time was coming when the struggle for world domination will be carried on ... in the name of fundamental philosophical doctrines". It's happening now! but I think it's more a malaise than a struggle--this shows though how idealism, even for Nietzsche, still precedes materialism.
Apropos all of this, it seems to me Dawkins's positivism is as naive as theism?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220930

Squeers, i am aware of your "political/ethical criticisms of Dawkins" & agreed with them, then went on to ask simple questions like.

Q, is relativism/equivocation of M & E just as bad as hard views either way on atheism/theism?

nothing elitist or paranoid about that is there?

what part of agreement & compliments do you have a problem with?

Pelican,

Apologies for giving the impression of hostility- coming across that way wasn't my intention. I have no grudge to bear with anyone here, and I hope my online conduct always aligns with my beliefs and worldview. If not, I take responsibility for my own failing.

Where AJ is concerned, it's a matter of practicality. I have nothing against him. Rather I am just not interested in spending time engaging with someone who has previously shown me that their method and overall approach is not conducive to the way in which online discussion ought to be done

When all is said and done, it seems that man "senses" something greater than his understanding can accommodate, all powerful and pervasive, that drives the universe - he calls it God.

Squeers asked, what are Dawkins' ethics and what is their source? It's a good question.

Flaubert laid it bare when he wrote:

"My kingdom is as wide as the universe and my wants have no limits. I go forward always, freeing spirits and weighing worlds, without fear, without compassion, without God. I am Science.

*Squeers asked, what are Dawkins' ethics and what is their source? It's a good question.*

Poirot, indeed its a good question. Yet another reason to swat up
on primatology. Lo and behold, we find empathy, food sharing,
caring about the young etc, all happening in chimp and bonobo
tribes. Clearly there is a genetic source, overlooked by
the anthropocentric

Yabby,

I think the relevant word in your reply was "tribes". The qualities you describe are those which serve the common purpose of a closed community. These attributes tend to diminish or disappear upon interaction with those outside tribal boundaries. In humans, differences in language, customs and culture add to the difficulties.

Is there a human standard for "truth" or do ethics rely merely on perception?

<Q, is relativism/equivocation of M & E just as bad as hard views either way on atheism/theism?>
Sorry, Formersnag, I don't understand the question?

Poirot.
thanks for reiterating my question, and I like the Flaubert quote.

Yabby,
some philosopher, I forget who, said we've been through one Copernican revolution after another with Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Nietzsche/Heidegger, Derrida and others. With each new development Humanity's place in the universe becomes less significant. I'm certainly not defending anthropocentrism/humanism, or Dawkins's liberal rationalism, I'm implicitly critiquing them. I'm just interested in the conundrum of consciousness that many analytic philosophers admit we're nowhere near understanding. Whether or not there is a dualism of body and mind, the human "perspective" is certainly dualistic; consciousness maintains a quasi-objective or critical distance from--as well as taking a kind of "vicarious" pleasure in--its bodily activities.
I'm not defending a belief system, I'm keeping an open mind, as well as weighing the political/ethical implications of materialism/idealism.

Squeers,

"...consciousness maintains a quasi-objective or critical distance from--as well as taking a kind of "vicarious" pleasure in-- its bodily activities."

I wonder if the only dualism is between the "conscious mind" and the body. The "sub-conscious" never sleeps and, like the heart and other biological imperatives, is overseen beyond our voluntary reflexes. Perhaps this inner sanctum of past experience and knowledge is the point past which duality ceases, a kind of template, to which we are enthrall as surely as to that of our biology.

My question is how much of human behaviour and ethics is guided by the collective sub-conscious?

Squeers
"That is of course if we assess Nietzsche on his own terms and accept the will to power as essential and essentialising being."

The will to power destroys "being." There is only "becoming." Although, yes, becoming could now be called the new being.

"But we can just as easily insist that he is using the mysterious faculty of reason in the very instance of rationalising it away; where is the empirical evidence of will to power (has the gene been isolated)? which sets us on an endless regress since each presuppose the other?"

I agree this is tricky. However, Nietzsche's argument would be that any "rationalising" is will to power. "Rationalising" is a manifestation of will to power; the drive to stamp one's will onto the world. The primary drive is will to power and any "rationalising" only proceeds and is a manifestation of it.
It may better to understand his argument when looking at who he is arguing against. His primary targets are the philosophers and theologians who claim there are static objects and static subjects. For Nietzsche, "objects" and "subjects" are human creations and are constantly subject to reinterpretation, hence there is no permanency, no "being" only "becoming."

But, in the end, Nietzsche can only claim, and he does so, that will to power is his interpretation of the world. He can't claim it as the "thing in-itself" as he is adamant human beings have no access to such a thing. However, historical evidence would suggest that "objects" really are constantly reinterpreted by thinkers over the centuries and decades. Any so-called permanent "object" is merely waiting to be reinterpreted. Hence, it would seem to favour the argument of becoming and not being.

"this shows though how idealism, even for Nietzsche, still precedes materialism."

Could it not be argued that any idealism initially finds its "inspiration" from the material, and not vice-versa? It seems the cause and effect has been reversed. If idealism precedes materialism, then humans are contemplating in a vacuum.

Poirot
"I wonder if the only dualism is between the "conscious mind" and the body. The "sub-conscious" never sleeps and, like the heart and other biological imperatives, is overseen beyond our voluntary reflexes. Perhaps this inner sanctum of past experience and knowledge is the point past which duality ceases, a kind of template, to which we are enthrall as surely as to that of our biology."

Well said. I was tring to say something like this before but I think I didn't make my point clear enough.

Consciousness is merely a manifestation of unconscious mental/physical states; it is a surface phenomenon of a thousand fold processes occuring subterraneously.
To claim consciousness maintains a "quasi-objective" or "critical distance" from the body reintroduces the mind/body split and therefore claims consciousness can somehow get outside the conditions that created it.

A bit over a week ago I let AJ Phillips get away with an accusation that I was ducking and weaving and couldn't show that his astronomer had a tenuous grasp of physics. I had other more pressing things to worry about and didn't respond.

Having a little more time on my hands now, the howler that the astronomer makes early in his YouTube video, which was the point at which I stopped watching the video, is to state that everything in the universe is just a rearrangement of other constituent parts. In fact this is incorrect and there are, for example, such things as virtual particles that pop in and out of existence. We know this happens because we can see the results although no-one has actually caught the particles themselves.

His argument, which appears to be that the universe must have always existed because the molecules that he knows are just rearrangements of other molecules is an example of incorrectly going from the particular to the general, as well as of the "compositional fallacy" that Phillips accuses Craig of.

As for the Gish Gallop - I didn't nominate anyone in particular as having used the technique, although Phillips is one who does. What is interesting is that he outed himself thus condemning himself out of his own mouth.

Aristocrat,

"Consciousness is merely a manifestation of unconscious mental/physical states - it is a surface phenomenon....."

Yes it is a surface phenomenon, however, it seems more like a conduit through which flows subjective experience which fills the subterranean vault of the sub-conscious - and leaves in this repository a sediment of subjective truths....?

(bear with me - I'm a novice :)

Thanks Aristocrat, shall think it over..

<To claim consciousness maintains a "quasi-objective" or "critical distance" from the body reintroduces the mind/body split and therefore claims consciousness can somehow get outside the conditions that created it.>

By "quasi-objective" I meant that consciousness seems to observe an illusion; I don't say this is evidence of a real mind/body split, but that humans deal with reality at a hypothetical remove--in second rather than first person. I don't necessarily take the subject/object split seriously.

Graham,

It’s a pity you didn’t bother to continue watching the video…

<<…the howler that the astronomer makes early in his YouTube video, which was the point at which I stopped watching the video, is to state that everything in the universe is just a rearrangement of other constituent parts. In fact this is incorrect and there are, for example, such things as virtual particles that pop in and out of existence.>>

Because virtual particles are precisely what the author of the video goes into next. You see, virtual particles don’t obey our familiar rules of causality and cannot, therefore, be used to defend the premise of the Kalam Cosmological Argument as that is precisely what it is playing on.

Some “howler”, eh?

But to make things worse for you, the author of the video never states that everything in the universe is just a rearrangement of other constituent parts. He says that nothing can be SHOWN to be anything other than a re-arrangement of pre-existing parts.

A deceptively big difference there.

<<His argument, which appears to be that the universe must have always existed because the molecules that he knows are just rearrangements of other molecules is an example of incorrectly going from the particular to the general, as well as of the "compositional fallacy" that Phillips accuses Craig of.>>

Sorry, but the author never once says or even implies that the universe “must have always existed”. He merely points out that there is, so far, no reason to believe that this isn’t at all possible. So there’s no fallacy of composition there.

This is simply appalling, Graham. You have blatantly misconstrued what the author of the video says and the fact that you’ve used words and phrases like “states”, “just a” and “must have” suggests a deliberate intent to deceive.

<<As for the Gish Gallop - I didn't nominate anyone in particular as having used the technique, although Phillips is one who does. What is interesting is that he outed himself thus condemning himself out of his own mouth.>>

Really? Where did I do that?

Aristocrat:
<Could it not be argued that any idealism initially finds its "inspiration" from the material, and not vice-versa? It seems the cause and effect has been reversed. If idealism precedes materialism, then humans are contemplating in a vacuum>
This is an intuitively logical objection.
But Derrida--another philosopher vastly influenced by Nietzsche--has shown how idealism, in the form of the text, does indeed always already precede objective reality, that there is nothing outside of the text--which is itself a vast intertext, within which Nietzsche's will to power is reduced to one of innumerable possible readings. And this accords perfectly with Nietzsche's perspectivism, which was Derrida's post-Heideggerian inspiration.
What is interesting in all of this is the way evolutionary progress becomes untraceable, non-linear, or as Hegel would say, "sublated". There is no reason why phenomenon should be strictly derivative, or that cause and effect can't cancel each other out. Such physical "laws" are the product of our perspective, wherein time, for instance, always runs in one direction. Just so, the will to power was long since resumed (if Derrida is to have his way), and as you say sublimated, by cultural/textual forces.
For mine though, there is an extra-textual supplement--angst! How do we explain its persistence as other than the confounding of something essential? That something, for philosophers like Slavoj Zizek, is itself an illusion, but I'm tempted to put that down to his (Marxist) materialism. And so we're back to the start: a materialist/idealist premise begets a materialist/idealist solution, but it's idealism in either case. According to all this, even if idealism is the product of will to power, it has sublated the latter and is itself the dominant evolutionary/existential force.
Of course Dawkins is blissfully oblivious of all this, he just loves knowledge for its own sake--and not the kudos and material trappings etc., or the will to power..?

Gish Gallop?

- Really? Where did I do that?

Dear AJ Philips,
You probably know the saying, 'if the hat fits, wear it.'

Graham is suggesting you tried the hat on and decided for yourself to own it. Have a look at what you said last Friday.

I had never heard of the 'Gish Gallop' either. I think it is a debating tactic sometimes referred to as 'elephant hurling'. And I think if Dawkins is half as smart as people make him to be, he should be sufficiently capable to counter such tactics.

But I don't think anyone is accusing Craig of needing to use this tactic. As Madeleine has pointed out, Dawkins reasons for avoiding the debate with Craig are other than this.

Ah Dan. Boy do I have a new-found respect for you after the events of this thread!

<<You probably know the saying, 'if the hat fits, wear it.'>>

The problem is, Dan, that the hat didn't actually fit. Trav even gave it a little tug just to make sure, but no joy.

And now, despite me showing - on more than one occasion - that no Gish Gallop technique was employed, Graham has dug himself in even further by claiming that I had actually "outed" myself somehow.

<<Graham is suggesting you tried the hat on and decided for yourself to own it. Have a look at what you said last Friday.>>

Yes. Did you see what I explained to Trav on Monday?

Graham had asked me to state what I thought were the problems with Craig's arguments so I told him. I could have extended my response out to another post and bombarded him with the details of each and every fallacy in the Kalam Cosmological Argument - giving him a hell of a lot to respond to - but instead, I simply offered to go into further detail if he so desired.

As I was typing my response to Graham, he posted a nasty little attack in which I then posted another response to clear-up his claim (that he had now made twice) that I didn't understand the video I linked to.

So there you have it. Not the slightest trace of the "Gish Gallop" - even if we were to extend it to factual arguments.

I have been nothing but honest, forthright and factual so far and my adversaries are yet to show any of these qualities.

It’s quite telling, if you ask me.

Squeers.
I am still not quite convinced that idealism preceds materialism. I may have not read your last reply correctly, if I haven't I apologise, but if I did, it still begs the question of where does idealism's "inspiration" come from? What I mean is, when "ideals" or "things" are posited through an idealist paradigm, what is the cause of those "ideals" or "things" originating?
This was the criticism Nietzsche had of Schopenhauer's philosophy. Schopenhauer described "the Will" as the "thing in-itself" (the Kantian noumena). "The Will," as described by Schopenhauer, was a striving force that perpetually strove to achieve satisfaction without resolve. Human beings, those who are embodied of "the Will," are forever in conflict and never attain lasting satisfaction because "the Will" simply does not stop striving. Schopenhauer's error here is that of borrowing terms and concepts from the phenomenal world to describe the noumenal world. In other words, he borrows from the material to explain the ideal. This criticism seems to apply to the majority, if not all, idealisms. Because, when we deconstruct the concepts that forms an idealist philosophy, they eventually point to concepts derived from the phenomenal/physical/material world. What I mean to say is, words signify "things" that someone has perceived somewhere, sometime.

Aristocrat:
<I am still not quite convinced that idealism preceds materialism>

Gawd, I'm not either!
But to clarify, it's not that idealism precedes materialism, but that it sublates it. The concept of will to power seems naive in the postmodern context, suggesting an untrammelled ontology that belongs to primitive times, if it ever existed, rather than to our sophisticated symbolic order, which permits only of parodic will to power. Nietzsche's superman would have to be super indeed to rise above this neurotic milieu.

<Human beings, those who are embodied of "the Will," are forever in conflict and never attain lasting satisfaction because "the Will" simply does not stop striving>
This perhaps explains Schopenhauer's notorious negativity--similar to Freud. Herbert Marcuse, trying desperately to make sense of Marx's "species being", more optimistically decided that the driving force was "potential", not trying to define it further.
The important point, I would argue, is that all these thinkers, after Hegel, are intent upon ascribing volition to natural causes, and their solutions are ingenious, though ultimately found wanting and superseded by progressively more modest assessments--each another Copernican revolution. This has now reached a point of such reductio ad absurdum that science can no longer defend its diminishing position; consciousness seems to transcends its physical containment. This may well be ultimately disproved, but the point is that it's time to stop insisting that the answer "must" be material, as if we are in a position to rule anything out!
<words signify "things" that someone has perceived somewhere, sometime>
I beg to differ. I presume you're familiar with Derrida:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/derrida.htm
Paradoxically, what Derrida ultimately proves, for mine (and I suspect for him), is that consciousness is not reducible to language, albeit it is steeped in it, whereas empiricism is.

Madeleine claims that a cursory view of Craig's work would show that he's not a creationist.

However, Dawkins can easily justify his statement that Craig is a creationist (if he's looking for reasons to avoid a debate with Craig.)

Craig is a 'creationist' (anyone might say) because he is a Reformed Christian. And Reformed theologians believe the Bible is authoritative.

And we read in the Bible, for example:

Genesis 1:1 (page 1 of the Bible)

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (KJV)

Or in other words,

Au commencement, Dieu créa le ciel et la terre. (Bible Semeur)

I'd put it here in Greek and Hebrew if the fonts would allow it. It would still say the same thing.

Or here's another good one: Jesus' own words, according to Matthew 19:4,

- Have you not read that the creator at the beginning male and female he made them ?

And I think Dawkins has read these parts of the Bible. And Dawkins would be correct in his interpretation.

And I can understand why Dawkins would want to avoid a debate with a creationist. He would be wise to.

If Dawkins wants to win world domination for atheism over all of the world's religions, then he'll play the game tactically and be very selective over whom, when and where he debates.

But if he wants to try and advance the progress of scientists, philosophers, and humanity in general forward in the direction of truth, then he would be more open to discussion and debate in good faith with all significant parties relevant to his field of concern.

That he currently shows more interest in the former than the latter reveals he's not as confident in his stated position as his brashness pretends.

Dawkins takes a stand in only crediting what can be substantiated by the evidence. Unfortunately, socially his priestly perspective is a luxury we don't all enjoy. Out in the real world, outside the lab, there is little to be gained in contradicting the astounding ignorance and irrationality that dominates social discourse and passes for common sense. Dawkins is justified in despising it; but there's a cost to be born by the rest of us if we adopt a similar attitude, be it apostasy or in defying popular binary opinions generally. We become pariah's and can take no refuge or comfort in any celebrity status, such that's conferred on the Dawkins and Greers and Singers of the world. The distinctions they enjoy make their radical opinions easy to maintain, much easier than they are for the rest of us who have no ivory towers from which to lob our bombshells, or collegiality in which to take refuge. No one should underestimate the importance of social acceptance when transcendence fails. Indeed our priests and academics and politicians and celebrities are the eccentrics of this world and they delude themselves to the extent they believe themselves objective or above it, or in their wild intellectualisations. Intellectualism is a posh form of rationalism, and Dawkins's error is in believing he can objectify phenomena. One cannot and should not isolate data, except for specific purposes. Dawkins wants to purge irrationality, as if it can be separated from the social conditions in which it flourishes, as if his clinical perspective is untainted, disinterested, or has any purchase in the real world and its complexities.
I respect Dawkin's speaking out--though I think he's a smug ignoramus and it's more about the demands of his ego and constant recognition than philanthropy or any desire to do good. It's about self-valorisation, amassing cultural capital.
But that's not what I started out wanting say.
Where's the argument from the theist side? What are Craig's devastating points, which presumably would leave Dawkins floundering?
There "are" subtle theological arguments..

It seems the theists are overwhelmingly just as conceited as Dawkins.

Thanks Dan S de Merengue, for articulating so perfectly the circular nature of the theist "argument". By quoting the Bible as if it is some form of authoritative source document, you encapsulate the impossibility of entering into any form of discussion with theism that is intended to enlighten, educate or inform.

No amount of "Or here's another good one: Jesus' own words..." will survive any more than the most cursory analysis, as a solid base for discussion. Only those predisposed to accept that these were, in fact "Jesus' own words", as opposed to literary puppetry performed some decades later, will find them of interest.

Which is why I find this statement of yours so hilariously smug:

>>But if he wants to try and advance the progress of scientists, philosophers, and humanity in general forward in the direction of truth, then he would be more open to discussion and debate in good faith with all significant parties relevant to his field of concern.<<

Dawkins' "field of concern" does not stretch, I would imagine, to discussing such flat-earth concepts as Creationism. He seems - to me, at least - to worry more about the corrosive impact of such beliefs on the individual's sanity, and on society's cohesion.

The facts are not themselves debatable. From your own contribution, Dan S de Merengue, it is clear that the first and last words a theist can offer on the topic of our origins are simply "the Bible says so".

Everything else is a form of retro-fit of reality, carefully distorted to enable it to fit that first premise. At least other theories have a start, a middle, and an end. And as we learn more, each of these might move a little. Which is, of course, their virtue, since they lack a confining narrative that already claims to have all the answers.

I would imagine that a "discussion" with Craig would be as productive and satisfying as arguing with the television.

Hi Pericles,
I don't think you really caught on to what I was trying to say. But I'm willing to elaborate, if that would help clarify.

I quoted the Bible, not because I thought a verse here or there would convince you or any other atheist of the Christian viewpoint, but because I think it helps to establish a basis or starting point for at least discussing what Christianity objectively is about.

For example, the words I quoted were Jesus' words, objectivity speaking, according to St Matthew. And it is these words that the Christian faith is based upon. Realistically they are, of course, not Jesus' exact words, as Matthew wrote his gospel in Greek and Jesus spoke ordinarily in Aramaic.

So the Bible is the (or at least one) standard or objective basis around which Christianity can be discussed.

My comments above were directly aimed at the Madeleine's article. Her article states that Craig is not a creationist. Others in the discussion following have agreed with her that Craig is definitely not a creationist. The point is relevant, as it is a stated reason for why Dawkins is refusing to debate Craig.

However, to this point I bring a different view. Craig must be a creationist to some degree. All Christians are creationists to some degree, if they've ever made it past the first verse of the Christians Scripture – Genesis chapter one, verse one. William Lane Craig (to my understanding) is a Reformed theologian. As such he would take an extremely high view of the Scriptures.

Dawkins field of concern clearly entails engaging with religion, even the Christian religion, as per his 2006 book, 'The God Delusion'. Now if ('if' being the appropriate word) he is going to enter this field of discussion with Craig or anyone else, he may as well deal with an authentic or at least objective version of Christianity.

You say the facts are not debatable. This topic is quite debatable, as the length of this thread demonstrates (and others similar to it). It starts with getting the definitions correct.

At the risk of generating great hilarity from some quarters I wonder if I dare suggest that there may be some truth to the bible after all, albeit with a fair amount of poetic (or imaginative) licence thrown in. As we are evaluating possibilities in an objective and scientific manner, at least in theory, to reject this historical record outright is really rather rash, as well as conveniently and subjectively eliminating a large part of the basis of argument for the positive case.

As all history is necessarily recorded after the event, and regularly after quite some time has elapsed, timeframe should not automatically be cause for dismissal. Also, the limited amount of early physical evidence is not of itself cause for rejection. This leads us to the credentials and mental state of the historians themselves, and here there seems to be a suggestion by the detractors of either conspiracy or mass delusion. Given the extent and detail of the various bible records the latter proposition could surely be viewed as unlikely. This leaves us with the question of the potential validity of Jesus' story, and of the validity of the various miracles recounted.

After eliminating the implausible (such as The Beginning, Adam and Eve, etc) we are left to ponder whether any of the miracles attributed to Jesus could have been real, and if Jesus' teachings have merit.

Personally, I find the story of Jesus both valuable and of considerable merit. I also accept the miracles, with a touch of healthy scepticism.

The extended religion story has Jesus and other supposed prophets, and the question becomes whether any of these teachings have merit, and whether any of the records represents evidence of God. As to merit I see a positive, as for proof of God the jury is still out but the possibility remains unless and until various miracles are explained.

My take: God is exemplified by and in the natural world.
Proposition: Religion may have beeen an effective vehicle for disseminating ethics, but has now gone off the rails and is in need of replacement or reform.

Not sure what made you think that, Dan S de Merengue.

>>I don't think you really caught on to what I was trying to say. But I'm willing to elaborate, if that would help clarify.<<

It actually seemed pretty straightforward to me. Even more so, in fact, once you "elaborated".

>>I quoted the Bible... I think it helps to establish a basis or starting point for at least discussing what Christianity objectively is about<<

Maybe it does. But as I said, only for Christians.

Using the Bible as your starting point can only be valid if you have already accepted that the Bible is a valid starting point. Slipping in the word "objectively" merely highlights this fact. As in "I can determine objectively that this person is a Christian, because he believes the bible".

Your proffered example takes it one stage further still.

>>the words I quoted were Jesus' words, objectivity speaking, according to St Matthew. And it is these words that the Christian faith is based upon. Realistically they are, of course, not Jesus' exact words<<

Objectively speaking, it is unlikely that "St Matthew" was the author of these words. Being so far removed from the purported source, both in time, language and their provenance as chinese whispers, rather undermines their importance, wouldn't you think?

Especially as they are according to you the "words that the Christian faith is based upon"

>>So the Bible is the (or at least one) standard or objective basis around which Christianity can be discussed.<<

Only, as I have pointed out, if you are already convinced by the source material. Otherwise, it is not standard or objective, but instead a purely arbitrary and subjective, foundation for religious beliefs.

>>My comments above were directly aimed at the Madeleine's article.<<

This comment, perhaps?

>>That he currently shows more interest in the former than the latter reveals he's not as confident in his stated position as his brashness pretends.<<

You were just taking a free kick, weren't you.

Nothing wrong with that, of course. But it's always better to be honest about these things.

Here's a compilation of articles about this issue.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/20/richard-dawkins-william-lane-craig

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/oct/22/richard-dawkins-refusal-debate-william-lane-craig

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100112626/richard-dawkins-is-either-a-fool-or-a-coward-for-refusing-to-debate-william-lane-craig/

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/paul-vallely-god-knows-why-dawkins-wont-show-2374659.html

http://voxday.blogspot.com/2011/10/he-bravely-ran-away-away.html

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3601936.html

http://analytictheologye4c5.wordpress.com/2011/10/22/why-w-l-craig-wont-debate-dawkins-an-unofficial-official-statement/

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2011/10/an-evening-without-richard-dawkins.html

Two quotes I'd like to share. Not necessarily because I entirely agree but moreso because they will provoke thought.

From a commenter on ABC The Drum:

"It is entertaining to read how Dawkins’ worshippers go to great lengths to defend his refusal to debate. What seems to escape them is that Craig issued the challenge to Dawkins for the latter to defend his ideas as written in 'The God Delusion'. If Dawkins did not agree, either he is afraid that his ideas in the book will be torn to shreds or he himself does not believe they are worthwhile defending anymore. By defending their high priest’s stance with even more obtuse excuses, some atheists, who are supposed to always think critically, suddenly behave no differently from religious folk who dogmatically defend their faith."

From Peter Hitchens:

"The important thing about this is that what Craig does is simple. He uses philosophical logic, and a considerable knowledge of physics, to expose the shallowness of Dawkins’s arguments. I would imagine that an equally serious Atheist philosopher would be able to give him a run for his money, but Dawkins isn’t that. He would have been embarrassingly out of his depth.

For what Craig achieves is this. He simply retakes an important piece of ground that Christianity lost through laziness and cowardice, rather than because it lacked the weapons to defend it.

He doesn’t (in my view) achieve total victory over the unbelievers. He simply says : ‘In this logic, which you cannot deny, and in this science, which you cannot deny either, it is clear that there is plenty of room for the possibility that God exists and made the universe’. No scientifically literate person, who is informed and can argue logically, can in truth say that he is wrong".

(to be continued)

Interestingly, the night itself sounds as if it was a cracker, even without Dawkins' presence. Apparently 3 Oxford Philosophers took to the stage as a panel, responding to and critiquing Craig's talk. One of those philosophers was Daniel Came (an atheist from Oxford University whose name should ring a bell for anyone who's been following this). I cannot wait for the video/audio to turn up on premier.org.uk/unbelievable or bethinking.org.

Also, I strongly recommend you check out the debate Craig had against Millican. (http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/2011/10/william-lane-craig-vs-peter-millican.html). I'm onto the second rebuttals now and it is very, very substantive. Unlike Law, who used sneaky debate tactics (exactly what Atheists accuse Craig of, funnily enough), Millican engaged Craig on a whole heap of issues. The Q and A, I expect, will be brilliant.

Unlike Dawkins, Craig isn't afraid of having his ideas scrutinised in the public circle.

This is the sort of "logic" that annoys me.

"If Dawkins did not agree, either he is afraid that his ideas in the book will be torn to shreds or he himself does not believe they are worthwhile defending anymore."

These are not the simple "either/or" explanations that they purport to be, but a debating trick employed to deliver two unacceptable alternatives so that the target may be more easily attacked. There are literally hundreds of other possible reasons. Some - but not all - of which have been aired on this forum.

The verbal trickery continues:

"Dawkins’ worshippers... defending their high priest’s stance..."

All in the service of an attempt to perpetuate the myth that atheists are somehow religious folk, wearing different hats.

Indicating to me that the Dawkins-bashers are getting a little desperate, since their bête noir refuses to play their deceitful little game.

Christopher Hitchens far-less-famous brother tries a similar tactic, to belittle Dawkins:

"I would imagine that an equally serious Atheist philosopher would be able to give [Craig] a run for his money, but Dawkins isn’t that."

I doubt you would find a "serious atheist philosopher" who would find it amusing to debate religion on the grounds selected by Craig. While there is no doubt that philosophers have spent a great deal of their time wondering why people find the need to identify a "God", the vast majority of those find in favour of Spinoza's "God is the asylum of ignorance".

Those of a more charitable nature might open with Percy Bysshe Shelley's simple "God is not a fact, but a hypothesis, and as such, stands in need of proof". Then stand back, and request that the theist actually provides some.

However, since there is none, it would make for a very short debate.

The debate may indeed be a short and simple one.

A scientist has artificially created a copy of a bacterial gene sequence, with a slight modification as a marker to differentiate it from the original copied natural gene. He then implanted his synthetic gene into a living bacterial cell in which the nucleus or original genetic material had been removed. This "synthetic" bacterium cell remained alive and replicated itself successfully.

That experiment demonstrated that gene sequences can be created or assembled artificially. What scientists haven't done yet is to "create" a complete living cell, since the activation of the synthesized genetic material required it to be inserted into an existing "living" cell. The missing component in creating true artificial "life" could only be obtained by using an existing living cell as a surrogate.

Lifeform design and diversity may be explained by evolution - chance genetic mutation and natural selection - but it does not explain the origin of the original "spark" of life, without which all the genes in the world would be of no consequence. When the light goes off in a living cell, the "spark" disappears or shuts down or whatever, the cell is dead and cannot be "revived". No-one has yet identified the nature of the "spark", but it is the basis of life.

The atheist viewpoint may hold that "life" is a result of sheer "chance", the theist would hold that chance alone could not produce life, and the agnostic may be undecided.

We may forget about debating the possible origins of the universe, though it is something truly amazing, wondrous and beautiful. (Our perceptions. Do other lifeforms gaze at the stars and wonder? I wonder.) No, we need really only concern ourselves with life itself (and maybe the wonder of ourselves) and wonder at the origin of the spark of life, without which we and all life could not exist.

Cause to wonder? Is sheer chance maybe just a cop-out?

Neat attempt at a back 2½ somersault pike (degree of difficulty 3.0) Saltpetre. Not many can pull that one off with a straight face.

>>Cause to wonder? Is sheer chance maybe just a cop-out?<<

By bundling all the gazillions of physical and chemical possibilities together into a single phrase, you attempt to make the contest a one-on-one, mano-a-mano shootout between "sheer chance" in the red corner, and "God" in the blue.

If the concept of God creating life is too hard to grasp, I hear you ask, what makes the idea of sheer chance easier to accept?

Nice tactic, co-opting the atheists killer blow, the one that targets the concept "it wuz God wot dunnit" as being the theists' convenient catch-all filler for anything they cannot understand or explain.

The difference is, when you think it through, that science will at some point determine what caused that spark. Meanwhile, there is absolutely nowhere else the God argument can go.

Let's face it, a hundred years ago, the experiment you describe with the bacterium cell wouldn't be remotely conceivable, let alone be performed. And in another hundred, an additional layer or two of the mystery will undoubtedly have been peeled back.

Much of recent abiogenetic thinking is encapsulated in "Origins, Abiogenesis and the Search for Life in the Universe", a collection of 28 papers edited by Michael Russell. One of the overall conclusions is that "the origin of life and evolution of prokaryotes was not a matter of chance, but deterministic, probable and necessary"

I'm afraid "sheer chance" is not quite so sheer as you imagine, nor is it the cop-out you wanted us to believe.

The science also discusses the probability of life on other planets. Where can we find reference to that in the Bible? Or would you have us believe that we are somehow the only life forms...?

Just askin'.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220989

Squeers, sorry for not getting back to you sooner. i accept that you were being "concilliatry" towards both sides, but is that part of the problem?

If we "equivocate" or are "relative" about morals & ethics rather than taking a firm stand, does this lead to "grey areas", "evil prospers while good men do nothing", "complicated/colourful" rather than simple, black & white issues?

BTW are you familiar with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cusanus an early christian reformer & philosopher?

I’d like to thank Trav for bringing that debate to our attention and would encourage anyone who wants to understand exactly why Craig is not worth debating to view it.

Straight off the bat, Craig begins with a strawman claiming that “typically, atheists have said that the universe is eternal and uncaused”.

Really?!

That’s news to me.

Most atheists I know of say they don’t know. In my experience, about the closest atheists get to asserting that everything must have just always existed, is to simply point out that if God can, then why can’t matter and energy too?

No amount of assertions about alphas and omegas or special pleads for uncaused causes can answer that in any satisfactory way.

Craig then continues his assault on this strawman by pointing out - with a demonstration of the absurdity of using infinity as a number, using coins for his example - that infinity is a concept, not a number. But then, in order to conjure a philosophical problem with an infinite past, he makes an illogical leap by replacing the coins with “events”. The problem with doing this is that there didn’t necessarily have to be any events occurring. There’s no reason to believe that “events” always had to have been occurring.

The universe, for example, may one day suffer a heat death, but does this mean that time will stop? Time, as far as mathematical equations with regard to relativity, may stop - but the relativity portion has been removed. It will still continue infinitely regardless.

Craig then moves onto a second strawman alleging that some atheists claim that the universe just popped into existence ...and so it continues.

Eventually Craig get’s to his famous five proofs for the existence of God (which have been debunked more times than he’ll ever be able to present them - so I’m not enthusiastic about going over them again), the first being, of course, the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

Just look at the tatters this thread has left that one in.

And that’s his best.

Either the universe began to exist a finite time ago (1), or it has existed eternally (2). There is simply no other option.

If it began to exist a finite time ago, then either something external to it caused it to come into existence (1.1) or it popped into being out of literally nothing (1.2).

If it has existed eternally then it either has an explanation for it's existence (2.1) or it exists without any explanation whatsoever (2.2).

We only have four basic options in terms of accounting for the Universe that we all live in- 1.1, 1.2, 2.1 and 2.2.

As my final comment in this thread- I've read Dawkins, and I've read Craig. I've heard Craig in numerous debates against atheists, including the 3 on 3 debate against Dawkins in Mexico. Craig's various arguments do a fine job of exploring these 4 options and showing that the idea of God is a very plausible explanation for the universe, given our current knowledge.

For anyone reading this, check out some of Craig's stuff. Books like On Guard for basic level and Reasonable Faith 3rd Edition for intermediate difficulty.

For free stuff, at a technical level check out lastseminary.com (http://www.lastseminary.com/cosmological-argument/) or here (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/PageServer?pagename=scholarly_articles_existence_of_God)

And for more basic and easy to understand:

(http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/PageServer?pagename=popular_articles_Existence_and_Nature_of_God).

I personally don't completely agree with Craig's overall approach, I would recommend, C Stephen Evans's Natural Signs and The Knowledge of God as the best book on the subject of God's Existence. However, everyone should read some of Craig. Find out if he really is as much of a "snake oil salesman" as the internet atheists would have you think- you might be surprised.

Thanks for the counter, Pericles. Nicely put.

One thing though, regarding your following (and nicely put indeed):

"By bundling all the gazillions of physical and chemical possibilities together into a single phrase, you attempt to make the contest a one-on-one, mano-a-mano shootout between "sheer chance" in the red corner, and "God" in the blue."

Is this not in fact the crux of the matter?

I take your point that in time it is indeed possible that science will identify and isolate that elusive spark of life, and may even be able to "create" it artificially; but then again it may continue to elude, or it may even be found that various forms of the spark exist, perhaps even multitudes. I have a feeling though that it is going to be exceedingly difficult to create. OK, that's only a feeling, and that's tough chad for me, and might even be proven wrong tomorrow. Even so, identifying and even copying the known is one thing, but inventing it from scratch is another, and thus a degree of doubt will continue to exist, at least for some.

I personally think that the existence or the creation of life is an even more amazing phenomenon than the creation of the universe, but again that is only my viewpoint. The whole thing is astounding in any event, as is our discussing it over the ether.

I tried the "miracles" question in a previous post, and got no nibbles, so thought I'd try the life angle. There will always be questions, and sometimes, answers.

Ain't God amazing, giving us all these marvellous questions and possibilities to chew over and attempt to unravel? We must be blessed, don't you think? One way or another.

Can't pretend I'd even heard of or read Craig before this thread – and after studying (not just reading) Craig's "Creation, Providence, and Miracle" linked to by Poirot – I was ambivalent about spending nearly 2 1/2 hours listening to Craig debate Millican.

It was considerably more engaging than I expected (thanks for bringing it to our attention, Trav). For mine, Craig lost on logic, science, maths and theology; but could be allowed his personal intuition argument.

His errors in science are mostly around the misconstruction and misapplication of Time.

Perversely, even after the rebuttal demonstrating how Craig was wrong in his analysis of infinity and zero, he repeated his initial claims.

Theologically, I found no argument presented by Craig explaining why (assuming the existence of God) his conclusion is this is Yahweh, Jesus, the biblical trinity, et cetera. Arguments centred on the resurrection seemed mere assertion.

Most telling for me though, given his academic credentials, is that Craig invalidates his application of logic by continually assuming as a conclusion what is under contention.

If he is doing this unconsciously, then charges of being a snake-oil salesman probably won't apply. If he is or has been made conscious of this logical error and continues his argumentation unchanged, then he is a salesman, but not necessarily of snake-oil.

It could be boring because they would agree on the existence of God question – but all the other aspects would be really interesting… Has Craig ever debated any equivalently qualified Jewish and/or Muslim theological philosophers?

If you say so Saltpetre.

>>Is this not in fact the crux of the matter?<<

But personally, I prefer this observation of yours, to be a closer expression of the crucial:

>>...thus a degree of doubt will continue to exist, at least for some<<

And long may that doubt continue to drive us.

It explains why science spends so much energy on new equations, new experiments, and pushing the boundaries of our knowledge just that little bit further. Would it not be true to say that those who have convinced themselves that it was God who put all this into motion, must by definition be doubt-free. Otherwise, what might they be searching for?

>>I personally think that the existence or the creation of life is an even more amazing phenomenon than the creation of the universe<<

To my way of thinking, they are inseparable. Without the living to observe it, the universe might as well not exist. Similarly with time. Without the universe, time cannot exist. Which is quite interesting when you think about it in Biblical terms - as far as Genesis is concerned, time already existed when God created the universe. Hence the six days. But if time already existed... you see the problem?

While the conclusions we may eventually be able to come to as human beings on the physical nature of our universe, we will be unlikely ever to work out "why", before our tiny sun - in our infinitesimally small corner of a universe crammed with more billions of suns than you can count in a lifetime - burns out. As it will.

Which once again leads to the question that seems to have slipped through to the 'keeper.

If there are, as many scientists have come to believe, forms of life on other worlds apart from our own, why do they not get a mention in the Bible?

Attention ALL atheists,

Q, do you want capitalism withOUT a heart?

A, continue promoting atheism, trying to destroy christianity.

Q, do you want capitalism WITH a heart?

A, STOP promoting atheism, promote PROTESTANT/proletariat christianity instead.

Complete nonsense, Formersnag.

The implication of your claim is that you only have a heart, because
you fear burning in hell forever or hope for a ticket to heaven.
Hardly a morally sound way to live.

Fact is that empathy is grounded in our biology, more in some then
others. I don't save the ladybirds from drowning in the dogs water,
because of threats, but because I happen to feel empathy for their
plight and if I can do something about it, why not?

If the little old lady needs help across the road, why not help if
I can? For its far more pleasant to live in communities where
we all get along.

If the only reason to do good is because of threats or hope of
a heaven ticket, then I propose that my morality is far advanced
over yours.

Formersnag,

Regarding "capitalism with a heart".

Tom Hodgkinson wrote on the Industrial Revolution:
"God was ruthlessly brought in by the capitalists to control the minds of the masses. Crucially, the new joyless creed of Methodism was preached to the labouring poor in church on Sunday. At church they were bombarded with the idea that they were sinful, that all pleasure was wrong, and that the path to salvation lay in quiet suffering on earth. God was reinvented as a sort to Big Brother figure, and it was His will that you worked hard... The founder of Methodism, John Wesley, was particularly keen on terrifying and controlling small children. "Break their wills betimes," he wrote. "let a child from a year old be taught to fear the rod and and to cry softly"....children were assaulted by terrifying images of the burning flames of hell. These images were burnt into the imagination of the small child and would help to forge the cowed, obedient mindset of the later adult."

Yabby's right that it is empathy that furnishes man with morality and "heart"....religion is not a repository of either. It is representative of human behaviour, which is why at times it is employed nefariously by its adherents.

Just one clarification of the above.

Craig's arguments that I was referring to are: 1. The Kalam Cosmological Argument, 2. The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument and 3. The Fine Tuning Argument. These arguments aim to show that there is a Creator, Sustainer and Cause of the Universe.

In contrast, his other arguments- Moral, Resurrection, Personal Experience- are designed to show that the Creator of the Universe is the Christian God.

So the first three are the three that discuss the existence and explanation for the Universe. Keep in mind the 4 options for the universe when reading those. ie: 1.1 Something external caused it to come into existence, 1.2 It popped into being out of literally nothing. 2.1 It has existed eternally but has an explanation, 2.2 It has existed eternally without explanation. Regardless of whether the arguments are undoubtedly workable as definitive proofs as God's Existence, I think many of the points raised by Craig can serve to, at the very least, show that God's existence is very much a plausible option when explaining the universe. Many say Craig wins debates because he is all style and no substance, but I suggest a fair reading of his books and journal articles will show that to be untrue.

WM Trevor- Yes, Craig has debated Shabir Ally and other Muslim scholars, not sure about Jews. I know he's debated on the Resurrection and also the Nature of God. Go here http://rfforum.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=2703927. Or here for a link to an iTunes/Feedreader feed http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/2009/08/william-lane-craig-audio-debate-feed.html

It’s just as well you add the “given our current knowledge” bit a little later, Trav. Given what we once currently knew, the Earth was flat, the sun revolved around the Earth and lightning had to come from Gods.

When discussing any possibilities about what came before the big bang, however, I’m a little more cautious than you considering they may turn out to be nothing more than false dichotomies in the future. But a fine example of the God of the Gaps argument, nevertheless.

<<…everyone should read some of Craig. Find out if he really is as much of a "snake oil salesman" as the internet atheists would have you think- you might be surprised.>>

Well, I’ve never actually referred to Craig as a “snake oil salesman”, but I fail to see what difference reading any of his stuff would make. I mean, it’s not like we were simply asserting anything on this thread. Or do these fallacies magically disappear when you read his books?
Shall I then dissect more of what Craig says in that debate? Because he next touches on one of my favourite arguments, “fine tuning” and it’s certainly not what Craig would have us believe.

It’s actually a term in physics that describes a situation where one or more parameters in a model must be very precise when the model itself doesn’t offer mechanisms to constrain their values. So-called “fine tuning problems” are not problems because they cannot be solved naturally; they are problems because they indicate that the given model is incomplete.

A better term for this “fine tuning” that we see in our universe is “precision” and in his opening, Craig assumes that physical constants are mutable and eventually moves on to probability by comparing the precision of our universe with the infinite number of other possible universes that could have supposedly existed.

What Craig doesn’t realise, however, is the meaninglessness of measuring probability with a sample size of 1. If we had any other universes - even just one - to compare ours to, then we could start talking probabilities.

Until then…

Another angle on the shortcomings of the new atheists...

MORAL PSYCHOLOGY AND THE MISUNDERSTANDING OF RELIGION
By Jonathan Haidt, Associate Professor of Psychology.

"I just want to make one point, however, that should give contractualists pause: surveys have long shown that religious believers in the United States are happier, healthier, longer-lived, and more generous to charity and to each other than are secular people. Most of these effects have been documented in Europe too. If you believe that morality is about happiness and suffering, then I think you are obligated to take a close look at the way religious people actually live and ask what they are doing right.

... Might religious communities offer us insights into human flourishing? Can they teach us lessons that would improve wellbeing even in a primarily contractualist society.

You can't use the New Atheists as your guide to these lessons. The new atheists conduct biased reviews of the literature and conclude that there is no good evidence on any benefits except the health benefits of religion...

My conclusion is not that secular liberal societies should be made more religious and conservative in a utilitarian bid to increase happiness, charity, longevity, and social capital. Too many valuable rights would be at risk, too many people would be excluded, and societies are so complex that it's impossible to do such social engineering and get only what you bargained for. My point is just that every longstanding ideology and way of life contains some wisdom, some insights into ways of suppressing selfishness, enhancing cooperation, and ultimately enhancing human flourishing.

But because of the four principles of moral psychology it is extremely difficult for people, even scientists, to find that wisdom once hostilities erupt. A militant form of atheism that claims the backing of science and encourages "brights" to take up arms may perhaps advance atheism. But it may also backfire, polluting the scientific study of religion with moralistic dogma and damaging the prestige of science in the process."

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt07/haidt07_index.html

Thank you Pericles.

Firstly, I must confess I am not a student of the bible, or of any other religious texts, and focus my attention on the here and now, science and the natural world. Admittedly, from early years I absorbed a set of mores from the story of Jesus, but more or less consider this a vehicle, rather than a dogma, and have never been too concerned with the detail, but rather the message. I also accept that non-religion-based mechanisms are available to convey the same lessons, and without the potentially divisive connotations. In truth I have come to a conclusion that the bible, Khoran, Torah, etc have been misused and abused (as well as containing a lot of conjecture and mysticism), and should now only be of historical interest rather than living texts.

Regarding your following:

"Would it not be true to say that those who have convinced themselves that it was God who put all this into motion, must by definition be doubt-free. Otherwise, what might they be searching for?"

Julius Sumner Miller used to say "Why is it so?" Now our concern is "why, how, and what does it all mean?" I believe for all serious people the search is for truth, understanding and wisdom. Why are some ethical and compassionate, and others the opposite? How do we make a better world? What is our destiny?

Yes, our tiny sun will eventually die, and us with it. Will we relocate? Is there other life in the universe? Sentient? Carbon based? Will we achieve communication? Friendly?

Time. I suspect the matter/energy of the universe has always existed, in some form. Infinite? Most likely.

I have a suspicion that the universe may have existed in different forms many times, and ours may only be the latest in a long line of failed experiments - with ourselves the latest set of guinea pigs?

How far can our imagination stretch? We should focus on making the world the best we can, and let the future unfold. Otherwise we will have failed. But, if we succeed, what then may be possible?

Well, there's a surprise.

On many occasions, on this very Forum, I have been forced to say a word or two to Christians who quote selectively from their own scripture, and equally selectively from the scripture of other religions.

They constantly pick and choose the verses that suit their individual bias - "we" are shown by our Bible to be good, clean, upright and moral, while "they" are nothing more than a war-mongering, power-hungry, bloodthirsty blight on humanity, and a clear and present danger to us all to boot.

Now, finally, I have written support from a fervent enemy of what he calls "the new atheism" (what's new about it, I wonder?), who reassures me that:

"The new atheists assume that believers, particularly fundamentalists, take their sacred texts literally. Yet ethnographies of fundamentalist communities (such as James Ault's Spirit and Flesh) show that even when people claim to be biblical literalists, they are in fact quite flexible, drawing on the bible selectively — or ignoring it — to justify humane and often quite modern responses to complex social situations."

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt07/haidt07_index.html

Well hooray. An admission at last, that these fundamentalists are busily selecting here, ignoring there, just like I said.

But hold on a moment; to justify...what?

In the OLO forum, this selectivity is almost universally employed as a "whackamozzie" weapon. Which could well be described as a "modern response to a complex social situation", I suppose, if viewed from a purely academic standpoint.

But "humane", it ain't.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221444

Yabby, christianity is full of positive morals & ethics.

ALL textbooks on the subject of left wing politics, without exception advocate having NO morals & ethics at ALL for the good of the glorious revolution. Left wing politics is government sponsored child abuse. You canNOT destroy the family without getting children neglected & abused, which is a spreading epidemic thanks to left wing policy ruthlessly introduced despite forward knowledge of the consequences.

"repeat the lie, until it becomes the truth" V I Lenin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_Communist read this book, then get back to me.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221448

Poirot, typical half truth & selective quoting of history, even if it is true, you conveniently ignore all the good things christians have & still DO.

Yabby's WRONG, atheism & left wing politics trains their sheeple/robots to be devoid of empathy for the victims of socialism which is given that name to hide it's true ANTIsocial nature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_Communist read this book, then get back to me.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221462

Saltpetre, i beg to differ, the bible is written with the harder, old testament first, followed by the nicer, NEW testament teachings.

"an eye for an eye" or old testament is countermanded by Jesus "peace & love" teachings.

The koran is done the opposite way, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIHeBJNFS1g watch ALL 5 parts of it, the FEW concilliatry "be nice to christians & jews" quotes are in the historically older parts of the koran, the voluminous "jihad & hatred of the INFIDEL, (that is you & me)" surahs are all afterwards, countermanding ALL of the good stuff.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221465

Pericles, socialist/communazi commandment #1, "repeat the lie, until it becomes the truth" V I Lenin.

ALL left wing politics is based on lies, deception & child abuse.

"there will be NO carbon tax under a government i lead" Juliar Dillhard.

"moving forwards" = moving backwards to Russia circa 1917.

Which of these difficult concepts are you struggling with?

*Yabby, christianity is full of positive morals & ethics.*

Ah Formesnag, I do in fact know all about christianity. I too,
suffered from "christians" trying to brainwash me as a young kiddie.
Perhaps you are just more gullible then me, being a sheeple to
Jesus and believing every word.

I've also had a whole lot of discussions with true believers.
It always lands up with the same. "You just wait till Judgement
Day", is their final line.

Hope and fear drive christianity, Formersnag. Clearly you think that
you have bought your ticket to heaven. Would you like to buy a
bridge in inner Sydney too?

Yabby,.
I hope you don't wait until Judgement Day.

Squeers asks, “Where is the argument from the theist side?”

Squeers - You generally won't easily find the Christian argument on TV, radio, or the daily papers. You have to dig a little deeper. But, as Gov. Charles La Trobe believed, 'Whoever seeks finds'.

As I understand it, Dawkins message is that a proper understanding of science is antithetical to religion; science opposes religion, to the extent that the advent of Darwinian evolution made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.

So a proper Christian response from the church should perhaps come from a scientist, more so than from a theologian or philosopher. For it is in the scientific domain that Dawkins is aiming his guns.

Such as response is adequately given by Jonathon Sarfati, PhD., F.M., particularly in his recent book, written specifically in response to Dawkins' book, “Greatest Show on Earth” (one chapter linked below).

Sarfati was one scientist who offered to publicly debate Dawkins when the Global Atheist Convention came to our beautiful, leafy city of Melbourne last year.

Not surprisingly, the organisers of the convention were not interested in such a debate. I wrote an article about that non-debate for OLO last year -

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=9980&page=0

Sarfati flew into Melbourne the same week-end as Dawkins, but without any shots being fired in anger. But debate or no debate, you can still see a Christian response to Dawkins, showing why science does not oppose Christian religion. Here's a link to a chapter of Sarfati's book.

http://creation.com/the-greatest-hoax-on-earth-chapter-17

Dan S de Merengue,
There is simply no testable evidence for a God. This is where Dawkins is in the right. If anyone has a scrap of empirical evidence, let's have it? But there is none, correct?
What disappoints me is that no one is even offering any compelling reasoning, or subtle theology that transcends empiricism. Failing that, that no one is describing their epiphany, or when God spoke to them personally etc. I would find that hard to ignore, I mean if God spoke to me personally, even though I would be sceptically aware that it was unverifiable and possibly delusional. How is it that believers of all sorts are unwilling to interrogate their their world view, and all its implications, critically?
For what it's worth, I side with Hegel, who argued that theistic beliefs are projections of human needs onto the heavens, but unlike some notable materialists, that these needs reflect real and legitimate human aspirations.

Are you certain that's the right way round, Dan S de Merengue?

>>As I understand it, Dawkins message is that a proper understanding of science is antithetical to religion<<

It surely should read, "religion is antithetical to the proper understanding of science".

As demonstrated by the fact that religious folk - especially young-earth creationists - choose to ignore all evidence that does not support their conviction that God exists.

Atheists, on the other hand, have no such problem ignoring evidence that God exists. For the simple reason, there is none.

Your sweeping generalizations undermine your position quite badly.

>>...science opposes religion, to the extent that the advent of Darwinian evolution made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist<<

Evolution existed long before Darwin gave it common expression. It didn't just spring into being like Athena, fully formed from Zeus' brow.

In much the same way, atheists also existed before Darwin. They did not need a theory of evolution to convince them. After all, there is nothing in Darwin's theory itself that denies the existence of a deity. He simply described a process. It may have given the odd atheist here and there a warm glow, but it was not exactly a game-changer for them.

And thanks for the reference to Sarfati, by the way. Once I had waded through the irrelevance of his Dawkins-bashing, there were some real gems to be found.

"There are certain essential features that make science possible, and they simply did not exist in non-Christian cultures"

The eight points that follow all - every single one - presuppose the existence of a Christian deity. Not one, however, can be described as an "essential features that make science possible". Consequently, the fact that they "did not exist in non-Christian cultures" is simultaneously irrelevant and true, thanks to the fact that by definition they presuppose a Christian deity.

One of the more perfectly circular arguments I have encountered.

Quite beautiful, in its own specious fashion.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221539

Yabby, the RED/green, getup, GAYLP/alp, Socialist Alliance is often described as a "broad church", multiple factions with doctrinal differences over principles, policy, but ALL broadly delusionally believing in the communazi/socialist religion.

Christianity has multiple churches, some of which have their own jesuit/opus dei factions.

I believe in god, but that does not automatically mean i believe in life after death, creation or that i dont believe in the the Buddhist tradition of reincarnation.

As for a "road to Damascus" moment, i have not personally seen god or one of HIS angels perform miracles, i have however, personally witnessed disciples of the devil working ANTImiracles right here in the land of OZ http://www.heineraffair.info/ real devil worshippers doing evil. One of the cabinet ministers responsible http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/home-of-broken-trust/story-e6frg6z6-1111119114790 resigned & became a preacher.

As for buying bridges? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EastLink_(Melbourne) you did buy shares in this financial mess, went broke recently & was flogged off for 50 cents on the $, OR LESS. http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2011/02/25/3149595.htm?site=brisbane the Clem7 tunnel is now also in the process of going broke as well. Here is the really good bit, Eastlink & other similar " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macquarie_Group bank model" infrastructure projects were already going broke down south when Goanna B Liar started the Clem7 tunnel project & others, Knowing in advance that it was a "plan for failure".

Hopeless fear drives the communazi sheeple "moving forwards", SOME negative christians have used "fear of god", NOT all, in fact jesus teachings are the opposite.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221565
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221604

Squeers & Pericles, still waiting patiently, politely for plain simple answers to plain simple questions.

Are you familiar with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Days ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fonzie was cool because he had "faith in himself", faith in the existence of god is the same, i dont need to see a "burning bush" that does not get burned, in order to have faith.

As http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obi-Wan_Kenobi would say you either turn towards the dark side or the light. Everyone involved in loony left wing politics has turned towards the dark side. While there is SOME corruption in christianity MOST christians however, are turned towards the light.

Wow.

Where did that come from, Formersnag?

>>Squeers & Pericles, still waiting patiently, politely for plain simple answers to plain simple questions.<<

What questions?

I found this one, but for the life of me couldn't work out what it might refer to.

>>Which of these difficult concepts are you struggling with?<<

This was preceded by a couple of those spittle-encrusted random assertions for which you have become justly renowned:

>>ALL left wing politics is based on lies, deception & child abuse.
"there will be NO carbon tax under a government i lead" Juliar Dillhard.
"moving forwards" = moving backwards to Russia circa 1917.<<

If you consider those to merit any response at all, then I'm afraid you have chosen the wrong medium. Try scribbling them on the back of a door somewhere, or paint them on a banner that you can wave outside Flinders Street station.

Alternatively, ask a plain simple question, and I promise you a plain simple answer.

"So a proper Christian response from the church should perhaps come from a scientist… Such [a] response is adequately given by Jonathon Sarfati, PhD., F.M.,… " Dan S de Merengue.

A response, yes. Adequate, no.

Not with arguments like this:

"But it is not hard to notice that most of the scientific advances listed haven’t the slightest thing to do with evolution. Computers, cell phones, airplanes, and the moon landings certainly don’t! Indeed, they largely depended on the foundations laid by creationist scientists:
… Furthermore, these great scientists had precedents in the Middle Ages, often wrongly called the ‘Dark Ages’. Science historian Dr James Hannam writes: “Popular opinion, journalistic cliché and misinformed historians notwithstanding, recent research has shown that the Middle Ages were a period of enormous advances in science, technology and culture. The compass, paper, printing, stirrups and gunpowder all appeared in Western Europe between AD 500 and AD 1500.”"

Presumably the science and cultural contribution of Chinese Christian creationists?

"Sarfati was one scientist who offered to publicly debate Dawkins… Not surprisingly, the organisers of the convention were not interested in such a debate."

I agree with you. Not surprising at all.

So there we have it, Formersnag. You don't actually believe the
Christian story yourself, but you want it preached to others.
You believe in devils, it seems. Whatever gets you through the
night, Formersnag, but leave the rest of us, out of it.

The rest of your post was some incoherant mumbo jumbo about
roads. I don't have the foggiest idea what you are on about.

Time for a cup of tea and a nice lie down, Formersnag. Post
again when you actually make some sense.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220403
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220491
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220501
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220580
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220604
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220637
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220741
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220763
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220780
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220819
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220861
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220912
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220955
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221384
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221442
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221536
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221621

Pericles, a full list of posts should jog your memory about "where did that come from, formersnag?"

more simple questions.

Q, if left wing politics has ONLY ever produced negative results, is it a scientific experiment worthy of continuing support?

Q, if christianity has on SOME occasions through corruption of true principles produced negative results, but on MANY occasions produced positive results, is it the lesser of 2 evils?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221653

Yabby, ah sarcasm?

i DO believe the christian story, just not all of it, along with millions of christians.

EG, "witnessing" http://bible.org/seriespage/witnessing-sharing-christ-others-session-18 Jehovah's Witness interpret this as "door knocking the neighbourhood", Some Pentecostals interpret this as standing on city street corners speaking loudly about christianity during lunch time, Quakers interpret this as meaning that you go out doing good works like digging wells & building schools in third world countries then wait patiently for the locals to ask you why you are helping them.

Same biblical verse, 3 different interpretations or church doctrines. Democracy means any christian can choose which church is more BELIEVABLE to them.

What is so hard about that?

I do NOT however believe in devils. i have seen first hand, irrefutable evidence of repeated evil acts, stone cold, well co-ordinated & committed by sheeple in large groups working together towards common goals, following the "party line" slavishly, in a manner suggesting extensive brain washing by a world wide evil cult, communazi international socialism.

"As for the rest of my post", YOU suggested i might want to buy a "Sydney Bridge", i showed you why i would NOT have fallen for it like the RED/green, getup, GAYLP/alp, Socialist Alliance did.

I do enjoy a nice cup of tea & an afternoon nana nap occasionally, along with reading good books, perhaps you could try reading these, which just might "enlighten" you a bit.

http://www.downloadweb.org/search.php?acode=2d6cfcc00b464c7ee4408add5d864738&q=The%2520naked%2520communist

http://www.torrents.net/torrent/324389/The-Naked-Capitalist-ocr'd-pdf/

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/at-last-a-thorough-probe-into-what-drives-the-greens-machine/story-fn59niix-1226095160826

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/the-covert-comrades-in-the-alp/story-e6frg6zo-1225887087909

http://www.themonthly.com.au/node/2298 it is only a magazine article but worth a good read.

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/opposites-attract-as-sartor-the-sage-manages-to-bridge-partys-divide-20111005-1l9ro.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjaBpVzOohs if your too tired to read, try this video

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221623
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221653

Pericles & Yabby, again here is your poster boy Dawkins on loony left wing political psuedo science & academic fraud, enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzNwjfbVt-U&feature=related this one is beautiful, Poirot might enjoy it as well.

Lord help us.

Man is such an unpredictable and complex critter, equally capable even today of extraordinary barbarity or of profound compassion (and of everything in between), that it certainly appears that:

1. The fundamental disposition of each individual is almost totally determined by their life experience (learning) - with genetic inheritance generally only contributing in a minor way to intellectual potential, motor skills, artistic bent, and some relatively minor personality traits (and some mental disabilities);

2. A large proportion of the human race is so disgusted with the reality of mankinds unreliability (on the whole) that they find it imperative that they appeal to a higher (ethereal) authority to try to make things better;

3. Either, Mankind's evolutionary path has a long way further to travel to be anywhere near worthy of being seen as "in God's image", Or someone has made an error in the cooking pot, Or the sheeple will inherit the Earth when the aggros have wiped each other out, Or God is some sort of comedian, Or we just have to have the laugh on ourselves and muddle away the best we can until a better space ship comes along.

Lorh help us.

Pericles,
You accuse me of a 'sweeping generalisation' in saying,

“science opposes religion, to the extent that the advent of Darwinian evolution made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”

This is not my generalisation, it's a summary of what Dawkins believes. If you disagree, that's fine. But you are disagreeing with Dawkins, not me. (Or did Dawkins never say anything like this?)

And I think you are misunderstanding the Christian position. You seem to offer as a criticism a Christian presupposing the existence of a deity. Rather than being a criticism, it seems to me quite expected. I don't see how it could be otherwise. A Christian, by definition, will follow Christian teaching. The first four words of the Bible are: “In the beginning God ...” Scriptural teaching presupposes the existence of God.

The existence of God in the world is a Scriptural starting point. You claim this is circular reasoning. Quite possibly so. And you would then begin to understand the nature of presuppositions. Christians are explicit in their bias - “God exists”. Evolutionists are not so forthcoming in revealing their implicit bias with regard to the question of God's existence. Their implicit assumptions are similarly necessary to their way of thinking. The nature of evolutionary reasoning is to attempt to explain the realities of this world without the existence of God.

Going back to what you were saying in an earlier post, I think objectivity has a clear meaning. It has to do with focusing on an object, independent of the mind or feelings. I offered the object of the Bible, that is the text of the Christian Scriptures, as the (or a) basis for discussing Christianity. By analogy, I could offer the Australian Constitution as one objective basis for discussing Australian jurisprudence. In both cases, we can point to a real object, and base a discussion around that.

Squeers - “No empirical evidence for God?”
I suggest to you that God's creative qualities are evident throughout all creation.

By the law of the excluded middle, all evidence against the evolutionary process is evidence for God.

Not exactly, Dan S de Merengue.

>>This is not my generalisation, it's a summary of what Dawkins believes. If you disagree, that's fine. But you are disagreeing with Dawkins, not me. (Or did Dawkins never say anything like this?)<<

You referred to a Dawkins quote. Here it is in context.

"An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: "I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one." I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist" (Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker 1986)

The part that I queried was your assertion that preceded it, which was:

>>As I understand it, Dawkins message is that a proper understanding of science is antithetical to religion; science opposes religion, to the extent that...<<

...at which point you add the Dawkins quote.

There is no correlation at all between science opposing religion, and your random Dawkins quote, none at all. You just made one up.

Science does not "oppose" religion. In fact, great progress is being made by scientists to explain how evolution itself may have been responsible for the invention of religion.

http://www.economist.com/node/18584074

Religion, on the other hand, is an implacable opponent of science. As you persist in demonstrating, with every post.

>>You seem to offer as a criticism a Christian presupposing the existence of a deity.<<

Criticism, no. Observation on the circularity of the Christian argument, yes.

>>The nature of evolutionary reasoning is to attempt to explain the realities of this world without the existence of God<<

Nope. Science is about learning. Its principal driving force is curiosity, not proving God doesn't exist.

Incidentally, using the Bible is not an objective basis for discussing Christianity, because - like the Constitution - it a result, or an output. It is a symptom, not a cause.

Pericles,
thanks for the link to the Economist article.
My own bias is to defend the human religious propensity as founded in something fundamentally to do with consciousness--however much it's abused socially/in practice. That is I'm interested in disproving my bias and in the process, hopefully, in substantiating it. Some of the experiments in the article are ingenious but for me they only establish how a human capacity can be manipulated, and not that it's a product of manipulation. The ritual behaviour seems a product of manipulation, but not the capacity. It's been fashionable to decentre the subject and attribute the capacity to language and the behaviour to rhetoric. Neuroscience though seems bent on attributing all ultimately to genetic coding. I don't pretend to fully understand such things but I doubt consciousness has had time to evolve in the usual prosaic way; that is, according to Dawkins's "variable speedism", which doesn't allow for hyperbolic punctuation--Gould's "punctuated equilibrium". Unfortunately, there's no fossil record for consciousness, except in terms of human artefacts, and we're forced to infer a great deal. The question of how and why consciousness evolved is what interests me. Evolution seems to put the kybosh on the notion of purpose--though I find it extraordinary to think of stupid phenomenality becoming conscious to no purpose, and there comes a point, I suspect, when a certain stage of development amounts to a radical singularity that sublates preceding stages. The universe is phenomenally, if modestly, self-conscious in us. Either a stupidly miraculous coincidence of elements and their improbable progeny, or some kind of purpose, seems indicated.

Dan,
The above accords somewhat with your position, yet my position is merely sceptical and I don't see how you can claim that "evidence against the evolutionary process is evidence for God".
In any case, can I ask for one specimen of evidence against evolutionary process for us to analyse?
My reservations above are sceptical and speculative, and not evidence for anything.
Even supposing you could make a competitive argument for God, then you'd have to explain what you mean by God. What is s/he?

Or not, Squeers.

>>The question of how and why consciousness evolved is what interests me. Evolution seems to put the kybosh on the notion of purpose--though I find it extraordinary to think of stupid phenomenality becoming conscious to no purpose, and there comes a point, I suspect, when a certain stage of development amounts to a radical singularity that sublates preceding stages.<<

What you refer to as our "consciousness" is surely little more than a more advanced state of the awareness displayed by many other members of the animal kingdom. While it may all begin with amoebic mindlessness at one end of the "consciousness scale", the intelligence displayed by many of our close animal relatives at the other is only inferior to ours by a couple of million years or so.

Which is a problem if you are a young-earth creationist, of course, but otherwise is pretty straightforward, to my way of thinking.

Pericles,

I'm also sceptical of leaps of inferential logic, and especially dislike the humanist bias that posits itself (consciousness) unique in the universe--a rationale to lord it over all other life.
But while your point that <"consciousness" is surely little more than a more advanced state of the awareness displayed by many other members of the animal kingdom> seems reasonable, there's surely no "surely" about it? Yet even if the reasoning's sound, it doesn't diminish the seemingly extraordinary instance that intelligence and self-consciousness should emerge at all, to no purpose. I concede there's no necessity that purpose has anything to do with it. But if sentience is such a common event, at least on Earth, that would seem to suggest it's not a fluke, and even that the universe has its "elders"? On the other hand there seems a profound distinction between sentience and consciousness--though I also concede that this might be conceit, and that what we call consciousness and intelligence might be nothing at all beyond the cultural rationalisations we've evolved to explain reality--which would make science possibly just as nonsensical or mythological as philosophy.
'Tis a puzzlement.

But what ho, Dan; can we have a bit of rigour from your quarter?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#222250
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#222257

Pericles, i see you are still avoiding answering simple questions in plain english.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#222256
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#222259

Squeers, you are getting more enligthened, but there has been plenty of "rigour" & good logic, from some christians on this debate.

Which ones might they be, Formersnag?

>>Pericles, i see you are still avoiding answering simple questions in plain english.<<

I certainly don't recall any of those coming from you.

Enlighten me.

Squeers,

Please don't take offence, but I think you may be over-complicating some of your propositions. However, my bias is towards simplification to afford better understanding, and I may have misconstrued.

I tend to agree with Pericles, and would go a stage further to suggest that consciousness, awareness, sentience and intellect may reasonably be construed as degrees of development of the same foundational mental capacity, and that animals other than humans also display such capacity, to varying degrees. I conjecture this from the evidence of animal behaviour which may not otherwise be easily attributed to instinct or chance. Human behaviour of course also varies from sheer instinct and reflex, all the way through to pure contemplation, but I still think this is evidence of evolutionary kinship rather than radical separation. Animals learn from their environment, and many learn techniques uniquely useful in particular circumstances, pass knowledge/skills on to their group, and even use tools and cooperation (elephants, chimps, whales, porpoises, gorillas), and pass on hunting and food gathering skills and exhibit varying degrees of emotion. In the higher mammals intellectual capacity tends to be the rule rather than the exception.

I would contend that human evolution very well explains the development of the high human intellect (consciousness, awareness, reasoning) by way of the influence of natural selection. Man is a weak animal, slow and easily killed, but has the evolutionary advantage of ingenuity and inventiveness, resulting in the use of tools, weapons, defences, traps, machines and so forth - from chance mutation beginnings leading to a chosen course deviating from say animal Neanderthalism or such, by virtue of the development of abilities to exploit a more productive lifestyle in terms of survival and perpetuation of progressively superior genetic development. Mutation favouring adaptation and success, and in human development this has simply been more in favour of brains rather than brawn.

I would conjecture that the principal reason for humankind's superior intellectual development is explained simply by the circumstance of the biological structure of early primates/homonids - principally hands and fingers, and thence an opposing thumb. The ability to manipulate.

Cont'd:

As for any contention that our consciousness may be some sort of construct separate from our body or biological whole, I think it's purely erroneous speculation. Then again, maybe we don't exist in human form at all, but are actually some cerebral blobs hooked into a massively complex computer, mechanical or organic, and we are just imagining our existence and all that this entails?

Squeers, "Either a stupidly miraculous coincidence of elements and their improbable progeny, or some kind of purpose, seems indicated."

Not necessarily at all. I do however agree with your earlier proposition to the effect that a higher power, or God, may indeed represent a human need (for greater understanding perhaps). Neither proposition of course discounts the possibility of a higher being or higher intellect somewhere in the universe (or beyond). Of course it still remains that any such higher being would always remain beyond our comprehension or understanding, and so perhaps, we either give in to a fundamental human psychological need to envisage greater order and deeper meaning, or we don't.

Saltpetre,

Not offended at all and thanks for your thoughts. I'm just musing possibilities in my recent posts and not defending any position. Unfortunately a busy day today and will have to desist : )

“Evolution existed long before Darwin gave it common expression. It didn't just spring into being like Athena, fully formed from Zeus' brow.
In much the same way, atheists also existed before Darwin. They did not need a theory of evolution to convince them. After all, there is nothing in Darwin's theory itself that denies the existence of a deity. He simply described a process. It may have given the odd atheist here and there a warm glow, but it was not exactly a game-changer for them.”
(Pericles, 4/11/11)

"An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: "I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one." I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist" (Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker 1986)

Sounds like a 'game changer' to me. It seems, Pericles, you are disagreeing at least somewhat with what Dawkins said. In your ultimate quest to disagree with everything I say, you forgot to whom it was you were addressing, and you wanted to challenge him.

Yet we can agree that the Bible (like the Constitution) came about as a result of something occurring. As a result of Jesus appearing, men such as St Luke wrote “orderly accounts” of what he did.

I also agree with you that science does not oppose religion, or at least it does not oppose the Christian faith.

However, if you want to suggest that Dawkins doesn't oppose religion (the Christian religion especially) you should read more of him.

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, blood thirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” (Dawkins)

Squeers,
Most of us here like to think ourselves sceptics most of the time. Though our bias leads us to applying our scepticism selectively.

I would think the reason why evidence against the evolutionary process is evidence for God is fairly obvious. Similar to why Dawkins feels evolution helps justify his atheism, the lack of a credible materialist explanation for our origins points us to a non-material one. If nature cannot create itself, then it must have had a non-natural creator (spirit, mind, or intelligence).

Generally, the processes we observe in biology are not creating new forms and functions. Natural selection is a conservative process, favouring the strong and healthy, while eliminating the weak, but it's not a creative process.

For real evolution to occur, that which could change a one cell organism eventually into something as complex as say, a pelican, large amounts of genetic information must be added to the genome, information that would program the forms and functions found in the higher life form, not found in the lower.

The problem for the evolutionist (and especially for the sufficiently sceptical who rely on evidence in preference to a favourably inclined belief system) is that the small changes we observe as living things reproduce do not involve increasing genetic information. If we observed information-increasing changes happening, even if only a few, this could reasonably be used to help support the argument that “fish may indeed become philosophers” given enough time. But the changes we see evident are not information-increasing. They are heading the other way.

This is just the bare bones of a theistic argument involving hard evidence. In 350 words or less I'm probably never going to write something to convince a solid sceptic. But others out there have availed us of more fully detailed arguments.

I guess they don't teach you about gene duplication in bible school.
Not surprising really.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_duplication

Dan S de Merengue,

I agree with your first sentence, and even with the fact that Dawkins takes a leap in deriving his atheism from the evidence of evolution--he has evidence for evolution but not first causes. But in this we've already reduced the premises for theism to equivocation over first causes or singularities. Dawkins has compelling evidence to infer that life is self-generating all the back. Even if he concedes that God lit the match, he has no need of God after that--though admittedly this seems to foreclose on all the other matters that seem important to us--love morality etc. Though we don't know that these are anything more than social constructs that grow like viruses in our psyches.
The problems with your contention:
<the lack of a credible materialist explanation for our origins points us to a non-material one. If nature cannot create itself, then it must have had a non-natural creator (spirit, mind, or intelligence>
are 1) there is a credible explanation, i.e. evolution, 2) it only "possibly" leads us to a non-materialist explanation, not "necessarily". There's no evidence to say nature can't create itself, and lots to suggest it can--we just don't know for sure. What we have is ignorance, not ultimatums.
You are not being sceptical, you're defending an anachronistic explanation that can only be defended on faith.
It's enough for me that life is deep and mysterious, but I can't recoil from that into some personalised conception of reality that just happens to grant me divine blessings and eternal life etc.
Unlike Dawkins, I don't dismiss other than materialist possibilites--but this scepticism is based both on appreciation of my limited sense perception and compromised sensibility. We can trust neither our senses nor the sense we make of them--or at least we have no way of verifying these.
Ergo God remains a possibility, though a long shot and beyond comprehension.
I'm agnostically satisfied that I'll never know, and so am more concerned with the social reality I do know, which I find both unsatisfactory and easier to interrogate than ultimate realities--if there's a qualitative difference.

Squeers,

I wish to convey my appreciation of and my compliments on your last post in response to Dan S de Merengue. Clear, compelling, and I doubt anyone could have put it better. Bravo, and thank you.

Some contributions keep us coming back to OLO in eager anticipation.

Squeers, Dan,

In re-reading, I didn't put that last post of mine very well. To clarify, I found your posting, Squeers, meaningful to me on a personal level, and I didn't mean my post to be possibly interpreted as a compliment for rebutting Dan. Your thoughts, Dan, I also found significant, though I can't agree with your argument, but nice try.

Cheers, and thank you.

You are sounding very defensive about something, Dan S de Merengue.

>>Pericles, you are disagreeing at least somewhat with what Dawkins said. In your ultimate quest to disagree with everything I say, you forgot to whom it was you were addressing, and you wanted to challenge him.<<

You are quite correct, that I disagree Dawkins on this. I disagree specifically with the whiff of certainty with which he surrounds his assessment of the pivotal nature of Darwin's discoveries to the atheist's intellectual wellbeing.

However, the point I was trying to get through to you, and am obviously still failing to, was that your take-away from his position statement is erroneous:

>>As I understand it, Dawkins message is that a proper understanding of science is antithetical to religion; science opposes religion<<

For the avoidance of doubt, as lawyers say, I disagree somewhat with Dawkins' on the level of importance he attaches to evolution, in the eyes of the atheist. But I profoundly disagree with your conclusion that this indicates that Dawkins believes that "science is antithetical to religion; science opposes religion", and remind you that these were your words, not his.

>>...if you want to suggest that Dawkins doesn't oppose religion (the Christian religion especially)<<

I don't wish to suggest that. Nor have I.

But I am able to disagree with this confident assertion of yours:

>>As a result of Jesus appearing, men such as St Luke wrote “orderly accounts” of what he did.<<

In your view, it would appear, these writings are factually accurate reportage. In mine, they are stories.

Faction, I believe, is the contemporary term.

But leaving Jesus aside for a moment, the nub of your argument keeps coming back to this.

>>If nature cannot create itself, then it must have had a non-natural creator (spirit, mind, or intelligence).<<

When you can prove the "if" part, you may have the beginnings of a case. By starting with that assumption, though, you are like the hitter who set off to first base before the pitch.

(That analogy seems to work better with baseball than cricket, I found)

Having actually read Dawkins' books, I am unaware of Dawkins ever having used evolution as a proof for atheism. Rather he makes no assumption that God does not exist, but says that in the absence of any evidence of his existence, he chooses not to believe in his existence.

His debunking of the Creationist theories and their proponents is more to point to the moral bankruptcy of the fundamentalist christian movement.

Pericles,
I'm trying to properly follow and understand your position. For Dawkins' atheism, evolution is important. For you it is not.

Dawkins is obviously quite opposed to religion. Does this have or not have anything to do with his understanding of science, or is it just his personal leaning or preference?

With your disagreement with Dawkins, Does this mean you are sympathetic with Madeleine, Dawkins is not the best spokesperson for atheism?

Shadow Minister,
I didn't realise that this was a discussion about morality. I thought it was about philosophical perspectives on theism/atheism. Or must a discussion of Dawkins naturally involve such personal attacks?

Squeers,
You say I'm not being sceptical. It's true, I'm partisan. I'm happy to defend a Christian position.

But what of yourself? Previously to Saltpetre you said you weren't defending any position. That seems to have changed in that you are now willing to side with a controversial or dubious position. So what is your brand of scepticism?

“There's no evidence to say nature can't create itself, and lots to suggest it can - we just don't know for sure.” These aren't the words of a real sceptic. When unsure, a sceptic would suspend judgement, and wait until the matter can be proven.

You say evolution is credible and that Dawkins has compelling evidence that all life is related by common descent all the way back. Are we allowed to be sceptical about this? There are many who don't find the evidence so compelling.

Even those who are pretty much sold on the ideas of evolution, such as Bugsy, aren't totally convinced. He directs me to a web page that states, “Gene duplication is 'believed' to play a major role in evolution.” Is that the strongest statement they can make? Maybe they're leaving themselves some wiggle room.

You say I only defend my position on faith. Previously you asked me to put an argument involving evidence, but after I did you didn't comment on it. Should I have bothered ?

Faith has various shades of meaning. It could mean to accept something as true though the evidence is incomplete. Even Dawkins says he's not totally convinced about the existence of God, but only 'almost certain'. So do we say he has faith? Or perhaps yourself, when you're unsure of something?

For a Christian, faith is not blind. The first Christians believed Jesus was resurrected after seeing, touching, and eating with him. Yet they still called believing in him 'faith'.

Dan,

sorry for the delay.
I don't take either side in the theism/atheism debate, for me there's no call for certitude either way and, moreover, it's a trivial preoccupation that elides serious issues that both sides ought to be addressing. The theists of all persuasions profess their moralities and yet sit on their hands in a world, nay their own societies, where shallow materialism (and other evils they're meant to resent) is rife, even transcending gross inequalities in its subscription. Meanwhile Dawkins and co preside over an intellectual hegemony (once enjoyed by the church) that is cat's paw to the State and heavily invested in a political economy that runs counter to any philosophy of science worthy of the name. They profess objectivity while siding with neoliberalism, and proselytise their rationalism as aggressively as anyone.
I was only giving credit where it's due, evolution is compelling--but so were a great many other theories and doctrines that were subsequently overturned, or revised to such an extent as to be made effectively obsolete.

I sympathise with what you say about faith and that the term counts for far more than the credulous straw man atheists sometimes try to prop-up. I have a kind of weak faith myself that our reality is more than it seems, but it's nowhere near a conviction and I don't even regard it as important, comparatively, in the here and now. It seems to me then that both sides shamelessly neglect biases that are important and help to maintain the human world as it is.
Both sides ostensibly transcend worldly things (in a sense), yet neither is self-reflexive, critical or active.
Thus the "bare bones of a theistic argument" you put up is for me just as academic a position as that taken by liberal rationalists. By academic I mean of no earthly use.
I do enjoy arcane debates, but they're in the order of leisure rather than anything pressing.

Squeers,
I can relate to what your saying about arguments discussing the existence of God. By nature they tend towards the ethereal. Yet, for better or worse, however far down it is on a list of important topics, such is the topic that has put before us for discussion on this thread.

For Shadow Minister, who says he's unaware of Dawkins using evolution as proof for his atheism,

or Pericles, who challenges that Dawkins would hold science as being antithetical to religion, here's what Dawkins said:

In one interview ('Expelled' film documentary), speaking in the context of a hypothetical court case investigating the effects of evolutionary teaching, Dawkins said, “If they called me as a witness, and a lawyer said, 'Doctor Dawkins, has your study of evolution turned you towards atheism?' I would have to say, 'Yes'.”

Evolution naturally leads to atheism, at least in Dawkins' thinking.

Hence, if Dawkins is right, then the theist, Craig, is in error for not opposing evolution (and the two shouldn't be comfortably swinging hands together on the issue).

If Dawkins is wrong, and evolution is no support for atheism, then it should matter precious little to Madeleine Kirk or anyone else what Craig thinks about evolution.

However, the tension exists because the issue is real. Evolution is incompatible with the Christian faith.

Dan,

I'm sorry, but in the name of sanity you have to be wrong with the final statement of your last post:

"Evolution is incompatible with the Christian faith."

You draw a very broad brush. There are I'm sure some Christians who would hold your statement to be true, probably those who also believe that the Earth, the Universe perhaps, is only around 6 thousand years old, thus also rejecting a great swag of science as well as the evolution of species - probably in fact rejecting anything which is not directly supported by the Christian Bible.

I am a Christian, and I, and I suspect very many other Christians, am quite content with science in general, including the overwhelming evidence of the evolution of species, including the evolution of Mankind. This does not mean that I reject the possibility of outside help either in the origin of life itself, or in the progress and process of evolution through the ages. The beginnings of life remains a mystery, however the fact of evolution is not. Homo Sapiens has existed on this planet for at least fifty thousand years, and evidently much longer. The refutation of carbon dating appears to be the principal argument of the Creationists for rejecting evolution, and it is the rejection of carbon dating which is erroneous, and Creationism which is erroneous, and not the other way round. Creationism can have no adequate answer for the multitude of different species which have inhabited this planet at various times through the ages, as demonstrated by a huge fossil record, nor an adequate answer for all these species not continuing to exist today.

Jesus lived two thousand years ago, virtually yesterday, if not just a few minutes or seconds ago, in the story of this, our planet Earth, and nanoseconds ago in the history of the Universe. Did Jesus say one thing about evolution? I think not. He had more important things to convey, and among them for Man to think, to appreciate, and to act wisely. Some of His message appears to have been lost in the mist.

Saltpetre,
Squeers speaks of the depths of life's mysteries. You speak of life's beginnings as mysterious. As a Christian, you may relate to the sentiments of St Paul, who described Christ as God's mystery. In Christ are hidden all treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

So did Jesus say anything about evolution? I mentioned earlier what Jesus said happened at the beginning. He said that at the beginning the creator made them male and female. Speaking in the context of marriage, he was talking about people. People have only ever been people from the beginning. Evolution says people began as something else, as non-human beings.

A synonym for 'mystery' is secret. You speak of the extent of the fossil record, which according to Gould also has it's secrets. “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.”

For me, there are facts and there are mysteries. If the beginnings of life are a mystery, then I don't know how you could declare evolution a fact.

Apologies Dan S de Merengue, I hadn't noticed these questions of yours.

>>Pericles, I'm trying to properly follow and understand your position. For Dawkins' atheism, evolution is important. For you it is not.<<

"Dawkins atheism" is presumably identical to mine, in that neither of us believes in the existence of God.

Dawkins, it would appear, regards the descriptions of evolution that began to appear in earnest in the nineteenth century as important to the peace of mind of some contemporary atheists. To quote him again, "although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist". In my view, this is no more than thinking aloud. So it is inaccurate for you to say "[f]or Dawkins' atheism, evolution is important". He merely postulated that it might have been important, back then, to some unnamed section of the community.

>>Dawkins is obviously quite opposed to religion. Does this have or not have anything to do with his understanding of science, or is it just his personal leaning or preference?<<

Is there a meaningful difference between the two? Sorry to answer a question with another question, but it doesn't seem to be very useful question, to ask me what explanation someone else may prefer.

>>With your disagreement with Dawkins, Does this mean you are sympathetic with Madeleine, Dawkins is not the best spokesperson for atheism?<<

There is no such thing as a "spokesperson for atheism". Dawkins simply describes what he sees as the aspects of religion that damage our society, and condemns them. He happens to be an atheist, sure. But I have heard enough supposedly religious people hammering away at the evils associated with the beliefs of other religious people, to know that his atheism is practically irrelevant to his principal theme: religion causes harm.

So a question for you, on the same train of thought.

Which body of people do more damage to your own version of religion: people who, in your opinion, have completely the wrong idea of God, or those who don't believe in God to start with?

I missed one.

Dan S de Merengue said:

>>Pericles, who challenges that Dawkins would hold science as being antithetical to religion...<<

That is a gross misstatement of my position.

Of course, to a religious person, science is not just antithetical, but anathema. The more we discover about our universe, and the planet upon which we live, the less need there is for people to cling to explanations that have nothing more than a form of mysticism to support them. Dawkins merely points this out, asking "when are you guys going to wake up?"

>>In one interview ('Expelled' film documentary), speaking in the context of a hypothetical court case investigating the effects of evolutionary teaching, Dawkins said, “If they called me as a witness, and a lawyer said, 'Doctor Dawkins, has your study of evolution turned you towards atheism?' I would have to say, 'Yes'.”<<

That is a personal statement, not a generic analysis of why people choose not to believe in the existence of God. To many people, myself included, it is the absence of any evidence whatsoever that persuades us that Gods are a figment of our collective imaginations, and have been since we first were able to articulate the question, "how did we get here".

It does help, of course, that I find the billions of hours spent by scientists examining the tangible evidence, and drawing their conclusions from it, more persuasive than the logical tap-dancing favoured by the religious, when asked to explain "how did we get here".

The minute - no, the nanosecond - following the presentation of credible, factual evidence of a supreme being, I will be delighted to change my position. That's what scientists do.

>>Evolution naturally leads to atheism, at least in Dawkins' thinking<<

You do persist in getting it ass-backwards. Evolution itself doesn't "prove" anything, since it still leaves open the question, where did it all start. It is however incompatible with the beliefs of young-earth creationists, for sure.

Once again, just for the record: Dawkins does not speak for me, nor does he validate or invalidate my own atheist stance.

DSM,

You accused me of a personal attack, yet I cannot see any sign of anything personal in what I wrote. All I pointed out was that neither atheism nor evolution need each other, and are perfectly capable of standing on their own.

Fundamentalist Christians need evolution to fail and have tried in vain for decades to find cracks in the theory. Scientists are perfectly happy that there are not fossil records for every stage in each creatures evolution, just that each fossil found fits neatly into the evolutionary chain.

Whilst the nature of evolution is such that there can never be absolute proof, there is such an abundance of corroborating evidence that any other explanation is highly implausible.

Shadow Minister, you are right -- evolution is only a theory.

You are being over-generous by stating that "there are not fossil records for every stage in each creatures evolution", when in fact very few stages have fossil records, if at all.

The basic weakness of the 'theory' is that it has no plausible explanation of how life started in the first place in such a harsh sterile environment.

Raycom,

Two issues with your post:

1 the theory of evolution deals with how life adapts to its environment by evolving. It is not primarily concerned with how life originated, which is a separate branch of the life sciences.

2 Your comment that "evolution is only a theory" would imply that there is a viable alternative. Any theory is only valid until something is found that conclusively disproves it. Over a hundred years and millions of the best minds have yet to find anything that disproves evolution. The only others alternative theories put forward are creation, and intelligent design, both of which have been conclusively discredited.

So whilst evolution "is only a theory" it is the only one we have, and all the evidence so far shows that there is very little reason to doubt it.

Praise the Lord, Eureka, I have seen the light! Evolution is only a theory, but religion is fact. Wow, what a load off that is. And here's poor silly me thinking it was only the existence of God, the origins of life, and the origins of the Earth and of the Universe itself which as yet remained mysterious and uncertain and full of wonder - plus a few other bits and pieces of no great consequence, supposedly.

But lo, which religion? Which teachings from the mouths of men, and which men, and to what purpose? Such a considerable diversity and range of choice warrants extraordinary evaluation.

Pericles,

"... to a religious person, science is not just antithetical, but anathema."

How can you say that? Are all to be tarred with the same brush? Where is this hypothetical person, representative of the religious? Do I mis-quote or misrepresent intention perhaps? I shall put this aside.

For some, religion and science may be incompatible, even anathema, but was it not an early Islamic empire which set about aggregating knowledge with the purpose of extending understanding, and advancing the study of mathematics, geometry, astronomy and science in general, as well as art and architecture? Are there today not theologians who are also scientists? Is not a huge proportion of mankind almost totally dependent on advancements in science for the comforts, health and longevity they enjoy? But then, are we to believe that the religious amongst these only accept this good fortune reluctantly and with great aversion?

Any incompatibility between science and religion can only be a construct of men, and men are fallible, but not the Universe, not the laws of nature, and not the limits of our true understanding.

You are perfectly right, Saltpetre, to take me to task for my overenthusiastic phrasing.

>>Pericles, "... to a religious person, science is not just antithetical, but anathema." How can you say that? Are all to be tarred with the same brush? Where is this hypothetical person, representative of the religious?<<

My only excuse is that when conversing with Dan S de Merengue, I am occasionally led astray by the incongruity of his bizarre religious stance, which I find barely credible in the twentyfirst century. I should have written "...to a certain type of religious person, science may not only be antithetical, but anathema.", with the young-earth creationist firmly in mind.

My apologies. A slip I shall take care not to repeat.

Shadow Minister,
You wonder where it is you you entered into personal attacks.

You called certain Christians morally deficient (18/11). Christians are persons. Calling them morally deficient is attacking them personally.

We enter our views into the public domain and welcome them being critiqued. That's why we put them out there. I just ask that you try to keep your criticisms on a civil level; keep it above the belt.

Saltpetre
Thanks for pointing out the inconsistency in Pericles' comment. I was preparing a response to that phrase (which he has softened but still hasn't much changed) but you beat me to it.

Pericles,
Along with Dawkins, you claim there is no God.

You also claim that “there is no such thing as a 'spokesperson for atheism'”. Then what is Dawkins when he arrives to keynote the World Atheist Congress? What do atheists do when they meet at their conferences anyway? I'm curious. People who get together to champion a belief about nothing. They would have difficulty talking about anything while having no spokespersons, I suppose.

To your suggestion that if presented with factual evidence you might take some notice or even change your view, am I allowed to be sceptical?

You have been presented with fact based evidence from believers on this thread and others. I don't think you're ready to hear it. You're welcome to dispute evidence that is put before you. Or you can choose to turn your head away and ignore it, that's your decision. But don't pretend that others within the debate have never put a case and presented it to you.

In reality, evidence for design in biology is abuntant and difficult not to notice. From Dawkins' own words, “biology is the study of complicated things things that have the appearance of having been designed with a purpose.” Francis Crick wrote, “Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed but rather evolved.”

Dan,

Thanks for the quote from Francis Crick: “Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed but rather evolved.”

This statement, though expressed along evolutionist lines, holds a truth, that the almost infinite diversity of life is perhaps the ultimate source of mystery and wonder. If one seeks, every crack and crevice, every nook and cranny will reveal a profusion of life perfectly adapted to its habitat, its niche. Nature abhorrs a vacuum, and will seek to inhabit every space with activity, with life. But nature is not benign, and the struggle for survival is unrelenting and brutal. Any weakness will be found out, and only the strong will survive. There is no absolute, no perfection, but just an ever-changing intricacy defying absolute prescription. A study of nature will reveal this to be true, and this is evolution, this is nature; never static, never complete, constantly changing.

Just as some would attempt to tie down nature, some would try to place a face on God, or to attribute words and thoughts in an endeavour to reveal God, to comprehend, to understand. It is my belief that such endeavours are misdirected and ultimately futile. My belief is rather that God can only ever remain beyond description, beyond packaging as a commodity, and beyond conscious understanding; remaining only sensory, intuitive, and all-encompassing.

For me, Dawkins is just another spruiker, but what then of the counter-spruikers, the evangelists, are they right, or equally on a wrong track? The maintenance of just and effective social order is a worthy endeavour of the evangelists, but unfortunately this does not necessarily cover all the other 'trappings', and other, less prescriptive, and more open and inclusive means are available for promulgating the social order message. The cry of God is with us or on our side is hollow, arrogant, exclusionist, and quite possibly blasphemous, irrespective of the affiliations of the espouser. God must remain for all; the power behind and beyond the Universe, the alpha and the omega.

Well, there you go, Dan S de Merengue. We differ again. What a surprise.

>>You also claim that “there is no such thing as a 'spokesperson for atheism'”<<

It is clear from your post that you consider anyone who speaks on a platform about atheism that they qualify as a "spokesperson".

>>...what is Dawkins when he arrives to keynote the World Atheist Congress?<<

To me, his role is as a keynote speaker.

I hold a different view of the meaning of "spokesperson".

I use the term to describe someone who speaks on behalf of a constituency, or a faction, and is recognized as reflecting the views of that group. So, to my way of thinking, Dawkins-the-spokesperson is merely reflecting the views of the sort of people who attend conferences with the title "World Atheist Congress".

I am not in that group.

In fact, I consider the very concept of a "World Atheist Conference" to be a nonsense in itself. I have previously held a fairly lengthy conversation to this effect with the poster on this forum describing himself as "Atheist Foundation of Australia Inc".

For the record, that group doesn't speak on my behalf either.

I suspect that your confusion may lie in the fact that you see atheism as just another religion. A mistaken perception that you share with many other religionists, by the way.

Moving on, this has never happened:

>>You have been presented with fact based evidence from believers on this thread and others.<<

The only "fact" that is ever presented is that "it is in the Bible". Which - while patently true - is not the sort of factual evidence that I had in mind.

>>...don't pretend that others within the debate have never put a case and presented it to you.<<

I don't. It is the facts that are missing, not the arguments, which are plentiful.

And as usual, you can't resist changing the subject:

>>In reality, evidence for design in biology...<<

Evidence for God is a prerequisite for attributing to that God the design process. There is none.

That's hardly changing the subject. That is the subject. Evidence of design necessarily implies a designer. So in this case who is the designer?

DSM,

A personal attack is on a particular person, not a group of people.

"personal attack usually involves insulting or belittling one's opponent in order to attack his claim or invalidate his argument."

As I did not attack any one on the thread or any one person, and as I was pointing out a topic in Dawkins' book not making the claim myself, (I happen to agree with it), I by definition did not make a personal attack.

This logical failing shines a poor light on the rest of your arguments.

Atheism does not rely on evolution just on the complete absence of any proof of the existence of god. Similarly evolution was formulated to understand evidence that was accumulating, and at the time that Darwin released his version, other scientists were coming to the same conclusion.

Proof of intelligent design requires a lot more than a few scientists stating that it looks as though there was an intelligence behind the evolutionary process. Christians are free to believe that there was a guiding hand, the immorality comes in when Christians try and impose intelligent design on the education system as fact rather than belief.

SM,
I know of no instance where Christians have tried to impose intelligent design on an education system as some kind of fact. I know plenty of educators who have asked or are asking for the freedom to critique and question evolution and be allowed the freedom to follow the evidence wherever it may lead. I could not imagine why you or anyone would object to this.

Not necessarily, Dan S de Merengue.

>>Evidence of design necessarily implies a designer.<<

Evidence is too broad a term to be of much use here. There may be evidence of suicide, for example, in the fact that the body of a man lies on the floor in a pool of blood with a hole in his head, a gun next to the body and a suicide note on the table. On its own, the scenario is evidence that he took his own life.

Alternatively, because I was aware that the individual had mortal enemies, I might view the body as evidence of murder. But until the rest of the picture is complete through forensic analysis, murder remains only one possibility.

So I am able, categorically, to state that evidence of murder does not necessarily imply that there is a murderer. In the same vein, I can categorically state that evidence of design does not necessarily imply that there is a designer.

Because what we are really talking about is proof, isn't it. Proof of our murder/suicide comes later, after all the evidence has been fully examined. Equally, proof of "design" doesn't arise from a selective view of one category of evidence.

Furthermore, the quality of that evidence needs to be examined too. And for every contention by the creationist brigade that "here is evidence of design", there is an equally cogent and reasoned explanation that design is in the eye of the beholder, not in the object itself. In other words, that the assumption that a designer exists is a prerequisite to identifying the "designed" element itself. Absent that presumption, there are plenty of equally acceptable hypotheses of how it came to be.

Incidentally, where is that "fact-based evidence" you were talking about?

>>You have been presented with fact based evidence from believers on this thread<<

I'm all ears.

DSM,

Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. (400 F. Supp. 2d 707, Docket no. 4cv2688) was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of intelligent design.[1] In October 2004 the Dover Area School District changed its biology teaching curriculum to require that intelligent design be presented as an alternative to evolution theory

United States Supreme Court Edwards v. Aguillard ruling, which barred the teaching of "Creation Science" in public schools as breaching the separation of church and state.

A six-week trial over the issue yielded “overwhelming evidence” establishing that intelligent design “is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory,” said Jones, a Republican and a churchgoer appointed to the federal bench three years ago.

I.e. there is no science in creationism or intelligent design, and teaching them as science is fundamentally wrong.

Shadow Minister

Several issues with your post of 28th Oct:

1. You are referring to the limited process of evolution within a species. That process is not a proxy for evolution between species.

2. It is up to the proponents of the hypothesis of inter-species evolution to apply scientific method to prove it. Darwin did not prove it. In the years since then, millions -- regardless of how brilliant they were -- have tried, but the best they could do was assert. Assertion is not science.

3. With regard to how life started and led to the evolution of all living species , Dawkins put it down to chance, which has extremely long odds you must admit.

4. No one has come up with proof that God does not exist. Thus, acceptance of evolution theory remains for many a convenient alternative to believing in God.

I think you will find that the intelligent design movement has learnt from this setback, Shadow Minister, and has revised its position accordingly.

Gone is the idea that intelligent design should be "taught". Instead, we now have the appeal to fairness, allowing the presentation of intelligent design to be put alongside "Darwinian evolution" as an equally valid proposition.

"Instead of mandating intelligent design, the major pro-ID organizations seek to increase the coverage of evolution in textbooks by teaching students about both scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolution."

http://www.intelligentdesign.org/education.php

Clever, eh?

Those "scientific strengths and weaknesses". Sounds almost convincing, doesn't it? They have even created the "Centre for Science and Culture" to add to the veneer of legitimacy. Who have produced a "Briefing Packet"...

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=1454

The core of their argument rests on the introduction of two entirely invented components - "specified complexity", the thought-child of one William Dembski, and "irreducible complexity", a term concocted by Michael Behe. Neither has the remotest scientific validity, but are presented as the reasons why their ID fantasy should be validly compared with evolution theory.

It's what I call the phlogiston effect. Invent a substance that fits a narrow band of observations, and claim it to be the goods.

And all the while standing on the soap-box that "questioning" evolution is "in the interests of science". Which it is. But to use it as a lever with which to slide into the discussion a theory that relies upon the invention of pseudo-science is entirely invalid.

Raycom,

1. You are referring to the limited process of evolution within a species.
- No I wasn't. Sufficient change within a species overtime produces animals that are incompatible with others previously of the same species. E.g.Lions and Tigers are different species, but sufficiently close that Ligers can be bred, but have genetic problems and are generally sterile.

2. It is up to the proponents of the hypothesis of inter-species evolution to apply scientific method to prove it.
- No it isn't. If the fossil records comply with the theory, then the theory remains robust. Genetic and fossil records have so far agreed with the theory. Until this changes, evolution remains the best explanation.
PS there is tonnes of proof that the theory of creation is at best a fairy tale.

3. With regard to how life started and led to the evolution of all living species , Dawkins put it down to chance, which has extremely long odds you must admit.
- So what! the genetic lottery that made me from all the combinations of sperm and egg is 1 to trillions. As yet I haven't disappeared in a puff of logic.

4. No one has come up with proof that God does not exist. Thus, acceptance of evolution theory remains for many a convenient alternative to believing in God.
- No one has yet proven that God does exist. No one has proven that the tooth fairy does not exist either.

SM, well put.

A breakthrough: Everything else has existed for thousands, tens of thousands, even millions of years; but Man was created at 4.30pm on a Friday in January 5999 years and 361 days ago to the dot (it was a leap year). (But his name wasn't Adam; and it took a further full year to iron out the bugs in his prototype mate - and unfortunately a few quirks still remained, but some bits were added to compensate.)

The existence of God does not require a proof, only belief or non-belief. As I have indicated previously, I choose to believe (intuitively) - in an all-encompassing energy/source giving credence to the magnificant order observable in the Universe, and mostly in thankfullness for this extraordinary home, our Earth, and for the feelings I have when I stand in awe gazing at the night sky, or at our Moon or Sun, or in astonishment at the almost incomprehensible magnificence of Life, in all its diversity, its splendour and its superb complexity and simplicity. I feel blessed to be able to appreciate, to wonder, to love and be loved, to exist.

I feel for those who wait patiently for another 'burning bush' or staves turning into snakes, or talking serpents, or a verifiable new word from God. It should be enough to be grateful for all the true 'blessings' with which we have been endowed. How bereft of faith to ignore all this, or take for granted, choosing instead to wait for confirmation, for a new messiah perhaps?

It is well and truly time to focus on that which may bond humanity in harmony and in caretaking of this our home - for we are all our brother's keeper when it all boils down, and we sink or swim as one. Still, I am not a fool. There are so many deaf ears, so many vested interests, so little hope of universal fellowship. Seers, Rabbi's or philosophers ('prophets' if you like), far wiser than I, have endeavoured to convey the real humanitarian message, but enlightenment evades.

SM,
Sorry for the delay in getting back.

You mention the the tooth fairy? If anyone bothered preposing to debate the tooth fairy I'd imagine the thread would be pretty short. Yet this has now gone over 250 posts. Are there many other debates on OLO that generate this level of response? Not many, yet here we all are again.

In Dover, a school board passed a resolution requiring teachers to tell students that Darwinism was ‘not a fact’. Teachers were instructed to inform students that they could learn about an alternative theory of origins, intelligent design (ID), by consulting a reference book in the school library, entitled “Of Pandas and People”.

This was not an attempt to impose ID as fact. It was an attempt towards freedom from the 'straight-jacket' type thinking that imposes evolution as the only possible option for biological origins. If you don't like contentious ideas being taught as fact, then you wouldn't like evolution.

The problem with the Dover court ruling is that the court went too far in establishing ID as a religious view. So now even if the scientific arguments in support of ID were shown to be true it could not be considered science simply because it requires an entity which is supernatural.

So the danger is that the court has outlawed the liberty to discuss a possibly true theory. (And this court case was supported by the oddly named ACLU, the 'L' standing for 'Liberties'.)

Saltpetre,
I appreciate your last post. You say, 'I am not a fool', and I doubt anyone here thinks of you such. But to add to what you said, I think it reasonable that there are those who would want to flesh out, or add detail, to what it is you claim to believe in intuitively. We have been blessed with the gifts of language and logic with which to reason and explore and get a handle on what we think is the true way of living.

Such faculties are what separates us humans from other created beings. Intuitiveness is perhaps also a blessing, but I don't want to leave the important questions there, and only live life on that level. I believe in a God who is willing and able to communicate words and ideas clearly, has indeed done so, and invites us to do the same.

For Pericles (for him who has ears to hear),

You make a good point here. I overstepped in saying that evidence for a design necessarily implies a designer, when it is really only suggestive of one. It would be more logical to say:
-evidence for design implies evidence for a designer, or
-(proof of) design necessarily implies a designer (in this case, perhaps a Deity).

Now, no one I know of is claiming to have conclusive proof. Even Dawkins does not claim 100% that God does not exist. Yet I did claim that there is ample FACT based evidence pointing one way. You ask me where is such evidence already put forward on this thread?

To refresh your memory, I put forward earlier that it is fact that the small changes we currently observe as living things reproduce do not involve increasing genetic information, such as is required by evolution to proceed from the lower life forms to the higher. The changes we see evident are heading the wrong direction.

Raycom has described some of the facts of the fossil record. The fossil record is in fact what it is, even if others interpret its implications differently to Raycom.

In Sarfati's article, which is linked above, it points out how scientists have queried the usefulness of evolution as an idea to biology. He quotes one leading biologist as stating it as fact that 'almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all.'