I (heart) Richard Dawkins
Posted by Ray @ 1:32 amIf only because his erudite wit tickles that part of my brain that longs for a time when being witty meant more than being a smartass.
Richard Dawkins is, of course, author of The God Delusion (a copy of which I will surely buy forthwith) and The Selfish Gene. The God Delusion lucidly challenges the very existence of God. If you can’t (or won’t) take the time to read it, at least take the time to watch these videos of him reading excerpts and answering questions about his hypotheses.
Part 1: Excerpts (37:20)
Part 2: Q&A (70:03)
The highlight is actually the Q&A, but you need to watch him reading his excerpts to understand why he gets so frustrated at some of the questions he gets. At that lecture was a large group of students from Liberty University (a Christian “university”, if you can call it that, actively teaching that dinosaur fossils are only ~5000 years old). When one student comes up to ask (paraphrasing):
“God is outside the universe, therefore he does not necessitate a beginning, unlike matter in the universe…”
Dawkins replies in utter disgust (again, paraphrasing):
“Well, that’s so easy, isn’t it? That defeats the whole purpose of attempting to have a rational discussion in the first place… if you’re convinced [that God exists] by that kind of thing, then you’re welcome.”
Way to go! Of course, theists will now happily proclaim that Dawkins lost to God. But that’s missing the point.
The point is not about who won or lost, the point is to have a rational discussion about God. Arguments like “God is not subject to reason” is not only insulting God and your religion, it is a cheap way to run away from rational discourse. Of course, God cannot be disproven with reason, a fact theists parade at every opportunity. And again, as Dawkins points out, theists miss the point: just because something cannot be disproven, does not make its existence likely.
I’d really love to see a debate between Richard Dawkins and Thio Li-Ann. From personal experience, I know Associate Professor Thio to be a very formidable intelligence. Make no mistake, that brain of hers will make mincemeat out of you. She also happens to be (and I know this only by reputation) a conservative Christian. That debate will be one to see.
And yes, I have watched that South Park episode. No comparisons, please.
Some closing thoughts.
(1) I’m not out to incite anti-religious sentiment. All I’m saying is we need rational discourse. Please don’t arrest me.
(2) I’m not out to sully anyone’s name in any manner. Please don’t sue me.
(3) I don’t agree with Dawkins’ methods. He’s as much a fundamentalist as fundamentalist religious folk are. He makes some excellent points, but I mislike proselytizing atheists just as much as I mislike proselytizing Christians. If a person is balanced and contributes to society and all, then why should we care whether that person is a Christian or Muslim or Hindu or anything else? Mr. Dawkins, you need some good lovin’.
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generally i distrust people with the initials R.D. hahaha. no, i say that because his name reminds me of one ronald dworkin (remember that fella?) - to my mind the most incoherent legal philosopher of all time.
but anyway, i suppose one of the difficulties of ‘proving’ God’s existence is that for some - and not that few really - their testimonies are personally perceived to the exclusion of others, e.g., ‘hearing God’s voice’. of course, there are other assertions to existence which are more amenable to empirical scrutiny, but i digress.
so, confining ourselves in this instance to something like ‘hearing God’s voice’, and us assuming in good faith that the relevant hearer did indeed hear *a voice*, the voice is either that of God or someone/something else. without first mentioning what we do with people who have never heard a voice in their lives, suppose we manage to get a decent number of people who have heard voices, what succour do we expect in terms of a plausible conclusion? not much.
but i think, it presents an, at variance, independent strand of evidence. then we look to other instances of claims of existence, and we put them together on the table and we see what weight accords. many times, this fails to materialise, viz., a religious text has *zero* evidential value because i do not subscribe to this religion, or, the argument from design is outdated because darwin lives forever.
so my point really is, put everything together and compare the opposing sides. for sure, it is not a matter of who has more sources of ‘evidence’ nor is it a given that any given party has internal coherence. in any event, the subject may not lend itself to analysis. but it’s worth trying.
Comment by dogbert — Monday, November 27 2006 @ 8:47 pm
dogbert:
Evidence and procedure stressed you out some, huh? =P
I’m not sure you can even objectively put down a certain weightage to a piece of “evidence”. Let’s take radiometric dating for example, carbon-14 dating in particular. Carbon dating is a pretty accurate way of measuring the age of, say, animal remains. It depends upon the animal consuming carbon-14 isotopes, usually locked in with CO2 in the atmosphere. Provided the animal in question has not consumed an unusually high or low dosage of CO2, the dating method is accurate.
But by itself, it is insufficient to tell you the age of the animal, because local volcanic eruptions, fluctuations in the Earth’s magnetic field and fluctuations in the solar wind all affect the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere. So dating animal remains becomes a multi-disciplinary effort. Scientists work in other fields (say, geology) to determine the conditions of the Earth at that time. Scientists work in yet other fields to come up with alternate methods of dating. Scientists work in the same field to refine the dating process, or use different isotopes to achieve results, and check it against the carbon date. And so on.
(Alright so I admit I am not a scientist in any of the relevant fields; my point is to highlight the multi-disciplinary nature of scientific enquiry.)
The religious person, when confronted with such evidence, can adopt many stances. He or she can deny it as being inconsistent with his or her religion. Or, he (I’m too lazy to type politically correct pronouns) may look at the evidence in a different light, and say it supports his religion, e.g. “God is testing your faith”, “God works in mysterious ways, it cannot be explained”, “God has changed the rules of physics to fool unbelieving scientists”, etc. Or he can give way in his own religion, e.g. “Genesis is not a literal account of the Creation”. And so on.
The man of science, when confronted with such evidence, can also adopt many stances. He could accept it outright. Or he could think the hundreds of peer-reviewed journals are wrong, and that he will find the truth (occasionally, he succeeds, which is just more fuel for the fire).
But in the end what convinces either side, on immediate reception of new evidence, is not reason; it’s personal bias. And first impressions count for a lot.
So I’m not sure any balancing is possible on the evidence. Either side will just refuse, on bias, to give proper weight to the other. It’s not that analysis is not possible, it’s that people don’t want to engage in it. And that last sentence itself was a biased one.
I think part of it has to do with the unpleasantness that always accompanies discussions on religion. Who wants to be told their cherished, comforting beliefs are wrong, or that their empirical evidence is a lie? Confronted so, will not any human immediately go on the defensive?
Bleh. I’m supposed to be studying IP.
Comment by Ray — Tuesday, November 28 2006 @ 2:21 pm
good luck for your exams.
anyway, i dont think believers and non-believers are that diametrically opposed. if not, why do so many people get persuaded to join a faith, or for that matter, why some leave their faith having been in it. at bottom, surely those who have a faith are not living entirely on faith but have been persuaded by certain tangibles; likewise those who do not have one surely have their reasons. everybody, believer or not, latches onto some objective truth which he or she holds dear to the self…
Comment by dogbert — Tuesday, November 28 2006 @ 9:24 pm
Apologist arguments are almost all rubbish. The only things I will concede:
- They may show that something is theoretically possible, but this does not mean it is so
- Almost all of the philosophical arguments, even if accepted, commit you at the very most to Deism, not Christianity
- They “win” not by building up their own case, but by attacking others’. It’s like Lawrence Ellison becoming the richest man in the world by blowing up Bill’s house, causing a precipitous decline in Microsoft share prices - an empty victory, ultimately. And anyway not everyone accepts that the house is blown up.
- They confuse everyone else, then declare victory because almost no one understands what the hell they’re talking about.
I mean, you can’t prove that teapots in orbit around Saturn’s rings don’t exist, but we sure as hell do not assume they do. Existence has to be disproven, rather than non-existence proven.
Comment by Agagooga — Wednesday, November 29 2006 @ 7:35 pm
morality is purely objective.
Comment by db — Thursday, November 30 2006 @ 1:44 am
db:
But where does morality come from? The Bible has 10 commandments, in essence they say “do not kill”, “do not be a dishonest person”, and “respect your parents” (1-3 = God is your daddy, 4 = don’t work on sundays; 7-10 all prohibit the same type of behaviour, dishonesty). They’re not bad rules to live by.
But we all kill, lie and disrespect our parents, all the while proclaiming that no, these are not violations of the 10 commandments (or any other moral code you choose to stick to). Note that I’m saying here, “it is not wrong under the circumstances”, as opposed to “I have done wrong, but it is justified / I made a mistake / I plead forgiveness / etc.”
As a moral basis it seems surprisingly flexible..
Neither do I find convincing the evolutionary / economic / utilitarian bases of morality. Sure, we could have developed these habits of treating others well, etc. while we were living in our small societies back in the dark ages. Or it could be social pressure. Or it would just make good sense. But all that would make morality a very flimsy concept.
And I don’t really want to dig up painful memories of dworkin and kant and that scary feminist philosopher. What a mess of sophistry and closed logic that lot is! Or maybe I’m just too dumb to get it.
I think part of the problem is we don’t have very long lives. If we did, we could actually see if the concept of “morality” changed with the times. Historical records are, after all, nothing compared to personal experience.
Which is what it all boils down to, eh? But doesn’t that seem rather arbitrary, to remember some key moment in your life and forever have it change your viewpoint? I guess my point is even objective fact looks different depending on how you look at it (that, and we all want “complete” answers). Someone biased towards one viewpoint or another (or neither) is just going to colour what they see. What I’m interested in finding out is, how does that bias come about? (it seems quite chicken-or-egg tho)
agagooga:
The same could be said of atheists! I guess the only difference is a theist is precluded from admitting they are wrong, while an atheist is not. But they’re just as equally stubborn in sticking to their guns. I am sure there are plenty of areas of science where nobody knows what the answer is… they just go on their gut. And people get very unhappy when their personal convictions are attacked…
Comment by Ray — Thursday, November 30 2006 @ 4:49 am
It depends on whether you’re stubborn to sticking to your guns in the face of evidence to the contrary.
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” - Stephen F Roberts
Comment by Agagooga — Thursday, November 30 2006 @ 3:47 pm
anyone considered morality from a rawlsian pt of view?
Comment by ivan — Saturday, December 9 2006 @ 6:55 pm
ivan:
Nope. I plead ignorance.
What little I have read of Rawls (and it is very little, only some excerpts from A Theory of Justice we had to read for jurisprudence) leaves me completely ill-equipped to deal with any morality issues… I thought Rawls was a kind of social-contract guy?
Hell, I don’t even remember if it was A Theory of Justice that we had to read bits of…
Comment by Ray — Saturday, December 9 2006 @ 11:59 pm
wow thanks for posting the links, i sat through and enjoyed every single minute!
i like to think i’m a liberal fundie but i take pride in being able to laugh at myself, my religion and other ppl’s religions in the name of intellectual debate. so his stuff really got me thinking… i’m so gonna get the book and a few others he mentioned!
and yes i agree it would be interesting to get him and TLA together in a debate! as much as i respect her in her law prof capacity, i’m confident dawkins will crush her fundy-ness to dust any day :)
Comment by passerby — Monday, June 18 2007 @ 5:27 pm