Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion.

[nebulae]

Long-time listener, first time caller...So what's this thread about?

[djadonis206]

Question - If pictures if Muhommad are forbidden, how does anyone know what he looks like to make a picture of him?

I read the ableton manual, checked the tips and tricks sticky and couldn't find anything about this.

it's about faith

Faith was so gay, who could be suprised he'd come out of the closet?


I guess if I had listened more I'd understand the world's religions better.

Only gay people who believe in god have sex

[nebulae]

Only gay people who believe in god have sex

I'm straight and married, and I only believe in the Muslim god (all of you other-god followers are going straight to hell!), and you're totally right...I never get any sex. What up wit dat?

[djadonis206]

Only gay people who believe in god have sex

I'm straight and married, and I only believe in the Muslim god (all of you other-god followers are going straight to hell!), and you're totally right...I never get any sex. What up wit dat?

[edge100]

The whole thing follows very specific rules, in fact.

Someone or something has to make the rules right?

"Rules" is perhaps the wrong word. "Repeatable, observable phenomena" is a better phrase.

[edge100]

THIS universe cannot literally, it would appear, be two (or, more appropriately, infinite) things at once.

edge100, I like the way you think. The law of non-contraidction is one of the fundamental laws of logic....A cannot be both A and non-A at the same time and in the same way. That law alone is a tremendous guide on the path to truth.

Absolutely a 'MUST' to understand in this type of discussion.

I think you're not being fair to theology to say that it is based on feeling, and has no basis in logic, or that all religions are equally likely to be true.

For me, my beliefs are very much based on rational thought and logical process....I wouldn't believe what I do if it had not been tested logically. Religions can be compared on the basis of logic, and honest logical examinations reveals deep flaws in nearly every one. That, to me, would be a good basis for deciding to go with one religion or the other.

I absolutely agree with you. The absence or presence of Russell's celestial teapot can be examined based on logical insight, and I wholeheartedly agree that the only conclusion one can draw is that is is highly unlikely to be true.

The fact that something literally "does or does not exist" does not imply that the probability of either possibility is equivalent, as we saw with the teapot. For me, the fact that I can see no discernable difference in the evidence for any particular religion suggests that the evidence FOR their literal truth (keeping in mind that one can NEVER prove a negative) is exactly the same.

In order to me to accept the literal truth of something (or least that the probability of something being literally true is extremely high), I need to see evidence for it. Lack of evidence against something does not imply that something is true; positive evidence in favour is required.

Therefore, the decision to choose one religion over another comes down to what evidence is available that supports the literal truth of one over another. If no such evidence exists, then my choice is clear: ALL of them are highly likely to be literally false. I'm not looking for the "least bad" evidence; is it more improbable that Jesus was born of a virgin, or that Mohammed ascended to heaven on a winged horse, or that a teapot orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter? I wouldn't base a decision on that, since, for one, they are all equally improbable, and furthermore there is no additional evidence to suggest the literal truth of any of them (that is, to SUPPORT their probability).

Religions can also point to truths that transcend logic - paradoxes that are super-rational, rather than irrational contradictions....when A appears to be non-A. Going back to Gandhi - how could you logically arrive at the conclusion that unearned suffering on a mass scale has the potential to change hearts, and thus effect profound political and social change? Science can also point to paradoxes, such as those brought up by quantum mechanics, but it's interesting the directions scientists go to explain what that means from a human standpoint (consciousness creates the universe? reality doesn't exist? no free will?)

And I would argue that in every instance we have ever seen, where what we have observed did not appear to be consistent with what we thought we knew, the appearance was not the thing that changed; it was what we knew. Put another way, good data speaks for itself. We thought we "knew" that Newtonian theory could explain kinematics; the data fit the model perfectly. Except, Einstein showed that at very high speeds, Newtonian kinematics isn't correct (it isn't correct at ANY speeds, but the difference is so small at low speeds that we can't detect the error). There is an excellent example of this given by Stephen Jay Gould (as I recall): Newton and Einstein had different theories of gravitation; however, the apple did not suspend in mid-air during its fall from the tree until the matter was decided.

The point is, any deviation from previous theory must be accompanied by an explanation as to why the previous theory appeared to be correct. So your example is quite correct: non-violence does not appear, a priori, to be a good way of fighting the largest empire in the world. We have now adpated our theory.

Science permits this type of flexibility because it is, at its core, based on the concept of fallability: new thinking replaces outdated thinking. That doesn't mean Newton (or Democritus, or Lavoisier, or anyone) was stupid; they made theories that were consistent with the data available, which were developed through the methods available to them. Science will continue to do so. And the literally true contradiction between Relativity and Quantum Mechanics will be resolved by another theory, just as Einstein resolved the literally true contradiction between light as a wave and the absence of a luminiferous ether.

Too many people try to "find god in the gaps", when history has clearly told us that the gaps always (and I'm not one for those types of all-encompassing words...but yes, ALWAYS) get filled by rational thought; things ALWAYS make sense when someone explains them to you. I have no idea how a fuel injector works, but I'm sure it will make sense when someone lays it out for me.

I just think that rationalism can only get you so far...ultimately, no matter what you believe, there is some element of the unknown that directly affects your day-to-day life, and you make choices without knowing everything you'd like to KNOW beforehand, based on what you believe to be true - ie, faith. Before the war in Iraq began, the US government made some claims about things that were going on in Iraq. No one KNEW if those things were true, but I believed they were not true, and I was vocal with everyone I knew about it. It turns out I was probably right - I based my beliefs on good evidence - but I did not KNOW I was right, in the same sense as I would know that tomorrow is Friday. Now we're paying the price collectively because we did not collectively believe the government was wrong. It's not punishment, its just the consequences of collectively turning our backs on the truth.

"Faith" is a bad word, and I've tried not to use it here, because it has two distinct definitions; "My belief in god is based on faith, not evidence" is not the same thing as "I have faith in the scientific method". In the former case, "faith" implies "belief without good empirical evidence to support that belief". In the latter case, "faith" means "a mountain of empirical evidence suggests that the scientific method provides an excellent, reproducible way of answering specific questions about the literal truth of something". I don't want to discuss nomenclature, because it's totally tangential to this discussion, but I wanted to raise this specific point because it's important not to misunderstand one another.

The Iraq example is a good one, because it highlights another aspect of "evidence evaluation": internal validity. Put another way, evidence quality. How good is the evidence. This comes up frequently in my day to day life as a scientist, where the public very often does not make the distinction between an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, or Science (three of the most prestigious journals there are), and an article published in The Kentucky Journal of Nosepicking (with apologies to Bluegrass-ers). What was the quality of the evidence suggesting there were WMDs in Iraq? We'll never know, because a lot of the actual evidence won't be released to us. Governments do this all the time; make decisions on "evidence" that we cannot judge for ourselves. Luckily, in the matter of religion, we CAN judge for ourselves because the evidence is right there before us.

Another excellent example would be the "quality" of the evidence suggesting Jesus' birth fulfilled OT prophesy. What is the evidence? Well, the description of his birth, of a virgin, in Bethlehem, which is found in two places in the NT, which was written several years (decades) after the historical events, by men who had a vested interest in ensuring that the prophecies were "fulfilled". As I've said before, that isn't enough to dismiss the evidence out of hand, but it does cause me to be very much more critical of the evidence, and require some sort of independent evidence to prove their veracity.

[Tone Deft]

If brevity is the soul of wit this thread is George Bush.

[edge100]

If brevity is the soul of wit this thread is George Bush.

I am nothing if not long-winded.

[mdk]

I am nothing if not long-winded.

I wouldnt go that far, i've really enjoyed the last few pages, its great that you have taken the time to tackle all the questions raised in such a clear and patient manner, including the finer semantic points (e.g. faith in religious terms and faith relating to evidence)

You have my utmost respect.

[telekom]

THIS universe cannot literally, it would appear, be two (or, more appropriately, infinite) things at once.

edge100, I like the way you think. The law of non-contraidction is one of the fundamental laws of logic....A cannot be both A and non-A at the same time and in the same way. That law alone is a tremendous guide on the path to truth.

Quantum mechanics, about which I know NOTHING, says otherwise.

Which is interesting... since logic is a man-made construct to help bend our puny brains around the infinitely incomprehensible and staggeringly complex universe we fail to respect.

[debu]

"a hold over from the childhood concepts of Santa, and unicorns etc."
What the difference between Santa and God? presence

kaching- that's my time folks

[edge100]

edge100, I like the way you think. The law of non-contraidction is one of the fundamental laws of logic....A cannot be both A and non-A at the same time and in the same way. That law alone is a tremendous guide on the path to truth.

Quantum mechanics, about which I know NOTHING, says otherwise.

Which is interesting... since logic is a man-made construct to help bend our puny brains around the infinitely incomprehensible and staggeringly complex universe we fail to respect.

Perhaps you would be interested in my previous post when I wrote:

Science permits this type of flexibility because it is, at its core, based on the concept of fallability: new thinking replaces outdated thinking. That doesn't mean Newton (or Democritus, or Lavoisier, or anyone) was stupid; they made theories that were consistent with the data available, which were developed through the methods available to them. Science will continue to do so. And the literally true contradiction between Relativity and Quantum Mechanics will be resolved by another theory, just as Einstein resolved the literally true contradiction between light as a wave and the absence of a luminiferous ether.

Yes, quantum theory predicts all kinds of things that do not jive with out current understanding of how the world works. I put it to you, however, that this is merely another example of the above; the well-documented tendency for science to discover the real answer to what appears to be incompatible with current thinking. In this sense, quantum theory is "wrong"; that is, it is incomplete. So is relativity (I'm not a physicist, but I know enough to be dangerous to myself). Relativity and quantum mechanics cannot co-exist (that is, be literally correct at once); therefore one or both are incorrect. But both appear to be correct in their own contexts, just as Newtoniam kinematics "appears" to be right at speed very much lower than the speed of light.

Science will go on answering questions that seem unanswerable, just as it has ALWAYS done in the past. I put it to you that at NO time in the past has a "gap" in our knowledge been filled by anything except (a) an improved scientific theory that encapsulates new data, made possible by technological advances or (b) the recognition that experimental error made the "gap" seem real, when it was simply an artifact. Michaelson and Morley tried desperately to prove the existence of a luminiferous ether (the medium that "carries" light waves), despite the fact that their experiments suggested strongly that there was NO ether to speak of. Einstein filled the gap with special relativity. I have heard the argument that "god is in the gaps" far too often. My response is always the same, "At no time in the past has a real gap in our knowledge been filled by god. In this respect, science is undefeated"

I see no reason to doubt this will continue.

[conny]

Dawkins, yeah.
But the question of God is not an "scientific" one. It's about being human, vulnarable, knowing-you-will-die kind of thing.
Not true or false.

Sitting by you kid's bed and he/she has an bad illness, you will probably ask for help or wish in you mind that it will turn out right.

That "other", that part of universe and/or yourself that you are addressing may for me go by the name of "God".

We are communicating beings.
And when there are no one left to talk to, we might call to God (as an instance of our selves).

Religion?
Well... Living day by day.
What we learn, in terms of good and bad, of morals, love and compasion, may well be our "church"...

// C

[edge100]

Dawkins, yeah.
But the question of God is not an "scientific" one. It's about being human, vulnarable, knowing-you-will-die kind of thing.
Not true or false.

I'm not sure if you've been following this thread, but my assertion is that it is very much a scientific question insofar as it is actually answerable; there either is a god or there isn't; Jesus was either divine or he wasn't; etc. We may not have the tools to do so (yet), but that can said of just about any measurement we now make routinely. The question IS answerable.

Sitting by you kid's bed and he/she has an bad illness, you will probably ask for help or wish in you mind that it will turn out right.

I'm going to say something crass here, but every word of it is true:

If every parent who ever prayed for the survival of their child who was ill with, say, leukemia, took every cent they ever donated to a church or religious group and instead donated it to cancer research, they would have been doing FAR, FAR more to increase the chances of the survival of their child than prayer ever could. Their prayers may have made them "feel" better, but double-blind, randomized controlled clinical trials suggest their prayers do NOTHING for the eventual survival of their children (I can provide a recent reference, if you'd like...I posted it a few pages back but I'd be happy to do so again).

That "other", that part of universe and/or yourself that you are addressing may for me go by the name of "God".

I'll ask you the same thing as I asked everyone else:

What is god?

Please define it now so that there is no confusion. I'm only speaking to those people who believe that god is a supernatural, superhuman entity that deliberately created the universe, answers prayers, judges the dead, and continues to live and play a role in the existence of the universe; otherwise known as a 'personal god'. Other definitions may be exempt from this particular discussion.

We are communicating beings.
And when there are no one left to talk to, we might call to God (as an instance of our selves).

Religion?
Well... Living day by day.
What we learn, in terms of good and bad, of morals, love and compasion, may well be our "church"...

// C

Again, we need a common defintion of god, otherwise we may not be talking about the same thing.

[mdk]

Their prayers may have made them "feel" better, but double-blind, randomized controlled clinical trials suggest their prayers do NOTHING for the eventual survival of their children

In fact that study shows that people who know they are being prayed for have more complications.

so if you have to pray for someone, dont let them know.