The God Delusion

[deshead]

I'm not really in Dawkins' target audience for this book. I think he wrote The God Delusion mostly for quasi-agnostic half-believers (who I, and he, suspect make up most of the population.) Still, I found a couple of great eye-openers.

I've always thought Dawkins rude (or to use his pet word, "truculent") when he debates religious figureheads. In particular, his confrontation of Ted Haggard in The Root Of All Evil (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiDXiJmUnVE) struck me as downright arrogant when I first watched it. In the first chapter of The God Delusion, Dawkins explains why he appears this way.

A widespread assumption, which nearly everybody in our society accepts — the non-religious included — is that religious faith is especially vulnerable to offence and should be protected by an abnormally thick wall of respect, in a different class from the respect that any human being should pay to any other.

I didn't get the significance of this until he spelled it out.

If I tell a Baptist from Montreal that his passion for the Habs is absurd (let's face it, they're a sorry excuse for a hockey team. No really, they are,) I'll get an earful, for sure. But he won't be offended the way he would be if I said "your belief in literal biblical creationism is absurd," which would most assuredly be taken as insult. Why can I question his inane allegience to a hockey team but not to a creation myth?

It's this disconnect that makes Dawkins appear standoffish. He treats religious debate no differently than sports or political debate (why should he?) and this piques our ingrained, unquestioned assumption that religious beliefs are somehow special or privileged. He appears to be insulting, when in fact he's affording religious belief the same respect that he affords any belief, by openly and honestly questioning it.


But enlightening as that realization was, it's got nothing on the last chapter of the book, which is simply stunning. I read it this morning, and my head's still spinning.

[Adam!]

I've got nothing of substance to add, just a quote I love regarding his truculence:

"Logic and reason aren't enough: You have to be a dick to everyone who doesn't think like you." ~ Fictionalized Richard Dawkins, on South Park

[roymond]

I've gone off on Sam Harris and his presentation at last year's PopTech conference. These guys are doing a tremendous service by bring religion into a dialog of rational consideration. There's no atheistic conspiracy with these guys, they're simply approaching it head on, as you said, with the same respect as any other serious subject.

An interesting bit in his book is when he introduces a scenario where a representative from New Orleans stands up before congress after Katrina and says that this happened because "clearly we didn't make Poseidon happy". And anyone with half a brain would call this guy a quack. Yet we have a President who believes that the bible is the literal word of god. He has his finger on weapons of mass distruction. And the majority of Americans basically agree with him (Gallop and other polls are quoted), and believe that the messiah will come within the next 50 years.

[jb]

It's tempting to say "so what? let them believe what they want."

But what motivation does a leader have to improve the world when Judgement Day comes in 2056? Why clean the air? Why save the whales?

That's where the danger lies in having leaders whose faith controls their decisions. In their personal lives, they may believe, or place Pascal's Wager. But in their service to the public, they should be agnostic, or place the Atheist's Wager, for the good of us all.

Not that this is a thread for that debate, but I like to point it out wherever I can squeeze it in.

[mkilly]

i dunno that matt stone and trey parker, given how respectfully they've treated catholicism, scientology, the LDS church, etc., have any place for disdain of richard dawkins' approach. they should be showing solidarity with the guy, except that they want to capitulate to ridiculous christian claims too, i guess.

[deshead]

Not that this is a thread for that debate, but I like to point it out wherever I can squeeze it in.

Heh, it's actually on-topic, as Dawkins devotes a whole chapter ("What's wrong with religion? Why be so hostile?") to it.

He takes the position that all religion is destructive (to science, human rights, and reason) and that in some ways, moderate faith is actually worse than absolutism. Moderates foster the environment in which fundamentalism takes root:

Christianity, just as much as Islam, teaches children that unquestioned faith is a virtue. You don't have to make the case for what you believe. If somebody announces that it is part of his <i>faith</i>, the rest of society, whether of the same faith, or another, or of none, is obliged, by ingrained custom, to 'respect' it without question; respect it until the day it manifests itself in a horrible massacre like the destruction of the World trade center...

I dunno that matt stone and trey parker, given how respectfully they've treated catholicism, scientology, the LDS church, etc., have any place for disdain of richard dawkins' approach.

A quote from Trey Parker: "Basically...out of all the ridiculous religion stories---which are greatly, wonderfully ridiculous---the silliest one I've ever heard is...'yeah...there's this big giant universe and it's expanding, it's all gonna collapse on itself and we're all just here just cuz...just cuz. That, to me, is the most ridiculous explanation ever.'"

(At the end of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE_zEJL0Km4)

[roymond]

A quote from Trey Parker: "Basically...out of all the ridiculous religion stories---which are greatly, wonderfully ridiculous---the silliest one I've ever heard is...'yeah...there's this big giant universe and it's expanding, it's all gonna collapse on itself and we're all just here just cuz...just cuz. That, to me, is the most ridiculous explanation ever.'"

Oh, come one. That's not a religious story and it's not an explanation. These guys are smart and witty but they're cartoon creators looking for a fun premiss for a cartoon. To represent the scientific community as satisfied with "we're just here cuz...just cuz" is to buy into the religious achilles that makes the arrogant assumption that we should know the reason of our existence. One of the stupidest arguments (and yet one of the most rational, in a strange way) for unquestioned faith is that "if science can't explain it, then that's proof of a god". And to take their little fun-boy chat as a serious discussion of this topic is like having priests council married couples about sex. Or marriage.

Wow! Inquisitive man has been working on this 14 billion year-old mystery for...let's say 10,000 years (just to be rediculously generous). And we're worried that if we haven't broken the code by now, damn it, there is no code and therefore only the existence of a conscientious god who created this universe only for us could be the explanation?

One goal of science is to understand. No scientist assumes we will understand everything. Besides, that would be boring.

[Adam!]

It is arrogant to assume that we should know the reason of our existence.

Is it arrogant to strive, on a personal level, to find a reason for our existence? I myself am not satisfied with any of the creation stories, be them religious or scientific, and I'm still looking for a satisfactory answer, one I can embrace without faith. But, I am an arrogant sonofabitch, so maybe it is INDEED.

Anywho, I see Trey Parker as someone who isn't satisfied with the a-theistic answers and, instead of just believing nothing, has begun looking elsewhere. It's a good thing he doesn't preach; it's the preachers that those guys seem to hate.

[mkilly]

I dunno that matt stone and trey parker, given how respectfully they've treated catholicism, scientology, the LDS church, etc., have any place for disdain of richard dawkins' approach.

A quote from Trey Parker: "Basically...out of all the ridiculous religion stories---which are greatly, wonderfully ridiculous---the silliest one I've ever heard is...'yeah...there's this big giant universe and it's expanding, it's all gonna collapse on itself and we're all just here just cuz...just cuz. That, to me, is the most ridiculous explanation ever.'"

(At the end of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE_zEJL0Km4)

I watched the clip so I could speak with some more authority on the matter. It's hard to speak on the matter, here, personally, because of where my sympathies lie, and as much as I'd like to divorce myself from them for a moment and try to look at them objectively I don't know that I fully can. (I think that's a big inherent problem when lay persons discuss things.) But anyway, I wouldn't consider the Big Bang etc. theories to be religious (and given what evidence has been shown for them I wouldn't consider them ridiculous, but they are works-in-progress). I certainly wouldn't call it more ridiculous than any of the creation myths purported by religions, and it's hard for me as a nonbeliever to understand why anything based in a belief in an omnipotent man-like creator makes any sense at all to anyone. I don't know how it all went down, but neither do any religious believers: they just allege that some guy who knows everything and sees everything and has unbounded power did it, somehow, "cuz... just cuz." 'Cause he was lonely, maybe bored... But then he created everything, somehow, and looked at what he did and said he did pretty good. But then later it wasn't good, because he'd planted a tree that was evil, and then he had to flood the joint, and test Job, and so forth. WTF Christianity.

Anyway, maybe it's hypocritical to say, but I don't know why so many religious figures spend so much time bashing science. Why not just live in your little bubble believing whatever?

[roymond]

It is arrogant to assume that we should know the reason of our existence.

Is it arrogant to strive, on a personal level, to find a reason for our existence?

Anywho, I see Trey Parker as someone who isn't satisfied with the a-theistic answers and, instead of just believing nothing, has begun looking elsewhere. It's a good thing he doesn't preach; it's the preachers that those guys seem to hate.

No, that's the whole point. Like you, I strive to learn. Unlike some, I don't assume all knowledge is attainable. I also approach it like this: the atheistic (or scientific) "answer" isn't that "we don't know", it's that "we are pursuing greater understanding" which doesn't imply whether or not we will ever know.

As for the Big Bang, etc., it's not more ridiculous than creationism. Big Bang is a "theory". In science one looks for observable proof. Given none, you take what you know and create a theory and then test it from all angles, refining and revising as you go. And this is done by thousands of people from all different walks of life. The theory may one day get shot down. That's the great thing about science! It's always open for change based on better information. You can't do that in religion, because that's blasphemous and you might get stoned or something

[deshead]

Remaining somewhat on-topic:

One of the stupidest arguments (and yet one of the most rational, in a strange way) for unquestioned faith is that "if science can't explain it, then that's proof of a god".

Dawkins dispenses with this and related a priori arguments early in the book. He had to, to forestall the inevitible criticism of his book as just another athiest screed.

It's a good thing he doesn't preach; it's the preachers that those guys seem to hate.

Yeah, they're pretty openly libertarian (depending on how you define it,) so it makes sense that they'd pillory any public figure who advocates an extreme position.

(Though I think it's also a little silly of people to expect consistency of opinion from South Park. It's a cartoon, after all. And Dawkins affair with Mr(s). Garrison was funny, independent of the message Parker and Stone wanted to convey.)

it's hard for me as a nonbeliever to understand why anything based in a belief in an omnipotent man-like creator makes any sense at all to anyone.

So you're not really in Dawkins target audience either. Still, you might enjoy the book, as he goes to great lengths explaining why people have religious belief.

why so many religious figures spend so much time bashing science. Why not just live in your little bubble believing whatever?

And this one gets a whole chapter.