Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion.

[Seyser Koze]

My fundamental point being we don't need religion to be good people or to lead good and moral lives.

if you're not a good person or you choose not to love your fellow man, then fine. no big deal.

But whatever you choose, it's not a religious thing.

Religion doesn't have a monopoly on right, good and love. These things are not exclusive to religion.

They just tell you they are and they don't believe people who are not religious are capable of being good. In fact mostly they believe that non believers are intrinsiacally wrong and in almost all cases, (certainly Judaism, Islam and Christianity) Not only are you wrong for not believing with them you are going to die horribly becasue of it and live in immortal pain.

I say bollocks. I am not religious but I am capable of love and kindness and leading a good life.

The debate always degenerates into some pseudo competition on who can quote the best philosopher or use the most flowery vocabulary and all this is designed to throw you off the scent that there is only one true fact:

Religion is most probably a lie.

Let's just say for a minute it isn't.

Then which one is right? They can't all be right can they?

And do you believe the muslims (for example) are good enough people that if they got their and found that the christians were right that they would embrace the new truth?

Like fuck they would. Why?

Becasue they are not good people, brainwashed by their religion into hate for those who do not believe what they believe, they can never truly lead a good life.

Only free thinkers truly have the capacity to love in the truest sense of the word.

[shtreimel]

Anyhoo folks, it's been fun...kinda. But I'm done. Met a super cool singer over the weekend, with a voice like an angel. It reminded me why I visit the Abe site, use Live, in the first place. I can't help but shake that yuchy feeling that I use this bb as an excuse to NOT work on music. See ya around other parts of this here bb.

[pilcrow]

Only then can we seek to rid the world of the poison that is religion.

Only then can the human race be truly free to love one another and lead true and good lives.

Hmm.. so we're supposed to "love one another," eh? Where have I heard that before?

man ,pilcrow, what is it with you? you only believe in god for ethical reasons????

if so, wake up man.

there is as much moral lessons etc etc in fairy tales for little kids.

My overall point, I guess, is just to raise this question: Which are the particular core values and ethics of, say, the Christian religion, that you find so noxious? Why?

Guess I’m just trying to counter some of the knee-jerk intolerance around here toward anything remotely “religious.” As long as you define religion as “other people—self-righteous prigs mostly—telling me what to do,” then yeah, it’s easy to ridicule it and say it’s all crap. But that’s a vastly impoverished view of religion.

It’s fashionable to take shots at a straw-man portrait of religion and religous people. “Anyone who believes in a God is a fundamentalist, and all fundamentalists are evil.” Easy to talk some people into that, I guess, now that some of us are being attacked by a particular sect of religious zealots, but it’s ill-informed and disingenuous, and it overlooks not only the million philosophical subtleties that patient seekers find in almost every major religous tradition, but it also disregards religion’s part in some of the most civilizing, humanizing advances in the history of civilization (yes, this despite the charge that religion has contributed nothing but intolerance and violence—a patent absurdity).

Many people—millions and millions, in fact—have found great guidance, solace, and wisdom in the core precepts and virtues of Christianty, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, etc. People have shaped good, helpful, compassionate lives based on those precepts, and they have been a force for good in the world. (And mind, no one’s saying atheists can’t do good things.)

The religious impulse has been far too persistent in human life and history for the currently fashionable bashers like Dawkins to have much long-term effect on it. He has to know that, or he’s not nearly as “bright” as he thinks. Maybe that’s why he resorts to such strident and arrogant rhetoric, and sarcasm that’s meant to sting—he realizes he’s pissing into the wind. The notion that absolutely no part of human religious history for the last 10,000 years—from animists to zoroastrians to vedantists, zen buddhists, jews, muslims, christians—ever touched on even the smallest fragment of objective reality is just absurd.

You obviously have a lot of faith in science. Frankly, though, I think anyone waiting on science to disprove God, or a Creator, or the Ground of Being, or whatever you want to call it, has a long wait ahead. Is science a monolithic corporate body that issues final determinations about reality, so that one day “Science” will hand us the clear, unambiguous answer about God, maybe in a special Sunday section of the New York Times? Hardly. First, the essence of science is that it’s continually open to revision. That’s why science no longer considers the earth the center of the universe and doctors don’t make diagnoses based on imbalances of the body’s four “humours.” It’s also why the consensus about the health effects of eating eggs has changed about four times in the past twenty years. Second, there are plenty of questions, like religion, that science is never going to get near—mostly because science is not the realm for approaching them. Science can’t even tell me which of Shakespeare’s plays is most aesthetically satisfying or why; how on earth is it going to parse the God question?

I think many people expect too much from “Science.” That brand of faith is called Scientism. But has science proven that reality is only what science can prove? What do you make of scientists who are themselves religious?

Science and religion have co-existed side by side since the time of Archimedes. They are two different realms of experience and inquiry. People who think Science is working toward a grand statement that is going to bury Religion once and for all are making a category mistake. People who think science and religion are battling aren’t approaching either one with any kind of insight.

The attitude of “religion is all lies and has caused nothing but pain” is simply bigoted, blinkered ignorance.

That’s my point.

[Machinesworking]

Anyhoo folks, it's been fun...kinda. But I'm done. Met a super cool singer over the weekend, with a voice like an angel. It reminded me why I visit the Abe site, use Live, in the first place. I can't help but shake that yuchy feeling that I use this bb as an excuse to NOT work on music. See ya around other parts of this here bb.

That, is the major difference we have. I fill the minutes in between writing with conversation here. In the time we've chatted I've worked on five pieces, stripping them down for the laptop, replacing a keyboard part with guitar, and begrudgingly started the process of taking a song done entirely in Session view into Arrange. (I'm not liking my bridge between the main two parts, it was easier to write that off when I could blame my timing at firing Session clips)
A ten minute break doesn't kill my workflow. If it does for you, get the hell off here and go make music!

Besides, in your heart you know it to be a fact that god is simply a man made illusion designed to placate the weak minded.

[Machinesworking]

People who think science and religion are battling aren’t approaching either one with any kind of insight.

The attitude of “religion is all lies and has caused nothing but pain” is simply bigoted, blinkered ignorance.

That’s my point.

OK for one, well formal scientific thought is only at most a couple hundred years old. Why? because religion shrouded it in pseudo science etc. for years.
Religion is all lies, but it's a sweet lie, and some people feel better when told those lies. So yeah I partially agree, but it's short sited to pretend that religion hasn't been at odds with science etc. We thought we were the center of the universe because the church believed that. The Romans proved that the earth wasn't flat, but christianity didn't want to believe that. The list goes on.

[mauve]

The fact that I am aware of my existence blows my mind.

[pilcrow]

Religion is all lies

Pretty dogmatic statement, that.

[Seyser Koze]

Pilcrow,

First, you should read the book. You'll see that most of what you're saying Dawkins agrees with.

With one main exception:

Why do we need religion to explain anything? Even you suggest that science is a long way from finding an answer which most people would agree with, yet that doesn't mean there isn't one. Even if we never find it.

I think your romantic view of the nice things that religiojn has brought to peoples lives is naive.

You are simply unaware of the problems occuring throughout the world. Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Iraq, Iran, The USA, Israel/Palestine.

Thes coiuld all be described as nice little wars where we cover up with names like loyalists versus nationalists etc.

But in reality they occur simply becasue it is Protestant against catholic, sunni vs shia, jew vs muslim.

What benefit do these people get from religion? In their minds they pray for peace but it will never come while they hang on to their beliefs.

Try speaking out against a faith healer in some US towns and see where that gets you. Even the police wouldnt provide protection for an atheist wanting to demonstrate against a faith healer who tried to convince cancer sufferers to stop chemo and for diabetes sufferes to stop taking insulin and to pray for a miracle instead. This is in 2006! In the US!

In a recent Gallup poll less than 50% opf the population would vote for a presidentail candidiate who said he was not religious. but more than 70% would vote for a religious person even if that candidate was black, gay or a woman.

You don't think these things are dangerous?

Some things are clear cut.

I (and dawkins) have never said that all religious people are evil doers. In fact I have already said that I do no have anything against religious people. It is religion I despise.

We have preachers here in the UK who are telling young muslims the literal translation of the Koran. Which in most chapters says with alraming regularity that it is OK for a good muslim to kill a non-believer. In fact, allah will reward you for it. All non-believers will burn in hell, or in fact should be burnt. Women are incapable and lesser beings.

What kind of solace do you find in that?

Religion pretends to be peaceful and loving but deep down it is based on hate and inequality.

I do not need to be a part of that and contineu my crusade to unite atheists everywhere and to stanbd up against the insanity I see invading my country and indoctrinating my children.

Would any of the religious people we have debated with in this forum lkeave their kids at home when they go to pray on their holy day, or do you force your children to come with you and rpesent you religion as the one great truth?

Would you let them make up your own mind and leave them at home with a babysitter?

No, i didn't think so. just keep forcing them into your mindset to keep the dream alive. poor little crites never stand a chance to develop their own minds.

What if they converted to a different faith, would you still repsect them?

No, i didn't think so.

Religion has issues it doesn't even know it hasand the brainwashed are ignorant to them, If they weren't they would drop their religion like a hot potato and say, "what the fuck have I been doing"

How on earth can anyoine defence still believeing the earth was only made 4000 years ago? or ignore the existence of dinosaurs?

You laugh, but believe, most religions stillignore the facts.

And so, the sad truth is. Evene if science did find an answer, you still would find a way to not have to believe the facts.

[pilcrow]

Even you suggest that science is a long way from finding an answer which most people would agree with, yet that doesn't mean there isn't one. Even if we never find it.

-nor does it mean that Science is the only approach to it. The "belief" that Science is the only way to experience the world is a form of faith.

You are simply unaware of the problems occuring throughout the world.

Oh.

more than 70% would vote for a religious person even if that candidate was black, gay or a woman.

You don't think these things are dangerous?

Which things? Being black? gay? female? religious? All are OK by me.

Would any of the religious people we have debated with in this forum lkeave their kids at home when they go to pray on their holy day, or do you force your children to come with you and rpesent you religion as the one great truth?

Would you let them make up your own mind and leave them at home with a babysitter?

No, i didn't think so. just keep forcing them into your mindset to keep the dream alive. poor little crites never stand a chance to develop their own minds.

Got me all figured out, don’t you?
Question: Do you try to impart to your own children the beliefs and values that you hold dear, or do you tell them “no way of living is any better or worse than any other; do whatever you want”?

To answer your question—I taught my children the values I believe in, as I hope you do for yours. One of those values being the autonomy of the individual and his conscience, of course my kids are free to make up their own minds on the matter.

What if they converted to a different faith, would you still repsect them?


No, i didn't think so.

wrong again

How on earth can anyoine defence still believeing the earth was only made 4000 years ago? or ignore the existence of dinosaurs?

You laugh, but believe, most religions stillignore the facts.

You’re taking shots at a caricature. I don’t believe those things. Plenty of atheists believe stupid things too.

[Machinesworking]

Religion is all lies

Pretty dogmatic statement, that.

Quoting out of context for the effect you want, not the intended reasoning of the poster, is silly. YOU said people were saying religion is all lies, and I tried to give my opinion, I never flatly denied any truth to religion, at least not in the way you are implying.... jeez?

But for fun, yes religion is not truth, Moses split the red sea etc. You believe it, fine, but I personally will hold it to the same degree of accountability as I hold Greek and Roman mythology. To me the only quantifiable difference between the two is that greeks and italians have stopped believing in Zeus.
One thing that irks me is that I really don't see how that's an insult? I see zero evidence produced that god exists, yet people get upset when you point out that it's only a question of faith, that they themselves only know it to be true because they believe it to be true. Science is at total odds with that lack of accountability, and religious people have consistently worked against science if it proves some belief of theirs wrong, history is filled with that.
yet here we are talking about it, and like I've said before, I see no reason to convince anybody out of their beliefs if it doesn't undermine the liberty of others, (gays not being allowed to marry because religious people don't like what they do is an example), or get in the way of science....... intelligent design is an example of religion getting in the way of science. Luckily a lot of the religious scientists are capable of making the separation between their faith, and hard science, and haven't fallen for intelligent design. There are plenty of people who realize that their religious beliefs are not hard science, and that faith is not truth, they can separate those concepts without resorting to bending logic.
Faith alone should be enough, my only problem with the religious is when they just have to use the word truth in relation to their beliefs.
So I wouldn't say religion is all lies, but I would say religion is not based on truth, it's based on faith. Let's face a fact here, faith is an assumption of truth, but it's not based on truth. You have faith your wife will not sleep with the milkman, but you could walk in on her tomorrow in a compromising position. Faith is a sweet lie, therefore religion is a sweet lie. That's my take on it.

[pilcrow]

Religion is all lies

Pretty dogmatic statement, that.

Quoting out of context for the effect you want, not the intended reasoning of the poster, is silly. YOU said people were saying religion is all lies, and I tried to give my opinion, I never flatly denied any truth to religion, at least not in the way you are implying.... jeez?

But for fun, yes religion is not truth, Moses split the red sea etc. You believe it, fine, but I personally will hold it to the same degree of accountability as I hold Greek and Roman mythology. To me the only quantifiable difference between the two is that greeks and italians have stopped believing in Zeus.
One thing that irks me is that I really don't see how that's an insult? I see zero evidence produced that god exists, yet people get upset when you point out that it's only a question of faith, that they themselves only know it to be true because they believe it to be true. Science is at total odds with that lack of accountability, and religious people have consistently worked against science if it proves some belief of theirs wrong, history is filled with that.
yet here we are talking about it, and like I've said before, I see no reason to convince anybody out of their beliefs if it doesn't undermine the liberty of others, (gays not being allowed to marry because religious people don't like what they do is an example), or get in the way of science....... intelligent design is an example of religion getting in the way of science. Luckily a lot of the religious scientists are capable of making the separation between their faith, and hard science, and haven't fallen for intelligent design. There are plenty of people who realize that their religious beliefs are not hard science, and that faith is not truth, they can separate those concepts without resorting to bending logic.
Faith alone should be enough, my only problem with the religious is when they just have to use the word truth in relation to their beliefs.
So I wouldn't say religion is all lies, but I would say religion is not based on truth, it's based on faith. Let's face a fact here, faith is an assumption of truth, but it's not based on truth. You have faith your wife will not sleep with the milkman, but you could walk in on her tomorrow in a compromising position. Faith is a sweet lie, therefore religion is a sweet lie. That's my take on it.

Fair enough, though "religion is a lie" as a statement, in or out of context, is pretty hard to misinterpret.

One of my two overall points, and I won't keep beating it to death here, is simply that Scientism is as much about faith as religion is. Science has not proven that reality is only those things that science can prove.

My other point, which I also stand by, is that civilization has benefited tremendously from religion. There's been harm too, sure--because there are human beings involved; humans, religious or not, can do tremendous damage. But willfully overlooking the humanizing, civilizing influence of religion on culture is just being obtuse.

[b0unce]

..but isnt science mostly based on tangible facts ?..

..whereas religion is down to faith..


?

[edge100]

One of my two overall points, and I won't keep beating it to death here, is simply that Scientism is as much about faith as religion is. Science has not proven that reality is only those things that science can prove.

Ok, I'm joining this thread late, but as a scientist (Ph.D., molecular biology), I have to join in at this point.

Science is not about faith. Science is fundamentally about scaling one's beliefs about the universe based on empirical evidence. Any scientist worth his or her stripes readily admits that their view of the world is falsifiable; THAT is what science truly is. For nearly 200 years, we accepted that Newton had perfectly described kinematics; that is, how objects move in response to external forces. We still teach Newton's 'laws' today (F=ma, and the like), because for our purposes, they work. Of course, Newton's laws are wrong; or at least, they are incomplete. They provide an adequate estimation of kinematics at speeds that are very small, with respect to the speed of light. Einstein provided an alternate model of kinematics, based on special relativity. The onus was on Einstein to show WHY Newton's theory of kinematics APPEARED to be correct. Special relativity is likewise falsifiable (the incompatibility of SR and quantum theory means something isn't right), but any new theory of kinematics will have to show WHY Einstein appears to be correct.

The point I'm making here is that science in its true guise is, by definition, subject to falsification; theories are made based on the best available data. As new data arrives, theories change. But all new theories must explain why old theories appeared to work.

Religion cannot claim the same for itself. What piece of evidence, if discovered tomorrow, would convince you that god does not exist? If you cannot hold yourself to that standard, then your beliefs do not scale with the available evidence. The simple fact of the matter is that there either is a god or there isn't. But, even if we accept that the former is true, the likelihood that this god is Yahweh (the god of the Old Testament) is no greater than the likelihood that it is Zeus, or Thor, or any of the other millions of 'dead' god, lost only through the accident of history. You must remember two things: people throughout history have believed in their gods as strongly as you believe in yours, and that no additional evidence (really...none) has been produced to support the existence of any one god over another. In this way, (and I steal this line of thinking from Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins) theology teaches us absolutely nothing. Anyone who claims to "know" that god exists, or that god likes one thing but not another, is simply lying. They may feverishly 'believe' this, in the same way that Burtrand Russel 'believed' (he was being facetious) in a celestial teapot. No one knows, not even scientists.

BUT, as Dawkins is correct to point out, there IS an answer to this question; it is a scientific question, in that it IS falsifiable, at least in theory; there either is a god, or there isn't. That doesn't imply that the probability of both options is 50/50; indeed, the likelihood of god's existence is very small, and even if we accept that there IS a god, the likelihood of any one god (as described in our 'holy' books) being the 'true' god is absolutely miniscule, given the infinite number of possible gods.

One also has to be clear on another issue; the definition of god. Theists have a responsibility to define, a priori, what they believe god is. It isn't fair to 'move the goalposts' after the fact. Is your 'god' a 'personal god', who takes an interest in our daily lives, hates sin, and banishes the sinful to hell after they die? Put another way, is your 'god' superhuman and supernatural? Or is your 'god' simply a force, possessing no 'human' traits, that governs the laws of the universe (or perhaps IS the laws of the universe), but plays no part in our day-to-day lives? This question is of utmost importance, because if I say I believe in a "force" that science cannot ever understand, you may claim "Aha! THAT is God!" But of course, my "force" is quite distinct from Yahweh, Zeus, of Thor; it is the basic 'first principles' set of laws that governs the universe. Let's put our cards on the table and then evaluate our cases for and against the existence of what we define as 'god'.

My other point, which I also stand by, is that civilization has benefited tremendously from religion. There's been harm too, sure--because there are human beings involved; humans, religious or not, can do tremendous damage. But willfully overlooking the humanizing, civilizing influence of religion on culture is just being obtuse.

In my opinion, the major cause of the vast majority of human misery is dogma; religion is but one form of dogma. The Inquisitors were dogmatic; as were those who burned witches at Salem. The 19 9/11 hijackers were dogmatic, as were the 7/7 London bombers. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were dogmatists as well.

There is absolutely no doubt that religion has had some positive influence on society. Of course, it's not really a fair comparison, since throughout the majority of our history, it was simply not acceptable to NOT be religious. Therefore good people may have been religious by necessity; whether their religion played a role in them being 'good' people isn't really clear.

Religion gives, as Sam Harris points out in The End of Faith, bad reasons for doing good things, when good reasons are available. I'll leave you to ponder this, or read Sam's book.

The other thing I would point out is that even if we accept that religion HAS produced good people (can you perhaps cite one or two for critical analysis?), this provides ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE for the existence of god. Religion may simply act as a placebo. Moreover, it is also clear that the association between piety and 'goodness' isn't even close to 1:1, and non-religious people can be as 'good' as religious people. And, as I implied above, who is to say that religion was the source of the goodness anyway?

I know that if you really believe in god, what I say on a forum like this has very little chance of changing your mind. But I would encourage you, just for a second, to lend a critical eye to your beliefs (whatever they are...you are, of course, entitled to believe whatever you want), and ask yourself, "Do my beliefs in god really stand up to the available evidence? And if not, why do I still choose to believe?" If your beliefs DO stand up to the available evidence, I'd genuinely like to have this presented. I suspect that you will, however, reply that your beliefs shouldn't be based on evidence. I am truly interested (not being facetious here) in what makes someone apply evidentiary standards to every other aspect of their lives but this one, and what makes someone forget that their beliefs are, when you boil it down, an accident of their birth. How would your beliefs have changed if you were born in Tibet? Or Saudi Arabia? Or Japan? Would you be any less sure of your beliefs if you were a muslim, or a christian, or a jew, or pagan? And if the answer is 'no' (as ALL of the available evidence suggests it is), the most glaring question of all is "Why? What does THAT tell us about the nature of 'belief'?"

[Huey]

It has been said a few posts up by Seyser Koze, he states that religion is based on hate and inequality. There is a big difference between "based on" and "Hateful acts" being committed in the name of Religion. If some of you would bother to study the Bible with the same enthusiasm as you study what atheist are trying to get people to believe as the truth, then you would know that the New Testament states to love all people. It also states that if you believe in God yet do not love all people, you are a liar. By "love" it does not mean you have to hug a terrorist or child molestor. I means that you show them acts of love. Try and help them or show them love. It is amazing how people read Dawkins's book and take it as fact, but shun the Bible as fiction. Dawkins has his own agenda. I read the Bible every morning and it is amazing how so much in it pertains to things that I have done or do in my own life that I need to fix. I don't force my beliefs down anyones throat, like some here are doing with Dawkins book as the "truth". But I try to live my life based on the teachings in the Bible. People who kill in the name of their God are not doing God's work, they are twisting words to find some way to justify the horrors that they commit. It is also amazing to see what was documented in the Bible coming true today. Show me that in science. I am in a technical field, and have a degree in electronics and physics, I still see more facts in the Bible than science has given on the topics of evolution and creation.

[edge100]

It has been said a few posts up by Seyser Koze, he states that religion is based on hate and inequality. There is a big difference between "based on" and "Hateful acts" being committed in the name of Religion. If some of you would bother to study the Bible with the same enthusiasm as you study what atheist are trying to get people to believe as the truth, then you would know that the New Testament states to love all people. It also states that if you believe in God yet do not love all people, you are a liar. By "love" it does not mean you have to hug a terrorist or child molestor. I means that you show them acts of love. Try and help them or show them love. It is amazing how people read Dawkins's book and take it as fact, but shun the Bible as fiction. Dawkins has his own agenda. I read the Bible every morning and it is amazing how so much in it pertains to things that I have done or do in my own life that I need to fix. I don't force my beliefs down anyones throat, like some here are doing with Dawkins book as the "truth". But I try to live my life based on the teachings in the Bible. People who kill in the name of their God are not doing God's work, they are twisting words to find some way to justify the horrors that they commit. It is also amazing to see what was documented in the Bible coming true today. Show me that in science. I am in a technical field, and have a degree in electronics and physics, I still see more facts in the Bible than science has given on the topics of evolution and creation.

Oh boy. An appropriate response to this would take all day. Simply put, you are cherry-picking from the bible. I'm not going to join into this type of discussion, because it is fruitless. We have fundamentally different views on the 'goodness' of the bible and other 'holy' books in modern use.

But I will say this, if we assume for a moment the following (I don't believe a word of what follows, but let's just say): the bible is the absolute perfect guide to leading a healthy, moral, long life and following the teachings of Jesus is the best way of assuring true happiness and love towards all other creatures.

Now, answer me this: what evidence does this provide to supoprt the notion that Jesus was born of a virgin, was crucified at 33, ascended to heaven on the third day, currently sits at the right hand of the lord, and will return to Earth trailing clouds of glory to judge the living?

Also, what do you make of the fact that a majority of people (a large majority, in fact) on Earth do NOT agree with you with on your views of the bible, and the fact that they believe as strongly in the literal truth of their books as you do yours, not to mention the fact that billions of people who have gone before you and I have believed strongly in the literal truth of other god systems? Why don't you believe that the sun is carried through the sky by Helios, or that the sun is, literally, the god Ra? Have you critically analyzed these systems of believe and judged them to be inconsistent with reality, and if so, why don't you apply the same standard to the New and (especially) the Old testament?

Your beliefs are an accident of your birth. If you didn't come to religion through your parents (which is statistically highly unlikely), did you do a comprehensive survey of the world's religions before you decided that the bible was the real 'truth'? If not, how do you know the bible is right?

Please note that I'm not being facetious here; as I stated in an earlier post, I am truly interested in how the religious mind works, and how these types of belief systems can exist in the face of no supporting evidence and mountains of apparent contradictory evidence.