04-08-2007, 12:39 AM | #1 |
merely human
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I finally procured The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. It's supposed to be my reading material for my trip to San Francisco next week but I couldn't resist starting it tonight. I could eat this book! Dr. Dawkins is a highly respected evolutionist, is the Charles Simonyi Professor of Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, has written several successful books, and is an outspoken (i.e. very controversial) atheist. He and author Sam Harris (who is also an atheist and a PhD candidate in neuroscience) pretty much say everything (and far more) that I've been thinking all along about the improbability, irrationality, and superfluousness of belief systems that insist on an all powerful, omnipresent, and meddling god; the stupidity of dogma; the idea that the universe is only 6000 years old; that Christ will return in 50 years and rapture his believers who in turn will witness the destruction of the world as we know it; that you will be rewarded with 72 virgins in heaven if you fly your hijacked plane into a skyscraper at 400 miles per hour and take over 3000 people with you; that a zygote in a petri dish has far more of a right to exist than an eight year old girl suffering from a debilitating spinal cord disease and for whom stem cell research would otherwise hold incredible medical possibilities. Oh, and I loved that Dr. Dawkins used Bertrand Russell's brilliant teapot analogy as a powerful argument against the existence of god.
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04-08-2007, 08:05 AM | #2 |
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04-08-2007, 08:17 AM | #3 |
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I always thought it was funny how people who prove that something can't exist that couldn't be proven to exist to begin with.
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04-08-2007, 08:38 AM | #4 | ||
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I'm also bemused as to how powerful and destructive these three 'cults' (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and, if you count Mormonism, makes four) have become considering that they essentially came from exactly the same source, and that the core principles, which are still being practiced today literally unchanged and unchallenged (frightening), began in the Bronze Age!
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04-08-2007, 09:26 AM | #5 | |
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"Shit. I knew I should've taken a right turn back in Yonkers." Okay, lumi, I found it: Fundamentalist Religion and Science | NPR Basically, Dr. Dawkins states that philosopher Bertrand Russell came up with the teapot story as a powerful counter to the point that "...many people make when they say, 'Well, you can't disprove God.' ...and so some people take that to mean that therefore the likelihood of God's existing is about equal to the likelihood that He doesn't exist, a kind of 50/50. You can't prove it either way that He doesn't exist, you can't prove that He does....so it's like tossing a coin. I don't think it's like tossing a coin and Bertrand Russell's teapot story illustrates that. "He said, 'Suppose I was to tell you that there is a large china teapot in orbit around the sun, which you can't see with telescopes because it's too small. You cannot disprove the teapot, but that doesn't mean that you should regard the likelihood of the teapot existing as equal to the likelihood that it doesn't exist. Nobody in their right mind would believe that there is a large china teapot orbiting the sun. There's no positive reason why they should believe it, and exactly the same is true of God. That seems to me to be an absolute, knockdown reply to the statement of 'well, you can't disprove God, therefore you might as well believe him as likely as not'." Oh, and btw, the flying spaghetti monster is the contemporary equivalent to the teapot story.
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04-08-2007, 09:35 AM | #6 |
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For some reason that reminds me of the 'Babel Fish and Existance of God' part of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:
'"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves that you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. Q.E.D." "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic." "Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and white is black and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing. While most leading theologians believe this argument to be a load of dingo's kidneys, that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid from using it as the central theme of his best-selling book, Well That About Wraps It Up For God.' |
04-08-2007, 09:40 AM | #7 |
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"guaranteed!!"
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04-08-2007, 10:22 AM | #8 | |
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04-08-2007, 11:53 AM | #9 | |
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I wouldn't mind, but every time I've heard him speak he's come from the position that God doesn't exist and thus everyone is stupid, rather than actually trying to explain why God doesn't exist and why a belief it in it stupid. And, personally, I find it rather tactless to bring this up on Easter Day, but anyway... [/rant] |
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04-08-2007, 12:23 PM | #10 |
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I am a firm believer in a God (Though I cannot find any established religion that does not go against it's core beliefs in one way or another. Truly disappointing) and do not mind the fact that others lack the faith I have. The fact though is when the atheistic groups try to force their beliefs on others they become no better than the groups they are against.
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04-08-2007, 02:37 PM | #11 | |
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I mean, I'm not at all trying to be nasty here, but sooner or later you do have to ask yourself: How much damage and bloodshed over millenia have atheists caused compared to Christianity, Islam, or Communism (which is really basically a political religion and one in which, as Carl Jung pointed out, God was conveniently replaced by the masses)? * Oral Roberts actually did that except he threatened that God will kill him if he didn't raise enough money. He raked in millions on top of the already existing millions his audience poured over him. ** Oh yes, there is such a college, except it's a Christian institution. It's called Patrick Henry College, located in Virginia. *** The Vatican strictly condemns abortion, thus the missionaries, who are so far the ONLY source of information on preventitive measures for these African villagers, instruct them to avoid condoms and abstain from sex, and that's after they tell them about the virgin birth of Jesus.
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04-08-2007, 02:55 PM | #12 | |
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and I really do not agree with almost all established religion. When you mentioned who has a right to live, the zygote or the suffering child in my eyes they both do. The question is if it is moral to kill one human life to save another, and I'm real iffy on a lot of that since their are other sources of stem cells. Oh and true Communism by it's definition is Athiest, Catholics and Roberts are insane, their are athiests using the courts to harass Christians, and the REAL reason that their is a huge AIDS problem in Africa is that the established traditional means of birth control is anal sex which by the way raises your chances of infection expotentially(something to do with blood, I'll have to look it up again) Did I mention you are adorable Trepsie? |
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04-08-2007, 03:08 PM | #13 | |||||
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Of course, someone who doesn't know that he never says God doesn't exist, but only that it's irrational to believe a deity exists without evidence, probably hasn't actually listened to him or read his works.
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Richard Dawkins :: AAI 07 :: NOVA ID on Trial :: Skeptic's Guide :: Beyond Belief :: Out Campaign :: NeuroLogica :: Skepticality Last edited by Aj_; 04-08-2007 at 04:20 PM. |
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04-08-2007, 03:11 PM | #14 |
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I love being irrational, but I hate being irregular. Makes me hurt inside
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04-08-2007, 03:14 PM | #15 | |
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Oh no, we're having a religious debate again. *cringes*
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04-08-2007, 03:22 PM | #16 |
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quick, someone say Nazi!
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04-08-2007, 03:31 PM | #18 |
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04-08-2007, 03:37 PM | #19 | ||
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From an interview with Bill Moyers:
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04-08-2007, 03:47 PM | #20 |
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Interesting... thanks for that.
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