The Genius of Charles Darwin

elprawn wrote:

If Dawkins manages to turn any Christian into an atheist, then he'll have failed because it's sure proof that they're still pandering to the blind faith propogated by a book.

Huh?

Keep reading it until you catch the gist.

elprawn wrote:

Keep reading it until you catch the gist.

The gist I got was that atheists who agree with books like the Selfish Gene are somehow acting in "blind faith". The "huh" was pure astonishment at the claim.

Though I well realized the futility of imaginative and metaphysical arguments against the complacency of an orthodox sun-dweller, something in the scene of this afternoon colloquy moved me to more than usual contentiousness.

Narg wrote:

elprawn wrote:

Keep reading it until you catch the gist.

The gist I got was that atheists who agree with books like the Selfish Gene are somehow acting in "blind faith". The "huh" was pure astonishment at the claim.

Wrong. Atheists don't need to agree with his books, they're bound to by default. I said if he converts any Christians, it'll be because they read the words of another man.

So you're saying that if a Christian stops believing in God and becomes an atheist because of Dawkins's writings (which are based on scientific evidence), Dawkins will have failed? Failed at what?

Shamone Slime wrote:

So you're saying that if a Christian stops believing in God and becomes an atheist because of Dawkins's writings (which are based on scientific evidence), Dawkins will have failed? Failed at what?

Failed at getting people to stop blindly following what some idiot has written.

If they debate the points that Dawkins makes and the evidence to support it, surely they're not "blindly following" the work?

Shamone Slime wrote:

If they debate the points that Dawkins makes and the evidence to support it, surely they're not "blindly following" the work?

But anyone that intelligent will surely have already made an informed judgment, thus rendering his work redundant and obvious by all accounts, anyway?

You think Christians are "that intelligent"?

Well the ones who aren't that are convinced by his works are the ones that I mentioned earlier that defeat the purpose of his books in the first place.

What if a Christian who isn't as intelligent as others reads one of his books and is enlightened and educated, and therefore becomes an atheist and explores the ideas of evolution further?

You can hardly compare that kind of following a book to the blind following of the Bible.

Why not? All they did was read a book and become convinced of something. It's not their take on things; their opinion.

There's more evidence to support the ideas of Dawkins than there is to support the Bible.

I get your point; to read 'The God Delusion' and decide to convert to atheism from Christianity would be a little hasty and could be considered as 'blindly following', yet reading the Bible and becoming a Christian from an atheist is a lot more illogical and blind.

At least by converting to atheism, a Dawkins follower could elaborate on their ideas with logical evidence and other work.

What evidence is there to support atheism, then? What evidence is there that a God doesn't exist or cannot exist? There is no such evidence.

No, Dawkins doesn't say outright that God doesn't exist, and therefore you should blindly follow that. He points to the idea of creation and that evolution and the scientific way of explaining creation have more evidence to support them than theist creationists.

You can blindly believe that God exists and is the creator, or you can look at evidence such as evolution and the Big Bang theory to come to your own conclusion as to how the universe came into existence.

Can evolution and creationism not co-exist? If I plant a seed then a few months later it might be a flower. And the Christian doctrine will point to things such as God making the impossible possible, something with an unmeasurable feasibility.

Elprawn:

Reading a book is not some kind of treachery against your own mind. Dawkins is a very clever person, who will doubtless have insights that you or I could never have. He could give arguments you've never seen before and present evidence you haven't heard about. Reading it, thinking about what it says and considering or even changing your opinion because of it does not betray your own intelligence; indeed it is proof of it.

Creationism is at odds with evolution because Creationists explicitly believe that humans were created as they are and did not evolve from any kind of animal nor are they related in any way to monkeys.

The idea that you can't agree with a book because it is not "your opinion" or "your take on things" is ludicrous.

The fact that there is no evidence for or against the existence of God is recognised by Dawkins, and is one of the crucial factors in his argument for rational belief again his existence. The scientific (i.e., the only reliable) process of discovery and knowledge-building relies on evidence having to be given in order to support a claim. The existence of God is a positive claim about the universe, and on believers is the onus of proof. There is no convincing evidence, therefore no reason to believe. Whether or not there is convincing evidence to the contrary is neither here nor there.

And the difference between being "converted" to atheism, agnosticism, secularism etc.. and being converted to Christianity is that the former requires logic and sound argument, whereas the latter invariably involves flawed reasoning and an appeal to emotional thinking.

But that's the whole point of God... if he couldn't perform the impossible and exist through flawed reasoning then he wouldn't be all that holy.

Hence it is rational not to believe in his existence. You might as well claim that Enid Blyton (to steal Jamie Whyte's example) was in secret the ruler of all existence and had the power to snuff out the life of anyone he wanted. There is any number of arbitrary beliefs we could arrive at like this, and for the most part we all agree they are all irrational... why quibble about this particular one?

Why quibble indeed. Perhaps you'd like to ask Richard Dawkins about that.

You misinterpret me. What I meant to say was why believe this one? The reason to quibble it is that religion has caused countless millions of deaths and continues to do so, and is a major obstacle to the clear thinking of millions of people today.

And antagonising religious people with anti-religious doctrine is supposed to calm the situation?

Dawkins has done a lot of good. While I take slight issue with the somewhat missionary attitude he has, his books and TV programmes are raising a huge amount awareness and generating a deal of debate in all levels of society. If he is "antagonising religious people" then so be it, but I don't see him blowing himself up or beating on Protestants.

Awareness of what? Evolution and atheism? Name one Christian without a basic grasp of those two concepts. Religion is like world hunger - we don't need to be made aware of it, we know that; we need to stop being reminded of something no one cares about.