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Fuel the Enlightenment

Richard Dawkins

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sactownjudge Avatar
sactownjudge
Posts: 40
Posted: 12.11.06, 01:53 PM
Hard atheism is one of the most critically unsustainable position on the market. Agnosticism is easy to understand. But to embrace hard atheism you need believe it's possible to prove the negative that God doesn't exist. It's amazing (and somewhat amusing) that men as gifted as Dawkins don't see this. It makes it easy to dismiss him/them as mere provocateurs since there is no solidly founded argument for such a relentless rejection of God.
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RoyalWe Avatar
RoyalWe
Posts: 48
Posted: 12.11.06, 01:59 PM
Fair point. The essential claims of every atheist can really be reduced to this: "I have no personal experience which verifies or makes the case for the existence of God." Of course their lack of personal experience in this regard has no bearing on the character of MY experience. Millions of people have meaningful experience with the divine--Dawkin's inability to find, access or explain that is utterly irrelevant to the realities of divinity and humanity.
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rocketdog Avatar
rocketdog
Posts: 196
Posted: 12.18.06, 05:50 PM
sactownjudge: Actually, Dawkins has stated elsewhere that he really IS an agnostic but that atheism - and I'm really, really paraphrasing here, so forgive me for being vague - gets more of a reaction from believers. (Let me also just clarify that although an agnostic myself, I'm certainly not defending Dawkins. Frankly, I find his confrontational approach to religious debate distasteful and more than a little reminescent of fundamentalism. It's no wonder nobody likes athiests if guys like this are going to be their spokesmen.)

RoyalWe: You're a little off here. Atheism - or more accurately, agnosticism, since as sactownjudge points out athiesm is not the truly rational position it claims to be - rests solely on the lack of empirical evidence for a higher power. "Personal experience" is a nonquantifiable factor, so would therefore be considered irrelelevant to a true agnostic. If no empirical evidence exists in either favor (either for or against the existence of God), the only rational position is an uncommitted, inclusive one.
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bartkr Avatar
bartkr
Posts: 1
Posted: 12.16.07, 11:19 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by rocketdog
sactownjudge: Actually, Dawkins has stated elsewhere that he really IS an agnostic but that atheism - and I'm really, really paraphrasing here, so forgive me for being vague - gets more of a reaction from believers. (Let me also just clarify that although an agnostic myself, I'm certainly not defending Dawkins. Frankly, I find his confrontational approach to religious debate distasteful and more than a little reminescent of fundamentalism. It's no wonder nobody likes athiests if guys like this are going to be their spokesmen.)

RoyalWe: You're a little off here. Atheism - or more accurately, agnosticism, since as sactownjudge points out athiesm is not the truly rational position it claims to be - rests solely on the lack of empirical evidence for a higher power. "Personal experience" is a nonquantifiable factor, so would therefore be considered irrelelevant to a true agnostic. If no empirical evidence exists in either favor (either for or against the existence of God), the only rational position is an uncommitted, inclusive one.
Following this argument one shall be uncomitted to the existence of fairies, goblins, end elves.
Scientific methods do not prove any theories but rather try to reject them. The theory that is not suported by data is rejected. However, the theory that is not rejected by scientific methods is not automaticly right either (as it can be rejected later on when the new data shows up). But before one can even use scientific methods, a theory has to be clearly defined, so there is no unbiguity if data supports the theory or not.
Therefore, before one can answer "Is there God?", one should know how to define God.
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kegii Avatar
kegii
Posts: 1
Posted: 12.19.07, 07:58 PM
Hard A-Zeus-ism is one of the most critically unsustainable position on the market. Zeus Agnosticism is much easier to understand. I mean there's got to be 50% chance that Zeus exists right? But to embrace hard A-Zeus-ism you need believe it's possible to prove the negative that Zeus doesn't exist. It's amazing (and somewhat amusing) that men as gifted as Dawkins don't see this. It makes it easy to dismiss him/them as mere provocateurs since there is no solidly founded argument for such a relentless rejection of Zeus.
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Dennis00 Avatar
Dennis00
Posts: 1
Posted: 02.16.08, 08:40 PM
to sactownjudge
Quote:
Originally Posted by sactownjudge
Hard atheism is one of the most critically unsustainable position on the market. Agnosticism is easy to understand. But to embrace hard atheism you need believe it's possible to prove the negative that God doesn't exist. It's amazing (and somewhat amusing) that men as gifted as Dawkins don't see this. It makes it easy to dismiss him/them as mere provocateurs since there is no solidly founded argument for such a relentless rejection of God.
If you had actually read the book you may have seen the chapter that discusses this very issue.


Instead you chose to make an ass of yourself.
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Rakajj Avatar
Rakajj
Posts: 4
Posted: 03.24.08, 08:46 PM
Dawkins certainly knows his stuff on Evolution, but I found his lecture to be a bit boring, even for someone who thrives on this stuff. The Q&A section was interesting however, I may have to pick up his newest book. I still like Hitchens more than Dawkins, more entertaining.
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triscele Avatar
triscele
Posts: 1
Posted: 04.02.08, 09:54 AM
Extreme arguments are always in a class by themselves
Quote:
Originally Posted by sactownjudge
Hard atheism is one of the most critically unsustainable position on the market. Agnosticism is easy to understand. But to embrace hard atheism you need believe it's possible to prove the negative that God doesn't exist. It's amazing (and somewhat amusing) that men as gifted as Dawkins don't see this. It makes it easy to dismiss him/them as mere provocateurs since there is no solidly founded argument for such a relentless rejection of God.
While one could argue that Nothing is knowable, I find that more of a red herring. Dawkins and others have said that most would say they do not believe in all of the other Gods that have fallen to the trash heap of history. Are those also "critically unsustainable" views? My guess is you have them yourself. If we speak of a nebulous god, many could probably tag the name god onto beliefs they have that are rather amorphous (love, universal truth etc.)

Once god gets down to specifics, it gets more difficult. I noticed BYU in your profile. Would you not concede that Mormonism would be rather difficult to critically sustain. Should it not be just as easy to dismiss people with those views by your definition?
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kshackle Avatar
kshackle
Posts: 0
Posted: 04.13.08, 05:25 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by sactownjudge
Hard atheism is one of the most critically unsustainable position on the market. Agnosticism is easy to understand. But to embrace hard atheism you need believe it's possible to prove the negative that God doesn't exist. It's amazing (and somewhat amusing) that men as gifted as Dawkins don't see this. It makes it easy to dismiss him/them as mere provocateurs since there is no solidly founded argument for such a relentless rejection of God.
An unshakeable belief in God is one of the most critically unsustainable positions on the market. Agnosticism is easy to understand. But to embrace God you need believe it's possible to prove that God does exist. It's amazing (and somewhat amusing) that men as gifted as the Pope don't see this. It makes it easy to dismiss him/them as mere provocateurs since there is no solidly founded argument for such a relentless acceptance of God.
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rpetty Avatar
rpetty
Posts: 5
Posted: 04.25.08, 03:05 AM
Although the movie Expelled by Ben Stein will not be popular with the disciples of Dawkins, it was amazing to watch Dawkins try to explain how life began on Earth. When pressed by Stein, he offers a theory that some alien intelligence might have planted life on earth--just don't call that alien intelligence God. Of course he can provide no scientific evidence for his theory--how interesting. I think Dawkins is delusional.
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