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Ask Richard Dawkins About Evolution, Religion, and Science Education
Richard Dawkins is an author and an evolutionary biologist. For 13 years, he held the Simonyi Professorship at the University of Oxford. His 1976 book The Selfish Gene helped popularize the gene-centric view of evolution and coined the word "meme." Several other of his books, including Climbing Mount Improbable, River Out of Eden, and The Greatest Show on Earth have helped to explain aspects of evolution in a way non-scientists can more easily understand. Dawkins is a frequent opponent of creationism and intelligent design, and he generated widespread controversy and debate in 2006 with The God Delusion, a book that subjected common religious beliefs to unyielding scientific scrutiny. He wrote, "One of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding." Most recently, Dawkins wrote The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True, a graphic book that aims to introduce kids to science. He's also recently begun a video series titled "Sex, Death, and the Meaning of Life" about how our world would look without religion. Mr. Dawkins has graciously agreed to answer some questions for us. Post your suggestions in the comments below, but please limit yourself to one question per post. We'll post his responses sometime next week.
I constantly see your work referenced both by opponents and proponents and feel like they don't always fully understand the concepts. My personal favorite is when I find a proponent of your work taking the personification of the gene to a new level past its role as a mere didactic device -- sometimes expounding at length about what genes want and desire. So what is your favorite misunderstanding that may have ended up as a headline, news story or that you've found on the internet?
My work here is dung.
What is your fondest memory of Christopher Hitchens?
The God Delusion helped me make explicit several inchoate ideas I had about why a belief in a god is not necessary to explain the world around us. Why do you think that so many people around the world still feel the need to rely on a personal god?
Do you believe a democratic society can exist which has no form of religion in its laws, or within government?
Believe me, if I started murdering people, there would be none of you left.
And how do you pronounce it yourself?
:3
Thank you very much in advance for taking your time to answer my questions.
DNA methylation seems an interesting property that has been shown to be heritable in some instances (cannot remember citation, study involving desert plants in Arizona or New Mexico, USA), changing the phenotype without the genotype. If this is inheritable, this seems to break your assertion that the gene is always the level of selection. In this case a gene producing X phenotype is methylated to produce Y phenotype, which could be selected for against (either direction) phenotype X, phenotype Y individuals net result in my hypothetical is a increased fitness and fecundity relative to individuals with phenotype X. Do you view this as escaping your assertion or a mere special case as it is still the gene being methylated. AlphaA
Do you think humans have a genetic predisposition to believe in things that have no basis in science?
Do you think that it will ever happen that a society exists without religion?
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
How would you respond to Alan Bloom charge that the complete removal of religion could have unforeseen consequences because of the void it leaves?
In a recent Gallup poll it has been shown that there has been no change in 30 years of Americans accepting evolution as truth. What do you think are the major factors for this?
of proteins leads to structural determination of organisms, taking place through a process of molecular recognition and self-assembly (following standard thermodynamic principles of minimizing the surface free energy of the constituent molecules).
However, when this occurs in a simple crystalline material, it appears amorphous at a scale about 3 or 4 orders of magnitude larger than the constituent molecules. Thus, how can this same process suffice to create biological structures often 10 or more orders of magnitude larger than the constituent molecules?
It seems that most creationists are successful in convincing their peers of the faults in the theory of evolution because they are the only source of information on what the theory actually is. They setup a completely outdated or just plain fabricated version of the theory and then argue against that. Which makes them look like they know what they are talking about and makes their arguments convincing to the ignorant. How do you convince people that what they have been taught is completely wrong without insinuating that they or their respected teacher/pastor etc is a complete idiot?
What is your favourite dinosaur of all time?
I enjoyed the Selfish Gene and the Extended Phenotype very much. In following books you've moved to explaining the very basics of the evolutionary theory. Do you plan to ever return to write about more complex aspects of the evolution?
While the theological propositions of most religions are laughable, the empirical neurophysiological techniques for the induction of mystical states can be quite useful as a means of inducing subjective feelings of happiness, satisfaction and stress relief. If "mystical" state induction techniques (e.g. breathing, sustained attention) were generalized, codified and distributed widely, do you think that these would work against religious organizations and their more deplorable behaviors? Religious history suggests this, as almost every religious organization eventually suppresses the actual practice of inducing mystical states.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
So I've always wondered how someone gets into gene research despite having a sibling who just received her PhD in a related field. What is odd is that we both went to a Catholic (K-8) school run by nuns, we both went to a local high school in literally the middle of nowhere and we both read works like The Panda's Thumb. But she went into research on genes and gene therapy while I went into software development and coding. So I've always wondered how much the United States' religious system actually inhibits our work in this field and other fields of science. Could you explain to me -- in your ideal world -- what would change in schools (at all levels) as a young mind develops that is distinctly different from the way it is now to better promote these options? Do you believe that the arcane and puritanical views of religious groups actually hinder us or that people who want to excel in these fields will find their way to it? Assuming you do believe this is a hindrance, how bad is it?
My work here is dung.
I recently got into a conversation with a friend about how evolved every species is in comparison to every other current species on our planet. I stated that every species is equally evolved, he stated that that's not true, just look at how much more complex humans are compared to say, an ant. In our little debate I was unable to convince him of my view, and he was unable to convince me of his view. So while browsing slashdot I saw this article and thought "Why not ask an expert?!"
So Dr. Dawkins, I ask you this: Is every species on this planet equally evolved? Or is there a certain hierarchy of evolution where a human is higher up in the evolutionary process than an less complex species?
Historically entrenched Mysticism has reacted poorly to the thoughts of Scientific minds.
Do you think there might be better ways to approach this communication that would improve the rate of Scientific progress and do you think that this interaction might be amenable to Scientific study?
Do you also feel that this debate that rages between those that would manipulate mysticism to gain power over others and Science can ever be won or is it a battle that must be fought for every succeeding generation?
Trust The Computer, The Computer is your friend.
Is it because you are jealous of Him?
Even if evolution has many facts confirming it, the big problem is in the first cell. Last research papers state that the minimum genes to create a living cell is ~400. 400 genes is so much complex to be generated by luck or by mutation from nothing. How can you be so confident in atheism with such lack of evidence (others may chose to be agnostics or believers).
At any point, have you ever had a religious person say "I think you're right, it is all bollocks!" after they've had a chat with you?. It seems like so much hard work to destroy the fantasy.
Kind of an oddball question for you - What are your thoughts on circumcision? The reason I ask is because, according to the World Health Organization, about 30% of males on the planet are circumcised and 70% of those are Muslim. It appears that the decision to circumcise is heavily influenced by religious beliefs, but the WHO also states that circumcision helps reduce the risk of contracting and spreading sexually transmitted diseases. Christopher Hitchens, a man who I loved and respected, thought it was a barbaric practice. Being another person I love and respect, I would like to hear your thoughts on the subject.
To what degree, to you think, will the upcoming presidential vote be influenced by religious believes?
Is it possible to fully comprehend the world scientifically, and foster a mechanistic perception of the universe, and still foster a faith at the same time? If this it isn't possible, and it is argued that faith will cloud our otherwise pristine judgement, how can we trust the observations or arguments produced by scientists of faith?
Where do babies come from? :P
Given that religion is present in every society, and by far the norm in almost every society, it stands to reason that we are genetically disposed to be religious. That would imply that religion has some evolutionary benefits.
Do you agree? If not, why not? If so, what are those benefits, and how can they be provided by a fully secular society?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
There's the idea that's been tossed around for a long time that we're programmed to believe in gods, goddesses, higher powers, and all that to explain things we don't yet understand, that it's some kind of evolutionary coping strategy. Do you think that's true? Why (or why not)?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
You've become an incredibly polarizing figure in a contentious debate. In certain groups, you're akin to the Anti-Christ, and in others you're quoted without question like a religious prophet. How do you handle that? Does it feel weird to have everything you say dissected (and possibly misinterpreted)? Is there pride? Exasperation? Amusement?
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Hi Professor Dawkins and thanks for offering to answer some of our questions.
In the past, some science educators (Dr. Tyson for example) have criticised what they perceived to be your overuse of the stick in promoting rationalism and fact-based decision making where they considered the carrot to be a better tool. There is some evidence that simply stating the facts may actually be counter-productive: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~nyhan/nyhan-reifler.pdf
Would you mind talking about the efficacy of both approaches to the greater understanding of the value of fact-based decision making?
Doctor Dawkins,
In your book, The God Delusion, you consider religion as a memetic trait passed from generation to generation. Although many have pondered as you have a world without religion, given the aforementioned context do you consider an end to religion possible in much the same way we may treat a genetic flaw with genetic therapy in the near future?
Good people go to bed earlier.
I never heard of you, but your quote of 'One of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding.', is truly quite amazing! I guess the one question I have for you though, that out-ranks my other thoughts is this; Looking back through your entire life and career, what is the one hint of a thought that makes you truly believe there is no divine being "in charge" of all we see, or can you not truly say that because no matter how much you see you still have a hint of a doubt? Thank you sir, I wish you well!
Do you think there's a genetic difference between conservatives and liberals?
Where should governments focus their science funding?
You have spent a lot of time debunking religion and thinking about how to think rationally - something that I have come to appreciate immensely. I'm curious what your take on climate change/global warming is. Is it happening? What does it mean for it to be happening? Is it caused by humans? It would be rather ironic if I were simply asking you so I could then take your word for it and believe whatever you say, so I'm curious about your thought processes as well. Contrary to the "there is no debate; the scientific community 100% agrees on this issue and the only ones who disagree are funded by oil companies" line the pro-global-warming crowd says, I see much evidence that not all scientists agree, and not all the ones that disagree have hideous ulterior motives. Further, I see similarities between the religious preachings of doomsday scenarios and the claims that the world is going to explode soon unless we do something right now.
How can I separate the BS claims and the politicization of the issue from what the factual data actually is?
Assuming you're aware of the behavior, what are your thoughts regarding the fundamentalist-like fervor exhibited by many of your followers, as well as the irony of their penchant for elevating you to a god-like status?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
this is a legitimate question.
No it isn't.
From http://www.doubtingdawkins.com/
amirite?
When I received my religious education as I child, my rabbi taught me about the Documentary Hypothesis -- not to deny it, but to show me that the torah was not always what it is today. What are your thoughts on this sort of religious education i.e. religious education that is not based on denying or avoiding scientific or historical realities?
Palm trees and 8
Hi Richard.. What was your favorite memory as host of Family Feud?
or have you finally recognized both the irony of such a tactic,
If they say religion is good, and his tactic is to say (and explain why) religion is bad / unneeded, that's not ironic.
is religion a virus of the mind, like a meme that has got out of hand ? as it wishes to replicate and disables/disrupts parts of the mind concerning logic and reason ?
or is it a mental illness of some description like schizophrenia ?
regards
Anon. UK
Something that's always troubled me about memes is that I cannot understand what the core language or data is for a meme. I know that our genes can be pinned down to be DNA but with memes it's troubling for me to try to imagine a language that conveys what is happening in them. We can observe a meme's transmission, we can observe a meme's mutation, we can observe a meme's fitness and we can observe its extinction -- but what we can't do is break those things down to some finite chunk of information such that we can analyze them on a empirical level. For instance, mutations of memes appear to be limited to only the human imagination and physics. It feels as though I would have as much luck describing how art went from cave paintings to film CGI with only mathematics as the language. So what is the concrete language of memes or are they destined to be more of a curious observation than a falsifiable and reproducible analysis like genetics?
My work here is dung.
There is more circumstantial evidence as to the existence of a creator and savior than not. Dawkins just gains fame from asserting something foolish enough to capture the attention of the ignorant and those who likewise adore those who thrive on attention of any kind.
It's like Al Gore claiming he created the Internet.
I'm from Europe and I'm worried about the pro-religion laws, that are passed all around world. This laws effectively prohibit criticising religion, because such critique could be considered blasphemy. I'm against any organized philosophy, because I think it can be used as a tool to manipulate people, but seeing such laws, I would be happy if there was a scientific religion. Such religion could worship scientific truths (without any ceremonies of course) and it would be blasphemous deny them. Then it would be at least fair that not only bullshit like religion could take advantage of such laws. What do you think about it? Would you propose an alternative to this approach?
Just to situate my question a bit : we have recently witnessed a deadly uproar of muslims over a movie, with Pakistan PM asking U.N for a global blasphemy law. In Israel, there are some cases oppression of females, like of that little girl going to school and more recently Anat Hoffman being arrested for praying at a wall (http://blogs.forward.com/sisterhood-blog/164434/police-shackle-anat-hoffman-for-saying-shma-at-kot/). In my country, Brazil, there was a fierce campaign against abortion and the so called "Gay Kit" at national elections last year and now the campaign was brought back at São Paulo state elections (mind you the guy that tried to win the election over these topics, José Serra, LOST the national election and is now LOSING his home state election). Now the question: Is the world going less religious, and if so, are the extremists desperate to save territory? Do you think all these reactions, are the "last breath" of religion? (Sorry about my terrible English)
A common non sequitur I see in the science circles goes something like this:
First, there is the scientist who is there to check out every idea out there.
Second, the scientist somehow becomes certain that what has not been checked is not there.
I mean, there is a logical fallacy here. Between the things that have been proved to exist and the things that have been proved not to exist, there lies a gray area of things that have neither been proved to exist nor been proved not to exist. Somehow your regular scientist does not differentiate the gray area from the things proved not to exist. This blind spot of course acts like a censorship mechanism, limiting scientific discourse.
Where do you think this error comes from, and what could be done to improve the status quo?
FCKGW 09F9 42
Creationists argue common code could be explained by a common author as much as a common ancestor e.g. a good coder writes software that can be reused in a variety of applications. How would you argue against this view when applied to the genome.
What I am trying to do here is to analyze why the support for creationism is increasing by looking at the thing from the layman's point of view. My question is related to this line from the the post "One of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding."
There are many things which the current body of science cannot explain. These events/problems create insecurity in some people's mind. So, this space is a power void or a power vacuum, and something must take place of it. The "something" might not be a clear cut answer. Now, lets compare the two competing ideologies and measure their strengths against each other.
Now, the scientific community has very rigorous standard when judging whether a theory satisfies a given explanation. In general though, there are some central notions like conseration of energy, locality of action, quantum mechanics which give rise to a general framework within which such a theory might be designed. Hence, the means of working are limited since facts have to be logically consistent. Some of the principles of this logic are quiet deep (for example the atom-wave duality is not actually understood by many people). This limits the amount of what the theory can explain, but people many times do not understand the limitations.
In contrast, the other theories are not restricted by any such basic notions. The capabilities of their theories are not followed in any self-consistent model, and this inconsistency is actually a central part of the theory, and hence you cannot actually rebuke it, since people who believe in it just will not accept it. This kind of arbitration makes the theory powerful enough within its axioms to provide an explanation for any given event.
In the power vacuum, the second theory requires less work and is more powerful and hence, in general more likely to succeed in occupying the power vacuum. Basically, for every single phenomena, the explanation can come down to "The god designed it that way". My opinion is this is the basic aspect of which must be resolved.
I would like your comments on my paragraph. Also, if you think my point is valid, I would like to know how can this aspect be resolved. What I feel is, the only way to resolve this aspect is to introduce more people to the advanced science theories at some level. However, exactly how this is to be done, I am not entirely sure.
Thank You for your patience.
Why have you refused to debate William Lane Craig? Will you please accept his challenge and debate him on the existence of God?
I think most Slashdotters would agree that beliefs should be held only to the extent there's truth-related reason for the belief. But the psych studies seem to show that all-to-often, even we nerds form our beliefs based on emotional motivations instead; Haidt suggests, for example, that reason is at best the driver on the back of the unruly elephant of the emotions. If so, then what does that mean to you about how we should try to dissuade the religious?
Almost immediately after I had finished the 'The God Delusion', I was wonder what is your position on the problem of political activity. Let me expand.
The religious mindset relies on faith at some point. There are people who accept everything that is branded as dear to their religion while others look quite reasonable until you hit some deep spot. One can also make the point that faith generally used as the single most important aspect of politics and oppression. It is not that surprising therefore that the oppressive regimes in human history were bound to some kind of belief system, even if it wasn't explicitly religious, like in the case of the Bolshevik style dictatorships where the cult of the leader, the unquestioned endorsement of the political ideals and actions dictated by the unquestionable source of wisdom replaced the traditional role of the Church. It is not hard to see why even the contemporary politics in the liberal democracies is still struggling with the question of religion.
Do you think that any significant portion of human race will ever be able act on critical assessment rather than blind faith given that there is no demographic, educational and political trend toward a more enlightened society at large (world-level)?
There is a small percentage of Christians, such as myself, who adamantly believe in both evolution and Christianity. We believe that scripture must be read and interpreted through a context that understands that scripture should be interpreted by first considering the culture of the original audience. As such, we believe that the "historical" aspect of the Biblical account of creation isn't as important as understanding the purpose and point of all of "creation", humankind and who we are in relation to our creator. My intent is not to lecture on the creation of mankind. Instead, I am interested in knowing if you've ever spoken or debated much with other Christians who have similar beliefs as myself. For many of us, evolution is unquestionable! However, the sheer existence of such truth does not exclude the fact that a creator couldn't have been a part in the process. Much of your Christian (or other religious) interactions that I've observed tend to involve arguing against the most commonly propagated beliefs of creationism. I am interested in your thoughts, on such a different perspective, as my own. Please comment. Thank you so much.
He is a scientist. He understands the prepetual cycle of theory, proof, counterproof, refined theory. Dogma is lazy thinking.
There is nothing to be gained to compromise on that.
There are three enemies of knowledge:
Circular reasoning. Regressive argument. Dogma.
You chose yours. And I'm offended by your lazy choice. Regressive argument is ours. At least we get closer to knowledge whereas you are stumped by something as simple as evolution.
20 minutes into the future
You can attract a lot of flies with bullshit, too. Why would you want to attract flies?
As this link shows: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/09/in_debate_brita_1064521.html like a good theologian, you can adjust your story to fit new facts with superb aplomb. However such success must cast doubt on whether evolution actually offers testable hypotheses. Could you please make some specific claims whose being disproved would show that evolution is untrue?
Linus is my God.
And I'm friggin' delusional? Sod off, you insensitive clod.
Recently my brother underwent surgery for a pineal tumor, causing my Christian mother to tearfully question how god could allow such horrible things to happen. I chose not to discuss my thoughts on the issue with her, since I feel that at least some of my relatives would resent me for taking advantage of the crisis to "convert" her to atheism. After the surgery was successful, however, she's certain that her and our family's prayers led to god's intervention allowing a complication-free surgery. Any attempt I've made to bring up the idea that horrible things still happen to other people despite their family praying has led to the normal responses of "you just don't see god because you don't look for him", et al.
Do you feel that using a personal crisis to dissuade someone from theism is appropriate, or is it taking advantage of their fragile emotional state?
I've never understood this shangri-la version of a world without religion that you insist on presenting. This might be because of my family history. Because we were Nobel French Protestants we were forced to leave during the Wars of Religion in France. The family at the time wanted to go back, and around the time of Lois the XVI at least one family member had started to reestablish the Nobel household. Luckily they came back during the American Revolution, and never went back since the French Revolutions would have put their heads on the block. First we were hated because we were Protestant, and then we were hated because we were Nobel born. The way everything played out was the basis of Napoleons Quote "Religion is what stops the poor from murdering the rich". Even when you look at other crimes in the name of religion like Witch Burning it ends up being more of a Poor vs the Rich game. A good number of people who were accused of being Witches where the Rich, and most of their accusers where the "poor" who were given the rich guys stuff after the rich guy burned, like the Salem witch trials. I don't really have any reason to believe religion is the cause of all of its crimes, and instead I have plenty of reason to believe it's just an excuse and without that excuse we'd just come up with a different excuse like economics.
Summary: Craig is a an evil person and an AW and his argument points have already been debunked when used by other religionists.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/20/richard-dawkins-william-lane-craig
Blar.
Support your claim that scientists do not differentiate. Show your work.
Blar.
How many books does Richard Dawkins needs to make to disprove religion? A lot.
But there's only one book that says God exists and there are three versions (tora, new testament and Qoran).
As I'm sure you're aware, in the popular sense, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of a deity or deities, whereas a theist and an atheist believe and disbelieve, respectively.
You say you're an atheist.
Wouldn't you agree that it takes a great deal of faith to be an atheist?
That's quite insulting, you arrogant lunatic. God didn't eliminate smallpox - we did. He didn't help in any way, from funding to insightful action. We did that. If anything, He was the bastard that thought up smallpox. And we fixed it. Man is superior to any god.
Why do we need an origin story? It seems to me that if evolutionary theory, intelligent design, and creationism were to all disappear, science would be just fine. We don't need to know that a robotic arm assembled a car to know every detail of how the car works.
Additionally, if there was no observation of the event and the process cannot be repeated, isn't it outside the realm of scientific discovery anyway?
In human evolution Julian Jaynes - http://www.julianjaynes.org/bicameralmind.php recognized a transition that took place from functioning in a subconscious or bicameral mind state to that of a conscious state capable of introspection and solving increasing complexity of societies problems due population growth, in essence, the creation and use of higher level abstraction in thought and language. During this transition those who had transitioned to a conscious state would employ "oracles" to return to the subconscious state for information, such as coming drought or flood, etc.. The sort of information many animals today are in touch with. i.e. crabs know to move inland prior to a huge storm making landfall at their location. Today we still have some who do "readings" and some in our past who have become well known i.e. Edgar Cayce, Nostradamus, etc.. There are also techniques like PSYCH-K http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4cV9cVa5sc that enable one to establish a communication link between their conscious and subconscious. Clearly from these we can know that religion was born out of this subconscious/bi-cameral to conscious transition. The differences being nothing more than different translation or interpretations (tower of babel fall) of what we all know subconsciously but have created belief filters (religions) for our lessor capable conscious functioning ability. We also all know higher level abstractions can be misused, innocently or more often intentionally (deception) and today we have a world wide level of protest happening against those who have done so against the majorities best interest where often religion is being used as an excuse to activate conflict..
So the question: Richard, do you recognize our current state of transition (as indicated by the wide spread protests) to the next, so to say, level? Please elaborate if you will answer.
I am a christian catholic. I do not go to the church very often, but I pray every single day.
As an educated believer and a scientist, I know that evolution is a fact and intelligent design is such a stupidity that it doesn't even need to be debated. To be very clear, if I would know *for sure* that only one of the following sentence is true:
(a) God exists
(b) evolution exists
then I would immediately abandon my religion. Still, I believe both exists, although for (a) I cannot have a proof.
Is there a place for people like me, in your view of a "good" society?
Richard Dawkins is my fav. His answer for where did life originate is "aliens did it". Seriously. I've seen the interview. Puts him on fairly equal footing with "it's this sort of bird" not-an-ornithologist-Darwin. Think critically folks - that's what you always seem to hold in highest esteem... apply it equally to your "priests" of evolution.
Does mysticism exert any advantageous selection pressures upon its host, moreso than reason does?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I am a great fan of your selfish gene theory. It provides a mind expanding way of looking at things. However a comment you made in one of your books indicated that it might just be a mental exercise of the scientific method to show how you could arrive at a completely different theory that matched all observations. My question is, do you think that your selfish gene theory is correct?
Being skeptical is part of being a scientist and questioning new discoveries, since that is how you can sort out wrong claims from not-wrong claims. However, at some point, a discovery is no longer questioned and is accepted as 'true'. No one now seems to question that earth orbits the sun, or that the shape of the earth resembles a sphere due to overwhelming evidence, but when those claims were originally announced, they were greeted with much skepticism. Being skeptical of these claims now would make one look very silly.
Many people who do not accept evolution simply think they are being 'skeptical' of the claim, which is an admirable scientific trait. However, at this point, evolution is accepted as happening due to overwhelming evidence, so they simply look silly.
This leads up to my question of how do we tell someone that there is no reason to be so skeptical of evolution anymore since it's regarded as 'true' and they should just learn more about it instead of dismissing it immediately, while still professing that people should be skeptical of new claims and discoveries?
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
I am (pleasantly) surprised by how many of my friends have "come out," as it were, as atheists over the last few years. I'm a young person, and I suspect that the amount of closet atheists among younger people (in America at least) is much greater than that among older people. In general, how optimistic are you about humanity getting past religion in the next few decades?
Esoteric reference.
Fictional doctor House M.D. is famously quoted as saying, "If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people." Is this your experience? If religious people are immune to rational arguments, how do we have a productive discussion with them? How do you impress on a religious person the importance of evidence and reason?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
How many times did you think "everything is cool" (or some other phrase) and no one IMed you with a similar phrase? Just because you got one coincidental event out of thousands or millions of events it in no way proves or disproves a deity.
Why are you so rude the people who disagree with you?
I'm under the impression that the main driving force of this New Atheist movement (or Militant Atheism as you described in your TED talk) is about fighting the current enemies of Western civilization who are using religion to justify politically motivated attacks, and protecting the instruction of science in schools. My question is about your strategy for changing people's minds. In your TED talk you said that it's time to stop being nice and that sentiment seems to be reflected in the atheist community. Doesn't this go against the research that has been done in the realm of human psychology regarding influencing people's minds? Is changing people's minds really the goal? If it is, how can the atheist community employ better strategies to convince people to accept evolution, as opposed to the strategies currently being used which seems calculated to polarize the issue? If changing people's minds is not the goal, then what is it?
I am an atheist, like you, Mr. Dawkins. And I have an educational background comprising a good deal of scientific study. There is obviously no scientific/material evidence of God.
But if we take a step back from the material, and just look at rational philosophy, we accept concepts like mathematics as reality.
So, my question is...
Even as you and I don't believe in God, is there any _possible_ way to construct a rational philosophy that lends _any_ bit of credence to the existence of a master "orderer" of the cosmos (God)?
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
You've been called out on lots of atheist blogs over your reprehensible comments regarding the treatment of one woman at a Atheism conference. Why do you continue to hurt the atheist movement by shunning women and triviailizing their experiences?
Many of the issues with religion have to do with people just blindly accepting anything they hear that is supposedly related to their religion. However, I often experience situations where someone refers to something as scientific, but clearly have no idea about any of the details. Often, this leads them to wrong conclusions, but with the firm belief that their conclusions are correct because they're based on science (in reality, of course, they're based on some poorly-reported news article they saw on the internet). To me, this is a very similar situation, and also quite dangerous.
How can we as a society help people to understand science and new scientific discoveries in a way that lets them have an accurate view of reality and science and also helps them apply this information appropriately in their lives?
"One of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding."
Religion is a system that takes advantage of people not being satisfied with not understanding. It scratches that itch by giving its adherents a false understanding of the world.
No one in the real world can understand everything, so to not be comfortable accepting not understanding a good share of reality is folly.
There is a difference between the concept of an Evil and the attribute 'evil'.
There is also no Darkness, but there are dark corners.
Can the battle against religion actually be won? There seems to be a human tenancy to believe, no matter how un-rational the ideas be. As if humans are very bad at taking ownership of their own actions and need a proxy to take the blame. If this is true then changing society is not enough, you would have to change the raw DNA to get rid of this mentality.
If this is not possible maybe one could exchange the bigger evil with a lesser one. A new atheist religion where people who want to be led are led. Would you like to be the first supernatural atheist if you promise not to be corrupted by the power instilled in you? :)
The more serious thought behind this idea is that an atheist uses reason and honesty to justify his/her ideas, religion does a brain fuck and exploits weaknesses in ones personality like uncertainty, fear and our ego by suggesting that our lives mean more than just a rash on our planet's surface. It is a difficult fight when your opponent is not playing fair.
So why does god get a free pass to come from nothing?
The anthropic principle does not mean what you think it means.
And what, exactly, is your basis for postulating that life is rare?
It's not an explanation. Even if you accept it as one, you still have to explain where god came from.
I'd give your apologetics a 1 out 10. Try harder.
HAND.
Over the years you have become a well known figure who is constantly quoted and misquoted by both sides of many scientific and religious arguments. I have to assume that, at various times, you've received a good deal of backlash for your comments. Is personal security an issue for you? Have you ever been invited to speak somewhere and had body guards along for the engagement, either at your request or at the request of your host?
Leaving aside the question of whether or not a god exists, do you think belief in god can give one an evolutionary advantage? Daniel Dennett postulates a war between a gold army and a silver army: "The gold soldiers believe that God is on their side, that God will answer their prayers, that if they die they will go to heaven and be rewarded by God. The silver soldiers are well-informed and highly trained economists. They are taking out insurance policies, laying out side bets, they’re doing very well informed cost-benefit analysis, they’ve got exit strategies both personal and by group."
or have you finally recognized both the irony of such a tactic,
If they say religion is good, and his tactic is to say (and explain why) religion is bad / unneeded, that's not ironic.
Uh, more to the point here, the argument here more focuses on separating fact from fiction, not necessarily "good" from "bad", although perpetuating a lie can certainly be construed as more negative rather than positive, with the obvious exception in society being religion. Apparently anyone can lie their ass off and it's OK, as long as you call it a religion.
My wife and I attended the Reason Rally on the National Mall this year, which was billed as a positive expression of non-theistic secular thought. We met many wonderful people there and were truly inspired by Adam Savage's incredibly positive and inspiring speech on the wonders of science, Nate Phelps remarkably eloquent denunciation of his father's Westboro Baptist Church, and your own speech highlighting the absurdity of having to hold such a rally at all; however, I we were also incredibly put off by vitriol on display by so many other speakers who were entirely focused on the evils of religion rather than the good science and rationality brings to civilized life. We ended up leaving the rally in the middle of PZ Meyer's speech because we found it so distressing in its Rush Limbaugh-esque tone.
It bothers me that so many of us define ourselves by what we don't believe rather than what we do. As Carolyn Porco elucidated so concisely at a talk you were involved in, I am not an atheist, I am a scientist. Like Carl Sagan, I get a profound sense of spirituality from science that I want to desperately for everyone in the world to open their own eyes and discover.
My attempts to get people to read your book The God Delusion were met with strong resistance, people were very turned off to its tone, but those same individuals loved your book The Magic of Reality . As someone who has pursued both the strategy of being highly critical of religion in one work, while apparently softening that criticism in your latter work in exchange for focusing on the wonders of the natural world, could you speak to pros and cons of these different strategies of persuasion, not just in your own work but in the efforts of others like Adam Savage and PZ Meyers?
Thank you so much for your taking the time to interact with us on /.! This really is an exciting development and an honor.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
About every serious scholar of comparative religion, history of philosophy and theology, including non-religious ones, consider what you write on those subjects to be clearly devoid of any serious research. Atheists philosopher of science Michael Ruse, the same one whose testimony in McLean v. Arkansas helped the Arkansas judiciary develop the definition of science based on which the teaching of creationism in public schools was blocked back in 1982, for example, has famously said about one of your works:
"Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion would fail any introductory philosophy or religion course. Proudly he criticizes that whereof he knows nothing. As I have said elsewhere, for the first time in my life, I felt sorry for the ontological argument. If we criticized gene theory with as little knowledge as Dawkins has of religion and philosophy, he would be rightly indignant."
Glancing over criticisms made to the philosophical side of your works by Ruse and others leads one to the conclusion that your scholarly critics think you misrepresent concepts, oversimplify arguments into straw mans, and generally plainly doesn't understand what you're talking about whenever you dwell into them.
So, here's my question: why do you keep doing to these academic fields pretty much the same things the worst of the creationists you so well criticize do to the fields you actually know about? Why the double standard?
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
A few years back I saw on C-Span a talk that you gave at (IIRC) Liberty University. Afterwards, an audience member asked you a question along the lines of "Could you imagine any event that you would construe as evidence of God's existence?" Unfortunately, I remember feeling that your answer at the time didn't really address the substance of the question, and I'd be interested to hear your answer to the same question without the pressure of having to come up with something immediately. I'm already an agnostic/atheist myself, but I'm curious as to how you deal with the fact that supernatural causes are ruled out axiomatically in a naturalistic philosophy -- any unexplained event is assumed to be due to an as of yet undiscovered natural cause. If a supernatural cause existed, could we ever know, even in principle?
You've been described as a 'militant atheist', but do you consider yourself to be certainly atheist or rather technically agnostic, in the same sense that Bertrand Russell described himself as in his essay "Am I Atheist or Agnostic?"
How serious of a problem do you think gender inequality is in the scientific academic world? What would you do to correct it?
Follow up:
You caught a lot of heat for the "Dear Muslima" episode last year. Do you feel you were misinterpreted or misrepresented? Is there anything you regret or would have said differently in retrospect?
How do I know reality is real and not just a dream in my head?
You criticize Nowak et al's "The Evolution of Eusociality", and in particular E. O. Wilson's popularized version in "The Social Conquest of Earth", in part, as failing to address Alex Kacelnik's argument that "kin selection is the only way in which worker adaptations such as soldier jaws and honeypot abdomens – phenotypes that are never expressed in reproductive individuals – could have evolved". However, isn't it the case that your own work in "The Extended Phenotype" shows how a parasite's genes can express in its host, up to and including castration? If so, what organism is in a better position to parasitically castrate a host than is a queen her own offspring?
Seastead this.
I've heard you say before that the purpose of life was the propagation of DNA. Just out of curiosity: why not the other way around, viz. that the purpose of DNA is the propagation of life?
A lot of people don't seem to understand what a theory is. Evolution is a theory, but that doesn't mean there isn't overwhelming evidence for it or that it isn't, for most (all?) intents and purposes a fact. How do you convince people of this?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
What do you think of open access initiatives, scientific publishing in general and what would you change to improve the situation?
I'm sorry to hear about your schizophrenia.
One of the reasons given against creationism is that there isn't any way to dis-prove it. Yet, I don't see how evolution could be disproved, so I don't see what difference there is between evolution and creationism (or its variations) except that if you assume there is a god then it follows that our existence must be part of a grand plan, but if you assume there is no god, then our existence must be just random chance and genetic variations.
What discovery or test would allow for evolution to be disproved? Or is evolution, "Not even wrong."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_2xGIwQfik&noredirect=1
The people trying to shove religion as fact and tell you how to behave based on there religion are the ones being asshats.
"c, and the fact that it's far easier to attract flies with honey as opposed to vinegar?"
flys are to be swatted and not attracted.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I cannot stop religion-related things from coming to my children ears. Even though they are not baptised, some teachers, grandmothers, etc. _will_ talk about god and will do so without appropriate distance to the matter. I do not want to force my kids to "believe" in science or evolution, but I would love to balance what they will learn about god with what _I_ and my wife consider truth and I would love my kids to respect science and think critically. Do You have any insights about raising children to be like that?
Also, You have written in God Delusion that if just one person is "cured" of religious faith (I don't remember the exact phrasing), You will consider the book successful. Well, Selfish Gene and Extended Phenotype were more eye-opening for me, but I'd like to thank You for all of them :-) They surely cured me.
Do You sometimes regret becoming a kind of an "atheist" role model? Even looking through these Slashdot questions, most of them are about religion, not Your scientific fields...
Dr. Dawkins,
I am a great admirer of your writing. You are a fine example of a public intellectual in your ability to express the wonder and joy of thought, discovery, and the nature of the universe itself. You also do not flee from interacting with those who are not prepared to attempt to understand your arguments, let alone give them a fair hearing. In fact, most of the public debates that I have a pleasure of viewing involving yourself, place you in an extremely hostile environment. I am interested to know whom on "the other side" you respect and with whom you enjoy debating. Or do you thrive on polemics?
I think for example of the excellent discussion you had with Rowan Williams in the Sheldonian in recent years. It was rare to see an opponent of yours treat you with respect. (Although asking you to debate in the presence of two philosophers on a philosophical topic was perhaps a bit unfair -- especially when Anthony Kenny expressed his pedantic side to the fullest.) However, the two of you did not disagree on many issues beyond a question as to the degree of clutter a god-figure places into a worldview. (Although, I don't expect that Dr,. Williams would have suggested that a god-figure should be included in an objective worldview due to the untestable nature of the hypothesis. I suppose that's the difference between metaphysics and physics...)
As a philsophy professor at a religious university, I find it very difficult to discuss this topic with students and colleagues who consider any different viewpoint to their received orthodoxy as a direct attack on both themselves and their god. (Hence why I post this anonymously) I would appreciate any advice you might have in explaining to the absolutists what science is and what science is not, what can be proven and what cannot be proven, etc. I have no real interest in elminating a god or religion from their worldview, but rather care more about them believing in things that can be proven as incorrect. (I'm a philosopher, after all, and love metaphysics and unprovable hypotheses!)
Thank you, again, for the great work you do!
Hello.
Atheists are frequently accused of having no moral code to live by. This hardly holds water - many atheists are essentially moral people even if they don't live by a religious book. Furthermore, religious morals are frequently contradictory and hurtful to many, so their worth is dubious.
That said, there is a moral rule on which all religious and secular cultures and systems of thought seem to agree, at least nominally: "One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated".
Do you accept this rule as a good basis for a common human moral code? Would you collaborate with religious leaders in promoting this idea?
In the Selfish Gene, you say that the "replicators" try to replicate without errors. However if they managed to replicate perfectly there would be no new mutations and no evolution. The appearance of the "mutator phenotype" in the long-term evolution experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment) would indicate that, in some conditions, introducing many mutations is advantageous. Don't you think we all have a "mutator" gene? Wouldn't populations that copy DNA perfectly be doom to extinction?
I'm often in your camp. However there have been a few times in my life when something has happened that truly cannot be explained by science. That's not to say it requires a god to explain either. One example, my wife spontaneously started crying for no apparent reason while driving home. She looked at the clock in the car and later learned that it happened at the moment one of her favorite aunts died. For me personally, I spent a day at work annoyed that someone had painted all our tools orange. After work I went to a friends house. He held up his hand and said "wait, don't say anything. I keep thinking the word orange". This could have an explanation - perhaps he stopped by the store (unlikely), didn't see me (unlikely), but somehow heard about it (unlikely) and played joke. That actually seems incredibly unlikely and he swears it was a fluke 25 years later. There are other cases for me that have no plausible explanation - even an unlikely one. It is enough to make me believe that there are connections between people that have no current scientific explanation.
Have you ever had one of these experiences? What do you think may be the cause?
Religious people typically have more children than atheists. In the long term surely this gives religion something of a competitive advantage. Do you agree? Does this concern you?
Do/did you talk about religion on a first date?
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
...the Islam, do you think that this religion worship violence, not love?
My question is as follows: Agnostic vs Atheist; does one need to have a stance on god? I understand the war on science as I do see it often. I also understand your points about making a stand for science... but is it really needed to promote science? That is, why/does science need religion in someways to make distinctions between reality and fantasy? Thank you and I will take my question off-air.
Given that humans have never lived on (hence not adapted to) an Earth that is 6C warmer than the baseline temperature, what do you think about our chances as a species to survive conditions that climatologists are saying we may be facing in less than a century?
So what is your favorite misunderstanding that may have ended up as a headline, news story or that you've found on the internet?
On that note: "One of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding."
My question is, which religion? My bible says "fools despise wisdom and instruction" (Proverbs 1:7). "Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice? She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths. She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man.
O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart."
These passages are shared by Christians, Jews, and Muslims, so it's none of these religions. What religion values ignorance?
Free Martian Whores!
Creationism and religion aside, where do you think our civilization is headed, what new problems await us in the near future and what should we do to solve them and keep the right direction?
A very dangerous idiot in Georgia is running for re-election: Paul Broun who has denounced evolution as 'straight from Hell'. Naturally, that qualifies him to be on the US House Science panel. A wag has started a campaign to write in Charles Darwin in the election to oppose Broun and they have cheekily stated they look forward to debating Darwin. Would you be willing to stand in for Sir Darwin?
Consider a scientific study that was conducted amongst a reasonable sample of atheists that asked them to pray and a control group to not. And the results showed proven tangible benefits to the target group. The act of prayer need not require a deity, rather just the physical and mental motions, no actual discourse to an almighty need be considered. You have taught us that the algorithm in our brains that enables us to thrive is composed of many seemingly unpredictable and diffuse components. As a component(s) in that algorithm, the act of payer would derive a benefit based on that hypothetical study, regardless of a magical listener which is unimportant to the act itself. Would you take up the practice of prayer yourself upon learning this? Or have you become through success like Einstein and quantum theory, so resistant to the idea, you cannot accept that such a thing could be true?
In "The God Delusion" you refer to Lee Smolin's multiverse theory as an cosmological anologue to biological evolution by means of natural selection. However, in biological evolution you have the Origin of Life problem, which is solved by the "billions of billions of planets" escape. It seems to me that Smolin's theory has no such escape in the analogy, rendering it not that useful in explaining what it purports to explain. Have you considered this?
How do you believe life began on earth and why did it continue to propagate?
While not an American, it seems to me that the USA is in a constant and highly emotional battle, through legislation and lobbying, not to impart religious content (which I, personally, do not find so objectionable), but to also gag all non-religious conforming (whatever that means) content, from children, adults and everyone else.
Is this a losing battle? After all, trying to fight it with reason makes no sense. The arguments against science are emotional. Are we even equipped with tools to counter these claims, being as it is we are not talking the same language?
On a somewhat related note, what would you say to the proposition that the wave we are seeing of scientific fraud in studies is related to the same basic motives, and is just as dangerous, as the religious assault?
Shachar
Although I really love your books, I was an atheist already when I read them. I can image that due to the sometimes harsh and confrontational arguments of, for example The God Delusion, believers are antagonized, leading them to not be receptive to the arguments anymore. That's why I don't see this book as a deconversion book. Hence my question: Are you going to write a book that is targeted at deconverting believers by convincing them with subtlety?
How cool is it being married to Dr. Who's companion, the Time Lady Romana?
Dear Professor Dawkins, thanks you for your time to answer some questions. I am a physicist that comes from a mainly catholic country (Mexico- that is secular since 1857), I am an atheist since some couple of years. In my country, in average, people from middle class practise their religion without being fundamentalist at all. Manly they take for granted what they consider good or convenient for their lives, and I think it is because they have a lack of literacy in their own religion (they just take the words that the priest preaches, and if they do not like just they do not listen). Under this escenario, it seems to me difficult to get along sometimes with my society, including friends and family, whom often give shallow arguments base on superstition. What do you think could be a positive and constructive attitude for an atheist to get a better relation with this kind of society? There is a way to persuade old people to think critically even if they are going to experience a cognitive dissonance? Is it valid to persuade them to leave their believes and imaginary friend that give them "hope" and take away their fears?. Thank for your time, and kind regards.
I thought of Proverbs 25:2,
"It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter."
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
Sounds to me like you're splitting hairs. Dawkins said that the universe has ‘no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference’. But he also says that religion is a "significant force for evil in the world". Now if a religious leader made such contradictorary statements, I'm guessing she'd (rightly) get called out on it.
Why do modern atheists feel the need to talk about God all the time? I don't remember Sagan, Darwin, or for that matter, Einstein feeling the need to dwell on the subject at any length.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Do you ever just get tired of trying to get ignorant people to understand something that they have no interest in knowing. And a follow on is, over many years you have been trying to explain evolution and scientific principles to people through literature, do you think there are less people now than when you first started willing to listen to or read your message?
Are you sure of that? Have you ever actually tried it? Set out a bowl of honey and a bowl of balsamic near a dumpster, and watch them for a while. You'd be surprised how many of those "old sayings" are actually the opposite of true. In the same way, people blithely reaffirming "Oh yes, it's totally good for you to be a blind sheep" will not encourage anyone to change their ways, but by irritating them, by making them want to "prove him wrong", he actually affects them, and in many cases, their attempt to "show the real facts" to prove him wrong does all of the work for him that "being nice" would never touch. So just like the factual basis of that saying is wrong, so is the social connotation that it's supposedly a metaphor for.
I like your position about religion. In all the talks that are available online and your books (i am a fan of "The Selfish Gene" and "God Delusion"), you never once comment on probably 2nd or 3rd largest religion in the world. Is there any specific reason for that?
I'm a theist who reads and enjoys your books. You've often made the point that different religions can have different faults, and criticisms that apply to (for instance) Christianity are not globally applicable to all religions. I believe you've even said that religions like my own (pantheism, essential monist, science-based variety) are in your view completely unnecessary, but not inherently evil or even provably wrong.
Yet many of your most fervent admirers approach atheism with the same faith-based, dogmatic belief as a medieval inquisitor's belief in Christianity... they invoke your name like the Pope's, and treat the non-existence of any form of deity (no matter how defined) as an article of holy writ, which cannot be gainsayed. They honestly have less open minds than most Protestants I know; they invariably start from a conclusion and proceed to redefine other people's words until they have convinced themselves they've "proved" that theists are all equally evil and that "religion poisons everything".
I was very impressed by your recommendation that the British Humanist Association use the word "probably" in their bus billboards, just as you use "almost certainly" in many of your own statements. That, to me, shows you are a scientist and a skeptic at heart, who has not blinded himself to the possibility of new evidence simply because it's unlikely.
How do you feel about being The Annointed Prophet of people who appear to be completely misunderstanding the problem of unreasoning faith, and the mental discipline required for the scientific method? Does it peeve you, or is it an acceptable burden under the circumstances?
How about the religions that are believed by the young earth creationists (which includes all three of the religions you mentioned)? Or the religion that persecuted Galileo? Or the religions which refuse to acknowledge the over whelming evidence in support of evolution? It's nice that the old book has those passages, but it has a lot of passages that people ignore these days, the fact is that a sizable percentage of religious people do reject scientific evidence when it disagrees with their faith. That's not to say everyone who is religious does so, only that it's far more common in people who are heavily religious.
A characteristic of God is that He has some attributes that are infinite. He exists infinitely past and future (the Alpha and Omega), knows all and so forth. Yet, when challenging religious concepts of god(s), atheists insist on treating god(s) as finite beings subject to approximately the same limitations as humans. Why do atheists pick and choose the characteristics of god(s) when trying to discredit religion?
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
Obligatory XKCD reference: http://xkcd.com/357/
Flies don't like honey.
The internet has helped to bring information to the masses, but a lot of misinformation has come with it. Critical thinking has become a lot more important in the internet age. How would you propose to improve people's critical thinking skills and improve their ability to tell a reliable source from a misinformed or special interest source?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
You speak a lot about beauty, wonder, good, evil. Are these values grounded in anything beyond humanity and human brain chemistry? Do they have any meaning beyond which human machines assign to them?
God, justice, and movie characters in danger to die could be useful fictions as long as you don't take them too seriously. Isn't that a better approach than just plain denying religions? Not because they are true, just because is useful for us to believe so and keep repeating that meme construction. After all, a man needs a meaning of life more than a fish need a bicycle, even if intellectually knows that that meaning is a fiction.
It seems like the biggest threat to the scientific method today is the apparent weakness of the peer review process that has allowed a growing number of falsified or incoherent papers to be published in fairly respectable journals (for instance C. Glenn Begley's meta-analysis of cancer studies). Do you think there is a limit to the effectiveness of peer review or is it perhaps a result of not enough funding given to reproducing studies? Or is it just a result of more publishers and journals? Or perhaps due to strong funding incentives to publish mostly studies that show interesting results instead of studies that have no evidence against the null hypothesis but which would nonetheless be useful for meta-analysis of similar studies?
Is there a threshold beyond which it will be difficult to perform science because there are too few experts in several domains to reliably judge the output of other fields? I can envision a future in which most research is highly specialized and it is very difficult even for members of the same branch of science (say biology) to verify each others' specialized results. What process or structure would allow science to continue flourishing in such an environment?
I am not a biologist and I don't know how it works, but I think I can answer your question on a conceptual level. Whenever you see persistent large-scale organization it is a good idea to assume that there is some sort of feedback mechanism involved. I guess there is some sort of inter-cell communication scheme where cells that grow in the wrong place (or misbehave in some other way) are discouraged and cells that grow in the right place (and behave) are encouraged.
I wondered the same thing as you and I was recommended the book Endless Forms Most Beautiful by Sean B. Carroll as the best way for a layman to learn more about the current understanding of how it works. It is essentially a book that tries to explain how genes, cells and embryos are connected physically and conceptually. I found the book quite challenging, but I think I that I understand some of it. Many of the results are quite mind-blowing. I don't regret having forced myself through about half of the book, painstakingly googling and wikipediaing biology terms as I went along.
what are the most powerful weapons that rational folks can use to fight memes of irrationality?
will finaly put an end to most religious beliefs about evolution?
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
One of your more famous lines is "It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."
Given the persistence of creationists, including the intelligent design variant, in attempting to push their myths into public schools, particularly in the U.S., do you still feel that you'd rather not consider the possibility of wickedness?
DNA Replication process ...
AccountKiller
It seems to be that there are many people who flatly reject the possibility of evolution because they see it as being against religion. I understand that this isn't a logical reason to reject evolution, but one of the reasons people see evolution as being against religion is that both Darwin (maybe unfairly) and yourself have been has been labeled as atheists and known as famous teachers of evolution. If my memory of your work is correct, you offer evolution as part of the argument against theism.
But isn't it harmful to the acceptance of science in general -- and evolution in particular -- to be tied to atheism, even if the connection is unfair or logically unsound? As a practical matter, wouldn't avoiding pitting religion against science help science -- especially in those parts of the world that most need science?
My apologies if anything here distorts what you have said or done.
-- I browse at +5 with stripped sigs
Whichever religions motivate people to legislate science out of the classroom.
I think your work is fantastic and your passive indignation is wonderful! I think your foundation for reason and science is one of the most important organizations for modern science. Could you also elaborate on the work that it has done and how you think it will benefit the future of science? Also ...could you write a college rec. letter for me?
Thanks for all your work.
http://slashdot.org/~SchrodingerZ
It is clear, from study of philosophy, that we have no proof that the world exists. So even the most fervent atheist, if he/she assumes that the world exists, must take this on *faith*. This atheist can go further, and assume that fellow humans exist, assume that physical laws exist, and assume that there is some order in the universe. Most do so. What this means, is that *almost all* human beings have a strong faith. This seems to not be different from the faith of religion in quality or strength, only in details. The question of whether or not there is a personal God is a straw man; the real question is whether our faith in existence is justified. So my question is, doesn't this mean that almost all humans are religious? Even you are religious in this sense, right?
It's clear to anyone who's seen your work that you have a strong passion for biological science. Like anyone who has an affection for something, you want to be able to share it with other people, but religion has been a major roadblock for this. What I have been wondering is, if religion wasn't such a large force in driving people away from science, do you think that you would have been such a strong proponent against organized faith?
Sam Harris' Fireplace Delusion (http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-fireplace-delusion) poses an interesting challenge for the non-religious. Do you find Mr. Harris' essay on the subject helpful in understanding how very intelligent people, even the non-religious, can manifest "a pair of clenched fists" where an age old tradition, like wood fires, e.g., is regarded as "simply too comforting and too familiar to be reconsidered, its consolation so ancient and ubiquitous that it has to be benign" ? If so, do you have any practical advice on how the non-religious can most effectively assist the religious and non-religious alike in overcoming this delusion?
While we can all do better if we cooperate, without an external God enforcing right and wrong, I don't see any reason to restrain myself from
kicking the s*$t out of some a$$qwe who desperately deserves it" to quote a friend. Why not murder my enemies if I can get away with it, rape and steal if that's what gives me pleasure?
flys are to be swatted and not attracted.
What a perfectly fundamental, zealotous thing to say...
What's next, are you going to demand those who refuse to believe in your particular dogma be burned as heretics?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
on a subject when you don't have any beliefs in it?
I don't ask a blind person for for knowledge on color, because they don't have any beliefs on color.
What makes you qualified to present knowledge about Theism when you don't even have beliefs in that area?
I'm a long time skeptic and atheist in a family that consists mostly of devout and evangelical Christians. How do you go about opening a reasonable dialog with someone who thinks what you believe is a sin. On the flip side how can I talk to them about religion and science when I view their beliefs as silly nonsense? The only solution I've found so far is just not to bring up the subject. It makes me feel sad that I can't talk about my beliefs when they can talk about god all day long until they are blue in the face and no one seems bothered by it.
Yours, apparently. Proverbs 1:7 actually begins "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge". The context you so duplicitously leave out is that Proverbs is only concerned with moral instruction, and it is really more about relaying the punishment for not obeying its "wisdom".
Dawkins is a horrible
For Christianity to be true, and the Jesus Crucifixion to have had any purpose, that particular story is the most important story after the story of Jesus. Without Creationism, Christianity collapses entirely because Yahweh has no original sin with Which to condemn us all to Hell from the start.
Paul provided Christianity with the rope to hang itself. Because he created the clause in the Bible that requires the initial original sin of Adam to take place for any of this to mean anything. The Original sin of Adam is the PRIMARY reason for the Crucifixion in Jesus, ordinary Human failings are SECONDARY.
I understand what Paul was trying to do, he was looking for a way to make the laws of the Torah invalid for salvation. He wanted to be able to go to the Jews of his time, and say "Yahweh doesn't care if you follow the laws of Moses any longer. You were bad followers so he no longer wants you because you have the audacity to reject the sacrifice of the savior. So, see you in Hell."
We know the world is not 6000 years old, we know that the Genesis myths were allegory because those desert nomads didn't know how the world began, Paul hedged the entire religion on the foundation of that myth.
So in conclusion, Christianity is the cult of Paul. This only applies to Christianity. But it is the critical fault in Christianity that disproves it. Thats why creationists cling tp the creation myth more than any other myth in the Bible. It's the corner stone that collapses the whole religion.
Dawkins doesn't understand what he's up against. He is asking people to give up going yo a magical fantasy land when they die, he is asking people to give up centuries of religious supremacy.
He is a scientist. He understands the prepetual cycle of theory, proof, counterproof, refined theory. Dogma is lazy thinking. There is nothing to be gained to compromise on that. There are three enemies of knowledge: Circular reasoning. Regressive argument. Dogma. You chose yours. And I'm offended by your lazy choice. Regressive argument is ours. At least we get closer to knowledge whereas you are stumped by something as simple as evolution.
You obviously misunderstand what I'm getting at.
Think of it this way: Say someone is challenging what you believe in. Would you be more inclined to take them seriously if they A) posit their idea in a friendly, reasonable, non-confrontational way, or B) scream and bellow about how you are an absolute fucking moron who doesn't deserve to breath the same air as themselves, for not seeing the world through their ideology?
Classically, Dawkins has taken the latter track, and being a prick about it is no way to endear others to your cause. I'm curious as to if he's recognized the error of his methodology.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Replace "religion" with "church" and it will make more sense. In the Christian tradition, you do not question the church's interpretation of the bible no matter how asinine. You will be "wrong", plain and simple. The existence of herresy as a concept is proof of this. The Jewish tradition is a bit more open to questioning. However, the level of tollerance varies widely from reform to orthodox. I can't speak for Islam. I don't know enough about it. I would suspect something between Christianity and Judaism.
I for one am a Heathen. It's such a loosely based religeon that my fellow Heathens don't particularly care much whether my beliefs align with theirs.
I must start with a big Thank You and say that I am a great fan. There are few people in the world who have guts to express their passion towards science like you do and to see that kind of dedication is very inspiring.
My question would be: "Have you tried actively finding out ways to improve your persuasion skills?" I have watched a lot of encounters between you and religiously minded people and while these meetings are excellent and very fulfilling from an entertainment perspective, I have thought whether it wouldn't be more effective to try to influence your opponent using knowledge in human psychology. The current formula seems to be strongly opposing the other person's ideas which has the effect of putting the opponent in defensive stance in which their conceptions are likely enforced instead of modified. If instead you would try demonstrating some understanding of the reasons why your opponent believes in all this, they might become more receptive to hearing out your arguments instead of blindly regurgitating their mantra.
I will say again that the current method is certainly very entertaining and might well pay off in influencing the beliefs of other religious viewers, who are less strongly minded about their beliefs and who might change their views while contrasting them with the ones presented by your opposition and demonstrated as absurd by you. It just might not be optimal in actually convincing the opponent himself (if such thing is even possible).
I will add in the end of my post a small note about a great book in common sense techniques about influencing other people and their beliefs: The classical "How to Influence People and Make Friends" by Dale Carnegie. Also english is not my first language so apologies if I have trouble in clearly presenting my point.
Says more about the person than the religion, frankly.
Do you think humanism (a set of values that incorporates atheism and agnosticism) is a worthwhile alternative to religion? Or is it preferable to rally around the mere lack of religion/superstition as a shared identity, as some "positive atheists" are trying to do lately? The latter seems like a poor fit for building a sense of community to me, and I'm perplexed as to why so many younger, outspoken atheists are omitting explicit mention of a more holistic world view from their advocacy.
Why are you unnecessarily abrasive? You and other prominent atheists seem to pat each other on the back for having the "courage to give offense" as if that were a virtue.
It's true the leaders at the head of christian apologetics and creationist institutions are dishonest scum who intentionally obfuscate the truth and apply a "whatever we can get to stick" approach to the arguments they circulate, but the millions of followers are not so willfully dishonest. The millions of followers are biased and sympathetic to the apologist's views, but aren't hardened liars and are more willing to hear the truth than you give them credit.
What makes you think an abrasive approach with them is productive?
"Do You Believe In Evolution?" instantly frames observable facts in terms of faith. There is wide spread consensus that the scientific community and the non-religious consistently fail to communicate as simply and effectively as the religious. Your book, the Magic of Reality, appears to be an effort address, at least in part, some of this criticism. In American politics, we readily allocate funds to determine the best manner in which to communicate an idea (e.g., cutting taxes for the "wealthiest Americas" vs the "job creators" is a studied deployment of effective language.) Can you offer some simple examples of language the scientific community and/or the non-religious should be using to frame discussions with the religious that are accurate and still deliver the degree of emotional impact common of the memes propagated by the religious?
The Bible defines life as beginning with breath
And yet the punishment for killing a fetus was death. Eye for an eye, etc... thus the life of a fetus was equivalent to the one who took it (whether premeditatively or by accident), and thus he/she were to be put to death.
You missed a bit:
1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
So really it's talking about "That'll teach you" as God roasts your nuts in hell.
And proverbs 3:
3:5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
So don't think for yourself, ALL wisdome comes only from God...
I remember that you had quite an appetite for artificial intelligence, you used to illustrate mutation and selection with visual structures that give birth to new ones. Are you still active in this field of research or do you follow it? If so, when do you expect we'll see something akin to self-aware systems or software that passes the Turing test?
Your credentials as an evolutionary biologist are beyond question, but with so many renowned scholars that have PhDs in religion, including atheists, why should anyone listen to to what you say about religion any more than they should listen to what someone with a PhD in religion has to say about evolutionary biology?
Justin
MTS Harvard Divinity School
I've heard you say, more than once, teaching religion to children is akin to child-abuse. I'm in agreement; however, having two young children who've had to deal with the death of their grandparents and some older relatives. I'll admit, that after their grandmother passed, I told my children that she was in heaven, as it seemed to ease their pain and the emotional sadness of her passing. As a father, an atheist and scientist, I often have conflicting opinions as to what I should tell my children about our mortality and that of their relatives. I want to tell them the truth, but the truth is, life is harsh and death is the end. What would you tell a young child about their recently deceased grandmother, and if you were to tell them that she is not in heaven, would you consider that less emotionally abusive to the child than lying to them?
You might have to expand on your example. Maybe a reference to the research you're talking about. This sounds to me like you're asking why a car doesn't run when you pile a bunch of car parts in a heap rather than assembling them according to the design of the car.
Not when those people are leaders of the religion or backed up by leaders of the religion.
Well there's that whole bit at the beginning of the novel about a tree of knowledge or some such....
but seriously, all three religions make scientific claims about what kind of a universe we live in. They don't encourage us to find out about the nature of the world ourselves, but tell us that God did it.
It's great you want to cite a quote and say that those religions don't do it, but all of those listed tell you to be a decent human being and have time and again had people do horrible things in the name of said religion, so that argument holds no water. Looking at history, regardless of said quote, they all have proven to value ignorance.
Depends on how you define wisdom. Here is some context.
Job 12:12 “With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding.”
Job 28:28 “And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”
Proverbs 1:7 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
Proverbs 3:7 “Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.”
Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.”
There is some stuff about knowing good and being innocent of evil in there too. I'm sure we could both cherry pick the bible to find passages to support a position, but there are some that believe that worldly knowledge is not the wisdom being talked about in the bible, but rather believe that knowledge of the heavens is good and knowledge of the material world is the evil.
Sorry, we have a loser.
First off Hoyles math for the statistical argument is wrong.
Second evidence shows that organic compounds are very easy to produce, and do occur naturally, not just the methane we've found in ice here, but stellar organics: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/29/young_star_sugars_life_blocks_seen/
Third the probabilistic argument isn't even valid: You might as well say, odds are you aren't going to get struck by lightening, so nobody gets struck by lightening.
In addition the universe is not fine tuned for life, its fine tuned against life. Most of the earth in uninhabitable by humans, and most of the solar system is completely uninhabitable by any form of life as we understand it.
Evil is a thouroughly human concept. If Richard Dawkins calls religion a significant force for evil in the world, then he means that religion causes harm to humans. But the universe couldn't care less, for the universe, there is no evil and no good. Religion doesn't cause anything evil beyond mankind. The universe is unaffected by all the evil we do unto each other. And there is no inherent property of the universe that let us define a difference between evil and good. It's up to us to define evil and good as we see it fit.
What is your answer to self-referential proofs of the existence of God? (The set of all positive attributes necessarily includes the attribute of "existence" [rather than non-existance], so therefore it exists, We call that set God.)
Do you have some dogma from the Theory of Types in your anti-God catechism to throw back at us deists?
How do we explain to the scientifically illiterate among us that randomness is a human perception and not a scientific reality? For example, the randomness canard surfaces when they talk about how evolution "randomly" ended up with us humans in existence today. Except that science never explains evolution in terms of randomness -- this is a made-up assertion by those who don't have enough of a scientific grounding.
In the infinity of the cosmos (not just this universe), it is scientifically reasonable to say there is only the discrete and the probabilistic. When you roll a pair of dice, you don't get a truly "random" result. You get a probabilistic one based on discrete factors that are largely imperceptible to the human brain. And it's arguable that given all the discrete factors, the result is even a discrete one! Now, when you get down into particle physics, that's where we really get more into the probabilistic, but that's probably too deep to explain to these science-illiterates.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
I am essentially an atheist. The very concept of the supernatural is nonsensical to me. However, I have to say that I find many aspects of world religions to be fascinating, enlightening and sometimes even useful to the human race. It's something I'd hope we'd always have around in some form or another.
The way I see it is that religion is a great tool for giving meaning to people's lives, and absolutely useless for figuring out how the world works. As long as their beliefs do not directly contradict established scientific consensus then I have no problem with it.
So say someone believes in the Big Bang, the formation of stars, our planet and diverse species evolved from older forms of life; but think some guiding force is behind it in some undefinable way? Well sure, why not? Now I think they're wrong and I have no problem telling them this, but I don't think this makes them a fool. I respect their beliefs, and feel no need to try and convince them otherwise. Just as I'm sure they think I'm wrong, but expect them to respect my beliefs in turn. But where they try to conflate their religious dogma with scientific theory, that's where I start to have a problem.
Are there any parts of any world religions that you respect or admire? Do you feel that believers and non-believers of religion can coexist, or is it an all or nothing proposition for you?
Happy people make bad consumers.
Once DNA-based life had become common, was it inevitable that evolution would lead eventually to intelligent life on Earth?
As an evolutionary biologist, how do you explain homosexuality?
Note that I am not some homophobic hate-monger. I'm genuinely interested in the scientific explanation (or theory) of why homosexuality occurs
I feel that there is an irony in one of the core premises of your work. The underlying story of basing one's propensities mainly from external facts as the only true realities necessary for understanding the traditional universe and claiming nonexistence beyond seems on its own based on a belief that is not a matter of fact. Godel's theorem states that any mathematical model will ultimately have at least one free variable. One can chose any arbitrary value; one value is no more a delusion than the other. As the science that you (we) rely on claims, the quantum states of the facts that you based theories on are always and only realized by an observer. At one extreme, the whole universe can be a complex intellectual illusion, at another extreme, there is no difference between a brain or a rock and the concept of wisdom, complexities and entropy are meaningless, and so is Occam's razor, which can be used as an argument to anything. And while the atheist proudly claims that his or her lives are more ordered and intellectually evolved to the theist, if they dig deeper they will ultimately find that the underlying foundation of the true and observable facts that they live by can potentially be nothing more than an illusion that is no less based on a belief than any of our mainstream religions and the poetic efforts therein to find consistency between a story and the observable universe.
Do you have any ideas on how to refute the claim that atheism is no less a belief system then true theism; how is one more of a delusion than the other? How are atheists that believe in some scientific model that is later found to be wrong or is superseded by a different understanding any different from theists in their approach to their belief?
Although I have not actually read The Selfish Gene, I gather that you believe evolution is not just a biological phenomenon, but can happen wherever there are varying, self-replicating patterns. This is my own view as well, which has only been strengthened by my experiences in computer programming.
As computers become more powerful and new fields such as genetic engineering and nanotechnology come into their own, it seems that 'evolution by artificial selection' may increasingly see use as a tool for the development of new and useful devices, whether they be organisms, machines, or software components. How might this change people's views about evolution, if at all? Will it help to educate the creationists, or give new insights on evolution for those who already accept it, or lead to bizarre new forms of luddism, or something else entirely?
I realize that predicting the future is an inexact science at best, but with that in mind, I think this is adequately on-topic given that it concerns evolution and science education.
Whenever you talk about religion, you are blatantly dismissive and intellectually dishonest. You support your position that rationality and subjectivity are mutually exclusive by disallowing anyone who could competently refute your arguments from being in the same public discussion as you. In this way, your opinions on spiritual belief are about as valuable as those of the average snake handler.
Why would anyone who is not already on your side want to hear what you have to say about religion?
You have publicly advocated for teaching evolution as fact, rather than theory.
In an imprecise world, scientific theory serves a purpose of assigning better understood, and predictable, behavior to large systems, like evolution and the theory of relativity. Most don't dispute the theory of relativity because it is testable. Due to its very nature, the theory of evolution is difficult to use as a yardstick to predict what happens when, say, you put a petri dish of living organisms in a dark room over night.
Shouldn't it be more important to teach the scientific method, and the understanding of what scientific theory is, than to teach that scientific theories are important only when they are taught as fact?
Indirectly, they all do. They are based on the idea that you are supposed to believe in some things, and are not allowed to doubt them. Only then you are virtuous. But, well, that is ignorance.
Every time you hear a religious person complain that Darwin's theories are the work of the devil or somesuch, then they are saying that ignorance is good.
A lot of information is supposed to be kept away from certain groups of people (women, children) to keep them docile. This is considered a good thing, and yes, this *is* valuing ignorance.
There's a big difference between what your bible says, and what the bible-based religions out there actually teach. Bible =/= Religion. It is a book that many religions are loosely based on.
If evolution "evolves" creatures with time in response to changing environments , why are sharks and alligators still around essentially unchanged for millions of years?
Most of the debate between religions and evolution, modern science is typically centered along Semitic religions (Christianity, Islam or Judaism). What is your take on the eastern religions (Hinduism, esp. Vedanta, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism) etc. vis-a-vis modern scientific beliefs? Evolution is not a taboo word in these religions and most of them have a philosophical aspect which provides a working (and according to their proponents even testable) theories for the evolution of life etc.
What is your take on it? Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions.
I know you've refused to debate William Lane Craig, and I'm not terribly surprised (given that he uses some sneakier tactics in the debate, like the Gish Gallop & dodges questions). Would you consider some alternate type of "debate" or discussion, rather than watch the equivalent of a presidential debate?
Perhaps something more akin to submitting a scientific journal or presenting a hypothesis to be peer reviewed? I.e. Craig would submit the proposal (that god exists), then Dawkins would review it and cite criticisms that would have to be answered. The idea would basically prevent the opponent from dodging questions and the debate wouldn't progress until questions have definitive answers - forcing an answer to the questions that are usually dodges in a verbal debate. This could be a back and forth email discussion - something to give each party time to consider a proper answer. Would you be up for something like this?
Evolution is just one instance of the "war on experts". Many conservatives believe that most subject experts are simply not reliable because these experts are allegedly too biased by their political or personal beliefs (often from exposure to "commie universities").
The usual suggested fix is "get educated". However, to get educated enough to see through the weak counter-arguments of the pseudo-experts is not a level of time and resources that most conservatives agree to commit to.
Thus, an alternative strategy may be necessary. Can you suggest any, or is "get educated" the ONLY solution available? If it fails, at what point should we try something else?
Table-ized A.I.
Do you have any pointers for someone who is romantically involved with a person who claims to love science, but who can't tell the difference between spirituality dressed up in quantum mechanics terminology (as seen in the movie "What the bleep?") and a physics show on the Science Channel? (Admittedly, the latter indulges in a lot of vague, breathless descriptions of some out-there theories.) Over time I watched a person that was close to me get drawn into the Ramtha cult via "scientific" seminars on Sacred Geometry and Crystal Geology, and it was one of the main reasons we eventually broke-up. I keep thinking I should have said or done something that would have led to a realization or A-ha moment, but my talk about pseudoscience didn't get through.
To what extent do you believe the same psychological "belief" circuity that causes people to follow a religion also causes people to follow a state?
From my perspective, atheist-statists and religious-anarchists are really just two sides of the same coin. Republican and Democrat is really just the new Catholic and Protestant. The only true "non-believers" are atheist-anarchists. Your thoughts?
How do you account for mankind's limitations in observing everything that exists or might exist? You must acknowlege that there are things yet to be discovered which our 5 senses and/or technology just don't allow us to observe, measure, or test. So how does this jive with your interpretation of reality? If you contend that God does not exists because he/she/it can't be observed directly with scientific instrumentation, would you also contend that other phenomema which we now know to exist, did not actually exist until we developed the capability to observe them?
Creationists often use the argument "Scientists disagree on some of the finer points of evolution, therefore evolution must be false." Why don't scientists turn the argument around to "Creation stories disagree on many points, therefore all creation stories must be false?"
Mr Dawkins: Doesn't the existence of a worthless piece of shit like eldavojohn prove evolution is a lie?
What's your favourite verse from Leviticus?
you were apparently fully prepared to raise a child with sufficient resources so the kid's life won't be a living hell. That is not the only environment in which fetuses exist.
Careful what you argue - there are regions on this world where kids are born into terrible conditions of abject poverty, famine and disease. This is arguably far worse than even the lowest level of poverty in the US or Europe.
Pro-lifers tend to argue that a fetus is a person from the moment of conception so I say lets adopt that. In this case the mother provides life support services to another individual at some discomfort to herself. Were this between two already born people we would have no issue in letting one person decide that they did not want to continue bearing the burden and they would be able to terminate their life support of the other. However in such a case the other person would not be killed but would be allowed to carry on without life support to live - or die - based on their own capability to support their own life.
What I would suggest is we treat abortion the same way. The fetus should be removed, without damaging it, and should be allowed a chance to live on its own. Before about 6 months there is essentially no chance that it will survive but after this its chances start to greatly increase. This gives the woman full control over her body - she can withdraw her life support services whenever she wants - but also respects the fetus' right to life because it gets a chance at survival.
This is more-or-less consistent with abortion law in most countries except that there is usually fixed date after which no abortion is allowed (barring medical necessity to protect the mother's life) rather than an extraction and see if they survive approach. Currently in Canada it is perfectly legal - although unusual - to abort an 8.5 month fetus which, given its survival chance by itself, I find hard to differentiate from murder.
So Dawkins gets to define evil as he sees fit and then judge me on the basis of his definition? If I didnt know any better I'd say he was trying to force his moral beliefs onto me.
Personally, I instantly turned away from the last scraps of religion left within me on reading your "The God Delusion" on a boat crossing Lake Zürich. The phrase that stuck, and still sticks, with me was: "You can not survive your own death". Neatly said. You may, however, be aware of the one and only possible philosphical glitch in that phrase. "Surviving" and "death" are intricately linked with eachother on a conceptual level. So much so, even, that the one negatively defines the other. Now, since Aristotle, we know that we can not define a concept by using that very concept. For example, "to be" can not be defined with words such as "is", "being", etc. etc. Could it therefore be that "you can not survive your own death" is a tautology ?
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Yes, I have had similar experiences. The History Channel is actually really awful. It's pure entertainment and they espouse all kinds of nonsense and give it an air of respectability.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Why is it that humans feel the need to make others share their own beliefs and moral codes? Is this simply based on our thirst for knowledge and evolved traits?
This happens both in religion (e.g. people coming to my door to deliver Watchtower even when I don't want it and feel bad about the waste of ink/paper/energy used) and in the case of Mr Dawkins himself suggesting that we don't require religion (which I agree with since in my opinion it causes more problems than it solves).
A few token sentences versus the general sentiment of the whole of the rest of a book that values blind faith and unquestioning loyalty.
Something that's always troubled me about mimes is that I cannot understand what the core language or data is for a mime. I know that our genes can be pinned down to be DNA but with mimes it's troubling for me to try to imagine a language that conveys what is happening in them. We can observe a mime's transmission, we can observe a mime's mutation, we can observe a mime's fitness and we can observe its extinction -- but what we can't do is break those things down to some finite chunk of information such that we can analyze them on a empirical level. For instance, mutations of mimes appear to be limited to only the human imagination and physics. It feels as though I would have as much luck describing how art went from cave paintings to film CGI with only mathematics as the language. So what is the concrete language of mimes or are they destined to be more of a curious observation than a falsifiable and reproducible analysis like genetics? And why the hell can't they speak?
Table-ized A.I.
Completely invalid argument, the net sum of energy in the universe is zero.
Yet another invalid argument, organic materials do occur naturally in space, so your argument is once again false.
Yet another logical fallacy.
Even more logical fallacies.
Can you answer this question as a sort of online autograph for me? your books had a great influence in my life. thank you
See what happens when you go for "funny"? Mods, he's referring to South Park after Mr. garrison gets a sex change operation. I have no idea what it has to do with Dawkins, though. Offtopic maybe, overrated maybe, but I don't think he's trolling.
Free Martian Whores!
I am concerned about the possible risk of religious people gaining even more global political influence. How do you see the Earth population growth affecting the survival of atheism over the next 100 years?
Here I especially think of a number of factors. Religious people appear to have more children than atheists across all nations. Still, education levels are rising around the world and it is known that educated people tend to be more prone to atheism. These two effects may be countering each other, even if other factors could be at play.
Will atheism be forced to retreat because of the sheer numbers of the religious population around the world? Or is that some misguided Malthusian fear again?
Because we and our science is limitted to this universe, do you have any ideas of what to expect if we could somehow see outside our universe? And how time and being outside of time affects things?
Do you often get deeply furious at having to answer a logical answer to ignorant people? I am a huge fan and sometimes I feel you are explaining something they should already know if they have any basic intelligence. Sincerely Sinkingxbelle
My intro to Philosophy prof posed this question: "If you had to choose just one subject to study first before
all others which would it be: Science, Philosophy, Math, Religion, Politics, language etc.?" The point of his
question is that certain subject areas more fundamental than others. Physics is NOT fundamental. Nor, gasp,
is logic. People seem to get along just fine while adhering to many contradictory beliefs, with religion often
being one of them. Indeed, faith is a necessary precursor to science as well; for you must have faith that the
observable world is real, that your observations are accurate, and that the world is predictable. So, my real
question to you is: "how can you reconcile your luring astray of philosophically challenged people into a
religious system that slams traditional religions whilst claiming that science is the answer to `life, the universe,
and everything`, when it it is patently not so?"
Human psychology tends to act as a barrier towards providing anyone an argument contrary to their held beliefs, regardless of reason or any provable basis of an argument. There have even been stories on slashdot about these studies and their results. Given this information, it is apparent that your choice in writing style and tone will have a greater effect on one reader demographic than another, for example a religious fellow or an atheist. Do you try to take this into account when you produce your works? Which impact is more important to you, reaching the skeptical believer or comforting the isolated and persecuted atheist?
Do you think that it could be possible that every religion we have is wrong, all of the books are wrong, and yet there still may be a creator or creators of sorts who engineered our universe (or multiverse)?
Dawkins said that the universe has ‘no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference’. But he also says that religion is a "significant force for evil in the world".
It seems readily apparent that the first quote is saying that the universe itself has no purpose, makes no moral judgments, bears us no ill-will and no good-will either. That isn't at odds with saying that humans pursue objectives, that humans make moral judgments and that he personally makes such moral judgments in relation to religion. You don't have to buy into his world view to realise that there is no contradiction here.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
If it was discovered that this universe was actually a simulation and that "God" is the server administrator running it and loves hymns being sung about him because he's an egomaniac, wouldn't atheists feel a little bit embarrassed?
(and risk not being ported to the new server: HEAVEN01)
Table-ized A.I.
Do you believe that those raised in a religious household are equally capable of accessing and analyzing observable reality as those adults who were not, and, if not, at what age do you recommend a child be introduced to the idea of "religion" and the particulars of a given faith tradition?
So now that we are all in agreement that religion is 1) not required for ethics or morality, 2) a detriment to scientific advancement and a burden on our society's available resources, and 3) a leftover mindset from a simpler time in humanity's evolution...what do we do about it? How could religion be removed from society? Must we be content to wait it out? More and more people identify themselves as "nones" or people without religion in polls, so it's possible that religion will one day become outdated and passé. Or is there no hope of removing religion once it has been ensconced in a society as deeply as it currently is, and the only way to have a society without religion is to form a new one from scratch with laws passed to prevent the creation of religion?
How do we get a society without religion?
I am curious. Assuming of the many the many religions of the world, if one of them were correct and your observations/assumptions of life and spiritual existence were wrong, would you want to know the truth and have a change of "heart"?
I'm not sure if it's correct, but I've heard you support preventing parents from providing a religious education to their children. I do not consent to this. What measures of force do you believe are appropriate to use against people like me to remake society in the way you believe it should be?
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Faith and science need not compete with each other.; they can coexist. In other words, people treat the two as a false dichotomy.
A person's faith should not prevent them from believing in science. Conversely, a person's belief in science should prevent them from having faith.
If one could prove one's faith, it wouldn't be called faith, it would be called science.
There are scientific ideas that we believe to be true, but cannot yet prove. A long standing example was fermats last theorem. People had for a long time felt it was true, but until recent time, they were unable to prove it. A modern day example could be NP vs P. Many scientists suspect that an NP complete problem cannot be solved in polynomial time, but no one has a proof.
The main point is that even in science, there are things that we cannot yet prove. There are some things that we may never be able to prove. We have our beliefs about what we feel is true. Our faith in our belief guides us in our attempt to answer the as yet unanswerable questions. The fact that we may not have an answer to a scientific question,but only beliefs about the answer, does not prevent us from being scientific.
A friend recently passed away in an automobile accident. His mother, drowning in grief, praised God for ejecting his body from the vehicle before it exploded so as to save him from needless suffering. She said this proves God has a plan for everyone's life. I wanted to suggest this God fellow maybe could have just stopped the wreck from occurring - probably a nicer plan - but I did not. When people are struck with unfathomable grief, it seems all but impossible to say or do anything that fails to reinforce their religious beliefs and the comfort these beliefs seemingly provide. Is this behavior a disservice to the grieving, and, if so, how do you address the grieving while they are wallowing in grief?
Don't you think that is very advantageous for society, that someone who is seriously sick or handicapped is religious? Doesn't this provide him with strength to contribute to society, and therefore outweigh the negative aspects of religion for society?
As a former indoctrinated religionist, a hard thing, after throwing religion away, was finding a meaning in life. I then realised there was no meaning and then I realised I should create my own as I go along. Would you care to comment?
work in progress
It would have been nice to have a more pleasant conversation about this, and there are still plenty of place you can go to have that pleasant conversation. It's just that not enough people buy those theatre tickets, and many that do listen to their iPod's instead of the concert anyway. So now's there's a rock concert in town, and yes it's a little loud, but the band's got talent, the tickets are selling, and the music is being listened to by fans and nonfans alike. You might not like the music, but complaining about the noise level is ironic because your music has been playing weekly by open air and overamped death metal bands for the last 1700 years.
Assuming you're aware of the behavior, what are your thoughts regarding the fundamentalist-like fervor exhibited by many of your followers, as well as the irony of their penchant for elevating you to a god-like status?
Why don't you ask him whether he is still beating his wife while you are at it? Rarely have I seen such clear examples of the fallacy of the complex question.
Dr. Dawkins,
(This is a strict science question - nothing to do with religion)
I was wondering if you noticed the structural disparity between female and male gonads?
Specifically, that the female (ovaries) are positioned up inside the body, well protected from attack and injury, and separated physically (laterally.) As opposed to the male (testes) which are exposed to thermal influences, chemical attacks, trauma (even while doing something as benign as running, climbing, etc.)
My hypothesis is that this is actually an evolutionary design feature that works like this:
That this design increases the rate of mutation when the group is less well adapted to the current environment.
In an environment that is benign to the group, the males receive less trauma, and the rate of mutation is low.
In an hostile environment, the testes are exposed to more trauma, which produces a higher rate of mutation, in the assumption that we may need more mutational changes to make the environment more tolerable to us.
Consequently, once we have adapted to that new, formerly hostile, environment, the mutation rate would drop down again.
Meanwhile, the females are the carrier of the original code, and the males that mutate in a positive way (vis-à-vis the new hostile environment) are rewarded with breeding/passing on the new, beneficial trait.
I thank you in advance for your comments...
Dear Mr. Dawkins,
It seems to me that your epistemology of reason and empiricism is very good at teaching us how to understand objective reality but not how to value anything. Whenever a person makes a value claim, i.e. that something is good or bad, that person is essentially engaging in something akin to religion. I am unaware of any empirical tests for good and bad. Eric Hoffer reminded us that, though ours is a godless world, it is anything but irreligious; everywhere the True Believer is on the march... shaping the world in his own image. I believe your own efforts to shape an ideal society devoid of so-called "religion" are based in value judgments. Tell me, how are you different from those whom you criticize?
The "Wisdom" and "instruction" they are talking about are not the same thing that most people mean. "Wisdom" is whatever the holy book says. "Instruction" is listening to the cleric tell you what the holy book says. Nothing more than that.
You'll find similar redefinition of "free" and "freedom" to mean "obedience to God's commands" (i.e. what the cleric tells you are God's commands) in most of these faiths. Likewise, some of the Hindus are big on using a very special meaning of "science" which cuts out the rationalism and empiricism. The bookstore where I work has a lot of "vedantic science" stuff on our Crazy Woo Woo ("metaphysical" to the customers) shelf.
Neuroscience shows that rational and emotional brain functions are separate but interrelated (Ramachandran's take on the Capgras Delusion). Could you comment on this in relation to religionist thinking?
work in progress
Let me suggest an equally legitimate question:
"Mr. Dawkins, are you ever going to stop beating your wife?"
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
In this respect, aren't you just as scared of infinity as traditionally religious people? PS, more examples of this attitude are on the page The Glib Reductionists.
Dr. Dawkins,
On what grounds do you object to bonafide scientific enquiry into so-called paranormal phenonema such as esp?
I refer specifically to the work of Dr. Rupert Sheldrake.
Thanks in advance.
Before the civil war many of the leaders of the US used to be slave owners. Doesn't mean the ideals of the United States is wrong, just of those men.
If you "know" God you are a Gnostic and thus a heretic since the Bible states that no man can know God. Now please climb onto that pyre over there...
All the examples you criticized in "The Root of All Evil" are from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Are the bad effects you speak of common to all religion?
"you still have to explain where god came from"
No, actually, that's not the weakness of the First Cause argument.
That argument depends on rejection of the idea of infinite regress, and an extrapolation based on our limited experience that all physical things must have causes external to themselves. Both of those are assumptions, not self-evident truths.
But start with those, and you have to wind up with a First Cause that is not a physical thing.
Except fundamentalists interpret this as: “Instruction, Wisdom and Understanding” as documented in their holy texts alone. No other sources are allowed.
Letter To Iran
I find the some of the biggest opponents of the Bible are the people who understand it the least. No offense, but you speak from ignorance of the Bible. There were many people in the Bible who knew God existed. I'm not engaging you to just argue, I am simply stating facts. Not only were there people who knew God existed, but there were people who were spoken to by God as well.
I feel sad for people who oppose God because they don't realize he is pure good and love. The kind of attitude of despising something is the same attitude that keeps someone from learning about that topic too.
God spoke to me
Reason, by itself, notoriously cannot refute solipsism.
I read a comment that you were showing an increased interest in religion in your later years? Is there any truth in this? What are your thoughts on Peter Hitchens, his appraisal of religion and seemingly completely opposite views on religion to his brother?
It seems to a be common belief that morality is only possible when there is a religious basis for it, do you think it's possible to separate the two concepts in the mind of an audience, and if so how?
The separation of church and state is the best way to protect people of all beliefs, and none, yet it is often misunderstood or even vilified.
How can we best work to promote the separation of church and state without being misinterpreted as an attack on faith?
Isn't the gathering of abstract scientific knowledge and the attempt to form theories an expression of a faith that knowledge is somehow worthwhile for its own sake and that the universe is understandable?
My bible says "fools despise wisdom and instruction" (Proverbs 1:7). "Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice? She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths. She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man. O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart."
I think the modern scientific concept of "wisdom" and the religious/biblical meaning of "wisdom" differ greatly.
I don't know Prof. Dawkins, however I'll assume his definition of "wisdom" is along the lines of "being informed by current scientific theories that bear the preponderance of evidence, eschewing concepts for which there is no evidence, while being open to changes as more evidence and better models present themselves."
Unfortunately, the religious definition of "wisdom" typically winds up meaning "is able to quote bible/torah/koran verses verbatim".
The point being, "wisdom" is a very slippery word with a very nebulous definition that changes depending on who you're talking to. Which one do the verses you quote above refer to? Probably depends on who you ask, but I suspect most "experts" in this area would point towards religious wisdom rather than rationality.
Yaz
Would you be more inclined to take them seriously if they A) posit their idea in a friendly, reasonable, non-confrontational way, or B) scream and bellow about how you are an absolute fucking moron who doesn't deserve to breath the same air as themselves, for not seeing the world through their ideology?
Classically, Dawkins has taken the latter track, and being a prick about it is no way to endear others to your cause. I'm curious as to if he's recognized the error of his methodology.
Actually, since it is obvious had you ever actually watched any of Dawkin's talks that he is a very reasonable and soft spoken man you've done nothing but proven yourself to be a deeply unethical bald-faced liar.
Dr Dawkins,
I enjoyed your talk last week at the UCLA campus. I was wondering your thoughts on the applicability of evolutionary theory to politics. During your talk, I was drawing the parallels between genes and political ideas. Organisms contain a multitude of genes being selected through fitness of survival on Earth. "Good" genes are selected for, "bad" genes, against. In the same way, politicians contain a multitude of ideas, and their fitness is tested in elections. Politicians don't necessarily die after losing an election (although politically they often do), they reformulate their ideas. Politicians adopt winning ideas, abandon losing ideas, in a sense throwing out bad genes and adopt good ones. They then test their fitness in another round of elections. I would think that after a number of iterations, that we would have politicians with some damn good ideas. But here we are.
Yes, I understand that voters do a different/worse job of selecting "goodness" than nature does and perhaps it is true that we get the government that we deserve. They are judged by two contradictory measures of goodness (at least in the US). Perhaps the voting and fitness phenotype in voters are being selected for and against by the very government they select. Just some random musings from someone anxiously waiting for the elections to end.
Peter
Mr. Dawkins, speaking of religion, what is your opinion on the new iPhone 5?
Tell me about it. :o/ Garrison had a fling with Dawkins.
Atheism is a religion the same way not driving is a brand of car...
Look, a Christian has no problems not beliving in Odin. We do not call such people "anorse".
This question comes from my wife, a doctor of evolutionary biology:
"Considering that many people cannot be convinced of evolution for whatever reason they invent, how does your aggressive questioning and condescending disdain of them do us any good? Does it cause others who might be convinced to just think we're a bunch of obnoxious god-hating atheists?"
BTW, she does think you're brilliant, although you've become the poster boy for atheism instead of evolutionary biology. And since religion has nothing to do with biology (except perhaps dispersal via natural arks), being an atheist first and scientist second presents a simple, if simpleminded, defense against any of your arguments by religious people.
Lately we humans have reached a level where we can cure or care for many congenital diseases, debilitating diseases, we care for our kind who are in need because they are disabilitated (from old crazy to new depressed). In other words many individuals who would have never survived in other ages, now survive and have children themselves. Even healthy individuals (who don't have cronic diseases or problems) would have died in other ages because of acute disease (now antibiotics stop that too).
Do you think this fight of us to care for all the individuals of our species is going to lead to a social hive or do you think will weaken the species and bring it to the brink of destruction? Or do you think no evolutionary danger comes from this new aspect of the human society? Where could we read some scientific arguments on this issue?
Before there were cells. Robert Hazen's Origin of Life book/course suggests this possibility. When they two systems joined together, their progress was irresistible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNARnZdOY-Y
Professor Dawkins,
I by far agree with you and many others that the biblical, deist god has no basis for existence.
Is there a formal school of thought that scientifically regards the god phenomenon as an emergent property of conscience at a social level, much as we could study conscience as an emergent property of complex neurological activity, or the economy as an emergent property of the rules of commerce? Couldn't such a consequent god* model, even if very different in nature from the deist model, be studied by science and thus bridge the gap between those who feel its existence and those who want to explain it?
Burt Crepeault
Canada
* I use the expression consequent god for two reasons: 1) it is logical and naturally explainable, as opposed to supernatural in essence; and 2) it comes as a consequence of conscience and therefore could be considered as a god of after, as opposed to a god of before in the creationist sense.
The popularity of your ideas have been steadily climbing for some time. Your work, the writings of Christopher Hitchens, and the ideas of Sam Harris as well as many others have really taken hold with a segment of the population, and (without citation) I think that the number of people claiming 'No Religion' when polled is growing.
However, I've also started to see the rise of post-Atheist philosophy, like Possibilianism (http://www.possibilian.com/) proposed by David Eagleman, a Doctor of Neuroscience. Effectively, it's the notion that Atheism is itself too restrictive a philosophy. Certainly, based on all available evidence, we can rule out the major religions, but holding to a position of (agnostic) Atheism is itself overly dogmatic. (This isn't the only example of post-Atheist philosophizing, but it's the most readily accessible.)
So can you discuss the notion of an 'Atheist', 'Post-Atheist' or 'Post-Religious' era; can you see us moving beyond the need for any particular dogma and merely allowing ourselves to examine the Universe and being able to actively hypothesize about it in many different ways simultaneously?
You are confusing written ideals with real practice. If all of the leaders of the US were slave owners, then the US itself was wrong and hypocritical. That doesn't make everyone in the US bad, but it does make the US bad. There's a lot of nice things in the Christian texts. There's also a lot of aweful things. However, neither of these have all that much effect on the religion itself. Religion is largely dictated by tradition, not by written law. Otherwise you would still be stoning people for what we now see as trivial crimes. You would also not see mass judgement of people as moral or immoral from the Christian community, an old tradition handed down from when herresy was punished by death.
regarding this quote of yours "Despite having had some great successes, not everything is solved. We do not yet have a good theoretical understanding, of the observations that the expansion of the universe, is accelerating again, after a long period of slowing down. Without such an understanding, we can not be sure of the future of the universe. Will it continue to expand forever? Is inflation a law of Nature? Or will the universe eventually collapse again? New observational results, and theoretical advances, are coming in rapidly. Cosmology is a very exciting and active subject. We are getting close to answering the age old questions. Why are we here? Where did we come from?"
I understand that you do not want to believe and do not believe in a Christian (or other religion's) god or a creator, but how can you be so adamant that there is not a creator/god when by your own admission you do not know enough to answer this question? Isn't there room for a god existing as a possibility? Isn't it illogical to not leave that door open given that you have unanswered questions ?
You know, you've done a fine job of proving the "uncompromising asshat" part of my statement.
Not sure if kudos are in order...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
While I am a huge fan of your work and your foundation, I wonder what you see as your endgame. Religion plays off our most basic instincts, especially fear of the unknown. To me, it seems to have a society free of religion would require everyone to overcome their fears, because science, at least in its current state, has no "acceptable" answer to what happens when we die. While it is my personal belief that I live to be satisfied with this life and what I accomplish in it, not some eternal reward, that is a concept that falls flat with most. None of this means that it is not a noble and worthwhile pursuit to educate as many as possible, but it is something that will most likely not be completed in our lifetimes. My question, then, is at what point would you be satisfied in your life's work? What would you like to accomplish so that when it comes your time you can smile and say you don't need a reward in the afterlife, because this life has been the reward?
Humans have developed the capacity for faith and evolution has allowed us to keep that capacity, so far. Engaging in the pursuit of an answer, driven heavily by our 'faith' that our thesis is correct, has probably motivated more people to achieve than anyone can imagine.
1. How can we encourage/separate useful faith from junk faith?
2. Has anyone ever classified our dissected faith scientifically?
K. Scott Parks
public at postholer.com
Do you believe that we have free will? Why or why not?
Certainly in the last 2 decades much of the world, at least from a Northern European atheist's perspective, has come on leaps and bounds when it comes to giving column-inches and air-time to atheists. In that past it was almost a dirty word. However, is this growth in awareness, and willingness to explicitly involve atheists in debate, going to increase until the person who says "thank God" on telly is looked at as if he just said "thank Poseidon"? Or is it just a fad which the TV chanels, and radio stations, and printed media, etc. will get bored of, and then stop being so willing to carry?
I worry that it is, alas.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Were you sexually abused as a young man by a priest?
Hello Professor,
I'm not sure if you're familiar with Jeremy Narby's work, but he's worked as an anthropologist studying peoples with a more aboriginal take on religion and spirituality. What do you make of the 'ecstatic state'? Do you believe that consciousness in humans is paramount, or simply a unique adaptation to our species, one that might be unrecognizable in species who moved along different evolutionary paths? Lastly, do you believe that consciousness is a process explicable by purely classical mechanics, or does it move into a quantum level, and in either instance do you believe that alterations in our physical state either through psychotropics or other methods of achieving the ecstatic state serve as a means of beneficially altering out consciousness, or simply muddling it?
Should you choose to address my question, thank you very much for your time and consideration.
Would you become a theist if tomorrow you observed the second coming of Christ playing out more or less as Christians generally say it will? It seems to me by your own arguments an invasion by a naturally evolved advanced alien intelligence is far more probable than God. Once their forward agents noticed widespread belief in the Bible, their generals would proclaim "Easiest planetary takeover ever!" Your subsequent experience in heaven/hell is clearly just you being plugged into the Matrix. (My point being I strongly suspect that even in principle there is no possible evidence anyone could present to you that would convince you of theism.)
I am Jack's writable stack pointer.
Yeah, posting as AC on purpose. But, I really think these are valid questions that I would like Dr. Dawkins to address.
Greetings Dr. Dawkins,
I respect your intellect and experience. It is due to this respect that I ask these questions. I swear my purpose has nothing to do with provocation; I genuinely wish to know your perspective on this train of thought.
First, do you believe in free will and free choice?
If so, then which part of the human body is free from predictable known physical laws in order to allow free will and free choice to exist? Where is the free will within the body?
I am not asking about religion or God, I am asking about free will. Chaos theory is nice but there is no allowance of free choice. And, if the concept of free will is forfieted, then how can we justify punishing a crime? After all, there was never a choice for the criminal; they were just following their chemicals.
My belief is that it is impossible to have free will without some part of me that controls my thoughts and actions that is outside of physical laws. Some call this concept a soul. This line of thought then leads to more... interesting contemplations that are outside of the scope of this question.
I am open to alternate ways to justify free will, but I have yet to find another approach that works. I am curious, have you addressed this and if so, what is your take on it?
Thank you for your time,
An Anonymous Coward because I would be flamed to oblivion otherwise
Why am I surrounded by people who think that humans have stopped evolving above the neck? In other words, when I look at racial IQs, I see big differences, but people here deny them. Why would they?
Is it true that there is no God because you are an asshole?
I imagine that you are familiar with the anual Burning Man art festival. It is, amongst many other things, an experiment in temporary community. A city of 50k plus people assembles for a week in the middle of a desert. For that week, in that city, morality as commonly defined gets a lot less rigid. Gay / lesbian relationships are considered normal and not noteworthy in any beyond what would render a heterosexual relationship noteworthy. Non-traditional relationships are common and openly accepted. The vast majority of drug use is considered socially acceptable on a par with drinking in that the user is expected to take necessary precautions to not become a burden on others. There are still things that are considered morally unacceptable. For example, non-consensual violence, elder or child neglect will get you ejected from the event and almost certainly reported to the police.
My question is this: In what ways, if any, do you think the culture of Burning Man suggests or informs morality for an atheist society?
And as a followup, Can you suggest one practical change that would help burners move further towards improving our culture?
"IN THE 1920s and 1930s, scientists from both the political left and right would not have found the idea of designer babies particularly dangerous – though of course they would not have used that phrase. Today, I suspect that the idea is too dangerous for comfortable discussion, and my conjecture is that Adolf Hitler is responsible for the change." - From the Afterword, Richard Dawkins
How long before scientists can start talking about this again? Will it happen in our lifetimes?
Dr Dawkins, it seems that far too often researchers look upon the transfer of information from the genome as if it is just an anology to all other forms of information transfer known to exists. Of course, this view is changing somewhat with the increase of bio-semiotic research. However, may I ask you to unambiguously refute the argument below. This argumnent demonstrates the sufficient and necessary material condition of any transfer of information, regardless of the source of type of information. Specifically, can you show where the material premises are false, or where the conclusions do not logically follow from those premises? Thanks. 1) A representation is an arrangement of matter which evokes an effect within a system (e.g. written text, spoken words, pheromones, animal gestures, codes, sensory input, intracellular messengers, nucleotide sequences, etc). The arrangement of a representation may be determined by physical law (as a rate-dependent structure), or as a rate-independent structure not reducible to physical law. In either case, a representation is materially arbitrary to the effect it evokes in the system. 2) It is not logically possible to transfer information (i.e. the 'form' of a thing) in a material universe without using a representation instantiated in matter. If that is true, then several other things must logically follow. 3) If there is now an arrangement of matter which contains a representation of form as a consequence of its material arrangement, then that arrangement must be necessarily arbitrary to the thing it represents (i.e. the effect it evokes within a system). In other words, if the arrangement of one thing is to represent (evoke) the form of another thing within a system, then it must be separate from the thing it represents. As a logical necessity, it is materially arbitrary to it. 4) If that is true, then the presence of that representation must present a material component to the system (which is reducible to physical law), while its arrangement presents an arbitrary component to the system (which is not reducible to physical law). 5) If that is true, and it surely must be, then there has to be something else which establishes the otherwise non-existent relationship between the representation and the effect it evokes within the system. In fact, this is the material basis of Nobel Laureate Francis Crick’s famous ‘adapter hypothesis’ in DNA, which lead to a revolution in the biological sciences. In a material universe, that something else must be a second arrangement of matter; coordinated to the first arrangement as well as to the effect it evokes. 6) It then also follows that this second arrangement must produce its unambiguous function, not from the mere presence of the representation, but from its arrangement. It is the arbitrary component of the representation which produces the function. 7) And if those observations are true, then in order to actually transfer recorded information, two discrete arrangements of matter are inherently required by the process; and both of these objects must necessarily have a quality that extends beyond their mere material make-up. The first is a representation and the second is a protocol (a systematic, operational rule instantiated in matter) and together they function as a formal system. They are the irreducibly complex core which is fundamentally required in order to transfer recorded information. 8) During protein synthesis, a selected portion of DNA is first transcribed into mRNA, then matured and transported to the site of translation within the ribosome. This transcription process facilitates the input of information (the arbitrary component of the DNA sequence) into the system. The input of this arbitrary component functions to constrain the output, producing the polypeptides which demonstrate unambiguous function. 9) From a causal standpoint, the arbitrary component of DNA is transcribed to mRNA, and those mRNA are then used to order tRNA molecules within the ribosome. Each stage of this transcription process i
Thank you for taking the time to go through all our questions! I predominantly "know" you as author, public speaker and of course participant in numerous debates. From the research side of things, what's the next thing we'll be able to expect from you? Are you in fact still doing any research in your field? What currently excites you?
I don't think I've ever seen an Ask Slashdot with so few decent questions; it's particularly sad considering the stature of the person who'll be answering them.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
As far as I can see religions have two main advantage:
1) reduce the fear of death, because they promise some kind of paradise/life after death
2) provide social connections, so some goes to religious events even though they don't believe in God..
Atheist movements cannot do much about (1) but what about (2)? The common belief in the non-existence of Gods isn't a motivator to create social events..
As far as I am aware, the young earth creationists are all Christian. However, even in the Christian comunity they are a small minority.
They have a few interesting points about the evidence for evolution but their theology behind the age of the earth is quite weak.
Well, many atheists seem to have the Bayesian prior P(God) = 0. One might note that no evidence can ever change a belief like that. At least, so long as one updates their beliefs according to the theorem.
I suppose there are a few who try to replace the 0 with an infinitesimal or a very small epsilon, but it appears to work the same in practice.
So... what IS your response to the Kalam Cosmological Argument?
Dear Professor Dawkins,
Your most frequently used, and perhaps most well known, argument against the existence of God is the Boeing 747 Gambit, summarised in Chapter 4 of The God Delusion, but it appears recently that this argument has come under a lot of criticism (even from non-believers) as being illogical and based on false premises. Here's one such criticism:
In this argument, you insist that God must be at least as complex, if not more complex, than the universe, and therefore he's useless as an explanation and most improbable.
However, as recently as February this year, your Oxford colleague Sir Anthony Kenny (agnostic) pointed out to you, during your dialogue with the Archbishop of Canterbury, that your argument commits a logical fallacy. Namely, that you equivocate on the word "complexity": when you describe the complexity of the universe, you're referring to the complexity of the universe's structure (i.e. that it's made of many discreet component parts). You then claim that God must be "just as complex" in the same way. However, when you provide examples of God's complexity, you don't refer to any complexity in God's structure, but instead refer to the complexity of God's powers (i.e. what he's capable of doing).
These two types of complexity are not the same, as Sir Kenny illustrated with the example of the cutthroat razor vs. the electric razor: the latter is more complex in structure, but the former is more complex in power - being able to cut a throat rather than just a beard. The very nature of the God hypothesis is that God is simple in structure (unlike the universe, he's immaterial and not made of discreet bits and pieces) but his powers are infinite. Thus, your B747 argument confuses these types of complexity and becomes logically invalid.
I have never heard you actually give a specific argument against this charge. At most, I've heard expressions of personal incredulity (such as "you cannot be serious" or "what are you talking about?"), and I've, somewhat worryingly, read a personal attack you made against Sir Anthony Kenny on your website, with words to the effect that he's not worth listening to because he's "a 'philosopher' with special training in obscurantism". I hope this wasn't a deliberate ad hominem attack in place of an argument: http://old.richarddawkins.net/comments/933553
Please note that it's also insufficient to assume naturalism from the outset, as this would be arguing in a circle (i.e. saying, "God, as described in this way, cannot exist because a God, as described in this way, cannot exist").
So, ultimately, can you please provide a specific counter-argument to defend your Central Argument from this particular criticism?
Much appreciated and best wishes,
Peter (UK)
That's exactly what he is doing. And he doesn't try to hide it.
These passages are shared by Christians, Jews, and Muslims, so it's none of these religions. What religion values ignorance?
An amorphous term like 'a religion' is near to meaningless. It's what [some] religious people do. It goes like:
Q: If God is all loving and all powerful, why did he let that little girl suffer and die from cancer?
A1: Ours is not to question the way of the Lord.
A2: God works in mysterious ways.
A3: God's plan is cannot be understand by us - we must have faith that it's all for the best.
A4: Everything happens for a reason.
etc.
Any one religious passage will have a contradiction elsewhere, or be selectively ignored if inconvenient.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
In my opinion, religion evolved as a method of control. Those in power promoted it, to keep their subjects under control. Poor people were given a religion to believe in, so they wouldn't rebel when they missed out. This way the leaders of the time could have all the luxury they wanted, and the people who missed out would stay in line because they too would live like kings in the afterlife, and they'd better not do anything in this life to jeopardise that!
To a certain extent, religion today still serves this purpose, keeping those less fortunate playing by the rules. Do you think it could be dangerous if these people were to become atheists? They would realise that what they have now is all there is. What would happen if so many people suddenly realised they had nothing to lose?
How do you see an understanding of memes by the public could best be utilized to benefit society?
In more recent times it has become apparent that people have an extraordinary capacity to deceive themselves. A couple of short examples include the argumentative theory of reason and the concept that social interactions can change how we remember events. Given this, how do you resolve Biblical scriptures which ultimately say, if you [yourself] were genuinely confused, only divine intervention would be able to resolve the issue. E.g. "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day."[John 6:44]
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
But since we ourselves are (according to Dawkins) deterministic machines created, as it were, by the universe, then whatever concepts of "evil" we may have, those came from that universe -- it's ultimately responsible not only for evil, but for the idea of evil altogether. When you think to yourself "such-and-so is evil", that thought is actually a small part of the universe doing something that the universe does very well: undergoing chemical/physical/electrical reactions that happen to occur inside your brain. Those reactions (and therefore, your thoughts about evil or anything else) are 100% determined by the laws of physics and the initial conditions of the universe.
It's not my fault; the universe made me do it.
Lol.. No they are not. Are you that insecure that you have to make shit up about one instance and apply that to everything everywhere?
If you could pray to a god, and wish one of the world's religions away, which one would it be?
What religion is the most destructive to humanity at the moment and has the fewest redeeming features?
Of course. Most atheists (such as myself) aren't true atheists, because we'll never be 100% certain that there is no God (or equivalent.) But for us, the majority of the evidence points towards atheism being correct, so that's what we label ourselves. But as most of us believe in truth, if anyone were to provide indisputable evidence that a given religion was correct, then yes, most of us would switch. (There are a few atheists who would refuse to of course, because we're only human.) But, like a scientific theory which has been proven incorrect, the vast majority of atheists would follow the truth, whatever it may be.
I think many religious people mistakenly assume atheists hate God, or have some inability to believe, when really, we just want to know the truth. Unfortunately religion doesn't provide us the answers we need or the type of evidence we require, but science and atheism does.
Friend, I consider myself a Christian, but these days, there are so many who have a fundamentalist belief system, and take every word of the Gospel as basic fact without the faintest consideration for context, physics or the nature of the conversations contained in both the Old and New Testaments. That the entire world was flooded when Naoh saved the animals... where did enough water to flood the world come from and where did it go to? The magical thinking is shocking. That the world is thousands of years old and that people lived with the dinosaurs like the Flintstones. These too are beliefs grounded in the same scriptures that you quote, and these good and decent people have given up all rational consideration to instead cling to mysticism and magical thinking. The universe is so vast in size and time and we can see such a precious small slice of that eternity, that is it perfectly appropriate for men of knowledge to probe the mysteries and hold faith in those places for which answers may forever exceed our grasp. I am simply concerned that too many would avoid the light of simple truth, for fear that it would threaten their clockwork belief of God and this universe.
How do you reconcile Georgia Rep. Paul Broun saying in videotaped remarks that evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are "lies straight from the pit of hell" meant to convince people that they do not need a savior? Worse, that this man has immediate and direct influence on the future of scientific research in the United States. Do you question his faith, his understanding of his religion, his sect or orthodoxy, his belief or his sanity? I appreciate that there is a critical need for ethicists in the science community, to look at the impact of our growing technological information and how we can best apply our growing understanding to serve the greater interests of humanity. That neither explains or excuses a growing number of people who have turned away from truth and wisdom in the name of religion, or the religious leaders who would have them behave this way. Part of the problem, is that the Bible is a book, most of which was written in a context specific to a rowdy dessert people living in the Sinai Peninsula 5 to 2 millennia ago. The amazing thing is that so much of the human content is so completely valid and appropriate thousands of years later. The prophesies, that are only now coming to pass. Most amazing is the amazing accuracy of the historical content as every year archeologist discover some new dig which validates the descriptions portrayed in the Bible. That said, the book is a gift from God, and even contains the fascinating process by which men gathered the Word and selected from all the Christian writings to come to a place where it was decided this is our religious text. It reflects the strong Jewish influence in the early church, and the desire to keep the early church as close as possible to Jewish faith, so the Gospel of Mary was left out. The most powerful thing about Christianity, has been its spiritual core of Love and Service. As it spread its ability to coop pagan culture and symbols and still pass the core belief along intact and healthy.
Its time for Christians and all other religions that are the children of Abraham, to let go of the dogma. Stop trying to force people to obey your beliefs on threat of death. Its time to honor the Prince of Peace, by really being peaceful.
You (and many religions) confuse and confound knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is gained from objective observation and rational analysis. Wisdom is the ability to judiciously apply your values, as a guide to your actions, to achieve optimized results. Unfortunately most religions mostly ignore knowledge and pass off rote regurgitation of dogma as wisdom. Faith is not a virtue, it is a vice. Belief because you simply want something to be true, or because you are afraid of the consequences if it is not true, or because an authority figure said so, all lead you down the path of deluded ignorance. Evolution, for example, is not true because Darwin, or Dawkins, or anyone else says it is true. Evolution is a fact because there is a mountain of objective evidence in the fossil and genetic record that show it to be true.
"Your Bible", (as you refer to it), is an apocryphal document containing little useful knowledge about the world around us. It seems to me that principal historical value has been to codify a set of values and their applications via a collection of concrete stories. It is a codex of collected wisdom, for a largely agrarian society that existed two thousand years ago. The core values maybe largely durable into this modern age, but the application of those values to our modern world surely require reconsideration. More importantly, we live in world where education is widely available. Surely decisions can now be based on rational consideration of the objective facts, rather than blind obedience to outmoded superstitious faith. Our world has changed. We have changed. It is time that we, as a society, grew up. We need to let go of fanciful fairy tale explanations of the universe, that are the balm for frighted children in the night. There is not an ephemeral parental figure who is going to fix our messes. We need to take responsibility for ourselves and our world.
(NOTE: I'm re-posting because the original seems to have disappeared. Not sure if this was my fault, and I hope a moderator didn't remove it. If so I'd be happy to discuss amending any content you consider problematic? Thanks.)
Dear Professor Dawkins,
Your most frequently used, and perhaps most well known, argument against the existence of God is the Boeing 747 Gambit, summarised in Chapter 4 of The God Delusion, but it appears recently that this argument has come under a lot of criticism (even from non-believers) as being illogical and based on false premises. Here's one such criticism:
In this argument, you insist that God must be at least as complex, if not more complex, than the universe, and therefore he's useless as an explanation and most improbable.
However, as recently as February this year, your Oxford colleague Sir Anthony Kenny (agnostic) pointed out to you, during your dialogue with the Archbishop of Canterbury, that your argument commits a logical fallacy. Namely, that you equivocate on the word "complexity": when you describe the complexity of the universe, you're referring to the complexity of the universe's structure (i.e. that it's made of many discreet component parts). You then claim that God must be "just as complex" in the same way. However, when you provide examples of God's complexity, you don't refer to any complexity in God's structure, but instead refer to the complexity of God's powers (i.e. what he's capable of doing).
These two types of complexity are not the same, as Sir Kenny illustrated with the example of the cutthroat razor vs. the electric razor: the latter is more complex in structure, but the former is more complex in power - being able to cut a throat rather than just a beard. The very nature of the God hypothesis is that God is simple in structure (unlike the universe, he's immaterial and not made of discreet bits and pieces) but his powers are infinite. Thus, your B747 argument confuses these types of complexity and becomes logically invalid.
I have never heard you actually give a specific argument against this charge. At most, I've heard expressions of personal incredulity (such as "you cannot be serious" or "what are you talking about?"), and I've, somewhat worryingly, read a personal attack you made against Sir Anthony Kenny on your website, with words to the effect that he's not worth listening to because he's "a 'philosopher' with special training in obscurantism". I hope this wasn't a deliberate ad hominem attack in place of an argument: http://old.richarddawkins.net/comments/933553
Please note that it's also insufficient to assume naturalism from the outset, as this would be arguing in a circle (i.e. saying, "God, as described in this way, cannot exist because a God, as described in this way, cannot exist").
So, ultimately, can you please provide a specific counter-argument to defend your Central Argument from this particular criticism?
Much appreciated and best wishes,
Peter (UK)
Look up the word "rhetorical". Now fuck off.
You seem a little butthurt about getting beat down with logic.
As Dawkins himself points out, evolution is quite good at optimizing away traits that are detrimental to survival. Therefore, there must be some advantage to religion.
Humans are no longer subject to traditional evolutionary pressures (starvation & predation). We are the apex predator. The only animals we have to compete against are other humans.
There are only two ways one group of humans can outcompete another group:
1. increase their birth rate
2. destroy the other group
All successful religions promote both of the above goals. (Or, conversely, a religion is successful to the extent it promotes them).
Here are some of the traits that successful religions encourage:
- improved internal cohesion & loyalty. Religions provide certain rules for dealing with other people. These rules must, at the very least, incorporate reciprocal altruism ("do unto as you would have them do unto you").
- enhanced xenophobia. The hatred of the outsiders (particularly those who believe a different set of fairy tales) is proportional to the internal loyalty. Realistically "love thy neighbor" applies only to the members of the in-group, while the outsiders can face anything from discrimination to turture & death. It's no coincidence that so many wars have a strong religious component.
- increased birth rate. There is a strong positive correlation between religious belief and fertility. This is partially a side-effect of the religious dogma (e.g. ban on contraception, sex education, and, in general, infantile attitude towards sex). It can also be part of deliberate strategy (e.g. Quiverfull movement today, mormons in 19th century, etc.)
- coping mechanism. Turns out religious people are, on average, happier than non-religious. Probably because when something good happens, it's evidence that god loves you, and when something bad happens, it's part of god's plan and he loves you.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. I'm sure you can think of more. But the point is, successful religions encourage believers to have more babies and kill off the non-believers.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
How do non-procreative sexual orientations fit into a gene-centered model? How would you evolutionarily explain the persistence of homosexuality and pedophilia? Should these traits not breed themselves out of the genome, so to speak, within a relatively small number of generations?
It's posed as three questions above, but really it's only one question:
Why should things like homosexuality and pedophilia persist since people with these traits don't reproduce?
Thanks for the reply. Yes, I think that is the general idea, but where does that information originate, so that each unique cell, and each unique biomolecule within each cell, can orient itself correctly? The genes, themselves, which would only seem to know how to encode what will eventually become free-floating proteins, wouldn't seem to contain that additional info. All the genetic information is contained within every cell, and I find it hard to believe that it could encode all the complexity, which increases like a nested exponential, at least not without some kind of massive compression mechanism.
Thanks, I will check that book. I started out as a biologist and am kind of glad I got out when I did. I wasn't too confident that most molecular biologists I encountered were actually realistic about the complexity of their systems, though I didn't even pursue it at the gradual level, opting instead for simpler material science systems. I was never too convinced that most researchers claiming to have identified a set of genes/markers or what have you in connection with some trait or condition had actually discovered anything, but still they keep on publishing in great volumes, almost seeming to make matters worse. Btw, the subject of embryology, which I was fortunately exposed to, makes an admirable introduction to the process of cellular/tissue differentiation, and that was 25 years ago for me.
There is no god (other than an invented concept), and yet, regardless of their core fictional content, religions have had a social norming function; have served as promulgators and enforcers of moral codes (reciprocity, don't kill, don't covet etc) which have reduced social friction within each adherent group, leading to cultural and economic advancement within the group. While there have no doubt been many wars between religious groups, this is true of human societal groups / tribes / nations in general and is not a special attribute of religious groups.
So how are we to achieve promulgation and strong encouragement of moral codes, without the carrot / stick of religion and its compelling morality tales.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
What would be wrong with stating the obvious: that they are, in fact, complete idiots?
Think of it in terms of scale. Sodium and chloride ions, and even regularly shaped protein globs, or cannon balls for that matter, stack very nicely to make a regular, 3-d repeat ("crystal") structure, and that same principle (ie. essentially "things stacking nicely") is posited to explain how biomolecules (eg. dna-encoded proteins) eventually join together to form anatomical (or even cellular-level) structures.
However, if you move very far way, for example, 1000 feet over a (regularly arranged) swimming pool full of bowling balls, it will look like just a glob. In fact, the only macroscopic products of large crystals which come to mind would be fracture planes, which are visible to the eye, though quintessentially simple (ie. a plane) in structure.
So, regarding bio systems, how do all those biomolecules just (through random diffusion) stack themselves together to make structures which are enormously larger than the dimension of the building blocks themselves?
It is clear that you reject untestable and/or vaguely-specified supposed causal factors in assertions about human origins.
To that end, please enumerate the full set of testable scientific causal factors that lead deterministically to the particular values of random in "random mutation and natural selection". In the absence of that, please state whether you consider "random" to be a term providing a scientific causal explanation, or rather a place-holder word indicating a lack of specific causal explanation.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
The odd exception does not, in any way, disprove the trend. One the whole, by aggregate, statistically, in general -- upbringing has a shitton to do with a person's outlook, opinions, and method of thinking. This is easy to observe: cultures exist and are distinct from each other, not withstanding the similarities due to the commonality of the human condition.
@MozeeToby
Wow. You base ignorance on essentially whatever it is that you think is wrong. This is what is called 'dogma'.
Do I call you ignorant because you refuse to believe the overwhelming evidence in the bible that God exists and created all life? No, because you do not believe the bible. That's the whole point. That's what is called 'controversy'.
Also, the 'Galileo and the Church myth'? You should google it. Galileo got in trouble mostly for being a smartass, and the dispute was scientific, between Aristotelian and Copernican theory. Galileo was essentially considered a bit daft, thinking that the earth was careening around like a runaway car (or chariot, in this case); and he was at a bit of a loss to explain why there seemed no movement. Thus the defiant sotto voce: 'And yet it moves.'
The Church, as the authority, just happened to be presiding, the theological obstruction, if any, was remarkably small, and they seemed quite willing to 'reinterpret scripture' (as they have again with evolution). The whole 'the two books of God' thing. One of written scripture, and one of science.
Whatever the theological objection, Galileo seemed to have overcome it with the same theology (as he himself was Christian). In fact, he seemed a more inflexible adherent of Christianity than the church figure he corresponded with in getting his idea heard. And it can't have been a problem with the Church, since heliocentrism was accepted underneath the same Church was it not?
@rmstar
Well, strike evolution out then. You're supposed to believe in it, not doubt it.
Isn't that generally what you are supposed to do with things you think to be true? Am I ignorant because I think the sky is above my head? I've never doubted it. It's up there almost every time I look. (Sometimes there are clouds in the way.) You just seem to be saying: 'If you believe in your religion, you're ignorant." Which is essentially a higher class of ignorance all on it's own.
Also, love is the virtue, belief is just belief, an obvious result of observing something that persuades us to be true. If you read the new testament, you will read a lot on this subject by the apostles Paul and Peter, since Christianity was considered a sect at the time, when Greek and Roman polytheism were the dominant beliefs.
The bible heavily emphasises thinking ability, testing the truth of things. It's true that many people don't seem to recognise this emphasis (atheists, largely, but also a large quantity of Christians it seems), as the emphasis tends to dwell on 'faith', which actually always irritated me (though I'm over it now). So you do have a point. But that just makes people theologically uneducated. So it's not the religion, or the available knowledge, it's the teachers. (Pharisees, anyone?)
And if someone says that Darwin's theories are the work of the devil, then they're saying they're the work of the devil. The assumption would be that his theories are clever lies. Meaning that to them, ignorance would be to believe it. (Not that I know any of these people myself, but it's possible they exist.)
And what information are you talking about? 'Groups' of people, like women and children? And really? To keep them docile? You must have a fascinating explanation for this. I've never read anything in the bible that says, 'don't tell women this but:...' or 'make sure your kids don't get a hold of these scriptures, we don't want them getting ideas.' One of the first judges of Israel was a chick. Are you sure this is an actual thing, or are you just stringing together a bunch of words together that sounds convincing to you?
Also, my name is Maru. I go by 'Mudz' on the internet. This forum really should prompt a person to put in their name when submitting.
Why won't you debate William Lane Craig?
Look up the word "asshole." Do as you suggest.
I don't know about you, but my servers run on the power of cotton candy and happy thoughts. -Anonymous Coward
What are your top 5 to 10 "murky" words that people use that we can treat as flags to warn that something unscientfic or unfalsifiable is being conveyed?
When dealing with non-evidence-based medicine and a plethora of other "murky" stuff people start using special words which I think of as "murky". For example, a naturopath might say "When I touch your ankle injury I'm passing healing energy from myself into you," and her 'healing energy' doesn't just mean heat which does speed healing, but something murkier to create doubt/wonderment about the physical healing process in your mind.
Wow such a thingy
He is an atheist, and thus, a fool.
See, first you start out support evolution, etc and then you DENY God.
God will then deny YOU!
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
If it was shown for example, that teaching ID, or Harmony, or Magic Cosmic Dice, made students better learners, better able to identify the usefulness in nature, and they progressed on to be more effective scientists (in whatever field) than evolutionary education, if this was actually demonstrably the case, would you support the teaching of [insert choice] in schools for the skills benefit, or evolution because you believe it to be true? (Or neither?)
In other words, are you concerned by the efficacy of [insert country]'s workforce and research productivity, or are you concerned about what they believe on an ethical basis?
- Mudz
What is the proper method of summoning your presence? I bought a book of incantations on ebay but I think it was a scam.
I think he miscasts the argument between science and religion. In my opinion, science and religion have little to say to another. The real realm for discussion is between religion and philosophy, which some may argue are one and the same. (As a brief disclaimer, I am a christian and also a PhD scientist). As amazing as science is, as amazing as our discoveries have been (and will continue to be)... there are fundamental philosophical questions which science cannot answer for me today... and I argue science is not designed to answer. Example questions: "Why am I here? Is there a purpose to this arbitrary existence?" "Is this existence unique?" I could go on and on... Science deals with mechanism... the physical description of our universe past, present, and future. Science is not designed to answer the question, "why are we here?"... the notion that science could formulate an answer implies that a valid, testable hypothesis could be formed, the test(s) devised/executed and data recorded, and finally a report written stating the observations with proposed scientific model and conclusions. Some may argue that the questions is unimportant but therein we enter a philosophical debate and that is where the debate about religion ought to remain... in the realm of philosophy. This is all being said.... religion deserves much of the criticism and scrutiny it has received. But we should be careful not to paint everyone with the same brush, so to speak.
Yeah, the embryo is (literally) incredibly complex, recursive and fractal-like. The whole process of going from a single cell to an adult creature is far beyond human grasp. The first few cell divisions are reasonably well understood but as you imagine it gets exponentially more complex from there on. IIRC the thing that keeps the fractal-like development of the embryo from derailing and resulting in a fleshy tumor-like lump is the communications system that the cells create as part of the process of building the embryo.
Sure, a lot of published science is wrong, but some of it is to definite and impressive to be wrong. For example, they can reliably do certain startlingly Frankenstein's monster-like things with fruit fly embryos. If you didn't know better you might think that we're close to having 'designer fruit flies', but the truth is that they've merely uncovered mechanisms here and there that allow them to do certain things. It's not yet clear how far those mechanisms and principles that they have discovered so far will take them in understanding the whole process of going from DNA to creature.
Or scientific address and reason?
If you're interested in facts I'll tell you what they are and I'll give you sources - Chomsky on The Big Idea
It seems to me (from my internet heavy view of the world) that two of the biggest problems we seem to have is educating the uneducated about two main points:
1) Incredulity about "BIG" things (ie Big Bang or the massive time frames involved around Evolution changes)
2) The misunderstanding of what the word Theory means in the context of Theory of Evolution etc
How would you suggest the community of understanders NOT in the science community attack these issues?
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
In my mind there is nothing more incredible that the "super-macro evolution" that transformed the Earth from a dead, stormy rock into the wealth of life it is now. Terraforming at it's greatest, except it's not science fiction.
Grey has become green. Cold stone is now inhabited by millions of species. Species development (starting with phytoplankton which released oxygen to create the atmosphere) developed the planet which changed the available survival resources over time.
What do you enjoy most about evolution?
BlameBillCosby.com
Would it be easier to spread the Good Word of Atheism, if religious people were encourage, not to entirely give up their beliefs, but to merely to accept them as metaphorical rather than literal? That is, that religious people give up believing religion provides any absolute truths but they could continue to practice their religion if they enjoy doing so?
Dear professor Dawkins,
I have to make some assumptions that I hope you will agree on before stating my question.
1) There are in fact 'Intelligent Designers'! The people that invented the religions we have today, must have been really smart. After all, they constructed systems that survived centuries.
2) They had the best intentions with their 'work'. It was their aim to create a system that kept their society stable. Of course that came at the price of not being truthfull. It seemingly worked quite well for them so this seems justifiable.
The question:
Do you think it is possible for us to construct a system that's equally stable without lying or making things up? Wouldn't it be more effective and more promising in terms of 'stability over centuries' if we just took the social benefits we hope to achieve with a secular society and build a new religion around it? After all, a considerable percentage of the people are not susceptible to a worldview that's totally based on reason (another assumption!) and if we really want to have a working society we need to offer them something, too.
Whilst you are correct in that the Bible doesn't promote ignorance, when people talk about "religion" they are normally referring to groups of people, or the behaviour of those people.
I think it is safe to say that whilst mainstream christianity has given lip-service to the Bible, its actions throughout history have been quite contrary.
I think it is important that people see the distinction between the book and how people interpret the book. I cannot speak for other religions, as I'm not familiar with them.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
Religious belief and other expressions of certitude are presumably manifestations of the believing mind and the believing mind has given raise to all the cultures of belief we know of (which may equal all the cultures we know of). Some elements of culture, going back to Thales, may have found an alternative, but we have yet to create a culture of inquiry to supersede and replace that of belief. So can we? Another way to put it: Is the believing mind hardwired (in which case we're screwed?) or can some form of education liberate the vast majority to if not become superlative inquirers, to at least recognize and value those who are? (And would starting by age three-five be too late?)
It all comes down to how one interprets the Bible. One can hardly fault the Bible for giving a worldview that was current at the time it was written. The problems all start when people read it as if it is some direct revelation to us in the 21st century, and ignore all the history from when it was written until now.
Then people also read it as if it is a science textbook, or as if it exists to teach us scientific things. The bible does not claim to be/do any of this.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
Huh, so that encourages knowledge of God. Yet you say it values ignorance. Where is the part where it says that?
You could well argue that there is no God, but I think that the more honest position is to state that you have no evidence of God.
Science and the Bible need not be mutually exclusive.
Science teaches mechanics (or, the 'how') whereas the Bible teaches meaning (or, the 'why'). They don't overlap a lot, but they do a bit.
The correct way to understand the Bible is first to understand when it was written, who it was written by (if we know), and who it was written to. It is not a direct revelation to us. We just happen to be reading a book whose primary audience lived at least 1900 years ago.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
I am sure I am going to be voted down for this.
The Bible records a curse in Genesis 3:14 "You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life." to the snake. Which means that the snake could have been walking like an alligator or a monitor possibly.
You yourself have documented this possibility in snakes.
If such an ancient record holds true with your recent discoveries, do you still think there is a God delusion?
Thanks and God Bless You
The ones that pick and choose passages whilst ignoring the truly abhor ant ones for any given argument?
Think of it in terms of scale. Sodium and chloride ions, and even regularly shaped protein globs, or cannon balls for that matter, stack very nicely to make a regular, 3-d repeat ("crystal") structure, and that same principle (ie. essentially "things stacking nicely") is posited to explain how biomolecules (eg. dna-encoded proteins) eventually join together to form anatomical (or even cellular-level) structures.
However, if you move very far way, for example, 1000 feet over a (regularly arranged) swimming pool full of bowling balls, it will look like just a glob. In fact, the only macroscopic products of large crystals which come to mind would be fracture planes, which are visible to the eye, though quintessentially simple (ie. a plane) in structure.
Well, the very first thing that occurred to me from your first paragraph was The Giant's Causeway, but you sort of addressed that with your comment about fracture planes. I think though that you might want to look into quasicrystals. Maybe also at the patterns that frost forms on a window. When you add to that the fact that we're dealing not just with crystals of one particular chemical, but an entire host of different things synthesized by DNA and governed by feedback mechanisms as someone else mentioned, of course you can get complex macro-scale structures out of it.
Quite frankly, your question is a bit astonishing. I can certainly understand wanting knowledge of how all the little processes interlock to create an organism, but your question seems to be instead to be doubting that it even happens. It's been pretty clearly demonstrated time and time again. Knock out a particular gene and get a version of an organism with jelly-like bones, or bones all fused together, or without some particular part of its brain, or missing cones in its eyes, etc. Or add a gene and get fluorescent cells of a particular type, or spider silk in milk, or insect chitin in mammal hair, etc. Researchers do this sort of thing all the time, and it's pretty amazingly good evidence that what evolutionary theory "assumes" about "genetic encoding of proteins leading to structural determination of organisms" is.
I would be very interested to hear what your alternative explanation is.
I find it interesting that anything challenging the preconceived notions of some in regards to evolution makes anyone a troll when the topic under discussion is completely contrived.
Claiming any statement- philosophy, religion, scientific theory, or what be it, as being the result of anyone or anything, good or evil, does not in any way automagicly indicate something completely unrelated like ignorance or competency. Equating the two is nothing more then a pair of rose colored glasses attempting to see the world the way they have personally justified it through their religion or ideology.
It's like saying "oh, your a scientist, you must be atheist" or "oh, you believe in God, you must be anti-science". Both statements are false because nothing concerning the first requires the second. It is all a fallacy some people need as a crutch to put their ideological thoughts in order. It is because they are insecure in their own beliefs and require this fallacy to maintain order within their own minds.
Bullshit.
The entire context of the bible is original sin, which we're guilty of and suffer for because God commanded us to stay ignorant, and we refused. What other lesson is there in that?
One of the major functions of religion has been to address the problem of human suffering. Some of this suffering is caused by other humans, some of it is simply due to chance misfortune, and it is likely that much of this suffering will never fully be ameliorated by scientific or technological means. A book I was reading recently about suffering by a well-known theologian stated that atheism allows the simplest resolution to the "problem of suffering" in the world, that is, that there is no problem. Otherwise, reconciling the amount of suffering that exists with a personal God makes at first glace this God seem at best indifferent, and at worst unnecessarily cruel - which is indeed seems difficult problem for theists to grapple with. Is atheism the best solution to the "problem of suffering"? Does a world without religion have any answers or comfort to offer a person faced with great suffering other than "Sorry, but that is the way of things"?
What is your opinion on Alain de Botton's Atheism 2.0?
One thing I know, and that is that I am ignorant...
I think you are taking things far too literally. Sometimes an analogy is just an analogy.
A ball doesn't actually want to roll downhill but using a phrase like that is a good way to describe potential energy.
I agree with the premise of your book that god is indeed a delusion. However, I think the message comes across as a bit harsh. I've met people who claim to belong to a religion are quite intelligent. When people ask me what my views are, I'll tel them, but I won't bother trying to convince them to believe what I do, because doing so is almost always an act of futility.
I get annoyed when people stand out on street corners and preach damnation unless you convert, and on the same token I also get annoyed when fellow atheists actively insult anybody who believes in a religion. To me, there isn't any difference between the two. Besides, I think that explaining your position rather than proselytizing it is more likely to get somebody to at least look at your viewpoint without dismissing it outright.
That said, have you considered maybe toning it down a bit? If that seems like a bad idea to you, then what is your general opinion of atheists like myself?
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
The ones that are more interested in controlling their flocks and increasing the size of their flocks so they can make more money. I think Jesus called them the merchants in the temple.
In the context of Dawkins I'd say the ones that see his entire branch of study (evolutionary biology) as worthless. I see your quote as a irrelevant because there's plenty of groups within each of those three that would be very happy to cast the first stone no matter what their holy book says. It seems the more "fundamentalist" a group is the less likely they are to stick to what the book teaches.
Q: How can you not believe in God when you've married a woman that's virtually an angel? Dr Who fans know what I mean.
How do you think religions - especially Christianity - will interpret extra terrestrial life when we find it?
Tat Tvam Asi
A) Thank you for trying.
I live in the bible belt, and I get so tired of discussing and defending "all" of the time. Sometimes I don't give it my best, feel bad about it afterwards, and then reset and try again.. That being said:
B) How can I help?
How do you view the role of religion in political issues?
They are. They are putting belief before evidence, and thst *is* ignorance. It is willful ignorance.
The whole faith thing is nothing but that: willfull ignorance of simple, obvious facts. It gets especially bizarre when something really bad happens, and all gather around their god to be thankful and are convinced that He is with them. When its obvious that nothing of the sort is even remotely plausible.
Religion is a cognitive disorder.
At the age of 8 I apostatised my catholic religion. Initially I was morally blackmailed by my family but I persevered and I eventually got accepted. I simply refuse to believe anything that cannot be backed up by reason. I refuse to even entertain the idea of the Celestial Teapot.
How can we fully eliminate religion from governing our lives? How can a movement be brought about that denounces religious influence in government? A movement that limits itself to that issue and hence suits both right and left wing politics. A movement that is influential. A movement that has no opinion on privately pursued religion yet protects kids from religion being forced upon them. A movement to celebrate freedom from religion.
I realise it will be a long and inspiring way to travel. But which modality would suit best? The problems I see are that a) the religious oppression is either disneyfied like in most western cultures or absolute like in many religion ruled states and both variants are hard to counter and b) "celebrating freedom from religion" might be a bit boring.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
um... all of them?
The point of religion is that the Few (ie, the Vatican) control the many through fear. Sin and you'll go to hell. The only person that can forgive you is a guy in a hat who claims to be Gods mouthpiece. The bigger the hat, the more important he is. God must be wearing one big fucking sombrero up there.
What do you see when you look in a church? You see a few rows of chairs, all facing a raised platform. That puts one man above all others in the entire room. He is the most important being in there. Why? Because according to that self same individual's claim, his is the only voice in that room that speaks the Word of God. Everybody else listens and obeys.
Isn't it strange how he also drives the nicest car in town?
Isn't it also strange how his is the neatest, flattest lawn in town?
Isn't it disturbing how everybody trusts him to the point where they allow him unrestricted access to their children? Wait, what? Isn't the Catholic Church constantly working to bury child abuse claims?
Don't for one minute think I'm singling out the Catholic Church. They're all guilty of it.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
I almost went right off topic there. Yeah. So this one guy tells you what's what and you accept him at his word. In everything. Unquestioningly.
Try telling me that isn't keeping people in ignorance?
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
How are things between you and the former Mr then Mrs then Mr Garrison since finding out she was formerly a he and is now a he?
Has it at all affected your belief in evolution and religion? Do you think that the world will be safe now that your theories have taken such a blow in light of that coming out?
Inquiring minds wish to know!
- vranash
The book is not the religion. None of the three you noted actually live by the quote.
When I was young living in a communist country I remember seeing in a bookstore a book titled “The Intelligence of the Matter” that was pleading for the truthfulness of Darwinian Evolution.
We Christians believe that an omnipotent, omniscient Creator created our wonderful world.
Atheists believe that the matter created our wonderful world. Isn’t this fairy tale a pitiful credo of the atheist religion? How much faith an atheist must have to survive when every day the real science reveals how hollow and unfounded this belief in the religion of the matter is?
I'm confused about the whole arch-atheist thing. Pretty much by definition, you're not going to convince the god-botherers of the obvious falicy of their beliefs and the rest of us don't need convincing. As a clearly phenomenal scientist, would mankind be better served by you working on the science stuff instead of the religion-bashing stuff?
In other words. Shouldn't you take your own advice, that "there's probably no god, now stop worrying and enjoy your life?"
"These passages are shared by Christians, Jews, and Muslims" - because they are all based on the Jewish beliefs, christianity was a cult during jesus's time and islam is a "me too" johnny come lately "What religion values ignorance?"
All religions practice it otherwise religion would be hoisted on its own petard (as it deserves to do),
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Why do you despise religious people so much? What have they ever done to you?
Richard, I've done a lot of reading on evolution and have tried to understand where human evolution is going but haven't found a satisfactory answer - I'd really like to hear your opinion. Human culture and technology has removed a lot of selection pressure: our social systems support blind people who would no doubt die if they had to try and fend (hunting, protection from predators, and of course raising a child!) for themselves; our science/medicine sustains people with otherwise fatal injuries/diseases (you yourself once said that without antibiotics you wouldn't still be here today); and communities are far less isolated today than we ever have been before, we can travel to the other side of the planet in a day... So what does this mean with respect to our own evolution? We're (almost) a single, large population, which suggests genetic drift is less likely to result in particular traits becoming fixed (or lost). Ditto for the lack of selection pressure. A greater population no doubt means more random mutations, the edges of what is defined as human are being pushed further away, but again our constant mixing and (relatively) altruistic culture means these mutations (good or bad) are less likely to become fixed or lost. It seems to me it's less likely we'll evolve new "branches" (eg European white skin, Asian eyes) without a dramatic change which creates smaller, isolated groups (energy crisis, war, climate change). The converse suggests we'll converge on a "middle ground", but our gene pool must be growing so that middle ground (if there is such a thing) must also cover a wider spread of traits... So my question - where are we going and how quickly are we travelling?
You are very insightful. The problem is indeed that many religious people confuse their religion with lazy thinking and dogma.
My favourite example from the Bible is the Marriage at Cana. The whole water to wine magical stuff which obviously is considered quite a feat. The way I interpret it is an even bigger feat.
In those days and in that culture the newlyweds and their family were expected to throw a world class kegger for anybody who showed up. If it wasn't the party of the century they'd be viewed as cheapskates until the rest of their life. So running out of grub was viewed as a Bad Thing.
So everybody was prepared to leave the party and harbour a grudge when booze dried up. But Jesus said: Party on. Look, we've settled here and we are having some good fun and running out of grub and booze is not a good reason to call the whole thing off. Let me fix that.
Now the Bible if you want to follow the literal meaning says that he turned water into wine which being the son of god presumably was a trivial trick.
OTOH my take on it is that he said: We could either break up the party which is kinda dumb. Or we could drink water as if it were wine and continue to enjoy ourselves.
Convincing a couple of moochers that their lifelong tradition is BS and that they should enjoy what they got is the bigger achievement.
The story is an ALLEGORY. You are supposed to interpret it and to think about it. Not to believe every single line of it. The whole New Testament was an effort to drag people out of antiquity. If you take that thought even further then you could say that the Old Testament is included into the Bible as a contrast to the New Testament. This is how bad it was and here is our counterproposal. Considering that it mainly is the Old Testament that is currently used to advocate a return to the dark ages I'd say screw it. People are too dumb to understand it and explain why there are contradicitons between New and Old. And when in doubt they choose old.
Somebody has already asked why religion and science are incompatible. They are not. Science and dogma and lazy thinking are.
The big downside ist that contrary to dogma, science doesn't give absolute 100% certainty. We've got the principle of sufficient reason and that's it.
20 minutes into the future
Indirectly, they all do. They are based on the idea that you are supposed to believe in some things, and are not allowed to doubt them. Only then you are virtuous. But, well, that is ignorance.
I'm assuming you are talking about the Torah (Old Testament) because it is the only common thread among the religions mentioned. So please point to the verse/passage you are referring to that talks about these "things".
Every time you hear a religious person complain that Darwin's theories are the work of the devil or somesuch, then they are saying that ignorance is good.
I am a God fearing fundamentalist Christian who goes to church every Sunday, reads the bible daily, goes to bible study, and desires to learn more and more about his Lord and Savor everyday. I would have to say to you "I Agree". I haven't read a single verse that attributes that to the devil. In the Torah atheism is simply an attribute assigned to "Fools", "Foolish", and the "Unwise".
A lot of information is supposed to be kept away from certain groups of people (women, children) to keep them docile. This is considered a good thing, and yes, this *is* valuing ignorance.
I honestly don't know what you are talking about. Why, why would I withhold information from my wife or son? How could I actually stop them from read a book or using the internet? I would be lying and deceiving them if I did, and that would not be following the word of God.
To be honest, I didn't want to believe in God. I hated him, and didn't want him to exist so I set out to prove to my self once and for all that he was the work of fiction. The difference between me and I'd say almost all other atheists is I refused to start with the premise that there is no God. That's like getting a BSOD, and before even looking at the error message or the kernel dumps deciding that no matter what it is not a software problem.
Despite my bias, I wanted truth... not foolish desire.
'Fossil rabbits in the Pre-Cambrian'
That is the quote he uses to answer the question in The God Delusion.
T
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
No more then your inability to spell that is ignorance thus willful ignorance. They are attaching motivation to the claims, not ignoring them or putting believe before them, And when someone religious says something is "the work of the devil or somesuch", they particularly pay attention to it.
Lol.. No it is not. Faith is the belief that there is something more at work then the obvious. Some faith attribute it to a God, some attributes it to an idea like Karma.
You make some unsupported assumptions here too. "When its obvious that nothing of the sort is even remotely plausible" why isn't it? You cannot use science to claim something supernatural and unseen isn't true. You can't just inject your own faith and claim it trumps someone else' faith therefore faith doesn't exist. That would be a logic loop from hell. What evidence do you have to support this claim? Oh, I bet you are going to say reason, but you cannot explain any reason within the bounds you have set without becoming what you decry. It's most likely only due to your disdain for what you do not understand- which also places you in the same boat.
Actually, it seems as if your entire line of logic here is a cognitive disorder. There definitely is a spot of cognitive dissidence in with it. Your premise is wrong, your conclusions are wrong, your process is wrong. In short, you are wrong.
Dear Professor Dawkins Recently I've read books about the Rwandan genocide and one recurrent theme was just how long ago the seeds for the genocide of 94 were, perhaps inadvertently, sown. Looking around the world today, what seeds do you see being sown now which may lead to devastating, but hopefully avoidable, conflicts and massacres in the decades to come?
"Dance like nobody's watching"
Dear Prof. Dawkins, What happened with the collaboration between you and Dennett, I dont recall hearing anything about why it ended?
Mr Dawkins, In my experience most religious people confuse all atheism with being strong atheism - and therefore have the ready retort that Athiests are asserting non-existence without evidence (or even on "faith"), therefore excusing their own assertion without evidence.
Every atheist I have ever met has been a weak atheist, only asserting that a god is improbable, not impossible.
Do you believe that religious people intentionally misunderstand atheism as being predominantly the strong/extreme position in order to better argue with it, or are they genuinely misinformed of our typical position?
I'm a big fan BTW, thanks for giving me the confidence to talk about my atheist position openly in public
Your position that religion is demonstrably false, and is also destructive and counter-productive, seems to me to be tailored to the three Abrahamic middle eastern religion Judaism, Christianity and Islam. While I agree with almost every word as far as those religions are concerned, isn't it true that one could have religious beliefs where some or all of your arguments are invalid? For example if one were a sun worshiper. It is a scientific fact that the sun exists, and also that it is as near to all powerful and benevolent as makes no difference. It gives life to all things and enables our existence. What if one were to consider himself a divine being, or for that matter you. If I believe Richard Dawkins is my god how would you answer the question 'does god exist'. What if I believe in the supreme power of science to eventually furnish us with all possible knowledge about the universe? Ok there is more than 1 question here. Consider this my official question:
"Hasn't society's narrow focus on the three stupidest religions of all time caused the debate to be skewed against belief of all kinds such that certain beliefs that may be based in truth and also psychologically or socially beneficial are discarded without consideration?"
Dr. Dawkins, as a person trained in the academic study of religion, I take exception to this gross mischaracterization of how faith, wisdom and knowledge is defined and protrayed, particularly within Judaism and Christianity. It is a straw man of the highest order and quite frankly you should be ashamed of yourself as an academician for engaging in such easily disproven slanders.
The Biblical definition of wisdom is the right USE of knowledge - moral intelligence, as it were. I doubt even you would disagree with this definition in light of your support for a revisiting of eugenics, given how badly it was misused last time out?
But just as importantly, since when are you not allowed to doubt or question within Judaism and Christianity? I am sure that you are familiar with Isaiah 1:18, in which God commands Humanity to "Come now, and let us reason together,...". In the original Hebrew, the meaning of "reason together" denotes the kind of contention, or argumentation, which occurs in a court of justice, where the parties reciprocally state the grounds of their cause and presents their evidence. This would include doubt over an event or course of action God has orchestrated.
This is highlighted by the fact in the NT the word translated as "faith" is the word "pistis". This was not a word of the common or koine Greek, but a word borrowed from the technical language of Rhetoric. It is Aristotle who gives us the definition of pistis a. when used as a noun as "forensic proof" and b. as a verb as "trust based on evidence or level of prior trustworthiness." Faith is NOT belief in something you cannot prove (that is Soren Kierkegaard's definition), but trust in something already proven. This is why following Hebrews 11:1 we find a laundry list of miracles which invites the original readers of the text to verify them - in a world I might add where being a peeping tom means you were a good neighbor and everyone was watching everyone else - and where the wealthy would have sent trusted family or even slaves on a trip to verify the stories coming out of Israel of a man risen from the grave. This is the very kind of thing which God is asking us to contend with Him on; did the event happen and what is its moral meaning. - PLEASE read the Social Sciences Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels by Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh before making such an asinine claim again. I understand you avoid speaking to actual scholars of religion in favor of pastors (in which the academic rigor of their training is both different and less intensive of the type of information you try to debate them on. But please try to actually shore up on some scholarship before defining "faith" as something other than what is found in the Bible itself. Its the reason people both more and less learned than myself in the academic study of religion in general and Judeo-Christianity in particular are laughing at you - it shows you to be outside of your field of expertise, which makes you a layman, or, if I may be so cheeky, you are OUR flea.
Thank you for your time,
Tom Bryant
BA - Philosophy, Clemson University
MA - Religious Studies, University of South Florida
I call bullshit. If you didn't want to believe in god, then what forced you? EVIDENCE? :-)
Haha. You want someone important, the maker of the universe, to love you and look after you. If there is foolish desire, then that would be it.
I loved many of your earlier works that were very positive in explaining, in myriad ways, and with extraordinary beauty, how evolution gave rise to complexity and the wide variety of life we see today. Later works, like the God Delusion, are less about the beauty of nature, and more about the problem of the religious. You have made the point that religion is a sort of collective mental illness. It strikes me that the later, more strident work is either preaching to the converted, or scolding of a sick person in a hospital bed. So I guess the question is two fold.
1) Is there something that precipitated the change in focus from uplifting exposition to intellectual bouncer? Did you meet a particularly condescending cleric in a dark alley and suddenly snap?
2) If we accept as a hypothesis that religion is a mental disease, I'm not sanguine that saying "you crazy fools!" and explaining why is going to snap them out of it. If there any rational plan that could have any hope of actually working? What sort of meme could be established that would have better evolutionary stability, and gradually supplant religion in the pool. That's the goal, right?
So what? You don't even need science. Suppose you are a very nice, very religious woman. You believe god protects you and loves you, and you pray thanking Him every night. Now you get raped by a bunch of gangsters, get aids and die from it horribly.
"Thank you, my lord". <== this, uttered shortly before her death, is the side effect of faith.
What a load of shit. And don't tell me it does'n happen. And yes, that's willfull ignorance.
Mr. Dawkins - Are you going to insist on continuing to be an uncompromising asshat to those who disagree with your opinions and beliefs, or have you finally recognized both the irony of such a tactic, and the fact that it's far easier to attract flies with honey...
Indeed; calling an M.A., D.Sc, Oxford emeritus fellow an 'asshat' certainly does drip with the honey of cordiality.
What is it this week with people that have learned to read but don't - or deliberately pretend to be ignorant?
Incredibly obvious examples - USSR, Communist China, nearly half of fucking Europe for around twenty years, Mexico back when they were shooting Catholic Priests, a few other Latin American countries at times, England at the time when the King took over the local Church by force - the list is very very long and you'd have to be far more ignorant than I'm sure you are to not come across any of them. So what is your game? Is it to pretend to be stupid so I will come up with one example, then you'll find a minor nitpick and get some amusing discussion game going where I'm supposed to be able to be find something that will be convincing from first principles? Well I never played silly debating games at school (that was for the kids too dumb to do much mathematics), and it was decades ago anyway, so I'm not interested in discussing things with people pretending to not have two neurons to rub together.
Atheists, as well as all rational beings, are also drivers, whether they like it or not.
It is part of thier religion that they must not believe
in Odin.
Dawkins usually is snarky, humorous and witty. I never really have seen him scream, shout or froth from the mouth.
That seems to be the standard reaction of those on the opposite of the table. I would SERIOUSLY suggest that you look up his TED talks since they seem to be quite representative of the man.
Whatever the case we have in the past been non-confrontational and that got us into this ID mess. Science is NOT a democratic process. You do NOT get a vote on what we found. It simply doesn't work this way. The popular press also isn't very helpful since it tries to present both sides of the argument as having merit and the truth lies somewhere inbetween. Again, this is NOT a political process where this might apply.
From a scientific standpoint Creationism and ID has no merit whatsoever. And frankly the time we spend arguing about it could be better spent by drinking a pint, taking the dog for a walk or search for a cure fro cancer.
We argue about this because we just escaped the dark ages and we have no inclination to be dragged back again. Unfortunately this breed of lazy thinking seems to be a renewable resource.
20 minutes into the future
Science has its basis in physical, observable, recordable evidence.
If one has not the means to observe or record such evidence, one becomes reliant upon those with the means to disseminate the evidence.
For most of the population of the world who are not scientists and who do not have access to the knowledge and equipment necessary to observe and record evidence of the underlying principles of existence, we have a situation where the truth can only be received vicariously via established institutions and individuals.
This seems to me a similar situation to a heirarchy of priests in a temple, to whom after much study and meditation, special knowledge is bestowed which is subsequently disseminated in a form (barely) understandable to those who have not studied or meditated the same way.
Isn't a fundamental (but ill informed) belief in the religious model of our existence equally as bad as a fundamental (but ill informed) belief in the scientific model of our existence?
There is some stuff about knowing good and being innocent of evil in there too. I'm sure we could both cherry pick the bible to find passages to support a position, but there are some that believe that worldly knowledge is not the wisdom being talked about in the bible, but rather believe that knowledge of the heavens is good and knowledge of the material world is the evil.
Ok, but what is your ACTUAL knowledge of the "heavens" (as in Heaven, not space)??? We HAVE no knowledge of heaven, only hope, and some very old text, that it exists. THAT is not actually knowledge.
All religions practice it otherwise religion would be hoisted on its own petard (as it deserves to do),
Do you realize how content-free your comment was? No citations, no rational arguments, just "na na boo boo you're wrong!"
Good way to argue against you own point.
Free Martian Whores!
i am an iranian and an atheist,yes its a bit strange ,but there are many here who are atheist like me but dont dare to come out .my question is do you have any message for your iranian followers who are truly living under constant threat of getting arrested or jailed for being atheist ,thank you so much
mr dawkins along with carl sagan and christopher hitchens are my heroes
What is your opinion of the recent work on "junk" DNA? If an intelligent creator wouldn't have created junk DNA, what do we conclude as we learn that "junk" DNA really isn't junk?
... problem except with Dawkins who ignores the fact that most large universities of the 17th through 19th centuries were founded by Bible-believing, true Christians because of their love of scientific inquiry and exploration.
Did you actually read the original post or just the title of it?
Atheism is a religion the same way not driving is a brand of car...
The point is that atheists, as well as all rational being ARE drivers, wether they care to admit it or not.
Look, a Christian has no problems not beliving in Odin. We do not call such people "anorse".
Not believing in Odin, or other types, is EXPLICITLY part of that religion.
What does genetics say about religious inclination? Recently there have been studies suggesting that religious inclination might be influenced by our genetic makeup. Are some people more susceptible to become religious than others?
The point of religion is that the Few (ie, the Vatican) control the many through fear.
The Catholics are only half of Christians, the vatican has no sway over the rest of us. What you say has been true in many eras of the Catholic church, but does not apply to Christians who aren't Catholic.
Sin and you'll go to hell.
You miss Christianity's most important tenet: all of us sin, even the popes and saints, but your sins are forgiven, paid in blood by Christ. The "guy in a hat" doesn't absolve you of sin, God does. Escaping hell only involves believing Christ is son of God and your lord and savior, and repenting your sin erases it.
What do you see when you look in a church? You see a few rows of chairs, all facing a raised platform. That puts one man above all others in the entire room.
Why is a performing musician on a raised platform? Why is a comedian on a raised platform? So you can more easily see and hear him or her.
He is the most important being in there.
No, God is. The preacher teaches the word and prays for and with the congregation.
Because according to that self same individual's claim, his is the only voice in that room that speaks the Word of God. Everybody else listens and obeys.
I suspect that you were raised as a Catholic, and am starting to understand why so many of the fallen I've met -- hookers, thieves, dope dealers -- were raised in Catholic families. What you describe is nothing like any church I've attended, and I've attended churches of many denominations (the one I attend now is nondenominational).
Isn't it strange how he also drives the nicest car in town?
You're certainly not describing Eddie, the lead pastor at my church, but it's true of too many preachers. And the church I attend is a very rich church, we sent $90,000 to Africa last year, plus more around the world, the US, and our own community. When you see a preacher in a $4000 suit he's most likely in it for his own ends, and may not even really believe in God. I always say never trust a preacher who wears a tie, because the necktie is a symbol that the wearer worships money and power. Notice that all bankers, lawyers, and politicians wear expensive suits and all wear ties? That's one thing that really pisses God off -- idol worship.
Isn't it disturbing how everybody trusts him to the point where they allow him unrestricted access to their children?
Yet you're not disturbed that we allow public scholl teachers unrestricted access to our children?
Don't for one minute think I'm singling out the Catholic Church. They're all guilty of it.
"Don't for one minute think I'm singling out the black men, all blacks are guilty of it." See what happens when you judge one man on what another man does?
Free Martian Whores!
WTF are you talking about?
Everyone knows God created diseases, everyone knows bad things happen to good people. Everyone knows there are evil people out there.
What makes the difference to you if someone dieing from a horrific experience thanks God for anything? I mean first, why is it any of your business how someone chooses to spend their last breath? 20 years ago, aids was a death sentence and people tanked god all the time. They thanked God for the life they had that was good, they thanked God for ending the life that was suffering, they thanked God for any reason they wanted to. Just because you wouldn't does not mean anyone is ignorant or less of a person. It just means you wouldn't do it,
I simply do not understand why you evangelical atheist claim to hate religious people because they push their faith on you, but insist people live and think exactly like you do or want them to or you are somehow justified in denigrating them. Pot, meet kettle.
Why are you so unhappy?
The book is a history and law. You are correct, it is not the religion, but it does define the religion. The Jewish religion is defined by the old testament, the Muslim religion is defined by the koran, the Christian religion is defined by the New Testament.
The religion itself is inside the adherant's heart.
Free Martian Whores!
In your debate with John Lennox - possibly one of your strongest opponents yet - at Oxford Museum of Natural History (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0UIbd0eLxw) you reluctantly conceded the actual existence of Jesus Christ as a historical figure. While this may well be a catchup on your part with long established consensus by specialists in the field, what other consequences did this debate have for you?
there's plenty of groups within each of those three that would be very happy to cast the first stone no matter what their holy book says.
Unfortunately, that is too true. A good example is the Westboro Baptist Church and their jihad against gays. Gays are forgiven their sins just as straights are, provided they repent what they do afterwards. I have news for the church's preacher -- I'm involved with a lesbian right now who feels terrible about being lesbian "because I'll go to hell." She's a former Catholic, I had to educate her about what the Bible says rather than what men say.
The church I attend is a very large, rich church and growning by leaps and bounds, so much so that the lead pastor Eddie begged those of us who were going to the 10:15 service to go to a different service because it was always packed (I have a tea shirt that says in large bold capital letters "I SURRENDER" followed by a smal script saying "my 10:15 seat". Yet the lead pastor doesn't drive a fancy car or live in a fancy house or wear fancy clothes, the money (and there's a shitload of money) goes to the poor and renovations to the church building itself.
I think Jesus called them the merchants in the temple.
Sadly, there are way too many churches like that.
Free Martian Whores!
I have to agree with every word you said. Two more people need to mod you "insightful," your comment deserves a +5.
Free Martian Whores!
It wasn't "the tree of knowledge," it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil -- in other words, the tree of the knowledge of pain and death. Personally, I think it would be nice to be completely ignorant of pain and death.
Free Martian Whores!
If you mean 'cosmos' when you say 'universe', I suspect a multitude of scientists would go along with you.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
When a lot of people think of Christianity they think 'warm', 'loving', 'peaceful', and 'generous', as embodied by smiling Christian personalities such as Joel Osteen. When they think of atheism they think 'stingy', 'mean-spirited', 'cold', and 'confrontational', as embodied by dour atheist personalities such as Madalyn Murray O'Hair. We're mistrusted and ridiculed in society because the majority think of us as grinches who are only interested in rejecting Biblical morality, getting rid of the municipal Christmas tree, and keeping people from praying in school and at sporting events. How do we turn this around, and emphasize that - as Penn Jillette said in his wonderful "This I Believe" piece for NPR - "Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have"?
I'm a bit of an aviation enthusiast. I just read that the American aviation industry and military back in the 50's were planning to build what would probably be the ultimate flying machine: a nuclear-powered supersonic jet that would have virtually unlimited range and can stay in the air indefinitely (or rather as long as the reactor lasts, which was apparently months or even years). They got as far as testing vital components on the ground and in the air and were just about to build a full-scale flying prototype, then they cancelled the whole project. As an aviation enthusiast, I'm dissappointed and dismayed that such a flying marvel would never be. Would you agree that its cancellation was a form of anti-science and that the pro-science thing to do would be to restart the whole project?
Mr. Dawkins - Are you going to insist on continuing to be an uncompromising asshat to those who disagree with your opinions and beliefs, or have you finally recognized both the irony of such a tactic, and the fact that it's far easier to attract flies with honey...
Indeed; calling an M.A., D.Sc, Oxford emeritus fellow an 'asshat' certainly does drip with the honey of cordiality.
Education does not preclude asshattery.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
As an atheist, I actually dread a precipitous drop in religious activity because I fear what a lot of people would replace it with, and that there would be reduced moral order (which I like, even as an atheist -- after all, murder is just simply wrong).
Do you imagine a switch to "worse allegiances" if religious activity goes into an unexpected deep decline? Worse allegiances such as corporate or fascist power (examples)?
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
We know that the magnetic poles switch about every 200,000 years. During the 1,000 year process, we experience double or more radiation from the Sun. Do you suppose that evolutionary leaps result, which could account for some of the sudden leaps in evolution that Creationists like to point out?
Sorry I can't continue read that website, because they say it's their prayers that makes me willing to read it. :)
So you have to understand that I can't prove their prayers true
How much better off would she have been had she said "Oh crap!" Not any.
You could argue that she would not have risked walking down that dark alley had she not believed herself protected.
You could also argue that she would never have left the house due to lack of courage, become a deranged shutin, and died after a tumble in the shower without her faith.
People really have to get out of the OCD mode on this issue and realize that religion has effects that range from harmful to inconsequential to beneficial, and that people who say things, pro or con, about religion also span a wide range of intentions and competence. As the human body of knowlege proceeds to grow even more orders of magnitude greater than what one individual can understand in a normal lifetime, we are going to have to learn to maturely manage the fact just about everyone is taking the majority of their construction of reality on trust of one form or another, and that will often be trust in a person or a creed. It's a form of mental heuristic/memoization. Neither stringent fundamentalism nor nihilistic abolitionism are a particularly mature approach to this issue.
Someone had to do it.
Dawkins usually is snarky, humorous and witty. I never really have seen him scream, shout or froth from the mouth. That seems to be the standard reaction of those on the opposite of the table. I would SERIOUSLY suggest that you look up his TED talks since they seem to be quite representative of the man.
Representative of how you think he should be viewed. Your statement is akin to saying, "Watch the presidential debates to see what kind of man Obama/Romney really is." The problem is, as we should all know as it is our nature, people act differently when they know they're being scrutinized. You get a much better idea of what really drives a person when you catch them off-guard, like (again using the presidential candidates as fodder) when Obama was caught making snide remarks about Bibi to the French president, or Romney's candid "47%" gaffe.
Whatever the case we have in the past been non-confrontational and that got us into this ID mess.
No, the human propensity for defending belief, no matter how wrong it is, is what "got us in this mess."
Face it, nobody likes being told their wrong, with few exceptions. And the bigger a dick you are about telling someone they're wrong, the more firmly they'll fight to maintain what they believe in. I've heard that when someone like a religious zealot is defending something they believe strongly about, their brain has a similar chemical reaction as a junkie getting his heroin fix, and it can becomes an addiction.
Science is NOT a democratic process. You do NOT get a vote on what we found. It simply doesn't work this way. The popular press also isn't very helpful since it tries to present both sides of the argument as having merit and the truth lies somewhere inbetween. Again, this is NOT a political process where this might apply.
That's why I highly question a lot of what passes for 'science' these days - seems entirely too much 'research' is just a means to an end, intentionally skewed in order to achieve a desired result. It's pretty sad how human progression takes a back seat to private profit more often than not.
Not to say there's no merit in modern scientific study, but you have to admit, a lot of what's reported in the media isn't real science. OTOH, perhaps that's by design...
From a scientific standpoint Creationism and ID has no merit whatsoever. And frankly the time we spend arguing about it could be better spent by drinking a pint, taking the dog for a walk or search for a cure fro cancer.
ID* I can almost see the merit of (hey, if it gets crazy fundies to stop hamstringing scientific discovery, let them think whatever they want!), but yea, Creationism is pure unadulterated nonsense.
We argue about this because we just escaped the dark ages and we have no inclination to be dragged back again.
No, you argue about it because, as I stated before, it's human nature to A) "know" you're right, and B) fight to defend that "knowledge." We have the sciences of psychology and sociology to thank for allowing us to see that behavior within ourselves; emotional appeal need not apply.
I congratulate you on positing a reasonable argument without resorting to ad hominems, as you had previously.
* I presume a lot of people who don't spend much time around fundies probably think Creationism and ID are the same thing - they are not. In the most basic terms, Creationism is the rejection of scientific evidence, replacing research with "God did it." Intelligent Design accepts scientific evidence, with the additional caveat of "God made it possible." I see nothing wrong with the latter.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Well, no. Take the whole global warming farce: either we have a bunch of "sceptics" who deny scientific evidence because it happens to conflict with their preferences, or we have a worldwide conspiracy of climate "scientists" who conspire to falsify their research for whatever reason. Or look at any debate about politics or economy and watch as the side you happen to disagree with ignores all blindingly obvious evidence that the side you agree with (if any) is right. Or take Dawkins himself, who apparently thinks that publishing a book calling religion wrong is going to convince anyone that religion is wrong, assuming they even read it (which is a stretch).
No, the religious people don't have a higher incident of self-deception than people in general because people in general already top the rate at 100%. Only the specific topics of deception vary.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
It seems to be a popular argument within religious communities to suggest that any person who questions religious doctorine on scientific grounds is not a real scientist. Instead, they are a person who has "faith" in science, to the extent that they refuse to accept the posibilty of the supernatural. The argument then states that these people are narrow minded and cling to scientific theories which are not definitivly proven.
eg: Me: "I question creationism since evolution has an overwhelming burden of proof."
Christian: "You have decided to believe in evolution even though it has not been observed occouring macroscopically. You have a faith in science, I have a faith in religion."
Setting aside the importance of being able assess evidence in an unbiased way, I think this is also a misrepresentation of scientists. My experience of working with scientists is that in fact many of them want to believe certain theories even when they are not the view held by the larger sceintific community, and that they only let these go when the body of proof becomes overwhelming. That is to say scientists may be very vocal about what they believe to be the correct theory, but they are not dogmatic, and in the face of overwhelming evidence will yield.
eg: "Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing." - Einstein
So, finally my question. Have there been any scientific theories which you believed / wanted to believe which you later had to accept were incorrect?
Dr. Dawkins,
You state in River Out of Eden that “In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no other god. Nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is,”—as opposed to “ought”.
But you also claim we can cultivate our own purpose in The Selfish Gene, stating, “If you would extract a moral from this book, read it as a warning. Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals co-operate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have a chance to upset their designs (SG, 3). We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birthWe can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism, something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world,” (215). To you, is even natural empathy inherently selfish, as its evolutionary purpose is to promote the survival of those who are genetically related to us? Has your view on this changed since reading Sam Harris’ book?
You said, on Harris’ website, “To my surprise, The Moral Landscape has changed all that for me. It should change it for philosophers too. Philosophers of mind have already discovered that they can’t duck the study of neuroscience, and the best of them have raised their game as a result. Sam Harris shows that the same should be true of moral philosophers, and it will turn their world exhilaratingly upside down.”
Do you now believe there is objective moral truth?
Do you now believe in a ‘real’ good?
Is this somewhat more like a political move? “Let’s vote on eachother’s bills, even if we don’t agree with them, since we share a common goal”?
If you do now, with Sam Harris, believe in objective moral truth–What being in reality does that truth describe? To what always good being does it correspond?
Thankyou,
Maryann Spikes
Christian Apologetics Alliance
I had been skeptical since childhood about the idea of a god that demanded worship and rituals, of an omnipotent being that created other imperfect beings who were supposed to strive towards perfection, and about various other mumbo-jumbos that afflicts my birth religion. I expressed my doubts, including about the origin of god, to people I trusted, but I all I got as reply was some sincere sophistry.
I kept on swinging between skepticism, moderate spirituality and hard belief, but I forced myself to take a hard thought after the Indonesian tsunami. I still had my questions, and your book The God Delusion helped me finally answer them. I am very glad that I don't have to believe in a god any longer, or suffer from the guilt of not being 'religious enough', and I am thankful that you existed within my lifetime.
However, I run into some dilemmas: how do I convince my wife that there really is no point in believing in a god? She keeps on running back to her security blanket, even though she understands the nature of the universe. How do I teach my children to be free of dogmas and have the courage to ask questions and think for themselves? All that I do right now is to assert that there is no god, but I understand that this is as fundamentalist a position as asserting that my flavour of god is the only true one. And lastly, how do I teach my children to have a healthy opinion of the religious, even those that are born in the wrong religion, and not turn them into bigots?
Can you help me address these questions?
Chat with other atheists http://secularchat.org
When people (or westerner's) think of religion they think of God; however, we seldom think of Eastern religion and concept like reincarnation. What do you think of Dr. Ian Stevenson's accounts of children who would be able to "recite" or describe the family members, friends and living environments that are supposedly associated with past lives these children in their present lives should not have known and would be at current time perhaps be most plausibly explained with reincarnation than otherwise? Have you ever contemplate at the possibility that at least some of these seemingly supernatural things may be a fact of nature that science has to this date not been able offer an plausible explanation yet?
Dr. Dawkins, You state in River Out of Eden that “In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no other god. Nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is,”—as opposed to “ought”. But you also claim we can cultivate our own purpose in The Selfish Gene, stating, “If you would extract a moral from this book, read it as a warning. Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals co-operate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have a chance to upset their designs (SG, 3). We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birthWe can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism, something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world,” (215). To you, is even natural empathy inherently selfish, as its evolutionary purpose is to promote the survival of those who are genetically related to us? Has your view on this changed since reading Sam Harris’ book? You said, on Harris’ website, “To my surprise, The Moral Landscape has changed all that for me. It should change it for philosophers too. Philosophers of mind have already discovered that they can’t duck the study of neuroscience, and the best of them have raised their game as a result. Sam Harris shows that the same should be true of moral philosophers, and it will turn their world exhilaratingly upside down.” Do you now believe there is objective moral truth? Do you now believe in a ‘real’ good? Is this somewhat more like a political move? “Let’s vote on eachother’s bills, even if we don’t agree with them, since we share a common goal”? If you do now, with Sam Harris, believe in objective moral truth–What being in reality does that truth describe? To what always good being does it correspond? Thankyou, Maryann Spikes Christian Apologetics Alliance
Originally posted here in a better format, but without an account: http://interviews.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3194367&cid=41706389
You have said in several interviews that you believe "Jesus almost certainly existed." Many in the atheist movement deny Jesus's existence based on the lack of any contemporaneous accounts of his life. Along with large parts of his life being nearly identical to previous savior myths. What specific reasons do you have to believe that Jesus was a historical person?
Richard, are you familiar with the work conducted by Douglas Axe and his colleagues at the Biologic Institute on the rarity and isolation of functional protein folds in sequence space? What do you think are the implications, if any, of this work for the tenability of modern evolutionary theory?
Surely the Abrahamic religions would say that you cannot hope to fully understand God?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Yes, some of that work with quasicrystals is more interesting than all get out!
I can relate to your point about some potential pessimism in my fundamentally questioning the molecular basis of evolution (ie. based on the level of anatomic complexity in relation to the quantity of information able to be stored in the genes). Dawkins himself has said that even if proven, (molecular-based) evolution does not disprove the existence of Creator. It only shows that he covered his tracks. Also, I am reminded of something one of my professors said that was positive (perhaps a bit of an exception for him) and got me to thinking way back when (paraphrasing): "So am I to believe that there are some kind of traffic cops placed at every street corner, telling these molecules where to go?"
Also, those examples you mention are more about "general" building blocks (eg. something which solidifies a type of tissue throughout, or codes for a lone, mobile fluorophore molecule), vs the regulation of tissue structure differentiation.
They are obviosly not less of a person. But thanking smoeone that isn't there is, well, name it however you want.
It is your brain, you can believe in pixies if you want. I was just commenting that the whole narrative behind most religions is obviously bullshit. You cannot counter that, so I guess my point stands.
You denigrate yourselves by believing in bullshit without any need. By barking up trees that aren't even there.
I don't tell people how to live their lives. You have a right to believe whatever you want, but you do not have a right to be isolated from my opinion on the matter when debating the issue. I never speak about this unprovoked.
Is that not a way of acknowledging that there is no god? Saying that religion is just a mental heuristic/memoization thing sounds deeply atheistic.
Please explain to me how DNA evolved.
Ever heard of creationists? Ever read about the catholic church stance against the sun being the centre of the universe not the earth? etc etc If i need to mention these things then there is something lacking, there is no need to mention the obvious.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Kudos on your username. It brings back fond memories of beating codeblocks into submission...
But I I must disagree with your statement. I've never heard a theologian claim anything of the sort. Proverbs is not primarily concerned with moral instruction, unless you consider all activities in life to be moral. (Certainly an arguable definition, but one which renders your complaint about Proverbs irrelevant.) One of the most common definitions I've heard for wisdom, as used in the book of Proverbs, is: "The art of living skillfully." Yes, it states that knowing God is critical. I would expect nothing less of a religious text. But it also gives loads of practical advice:
"Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest."
"Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it. I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions."
"In the lips of him that hath understanding wisdom is found: but a rod is for the back of him that is void of understanding. Wise men lay up knowledge: but the mouth of the foolish is near destruction."
"As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him."
"There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself. He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him: but blessing shall be upon the head of him that selleth it. He that diligently seeketh good procureth favour: but he that seeketh mischief, it shall come unto him."
Sure, there are loads of Proverbs encouraging 'Righteousness'. I would not wish to deceive anyone into thinking the Bible was an unbiased, nonreligious source, so here's a handful of examples of that:
"A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight. When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom. The integrity of the upright shall guide them: but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them."
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. For by me thy days shall be multiplied, and the years of thy life shall be increased. If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself: but if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it."
"These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren."
90% of the time, when Proverbs speaks of a judgement on something, it's a judgement that is simply the natural course of events: the lazy starve, sleeping with another man's wife will get you a lifelong enemy, the talkative will reveal ignorance, the gullible will be taken advantage of... I mean, you don't really need to be a rocket scientist to figure this stuff out! Remember what proverbs is: the collected aphorisms of a deeply religious people. Some are deeply religious, and I wouldn't expect someone from another religion to agree necessarily. Others are pure folklore, of the same sort we got from our ancestors.
Much of it is simply "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" type stuff...
My question is, if there were indeed a creator, how much time would it take for him to create us? We know that it took about 4 billion years for life to reach the point we are in. If there is a creator who control evolution, how much time would it take for him (or her or it) to make the necessary mutations for life to exists in its current state?
In other words, if there were a creator, how much more efficient would evolution be?
I was curious as to what your thoughts are on the progression of humanity's moral baseline apart from religion.
As it stands, I believe people inherit their moral codes from various post-traditional family and religious values. Even as an atheist, these sub-cultures have paved the way in terms of moral issues, but this wont be the case forever.
So to me, this leaves the task up to the goodness of human nature and law enforcement. If humanity alone determines the moral baseline, what is to prevent this baseline from constantly slipping?
Albeit my concern in a succinct sentence: I would rather the world believe in a god that isn't real then sacrifice the freedom needed to keep the general populous in check once all religious moral pretenses have faded.
What do you think about the Terrence W.Deacon's theory about the first processes that started life? (Incomplete Nature - How Mind Emerged from Matter)
Do you even plan on working up the courage to debate "The Atheist Slayer" William Lane Craig? The last time the opportunity arose, you came up with a series of 13 different excuses, each more lame than the previous, to get out of having him publicly dissect you.
If Darwinian evolution is true, (a) why is it filled with so many badly-missed predictions (fossil record, genome comparisons, observed mutations, "junk" DNA, etc. -- all badly missed predictions), and (b) why must it rely on so many falsification-evading ad hoc hypotheses to "correct" these many failed predictions?
Professor Dawkins, we surely must focus on Islam & find ways to combat its obscene principles; leave alone the lesser evils, because they are merely distracting from the greatest threat to civilization. Your thoughts, please?
No, the assumption that there is "an" atheist religion is wrong. Not believing in gods is part of marterialism, humanism and plenty of other views that do not reqire gods. Gods are just anthromorphizing of natural forces not yet understood. Gods are irrational and thus not necessary for "rational beings". When we discovered the Sun was a hot ball of gas, neither Ra nor Helios ran away or transformed into that ball: They did not exist but were anthromorphisms created by people who were unable to observe the ball of gas.
An atheist is someone for whom gods do not exist. The very notion that we need a term for it is weird since we do not have particular names for people for whom unicorns do not exist (well, apart from "adult"). There is no activity called "not believing", no matter how much believers want there to be. Or do Christians wake up every day and actively disbelieve in the hundreds of other gods?
Dawkins : Atheism :: Dworkin : Feminism
So why is it not also part of e.g. Christianity? "Christians believe in their God and do not believe in Odin, Zeus, Amaterasu, Horus, Vishnu, Aharu-Mazda, ..." It would be a long list if you had to list all the gods Christians do not believe in...
I know plenty of people who are not drivers. Who happily live their lives without a car. And others like me are happy without believing in some desert fairy tale.
Religion is quite delusional in many ways. I agree. However, guess what. So is science. Both science and religion have limited information. The science delusion is often that we actually have something 100% figured out already. Guess what, we are not even close. We have evidence of evolution. I completely agree. However, the same evidence also supports another theory. Code re-use. Only DNA code, not software code. Is similar gene sequences in species an example of Evolution or a was it just a superior being showing excellent DNA code re-use? Unfortunately, DNA evidence doesn't discount either. So does evolution mean there is not God. Not at all. In fact, if we can manipulate DNA with our limited knowledge, how much more could a superior being with far more scientific knowledge than we have do the same and more. Even if we do firm up the theory of evolution as a natural process, then that still doesn't mean that a being, such as God, couldn't have used evolution to create man and life on the earth. Heck, He probably could use both evolution and DNA manipulation. Let's face as much as science has advanced, it has a long way to go. One thing religion has right is the superior being idea. No matter how much scientific knowledge we acquire, there is more to be found. By the way, when does life begin? Scientists used to believe in spontaneous generation, remember? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation. What is laughable is that some people, even scientists, have duped themselves into believing it again. If we make spontaneous generation small enough, down to the level of atoms, then spontaneous generation of life is believable again. There is more to it than mixing elements. We are still finding smaller and smaller parts of atoms. Spontaneous generation does NOT occur, no matter how small we make it. The creation of life is something we still don't understand. I recently read this article where scientists are saying that we can almost create life in a lab. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/ribonucleotides. As we try to prove that we as human's can create life (and if you read the article, we didn't even come close yet) the idea of a God being able to create life becomes more possible, not less. If we figured something out, and we can manipulate some part of life scientifically, how much more so could a being that is billions of years more advanced than we are do the same. We can manipulate DNA. Why would science discount the idea that in the vast expanse of the universe a superior race exists that has been manipulating life and DNA forever. A real scientist would not discount the idea because science is out to prove and disprove theories, not make rash statements. A real scientist would not discount the theory of a superior being until it is proven that a superior being doesn't exist. Showing that our limited human race can almost create life is evidence that life can be created in a way other than a natural process, which is more evidence of the possibility of a God. I am a software developer and very logical. I believe in God because I feel there is something more out there and logically, a superior being makes sense, especially since time is forever, without a beginning and without an end. I believe in continued scientific learning because I feel there is something more out there and logically we have infinitely more to learn. I have yet to see the two beliefs conflict.
I'll just assume you have a broken Bible that lacks John 1:18 then. Just because you hallucinated does not mean us rational people cannot try to cure your delusions.
Does anyone else see "Ask Richard Dawkins about ... Religion ..." a little bit like asking Karl Marx about Capitalism? I mean sure, I get it. He doesn't like it. He has all sort of reasons why you shouldn't either. And he has all sort of issues with people who do like it. I just wondered why it's never "Ask Richard Dawkins about Atheism". Then it kind of struck me. There is nothing to talk about with atheism except not believing any religion.
OK, that seems obvious, but it then reminded me of a different argument. I've heard atheists argue strongly that atheism should not be regarded as another religion. The basis being that it is specifically the disbelief in any religion. But atheism is nothing without religion. It doesn't have meaning outside the realm of religion.
So I guess I'm going back to treating atheism as another religious belief system. To say otherwise to like saying zero is not a number or the empty set is not a set.
I had the opportunity to attend a lecture when Richard Dawkins was speaking at the University of Oklahoma. Given the frequently religious nature of his conversations and his lineage in the concept of the "meme", I had wanted to ask a question. Unfortunately, I was not able to approach the microphone because several religious individuals had taken it upon themselves to annoy everyone with stupid questions. I am not saying that religious people are stupid, just that the questions that these particular individuals were asking(some were not questions) were rather stupid.
My question was heavily influenced by some recent reading, namely the "The Evolution of God", but also "Misquoting Jesus" and a few others. I wouldn't say that I loved Robert Wright philosophizing about some supernatural power guiding the evolution of religion, but the concept of evolution as an evolved social component intrigued me. This concept is not unexpected, as religions are simply ideas held by humans. The interesting argument made in "The Evolution of God" is that religion co-evolves with society, specifically to allow human society a mechanism of influence. This seems to reverberate with the classic idea that "religion is a tool of control", but the argument being made is that the control is unconscious and unguided.
I am curious what Prof. Dawkins thinks about the idea. Also, if we allow that religion is simply an evolved superstition that has provided some support to our social structure, then what would modifying this 'habitat'(for lack of a better term) mean for the world at large? In other words, would removing religion from society be a bit like causing the extinction of a keystone species? There are certainly ways to mitigate disaster, but without the species it is highly complex.
As an atheist myself, I have a great deal of respect for the position. I just don't know if human minds are capable of outwitting the incredibly complex evolutionary algorithm that produced the world's religions.
Richard Dawkins - according to your stated belief that the multiverse and weak anthropic principle explain away the need for intelligent design to explain the obvious fine-tuning of the universe , it appears that you believe that ANYTHING will eventually happen in SOME universe of the many multiverses... So my question is --- As a born again Christian, I am asking you at this moment to please accept Jesus Christ as your Savior. Is this one of the universes where you say, "Yes" to that question? Why or why not?
There are many well known accounts of scientists and other thinkers using psychedelic drugs and having startling insights in their respective fields. Well known examples being Kary Mullis and Francis Crick; but also of course not forgetting Terence Mckenna, Timothy Leary and other more direct advocates of psychedelic substance use.
I recently heard an interview you did with Graham Hancock where you said you would find it interesting to take a substance like LSD. My question to you is whether or not you intend to actively pursue this as a potential course of action or whether you do not currently consider it important enough to pursue and would simply only take it should the opportunity present itself?
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
I'm still not sure what your alternative theory is for how organisms form if it's not from the information in their DNA and other molecules. Please tell me it's not that all are actually formed from some mystical external force? I had thought that most educated people by now, regardless of their religious beliefs, actually understood that biology is real and functions.
Anyway, when you have an already existing cell, new cells are formed by mitosis or meiosis, so you don't really have to address the problem of how cells form from the ground up from "simple" molecules when considering how cells form in an existing organism. Cells form from cells, they grow, then split. Similarly, you don't have the problem of how tissues form from just DNA, because they don't, they form from cells under the guidance of instructions in DNA. We don't have all the chemical signalling and lots of other fine details figured out, but we've observed the process enough to have a pretty good idea. A single cell splits repeatedly to form a ball of cells, once a critical mass of cells is reached, some cells start to differentiate and migrate and the ball becomes a tube and so on and so forth. Gross ontogeny we get. As for how cells know where they are in order to differentiate and migrate and so forth, it's going to be mostly by chemical signalling and sometimes by physical conditions of the structure. I don't really know enough about the process to tell you what chemical signals are actually involved, but it's obvious that, even in a homogenous group of cells, some cells would be able to "know" that they're in the center or on the outside layer based on concentrations of whatever the cells are secreting. Cells of various types have all kinds of receptors for various chemicals which can trigger various parts of their DNA based on concentrations of one or more chemicals. Once certain thresholds are reached indicating number of cells, the cells that "know" they're on the outside are triggered to differentiate and secrete new things and ditto for the cells in the center. Then the cells near them start to differentiate and divide at different rates based on the chemical signals they're getting from either side. Some sort of virtual coin toss decides which direction for it to start elongating and a feedback effect locks that in. All the various sub-regions that have differentiated themselves split into sub-regions and differentiate and grow. Over millions of years, evolution refines and adds to the process introducing all sorts of error correction (but only to a certain degree, since too much error correction also stops evolution, so anything too static probably gets out-evolved). The fine details are not all pinned down, as I've said, but actual concept is easy to grasp.
So, once you already have cellular life, the formation of tissues and differentiation into different types of cells is sort of a no-brainer. For a simple example, look at slime moulds. An even simpler example is bacterial plaques. Simple single celled organisms develop methods of sticking together that helps them stay where the food is or collect it more efficiently. They're working together, but still competing as well, and they build up in layers and the layers underneath die because they're choked out beneath the upper layers, but, over time, the groups where slight changes to the way the cells operate keeps the lower layers alive are more successful because they don't break off and float away, so they develop ways to differentiate. These become more and more complex and you end up with thinks like stromalites and more and more complicated colony creatures until you get to full-on multicellular life.
If you don't understand how the above occurs with cells as the base unit, I'm not sure what to tell you. If you do understand it, then I take it that your question is more about how you bootstrap from molecules to cells. Some study has gone into that since it's a question of interest, but not nearly so much as has gone into, for example, cancer research. Still, there
Anyone with an open mind will see that God is really the only rational, logical explanation.
Leaving aside the other objections to your posts, I'll simply post this query. Which God?
Is that not a way of acknowledging that there is no god?
Whether or not there is a "god" and what "god" means has little bearing on a scientific assessment of the relative risks and benefits of various forms of religion and spirituality.
Someone had to do it.
Indirectly, they all do. They are based on the idea that you are supposed to believe in some things, and are not allowed to doubt them. Only then you are virtuous. But, well, that is ignorance.
Every time you hear a religious person complain that Darwin's theories are the work of the devil or somesuch, then they are saying that ignorance is good.
A lot of information is supposed to be kept away from certain groups of people (women, children) to keep them docile. This is considered a good thing, and yes, this *is* valuing ignorance.
Yes, yes, yes, to those promoting these 'religious' ideas and offering embracement and food and even riches in exchange for the acceptance and adherence to and defense of them, ignorance is THE virtue! As well as fear, but that comes moments later.
So the real sacred philosophy is that only a few can share power and only then can mankind harness the power of those who came before. The rest is made up of superstitions, local customs and actual lies.
I don't really believe there is such a thing as "my" or "your" theory, though I Iike to think there might be such a thing as "our" reality. Scientific investigation isn't like some kind of horse race where you bet on the one you like the most or think most likely to win, and until something has been proven I think it is important to admit what you don't know. The religious fanatics who would deny all knowledge are truly a horror, though the purported scientists who lie and misrepresent (or simply botch) what is known (also with their own agendas) aren't much better. In fact, they are worse, because the should, and, indeed, are basically licensed to know better.
Sometimes I do get to feeling a bit put upon by this whole (ie. "human"/life) situation. Take, for example, Okkam's Razor, which is generally extremely sound for nearly all of the natural universe, though I more prefer Heraclitus' "latent structure is master of obvious structure" when it comes to human experience and perception.
Cells have no will. They must be regarded as dumb machines. Where does all the info reside telling them to extend here or to retract there (eg. all the dendrites in the brain)? How many points of manipulation must that be? And all that on a single strand composed of a modest number of repeat units? Evolution definitely appears to have something (truly profound) to it, though there still seems to be some major pieces missing.
In my life I feel like the majority of my friends are atheists, so this is fascinating to me.
I think you answered your own question in part when you said "think critically". As long as you're children (or any for that matter) are taught to question and test the world through an empirical perspective, they will have to confront whatever beliefs are instilled on them in their youth whether those beliefs are from you and your spouse, your family, or the surrounding culture.
I believe that one of the barriers religion comes with is, and I loosely quote Dawkins, the idea that it is a virtue to accept what you cannot understand.
As long as your children are encouraged to question everything, I firmly believe science will take care of the rest.
I wish you the best in giving your children an open minded view of the world.
Thank you for taking the time to answer questions! I greatly enjoyed your book, the Ancestor's Tale, and wonder what has been discovered since the publication that might change the order of rendezvous or makeup of the "conquestor" groups described in the book?
I think this is a great question and certainly one that I spend a lot of time contemplating.
Particularly because of psychological research involving how left brain dominance dismisses almost anything that can't be rationalized. I am almost certain I've had at least one experience that I would consider supernatural, but weeks or months later I dismiss it in a totally rational way and even my ability to recall the event seems to be colored by my overly rational mind. I've actually take measure to try to reverse this effect, forcing myself to do research on paranormal events, but it doesn't seem to help longterm.
So overall as we become increasingly rationally minded as a race, I would fully expect our ability to identity supernatural events to decrease.
From my perspective, atheism/agnosticism and religion have the same "uncaused cause" problem at the end of things. Some people feel better with science becoming the eventual cause and others prefer to believe that some supernatural being is the cause.
I think your missing the point.
How do you know that your current understanding of the universe is not a fairy tale? Newtonian laws have been relied on as a given, they got us to the moon, they explained so much, yet they are an approximation and far from todays underlying understating of relativity. Ultimately you must take a leap of faith in your understanding, at one point or another. Alternatively, one can decide to stay ignorant, they thats fine too, but that just makes them ignorent to their belief, does not remove the belief altogether. Agnostics think they exist, but they actually do not.
And your comments are exactly the whole irony of it! Most atheist believe that every other opinion is supurflous to theirs and is nothing more that a fairy tail, but everything they believe in has a basis of reality that is not any more true than a theists view. One might be able to argue that theists who have a true understanding of their beliefs are more intellectually evolved than the close-minded atheists who can only see the surface of what is standing in front of their eyes, such as cavemen or other pre-civilization humans.
I have a website about a little known feature in everyone's physiology of sigh, Subliminal Distraction. Although discovered in 1964 when it caused mental breaks for office workers it has always been present in human populations once humans stopped building temporary nightly shelters and began to use too-small single-room arrangements. It is probably the source of the world's religions.
When it happened to my wife she heard voices and had depressive crying episodes about impossible situations including that she was speaking to God.
The phenomenon is so simple it can be created almost anywhere. This suggests that some of the miracles from the Bible, such as raising the dead, were actually spontaneous remissions of a short coma from a Subliminal Distraction episode. Other stories such as St. John's conversion on the road to Damascus, and Balaams speaking ass were also hallucinations and outcomes of this problem.
There are YouTube videos of Chinese Christian groups reacting to sermons held in crowded small rooms. This was the method used by early first century Christian groups. If you examine these videos the congregations are sitting too-close, in each other's peripheral vision. The ministers standing behind the pastor are uneffected by the message. They are able to move around so they have no continuing nearby source of movement in peripheral vision.
Because of the way your brain deals with the vision startle reflex subliminally this exposuer cannot be consciously experienced. It is undetectable. These psychiatric symptoms from holding humans in a situation that allows Subliminal Distraction make the few participants effected believe they are being contacted by God. The same effect is seen in LGATS where a small number of participants in the seminar have symptoms from the experience. (See the "Letters" page at VisionAndPsychosis.Net)
To me, that we evolved from earlier life forms is a straightforward conclusion. We have mountains of evidence, and current theories are sound given that data. But I'm not a biologist, so I find it a challenge to get access to much of that data. I'm looking for a single coherent tome (or maybe multivolume set) of biological data used to develop specific theories of evolution of many ancient and modern family trees. I don't want mere drawings of fossils in sequence like in a high school textbook. I would like to see photographs of the original fossils, along with data about geologic strata, measurements of numerous morphological features, and explanations of the lines of reasoning that lead to particular conclusions. Sections on DNA analysis would be great too, along with any other interesting lines of evidence. The conclusions that scientists draw are fascinating, and I'd like to dig deeper into the data they started from. Would you be able to point out a top example of such a resource?
In your book, The God Delusion, you state that it is unnecessary to respect other peoples religions, but I saw an interview with you on the Norwegian talk show Skavlan not too long ago, where you said the opposite, which surprised me quite a lot, as you were certainly not shy about telling the Killers lead singer that his (mormon) religion was a sham.
Has your opinion changed? Perhaps in light of the recent aggressive reactions in the middle east to events in the west, or do you still hold true to your original standpoint in the book, that we are basically 'enabling' people by giving their religion respect?
"Everyone knows that vi vi vi is the number of the beast" -- Richard Stallman
You obviously do not know what you are talking about. First, the someone could be there completely undetectable to you. Second, that someone doesn't need to be there. Why, because the entire premise of that someone is that it is a God and not subject to the constraints your imagination can place on it. In other words, they are supernatural. But ti doesn't really matter what you think, it doesn't matter what I think, what matters is what the person dieing thinks and how they cope with it. It is their life, not yours.
There you again, making statements that you absolutely cannot back up or support in an attempt denigrate someone for the same. The hypocrisy in you is strong.
No, it is an active pursuit by you. You are claiming all sorts of unprovable shit in your attempt to claim their unprovable shit is wrong. You are them. You are no different then them. Except instead of them saying you are going to hell, which if you really were atheist, shouldn't bother you because you wouldn't believe in Hell by extension of not believing in a god, for some reason, you have to interject and call people names and attempt to insult them while claiming your own unprovable crap. Well, I'm sorry that people using the exact same logic process as you have demonstrated are willfully ignorant and lesser people in your eyes. Now stand in front of a mirror and think about how similar you are to them. From the outside looking in, the only difference I can see is the amount of spite you try to bring to the table.
Someone on here used to have a sig that said something like the speed of light is faster then the speed of sound. That's why people seem so bright and warm until they open their mouth.
Your opinion is not the problem, your attempts to insult people while doing the exact same thing they do according to the problem you find with them is. Are you even capable of thinking the logic of your argument through? You are a hypocrite looking to troll. and yes, it does appear you injected into this convo without being provoked. I can tell from your grammar that you aren't any of the named monikers who posted before the AC started posting.
I believe I understand the standard argument that says that one should put an equal effort in reproducing male and female offspring. But the standard argument only seems to apply to the population as a whole. That is, there is no reason why half of all breeding couples shouldn't produce males and the other half females. Thus, if the standard argument was all that was going on, I would NOT expect to see the detailed balance we have where the probability that their next child would be male/female was very close to 50% for all couples. I would NOT expect very nearly 1/8 of all three child couples to have only girls. As far as I know (which isn't very far) this IS true for all higher animals. Why?
PLEASE NOTE: In elementary math classes, it is frequently hard to convince a student that his proof is incorrect when the theorem is true. I think this is the situation here. I think the standard argument incomplete, but its incompleteness is ignored because it gives the right answer. This is meant to be a brief technical question. A reference is a valid answer.
It is easy to pick out toothfairy stories or others that are unlikely to be true, as there are plenty in all of human history, inorder to discredit theistic views. But this is far from a proof for anything other than a lack of understanding of what it is to be a theist. Though in fairness, many theists themselves have this lack of understanding too, to some extent.
Rather, can you not say the same about science? We can pick out many fairy-tales in the world of science. As a scientist, I know there are tones. There have been many who got the story wrong, yet I'm sure you BELIEVED 'in' them. You might want to argue that the 'methodology' is different, but thats not entirely true, nor does it really matter. Further, if you look at most of the work in theoretical physics today, in some of the most prestigious universities, its nothing more than a theology, much of the concepts are not provable. However elegant or complex they may look, it does not mean they are correct or better than others (again, Godel's theorem, read it). But we might ask the question: why are physicist working on unprovable areas of science at all? Further, just as in the religious world, there have been countless cases of intentional fallacies in the world of science. I can cite you about 8 'top notch' researches that have been discovered to falsify their results off the top of my head. In fact, there has been an article posted in slashdot recently that referred to research work on the prevalence of "falsification of data in research papers". It was discovered that over 40% of recalled research papers are FALSIFIED, yet, I presume you **BELIEVED** in all of them. One can argue that this paper was also based on falsified data, and your running in circles! But at the end of the day, atheism is nothing more than a religion that promotes arrogance and even hatred to any other religion, just as is typically found in many other religions.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/10/02/180226/misconduct-not-error-is-the-main-cause-of-scientific-retractions
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/10/19/1256216/randomly-generated-math-article-accepted-by-open-access-journal
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0005738
Your writings have been a mainstay in my career as a human being. I like your sharp edge! There are a lot of smart sweet guys (Wilson) I have difficulty remembering. My question:
Have you ever noticed that darwinian thinking can be as idiotically circular as religious thinking? For instance, I ask myself why pretty Irish girls have freckles. Then I think real hard and come up with my best reason. Maybe a flaw in the very face of beauty is immensely attractive! And then there's another proof that Darwin was right. Then off I go, dumb as ever, but feeling I am smart.
It all comes down to how one interprets the Bible. One can hardly fault the Bible for giving a worldview that was current at the time it was written. The problems all start when people read it as if it is some direct revelation to us in the 21st century, and ignore all the history from when it was written until now.
Then people also read it as if it is a science textbook, or as if it exists to teach us scientific things. The bible does not claim to be/do any of this.
Not so sure. The Egyptian landlord whose building fell on the tenants believed it was not crummy corrupt concrete, but the will of God. Or was he the minister of housing. In either case, a pious man.
Friend, I consider myself a Christian, but these days, there are so many who have a fundamentalist belief system, and take every word of the Gospel as basic fact without the faintest consideration for context, physics or the nature of the conversations contained in both the Old and New Testaments. That the entire world was flooded when Naoh saved the animals... where did enough water to flood the world come from and where did it go to? The magical thinking is shocking. That the world is thousands of years old and that people lived with the dinosaurs like the Flintstones. These too are beliefs grounded in the same scriptures that you quote, and these good and decent people have given up all rational consideration to instead cling to mysticism and magical thinking. The universe is so vast in size and time and we can see such a precious small slice of that eternity, that is it perfectly appropriate for men of knowledge to probe the mysteries and hold faith in those places for which answers may forever exceed our grasp. I am simply concerned that too many would avoid the light of simple truth, for fear that it would threaten their clockwork belief of God and this universe.
How do you reconcile Georgia Rep. Paul Broun saying in videotaped remarks that evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are "lies straight from the pit of hell" meant to convince people that they do not need a savior? Worse, that this man has immediate and direct influence on the future of scientific research in the United States. Do you question his faith, his understanding of his religion, his sect or orthodoxy, his belief or his sanity? I appreciate that there is a critical need for ethicists in the science community, to look at the impact of our growing technological information and how we can best apply our growing understanding to serve the greater interests of humanity. That neither explains or excuses a growing number of people who have turned away from truth and wisdom in the name of religion, or the religious leaders who would have them behave this way. Part of the problem, is that the Bible is a book, most of which was written in a context specific to a rowdy dessert people living in the Sinai Peninsula 5 to 2 millennia ago. The amazing thing is that so much of the human content is so completely valid and appropriate thousands of years later. The prophesies, that are only now coming to pass. Most amazing is the amazing accuracy of the historical content as every year archeologist discover some new dig which validates the descriptions portrayed in the Bible. That said, the book is a gift from God, and even contains the fascinating process by which men gathered the Word and selected from all the Christian writings to come to a place where it was decided this is our religious text. It reflects the strong Jewish influence in the early church, and the desire to keep the early church as close as possible to Jewish faith, so the Gospel of Mary was left out. The most powerful thing about Christianity, has been its spiritual core of Love and Service. As it spread its ability to coop pagan culture and symbols and still pass the core belief along intact and healthy.
Its time for Christians and all other religions that are the children of Abraham, to let go of the dogma. Stop trying to force people to obey your beliefs on threat of death. Its time to honor the Prince of Peace, by really being peaceful.
Amen. I think the real Christian just stood up.
If he's undetectable, he's not there. It's like the teapot in orbit around alpha centauri.
If you acknowledge it is unprovable, then you acknowledge it is worng. You could as well believe in pixies. That's the argument I am making. Religion is believing in pixies. Look, if you chose to believe the earth is flat, or something equivalent, you are an idiot. And I am not the same as religious people, as I do not chose to willfully beleive crap that is obviously not true.
You have no argument. You saying that I am not an atheist is relly funny. Perhaps you don't believe that god shit yourself?
People who willfully believe bullshit insult themselves. And please write English.
You haven't pointed out a single flaw in my logic. If you are so fond of logic, then why do you believe in the unprovable?
Sort of like a garden with an invisible gardener you mean?
The burden of proof is on the person who claims the gardener is there. Otherwise there are billions of things I can say exist but are undetectable, and just expect you to believe me.
Ok, so there is no god. If there was one, believing in the wrong one would mean trouble.
You are an atheist. Did you know that?
I don't take much notice of the ramblings of a fool. Sorry that's not my
label but God's. God said "The FOOL says in his heart there is no God".
Other evolutionists are not impressed by the "FOOL" either, so why
would I.
Dr. Gerald Veurink
Dr. Dawkins,
I was lucky enough to have attended your lecture at UCLA last week and thought your comments about how natural selection and evolution mold and carve the species instead of the individual were very interesting.
There are many examples of organisms exhibiting some level of cooperation to better ensure survival of the group as a whole, like emperor penguins, as well as mostly solitary creatures like tigers. So what are your thoughts about the interplay between natural selection and cooperation between members of a species? And how do you think cooperation for survival, like in sardines, evolved into the complex social interactions and social structures we humans have?
Thank you,
--a graduate student in biology
You wrote the God delusion. As if God doesn't exist because we can't prove it in a measureable way in the physical world. Since nobody has seen evolution in action, please explain why the God Delusion is any different than your own delusion that natural selection/whatever you are comfortable with is fact. It's just a theory too. It could turn out that so called evolution doesn't exist at all. It could very well be something else that changes an organism into something else. Cosmic ray, bad radiation covering from ozone, many other things.
I've also met some very strong evolution people who changed after a near death experience. A recent article of a Doctor that shows his experience can be found here - http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/10/07/proof-of-heaven-a-doctor-s-experience-with-the-afterlife.html . Read it carefully. You may be too smart for your own good Mr. Dawkins.
Has your scientific expertise led you to think you know a lot or are more aware of your own ignorance?
Do you not understand the concept of supernatural or something? Saying he is not there because he is undetectable to you is not different then the person saying he or it is there because it is detectable to them. Saying that is no different then the concept of a God being everywhere at the same time.
And that is where logic and scientific method simply escapes you. Something being unprovable only means the ability to prove it doesn't exist not that the claim is wrong. Claiming it is wrong is doing nothing more then what the person that believes in a God is doing and by extension, makes you the exact same thing as you despise.
And this is your problem, you have absolutely no way of supporting that claim. Instead, you are insisting that things are magically how you say because of the same claim to logic you dismiss. Religion is not believing in pixies, even the most ignorant idiot knows completely well that it is the belief in something specific. You calling it pixies does not make it so. At least the religious have a little more supporting evidence, although largely anecdotal and not empirical, in their beliefs. You on the other hand have your mental masturbation to thank for your cognitive dissidence.
And this has to do with what exactly? I mean seriously, no one believes the world is flat. It has been describes as flat metaphorically to convey concepts. But even in the common era that we like to say people believed the world was flat, they knew it wasn't. But to further add insult to your intelligence, you are attempting to take something known and testable and compare it to something untestable in order to support your belief system. I laugh at how religiously inaccurate your comparison it. This is getting rich watching you attempt to defend your own unsupported beliefs in attempts of discrediting others unsupported beliefs. Well, it is either just as much willful ignorance for you to put your unsupported beliefs those of others or your entire argument is as you say, bullshit.
But you are, you are using fallacies in your arguments, you are insisting your unsupported claims are true while theirs are false. You are making statements of opinions as fact. You are identical to the religious people. It is clearly obvious to anyone on the outside looking in. You are just so absorbed in your own belief system that you cannot see it.
And here you are with another unsupported claim. Go back and look to see where I said I was religious or believed in God. Upon an accurate examination, you will find that I have never said that. What you will find is me saying that your arguments are crap with no supporting evidence and is not any more valid then those made by religious people. Go ahead, look at the record. I dare you.
I can understand your lack of ability to comprehend something written. Your grammar and spelling is an indication of your intelligence after all and you have made that more then established during this exchange. But rest assured grasshopper, that was English.. Maybe not as plain as you would like, but it isn't foreign to Engl
Apples and oranges.
However, if you are Atheist, then why does it matter if someone believes in something they cannot prove? Science was full of this in the past (machines can let man fly) and probably still is. It has led to great discoveries that are part of common knowledge today (electrical energy for instance and the ability of programmable logic circuits or transistors). Are you afraid they might one day be able to prove their beliefs to be true or useful or something?
Apples and apples. If you want to convince me something exists, you'd better point to some evidence and not just say "trust me."
I don't really believe there is such a thing as "my" or "your" theory, though I Iike to think there might be such a thing as "our" reality. Scientific investigation isn't like some kind of horse race where you bet on the one you like the most or think most likely to win, and until something has been proven I think it is important to admit what you don't know. The religious fanatics who would deny all knowledge are truly a horror, though the purported scientists who lie and misrepresent (or simply botch) what is known (also with their own agendas) aren't much better. In fact, they are worse, because the should, and, indeed, are basically licensed to know better.
There is such a thing as "our" reality, and the goal of science is to understand and model it as well as possible. You misunderstand scientific investigation a little though. Nothing is ever completely proven in science. Every "proven" theory is really just the front-runner. The test for a theory is if it holds up to scientific investigation. If it doesn't, you either modify it, or you completely scrap it in favor of some other theory which more accurately describes reality(sometimes you supersede it, but still keep it around for rough work like with Newtonian mechanics). When you don't actually have some other theory with better predictive power, you keep the best working theory you have and patch it as appropriate while you dig into those exceptions in search of fresh enlightenment.
Sometimes I do get to feeling a bit put upon by this whole (ie. "human"/life) situation. Take, for example, Okkam's Razor, which is generally extremely sound for nearly all of the natural universe, though I more prefer Heraclitus' "latent structure is master of obvious structure" when it comes to human experience and perception.
I'm not a huge fan of Ockham's razor. The serious flaw with it is that, in many cases, recognizing which explanation is truly "the simplest" is an extremely difficult task. Unfortunately, it's also one of those extremely difficult tasks that many people think they can accomplish easily. "Simple explanations" are often superficially monstrously complex. "Latent structure is the master of obvious structure" is, indeed, better.
Cells have no will. They must be regarded as dumb machines. Where does all the info reside telling them to extend here or to retract there (eg. all the dendrites in the brain)? How many points of manipulation must that be? And all that on a single strand composed of a modest number of repeat units? Evolution definitely appears to have something (truly profound) to it, though there still seems to be some major pieces missing.
Whether or not cells have will depends on how you actually define will. If you define it only in terms of sentient will, then they have no will. If you just put it in terms of wants and needs, then cells do sort of have will. For example, a sperm cell "wants" to find an egg cell and be the first sperm cell to enter it. It only acts in terms of simple stimuli and, as an individual cell it has no memory and doesn't itself learn from success or failure. But, in a sense, the genes it carries do over multiple generations via natural selection. So, individually, the cells are dumb machines but the overall process involves a lot more than just the one cell.
As for where the information telling them where to go, what to do, etc. resides, it seems to be pretty certain that it's mostly in the DNA in the cell nucleus. The human genome contains gigabytes of data. That's a lot. Data storage on modern computers may make it seem like that's not a lot, but it really is. And everything in the organism is procedurally generated. The instructions in DNA don't say where every little cell or blood vessel should go. They just lay out rules that lead to the blood vessels distributing themselves. Maybe I'm more comfortable with the notion because of a background in computer science. Have you ever seen visualizations of
Who wants to convince you of anything? You are not claiming the problem is with someone telling you to believe something, you are claiming the problem is that they believe something so you must demean them.
As I said, what is your problem with them holding a belief that isn't identical to yours, is it that it may turn out to be true one day?
That's not what you were saying a few posts earlier. that's not what you start this post off with. You seem to care deeply that there are people out there who do not believe exactly like you do.
Are you really that dense? Did the wright brothers wake up one day and discover that they could fly and life as we know it was automagically created? You are missing the part that before they could demonstrate it was possible, plenty of people thought and believed it was possible. The Wright brothers weren't the ones to invent flying, they were the ones to actually succeed in doing it. Your approach of you have to show me or it's all bullshit is exactly the opposite of what is needed for scientific discovery.
You do not have to believe in Jesus, just don't actively work at stopping others from doing so. Don't denigrate others for doing so. And of you are going to claim something is impossible or bullshit, at least base it on reality and provable science and not on contrived logic that used the exact same unsupported beliefs as they do.
If it takes a modest number of generations to evolve eyes [Climbing Mount Improbable, page 153] — i.e. evolution is quick — then, by the same token, shouldn't unattractive people all be wiped out over the course of a relatively small number of generations? Why hasn't that happened? Or, if it is happening, how many generations until we are all pretty?
Have you always been angry and rude to the creationist or religious people, isn't there a another way to show them the 'light' because I'm really interested to become a spokesperson for the atheist community in my area and I wonder if I were to go along this path I will eventually end up having to be rude and angry towards them. I mean in my point of view if the experts of atheism ended up this way then what chance do I get from venturing into unknown territory of being a kind soft atheist speaker.
Where did I claim this? Who claimed this? Did the pixie tell you this? What does that sentence mean anyway?
I don't care. But keeping someone like you fuming stupidly and arguing himself into a nonsensical corner is amusing. And you keep comming back for more.
Comparing the wright brothers episode with the question about the existence of god must be one of the most stupid things I have ever read in my life. You just believe into something completely unprovable, undetectable, that has no effect, and will never have. Except the effect it has from you believing it. But it is not there in any other sense. The evidence is clear, unless you don't want to see. Flight was something you could talk about, place your belief either way, and wait for proof. In religion, in contrast, doubting is a sin, and there is no way to ever get proof. It's just a contrived lie.
How can I stop anyone from believing in pixies? If a person's mind is prone to such lapses, I guess it's better for him to believe in something established and orderly, like jesus and stuff.
They do so themselves, by believing in stuff that does not exist, and basing their lives on it. Willfully.
So you get to make up arguments based on pixies just because, but I have to argue with hard facts that satisfy the highest standards? Classic religious logic. Is that how your god tells you to pursue knowledge? How pathetic. Shame on you.
I conceit humans the same like dogs, cats, rats, mosquitoes, etc.: sophisticates biochemist robots! The differences are in the random design. However it doesn’t exist a human tribe that doesn’t believe in God!
Why? Which is the neurophysiologic reason to believe in God? Hope of something doesn’t happened or change?
We don't, actually. We have very strict rules of what they may or may not do, and enforce that with supervision, often to the point of putting security cameras into the classroom - precisely to avoid the abuse of power, sexually motivated or otherwise.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Ah, it's the atheist=scientist fallacy. Never mind then. Anyway, science never stops asking questions about reality, while the entire point of religions is to provide fairytale-based non-answers.
"Atheist" is not a synonym for "scientist" so why do you theists always erect that strawman?
Anyway, to address your derailing: New scientific discoveries are tested all the time, and if they are substantiated they join the current sets of assumptions. Singular articles like the fraudsters you dug up are rapidly debunked, and science prevails.
People questioning religious dogma have traditionally been killed instead. Do you see the large, gaping difference between the two?
You seem to believe that the point of science is to find one truth only, and misunderstand the term "theory" as many theist choose to do. Misunderstanding is not understanding, especially when it is blatant. Try again: and now focus on the "absence of a belief in gods" part.
I have read various arguments against the common view of human sexual evolution of "coy female / slutty male". Instead, it has been argued these traits were imposed around the time agriculture was being developed (too short for evolutionary changes to occur). This would suggest our evolutionary disposition may not the standard "female feins fidelity to keep male / male tries to secretly impregnate many", but instead a more group approach (lots of free love) using the uncertainty of who fathered a child to encourage many males to invest slightly in many children (a safer strategy so as not to have all your eggs in one basket.) Many interesting reasons have been given to support this idea, but I did not come to outline them. Instead I have the following question: Have you come across group sexuality evolution theories and rejected them? If so, why? If not, I strongly encourage you to investigate and am interested to subsequently hear your opinion. Thank you for all you have given to the world with your wonderful work.
Are most of your family and your kids' school teachers atheists, too? I don't think so, but if they do -- I envy you. I don't have really strong believers among my friends, perhaps because most of them I know from college. But there are grandmas and there will be teachers that speak of gods as they are real. One of my kid's grandmas even takes her to church when she's with her for a few days. If I escalate it, I think she'll just stop telling me about this. And I'm not going to prevent grandmas "access" to my daughter over religion. I'd love to give my daughter a right perspective on religion, but you know, you won't find that many books on what is psychologically "approved" way to talk to little children about that. My daughter's just 2, she still thinks that adults are always right, etc. -- I'd love to get some insight on what damage can talking about religion to kids so young make.
Is it possible to explain, in relatively simple terms not requiring a degree in advanced physics (but requiring a decent knowledge of the English language and an equally decently equipped cognitive mind), the following terms:
1. string theory and its relevance, if any, to space travel,
2. space warp
If this memo is seen as two questions masquerading as one, please ignore the second, counting from the top. If the answer to one or both is a "yes", then kindly provide your best explanation.
And thank you.
Yvon Heckscher
The point is not that atheists are scientists, again, the point is that athiesm is nothing less than a religion based on a belief and the underlying thought process in that belief is no different than a theist. Jusr face it, your a faithful person, as faithful as the theists you mock. You are part of nothing more than another religion group that takes on a large part in dark-age party of religions demeaning other religions. if you dig deep in your understanding of the universe, you will find that some things your put your faith on are just as 'superfluous' as any other religion. And yes, the lack of a belief in the existance of something is equivalent to the presence of a belief that that something does not exist, in particular when the idea of that something is brought up into conscienceness. Read up on set theory.
As to your demeaning comment, if you can't recall recent history, one of our most dark times in history, the biggest murdere of all time, hitle, was an athiest with his own interpretation of natural selection. so stop twisting and using the perversion of religion by those evil or misguided humans as a premis for anything for contrast. But heck, perhaps your definition of evil is different, or does not exist?
Okay, so non-belief or disbelief in a god is a religion? A religion called atheism?
What about unicorns, leprechauns, and Bigfoot? I don't believe in them either, so there must be religions called aunicornism and aleprechaunism and a-Bigfootism, huh?
Does God exist?
It's not a question of logic, it's your human intuition, which is the same reason you feel so compelled to insult people who "believe"
That is what more atheists should consult with an open mind.
If you ignore reason, then what's the point of arguing you say?
There is no point - it's not something subject to arguing.
When Dawkins tells us not to believe inGod, he might as well be passionately telling people not to like the color blue.
Nice work on today's /. logo!
Sorry for the OT remark.
Their they're doing there hair.
We keep hearing how society should become more scientific.
I hear from people involved in tiger conservation/breeding projects that the scientific way is to breed them according to their geographical origins. That is, tigers from Siberia are not allowed to breed with those from India, Sumatra and so forth. This is to preserve their distinctiveness.
If this is the scientific way, then if human society is to become more scientific, does that mean we ban interracial/inter-ethnic marriages and relationships? If science say tigers from Siberia aren't allowed to hang with those from India and have children but must only breed with other Siberian tigers, then should society also ban the various human ethnic groups from intermixing and having 'mixed children'?
anyone else notice the "You may like to read:Ask Director Daniel Knight About Filming Terry Pratchett's "Troll Bridge""
On another note I like the army of people who claim people of faith love ignorance when speaking completely out of ignorance.
Believing in God and good science is not mutually exclusive. I believe studying gene evolution and adaptation are fascinating. I believe the Big Bang Theory has enough evidence to support it as almost a fact "we are still working out interesting little details". But Physics is an honest science built in theory supported with math and more and more experimental data every day. However when confronted with little problems like math spontaneous creation of life becomes so far out of touch with good science it is time to return to the drawing board. I am not saying you throw everything out and ignore what we know. But one must consider all possible inputs.
Darwinism suffers from its own science it consistently rejects itself. It must have a starting point of non divine input. Creationism or ID has no such hangups God does what he does and that's good enough. I have to look no further than the mirror to see evolution fall to pieces. Where are my claws, sharp teeth, good eyes, night vision, sense of smell, or ability to survive on my own by at least 5 years of age. So your saying that for some reason our brain evolved but we lost our physical traits that allow us to survive in the wild. Even though we still are attracted on large to the fittest of our species. And so many call people of faith "ignorant". I rather despise ignorance, like people who think that finding life on another planet will somehow prove that faith is dead. Where is written that life can not exist in any form on another planet. This will somehow strike down God?
Dawkins is just a part of a growing population that enjoys attacking peoples beliefs. Most people seem to enjoy this as they get to hide behind an internet handle trying to sound coy and intelligent. This is simple bigotry hiding behind a thin veil. What Dawkins does is discredit good science with bad opinion, why else would someone write a book with such an inflammatory title. If he believes in the science so deeply he would not go out of his way to attack Faith he would simply present his theories and data with excitement and conviction that he so claims.
Mr. Dawkins God Bless You. You only make it easier for people to see the destructive bias many scientists take in this field.
Snakes eat dust?
The desire is to fuck, not to produce children.
The more fucking there is in general the more chance of having children. So it's not really relevant to the species as a whole if there is unreproductive fucking as long as there is enough reproductive fucking.
And fixed notions of human sexuality are a quite modern invention; it is very easy for homosexuals to have sex with the opposite gender. I would go out on a limb to say it's basically as easy as it is for heterosexuals.
Yes, I'm sure THAT will work.
There's only been one Nazi party (it was a specific German political party of which Nazi was an abbreviation) - and it wasn't atheistic.
Your hypothesis on the horrors of what would befall a godless society would have more weight if basic facts were correct showing you cared about whether or not such a thing was likely rather than just wanting to arrive at your preformed opinion.
...but a lousy master! Do you disagree?
What is the solution to evil?
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
Scientists generally will tell you that answers we have today from science are not the final word. That is the nature of science; it changes as new information comes along. It is, after all, compiled by fallible humanity. Those who would set up science as the ultimate truth really are praising the cleverness of man. It is worth pointing out that a study found that half of all peer-reviewed scientific papers reached invalid conclusions, due to errors in research. Other research has uncovered the fact that fraud is disturbingly common in scientific research.
As science is fallible, changing and limited, we do well to make major social changes derived from science slowly.
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
I'm a Discordian. My version of Discordianism doesn't value ignorance, but I'm certain some other people's versions do. But Discornianism is a disorganized religion, so trying to keep things like information organized to only be accessible to certain groups tends to fail. The whole "Think for yourself, Schmuck!" bit also helps, though a few people seem to have decided for themselves to let someone else do their thinking for them.
Not a sentence!
A5. Eris is a real bitch sometimes.
Not a sentence!
What are your thoughts on genetically modified food? What do you predict the future holds where intelligent life can create intelligent designs (for profit)?
Or am I way too late?!
Lol.. This entire thread is you butting in calling people you do not agree with names and trying to demean them. Your actions told me this. If you think you are a pixie or something, then it says more about you then you ever could about me.
Look dude, I do not know how to dumb it down for you any more then I already have. I can't believe I'm still talking past your intelligence level. Perhaps you mom or sister or someone close by can translate it for you?
You know what makes it even more stupid? The fact that it was said by you. I did not compare the Wright brothers with the question of god, that is all in your head. What I did was say that before it was even possible, people had to believe heavier then air flying was possible. No one proved it until it was actually done. According to your comments here, that makes them stupid and believing in pixies because what wasn't proven was believed in.
I seriously think you should stop before replying and ask your mom to explain that to you before you run in circles again.
And here is where you insert your own beliefs in some bullshit attempt to exclude others. You have no way to support (scientifically or other) this statement without resorting to what you want to believe in and yet you offer your opinion as if it was fact. Well, it's not fact, you have no clue to with it will ever have an effect, you have no clue if it is unprovable or if it will be proven. You just don't have a clue.
Lol.. the made up evidence in your mind? 93% of the world's population claim to be religious. 93% of the world in some way disagrees with you on this issue. If the evidence was there, if it was clear, I doubt I could say that. Therefore, based on you only presenting opinion and not fact regarding this matter I must conclude, along with every single person capable of rational thought, that you are talking out your ass.
There is not no way to ever get proof. There is just no way for you to demand proof. The only lie is your reasoning.
Actually, you are trolling them. Most evangelical atheists do the same, except they have enough balls to log into an account that can be traced back to them. If you want to continue to call a religion names, if you want to continue trying to insult the people of it, if that is what you need to do to get through another day, then do it. But there will be people like me pointing out how your logic is far from logic. There will be people like me pointing out that you are doing the exact same thing as you decry. There will be people like me making fun of you. You see, I'm not actually religious, I just do not like idiots like you. There are a lot of us out here and when you spew your rubbish, someone will step in to keep you occupied while other go o
Whilst that story may have some historical counterpart, I do not believe it is to be taken literally. It contains enough theological content for it to be useful on its own and it goes without saying that science has proven that the early chapters of Genesis cannot be literal. If one chooses to accept special creation they do so out of blind faith, because the evidence points 100% to an old earth and evolution.
As pointed out by another reply to your post, there was no commandment to stay ignorant. Just to stay away from a certain tree. It had more to do with the test of obedience than what the tree itself represented. What it represented merely became a follow-on consequence for the sin of disobedience.
Also consider that the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" may have just been an ordinary tree, but called so because of the moral implications it had. Eating of the tree brought on the sudden awareness of guilt, having broken the commandment, and the other natural human behaviours followed.
The Bible is extremely vague on that whole story, as to what might have happened if Adam/Eve had not eaten the fruit, and I think this is intentional. It is not given to us as a piece of history, but rather as a theological story which starts off our species' relationship with God.
Regardless of who was alive at the time when Adam and Eve were placed in the garden (science tells us there were thousands of humans already on earth by this time), Adam and Eve appear to be the people God chose to reveal himself to, and to form a spiritual relationship with. Much later God appeared to Abraham and it could well be that this appearing to Adam was a similar thing.
Whether the story is literal history or symbolic is irrelevant in my opinion. There was no command for ignorance, and such a command would go against other verses in the bible anyway.
I'd also like to mention that you wont find the theory of "original sin" anywhere in the Bible. It is just one among a number of ways to interpret what the Bible says. Whilst it is by far the most popular view, it is not the only one, and not the one I subscribe to.
I prefer to think of sin as entering the world through Adam simply because prior to this there had been no law from God that had been broken. Without God's law, there is no sin. So Adam's sin is the first that God is interested in. It spread to humanity as humanity became aware (or under the dominion of) the laws that God communicated. This is one way of looking at it, but there's very little detail, so I'm not going to declare this correct or anything.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
I'm not sure what your point is (it didn't seem to relate to what I wrote).
In any case, I'll just say this: The beliefs of those who claim to believe the Bible do not have any bearing on what the Bible actually says.
In other words, one should be wary of interpreting the Bible merely through what its followers say.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
heard of a missing link in the dna/evolution tree, and lots of myths about earth visited by allience who created stronger beings from weak earthlings by way of dna modification with their own, do we have a missing link in the evolution tree that links us to extraterrestrials.
You made that up. How can you call that reasoning and arguing?
Same for pixies and unicorns and this is a fact you can not deny. And also for all other religions that contradict each other. And if you believe in things like this you believe in made up fantasy. It is obvious.
You say reasoning is a lie. That actually seems to be the religious idea.
You are pathetic. You should be ashamed of yourself.
One can hardly fault the Bible for giving a worldview that was current at the time it was written.
If the Bible claims divine revelation, which it does, then of course it can be faulted when it instead just portrays current thinking.
Then people also read it as if it is a science textbook, or as if it exists to teach us scientific things. The bible does not claim to be/do any of this.
Considering that there was no "science" when it was written, of course it doesn't explicitly state this. Yet it does try to explain our creation, something which science does as well, and gets it fantastically wrong. In comes God of the Gaps, where the creation myth of Genesis is turned into an allegory, nevermind that it contains gross errors even at that level.
ha.. Nothing was made up, all you have to do is hit the parent button and follow the links up. Are you that delusional that you forget what you say and do and have no clue? Don't expect others to be.
I do not think you understood me. Ask your mom to help you again. If pixies and unicorns end up being proven true, I have no problem with it. If other religions prove to be true, or even conflicting religions prove to be true, I have no problem with that. Why would you think I would?
No, I said _your_reasoning_ was a lie. Not reasoning in general. If you do not understand that, ask your mom to help you again.
A lie is to lie is to deliver a false statement to another person which the speaking person knows is not the whole truth, intentionally. Religions believe their stuff is true and failed the definition. You on the other hand, claimed to profess provability and facts according to the scientific method and then offered argument devoid of all that in some attempt to associate them with authority. It failed because I called you out. Therefore no matter how many times you want to claim it, you are the liar and not the religions.
For the record, I have to ask which part of that offended you so I know not to tease you about things that happened to you. However, there is no shame on my part. There shouldn't be on yours either.
All I have said is that religious people are delusional. That is the truth. If that denigrates someone, that is not my problem.
I do not have any problem to imagin you believeing in pixies and unicorns because some miracles some prophet witnessed. You would say that is proof.
You believe this kind of 'argument' somehow invalidates my argument. That you are not ashamed of yourself is pathetic. Your way of arguing is a perfect example of how religious people denigrate themselves by behaving in selfdenigrating ways. Like the the scene muslims make because of a carictaure.
Why are you lieing? You even do it in your latest post with your fascinations of pixies. You know damn well they are something completely different then the God of Christianity and you insist it is pixies. Do not sit there and pretend you are anything other then what you are, it's not like you can erase your posting history..lol
If some prophet convinced you of it, you can believe it all you want. It doesn't mean I have to. Now do you see the difference between me and you? I don't fucking care if you believe in pixies, I don't care if you are queer or whatever. You on the other hand, seem to think people are a lesser people if they don't believe what you want them to.
I never said it invalidates your argument, you have said plenty of things yourself that do that. I made those comment to simply denigrate you. To give you some of your own medicine.
Why should I be ashamed of anything I do? Are you trying to push your morals onto me?
My way of arguing? you mean pointing to your logical fallacies and how you act exactly like who you decry.
haha.. Or are you all butt hurt because I turned the tables and started making fun of you and trying to belittle you. I said I wouldn't use whatever part of that was true if you named it.
I think that's pretty much the way almost all Protestant religions do. It's like that at my church. When have you heard of any non-Catholic kids being molested by clergy?
The Catholic church has a LOT of problems besides the child molestation. Of course, that's happened before or there wouldn't be Protestants.
Free Martian Whores!
Well of course! How could you fully understand a being capable of creating a universe? To such a being, human intelligence would be on par with that of a housefly -- or less.
Free Martian Whores!
I appreciate your putting a figure ("gigabytes") to the quantity of stored genetic info, something I have been curious about, but have been unable to locate at the moment. That sounds about right by my estimation, and also sounds grossly inadequate to store all the information necessary to specify (practically any) multi-cellular organism. The only conceivable way that could work is if there's some kind of monster compression at work. I assume people (embryologists) are looking at genetic mechanisms of anatomical structure determination, but I have been mainly out of the field for a while.
We could go on arguing this forever. My main gripe comes down to many people seeming to approach science these days as though it were the new religion, which violates the whole intent and purpose.
Oh, and your point about what evolutionary theory encompasses seems a bit on the niggling side. Suffice it to say, MODERN (or molecular) evolutionary theory, or the molecular component of evolutionary theory. I know that Darwin came before Watson and Crick.
Oh, and the sperm cell is an interesting example. Here we have a simple organism that is directionally mobile and potentially equipped with chemo receptors for guiding it. That isn't something any simple (ie subject only to diffusion) biomolecule can reasonably be expected to possess. All I can think of in that regard is compartmentalization (ie. cells acting as localized bio-reactors) and driving structure by constituent molecule concentration (ie. Le Chatelier's principle), though that still strikes me as inadequate and wasteful (with regard to something that will ultimately be subject to diffusion).
oohh, where can I find these "rowdy dessert people"? I love me a good dessert, and a rowdy one sounds even better!
You're right, I exaggerated a little, I do know some believers in my life. I guess I just don't think of it as a big deal, but then again I also don't have kids (yet).
I don't see how it could be damaging at such a young age unless there's more to it than what I've read in your posts. Children at that age can't even conceptualize religious concepts (higher being existence etc) fully IMHO. So I'm assuming you'll read your children fairy tales and some children will initially think that all things are real. So when grandma or a teacher tells a child that there's a god, you could reinforce to the child that its a fairy tale that adults believe in without evidence.
If you're fighting a war of beliefs (or lack of) between teachers and grandmas with your child in the middle, yes that's damaging. Just like putting a child in the middle of any adult issue is damaging. It would seem a lot of atheists in this country have had to grow up with people telling them about religion, but I would assume they don't all feel damaged because of it unless they were forced to participate in religious activities such as church. Then the only damage is the resentment between parent (or grandma) and child. Just my thoughts.
I personally don't plan on shielding my child from the beliefs of others either. This is exactly what overly religious parents do to their kids except in revers and yes, I do find it incredibly damaging. If my children become religiously involved, so be it. I will have done my best to show them how to think critically and evaluate the world as a scientist should and then I'll love them regardless of the decisions they make. If a person inherits a perspective from someone else, its worthless to them unless they make the effort to validate it. By not coloring the world for someone and instead focusing on objectivity in general, you allow them to develop a much more personal perspective on everything, which in turn makes them a deeper, more convicted person.
You are an atheist. Did you know that?
Actually I'm a panentheist.
Someone had to do it.
Oh you mean saying that believing in that god is the same as believing in pixies is denigrating? Oh, well, ok. Religious people are so damn insecure and touchy.
Which logical fallacies? I remember you started some lame attempts at showing that involving personal insults, but they have been pretty pathetic and unconvincing.
And why do I act the same as those I allegedly "decry"? Look, my arguments are based on logic, but the last time someone tried to convince me to "find god" there was no argument based on logic at all! Instead they said I would not feel so lonely, but even that made no sense because their god was a grumpy and mean asshole. Since pixies are nice, have wings and cute swimsuits, I am sure I would feel less lonely believing in pixies.
I was sorry for those ladies, wasting their lives in such a stupid way. Although come think of it who knows what they would do else.
Hey Dr. Dawkins (and the rest of the slashdot world),
As a philosophy and computer science major, one of the big things I've noticed is the difference between the methods of gathering knowledge with respect to natural science (so not CS) and philosophy. The former is qualified to make physical claims via inductive observation, and the latter is qualified to make metaphysical claims via deductive reasoning.
So my question is this: As a scientist who uses inductive reasoning, how do you justify making metaphysical claims based on physical observations? I suppose I have a difficult time seeing how philosophy and science combine in such a way.
Thanks a lot!
No, I'm saying that you think that calling God pixies and fairy tales is inflammatory and degrading which it why you use the terms you use. Your comment right there is part of it, I never said they were the same, I said you trying to make them the same proved my point. You just did that again..lol
lol.. Are you that delusional?
Your arguments are not logical. You claim that God is not real because the concept doesn't adhere scientific principles then make claims that fail that same test to claim religions are fake or make believe. That is a fallacy. The entire pixies line is nothing more then an adhominen fallacy, your statements on God not being real is an appeal to authority fallacy, and your logic seems to be because X is not testable, there is no X because if there was it could be testable when the matter of X cannot be determined to be true or false without a test. That is not logic at all, that is your insecure opinions being presented as facts when they aren't even close. That is you doing exactly what the religious people do, pushing beliefs with no scientific evidence to support it.
Well, you do know that you are the ones believing in pixies and seem to like them. If any pixies exist, I really doubt you feel sorry for them. In fact, it appears they turn you on. IS that what got you all butt hurt? It wasn't that you miss being an alter boy, but the religious nutters tell you your pixies aren't real using no proof whatsoever at all so you have to attack them? I think maybe a shrink might be able to help you if you talk to them. You should do it before you find a 5 year old girl playing in costume somewhere and really screw your life up.
It is NOT denigrating?? For a few hundreds of posts you asked me to stop denigrating, I said I wasn't, now you sort-of convinced me, and now you say i wasnt to begin with, it is only something I believe! (huh?)
You are boring. You cannot think in a straight line. Go pray to some crazy shit, it fits you.
I'm sorry I'm speaking over your head. Please ask your mom or an older friend to help you with this. You will find the problem is all with you.
By "damaging" I mean -- learning something that will be hard to unlearn. Religious themes are present in many many places, fairytales, poems for small children, etc. I don't want to censor them because that would make my children's life poorer. It's easy to balance the violence from fairytales (cutting through wolve's insides?) but when it comes to religion - there's not enough counterbalance in my opinion. There are no "Scientific fairytales for small children" that I've heard of (I'm sometimes thinking of writing such thing but am not good enough in writing; I would love to see people that have "light pens" like Dawkins and specialists from other fields writing a book of short "fairytales" that would have some kind of scientific background; think of Lem's "robot fairytales" kind). Such book would try to "smuggle" a bit of scientific consiousness at a pretext of a fun story -- exactly how religion puts its roots in young minds.
But maybe I'm overthinking stuff. Both me and my wife are atheists and it will be different with my kids than it was with me. I grew up among believers and used to strongly believe in god, too. I never suffered too much because of it or because I stopped believing at one point, but from today's perspective I can see that this religious belief did took away some of things from my youth. I'd love to spare my daughter from this but maybe I cannot or it will Just Work :-)
Thanks for the discussion and goodluck in your endeavor!
Yet never does the bible attempt to demonstrate the existence of God to those who don't already believe. Of course it has reference to learning, but the very premise of the veracity of the book's teachings is based on the assumption that God exists, which is the antithesis of the scientific method.
Science and the Bible are not mutually exclusive if you accept that God has no hand in the running of the world, and no demonstrable hand in the creation of the universe. Then it's all fine. The only problem is, if you accept that, then you've made God as real as Dumbledore.
The Bible teaches things as fact which clearly didn't happen, or at best for which there is absolutely no evidence. How is that not promoting ignorance?
While I agree that many people are deceived (or worse, completely unthinking) on many important topics, I think it is a bit of an abdication of judgement to just blanket say "Oh they're all equally deceived or all equally unable/unwilling to think."
There are important gradations in this, in often the people on one side of these polarizing issues will be thinking a lot less clearly, openly, and logically than those on the other side.
But if we throw up our hands and say in a post-modern way: "Who can tell who's thinking better or with a more solid base of fairly well established fact - it's all shyte." then we are actually aiding and abetting those who pretty deliberately don't think well or think through fully and prefer to use rhetorical tricks to argue their case because it suits their interests.
I would put the complaint as "Many people argue (and form worldviews) out of pure short-term self interest regardless of the obvious facts." rather than "both sides are equally bad at drawing well-founded rational conclusions well."
If you don't think its even possible to draw well-founded rational conclusions about something that are somewhat objectively more connected to an evidence-based, proven-theory-based view of the world, then that is a truly bleak and cynical view, and one that I think aids the deliberate obfuscators.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Newtonian laws have been relied on as a given, they got us to the moon, they explained so much, yet they are an approximation and far from todays underlying understating of relativity.
Most of Newton's laws are still accurate. The particular thing that Newton posited that Einstein ditched was the Newtonian transformation between inertial frames. It's accurate to call that an approximation of reality, but that doesn't mean that the rest of Newtonian physics was.
Recently a relative of mine passed away and I posted a pic of him of facebook as a remembrance. My 12 year old cousin posted that she thinks he's in heaven. Normally I would let that slide but since he was also an atheist I responded that he didn't believe in heaven and it would be best to think of him as living on in our memories. Needless to say I have taken a lot of flack for this. But she is of the age where she is expected to participate in Confirmation (Catholic) so I thought if she's old enough to swear she believes in Christ til death she's old enough to know that someone she loved and respected was an atheist. How would you have handled this situation? My thanks and respect to you Prof Dawkins, Swade