1. Comment #434226 by Pete.K on November 23, 2009 at 7:20 pm

"For them God’s house has many rooms; it is a well-stocked library"

God's house might have a well stocked library, the trouble is there is only the one book that fills the shelves.

Other Comments by Pete.K

2. Comment #434227 by rod-the-farmer on November 23, 2009 at 7:20 pm

...a diverse group of questers after truth...

I laughed out loud at this one. If there is one thing you can be certain of, it is that religious adherents do NOT quest after truth. The word "dogma" is used to describe WHAT they are told to believe, HOW they must act, HOW they must worship, etc. etc. Ad infinitum, pun intended. No other group where the word is appropriate has such strict rules about their own version of dogma. Political parties ? No. Truly funny. As with a number of articles in the news recently, my irony meter is pegged.

Other Comments by rod-the-farmer

3. Comment #434229 by Mbee on November 23, 2009 at 7:22 pm

'For them God’s house has many rooms; it is a well-stocked library with spaces for deep thought and rational argument, for myths and stories and poetic metaphors'

Let us know what the address is and we can go check them out?

Other Comments by Mbee

4. Comment #434231 by alessamendes on November 23, 2009 at 7:25 pm

We cannot just assume that the only good explanations are scientific explanations.

Here we go again.

Other Comments by alessamendes

5. Comment #434234 by crookedshoes on November 23, 2009 at 7:30 pm

Norman keeps alluding to "the intelligent believer". The intelligent believer, in his own explanation seems to not believe. The fact the he keeps saying this veils the fact that many of the "believers" may be intelligent people in some arenas but woefully overmatched when it comes to rational thought and logic. It also hides the glaring fact that most believers are in fact not intelligent, but rather sheep.

Other Comments by crookedshoes

6. Comment #434236 by Jack Rawlinson on November 23, 2009 at 7:32 pm

Nice article.

tl;dr version: no matter how the "religion-lite" apologists try to avoid it the fact remains that religious believers of any kind ultimately make some declaration of unfounded belief beyond the merely symbolic. That is why we call it religion instead of symbolism.

Other Comments by Jack Rawlinson

7. Comment #434240 by TIKI AL on November 23, 2009 at 7:38 pm

"there is a sound rational case for believing in the existence of a God, because “the God hypothesis” provides the best explanation of why the universe is as it is."

The people who are on board with "the termite hypothesis of creation" are not going to take this blasphemy sitting down.

Other Comments by TIKI AL

8. Comment #434243 by j.mills on November 23, 2009 at 7:47 pm

Meh. This guy's kinda caricaturing RD, whose writing is not unaware of these wriggles. Norman does make the essential point that a necessary component of religion is belief, but he's a trifle mild on the matter. If a person privileges one set of rituals and myths without belief, that's not religion, it's just culture. The Eagletons and Armstrongs of this world are not merely wrong about what theism is for most adherents; they are also irrelevant, since the version of religion they are prepared to defend is neither actual religion nor worth defending.

Other Comments by j.mills

9. Comment #434245 by Eric Blair on November 23, 2009 at 7:51 pm

I think Norman does get to the nub of the issue here, in a subtler way than Dawkins has and in a way that many "believers" will partly agree with.

"Seekers for truth" in this context are not your garden variety faithful who look only for ways to apply to dogma to their lives but those who try to use reason to square the circle of faith. Their quest is to fit their need for belief (and, ultimately, purpose) with a similar need to be rational or, at least, live in a world where reason dominates.

How religious people respond to arguments like this reminds me of the old logical conundrum of the "surprise" class quiz.

The teacher says he will give the class a surprise quiz next week, but a student says this is impossible because it can't be surprise. It can't be held Friday, because after Thursday the students will expect it on Friday, so it won't be a surprise; likewise, it can't be held Thursday for the same reason (since Friday has already been eliminated), and so on to Monday.

"You're right," says the teacher - and holds the quiz anyway.

But would it be a surprise?

EB

Other Comments by Eric Blair

10. Comment #434247 by Mbee on November 23, 2009 at 7:53 pm

“the God hypothesis” provides the best explanation of why the universe is as it is.

They are truly deluded if they think the god hypothesis explains anything. (It's not a hypothesis it's just an idea. A hypothesis needs some evidence as a basis) I guess if we all make up stories of how the universe is and how it was created then whatever the most popular one is wins!

Other Comments by Mbee

11. Comment #434259 by God fearing Atheist on November 23, 2009 at 8:08 pm

Nice article. Sheds light through the obfuscations the believers in "belief" use to shield religion.

Now if the book mentioned with the article sold as well as "The God Delusion" we would be getting somewhere.

Other Comments by God fearing Atheist

12. Comment #434275 by The Truth, the light on November 23, 2009 at 8:31 pm

I regard "intelligent" Christians as Claytons Christians.

In some ways, "intelligent" Christians are worse than the fundies as they do actually need to use their brain to formulate some marvellously contorted apologetics.

Other Comments by The Truth, the light

13. Comment #434276 by SilentMike on November 23, 2009 at 8:32 pm

A very interesting read. Of course, now that Richard Morgan has ended up saying some not-so -positive things about religion, and stating that "Dawkins was right" about anything at all, he has immediately become shrill and strident and there's no point taking any notice of him.

EDIT: I'm an idiot. It's Richard Norman, of course, not Richard Morgan. Thank you Jos Gibbons for noticing.

Other Comments by SilentMike

14. Comment #434283 by Stonyground on November 23, 2009 at 8:41 pm

It would appear that non of those who have taken a pop at the God Delusion have made much of a dent in its armour. However it would be interesting if maybe on the tenth aniversary of the original publication a new version was to be released with refutations of the various flea bites.

Other Comments by Stonyground

15. Comment #434292 by Jos Gibbons on November 23, 2009 at 9:05 pm

Comment #434276 by SilentMike

No, this is Richard Norman. Morgan? If only ...

Comment #434283 by Stonyground

The paperback edition, which came out after the original hardback, contains a new introduction which does that to some extent. RD read it while in the Galapagos, with the title, "I'm an atheist, but ...", referencing such critics. I think it's probably somewhere on YouTube.

Other Comments by Jos Gibbons

16. Comment #434308 by Steven Mading on November 23, 2009 at 9:26 pm

Richard Norman seems to be taking a position somewhere halfway between Karen Armstrong and Richard Dawkins, as far as I can tell - criticising the both of them from the middle (i.e. Richard is wrong to say it's all literal, and Karen is wrong to say it's all metaphorical). Is this an accurate portrayal of the article, as far as others seem to be interpreting it?

Other Comments by Steven Mading

17. Comment #434312 by gr8hands on November 23, 2009 at 9:34 pm

I keep hearing from theologians that "people don't literally believe these things." I always respond that they are clearly out of touch with what actually happens in church during services.

I love pipe organ music, so I often attend church services at a pretty progressive church: Presbyterian. But, every service they recite the Apostle's Creed (as is typical for most churches in most denominations) -- not as symbolism, not as metaphor, not as allegory, but as a statement of faith everyone recites in unison.

No one has ever said from the pulpit that these are not to be taken as literal truths, not to be taken as facts, that they fly in the face of actual historical evidence, are contradicted by science, violate the principles of logic/reason, and are simply the myths of prior religions which were adapted/changed.

So, Mr. Norman is clearly an idiot.

Other Comments by gr8hands

18. Comment #434316 by SilentMike on November 23, 2009 at 9:37 pm

15. Comment #434292 by Jos Gibbons

Oops. How embarrassing for me.

Other Comments by SilentMike

19. Comment #434321 by NewEnglandBob on November 23, 2009 at 9:48 pm

Norman starts out by saying Dawkins is unsophisticated in his thinking and is wrong. Then Norman tells us what Eagleton and Armstrong say. Then Norman systematically shows how Eagleton and Armstrong are wrong and then summarizes into a position that is the same as Dawkins.

What the hell was the point of the article?

Other Comments by NewEnglandBob

20. Comment #434328 by prolibertas on November 23, 2009 at 10:10 pm

'Nicholas Lash... accuses Dawkins of “taking it for granted that to ‘believe in God’ is to be of the opinion that God exists.”'

Hahahahaha!

Somehow I can't help but think that these 'new believers', while thinking that they're fighting against us, will actually be doing our job for us. I find that hilarious. The 'new believers' are nothing but the old believers in their death throws.

But seriously, I think some of the comments on here are missing the point of Norman's article. At least, I read it as being a sharp critique of EagleStrong, one that simply said that while Dawkins' statements are a bit sweeping sometimes, Dawkins' basic position is correct.

Other Comments by prolibertas

21. Comment #434332 by the great teapot on November 23, 2009 at 10:18 pm

The point of this article, apparently misunderstood, is that he agrees completely with Richard and is defending Richards stance.
As he points out and as Richard has time and time again said, why do "sophisticated" preachers not preach their "sophisticated" version of religion to their flock?
And the answer, in the UK, is that it would reduce it from 15 to 3.
(I am assuming their mum and dad will still attend)

Other Comments by the great teapot

22. Comment #434334 by sillygirl on November 23, 2009 at 10:37 pm

The blurb on this page is a bit misleading. All you can see hear makes it look like it's going to be more apologist blah, blah, blah. You have to keep reading to see that he is doing that to sucker in readers who think they have a valid argument against Dawkins. He then gently rips their arguments to shreds.

Other Comments by sillygirl

23. Comment #434335 by the great teapot on November 23, 2009 at 10:43 pm

Not so silly after all.

Other Comments by the great teapot

24. Comment #434345 by Nunbeliever on November 23, 2009 at 11:06 pm

Keith Ward, for example, the former Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, in his book Why There Almost Certainly Is a God (subtitled Doubting Dawkins), argues that there is a sound rational case for believing in the existence of a God, because “the God hypothesis” provides the best explanation of why the universe is as it is. He doesn’t, of course, think that “the God hypothesis” is a scientific explanation.

It is funny how they always say it is NOT a scientific explanation when they want to avoid scrutiny. I'm sorry folks, but there are only TWO kinds of explanations in the world. Good ones, and bad ones. Labelling your explanation "religious" is irrelevant...

Other Comments by Nunbeliever

25. Comment #434355 by ev-love on November 23, 2009 at 11:51 pm

“Most people give their allegiance to a particular religion not because they judge that its doctrines are uniquely true, but because it is the religion in which they find their cultural roots. It defines their identity.”

It seems to me this is the reason religion hangs on … and on…and on… and why so many people I love still call themselves religious….

It’s also the reason believers so often kill each other…

And the reason why so many ordinary, decent people die ‘for their faith’.


God, How I hate God.



ev-love

Other Comments by ev-love

26. Comment #434359 by JonathanWest on November 23, 2009 at 11:59 pm

I notice that Richard Norman makes reference to Richard Swinburne as one of those "rationalists" defending the fine tuning argument. If anybody is interested in seeing how utterly fatuous Richard Swinburne's arguments are, you are extremely welcome over at my blog where I have been doing a chapter-by-chapter review of Swinburne's "The Existence of God".

You might care to start here
http://scepticalthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/08/swinburne-on-inductive-arguments.html

He was the Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at Oxford, and his arguments can be taken apart by anybody who has done an AS-level in statistics or has a passing acquaintance with what Bayes' theorem is all about.

Other Comments by JonathanWest

27. Comment #434370 by Pilot22A on November 24, 2009 at 12:46 am

Theology is subtle?

That's the ultimate theist oxymoron!

Other Comments by Pilot22A

28. Comment #434387 by The_Intangible_Fancy on November 24, 2009 at 2:58 am

If religious stories are just literature/poetry and the fact claims of religion are just metaphorical, as Armstrong claims they are, why do we even need the word 'religion' at all? Just call it 'culture' and be done with it. Once you take away the supernatural explanations, all you are left with are stories and rituals and moral codes. Sounds like culture to me.

Other Comments by The_Intangible_Fancy

29. Comment #434423 by Shiva on November 24, 2009 at 7:18 am

Brilliantly written by Norman!

I really enjoyed this one :)

Other Comments by Shiva

30. Comment #434572 by zengardener on November 24, 2009 at 5:57 pm

I kinda liked this article.

I sucks in the non-literalist theist by criticising Dawkins, gaining their ear. but in the end, states that Dawkins is ultamately correct. One is left wondering, exactly what is believed to be fact, and what is symbolic.

That is the question that I always like to ask non-literalists.

What exactly, do you believe?

Other Comments by zengardener

31. Comment #434752 by PERSON on November 25, 2009 at 3:47 am

2. Comment #434227 by rod-the-farmer on November 23, 2009 at 7:20 pm
He means "questers after truthiness", i.e. the truth of the gut.

Other Comments by PERSON