51. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #25563 by Ewan D on March 14, 2007 at 5:50 am

And David, your habit of using our challenges against our own 'faith' doesn't work when the question in hand is a faith in an invisible loving father. Meditating on that belief has physical, psychoactive consequences related to parent-child bonding. I'm repeating this point because it is significant. We atheists can meditate on feeling loved and appreciated, and kickstart the same chemical chain reaction you enjoy. Does it really make sense to attribute the effect to a supernatural entity?

52. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #25561 by Ewan D on March 14, 2007 at 5:35 am

You're right Stewart. I was just making doubly sure he has doubts so as to ascertain whether they may be severe enough to undo the whole edifice, as I saw happen with a formerly theistic friend of mine. In her case, reading 'Hell' by the fundamentalist John Blanchard forced her to concede how intellectually and humanly indefensible the faith she'd been brought up in was.

But no matter how much we make David's doctrinal beliefs appear to wobble, as long as he wants and needs to believe, argument is no threat. Faith in a loving parent figure has many inbuilt self-healing mechanisms, among them, feel-good neurotransmitters like oxytocin. It demands considerable introspective intellegence and a little open-minded experimentation to start to recognise the internal link between prayer, group belief and the resulting emotional reassurance which sustains faith.

Believers (presumably unknowingly) hijack their brain chemistry in very directed ways. The insights they receive are as objectively reliable as a dope-smoker's cosmic revelations.

53. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #25543 by Ewan D on March 14, 2007 at 3:45 am

'By the way – why are you violating the basic principle of RD? We do not determine truth by how we feel about something. Should you not find out the truth first? '

Oh, so it's about feeling, is it? No David, it is simple logic. A God who chooses to be deaf to an eternity of his children's screams does fatal injury to concepts of love and mercy. If you're so sure about hell, at least posit a demonic God for our consideration.

54. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #25538 by Ewan D on March 14, 2007 at 3:16 am

1) People do not go to hell because of their lack of belief. The dead are judged according to what they have done.

'But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags'

Isiah 64:6

A favourite quote of the 'Jesus saves' brigade.

55. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #25484 by Ewan D on March 13, 2007 at 3:50 pm

David, you've thought long and hard about this stuff, and come out the other end accepting it. Now are you with Aquinas in praying for a front-row seat to watch the unsaved burning in Hell, or are you with the Victorian Christian fantasy author, George MacDonald, in being unable to define as 'Heaven' any place which contained awareness of the suffering in Hell?

56. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #24534 by Ewan D on March 7, 2007 at 5:54 am

Prayer stirs the opiates like a good kiss - which is fitting...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDp7pkEcJVQ

(apologies if this link has appeared rather often)

57. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #24529 by Ewan D on March 7, 2007 at 5:29 am

Comment by Ewan D on March 7, 2007 at 5:27 am
I was also very pleased by Jenny's comment, and Stewart's too (109), to single out just a couple.

David, you need to be reprimanded very sternly on this point over and over again. You know very well that infinite physical and mental torture is an utterly vicious concept, but having accepted it on faith - pure blind faith of the kind you deny - you're forced to excuse your perfect deity by attributing a heart of unimaginable depravity to every man woman and child. This depravity is beyond all comprehension. It is extreme enough by definition to absolve God of injustice, because one of his defining characteristics is justice. (Another is mercy. Discuss.)

Heaven is clearly a wishful fantasy which has helped people get through hard times. But Hell was obviously dreamed up from the same wishful perspective, by people who wanted to imagine agonising revenge inflicted on their foes when they were powerless to mete it out themselves. It's the fantasy of a very damaged psyche - maybe worthy of pity. But for such an idea to be embraced by happy, healthy individuals who have no real quarrel with anyone, and who would recoil at the idea of personally inflicting pain on another, is positively shocking.

But the believer, if momentarily troubled by the enormity awaiting all but the chosen few, can always close his eyes and pray. How humble. He meditates a while on the idea of divine love, and within minutes, the autostimulated child-parent-bonding neurotransmitters start to flow, flushing out fear, bathing the mind in a sense of warmth, clarity, balance. What could have made him doubt he was in safe hands? Everything's taken care of. Mmmmm. Blissful justice and mercy. Warm light coursing through the soul. Deliciously right and True. Yes Yes YEEEESSSSSSSSSS.

58. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #24264 by Ewan D on March 5, 2007 at 3:33 pm

David,

I'm mildly curious to know what you think of the David Sullivan vs Sam Harris debate. You can't knock the good manners or caliber of argument - so how's your man faring?

59. God: The Failed Hypothesis

Comment #24218 by Ewan D on March 5, 2007 at 10:46 am

Here's an excerpt from 'God: The Failed Hypothesis' on the question of whether our morals come from a god...

http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Godless/Values.htm

60. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #24082 by Ewan D on March 4, 2007 at 5:29 pm

In case you change your mind Stereoroid, David Robertson's first letter is posted on this site, plus links to the sequels.
http://richarddawkins.net/article,300,Dawkins-Delusion-3rd-article-Same-Stupid-Title,David-Robertson
He tried 'atheism' once in his youth, but couldn't adjust to the obligatory nihilism and hedonistic moral anarchy, so he went back to the bible. He's a prize pup.

61. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #22904 by Ewan D on February 24, 2007 at 5:10 am

Sounds lively! Thanks for the taste!

62. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #22820 by Ewan D on February 23, 2007 at 9:10 am

Any chance of posting it here Billy?

63. Ancient boy's skeleton sparks evolution debate

Comment #21420 by Ewan D on February 9, 2007 at 6:02 am

David, Given the fact there's more genetic variation within races than between them, phrases like 'they are for the most part, ignorant, lazy, selfish and dumb' to describe some inherent racial characteristic, is bullshit.

64. Ancient boy's skeleton sparks evolution debate

Comment #21216 by Ewan D on February 8, 2007 at 4:11 am

Bad taste, scooternyc. Sloppy work.

65. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #13053 by Ewan D on December 15, 2006 at 7:44 am

"Is it really true that every atheist you have ever met cleaves to a moral relativism of the sort you expressed? Was that your basic stance when you were flirting with non-belief? "

'Yes it is true – at an intellectual level. However most atheists are thoroughly inconsistent in this regard and tend to have better morals than their philosophy would allow. Sadly many 'Christians' tend to have worse morals!'

This is very smart - I do warm to your arguments when you throw in a touch of self deprecation.

But I'm not blinded by your modesty, because you dropped an unacceptable clanger betraying another pivot of your erroneous thinking.

(No. 1 was your [baffling] intuition that everything from plate tectonics to human frailty relates to a moral narritive.)

No. 2 Atheism entails one and only one philosophy.

This insults me as an atheist, but you don't mean to be insulting. You simply credit yourself, after much deep reflection, with seeing more clearly the implications of non-belief: more clearly than thinking atheists like Dawkins. But here's the rub - for you all meaning is tied up in God, therefore No God = No Meaning. No God you say? Nothing matters.

This is not atheist philosophy. It is theist philosophy bearing its a priori assumption that God provides meaning.

Now that it's been pointed out to you there will be no excuse for you making this mistake again.

'The rest of your comments on morality I appreciate but I am going to have to leave until I address the chapter on morality.'

Fair enough. But you've read and digested them(?) so I can look forward to seeing how they'll temper your more reactionary tendencies when you come to write that chapter critique. Raise your game.

66. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #12973 by Ewan D on December 14, 2006 at 5:55 pm

A worthwhile review of TGD, in case you folks haven't read it yet - Blaming 'The God Delusion' by Charles Demers

67. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #12890 by Ewan D on December 14, 2006 at 8:08 am

Billy says

'My atheism is not rooted in Darwinism, but as an atheist, I now appreciate what Darwin meant even more. It fits the world and we see it in terms of biodiversity and behaviour. Social and cultural evolution has it's roots in our biology, not god.'

I learned last night from MacGrath that C.S. Lewis said something similar - 'I believe in God in the same way as I believe in the sun, not only because I see it, but because by its light I can see everything else.' or something to that effect.

The question MacGrath was diplomatic enough to leave open, since we can't yet settle it outright was 'which model fits the evidence best?' I'm with Billy on that one, and David is with C.S Lewis. But regrettably David hasn't supported his position that natural disasters make more sense when seen in the light of a loving god. Or that evil and compassion only make sense in the light of a unique, personal, plural, spiritual, eternally self-existent, transcendent, immanent, omniscient, immutable, holy, loving, Creator, Ruler and Judge of all mankind.

68. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #12869 by Ewan D on December 14, 2006 at 5:56 am

I went to an Alistair MacGrath lecture last night called 'The Twilight of Atheism?'. It was very weak - yes, that's my balanced appraisal! But his strongest charge against Dawkins was on this question you bring up of his perceived fundamentalism. Dawkins is supposidly a fundamentalist because he is understood to believe that atheism follows from Darwinism. Now I've heard Dawkins concede the obvious - that many scientists and theists see no incompatibility between belief and Darwinism (through a 'compartmentalisation of the mind...') but still, his forceful equation has alledgedly made him a chief recruiter for the Discovery Institute and Creationism. Dawkins has done science a great disservice according to some scientists.

Now Dawkins may be guilty of an unjustified intellectual leap which wouldn't satisfy a critic, let alone a philosopher, but if he's turning people away from evolution in droves it's not because they all get the finer points of epistemology but because atheism still has a huge public relations job on its hands. As has repeatedly been noted there's hysterical fear and prejudice around the term, particularly in The States.


Anyway...

"Regarding one of your lowest insults - why do you keep bringing up this brainless moral relativism?"

'Because virtually every atheist I have ever met is a moral relativist. However if you are claiming to be a moral absolutist I will take you at your word. I just wonder where you get your absolutes from.?'

Is it really true that every atheist you have ever met cleaves to a moral relativism of the sort you expressed? Was that your basic stance when you were flirting with non-belief?

Your absolutism is born of high ideals - I'm an idealist too. But idealism must be tempered with realism to be of any use in the face of life's troubling complexities. I hate to sound as if I'm lecturing, but is this not just self evident?

We'll have to agree to differ on this but I say biblical commandments deny the complexity of life and are a poor substitute for reasoned, feeling ethical discourse. With a tiny bit of imagination I'm sure you can think of scenarios where even you would be forced to bend your absolutes. (And be no worse a man for it.)

I sense your prejudice because I've had dealings with Chrisians all my life. Complexity is not the atheist's convenient hiding place for immorality that you intuitively fear, it is an undeniable, a-moral feature of absolutely everything in this life. We have to deal with it as mature, thinking citizens.

"The fact our innate compassion and the gift of a civilising upbringing precludes exploitation of the weak is not a mystery which needs a theistic explanation. Nor is the drive to intervene when others offend our moral consciences."

'This is fascinating.'

Thanks

'You believe that human beings have 'inate compassion' – could you provide the evidence for this or is it just wishful thinking?'

Evidence for innate compassion? My earliest memories include weeping over injured birds etc. like just about any child. Compassion is native to a particular brain area - you don't get much more innate than that. Remove the area and you remove compassion. Simple. We're all a burst blood vessel away from being someone different.

Have you read Da Masio's 'Looking for Spinoza'? That might guide you to some enlightenment, away from the filthy, disgusting view of humanity expressed in typical Evangelical Christian tracts.

If I mention Elephants, Dolphins and Bonobos by way of digression I can just imagine your eyes glazing over. You're certainly not ready to entertain conjecture on the antecedents of compassion in mere animals.

'And I wonder what you call civilized? Could this be Western Imperialism rising its ugly head again?'

Could this be YOUR prejudice about ATHEISTS rearing its ugly head again? I said civilised, simply meaning the upbringing offered by a loving family with adult role-models. This is crucial to the formation of an emotionally rounded personality - feral children are more susceptible to the power of selfish interest, where life is a basic fight for survival.

But I'm sharp enough to know what you're getting at with regards to moral relitavism so you can save your breath. I'm against female circumsision, and would never argue that it is acceptable to someone else's moral framework therefore we shouldn't interfere. I'm also no fan of the unanaesthetised circumcision of male babies with a sharpened thumbnail as still practised today by some Rabbis. My objection is not cultural, but human. Name a single practice of ritual cruelty in my culture which you imagine I'd defend and I promise to take a hard look at myself.



"On moral issues, atheists like myself try to bring everything (everything BUT the selfish gene) to bear when we decide where to draw the line, coming all the way down to the specifics of an individual case. A refusal to do that is lazy, and an affront to our vital moral faculties."

'That is a significant 'but'.'

It is not a significant 'but'. We don't appeal to 'is' for 'ought'. For 'ought' we must appeal to rational thought grounded in sympathy. The ubiquitous Golden Rule is a decent point of departure, except when in the hands of sado masochists. Are you perhaps the last person to cotton-on to the obvious fact that social darwinism does not follow logically from the theory of evolution? Does gravity make it immoral for us to fly planes? (Note to self - write series of novels on Christians who ignore and reject advances in science and enlightenment thinking. Call it 'Left Behind.')

'I still wonder where your absolute lines are.'

Lines will be drawn on the merits of each case but when we approach them with wisdom and compassion, suffering will be minimised - by definition. I've said nothing that breaches a naturalistic understanding of reality. If you think I have, you really need to know more about what one entails instead of telling me what atheists believe.

69. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #12703 by Ewan D on December 13, 2006 at 10:38 am

Billy, Confucius wasn't alone in prefiguring Christ's teaching. To quote Victor Stenger at length...

'Noble Ideals

The Judeo-Christian and Islamic scriptures contain many passages that teach noble ideals, which the human race has done well to adopt as norms of behavior and, where appropriate, to codify into law. But without exception these principles developed in earlier cultures and history indicates that they were adopted by rather than learned from religion. While it is fine that religions preach moral precepts, they have no basis to claim that these precepts were authored by their particular deity, or, indeed, any deity at all.

Perhaps the primary principle upon which to live a moral life is the Golden Rule:



Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.



In our Christian-dominated society in the West, most people wrongly assume that this was an original teaching of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount. For some reason, their preachers, who surely know better, perpetuate this falsehood. Jesus himself made no such claim. Indeed, the phrase "love thy neighbor as thyself" appears in Leviticus 19:18, written a thousand years or so before Christ.

Furthermore, the Golden Rule is not the exclusive property of a small desert tribe with a high opinion of itself. Here are some other, independent sources showing that the Golden Rule was already a widespread teaching well before Jesus:



- In The Doctrine of the Mean 13, written about 500 BCE, Confucius says, "What you do not want others to do to you, do not do to others."

- Isocrates (c. 375 BCE) said, "Do not do to others what would anger you if done to you by others."

- The Hindu Mahabharata, written around 150 BCE, teaches, "This is the sum of all true righteousness: deal with others as thou wouldst thyself be dealt by."



The call to "love your enemies" also has ancient roots:



- I treat those who are good with goodness. And I also treat those who are not good with goodness. Thus goodness is attained. I am honest with those who are honest. And I am also honest with those who are dishonest. Thus honesty is attained. (Taoism. Tao Te Ching 49)

- Conquer anger by love. Conquer evil by good. Conquer the stingy by giving. Conquer the liar by truth. (Buddhism. Dhammapada 223)



In fact, no original moral concept of any significance can be found in the New Testament. As early twentieth century historian and former Franciscan monk Joseph McCabe noted,

The sentiments attributed to Christ are . . . already found in the Old Testament. . . . They were familiar in the Jewish schools, and to all the Pharisees, long before the time of Christ, as they were familiar in all the civilizations of the earth; Egyptian, Babylonian, and Persian, Greek and Hindu.



As with the Bible, the Qur'an contains many sentiments that most of us would classify as commendable. It tells Muslims to be kind to their parents, not to steal from orphans, not to lend money at excess interest, to help the needy, and not to kill their children unless it is necessary.'

For the whole article (a chapter from the forthcoming God- The Failed Hypothesis') go to

http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Godless/Values.htm

70. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #12677 by Ewan D on December 13, 2006 at 8:13 am

Hello again. All right, I suppose it's more fun participating!

'Thanks Ewan. Bye. I guess you should retreat to the comfort zone of your fellow believers. At least you will be able to insult everyone outside that zone without fear of it ever being challenged.'

David, that was loaded with insults. For what it's worth I regret insulting you - I can't seem to stop myself sometimes. You know how it can take a heroic effort to resist making an implicit or explicit dig which will only fan the flames. I have lapses, so do you. There's much exasperation on both sides and spleens need venting. Alas they're not the most reflective of organs.

Regarding one of your lowest insults - why do you keep bringing up this brainless moral relativism?

'So bestiality, paedophilia, killing the disabled, euthanasia, etc are all ok – because we do not have the right to impose our morality on anyone else?'

Is this a taste of what you'd put into your superior endorsement of atheism which you boast you could write?

No one here espouses such a stance, or if they do, could they please stand and be counted?

The fact our innate compassion and the gift of a civilising upbringing precludes exploitation of the weak is not a mystery which needs a theistic explanation. Nor is the drive to intervene when others offend our moral consciences.

The apparent innateness of compassion demands an explanation, and guess what, it is being revealed. The evolutionary advantage of social acuity and reciprocal alturism dissolves at least some of the mystery, with the rest being explained, broadly, by nurture. I can attest that having at least a fledgling understanding of compassion does not dull it.

Note that compassion is not universal - among an unfortunate minority who've suffered specific traumas, neural pathologies etc., it appears non existant. (From your paradigm, with all the empathy bestowed by an understanding of scripture, such anomalies are presumably explained away as evil.) Anyway, would your model of extreme moral relativism appeal to them? Possibly, but while they may feel no innate revulsion from it they may still be equipped to comprehend a rational critique, especially if they retain a desire for self preservation.

(The editing faculty allows me to add afterthoughts and I'll add this - your eagle eye might have spotted an apparent sympathy for psychopaths - those without compassion or conscience. And why not? I'm satisfied that there are cases where the condition is in no sense their fault. But to spell it out, no thinking person would advocate allowing them to live by their own rules. If they're a hazard to others, I'm afraid locking them up might be the only answer. Their prospects might be happier in the future though, if science one day perfects surgical correction of the compromised brain areas, whether damaged by stroke, tumor or injury, or lacking at birth.) (I know - yuck! But there are psychopaths who'd volunteer to be endowed with normal emotions - you can bet on it. Plus, if successful, such an operation would be their ticket to freedom.)

On moral issues, atheists like myself try to bring everything (everything BUT the selfish gene) to bear when we decide where to draw the line, coming all the way down to the specifics of an individual case. A refusal to do that is lazy, and an affront to our vital moral faculties.

Euthenasia - as you intended - stands out to a liberal ethicist as the odd-man-out. You regard it as virtuous to lump it in with paedophilia, but whom do you seek to protect? The debate is by no means cut-and-dried, but before you enter it, investigate and dispel your irrational fear that anyone who differs with you on the Bible must be in favour of killing off the elderly or disabled, or tacitly pressuring them into calling it quits. In looking at euthenasia we reappraise the idea of killing which is every bit as unpleasant to us as it is to you, so there must be a damn good reason for it. That reason is compassion for the sufferer.

Perhaps you fear the 'slippery slope' phenomenon because you don't trust others' ability to judge cases on their own merits. I'm not certain I do either, which is why we have to keep vigilant - but I suspect I'd be provisionally more trusting of lawyers and healthcare professionals than you would.

I'd humbly suggest, with no insult intended, that your theology would move up a gear if you liberated yourself more fully from the shackles of biblical literalism and historicity and read 'Thou Art That' by Joseph Campbell. Sorry if you already know it. This is a truly well-meaning recommendation. (You'll find an excerpt on amazon. )

71. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #12482 by Ewan D on December 12, 2006 at 6:07 am

To echo Billy, I've had enough. Those of us with a bit of patience have made generous allowances - David is after all a fallible being like the rest of us. But when each of his 'rebuttals' is as lazy and unedifying as the last, with the most worthwhile points IGNORED there comes a point when you have to give up. His ignorant one-size-fits-all attitude to non theists and selective amnesia keeps him blissfully unaware that any serious challenges have come his way, keeping their cumulative effect to a reassuring zero.

He prides himself on having grappled once. Been there, done that. Now he knows enough to cover his ears and preach for the rest of his life.

72. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #12205 by Ewan D on December 11, 2006 at 9:01 am

David,

I said "I wish I had a direct line to the source of all truth." You said 'You do. If only you would ask. And listen.'

But I'm afraid your personal testimony isn't that promising: when you pray for answers, what does the source of all truth tell you?
'Usually nothing. He usually just expects me to think and to use the mind he has given me. Plus he wants me to listen to what he has already said – both in the creation and more especially in his word.'

What does 'usually nothing' mean? Is it embarrassing to admit that the answer is actually ALWAYS nothing. You have never received a coherent message, delivered unambiguously to your mind by the source of all truth?

Lacking such guidance, faced with silence but cocooned in meditative prayerful cosiness you infer what must be expected of you - just to keep using your mind, and keep focussed on the bright and beautiful in nature and keep reading the good book. You pass this off as a message from a deity, and think I'll accept it.

I'm not surprised your son finds more succour in Slayer than prayer. He prefers wall-free head-banging.

73. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #12194 by Ewan D on December 11, 2006 at 7:37 am

And I agree with MartinSGill on the question of fidelity.

Once again, David uses his trusty crowbar to create a gap for God and inadvertantly puts the rest of us in the uncomfortable position of actually being more moral at heart than one of God's chosen. Own goal.

74. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #12193 by Ewan D on December 11, 2006 at 7:10 am

"Are earthquakes caused by man's evil or not?"

'Don't know.'

That's not good enough David. Your theory is on the ropes and you know it. Although you won't commit yourself, your demand for 'why' explanations for human carnage and suffering rules out the possibility that earthquakes just happen as a regrettable feature of plate tectonics.

I submit that your lifelong, well nurtured and groundless intuition that everything relates to a moral narritive is at the heart of all your erroneous thinking.

Your intellect is unsatisfied with 'how' explanations. Unfortunately that same insatiable intellect has to settle for not knowing, when grievously inadequate 'why' explanations threaten to cause you cognitive dissonance.

But we press you on your rationalisations in the hope that some of the clear absurdities will shake you out of your complacency - some hope. We lead you to water but you trot back to the mirage and pray that your thirst will be quenched when you die.

I say that, but I'm gratified that you followed the link I gave, and enjoyed the diversity of interviewees. Even if one atheist intellectual, Dawkins, fails to give time to a question on free will on one occasion, it is rather hasty of you to dance on objectivism's grave.

Watch that your position as father and pastor doesn't preclude you from being open to doubt, (of the constructive variety) and exhilarated by it. It's an honest faculty and refreshing when encountered in others. Beware of psychologically astute propogandists like C.S. Lewis who would twist your faculty for inquiry and force you to cling foolishly to the Bible whenever questions arise. It is a sorry spectacle.

Yrs,
Uncle Screwtape

75. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #12006 by Ewan D on December 9, 2006 at 7:23 am

Just that link from Eamonn Shute again, in case anybody missed it...

http://www.atheists.org/Atheism/roots/musicians/

What's that? Beethoven, Berlioz, Bizet, Brahms, Debussy, Mozart, Paganini, Schubert, Schumann, Richard Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Wagner - all skeptics? I don't think David will be using that argument again. It seems God's creative spirit is particularly richly manifested in those who doubt or reject his existence. Interesting.

Who can we list among the devout Christians? Messiaen perhaps? (Put some over the loudspeakers and watch David's congregation flee in terror!)

Or Bruckner - intermittent genius and part time child rapist.

Now David,

'Seeing [beauty] as a mechanistic response is for me profoundly depressing and intellectually a very unsatisfying explanation.'

Well that's too bad. It says more about your inability to recognise a powerful mechanistic response for what it is, in all its transcendent glory. You place an artificial limit on mechanistic responses to create a gap for God.



'Did I miss something? Where did I say that earthquakes were evil? Evil is something moral and as far as I am aware earthquakes are not moral beings.'

Don't be an ass. I didn't say you said earthquakes were evil. Your link between evil and natural disasters is that the latter came about (presumably to God's dismay) as a result of the former's entry into the world. (An event which you can't place before or after the dinosaurs.) I chose my example carefully (earthquakes) because they are related to plate tectonics, not global warming. Are earthquakes caused by man's evil or not?

There were tsunamis, hurricaines, tornadoes, bolts of lightning, ice ages, droughts, plagues etc. long before today's man-induced climate change. Correct me if I'm wrong but for all these you see a causal link to man's evil. Not with physical causality, like the greenhouse effect, but through some other karmic medium, visiting our sins back on us through meteorological chaos. John Blanchard - another articulate evangelical believes this - so do you agree?

If everybody on the planet converted to the free church and repented, would earthquakes stop bringing classroom masonry down on the heads of children? (I've noticed that Blanchard enjoys writing about the horrors of natural disasters in this kind of style.)

I preempted your global warming example with a touch of sarcasm in my comment 593: 'The ravages of climate change are a gift for fundamentalists because they give graphic illustration of the payback for burning fuel - something which is of course only ever done through sheer godless hedonism.'

'If you mean do I believe that evil in human beings has consequences. The answer is yes. Our evil taints everything – including the planet. I think you will find that global warming is not just an evolutionary process but a consequence of humans playing God and being greedy.'

I can see that we've plundered and polluted every natural resource through selfish interest. I can hardly bear to think about that truth. But it is predominantly the poorest nations who we see suffering the consequences (when the media bother to report it.) Where's the divine fairness in that? Does God see humanity as a collective entity, so he doesn't care which section reaps what another sows?

And please, have you watched E. O. Wilson on www.meaningoflife.tv yet? I wouldn't insist if I thought you'd hate it. There are many other interesting speakers there, including religious ones. (Though no fundamentalists. The emphasis seems to be on quick, not dead thinkers.)

76. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #11931 by Ewan D on December 8, 2006 at 8:42 am

By the way David, when you ask God if you are riven with wishful thinking and self deception, what does he say? And when you ask him, 'Lord, am I just talking to myself?' what then?

I wish I had a direct line to the source of all truth.

77. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #11930 by Ewan D on December 8, 2006 at 8:32 am

Bad luck Martin - that's so maddening!

Billy - I was glad to find it online. Good ol' Google!

78. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #11929 by Ewan D on December 8, 2006 at 8:30 am

'I guess the simplier (and crueler) way would be to accept that it is all just natural – part of the evolutionary process.'

David thinks evil has a supernatural basis which is in keeping with God's will.

79. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #11926 by Ewan D on December 8, 2006 at 8:15 am

'However I do know that there is such a thing as evil, that it did enter this world and that it has had a negative impact in many ways.

You know it, do you?

But you're wrong, woefully, lamentably, and palpably in the way you equate evil with earthquakes. It takes such a leap of backward thinking to accommodate such a myth that the sensation is one of suffocation. Yet it is the only way you can rationalise otherwise needless, pitiless suffering.

'I guess the simplier (and crueler) way would be to accept that it is all just natural – part of the evolutionary process.'

It is simpler to accept because at least it is coherent, even if it doesn't make a great story. I'd like to maintain a distinction between truth and fiction, even if your need for narrative overwhelms your objectivity.

I won't whine about your reply being evasive, but I get the feeling that you're now just going through the motions. I'll find someone else to deave with my questions.

80. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #11920 by Ewan D on December 8, 2006 at 7:26 am

David,

If you think beauty is not sufficiently well attended to by evolutionary psychology, you've got to give examples which falsify the premise that the apprehension of beauty and the corollary of wellbeing has its roots in survival. Pinker explores this territory in 'How the Mind Works' and the neuroscientist Ramachandran reports on the clear, survival promoting correlations between structured stimulus and reward.

Beauty is a slippery substance to pin down, but but as an artist myself I'm following scientific findings with interest, and find none of them offensive to my sensitivities. The quote from Solomon is offensive, in the way it dismisses Attenborough-style breadth of awareness.

All things dull and ugly
All creatures short and squat
All things rude and nasty
The Lord God made the lot

Each little snake that poisons
Each little wasp that stings
He made their brutish venom
He made their horrid wings

All things sick and cancerous
All evil great and small
All things foul and dangerous
The Lord God made them all

Each nasty little hornet
East beastly little squid
Who made the spikey urchin
Who made the sharks, He did

All things scabbed and ulcerous
All pox both great and small
Putrid, foul, and gangrenous
The Lord God made them all

AMEN

Author: Eric Idle
Originated From: Monty Python Sings

81. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #11907 by Ewan D on December 8, 2006 at 6:30 am

David, Having just watched the Edward O. Wilson interview again I'd just like to restate my endorsement of his stance. There's a humane intellect - a credit to our species.

And since you found Dawkins' treatment of 'the God Hypothesis' unsatisfactory, brace yourself for Victor Stenger's forthcoming book, God - The Failed Hypothesis - which sticks as far as possible to its scientific remit. (I've read an early draft)

82. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #11904 by Ewan D on December 8, 2006 at 6:05 am

Hi Billy,

Yes, David Attenborough put it well, but of course these sentiments elicit nothing more than a big solipsistic yawn from David Robertson.

David, thanks for answering. I honestly didn't mean you to hang yourself so willingly on the rope I offered.

'God could have created a world in which there was no pain, suffering etc.

How? for one thing, the food chain must have been 100% herbiverous, or prey species must have lacked nervous systems.

'Indeed he did.'

(The rope tightens)

Try giving a plausible historical description of this paradise, and fit it into the known geological timeframe. (Before or after the dinosaurs will do. I'm not a historian)

'The main question is what went wrong? And why does it continue to go wrong?'

Easy. A wicked talking reptile (just your typical inhabitant of intelligently designed perfect world) persuaded a pair of idiots into eating some magic fruit of damnation which was growing unguarded in an otherwise perfect paradise.

'Free will and a lot of other stuff are bound up with that.'

How glib. Which comes first - accepting the story of the fall and thereby detecting a prudent cause and effect relationship in nature, or deciding objectively that the suffering you see around you is fair, and thereby accepting the Eden fable as either true or a perfectly appropriate metaphor?

If it's the former, you've been brainwashed. Perhaps irretrievably. If the latter, you haven't looked hard enough at reality.

The ravages of climate change are a gift for fundamentalists because they give graphic illustration of the payback for burning fuel - something which is of course only ever done through sheer godless hedonism.

'But as your prophet has said he is not interested in free will.'

That's the second time you've called Dawkins my prophet, and it's wearing thin. I listened to the interview you're referring to, and yes, I winced when he said he's not interested in free will. I don't believe he meant that, except insofar as he was unprepared for the question. He was, after all, having to keep up with his opponent's misrepresentation of genetic determinism, and bulldozer tactics, (the boot on the other foot?) while formulating a response. He was flustered - a spectacle I wouldn't relish on either side.

Listen to E. O. Wilson on www.meaningoflife.tv for someone having a stab at explaining free will, but don't expect a final, comprehensive account - there isn't one. You'll have to be as patient as the rest of us - there are no shortcuts. Same goes for the existence of matter. The biblical explanation is no better than any other ancient myth.

And you'd do well to keep up to date with New Scientist - a couple of articles in the Nov 18 issue address such deep neurological issues as free will and self, with one analysing the cerebral mechanisms of self control and their vulnerability to damage (raising deep questions about responsibility).

P.S. Surprised you didn't favour us with the CORRECT interpretation of Mark 4

83. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #11851 by Ewan D on December 7, 2006 at 5:52 pm

'I live in a universe created by a personal God, the God of mercy, logic, justice, goodness, truth, beauty and love. The God whose purposes and intentions are good.'

David, this is not a rhetorical question: do you ever wonder if you might have fallen prey to wishful thinking and self deception? Maybe my consciousness has been raised too high for my own good, but I find your assertion heartless. It strikes me as being in appalling taste to will such virtues into all you see, including (unless you're partially sighted) the indiscriminate suffering caused to humans and animals by the blind forces of nature.

I share your impulse to feel gratitude for the comforts and blessings in my life, but I don't for a second imagine that I deserve them more than those who are maimed, mutilated or widowed by natural disasters. It feels hideously presumptious to imagine divine justice is being served.

God, through nature, punishes innocents. That, on any showing is illogical, unjust, evil, ugly, and unloving.

But what's a bit of earthly suffering? These innocents (comprising - if we stick to your theology - the saved, and those who missed being saved through no fault of their own*) will get a huge compensation cheque in heaven. They'll do well out of 'God's plan' and won't resent being denied a proper shot at life.

Not so lucky for the others who find themselves enduring endless billions and trillions of years of torture. (Tell me, if it were up to you, who would YOU condemn to such a sentence? I want to see you bring all your goodness, logic, mercy and love to bear. WWJD?)



*Seemingly Jesus is picky about who he wants to save. Here's a comment on Mark chapter 4 from another thread (where the author JimMet quotes from an essay he wrote):

6. Comment #11764 by JimMet on December 7, 2006 at 6:49 am

"[I]n the gospel of Mark, chapter four, He reveals His sagacity while preaching in parable to a "great multitude" by the sea. After the sermon, His disciples ask why He used a parable instead of speaking straightforwardly. He replies that His double-talk is a mystery lest those He does not want in heaven are converted and their sins forgiven. He then interprets the Galilean galimatias for His perplexed disciples—the votaries who should best understand Him and least need clarification. Yet, earlier, He had left His congregation scratching their heads in perplexity: he might have preached with as much effect in a foreign tongue. He must have harbored an inexplicable detestation for those simple souls who came to Him thirsting for moral enlightenment, and for whom, by His own admission, He could have granted salvation with a few intelligible words. Rather, He hardened His heart against any semblance of human kindness (again proving His divinity?) and consigned them to suffer the eternal tortures of Hell. In His selfish elitism and unfathomable cruelty, The Paradigm of Perfection neglected to communicate unambiguously to everyone except His gang of twelve.

How should we assess the intellect and personality of someone who bothers to deliver a sermon he knows his listeners do not understand, not because they lack understanding, but because he is intentionally obscure and cruel? If perfection is, as argued, efficiently wedding means to ends, to what end did this act of supreme pitilessness aim? Perfect evil? For if His purpose was to commit a crime of the greatest possible enormity, what could be worse than to torment for eternity common folk who, by gathering before Him, demonstrated their unconditional trust in His saving power? A greater evil is unimaginable, but this was putatively the perfect action of God Incarnate."

Mercy. Logic. Justice. Goodness. Truth. Beauty. Love.......... Discuss

84. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #9042 by Ewan D on November 23, 2006 at 9:56 am

Gee that sounded stilted. At least I won't be accused of seductive eloquence.

Excellent previous post by Martin though.

85. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #9037 by Ewan D on November 23, 2006 at 9:46 am

David,

'They have had a bad experience of religion in some form or other; therefore they project that on to every religion or religious person.'

Now who's the amateur psychologist? I'll speak for myself. For years I was a member of a Scottish Episcopalian choir - a continuous highpoint of my youth with many good friends and role models. Those experiences were deeply enriching - primarily because of the music and atmosphere - and I have no grudges or scores to settle.

On top of that I've had intimate involvement with the Bretheren community here in SW Scotland, and was shown warmth and hospitality, and certainly nothing less than politeness - a witty and creative bunch, particularly at ease among their kin.

I was commissioned to paint the portrait of a recent Church of Scotland Moderator, a quiet man with intellect to spare - true theological elite, and disarmingly friendly.

David Robertson too - splendid chap!

For all those positive associations, what has always been conspicuously absent is evidence to support the concept of revealed knowledge. I've never been shown a quotation or heard a statement which was plausibly revealed from a more knowledgeable source than humanity.

Deny this if you will, but if it's not an unfair demand, avoid circular reasoning.

The lack of historical evidence doesn't perturb believers who have daily experience of God working in their lives, whispering divine wisdom to them all the time. But why does his contribution remain invisible to outsiders - indistinguishable from the believer working alone, with normal human faculties and information? (Acting at best, with conviction.)

The 'imaginary friend' hypothesis is of course unflattering for the believer, but it is a serious one, and eminently falsifiable. I postulate it, not as a put-down, but on the basis of honest introspective analysis of my own imaginative experience. We can be deluded, and under certian circumstances the more intellect we can bring to bear (or seductive eloquence), the more we'll succeed in keeping ourselves that way.

THE qualitative difference between the belief in God and the absense of a belief in God - a reason why one is more likely to be delusory than the other, is the explicit emotional vulnerability in the former, and potential emotional neutrality of the latter. I say potential because it'll differ from individual to individual (of course certain Christians think all atheists have their beloved lives of immorality at stake, but that's just ignorance.) I for one search myself and find I have nothing to lose by discovering God. After all I could present the evidence to my non-believing chums, so I wouldn't even lose them.

86. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #8446 by Ewan D on November 21, 2006 at 9:04 am

aristocat,

Replace the names of organisms on your nested family tree with their genetic sequences, and start to understand how a conscious genetic engineer or the 'blind watchmaker' of mutation/natural selection can manipulate the sequences to create whole new organisms.

87. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #8445 by Ewan D on November 21, 2006 at 8:51 am

astralcat

'Nested hierarchy is contrary to what one would expect if evolution is true. Evolution requires sequential relations but, of course, this is not what one finds.'

On the contrary, one finds both. A complete nested heirarchy would reveal the sequential steps with crystal clarity, but the fact of the unbroken family lineages would not remove the necessary convention of nested segregation of non-interbreeding groups - ie at the species level.

88. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #8409 by Ewan D on November 21, 2006 at 6:44 am

Evangelicals like David are keen on describing conversion experiences and their lasting inner sense of peace and contact with the Holy Spirit.

The skeptic would notice that this phenomenon bears some of the hallmarks of romantic infatuation, including the cruel trick of manifestly compromised reason* in direct proportion to the heightened subjective sense of truth and clear sightedness.

Meditating on love and asking Jesus to enter your life is an invitation to delusion which acts on highly impressionable, pre-intellectual emotional instincts, evolutionarily wired for familial bonding. Where straight-forward stupidity isn't a viable explanation for delusion (is it ever?) emotion, loosley speaking, can be identified as the brain's Achilles heel.

* The alarm bells should sound when you catch yourself saying that the more you look at it, the more inerrant the Bible (Koran, whatever) becomes. All that you're noticing (with the makings of useful insight) is the lengths our minds can go to to maintain equilibrium through ad-hoc story-telling and rationalising.

89. BEYOND REDUCTIONISM: Reinventing The Sacred

Comment #8219 by Ewan D on November 20, 2006 at 4:32 pm

For a treasure trove of fullsome video interviews with intellectuals of many stripes (to those who haven't encountered it yet) I heartily recommend http://meaningoflife.tv/

Whatever my first impressions I invariably found sympathy for some aspect of the various speakers' stances - all admirable spokespeople for a range of scientific/pseudoscientific and (brace yourselves) religious outlooks.

The common thread is interviewer (and author) Robert Wright's intuited sense of purpose in the universe - an idea which is either embraced or rejected by the interviewees - but some highly illuminating conversations arise.

Was reminded of the site after reading a few lines of the above article. Now to finish it!

90. How Full Is Your Quiver?

Comment #8174 by Ewan D on November 20, 2006 at 3:03 pm

Great. The exponential spread of the 'quiver' meme - just what a grossly overpopulated planet needs.

91. How Full Is Your Quiver?

Comment #8171 by Ewan D on November 20, 2006 at 3:01 pm

Great. The exponential spread of the 'quiver' meme - just what a grossly overpoulated planet needs.