The God Delusion - ongoing review

GeoffP

GeoffP

Caput gerat lupinum
Valued Senior Member
Right. I'm listening to the God Delusion (R. Dawkins) and he's sort of annoying me. I'll probably post the bits that annoy me here. It's cathartic. Who else here has read? He's a bother. The thing is - and I think another poster here has mentioned it prior :D - is portrayed as an epistle. "Please see this chapter if you feel trapped in the religion of your upbringing". "Please consult this chapter if you actually believe in a God, you fool". And so on. Now, this is all well and good, but maybe it should indeed be said that he is in fact preaching. I liked some of his previous work well enough, but now he's bothering me.

Mutatis mutandis :D - and a reverse but accurate description of his proclamation - there are indeed no theist children of any kind, but also no athiest children either. All could be at best considered agnostic. It smells like the complaint of someone who feels, hidden in his office, that he is being publicly trod upon.

Also, why does he assume athiests need to be or ever have been apologetic about anything? Why is atheism indicative of a "healthy mind"? I know any number of theists with healthy minds, and atheists with unhealthy minds, and I submit that the health of a mind is a far more complex thing than one's position on religion.

More to come, as I see fit. Devour, thou swine!

Best,

Geoff
 
Hmm...object to the implication that faith is a psychiatric disorder.
 
I find the darwin thumping atheist only slightly less annoying than say someone like Sandy or Adstar.

Frankly i've met Atheists that make me want to believe in god. Zealotry and knowest moreth than thou - really piss me off no matter the source.
 
I have no idea what the hell you guys are talking about. I read the book and found it interesting, comprehensive, and reasonable.
 
"Faithheads"??

Childhood indoctrination...and he applies intelligence only to those that reject religious perspective. Unfair, and absurd.

Also - why is a mysticism of nature common to anyone? (Ignoring my recent mystic sideline in another thread...I'm motivated only by absurdity, humour and a grasping attention to understanding there anyway.) Why should anyone of Dawkin's keen insight romanticize anything at all about nature?

His wife also cites Sagan's bit about how no religion allows that science's picture is better than theirs - which is unfair, as the Catholic Church has accepted at least the idea of evolution. Invective getting in the way of his points.

I also criticize the mystical rapture that Darwin himself spoke of - how is this naturalistic? Does a dog stop to admire a waterfall? They bloody don't. They urinate in it, and drink from it - and usually both - but I find it hard to believe they sit gaping at it. These loftier notions are the byproducts of an unjustifiably overactive cortex. Sagan doesn't, so far as I'm concerned - and certainly not bloody Dawkins - evoke any "transcendant wonder". What has such admiration to do with empiricism? It's a damnfool position - either it is naturalistic, or it isn't. Anything else is cosmic navelgazing.

"Richness to human life", my arse. Naturalism or bloody not.
 
I can't respond much to questions - sorry guys - but I'll continue to provoke as I go. Of any of evolution's architects, I'll say I find Dawkins the most extreme and sometimes unfairly so, and drop it at that.
 
My theory is that at alpha=0.05 in a two-tailed t test of significance, the people can be considered normal (whatever that is).

The idiots rest overlap at either end of the distribution and provide a constant source of media entertainment to the rest.
 
"Believing in belief" - fair enough. There are some like that, certainly. I appreciate that he has to refute the whole Einsteinian support of religion. Seems a bit pointless though; but not for everyone, I do expect.
 
Guh...more anthropomorphosizing nature (26 min)...this time by Einstein. Same complaint as above. It's naturalism or it isn't. Einstein is not immune here.
 
28 min - shall we challenge the concept of religious expertise? Can one be called a religious expert, even though we would refute the interest of an accredited "faerieologist"? I leave this one to you lot. It's possible. Yet we do allow those with interests in mythology all sorts of credibility within their area. Can religion not be based on knowledge? Do not these texts reflect a sort of historical record, in extremis? Why romanticize anything, which Dawkins also admits to? What is love but a biochemical reaction? Bah.
 
Hmm...relegation to possibility of God as panthiesm. Describes Einsteinian God as an allowance to natural process behind a phenomenon; refutes unknowable or incomprehensible causation. Well, I don't know. My brother doesn't understand algebra, but I use it. Doesn't mean algebra is God, or a substitute for God. If God is part of the universe, doesn't that make him also naturalistic? Processes we don't understand and all that? Hmm.

That's all for now.

Best,

Geoff
 
I read the book 'The God Delusion' and what I took away from it was different. Moths navigate their environment with starlight. It's a survival advantage; however, many moths cannot tell the difference between a star and a lightbulb and as a result they mis-navigate to your porch. By anology, humans navigate their environment with belief. It's a survival advantage; however, many humans cannot tell the difference between truth and ficton. The result is they mis-navigate to delusion, oppression, extremism, progress-retardation, etc. It's natural but I agree with Dawkins that it's dangerous.

Think about it this way. In 500 million years this planet will be too hot for all mammilian life to survive (the ocean will literally be boiling). Will Jesus, Allah, ... <gods ad infinitum> save us from that fate or will science do so? The question is of course rhetorical; however, delusional belief by its very nature seeks to supress / dismantle truth and therefore is really a threat to our species.
 
Crunchy Cat said:
Think about it this way. In 500 million years this planet will be too hot for all mammilian life to survive (the ocean will literally be boiling). Will Jesus, Allah, ... <gods ad infinitum> save us from that fate or will science do so? The question is of course rhetorical; however, delusional belief by its very nature seeks to supress / dismantle truth and therefore is really a threat to our species.
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Us?
We won't be there.
Or to put it another way, whatever is there will not be us - according to scientists - it will be some other kind of thing. Science will not save you.
 
sowhatifit'sdark said:
Us?
We won't be there.
Or to put it another way, whatever is there will not be us - according to scientists - it will be some other kind of thing. Science will not save you.
Click to expand...

too right - the average lifespan of a mammalian species is a few million years
not for us to worry what happens at some very distant point in the future, we won't be there + we'll be v.v.lucky if our descendants are there

remember, 500 million years is about the duration of the Phanerozoic so far, and this period has already known at least 5 major extinction events
 
spider said:
I have no idea what the hell you guys are talking about. I read the book and found it interesting, comprehensive, and reasonable.
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I just read the book, finally - Geoff is not reading, he's listening. And he seems to be hearing stuff I didn't read in the book - epistles and whatnot, annoying directions.

Anybody have a take on the audiobook versions of things like this ? I have a feeling it depends on the reader voice and the organizational setup.

Maybe print books don't push people around as much, intrinsically ?

Another factor: most atheists that theists find confronting them are adult converts - and they have some of the same tendencies that people have who by an effort of will and denial quit smoking, drinking, or eating meat. {edited for extreme priggishness}
 
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sowhatifit'sdark said:
Us?
We won't be there.
Or to put it another way, whatever is there will not be us - according to scientists - it will be some other kind of thing. Science will not save you.
Click to expand...

When I refer to 'us' in this context I am including of course any future species where homo sapiens become an ancestor. If I were a betting man, I would bet on the probability that 'we' will begin asserting much greater control over our environment as science gives us a greater understanding of reality.

Options for surviving past the natural lifetime of mammals on earth might include:

* Genetic alterations.
* Populating the galaxy.
* Making planets mobile (ex. to stay an optimal distance away from the sun).

I think these are realistic potential results; however, delusional belief is a threat to such outcomes.
 
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Pinch me, I must be dreaming.

Me, Kadark, actually agreeing with something GeoffP has to say? Well, knock me over with a feather!

Say, Geoff, are you an athesit/agnostic?
 
spidergoat said:
No, a God would not be naturalistic if it can disobey nature's laws.
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it's completely natural to be able to disobey natural laws. if we are not supernatural, why do people say that cars and computers are unnatural?

Crunchy Cat said:
Think about it this way. In 500 million years this planet will be too hot for all mammilian life to survive (the ocean will literally be boiling). Will Jesus, Allah, ... <gods ad infinitum> save us from that fate or will science do so?
Click to expand...

god has already saved us by giving us immortal souls. so it doesn't really matter what happens to our 'species' after 500 million years.
 
Yorda said:
it's completely natural to be able to disobey natural laws. if we are not supernatural, why do people say that cars and computers are unnatural?
Click to expand...

No, it isn't. Cars and computers may be called "unnatural", but they obey all natural laws.
 
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