...I have not seen MS Ali lose yet....

....she is probably high on the Muslims "things to do " list....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at November 30, 2007 7:37 AM

Droll about Richard Dawkins not existing. Nonetheless, I though that this was one of Ayaan's poorer debates (admitedly a high standard, but nonetheless...)

Anyway, if you want to see something enjoyable, take a look at this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=V6WByhz44EA&feature=related

And start watching at about 7 minutes in.

Posted by: Fanusi Khiyal at November 30, 2007 7:55 AM

Richard Dawkins appeared in an episode of South Park.
Therefore, he exists.
Period.

Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 30, 2007 8:50 AM

It may be dawning on Dawkins that his equal-opportunity dismissal of all religions was naive, and dangerous. Islam is a menace unlike any other, and Dawkins' belief that all religions are essentially the same in their message and in their goodness or badness puts him right smack in the same camp as George Bush, right in the same galere. Does he want that?

Dawkins may, if he now starts to find out about Islam -- perhaps has a little chat with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Wafa Sultan, Ibn Warraq (whose first book he claims to admire), even come to regret his stupid and unsympathetic and ahistorical remarks about Israel and the attempts, sometimes malardroit, and always misunderstood, of that tiny state to resist the steady diplomatic, economic, propagandistic, and when possible military attacks and pressure on it, part of a Leser Jihad. -- based on his credulous acceptance of what has been daily dripping from the BBC and The Guardian and The Independent and from the lips of "everyone" he knows in Oxford and London, during the last few decades. He might exercise a bit more of that skepticism on which he prides himself, start learning about Islam, really learning, and then about the history of non-Arab and non-Muslim peoples in the Middle East, and then even study such things as the cadastraland demographic records, and travellers' accounts, of that part of the Ottoman Empire that later became Mandatory Palestine. And then he might study the that Mandate itself, and what it was set up to accomplish, and why. And then further he mightr start asking himself when the phrase "Palestinian people" started so suddenly to be used, and why.

Oh, there are lots of questions that Richard Dawkins, with his remarks about "the Jews" to a recent "Humanists Convention," might begin to ask himself, perhaps beginning to understand that if skepticism is good, then it should even be applied to the BBC, the Guardian, Robert Fisk, and so on.

Or is he limited in the areas to which he will apply such skepticism, and in which he is willing to inquire further, and then further still?

One waits, and wonders.

Posted by: Hugh at November 30, 2007 9:09 AM

Great discussion.

Ali says the War on Terror is the war against islam.

Does anyone doubt that Husain would be crying for islam without his former compatriots getting their ass beat in Iraq ? That he would reject terrorism for any other reason ? That he, as a neo-socialist calling for more state intervention to integrate the muslims, would not be howling for understanding and this new 'interpretation' of islam without the price on jihadi's heads by the West ?

Ali is right - there is a fundamental conflict of values between the West and islam, and the call for sharia is a battle call.

The best jihadi is a dead one. The war is not directly against muslims, but against islam.

Bless the American and other Western fighters to whom we now owe our freedoms. Not the candy assed socialist intellectuals, but our courageous fighters.

Posted by: dgene at November 30, 2007 10:22 AM

Hugh referred to

>Dawkins' belief that all religions are essentially the same in their message and in their goodness or badness

This a bit of a straw man, because Dawkins has not expressed such a blanket opinion. He HAS rejected their supernatural foundation equally, as any humanist would.

He may appear to give more time to criticising Christianity, but this is because he is a leading opponent of creationism being accepted as a field of science. As the creationist/intelligent design campaign is being led by some christians, it is inevitable that he concentrates on them.

To his credit, on the few occasions he gets asked such questions, he dismisses claims about islam and science as both ludicrous and trivial and hardly worthy of debate.

I would actually go further and suggest that none of the leading humanists/atheists have a 'soft' view of islam. Christopher Hitchens is exceptionally knowlegeable of the koran and hadith and never pulls punches when discussing its totalitarian nature. Sam Harris, even more so. His recent lectures have made it absolutely clear he sees islam as a universal danger to humanity.

In fact, if you check the richarddawkins.net forums you will find that many of the contributors are quite sophisticated in their world view of islam and there are often references to and clearly traffic between the jihadwatch/dhimmiwatch/religionofpeace websites.

Posted by: zoltix at November 30, 2007 11:08 AM

Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee. She is the greatest!
Ed Husain, Knocked out in the first round. Ding!

Posted by: jewdog at November 30, 2007 11:14 AM

As a HUGE fan of Mr Dawkins, well said zoltix

Posted by: ewha1 at November 30, 2007 11:19 AM

As a HUGE fan of Mr Dawkins, well said zoltix. Though I do have a few issues of his view of Israel. To say the least.

Posted by: ewha1 at November 30, 2007 11:20 AM

I recently picked up Dawkins book, "The God delusion", which I thought was quite well written. I don't know much about Dawkins previous position on Islam, but based on this book I did not see any sign of his using moral equivalence. While he does criticize and poke holes into the cherished beliefs of all religions, he is quite scathing in his criticism of Islam in his book. I quite liked his comment (in his book.. and I'm phrasing this very poorly from memory) that it is precisely the kind of lack of questioning about people's 'irrational' beliefs that often allows the muslims to get a free pass when it comes to propagating their ridiculous views.

Posted by: Razdan at November 30, 2007 11:26 AM

Dawkins along time ago existed. The Selfish Gene was a great book although E.O. Wilson was the real scientist who broke the back of the idea that the mind was a blank slate at birth. Dawkins was against communism and was one of the main enemies of the multiculturalist. If he would just focus his efforts on them he could do real good.

However in the last few years he has been on a crusade against all religions. He keeps debating people over the existence of a god. It is such a waste of time. No one can prove there is a god or that god does not exist at least using the scientific method. Dawkins never seems to understand that atheism is a faith also so I could just as well mock him for his un-scientific assumptions.

His faith clouds his judgement...

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at November 30, 2007 11:35 AM

greatcometof1577, you might want to read Dawkin's "the God delusion", where he actually tackles precisely this question. He does acknowledge that it is not possible to conclude with 100% surity that there is no God... what he does say is that one can make some reasonable judgments about this based on the use of one's intellect. He gives the example of someone claiming that there are flying teapots circling around the Earth. Yes, there is no way one can clearly prove that there are not flying teapots; but one can still quite reasonably conclude that this contention (i.e. flying teapots) is a load of crock.

Posted by: Razdan at November 30, 2007 11:52 AM

Dawkins never seems to understand that atheism is a faith

Atheism is a faith like not collecting stamps is a hobby and bald is a hair color.

Posted by: Engineer-Poet at November 30, 2007 12:00 PM

"The Selfish Gene was a great book although E.O. Wilson was the real scientist who broke the back of the idea that the mind was a blank slate at birth."

I used to think the same, but Desmond Morris seems to have tackled this issue popularly before Wilson's more technical and scholarly work came out. And to that, Morris had substantial scholarly references.

Also, someone I know whose father was a tenured prof in the Social Sciences the 1960s and 1970s claims their father had Morris' work on his bookshelf (but didn't read it). Reportedly it was a bit of a fad when it came out.

What I understand of the history of the blank slate debate is that at least since the 1940s, there had been a significant and growing scholarly presence supporting the idea of some inborn nature, in the Anglophone world. Morris, Wislon, Dawkins, and other all contributed to building this trend to the point where it challenged blank slaters.

It came to a head with Wilson because he put it in the context of a really fine, comprehensive, scholarly work, and it came just around the time of the cultural revolution's successful rise to power in the academy.

His work couldn't easily be refuted by means other than refuting the basis of science, as a pursuit not of truth but of white male European power cleverly disguised as a pursiut of truth. Doing this explicitly alientates too many liberal people who do believe in truth as something approachable via reason, and so it is not as effective as smear campaigns--many liberals who do believe in science are opposed to racism and sexism, and if they can be convinced a particular science is racist or sexist, his work can be more effectively marginalized that way. Wilson seems to have gotten the brunt of the insults and violence in this debate as a result.

The Humanties managed to stay quite insulated from the work debunking blank slaters, and are in the thrall of Derrida and Foucault (the former building on the latter, and the latter building on Hegel). All are grounded in very continental ideology. It is focused on reducing everything people do, think, and are to historical power struggles.

For all that (British and American) Naturalism is derided as Nazi-like and fascist in the academy, the philosophical frameworks of its main opponents are actually far more similar to those. I find this unsurprising, as the university is actually, for the most part, a highly conservative institution (in the sense of being resistant to change), and it hasn't been so many generations since WWII that we could expect much more than a superficial change in the fundamentals of contintental philosophy.

As for the connection between them and now, briefly: Nature (and you'll find this in Christian theology as well as in Dawkins, Wilson, etc.) implies the possibility of some grounds for dealing with people other than power and domination: innate reasoning ability, and capacity to approximate objective truth. Without these, everything is just a power struggle, and might makes right, insofar as there is any right. This basic core is predominant in continental philosophy now, and it was predominant in continental philosophy prior to WWII.

The Social Sciences are similar to the Humanities, but a bit more of a mixed bag. Antrho and Soc are more like the humanities, Econ more like the natural sciences, Poli Sci somewhere in between.

Posted by: hope_and_justice at November 30, 2007 12:58 PM

THIS is what I call "the thrilla in londonistan!"
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58924
Galloway, he's not just a traitor to the UK-he's a traitor to mankind.
I'm embarrassed he's even considered a Scotsman.

Posted by: jcom972 at November 30, 2007 1:05 PM

Atheism is, more accurately, a belief-system.

Posted by: awake at November 30, 2007 2:20 PM

Ed Husain says "Islamism" is a political ideology formed in the 1940's, then states the persecutions of apostates was instituted as a political exercise by the first caliph. All in the space of his first five minutes. Of course "treason" being equated to apostacy isn't a POLITICAL equation, in Ed Husain's mind.

Posted by: desert dweller at November 30, 2007 2:29 PM

Dear Hugh ,

Allow me to do a little defence of Richard Dawkins. What you have to understand is that Richard Dawkins is a scientist, and that brings with it a peculiar weakness: a difficulty to believe that you are being deliberately misled. And I am speaking as a scientist here. In science, 'common knowledge' is almost always right, and you take things at face value unless you have a glaring reason not to.

I could never do my work if I couldn't implicitly rely on the information I was recieving being always honest. Not always correct - I've thrashed my share of bad articles - but not specifically written with an intent to decieve.

Let me take an example:

Oh, there are lots of questions that Richard Dawkins, with his remarks about "the Jews" to a recent "Humanists Convention," might begin to ask himself, perhaps beginning to understand that if skepticism is good, then it should even be applied to the BBC, the Guardian, Robert Fisk, and so on.

Or is he limited in the areas to which he will apply such skepticism, and in which he is willing to inquire further, and then further still?

Look, I could never inquire about everything I come into contact with. When an astronomer or a geologist lays something out for me, I take it on trust, and that trust is sacred . Same thing here. This is the reason why so many scientists tend to be generically on the left.

I thought Islam was innocuous until I did the research. And Richard Dawkins has also said, in so many words, that Islam is the greatest evil around today.

Hugh, get something straight:

based on his credulous acceptance of what has been daily dripping from the BBC and The Guardian and The Independent and from the lips of "everyone" he knows in Oxford and London, during the last few decades.

What you call 'credulous acceptance' is just a scientists trust being hideously abused. I've seen this before.

And, I cannot but agree, take a look at richarddawkins.net. We have to get the word out about Islam and what it is, and it is no damn good just to preach to the choir. Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, precisely because they are so left, can reach audiences that this site wont. This is simply an obvious fact.

When it comes to Professor Dawkins's dismissal of all religion - what do you expect? He is a scientist, and he cares, first and foremost, about what is true. He keeps coming back to this. When I interviewed him, I brough up the point that there are many who turn to religion in order to lead a moral life, and just take the metaphysical elements 'as sprinklings'. His response was that he had no respect whatsoever for that kind of a viewpoint. And he shouldn't. The question of what is true must come first.

I would actually go further and suggest that none of the leading humanists/atheists have a 'soft' view of islam. Christopher Hitchens is exceptionally knowlegeable of the koran and hadith and never pulls punches when discussing its totalitarian nature. Sam Harris, even more so. His recent lectures have made it absolutely clear he sees islam as a universal danger to humanity.

I cannot agree enough with this paragraph. Take a look at Sam Harris's speech, from AAI, would you?

The second reason to be attentive to the differences among the world's religions is that these differences are actually a matter of life and death. There are very few of us who lie awake at night worrying about the Amish. This is not an accident. While I have no doubt that the Amish are mistreating their children, by not educating them adequately, they are not likely to hijack aircraft and fly them into buildings. But consider how we, as atheists, tend to talk about Islam. Christians often complain that atheists, and the secular world generally, balance every criticism of Muslim extremism with a mention of Christian extremism. The usual approach is to say that they have their jihadists, and we have people who kill abortion doctors. Our Christian neighbors, even the craziest of them, are right to be outraged by this pretense of even-handedness, because the truth is that Islam is quite a bit scarier and more culpable for needless human misery, than Christianity has been for a very, very long time. And the world must wake up to this fact. Muslims themselves must wake up to this fact. And they can.

To be even-handed when talking about the problem of Islam is to misconstrue the problem. The refrain, "all religions have their extremists," is bullshit—and it is putting the West to sleep. All religions don't have these extremists. Some religions have never had these extremists. And in the Muslim world, support for extremism is not extreme in the sense of being rare. A recent poll showed that about a third of young British Muslims want to live under sharia law and believe that apostates should be killed for leaving the faith. These are British Muslims. Sixty-eight percent of British Muslims feel that their neighbors who insult Islam should be arrested and prosecuted, and seventy-eight percent think that the Danish cartoonists should be brought to justice. These people don't have a clue about what constitutes a civil society. Reports of this kind coming out of the Muslim communities living in the West should worry us, before anything else about religion worries us.

I defy you to find something to object with in those paragraphs.

Posted by: Fanusi Khiyal at November 30, 2007 3:48 PM

Dawkins does still have much to learn about Islam. For one thing, from what I've read of him, he does not yet have an adequate grasp of the texts (Quran, Hadith, Sira). From his review (TimesOnline, Sept. 5, 2007) of Christopher Hitchens' God is not Great. Dawkins inserts an unintentionally misleading statement (in parentheses) about the basis of the apostasy law in Islam:

“[…] I once had a televised encounter with a leading “moderate” Muslim, of the kind who gets a knighthood or a peerage for not being an “extremist”. I publicly challenged this “moderate” to deny that the Muslim penalty for apostasy was death. Unable to do so (the Koran is word-for-word inerrant), he wriggled and twisted, and finally claimed that it was an “unimportant detail”, because never enforced. Tell that to Salman Rushdie, of whom the knighted “moderate” had earlier said, “Death is perhaps too easy for him”

http://tls.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25349-2649121,00.html

Of course, as an alert apologist would have surely pointed out, the Quran does not actually state directly and explicitly, word-for-word, that Muslims are authorized to kill simple apostates. The apologist would have more difficulty in denying that the word-for-word authorization comes from statements attributed to Muhammad in the Hadith. Some interpretation is needed to support the claim that the Quran gives a death penalty for mere, or simple, apostasy.

Aside from his above parenthetical insertion, his above statement does, otherwise, indicate a healthy skepticism and indeed wariness of the public claims of Muslim apologists. Moreover, he does recognize the threat that Islam poses and, more importantly, is actively working to oppose it. In his statement honoring Mina Ahadi, Richard Dawkins said:

“I have long felt that the key to solving the worldwide menace of Islamic terrorism and oppression would eventually be the awakening of women, and Mina Ahadi is a charismatic leader working to that end. The brutal suppression of the rights of women in many countries throughout the Islamic world is an obvious outrage. Slightly less obvious, but just as outrageous, is the supine willingness of western liberals to go along with it. It is worse than supine, it is patronising and condescending: "Wife-beating is part of 'their' culture. Who are we to condemn their traditions?" A religion so insecure as to mandate the death penalty for apostasy is not to be trifled with, and ex-Muslims who stand up and fight deserve our huge admiration and gratitude for their courage. Right out in front of this honourable band is Mina Ahadi. I salute her and congratulate her on this well-deserved award as Secularist of the Year.”

http://www.secularism.org.uk/iraniandissidentwinssecularistof.html

Posted by: Khaybar Oasis at November 30, 2007 5:07 PM

hope_and_justice

It was in truth William Hamilton who started the sociobiological revolution with his theory of Kin Selction in the early 1960s. The trouble was it was a technical work that did not seem to bother anyone. Sociobiology by E.O. Wilson did because if he was right then Communism could not work. That did not sit well with the university elite of the 1970s (and some would say today).

Here is a link to a speech by E.O. Wilson on the subject from 1995 on the debate over his work from the 1970s:
http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/taboos/wilson01.html

Of course Morris, Dawkins, and a few others were all part of the Sociobiology revolution during late 1970s. The odd thing about this is many of the arguments used against Wilson are some of the same kind of arguments used against Robert Spencer today. Yes they are completely different subjects but the tactics are the same. Instead of attacking Wilson using facts they just called him a racist and in one case dumped cold water on his head. Just replace the likes of Lewontin and Gould with D'Souza and Armstrong and change the debate from sociobiology to comparative religion.....

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at November 30, 2007 5:17 PM

Engineer-Poet

AAI...

Deity: Dawkins

Pope: Margaret Downey

The Richard Dawkins Award:

"The Richard Dawkins Award will be given every year to honor an outstanding atheist whose contributions raise public awareness of the nontheist life stance; who through writings, media, the arts, film, and/or the stage advocates increased scientific knowledge; who through work or by example teaches acceptance of the nontheist philosophy; and whose public posture mirrors the uncompromising nontheist life stance of Dr. Richard Dawkins"

This is not science...this worshop of Richard Dawkins.

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at November 30, 2007 5:26 PM

Could I see a source for that? A link? Because it sounds hokey to me.

Posted by: Fanusi Khiyal at November 30, 2007 5:30 PM

Ne'er mind, found it. However, what's really that wrong with it, on reflection? Richard Dawkins is a good role model.

Posted by: Fanusi Khiyal at November 30, 2007 5:34 PM

Fanusi Khiyal

So is Jesus! So is Moses! Thus let it be Dawkins too!

Why it bothers me is he passes off his personal belief that their is no god as scientific fact.

Nobody has clue one if their is a god or not. We can't even figure out the nature of light (is it a particle or a wave) as of now. Lets leave the god question alone (because it is a colossal waste of time) until we have enough facts to come up with a rational theory.

It is ok to have a belief. I have a belief that the speed of light may not be a constant in all places and at all times. The facts are not there for my belief as of now. Thus it shall continue to be a hunch, a belief, a faith, a WAG, whatever....it is not a fact. Thats all...

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at November 30, 2007 5:48 PM

their = there...

Thank you Bill Gates...

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at November 30, 2007 5:50 PM

Why it bothers me is he passes off his personal belief that their is no god as scientific fact.

Nobody has clue one if their is a god or not. We can't even figure out the nature of light (is it a particle or a wave) as of now. Lets leave the god question alone (because it is a colossal waste of time) until we have enough facts to come up with a rational theory.

Well, this is due to the multiple meanings of the word "God". If we are talking about a creative entity that set up the Universe and did nothing since then, then we can't disprove it. If we are talking about any of the individual gods that humanity has come up with, then, yes, we can, because specific attributes are claimed for these, and these attributes cannot befound.

Posted by: Fanusi Khiyal at November 30, 2007 6:28 PM

greatcometof1577,

I must have been rambling too much and didn't make my points clear.

"It was in truth William Hamilton who started the sociobiological revolution with his theory of Kin Selction in the early 1960s."

Yes but it was experiments on, if I remember correctly, the visual systems in cats' brains inthe 40s, and linguistic research in the 1950s, which began challenging the Skinnerianism by which blank slaters of an earlier era ruled the Social Sciences, in bed with only slightly different sort of social planners. These made it possible for Hamiltons of the world to, within a university setting, start positing heritable mental modules governing behavior.

Morris began pop publishing in the late 1960s, about 3-4 years before Wilson's Sociobiology as I recall. He was less scholarly than Hamilton or Wilson, but his work had the same implications for social planning as Wilson, spelled out nice and clear in easy to read English prose. Yet, he wasn't physically attacked or called a racist so far as I am aware.

"Sociobiology by E.O. Wilson did because if he was right then Communism could not work. That did not sit well with the university elite of the 1970s (and some would say today)."

It isn't only Sociobiology that challenges Communism in this way. Theories of human nature more generally do so. Morris was pretty explicit about it, and earlier, but significantly less technical and scholarly. So, there were other scientists whose theories posed a similar sort threat, but the timing of Wilson's work, and the quality, and the manner in which he put it into context, are what I think drew the attention to him rather than Hamilton and Morris.

Also, it isn't just Communism that they are protective of, but a larger view of truth and power. Nature and reason imply that might doesn't make right, and they suggest limits exist on getting what you want, and getting it in the way you expect to get it. There are major philosophical and political implications for that.

"Yes they are completely different subjects but the tactics are the same."

I don't think they are completely different subjects. They are related somewhat on issues of truth and power. That is part of why the tactics are the same.

One of the best way to confront someone who does a very reasonable well-evidenced work that challenges your views on truth and power, if you think might makes right and everything is really just a power struggle, is a smear campaign. You take away his social power, and then you win the argument and are proven correct, because in winning the argument is where truth lies, if anywhere.

"Why it bothers me is he passes off his personal belief that [there] is no god as scientific fact."

This is not true. He relates it to the philosophy of knowledge, of how people reasonably distinguish between things that exist and things (like toasters circling the earth or flying spaghetti monsters or magical pink unicorns or Zeus) that are impossible to disprove but exceedingly unlikely to exist.

Posted by: hope_and_justice at November 30, 2007 6:43 PM

I will add this comment, since I did not notice anyone else commenting on it, but when I followed the link to the Guardian article what I noticed was the question following every comment on wether the comment was offensive or unsuitable. Talk about empowering political correctness.

Posted by: stickman at November 30, 2007 7:54 PM

Quoth greatcometof1577, in response to a query about "holy people" for atheists:

AAI...
Deity: Dawkins
Pope: Margaret Downey

1. Atheism existed long before Dawkins was born, let alone a celebrity.


2. There are almost certainly many atheists who barely know who Dawkins is.  I'm sure a large fraction have never read a word he's written.


3. This goes doubly for Margaret Downey.  I cannot recall having seen that name before today.


4. AAI speaks only for its members, and probably not for all of those.  I'm not one of them.


5. There are atheistic belief systems like Objectivism, which has far more rigid dogmas and Ayn Rand as a quasi-deity.  Objectivists would probably take serious exception to much of what Dawkins says, especially anything that acknowledges that there are substantial similarities between humans and animals due to both evolutionary pressure and common descent.  Randroids alone disprove greatcomet's thesis.

Posted by: Engineer-Poet at November 30, 2007 9:59 PM

Engineer-Poet I am an Objectivist myself. No Objectivist I know doesn't accept the Theory of Evolution, and the reason we accept it is because it's true. Nor do we see Ayn Rand as a quasi-deity, but as an incredibly intelligent woman we owe alot to.

Posted by: Fanusi Khiyal at December 1, 2007 2:48 AM

Fanusi, you must not have seen your compatriots parroting the Rand claim that animals only have instinct and do not exhibit thought.  Studies on apes have shown that what she drew as a clear line between black and white is actually a gradient, but that hasn't stopped avowed Objectivists from taking it as gospel.

Don't get me started on The Romantic Manifesto.

Posted by: Engineer-Poet at December 1, 2007 10:09 AM

Engineer-Poet

I don't follow a organized religion...

I accept the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection as fact....

I don't mind atheist at all and infact I am glad the world has them...

My problem is with the atheist who go ballistic when somebody states they have no facts for their claim. I don't care about if you think there is a god or not but DAWKINS (not all atheist, which is the point of this discussion) is acting like it is scientific fact. His crusade to wipe out all religions clouds his judgement that he himself follows a belief system.

Let me ask you this...

How many great scientist were pure atheist?

Darwin maybe although I doubt it. Richard Feynman and Alan Turing were (I think)...Yet the holy trinity of Physics Newton/Maxwell/Einstein were not atheist.

In fact they were driven by their need to find a god. I am not saying they were right but it proved to be great motivation and who can argue with their results?

In other words Newton kicks Dawkins ass....

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at December 1, 2007 12:01 PM

Engineer-Poet

Also let me make this clear: I like Dawkins...

He just needs to calm the hell down before he becomes like Carl Sagan who made one crazed prediction after the other...

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at December 1, 2007 12:09 PM

The claim, Engineer-Poet is that animals do not have a conceptual faculty . That's probably correct, and they certainly do not have anything on a par with human abilities in this area. Our conceptual faculty is what makes us unique, and that's my opinion as a biologist who has, in fact, worked in this area. I notice that you have retreated from

I wont get you started on The Romantic Manifesto, as I sincerely doubt you have any substantial arguments.

Posted by: Fanusi Khiyal at December 1, 2007 12:16 PM

Darwin maybe although I doubt it. Richard Feynman and Alan Turing were (I think)...Yet the holy trinity of Physics Newton/Maxwell/Einstein were not atheist.

Okay, Darwin was an atheist, or agnostic, if you will. I do not know about Maxwell, but Einstein certainly was an atheist - i.e. did not believe in a creative entity, did not believe in life after death etc. Newton was a theist, but he also believed in alchemy.

And they were driven by a love of truth, not by a desire to find god.

Posted by: Fanusi Khiyal at December 1, 2007 12:19 PM

Darwin maybe although I doubt it. Richard Feynman and Alan Turing were (I think)...Yet the holy trinity of Physics Newton/Maxwell/Einstein were not atheist.

Okay, Darwin was an atheist, or agnostic, if you will. I do not know about Maxwell, but Einstein certainly was an atheist - i.e. did not believe in a creative entity, did not believe in life after death etc. Newton was a theist, but he also believed in alchemy.

And they were driven by a love of truth, not by a desire to find god.

And, finally, yes, the hypothesis of a creative entity that interferes with existence is a scientifically testable one, or it is completely vacuous.

Posted by: Fanusi Khiyal at December 1, 2007 12:24 PM

As far I know Darwin was very religious. That was why he kept his findings under wraps for so long and only rushed to publish because Wallace contacted him with the same theory. He'd formed his ideas nearly 30 years ago, when he first went to the Galapagos Islands and in the interval he worked on testing his theory, in a bid to convince himself it wasn't true. By the time he published he had accumulated overwhelming evidence it was.

Darwin married his cousin, she was a clergyman's daughter and an heiress. All his income as a private gentleman came from the Church. This was what allowed him to pursue his research. It tore him apart to offer an origin of the species by natural selection, not divine creation.

Interestingly Wallace seemed to back track. He claimed later the theory did nothing to account for the emergence of human consciousness and that some kind of unknown agent must have intervened.

Posted by: devorgilla at December 1, 2007 12:51 PM

Speaking as an atheist I assert that all religions are not equal or equally damaging to the mind or the culture in which they are held.

An atheist who asserts that they are is naive and missing the point.

From an atheist point of view, a religion is a body of philosophical beliefs and doctrines, normally accompanied by a mythology of sorts.

To say that all bodies of philosophical doctrine that have one or another particular element in common are therefore altogether the SAME from a psychological and cultural point of view is just plain silly -- unless that element pretty well determines and defines everything else in the doctrine.

To look at the allah of the mohamedans, and the G-d of the Jews and Christians, and then to look at the doctrines, cultures and histories they are associated with -- and then to assert that on the basis of the fact that allah and JHWA can both be characterized as gods that the three religions are identical and equally toxic is absurd on its face.

The same argument can be brought about Apollo and Dionysus, Kali and Lakshmi, Thor and Freya, or for that matter the Cathaginian cannibal mother goddes and Santa Clause.

It is obviously absurd in all those cases.

===========

BTW Quit telling me that my refusal to believe in your religion is a religion in its own right.

EVERYBODY disbelieves in most religions most of the time. You are not defined by your disbeliefs but by your beliefs.

Disbelieving Buddhism doesn't make you a Christian or a Zoroastrian. It makes you not a Buddhist but leaves you (and your beliefs) otherwise undefined.

My disbelief in your God doesn't make me any more religious than my disbelief in Nordic paganism, or the tooth-fairy for that matter.

============

PS Richard Dawkins exists because his publisher thinks he does.

Posted by: joeblough at December 1, 2007 1:42 PM

devorgilla Darwin started out very religious. He lost his faith as he got a closer look at what 'God's creation' was really like. Historical fact.

Posted by: Fanusi Khiyal at December 1, 2007 3:46 PM

devorgilla

"As far I know Darwin was very religious."

He is buried in one of the great cathedrals in London. His funeral was conducted by a Bishop who I believe was a personal friend and praised his achievements in his sermon.

Posted by: Fred at December 1, 2007 6:45 PM

Fanusi Khiyal

He was and remained an active member of his Parish Church throughout his life.

Historical fact.

Posted by: Fred at December 1, 2007 6:49 PM

Fanusi Khiyal

Historical facts from the web.

Darwin was not an atheist. He described himself as an agnostic, and it is likely that he retained a belief in some kind of personal God, although not a diety who, like some master puppeteer, took a direct and continuously intervening role in the evolutionary process and in human affairs. Throughout his life Darwin maintained a sense of deep humility and a concern for his fellow man, fully aware of the limits of science. Darwin was deeply affected by the death of his older brother Erasmus ("Ras") in August 1881, and it is conjectured that his grief may have exacerbated the seriousness of his own poor health. In early 1882 he had several minor heart attacks. His condition worsened and on April 19, 1882, at 73 years of age, he died at Down House, after several hours of nausea, intense vomiting and retching, symptoms of a chronic illness that bedeviled him for the last 40 years of his life. At his bedside, and attending to his needs, were his wife Emma, his daughter Henrietta and his son Francis. A widespread rumor circulated -- facilitated by an evangelist by the name of Lady Hope who preached in Downe during the last years of Darwins life -- that on his deathbed Darwin renounced evolution and declared himself a Christian. This story, totally contradictory to the nature of the man himself, is a falsehood, denied by his daughter Henrietta and those who knew him best and who were actually at his bedside during his last weeks. Darwin's last words, spoken to his wife Emma, were in actuality, "I am not in the least afraid to die."

Darwin, and his family, wished for his burial in Down, in the village where he had spent most of his adult life. He requested a simple burial in a plain, rough hewn, unadorned and unpolished coffin. But, his scientific colleagues convinced his family that he was due a greater honor, and it was the wish of Parliament that a person of his stature be given a state burial. Accordingly, on April 26, 1892 Charles Darwin was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey in a fine polished coffin that one could see to shave in, only a few feet away from the grave of Sir Isaac Newton.

His pallbearers included Alfred Russell Wallace and the two scientists who were his closest friends and staunchest defenders -- Joseph Hooker and Thomas Huxley. The organist at Westminster Abbey wrote a special funeral anthem for the occasion, taking the text from Proverbs 3:13-17, which begins "Blessed is the man who finds wisdom and who gains understanding". As oftentimes occurs among hypocritical humans, many who cursed Darwin in life and called for his scalp, were full of kind words at his funeral. For those who knew him as the kind and modest man he was, their praise came from the heart. Said Huxley, in his eulogy during the funeral services "his was an intense and almost passionate honesty by which all his thoughts and actions were irradiated, as if by a central fire.

Someone else posted;

“Newton believed in God but then he also believed in alchemy"

Alchemists tried to turn base metal into gold so in modern terms they trying to alter its atomic structure. Does that not mean the basic proposition must be that he considered such a thing was possible but the science of the time was not sufficiently advanced?

If so Newton was not as foolish as you suggest as he was investigating the work of the only group who were working on the problem – however crudely.

Posted by: Fred at December 1, 2007 7:27 PM

Fanusi Khiyal

Einstein was not an atheist. He was Zionist for pete sake. His famous quote was..

"I want to know all Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details."

In fact he disliked the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and stated "I cannot believe that God would choose to play dice with the universe." or something like that (different quotes depending on what you read but the same meaning).

Maxwell was really religious (Christian). So was Michael Faraday...Newton did not buy the trinity but did everything for god (He owned a library of different versions of the bible). In fact sometimes it is hard to tell where Newton the scientist and Newton the theologian begins and ends.

They may have had some unconventional views in their religious beliefs but they all accepted a god of some kind of a Christian/Judaic nature.

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at December 1, 2007 11:47 PM

Two points:

1. First of all, an agnostic is an atheist who lacks the courage of his own convictions. Darwin went from being a bible believing fundamentalist to being a tortured agnostic.

2. Einstein's religiosity is a popular misunderstanding, and one quite deliberately fostered. When Einstein spoke about knowing God's mind, or saying "God does not play dice", he meant nothing like what most people call God. His 'God' was the totality of physical existence, the sense of wonder at the fact that, behind all the approximations of our physical theory, there was a unifying order in the universe. Every scientist worth spit feels that awe and reverence. I feel it. Richard Dawkins feels it. It just isn't any kind of Judeo-Christian God. Be sure of that.

Alchemists tried to turn base metal into gold so in modern terms they trying to alter its atomic structure. Does that not mean the basic proposition must be that he considered such a thing was possible but the science of the time was not sufficiently advanced?

They tried no such thing. They had no idea of the atomic structure of matter, or of neutrons and protons, let alone up-down quark conversions.

Einstein was dead wrong about Quantum Physics,and that was right in his field of speciality. Just because a genius believes something, does not make that something correct.

Posted by: Fanusi Khiyal at December 2, 2007 3:26 AM

"They tried no such thing. They had no idea of the atomic structure of matter, or of neutrons and protons, let alone up-down quark conversions"

Gosh! I thought they did!

I shall now assume they had no laptops to work with either.

Posted by: Fred at December 2, 2007 5:27 AM