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Dawkins banned due to atheism

work in progress

Well-Known Member
Right, so if all of the Bible, even the parts usually considered central, are considered allegorical, then what is left as a basis for calling oneself a Christian?
I mean, after someone has concluded that the miracles, the virgin birth, Adam and Eve, all of it, is allegorical, i.e. made up, what is there to build a religion or a religious view on?
That's up to the people who call themselves Christians. Many of us who felt oppressed and constricted by fundamentalist Christianity wanted to throw it all away once we were able to make our own choices, but a lot of people may decide that they want to retain something from their religious experience. It's a matter of individual needs and desires for some liberal Christians to allegorize almost everything about their religion and still want to keep it, and if we can find one of them to explain the reasons why, they would probably have better answers than I can provide!
 

jarofthoughts

Empirical Curmudgeon
That's up to the people who call themselves Christians.

Sure, but without any form of basic definition a term looses all it's meaning.

It's a matter of individual needs and desires for some liberal Christians to allegorize almost everything about their religion and still want to keep it, and if we can find one of them to explain the reasons why, they would probably have better answers than I can provide!

Fair enough. :)
 

Protester

Active Member
It's a private club, isn't it? So long as it isn't public, they can ban whoever they want for whatever reason they want. Or am I mistaken?

Honestly, I don't blame them. Dawkins is not just an atheist, he's the worst sort of atheist. A venomously anti-religious, militant atheist who makes a number of really ignorant statements about religion by painting it with far too broad of a brush. He makes the more reasonable and rational atheists look bad, IMHO.

I wouldn't have had to make much of a reply, if I paid attention first to what was here, nearly the perfect response, and quite correct about those of the New Atheism. :slap:
 

Copernicus

Industrial Strength Linguist
That article is utter hogwash.
Rarely have I seen something so full of special pleading and faulty arguments... :facepalm:
I agree that it is hogwash, but such articles are not rare. Basically, it defines the "new atheists" as the familiar bunch of activist best-selling authors:

The contention of the new atheists is, obviously, that there is no God. Adherents to the philosophy of new atheism believe that blind, natural forces are responsible for all of reality which we perceive. The new atheists do not restrict themselves to a passive disbelief. Rather, they are actively engaged in admonishing others to follow suit, to declare their non-belief in God, and to take the necessary steps to rid the world of religious belief and practice. As outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins puts it in The God Delusion, “I do everything in my power to warn people against faith itself.”
But what is the difference between that kind of behavior and the behavior of atheists who existed earlier? There were always activist atheists in the past, but their books tended not to be best-selling books.

And then the article opines that atheists have "redefined faith":
An ironic feature of the new atheism is its strong faith in the inferiority of having faith. The new atheists erroneously redefine "faith" as an "irrational belief in the absence of evidence." This misrepresentation of the nature of faith is absurd, for faith is not essentially a strong belief in something, but rather the ground of Christian faith is believing in someone—God. A.W. Tozer said, “Faith rests upon the character of God, not upon the demonstration of laboratory or logic.” When one has faith in the character of a person, e.g. a mother or an aircraft pilot, one no longer needs to be skeptical or require strong evidence in respect to any service that he or she renders.
The view of faith that the article criticizes existed long before the "new atheists" came on the scene. Moreover, the word "faith" has more than one meaning, as anyone who cares to look in the dictionary can tell you. One legitimate definition is "belief without proof", and theists use that sense of the word. Another is "trust in a person's character or promises". Another is "belief in a religious doctrine". Both atheists and theists use all of these word senses, but atheists tend to criticize religious faith as "belief without proof". Theists use that sense of faith, too, but they do not usually consider it irrational belief.
 

Falvlun

Earthbending Lemur
Premium Member
When it comes to music, books and even oral histories in illiterate societies, they are copied with reasonable fidelity, but sometimes interpretations can vary. It would appear that in this explanation, the meme is the objective cultural artifact, rather than the subjective meaning that the reader takes from the work, which would seem to be essential for the harmful meme to take effect on the host. But a harmful religious meme, like a Bible verse, may not actually be a pernicious mind virus --- depending on how it is interpreted by the reader.
The meaning can also be transferred as a meme as well. Think of the morals to Aesop's fables, or the various interpretations to the Christian creation story. The meaning behind these cultural artifacts are transmitted just as culturally as the artifact itself.

work in progress said:
I guess that would weaken the Darwinian analogy, since Lamarck's theory of evolution was through acquired characteristics.
The analogy is with natural selection, not exact biological evolution. Both Larmarkian and random mutations introduce variation into an otherwise stable system. Natural selection doesn't care how the variation got there, as long as there is some variation upon which it can work.

work in progress said:
It might. Part of my aversion to meme theory is that some of the strong advocates, like Dennett and Susan Blackmore, even go so far as declaring those resisting the application of memetics to explain culture as being somehow anti-Darwinist...because they are resisting the further application of Darwinism to realms outside of the field of biology. For my part, I can't forget that Herbert Spencer - a philosopher who was a contemporary of Darwin, created Social Darwinism, when he tried to apply Darwin's methods to race, culture and economics.....and we still are living in a world dominated by the economic Darwinists!
Were you not arguing that we shouldn't consider all religion bad just because of a few bad eggs? Likewise, why sink the entire concept of memes just because there are some fanatics out there?
 

work in progress

Well-Known Member
The meaning can also be transferred as a meme as well. Think of the morals to Aesop's fables, or the various interpretations to the Christian creation story. The meaning behind these cultural artifacts are transmitted just as culturally as the artifact itself.


The analogy is with natural selection, not exact biological evolution. Both Larmarkian and random mutations introduce variation into an otherwise stable system. Natural selection doesn't care how the variation got there, as long as there is some variation upon which it can work.


Were you not arguing that we shouldn't consider all religion bad just because of a few bad eggs? Likewise, why sink the entire concept of memes just because there are some fanatics out there?
My objective hasn't been to try to sink the meme analogy, just to question its over-application by meme enthusiasts. My alarm bells were set off when I read Dawkins's "Viruses Of The Mind." If not for the title, I might have thought I was reading a Scientology tract.

In that presentation, children are implied to be blank slates, who soak up good memes and bad memes, and of course religion memes are the bad ones, taking control of the mind of the believer. Dawkins has claimed many times that we are all born atheists -- and that claim is undone by our intuitive predisposition towards essentialism and teleological explanations of events. If meme theorists recognize that there is a growing body of evidence that teleological explanations come naturally to children, and do not have to be taught to them -- then the claim that we are all born atheists, and religious thinking is imposed on us from outside, is false.

If all of our beliefs are products of learning, then it is possible to end religion and replace it with naturalism. If some of our core beliefs are predisposed, then the difference between the religious and the non-religious will mostly depend on matters of individual preferences; especially the degree to which a person bases their worldview on intuitive judgments vs. an evidence-based process of finding the best answers. Even if there is no aggressive effort to end religion, a belief that religion can potentially be eradicated, always leaves the prospect that some future zealous regime will make it their policy. Whereas a belief that there will always be religious and supernatural beliefs of some form or other, would promote a more tolerant viewpoint.
 

jarofthoughts

Empirical Curmudgeon
I agree that it is hogwash, but such articles are not rare. Basically, it defines the "new atheists" as the familiar bunch of activist best-selling authors:

And then you have things like this piece of special pleading:
When it comes to things, Christians correctly approach the subject looking for strong evidence, while accepting that some matters may be beyond our current understanding.

Faulty argumentation:
However, this is erroneous, since the very concept of "scientism" (the view that science is the only way to gain knowledge) is not itself subject to any scientific experiment and ultimately distills to a faith.

And:
Faith, far from being an "irrational belief in the absence of evidence," is a decision to reckon as true something that is not visible.

Not to mention a complete misunderstanding/misrepresentation of what atheism is:
Biblical theism is based around a set of sensible concepts, one of which is that there is no such thing as an atheist. Clearly the atheists have faith of a sort, if only in their power to influence others to join their atheistic pursuits.

But what is the difference between that kind of behavior and the behavior of atheists who existed earlier? There were always activist atheists in the past, but their books tended not to be best-selling books.

The world is (thankfully) moving more and more in a secular direction,, which means that certain old structures of power stand to fall. This, of course, worries them, as well it should. But that does not make their argument any more valid.

And then the article opines that atheists have "redefined faith":
The view of faith that the article criticizes existed long before the "new atheists" came on the scene. Moreover, the word "faith" has more than one meaning, as anyone who cares to look in the dictionary can tell you. One legitimate definition is "belief without proof", and theists use that sense of the word. Another is "trust in a person's character or promises". Another is "belief in a religious doctrine".

Agreed.

Both atheists and theists use all of these word senses, but atheists tend to criticize religious faith as "belief without proof". Theists use that sense of faith, too, but they do not usually consider it irrational belief.

Rationality is based on logic (a core element in science as I'm sure you know), which means that any concepts that are not based in rationality and logic are by definition irrational.
 

Falvlun

Earthbending Lemur
Premium Member
My objective hasn't been to try to sink the meme analogy, just to question its over-application by meme enthusiasts. My alarm bells were set off when I read Dawkins's "Viruses Of The Mind." If not for the title, I might have thought I was reading a Scientology tract.
Okay. But I do think it worthwhile to point out that many of your perceived inconsistencies with meme theory were precisely that-- perceived and not actual.

work in progress said:
In that presentation, children are implied to be blank slates, who soak up good memes and bad memes, and of course religion memes are the bad ones, taking control of the mind of the believer. Dawkins has claimed many times that we are all born atheists -- and that claim is undone by our intuitive predisposition towards essentialism and teleological explanations of events. If meme theorists recognize that there is a growing body of evidence that teleological explanations come naturally to children, and do not have to be taught to them -- then the claim that we are all born atheists, and religious thinking is imposed on us from outside, is false.
I too am underwhelmed by the claim that we are all born atheists. While it is technically true, it doesn't account for our mental predispositions, as you point out.

However, and this is the point I believe that Dawkins is making, without memes-- or some other form of cultural concept transmission, if you prefer-- there wouldn't be religion. Religion is more than just a predisposition to assign agency and purpose to things. It is a complex worldview involving detailed conceptions of who or what that agency is, and how we should best please it. These things, which are the crux of religion, are certainly not innate (otherwise, the world would only contain one type of religion), and are certainly passed culturally from generation to generation.

Children aren't born desiring to worship Allah, or believing that Jesus died on a cross for their sins, or that their heart will be eaten by Anubis if they aren't good. These things are all taught.

work in progress said:
If all of our beliefs are products of learning, then it is possible to end religion and replace it with naturalism. If some of our core beliefs are predisposed, then the difference between the religious and the non-religious will mostly depend on matters of individual preferences; especially the degree to which a person bases their worldview on intuitive judgments vs. an evidence-based process of finding the best answers. Even if there is no aggressive effort to end religion, a belief that religion can potentially be eradicated, always leaves the prospect that some future zealous regime will make it their policy. Whereas a belief that there will always be religious and supernatural beliefs of some form or other, would promote a more tolerant viewpoint.
Just because we are predisposed to something does not make it desirable. For examples, human males (particularly) are not predisposed to be monogamous which often results in them cheating on their spouses. Should we tolerate cheating simply because we are predisposed to it?

It's not so much religions that these sorts of activist atheists are against, as is the type of thinking that they tend to promote: blind faith, fanaticism, ready obedience to spiritual leaders, intolerance of those of different faiths, and opposition to empirically derived facts.

Of course, not every religion promotes these, nor are the held by every believer in religions that do have these tendencies. But by and large, yes, I do think those things are worth getting rid of. But no, I wouldn't want to deny people their spiritual lives, the fulfillment of that need and motivation.

Perhaps it's more a fight against the current manifestations of religion than religion itself.
 

work in progress

Well-Known Member
Okay. But I do think it worthwhile to point out that many of your perceived inconsistencies with meme theory were precisely that-- perceived and not actual.
Well, maybe, but I am still not sure if memes and memoplexes are actually explaining the dissemination and development of cultural beliefs and ideas.


I too am underwhelmed by the claim that we are all born atheists. While it is technically true, it doesn't account for our mental predispositions, as you point out.

However, and this is the point I believe that Dawkins is making, without memes-- or some other form of cultural concept transmission, if you prefer-- there wouldn't be religion. Religion is more than just a predisposition to assign agency and purpose to things. It is a complex worldview involving detailed conceptions of who or what that agency is, and how we should best please it. These things, which are the crux of religion, are certainly not innate (otherwise, the world would only contain one type of religion), and are certainly passed culturally from generation to generation.

Children aren't born desiring to worship Allah, or believing that Jesus died on a cross for their sins, or that their heart will be eaten by Anubis if they aren't good. These things are all taught.
But are memes actually explaining anything about cultural transmission? If our primitive hunter/gatherer tribe of 50 to 100,000 years ago sat around the campfire telling stories about the sun god or the happy hunting ground, is that explained as a transmission and dissemination of demonic viral memes? Or, from the example used by Bruce Hood and Deborah Kelemen -- of a child just making up an explanation for pointy rocks, an example of an entire mythical story being created whole cloth? If the rest of the tribe liked the story, they might adopt it and use it also, and keep it as part of their oral history -- but when I hear "memes" I think of tiny, one dimensional bits of information - equivalent to genes - and instead of explaining them as developing into complex memoplexes, entire blocks of folk religion may have been created in one story, rather than little bits and pieces compiled together, and evolving into more adaptive beliefs etc.

Just because we are predisposed to something does not make it desirable. For examples, human males (particularly) are not predisposed to be monogamous which often results in them cheating on their spouses. Should we tolerate cheating simply because we are predisposed to it?
Tolerating cheating may ultimately be up to the woman he's married to. I don't believe in state interference to try to make divorce more difficult, but if you screw around you have to be ready to pay the price! It would appear that our earlier primate ancestry was not monogamous, as no other existing primates are monogamous; but monogamy may have been adopted early on, when human babies started growing bigger brains and requiring more food and more care than the mother could provide by herself.

Evolution is a messy process; we may be in between and stuck in the middle on this one, just as we seem to have developed many adaptations to a meat diet, while retaining a lot of the adaptations, such as a long digestive tract, that lead to health problems from eating meat. It's similar to the Giant Panda - which was originally a carnivore and has all of the carnivore adaptations, but decided in recent times to shift to a plant diet consisting primarily of eating bamboo -- a plant that the Panda's short digestive tract has difficulty digesting, and causes earlier death because the digestive tract eventually becomes too clogged with bamboo fiber and makes absorbing nutrients increasingly difficult -- evolution doesn't always make much sense seems to be the takeaway on many of these issues.

Monogamy appears to be something that has been accepted because it is more culturally beneficial than the alternatives of polygamy....except for warrior cultures of course - where death from warfare and big game hunting skewed the male to female ratio. I guess I can assume that because I have been with the same woman for 26 years, that I am more suited for monogamy than guys I know who are on 2nd and 3rd marriages, and have left a trail of broken families and support payments behind them. Who knows? I think monogamy is better because it doesn't create the headaches of the alternatives, but someone who is impulsive by nature is going to have a hard time staying in a monogamous relationship.

It's not so much religions that these sorts of activist atheists are against, as is the type of thinking that they tend to promote: blind faith, fanaticism, ready obedience to spiritual leaders, intolerance of those of different faiths, and opposition to empirically derived facts.
That is certainly a problem, but the question is whether it is better to encourage the faith communities to adapt their worldviews to new scientific understandings, or to broadly condemn all religions and religious thinking and try to make it go away. That seems to be the divide among atheists. Up until the last 10 years, most atheist writers could be described as accommodationists, who formed alliances with liberal, progressive religious thinkers....and that's probably why their books were ignored! The squeaky wheel gets the grease! And the brash, loud atheists who condemn accommodating liberal religion...starting I guess with Sam Harris, who declared that progressive religion was just an enabler for the fundamentalists -- were the ones who have gotten all of the attention. Even when they make bad arguments (Hitchens for example and his endless repetition of "religion poisons everything" in God Is Not Great) they are still the ones who get all of the attention, just as the crackpot evangelist friend of Rick Perry makes the news for declaring that Mormons aren't real Christians and Jews need to convert to be saved. The media atmosphere of today just loves controversy more than substance.
 

Falvlun

Earthbending Lemur
Premium Member
Well, maybe, but I am still not sure if memes and memoplexes are actually explaining the dissemination and development of cultural beliefs and ideas.


But are memes actually explaining anything about cultural transmission? If our primitive hunter/gatherer tribe of 50 to 100,000 years ago sat around the campfire telling stories about the sun god or the happy hunting ground, is that explained as a transmission and dissemination of demonic viral memes? Or, from the example used by Bruce Hood and Deborah Kelemen -- of a child just making up an explanation for pointy rocks, an example of an entire mythical story being created whole cloth? If the rest of the tribe liked the story, they might adopt it and use it also, and keep it as part of their oral history -- but when I hear "memes" I think of tiny, one dimensional bits of information - equivalent to genes - and instead of explaining them as developing into complex memoplexes, entire blocks of folk religion may have been created in one story, rather than little bits and pieces compiled together, and evolving into more adaptive beliefs etc.
Okay, I think I understand your criticism a bit better now. I'm not sure if meme theory really deals with their origination; everything I've read about them focuses much more on their cultural transmission and adaptation. Perhaps the distinction is like abiogenesis vs evolution; evolution doesn't deal with how life originated, it merely describes how it speciated and propogated afterwards.

Also, a meme isn't necessarily a tiny bit of information; according to Wikipedia, at least, it can be anything from a whole melody to the technology for building arches. I think that makes sense. Of course, some meme proponents may disagree.


work in progress said:
Tolerating cheating may ultimately be up to the woman he's married to.
Right. I was mainly pointing out that simply because we may be predisposed to some behaviors (or thought-processes), that alone isn't a good enough reason for us to support, condone, or tolerate that particular predisposition.

work in progress said:
I guess I can assume that because I have been with the same woman for 26 years, that I am more suited for monogamy than guys I know who are on 2nd and 3rd marriages, and have left a trail of broken families and support payments behind them.
Congrats! That is quite the accomplishment in this day. :)

work in progress said:
That is certainly a problem, but the question is whether it is better to encourage the faith communities to adapt their worldviews to new scientific understandings, or to broadly condemn all religions and religious thinking and try to make it go away. That seems to be the divide among atheists. Up until the last 10 years, most atheist writers could be described as accommodationists, who formed alliances with liberal, progressive religious thinkers....and that's probably why their books were ignored! The squeaky wheel gets the grease! And the brash, loud atheists who condemn accommodating liberal religion...starting I guess with Sam Harris, who declared that progressive religion was just an enabler for the fundamentalists -- were the ones who have gotten all of the attention. Even when they make bad arguments (Hitchens for example and his endless repetition of "religion poisons everything" in God Is Not Great) they are still the ones who get all of the attention, just as the crackpot evangelist friend of Rick Perry makes the news for declaring that Mormons aren't real Christians and Jews need to convert to be saved. The media atmosphere of today just loves controversy more than substance.
Very good points you make there. I suppose I am in between the two: I have no desire to ridicule or condemn religion in and of itself, however, I am supportive of atheism coming out of the closet, so to speak.
 

work in progress

Well-Known Member
Okay, I think I understand your criticism a bit better now. I'm not sure if meme theory really deals with their origination; everything I've read about them focuses much more on their cultural transmission and adaptation. Perhaps the distinction is like abiogenesis vs evolution; evolution doesn't deal with how life originated, it merely describes how it speciated and propogated afterwards.
Could be! I still don't think I've studied enough proposals from the meme theorists to cast judgment on its utility for explaining the propagation of ideas, but I hope it's not something like some of psychoanalytic explanations of behaviour -- which seemed to explain everything...for a while.

Also, a meme isn't necessarily a tiny bit of information; according to Wikipedia, at least, it can be anything from a whole melody to the technology for building arches. I think that makes sense. Of course, some meme proponents may disagree.
I can see why the meme theorists would want to narrow that definition a little. If it's too broad and all-encompassing, then it's going to be impossible to define what a meme is before deciding whether it exists or not.

Right. I was mainly pointing out that simply because we may be predisposed to some behaviors (or thought-processes), that alone isn't a good enough reason for us to support, condone, or tolerate that particular predisposition.
Yes, a lot of arguments regarding morality - from traditionalists to progressives - start with claims of "what's natural."

Congrats! That is quite the accomplishment in this day. :)
Thanks, but my understanding of mind leads me towards the thinking that I am not doing anything that I would not normally do....no more than I would be accomplishing something by not becoming an alcoholic or a drug addict. I am not impulsive by nature, and I like my safe, routine, comfortable life....which I recognize would be imperiled by the novelty of risking a sexual relationship on the side. I've worked with addicts who have very difficult struggles with their addictions, even though they know the harms well enough -- because their ability to overrule the reward systems of the brain is more limited. This is part of the reason why I consider notions of contra-causal free will to be so damaging -- traditional religious/conservative arguments regarding reward and punishment are based on the unfounded assumption that all minds are equivalent (except for the obviously damaged brains of the mentally ill). An enlightened approach to these issues would recognize that some people are going to have a more difficult time with managing emotions and impulsive behaviour....and when it comes to the issues regarding sex -- maybe some people should not get married, and not be pressured into getting married by family and society at large.

Very good points you make there. I suppose I am in between the two: I have no desire to ridicule or condemn religion in and of itself, however, I am supportive of atheism coming out of the closet, so to speak.
I agree! We should make the point that not everyone needs "God" in their lives, or whatever brand of religion a particular evangelist is pushing. And on the flipside -- it probably isn't helpful to try to make atheism the standard and push a belief that everyone should be an atheist.
 

Protester

Active Member
That article is utter hogwash.
Rarely have I seen something so full of special pleading and faulty arguments... :facepalm:

but also junk?:cover:

This Country Club should have invited John Lennox since he has debated Dawkins and Hitchens before, so that could have made it interesting and not all one-sided. A short commentary about him, which is just about as short as the above is, Uncommon Descent | Oxford mathematician John Lennox on the chances of life developing without a supermind to guide it
 

work in progress

Well-Known Member
but also junk?:cover:

This Country Club should have invited John Lennox since he has debated Dawkins and Hitchens before, so that could have made it interesting and not all one-sided. A short commentary about him, which is just about as short as the above is, Uncommon Descent | Oxford mathematician John Lennox on the chances of life developing without a supermind to guide it
I hope his other stuff that he brings to debates is better than that one provided in the link! There is nothing in that short article on a creationist site by this John Lennox, which backs up his claim that life had to be created by an intelligent force! The simple reason is because the process that led from organic chemistry to self-replicating lifeforms on the primordial Earth is an unknown.

Many of these claims made in the past, by other members of the Discovery Institute, revolve around the premise that it had to be a random sequence that led from simple amino acid chains right to the first DNA molecule. The discovery of ribozymes, which led to the hypothesis that the more perishable, but simpler self-replicating molecule - RNA, may have served as the original method for coding biological information and making proteins -- RNA World

My primary objection to notions that the origins of life are the basis for some sort of creator is that the kind of creator usually envisioned -- a God that is overly involved with us and the goings on of this planet, need to explain why a creator who was so concerned with getting life started, and making sure it led to something like us -- left this planet as the domain for single-celled bacteria and viruses for almost 2 billion years, before more complex life started to evolve.
 
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Protester

Active Member
Previewing <em>Metamorphosis</em>: The Case for Intelligent Design in a <strike>Nutshell</strike> Chrysalis - Evolution News & Views which is not from a religious site but from an Intelligent design one. Now this is from a religious site, Some Interesting Statements By Scientists: (only one is by a biblical creationist)

Now, you might not like where this came from, but still what it says is accurate, The Scientific Case Against Evolution. But none of these are from the Discovery Institute, which I see Wikipedia has several hostile articles about, they must have been written by devout followers of the religion of Evolution!:D Actually if the Discovery Institute thought Darwinism was socialistic they really got that wrong! Darwin's Influence on Ruthless Laissez Faire Capitalism and I would add Evolution and Modern Racism So, it would seem there would be quite a few Christians that would not agree with the Discovery Institute, Oh, what do I think of Pat Robertson? Hmm, I might use some lingo that I know but didn't use in my Army days, and I would want to do that! So, these series of articles cover him and his ilk,
[FONT=times new roman, arial, helvetica]Pat Robertson will peer into the camera and as if he can see into people's living rooms describe people who are being healed that very moment.[/FONT] --John MacArthur
a snippet from, Does God Still Heal?

Ah, but if nothing else look at that very first article, Previewing <em>Metamorphosis</em>: The Case for Intelligent Design in a <strike>Nutshell</strike> Chrysalis - Evolution News & Views
 
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Falvlun

Earthbending Lemur
Premium Member
but also junk?:cover:

This Country Club should have invited John Lennox since he has debated Dawkins and Hitchens before, so that could have made it interesting and not all one-sided. A short commentary about him, which is just about as short as the above is, Uncommon Descent | Oxford mathematician John Lennox on the chances of life developing without a supermind to guide it
Just a note: The Country Club was simply the location in which this talk was being given. The talk was not for the members of the country club. The event was being put on by the Center for Inquiry, a group whose mission it is to foster a secular society.
 

jarofthoughts

Empirical Curmudgeon
but also junk?:cover:

Faulty arguments and logical fallacies usually amount to junk. ;)

This Country Club should have invited John Lennox since he has debated Dawkins and Hitchens before, so that could have made it interesting and not all one-sided. A short commentary about him, which is just about as short as the above is, Uncommon Descent | Oxford mathematician John Lennox on the chances of life developing without a supermind to guide it

Perhaps. Depends on what the purpose of the visit was.
If they wanted a bit of insight into evolutionary biology, I am hard pressed to think of anyone better to hold the talk than Dawkins.
If, on the other hand, they wanted to hear a debate on religion, they could do a lot worse than John Lennox. While I do not agree with his views and conclusions, he is, at the very least, somewhat lucid. ;)
I see above though that the talk was apparently set up by an organisation working for the secularisation of society, and in this respect I think a talk by Dawkins might be just what they were looking for.
 
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work in progress

Well-Known Member
A formal argument of this type could be called "Argument From Sandbagging" as an attempt to just deluge a critic with info links and waste time...since these are the same creationist objections and smear tactics that have been used for decades! No surprise now that the two primary "proofs" of intelligent design have blown up, Dembski's blog is reaching for something new....and now it's butterflies are proof of intelligent design! And a hit piece (I assume, I'm not going to waste my time reading it) of quotes, or alleged quotes from scientists is supposed to be convincing argument. Imagine all the fun we could have if we just put up a long string of stupid statements from one rightwing evangelist, like Pat Robertson....there wouldn't even be a need to include any others.

Now, you might not like where this came from, but still what it says is accurate, The Scientific Case Against Evolution. But none of these are from the Discovery Institute, which I see Wikipedia has several hostile articles about, they must have been written by devout followers of the religion of Evolution!:D
My mistake! That one is from ICR, which is an outright creationist site that tries to argue against all evidence of evolution....which is an even weaker case to try to support.

And, it is NOT accurate in any regard, because it makes ridiculous statements such as "evolution is not occurring now" even though medical research on immunization and cancer cures among others, is dependent on studying the process of natural selection that is occurring among bacteria and viruses. I've said before to creationists who want to tear down all the science they see as conflicting with their religion -- that they should not be entitled to receive any medical treatments that have been developed through using Evo-Devo and cures dependent on study of evolution of disease organisms.

And, last post I addressed the claims that were made regarding the probability of the origin of life. Maybe this went completely over your head, but abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution! Charles Darwin would have accepted an ID cause to create life in his time, but scientists today are aware of the wonders of organic chemistry and development of membranes, and believe that a supernatural spark does not need to be invoked to start living organisms. That piece repeated the nonsense probabilities based on going from simple amino acids to DNA without any intermediary steps + assuming that chemical reactions are random....which chemists from all backgrounds assure us they are not. But, my question for creationists is regarding the timeline of events on Earth: if God or a divine spark created the first life, why did he wait more than two billion years to get to the first multicellular life forms? And then why did he wait another billion years before creating the basic phyla we have today?

Actually if the Discovery Institute thought Darwinism was socialistic they really got that wrong! Darwin's Influence on Ruthless Laissez Faire Capitalism and I would add Evolution and Modern Racism
Notice that they have to jump to Herbert Spencer to get the "survival of the fittest" narrative (which was never said by Darwin), and the use of evolution to explain culture and economic theory. But today, there are not that many atheists or secular humanists promoting social darwinism! Most of this philosophy has been embraced by the Religious Right, as we can see in the Republican debates, where the candidates proclaim their Christian faith and objectivist philosophy in one, seamless package. The most absurd example probably is Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, who threatened to fire new staffers if they failed to read "Atlas Shrugged."

So, it would seem there would be quite a few Christians that would not agree with the Discovery Institute, Oh, what do I think of Pat Robertson? Hmm, I might use some lingo that I know but didn't use in my Army days, and I would want to do that! So, these series of articles cover him and his ilk,
a snippet from, Does God Still Heal?
That is a little off-topic, but I can agree with any criticism of promoters of faith-healing, as it not only leads to death and illness through refusal of medical treatment, but the right wing Pentacostals have launched the worst candidates for political office, who have a weak grasp on reality: Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry....end of story!

Looks like the movie just makes an argument from ignorance, based on that review:
How could an unguided step-by-step process build metamorphosis, inherently an all-or-nothing proposition? As Dr. Gauger points, once the caterpillar has entered the chrysalis, there's no going back. It must emerge either as a fully formed butterfly or the soupy remains of a dead caterpillar.
Off the top, I recall the D.I. saying the same thing about bacteria flagella....how could these little motors that propel the cell have just evolved through natural selection....until scientists discovered clear evidence of intermediary steps that have since disappeared. What became the flagella were several components that had previously performed other functions, until a later species combined them together for propulsion. Up till then, it was the same line from D.I. -- what are the odds of the finished product being produced through random chance events? But, even then, the meaning of Irreducible Complexities made no sense -- what sort of god-in-the-gaps is consigned to be a tinkerer around the edges of the development of life -- so that all he does is create bacteria motors and other complex biological systems?
 

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Just a note: The Country Club was simply the location in which this talk was being given. The talk was not for the members of the country club. The event was being put on by the Center for Inquiry, a group whose mission it is to foster a secular society.
... if more than one side was there it would have been more informative. So, if this group wants a secular society, (You know like the old Soviet Union, Cuba, :sad4:) Dawkins would have been their man!:p I suppose it would have been interesting to hear Dawkins comments on What is the Moral argument for the existence of God? Since the ideals of Social Darwinism run counter to many of the Judeo-Christian ideals.
 
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