1. A force for good?

Comment #58794 by daveadams on July 26, 2007 at 6:59 am

Hi irate_atheist. Thanks for your comments. I don't think I am missing the point at all. Allow me to go into more detail.

You say: "You regard that your proposition for the existence of God is more valid because you decide to imbue it with more complexity than a Pixie."

The complexity of God is only one of many things that makes it/him different from a pixie. If we are to assess the existence of something, there are a variety of things we need to take into account. Is it a concrete or abstract entity? How big is it? How complex is it? What does it do? etc.

Now, this means that we cannot use the same approach to analyse contrasting things. You seem to think, at least pewkatchoo does, that seeing something is the only criteria we should use to evaluate something's existence. But that doesn't hold water.

Take this example. Let's look into whether Father Christmas exists, and whether love exists. Are we really going to use the same criteria for assessing both of them? I have not seen Father Christmas, and I have not seen love itself. But that does not mean the latter does not exist.

Father Christmas is a concrete entity that I would expect to see, or at least have reported sightings and documentation of. I cannot expect the same of love. For love, I would expect to feel it, and see evidence of it in others. You cannot SEE love. You can only see its manifestations in others, or feel what you believe to be the emotion of love in yourself. You may well respond that love is concrete and that you can cut someone open and see the nerves and chemical reactions that cause it. But that is not love itself - that is what CAUSES it. Love itself is abstract, not concrete, and thus requires different evidence for its existence than Father Christmas.

Now, the same applies to God. The Christian conception of God is as an abstract entity that is manifested in physical, concrete things. You may not accept that, but you must at least accept that to evaluate its existence would require a different approach to evaluating the existence of Father Christmas.

Just because you haven't seen God as a "person" who has spoken to you, doesn't mean he doesn't exist. You have to apply other criteria. If you apply broader criteria and decide he doesn't exist, then fine. But to deny this point is unscientific and unempirical. I am surprised you adopt Professor Dawkins' approach on this, and I am surprised he adopts it in the first place.

As for beliefs that are used in TGD that are not mainstream, take this. Many of the book's arguments rely upon a non-eternal God. But very few religious people would believe in such a God. Dawkins' argument that God is more improbable than the world makes the assumption that God is non-eternal, because he would have to have developed into an extremely complex being. The creation of a God is very, very improbable indeed. The existence of an eternal God, however, is neither probable nor improbable. If God is eternal, then it is a brute fact about the universe which cannot be explained, in the same way as we cannot explain why there is something rather than nothing.

Furthermore, Dawkins does not quote from serious sources much of the time, such as when he finds on the internet a series of nonsense statements that claim to produce evidence that God exists. If we were to produce the same about Dawkins' arguments, you would not accept them, e.g. the following from Andrew Wilson: "Given the non-existence and non-eternity of God, it is extremely unlikely that a God would have suddenly appeared from nowhere. A "multiverse" is a much simpler option. Therefore God doesn't exist". Of course it doesn't mean that.

Pascal's wager is probably Pascal's weakest argument that is by no means a mainstream belief, yet Dawkins continually picks on it. He also picks on things like the ontological argument, which I have never heard any Christian use. Furthermore, Dawkins treats theism as though it is an alternative to the anthropic principle. No one ever said it was - it is an (attempted) explanation of it.

2. A force for good?

Comment #58305 by daveadams on July 24, 2007 at 10:49 am

In response to pewkatchoo's post. If that is how you consistently write on here, you should not be posting at all. Where is the need to be so condescending, rude and arrogant? Your post gives the impression that your arguments are not strong enough to stand alone, so you have to beef them up with downright rudeness. If your arguments are so persuasive, why do you need to write in that tone? Your reader would surely be persuaded by your insight alone, but instead you put them right off you as a writer. Here are some examples:

"Bald, fat man" - Why, oh why, do you feel the need to insult him like that? Is it supposed to give strength to your argument, or to undermine the author's academic credentials? It does neither.
"And the religious get stuck somewhere between soft-in-the-head and downright violent." - Being in the middle of these doesn't mean adhering to either of them. Anyway, they are hardly polar opposites.
"Mind you, you probably feel an affinity with the prats" - Another fine example of an insult which serves no purpose.

Now, you make some rather dubious statements:

"No they don't. They state quite categorically what are the official positions of the Christian, Muslim, Jewish religions and then show how it just does not hold up to reason".
- Who? ALL atheists? Particular scholars? Dawkins doesn't do this. Many of the beliefs tackled in the God Delusion are not mainstream, and precious little reference is made to official religious doctrines or mainstream Christian scholars or philosophers. There is hardly a serious work of philosophy or theology in its bibliography.

"Nope. It is actually quite exact. You have never seen gnomes and pixies and you have never seen god."
- You are taking two entirely different propositions and putting them in the same category. If gnomes and pixies existed, you would see them, you would get sightings from others, and all sorts of reports. If God existed, would you see him pottering around in your back garden? If your only criteria for assessing whether or not something exists is whether or not you have seen it, then you are extremely narrow-minded.

"Both require the same lack of reasoning"
- Really? My reasoning for not believing in pixies would be that I have never seen or heard of any sightings of them nor documents claiming their existence genuinely. My reasoning for allowing the possibility of the existence of God is that it is a completely different, and much broader, proposition than that.

"No we don't. I think professor Dawkins was quite clear about this."
- Really? In The God Delusion, Dawkins claims that people would never do anything directly as a result of atheistic beliefs, but refused to also claim the reverse for religion. Belief in the absence of God can also be a reason for doing bad, as can belief in God. He then went on to make some dubious claims about religion "causing" violence in cases where it has often been an excuse, such as many of the troubles in Northern Ireland. Also, your claim that we should reject all ideologies that cause bad is woolly - what is an ideology? Do we reject love? Ethnicity? Tribalism? None of these are inherently bad unless somebody chooses to do bad as a result of them.

"I'm glad you say that religion is not historically factual, I have always thought that."
- What do you mean? ALL religion is not historically factual? Or just the main parts of it? The bible is accepted within academia as having been written within acceptable timescales after the events to make much of it true. I wonder quite how much of it you are rejecting outright in a somewhat ahistorical fashion.

Note to pewkatchoo, stringing big words together does not make an intellectual argument. They have to be decently put together and, preferably, not meant to insult other people.

3. A force for good?

Comment #58282 by daveadams on July 24, 2007 at 8:43 am

Yet again, as I read through the responses to an article on this website, I become disheartened by human nature. And, no, it's not as a result of reading the article itself. This article is intelligently argued, genuine, and well researched. The author quotes academic sources in attempt to dispel some of the myths being spread about some religion by some atheists.

Yet, the responses from so many have been rude, arrogant and blinkered. js5535 and pewkatchoo in particular, you should be ashamed of yourselves. It seems that your arguments do not have enough strength to be self-subsistent, so instead you have to go around swearing and calling the author a "bald fat man", as if that lends any more credibility to your response and makes anybody think worse of the author's academic credentials. Just downright rude and downright unacceptable.

Out of a mountain of examples of unreasonable responses, I have time to respond to only one in particular - that from Zaphod:

"Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens et al would probably need a separate book for the multitude of ambiguous and vague concepts of god that people believe in. They try and include what most people believe. The fact that Paul Vallely doesn't realise this is telling."

- In The God Delusion, Dawkins certainly doesn't refer to a God that "most" people believe in. His conception is of God as some sort of "chap", particular the punishing God of the Old Testament in this conception. Vallely's point is that too many atheists set up straw men before knocking them down, picking on minority conceptions in the first place.

"We get told we are the most immoral people in the world. We get told we are nihilists. That is just 3 comments levelled at atheists from religionists."

- By whom? Certainly not by Vallely.

"I think there is about 10 people in the world that believe what this guy does."

- Really? This is not such a minority belief as you suppose.

"Secular charities can't do this? You need not believe in irrational and supernatural things to do moral duties. I don't have to believe I will be rewarded in heaven to buy the big issue or give a homeless person some cash."

- You are missing Vallely's point. He is highlighting the amount of social work done by religious organisations for which they are given little credit. You also give them little credit. Also, if you were to entered into this work, you would be doing it for completely selfless reasons would you? Not to make yourself feel better because you feel you SHOULD do it, or for ANY reason like that? No act can be completely selfless.

"Any evidence to back this claim?"

- Have you ever noticed The Salvation Army? The 2nd biggest social service provider behind the government in the UK, and one of the first charities there in response to Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 in the US.

"Surely this proves that it isn't needed to be moral or to do charity work".

- Nobody is saying it is. Again, you are missing the point. Vallely is highlighting the link between religion and charity that, again, you are ignoring and so are so many others.

4. Reply to a Christian

Comment #35404 by daveadams on April 27, 2007 at 4:25 am

John Phillips, some of your comments are incisive, but others are just plain inaccurate. I presume by "a number of contradictory tales" about Jesus you are refering primarily to the gospels. Are you aware that it is generally accepted in academia that the gospels were written within 50 years of Jesus' death? If someone was to write a first-hand account of the Holocaust now, would you take it to be accurate? I suspect you would, and that was over 60 years ago. 50 years is not actually a long time for first-hand accounts of events.

Secondly, refering to Mr Harris' article, I can't help but get the feeling that he misenterprets what real virtue is. Would a creator see the greatest virtue in human beings as being intelligence? Or do you think he would prefer his people to simply love and worship him, and to treat each other with love and respect? Why, then, would the creator include a chapter in a book on mathematics? The purpose of the bible is clearly to teach about God and how he wants us to understand him - teachings that do not require a deep understanding of mathematical theorems or quantum physics.

Let's face it, intelligence is not the highest virtue. What kind of set of beliefs (including atheism) would see it as such?

5. Richard Dawkins: You Ask The Questions Special

Comment #20292 by daveadams on February 1, 2007 at 3:04 pm

Oh, the arrogance of so much said on here, the arrogance of so many of Dawkins' comments. Good for you Professor, that you once had a debate in which someone declared you to have won 10-0 (what about letting the strength of your ideas do the talking?). Debate with Alister McGrath in public and you might be slightly humbled.

Incidentally, has anyone on here read McGrath's response to The God Delusion? He understands evolution. And he understands theology. And there is no reason why knowledge of evolution should lead to atheism. Read it, just as you expect all religious people to read Dawkins.

mdowe, your example of how Christianity is somehow a short-term world view is worryingly similar to Dawkins' treatment of religious ideas in TGD. You take what some Christians believe (a very small minority in terms of worldwide numbers) - that Christ's second coming is likely to happen very soon, and therefore we don't need to look after our environment (which, after all, most Christians believe is a gift from God that needs to be protected), and you apply it to Christianity as a WHOLE. And, if Christianity believes in an after-life, it is surely no shorter-term a belief system than atheism.

And valleyshrew, your treatment of perhaps history's most influential man is disgraceful. Not only is your selection of his teachings completely out of context and not fully explained, but you fail to realise that so much of your morality is based on a Christian cultural system which itself stems largely from the teachings of Christ. Not once did Christ engage in violent behaviour that hurt anybody. Ignore his teachings on truth and love for a few that appear to justify violence at your peril (any research into the context of those quotes, though?). I'd love to know who your moral example is, and on what basis you possibly judge them. It's not that self-proclaimed crusader against bigotry, Richard Dawkins, is it?

6. If they preach the cause of the poor, they're my people

Comment #16152 by daveadams on January 5, 2007 at 3:40 am

There are a number of comments on here that need responding to.

Firstly, Ian Robinson, you pose the question why the church owns property and assets and doesn't sell them, and takes tax revenue. The church, like any institution, needs resourcing. Without property and assets, it can do none of the charitable work it does. Now there are no doubt corrupt church leaders, but the vast majority of faith-based organisations are not-for-profit. Where is your criticism of secular charities for doing the same thing?

Secondly, the comments about AIDS show narrow-minded reasoning. Yes, some Roman Catholic policies have not helped AIDS. To refuse to hand out condoms, for example, is mindless. However, you are ignoring where we would be if the church had not got involved in the battle against AIDS. In Uganda, for example, a rare success story of combatting AIDS, the church was instrumental in policy-making and on-the-ground work.

There is a mindset on here that presumes the over-simplistic binary that anything religious is bad and anything secular is good. Just because work is faith-based does not mean it is worthless. Studies have also shown that religious people give more per person to charity than atheists. The Salvation Army is the second biggest social service provider in the UK behind the government. Worthless work? I don't think so.

7. Letter From America: Atheists throw down the gauntlet

Comment #16011 by daveadams on January 4, 2007 at 6:43 am

I in fact meant "Bernstein is wrong to suggest that no such events are occurring" - sorry!

8. Letter From America: Atheists throw down the gauntlet

Comment #15990 by daveadams on January 4, 2007 at 5:29 am

I am a Christian and I condemn all violence, and threats to it, used by the Christian right in America. Bernstein is wrong to suggest that no such events are not occurring.

However, as Dawkins himself questions, are we really concerned with coming up with two role-calls of iniquity? If we are, then Christians can point the finger at many, many atheists. Yes, Christians who commit violence may well be hypocrites, but what insurance does the belief there is no God offer against violence? It may remove one excuse for it, but hatred, envy, jealousy, the territorial imperative, ethnicity, politics, and many cultural dividers remain.

A world without religion would be a world with less violence. But that will not stop people from believing what they do - because they believe they are right. Show them why they are wrong, by all means, but don't tell them violence alone is a reason to get rid of religion. Violence, for most of them, is either a gross misinterpretation of their religion, or an unfortunate by-product. Then there are the minority of religious people who indluge in it, who I condemn on all fronts.

9. Beliefwatch: Blasphemy (Challenge)

Comment #15706 by daveadams on January 2, 2007 at 6:59 am

By "argument" I mean the reliance on the ideas themselves rather than the mockery and crudeness encouraged by this Blasphemy Challenge.

So, anything said by an atheist is "argument", and anything by a religious person "dreams"? Dimiss all the works of C.S. Lewis, Hans Kung, Karl Barth and J.R.R. Tolkein (to name but a few) as "dreams" if you wish, but in one broad sweep you're wiping away a great deal of great work and argument.

10. Beliefwatch: Blasphemy (Challenge)

Comment #15685 by daveadams on January 2, 2007 at 3:47 am

Be as rude and obnoxious as you all like. None of it will make your arguments an ounce better. The people you wish would convert are hardly going to be impressed by your crudely-covered rhetoric (or is this just to have a laugh with your mates?). The comments are offensive not because they criticize Christianity, but because they prefer to use mocking rather than argument.

Daring something you don't believe exists to punish you? If he doesn't exist, you people have nothing to worry about, so there's no point in daring.

You don't believe a word in the bible? You don't mean that - because to suggest that there is not a word of truth in it (historically at least) is as improbable as it is historically false.

11. Response to Richard Dawkins' Criticisms in The God Delusion

Comment #15133 by daveadams on December 29, 2006 at 4:19 am

BrianCoughlanworldcitizen, your response to this Richard Swinburne post is immature, rude and unhelpful. What impression would you get from a religious person swearing and writing in such an impatient tone on this website? Would you not think it's because they'd rather use vulgar rhetoric than their own measured argument? Do you think Dawkins appreciates you swearing on his site?

As for your argument, you refer to "the total s**t that God has made of the world". Did God make you do the last bad thing you did? Is it not human error that has created what is wrong with this world? The Christian view is that God, through his grace, has surrendered some of his sovereignty so that we may have free will. He may know what we are going to do, but the point is he doesn't stop us doing it because that is not free will. You clearly believe in free will, but can't understand how God could allow it when he is all-knowing (it wouldn't be free will at all if he didn't - we're not machines).

As for calling him a "F*****T", your view of life is clearly very negative. You call him that for allowing us to do both good and bad, but concentrate only on the bad things people have done as a result. So kindness, charity, generosity and compassion mean nothing to you? Whether they come from God or not, you seem to see the glass as pretty much empty.

So...the world is clearly random and unjust? How much is random (ask Dawkins), and how much is unjust (ask yourself)?