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Ok, it takes a bit to get into this book because his thoughts are kind of scattered for lack of a better word. Or, it might be that he is assuming the reader knows a certain amount of information that he is talking about? Not sure, but once I got into it I found it easier to understand where he was coming from.
Should be interesting to hear all the things he plans to refute. I personally do believe that agnosticism is more reasonable then atheisism. We'll see what chapter 2 has to say about that.
I agree with Dawkins about the matter of religion and childhood. Children are too young to totally understand their parents religion. For a long time, they are doing what their parents do. But, this is where I break away from Dawkins...there is a period where the child may not understand everything but he/she does understand the basics and breaks from believing because mom and dad do to believing because of their own personal faith. What age does that happen? I'd say it's different for every child.
On page 5 he says: "If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down. What presumptuous optimism! Of course, dyed-in-the-wool faith-heads are immune to argument, their resistance built up over years of childhood indoctrination..." Well, we'll see. I had no such indoctrination and have only been saved for 10 years. I thought it was a neat little way of giving himself an "out" if a believer doesn't change his mind. It's because of his/her childhood indoctrination!!
I found it interesting that on page 14 he says that atheists believe that everything is physical, and that emotions come from the brain and "no miracles except in the sense of natural phenomena that we don't yet understand. If there is something that appears to lie beyond the natural world as it is now imperfectly understood, we hope eventually to understand it and embrace it within the natural" WOW! That is a whole lot of "faith" right there that he just admitted to. Interesting!
Ok, I was really frustrated with the Einstein religion discussion at first, but now I get why he had to put it in there. What I got from it is that he's saying that "God" for Einstein is the unsupernatural forces that occur in nature. That is his God. This is a really strange concept to me. Why call nature God at all? Why not just say there is no God only nature? That seems more reasonable to me...unless the name God is given because so much is unknown? Not sure.
On page 20 he states "A widespread assumption, which nearly everybody in our society accepts - the non religious included - is that religious faith is especially vulernable to offense and should be protected by an abnormally thick wall of respect, in a different class from the respect that any human being should pay to any other." I agree that sometimes society does this...but I disagree that this is how it should be. I think we should in a perfect world be able to disagree without offending others. I said this in another thread...but I'm not offended when a Jew tells me that they do not believe Jesus to be God. Why would that offend me? That has nothing to do with me...that is their belief! They have a right to their belief. While I don't have to respect that belief...I have my own...I DO think that we should respect each other as people who have a right to our own personal beliefs. So to me we don't have to respect each other's beliefs, but I do think we should respect each other as people.
I think that I'll have a different take on Dawkins view. He says that society beats a path to the door of the religious as though they have some expertise comparable to that of a moral philosopher (pg22). I think this is true for any religion that is non-Christian in nature. Once it involves a Christian and his/her rights all bets are off. That has been my experience anyway. All religions are important...unless you are a Christian...then you better not pray to Jesus in schools or share your beliefs because then you are offeneding others. A perfect example of this is given by Dawkins when discussing the cartoons of Mohammad and the uproard surrounding it. How many times do people ridicule Christ...shoot they make movies about it...but that is always acceptable in our society.
Now, in discussing the James Nixon case...where the kid wore the tshirt to school that was offensive. By no means am I condoning this shirt but I did a search on the web however that said that the parents sued because of free speech not anything to do with religion which Dawkins states in his book so I'm not sure where he got that.
Any thoughts?
Last edited by Jazzedforhim; 08-07-2007 at 10:55 PM..
Reason: typo
I will just give my final analysis in IDHEFTBAA..Although I was very disappointed with the first 7 chapters of this book, and was not impressed by the authors, they did do a good job on a lot of the latter chapters. However, if I were an athiest they would have come off as looking down their noses at everyones opinions except their own. Now back to the Christian virw point. This book would be a very good one for a christian to read if he were into "proving" things to others. As for my self, I am beyond that part as I am content to let others have their own beliefs. I would recommend this book for a bible study class to read and discuss as it does add a lot of understandable logic for the christians. I don't think it made any christians out of our athiest friends, it would not have convinced me
Okay, Troop, you got me worried about this Dawkins guy. I wonder if anyone would be interested in my book. I just may give it away to one of you..
Ok, it takes a bit to get into this book because his thoughts are kind of scattered for lack of a better word. Or, it might be that he is assuming the reader knows a certain amount of information that he is talking about? Not sure, but once I got into it I found it easier to understand where he was coming from.
Should be interesting to hear all the things he plans to refute. I personally do believe that agnosticism is more reasonable then atheisism. We'll see what chapter 2 has to say about that.
I agree with Dawkins about the matter of religion and childhood. Children are too young to totally understand their parents religion. For a long time, they are doing what their parents do. But, this is where I break away from Dawkins...there is a period where the child may not understand everything but he/she does understand the basics and breaks from believing because mom and dad do to believing because of their own personal faith. What age does that happen? I'd say it's different for every child.
On page 5 he says: "If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down. What presumptuous optimism! Of course, dyed-in-the-wool faith-heads are immune to argument, their resistance built up over years of childhood indoctrination..." Well, we'll see. I had no such indoctrination and have only been saved for 10 years. I thought it was a neat little way of giving himself an "out" if a believer doesn't change his mind. It's because of his/her childhood indoctrination!!
I found it interesting that on page 14 he says that atheists believe that everything is physical, and that emotions come from the brain and "no miracles except in the sense of natural phenomena that we don't yet understand. If there is something that appears to lie beyond the natural world as it is now imperfectly understood, we hope eventually to understand it and embrace it within the natural" WOW! That is a whole lot of "faith" right there that he just admitted to. Interesting!
Ok, I was really frustrated with the Einstein religion discussion at first, but now I get why he had to put it in there. What I got from it is that he's saying that "God" for Einstein is the unsupernatural forces that occur in nature. That is his God. This is a really strange concept to me. Why call nature God at all? Why not just say there is no God only nature? That seems more reasonable to me...unless the name God is given because so much is unknown? Not sure.
On page 20 he states "A widespread assumption, which nearly everybody in our society accepts - the non religious included - is that religious faith is especially vulernable to offense and should be protected by an abnormally thick wall of respect, in a different class from the respect that any human being should pay to any other." I agree that sometimes society does this...but I disagree that this is how it should be. I think we should in a perfect world be able to disagree without offending others. I said this in another thread...but I'm not offended when a Jew tells me that they do not believe Jesus to be God. Why would that offend me? That has nothing to do with me...that is their belief! They have a right to their belief. While I don't have to respect that belief...I have my own...I DO think that we should respect each other as people who have a right to our own personal beliefs. So to me we don't have to respect each other's beliefs, but I do think we should respect each other as people.
I think that I'll have a different take on Dawkins view. He says that society beats a path to the door of the religious as though they have some expertise comparable to that of a moral philosopher (pg22). I think this is true for any religion that is non-Christian in nature. Once it involves a Christian and his/her rights all bets are off. That has been my experience anyway. All religions are important...unless you are a Christian...then you better not pray to Jesus in schools or share your beliefs because then you are offeneding others. A perfect example of this is given by Dawkins when discussing the cartoons of Mohammad and the uproard surrounding it. How many times do people ridicule Christ...shoot they make movies about it...but that is always acceptable in our society.
Now, in discussing the James Nixon case...where the kid wore the tshirt to school that was offensive. By no means am I condoning this shirt but I did a search on the web however that said that the parents sued because of free speech not anything to do with religion which Dawkins states in his book so I'm not sure where he got that.
Any thoughts?
Wow, that was a long post. Now I know what it's like when people read my posts
Let me see, here, I'll try to address each of your concerns as best I can. I do believe he assumes the reader knows a certain amount of the matter at hand already. I don't think his efforts to try and persuade someone who is of utter blind faith would have an effect anyway. I think that's why he gave himself the "out" you speak of. But, keep in mind, the authors of IDHEFTBA gave themselves the same out as Dawkins did.
As far as religion and children you will hear no argument from me whatsoever as to Dawkins' philosophy on it. His thoughts and my thoughts are essentially one and the same on it.
As far as the leap of faith you are talking about he is talking about his faith in that science will have an explanation for the unexplainable. I think he further alludes to this later in the book when he talks about ancient man seeing a jumbo jet airplane. Surely, this must be something of the Gods, right? Yet, man did eventually overcome the sophistication of the theories of flight even though it took quite a while. I think that's what he's getting at. People saw birds fly for thousands of years and never fully understood why. Finally, science gave them an answer.
As far as the Einstein discussion is concerned, I too agree that I was frustrated in the beginning of it but I do understand the need to explain it. As far as calling God "Nature" he alludes to that as well when he says that you can substitute words for anything. I can try to find the exact quote if you'd like. Some weird part of my brain is telling me around page 25-26.
And as far as religion taking the moral highground with the exception of Christianity I think that's largely false. In the U.S. the Christian majority felt comfortable in their "control" over the ways we live and acted and people are starting to realize that that isn't what the country was founded on. It's not that we're shutting down the Christian faith it's that we're also using what is rightfully ours and Christians dislike it because it opposes what they believe.
And as far as the kid with the t-shirt. I never heard of it, but it wouldn't surprise me either way
Well I have now finished the book IDHEFTBAA. Overall, Its method is simple: assert that reason cannot lead man to certainty and that every idea demands faith; then claim that the only alternative to skepticism and subjectivism is religion; and finally, employ twisted science, pseudo-science, logical fallacies, and outright lies to establish Christianity as a more rational hypothesis.
The starting premise of the book is that reason cannot lead man to certainty. Why not? Because induction, the authors claim, leads man only to probable truths. What's so fascinating is that in their efforts to condemn skepticism, the authors grant every one of the skeptic's premises. Whereas the skeptic would say, "It is a leap of faith to say that man is mortal," the Christian retorts, "That's right, but it's such a small leap! Sure, you can't know for sure that all men are mortal, but you can know they probably are. It takes more faith to conclude that some men are not mortal than to conclude all of them are." This means that man is obligated to accept conclusions that cannot be justified by reason. It means that reason demands the acceptance of ideas that cannot be proved by rational means. It means that reason demands irrationality.
Keep in mind that if no amount of evidence is sufficient to establish certainty, then there is no basis for judging probability. If you don't know where your destination is, you can't know how far you are from it. It also means that you have no means of determining what counts as evidence for or against a conclusion. Is the fact that all men have died evidence that man by his nature must die? Unless we know what proof would consist of, we have no way to answer that question.
This is illustrated by the next chapter of the book, where the authors break out the cosmological argument to prove God's existence. Their arguments runs thusly:
P1: Everything that had a beginning had a cause.
P2: The universe had a beginning.
C: Therefore the universe had a cause.
Now, I am not a scientist, and I suspect that much of the science they use to defend P2 isn't even accepted by today's mixed up scientists. Moreover, that premise is not a scientific question, but a philosophical one. Or, more precisely, it can be ruled out philosophically: existence cannot come from non-existence. The big bang, if it occurred, represents the universe changing its form or organization, not coming into existence from nothing.
But what's most relevant here is what the authors do with the scientific evidence. They assert that science cannot now explain what happened at the time of the big bang or before, and conclude that the only reasonable explanation is that it was created by something outside of existence. In other words, they do not identify what would be conclusive evidence that God exists and thereby determine what would count as evidence of this conclusion. Rather, they posit that there is something science cannot explain and say that this is evidence for God. Evidence? By what standard?
In fact, as Leonard Peikoff pointed out in OPAR, "Inference from the natural can only lead to more of the natural, i.e., to limited, finite entities acting and interacting in accordance with their identities." The key to every argument for the existence of God is the claim, "We don't know X... and therefore God exists." This is worse than a logical fallacy; it is the antithesis of logic. It makes ignorance the basis for certainty -- the only basis for certainty.
Yet the authors repeat this pattern again and again. Their second argument for God is the design argument. In that chapter, they engage in a full-out assault on evolution, raising the "Intelligent Design" claim that certain features of life are "irreducibly complex" and could not have arisen through natural causes. Apart from the fact that this point has been answered time and again by scientists (proving to my satisfaction that the authors are completely dishonest) the basic logical point still stands. From the fact that we cannot explain something, we cannot conclude anything. Only on the premise that all conclusions require a leap of faith can someone make such a demand.
And that is the whole point. That is why the authors are so desperate to claim that every conclusion requires some amount of faith. If rational certainty is impossible, there is no way to determine what counts as evidence, and if there is no standard for what counts as evidence, then everything counts as evidence -- including ignorance.
The third argument offered for God's existence is the moral argument, in which they simply assert that without God there is no objective basis for morality. I trust I need not spend time refuting that, although I will point out that I think one of the best arguments against Jesus' divinity was that the morality he preached is evil: faith, original sin, mercy over justice, love divorced from values, self-denial, self-abnegation, self-sacrifice... Aristotle was a more careful moral thinker than God Himself.
The rest of the book is spent defending the accuracy of the Bible. Reading page after page of trivia, it's sometimes easy to lose sight of what the authors are actually trying to prove: that even though we know people can err or lie, and that documents can be inaccurate (especially historical ones), and despite the fact that religion contradicts everything we do know, it is irrational to doubt the Biblical story and rational to believe that the Son of God came to the earth, performed miracles, and after telling people that murderers need not burn in hell but an honest atheist will, was crucified and awoke from the dead.
To be sure, I have only touched on the errors and absurdities (and viciousness) of this book. But the book does have one accidental virtue: it highlights how badly Ayn Rand is needed in today's philosophical climate. It was Ayn Rand who saw that the alternative to materialism isn't idealism. that the alternative to skepticism is not intrinsicism, and that the alternative to moral subjectivism is not religious authoritarianism.
Whilst the authors are not completely retarded, no self-respecting human can give this book any credulity. Whilst I will not be reading the Dawkins book (as I have started it in the past, and didn't really get into it) I sincerely hope the religious people doing so, are not nearly as irritated with it as I have been with IDNHEFTBAA. I have enjoyed participating and reading the other responses, and been pleasently surprised by the open minded and un-emitional responses. Have fun with the "God Delusion"...
Ok, don't expect me to continue this ambitious reading...but I woke up at 5am when hubby went to work and could not go back to sleep so I started reading.
Disclaimer: I tend to type fast so please excuse my typos
Chapter 2
First, he is a bit hard to follow. It takes him a long time to get to the point of what he's saying and it's kind of scattered thinking IMO. But...still followable. Is that a word...followable? LOL
Anyway, I know he went into this big thing about not handling his thoughts on God with kid gloves but I was quite surprised that in his description of the Old Testament God that (among other interesting descriptions) he actually labels God as an "unforgiving control freak" which leads me to believe that he doesn't really understand who this God is, even if he doesn't believe in God. I mean, that is the last attribute I would ascribe to God...everything in the Bible describes the exact opposite. But to each his own.
He says that "any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution". Ok...but there is no evidence of this, it's a THEORY, and I think it should be taught as such in schools not fact. It's not fact. Also, what about first life? More "faith" that is needed here. Just as believers have it, so do atheists.
I agree that many churches misuse money. I agree that the Catholic church worships humans other then Jesus...not to down any of my Catholic friends, but I see this to be true as well.
The concept of the trinity is understandably confusing except when YOU personally have the Holy Spirit too! Then, while it's hard to explain you can totally understand how there can be three in one. When he was talking about PAP agnostics verses TAP agnostics I see it as both! The experience of the Holy Spirit cannot be explained or proved (PAP) but the truth is there (TAP) regardless.
He spends a lot of time on the founding fathers. I've done some research on this. Some do indeed appear to have been Christians and some clearly were not. But, no one can deny that the reason they came here was to avoid religious oppression from the government. They wanted freedom of religion. So, no matter what their personal faith at that time they all wanted a government that did not ascribe to a particular faith while at the same time maintaining the right of religious freedoms to the people under that government.
He also sites a lot of instances where atheists are discriminated against and wow...in all honesty I am quite shocked at some of this. Where did some of this occur? I mean here in California it's all good to be an atheist.
In his "way out" there examples of tea pots in space and spaghetti mosters it is true that these are disprovable. Just like Big Foot and the Lock Ness Monster. Some do believe. I'm not sure I agree however that the burden of proof is with the non-believers. Afterall, how do atheists prove evolution? They don't. Rather then try to give evidence of proof it seems more reasonable to determine which one has the greater percentage of probablity of being true/false.
The whole NOMA thing was ok but it doesn't prove anything one way or the other...it's just mans theory. I laughed reading the prayer study. Prayer is a conversation with God...not a wish granted dispensing machine. I agree with him about those praying for the dead...ridiculous.
I was really surpised that he believes there is a high probablity for alien civilizations. His view is that they would be a product of evolution. My view is that it (if existed) would be a product of creation. Why is one more probable then the other when there is proof for neither? To me non-living things just don't gather and create life and a beating heart. But...he has his view as well. Both need some faith to fill the gaps of the unknown but Dawkins says he has no faith! How can he say that?
Ok, don't expect me to continue this ambitious reading...but I woke up at 5am when hubby went to work and could not go back to sleep so I started reading.
Disclaimer: I tend to type fast so please excuse my typos
Chapter 2
First, he is a bit hard to follow. It takes him a long time to get to the point of what he's saying and it's kind of scattered thinking IMO. But...still followable. Is that a word...followable? LOL
Anyway, I know he went into this big thing about not handling his thoughts on God with kid gloves but I was quite surprised that in his description of the Old Testament God that (among other interesting descriptions) he actually labels God as an "unforgiving control freak" which leads me to believe that he doesn't really understand who this God is, even if he doesn't believe in God. I mean, that is the last attribute I would ascribe to God...everything in the Bible describes the exact opposite. But to each his own.
He says that "any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution". Ok...but there is no evidence of this, it's a THEORY, and I think it should be taught as such in schools not fact. It's not fact. Also, what about first life? More "faith" that is needed here. Just as believers have it, so do atheists.
I agree that many churches misuse money. I agree that the Catholic church worships humans other then Jesus...not to down any of my Catholic friends, but I see this to be true as well.
The concept of the trinity is understandably confusing except when YOU personally have the Holy Spirit too! Then, while it's hard to explain you can totally understand how there can be three in one. When he was talking about PAP agnostics verses TAP agnostics I see it as both! The experience of the Holy Spirit cannot be explained or proved (PAP) but the truth is there (TAP) regardless.
He spends a lot of time on the founding fathers. I've done some research on this. Some do indeed appear to have been Christians and some clearly were not. But, no one can deny that the reason they came here was to avoid religious oppression from the government. They wanted freedom of religion. So, no matter what their personal faith at that time they all wanted a government that did not ascribe to a particular faith while at the same time maintaining the right of religious freedoms to the people under that government.
He also sites a lot of instances where atheists are discriminated against and wow...in all honesty I am quite shocked at some of this. Where did some of this occur? I mean here in California it's all good to be an atheist.
In his "way out" there examples of tea pots in space and spaghetti mosters it is true that these are disprovable. Just like Big Foot and the Lock Ness Monster. Some do believe. I'm not sure I agree however that the burden of proof is with the non-believers. Afterall, how do atheists prove evolution? They don't. Rather then try to give evidence of proof it seems more reasonable to determine which one has the greater percentage of probablity of being true/false.
The whole NOMA thing was ok but it doesn't prove anything one way or the other...it's just mans theory. I laughed reading the prayer study. Prayer is a conversation with God...not a wish granted dispensing machine. I agree with him about those praying for the dead...ridiculous.
I was really surpised that he believes there is a high probablity for alien civilizations. His view is that they would be a product of evolution. My view is that it (if existed) would be a product of creation. Why is one more probable then the other when there is proof for neither? To me non-living things just don't gather and create life and a beating heart. But...he has his view as well. Both need some faith to fill the gaps of the unknown but Dawkins says he has no faith! How can he say that?
I'm afraid to say it due to prior ummm circumstances but yes, God was an "unforgiving control freak" in the Old Testament among every other name that Dawkins called him. The version of God you are talking about is the one in the New Testament surely?
As far as the quote you mentioned, that I bolded... I believe he was referring to God as well and therefore God had to be the end result of a long period of an extended process of gradual evolution. I think he's using the argument to prove two points. One, that there needn't be a God to have first life, and the other is that for a God to exist there must have been a process of gradual evolution for him to "be." As far as evolution being a theory, well anything can be a theory as the authors of IDHEFTBA concluded for us. However, it is what we judge based on the evidence that we call fact or not fact. We call evolution a fact because it does occur, especially on the cellular level. No one on this board has argued the theory of microevolution, but nonetheless, it is still evolution.
I agree to a certain extent with what you said about the founding fathers, but again, I think what Dawkins wanted to say about the founding fathers is that this nation was indeed NOT founded on the premise of Christianity. I think he is trying to make that assertion because for some reason there are an OVERWHELMING amount of Christians who feel that is true and that's their excuse for why we should be doing certain things in this country. However, it is not the case that the founding fathers based this country on the principles of Christianity, however many of our first citizens were Christians and carried their Christian traditions onward because they were "allowed" to here in the States.
As far as the incidences you are referring about, I would be very shocked to hear about them in California but come down to the good ol' boys club in the Deep South and see what happens when you purchase a Dawkins book such as I did the other day Thankfully, no one stopped me but I sure could feel the eyes wandering in my direction.
His method of trying to disprove Tea Pots and Flying Spaghetti Monsters is the exact same method that the authors of IDHEFTBA have used to assert that God does indeed exist. So, although I find his claims a little bit outrageous in terms of a tea pot in outer space, you cannot definitively proove with a 100% chance that this teapot does not exist. That is the argument the religious want to use in regards to God. No, we cannot argue that, but we can make some pretty clear decisions based off of what we know.
As far as prayer with God, again, he's trying to prove a point. If people didn't view prayer as a wish dispensing machine than no one in those three congregations would have prayed for anybody. Nor would you hear people praying any time someone has surgery, anytime someone dies, anytime someone gets sick, anytime someone has a car accident, anytime someone goes to war, or anytime someone gets a limb cut off. It is our own selfishness as humans that prayer has become what it is and that was the point he was trying to prove. Well, that's the point I got.
As far as aliens are concerned, I was getting pretty tired when I got to that point so although I read it I am not sure how much of it I actually grasped. My view on it is that I really do wish intelligent life were out there, but I would so much sooner wish to find that there was an ocean of "first lives" out there that could be studied than a full grown species. Although, I must admit, the full grown species would be quite interesting as well.
HEY is there anyone else out here who would like to help answer Jazzed's questions?!?!?! I'm going to get carpal tunnel doing this!!
I actually read The God Delusion several months ago and felt that it was one of the best books I'd read in a very long time. I basically agree with his point of view completely and I don't think I'd ever read a book like it except for Bertrand Russell's "Why I Am Not A Christian" which is a classic book on atheism.
In the first chapter he points out some famous scientists who were atheists although not that many people realize it. The quotes by Einstein were particularly interesting. The next part of the chapter, Undeserved Respect, is probably not going to be a favorite part for believers. However, he does describe the powerful hold that religion has on society and how it impacts many social and political issues. I realize that Christians will not have a problem with this because they feel they have a right to be involved in these matters as much as any other citizen. Of course Christians or those of any other religion do have rights and I don't think Dawkins is suggesting that they shouldn't have those rights. What he's doing is just laying the groundwork for what religion is and how it affects individuals and society.
Wow...I'm just miss productive these days. Hubby had a work book and I had mine...LOL
I am finding this book really hard to stay with simply because the author assumes you know what he's talking about AND doesn't even give a brief one sentence explaination of the concept. I really struggled with grasping what the "ontological argument" was. I finally googled it to get a clear understanding that he could not give in several pages.
Anyway, on page 78 he talks about how it is incompatible for God to be omniscient (all knowing) and omnipotent (almighty) and I thought that was a good observation. I know it, but ascribe God to have qualities that man doesn't but I've never known anyone to point that out.
On 79 he says "Evolution by natural selection produces an excellent simulacrum of design..." But what he fails to say is this is micro evolution not macro...that has yet to be seen.
Back to the ontological argument I think from a believer's perspective that the Holy Spirit is a perfect example of this. It is not in the observable world and yet I know his presence is there in my heart. I just wish y'all knew me before and then now...you would know that something drastic occurred deep in my soul for such a change to happen. But I digress...this is not proof but a reasonalbe ontological argument.
The argument from beauty area did nothing for me personally. To say that the existence of great composers and artists proves God exists is a different perspective I'll give him that. It was interesting when he was talking about how the "simulation software" in the brain can misperceive things...and just reading his description of how the brain works, it's complexity and such...just reading that is evidence in my opinion that the brain didn't just accidently put itself together this way! But, such is his belief. It's not all about the physical evidence for God. The Holy Spirit changing a person is an amazing thing to witness and not anything you can put your hands on.
The "mistakes" in the bible that he points out I have never heard of but I'll have to research them on my own. Just a bit of time and we're good to go.
Again, like in the other book he spends a lot of time talking about what famous people believe or don't believe but that is no proof either way and is frustating.
Next he goes to a study that reports that most of the better American scientists are atheists. I quote "What is remarkable is the polar opposition between the religiosity of the American public at large and the atheism of the intellectual elite." First...could it be that there are more that believe but fear ridicule from the scientific world at large? Second...what makes an atheist an "intellectual elite"?
Next he has to tell us how he's so much more intelligent by stating that studies have shown that religiosity is negatively correlated with education! Right after that he says "Sociologists studying British children hav found that only about one in twelve break away from their parents religious beliefs. So which is it? IQ or parents and does this also apply to the atheist? Could it be that maybe the more "intellectual" person is just over analyzing everything? Could it be that the mind has taken over all matters including those of the heart? Something to think about.
I agree with him that one cannot just make a choice to believe in something. Why should we believe in Jesus? Because he loved us so much that he sacrificed himself on a cross for our sins! Is it too much for Him to ask that people believe He did that for them? I don't think so. At least that is the Christian perspective.
I agree with him that one cannot just make a choice to believe in something. Why should we believe in Jesus? Because he loved us so much that he sacrificed himself on a cross for our sins! Is it too much for Him to ask that people believe He did that for them? I don't think so. At least that is the Christian perspective.
I'm sorry Jazzed, I had a long day at work and I'd love to address everything in your post, but I'm just going to address this one single point because that's all I really have the mindset for right now
I think you understand but misunderstand the concept at the same time. Your question of "Is it too much for Him to ask that people believe He did that for them?" is one I respond to with a blatant YES. For all I know, Jesus did die on a cross, Jesus was a man of wisdom with words, and Jesus did believe he was the son of god. But does that make him right? Does that mean that because he died on a cross and thought he was the son of god that I should believe he was the son of god?
Because the man in charge of the Heaven's Gate cult thought that by committing mass suicide he would catch a spaceship to the next world via the Hale Bop comet make him right? I think anyone with common sense would laugh at that. But, he certainly had followers. Over 30 people, over twice the number of apostles, committed suicide for that very reason alone. Was it so much for him to ask?
The thing is, that if I were to believe in a deity than I could, in fact, assume that he did send a son down to earth. Or maybe he talked to Mohammed, or maybe he just left it at the OT. But, the fact is that I don't believe in a deity, therefore said deity could not have a son, and said son could not have been the son of god. However said son could have been a mere mortal man with the grand illusion that he was the son of god. You ask, well what about the miracles? Well, what about them? Obviously in order for people to commit mass suicide they must have seen SOMETHING that made them believe that the leader of the Heaven's Gate cult wasn't lying, right? The thing is, it is not a hard thing to ask someone who believes in a deity. But, to ask someone who does not believe in a deity is like asking a child who hates lima beans if he'd like another serving.
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Dawkins Chapter 2
