Richard Dawkins Has God on the Ropes in Science verses Religion Debate - Round 1 - FIGHT!
Friedrich Nietzche is getting new support from Big Wig Atheists in the `God Is Dead Campaign’. Fortunately God is being leant support from morticians in the `Nietzsche Is Dead Campaign’”. According to a recent study, 85% of America has a faith in God ("What We Believe" Time Magazine, Oct 30th, 2006). However, we part ways into one of several categories when we drill down to Who or What God actually is. Undeterred by our obstinance, the New Atheists of the world hold onto their faith (no, that's not a Freudian Slip though maybe it should be) that God may yet be on the verge of tapping out of the ring. A slew of recent works have flown off the shelves by the likes of Oxford University prof Richard Dawkins, neuroscience Know-it-All Sam Harris, and Tufts University philosopher Daniel Dennett. We now have the Multiverse Hypothesis in cosmology saying we may have upwards of 300 billion universes, and if we’re one in a billion, why not spring up accidentally without divine intervention? Annoyingly enough, that also increases the chances that nature is even more outside the scope of our understanding, but, I digress.
Logic Attacks Religion
Dawkins sees it as a closet movement “I believe we’re in the same position the gay movement was in a few decades ago. There was a need for people to come out. The more people who came out, the more people had the courage to come out. I think that’s the case with atheists.” He goes on to goad in a November Wired Magazine article that “Highly intelligent people are mostly atheists. Not a single member of either house of Congress admits to being an atheist. Either they’re stupid, or they’re lying. And have they got a motive for lying?…Everybody knows that an atheist can’t get elected.”
Yeah, and your point? Most people, on occasion, grant legislators both stupidity and dishonesty. But what do you do with the other 85% of "stupid" God-fearing Americans when you figure that many of them are doctors, lawyers, and the like. New Atheist Glen Slade, the organizer of the monthly atheists “Brights” group in London offers more hope that the War on Terror is setting the stage for a No-Faith Takeover by raising awareness about the existence of more than one world religion. Well, so do specials on The History Channel but no matter how high-priced basic cable gets, it’s still cheaper than a war on terror – I think we had knowledge of multiple world religions before the war stepped in. Glen Slade continues, "A lot of moderates give a power base to extremists. A lot of Catholics use condoms and get divorced and even listen to punk rock like Bad Religion (Greg Graffin’s an atheist). They still stay Catholic. But when the Pope speaks, he still gets credit for speaking for a billion people." Hmm, I actually like Slade. He’s more religious than most religious people I know. He wants to call BS on religious apathy. It's all or nothing, baby! Dawkins, however, gives a tired argument. "As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers.” Sure it is, if you believe that all religions are fundamentally the same.
So if logic can't win the day for the New Atheist, you can always drag out the Apocalytic Threat.
Sam Harris, author of Letter to a Christian Nation, believes we are going to kill ourselves off over religion. But he’s not worried that time won’t change us and we will eventually see the error of our ways. He points to slavery and rests his case. “At some point it is just going to be too embarrassing to believe in God." But won’t that only work for those people who succumb to the very thing you’re asking them to lay aside, namely, groupthink and a culture of religious belief? When asked about the look and feel of a world without God, Sam offers a Religion of Reason, the 21st Century equivalent of Robespierre's Culture of the Supreme Being. He offers the Atheist Prayer – “That our reason will subjugate our superstition, that our intelligence will check our illusions, that we will be able to hold at bay the evil temptation of faith.”
All of this double-speak makes my head hurt. It works on the tired premise that religion is not rational. Well, riddle me this, Batman? Where does your motivation for disproving faith come from? A desire to have cognitive resonance? Where is your dissonance coming from? These incovenient questions pose a marketing hurdle for the New Atheist movement. (That and the supremely depressing end result of their logical arguments). As it turns out, so does new scientific discovery in the field of consciousness research. And that is where we will turn in Round 2...
Logic Attacks Religion
Dawkins sees it as a closet movement “I believe we’re in the same position the gay movement was in a few decades ago. There was a need for people to come out. The more people who came out, the more people had the courage to come out. I think that’s the case with atheists.” He goes on to goad in a November Wired Magazine article that “Highly intelligent people are mostly atheists. Not a single member of either house of Congress admits to being an atheist. Either they’re stupid, or they’re lying. And have they got a motive for lying?…Everybody knows that an atheist can’t get elected.”
Yeah, and your point? Most people, on occasion, grant legislators both stupidity and dishonesty. But what do you do with the other 85% of "stupid" God-fearing Americans when you figure that many of them are doctors, lawyers, and the like. New Atheist Glen Slade, the organizer of the monthly atheists “Brights” group in London offers more hope that the War on Terror is setting the stage for a No-Faith Takeover by raising awareness about the existence of more than one world religion. Well, so do specials on The History Channel but no matter how high-priced basic cable gets, it’s still cheaper than a war on terror – I think we had knowledge of multiple world religions before the war stepped in. Glen Slade continues, "A lot of moderates give a power base to extremists. A lot of Catholics use condoms and get divorced and even listen to punk rock like Bad Religion (Greg Graffin’s an atheist). They still stay Catholic. But when the Pope speaks, he still gets credit for speaking for a billion people." Hmm, I actually like Slade. He’s more religious than most religious people I know. He wants to call BS on religious apathy. It's all or nothing, baby! Dawkins, however, gives a tired argument. "As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers.” Sure it is, if you believe that all religions are fundamentally the same.
So if logic can't win the day for the New Atheist, you can always drag out the Apocalytic Threat.
Sam Harris, author of Letter to a Christian Nation, believes we are going to kill ourselves off over religion. But he’s not worried that time won’t change us and we will eventually see the error of our ways. He points to slavery and rests his case. “At some point it is just going to be too embarrassing to believe in God." But won’t that only work for those people who succumb to the very thing you’re asking them to lay aside, namely, groupthink and a culture of religious belief? When asked about the look and feel of a world without God, Sam offers a Religion of Reason, the 21st Century equivalent of Robespierre's Culture of the Supreme Being. He offers the Atheist Prayer – “That our reason will subjugate our superstition, that our intelligence will check our illusions, that we will be able to hold at bay the evil temptation of faith.”
All of this double-speak makes my head hurt. It works on the tired premise that religion is not rational. Well, riddle me this, Batman? Where does your motivation for disproving faith come from? A desire to have cognitive resonance? Where is your dissonance coming from? These incovenient questions pose a marketing hurdle for the New Atheist movement. (That and the supremely depressing end result of their logical arguments). As it turns out, so does new scientific discovery in the field of consciousness research. And that is where we will turn in Round 2...
posted by Joel Aaron at 4:37 PM
2 Comments:
This is a world presently that is being rocked by the extremist nature of religiously backed political beliefs.
It is enough for many people to decide that religion is often used as a political force which threatens and endangers the lives of human beings.
And yes, I know that there have been non-believing extremists too who have committed mayhem and murder on a large scale as well.
But it is religion, primarily the abrahamic religions at the moment, who are acting insanely from a political point of view, which is why people will try to disassociate themselves from this religious madness.
Well "religious madness" and God are two different things, although God may well contribute to "religious madness" of various kinds in various ways. God should not however be confused with religion and vice versa. The errors of religion, including extemist religious fundamentalism, are human error.
Post a Comment
<< Home