Is Richard Dawkins a good scientist?

[McBell]

wow.
the bull **** is really get deep in this thread...

there should be a warning for those who do not want to get it on their shorts...

 

[Ouroboros]

wow.
the bull **** is really get deep in this thread...

there should be a warning for those who do not want to get it on their shorts...

I think there's a mathematical inverse correlation to the length of the thread (number of posts), their sizes, and the quality of discussion (and focus on the original topic). The longer it is, the worse quality and the more far away from the topic it is. (I bet someone already figured out an equation with a constant for this.)

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I generally find Richard Dawkins to be not only a poor scientist, but also a big meany and a poo-poo head as well. His demeanor offends and insults many people, and, as someone who wants others to know I'm one of them, I also find him offensive and insulting. Now, to be fair, I have little first-hand knowledge of his works, or anything he's actually said or written, but this is secondary to my strong drive for social appeasement and connection.

 

[McBell]

I think there's a mathematical inverse correlation to the length of the thread (number of posts), their sizes, and the quality of discussion (and focus on the original topic). The longer it is, the worse quality and the more far away from the topic it is. (I bet someone already figured out an equation with a constant for this.)

I imagine it increases exponentially based upon the number of people who make bold unsubstantiated claims and then refuse to support said bold unsubstantiated claims with anything other than even more bold unsubstantiated claims.

 

[Ouroboros]

I imagine it increases exponentially based upon the number of people who make bold unsubstantiated claims and then refuse to support said bold unsubstantiated claims with anything other than even more bold unsubstantiated claims.

It sounds that it might be recursive as well.

 

[Warren Clark]

I have no idea what this even means. It does not seem coherent. How can he or we give anything to anyone that preceded us?

VERY SORRY :sorry1: Succeed... I have no idea where my mind was in that.
That meant to say that Dawkins is concerned for the education of those that succeeds us

My problem with him is that his arguments are bad. He is not very good at debating religion yet his qualifications in an almost unrelated field give him more credibility than he should have.
It is like the practice of asking Holly wood stars what their political views are. I do not care. I never dismiss a good argument or good debater but I do resent muddying the waters by a person who is out of their depth.
His very competent education in biology does not translate to the fields of theology or philosophy and it shows.

I understand your concern.
This all started with the "Something from Nothing" argument from Lawrence Krauss.
He was challenged to a debate and he took it up.
Really I see it as a publicity stunt for mainly Krauss, since Dawkins refused to debate him several times specifically for the reason you suggested. The fields didn't match.

But when it comes down to it, when you are talking about "something from nothing" from someone who strongly disagrees with evolution, Dawkins accepted the challenge to show him that life did not come from nothing.

Honestly I find this ironic since the only other argument is "god" did it. Which to me is the equivalent as something from nothing.

Of course Krauss proved to be just as reasonable as a tape set on playback. He never listened to what was being said and just repeated himself over and over.

Your ridiculous mischaracterizations of at least Christianity made for effect and founded on bitterness have no explanatory value and only serve to make stereotypes more concrete. Your position like Hitchens should be there is no God and I hate him.

Um, even I have an issue with Hitchens. He was sort of just an atheist with a soap box and a big mouth...

I wouldn't relate myself to him.
Sure the god of the bible is a whiny little kid... but I no longer hold the book on a pedestal. So I could care less for the "Hes mean and I hate him" argument.

In my mind there is nothing to talk about. It doesn't exist... so why talk like it does. There isn't anything to hate.

If that is what I thought that is what I would have said. I see no conflict between scientific facts that are actually known and the Bible. There exist some hypothetical inconsistencies between fantasy science and the Bible. Since those theories take more faith than the Bible requires they have no application.

What people don't seem to understand is that gravity isn't a definite fact... its a theory. The theory of gravity has the equivalent merit in the scientific community as the theory of evolution. If you drop a ball it will fall. If you watch bacteria you will find that it evolves into a stronger strain.



I am sure it doesn't take much faith to take a step with out being afraid of being crushed or floating away.
Just the same it takes no faith to know that every living thing had evolved from the life it preceded from.
It takes more faith to believe in something you can't observe than what you can.
For example, no one has ever observed a donkey talk coherently.

So they invent a theory that not only has no evidence but can never have any

Like I said, there is evidence there for you to observe personally.
Take a look at how fast bacteria and viruses evolve.
The common cold, and this new strain of "Super AIDS" you might have heard of... all examples of evolution right under our noses.

... like (multiverses, or eternal time) because they find the God implying reality of the universe that is based on observation, inconvenient, claim their faith based assumptions are true and there for the Bible is wrong. There is no conflict between science and the Bible, however there is a conflict between the scientific fantasies used to challenge the Bible and the scientific method its self. Dawkins should stick to his alter to science in the lab.

God being the answer for everything is actually very convenient. It is too convenient.

And Dawkins is still in his lab or class room studying and teaching Biology as always... and he is writing books and publishing papers... so yeah, he is where he should be.

He most certainly should be called out for making a pronouncement about a claim he has absolutely no access to and lies completely outside the realm of his education. I have no right to say that because I have a degree in math and experience in defense electronics that a person who claims to have seen a UFO is wrong. That is arrogant garbage. I may not agree but unlike Dawkins and apparently you I know very well I do not have any way of determining the truth of that claim.

Wait what claim? That there is no god? He never said there was definitely 100% no god whatsoever.
He definitely said that there is a 99% chance that there is no god...
He is agnostic about fairies but he doesn't believe in fairies.
[youtube]CQcJ_y33Lu0[/youtube]

It appeared very clear to me. You declared the truth or falsity of something which you can't possibly know. You then reduced a discussion of the most important issues in human history down to a diatribe based on a conclusion you had no way to make. You basically said that faith is the result of ignorance and a preference for ignorance and you could not possibly know that even if it was true. Some of the most intelligent people in human history (including a large percentage of the founders of the actual fields of science themselves were Christians). Linking faith to ignorance only serves to link your claim to it. To claim something that you can't know is intellectually dishonest and emotionally not logically based.

The video above suits as a perfect rebuttal.
I only declared what we know so far...
and so far, there is no sign of a god.
Sorry to pop your bubble.

 

[Simurgh]

He has the right but it has nothing what so ever to do with his being a scientist. He has that right because he lives in a country where people like me have risked their lives to guaranty him that freedom. The freedom was said by the one who recorded the right in the decleration of independance to only exist if God does. So in effect he is exercising a right to dismiss the source of that right. I always love how anti-God philosophy eats it's self. Without God there is no sufficient basis for rights of anykind.

Let me repeat it then. If people as a scientist for his/her opinion about the existence of a god and the scientist answers then it is too bad for the questioner if s/he does not like the answer based on scientific evidence—there is no proof that a god exists. That’s all the man says. What you read into it is your issue.

It is not Dawkins fault that you have a problem with the fact that your tautological argument is nonsense. What risk to your life are you talking about? Are you referring to the US Constitution regarding said freedom of religion? And the Declaration of Independence figures into this debate how again? In the US freedom of religion means just that, we are not forced to believe any religious doctrine. Our laws are based on the Constitution not on what someone said about god in the Declaration of Independence. In any event, this is just another straw man argument without merit.

That is why Godless regimes are many times the most likely to restrict that specific right. I never said he did not have the right. I said he stinks at it and I wish he wouldn't do it. I have almost never said or heard a religious person ever say that faith is true because of science. The only thing we claim is that when it speaks on science it is correct, and that is very rarely. It isn't the Christian who hates the fact the universe we know about is fine-tuned and so has invented a multiverse fantasy that has not one piece of evidence to allow for plausible deniability. It isn't the Christian whose theory is diametrically opposed to a law of biology (abiogenesis) which has no known exception yet insists it's true anyway. I think many times there is more faith on the science side that the theological side yet they call it science where as we are honest enough to call it faith.

This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Science postulates theories based on observed data, and it has no obligation to worry if that agrees with religious sentiments of any kind. And abiogenesis is NOT a law of biology, it is simply a theory that is under consideration given the knowledge we are gaining concerning life near the ocean’s thermal vents. And I still don’t see what that has anything to do with “godless regimes”. So what are you trying to say about faith and science?

What are you talking about. Are you saying the books he has written were because someone made him do it. Come on. He does not like God and makes money by appealing to that. He uses competency in one area to justify his work in another and here we go.

All I said was that if you don’t like the answers don’t ask. So what does your response have to do with that remark? He is a biologist, that does not mean he cannot give his opinion on other issues when asked. You clearly know little about anything he actually says, yet you still insist on interpreting his words for him. What’s the problem then? Or is it your right to talk nonsense based on the fact that you are an xtian, but he better not say anything because he is an atheist?

He does not, or does not do so exclusively. If you watch his debates he has no control over what areas are being discussed many times and speaks on philosophy, logic, and for the love theology many times and stinks at it. I think he spends more time on non-biological fields than biologic ones. Since nothing in biology that is demonstrable is an argument against the Bible it means he must venture into areas where he is way out of his depth for justification much of the time.

Although, you again completely ignore what I actually said, you are right in one thing. He has no control over where those who debate him take the topic. Then should those people not keep their questions to his field of expertise and not ask things they will not want answered. And why can he not have an opinion on a variety of topics? In your world only xtians are allowed to have those it seems. Rather limiting world you live in.

I never said it did. I am very well aware of the fallacy of appeal to numbers as proof. In fact I have not mentioned billions of believers at all. However I do at times as evidence for the sufficiency of the evidence for faith but never proof. An argument against points I never made or would have is also a fallacy.

So insisting that there is evidence of a god’s existence is not the same as saying there is proof. What is the evidence then? I have yet to see any.

I never said this either. If I had to construct the other guys position and then tear down the strawman to make any point at all I would give it up. I said (Greenleaf and Lyndhurst) are both the greatest experts on testimony and evidence in human history. Greenleaf cofounded Harvard law and wrote the literal book on evidence presentation. Lyndhurst is the only man in history to occupy every single high office of law in the British Empire. What I said is that they stated that the Gospels meet every standard of modern legal evidence requirements. I never said anything about them proving God exists. I think it clear which side is making stuff up here.

If it can be proen that it is an accurate description of anything I will never challenge it again. As it is it is just another thing that is unknown by the people who are recording it as fact. Like much of science as well.

Still, what do the opinions of two men long dead have to do with proof of a god floating around in the universe? You insist that Dawkins cannot have any valid opinion outside of his academic field, yet you insist that two lawyers are to be accepted as the greatest authorities on the existence of god. And that makes sense in your universe? Really?


So they say that according to their legal interpretation of the bible god exists. Dawkins says that he has no proof that god exists. Yeah, sure, according to you the lawyers win because their beliefs agree with yours. It is utter nonsense to assert that the gospels meet “every standard of modernlegal evidence requirements”. You are almost 200 years too late to claim that. And besides, both of them had a vested interest in finding only evidence that affirmed their claim.

 

[1robin]

VERY SORRY Succeed... I have no idea where my mind was in that. That meant to say that Dawkins is concerned for the education of those that succeeds us

No problem I myself am the most grammatical inept person on earth. I am sure he is concerned, however I think his concern is that what he has adopted is passed on not necessarily what is proven fact. Much of what I have heard him comment on is things he can't possibly know. When we can't agree on what happened in the civil war when we have battle reports and thousands of book it is quite absurd and arrogant to think he knows what happened 3 billion years ago.

I understand your concern.
This all started with the "Something from Nothing" argument

There is no way to accurately quantify Dawkin's body of work concerning religion as a response to questions. He has written books on his own initiative. I am not even arguing against his right to do so. I am simply saying he is not good at it and the issues would be better off without his input. He could be a valuable expert consultant on biology but not a prognosticator of theological philosophy.

But when it comes down to it, when you are talking about "something from nothing"

. If you grant the most likely facts concerning the universe. That it is not eternal, and that before it existed, nothing else did (not even quantum energy fluctuation) then it is an unavoidable conclusion that everything (not just life) came literally from nothing. I completely disagree with your claim that if God exists, life came from nothing. It came from him.I think your cause and effects are getting all mixed up. Did he accept the challenge like he did with the "eye" by drawing a cartoon and claiming it proof?

Um, even I have an issue with Hitchens. He was sort of just an atheist with a soap box and a big mouth...
In my mind there is nothing to talk about. It doesn't exist... so why talk like it does. There isn't anything to hate.

That is a good question why are you here discussing the non existence of something? I do not believe in unicorns nor alien visitors to earth but I am never on a forum arguing against them nor do I write books about how "not great" they are. I live as if they do not exist. I actually liked Hitchens arguments. I did not agree with any of them but appreciated his wit. Have you ever seen his debate with his twin brother?

What people don't seem to understand is that gravity isn't a definite fact... its a theory. The theory of gravity has the equivalent merit in the scientific community as the theory of evolution. If you drop a ball it will fall. If you watch bacteria you will find that it evolves into a stronger strain.

A law is a proposition that has no known exception. Gravity has no known exception. I disagree with the comparative adopted merit between evolution and gravity in the scientific community but even in that was the case it would be another example of their being wrong. Macroevolution nor origins have any demonstrable proof or example. Gravity has endless examples. Evolution requires the suspension of a law of biology that has no known exceptions. Gravity is a law (in effect) and does not violate any other laws. I do not know why bacteria are relevant even if what you said is true. In evolution the chances of weaker or even lethal genetic changes are astronomically higher than improvements are. There is only a few ways to make a building better but there are an infinite number of ways to make it worse or weaker.The chance that randomness created life has been given 1 in 10^80 and then it gets even far worse because it is necessary to attach a contigent probabilty that it will arrive with a completely intact reproductive system.

I am sure it doesn't take much faith to take a step with out being afraid of being crushed or floating away.
Just the same it takes no faith to know that every living thing had evolved from the life it preceded from.
It takes more faith to believe in something you can't observe than what you can.
For example, no one has ever observed a donkey talk coherently.

Your statements have gone from mildly contentious to hyperbolic irrationality. It does not take faith to expect the exact same result from a concept that has a trillion other examples that are experienced and observed every day and with no inconsistent results, like gravity. It is a completely different matter to conclude that life came from chance given the probabilities against it that are far above the threshold of what is official termed zero chance in physics 1 x 10^50th as well as taking place 3 billion years ago and violates a law of biology (abiogenesis) that has no known exception. Not to mention the other problems with it like the type in type out chemical evolutionary principles that make higher than equilibrium organisms impossible derived by chance or the abject failure to reproduce the necessary steps even in a lab and using tye most conducive circumstances and intelligence. Can you tell what (even theoretically) the system was that created the first system capable of changing energy into complexity.
My faith is not based on a talking donkey. I gained my faith through the philosophic consistency, internal consistency, explanatory power and scope, historic accuracy, logical necessity, textual accuracy, and coherence of the Biblical narrative as a whole plus countless empirical events in my past, and the influence of the holy spirit. Etc..... infinitum. My faith became set in stone by contacting God through the born again event I experienced after using the Bible as a spiritual map of sorts.

Like I said, there is evidence there for you to observe personally.
Take a look at how fast bacteria and viruses evolve.
The common cold, and this new strain of "Super AIDS" you might have heard of... all examples of evolution right under our noses.

Neither I nor the Bible argues against micro evolution. However there is not a single example of macro evolution nor abiogenesis available. Every attempt to reproduce it in a lab even after cheating has failed miserably. There is more going on in your examples than you realize. A parallel example is insects becoming resistant to a chemical and is commonly claimed example of evolution. Is it really evolution. What actually happens is that an already existing resistance to the chemical exists in a few insects. The chemicals kill all others. The entire breeding population has those genes now and repopulates the area with only insects that have the resistance. No evolution. No new genetic information was created. To believe that is evolution is to believe that at the very instant that chemical was used the insects just happened to be evolving the exact genetics that produced resistance. Surely even you can't buy that. Since there were an infinite amount of possible genetic changes and only one very complex one that would have given the needed results then it is simply preposterous. It is the same with your germs in many cases. Evolution is nopthing if not unimaginably slow. Do you actually think that AIDS germs figured out what chemicals they needed to fight (BTW there is no mechanism in nature for intent or problem solving besides intelligence) and then selected the exact genetic mutations it needed to win and affected the changes in a decade or so?
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[1robin]

God being the answer for everything is actually very convenient. It is too convenient.

Convenient or inconvenient has no impact on truth. Claiming evolution overcame abiogenisis is not only convenient but a violation of the scientific method and a law with no known exceptions and can't be done even on purpose in the lab. They simply BELIEVE it happened anyway on far less evidence than faith in the Bible requires. Gravity is convenient does that make it less true.

Wait what claim? That there is no god? He never said there was definitely 100% no god whatsoever.
He definitely said that there is a 99% chance that there is no god...
He is agnostic about fairies but he doesn't believe in fairies.

How do you know if he never has said there is no God? Please post the equation that he uses to establish even his 99% claims.
He claims to be an atheist. An atheist is the positive affirmation that no God's exist.

The video above suits as a perfect rebuttal.

I only declared what we know so far...
and so far, there is no sign of a god.
Sorry to pop your bubble.

I'm on a DOD server and can't watch videos. Do not worry what you have presented has had little effect on my bubble. You might as well have taken on a Spartan Phalanx with a ping pong ball.

 

[Ouroboros]

He claims to be an atheist. An atheist is the positive affirmation that no God's exist.

Not necessarily. There are different "levels" of atheists. Some take it as "I'm most definitely confident and certain that there are no God." Others use the term more as "I don't know if there is a God, but with all things considered, currently I don't believe there is one, i.e. I'm not confident that there is one based on what I know." So there is some wiggle room in how the term is used. In other words, some consider "agnostic atheist" to be a useful term, meaning "don't know if there is a god, but I don't think/believe there is one."

 

[Mr Spinkles]

He has the right but it has nothing what so ever to do with his being a scientist. He has that right because he lives in a country where people like me have risked their lives to guaranty him that freedom. The freedom was said by the one who recorded the right in the decleration of independance to only exist if God does. So in effect he is exercising a right to dismiss the source of that right. I always love how anti-God philosophy eats it's self. Without God there is no sufficient basis for rights of anykind.

Actually, for the record, many of the Enlightenment philosophers and American democratic reformers who developed the concept of rights as we know it today put Nature and human reason, not Heaven and faith or divine intervention, as the basis of human rights. Many of them (e.g. Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine) were openly anti-Christian. While it is true that they believed in a God, and they sometimes invoked God and the Bible to make their arguments more persuasive to their 18th century audience, the existence of a God behind it all is not necessary for their arguments to work. They mostly believed in a deistic God who created human beings and Nature, but then allowed things to run their own course. As such, God is compatible with, but not necessary, for their arguments to work. An atheist could follow the logic of their argument almost exactly, and this probably explains in part why Thomas Jefferson's enemies often accused him of being an atheist.

All one needs to believe, according to American revolutionaries like Thomas Paine, is that humans begin in a "State of Nature" existing as individuals fighting for survival in the wilderness. From these beginnings humans quite naturally band together for mutual benefit and establish governments and a social contract among themselves, much like a "gravitating force" according to Paine. (Paine clearly was connecting his political theory with Newton's theory of gravity, which also replaced faith/heaven with reason/Nature.) Using reason--and not divine authority--one comes to the conclusion that governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed (not God). As such, the governed have rights as stipulated in the social contract.

 

[1robin]

Let me repeat it then. If people as a scientist for his/her opinion about the existence of a god and the scientist answers then it is too bad for the questioner if s/he does not like the answer based on scientific evidence—there is no proof that a god exists. That’s all the man says. What you read into it is your issue.

What does if people as a scientist mean? I have no problem with his or anyone saying that God does not exist. I do have a problem when the method to derive that conclusion is based more on faith than mine is, yet they claim their's are scientific. I do not care what is claimed I care why it is claimed or what it is based on.

It is not Dawkins fault that you have a problem with the fact that your tautological argument is nonsense.

I have not stated any formal theories for the existence of God here. So your claims are intellectually dishonest and meaningless as you mistakenly assert mine are (even though I haven't made any). I have been discussing Dawkins not God primarily though the two may be synonymous in some materialist camps.

What risk to your life are you talking about? Are you referring to the US Constitution regarding said freedom of religion? And the Declaration of Independence figures into this debate how again?

Nope I am referring to the fact I served 9 years and through a war in one of the four organizations (Navy)that have more to do with Americans having rights than any other. Dawkins does not allow for any transcendent standard and that is what is necessary to justify rights of any kind. A right is something endowed or something that can't or should not be taken away that is independent of any individual. The word should and the fact that it is something bestoyed that is not a matter of opinion implies transendance.

In the US freedom of religion means just that, we are not forced to believe any religious doctrine. Our laws are based on the Constitution not on what someone said about god in the Declaration of Independence. In any event, this is just another straw man argument without merit.

The constitution would have never been written if it were not for soldiers making it possible. The rights in the declaration have no justification without a transcendent source. Which is why the man who wrote it said they only can come from our maker even though he was no Christian.

This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Science postulates theories based on observed data, and it has no obligation to worry if that agrees with religious sentiments of any kind. And abiogenesis is NOT a law of biology, it is simply a theory that is under consideration given the knowledge we are gaining concerning life near the ocean’s thermal vents. And I still don’t see what that has anything to do with “godless regimes”. So what are you trying to say about faith and science?

A law is a proposition that has no known exceptions. However for the sake of time let's simply say it has no exceptions and not label it. To give truth to one who loves it not is only to increase opportunity for contention.

I was trying to say. That rights only are justified if a transcendent source is posited and that is why Godless societies usually have less of them.

and

That most of the "science" that is used in contradiction to the Bible is not science. It is instead based on more faith given less evidence than my beliefs are and at least I admit my claims are faith based.

All I said was that if you don’t like the answers don’t ask. So what does your response have to do with that remark? He is a biologist, that does not mean he cannot give his opinion on other issues when asked. You clearly know little about anything he actually says, yet you still insist on interpreting his words for him. What’s the problem then? Or is it your right to talk nonsense based on the fact that you are an xtian, but he better not say anything because he is an atheist?

First the point was that he does much of his prognosticating by choice not by being asked (and even that is a choice to respond). My problem with his comments are they are not very good however his status as an imminent Phd give them a credibility they do not have. The point is that his comments mostly muddy the water, they do not clarify anything. BTW the one man that can show this the clearest, William Lane Craig has asked him to debate for years and Dawkin's has refused.

Although, you again completely ignore what I actually said, you are right in one thing. He has no control over where those who debate him take the topic. Then should those people not keep their questions to his field of expertise and not ask things they will not want answered. And why can he not have an opinion on a variety of topics? In your world only xtians are allowed to have those it seems. Rather limiting world you live in.

Yes they should avoid questions that he has no qualifications to answer as vehemently as he should admit that he has no qualifications to answer in those areas. However it is a God debate not a biology debate and therefore he is far more out of his depth than the theologian. He may have any opinion he wishes and so may I. My opinion is that his opinions stink and add little to the debate and I wish he would not make them. You are confusing the rights to do something with the value or worth of doing it.
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[1robin]

So insisting that there is evidence of a god’s existence is not the same as saying there is proof. What is the evidence then? I have yet to see any.

The exact same thing can be said about the proposed history of evolution but multiverses or an eternal universe do not even rise to that level, yet they are viewed as legitimate theories. Double standards are the evidence of bias. As for giving you evidence for God. This forum couldn't contain that much stuff and I am too lazy to type it all so I will only give one or two lines.
Here is one I copied from an argument on another site that I had made. We have the Biblical texts that is a fact. The Bible texts are at the very worst 95% textually accurate. This is a fact that you can check your self at home with software. Even Bart Ehrman agrees with this once pressed a little. So is what those accurate texts claim true, or made up?
Did man create the God of the Bible.

It is very unlikely for the following reasons.

1. The description of that God first recorded by relatively ignorant men just happens to be an exact match for whatever the creator of the universe must be given the implications of cause and effect. How could they have lied and gotten it so consistent. The ontological/cosmological arguments.

2. The God described by the bible is a being with consistent attributes, revelation, and character. That means that over 40 men that span approx. 2000 years and completely different cultures would have had to continue a lie made by another person to maintain this consistency. That is not logical.

3. Biblical testimony concerning God and Christ specifically in the Gospels is said to meet every standard of modern law and the historical method by the greatest experts in human history on evidence and testimony. Simon Greenleaf and Lord Lyndhurst among many others. Credentials do not get any higher.

4. The testimony concerning God also contains the writers admissions of gross personal failures and faults. This is called the principle of embarrassment and is a mark of authenticity in historical testimony.

5. It might make sense to invent a God that is warm and fuzzy. It makes no sense to invent a God that is demanding and has complete sovereignty over the authors and institutes inconvenient moral requirements. There is no wish fulfillement here.

6. Many of the authors that would have known their claims were lies if they were so in fact, lived a life dedicated to their claims and many suffered death and misery beyond imagining for what they would have known was false. Paul says it this way. If Christ be not (actually) raised then we are to be pitied above all men and our suffering is pointless. There exists no motive for what they claimed other than their sincere belief.

7. No apostle or any other prophet I can think of gained significant monetary, power, or compensation in fame that would explain their adherence to their message. Many suffered terribly for it.

8. There are no contemporary competing claims that indicate any testimony given by Biblical authors especially the Gospel writers incorrectly recorded well known historical events. The Gospels as well as other books were written during the lifetimes of hundreds of eye witnesses of the events they describe and not one surviving alternate account exists that I know of anyway.

9. The existence of thousands of detailed prophecies in the Bible have only an explanation if God gave them. We can't even get the past correct today. The Bible got the future correct in every detail countless times.

10. Of course there are the teleological, cosmological, cause and effect etc.. arguments but I am burned out on them and won't list them all.

This is only one line or reasoning out of hundreds but it is more than enough for you to arbitrarily dismiss so there is no need for more.

Still, what do the opinions of two men long dead have to do with proof of a god floating around in the universe?

If you can't see the value of what two of the greatest experts on evidence and testimony who praise the Bible from a legal perspective I can't help. I never suggested that their comments have anything to do with theological conclusions. I said the historical record is accurate. Conclusion from the record are a separate issue. Please only hand wave what I actually believe away. Not what you wish to believe that I believe.

You insist that Dawkins cannot have any valid opinion outside of his academic field, yet you insist that two lawyers are to be accepted as the greatest authorities on the existence of god. And that makes sense in your universe? Really?

Once again I only indicated that their opinion makes the testimony in the Gospels historically accurate not that their opinion proves God exists. I never said anything about Dawkins being never to make a comment about anything at all. I said his comments about God that lie in fields he has no experience in are usually terrible in my opinion. You are constructing an army of straw men here.

So they say that according to their legal interpretation of the bible god exists.

No they do not and you saying so three times in three paragraphs does not mean that was what I said they said either. It means that according to accepted standards the Gospels are historically reliable testimony. In other words Paul sincerely believed he heard Christ is reliable but maybe he was drunk or maybe it was another God. That lies outside their field and unlike you and Dawkins I keep my experts in their fields.

Dawkins says that he has no proof that god exists. Yeah, sure, according to you the lawyers win because their beliefs agree with yours. It is utter nonsense to assert that the gospels meet “every standard

of modern legal evidence requirements”. You are almost 200 years too late to claim that. And besides, both of them had a vested interest in finding only evidence that affirmed their claim.

Yes that diatribe is nonsense which is why I never said any of it. Good night nurse. The standards that make evidence and testimony reliable have existed for a long long time only the minutea of procedure and technicality of administration. Newton isn't wrong because he is old. Copernicus's theories aren't wrong because they are old because like what makes a fact reliable the concept is timeless. In fact there are two ancient documents that actually have been accepted by courts that are far worse attested than the Bible. So not only does logic but reality its self prove you wrong about their relevance. How many books used as official textbooks on evidence and law schools did you found? Intead of strawmen here is an actual argument about the issue.
Critical assessment

Packham argues that the ancient documents rule technically only applies to a limited genre of legal documents, such as wills and contracts and other specific legal instruments, to which the gospels do not belong. However, there are problems in Packham's argument. The Ancient Documents Rule is not limited to express legal instruments, but covers any type of documents. The criteria for the Ancient Documents Rule is simple and straightforward. According to legal authorities, documents of any type must meet three criteria in order to qualify for the Ancient Documents Rule: 1) that the document is at least 20 years old, 2) presumed to be genuine, 3) come from proper custody (cf. Black's Law Dictionary, FRE 901(b)(8)). Greenleaf, as a writer of highest legal authority, concluded that the Gospels should be received under the ancient documents rule. In §9 of his Testimony of the Evangelists, Greenleaf cites the legal reception by the British Record Commission of the Domesday Book and Ancient Statues of Wales, as well as many other ancient writings.

 

[1robin]

Actually, for the record, many of the Enlightenment philosophers and American democratic reformers who developed the concept of rights as we know it today put Nature and human reason, not Heaven and faith or divine intervention, as the basis of human rights.

Anytime a "should" is implied as in we "should or "ought" to have the right to do X implicitly makes a transcendent source necessary. A law may be derived without God and a right may be claimed without God. However no right actually exists without God. Do you actually think that if a government decides you do not have a right to live that you actually do not have that right? Rights are thing we have that the government is required to not restrict.

Many of them (e.g. Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine) were openly anti-Christian. While it is true that they believed in a God, and they sometimes invoked God and the Bible to make their arguments more persuasive to their 18th century audience, the existence of a God behind it all is not necessary for their arguments to work.

The declaration was ratified by politicians like Franklin and many others that did not share the beliefs of the general masses. There was no need beyond necessity to invoke God by them. The fact they chose a source beyond what their own beliefs allowed suggests just how inevitable the requirement is. The fact is that Jefferson actually said God is the only source in spite of his beliefs. That is more persuasive than all the speculation in the world.

They mostly believed in a deistic God who created human beings and Nature, but then allowed things to run their own course. As such, God is compatible with, but not necessary, for their arguments to work. An atheist could follow the logic of their argument almost exactly, and this probably explains in part why Thomas Jefferson's enemies often accused him of being an atheist.

Jefferson was openly hostile to the Bible. He was a militant agnostic if there is such a thing. However non deistic God would confer rights. Only a theistic God would and that is what he sited as the source. The creation of the universe is consistent with deism but not any special creation of humans.

All one needs to believe, according to American revolutionaries like Thomas Paine, is that humans begin in a "State of Nature" existing as individuals fighting for survival in the wilderness. From these beginnings humans quite naturally band together for mutual benefit and establish governments and a social contract among themselves, much like a "gravitating force" according to Paine. (Paine clearly was connecting his political theory with Newton's theory of gravity, which also replaced faith/heaven with reason/Nature.) Using reason--and not divine authority--one comes to the conclusion that governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed (not God). As such, the governed have rights as stipulated in the social contract.

Your comments concern the theology of the founding fathers than rights and morality. Even most societies routinely reject God soon find it necessary to smuggle in his morality when it matters most. Society does not give rights it gives permission. Society does not make morals it makes moral judgments. Man can't make speech more of a right than it can make murder wrong. In fact in philosophical arguments, without God, not even right and wrong have any real meaning much less, rights. Rights are things the government is required to not take away, not something it can bestow. It is required to not take away free speech, a fair trial, religous freedom, my property etc.. It is restrictions of freewill that are prohibited by rights not the granting of freewill itself. I can go on quite deeply into Roman ideas about crimes commited against mere law versus crimes commited against objective morality but this thread is wearing me out. maybe later.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

1robin,

I don't want to go too far off topic, since this is only tangentially related to Dawkins via your claim that as an atheist, he cannot justify his own right to free speech, but briefly ....

Please note that your opinions/declarations about the nature of rights are irrelevant, because I'm not challenging (or even asking about) your personal opinion on the matter. You however have challenged the atheist position on rights, and that is what I am addressing. To wit, you have claimed that freedom of speech "was said by the one who recorded the right in the decleration of independance to only exist if God does." In fact, no such claim is made in the Declaration of Independence. What it actually says is this:

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them ... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights"​

Again, all I am saying is that God is not absolutely necessary for an atheist to have essentially the same view of rights. An atheist may, for example, believe that since the "Laws of Nature" entitle people to rights, this is sufficient even without "Nature's God". Furthermore, an atheist may believe that people are endowed by a "Creator" of any sort, i.e. "Nature's God" as opposed to a theistic one.

Anytime a "should" is implied as in we "should or "ought" to have the right to do X implicitly makes a transcendent source necessary.

No, it does not. Suppose we observe, as an empirical fact, that humans want to coexist and flourish peacefully together in order to be happy and prosperous. IF that is indeed a fact, THEN we ought to try to establish governments which respect certain rights. We start with facts, use reason, and add evidence, and we can easily end up with an "ought" statement. I would find any argument which invokes things "transcending" facts, reason, and evidence very suspicious indeed.

 

[Simurgh]

……….snip…………….:

Quite frankly, I have a hard time understanding what your argument is—if there is one. You state so many things that are completely irrelevant to the issue concerning Dawkins ideas about religion, the existence of a possible god, or his credentials as a scientist.

What exactly do you want to prove? That he is not entitled to an opinion about religion because he is a scientist? Or is it because he is an atheist? Or because what? You state that 2 men, long dead, who speculated that the law of their day proved that the bible proves the existence of god are right and that Dawkins who says that there is no scientific proof that god exists is wrong.

I don’t know where that makes any sense, but then again my worldview does not depend on this god of yours.

Then what are you trying to say when you state that his statements are not very good? They are fairly clear and concise as far as they go. You accuse him of muddying the water. What water is that? He answers questions posed to him by people who challenge his views that they do not like them matters little and does not muddy any water at all. He argues his position, they argue theirs and that’s all there is to it. That religious people don’t like when he challenges their beliefs and have no valid counter argument other than the usual, god exists because the bible say so, is furthermore not his fault either.

And if this is a god debate—as you claim—and you don’t want people who do not belief in gods tell you why that belief makes no sense, then don’t ask.

Do you really think there is one scientist out there who will state s/he has proven god’s existence and then quotes the bible to do so? In the end it matters little if you use ad hominem, band wagon, red herring, the use of false authority, or any other fallacy to try and “muddy the waters”, yours is still a tautological exercise in teleology.

 

[1robin]

Quite frankly, I have a hard time understanding what your argument is—if there is one. You state so many things that are completely irrelevant to the issue concerning Dawkins ideas about religion, the existence of a possible god, or his credentials as a scientist.

What exactly do you want to prove? That he is not entitled to an opinion about religion because he is a scientist? Or is it because he is an atheist? Or because what? You state that 2 men, long dead, who speculated that the law of their day proved that the bible proves the existence of god are right and that Dawkins who says that there is no scientific proof that god exists is wrong.

I don’t know where that makes any sense, but then again my worldview does not depend on this god of yours.

Then what are you trying to say when you state that his statements are not very good? They are fairly clear and concise as far as they go. You accuse him of muddying the water. What water is that? He answers questions posed to him by people who challenge his views that they do not like them matters little and does not muddy any water at all. He argues his position, they argue theirs and that’s all there is to it. That religious people don’t like when he challenges their beliefs and have no valid counter argument other than the usual, god exists because the bible say so, is furthermore not his fault either.

And if this is a god debate—as you claim—and you don’t want people who do not belief in gods tell you why that belief makes no sense, then don’t ask.

Do you really think there is one scientist out there who will state s/he has proven god’s existence and then quotes the bible to do so? In the end it matters little if you use ad hominem, band wagon, red herring, the use of false authority, or any other fallacy to try and “muddy the waters”, yours is still a tautological exercise in teleology.

I have no idea why your are rejecting or evaluating arguments for God I have never made. I have said very little about God at all.

My argument has simply been that the issue of God's existance is worse off for Dawkin's input yet he is a competant biologist. It is not a complex claim.

 

[1robin]

1robin,

I don't want to go too far off topic, since this is only tangentially related to Dawkins via your claim that as an atheist, he cannot justify his own right to free speech, but briefly ....
Please note that your opinions/declarations about the nature of rights are irrelevant, because I'm not challenging (or even asking about) your personal opinion on the matter. You however have challenged the atheist position on rights, and that is what I am addressing. To wit, you have claimed that freedom of speech "was said by the one who recorded the right in the declaration of independence to only exist if God does." In fact, no such claim is made in the Declaration of Independence. What it actually says is this:
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them ... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights"

It appears to me that statement says exactly what I did. If anything it makes the point of the necessity of the creator stronger than I indicated. Maybe you are thinking that the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God are an either/or scenario but they aren't. They are joined by "and" which indicates that the former is contingent on the latter. IOW X "and" Y must be true. BTW way I have not given my opinion. I have given a paraphrased argument from memory (albeit maybe a bad one) of well-known philosophical principles.

Again, all I am saying is that God is not absolutely necessary for an atheist to have essentially the same view of rights. An atheist may, for example, believe that since the "Laws of Nature" entitle people to rights, this is sufficient even without "Nature's God". Furthermore, an atheist may believe that people are endowed by a "Creator" of any sort, i.e. "Nature's God" as opposed to a theistic one.

God is not necessary for a person to claim a right. If no God exists his claim is simply not true even if believed. Again a right is something endowed that the government is required not to take away. If I claimed there was no God yet I have a right to do "X". Who gave me that right? Even if right is an abstract concept the concept only has any reality if there exists something beyond man to validate it. I will however allow you to substitute "Nature's God" for what I think of as God as it makes no difference. I have said a transcendent standard and source are necessary and the label matters not. Although how can an atheist be an atheist and still believe in a God of any kind?

No, it does not. Suppose we observe, as an empirical fact, that humans want to coexist and flourish peacefully together in order to be happy and prosperous. IF that is indeed a fact, THEN we ought to try to establish governments which respect certain rights. We start with facts, use reason, and add evidence, and we can easily end up with an "ought" statement. I would find any argument which invokes things "transcending" facts, reason, and evidence very suspicious indeed.

Ought implies "duty". If I ought to do something there is something I am responsible to for the completion of the task. At best you have identified what has the most subjective value but you have not established why I "ought" to do what has the highest subjective value. Humans have no special worth without God why "ought" I to maximize their survival or happiness. You may say that you prefer to not be hungry and I would agree with that. However you can't show that someone "ought" to feed you nor could you show that it is morally right or wrong that you remain hungry. That requires a prescription. IOW some transcendent standard and source (sufficient moral authority) must indicate that I "ought" to feed you and that the act is a moral duty. Since you care not for my poor words I will supply what a well-respected professional philosopher says:
Suppose that God never created a concrete world at all. . .so that there were no created moral agents. In that case, God would not issue any commands, and so there would be no moral obligations or prohibitions of any sort. I suspect the questioner was confusing moral values with moral duties (these are not the same: it would be good for you to become a doctor, but you’re not morally obligated to become a doctor). The former are grounded in God Himself, the latter in God’s commands. http://www.randyeverist.com/2011/04/is-ought-problem-and-gods-morality.html
Even Hume recognized the paradox of the "ought" "ought not" verses the "is" "is not" problem. "Ought’s" are always compared to prescriptive laws. Descriptive laws have little implication concerning God, but prescriptive laws indicate a prescriber very strongly.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

It appears to me that statement says exactly what I did.

No. These statements are not logically equivalent:

1. "Rights do not exist unless God exists."
2. "God endows rights."​

You said #1, and #2 is the most generous interpretation of the Declaration in light of your argument.

Maybe you are thinking that the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God are an either/or scenario but they aren't. They are joined by "and" which indicates that the former is contingent on the latter. IOW X "and" Y must be true.

No, that's a non sequiter. If Ann and Bob push the swing, that does not logically imply that Ann cannot push the swing without Bob.

Again a right is something endowed that the government is required not to take away. If I claimed there was no God yet I have a right to do "X". Who gave me that right?

That's your own definition. Speaking loosely, I would agree with your definition, but since we are arguing over a technical point, I would define a right as something which the government ought not take away. No heavenly force will prevent governments from taking rights away, if they choose, but mortal humans ought to strive to prevent this. You could based this "ought" on belief in God, but it is sufficient to base it on fact, reason, and evidence, as I explained in my previous post.

Ought implies "duty". If I ought to do something there is something I am responsible to for the completion of the task. At best you have identified what has the most subjective value but you have not established why I "ought" to do what has the highest subjective value. Humans have no special worth without God why "ought" I to maximize their survival or happiness.

I did not say you "ought" to maximize human survival or happiness. Re-read my argument.

You may say that you prefer to not be hungry and I would agree with that. However you can't show that someone "ought" to feed you nor could you show that it is morally right or wrong that you remain hungry.

Yes you can, quite easily. First, define "ought" or "moral" to mean those practices which, if adopted by everyone, would make everyone happier. Using reason and evidence, the conclusion follows from the definition: you ought to feed the hungry. It would be immoral not to, if you are capable. Even mammals less intelligent than humans recognize this.

Since you care not for my poor words I will supply what a well-respected professional philosopher says:
Suppose that God never created a concrete world at all. . .so that there were no created moral agents. In that case, God would not issue any commands, and so there would be no moral obligations or prohibitions of any sort. I suspect the questioner was confusing moral values with moral duties (these are not the same: it would be good for you to become a doctor, but you’re not morally obligated to become a doctor). The former are grounded in God Himself, the latter in God’s commands. http://www.randyeverist.com/2011/04/is-ought-problem-and-gods-morality.html
Even Hume recognized the paradox of the "ought" "ought not" verses the "is" "is not" problem. "Ought’s" are always compared to prescriptive laws. Descriptive laws have little implication concerning God, but prescriptive laws indicate a prescriber very strongly.

Actually the "prescription" analogy works quite well for the atheist argument. A medical prescription is something that will make you healthier if you follow it. A moral prescription is something that will make society healthier if we all follow it. Reason and evidence are sufficient in both cases, in principle. If a doctor said I "ought" to take a drug for reasons which "transcend" medical science, simply because he as the Almighty Prescriber "commands" me to do it, I would be very suspicious. Wouldn't you?

 

[1robin]

No. These statements are not logically equivalent:

1. "Rights do not exist unless God exists."
2. "God endows rights."
You said #1, and #2 is the most generous interpretation of the Declaration in light of your argument.

You have me at a complete loss. I have no idea what the contention is here. #2 taken in isolation is not an adequate explanation of what we are discussing. The need to account for our rights was answered by "nature" and "nature's creator". Without the question the exclusivity of the answer is not apparent. BTW the way for #2 to be true means that God exists.

No, that's a non sequiter. If Ann and Bob push the swing, that does not logically imply that Ann cannot push the swing without Bob.

If I indicated that every use of the word and made everything they joined necessary or contingent that was a mistake. What I meant is that two sources if you want to be hyper literal are given as the source of rights. In this case X and the creator of X. In this case the existence of X is contingent on the creative act of Xs creator. IOW if the creator did not exist as a source then X could not exist necessarily. I do not agree with his claiming that nature justifies morality but it does not matter because in this case he also mandates that nature was created and its creator is "God" that results in a a contingent reality. If the creator did not exist the creation would not either.

That's your own definition. Speaking loosely, I would agree with your definition, but since we are arguing over a technical point, I would define a right as something which the government ought not take away. No heavenly force will prevent governments from taking rights away, if they choose, but mortal humans ought to strive to prevent this. You could based this "ought" on belief in God, but it is sufficient to base it on fact, reason, and evidence, as I explained in my previous post.

As "ought" is well understood to imply a duty to an external standard I do not think the clarification has any impact on my claim. If God does not exist humans have no objective worth and so you can't claim I "ought" to kill a mosquito to help a person. You may say an action has positive value for you but you could not show that "ought" to matter to anyone else. I swear things come in waves. Today has been the "ought - is" argument day. The "ought" issue implies God so strongly that Hume had to do extraordinary intellectual gymnastics in an effort to suggest "ought-is" was not a technically valid issue since if he allowed it to exist at all he could not counter it. I can post the philisophical reasons he failed if you wish.

I did not say you "ought" to maximize human survival or happiness. Re-read my argument.

If you did not then your statement had little explanatory power. Establishing what an individual values without a way to justify that anyone else "ought" to respect it does not give rights without God. I would admit that reason might be enough to govern morality and therefore rights (but not sufficient to found them) in a perfect world but in the one we have it is not sufficient. You may declare that maximizing survival is a right and everyone may agree and then you may act is if that was a right but it is based in opinion not reality. When Hitler declares using the same methods, that certain groups do no not have that right there is no argument within the context of your claims by which that may be refuted. There are many cases where what we refer to as the victims agree to their own destruction. Once again your system is insufficient for resolving these situations. I will say that even though I do not agree you are a competant debator on the issue.