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Is Richard Dawkins a good scientist?

Kilgore Trout

Misanthropic Humanist
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1robin

Christian/Baptist
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I have been and will continue to ignore you for the time being but what the heck is this? and how much does it cost?
 
1robin,

Thank you for posting your thoughts on Craig's claim that Dawkins has made the worst argument against God in Western history. Dawkins isn't just wrong .... he's the most wrong, ever! It must feel good to say it. :)

You provided plenty of your own opinion/analysis on the validity of Craig's argument. However, you did not provide enough specific information about Craig's argument for the rest of us to evaluate it. Perhaps you could provide a link, or a quotation, or a bit more summary/clarification?

You said of Craig's argument, "every point has sound philosophical basis". Show, don't tell. ;)
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
1robin,

Thank you for posting your thoughts on Craig's claim that Dawkins has made the worst argument against God in Western history. Dawkins isn't just wrong .... he's the most wrong, ever! It must feel good to say it. :)

You provided plenty of your own opinion/analysis on the validity of Craig's argument. However, you did not provide enough specific information about Craig's argument for the rest of us to evaluate it. Perhaps you could provide a link, or a quotation, or a bit more summary/clarification?

You said of Craig's argument, "every point has sound philosophical basis". Show, don't tell. ;)
That reply is so reasonable I am suspicious. You are exactly right that I did not include enough information as to his specific reasons why he rejected Dawkin's argument.

Here is a link: Richard Dawkins’ Argument for Atheism in The God Delusion | Reasonable Faith

If that was not enough the link contains the terms that can be used to search for more. It is truly an abhorent argument. I originally said I would provide these details but have been very tied up. I hope the link is satasfactory and if not ping me again.
 

Simurgh

Atheist Triple Goddess
That reply is so reasonable I am suspicious. You are exactly right that I did not include enough information as to his specific reasons why he rejected Dawkin's argument.

Here is a link: Richard Dawkins’ Argument for Atheism in The God Delusion | Reasonable Faith

If that was not enough the link contains the terms that can be used to search for more. It is truly an abhorent argument. I originally said I would provide these details but have been very tied up. I hope the link is satasfactory and if not ping me again.

This is just too funny. Citing an evangelical website that picks a few sentences out of a book and then argues against those sentences with the usual dissembling manner is just ridiculous. Looking at the page you linked to in context it appears to me that you do what you have done all along.

You make vague statements that cite sources that have less than credible authority unless one belongs into your little corner of the created universe that many of us do not occupy. You want to be right about your particular ideas, but why inflict this kind of thinking on us? This is more than intellectual dishonesty that you always accuse others of perpetrating—your preferred way of dismissing those who disagree with you.

Seriously, the arguments on that linked page are just more of the usual religious drivel that tries to cloud an issue with non-arguments. What Craig picks out to refute is on pgs 157/8 of Dawkins book. He states that according to the statements he selected, the conclusion Dawkins reaches, namely that god probably does not exist, comes out of left field. What? is he implying that this issue only comes up half-way through the book? It is not a new tactic for apologists, such as Craig, to dissemble and manipulate other people’s statements to fit his agenda.

You simply dislike Dawkins; and as of now, you have yet to make a clear and unequivocal statement that shows just where Dawkins errs in his ideas and assessments concerning his OPINION about a possible existence of god. You pretend that Dawkins is the one who is the greatest influence on atheists, because it suits your more than disingenuous agenda to paint Dawkins as more than he is and atheists as cult followers.

I doubt that you understand this yet. So let’s explain this one more time:
Dawkins is just one of many scientists, professionals, laborers, academics, people in the armed forces, government, public service, etc. who are atheists. He is not a cult leader (yes, you never came out and said it, you merely imply it), he is not “our” philosophical lodestone, he is not THE authority on atheism, and all those other things you seem to assume he symbolizes to atheists. He is just one among many, and there are plenty of atheists out there who have never even heard of him and are still atheists.

Hence, if you really feel the need to attack the guy, at least stop being vague and explain yourself plainly. Dismissing arguments or opinions of others just because you have no actual facts to refute them and then act as if you have an answer to questions no-one asked is just another way of putting your head in the sand and pretending that reality goes away because you refuse to see it.
 

Skeptisch

Well-Known Member
I doubt that you understand this yet. So let’s explain this one more time: ...
Thanks for trying but I am afraid your eloquent effort is wasted.
Sagan said it best yet again:
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe."
 

Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum
Thanks for trying but I am afraid your eloquent effort is wasted.
Sagan said it best yet again:
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe."

Yes. Belief can even be contrary to evidence. Any and every person loves to be right. Who doesn't? Belief becomes part of our identity and we don't want to be wrong, so many fight to maintain their belief despite what reality says. That's why it's so important to constantly remind oneself that I don't know and need to understand other views. Our egos stand in the way too many times.
 

Skeptisch

Well-Known Member
Yes. Belief can even be contrary to evidence. Any and every person loves to be right. Who doesn't? Belief becomes part of our identity and we don't want to be wrong, so many fight to maintain their belief despite what reality says. That's why it's so important to constantly remind oneself that I don't know and need to understand other views. Our egos stand in the way too many times.
Well said!
Let's add that we should make an honest effort to acquire knowledge of the laws of nature, and what they tell us about the magic of reality and how we know what is really true.
 

Simurgh

Atheist Triple Goddess
Thanks for trying but I am afraid your eloquent effort is wasted.
Sagan said it best yet again:
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe."

I know, I know. Still, I felt the need to try.:angel2:
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
This is just too funny. Citing an evangelical website that picks a few sentences out of a book and then argues against those sentences with the usual dissembling manner is just ridiculous. Looking at the page you linked to in context it appears to me that you do what you have done all along.
That is absurd. Dismissing a source because he is Christian is like saying no evolutionist can be allowed to speak about evolution. Ridiculous. He did not randomly select a few sentences from a book. He addressed every single sentence in what Dawkins calls his central argument. Dawkins grouped the argument into points and Craig addresses every one of them.
You make vague statements that cite sources that have less than credible authority unless one belongs into your little corner of the created universe that many of us do not occupy. You want to be right about your particular ideas, but why inflict this kind of thinking on us? This is more than intellectual dishonesty that you always accuse others of perpetrating—your preferred way of dismissing those who disagree with you.
What are you talking about? Craig is an international respected and well-credentialed philosopher and attempts to dismiss someone who speaks the obvious truth that however is inconvenient for you says more about you than him. This crap gets old. I accuse people of intellectual dishonesty if they claim absolute knowledge of facts they have no access to not because I disagree with them. I hope the rest of this post will not be a long litany of accusations and intellectual gymnastics devoid of merit or justification of any kind?

Seriously, the arguments on that linked page are just more of the usual religious drivel that tries to cloud an issue with non-arguments.
Once again what the heck are you talking about. Craig gave philosophic objections to the argument not theological ones. Craig usually does not use a single scripture in an entire debate. This is one of the worst counter claims I have ever seen.

What Craig picks out to refute is on pgs. 157/8 of Dawkins book. He states that according to the statements he selected, the conclusion Dawkins reaches, namely that god probably does not exist, comes out of left field. What? is he implying that this issue only comes up half-way through the book? It is not a new tactic for apologists, such as Craig, to dissemble and manipulate other people’s statements to fit his agenda.
You should really pay better attention to what he says instead of glazing over when you hear things you do not like. Craig said that within this distinct argument the conclusion in no way what so ever follow the premise even if the premise was true (which it isn't). It was not a conclusion on the book, (that would make the amount of garbage to be refuted impractical) it was instead a undeniable dissection of an argument so stupid that many believe it to be the worst ever uttered. Given the long lists of bad arguments from Dawkins and others that is quite an achievement. I do not think you have made a correct statement yet.

You simply dislike Dawkins; and as of now, you have yet to make a clear and unequivocal statement that shows just where Dawkins errs in his ideas and assessments concerning his OPINION about a possible existence of god. You pretend that Dawkins is the one who is the greatest influence on atheists, because it suits your more than disingenuous agenda to paint Dawkins as more than he is and atheists as cult followers.
I never said anything about Dawkin’s being the greatest influence on anyone. I would hope atheists are more intelligent than that. I gave you a very simple principle that makes his explain the explanation invalid and every single philosophy 101 student knows this. I then went on to give you the argumentation from one of today’s most reputable philosophers. You can neither challenge my original principle nor apparently even make a coherent response to Craig. You are simply weaving a cloak of false accusations as a defense. You have no presented a single reason for anything you have said, you simply say it is so and move on to the next absurd point.

I doubt that you understand this yet. So let’s explain this one more time:
Dawkins is just one of many scientists, professionals, laborers, academics, people in the armed forces, government, public service, etc. who are atheists. He is not a cult leader (yes, you never came out and said it, you merely imply it), he is not “our” philosophical lodestone, he is not THE authority on atheism, and all those other things you seem to assume he symbolizes to atheists. He is just one among many, and there are plenty of atheists out there who have never even heard of him and are still atheists.
I never claimed that he was alone, I never claimed there were no other atheists, in fact I never claimed a single statement you made above. I did hint at one but that is as close as I got. I do not resent Dawkins because his claims are inconvenient, I do not resent him because he apparently hates the concept of God and it seems at times religion. I resent him because he is incompetent. Since you seem to have twisted and warped my claims into whatever you thought useful, let me restate them one last time.
1. Dawkins is incompetent in matters of philosophy and theology.
2. He is competent (even if not 100% correct) in biology.
3. His credibility in biology makes his claims in theology carry weight they do not in any way deserve. They are appallingly wrong.
4. He has the right to speak in any debate he wishes and I defended that right.
5. Right or not I resent his doing so not because he argues effectively against faith but because he does not. His reasoning is absurd and people who apparently cannot tell the difference make decisions where the stakes are the soul based on them.
6. The fact that his ability in a field outside what he was sufficiently educated in, where he is well known by people who are educated in those fields to be incompetent is defended suggests there is more than faulty reason going on here. Is he qualified to discuss any field that exists. Maybe you should let him build the next skyscraper or atomic weapon since apparently a degree in biology makes him an expert on anything despite the absurdity and simplistic errors in his claims.


The irrational defence of Dawkin's competance in theology is as absurd as if I were to defend Billy Graham's competance in higher maths, and you would be the first tio whine if I did so. Fortunately I am not as irrational as you are concenrning Dawkins. I have no need and am there for not driven to appeal to and rely on incompetant arguments given by incompetant men in fields they are insuffeciently qualified in.

Hence, if you really feel the need to attack the guy, at least stop being vague and explain yourself plainly. Dismissing arguments or opinions of others just because you have no actual facts to refute them and then act as if you have an answer to questions no-one asked is just another way of putting your head in the sand and pretending that reality goes away because you refuse to see it.
Your telling me to stop being vague is like Hitler telling Mother Theresa to quit being so cruel. There is not a single fact or even an attempt at one in your entire post dealing with Dawkins central argument. I gave my own absolute refutation of his ridiculous reasoning and supplied links to a blow by blow, line by line professional dismantling of his pathetic argument. This was a very inept unjustified rhetorical rant. It only serves to prove that you only have an emotional objection to what Craig or I have said and could not produce a single philosophical principle in support. If you can only make unjustified assertions and rearrangements of my claims to the exclusion of any actual philisophical arguments or refutations I do not think a discussion justified. Unless actual philisophic or theologic reason are used to justify your strange position I shall not respond to pure rhetoric.

In fact there as of yet has not been a single philisophic or theologic argument given by anyone to challenge Craig's critique nor even one attempted. It has been misdirection, rhetoric, and unjustified accusations about knowledge concerning a beleivers faith to which not a single poster has any access to. Is this all the athiest has to defend Dawkins claim?
 
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George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
One of our friends here gave an opinion that Richard Dawkins is not a scientist.

What is your opinion? Please

Yes, he's a good scientist but as a theologian his opinions are not particularly important.

He seems to make the majority of his points against more 'old-fashioned' Judeo-Christian beliefs that are not of much concern to me.

He, for all I've seen, does not seem to have a grasp of even basic Hindu concepts. He doesn't even touch the depth of the great thinkers of that path.

Plus Dawkins appears to also have Hume Syndrome: irrational resistance to the paranormal.
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
Yes, he's a good scientist but as a theologian his opinions are not particularly important.

He seems to make the majority of his points against more 'old-fashioned' Judeo-Christian beliefs that are not of much concern to me.

He, for all I've seen, does not seem to have a grasp of even basic Hindu concepts. He doesn't even touch the depth of the great thinkers of that path.

Plus Dawkins appears to also have Hume Syndrome: irrational resistance to the paranormal.
I do not think you understand that Dawkins is omniscient and there for is competent to tell anyone about anything in any subject. Any attempt to show the obvious truth that competance in biology has nothing whatever to do with theology or philosophy is deemed sacrilege and resisted by any means necessary (true or not). Dawkins is Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi, and Muhammad in one. He can circumvent any law deny any principle and simply assert things into existence. Unfortunantly he is actually only OZ behind a shower curtain.
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
I do not think you understand that Dawkins is omniscient and there for is competent to tell anyone about anything in any subject. Any attempt to show the obvious truth that competance in biology has nothing whatever to do with theology or philosophy is deemed sacrilege and resisted by any means necessary (true or not). Dawkins is Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi, and Muhammad in one. He can circumvent any law deny any principle and simply assert things into existence. Unfortunantly he is actually only OZ behind a shower curtain.

I look at it from the bright side. If Dawkins is the high priest of atheism for so many, then the atheism of the many is not very challenging IMO.
 

Simurgh

Atheist Triple Goddess
That is absurd. ........................ Is this all the athiest has to defend Dawkins claim?
And again, you so completely miss the point. Craig is not being dismissed because he is Christian. I question his conclusions because they are simply pandering to his agenda which is immaterial to say the least. All Dawkins said was that he highly doubts that there is a god and Craig starts the usual creationist blathering of non-facts and then assumes he refuted Dawkins.

You can go on and on with your harebrained analogies and word walls. You still say the same thing you said pages ago. And if you think that you rationally refuted anything ever, then you need to hone your debating skills. All your allusions and red herrings are meaningless. Face it, creationism will never make any scientific sense, it matters not how much lipstick you want to put on that pig. It’s a pig.

Oh, by the way, I am not defending Dawkins, I merely take issue with creationists who make arguments based in faith and assume that people who deal in facts ought to fall all over themselves to agree with them.

I also think that those who act as if Dawkins is a guru of some sort that holds all atheists in thrall betrays willful ignorance. There is no monolithic atheist movement; we are not beholden to some leader and we do not hold all that many assumptions in common. Atheists are a heterogeneous assortment of people.
 

Skeptisch

Well-Known Member
It seems certain that as long as we post any kind of response to faith-drivel there is more coming. It almost always amounts to something like:

“My faith is strong I don't need proofs, but every time a new fact comes along it simply confirms my faith.”
Carl Sagan
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
*Post Deleted*

Geez. After almost 1,000 posts I'm still setting records for badness each time.

I'm scared to think how bad my 2,000th post will be! I might crash the whole RF server! It might go into an infinite loop counting the number of wrong things I fit into two sentences.
 
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1robin

Christian/Baptist
And again, you so completely miss the point. Craig is not being dismissed because he is Christian. I question his conclusions because they are simply pandering to his agenda which is immaterial to say the least.
You say it is not because of his being a Christian and then say it is because he is making faith judgments not academic judgments. That is self-contradictory unless you engage in hair splitting semantics to find some reason to say very similar things are not identical. Your assertions that Craig was not making an academically justified critique are simply wrong. He is very professional and well respected. He used very simple and well founded reasons to show Dawkin's argument wrong on almost every level. He did not do so by quoting scripture or evoking faith he did so by the science of philosophy. If you wish to contend one of his responses that is reasonable to dismiss his entire argument with a claim of bias is absurd.
All Dawkins said was that he highly doubts that there is a god and Craig starts the usual creationist blathering of non-facts and then assumes he refuted Dawkins.
That is not what he said. This is: Therefore, God almost certainly does not exist. What did you read or watch? His dismantling of Dawkin's nonsense is philosophy 101 and he said almost nothing about Biblical creation. Even the simplistic but absolute point I made weeks ago about demanding a cause for an uncaused concept or an infinite regression of causes is enough to just shut Dawkins argument down for good. What craig said was just icing on the cake. Craig is not in any way sensationalistic or unprofessional. It is impossible that his claim that Dawkins argument was the worst in western thought would have been made unless it indeed is deplorable. Any claims to the contrary arise from the bias you falsely accuse Craig of. It is very very simple why Dawkins argument does not work for anything, much less God. This rabid defense of a man that has no more qualifications in theology or philosophy than Billy Graham has in quantum physics is quite telling and desperate.
You can go on and on with your harebrained analogies and word walls. You still say the same thing you said pages ago. And if you think that you rationally refuted anything ever, then you need to hone your debating skills. All your allusions and red herrings are meaningless. Face it, creationism will never make any scientific sense, it matters not how much lipstick you want to put on that pig. It’s a pig.
I have no need of additional words when the ones I have given still stand. Although I learned a new term (word wall is not bad). You cannot make claims that an explanation must be explained in order to be accepted. That is not even coherent much less logical and freshmen philosophy students know better.
Oh, by the way, I am not defending Dawkins, I merely take issue with creationists who make arguments based in faith and assume that people who deal in facts ought to fall all over themselves to agree with them.
Well when we actually discuss one of them then that may apply. This was purely philosophical at least on Craig's part, Dawkins part was simply rhetorical nonsense.

I also think that those who act as if Dawkins is a guru of some sort that holds all atheists in thrall betrays willful ignorance. There is no monolithic atheist movement; we are not beholden to some leader and we do not hold all that many assumptions in common. Atheists are a heterogeneous assortment of people.
There is a organized group of atheist thought in academics. I do not suggest that it is very large nor includes even a meaningful fraction of common every day atheists. There is even a subset of the group described as militant atheists and I have heard many people question me about this modern phenomena. They do not think God exists and they hate him. I liked Hitchens very much but he was a leading member of that group. Dawkins being a GURU is evident by the unjustified and prolific defense of his absurd reasoning in a field he has no qualifications in, even in this thread alone. There is no other explanation for the venomous defense he has received here. We can tweak the terms a bit but the concept is justified by reality. He is not just wrong he is absurdly wrong yet defended with a vengeance. Of course this is an exaggeration but it kind of reminds me of Gollum and his precious.
 
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