It’s an observation of irrefutable fact. name a single piece of evdience for sky gods.
This is circular. You’re citing a belief to support itself. Prove the resurrection of Jesus is a “historical reality.”
Name one.
If anyone makes this claim about Dawkins, it is utterly false. Dawkins addresses arguments for God and engages with believers in great detail and with great frequency.
What specific arguments do you believ that Dawkins has avoided? If you can actually cite one, I’ll step up and demolish it in Dawkins’ stead.
You’re confusing two separate mini-discussions that we were having- my points about the arguments for the existence of God were in relation to the Courtier’s reply. I agree the desecration had nothing to do with arguments for or against God.
Then you are out of the mainstream thinking of biblical historians. Many historians (even the non-Christian ones) see the gospels as broadly historically reliable. The reason many reject the resurrection is not for reasons of historical evidence, but for metaphysical concerns, namely that resurrection is impossible. But to argue that because God does not exist because there is no evidence, because supernatural events can’t happen because God doesn’t exist is entirely circular.
This highlights a further problem in the “New Atheist” epistemology. Evidence is not as objective as you would like it to be. Evidence can only be interpreted in light of a pre-existing worldview. If your worldview is atheistic, then it is no surprise that you will not see any evidence for God, because no evidence is possible. This is I think the only way one can support the claim “there is not evidence for God” but it is an entirely circular argument.
“Bigotry”? What bigotry? You mean the bigotry he displayed, mocking someone’s religious ceremony, or some other bigotry?
I will state right away that death threats are a hyperbolic and uncalled-for reaction to a guy acting like a jerk.
You aren’t making any sense. He did something that would quite obviously cause offense, had he been caught doing it.
‘I got away with the offensive act’ is not the same as ‘I committed no offensive act’. Particularly where you boast of it afterwards.
You are once again moving goalposts. Crime is not the same as ‘giving offense’ and has no necessary relationship with it. What it it were proved that the wafer-stealer were acting illegally? Would you admit what he did was offensive then?
As I started, so I’ll conclude: Desecration of someone elses’ religious ceremonies is pretty well universally frowned upon. It is obvious you do not share this sentiment, but you are, I would say, an outlier.
I think this particular instance is different. Most Jews nowadays probably do not revere the acts of genocide from the bible. Most Americans (hopefully) would agree that it was wrong for Jefferson and Washington to buy and sell slaves.
But I bet if you asked most Catholics, including the “top” Catholics, if Saint Ludger was right to destroy those idols and pagan places of worship, they would say YES.
I don’t have any hard evidence of this, of course. But would you disagree with my last assertion?
The bible may be “broadly” historically reliable. But that doesn’t mean at all that if the bible said Jesus was resurrected that it’s “historically accurate”. Few historians would say that specific instances of dialogue and intimate life details from the bible are likely to be “historically accurate”.
Perhaps he was crucified. Perhaps after three days, someone reported that the rock moved. Perhaps one of the apostles said that Jesus appeared to him. None of this is evidence of even the Resurrection, much less the existence of God.
This isn’t circular. If the ressurection happened then Christianity is likely true. If not, then it isn’t. And the point is not to show that the resurrection did actually happen. The point is to nominate evidence that religious people present to demonstrate the truth of their view. The claim “there is no evidence of any sort” for religion is clearly false. You may not find the evidence convincing, but that doesn’t make it disappear.
See above.
Let’s start with Plantiga’s ontological argument that the existence for God is about 50/50. If Dawkins is correct that “there almost certainly is no God”, then this argument must be false. Show me how.
I really have no idea how Catholics view the destruction of idols by past saints. If I was forced to guess, I’d say that they would probably mumble something about different rules applicable to persons in past eras - same as what would be mumbled by pretty well every other group facing similar “problems”.
The more interesting question would be ‘if saint such-and-such was right to destroy idols in Dark Ages Saxony - am I right to take a sledgehammer to my neighbour Mr. Pushpam’s idol of Ganesh today?’ If the official answer is “yes”, you’ve got a great case for hypocrisy. If “no”, not so much.
I’m not saying there’s no arguments to be made in favor of the existence of God. What I’m saying, basically (and what I think Myers was saying with the Courtier’s Reply), is that the evidence of the existence of the Christian God is of the same caliber as the evidence for the existence of Zeus, or Odin, or Ahura Mazda, or Shiva, or Russell’s Teapot. And all of that “evidence” can be reasonably treated the same.
Personally, I imagine that most believers in God have deep, personal, and perhaps even powerful experiences and reasons for believing in God. I think that’s fine. But I do not have any of those reasons. And lacking any personal experiences of this nature, I see nothing even approaching convincing for the existence of God.
That I think is a fundamentally intellectually lazy position. Evidence is evidence and needs to be considered individually. What evidence do you have for the belief that all religious claims can be treated the same? That seems like an ideological faith-based position than a reasoned argument.
Good question. I’m not sure, exactly. Which God, exactly? If you’re talking about “proof” (in the common sense of the word), and for the Christian God, then maybe a personal appearance in public, in which he answers a bunch of questions. Even then, I’d want to look “behind the curtain”, so to speak. And I might still question my own sanity.
If you’re just talking about evidence? Maybe something like the words “I am the Lord thy God” appearing on the Moon, visible from earth unaided. I’d still be looking for a big laser beam.
Pointing out how historically destructive religion has been is a factual observation, not an emotional appeal. I think he probably thinks mainstream religion is more dangerous than it really is, but hs arguments have a logical basis. I’m not really interested in those aspecyts of his books anyway. Like I said, I think it becomes a distraction from the actual scientific examination of metaphysical beliefs and the basis for them, which is what is interesting to me.
I’m asking what specific bad behavior caused by non-religious beliefs that he, in your own word, “excuses.”
He was trying to address the question of why irrational and manifestly unsupportable beliefs like god beliefs get perpetuated and whether there can be an explanation for it. It wasn’t an argument against the existence of God, it was simply a speculation (by an evolutionary scientist) on a possible reason why the beliefs would survive so hardily in the face of massively contradictory empirical experience and scientific evdidence..
That wasn’t what he was trying to show. I think you really misunderstood that whole section.
It’s not a belief. It’s a reasoned inference from available evidence.
Dawkins doesn’t do that.
This is the best you can do? That he didn’t address every single defense of every classical argument ever made? How long would you want the book to be?
Just for the record, though, Plantinga’s Ontological formula is trivially easy to refute. Want me to do it?
[quote]
You might protest that “The God delusion” is not a book for specialists, and that is why it was omitted. However even popular books need to have an overview of all of the relevant material, and given the influence of Plantiga’s work it is misleading to say nothing of it.
[/quote
Plantinga’s work is infleunetial on who? Other believers? What scientific arguments has he made? I don’t know why Plantinga gets so much credit from believers. I find him rather shallow.
Sure he did. There really isn’t anything all that deep about any of them. The flaws in the arguments are easy enough to understand. What particulary strong argument or nuance do you think Dawkins avoided or missed? I’ll go ahead and smash it for you.
There are a number of apologist reponses. None of them can refute his basic arguments against any evidence or basis for god beliefs. If you are confident that some really good evidence for sky gods exists, go ahead and tell me what it is. If I can’t refute it I’ll eat my own pants.
I’m certainly willing to consider every piece of evidence. But so far, every piece of evidence of the existence of all those deities I mentioned that I have seen or heard appears (yes, this is a judgement) of the same caliber.
No one, but it’s a common religionist meme that atheists hold Dawkins in some kind of awed regard or reverence, and it would be a predictable response that they would say he wouldn’t trash a Dawkins book, so he was doing it to show that he doesn’t discriminate.
At this point I’m completely unsure as to whether you’re referring to Myers or Cook.
If the latter: Cook didn’t take the wafer home to “desecrate” it; he said he wanted to show it to his roommate. Why this action deserved death threats and hate mail is beyond me.
If the former: Myers never entered a communion in order to steal a wafer; at least one reader sent him some after he blogged about aforementioned incident. So how did he desecrate someone’s ceremony?
I’m pretty sure that Catholic beliefs as to the literal existence of their God are just as valid as those of some New Guinean tribesmen as to the literal existence of their ancestor-spirits. I do not myself believe in either. My own opinion is that both are simply institutionalized expressions of a human urge towards the numinous in existence - an urge the highest expression of which is the study of nature itself.
However, that being noted - I’d no more desecrate a New Guinean ancestor-worshipping ceremony than I would a mass; both would be intolerably rude and disrespectful acts.
If a New Guinean invited me to partake in a ritual or ceremony of theirs, I’d do so on their terms - respectfully. To mock them later, or to steal some part of their sacred regalia to mock and desecrate, is simply unacceptable behaviour.
No they don’t. I assure with absolute confidence and with a lot of personal knowledge that this is false, especially with regard to supernatural claims made about Jesus.
What historical evidence do you believe exists for the resurrection?
This is circular, tautological gibberish. You’re not only trying to change teh definition of “evdience” so that you don’t have to produce any, you’re actually stating that only believers can see it. What utter nonsense.