Now, about the "fairies," I think we're in agreement about what Quinn meant. I've also spelled out why that shouldn't convince, but now I'll try to address some of your points.
or Tubridy's if you insist
Come now, it's not a matter of my insistence, it's a perfectly objective fact that "fairies" was Tubridy's term, at least in this interview. Further I'd say he and Quinn are very obviously stressing the term to unfairly characterize Dawkins arguments. So you see, as I pointed out, the strawman's on the other foot.
this sleight of hand begs the question of whether fairies and God really are equivalent.
Practicing some sleight of hand of your own? No one anywhere in the interview suggests that. Dawkins is very clear, it's the belief in God by some people that he considers delusional.
In the first place, no one is saying that adults don't have delusions.
The point that I tried to make is that adult delusions are more widespread than you and Quinn imply. Certainly you must agree that in the past they were very widespread. "Witches" were not suffered to live. Animals were put on trial. Spirits were propitiated. First borns were offered to Baal. I don't think human psychology has changed fundamentally so we are still prey to these impulses.
So even today, adult delusions are widespread. A very substantial number of Americans think the 2000 presidential elections were stolen. Far too many think the US government knew ahead of time or even abetted 9/11. Among very many American blacks, it is common knowledge that AIDS and crack are conspiracies perpetrated against them. These are modern American adults. And there are lots more delusions out there. Plenty here even at this web site.
DAWKINS sets himself up as the one who diagnoses who is delusional.... the people who he finds delusional are the ones who simply disagree with him.
Wrong. Dawkins is an athiest. Deists aren't athiests. Therefore Dawkins disagrees with Deists. But he doesn't think that Deist beliefs are delusional. Your claim is refuted.
Now, if there's no more to say about it, which of my other points would you like to discuss next?
Also, if there's some point of yours you think is important that I didn't address, I'll be glad to do it.
Hi edsheppa!
WRT the above italics: The belief in God by some people is what Dawkins considers “delusional?” I don’t think that stands up. I think Dawkins is very clear that anyone who believes in a personal God is delusional. For Dawkins describes God as “a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” One would have to be delusional to believe in a God like that.
He claims to give a pass to the Deists, who do not believe in a personal God – a God who takes a personal interest in humans -- but simply in a creator who designs and executes the universe and then “splits.”
But the Deist conception of the creator God of the universe is absolutely inconsistent with Dawkins’ account of the universe, which involves the idea of an inception in, and evolution by sheer chance, of accidents that somehow serendipitously lead to the ordered, lawful universe in which we live.
He gives a handwave to Albert Einstein; but Al’s okay, you see, because we can excuse him for believing in God just so long as he does not have a personal relationship with God. Dawkins thinks Einstein did not believe in such a God. That’s his conclusion to draw; but I question its justice. Einstein wrote:
The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is.Sounds pretty “personal” to me; though not in the conventional religious sense. What does come across is the idea of a divine Logos (whom Christians associate with the Name of the Son of God) beyond the universe, who created it and supernaturally laid down all the natural laws. Einstein’s science is motivated by the passionate desire to “find God” in the world.
You wrote: “… Dawkins disagrees with Deists. But he doesn’t think that Deist beliefs are delusional. Your claim is refuted.”
Dawkins doesn’t just disagree with Deists (that’s putting it mildly!); the Deist position refutes Dawkins’ entire worldview and scientific methodology. It’s kind of Dawkins not to think them delusional – again, because they do not believe God takes a personal interest in his creatures, and can enter into a personal relation with them – even though a true Deist would likely find Dawkins’ presuppositions and approach to biological evolution nonsensical.
According to Dawkins, I am delusional. I not only believe in God, in the Logos, as some kind of abstraction; but I have experienced Him moving in my life. The history of the human race is filled with people who have had these kinds of experiences (i.e., this is a cross-cultural, universal phenomenon); and what is even more remarkable is that such experiences have a particular form and content, independent of the people who experience them. It’s not as if individual minds were “cooking them up,” as a “delusional” person might do; e.g., as in the case of an imaginary friend….
But rather than consider the evidence, as an honest thinker is supposed to do, Dawkins simply says “this is delusional!” and has done with it. Then he joins forces with William Dennett over on this side of The Pond in a project to slander all religious believers as stupid morons. Whatta guy!
Well enuf of that, for now. What I’d like to ask next is how atheism deals with issues of morality. Any thoughts about that, edsheppa?
Thanks so much for writing!