'Mommy, why are atheists dim-witted?'

Reviewers have not been kind to The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, professor of something called "the public understanding of science" at Oxford. Critics have found it to be the atheist's mirror image of Ann Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism - long on in-your-face rhetoric and offensively dismissive of all those holding an opposing view.

Princeton University philosopher Thomas Nagel found Dawkins's "attempts at philosophy, along with a later chapter on religion and ethics, particularly weak." Prof. Terry Eagleton began his London Review of Books critique: "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the British Book of Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology."

Dawkins's "central argument" is that because every complex system must be created by an even more complex system, an intelligent designer would have had to be created by an even greater super-intellect.

New York Times reviewer Jim Holt described this argument as the equivalent of the child's question, "Mommy, who created God?"

Nagel provides the grounds for rejecting this supposed proof. People do not mean by God "a complex physical inhabitant of the natural world" but rather a Being outside the physical world - the "purpose or intention of a mind without a body, capable nevertheless of creating and forming the entire physical world."

He points out further that the same kind of problem Dawkins poses to the theory of design plagues evolutionary theory, of which Dawkins is the preeminent contemporary popularizer. Evolution depends on the existence of pre-existing genetic material - DNA - of incredible complexity, the existence of which cannot be explained by evolutionary theory.

So who created DNA? Dawkins's response to this problem, writes Nagel, is "pure hand-waving" - speculation about billions of alternative universes and the like.

As a charter member of the Church of Darwin, Dawkins not only subscribes to evolutionary theory as the explanation for the morphology of living creatures, but to the sociobiologists' claim that evolution explains all human behavior. For sociobiologists, human development, like that of all other species, is the result of a ruthless struggle for existence. Genes seek to reproduce themselves and compete with one another in this regard. In the words of the best-known sociobiologist, Harvard's E.O. Wilson, "An organism is only DNA's way of making more DNA."

THAT PICTURE of human existence, argues the late Australian philosopher of science David Stove in Darwinian Fairytales: Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity and Other Fables of Evolution, constitutes a massive slander against the human race, as well as a distortion of reality.

The Darwinian account, for instance, flounders on widespread altruistic impulses that have always characterized humans in all places and times. Nor can it explain why some men act as heroes even though by doing so they risk their own lives and therefore their capacity to reproduce, or why societies should idealize altruism and heroism. How, from an evolutionary perspective, could such traits have developed or survived?

The traditional Darwinian answer is that altruism is but an illusion, or a veneer of civilization imposed upon our real natures. That answer fails to explain how that veneer could have come about in the first place. How could the first appeal to higher moral values have ever found an author or an audience? David Stove offers perhaps the most compelling reason for rejecting the views of those who deny the very existence of human altruism: "I am not a lunatic."

IN 1964, biologist W.D. Hamilton first expounded a theory explaining how much of what appears to us as altruism is merely genes' clever way of assuring the propagation of their type via relatives sharing that gene pool. The preeminent defender of Darwin - Dawkins - popularized this theory in The Selfish Gene.

Among the predictions Hamilton made is: "We expect to find that no one is prepared to sacrifice his life for any single person, but that everyone will sacrifice it for more than two brothers [or offspring], or four half-brothers, or eight first cousins," because those choices result in a greater dissemination of a particular gene pool.

To which Stove responds: "Was an expectation more obviously false than this one ever held (let alone published) by any human being?" Throughout history, men have sacrificed themselves for those bearing no relationship to them, just as others have refused to do so for more than two brothers. Here is a supposedly scientific theory bearing no relationship to any empirical reality ever observed. Stove offers further commonsense objections: Parents act more altruistically toward their offspring than siblings toward one another, even though in each pair there is an overlap of half the genetic material. If Hamilton's theory were true, we should expect to find incest widespread. In fact, it is taboo. Finally, the theory is predicated on the dubious proposition that animals, or their genes, can tell a sibling from a cousin, and a cousin from other members of the same species.

SOCIOBIOLOGY, Stove demonstrates, is a religion and genes are its gods. In traditional religion, humans exist for the greater glory of God; in sociobiology, humans and all other living things exist for the benefit of their genes. "We are... robot-vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes," writes Dawkins. Like God, Dawkins's genes are purposeful agents, far smarter than man.

He describes how a certain cuckoo parasitically lays its eggs in the nest of the reed warbler, where the cuckoo young get more food by virtue of their wider mouths and brighter crests, as a process in which the cuckoo genes have tricked the reed warbler. Thus, for Dawkins, genes are capable of conceiving a strategy no man could have thought of and of putting into motion the complicated engineering necessary to execute that strategy.

Writing in 1979, Prof. R.D. Alexander made the bald assertion: "We are programmed to use all our effort, and in fact to use our lives, in production." And yet it is obvious that most of what we do has nothing to do with reproduction, and never more so than at the present, when large parts of the civilized world are becoming rapidly depopulated. Confronted with these obvious facts about human nature and behavior, sociobiologists respond by ascribing them to "errors of heredity."

As Stove tartly observes: "Because their theory of man is badly wrong, they say that man is badly wrong; that he incorporates many and grievous biological errors." But the one thing a scientific theory may never do, Stove observes, is "reprehend the facts."

It may observe them, or predict new facts to be discovered, but not criticize those before it. The only question that remains is: How could so many intelligent men say so many patently silly things? For Dawkins, the answer would no doubt be one of those evolutionary "misfires," such as that to which he attributes religious belief.

All three PRE-DATE the birth of the historical Jesus.

THESE 'pre-date' Him, too.

NIV Genesis 3:15
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

Isaiah 53
1. Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2. He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
5. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
6. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
8. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken.
9. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10. Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
11. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light [of life] and be satisfied ; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
12. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Do you believe THEM??

There are all kinds of adult conversions

Yes. I've known some. But if you are honest you will admit that it is a rarity.

Doesn't matter. Even *one* is a sufficient counterexample.

See also Saul of Tarsus.

Creationism is the tool used to drive Christians knowlegeable about science away from God. At one time I accepted Jesus on faith alone, but once my faith became a contradiction against obvious fact, then the faith had no chance. My intellectual honesty required it.

There are plenty of Christian denominations who do not preach literalism and inerrancy of every word of the Bible; and for some reason, some of the Protestant denominations which *do* preach inerrancy seem to have rejected some of the texts accepted as Canonical by other denominations, while retaining their belief in others.

And if you read the old Crevo threads, before the Exodus ;-), you will find a number of pro-Evo posters who stated that their knowledge and acceptance of Darwin's model and subsequent refinements to it did not interfere with their faith AT ALL.

I therefore have shown that you HAVE no intellectual honesty; rather a sickly case of supposed intellectual pride.

Leave your trolling elsewhere--I used to be an atheist and I know that most all of the fun was *feeling* superior to believers, bolstered by the occasional baiting session. "Master"- or "Troll"-, whichever. I converted before my trolling became an addiction.

Cheers!

...oh, and Merry Christmas.

I hadn't heard of Baxter until you mentioned him. I looked him up and see that he was president of Williams College and played an important role in scientific development during the Second World War. Amazon has one of his books.

Cicero, it appears Percival Baxter is James Phinney Baxter's son. Here's the obit for James:

OBITUARY: James Phinney Baxter
Sprague's Journal of Maine History
Volume 9, April–June, 1921 No. 2
Page 78-80
James Phinney Baxter
(By the Editor)
A brilliant human light was extinguished, when, on Sunday, May 8, 1921, at his home in Portland, occurred the death of James Phinney Baxter, father of Governor Percival P. Baxter. It is only the truth to say that he was one of the greatest of Maine's eminent men of the present generation. He was born in Gorham, Maine, March 23, 1831, the son of Dr. Elihu and Sarah (Cone) Baxter. When nine years of age his parents moved to Portland which was ever after his home. At that time there was in Portland a far famed school for boys known as "Master Jackson's School." He was a scholar there until thirteen years of age when he attended the Lynn Academy four years. At first his parents were desirous of his becoming a lawyer and he entered the office of Rufus Choate in Boston for this purpose, but failing health compelled him to return to Portland, and his legal studies thus interrupted were never resumed. He entered into the business of importing dry goods with the late William G. Davis who was later prominent in the affairs of the Maine Central Railroad. Baxter and Davis were pioneers in the canning and packing business and Maine owes them much for successfully developing this great industry in our State.
Possibly his experience as a boy in the Portland schools convinced him that the opportunities for improving educational conditions there were vast. But from whatever source his inspiration may have come he was for a lifetime a consistent and persistent advocate of whatever would advance the cause of education in his city and state.
Successful in all of his undertakings he acquired a large fortune, but wealth did not narrow his vision, shrivel his manhood, or dry up his milk of human kindness. His benevolence and philanthropy as a private citizen and his activities in organized charities are known to all men.
To his native town and his adopted city he has donated public libraries, and has made other munificent gifts in other directions of a public nature. The city of Portland and the State of Maine have in innumerable ways been benefited by his life efforts.
A publicist of strong convictions, fearless in his positions when believing that he was right, he was long an important factor and a moulder of thought in political and public affairs. And yet political management as such never appealed to him. He never held but one important office, so far as we are aware, which was when the people of his city demanded his services as mayor, which position he held for six years.
He was at the time of his death president of the Portland Public Library, the Baxter Library of Gorham, the Benevolent Society and since 1890 of the Maine Historical Society, also an overseer of Bowdoin College. He was connected with the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, the American Antiquarian Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Old Colony Historical Society. He also held the office of secretary of foreign correspondence of the American Antiquarian Society.
But this many-sided man will be best known in the field of literature and historical research, and as an authority on New England history, especially that portion of it pertaining to Maine's colonial period. In this regard he has left monuments for himself which will last through the ages.
His intellectual activities for the past century have amazed those of his friends who fully realized what a busy life he led along other and diverse lines. In his younger days Mr. Baxter contributed poetry to literary journals like The Home Journal, Shillaber's Carpet Bag, Godey's Lady's Book, the Portland Transcript, etc. We have not the necessary data at hand to enumerate all of his labors as an author. Williamson's Bibliography of Maine, published in 1896, has a list of twenty-seven at that time. Among his most important works are the Trelawney Papers, George Cleve and His Times, the British Invasion from the North, Sir Ferdinando Gorges and His Province of Maine, The Pioneers of New France in New England, The Voyages of Jacques Cartier, Journal of Lieut. William Digby, 1776-1777. Only six years ago (1915), he contributed to the literature of the world an important and learned study of the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy. This was published under the title of "The Greatest of Literary Problems" and elicited much discussion among reviewers and men of letters.
Twenty-four volumes of the Documentary History of Maine, have been published, all of them part of the Collections of the Maine Historical Society. The first two volumes were edited by William Willis, and Charles Deane, and the two volumes of the Farnham Papers, were edited by Mary Frances Farnham. The other twenty volumes which include the Trelawney Papers, were edited by Mr. Baxter. The nineteen volumes of the Baxter Manuscripts represent one of the greatest feats of historical research ever performed by any one person that we have knowledge of. Mr. Baxter, at his own expense visited and personally examined all of the records, letters, deeds, or writings of any description pertaining to the history of Maine, in the Archives of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Montreal, Quebec, London, and Paris, and procured copies of them. These are what constitute the "Baxter Manuscripts." They are invaluable to all students of Maine history. No accurate story of Maine's Colonial and Revolutionary periods, or of any parts thereof, can ever in all the fullness of time, be written or compiled without reference to them.
It is truly a large footprint on the sands of time. It is the record of a great and worthy achievement.
(c) 1998
Courtesy of the Androscoggin Historical Society

I'm reading his The Greatest of Literary Problems at the moment. IF -- cornelis' big IF -- Baxter's interpretation of the documentary evidence regarding one Wm. Shakspear of Stratford-on-Avon is correct, then I just can't imagine how that person could be the author of Shakespeare's works.

Anyhoot, as I said, it's a puzzle!

You wrote: "Shakespeare critics have no use for theories that Bacon or Oxford wrote Shakespeare's plays." I find this unsurprising. FWIW, it seems to me that once an orthodoxy gets established, it is extremely difficult to question or challenge it.

How interesting that you have a family connection to the Maine Baxters!

Thanks for writing, Cicero! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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