Posted on 12/18/2006 8:12:55 AM PST by SJackson
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.
"If there is a God I am prepared to be judged upon my deeds"
That's why you don't stand a chance.
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"If there is a God he will make all knowledge available to me."
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He did, the Bible, and you chose to ignore it. You must be an apprentice word warrior.
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Why do so many devout "Christians" insist on sneaking in snide, personal remarks in your posts?? Is there something in the Holy Water?
How do I know it's the Bible? How do I know it's not the Koran, or the Torah, or Buddhism? Why is the way you worship superior? Do you believe God actually spoke to mortals? Every word of the Bible was written by MEN. MEN always created gods from the beginning of recorded history, men have claimed to be gods from the beginning of recorded history, men have claimed to talk to god from the beginning of recorded history.
I don't stand a chance? You know what's going to happen when we die, please tell me.
Has anyone been there and back, no.
Does anyone have any evidence of any form of the supernatural? no
We'll look back in a thousand years at this point in history the same way we look at the Greeks and all of their gods.
God gave atheists the intelligence to know no one can prove his existence.
Lots of hypocrites on this thread I've noticed.
You obviously have the power to shut out the Holy Spirit, but at your own peril. No one here is wishing that you do so.
Then please answer my questions.
Your questions can't be answered, you either have blind faith in whatever religion or you don't.
Good response... Thats the spirit.. So you say/imply that Jesus might not be answer to a metaphor..
I say that Jesus IS an answer to a metaphor.. Did Jesus exist before he was born thru Mary?.. Yes, before Mary and after the Crucifixion too.. The Son of God existed before Mary and after her too.. Else we are in trouble NOW..
Adam is the metaphor to the reality(Jesus) or reciprocal to the metaphor.. Psalm 43 says that God knew us too before we were born.. yes, US.. How can that be?.. This body(our body) might be metaphorical to whom we really are in the same way.. How bout that?.. Are we spirit or flesh?..
Anyway quite a subject here.. larger issues than I originally thought.. much larger..
Will consider this concept deeper..
You know Spiritual(Born Again) Physics/Geometry might be a legit disipline... All of Genesis Ch 1-3 might be metaphorical.. would answer several problems with "Origins"..
Is GOD Cool or WHAT?...
A sphere?..
Quantum mechanics don't even know what matter is yet..
Or what dark matter/energy is.. What appears to be a sphere might be something else.. 6000 years or 15 billion years.. QM shows that time itself might be a mental construct of humans.. Timeing however is quite real and trumps time..
6000 years could be an illusion..
"3) If the parts of it which talk of a 6,000 year old Earth are part of the divinely inspired part, were those parts meant to be taken literally, or to illustrate vital moral truths in a way that even the Bronze Age Wal-Mart crowd would get?"
I can get behind this idea 100%. These stories were written as parables teaching people to live right, but divinely inspired? Why are the Hebrew stories divinely inspired as opposed to the hundreds of other religions? Why should I, an agnostic, believe the Bible over the hundreds of other religions?
It doesn't contradict. if I breed a large cow with a large strong bull, I will probably get a large strong calf. Nowadays we even have genetic engineering.
If i see an unwanted mutation in a bull, I can choose not to breed that bull.
I am guiding the process carefully to get a product I will be satisfied with. In nature there are a thousand different variables that man has no control over, rendering the process unpredictable.
(6000 years could be an illusion..)
I'm officially lost.
But moving on...
You still haven't stated a reason as to why the Hebrew creation story is better than the thousands of others.
"For example, the perception of the bony structures in the whales anatomy that give his flippers strength and rigidity as 'feet'"
Look at the feet on the back end of the whale. Those ARE clearly feet.
If we were "intelligently designed" then:
Why do we have a pancreas?
Why do we have an appendix?
Why does the Octopus have a far superior eye?
Why do we have wisdom teeth?
Our design is remarkably inefficient. If I were to design a something, why would I add useless parts? Why are we designed so badly?
"The use of the word 'synthetic' should always have a caveat added and that word is 'yet' Just because nylon and other 'man-made' products have not been seen in nature does not mean they are not already there at places we have not detected or in forms we have not detected or in compounds that are similar but better 'designed' LOL."
So now you won't even accept that nylon wasn't around before 1935? You need to take basic chemistry.
By your reasoning humans should be able to digest hydrochloric acid. (we don't have a problem with hydrogen in water!)
Then how come it keeps showing up under the chapter "Evolution" in the kids textbooks? Year after year after year?
"Science" may be self-correcting. "Evolutionary Scientists" clearly, are not.
"If I were to design a something, why would I add useless parts? Why are we designed so badly?"
I'm not sure how some "Creation-God" believers would answer this, I can only speak for myself. But are you aware that in Christian theology, the physical world is not regarded as being in a state of perfection, but rather existing in a state of significant corruption and degradation? This concept is very rudimentary Christian theology and long pre-dates Darwin and is not, therefore some anti-Darwinian "dodge."
We don't know why we have an appendix, it's very possible that at one time it provided some purpose or enhancement. It's demise and apparent vestigal condition says absolutely nothing about original intent or design.
Historic Christian theology explicitly endorses the idea of loss of function in the biological world. It presents no impediment to Christian belief, indeed, its evidences substantiate, or at least harmonize with Christian theology. --and this is a very ancient view.
see what happens when you start from false assumed premises
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15228837&dopt=Abstract
What you're calling "evangelism" is just mean-spirited religious bigotry.
http://www.mamashealth.com/organs/pancreas.asp
insulin, very important, now the fact that its not the only organ that produces insulin would tend to lend to wisdom as well...back up systems in a design very wise indeed....
anyway LGN, any time you want to use your intelligence come up with a better design than they eye, on a bird, fish, jellyfish feel free...or do you suggest that you are no match compared to 'complete lack of intelligence' when it comes to creativity?
BTW cook, well said on the corruption/decay.
Fair 'nuff, that's what I had *hoped* you meant.
Cheers!
The answer is too unwieldy for a brief answer, will have to wait...
In brief, you are countering Pascal's wager with a counter-dilemma of higher multiplicity.
And for the nonce, illustrating *why* the flying spaghetti monster is so appealing (or appalling) depending on one's views :-)
Cheers!
May I venture to answer this question LiberalGunNut?
The Hebrew creation story corresponds amazingly well with the big bang/inflationary model of the origin of the universe, which is increasingly "mainstream" in physics. The Christian Gospel of Saint John is a further elaboration on the same theme.
The 2006 Nobel prize for physics was awarded to John Mather and George Smoot, of the cosmic background explorer (COBE) satellite program launched by NASA in 1989, for their work on cosmic microwave background radiation, which helped pinpoint the age of the universe [IOW, the universe had a “beginning”] and lent additional support to the big bang/inflationary model of the universe.
This seems to be a case where Christian theology and physical science are actually coming together. FWIW
It may well be the case that some physical cosmologists would prefer to have an "eternal universe model" of some sort, so to obviate the necessity of a beginning in space and time. This would track pretty well with Buddhist ideas.
But the evidence we have increasingly suggests that the universe did have a beginning, roughly 13 billion years ago. And it seems pretty sensible to recognize that it didn't create itself, or space and time either.
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