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.
Believers in gravity do NOT follow their belief when walking on the edge of a cliff, or climbing a stairwell! Believers in gravity should just allow themselves to fall down the stairwell, or fall of a cliff. They're messing with gravitational force and downward acceleration right there themselves.
"He did show Himself and it's well recorded. His name is Jesus and He Himself tells you what you need to know about God. No problem there with having to *guess* about His existance."
So a marginal religious leader in a backwater Roman territory who lived 2000 years ago and never wrote one word himself, is proof that there is god? Are you kidding?
So the Son of God is a human then?..
Is he human or Spirit(God).. Are YOU human or spirit?..
If your body dies (and it will) what survives?...
What IS Spirit/spirit?.. What is IT?... What happens to human body mass when it dies?.. Does it become "soil/dirt" again?..
Psalm 43 says "Before you were born I KNEW YOU"..
Whom knew what?..
If you say so.
Is just surviving enough? Or do you want to be healthy?
People without an appendix have a much higher probability of intestinal disorders. The appendix maintains a bacterial culture to insure proper digestion. This has actually been known for a long time; the talk of the "useless" appendix is just idle school teacher tails.
Ok, the gene that allowed bacteria to digest nylon was created by God, giving them an ability that allows species to adapt to new surroundings. God made bacteria with this ability to adapt to new surroundings, and to increase their food supply, when he made them. Do you think it was a random change, that just accidentally happened? C'mon, how can such a serendipitous change be an accident? Man, that's really stretching. Or did these bacteria study genetics, and just program their own genes to change, once they discovered nylon?
a) We know the change happened.
b) It is ludicrous to believe that it was merely random luck.
c) Therefore, it was either done by bacteria who were genetic scientists...
d) Or God, our creator, caused it to happen.
e) Only someone with incredible faith in their Darwinian dogma could believe such a mutation is random.
I'm afraid you've been duped on this one, all of the reactions to death are explained scientifically, there is no evidence. My friend was clinically dead, he made it back.
This is the stuff of Oprah fodder, along with past life regression, rebirthing, talking to the dead, etc.
"...the Pancreas probably had a function,..."
Hmm. You might want to look up "pancreas" in a dictionary. It does some VERY useful things, like the secretion of insulin, glucagon (causes glucose to increase), digestive enzymes... it ain't no appendix.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15228837&dopt=Abstract
the appendix is still very useful...to bad the assumption about it were not.
He made it back from Where?.. to Where?..
Even though I have apparently grieved your sensibilities -- please read my response... thanks in advance....
I do not disagree with your premise... and NOT BEING THE ORIGINATOR OF THIS THREAD... I did not have control over the choices of headlines -- and would not likely have chosen the term "dim-witted" that offends you.
Please permit me to assure that my responses were based on real experience -- not a hip-shot impulse to offend;
I have engaged many hard-core militant atheists in person and on the web... with a lot of polite deference for their views.. and I usually choose to buy the coffee...
I do NOT sense that your worldview or approach to the big idea of God... is such a militant approach... Yet --the two premises I cited in brief are the habitual patterns I see in trying to find common ground therewith.
(1). emotion-based decision making... AND
(2). Selective/intentional development of worldview...
If my choice of language -- or curt FReeper response -- was offensive I am truly sorry.
One of the major discoveries of my life-journey is the derivative of investigating the claims of Christ for myself;
-- And my discovery is that we are indeed created of God....
The God of the Bible... AND......
--In these days we are called of God into a reconciled relationship -- R-E-L-A-T-I-O-N-S-H-I-P...
A life-walk of faith and trust -- that is hands-down superior to all the empty self-affirmed religiosity in the whole earth.
Religion is the man-centered, man-energized effort to find, define, and merit favor with God...
The RELATIONSHIP -- is a response to God's initiative to intervene in our lives for sake of the blessings that are attendant to that extraordinary relationship -- including a positive outcome for eternal life.
You and I do agree on couple of things... I am not into religionists of any flavor issuing self-righteous checklists -- "Do this BUT... Don't do that"... makes no sense...
Unlesssssss.... the wisdom and guidance for life is issued in the context of that amazing relationship. When we are committed in loving relationships -- it is a natural flow of behavior and an inborn desire to please the other Person in the relationship.
Sir, I can tell you have a placed a wonderful value and devotion to your family... and you would do anything for them because of that shared love and devotion.... your wife, your daughter... your family as a whole -- you wouldn't hold back anything to bless them or enhance your relationship with them... and within the matrix of the family relationships as a whole...
I submit for your consideration -- that God feels the same way about His family -- there was a huge problem -- and He did take the initiative to heal the rift... to bridge the chasm.
He did this AFTER proving through the Old Testament Law of Moses -- that even God-prescribed RELIGION could NOT pay the price of holy judgment... or truly reconcile the relationship between God and man.
Ergo-- we celebrate Christmas... the coming of the Son -- whose mission was to extend the invitation to all who would hear --- Then and Now--
That the Heavenly Father was calling us into a reconciled and restored R-E-L-A-T-I-O-N-S-H-I-P....
I am an atheist who married a devout Catholic and my daughter attends catholic school. I support her religious (spiritual) education at every opportunity.
At the risk of getting further out on the limb in this conversation... the New Testament tells us that an unbelieving husband is also blessed in God's sight --through the marriage with a believing wife -- because of God's great rspect fo the marriage covenant and relationship -- it's like a Kingdom freebie...
1 CORINTHIANS 7:13-14a
And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife,
The questions for the journey are really simple...
Is The LORD (YHWH) really the Supreme God??
Which came first God or man??
Did God create man... or
Did man imagine/invent God?
(Man-made gods are called "idols".. whether made of gold, silver, stone, wood, or conveniently incomplete theology)
Who is the initiator of the relationship?
Are man's self-defined religious offerings and edicts enough to please God?... OR
Is God pursuing a right relationship with us...?
Taking the responsibility upon HImself to build the bridge....
Sooooo... all we have to do is choose to walk across in faith....??
Is the Bible a reliable record of God's activity and interventions in the history of humankind?
This is a busy question... but quite definitively "do-able"
I have put the promises and patterns to the test... you have to decide for yourself... but, I vote "yes" -- (correctly interpreted and applied) -- It's the guidebook to life within the context of the amazing relationship!
Is the Carpenter of Nazareth really the life of God in the flesh... fully God and full Man... as he clearly claimed...??
Is He the LORD (YHWH) God-- manifest in the form of a man for making peace with all men??... OR
Is He a fraud and a liar??... OR
Is He a deranged lunatic??
These are mutually exclusive propositions... so only one of them can possibly be true.
What CANNOT be true -- is that Jesus is just a very nice guy... an itinerant teacher and healer who wanted warm fuzzy feelings of good life for everyone... and a highly revered philosopher along the lines of Confucius or Socrates or Plato...
This cannot be true -- No room in the proposition for this one...
Because he CLAIMED to be YHWH... the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob... God of Noah, Moses, King David... etc.
LAST LIFE-JOURNEY QUESTION... I PROMISE:
Which of the three popular eternal views of life after death do you subscribe?? (Again... these are each mutually exclusive propositions -- only ONE of these CAN BE true!)
(1) nihilism.... the old dirt nap.... all done... have fun
(2) reincarnation... recycled.. karma/oversoul... be a man... then a bug... horse... dog... man again... snake... endlessly.. tiring me out...
(3)personal eternity... live life... make choices...
Each person's eternal destiny, position, and reward is based on your life choices... especially the choice of the faith relationship.
I do not have anything to "sell" you, sir... ideas or otherwise...
The only "mission" in my life, is much more like introducing folks to my best Friend... and hope they enjoy knowing Him as much as I have, indeed.
Maybe this discussion would help you reconsider a strategic move from an atheist's "no way" to a sincere skeptic's "maybe"....
But I have neither right nor duty-- And would take no presumption so far as to try to tell you what you "must" believe or do...
I am really not very religious, myslef....
But I left my 6-figures easy-money life to pastor a growing little storefront fellowship full of folks who simply want to grow into the relationship... and share the blessings with others....
I am also a serious family man -- 6 of my own (31 down to 14)... All of them walking out their amazing relationship... It's God's work -- not mine!
I know... this is waaaaay too wordy.... but please permit me....
From my family to you and yours....
Have a merry Christmas celebration...
And don't be surprised to find those extra/unexpected blessings --- and little signs of amazing love all around you...
Thanks for listening...
whales don't have feet,some have a tiny bone that is a an anchor for mussels, it has no joints. this bone as a 'vestigal leg' is an interpretation with evolution assumed from the get go. still serves important functions with out being assumed a degraded functional leg.
Not Psalm 43 but Jeremiah 1;5.. sorry..
mussels???? muscles???? hahaha
He didn't go anywhere, the "light" people see is a product of their brain shutting down any other "phenomena" is no different than dreaming.
And you know this to be true, how?...
The discussion of the "Observer Problem" seems to be beyond you..
But I may not be observing you correctly..
The things that irk me in some folks are traits I have myself!
Whale ancestors were ALWAYS sea creatures. They are EVOLVING feet so they can get out on land!!!!
See how far along the SEALS are!!
They already live parts of their lives on land. Just WAIT a few zillion years and they'll be a top land predator!
--EvoDude
Most all of them.
AM I supposed to believe that Noah's Ark actually happened?
Either that or THIS guy's a liar or lunatic!!!
NIV Matthew 24:37-39
37. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
38. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark;
39. and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
NIV Luke 3:34-38
34. the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor,
35. the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah,
36. the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech,
37. the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Kenan,
38. the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.
NIV Luke 17:24-27
24. For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other.
25. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
26. "Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man.
27. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.
(These guys, too!)
NIV Hebrews 11:7
By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
NIV 1 Peter 3:18-22
18. For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit,
19. through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison
20. who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water,
21. and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also--not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
22. who has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand--with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.
NIV 2 Peter 2:4-9
4. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment;
5. if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others;
6. if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;
7. and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men
8. (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)--
9. if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.
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