Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: The God Thing

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  • 81stcolumn,

    <quote>As Dawkins points out, he's not saying that god doesn't exist ... he's just saying that based on the evidence we see in the real world it's incredibly unlikely that god exists. And the chance that a putative "god" looks anything like the Jewish or Christian god is even lower.<quote>

    I'm sorry to labour this point but....

    I think Dawkins does go further than this and it explains why he has taken this argument forwards at this time. Theism in many areas of science leads us to the mucky philosophy of "If it can’t be explained then god did it". Such an approach means to say in the long run that we have to invoke god as a part of engineering, technology and so on. At which point progress as we have come to understand it will probably slow if not stall.

    Hence when confronted with such a concept as intelligent design and its presentation as a legitimate alternative to a relatively successful branch of science of the last 100 or so years, it is of no surprise that a vigorous response needs to be mounted.

    I’m not sure this debate would be going on if there hadn’t been the rise of Christian fundamentalism and its associated dogma.

    I don't care how many special friends live in peoples heads I do care when people make them substantial and base scientific decisions on them.

    Nawthshaw • Since Nov 2006 • 790 posts Report Reply

  • Andrew Short,

    For someone professing theology Dawkins is an infant http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/eagl01_.html

    Nottingham, UK • Since Nov 2006 • 1 posts Report Reply

  • Danyl Mclauchlan,

    The Terry Eagleton review of Dawkins book is patently absurd. The closest I've come to reading 'The God Delusion' is flipping through it at Unity Books, but it seems likely to me that Eagleton hasn't read it at all.

    Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don’t believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be.

    In my ninety second flip through I noted that Dawkins addresses.

    1. The Teleological Argument (Aquinas).
    2. The Ontological Argument (Anselm).
    3. The Argument from Scripture (C.S Lewis, amoung others).

    It's telling that Eagleton doesn't actually address Dawkins refutations of these arguments but instead complains that he hasn't read enough Theology:

    What, one wonders, are Dawkins’s views on the epistemological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotus? Has he read Eriugena on subjectivity, Rahner on grace or Moltmann on hope? Has he even heard of them?

    I doubt Dawkins discusses how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, either. This argument is like a hollow Earth apologist insisting that a geologist isn't qualified to debate with them 'because he hasn't read McBride on Concentric Sphere's, or Lyons on the Hidden Tunnels at the North Pole'.

    Likewise, I don't need to read a vast volume of books on Astrology to know that it's patent nonsense. Ditto phrenology. And ditto Theology.

    If they were asked to pass judgment on phenomenology or the geopolitics of South Asia, they would no doubt bone up on the question as assiduously as they could.

    The patently obvious difference here being that South Asia is a real place with real facts and a real body of knowledge, while God doesn't enjoy any of those qualities.

    My favourite part is this:

    Dawkins speaks scoffingly of a personal God, as though it were entirely obvious exactly what this might mean. He seems to imagine God, if not exactly with a white beard, then at least as some kind of chap, however supersized. He asks how this chap can speak to billions of people simultaneously, which is rather like wondering why, if Tony Blair is an octopus, he has only two arms. For Judeo-Christianity, God is not a person in the sense that Al Gore arguably is. Nor is he a principle, an entity, or ‘existent’: in one sense of that word it would be perfectly coherent for religious types to claim that God does not in fact exist. He is, rather, the condition of possibility of any entity whatsoever, including ourselves. He is the answer to why there is something rather than nothing. God and the universe do not add up to two, any more than my envy and my left foot constitute a pair of objects.

    Let's take it from the top. The big problem with the Tony Blair/Octopus analogy is that nobody actually believes Tony Blair is an Octopus, while many billions of people believe that there IS a personal God. According to a recent Harris poll 37% of Americans think that God is a male. Most believers think of God as being 'a person' - the Gods of the Jews and Muslims have very distinct personalitles.

    What Eagleton is doing here is taking Dawkins to task for not writing specifically about HIS God that he believes in. But as we can see from the review Eageltons particular beliefs seem very different from that of most religious people. This passage, is perhaps the core of the review.

    Dawkins, who is as obsessed with the mechanics of Creation as his Creationist opponents, understands nothing of these traditional doctrines. Nor does he understand that because God is transcendent of us (which is another way of saying that he did not have to bring us about), he is free of any neurotic need for us and wants simply to be allowed to love us. Dawkins’s God, by contrast, is Satanic.

    Eagleton can't seem to get it into his head that Dawkins doesn't believe in God. Eagleton starts from the position that God exists, created us, loves us, blah blah blah - but hasn't really grasped Dawkins basic position that there is NO proof for any of these beliefs. He doesn't address them because he simply doesn't concede them as having any validity. He doesn't 'understand that God is transcendant of us' because he simply doesn't think God is real.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 927 posts Report Reply

  • Hadyn Green,

    Neil (back on page 5):

    Hayden, you might like to check out Paul Davies' background before dismissing him as a "Pastafarian".

    I'm not dissing no one, aren't the followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster called Pastafarians? Did I put in the wrong link?

    That the universe happens to be just right for life and that even an extremely small variation in the fundamental constants would mean no life what so ever - not different life - is a bone fide puzzle in physics circles.

    Well that's the kicker isn't it. Let's take a constant, say Plank's Constant. It's roughly 6.626x10^(-34).

    Planck's constant is used in measuring energy emitted by light photons, such as in the equation E=hν, where E is energy, h is Planck's constant, and ν is frequency.

    Now if what if Plank's constant was 9, say. If you held all of the other things constant life would be severly buggered (by which I mean, wouldn't exist). In fact it is quite likely that the universe would fall apart. But that's not generally how things work.

    If we made Plank's Constant equal to 9 we would have to do it right at the beginning but then we would have to change all of the other constants about until things worked then away we'd go.

    The skinny is that you CAN change a physical constant, but if you change one you have to change ALL of them. If you're interested it's based on Simplicity Theory (similar to Chaos Theory)

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2090 posts Report Reply

  • Hadyn Green,

    Oh I see what happened!

    The comment about the Pastafraians was separate to the one about Paul Davies. My bad for not putting in a bigger space

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2090 posts Report Reply

  • Ben Austin,

    Agreed Danyl.

    Why should someone who has spent his life using a methadology of repeatible, verifiable research ever want or need to delve deeply into the depths of theological discussion. All he simply wants is for someone who believes to provide to him a repeatible, verifiable test that beyond a reasonable doubt proves a god or gods exist. No such test exists, therefore Dawkins cannot be convinced.

    (lHowever looking at citations in say the God Delusion, Dawkins has made a reasonable effort to read theological or religious works)

    London • Since Nov 2006 • 1027 posts Report Reply

  • Neil Morrison,

    Hayden, yes I interpreted the Pastafraians bit as referring to Paul Davies. Thanks for the clarification.

    One would have to change all the constants in-order to get a life generating universe - but that is the puzzle. Out of all the possible combinations of values for the fundamental constants only a very small proportion give rise to a universe that will have life. Otherwise we don't get atoms, or stars, or the lifespan of the universe is too short etc. One puzzle is what sort of mechanism allowed for this fine tuning.

    One possible explanation is the multi-verse model. An infinite number of universes come into being and those few with the right initial conditions will have life. It's a version of the weak anthropic principle. We see the universe is fine tuned because that's the only type of universe that can be observed.

    But Davies is putting forward another possibility - the fine tuning is a sort of retrospective action by life itself. It's a fascinating, if perplexing, theory.

    Since Nov 2006 • 932 posts Report Reply

  • Danyl Mclauchlan,

    One possible explanation is the multi-verse model. An infinite number of universes come into being and those few with the right initial conditions will have life. It's a version of the weak anthropic principle. We see the universe is fine tuned because that's the only type of universe that can be observed.

    And then there's this idea:

    http://www.starlarvae.org/Star_Larvae_Cosmological_Natural_Selection.html

    Money Quote:

    When a fresh universe explodes into being from a black hole that resides in a pre-existing universe, the values of the baby universe's fundamental constants are influenced—but not completely determined—by those of the parent, according to the theory of cosmological natural selection. The indeterminacy of quantum physics allows some play in the system of inheritance. When a black hole forms from the collapse of a large star, information is not perfectly conserved, according to the quantum theory of black holes. As a result, the values of the physical constants are likely to differ from parent universe to offspring and among the offspring. Once such variation is introduced into an ensemble of successive generations, the succession proceeds according to the Darwinian model. If its capacity to make black holes determines the reproductive fitness of a universe, then Darwinian selection theory predicts that those universes most predisposed to make black holes will be most successful at passing their values of the constants forward into future generations. In other words, the evolution of universes selects for reproductive fitness, and this selection pressure drives the evolution of universes in the direction of increasing fertility, which means in the direction of making more black holes.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 927 posts Report Reply

  • Hadyn Green,

    I'll have to do a bit more reading, but my initial reaction is that "life retroactivley working on the fine tuning of the universe" seems to be a little too homo-sapi-centric (a word I just made up).

    As I said, that's just a knee-jerk reaction to the statement. But don't worry, we're only on page 6 of this discussion. We should have the whole thing solved by at least page 8 ;)

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2090 posts Report Reply

  • Don Christie,

    From Terry Ealgeton:

    "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds,"

    Well Terry, we don't have to "imagine". The God squad do it all the time. Annoying, isn't it.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1645 posts Report Reply

  • Neil Morrison,

    There's a debate on evolutionary universes - here

    I haven't read it all yet but carbon chemistry (necesssary for life of course) playing a significant role in black hole formation is pretty good evidence.

    Evolution I think is being used here as a metaphor, but maybe there's more to the analogy - if reproductiojn happens on such a grand scale then why not consciousness as well? Maybe something a bit "God" like.

    Since Nov 2006 • 932 posts Report Reply

  • WH,

    All he simply wants is for someone who believes to provide to him a repeatible, verifiable test that beyond a reasonable doubt proves a god or gods exist. No such test exists, therefore Dawkins cannot be convinced.

    If such an experiment could be devised we wouldn't be arguing about this. In the absence of such an experiment, Dawkins' conclusion that there is no God extends beyond the available scientific data - which is the case for the agnostic's position. In the absence of such an experiment, reasonable scientists, such as Collins and Dawkins, disagree on the philosophy.

    Parenthetically, framing Dawkins' atheism as the mere "absence of positive belief in God", rather than as the positive belief that there is no God, is a farce. Boo to semantics of this kind.

    If people want to free associate/speculate/extrapolate/make sh*t up about other dimensions and multiple universes they are free to do so, but I fail to see how such imaginary worlds are any better than Collins' imaginary friend. If one is acceptable conjecture so is the other, particularly when god concepts more sophisticated than 'old man with a beard' are taken into account.

    ...since they don’t believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince.

    Danyl's critique of Eagleton was well written, and I agree mostly, except for the steady stream of straw man attacks coming from the Dawkins' side of the fence.

    Since Nov 2006 • 797 posts Report Reply

  • Malcolm 141,

    If people want to free associate/speculate/extrapolate/make sh*t up about other dimensions and multiple universes they are free to do so, but I fail to see how such imaginary worlds are any better than Collins' imaginary friend.

    The difference is that their implications are, at least conceivably, testable. Also, those investigating them are in principle willing to give up some ideas, or prefer other ideas, on the basis of the evidence they find.

    Since Nov 2006 • 15 posts Report Reply

  • Hamish,

    If people want to free associate/speculate/extrapolate/make sh*t up about other dimensions and multiple universes they are free to do so, but I fail to see how such imaginary worlds are any better than Collins' imaginary friend

    These theories are not created for the benefit of theists, they're conjectures by physicists to describe the universe as they investigate it. They do have implications for religion, but as far as rationality goes, those implications are secondary.

    If one is acceptable conjecture so is the other, particularly when god concepts more sophisticated than 'old man with a beard' are taken into account.

    Well, no. The theories that are just 'made up' are 'made up' to as hypothesis' that can then be disproved. Case in point: Ether. The ether was a medium conjectured by physicists to explain how light could travel through apparently empty space. When it was found that the Ether could not exist (see Michelson-Morley experiment) this opened the door to Einsteins theory of relativity. That's how science progresses our understanding of the universe - by setting up ideas and knocking them down.

    Religion puts up an idea with no intention of letting it get knocked down. The whole formulation of sprituality is a human construct specifically designed to avoid argument altogether.

    The A.K. • Since Nov 2006 • 155 posts Report Reply

  • Neil Morrison,

    Here's an experiment that might provide support for Davies' theory - reverse causation

    Since Nov 2006 • 932 posts Report Reply

  • Deborah,

    Excellent. I have just been watching Campbell Live, which played the entire 'impromptu press conference' with Dr Brash (on the day of the Nicky Hager non-book launch), who said, so kindly, that as a politician, he would talk to anyone with a legitimate interest in talking with politicians: "...even criminals, even atheists, even agnostics."

    So nice to be grouped with criminals (and agnostics, for that matter).

    New Lynn • Since Nov 2006 • 1447 posts Report Reply

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