"Religulous".....comments? (ducks and covers)

quote:

because there is no God

can't be "proven" scientifically.

Cheers

Don

Don hasn't been converted yet ...

"It's time to come in now, boys, for your tea" said mum.

"But its not dark yet!"

Cheers

Don

I must have been a rare child! I loved Thursdays, because we always had liver then in the olden days!!

ATB from George

Makes as much sense as any other system for selection of ones faith Winky!

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
I must have been a rare child! I loved Thursdays, because we always had liver then in the olden days!!

ATB from George

I didn't realise the picture-posting didn't work. I couldn't figure out the liver reference. 555 seems to have sorted it...

quote:

Posted Fri 14 November 2008 16:22 Hide Post


Makes as much sense as any other system for selection of ones faith Winky!

I like it!!!

The problem is, you'd need at least 10,000 other options to choose from!!!

Thanks for this (John I believe??!!). It will now be my wallpaper at work!!!

Cheers,

Jon

quote:

It will now be my wallpaper at work!!!

Could be career-limiting in your situation.

cheers

Don

quote:

quote:
It will now be my wallpaper at work!!!

Could be career-limiting in your situation.

cheers

Don

You're right, Don, I must be cautious at work in doing so as my staff room contains teachers of various faiths. I know of a muslim teacher, a Sikh teacher, Christian teachers...

We all get on as we must, but I find it frustrating that they can put things on their desks promoting what they believe, but someone like myself who doubts them all does not have the same rights.

I will do something, however, and that will be to run the Birmingham half Marathon next year. I will do this for the Richard Dawkins Foundation charity and see how much money I make!!!

I will update the forum.........

Regards,

Jon

quote:

I will do this for the Richard Dawkins Foundation charity

There are far more (secular) worthy causes to support than that prat.

cheers

Don

Consciousmess, support the Dawkins Foundation if you wish, but please do so in the full knowledge that Dawkins 'preaches to the choir' no less than anyone you are seeking to put the boot into.

"Prejudice", said Stephen Fry, "is the world's greatest labour-saving device, it saves one having to think".

Not only are Dawkins' writings littered with errors about what Faiths understand of themselves, they are also littered with errors about science (and notably about what Darwin actually says) - as an Oxford professor, and therefore presumably 'knowledgable' in his field, perhaps it is not unreasonable to conclude that he is being deliberately misleading.

One fundamental question that STILL no atheist seems to have addressed on these boring threads is why intelligent people, at least as intelligent as Dawkins, and who are perfectly capable of highly sophisticated, discerning and intelligent thought, can have religious faith.

Avoiding crass answers, engaging seriously with this important question - are such brainy people simply more stupid than Dawkins, Hitchens, you, winky, 555, etc?

Don & James setting an example on behalf of the faithful?

quote:

Originally posted by JWM:
.... why intelligent people, at least as intelligent as Dawkins, and who are perfectly capable of highly sophisticated, discerning and intelligent thought, can have religious faith.

I am presently intrigued by the provisional perspective that recent observations appear to support - that consciousness is a commentary on motivations and action - rather than its necessary origin.

( Admittedly a small, and potentially misinterpreted, part of http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime.shtml .)

For me - there is no emotional want of a god explanation and (so?) no amount of argument will prevail. The cosmological argument leads me merely to a dunno - rather than a prime mover with suspiciously human characteristics and ethics.


"Does the body rule the mind
or does the mind rule the body?

I dunno"

quote:

Originally posted by 555:
Don & James setting an example on behalf of the faithful?

Why the sarcastic response, John?

I point out that there are some serious flaws in Dawkins - including some pretty fundamental flaws in science, the academic discipline in which he is a Professor at Oxford, one of the world's leading univeristies (indeed at which I had three enjoyable years' study) - and ask a serious question.

'How do intelligent and sophisticated atheists account for the religious faith of equally intelligent and sophisticated theists? Are they simply more stupid than intelligent atheists?'

A supplementary question might be, I suppose, 'How does intellectual pride effect theism/atheism?'

Good wishes as always,
James

My reply was not intended to be sarcastic,
& having re-read I don't think it is any more so than your original post James.

There are flaws in all hypothesis,
but for me you might as well ask why would clever people do anything apparently misconceived?

Don and James,

I had to say that I did suspect there to be displeasure when I said I am doing the run for the Dawkins foundation!!

The man is devoted to the truth, not one tainted with a religious agenda and I think anyone who feels upset by the logic and rational thought Dawkins uses is upset because they are threatened by it. I hate to just single out Dawkins, but in this case he is the most well-known professor due to his position at Oxford and due to the success of his books and documentaries.

That is the charity I will support as the aim of that charity is to promote rationality and I know my taking of this stance will face objection.

Let me give you a list of authors who are all highly erudite and highly against the notion of a god. None of them appeal to any form of faith and write with rational reasoning alone:

Lucretius
Omar Khayyam
Thomas Hobbes
Benedict De Spinoza
David Hume
James Boswell
Percy Shelley
John Stuart Mill
Karl Marx
George Elliot
Charles Darwin
Leslie Stephen
Anatole France
Mark Twain
Joseph Conrad
Thomas Hardy
Emma Goldman
H.P. Lovecraft
Carl Doren
H.L. Mencken
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
George Orwell
John Betjeman
Chapman Cohen
Bertand Russell
Philip Larkin
Martin Gardner
Carl Sagan
John Updike
J.L. Mackie
Michael Shermer
A.J. Ayer
Daniel C. Dennett
Charles Templeton
Richard Dawkins
Victor Stenger
Elizabeth Anderson
Penn Jillette
Ian McEwan
Steven Weinberg
Salman Rushdie
Ibn Warraq
Sam Harris
A.C. Grayling
Ayaan Hirsi Ali

You no doubt recognise some names, but I typed them here in case you wished to get hold of any of their work through cutting and pasting....

My the training continue and I intend on making over a grand.

Regardos,

Jon

quote:

I said I am doing the run for the Dawkins foundation!!

The man is devoted to the truth,

You are joking, aren't you?

cheers

Don

It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.

G. K. Chesterton

So very true.

And when Dawkins accepts his Foundation is a religion, i'm sure he'll see the funny side of this.

Cheers

Don

I have a number of relatives, friends and acquaintances that have a deep religious faith.
No matter what I think on the issue, I am sure that the world would be a poorer place without them.

It's a beautiful thing, a gift. Sometimes the best thing to do with a beautiful gift is to accept it without question. Otherwise, what condition would you leave your children in?

I don't know where hope comes from, in the absence of those people :-)

quote:

I will do something, however, and that will be to run the Birmingham half Marathon next year. I will do this for the Richard Dawkins Foundation charity and see how much money I make!!!

Your choice Jon, but, as others have pointed out, there are many, far worthier causes that need your help. I think that chasing this narrow, abstract idea of rationality has blinded you to that fact. The irony is that Dawkins has plenty of wealthy, well-connected chums, who will chip in anyway, so he hardly needs your measly £1000.

I think you're in danger of fetishising rationality so that it becomes, for you, the only true, meaningful way of engaging with the world. But, really, is it rational to aspire to total rationality? Is it irrational to make space in our lives for a measure of irrationality?

Regards
Nigel

quote:

Originally posted by Adam Meredith:

quote:

Originally posted by JWM:
.... why intelligent people, at least as intelligent as Dawkins, and who are perfectly capable of highly sophisticated, discerning and intelligent thought, can have religious faith.

I am presently intrigued by the provisional perspective that recent observations appear to support - that consciousness is a commentary on motivations and action - rather than its necessary origin.

( Admittedly a small, and potentially misinterpreted, part of http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime.shtml .)

For me - there is no emotional want of a god explanation and (so?) no amount of argument will prevail. The cosmological argument leads me merely to a dunno - rather than a prime mover with suspiciously human characteristics and ethics.


"Does the body rule the mind
or does the mind rule the body?

I dunno"

Adam - "Seeing Red" by Nicholas Humphrey is a quirky, thought-provoking take on the so-called "hard problem of consciousness". Unlike Dennett (who is an admirer of his) he takes the problem seriously, and does not seek to explain it away. His conclusions aren't a million miles away from the provisional perspective you allude to. And God-free, too!

Nigel

Some of this would make my brain ache if I really tried to understand what it is all about.

I am content to believe what I believe, and am content that it makes me a kinder, better person than I would have been had I rejected the Christianity I was brought up within at least in the better parts of my childhood.

Ironic that it was Dawkin's book [The God Delusion] that so convincingly led me to reject his militant non-belief and stop looking for a rational reason to drop Christian Faith. I am convinced he believes his own case, to the point where he becomes deepling unsmpathetic and unpleasant, so that one simply cannot be bothered to follow his road to his odd rationality. The great thing is that we are free to choose in our modern society.

ATB from George