Tonight - More4, The God Delusion

[stu7878]

"I think, therefore I am"

Or should it be:

"I think I think, therefore I think I am"?



My head hurts now.

 

[bhaexpress]

Yeah, that is what I am saying. Nothing can exactly be proved can it.

Yes but whilst I haven't heard whet Professor Dawkins has to say I have heard far too much from believers who pooh pooh my notion of the existence of little Green Men from Mars. Why are my poor little Green chaps any less valid than Allah or God ?

 

[Stoo82]

Yes but whilst I haven't heard whet Professor Dawkins has to say I have heard far too much from believers who pooh pooh my notion of the existence of little Green Men from Mars. Why are my poor little Green chaps any less valid than Allah or God ?

Maybe your little green men are 'god'.

 

[Don Quixote]

Do you believe that little green men from mars created you? Interesting theory. I am not even certain if Mars exists since I have never been there or seen it. I am sure Dawkins will tell you all you need to know. He is, after all, a genius who seems to understand more than, say, the rest of the world who believe in some sort of deity.

 

[Don Quixote]

"I think, therefore I am"

Or should it be:

"I think I think, therefore I think I am"?



My head hurts now.

You think you think? Interesting, maybe you are just a robot? How would you know?

 

[burrish-gull]

But it's okay to arrogantly decare ''there is a God''?

Agree 100%, put that in your pipe and smoke it

 

[Stoo82]

Do you believe that little green men from mars created you? Interesting theory. I am not even certain if Mars exists since I have never been there or seen it. I am sure Dawkins will tell you all you need to know. He is, after all, a genius who seems to understand more than, say, the rest of the world who believe in some sort of deity.

Its not so far of the mark. Aliens and religion.

I understand what you are saying about, if I have not seen it therefore it does not exist and you relating it to religion and having 'faith' in somthing being there.

 

[Robbie G]

The bloke's an utter joke, who cares if he doesn't believe in religion keep it to yourself.

He's a very clever bloke. I would say he is arguing against religion just as much as those who believe in religion argue for it.

 

[daveinprague]

If you isolated a bunch of children, and brought them up believing that winnie the pooh was an almighty, all forgiving god, who created everytning, then they will believe it.

 

[Wilko]

The bloke's an utter joke, who cares if he doesn't believe in religion keep it to yourself. Just loves to boost his ego by trying to undermine religion and dream up some absurd lies. He's a superb advocate of marriage isn't he. Been married three times, the bloke's a deranged fool.

People who are religious are an utter joke, who cares if they believe in God, keep it to yourself. Those who believe love to advertise their faith and dream up absurd lies. Those who often belief in religion also practice sex before marriage, abortion and infidelity, they are deranged fools.

 

[Stoo82]

If you isolated a bunch of children, and brought them up believing that winnie the pooh was an almighty, all forgiving god, who created everytning, then they will believe it.

Sound likes you are discribing the new religion of Climate Change is mans fault.

 

[stu7878]

The bloke's an utter joke, who cares if he doesn't believe in religion keep it to yourself. Just loves to boost his ego by trying to undermine religion and dream up some absurd lies. He's a superb advocate of marriage isn't he. Been married three times, the bloke's a deranged fool.

Married three times He must be the son of the devil!!


Now I'm convinced..... off to church for me!

 

[daveinprague]

Sound likes you are discribing the new religion of Climate Change is mans fault.

Whilst not wanting to deviate from the thread, yeah youre right.
300 years of increasing industrial polution, filling the atmosphere with various poisons will have no effect on the earths atmosphere.

 

[Stoo82]

Whilst not wanting to deviate from the thread, yeah youre right.
200 years of increasing industry polution, filling the atmosphere with various poisons will have no effect on the earths atmosphere.

OK.

I will counter you argument by saying: The earth is how old? How manytinmes has the earth heated and cooled? Why are all the other planets in the solar system heating aswell? Humans create 0.2% of the earths CO2.

 

[daveinprague]

Of course there have been deviations in the atmosphere, but anybody who believes that the last 300 years of pollution by humans since the industrial revolution doesnt have an effect on the atmosphere is being a bit disingenuous.

You may be right about it, but to ignore the possibilities is a bit impolite to future generations.

 

[Soton Seagull]

Throughout human history when something was not fully understood it was been explained as 'god works in mysterious ways/god's will' etc

As science moves forward and we discover answers (germs cause diesease not God's wrath?) the same old excuse gets pushed on to the next think we are yet to understand.

Religoen seems to punish the pursuit, if not strongly discourages, knowledge. THe more we find out the weaker the 'god did it' argument becomes. The uniververse was created somehow, but just becuase we are not entirely sure how, it doesn't mean it is justifiable to go back to the default argument of the sky god!

Addressing pints about why everything is set up to support life (gravity etc); this shows the typical arrogance (not in a nasty way) that we have as humans. The illogical assumption that it was all created to suit and support us; as oppose to us being a byproduct of what came about.

There are some perfectly lovely religous people out there, but it is too often used to justify intolerence, hatred and ignorance. It should have no special place in the State (faifth schools or blasphemy laws etc) as it is simply personal belif which sould hold no more value than a child's belief in Santa or my belief that Gus can get us promoted!

 

[daveinprague]

good dose of communism sorts it out.
Never lived anywhere that has more churches than this city.
And the majority of the population of cz is officially atheist.

 

[beorhthelm]

Zoologist Dawkins is indeed quite anti-religion for someone who doesn't really understand the first thing about it.

so laymen arent allowed to know or understand religion and it texts? i thought that idea went out with the reformation.

If God was put forward as a theory to explain why everything is, it is one of our stronger ones. A lot stronger than Dawkins/atheists obscene confidence that it all was just a fortunate coincidence that's for sure...

i really dont see how you arrive at that conclusion. "God" explains nothing. the biblical texts describe a sequence of events to explain our existance which have since been shown to be false. the earth is older than 6000 years, man walked the earth for tens of thousands of years. thats before one even considers evolution.

but define "God". i think half the object to Dawkins is because he takes aim at a particular type of hard line definition, those that dont recognise that definition dont understand why he is seen to be critising them. but there are then other issue with religion which he goes on to criticise.

The idea of "coincidence" is not one widely held but has merit. its like "Cogito ergo sum", its irrefutable, therefore if there is no other reason than a coincidene of physical laws, there we are. in some interpretations of quantum theory, all possible variations of the universe exist, so we merely inhabit one set of variables amongst an infinite number of others.

It's all food for thought, but this is why I get irritated by Dawkins preaching. He doesn't have the answer to any of these questions, but he genuinely believes that our perfect universe and all these very specific but vital rules can be explained by randomness and chance - and then tries to force this almost nihilistic view that the universe and life is utterly pointless upon society.

he does get preachy, but i think its wrong to say he claims to have the answers to everything. the position is more simply about learning from observation, experimentation and fact, rather than faith prescribed from old men thousands of years ago who didnt know what we know now.

I think he has come up against lot of opposition from a minority group in the US who take their bible very literally and oppose his entire lifes work on the simple grounds of the genesis fairy tale. from that he has looked and seen the relgious right are disproportioniatly powerfull politically across the the world.

in order to get people to take a stand he has lurched to a strong position to get the message across, too far imo (the book intrroduction sounds evangelical), but his core points and arguement are usuall sane and correct. for example, why do we consider it acceptable to label a child as "christian", "muslim" based on their parents: we dont do this anywhere else, in fact we abhor and resist any attempts to do so.

Somebody prove to me the world wasn't created five minutes ago. This Dawkins guy doesn't know what he is on about.

you cant. nor can religion. when you reach this philosophical quagmire you have to decide if you will accept this and move on or go to bed. back to Decartes, then see where you go. but the evidence suggest something does exist and has done for a long time.

 

[Husty]

Everyone seems to hate this guy but i've never got it, you cannot prove that there IS a god any more than you can prove there isn't. If anything I'd imagine it would be easier to disprove his existence than prove it.

 

[Don Quixote]

People haven't suddenly become clever in the past fifty years you know. The greek philosophers were thinking this all the time. We have had religion for a very long time now, why is it wrong? People just seem to want to be able to do whatever they want without consequences...