Philo's guide to decoding the Hebrew Bible

[seeker]

I appreciate that you have a real problem over there with creationists trying to get into the classrooms.

But I wish you could have seen the looks on the faces of the school children in the tv doc when Dawkins told them that if they were more scientific, they wouldn't believe in God. He made them feel small and confused.

I don't need to read Dawkins book especially if that's the best he can come up with - that the process of evolution disproves a Supreme Being.

That material went through a process of evolution does not rule a creator of the material that evolved. That there was a Big Bang doesn't disprove a creator of material to go bang.

I understand that you object to creationists forcing their views in the classroom. But Dawkins is doing the same thing in reverse. And neither side has any scientific proof to their case.

That's where you are just wrong though. Science has all manner of science behind it. Religion is the only side of the discussion with no science behind it.

I am surprised that you dismiss something you haven't read so casually Ish. My atheism is a big part of the reason why I do so much research.

[seeker]

Well, they’d be right ... if Dawkins came into their classroom. He is definitely hostile to their faith, which would be fine if he only confined to that. But no ... he goes further. He is hostile to the very idea of a Supreme Being, and tells them that science proves the non-existence of such.

Science is what it is, a search for truth based on evidence. It only contradicts faith when faith attempts to paint itself as having answers that are better explained by natural methods. Dawkins is only saying that believing that a God created the world is unscientific.

I'm not surprised when they are being fought over by opposing camps of Literalists - Literalist Christians versus Literalist Atheists.

Once again you are trying to draw equivalence where none exists. Christians are trying to use public schools to indoctrinate children into belief. Guys like Dawkins are only saying that faith has no place in schools.

It’s probably not their trust of evolution, per se. It’s being told that evolution disproves God. They are still simple enough in their thinking to understand that simple point doesn’t stand up, when many adults are not.

I understand that you have a problem about this in the States, but that in a way possibly means that you cannot understand what I’m saying objectively.

It’s just as wrong for Dawkins to tell children that if they were more scientific, they wouldn’t believe in God. There is no difference.

There is nothing wrong with telling children that scientific thought would cause them not to believe in God. It happens to be true, the percentage of believers that are scientists is far lower than the percentage of believers in the general populace. In fact the same is true when you compare the percentage of believers in a well educated population with that of a poorer educated population.

[Ishtar]

That's where you are just wrong though. Science has all manner of science behind it. Religion is the only side of the discussion with no science behind it.

Yeah... and science has no religion behind it. So what?

Of course science has all manner of science is behind it. Otherwise it wouldn't be science. But it has not, as Dawkins is saying it has, disproved God. And that's my simple point.

I'm dismissing this book so casually because you haven't been able to tell me one ground breaking thing in it that Dawkins has said to make me think that he has disproved the existence of God.

You've told me that he talks about the fossil record. You've told me that he talks about evolution. I know about all those things.

If he had said one ground breaking in that book that disproves God, scientifically as he claims, do you not think you'd remember it, at least enough to give it to me here?

Maybe you don't remember it because it's not in there. Just like the Bible doesn't contain the Word of God, The God Delusion does not contain the scientific proof of no God.

But by keeping on referring me to your Good Book, instead of making the case right here and know for how science disproves God, you are being no different to a Literalist Christian who insists that if I only I would read the Bible, then I'd understand. It's Arch's stock line.

[Ishtar]

Science is what it is, a search for truth based on evidence. It only contradicts faith when faith attempts to paint itself as having answers that are better explained by natural methods. Dawkins is only saying that believing that a God created the world is unscientific.

No - that's not what he is saying. If only it was. What Dawkins is saying that he is an atheist because science has disproved God. If it was only that it was unscientific, he wouldn't have to be an atheist because he would understand that the fact believing in God wasn't scientific meant nothing - that the two arenas, religion and science are entirely are separate and have no meeting point.

I'm not surprised when they are being fought over by opposing camps of Literalists - Literalist Christians versus Literalist Atheists.

Once again you are trying to draw equivalence where none exists. Christians are trying to use public schools to indoctrinate children into belief. Guys like Dawkins are only saying that faith has no place in schools.

He's not only saying that. I saw him, with my own eyes and ears, say that science has disproved the existence of God. This is what Dawkins truly believes - he bases his atheism on it.

It’s probably not their trust of evolution, per se. It’s being told that evolution disproves God. They are still simple enough in their thinking to understand that simple point doesn’t stand up, when many adults are not.

I understand that you have a problem about this in the States, but that in a way possibly means that you cannot understand what I’m saying objectively.

It’s just as wrong for Dawkins to tell children that if they were more scientific, they wouldn’t believe in God. There is no difference.

There is nothing wrong with telling children that scientific thought would cause them not to believe in God. It happens to be true, the percentage of believers that are scientists is far lower than the percentage of believers in the general populace. In fact the same is true when you compare the percentage of believers in a well educated population with that of a poorer educated population.

Scientific thought may lead children to stop believing in God ... but that doesn't prove that there is no God. It's just what people think, and what people think changes according to certain fashions. At one time, they thought they sun went round the earth. Now they know differently.

You don't understand this subtle but very important difference. Dawkins claimed to these school children that he basing his atheism on the fact that the fossil record disproves the literal meaning of Genesis, and that because materials evolve, develop and change, he has also decided that they could never have had a Supreme Creator. That's fine .. that's his point of view. But that's all it is ... a point of view... it is not science and he shouldn't be allowed in classrooms peddling this line as science any more than creationists should be allowed to peddle theirs. There is, in fact, no difference between them. They are both just trying to sell their own points of view. Neither of them are teaching science.

[seeker]

Yeah... and science has no religion behind it. So what?

Of course science has all manner of science is behind it. Otherwise it wouldn't be science. But it has not, as Dawkins is saying it has, disproved God. And that's my simple point.

I'm dismissing this book so casually because you haven't been able to tell me one ground breaking thing in it that Dawkins has said to make me think that he has disproved the existence of God.

You've told me that he talks about the fossil record. You've told me that he talks about evolution. I know about all those things.

If he had said one ground breaking in that book that disproves God, scientifically as he claims, do you not think you'd remember it, at least enough to give it to me here?

Maybe you don't remember it because it's not in there. Just like the Bible doesn't contain the Word of God, The God Delusion does not contain the scientific proof of no God.

But by keeping on referring me to your Good Book, instead of making the case right here and know for how science disproves God, you are being no different to a Literalist Christian who insists that if I only I would read the Bible, then I'd understand. It's Arch's stock line.

Oh hardly. Both Min and I have said repeatedly that science doesn't disprove or prove that a God could exist, clearly you intend to ignore that little detail in your attempt to paint an equivalence. You go so far as to present the idea that if you can't hear the whole argument as a small 'sound bite' small enough to digest in this format and that since the argument isn't one you like and the longer argument is one you don't care to read.

The difference between you and me, and presumably Arch, is that I take the time to read your arguments.

[seeker]

No - that's not what he is saying. If only it was. What Dawkins is saying that he is an atheist because science has disproved God. If it was only that it was unscientific, he wouldn't have to be an atheist because he would understand that the fact believing in God wasn't scientific meant nothing - that the two arenas, religion and science are entirely are separate and have no meeting point.

Actually they do meet though. At some point religion attempts to explain the material world, else there would be no point.

He's not only saying that. I saw him, with my own eyes and ears, say that science has disproved the existence of God. This is what Dawkins truly believes - he bases his atheism on it.

You saw a sound bite in a documentary and that makes you an expert on what Dawkins believes? Have you ever considered what a documentary might make your beliefs look like? That is why I investigate when I hear some small snippet.

Scientific thought may lead children to stop believing in God ... but that doesn't prove that there is no God. It's just what people think, and what people think changes according to certain fashions. At one time, they thought they sun went round the earth. Now they know differently.

You don't understand this subtle but very important difference. Dawkins claimed to these school children that he basing his atheism on the fact that the fossil record disproves the literal meaning of Genesis, and that because materials evolve, develop and change, he has also decided that they could never have had a Supreme Creator. That's fine .. that's his point of view. But that's all it is ... a point of view... it is not science and he shouldn't be allowed in classrooms peddling this line as science any more than creationists should be allowed to peddle theirs. There is, in fact, no difference between them. They are both just trying to sell their own points of view. Neither of them are teaching science.

I understand the distinction, I had to explain it to you several posts ago remember? I've also read Dawkins book and other things he's written, a thing you seem afraid to do. you simply don't understand his views and are trying to reframe them in a way that ignores them.

[Minimalist]

Exactly. What they have done is to address the claims of the recent believers of one modern religion that's texts have been misunderstood anyway.

Ish, if your Spirits (or their followers, rather) were jumping up and down saying we should be sacrificing virgins to the volcano god, there would be a reaction against them, too. They are not so they do not get any attention.

One deals with the problem at hand.

[Minimalist]

He made them feel small and confused.

Children are small and confused......filling their heads with pious horseshit does them no good at all.

Just look at what it did to Arch!

[seeker]

Maybe it would be better if we made them feel large and confused.

[Minimalist]

We've got McDonalds' super-sizing their meals to accomplish that.

[seeker]

Oh, I was thinking we'd go into their classrooms, call them fat them make them do math.

[john]

All -

"Who borrows the Medusa's eye

Resigns to the Empirical Lie

The Knower petrifies the known

The Subtle Dancer turns to stone."

Now, if this is turning into an argument

About the existence of god or not

Then I'm gone.

LIFE, not some presumed

God, with his political baggage,

Takes precedence over

Living.

The argument vis a vis

The Number of Angels You Can Fit

On The Head Of A Pin

Is Well Known.


hoka hey


john

[Ishtar]

Oh hardly. Both Min and I have said repeatedly that science doesn't disprove or prove that a God could exist, clearly you intend to ignore that little detail in your attempt to paint an equivalence.

Then we are in agreement.

So I don't understand why you are not in agreement with me also on the fact that Dawkins pushing his line in schools that "if you were scientific, you'd be an atheist", is actually a religious line and not a scientific one, and therefore as reprehensible as the creationists doing the same thing?

You go so far as to present the idea that if you can't hear the whole argument as a small 'sound bite' small enough to digest in this format and that since the argument isn't one you like and the longer argument is one you don't care to read.

That's actually a misrepresentation. I haven't read one particular book of Dawkins, but as I said at the beginning of this discussion, I have been studying him lately and listening to what he has to say in a wider media sense, including articles that he has written and a two-part documentary that he himself created to show his ideas. So I know probably as much as you do what the man thinks through what I've heard and read him say.

I have a pile of books waiting to be read and some of them, I know, I really need to read, so it's a question of findig enough time. But I am quite time poor these days. So for me to devote time to reading a book, I sort of have to make a business case to myself to do it. I cannot make a business case to myself to read this book on the strength of what you've told me. And I still hold to the view that if Dawkins had one ground-breaking, killer fact in that book the disproves God, I would already know about it and Dawkins would be getting the Nobel prize.

Of course, as you say, God cannot be disproved or proved by science. But Dawkins doesn't seem to think so ... and that's my point. And so that brings us back to my point - why is he confusing children with this line that because of scientific discoveries, he is an atheist?

The difference between you and me, and presumably Arch, is that I take the time to read your arguments.

I am reading your arguments, Seeker. I am hearing what you say. You just have a different view to me of Dawkins, and both our views are valid and based on the evidence that is available to us. Both of our conclusions are honestly held, and we should respect that.

[Ishtar]

Actually they do meet though. At some point religion attempts to explain the material world, else there would be no point.

No it doesn't. What's written in Genesis is not a literal explanation of the material world. It's an astrological allegory.

You saw a sound bite in a documentary and that makes you an expert on what Dawkins believes? Have you ever considered what a documentary might make your beliefs look like? That is why I investigate when I hear some small snippet.

Again, you are mispresenting me.

You will now know, if you've read my last post, that your above remark is a totally false assumption. You would also know that if you'd read my first post on this subject.

As I said in both of those posts, I've been reading and watching Dawkins a lot lately. In fact, the documentary was a two-parter that he himself had created to explain his views. That alone was two hours or so of him explaining to the cameras and to the schoolchildren why he is atheist and how science backs him up. If the doc was edited badly, designed to put him a light that misrepresents his views, Dawkins would have fixed it. It was his doc.

I understand the distinction, I had to explain it to you several posts ago remember?

Er .. no. I don't, especially as I wouldn't need something like that explaining to me, as I already know it. Perhaps you meant to say 'as I explained' ... again a subtle difference but an important one.

I've also read Dawkins book and other things he's written, a thing you seem afraid to do. you simply don't understand his views and are trying to reframe them in a way that ignores them.

Again, a false assumption leading to a misrepresentation of my views.

You should know me enough by now to know that I wouldn't be afraid to read sometihng! Or write something! Not much phases me in that department although I cannot say the same, sadly, for the rest of my life.

Now that you've read my earlier comments on this false assumption about my motives for not readiing Dawkins book, I'm sure you'll withdraw your previous remarks.

And it doesn't have to be a soundbite. I am quite capable of explaining someone's views here on a certain issue, and you're an intelligent guy, so you ought to be too.

I'm not reframing the argument. I've made the same argument in every single post to the point of boredom. And so I'll say it again.

Science has not disproved the existence of God but I saw Dawkins with my own eyes and ears tellling schoolchildren that it has.

[Ishtar]

Now, if this is turning into an argument

About the existence of god or not

Then I'm gone.

John

I have been doing everything within my power, fwiw, to prevent that from happening. It's not an avenue I want to go down either, and I actually resisted doing that earlier, when Patti posed a couple of those sorts of questions.

if this discussion does turn into argument about the existence of God... I will be gone also.

But this discussion is not or has not been about angels dancing on the head of a pin. There are subtle issues here, but subtle issues can be key to understanding.