Keith, I'm surprised that you feel sufficiently offended by Dawkins to post such an article. In the last few months there has been a spate of articles in the press attacking Richard Dawkins & Sam Harris. They basically regurgitate the same "arguments" over and over: atheists are arrogant, atheists are dogmatists, etc etc. This is the opening paragraph of "An Atheist Manifesto" by Sam Harris:
[quote] Somewhere in the world a man has abducted a little girl. Soon he will rape, torture and kill her. If an atrocity of this kind is not occurring at precisely this moment, it will happen in a few hours, or days at most. Such is the confidence we can draw from the statistical laws that govern the lives of 6 billion human beings. The same statistics also suggest that this girl's parents believe at this very moment that an all-powerful and all-loving God is watching over them and their family. Are they right to believe this? Is it good that they believe this? No. The entirety of atheism is contained in this response. Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply a refusal to deny the obvious. [quote end] As to the charge of arrogance: given the utter insigificance of our sun on the scale of the galaxy and the utter insigificance of our galaxy on the scale of the universe, it's hubris of the highest order to imagine that God, if such a thing exists, would have the slightest interest in what what one particular member of one particular species on one particular planet is getting up to. KA> http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7803 KA> Prospect Magazine October 2006 issue 127 KA> Dawkins the dogmatist KA> October 2006 KA> Richard Dawkins's diatribe against religion KA> doesn't come close to explaining how faith has survived the assault KA> of Darwinism Faith (belief in something for which there is no evidence) is by definition impervious to reason. I would point out here that the Catholic church now officially accepts evolution. Not because the Pope suddenly became reasonable, but because he had no choice but to face the fact that creationism is untenable. So the assault of Darwinism has not been entirely ineffectual. KA> The results of intercessory prayer are indistinguishable from those KA> of chance. That's a good one, I must remember it. KA> ... important truth added in the 20th KA> century: that religious belief persists in the face of these facts KA> and arguments. See above. KA> This persistence is what any scientific attack on religion must KA> explain Bollocks. KA> -and this one doesn't. Dawkins mentions lots of modern atheist KA> scientists who have tried to explain the puzzle: ... KA> all of them worth KA> reading. But he cannot accept the obvious conclusion to draw from KA> their works, which is that thoroughgoing atheism is unnatural and KA> will never be popular. And thoroughgoing homosexuality is unnatural and will never be popular? KA> Dawkins is inexhaustibly outraged by the fact that religious opinions KA> lead people to terrible crimes. But what, if there is no God, is so KA> peculiarly shocking about these opinions being specifically KA> religious? The answer he supplies is simple: that when religious KA> people do evil things, they are acting on the promptings of their KA> faith but when atheists do so, it's nothing to do with their atheism. KA> He devotes pages to a discussion of whether Hitler was a Catholic, KA> concluding that "Stalin was an atheist and Hitler probably wasn't, KA> but even if he was? the bottom line is very simple. Individual KA> atheists may do evil things but they don't do evil things in the name KA> of atheism." KA> Yet under Stalin almost the entire Orthodox priesthood was KA> exterminated ..... This argument is trotted out with depressing regularity by the apologists. The atrocities of Hitler, Stalin & others were comitted in the name of their particular ideologies, not in the name of atheism. KA> One might argue that a professor of the public understanding of KA> science has no need to concern himself with trivialities outside his KA> field like the French revolution, the Spanish civil war or Stalin's KA> purges when he knows that history is on his side. "With notable KA> exceptions, such as the Afghan Taliban and the American Christian KA> equivalent, most people play lip service to the same broad liberal KA> consensus of ethical principles." Really? "The majority of us don't KA> cause needless suffering; we believe in free speech and protect it KA> even if we disagree with what is being said." Do the Chinese believe KA> in free speech? Does Dawkins think that pious Catholics or Muslims KA> are allowed to? OK, so Dawkins left out China. So what? Does that invalidate his argument? KA> Does he believe in it himself? He quotes later in the KA> book approvingly and at length a speech by his friend Nicholas KA> Humphrey which argued that, "We should no more allow parents to teach KA> their children to believe, for example, in the literal truth of the KA> Bible or that planets rule their lives, than we should allow parents KA> to knock their children's teeth out." But of course, it's not KA> interfering with free speech when atheists do it. KA> He repeats the theory that suicide bombs are caused by religious KA> schools: "If children were taught to question and think through their KA> beliefs, instead of being taught the superior value of faith without KA> question, it is a good bet that there would be no suicide bombers. KA> Suicide bombers do what they do because they really believe what they KA> were taught in their religious schools." Evidence? As it happens, the KA> definitive scientific study of suicide bombers, Dying to Win, has KA> just been published by Robert Pape, a Chicago professor who has a KA> database containing every known suicide attack since 1980. This KA> shows, as clearly as evidence can, that religious zealotry is not on KA> its own sufficient to produce suicide bombers; in fact, it's not even KA> necessary: the practice was widely used by Marxist guerrillas in Sri KA> Lanka. I would love to know how many suicide bombers Robert Pape interviewed to find out why they did it. KA> Dawkins, as a young man, invented and deployed to great effect a KA> logical fallacy he called "the argument from Episcopal incredulity," KA> skewering a hapless clergyman who had argued that since nothing KA> hunted polar bears, they had no need to camouflage themselves in KA> white. It had not occurred to the bishop that polar bears must eat, KA> and that the seals they prey on find it harder to spot a white bear KA> stalking across the ice cap. Of course, you had to think a bit about KA> life on the ice cap to spot this argument. But thinking a bit was KA> once what Dawkins was famous for. It's a shame to see him reduced to KA> one long argument from professorial incredulity. KA> _______________________________________________ KA> Biofuel mailing list KA> Biofuel@sustainablelists.org KA> http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org KA> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: KA> http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html KA> Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): KA> http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
