The God Delusion

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by C0ckney
i really enjoyed the parody of that unbearable tosser dawkins in yesterday's observer

what's teh name?

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/

JM

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
It can do more than that. If you are an intellectually honest person, and you read a book which utterly refutes your views, you are obliged to reject your position in favour of the better argument.

That is not a matter of honesty, but personality.

Originally posted by Whaleboy
The only thing that gets in the way there is our pride, or dishonesty. If you can honestly turn round and say that no book could make you change your mind, then you're not basing you views upon reason and logic, but (for want of a better word) faith. You cannot come to an unshakeable view which allows for no doubt, and no room for disproof by means of logic alone.

You are charging that all people are ruled by black and white mentalities.

I don't make snap changes of lifestyle or ideology, based
on the words of another person. Especially from a book
that is a commercial enterprise by an author with an agenda.

And indictate where I said my views where immobile, Whaleboy?

Originally posted by Whaleboy
Then I pity you.

Pity is a manifestation of your ego...Learn to accept opinions, please.

Originally posted by Whaleboy
What? It requires exposure to different opinions to encourage an honest approach to forming your own. If you're surrounded by dogma and an unshakeable will to be correct all of the time, and damn the evidence or superior arguments, I'd have thought you'd be more likely
to adopt that bad additude yourself.

I am in agreement until that last sentence outburst.

I warn you away from that kind of attitude.

Originally posted by Whaleboy
No you can't do it by force but where in this thread has anyone used “force”? The book doesn't unleash an army of metaphysical “Word Warriors” into your brain which forcibly change your neurons. It demonstrates a logical structure which, if stronger than your own, you yourself adopt. You still choose whether or not to do so, but for some people that choice has more to do with (dis)honesty than the strength of the argument itself, which is wrong.

I must say you are taking my reasonable musings into
new realms of fantasy. My statement was that people
cannot be made to turn against their views artificially.

I agree that people should adopt only a rationale that
is honestly partaken, and not the product of a ravenous
ego, be it the person's or another party.

This is not always the case, as we know.

Originally posted by Whaleboy
I think the only way your argument could possibly make any sense is if you're saying a book forces you to change your views in the same manner as a torturer, instead of the manner in which a judge is forced to consider a defendant guilty in the presence of sufficient evidence.

I think you are trying to find facets to my words that
were not my intention. I suggest you cease looking
for subliminals and accept that my statement was
hinged on the fact that people are set in their ways
and cannot be made to honestly follow gods or atheism
if this is contrary to already entrenched ideals...

That is all.

[Whaleboy]

But there was no scientific exlpanation for the universe's existence preHawking.

No scientific explanation -> God?

That is not a matter of honesty, but personality.

I think you could probably call it what you want. An extreme example would be furiously denying that the sky is blue, screaming "PINK, PINK, PINK!" everytime someone points upwards. You could call it dishonesty, a stubborn personality, being disingenuous, or even ignorance; but it amounts to the same thing.

You are charging that all people are ruled by black and white mentalities.

I'd like to see the very opposite, since I'm saying people should have a measure of flexibility with even their most cherished opinions (to the extent that this shouldn't be a contradiction in terms). It is a sad fact, however, that many people do see the world in black-and-white terms, or will have "I'm right and damn the evidence" attitudes. Do you deny that?

I don't make snap changes of lifestyle or ideology, based
on the words of another person. Especially from a book
that is a commercial enterprise by an author with an agenda.

I suppose this is where a measure of critical thought is required. It would be easy to ad hominem someone because that individual "acts like a twa†" but that doesn't invalidate their arguments. One should be very careful before using credibility of an author as a reason for rejecting what they're saying, since it's very easy to use credibility and ad hominem as a shortcut to understanding what they're saying in the first place.

For example, I'm not perfect, I'll frequently prejudice my opinion against, say, Park Avenue, because he acts like a prat, yet I know full well that I may well be missing out on a gem if I do that with everything he says.

The advantage of critical thought is that it is *you* that is doing the thinking, not the author. Otherwise you might say "ooo isn't that a pretty concept, I'll have that!", but one well reasoned argument doesn't need volumes of books to support it if it is inherently stronger than an argument that does have libraries dedicated to it.

And indictate where I said my views where immobile, Whaleboy?

If I implied an accusation to you of your views being immobile, then I apologise as that was not the intention. Since I've only met you before on this thread (to my knowledge), I don't know your style well enough to know if you're truly a stubborn individual. The way you carry yourself on this thread implies otherwise which is puzzling given what you're saying.

Pity is a manifestation of your ego...Learn to accept opinions, please.

Once again, perhaps I was being a little brusque. It's a wonderful feeling to have your opinion changed by a book or something like that. When I read John Stuart Mill, for instance, it was like a veil lifted from my eyes and genuinely a wonderful feeling that truly makes you feel the very human phenomenon of knowledge passed on between generations by writing it down. Newton put it best by saying he was standing "on the shoulders of giants".

I am in agreement until that last sentence outburst.

I warn you away from that kind of attitude.

The sentence was not directed at you, my argument is that if you're surrounded by stubborness, one is more likely to be stubborn oneself.

My statement was that people
cannot be made to turn against their views artificially.

Then we could reconcile our views by agreeing on the idea that it is the beholder who is doing the thinking when presented with an argument, rather like a stimulus. It presents a different environment to which the reader adapts by changing his views. Would that satisfy both of our mutual positions?

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
No scientific explanation -> God?

If there isn't a natural explanation (Science!), then a supernatural one is reasonable, Yes.

JM

[Whaleboy]

If there isn't a natural explanation (Science!), then a supernatural one is reasonable, Yes.

Lack of a natural explanation =| natural explanation is impossible.

That's rather like saying that creationism was the logical view pre Darwin.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Whaleboy


Lack of a natural explanation =| natural explanation is impossible.

That's rather like saying that creationism was the logical view pre Darwin.

When science says that a natural explanation is impossible.. then a supernatural one is most obvious.

Science is based upon hypothesis, theory, and experimentation/obersavation. Pure speculation has nothing to do with science. It is fantasy.. or supernatural.

I dislike those who confuse the two.

Jon Miller

[Odin]

Originally posted by Jon Miller


If there isn't a natural explanation (Science!), then a supernatural one is reasonable, Yes.

JM

What a rediculous assumption.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Jon Miller


When science says that a natural explanation is impossible.. then a supernatural one is most obvious.

No, when an observation contradicts the pervailing theories scientists create a new theory explaining the observation. You are commiting a variation of the "absence of evidence = evidence of absence" fallacy.

[Arrian]

Ok, sorry, pet peeve:

Ridiculous. With an "i."

-Arrian

[Elok]

You folks might want to get to a good stopping point. We're already well over the usual locking limit.

Oh, and I don't follow JM's reasoning either. I thought SOP for scientists was to keep cracking until all answers are found. Then going on to answer the questions raised by the answers just obtained. The supernatural is to be assumed nonexistent for the purposes of scientific research, if only because the supernatural is outside the ability of scientific inquiry to describe.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Odin


No, when an observation contradicts the pervailing theories scientists create a new theory explaining the observation. You are commiting a variation of the "absence of evidence = evidence of absence" fallacy.

No, you aren't understanding me.

Pre1700s there were no scientists..

Also, if there is no experimental evidence or observations about something, how is any hypothesis or theories about the thing scientific?

There isn't any theory to contradict. For example, in the 1820s you would be a crazy (scientifically) if you started talking about quarks or superstrings. Not because you were contradicting the established theory without evidence. Rather, that you were talking about something for which no theories existed.. because there were no evidences to base them on.

You biologists really concern me with your lack of understanding about science.

Any explanation that isn't based on science isn't a natural explanation. When science hadn't advanced far enough to make a statement about something, no explanation about it was natural. Therefore every explanation for it was supernatural.

JM

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Elok
You folks might want to get to a good stopping point. We're already well over the usual locking limit.

Oh, and I don't follow JM's reasoning either. I thought SOP for scientists was to keep cracking until all answers are found. Then going on to answer the questions raised by the answers just obtained. The supernatural is to be assumed nonexistent for the purposes of scientific research, if only because the supernatural is outside the ability of scientific inquiry to describe.

Consider a vien diagram with 3 circles. One is Technological knowhow, one is Mathematical knowhow, and one is the Natural World.

The overlaping region is what science is. It is that part of the natural world that we have the tools to probe and the mathematical concepts to describe.

Now, this region is constantly growing. And there are areas were we might have only the mathematics (string theory maybe?) or only the technological knowhow. Note that there is a region where we have neither the mathematics to discuss nor the technology to probe. Now someday we might (just like we got the mathematics to discuss the big bang, as well as the techonology to observe things that point to it).. but when we don't, science has nothing to say about that region. As far as science is concerned, it doesn't exist.

And since science is the study of the natural world, what doesn't exist to it, isn't a part of the natural world.

Despite what you might think, Odin, baseless speculation isn't science.

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Elok
You folks might want to get to a good stopping point. We're already well over the usual locking limit.

Oh, and I don't follow JM's reasoning either. I thought SOP for scientists was to keep cracking until all answers are found. Then going on to answer the questions raised by the answers just obtained. The supernatural is to be assumed nonexistent for the purposes of scientific research, if only because the supernatural is outside the ability of scientific inquiry to describe.

To get an answer you have to be able to formulate a reasonable question.

JM

[Whaleboy]

When science says that a natural explanation is impossible.. then a supernatural one is most obvious.

You're right about confusing the two; it is important to define a remit for both naturalism and supernaturalism.

I think you're in danger of leading an uneducated layman such as myself into thinking that you're suggesting a God in the Gaps argument; if the science of the day is insufficient to explain a phenomenon, and some people even give up and say "f*ck it, science won't work here", then religion should take over.

I don't honestly think that's what you'd say, so our difference would lie in the person who has said "f*ck it".

I would say that when you're saying "does something exist", you're asking an inherently empirical question, devoid of anything for the supernatural. I'd think you'd probably agree, since your argument seems to be one of a personal relationship with Jesus (correct me if I'm wrong here), which is heading into territory that I cannot follow into.

[DaShi]

I do see that the article I posted has been largely ignored by most of the aethiests here.