With Friends Like These . . .

[dianahsieh]

By Paula from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I frequent a blog called The Panda's Thumb, which keeps track of the dastardly intelligent design movement. Reading some recent entries on that blog led me to look up what some recognized cultural standard-bearers of atheism, such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, are actually saying.

So, if you're at all interested, read "The Atheism FAQ with Richard Dawkins" -- and weep. His answers to challenges to atheism are often clever, but they focus on non-essentials. And sometimes, they are downright pernicious. The most egregious, in my opinion (poor grammar and typos in original):

Q. Religious people claim they derive their morality from religion. Where from an atheist derive his morality?

A. . . . We derive our morality from the environment we live in, Talk shows, Novels, Newspaper editorials and of course by the guidance of parents. . . . An atheist derives his morality from the same source as a religious people do.

Q. In your book, you've said that God 'almost certainly' does not exist. Why are you leaving open the possibility?

A. Any scientific people will leave open that possibility, that they cannot disprove whatever unlikely the event might be. I would be the first person to accept God once evidence comes in favour of it.

Dawkins' answer to the first question unmasks him as a "mystic of muscle." His answer to the second unmasks him as a thoroughgoing skeptic. Which I guess is saying the same thing. I don't suppose it occurred to Dawkins to answer to the first question: "The choice to live in reality"; or to the second: "The law of identity and the validity of induction."

Now I remember why I couldn't get through more than the beginning of Dawkins' The God Delusion -- it's because anyone who argues against religion from the premises of social mysticism and skepticism is himself deluded.

http://ObjectivismOnline.com/archives/003622.html

[FeatherFall]

Unfortunately, Dawkins is right about where most of us get our morality. I've always thought Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens neglected philosophy's role, and thus were weak when it comes to explaining these types of questions. I haven't heard enough from Dennet to know if he is the same.

[intellectualammo]

Q. In your book, you've said that God 'almost certainly' does not exist. Why are you leaving open the possibility?

A. Any scientific people will leave open that possibility, that they cannot disprove whatever unlikely the event might be.

(bold emphasis mine)

Looks like that statement was poured right of Russell's teapot. He goes into that more in The God Delusion and that is exactly the point when I spit the tea and the book into the garbage, if I remember right. Made me sick. Thanks for the link, Professor Hsieh, to the material in the lexicon - it really helped to find out exactly what made the tea so bad. Russell's tea just does not go with, or is not a good pairing with the onus of proof principle or onus probandi. Hence my sickness afterwards.

[Nyronus]

By Paula from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I frequent a blog called The Panda's Thumb, which keeps track of the dastardly intelligent design movement. Reading some recent entries on that blog led me to look up what some recognized cultural standard-bearers of atheism, such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, are actually saying.

So, if you're at all interested, read "The Atheism FAQ with Richard Dawkins" -- and weep. His answers to challenges to atheism are often clever, but they focus on non-essentials. And sometimes, they are downright pernicious. The most egregious, in my opinion (poor grammar and typos in original):

Q. Religious people claim they derive their morality from religion. Where from an atheist derive his morality?

A. . . . We derive our morality from the environment we live in, Talk shows, Novels, Newspaper editorials and of course by the guidance of parents. . . . An atheist derives his morality from the same source as a religious people do.

I am curious how this response labels him as a mystic of muscle. If anything, what he's saying is that people derive morality from a non-divine source, regardless of whatever deity they profess to. Interesting enough, I wonder how this meshes with his meme theory and his idea of teaching religion as a form of abuse and brainwashing. If people can derive morality from somewhere else, then why is religion so bad? (Note, this is a rhetorical question)

Q. In your book, you've said that God 'almost certainly' does not exist. Why are you leaving open the possibility?

A. Any scientific people will leave open that possibility, that they cannot disprove whatever unlikely the event might be. I would be the first person to accept God once evidence comes in favour of it.

I also think your labeling of him as a skeptic is a little rash when you consider that he's a scientist, which, by profession, means he has to be skeptical, but not the manner you think of. He's not referring to any inability of humanity to understand reality when he says we can't know that something didn't happen. He's simply admitting that he is not all-knowing or omniscient, and that, if he finds his premises wrong, he would logically have to adjust his conclusion. This question is also an example of the problem of "proving a negative." Dawkins isn't deprecating human knowledge or ability, he's simply saying that he could be wrong (but that this highly unlikely).