Brief Rebuttal to Dawkins

reply to post by JoshF


wasnt jesus communist or socialist?

His teachings certianly were..... so doesnt that make him an athiest under with the logic used by masses of idiots?

Originally posted by Wertdagf
reply to post by JoshF

 

wasnt jesus communist or socialist?

His teachings certianly were..... so doesnt that make him an athiest under with the logic used by masses of idiots?

Jesus≠religion
Communism≠socialism

Science was born of Religious philosophy...

reply to post by Wertdagf

Jesus was probably a Puritan! afterall they built this nation around his philosophy not many years after the bible was translated into English.

New England differed from its mother country, where nothing in English statute required schoolmasters or the literacy of children. With the possible exception of Scotland, the Puritan model of education in New England was unique. John Winthrop in 1630 had claimed that the society they would form in New England would be "as a city upon a hill;"[29] and the colony leaders would educate all. These were men of letters, had attended Oxford or Cambridge, and communicated with intellectuals all over Europe; and in 1636 they founded the school that shortly became Harvard College.

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by SisyphusRide
Science was born of Religious philosophy...

Science was born from curiosity.
Religion was born of lack of knowledge being scary when curiosity didn't immediately provide an answer. We used god(s) to fill in the blanks, sadly many continue to do so even now.

I can understands Dawkin's desire to debunk religion as false and dangerous confabulations, but not his need to rule out the possibility of God.
He seems to be of the position, that because it is possible there is no God, therefore God does not exist.
This I find arrogant and inherently closed minded. To prove or disprove the existence of God, one would need to know the properties of God, this is where both religious folk, and the likes of Dawkins are very presumptuous.

Originally posted by rom12345
I can understands Dawkin's desire to debunk religion as false and dangerous confabulations, but not his need to rule out the possibility of God.
He seems to be of the position, that because it is possible there is no God, therefore God does not exist.
This I find arrogant and inherently closed minded. To prove or disprove the existence of God, one would need to know the properties of God, this is where both religious folk, and the likes of Dawkins are very presumptuous.

edit on 9-2-2012 by rom12345 because: (no reason given)

I don't think it is a need. I think it is a conclusion based on critical thinking. For example, I also "rule out" the existence of fairies, gnomes and unicorns. The reason for this is because those are made up and have no evidence. Of course when someone can prove the existence of them, I will change my opinion. But until then, I think discussing about the existence of them is useless. Or in other words, I rule them out.

As far as I know, Dawkins is not rejecting the existence of god in general, but he is rejecting the existance of any god that is claimed to exists by believers. So the person rejecting the gods does not have to determine the properties of god before rejecting such claims, as these properties are supplied by the believers themselves. It is simply the rejection of the claim that a god with such and such properties exist.

I don't think this position is arrogant or closed minded, but rather its healthy to rule out the existence of made up things without evidence. Note that this can become matter semantics. Of course you can never rule the existence of anything out with 100% certainty, but I don't believe Dawkins is doing this (I don't know the man well enough to know his exact position on this, but I think its along the lines of "almost completely certain"). So you can rule out things beyond any reasonable doubt.

And the last point it will make, is that everybody is rejecting the existence of god(s). It is just that some people (or most people) make an exception for 1 or more gods. Do you think that these people are arrogant for ruling out the existence of all those other gods? In this case the rejection is actually stronger that that of the average atheist. A theist will more likely tell you that they rule out the existence of other gods with 100% certainty, as not doing so can sometimes be seen as blasphemy with the result in eternal damnation (according to their believe).

reply to post by -PLB-


I pretty much agree with you.
I believe in a pantheistic notion of God.
My point was really that even my belief, which seems to me the only way to reconcile the concept of deity and that of scientific discovery, I can still not be certain of such vast concepts.

Dawkins seems, to me at least, determined to attribute the Universe and Life, to be without spirituality and wider significance. In my uncertain view, science is the only true way to know the properties of the Creator/Creation and is thus in it's self the only valid 'religion'. I in no way see a conflict between believing in a pantheistic, creative 'deity' and the endeavors of scientific discovery.

I am certain that, I will never be certain of such matters.