Re: The root of all evil? - Dawkins Documentary

"Algis Kuliukas" <algis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Stanley Friesen wrote:
"Algis Kuliukas" <algis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

This debate is really fascinating, folks, but could I ask what you
think about Richard Dawkins and his polemics about religion.

Art seems to think his provocative language puts him in the same boat
as some of the religious bigots, I disagree and think that it's
completely different, long overdue and justified.

Perhaps not the same boat, but it, at best, aggravates our current
problems. Much of the opposition to science from Fundamentalists comes
from their fear that science and faith are incompatible. To have a
famous science author such as Dawkins making exactly that claim just
makes them more determined than ever to "defeat" the evil "atheistic
scientists".

Well when religions teach children something that science has shown to
be false it is incompatible, isn't it? What form of fudge can get us
around that problem?

Certain *particular* beliefs are contradicted by science. But science
*does* *not* and *cannot* establish the absence of God or deny his
creative activity in history. What I am objecting to is the effort by
some atheists to assert exactly this.

Any hope we have of quieting the issue down is to be found in convincing
them that science is *orthogonal* to science.

I don't see much quietening down resulting from passive atheism. I
think we have to publicly challenge some of these ideas, not to try to
change the minds of the extremists, but perhaps of the moderates.

Yes, positions need to be challenged, but *not* from the point of view
of "evangelical atheism". Creationism is abhorrent, and must be
stopped. But the moderates will *not* be convinced by being told science
disproves God, which it doesn't. Trying to do so will just convince
them that the radical Creationists are right. What needs to be done is
to show that faith and reality are not in *real* conflict, and that the
radicals are attacking a false enemy.

I.e. atheism isn't the answer, clarifying the distinction between
science and faith *is*.

If
the moderates started to leave in their droves, the insitutions and the
extremists that parasatise on them would lose all their power and we'd
have a better world.

Yes, I agree. But the moderates are there because the radicals have
convinced them that science threatens their faith. Claims by atheists
that science indeed does eliminate God simply appears to confirm that
idea and drives them further into the clutches of the radicals.

--
The peace of God be with you.

Stanley Friesen

.

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