Re: The root of all evil? - Dawkins Documentary


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

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.

And where it does, they should be openly challenged. Don't you agree?

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.

I do not think science can prove *anything* and it is wrong to expect
it to. It certainly cannot ever prove or disprove anything like the
absence or presence of a god or gods. If you are worried about
religious people feeling threatened by science because of this, then
this simple message - if correctly understood - should allay those
feears.

What science always does - with everything, not just in this debate -
is come up with hypotheses to explain various phenomena. Then, it sets
about testing those hypotheses using evidence. Sometimes, evidence
contradicts an hypothesis so it is either modified or rejected.
Sometimes evidence supports it, in which case the hypothesis might
still be modified to further explain some detailed of the phenomenon
that the original hypothesis did not cover. This is an iterative and
never ending process. Nothing is ever proven but, gradually our
knowledge improves and progress is made.

When it comes to the 'god theory', we effectively have two, extremely
simple alternative hypotheses. They are not absolutely mutually
exclusive but they come pretty close to being so.

They are:
1) God(s) made man. Or
2) Man made god(s).

If we examine the evidence for these we soon see that whereas
hypothesis 1) lacks supporting (as well as contradictory) evidence,
hypothesis 2) has an overwhelming amount of supporting evidence and no
contradictory evidence.

There is no evidence that god created man, that god created anything,
or, in fact, that anything has ever created anything. This is no
disproof, of course, because absence of evidence is not evidence of
absence, but the fact that the alternative hypothesis has so much
evidence in favour of it and nothing against it strongly favours the
default 'null' hypothesis being that man made god(s) and not the other
way around.

This is not establishing the absence of god, which I agree is
impossible, but it makes a very strong evidential basis for atheism
which, I believe, most fair-minded, educated people would endorse if
given the opportunity to freely decide for themselves.

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".

I don't know what that is, Stanley. I think some people, who by no
coincidence are rather more than just open to religious ideas, like to
posit atheism as being somehow in the same boat as religions, but I
think that is simply a falsehood. The logic I outlined above should
demonstrate that.

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.

No-one, least of all Richard Dawkins, would claim that science
disproves god. If religious people are under the impression that is
what scientists believe, then that is one more delusion that they
should be disabused of as soon as possible.

Trully scientific minded people choose their beliefs, as much as
possible, on the evidence. The evidence, as we know it, clearly favours
an atheist stance. I think if these arguments are debated openly then
intelligent, fair-minded people will see it the same way.

'Faith', or 'the human spirit' as I prefer to think of it, is a
reality, I agree and it is therefore not in conflict with any
scientific truth. It too, like all of life on earth, has a Darwinist
explanation, even if that explanation might be quite complex and is not
yet quite understood by even the specialist anthopologists who have
studied it for decades.

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

I think looking at the evidence dispassionately is the 'answer',
Stanley. If people (and here, I'm thinking mainly of the children) are
encouraged to do so, they will decide for themselves whether there is a
god or not and they will draw their own line between what religious
people call faith and the scientific truth.

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.

Then all we need is more communication so that those fears are allayed.

I have a feeling that religious people (moderates usually, but I
suspect extremists would agree too) have an agenda to label atheists as
some other type of religious extremists. Let's face it every religious
extremist is opposed to every other type of religious extremist, so
athiests are just one more type to be opposed to. Moderate religious
people are not so intolerant of other religions but they do seem to be
quite intolerant of atheists.

I've heard said several times words to the effect: "as long as you have
some beliefs, that's what counts." It's as if it's designed to only
exclude atheists from this groupishness, as if we are not human or
something. Well we have beliefs too, but they're based, as much as
possible, on evidence. We are still good citizens and care about other
people just as much as religious people do - it's just that we think
there are Darwinian explanations for this innate altruistic tendancy,
and not that it was God-given.

The peace of God be with you.

Stanley Friesen

Which god would that be?

All the best to you too.

Algis Kuliukas

.

Relevant Pages

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