Store up for yourselves treasures in Heaven
where moth and rust cannot destroy and thieves cannot break in and steal

Friday, December 7, 2012

Ladies and Gentlemen - Richard Dawkins!


"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and  you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference." Richard Dawkins 
If you disagree with Richard Dawkins on this point. If, when someone harms you, you think that what they've done is “wrong,” then you have good reason to also believe that atheism itself is a bogus world-view. For on atheism, what that person has done, at most, is flout social convention. 
"If there are objective values, they make the existence of God more probable than it would have been without them. Thus there exists a defensible argument from morality for the existence of God."
philosopher J.L.Mackie 

7 comments:

  1. If you disagree with Richard Dawkins on this point. If, when someone harms you, you think that what they've done is “wrong,

    That's not his point!

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  2. May I ask you which of the following is true?

    A) After I pointed out the reasoning error, you went back to read Dawkins' quote and now understand your mistake.

    B) You think what you wrote is correct; and I am wrong.

    C) You chose to ignore my comment not because of its content but because of the author.

    D) You chose to ignore my comment because you are annoyed to have been wrong.

    E) You don't give a shit about whether you are correct or not; it felt right to you and don't care about anybody's opinion.

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  3. I haven't been ignoring you. I've been away for a few days. It was my youngest grandson's first birthday so we went to party at their place.

    Hugo, it doesn't matter what Dawkins' point was. The implications of his world-view and by extension atheism in general, is that on atheism (determinism) there are no objective morals, values, obligations or duties. On atheism right and wrong is determined by the time, and place and people and society etc. Might makes right.

    If you disagree with this, as J.L. Mackie pointed out, if you think that there are some things that ARE right or wrong in all places at all times for all people, if you think that right and wrong is more than just an opinion, if you think that right and wrong exists regardless of what a particular society believes, then you have good reason to doubt the veracity of atheism, i.e. no Creator God, the objective source of objective morals, values, obligations and duties.

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  4. I haven't been ignoring you. I've been away for a few days. It was my youngest grandson's first birthday so we went to party at their place.

    Aw my mistake then... but you did write a pretty long post in the morning so I doubt you would have come back to this older comment 3 days later. Anyway...

    Hugo, it doesn't matter what Dawkins' point was.

    Yes it does! You wrote 'If you disagree with Richard Dawkins on this point', yet you don't care what the point is and clearly did not get it...

    So will you correct your error or not?

    The rest of your comment, since it had absolutely nothing to do with what's above, can be addressed separately. There are so many things that are wrong with it...

    on atheism (determinism)

    Another mistake you make over and over again. You confuse beliefs (Atheism VS Theism) versus some property of nature (Deterministic or not).

    If you want to attempt to prove that a universe without a god necessarily means that it is deterministic, be my guest, but I know you cannot do such a thing, so it would only make you realize what your mistake is. However, as I said before, I don't think you are capable of understanding these things unfortunately, or as WEM said, perhaps you are just unwilling to do it...

    Now let's back track a bit:

    The implications of his world-view and by extension atheism in general, is

    Whatever comes after that is meaningless. The implication of being an Atheist is that the person does not believe in a god. That's it.

    The world-view of the person includes wayyyy more things, of course, but that's not what you are discussing here since you wrote 'atheism in general'. You are specifically targeting Atheism (as if it were a world-view; another mistake within a mistake) and extrapolating some meaning from it due to your OWN belief in a god. You don't look at the beliefs of the Atheists, you look at your own and project them onto others.

    there are no objective morals, values, obligations or duties. On atheism right and wrong is determined by the time, and place and people and society etc.

    This is not as simple as you put it since the words you use each cover very different topic, and that part: Might makes right. is certainly false.

    Ok, enough, let's see if you will correct 1 mistake before listing more...

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  5. "So will you correct your error or not?"

    There isn't any error to correct. You are the last person to be describing to anyone what the individual and interpersonal implications of a "no god" belief are.

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  6. No error?

    Let's go back to the very top then, to your post.

    You quoted Dawking who talks about the UNIVERSE.

    You replied talking about PEOPLE.

    Is that clear enough for you now?

    You are the last person to be describing to anyone what the individual and interpersonal implications of a "no god" belief are.

    There are lost of implications for believing that this life is all there is. What you don't understand is that it's not 'not believing' in a god that matter; it's what I believe in that does matter.

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  7. "The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design..."

    In this quote, right there is where Dawkins (first) loses it. If that's what's at bottom, then there's nothing at all we can "expect".

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