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Richard Dawkins: A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy

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Re: Richard Dawkins: A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy

#111

Post by robertk »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #101
robertk wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good argument is enough. I'm a mathematician and I have not read any of the original papers of Euler, Gauss, etc. but understand and accept their results fully. To me, philosophical and theological reasoning are not fundamental as they may be to you, because I have accepted they are an outcome of a particular brain architecture with its own tendencies and biases, itself an outcome of a more general process. This ar…

> A good argument is enough. I'm a mathematician and I have not read any of the original papers of Euler, Gauss, etc. but understand and accept their results fully. Here what would answer one of my friends. He happen believe atheism is true, but more importantly, he's a literary person. So: "To understand [such and such author]'s ideas and concepts, you have to impregnate yourself with their original thoughts. That i…

Oh, no doubt. I have long ago realized that from a psychological point of view, it is purely axiomatic whether to "have faith" or not, and is primarily a factor of one's upbringing. Unlike formal systems, the brain has no need for internal logical consistency. (And it could be argued that many religious systems are internally consistent given you accept their axioms; in which case there is absolutely no hope of resolving the argument without appealing to Bayesian inference and noting that my choice of axioms is a better fit for the evidence, but this is a very subtle point to grasp. For example, read the story of Luke Muehlhauser, who read mountains of philosophy and theology and in the end was only convinced by the dissonance in historical evidence for Jesus, an implicitly Bayesian argument: http://commonsenseatheism.com/?page_id=3)

Another nice argument is by Occam's razor, that the scientific choice of axioms has less complexity and is devoid of localization, whereas systems like Catholicism have strong focus on arbitrary notions like Jerusalem or sacristy. These arbitrary notions are explained on-the-nose by evolutionary thinking (our ancestors made up stories because of their psychology), whereas they are inexplicable in Catholic thinking. (Why did Jesus choose to come alive when did? He just picked a time and place at random.) Of course, Occam's razor is only an aesthetic choice that agrees with evidence, again a Bayesian argument. It's difficult to base one's life philosophy on an aesthetic choice, so naturally a religious upbringing overwhelms.

EDIT: I should point out that the Bayesian argument is locally uncontrollable. My mother claims to have had a sensory experience--when facing doubts about divorcing my father--complete with vivid sounds and imagery, of Jesus appearing to her and telling her she must stay with him. I admit if I had such sensory evidence, the scientific axioms would be hard to swallow, and the Catholic system would be a strong contender (Bayesionally speaking). Thence stems the problem of faith.

Re: Richard Dawkins: A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy

#112

Post by cormullion »

icebraining wrote: post #107
xavoy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Earnest, educated, rational. Yes, these words might describe Dawkins, but well-meaning? I agree that indoctrination into a fundamentalist religion probably doesn't give a child the best chance at a happy, well balanced life. I think it is important that science continues to be made available, and people like Dawkins make it not only available, but easily digestible and understandable. But seriously, running around th…

>But seriously, running around the world, telling people they are "idiots" and to "f ck off" if they don't see the world the way he does?* Can you please point out when did he called people idiots and told them to fuck off?

This may be a reference to a televised discussion between Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Richard Dawkins. The internet has managed to lose the full meaning (and the quotation marks) of what Dawkins actually said. He was quoting the editor of New Scientist (I think) who said something like "If you don't think science is interesting, you can fuck off".

Re: Richard Dawkins: A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy

#113

Post by etherael »

davesims wrote: post #55

Dawkins doesn't bother me any more than any other atheist I've read. The fact that he lives and is popular in my time makes him no more threatening to my faith than Thomas Paine, Voltaire, Lucretius, A.J. Ayer or Bertrand Russell. I know where my faith fits in the history of ideas, and I'm comfortable in the capacious intellectual house it affords me. Dawkins is amusing at best, annoying at worst. As a philosophical…

This argument is getting really tired and I'm very disappointed to see it at the top of this thread. It's a lot like star wars fanatics claiming that people who have no interest in star wars have not considered the intricacies of canon with regards to who shot first, Han or Greedo, or the finer points in the psychological narrative of the prototypical journey Luke Skywalker finds himself on. It's worse, even, because at least star wars fans generally understand that their obsession is fictitious.

If you completely reject the foundation of superstition that underlies all religion by nature, what mullions they adorn their respective windows with becomes less and less interesting at the same time. This does not make you a dirty unwashed peasant not fit to breathe the same air as the fine milliners who have clothed the emperors noble brow; it just makes you someone who is aware that the emperor has no clothes.

Enjoy your delusions.

Re: Richard Dawkins: A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy

#114

Post by davesims »

jmathes wrote: post #92
davesims wrote: post #55

Dawkins doesn't bother me any more than any other atheist I've read. The fact that he lives and is popular in my time makes him no more threatening to my faith than Thomas Paine, Voltaire, Lucretius, A.J. Ayer or Bertrand Russell. I know where my faith fits in the history of ideas, and I'm comfortable in the capacious intellectual house it affords me. Dawkins is amusing at best, annoying at worst. As a philosophical…

"I find no attraction to reductionism of any kind. It's always seemed to me a truncated worldview, artificial and strained, ignoring the real content of our deepest intuitions of meaning, beauty, love and justice." Every piece of technology you use was built on insights provided by reductionism. Nothing you do is benefitted by the reductionist-less grand metaphysical musings of Zeus worshippers. In every age of human…

Ah, here we go. Don't really have the space here to unpack the metaphysics behind this, but I'd start by pointing out that there's a difference between pursuing causality on one plane of experience, and demanding dogmatically that every aspect of reality will always and must always submit to the reductionist program.

I humbly suggest to you there are other philosophical points of view that don't necessarily involve Zeus worship. You can reject dogmatic reductionism without any religious cant whatsoever -- the Enlightenment and modernity are replete with thinkers that do so. Spinoza, Leibniz, Berkeley, heck even Descartes himself to some degree. Contemporaries like Husserl, Bergson, Whitehead and Hans Jonas all have a robust view of Science and the power of Baconian observation, but also reject dogmatic reductionism. In particular I'd point to Whitehead's famous essay on the history of Science in _Science and the Modern World_, and Jonas' essay "Is God a Mathematician?" as good examples of purely philosophical rejections of reductionism that don't entail any religious dogma whatsoever.

Re: Richard Dawkins: A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy

#115

Post by burgerbrain »

bane wrote: post #108
burgerbrain wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I understand it completely. He's making the mistake however of assuming that anyone using the Santa Claus argument is attempting to make a philosophical point.

Perhaps analogous to the idea that anybody using an argument in favor of faith, no matter what terminology they couch it in, is attempting to make a rational point.

The difference of course, is that they generally actually seem to be.

Re: Richard Dawkins: A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy

#116

Post by davesims »

JanezStupar wrote: post #103
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm curious for more clarification on your post then. I guess I don't get the point. I feel like it would be summarized, "Lots of people like to loudly be ignorant about their beliefs". I don't disagree with that, but I don't find it uniquely or even tilted towards atheism. Further, I still don't understand the reductive criticism on Dawkins. Again, I find much of his positioning to be directly related or rel…

To me Richard Dawkins is a bit like Carl Von Clausewitz or Nietzsche. In a sense they all see their respective fields with an astonishing clarity and try to lay it all out in the open. But due to the sheer size and complexity of their work, few in their audience posses necessary sophistication to understand it completely. Thus Dawkins spawned a legion of believers that got everything mixed up and who by applying thei…

I'm glad Dawkins can play that role for you. But for me the chasm between Dawkins and Nietzsche is...vast.

Re: Richard Dawkins: A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy

#117

Post by patternexon »

bane wrote: post #110
davesims wrote: post #55

Dawkins doesn't bother me any more than any other atheist I've read. The fact that he lives and is popular in my time makes him no more threatening to my faith than Thomas Paine, Voltaire, Lucretius, A.J. Ayer or Bertrand Russell. I know where my faith fits in the history of ideas, and I'm comfortable in the capacious intellectual house it affords me. Dawkins is amusing at best, annoying at worst. As a philosophical…

Beautifully written. As somebody who could probably best be described as some flavor of agnosticism (I've heard my viewpoints described as Apathetic Agnosticism ) I agree with many of your points about the shrillness of Atheists. I was raised in a highly religious home and at a very early age, six or seven, found myself quickly asking questions that were not answerable by even the most educated theists in my family (…

Why they feel the need to answer it, and why they need to answer it in a shout

I think that is what Richard Dawkins does in a way which makes him popular - and in the end thats what the OP is about popularity/notoriety.

Re: Richard Dawkins: A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy

#118

Post by davesims »

robertk wrote: post #97
davesims wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A clarification then (the reply tree seems to halt, so I'm posting this higher up): I run into a lot of atheists these days who've read Dawkins, Dennett, Sam Harris, maybe even Stephen Pinker, heck maybe even the whole John Brockman crew of "Brights" and so forth. And that's all, and I don't understand that. I'm no exemplar of intellectual integrity, but I'm just too curious to not read contrary points of view. I tho…

A good argument is enough. I'm a mathematician and I have not read any of the original papers of Euler, Gauss, etc. but understand and accept their results fully. To me, philosophical and theological reasoning are not fundamental as they may be to you, because I have accepted they are an outcome of a particular brain architecture with its own tendencies and biases, itself an outcome of a more general process. This ar…

"Understanding our reasoning capacities as the outcome of a natural physical process leads to my agreement with Dawkins's claim that any philosophical result prior to 1859 can be disregarded."

I'm sorry my friend, but...no. I'm open to a lot of ideas and directions that a discussion may take but this is just a non-starter, a laughable example of exactly the sort of benighted, willful ignorance that dooms fruitful discussion. This is the kind of statement you can only make if you haven't read philosophy written before 1859. I mean, of course, _The Origin of Species_ was a watershed to be sure, but there's certain philosophical freight even Darwin can't carry.

I think underneath this is a problem of false analogy. Philosophical insight is not the same species as math, and doesn't "build" the same way, in a scaffold of proofs and deductive confidence towards an inevitable conclusion that, once reached, can be accepted on its own terms without understanding of the prior movements.

I'd suggest reading a bit further and broaden your engagement. As a mathematician, you might appreciate Pierre Duhem's views on religion and history, Whitehead's ideas on the history of science, and in particular I'd say check out Hans Jonas' "Is God a Mathematician?". All of those pass the 1859 smell test as well, so, bonus!

Re: Richard Dawkins: A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy

#119

Post by _urga »

Stalin's Russia, Hitler's Germany, Mao's China: all examples of states who have exemplified Dawkin's anti-religious secularization and education in the utmost extreme. Thought-policing and religious intolerance have always lead to the massacre of countless thousands.

Re: Richard Dawkins: A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy

#120

Post by davesims »

davesims wrote: post #118
robertk wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good argument is enough. I'm a mathematician and I have not read any of the original papers of Euler, Gauss, etc. but understand and accept their results fully. To me, philosophical and theological reasoning are not fundamental as they may be to you, because I have accepted they are an outcome of a particular brain architecture with its own tendencies and biases, itself an outcome of a more general process. This ar…

"Understanding our reasoning capacities as the outcome of a natural physical process leads to my agreement with Dawkins's claim that any philosophical result prior to 1859 can be disregarded." I'm sorry my friend, but... no . I'm open to a lot of ideas and directions that a discussion may take but this is just a non-starter, a laughable example of exactly the sort of benighted, willful ignorance that dooms fruitful d…

Ok, let me apologize. "Laughable" and "benighted" are the kinds of uncharitable language I'm arguing against using. The charitable read of this statement would have acknowledged its substance -- the idea that after Darwin there was a 'clearing of the decks' so to speak, and to some degree that's true although not to the extent Dawkins claims. From a philosophical standpoint, certainly Teleology was seen to have been dealt a death blow, at least the kind of teleology advocated by folks like Paley, and that was a massive turn. I'm unaware of any serious philosopher or historian of ideas that would suggest it's wise to dismiss all prior developments out of hand, though. If that's not laughable, it's certainly dangerous.
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