My experience is that many people such as Richard Dawkins, that popular culture seems to think has disproven God have actually very weak arguments. For one, their arguments often would only refute people that, for example, believe that evolution and God cannot coexist. However, many Christians do think it is possible to have both Christianity and evolution (something I am willing to discuss in detail if necessary).
Furthermore, many of the arguments from people such as Richard Dawkins are just unsound. Richard Dawkins is a scientist and not a philosopher and many of his arguments are philosophical. However, he seems to make elemental mistakes and his arguments such as, "who created God?" (which he thinks is a knock down argument) really are not convincing if they are looked at closer.
Do you find them unconvincing because of what you believe or because you feel his arguments have legitimate holes? If the latter, please expound on this.
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Any argument in this field is, by necessity, going to be specific. To chastise Dawkins for using his own specialty to make an argument against something that nearly half of the US believes in.
Is there a reason that I shouldn't use Dawkins anti-creationist argument for when I deal with creationists and use other tactics when dealing with other peoples beliefs?
Why does it matter that Dawkins is a scientist and not a philosopher? That, on its own, is fallacious. I can be correct without being a specialist or incorrect while being one.
What are the enumerated flaws of "who created God?". Why do you think he mentions it in the first place?
It's not disbelievers job to prove God doesn't exist. It's a Christian's job to prove he does. When all evidence points back to the ancient Semetic Sky God, it's kind of hard to believe the modern interpretation is actually fact. If you want to believe the stories that were indoctrinated in you as a child, fine. But don't try to shape my world based on it.
That said, I agree the evolution and Christianity aren't mutually exclusive. It's easy to believe God didn't tell ancient people all the facts about the universe, because they wouldn't understand. I'm not a fan of Dawkins, and in general I've found that being antagonistic about the religion gets nowhere, and people dig their heels in when their deep-seated beliefs are questioned.
Then again, God would have saved a lot of people pointless suffering for millenia if he just included a passage in his divine word that said 'Hey, maybe you guys should experiment with that penicillin stuff'. Or you know, germ theory. Little things like would make me not want to worship him even if I did believe he existed.
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Do you find them unconvincing because of what you believe or because you feel his arguments have legitimate holes? If the latter, please expound on this.
Yes I do believe they have holes, and I want to say that I genuinely appreciate your polite response and request. For example, I believe he said the question, "who created God?" was his strongest argument. However, this question doesn't seem to pose much of a problem for Christianity. I don't see why one must say that God was created by anyone or anything. Why must God have a creator? Things which begin to exist may need a creator, but why think God began to exist?
Any argument in this field is, by necessity, going to be specific. To chastise Dawkins for using his own specialty to make an argument against something that nearly half of the US believes in.
My point isn't to chastise Dawkins, only to point out flaws in his arguments. I just want to point out that many people think his arguments disprove Christianity when often they either do not disprove Christianity, or only, if successful, would disprove one theory of creation that many Christians do not believe in.
Is there a reason that I shouldn't use Dawkins anti-creationist argument for when I deal with creationists and use other tactics when dealing with other peoples beliefs?
As long as you recognize that the arguments do not disprove Jesus' being Lord or the Messiah or God existing then I might be ok with it.
Why does it matter that Dawkins is a scientist and not a philosopher? That, on its own, is fallacious. I can be correct without being a specialist or incorrect while being one.
Just pointing out that just as if I was to try to debate evolutionary biology with a biologist I might be unqualified that he seems to run into the same issue when dealing with religion.
What are the enumerated flaws of "who created God?". Why do you think he mentions it in the first place?
I addressed this in my last post.
Forgive me all if I don't respond to everyones post, it is a time issue.
No sense in being belligerent about it, I was just asking a question, after all.
I think the idea of there being no origin for something is what people can't agree with - after all, tangible things measurably have an origin! People like to have all of the answers (or none, depending on the topic). I'm personally an atheistic Taoist, and while I believe that there is a measurable order to the universe, perhaps some sort of underlying consciousness, I don't think there's anything that could be considered a deity - merely structure. I also strongly advocate the intermingling of scientific discovery with my interpretation of the universe around me. This is based on my own personal experiences and observations, of course, as I would hope most people's spiritual beliefs tend to be.
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My experience is that many people such as Richard Dawkins, that popular culture seems to think has disproven God have actually very weak arguments.
Well, anyone who says they've disproven God certainly has quite a task ahead of them, because they must then prove that God cannot possibly exist.
However, it goes the same the other way. Those who wish to demonstrate God does exist must prove God does exist.
And you must distinguish those who advance that God has been disproven versus those who believe there is not sufficient evidence to demonstrate God's existence. My experience has been the majority of irreligious people, be they atheists, agnostics, or whatever are such because they do not believe sufficient evidence exists to demonstrate God's existence.
It's a matter of burden of proof. Both those claiming God exists and those claiming God is disproven must provide sufficient evidence to support their claims if they wish others to accept them. Those who are saying there is insufficient evidence to support a claim of God's existence do have burden of proof required of them as well, but theirs is pretty easy to fulfill. They can just say, "Look, you haven't proven God exists." And they're right, we haven't.
For one, their arguments often would only refute people that, for example, believe that evolution and God cannot coexist. However, many Christians do think it is possible to have both Christianity and evolution (something I am willing to discuss in detail if necessary).
Eeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhh...
Here's the problem. Many Christians will claim belief in Christianity, and claim belief in evolution, and claim that there's no conflict between them.
However, that really depends on what you believe about the Bible. If you believe that the Bible is somehow God's divine word, that the Bible has some sort of divine authority that makes what it say true, then that comes into conflict with evolution, as well as a lot of other aspects of science. Genesis is just outright wrong about the creation of the world. In fact, Genesis disagrees with itself about the creation of the world, but both stories in Genesis about the creation of the world (there are two different ones that contradict each other) definitely disagree with physics and biology.
So if you are Christian and believe that Genesis holds some sort of truth value, whether literal or metaphorical, then you probably run into a conflict with science.
If, however, you are Christian and believe that Genesis is just a set of creation myths composed from antiquity and have no real attachment to their truth value, and legitimately don't care if both creation stories are just outright wrong, then no, evolution doesn't really pose a problem.
Richard Dawkins is a scientist and not a philosopher and many of his arguments are philosophical.
I mean, Einstein was a patent clerk. Our choice of day job doesn't necessarily make us right or wrong. It is our expertise in the subject matter that makes us right or wrong.
Now you're more than welcome to say Dawkins lacks the expertise in philosophy to know what he's talking about, but just because he's a scientist doesn't mean he can't make philosophical claims.
Do you find them unconvincing because of what you believe or because you feel his arguments have legitimate holes? If the latter, please expound on this.
Yes I do believe they have holes, and I want to say that I genuinely appreciate your polite response and request. For example, I believe he said the question, "who created God?" was his strongest argument. However, this question doesn't seem to pose much of a problem for Christianity. I don't see why one must say that God was created by anyone or anything. Why must God have a creator? Things which begin to exist may need a creator, but why think God began to exist?
I've never actually read Dawkins so I'm not sure what his arguments are.
However, my question is whether he's attacking the idea of God because God is uncaused; or if he's attacking the argument often made for the existence of God that tries to use the universe's existence as evidence for God, the rationale being that because the universe exists, something must have caused it?
Yes I do believe they have holes, and I want to say that I genuinely appreciate your polite response and request. For example, I believe he said the question, "who created God?" was his strongest argument. However, this question doesn't seem to pose much of a problem for Christianity. I don't see why one must say that God was created by anyone or anything. Why must God have a creator? Things which begin to exist may need a creator, but why think God began to exist?
The question is more precisely phrased, "Why is there a god instead of no god?". If we ask "why is there a universe instead of no universe", a Christian would reply that god created it, regardless of whether the nature of time is such that the universe had a beginning or ever began to exist. I think you would agree that even if the universe were discovered to be eternal in both the past and the future, it might still make sense to say that god created it. Certainly we can conceive of the idea that god could have instead chosen to create nothing, and there would be no universe - only nothingness. Similarly, we can conceive of the idea that god could never have existed, and there would instead only be nothingness. It's fair then to ask why god does exist rather than doesn't exist.
So, why does god exist instead of not existing, in your view?
My point isn't to chastise Dawkins, only to point out flaws in his arguments. I just want to point out that many people think his arguments disprove Christianity when often they either do not disprove Christianity, or only, if successful, would disprove one theory of creation that many Christians do not believe in.
I don't believe that someone misusing an argument is a strike against the argument itself, but a strike against the person.
Also, it is worth noting, that many Christians do believe it and if we limit it to American Christians that are the primary demographic being addressed here it becomes a majority.
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As long as you recognize that the arguments do not disprove Jesus' being Lord or the Messiah or God existing then I might be ok with it.
What is the reason to believe in those things? In my experience, debates rarely get to that part for a variety of reasons.
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Just pointing out that just as if I was to try to debate evolutionary biology with a biologist I might be unqualified that he seems to run into the same issue when dealing with religion.
Depends on how the discussion goes. You need not make egregious mistakes and you need not have the level of precision an evolutionary biologist (or, well, a biologist) has about his craft in general to talk about specific points of contention and you need not understand everything about biology to understand the evidence for evolution.
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Do you find them unconvincing because of what you believe or because you feel his arguments have legitimate holes? If the latter, please expound on this.
Yes I do believe they have holes, and I want to say that I genuinely appreciate your polite response and request. For example, I believe he said the question, "who created God?" was his strongest argument. However, this question doesn't seem to pose much of a problem for Christianity. I don't see why one must say that God was created by anyone or anything. Why must God have a creator? Things which begin to exist may need a creator, but why think God began to exist?
You have misunderstood part of the objection. The part you refer to is probably him commenting on the Kalam Cosmological Argument. Christians have a tendency to sneak in “eternal” into the definition of god, but claiming a priori that god is eternal can be dismissed as without evidence. When arguments, like with the Kalam, talk about everything having a cause and that ultimate cause being god then the question is “where did god come from” or “who created God?”
Put simply, saying god doesn't have the quality everything else is said to have is special pleading
I believe that there is no point in trying to prove god / jesus doesn't exist nor that the bible is false; Which is because I believe that the reason for believing in god / jesus / bible is not because they are proven or disproven. Instead, the point is because you feel that god or jesus reach out to you and ask you to believe and have faith. There is simply no amount of science that will override that feeling, nor will it be stronger than any faith that will convince a person that there is fault in that science or that there is a greater science or power beyond us.
I believe that there is no point in trying to prove god / jesus doesn't exist nor that the bible is false; Which is because I believe that the reason for believing in god / jesus / bible is not because they are proven or disproven. Instead, the point is because you feel that god or jesus reach out to you and ask you to believe and have faith. There is simply no amount of science that will override that feeling, nor will it be stronger than any faith that will convince a person that there is fault in that science or that there is a greater science or power beyond us.
No, that's not valid at all.
We're not talking about which ice cream flavor you like more. This is not a simple matter of preference.
When you say that God exists, that Jesus existed, or that the Bible is true — whatever that means — you are making statements about reality. And we should see whether or not those statements are true. To say, "Eh whatever, it's not like it really matters whether or not it's true as long as you feel good about it," is anti-Christian as well as being outright intellectually irresponsible. If God exists, then God's existence matters. If God doesn't exist, then the majority of the human race believes something that is incorrect, and that matters. Either way, whether there is an infinitely powerful being who created us and is taking an active role in each and every one of our lives is something we should investigate. The truth matters, and we should care enough to go find it. We should actively question what we believe, and we should care whether or not what we believe accords with the truth.
And while headway on whether or not God exists is rather difficult considering that science can't really touch the concept of an incorporeal, infinitely powerful being who is vaguely defined and cannot be experimented on, we can certainly look into whether or not Jesus existed, whether claims in the Bible are true, and whether claims people make about the Bible are true. There are entire academic disciplines based around those inquiries, and to say that they don't matter or are asking questions we don't need to ask does a disservice to the people who are committed to actually learning stuff about the world. And that bothers me.
Those are not untrue things, but there is a line that divides truth and faith. Faith isn't about truth, by definition it cannot be. It is great to investigate the claims of any religion. It is terrible to try to destroy a person's faith. But the fact of the matter is that faith doesn't come from science, it simply is not like that for anybody. Faith comes from within and it just can't be destroyed by shoving evidence in faces. If you compare it to ice cream, indeed it is not a bad comparison because people like ice cream flavors and no amount of debating it with them will change their preference, it comes from within and Faith comes from within.
Not that I'm a Christian, but I recognize that using science to fight faith is pointless, so we are best serving fellow beings in not attacking their faith, putting our efforts elsewhere.
Those are not untrue things, but there is a line that divides truth and faith. Faith isn't about truth,
Of course faith is about truth. If you have faith in something, you believe it to be true despite lack of proof or lack of knowledge. That's what faith means.
It is great to investigate the claims of any religion. It is terrible to try to destroy a person's faith.
Why? If someone believes something is true when that thing is false it should be our aim to dispel that person's illusions and point them in the way to true knowledge. That's what "education" is.
Faith comes from within and it just can't be destroyed by shoving evidence in faces.
Actually, it can. If you demonstrate to someone that they are claiming something is true when it is demonstratively false, or claiming something is false that is demonstratively true, many times they will rescind their statements.
Now, it may be that they might continue to cling to false beliefs. It is unfortunate, but that does not mean we should stop offering the truth.
If you compare it to ice cream, indeed it is not a bad comparison because people like ice cream flavors and no amount of debating it with them will change their preference, it comes from within and Faith comes from within.
No, it is not comparable at all to ice cream. There is a difference between stating a preference and making a statement about reality.
"I like the idea that there is a God" is not the same thing as saying, "There is a God." The first is a preference, a statement that you like a particular idea over another, but liking an idea does not make it true. I like the idea of me being a millionaire over the idea of me having my current income. However, that does not make that idea true.
To state that there is a God is to make a statement about reality. And any statement about reality can and should be discussed and investigated.
Not that I'm a Christian, but I recognize that using science to fight faith is pointless, so we are best serving fellow beings in not attacking their faith, putting our efforts elsewhere.
Except that's garbage.
There are people that believe the earth is flat. There are people who believe that there is no evolution. There are people who believe that the world was created in six days. All of these are false. They are false and we should not just pretend it's true because it might hurt their feelings. Our obligation is to the truth. We must search for the truth, and we must propagate the truth, and help others to find the truth and to recognize it over falsehood.
To say that we shouldn't damage someone's faith in a false idea is ridiculous. We must, as rational beings, honestly aspire to learn the truth. Otherwise we do a disservice to the gift that is human intelligence.
My experience is that many people such as Richard Dawkins, that popular culture seems to think has disproven God have actually very weak arguments. For one, their arguments often would only refute people that, for example, believe that evolution and God cannot coexist. However, many Christians do think it is possible to have both Christianity and evolution (something I am willing to discuss in detail if necessary).
Yes there does exist the position of theistic evolutionist. Many of the arguments for a common ancestor could very easily also be made for a common designer.
Furthermore, many of the arguments from people such as Richard Dawkins are just unsound. Richard Dawkins is a scientist and not a philosopher and many of his arguments are philosophical. However, he seems to make elemental mistakes and his arguments such as, "who created God?" (which he thinks is a knock down argument) really are not convincing if they are looked at closer.
I agree there was and may very well be people who defend the atheistic world view better than him. I think a great deal of his appeal is the way in which he talks about religion. If you would take his town of voice when talking about women you would be called a sexist. If you would do the same about ethnicity you would be called a racist but do it against religion or Christianity and suddenly you become a liberator and champion. Which to me is sad.
Of course faith is about truth. If you have faith in something, you believe it to be true despite lack of proof or lack of knowledge. That's what faith means.
You could have faith that a thing is false.
What are the enumerated flaws of "who created God?". Why do you think he mentions it in the first place?
It stems from a misunderstanding of Thomistic doctrine. He was a medieval philosopher who claimed that if the universe had a beginning that it needed a cause as explanation for this beginning. He then went into great detail as to what properties such a cause must have had to create a finite universe. Dawkins on the other hand erroneously equates the universe having a cause to everything having a cause which is very much a straw-man. Aquinas would have no problem in thinking that eternal things having no cause. He only posited that things with beginnings necessitate a cause.
It stems from a misunderstanding of Thomistic doctrine. He was a medieval philosopher who claimed that if the universe had a beginning that it needed a cause as explanation for this beginning. He then went into great detail as to what properties such a cause must have had to create a finite universe. Dawkins on the other hand erroneously equates the universe having a cause to everything having a cause which is very much a straw-man. Aquinas would have no problem in thinking that eternal things having no cause. He only posited that things with beginnings necessitate a cause.
Why does a thing with a beginning necessarily have to have a cause? Why can't the universe just be uncaused? If you're fine with God existing without having a cause, why then do you argue that the universe had to have a cause in order to come into existence?
I had hoped that someone else (someone not a Christian, basically) would have responded to that =(
I mean, I gave you what I understand to be the cosmological answer. As I understand it, we don't know whether time began at the Big Bang, and as such, we don't know whether there was a "before the Big Bang."
Well, anyone who says they've disproven God certainly has quite a task ahead of them, because they must then prove that God cannot possibly exist.
My point was to say that Richard Dawkins certainly thinks he has reasons which he explains as to why it is irrational to believe in God. Maybe you are right and he didn't think he has disproven God. However, we all know he is not just indifferent on the issue but thinks religion is an irrational idiotic thing to believe. This, in itself is a belief requiring justification. Why should I believe religion is irrational and idiotic? That is the view I am challenging in this post. Someone who just genuinely doesn't have a view on whether God exists isn't in the camp of Dawkins and we all know it. And it simply doesn't follow that just because I cannot prove God to you, or give you a convincing argument that God exists, that he doesn't.
Here's the problem. Many Christians will claim belief in Christianity, and claim belief in evolution, and claim that there's no conflict between them.
However, that really depends on what you believe about the Bible.
I think that while I agree that evolution and genesis may have a hard time resolving, that doesn't mean ultimately that Jesus Christ was not the son of God in the way described in the bible. After all, long before evolutionary theory Augustine was interpreting Genesis nonliterary. Most importantly, for God to have spoken through the bible it doesn't mean the bible is without all possible error. In fact, the two propositions, the God of Jesus Christ with all stuff about death and resurrection and death for our sins is really not at all contradictory to evolution being true.
Now you're more than welcome to say Dawkins lacks the expertise in philosophy to know what he's talking about, but just because he's a scientist doesn't mean he can't make philosophical claims.
I am not saying that at all. I'm just saying it raises a red flag to be investigated further. And I am willing to defend in detail why I think Dawkins makes serious mistakes in his arguments that popularly are thought to show that religious people are irrational… as his book is titled, he argues that, God is a "delusion."
Furthermore, many of the arguments from people such as Richard Dawkins are just unsound. Richard Dawkins is a scientist and not a philosopher and many of his arguments are philosophical. However, he seems to make elemental mistakes and his arguments such as, "who created God?" (which he thinks is a knock down argument) really are not convincing if they are looked at closer.
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Is there a reason that I shouldn't use Dawkins anti-creationist argument for when I deal with creationists and use other tactics when dealing with other peoples beliefs?
Why does it matter that Dawkins is a scientist and not a philosopher? That, on its own, is fallacious. I can be correct without being a specialist or incorrect while being one.
What are the enumerated flaws of "who created God?". Why do you think he mentions it in the first place?
That said, I agree the evolution and Christianity aren't mutually exclusive. It's easy to believe God didn't tell ancient people all the facts about the universe, because they wouldn't understand. I'm not a fan of Dawkins, and in general I've found that being antagonistic about the religion gets nowhere, and people dig their heels in when their deep-seated beliefs are questioned.
Then again, God would have saved a lot of people pointless suffering for millenia if he just included a passage in his divine word that said 'Hey, maybe you guys should experiment with that penicillin stuff'. Or you know, germ theory. Little things like would make me not want to worship him even if I did believe he existed.
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Yes I do believe they have holes, and I want to say that I genuinely appreciate your polite response and request. For example, I believe he said the question, "who created God?" was his strongest argument. However, this question doesn't seem to pose much of a problem for Christianity. I don't see why one must say that God was created by anyone or anything. Why must God have a creator? Things which begin to exist may need a creator, but why think God began to exist?
My point isn't to chastise Dawkins, only to point out flaws in his arguments. I just want to point out that many people think his arguments disprove Christianity when often they either do not disprove Christianity, or only, if successful, would disprove one theory of creation that many Christians do not believe in.
As long as you recognize that the arguments do not disprove Jesus' being Lord or the Messiah or God existing then I might be ok with it.
Just pointing out that just as if I was to try to debate evolutionary biology with a biologist I might be unqualified that he seems to run into the same issue when dealing with religion.
I addressed this in my last post.
Forgive me all if I don't respond to everyones post, it is a time issue.
I think the idea of there being no origin for something is what people can't agree with - after all, tangible things measurably have an origin! People like to have all of the answers (or none, depending on the topic). I'm personally an atheistic Taoist, and while I believe that there is a measurable order to the universe, perhaps some sort of underlying consciousness, I don't think there's anything that could be considered a deity - merely structure. I also strongly advocate the intermingling of scientific discovery with my interpretation of the universe around me. This is based on my own personal experiences and observations, of course, as I would hope most people's spiritual beliefs tend to be.
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However, it goes the same the other way. Those who wish to demonstrate God does exist must prove God does exist.
And you must distinguish those who advance that God has been disproven versus those who believe there is not sufficient evidence to demonstrate God's existence. My experience has been the majority of irreligious people, be they atheists, agnostics, or whatever are such because they do not believe sufficient evidence exists to demonstrate God's existence.
It's a matter of burden of proof. Both those claiming God exists and those claiming God is disproven must provide sufficient evidence to support their claims if they wish others to accept them. Those who are saying there is insufficient evidence to support a claim of God's existence do have burden of proof required of them as well, but theirs is pretty easy to fulfill. They can just say, "Look, you haven't proven God exists." And they're right, we haven't.
Eeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhh...
Here's the problem. Many Christians will claim belief in Christianity, and claim belief in evolution, and claim that there's no conflict between them.
However, that really depends on what you believe about the Bible. If you believe that the Bible is somehow God's divine word, that the Bible has some sort of divine authority that makes what it say true, then that comes into conflict with evolution, as well as a lot of other aspects of science. Genesis is just outright wrong about the creation of the world. In fact, Genesis disagrees with itself about the creation of the world, but both stories in Genesis about the creation of the world (there are two different ones that contradict each other) definitely disagree with physics and biology.
So if you are Christian and believe that Genesis holds some sort of truth value, whether literal or metaphorical, then you probably run into a conflict with science.
If, however, you are Christian and believe that Genesis is just a set of creation myths composed from antiquity and have no real attachment to their truth value, and legitimately don't care if both creation stories are just outright wrong, then no, evolution doesn't really pose a problem.
I mean, Einstein was a patent clerk. Our choice of day job doesn't necessarily make us right or wrong. It is our expertise in the subject matter that makes us right or wrong.
Now you're more than welcome to say Dawkins lacks the expertise in philosophy to know what he's talking about, but just because he's a scientist doesn't mean he can't make philosophical claims.
I've never actually read Dawkins so I'm not sure what his arguments are.
However, my question is whether he's attacking the idea of God because God is uncaused; or if he's attacking the argument often made for the existence of God that tries to use the universe's existence as evidence for God, the rationale being that because the universe exists, something must have caused it?
My understanding is we don't know if anything did or didn't.
The question is more precisely phrased, "Why is there a god instead of no god?". If we ask "why is there a universe instead of no universe", a Christian would reply that god created it, regardless of whether the nature of time is such that the universe had a beginning or ever began to exist. I think you would agree that even if the universe were discovered to be eternal in both the past and the future, it might still make sense to say that god created it. Certainly we can conceive of the idea that god could have instead chosen to create nothing, and there would be no universe - only nothingness. Similarly, we can conceive of the idea that god could never have existed, and there would instead only be nothingness. It's fair then to ask why god does exist rather than doesn't exist.
So, why does god exist instead of not existing, in your view?
I don't believe that someone misusing an argument is a strike against the argument itself, but a strike against the person.
Also, it is worth noting, that many Christians do believe it and if we limit it to American Christians that are the primary demographic being addressed here it becomes a majority.
What is the reason to believe in those things? In my experience, debates rarely get to that part for a variety of reasons.
Depends on how the discussion goes. You need not make egregious mistakes and you need not have the level of precision an evolutionary biologist (or, well, a biologist) has about his craft in general to talk about specific points of contention and you need not understand everything about biology to understand the evidence for evolution.
You have misunderstood part of the objection. The part you refer to is probably him commenting on the Kalam Cosmological Argument. Christians have a tendency to sneak in “eternal” into the definition of god, but claiming a priori that god is eternal can be dismissed as without evidence. When arguments, like with the Kalam, talk about everything having a cause and that ultimate cause being god then the question is “where did god come from” or “who created God?”
Put simply, saying god doesn't have the quality everything else is said to have is special pleading
We're not talking about which ice cream flavor you like more. This is not a simple matter of preference.
When you say that God exists, that Jesus existed, or that the Bible is true — whatever that means — you are making statements about reality. And we should see whether or not those statements are true. To say, "Eh whatever, it's not like it really matters whether or not it's true as long as you feel good about it," is anti-Christian as well as being outright intellectually irresponsible. If God exists, then God's existence matters. If God doesn't exist, then the majority of the human race believes something that is incorrect, and that matters. Either way, whether there is an infinitely powerful being who created us and is taking an active role in each and every one of our lives is something we should investigate. The truth matters, and we should care enough to go find it. We should actively question what we believe, and we should care whether or not what we believe accords with the truth.
And while headway on whether or not God exists is rather difficult considering that science can't really touch the concept of an incorporeal, infinitely powerful being who is vaguely defined and cannot be experimented on, we can certainly look into whether or not Jesus existed, whether claims in the Bible are true, and whether claims people make about the Bible are true. There are entire academic disciplines based around those inquiries, and to say that they don't matter or are asking questions we don't need to ask does a disservice to the people who are committed to actually learning stuff about the world. And that bothers me.
Not that I'm a Christian, but I recognize that using science to fight faith is pointless, so we are best serving fellow beings in not attacking their faith, putting our efforts elsewhere.
Why? If someone believes something is true when that thing is false it should be our aim to dispel that person's illusions and point them in the way to true knowledge. That's what "education" is.
Actually, it can. If you demonstrate to someone that they are claiming something is true when it is demonstratively false, or claiming something is false that is demonstratively true, many times they will rescind their statements.
Now, it may be that they might continue to cling to false beliefs. It is unfortunate, but that does not mean we should stop offering the truth.
No, it is not comparable at all to ice cream. There is a difference between stating a preference and making a statement about reality.
"I like the idea that there is a God" is not the same thing as saying, "There is a God." The first is a preference, a statement that you like a particular idea over another, but liking an idea does not make it true. I like the idea of me being a millionaire over the idea of me having my current income. However, that does not make that idea true.
To state that there is a God is to make a statement about reality. And any statement about reality can and should be discussed and investigated.
Except that's garbage.
There are people that believe the earth is flat. There are people who believe that there is no evolution. There are people who believe that the world was created in six days. All of these are false. They are false and we should not just pretend it's true because it might hurt their feelings. Our obligation is to the truth. We must search for the truth, and we must propagate the truth, and help others to find the truth and to recognize it over falsehood.
To say that we shouldn't damage someone's faith in a false idea is ridiculous. We must, as rational beings, honestly aspire to learn the truth. Otherwise we do a disservice to the gift that is human intelligence.
Yes there does exist the position of theistic evolutionist. Many of the arguments for a common ancestor could very easily also be made for a common designer.
I agree there was and may very well be people who defend the atheistic world view better than him. I think a great deal of his appeal is the way in which he talks about religion. If you would take his town of voice when talking about women you would be called a sexist. If you would do the same about ethnicity you would be called a racist but do it against religion or Christianity and suddenly you become a liberator and champion. Which to me is sad.
You could have faith that a thing is false.
It stems from a misunderstanding of Thomistic doctrine. He was a medieval philosopher who claimed that if the universe had a beginning that it needed a cause as explanation for this beginning. He then went into great detail as to what properties such a cause must have had to create a finite universe. Dawkins on the other hand erroneously equates the universe having a cause to everything having a cause which is very much a straw-man. Aquinas would have no problem in thinking that eternal things having no cause. He only posited that things with beginnings necessitate a cause.
You most certainly can, but faith in something is asserting your belief that it is true. Faith has everything to do with truth.
Why does a thing with a beginning necessarily have to have a cause? Why can't the universe just be uncaused? If you're fine with God existing without having a cause, why then do you argue that the universe had to have a cause in order to come into existence?
I had hoped that someone else (someone not a Christian, basically) would have responded to that =(
My point was to say that Richard Dawkins certainly thinks he has reasons which he explains as to why it is irrational to believe in God. Maybe you are right and he didn't think he has disproven God. However, we all know he is not just indifferent on the issue but thinks religion is an irrational idiotic thing to believe. This, in itself is a belief requiring justification. Why should I believe religion is irrational and idiotic? That is the view I am challenging in this post. Someone who just genuinely doesn't have a view on whether God exists isn't in the camp of Dawkins and we all know it. And it simply doesn't follow that just because I cannot prove God to you, or give you a convincing argument that God exists, that he doesn't.
I think that while I agree that evolution and genesis may have a hard time resolving, that doesn't mean ultimately that Jesus Christ was not the son of God in the way described in the bible. After all, long before evolutionary theory Augustine was interpreting Genesis nonliterary. Most importantly, for God to have spoken through the bible it doesn't mean the bible is without all possible error. In fact, the two propositions, the God of Jesus Christ with all stuff about death and resurrection and death for our sins is really not at all contradictory to evolution being true.
I am not saying that at all. I'm just saying it raises a red flag to be investigated further. And I am willing to defend in detail why I think Dawkins makes serious mistakes in his arguments that popularly are thought to show that religious people are irrational… as his book is titled, he argues that, God is a "delusion."