Richard Dawkins argument

[neophyte]

… Just because the Bible says so does not make it right. There is a circular argument behind that - Who wrote the Bible? God did… What is the proof - God said so. See how stupid that is…

Straw man - that argument is only used by the ignorant. It’s not the actual Christian claim.

"No scientist starts from scratch to examine his/her field of study. Their parents/teachers tell them things to accept as ‘proven.’ They all read and BASE their reasearch on what others have said or passed on.

… …WRONG. What evidence that can be accepted in a court of law that Jesus existed as outlined in the Bible. NONE…

It’s apparent that you don’t know very much about the standards of legal evidence.

 

[neophyte]

…Where there is “faith” in that I do not know except to say I have great faith in the fact that this process of scientific peer review and meta analysis is the best we have today.

I personally hold this in stark contrast to “faith” in theistic terms…

That’s where you go off the rails. What you’ve descibed could be summarized as “adhering to another who is known”, which is essentially identical to the theological virtue of faith. It’s the same thing.

…I always fight with “atheists” who come out with the tired old line of “Faith is belief with no evidence”. I think this is a highly damaging claim. To me religious faith is more easily defined as “Assuming as a basis to be true that which you are trying to evidentially show is true”…

Letting go the fact that those are two different ways of saying the same thing, neither of them are correct definitions of "faith. What you’ve described is actually called “credulity”.

What’s happended is that the term “faith” has been redefined by folks like Bertrand Russel. Their reasoning was along the lines of "there is no evidence for the existance of God, therefore Christians have faith in something for which there is no evidence, therefore “faith” means “believeing in something for which there is no evidence”. Even if the premise were true (which it is not), it’s a flawed argument.

 

[Nozzferrahhtoo]

I would answer both responses above in much the same way. I would not have my terms redefined either. Credulity to me is something entirely different. Just believing any old thing you are told regardless would be closer to credulity for me.

No for me in this context faith refers to coming to a conclusion first and fitting the evidence to it second. A form of confirmation bias and starkly different to credulity. I would baulk before using that term for it and I hasten to point out that this is your word not mind.

Suffice to say that it is important to me to distinguish between belief with no evidence, and belief based on cherry picked fitting of evidence to a conclusion one has already come to.

The difference with science and faith is that the latter assumes data we simply do not have. Theological papers and the like make this assumption that there is a god.

In science however this is not done. A scientific theory is one that creates an explanation for ALL the data available without assuming any not present or ignoring any that is. If either of these mistakes are made they are mercilessly pounded upon by peer review.

What must be remembered however is nothing in science is proven 100%. Not ever. Science is not in the business of “proofs” even though that word is used in a loose sense. There is therefore no faith as such in science. At any time a scientific theory is not “proved” but is in fact the best explanation we have for all of the current data again without ignoring or assuming any data.

 

[buffalo]

"No scientist starts from scratch to examine his/her field of study. Their parents/teachers tell them things to accept as ‘proven.’ They all read and BASE their reasearch on what others have said or passed on.

The same with Catholicism!

.

and now you have the key to why we needed Revelation.

 

[Bluegoat]

The difference with science and faith is that the latter assumes data we simply do not have. Theological papers and the like make this assumption that there is a god.

In science however this is not done. A scientific theory is one that creates an explanation for ALL the data available without assuming any not present or ignoring any that is. If either of these mistakes are made they are mercilessly pounded upon by peer review.
.

THis simply isn’t the case in the way you present it. Yes, a theological paper will often argue from a certain perspective, or from certian assumptions or POV. It assumes work which has already been done, and usually will lay out the tradition it is coming from, for example. However, I do not see every paper on scientific topics doing anything different. They usually assume much of the work done previously. Every paper on physics does not take the time to go through all the work done in the early 20th century before it moves on to whatever its topic is.

There are lots of theological works that start from 0 - they discuss reasons for being a theist at all. They are out there if you look. But if every theological discussion needed to be prefaced by such a work (or scientific discussion), no one could afford to publish journals, and no one would want to read them either.

Honestly, do you see scientific papers on biological topics regurgitating the whole understanding of DNA and how it works, or others giving the whole of quantum theory before proposing anything new?

 

[buffalo]

THis simply isn’t the case in the way you present it. Yes, a theological paper will often argue from a certain perspective, or from certian assumptions or POV. It assumes work which has already been done, and usually will lay out the tradition it is coming from, for example. However, I do not see every paper on scientific topics doing anything different. They usually assume much of the work done previously. Every paper on physics does not take the time to go through all the work done in the early 20th century before it moves on to whatever its topic is.

There are lots of theological works that start from 0 - they discuss reasons for being a theist at all. They are out there if you look. But if every theological discussion needed to be prefaced by such a work (or scientific discussion), no one could afford to publish journals, and no one would want to read them either.

Honestly, do you see scientific papers on biological topics regurgitating the whole understanding of DNA and how it works, or others giving the whole of quantum theory before proposing anything new?

One thing I do know - St Thomas Aquinas’ work has been attacked over and over and holds up well. So too all of Catholicism.

 

[neophyte]

I would answer both responses above in much the same way. I would not have my terms redefined either. Credulity to me is something entirely different. Just believing any old thing you are told regardless would be closer to credulity for me.

No for me in this context faith refers to coming to a conclusion first and fitting the evidence to it second…

Well, if you insist on ahdering to a flawed definition of “faith”, then it’s no surprise that you continually come to flawed conclusions.

The definition you insist on is indeed a redefinition which is completely divorced from the true meaning of the term. It’s not surprising you didn’t know this, because it happened long before you were born.

 

[neophyte]

I would answer both responses above in much the same way. I would not have my terms redefined either. Credulity to me is something entirely different. Just believing any old thing you are told regardless would be closer to credulity for me.

No for me in this context faith refers to coming to a conclusion first and fitting the evidence to it second…

In any field of knowledge, in order to have a meaningful conversation it’s imperative to understand the meaning of technical terms and stick to those meanings. In theology, “faith” is a technical term which does NOT have the meaning you are giving it.

What you are doing is similar to a discussion of RF circuits in which one of the participants thinks that the term “gain” has something to do with olympic diving. You are currently playing the part of that participant.

 

[Pons]

Just because the Bible says [there is a God] does not make it right. There is a circular argument behind that - Who wrote the Bible? God did… What is the proof - God said so.

That might work for some Protestants but we’re not Protestants.

 

[Voice_of_Reason_1]

The Irrational Atheist

“I’m not trying to convince you to accept Jesus Christ
as your Lord and Savior. I’m not even trying to convince you that religious
people aren’t lunatics with low IQs who should be regarded
with pity and contempt. But I am confident that I will convince you
that this trio of New Atheists, this Unholy Trinity, are a collection of
faux-intellectual frauds utilizing pseudo-scientific sleight of hand in
order to falsely claim that religious faith is inherently dangerous and
has no place in the modern world.”

That’s enough for me.

In Science you win points by showing other paper’s methods or conclusions are false. In fact it is the only area of discourse of which I am aware in which one gains points for proving YOURSELF wrong.

Where there is “faith” in that I do not know except to say I have great faith in the fact that this process of scientific peer review and meta analysis is the best we have today.

In fact the authors of the bible itself knew this well! They not only knew it but actively endorse that you engage in it:

It’s true. Anyone who looked at the merits in diconfirming evidence and the flaws of their own confirmation bias are bound to come to the same conclusion: that they have tenaciously upheld a belief because they rather fancied it, and not because it was well-supported by reason.

One thing I do know - St Thomas Aquinas’ work has been attacked over and over and holds up well. So too all of Catholicism.

Aquinas’ work is brilliant, but only by the mores of its time. It, as well as Catholicism, has been criticized roundly because they are logically inconsistent with reason, in many ways. If by holds up you mean to say that people still believe in such arguments and structures, I’m willing to agree with you. If by holds up you mean to say that it does so with unceasing logic, then we’re going to have to disagree, on that point.

That might work for some Protestants but we’re not Protestants.

Why is that?

As for the OP, sounds like you got a good taste of something at ends with your belief system. Many Christians will try and make you feel bad for considering alternatives or investingating why you believe what you believe (confirming and disconfirming evidence), but Truth is more important than succumbing to the pressure you will doubless receive. Good luck on your journey to finding Truth.

 

[Iowa_Mike]

Hello, I recently watched a TED talk by Richard Dawkins. I think there are a lot of good talks on ted.com. This one is making me question my faith. The talk was about atheism and he said that scientists say they know things because of seeing consistent evidence and observing the natural world. He remarked that it would be very silly if a scientist said he knew something because his parents had taught him to just have faith it was true. What can a Catholic say about this. He is right. A person should believe something after careful consideration, not blind faith. What should the Catholic response be to this? Do we sometimes rely too much on blind faith and not even carefully reflect on what we believe?

If you want to hear the athiets arguments effectively refuted you should listen to the debate between Denish D’Souza and Christopher Hitchens, Mr. D’Souza dismantles Mr. Hitchens arguments is a solid, crisp and effective way. I would be wonderful to listen to a debate between Mr. D’Souza and Mr. Dawkins but Mr. Dawkns steadfastly refuses to debate Mr. D’Souza…I wonder why?

God Bless,

Iowa Mike

 

[Luke_K]

Do you know of any scientist who has recreated every experiment ever done or proved every science from the beginning? I don’t.

So true. Anyone who has taken a science lab course knows how hard it can be to get the “right” results which your textbook and professor say should happen. There are just so many possible sources of error. These include different measuring instruments, slightly different starting conditions, precision of instruments, human errors, etc.

And whenever a scientist gets a result that doesn’t match perfectly with theory (and I can’t think of a situation where this doesn’t happen) he has to come up with some explanation of why it doesn’t! Other than saying that he did something wrong in the experiment, one of the most common reasons is because several assumptions must be made in order to simplify things. Take the definition of an ampere for example: “the constant current which will produce an attractive force of 2 × 10–7 newtons per metre of length between two straight, parallel conductors of infinite length and negligible circular cross section placed one metre apart in a vacuum” Can you have infinitely long wires? Two perfectly straight, perfectly parallel wires? Perfectly circular wires? Exactly one meter apart, in practice? A perfect vacuum in practice? No.

If you take away absolutely all assumptions in an experiment, you’re going to be left with a hopelessly complicated mess of calculations that won’t matter anyways because you can’t measure every quantity needed for those calculations (or perfectly for that matter).

Here’s an experiment to demonstrate what I’m saying. Try placing a marble on an incline ramp on a table from rest, letting it roll off the table, and place a marker on the floor where you predict it will land using 2-D kinematics and the force of gravity. I bet you it will not land where “science said” it will. You’ll have to assume that friction was at work on the ramp, that the marble was not a perfect sphere, that air resistance was in effect, that you didn’t use the exact acceleration of gravity for your elevation above sea level, that you didn’t measure the height of the table or the length and angle of the ramp perfectly, etc. Even if the marble does land on the marker, that doesn’t prove anything. You’ll have to set up the same type of situation over and over again, at different locations, elevations, temperatures, humidities, air pressures, different materials for ramps, different heights of the table, etc., and even then, you can’t try every possible situation imaginable, which would be necessary to “prove” what the science asserts.

“Consistent evidence?” Sort of. There may be consistent qualitative evidence, but any talk of consistency with quantitative evidence has to be defined within a certain precision and error. And like Buffalo said, no scientist can perform every experiment and know all the math for himself. He has to hold on faith that other scientists are doing their job honestly and correctly.

Science in practice is SO much different than science in theory (which is essentially math), and a lot of blind followers of Richard Dawkins don’t realize this.

 

[Deconi]

So true. Anyone who has taken a science lab course knows how hard it can be to get the “right” results which your textbook and professor say should happen. There are just so many possible sources of error. These include different measuring instruments, slightly different starting conditions, precision of instruments, human errors, etc.

And whenever a scientist gets a result that doesn’t match perfectly with theory (and I can’t think of a situation where this doesn’t happen) he has to come up with some explanation of why it doesn’t! Other than saying that he did something wrong in the experiment, one of the most common reasons is because several assumptions must be made in order to simplify things. Take the definition of an ampere for example: “the constant current which will produce an attractive force of 2 × 10–7 newtons per metre of length between two straight, parallel conductors of infinite length and negligible circular cross section placed one metre apart in a vacuum” Can you have infinitely long wires? Two perfectly straight, perfectly parallel wires? Perfectly circular wires? Exactly one meter apart, in practice? A perfect vacuum in practice? No.

If you take away absolutely all assumptions in an experiment, you’re going to be left with a hopelessly complicated mess of calculations that won’t matter anyways because you can’t measure every quantity needed for those calculations (or perfectly for that matter).

Here’s an experiment to demonstrate what I’m saying. Try placing a marble on an incline ramp on a table from rest, letting it roll off the table, and place a marker on the floor where you predict it will land using 2-D kinematics and the force of gravity. I bet you it will not land where “science said” it will. You’ll have to assume that friction was at work on the ramp, that the marble was not a perfect sphere, that air resistance was in effect, that you didn’t use the exact acceleration of gravity for your elevation above sea level, that you didn’t measure the height of the table or the length and angle of the ramp perfectly, etc. Even if the marble does land on the marker, that doesn’t prove anything. You’ll have to set up the same type of situation over and over again, at different locations, elevations, temperatures, humidities, air pressures, different materials for ramps, different heights of the table, etc., and even then, you can’t try every possible situation imaginable, which would be necessary to “prove” what the science asserts.

“Consistent evidence?” Sort of. There may be consistent qualitative evidence, but any talk of consistency with quantitative evidence has to be defined within a certain precision and error. And like Buffalo said, no scientist can perform every experiment and know all the math for himself. He has to hold on faith that other scientists are doing their job honestly and correctly.

Science in practice is SO much different than science in theory (which is essentially math), and a lot of blind followers of Richard Dawkins don’t realize this.

What you say Luke is true.

Several ‘legitimate’ conclusions have been discarded because they did not concord with accepted conclusions or accord with the theoratic expectations! Example, if you age a prehistoric fossil and it comes in at 7000years ago, do it again or find and ‘explanation’ for the ERROR because it should be in accord with the accepted paradigm. Clearly, it is a ‘faith’ of sorts.
(That’s just an example…not looking for ‘evo-discussions’)

To be fair to Richard Dawkins, he is simply and examiner of physical evidence who prefers his head down at all times, going from scientific finding to scientific finding (stepping stone to stepping stone approach) It is his stubborn refusal to ‘look up’ ahead, every now and again to consider the probabilities of where the evidence or track maybe leading that may result in a headache when you hit the dead-end of an alley!

 

[_babygirl]

I know a hot club: = www.meetcatholic.com ] = which is a dating service for catholic people there, charming catholic girls, faithful catholic guys,sexy catholic celebrites truly exsist there. There has been thousands of single members online and many catholic single girls or guys waitting for you maybe you will like it.Hot and sexy,Share with you~ = www.meetcatholic.com ] = free to join C’MON NOW!!!

 

[neophyte]

…To be fair to Richard Dawkins, he is simply and examiner of physical evidence who prefers his head down at all times, going from scientific finding to scientific finding (stepping stone to stepping stone approach) It is his stubborn refusal to ‘look up’ ahead, every now and again to consider the probabilities of where the evidence or track maybe leading that may result in a headache when you hit the dead-end of an alley!

In his anti-religious work he assumes that 1.) all that is real is demonstrable through science and 2.) all causes are observable. Both of these assumptions are irrational, and in fact if you followed him around for a few days you’d see that his everyday behavior shows that he doesn’t really believe them.

 

[Deconi]

In his anti-religious work he assumes that 1.) all that is real is demonstrable through science and 2.) all causes are observable. Both of these assumptions are irrational, and in fact if you followed him around for a few days you’d see that his everyday behavior shows that he doesn’t really believe them.

I am aware that Dawkins only pauses from his ‘examinations’ to rage at the heavens and declare there is no God!..all the while embracing the assertion that all this commenced when ‘something came from nothing’!!

 

[Luke_K]

Here are some relevant web comics phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=761

phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=405

 

[cassini]

Here are some relevant web comics phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=761

phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=405

luke, thanks a million for cool: phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=761. That is exactly how things are. indeed here is something serious written some years ago about Isaac Newton’s Universal gravitation theory.

‘This method, of which the germ was contained in the scientific revolution initiated at the turn of the seventeenth century by Francis Bacon and which has since been adopted by every branch of science and by countless pseudo-sciences such as politics, economics, the social sciences, and even art, religion, ethics and psychology, is as follows. Take a phenomenon that can be observed, produce a mathematical measurement for it that fits, concoct a hypothesis which, however far fetched, could possibly account for the phenomenon, and finally call the hypothesis and the mathematical formula that supports it a law and regardless of whether or not there is any theoretical justification for it whatever, apply it throughout the universe. And that is all that the famous Law of Gravitation consists of.’

Have any of you seen Dawkins’s new book on evolution in the shops now? In it is the most marvellous illustration of a living cell, which as you should know is so complex that the workings of a city’s traffic lights look simple compared to it. But the gas thing about it is that Dawkins would have his readers believe the cell, a living universe in itself, was as a result of a few chemicals, zapped by sunlight or some other fantasy like that. Indeed, Dawkins’s whole philosophy and atheism depends on this ‘SCIENTIFIC HAPPENING’ having occurred. TALK ABOUT HAVING FAITH. Dawkins’s faith in his pseudo-science is greater that any in God I know

 

[Iowa_Mike]

“Everything in the universe points to it’s Maker!”

WRONG. Who or what was the maker. Just because the Bible says so does not make it right. There is a circular argument behind that - Who wrote the Bible? God did… What is the proof - God said so. See how stupid that is. There is no proof for a “Creator/God”.

"No scientist starts from scratch to examine his/her field of study. Their parents/teachers tell them things to accept as ‘proven.’ They all read and BASE their reasearch on what others have said or passed on.

The same with Catholicism!

Our faith is not ‘blind’ faith, but on physical, evidential evidence that has a traceable lineage! Do we need ‘faith’? Certainly! Our trust/faith is that Jesus is Who He Said He Is; That He is the Son of the Living God; the Second Person of The Trinity!"

WRONG. What evidence that can be accepted in a court of law that Jesus existed as outlined in the Bible. NONE.

“God” was made in the mind of humans then used as a big stick to control people. The sordid history of the Roman Catholic Church in it’s first 1,500 years shows that. And by the way the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is the Holy Office of the Inquisition in it’s new name. It might not burn heretics, but it has strong powers. And Benedict XVI was it’s Cardinal Prefect.

 

[AntiTheist]

Do you know of any scientist who has recreated every experiment ever done or proved every science from the beginning? I don’t.

There’s a world of difference between trusting in the findings of bodies of peer-reviewing experts and blind faith.

Obviously, it’s impossible for each person to gather all of the evidence and perform all of the experiments ever done by human beings. But that doesn’t mean that we take “on faith” – in the same sense of religious faith – the findings of scientists.

What we’ve done is to set up bodies of experts who peer-review one another’s findings; it is this process that makes it very likely that their findings are the best conclusions based on the most current evidence. In fact, the peer-review process has yielded so many successful results in the past that there is a great deal of evidence that we have good reason to trust it.

This trust – this confidence in a process that weeds out errors through peer review and produces demonstrable results – is the opposite of blind faith in what you term “revelation.”

Deconi:

I am aware that Dawkins only pauses from his ‘examinations’ to rage at the heavens and declare there is no God!

It’s well known that Dawkins admits that a god or gods could exist. At the very beginning of the God Delusion, he says that on a scale from 1 to 7, 1 being the position that there is a god and 7 being the position that there is no god, he would be a 6.9.

all the while embracing the assertion that all this commenced when ‘something came from nothing’!!

I don’t believe that I have ever read Dawkins say that – can you please cite him saying that?

Naturally, you can’t because most of Dawkins’ detractors haven’t read him. What an utter joke.

Neophyte:

In his anti-religious work he assumes that 1.) all that is real is demonstrable through science

Off the top of my head, I’m not sure if Dawkins has ever claimed this – my inclination would be to say no, he didn’t, because it’s not necessarily true. For example, it’s conceivable that a Deist god exists but is undetectable in any way.

Can you cite Dawkins making the claim you are saying that he does?

Now, Dawkins does say that many theist claims are within the realm of science – for example, the claim that there is a god who intervenes in human affairs (a non-Deistic god) is one that can be investigated by science.

I will say that it is my own position that things that exist and that we are justified in believing exist must be detectable or affect the world in detectable ways. The reason for this is that things that exist but are not detectable in any way are indistinguishable from things that don’t exist. It may be the case, for example, that a Deistic god exists, but there’s no good reason to believe that it exists – any more than there is reason to believe that a purple undetectable unicorn lives under my bed. The amount of evidence for the existence of both is identical.