Although a scientist by profession and a Voltaire-style atheist (i.e. I have no need of that hypothesis), I don’t expect science or anything else to be able to give meaning to all minutiae of my existence. I’m not very interested in propagating the species. So that connection is broken. Science is also pretty useless for explaining my musical tastes, mood swings, voting habits, or why I feel happier if I try to make the world a better place than I found it. This, despite the fact that the latter feels MUCH more like a prime source of purpose in life.

I don’t see that some supernatural entity would not provide me with any support, encouragement or direction on ethics beyond what I can generate myself. Others evidently differ.

But beyond that, I fail to understand why anyone would want to confuse ethical direction by a quasi-parental deity with a source of data on the incredibly far-off and almost irrelevant beginnings of the Universe, Solar System, Earth and Life, or with a right to intefere in the day-to-day lives of others. Looking for a single source for all these highly disparate things leads people into very bizarre mindsets.

The Christian churches would retain more credibility if they modelled themselves more on Christ of the Gospels, and abjured both creationism and the tendency to seek influence over temporal law and mores. Planks and motes come to mind. Similar points could be levelled at the other Abrahamic faiths.

How about, we go with science’s marvellous, gradually articulated, self-correcting stories on the scientifically explainable, while at the same time celebrating the inexplicably human as something that is an integral part of mature, responsible, thinking human beings, and accepting that the two don’t mingle well, since nobody ever fell in love with anyone else through solving their Schroedinger equation?

The universe contains very big and very small things, very fast and very slow things, and no single way of looking at it describes all of these at a useful level of detail at the same time. We’ve got the brains, eyes and words to appreciate it multimodally, so that’s what we should do.

And, while we are at it, stomp bigots, promulgators of ignorance, and judgemental hypocrites wherever we find them, whatever grousp they claim to belong to.

seems apt, imho.

As Eagleton said, Christians meet their God in the person of Christ.

And if that was all there was to it no-one would give a rat’s.
But somehow this leads to anti-evolution, anti-education, anti-contraception, anti-prophylaxis, anti-semitism, anti-women and anti-human beliefs.

As Eagleton said, Christians meet their God in the person of Christ.

“The central doctrine of Christianity, then, is not that God is a bastard. It is, in the words of the late Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe, that if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you. Here, then, is your pie in the sky and opium of the people.”

I’d go with Eagleton’s assessment rather than Peter’s reductionism.

But hey, what would I know.

I’d love to see Eagleton get up in front of the vast majority of theist congregations on Earth and explain to them how their conception of an interventionist, personal God is a naive, simplistic strawman.

Exactly.

Dawkin’s argument is mainly that “moderate� theists give a cover to the fundies. That’s why he has adopted the policy of not wanting to “work� with mainstream theism to counteract the fundies.

I’ll come back to the rest of the arguments you make, Peter, but as Kim said, you have to pick your fights. Dawkins pisses off a lot of potential allies in the fight against the fundies. But I don’t think it’s actually a strategic choice. I think he is somehow personally offended that anyone can hold religious beliefs. That’s his problem, not mine.

“These are childish and stupid arguments.”

Absolutely. It’s kindergarten stuff.

I’m with Mark on that point and on the thread.

“Mankind” (sic) was created supposedly in “the image of god.”

But I think it’s painfully obvious it was the other way around.

Harry Sapiens.

“arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

I’ll go with that reductionism.

but for scientists to say “science provides meaning to life� is also an unscientific attitude.

I disagree. When science offers by the theory of natural selection, that the meaning to life is the propagation of the species, it might be regarded as “unsatisfactory” to theists or philosophers, but it is based on the strongest scientific evidence applicable from a single celled amoeba to human beings. I’d be interested in your definitions of “scientific attitude” and the “meaning of life.”

Of course when it comes to how and why the universe was created, far beyond Darwinian theory, that’s an entirely different question which encompasses for example scientific hypotheses: multi-universes, unified “string theory,” the creation of matter as a zero sum equation and the like.

Of course it all depends on what one regards as the “meaning of life”, which is why I loved that line from the movie of the same name:

I hope there’s some intelligent life out there
Cos there’s bugger all down here on earth.

Kim re:

Dawkins fights on a much too broad front – all religious people are potential fundies.

Again I disagree. I think that’s an oversimplification. Dawkin’s argument is mainly that “moderate” theists give a cover to the fundies. That’s why he has adopted the policy of not wanting to “work” with mainstream theism to counteract the fundies. He seems to my mind to focus on questioning the fact that attacking all religion is seen as a no go area, not polite, culturally unacceptable: whatever. Part of that is that unwittingly, moderates in all religions give a cover, a background in which extremism flourishes. Remove religion, hey presto, no more cover.

Indeed, “picking the fight” is an issue Dawkins has even with some fellow atheists. I’m not yet convinced he’s wrong in that approach.

For those interested Dawkins website is here: (there’s heaps of argy bargy there)
http://richarddawkins.net/home

What, one wonders, are Dawkins’s views on the epistemological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotus? Has he read Eriugena on subjectivity, Rahner on grace or Moltmann on hope? Has he even heard of them?

How does Dawkins answer that. Hey? Rahner on grace. The killer punch. Atheists ain’t got anything that can touch Rahner on grace.

But still, I dips me lid to Eagleton. It’s a superb polemic.

Dec 19th-28th.

Fark all free time, ‘cos my sister’s over from San Fran with a shiny new bairn and a 3-year-old. The little lady’s sis has a pup too, and with two sets of divorced parents that all adds up (in the immortal words of Flava Flav) to a fuckin’ situation.

Plus me old band is doing a reunion show, having not played together in 3 years. EEEK!!!

The Fascist Fair Go Party and guests, Rosemount Hotel Dec. 27th. Ridiculous cabaret political satire and loud shouty stuff with multimedia extravaganza (read: PowerPoint presentations and old clips from previous gags recycled).

The assertion that one must study theology in order to dispute it is nonsensical – and could only be justified if there were convincing hypotheses for the existence of a deity, which could be subject to testing – and as far as I am aware, this is not the case.

So we can dispute epistemology without ever studying it?

My point: Arguing that God doesn’t exist because there is no evidence is simply a form of theology (a logos in regard to the deus) – one that calls it to the account of empiricism (not rationalism as others said).

That may well be the correct approach to theology. Of this I offer no argument against. But it does one’s argument a lot of good if you can show you have at least a passing familiarity with the other arguments in the field.

NB I am a materialist.

I’d love to see Eagleton get up in front of the vast majority of theist congregations on Earth and explain to them how their conception of an interventionist, personal God is a naive, simplistic strawman. That would be fun to watch.