Faith and Belief: Richard Dawkins evolves his arguments

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-ca-richard-dawkins11-2009oct11,0,4602534.story

by fnid • 17 years ago

12 60 17 years ago

This was a really interesting insight to Dawkins' character. Thanks for sharing.

billybob• 17 years ago

I heard an interview where Dawkins said something like "if there is a God, He must have evolved." Maybe he was joking, but it didn't sound like it.

Evolution is a biological process. It would have no bearing on a being who created space and time.

Biologists should not presume to trump philosophy and theology, any more than preachers should dictate which biological theories are acceptable.

amichail4• 17 years ago

Dawkins does not believe that theologists have any special insights to offer on the mysteries of life. In his view, anyone's opinion is just as good as that of a theologist.

joubert3• 17 years ago

The reason he says this, is that evolution by natural selection is the only process that we know of that describes how complexity comes to be.

foldr14• 17 years ago

It surely can't explain the basic complexity of the laws of physics, or the complexity of mathematical structures like the integers. There are plenty of complex things which have no explanation in terms of natural selection.

unalone9• 17 years ago

It's a mistake to lump philosophy with theology. Philosophy requires no "givens", which is to say it is a valid field without requiring you to make any assumptions to partake in it. Theology, meanwhile, requires you first to assume the existence of God, and I'm one of the many many people who think that's a ridiculous beginning to a field of study. It's like if Nietzsche began his books by telling you his concepts and thoughts were only worth consuming if you first assume that we're living on a gigantic turtle. Preposterous.

I like religion-as-sociology, however, and there's where the "evolution of God" concept is most fascinating. If you haven't read Douglas Adams's speech "Is There An Artificial God?", it's worth the read.

Evolution is a biological process. It would have no bearing on a being who created space and time.

And bullets bounce off of Superman because he's from Krypton.

amichail4• 17 years ago

What exactly are the accomplishments of philosophy, aside from logic which is better studied by mathematicians and computer scientists?

isamuel• 17 years ago

I agree with the thrust of what you write. But this is wrong:

"Philosophy requires no 'givens', which is to say it is a valid field without requiring you to make any assumptions to partake in it."

In 1748, David Hume explained why this isn't right. Hume was a philosopher himself. The most important assumption that you must make in the natural sciences and in every brand of philosophy with which I'm familiar is causality. Check out http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/ for more.

foldr14• 17 years ago

>Theology, meanwhile, requires you first to assume the existence of God

That's just not true. There's plenty of theology which you can enter into without a prior assumption of the existence of god. The most obvious example would be arguments _for_ the existence of God! But in general, most of theology can be appreciated while taking God's existence as a hypothetical. E.g. you can consider whether or not the existence of evil is compatible with the presence of an omnipotent and wholly good God. (And indeed, theologians spend a lot of time considering arguments _against_ God's existence based on the existence of evil, and these arguments clearly cannot presuppose his existence.)

By the way, have you ever read any theology?

fnid2• 17 years ago

I suspect you knew this, but many religions suggest we actually are living on the back of a gigantic turtle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_and_tortoises_in_popula...

chrischen4• 17 years ago

> There is no master plan.

As much as I am an atheist, I still think no one can ever make that claim. He should have said, there is no evidence yet of a master plan, or there probably is no master plan. This same thing would apply to the existence of God. Unfortunately this logical fallacy (of prematurely concluding the nonexistence of something that theoretically can't be proved to not exist) beholds too many atheists.

joubert3• 17 years ago

There is no master plan in the same sense that there is magic cookie monster.

moss2• 17 years ago

Nothing we believe about the outside world is unassailably justified by logic alone. Even the surest statements (that the sun will come up tomorrow, for example) are based on a fallible interpretation of the evidence available at the time. That's no reason to stop making statements--it turns out a preponderance of evidence is enough, generally. It just means some of your beliefs sometimes turn out to be wrong.

chrischen4• 17 years ago

What about statements like 1*1 = 1. I can be sure about that, but unsure about something like the existence of God.

known• 17 years ago

All most all religions are based on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-fulfilling_prophecy

pbhjpbhj8• 17 years ago

For example, as I suspect any answer will be centred on criticism of a Judaeo-Christian world view (just a hunch) could you also give an example from another religion. I can't think of any of the top of my head. It's a good thing to base share price manipulation on though.

catzaa• 17 years ago

Can we keep these types of article of HN?

Other sites (such as reddit) became pretty useless with people submitting these (and other) articles and turning the whole site into an unpleasant experience.

Why not follow the same rules that we do when at work? Don't discuss politics or religion.

pbhjpbhj8• 17 years ago

Ha, he's going to have to rewrite that opening para for his kids book if he wants to base it on evidence. The evidence no more shows that Earth moves than it shows that it is static, unless you assume that humans and simplicity in our mathematical system is special.

Faith and Belief: Richard Dawkins evolves his arguments

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