Richard Dawkins is a fundamentalist himself and he comes with lots of baggage too.
Richard Dawkins sums up religion
- Thread starter Merlin5
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Richard Dawkins is a fundamentalist himself and he comes with lots of baggage too.
You claim to have posited a simplified scenario, and then complain to have a simplified answer?
I don't know the plato's cave idea, and i'm sure it's deeply complex and people have been thinking about it for millenia, i'm relatively sure however that you're misrepresenting it. Or at the very least it follows the religious viewpoint of "you can't prove it doesn't exist"
Well no **** science cant prove or disprove something that doesn't exist in the physical realm. In your idea it's "you live in a big imaginary bubble with no possible form of detection or measurement, there's stuff outside it that the bubble prohibits you from seeing, but this bubble is magical and so you exist within it and that's final, now prove the bubble is there"
Soldato
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Millenia ago, humans saw houses, bridges, walls etc and they knew that someone created and put them there. Extrapolate that to mountains, the sun, stars, volcanos, eclipses, animals etc - humans couldn't have done those, so something far more powerful must have created them. Chuck in some agency detection and voilà - gods! A few centuries of myths and legends surrounding those gods and you have religion. Now throw in some geographical isolatiion and you get the different religions and gods based on location.
That's the opposite of the easy way to make money. The easy way is to go to America and tell all the Christians what they want to hear, and then sit back while they chuck money at you. Have you seen just how much the likes of the Hovinds, Ray Comfort and Ken Ham make?Dawkins found an easy way to make money by just disagreeing with people who have faith. Wish I thought of it
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I thought you were using it to try to argue against me, so goes to show I was right that you should have added some words
Soldato
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Plato's Cave is not generally considered to be theological. I am fairly satisfied with the way I presented it, but you're welcome to Google it of course. It should take all of five minutes to read and give you a better understanding of my point.
I wouldn't say it's my "idea" that we're inside a bubble, it's a question that has been around for thousands of years and has a whole school of philosophy devoted to it. Have you never seen the Matrix?
As you say, science cannot disprove the existence of something which it cannot perceive, whether that is due to technological limits or otherwise. It's not for me to prove it exists, as I am limited to the same tools as yourself. But as we cannot be certain that it does not exist and we know that our scientific knowledge is by no means complete, it seems stupid to declare we know it doesn't exist.
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No, I'm saying everyone believes in something, even if it is to choose not to believe in anything. We all decide for ourselves.
It's not to say that science is a person’s religion if it isn't Christianity or Buddhism (of course science can be a religion in itself but that isn't my point) but the point is that science to many is the basis for their decision not to pursue religion or spiritual faith, or even use it as a basis to deem religion to be incorrect.
I’m not meaning the word faith to be understood here as a religious word but as the basis for a choice.
“I have faith in aerodynamics” – I believe that this plane I'm about to fly in has been designed and built to fly using various principles of aerodynamics so that under the right conditions the plane will indeed fly (not using a treadmill btw
).I trust or have faith in the fact the plane will fly; it is the basis for my belief I will get to my destination - but I don’t worship the plane!
Similarly, a religious person will choose to believe through the understanding of the evidence they see and their personal experience; the non-religious person will choose to believe that those same principles aren’t for them: either through unbelief, belief that science or something else disproves that religion.
I am not or have not said that if someone chooses to believe in science over religion then they are worshipping (i.e. to have spiritual faith in) science, but that science is the basis for that individual not to believe in that religion(s). Hence the belief or non-spiritual faith in science disproves religion to them.
Edited to try and to bring the point back on topic. Mr. Dawkins chooses to argue his belief that the bible is wrong through mis-managing the verse(s) used in order to fit his own belief system. He would say he is not religious but an atheist, but his belief in science would be the basis of his faith not to believe the bible.
Interesting article here
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but religion is science, you can't take out science from religion. most of the miracles found in all holy books are advance science.....ignorant ape like Richard.D can't and will not comprehend this knowledge.
his knowledge is based on apes...... after all he is a monkey.
his knowledge is based on apes...... after all he is a monkey.
Please expand this extrapolation?
True.
“I have faith in aerodynamics” – I believe that this plane I'm about to fly in has been designed and built to fly using various principles of aerodynamics so that under the right conditions the plane will indeed fly (not using a treadmill btw
BUT IT WILL FLY ON A TREADMILL!
/thread
and Jesus was an alien, right?
If it was the first and only plane, never tested prior and you're willing to board it for it's maiden voyage. Then you have faith.
But that isn't the model you're applying to boarding and flying a plane. You know there are very high safety standards and security involved in air travel, you know millions travel the globe yearly and have done for the best part of a century. You're applying a self gauged statistical model (although backed up with hard data should you wish to investigate further) built from the evidence which is under constant testing and review that you booking a cheap flight to Magaluf most likely won't result in your death through mechanical or pilot error. You're more of a scientist than you think
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Well put.If it was the first and only plane, never tested prior and you're willing to board it for it's maiden voyage. Then you have faith.
But that isn't the model you're applying to boarding and flying a plane. You know there are very high safety standards and security involved in air travel, you know millions travel the globe yearly and have done for the best part of a century. You're applying a self gauged statistical model (although backed up with hard data should you wish to investigate further) built from the evidence which is under constant testing and review that you booking a cheap flight to Magaluf most likely won't result in your death through mechanical or pilot error. You're more of a scientist than you think
Haha, ay - I had a post a few above so thought it was obvious! my badI thought you were using it to try to argue against me, so goes to show I was right that you should have added some words
OK, so we're down to the science can't prove it doesn't exist so it's daft to assume it doesn't exist.
How many other things in life do you apply that reasoning to? Name something else which gets this "free pass" of maybe existing even though there's no evidence what-so-ever of it existing.
Like I said earlier. There's no difference between a god that doesn't exist and a god that exists but only exists outside of our reality which has no influence on our reality.
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Soldato
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Or whether Christians will be celebrating Paganism on the 25th, considering Christmas is a stolen holiday
As if even .1% of the UK population celebrate for actual religious reasons, believing any religious body's doctrines is ridiculous given the time scales involved since we evolved and any current religion formulating its beliefs and the system of expressing them, they are all by and large tools of simple social control thought up by clever folk to control dumb folk.