Dawkins Wastes Money on Obsession

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I've had little doubt for a long time now that Richard Dawkins hatred of religion is an obsession and after the announcement today that he is spending money on an atheist ad campaign I'm now sure of it. Dawkins is supporting an ad campaign that will display messages on the side of buses stating, "There's probably no God. Stop worrying and enjoy your life". In fact at this time he will be matching the £11, 000 the campaign has risen. What an absolute waste of £22, 000. I'm not in favour of religious advertising either and feel that the money would be much better spent on helping those that are worse off and perhaps help them to enjoy their lives. You see major religious organisations try to spread their message through their actions not through advertising.

What annoys me most about this campaign is that it's basically trying to brain wash the population into thinking that believing in God, any God by the way because this is an attack on all religions not just Christianity, will lead to a miserable life of worry. This is total rubbish. There are people in this world whose religion is giving them comfort in their lives. People who are terrified by the idea of death being the end and the image of eternal darkness fills them with dread. Do these people deserve to have this shoved down their throats when they're walking through the city?

For arguments sake lets say that belief based advertising, because atheism is still a belief, is a good idea and tackle one last point. This is being classed as science! This is being delivered as something that has been hypothesised, tested, observed and concluded. Except it hasn't. In fact the mere fact that it says "There's probably..." should highlight the fact that this is simply an opinion with no actual scientific backing. There are those that will now say that religion has no scientific proof either but then again it never claims to have. It's faith based. Atheism is the same just from a different angle. Dawkins can quote probability all that he wants but there's no difference between his theory of there being no God and The Drake Equation working out how many alien civilisations there are. They're both guesses. He needs to start producing the evidence or accept that what he says is simply hypothetical and has as much chance of being wrong as it does of being right.

Under UK advertising laws I'm not even sure if this should be allowed. After all you are not allowed to make false claims in UK ads and saying there is probably no God could be argued to be false since there is no evidence that it is correct.

This is extremist Atheism and I cannot see where the human race is meant to gain from following it, other than it gives Dawkins a chance build a legacy that in my opinion lies in tatters at the minute. He is a great evolutionary scientist but he is not a great or even a good philospher and is certainly not leading the world into the photons.

Perhaps religion is the opium of the people but imagine a world without that opium and try to tell me that it's a better place.

Another Dawkins flaw?

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Found the following quote on Richard Dawkins Site and thought I'd counter a few of these points too while I'm at it.

Six Reasons to be an Atheist from The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality by Andre Comte-Sponville
1. The weakness of the opposing arguments, the so-called proofs of God's existence
2. Common experience: If God existed, he should be easier to see or sense.
3. My refusal to explain something I cannot understand by something I understand even less.
4. The enormity of evil.
5. The mediocrity of mankind.
6. Last but not least, the fact that God corresponds so perfectly to our wishes that there is every reason to think he was invented to fulfill them, at least in fantasy; this makes religion an illusion in the Freudian sense of the term.

These are not Dawkins own reasons but they are on his site so here we go:

1. Weakness of an opposing argument should not be cited as a reason to reject God. The theory that the Earth was flat was accepted because this was the argument that made most sense, the weakness of the opposing argument meant that it was rejected. It was only when it was proven to be correct was it accepted. Mankind has been wrong about many things in the past in regards to science and while neither the existence and non-existence of God may ever be proven correct, it would be arrogant and ignorant to rule out the possibility based on the weakness of the counter argument.

2. Science again provides an example where this is plain arrogance. Dark Matter could neither been seen nor sensed only a few years ago and yet today as our instruments of detection have improved we can now sense it. The idea that man has reached some sort of level whereby he somehow can see or sense everything is once again arrogant and ignorant.

3. Surely this is something science does everyday. Psychologists explain human thought and processes in the brain using structures that they themselves admit they do not fully understand. I do admit though that everything in the Universe should be able to be explained simply because I think God created it to follow rules that we are intelligent enough to one day grasp. Does not mean there is no God though.

4. Give me a break! If I could prove that the enormity of good in the world balances the amount of evil would we then say that there is a God?

5. Mankind is mediocre because he has not finished evolving yet but if you follow what some religions state then the mediocrity of mankind is perfected when death moves you beyond the physical form. Why do we think that we are the pinnacle of evolution at this point in our existence. We have so much more to learn and are such a young species that perfection may be a point that can met through further evolution. Perhaps that is what is meant by heaven on Earth. When the species evolves to the point where we are perfect then God will be known to us. Just a thought but at least I'm not giving the impression that mankind is somehow as good as evolution gets.

6. Probably the best argument of the 6 to be honest and also the easiest to refute. If you believe in Christ then it's been 2000 years since God contact mankind directly. In this time we have analysed time and again the words we were left and with our flawed minds we set our own understandings loose on the World. We altered the image to suit ourselves and applied man-made rules to teachings without being told that the rules were right or wrong. This is not proof that God exists or not and is certainly not reason to give up religion it is simply the fact that man alters things to fit with his own understanding. In the same way as we have altered people in history to do many super-human feats they probably never did we altered God to fit with our hopes and dreams. The fundamental rules may be correct just our image may be distorted by time. Doesn't mean he doesn't exist though.

The God Delusion, just another delusion

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The article can be found at: http://EzineArticles.com/?id=925199

I respect Richard Dawkins as a scientist and since I'm only halfway through The God Delusion at this point I'm not going to judge the book or his conclusions. I'm also going to state now that while I'm coming from a faith based background I'm prepared to read his arguments and become better acquainted with them since knowledge and understanding are the only ways to counter his points.

I have noticed a major flaw in one of his arguments and I want to point it out now. Dawkins states that the fact that we are here to ask the question about the origin of life proves that the chemical reactions and biological processes necessary to create life and consciousness did occur regardless of how improbable an event it was. A fair point I concede. the flaw in the argument occurs when he is refuting the Creationist/Religious argument that God had a hand in these processes. He states that as the existence of a God is so statistically highly improbable it can be ruled out. Regardless of how improbable the existence of a God might be the fact that we are here to ask the question can just as easily lead to the conclusion that a God does exist.

I can state that while the existence of God is statistically improbable and the occurrence of the chemical reaction is also statistically improbable one or both is probable for I am here to write this.

You may say however that the probability of two highly improbable events occurring together is so improbable that it is virtually impossible and again that's mathematically and logically fair. But I would answer that by giving the example of a programmer of a computer system who must act within the laws of that system for an event to occur. Even the people who hack his system are simply bending the rules of the system, they do not break them since breaking the rules collapses the system. In this analogy I'm obviously taking God to be the programmer. If God's existence is highly improbable but is true then the chemical reaction to create life suddenly becomes much more probable since the programmer must use this method to create His new entity within the system. If we assume that since life exists the chemical reaction to create it occurred, and therefore statistically equals 1, then the only probability that actually matters is the probability of God existing and no matter how improbable this is it is not impossible, ergo it is possible.

The counter point to the computer system analogy is the occurrence of miracles. These seem to totally defeat the idea that God is acting within the confines of his system. In fact by definition these acts appear to totally break the rules of the system and should logically collapse it. Look a little closer at the miracles that occur however and you will see that far from breaking the fundamental rules they simply alter the parameters of the object in question for a short time. Healing the sick for example is altering the human object from a state of unwell to a state of health. Not a fundamental shift and therefore not outside the system. Walking on water, if true, is the changing of the density of a tiny area of water for a brief time. Catastrophic if applied to all water but inconsequential is applied to a tiny mount for such a short time. Turning water into wine again is simply the altering of a small amount of water into another similar object. Everything required to make these changes is within the system and will not have a wide ranging consequence on the system.

In conclusion I'm saying that while Dawkins states that God is improbable he cannot say for sure that the probability of his existence is 0 therefore the existence of God is just as probable as life originating from a spontaneous chemical reaction and cannot be ruled out so flippantly. I expect more logical arguments in the rest of the book.