With all due respect to Dawkins ,the latest Guru of atheism ,from a humble electrical engineer ,not a professional writer,nor a philosopher,nor a university lecturer,there is,to my opinion a basic flaw in the atheist convincing of readers ,which is the ultimate target of his famous book.

Dawkins shoots with heavy artillery ,with guns and rockets of all kind in the direction of God ,using quotations fom the wisest men of the world ,
but fails to understand or at least to present the fact that there are actually two targets:two different Gods.

One of them I would call the Universe God (shortcut UG) ,he who has created the universe ,He who is identified with Nature,He who enchants us with the beauty of Nature, He who conceived the physical laws of Nature ,He who protects our earth from deadly cosmical rays,He who cares for the fragile equilibrum of elements and forces without which life on earth would'nt be possible.
This is the God of Theists ,Deists and alike -ists ,accepted even by Einstein who thought of Him that He does not like to roll dices

The UG is a highly impersonal God ,he does not demand to be worshiped,he does not punish anybody ,he dwells in the highest spheres of the Heaven withot bothering to mingle with mortal beings.
UG is a creation of modern times, not being known before science stepped forwards as a major element of human society.
Therefore he was not used by religions in their interest ,on the contrary if he peeked his head from under the shoulder of a scientist ,the person would be reprimanded -see Galileo Galilei,see Spinoza ,etc,,

The second God I would call the Humanly God (shortcut HG).
This is the God of Genesis who only two days after creating Adam and Eve edits in the Bible his first edict interdicting the guys from eating fruits from the three of wisdom and when they fail to do so throws them out from the gardes of Eden like a S..t.

The HG dies to be worshiped ,to be feared ,to be loved ,to be obeyed
to get sacrifices (no matter wether public or individual),to decide about the fate of each individual whether live or dead,to dwell in splendour buildings,,the list could continue with no end.

What Dawkins failed to perceive (or to present) is that religions love to present UG as an indiscutable fact ,which one must be blind as not to see,or not to believe in Him,proved by the religious faith of a lot of scientists of high reputation ( Darwin ,Newton ,Faraday,Maxwell, etc,,)even Noble Prize awardened scientists and after being sure that UG is accepted, to jump directly to HG presenting him as the one and unique God ,hidding the fact that the matter of convincing was laid on the shoulders of UG.

Atheism ,I believe, has to underline the identification of the two Gods by religions and come up with convincing arguments against the belief in one as well in the other.

OK, well HG is easily disposed of. No need to go around that bush again.

UG on the other hand may be harder to dismiss.

Personally I don't go for it because he is merely "the god of the gaps" there to fill in for the things we don't yet know or understand about the universe.

(September 5, 2008 at 1:51 pm)josef rosenkranz Wrote: With all due respect to Dawkins ,the latest Guru of atheism ,from a humble electrical engineer ,not a professional writer,nor a philosopher,nor a university lecturer,there is,to my opinion a basic flaw in the atheist convincing of readers ,which is the ultimate target of his famous book.

Dawkins shoots with heavy artillery ,with guns and rockets of all kind in the direction of God ,using quotations fom the wisest men of the world ,
but fails to understand or at least to present the fact that there are actually two targets:two different Gods.

One of them I would call the Universe God (shortcut UG) ,he who has created the universe ,He who is identified with Nature,He who enchants us with the beauty of Nature, He who conceived the physical laws of Nature ,He who protects our earth from deadly cosmical rays,He who cares for the fragile equilibrum of elements and forces without which life on earth would'nt be possible.
This is the God of Theists ,Deists and alike -ists ,accepted even by Einstein who thought of Him that He does not like to roll dices

The UG is a highly impersonal God ,he does not demand to be worshiped,he does not punish anybody ,he dwells in the highest spheres of the Heaven withot bothering to mingle with mortal beings.
UG is a creation of modern times, not being known before science stepped forwards as a major element of human society.
Therefore he was not used by religions in their interest ,on the contrary if he peeked his head from under the shoulder of a scientist ,the person would be reprimanded -see Galileo Galilei,see Spinoza ,etc,,

The second God I would call the Humanly God (shortcut HG).
This is the God of Genesis who only two days after creating Adam and Eve edits in the Bible his first edict interdicting the guys from eating fruits from the three of wisdom and when they fail to do so throws them out from the gardes of Eden like a S..t.

The HG dies to be worshiped ,to be feared ,to be loved ,to be obeyed
to get sacrifices (no matter wether public or individual),to decide about the fate of each individual whether live or dead,to dwell in splendour buildings,,the list could continue with no end.

What Dawkins failed to perceive (or to present) is that religions love to present UG as an indiscutable fact ,which one must be blind as not to see,or not to believe in Him,proved by the religious faith of a lot of scientists of high reputation ( Darwin ,Newton ,Faraday,Maxwell, etc,,)even Noble Prize awardened scientists and after being sure that UG is accepted, to jump directly to HG presenting him as the one and unique God ,hidding the fact that the matter of convincing was laid on the shoulders of UG.

Atheism ,I believe, has to underline the identification of the two Gods by religions and come up with convincing arguments against the belief in one as well in the other.

Perhaps Mr Dawkins has decided to concentrate on the most dangerous and intrusive religions, Christianity and Islam. Maybe he will start on deism, wicca and other 'UG' type religions when their followers start flying planes into buildings, promote homophobia, prevent sex education, stone people to death and attempt to replace scientific knowledge with medieval superstition.

You are soooo full of shit.

(September 5, 2008 at 7:35 pm)Brick-top Wrote: You are soooo full of shit.

Foul language doesn't mean anything but lack of understanding or lack of arguments.

(September 6, 2008 at 4:35 am)josef rosenkranz Wrote:

(September 5, 2008 at 7:35 pm)Brick-top Wrote: You are soooo full of shit.

Foul language doesn't mean anything but lack of understanding or lack of arguments.

Nope, I read very quickly and I've gone through it again and again. No real reason I enjoy reading.

And it's not a of lack of understanding it's a sign of laziness.

The UG is the reason most atheists are agnostic about their atheism. Yes, there could be something out there that created the universe, but belief in such a being is ridiculous for a number of reasons:

1) Given that we have eliminated all HG's we come to the conclusion that the UG has not tried to contact us in any way. Thus the human race are nothing special, and we are merely the most recent link on the evolutionary chain.
2) Given the above, and the fact that there have never been any miracles that can't be explained by modern science, added to the fact that pretty much 99% of everyone's prayers go answered, and the ones that do were pretty ordinary things anyway (Please God, let me pass my exams), it stands to reason that not only does the UG recognize us as a special species, it doesn't care at all about our plights.
3) Since we have never had any contact with this UG, it could very well either not exist, or be a completely natural entity, the "power source" of reality. As such, it certainly does not require worship, and given point 1 and 2, if there were an afterlife, it would be completely natural and not down to who had done the most ass-kissing.

I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.
--Frank Lloyd Wright

The UG is not a god to even discuss because it would be not a specific being per say, but a collection of all that is that then creates its whole. This is not an ideal that most organized religions believe in, this is in fact something that they would fundamentally disagree with unless it was incorporated into the HG.

(September 6, 2008 at 2:33 pm)Akula Wrote: I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.
--Frank Lloyd Wright

The UG is not a god to even discuss because it would be not a specific being per say, but a collection of all that is that then creates its whole. This is not an ideal that most organized religions believe in, this is in fact something that they would fundamentally disagree with unless it was incorporated into the HG.

Hi Akula
If you follow the religious propaganda by religious owned television channels as for instance the channel led by Pat Robertson you'll see that UG is in high esteem and used to "explain " through him a lot of those problems which science can not still explain ,as for instance the origin of life on earth,the equilibrum of exterestrial forces which facilitate life,etc,
They have no problem whatsoever to jump from that UG and identfy him with UG.
They are perhaps considering that their audience is so brainwashed as not to perceive this "Hocus-Pocus".
They will never accept the dual existence of UG and HG,it would be for them a very grave blasphemy.
It's only us the atheists who perceive the dualism and it's delusion.

(September 6, 2008 at 10:29 am)Tiberius Wrote: The UG is the reason most atheists are agnostic about their atheism. Yes, there could be something out there that created the universe, but belief in such a being is ridiculous for a number of reasons:

1) Given that we have eliminated all HG's we come to the conclusion that the UG has not tried to contact us in any way. Thus the human race are nothing special, and we are merely the most recent link on the evolutionary chain.
2) Given the above, and the fact that there have never been any miracles that can't be explained by modern science, added to the fact that pretty much 99% of everyone's prayers go answered, and the ones that do were pretty ordinary things anyway (Please God, let me pass my exams), it stands to reason that not only does the UG recognize us as a special species, it doesn't care at all about our plights.
3) Since we have never had any contact with this UG, it could very well either not exist, or be a completely natural entity, the "power source" of reality. As such, it certainly does not require worship, and given point 1 and 2, if there were an afterlife, it would be completely natural and not down to who had done the most ass-kissing.

There's inconsistencies in your response. You stated that we've never had contact with the UG yet reject the HG. What if the HG is the contact? You also mentioned prayers but fail to point out that all prayers contradict each other anyways.