EvF Wrote:They're not evidence, indeed. And what 'guide' they are depends on who's reading them...all the 'morals' in it are subjective...and there are no morals--or general guidence--you can get from the bible that you can't get somewhere else.
(June 21, 2009 at 3:50 pm)Anto Kennedy Wrote: Let's not go off-topic here, anyway I don't deal in morality, there's no such thing as morality in myth (all the incest, murder, rape and tyranny you can dream of is contained in myth)
By 'guide' I thought you meant morals...since you were saying you weren't talking about God's actual existence. Ok...not moral guidance...what kind of 'guidance' are you speaking of then?
EvF Wrote:It's not about a non-theistic guide though, the book is about why God is a delusion, hence the title - "The God Delusion".
Auto Kennedy Wrote:I said it should have been a guide because he hasn't shown why belief in God is a delusion, other than attacking the intelligence of those who hold those beliefs.
I believe he explained spot on why it's a delusion. Because there's no evidence and because God himself is even more complex and improbable than the explanation he is supposed to provide.
And this Definition of God I am speaking of is the same definition as Dawkins clearly defines him in the beginning of chapter Two, "The God Hypothesis" - and that is pretty much that God just = The Supernatural Creator of the Universe. So deistic Gods included too.
EvF Wrote:He provides his reasons for why God is a delusion,
Auto Kennedy Wrote:Which are poor, in my opinion.
Well as I have said, his reasons above are that God (as Dawkins defines him in Chapter Two) lacks any evidence whatsoever and is highly improbable. So that makes God a delusion. How are those reasons poor reasons for why God is a delusion as he is defining him?
Quote:Humans cause problems, humans fix problems, humans kill, humans save.Dawkins doesn't deny this of course...
Quote:Don't take personal responsibility away from historical events....and Dawkins didn't portray that view either.
Quote:No historian worth his salt would even attempt to blame the worlds problems presently and previously in history on religion. But that's going off topic.
The point is not that he's saying that religions cause 'all the problems in the world'. But that religion itself does cause a lot of problems. In the sense that if a lot of the horrible stuff in religious books are taken entirely literally and believed - this can lead to a lot of problems that wouldn't happen if religion wasn't there...
...When 911 happens because a small group of Muslims think that in such an act they are going to go to a Martyr's Heaven and get 72 virgins for themselves because their whole belief is being driven by the fact that they believe that what they're doing is righteous because of their extremely strong religious "Faith" in their literal, fundamentalist, highly dogmatic and zealous and absolutist interpretation of the Koran...and interpretation of their "God"...you can't say that that is not a religious matter or that religion hasn't had any effect on such horrors such as that...can you? Religion plays a big part. Dawkins never said it's the cause of 'all the world's problems'.
Quote:Tell me something I don't know. However, if he did study up on just who this YHWH is, then he'd know that there cannot be any evidence for his existence.
Well whether there can be evidence...or not... if there's no evidence then there's no reason to believe he exists so it is delusional to believe anyway completely irrationally (in the sense it's believing in a 'false belief' by definition basically). And especially when such a "God" is highly improbable. That's why God is a delusion.
EvF
