RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 11, 2025 at 5:49 am
(This post was last modified: May 11, 2025 at 6:04 am by Alan V.)
(May 10, 2025 at 9:07 pm)Belacqua Wrote:(May 10, 2025 at 7:39 pm)Alan V Wrote: He went on: "Instead I shall define the God Hypothesis more defensibly: there exists a super-human, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us. This book will advocate an alternative view: any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution. Creative intelligences, being evolved, necessarily arrive late in the universe, and therefore cannot be responsible for designing it. God, in the sense defined, is a delusion; and, as later chapters will show, a pernicious delusion."
Dawkins lives in North Oxford. Oxford probably has a higher percentage of people who know theology well than just about any other city on the planet.
Why didn't Dawkins get on his bicycle and visit one of them, so that he could have it explained to him why this whole thing is an argument against something which they don't believe?
It is certainly true that God, "in the sense defined" by him, is a delusion.
(May 10, 2025 at 9:42 pm)Belacqua Wrote:(May 10, 2025 at 7:39 pm)Alan V Wrote: any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything
Since divine simplicity is a fundamental point in Christian theology, this sentence is Dawkins announcing that he doesn't know what he's talking about.
The point which theologians often seem to miss is that the majority of believers do not believe in their rarified definitions of God, and that atheists critique ALL of the notions of God, typically starting with the most popular ones.
Further, I can't believe you skipped right over my correction of your idea that Dawkins only addressed the "simplest, most childish" idea of God. He certainly did not.
You are also calling the majority of believers "childish" and "delusional," which is exactly Dawkins' point.