(February 13, 2013 at 11:46 pm)naimless Wrote: For starters, I believe that there is probably no god and that the universe is deterministic. Dawkins appears to believe similarly.
Now, why would a man who has discovered this allow himself to be emotionally attached to spreading atheism?
There is something so trivial about it all.
I believe you are using a very simplistic reading of determinism.
The following was written about Sam Harris, but it obviously applies.
"This view fails to factor in a fundamental and necessary element of determinism, viz. that the state of the universe at any given moment contributes to the state of the universe in the very next moment by way of a set of causal relationships. So, simply because Sam Harris cannot alter his physiology or change his mind in some way required by an agent-causal system does not mean he cannot participate in the causal chains which might results in another person being persuaded by a certain argument, etc. To claim that the state of the universe at any given moment is fixed regardless of the behavior of the objects which populate it would be a non-causal view of the universe, since the objects in that universe seemingly maintain no causal relationship with one another"
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
