The God Delusion

[Anto Kennedy]

Wow, if there is one thing that kills a debate, it's quote-wars. It turns into unintelligible nitpicking that nobody wants to read.

On topic, I love TGD, and it definitely changed my life, and my way of thinking about religion. I thought Dawkins raised a number of excellent points and addressed a wide selection of common arguments.

I don't think Dawkins needs to be a theology expert to argue against religion. In fact, I would say theology is completely irrelevent in this case as the goal was not to debunk Christianty or Islam, but to show how superstition and religion are simply not logical or valid as beliefs for a healthy thinker.

Dawkins is a smart man, and obviously more educated in the subject of sociology and anthropology than I am, as he held my attention without seeming out of his element. I think he is certainly familiar enough with it to address the audience that TGD intends to address.

Well that is the key, it is written for an especially wide audience, and lacks in detail because of it. As i said, it's an excellent read for the layman, but the next step for Dawkins, if he is to really challenge the stranglehold religion has on the minds of the public, is to hold nothing back and go all out.

---

Define spirtual then. How perhaps clarify how it can be a guide? And what kind of guide?

Spirit is Will. The Holy Spirit is the Holy Will. The Will of Allah is the Spirit of Allah.

Spirit is the drive, the instinct, the creative force when referring to the Holy Spirit.

As a spiritual guide these texts, almost universally guide the reader, or the initiate in certain cases, towards controlling the base animal spirit, the egotistical mental spirit, and allowing the selfless, creative spirit to be the primary force within a person's character.

Off Topic, as the previous poster said, this is turning into an orgy of quotation nit-picking.

I'm going to be on this forum for a while, so we've got plenty of time to share our views in appropriate topics. Let's not blow our loads, so to speak, in what is my virgin forum experience.

Anyways, about the improbability's again, I just don't get it, you're repeating yourself and I'm not getting any new information.

Look I don't care if Dawkins thinks belief in God is a delusion, so stop trying to forward his views, I've got the book sitting in my library, I can read that at anytime.

Well he's supernatural in the sense that he can perform miracles and he himself is at least as miraculous as a miracle, becasue he is so complex and improbable

What do you base these two statements on? How do you know God "performs" miracle, and how do you know he is so complex and improbable. The opposite is more likely, that God is simple (well, that's what every religion describes God as being), but Dawkins probably knows better)

then why on earth does the universe need him as an explanation for it?

Who said it did?

If God can be eternal why not the universe?

Well, it began, so it hasn't been around for ever.

And if there indeed...is a first cause - then why does it have to be a complex creator such as "God"? Why can it not simply be something more simple such as a "Big Bang" singularity, or whatever predated that, then?

Seriously, what is so complex about God? Do you even know what most people mean when they refer to God?

And as for the Big Bang, that's a part of theistic cosmology. It's what happened prior to the singularity which seperates theists and non-theists.

Theists believe that in the beginning there was nothing, and this nothingness negated (0x0=1) itself unleashing the Holy Spirit, the Big Bang, a mammoth creative force which set things in motion. The Son of God, the Word, the Logos, then is the scaffolding with which this Holy Spirit acts within. The Logos is the Laws of physics.

And God the Father, well no one knows anything about that one. God the Father is Love. And we have no idea what the fuck love is, let alone setting about trying to prove it's existence.

Now we're going way off-topic so I won't go into any detail here, if you have any questions and really want to discuss a specific issue then start a new thread.

Yes. And the more improbable such a belief without evidence...I think arguably the more delusional.

That definition of delusion just removes the meaning of the word delusion. If that is what a delusion is, belief in an improbable, event, outcome, cause or being, then everyone that plays the lottery is delusional, everyone that believed man could walk on the moon was delusional, everyone that believed that man could even maintain controlled flight for more than 30 seconds was delusional.

That's a weak arguement and a misuse of the word delusion.

Well the Flying Spaghetti Monster is entirely without evidence, is highly complex and improbable. And personal absurdity is irrelevant for an objective matter such as it. So would you not consider belief in the FSM to be a delusion by that critera? (no evidence, higly complex and improbable).

But the FSM exists. Didn't you know that? (BTW, I'm not being sarcastic either)

I'm out, we're off topic and I really couldn't give a shit anymore. I thought the book was poor, that's it, that's all I wanted to say in this topic.