Dawkins-If Religion worked like science....

[dave4shmups]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYigmGyN2RQ Fantastic, and true! This is Dawkins at his best!!

[Existentialist]

These are very laboured jokes from this wordy blokey, as usual.

I haven't personally seen any maps which show what people believe. I've seen some maps showing what the predominant religions are. So no, I don't take it perfectly for granted and I don't see it as 'natural' that peoples opinions about the cosmos, morality and humanity should depend on any "accident" of geography. What accident? It seems to be entirely logical that the predominant religions would be the ones that already exist in each geographical location.

Still - this is stand-up, not science. If I were were in a comedy club audience I'd be shouting "geroff" by 0:37

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

One of the weaker of Dawkins' arguments:

Not only have I never seen such a map,the premise is false. We don't all accept any such thing. Dawkins is apparently a brilliant scientist as well as a clever polemicist, but seems to be a weak philosopher.

[theVOID]

His philosophical arguments are terrible, event the ones that are true are poorly articulated.

The maps are real though, they are fairly accurate statistical representations.

[dave4shmups]

His philosophical arguments are terrible, event the ones that are true are poorly articulated.

The maps are real though, they are fairly accurate statistical representations.

Well, I think "The God Delusion" is pretty good!

[theVOID]

Meh, it's good for a layman book on atheism and does a good job at outlining the main objections. The parts about the design argument are as you would expect, awesome, but the philosophical stuff later on is pretty terrible at times. I've read just about as many rebuttals of it from Philosophical atheists as i have theists.

[Existentialist]

The maps are real though, they are fairly accurate statistical representations.

...of predominant religion. Belief is a different matter.

[theVOID]

Sure, that doesn't change the point of his example though, even though he named it clumsily.

[dave4shmups]

Meh, it's good for a layman book on atheism and does a good job at outlining the main objections. The parts about the design argument are as you would expect, awesome, but the philosophical stuff later on is pretty terrible at times. I've read just about as many rebuttals of it from Philosophical atheists as i have theists.

I'm not being sarcastic-but it seems pretty hardcore for a layman's book on atheism. So what would you recommend for more hardcore atheism reading?? Because I've read both of Sam Harris's books.

[Existentialist]

Sure, that doesn't change the point of his example though, even though he named it clumsily.

The whole point of Dawkins's example is that he thinks it is ridiculous that belief about morality, the cosmos and humanity can be mapped geographically in great detail. Only if we accept this starting point is his joke about scientists' beliefs about the cause of on extinction funny. The reason it isn't funny, and why the joke is instead annoying, is that these beliefs aren't mapped geographically. There are some maps about predominant religion, but that's a different thing from what people believe. If he'd said it's ridiculous that predominant religion is mapped geographically, he'd be more accurate, but he wouldn't then have a starting to make his joke about scientific belief. Hence it does change the point of his example, he named it deliberately rather than clumsily, and the delivery was slow, affected and laboured. Gross.

Dawkins irritates me to death. Too much of what he says about religion and atheism is full of these blatent logical inconsistencies. I wish he'd just stick to talking about science.

By the way, I haven't read 'The God Delusion'. I picked it up in a bookshop once and looked in the index for anything about "Existentialism" or "Sartre", but there wasn't anything so I concluded he was a useless philosopher and put the book down. For hardcore atheist reading I would recommend "Existentialism is a Humanism", which can be read on line.