GordonAckerman’s Weblog

I’m copying a comment from myMyspace version of this blog.

Hey Gordon, I have not read The God Delusion, so cannot comment on it. However, as part of one of my university courses I was asked to watch the Horizon programme he made called ‘The Blind Watchmaker’, based on his book of the same name. It looks at evolution, and aims to prove that the complexity of life we see on Earth could have come about by the process of accumulation of mutations, rather than by the hands of a Creator. All I can say is that even to a lowly university student such as myself, his arguments seem to gloss over the crucial issues in order to tackle more easily-defendable ones, and Dawkins himself comes across as bitter, and not a little petty. He pushes the notions that all scientists are atheists and vice-versa, and that all Christians are typified by the residents of the Bible Belt in Texas (read: hillbillies) I am not denying his intellect, rather his motivation. The programme itself is even edited this way, for example at one point the narration tells of Creationism ’surfacing to attack science’, while shots of sharks circling prey are shown. If you employ such cheap editing tactics, how can you expect to be taken seriously? The programme won best documentary of that year (1987 I think, its available on Google Video).

I am not sure in myself what I believe about evolution, I am told in uni every day by very clever people that it underpins everything I am learning about. There is a book called ‘The Dawkins Letters’ which approach the argument from the other side, I think I will read them when I have time.

All very interesting.

posted for Zack

Thanks Isaac for you contributions. I will pass on your suggested reading to Zack. But I hope that here in this blog we can actually discuss issues rather then pulling in “authorites” from other places. If they have a relevant point then lets make it. I know that that could be a bit of a big ask with the amount of stuff surrounding this discussion, but I would like to make it a real discussion rather than a book throwing session.

If indeed God did not exist I think that it would be important to understand what sort of God was being suggested, but this is where Dawkins fails to really address the point, by failing to know his “enemy”.

We all get the point that Dawkins is trying to make in talking about undisprovability, it is quite simple, which is why it is all the more disingenuous to use such ludicrous examples. He is trying to paint the real subject as laughable as his set up “straw doll”.

Dawkins, in making the “numerically negligible” statement was responding to the criticism that he was only pointing to the worst of religion. I think it is missing the point is he is saying all religion is the worst of religion. We all know there are fanatics that give every cause a bad name. To argue simple on the basis of these is them to miss most of the real expression of that cause.

But thanks for these comments Isaac. How to you repond to my repost?

Zack’s reference probably is a bit old, but I was suggesting a ground rule for my blog – disagree if you like – but I think that the discussion would be a lot more fruitful is we stuck to one sorce and our direct bringing of other ideas, rather than refering to other sources. What do you think?

“If indeed God did not exist…” Many of the arguments put up against God go something like: “if God did exist then there wouldn’t be…” Each of these statments, and I see that you have made such a statement in one of your comments is based on an assumption about who God is being positied as. But in many cases such assumptions are wrong. The arguments are often knocking down straw dolls. Many of our discussions would be irrelevant to say Hinduism or Shinto. Our discussions are mostly assuming a Judeo-Christian conception of God. So then we ought to get it right if we are to have a meaningful interaction.

Ok, many don’t get the point about undisprovability, but most of the readers of the book will, without such ludicrous examples. I still maintain that the example is an attempt to make a rational proposition appear absurd by comparison with something utterly laughable. It is this that I find disingenuous.

Yes, sorry, it is a different preface.

“If God did not exist…”
What I was trying to say, obviously unsuccesfully, was that you can not have any meaningful discussion about whether God exists without it being a specific God.

In fact Dawkins seems quite happy to accept Einstein’s position and so that his “God” exists. But Dawkins not happy with what he understands of the Judeo-Christian conception. But as I pointed out neither am I happy with some of these things, so it is pointless to argue about them. We have to know what is we are debating about to have any meaningful engagement.

I totally believe in a suernatural God that cares for people, but there are other elements of his ideas that I don’t go with. I’ll look through my notes and add some of those points later.

I certainly don’t have a deistic idea of God. Yes He intervenes in many ways. One of His main ways of working is through His people as He directs and guides them. But He is by no means limited to the Church, frequently speaking to those outside the Church. He does also intervene directly in healing and protecting people.