Richard Dawkins to Appear on Doctor Who 692
Ravalox writes "In an interview with The Independent, current curator of the Doctor Who legacy Russell T. Davis announced that distinguished evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins would be making an appearance in the new season of Doctor Who. To quote Davies: 'People were falling at his feet ... We've had Kylie Minogue on that set, but it was Dawkins people were worshipping.' Dawkins is the author of many best-selling non-fiction books, from The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker to The God Delusion, and a renowned advocate of both Darwin's evolutionary theory and the merits of atheism."
Not the first member in his family... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not the first member in his family... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Not the first member in his family... (Score:5, Funny)
It's a much more plausible that Dawkins is an extraterrestrial named Oolon Colluphid who stole her from Tom Baker at a cast party by saying, "Hey, doll, is this guy boring you? Why don't you talk to me? I'm from another planet."
I mean, it could have happened, and Douglas Adams could have been there to see it. They say that writers, after all, should write what they know, although I have to admit the exact opposite seems to work for Dan Brown. Still, by a kind of figure/ground reversal trick you can see the outlines of what Dan Brown knows in the text of The DaVinci Code, provided you have a magnifying glass handy.
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And script editing in the classic Doctor Who sense meant writing a script based on the title of the original script and then tossing out the rest of the original script. Those "script editors" put more lines on screen than the actual writers of the show in most cases.
And (Score:5, Funny)
Richard Dawkins + Time Machine (Score:5, Funny)
Dawkins: What, you think evolution *just happened*?
Re:Richard Dawkins + Time Machine (Score:5, Funny)
Dawkins: I brought the legs with me, I found the duct tape here. Who knew?
Put Simply (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Put Simply (Score:4, Funny)
Allow me to
Step 1: There is no god.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Prophet (Dawkins)!!!!
Dawkins' Popularity (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't imagine the average person would get excited over the guy if he appeared on an episode of Friends or Deal or No Deal.
Luckily Mr. Dawkins seems to know his audience, and the Who fans' natural tendency towards the geekier, more analytical side of the human personality spectrum makes his appearance on the show a stroke of publicity genius.
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Re:Dawkins' Popularity (Score:4, Insightful)
Evolution is fact everywhere. It's just more likely to be recognised as such in the UK.
I don't like Richard Dawkins (Score:4, Insightful)
His early books were great, they were all about science and how you didn't really need god or fairies or any of that nonsense - and you would say 'Oh yeah' I see where you are going with that, that's really cool.
His latest book (the god delusion) seems to be just an invective against people who believe in god and I didn't like it.
I find he is becoming more a self-appointed spokesman for atheists (a priest, if you will) - and is presenting just the one point of view (dogma), in exactly the same way the various churches do.
In fact, as scientist, I find atheism in general to be more and more repulsive to scientific thinking - in that it rejects without proof any possibility of gods, fairies etc rather than just rejecting the theories as unproven - I suppose that makes me an agnostic now. Oh well.
Re:I don't like Richard Dawkins (Score:4, Insightful)
Atheism is not "repulsive to scientific thinking".
Agnosticism, in effect, says I have no evidence for the truth of [insert religion here], therefore I do not know whether [said religion] is true or untrue. Atheism simply takes that one step further: And, since I have no basis for believing [religion] is true, I shall therefore presume, pending further evidence, that it is probably false. It is not a dogmatic position; it merely acknowledges that what is proffered without evidence can be dismissed without evidence, unless we someday find evidence to support it.
For example, suppose I tell you that there's a pink unicorn wandering the streets of your city. Except he's invisible, quite quiet, and deftly hops out of the way whenever someone approaches him, such that nobody ever sees, hears, or feels him. "Nonsense," you reply, "that's an absurd proposition about the nature of reality with no supporting evidence in favor, therefore I dismiss it." Should I, in return, deride your position as dogmatic unicorn-atheism?
On the other hand, if we started seeing molted unicorn horns inexplicably littering the streets, and if clumsy baby unicorns began bumping into pedestrians left and right, then the hypothetical unicorn-atheist would reconsider his position based on this evidence. But until such a time, he would feel justified in dismissing the unicorn worldview as probably untrue.
Re:I don't like Richard Dawkins (Score:4, Interesting)
2. A theory - no.
A scientific theory is a theory which conforms to very strict rules. A theory in general does not.
My objection to Dawkins principles is that he suggests that all theories of god should be rejected without any critical assessment. So if a theory of god appears tomorrow which conforms to scientific principles (I'm not saying it will - I am merely hypothesizing) then we must reject it because it refers to supernatural beings. I'm sorry but that lacks the plain objectivity of the scientific mind.
Should we fund 'ridiculous' theories about god, should churches have a say in the running of the country or should religion be taught in schools science? Unless they are proven, then I agree with Richard Dawkins, absolutely not.
However, they should always be entitled to the first hearing in the court of science. Which means I cannot rule absolutely against them as a scientist and therefore can claim omniscience as to their future validity. And we can't tell theists that they are wrong merely because their current theories are nonsensical.
That doesn't mean I don't firmly believe they will always be wrong - but that's my opinion not a scientific fact.
Re:I don't like Richard Dawkins (Score:5, Interesting)
It's been a while since I read any philosophy of science stuff - and I'm not claiming ever to have been an expert - but I think in general that viewpoint is rejected. Basically the thinking goes that it is actually impossible to nail down what you mean by a "scientific" theory, so rejecting ID for example by saying it is "not scientific" doesn't work to well since you can't actually point to anything that disqualifies it. Much better to assess it as a scientific theory and to conclude that it is a very very bad one.
Hmm, my reading of the God Delusion was quite the reverse - I understood Dawkins as claiming that all religions, by their very nature, are scientific theories. They make claims about the structure of the physical world and in some cases are predictive. Therefore they must be assessed as science. Que several hundred pages about why they are very very poor science indeed ;)
Possibly he rejected "supernatural" entities as part of his claim that any God must be assessed as a natural entity - should not get a free pass on the question of "what cause God then?" for example? But that is hardly the same thing.
Dawkins repeated stresses that the difference between an atheist and a theist is that an atheist is always willing to change his mind should convincing evidence of God actually come to light; hence atheism is the only logical scientific position to take in the absense of such evidence - I think there's a semantic debate about the precise meaning of atheism and agnosticism in here somewhere which can effect how some people would view that statement, but if you follow Dawkins' definitions this is the case.
Re:I don't like Richard Dawkins (Score:4, Insightful)
"The God Delusion" is exactly that. A critical assessment of the "God" theory.
So if a theory of god appears tomorrow which conforms to scientific principles (I'm not saying it will - I am merely hypothesizing) then we must reject it because it refers to supernatural beings.
Dawkins says the exact opposite of this in "The God Delusion" several times, and refers not to the certainty that there is no god, but rather the unlikelihood that there is a god.
In an earlier post, you implied that you read the book, but if you did I'm not sure you paid much attention.
Realignment of priorities is in order (Score:5, Funny)
We've had Kylie Minogue on that set, but it was Dawkins people were worshipping.
Kylie Minogue [google.com] was on the set and people were chasing Richard Dawkins??? Wow, that show really IS for geeks.
How profoundly sad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How profoundly sad (Score:5, Interesting)
I was just saying that it's kind of a bummer that those qualities are rare enough to draw admiration.
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* Quoting from a 2000 year old book of myths ?
How many of the geek's sci-fi and fantasy epics quote from that same "2000 year old book of myths?" How much of the whole of western literature and culture?
Re:How profoundly sad (Score:4, Insightful)
I think there's a difference between "outspoken" and "inflammatory." I can only think of a few things he says in TGD that are really shocking, and even then only if you take them without his overall tone.
I think it's pretty easy to tar anyone with a strong opinion on either side of the debate with a broad brush. On the grand scale of things Dawkins is much less extreme on his side of the argument than somene like Fred Phelps would be on the other side.
Atheists, Come Out! (Score:5, Informative)
Have we ever done a poll on religious beliefs on Slashdot?
Re:Atheists, Come Out! (Score:4, Funny)
Cowboy Neil won.
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Re:Atheists, Come Out! (Score:4, Funny)
Celing Cat
Basement Cat
Flying Spaghetti Monster
Discordian
Subgenius
Cowboy Neal
Re:Atheists, Come Out! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hi! I'm not scary, I swear! I don't think you're going to hell, as long as you're nice (i.e. I believe in the idea of the anonymous christian). I believe very strongly in evolution, and I think gays are perfect just the way God made them. However, I am very much a Christian. I have a calling in life, God has given me a task, and I need to follow it. Jesus died for my sins, and- I believe- yours too. He loves us, and when we sin it pisses him off. I don't feel smug, and I think of atheists as my brothers and sisters; we're all in this together. So please, please, please, you guys, don't talk about my religion like it's evil. Sure, when religion gets mixed up with politics it's a terrible mess (viz. Bush/Khameni) and it's caused a lot of problems in the past. Sure, there are a tonne of idiots in my church, and in others, who believe that you're all evil, and so are all the gays, and the Jews, and the Muslim. Sorry some of my people have tried to convert you. Sorry they don't look at science and realize the immense beauty of the way in which God has chosen to bring us into being. Sorry they've killed some of you for your beliefs.
What more can I apologize for? What can I possibly say to make you accept that I know we've done wrong? All I can say is this: when you deride religion, when you say it's "the opiate of the masses" or "the cyanide" as someone else put it, when you mock me for my beliefs, and when you brand me as some fundamentalist nutjob, it really, really hurts. It's not fair to me. It stereotypes, and it shows the same kind of logic that fundamentalists use. If you said "all blacks are criminals, they should go back to Africa", or "homosexuals are girly, they should all just be straight like me" you'd have everyone on your back, berating you for your insensitivity. It's the same thing with theists. Respect us, please, we have the right to practice our faith in peace. And if the fundy brigade comes with their wacko wagon and starts telling you that you're going to hell, and trying to shove a bible down your throat, I'll be right next to you, fighting those assholes off.
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I agree with you for the most part, and I think it is important for religious and non-religious folks to demonstrate more respect and understanding for one another than they often do. But don't confuse that with the notion of respecting your beliefs.
I respect you as a person, but I don't respect your beliefs. I don't disrespect them, either: in open and rational discourse, beliefs are neither disrespected nor respected, but are dispassionately debated solely on their merits. What would be your response
Re:Atheists, Come Out! (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you are not a Christian. See Matthew 25:41.
Then you are not a Christian. See 1 Corinthians 6:9
You may think you are a Christian, but you are clearly a heretic who preaches that some of your Bible's most clearly laid out laws can be ignored.
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You should respect the religious because we are all human and have weaknesses to be ashamed of.
Hate the religion, not the religious -- those unfortunate which either have mental problems or was indoctrinated at an early age. Be happy it wasn't you.
Re:Atheists, Come Out! (Score:4, Interesting)
The vast majority of "The religious" are that way by choice, not anything else.
I do not respect the religious. I do respect fellow humans.
Re:Atheists, Come Out! (Score:5, Interesting)
People talk about Christianity like it's the Nazi party, like it's this horrible machine that people are indoctrinated into.
I don't mean this to me inflammatory -- I really don't -- but a LOT of Christianity really is like the Nazi party. Not to say they're putting atheists into ovens, but the hatred of atheists in mainstream Christianity is unbelievable. I would guess you live in one of the more enlightened parts of the country.
I was reading this story [go.com] recently, and it was absolutely shocking. These are mainstream citizens, not some wacko cult. And it really isn't all that unusual. Google for "atheist persecution" sometime.
Your response will probably be that these aren't "real" Christians, but I maintain you can't separate the two. Polls show that your tolerance is by far in the minority of Christians. Mainstream Christianity has a burning hatred of atheists. I really believe that if a Hitler arose in the United States and called for the rounding up and extermination of atheists, there would be way more support for the policy than you're willing to admit.
Most atheists are perfectly willing to "live and let live", but the majority of Christians aren't. It's not just annoying proselytizing, it's out and out persecution. I could give you long lists of links of examples, but I have a feeling you're not ready to accept how out of control fundamentalism has gotten in the United States.
On a personal note, I don't admit to being an atheist in Real Life anymore. It's just not worth the hassle. It's easier just to say I believe in God without any details, and just define God as, "that natural process that created the universe." I'm pretty sure my in-laws would probably be horrified, though I doubt they would out-and-out disown the family.
Drs. Who, Watt and Hu [0uttake] (Score:4, Funny)
Dr. Watt: I'm here, and I can see Dr. Hu coming over there.
Dr. Hu: Whew, I really had to run fast! Hi, Dr. Watt, glad to see you. What's up, Dr. Who?
Dr. Who: I'll tell you in a minute, but first let me say how glad I am that this did not disintintegrate into some sophomoric cavalcade of misuderstood names.
Dr. Hu and Dr Watt: Say no more, we've all been there...
What's the plot? (Score:4, Funny)
Credulon leader: I have faith we will prevail!
Doctor: (smugly) Meet my secret weapon - the Professor.
Dawkins: Hello.
Credulons: No! The skepticism! I'm melting!
Dawkins: That was simple. Now, how does this TARDIS thing work, exactly?
Doctor: No! The skepticism! I'm melting!
Dawkins: Oops. Time for a new title.
Close Credits, including "Next Week on Professor Who..."
H2G2 (Score:5, Funny)
... and Who is this God Person Anyway?
Davies, not "Davis" (Score:3, Informative)
1) His name is "Russell T. DaviEs"
2) "Curator of the Doctor Who legacy"? Bollocks. RTD is offically "writer and executive producer". Similar to a US "showrunner".
Davies better not screw this one up (Score:4, Insightful)
So, is Dawkins a decent actor? References to evolution had better be along these lines [slashdot.org]. Dr Who is not the place for a lecture.
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Irony alert! (Score:3, Interesting)
Dawkins is the author of ... The God Delusion
And apparently also a victim of delusions of godhood.
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:5, Insightful)
It absolutely definitely is.
It is well known that many species of evolved to form communities of co-operatively behaving individuals. That made their whole communities, or entire species more likely to survive while they competed with other communities and species (remember, in evolution it doesn't matter which individuals, or all of them, survive and produce offspring -- what matters is which genes do they mostly pass to the next generation), and both humans and insects are examples of this very mechanism.
With insects' colonies it's obvious because colonies are composed mostly of clones -- worker bee can never produce an offspring by herself, but a queen (who has the same genes as workers) can if worker bees are successful in supporting the hive, so successful worker bee promotes passing her genes by supporting the survival of queen and offspring, competing with other hives or other species of insects.
With humans the collective nature of all activities involved in survival (hunting, agriculture, building of shelters, development of technology, medicine), and combination of long lifetime and a tradition of having stable families, places a hostile, aggressive individual that is ready to rip throats from everyone he meets including other humans, at a huge disadvantage compared to the rest of society, so humans ended up much less naturally aggressive than most of animals -- even less than animals that perform some activities collectively (hunting, migration) but remain highly competitive against each other within the same species.
Therefore a society that emphasizes co-operation between humans is actually a result of evolution, and "Social Darwinism" goes against the mechanism that humans developed over their evolution -- it promotes development of society that is hurting its own survival by wasting resources and shutting out individuals depriving others from use of their abilities in collective activities.
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:4, Insightful)
Its a little bit selfish to think that you matter so much to the creator of the universe, if there is such a thing, that he cares about small pointless things, that Humanity and its Earth somehow hold some special place in the cosmos. If there is a "First one." does it not stand to reason that we really wouldn't matter?
For example. Christians argue against abortion. but that has nothing to do with God really. It has everything to do with Muslims not outnumbering Christians because of population control.
Its even more self centered to think that a creator of the Universe would want to entertain or torment us until the end of time. Thats completely and utterly pointless.
You see where I'm going with this? its a Huge huge universe. Human beings are small, insignificant. The creator of the universe if he exists wouldn't blink twice at what Humans care about.
Theists are not more socially adapted to survival. Quite the opposite. The rational survive in an emergency. The religious panic and pray, and as a result die. As a result of religion, we have county school boards embroiled over "intelligent design." We have propoganda that claims that Evolution is completely random. We have politicians telling students that condoms don't work (They can break/tear but thats different.)and as a result STDs are rampant. Religion is a mad house that delights in psychotic behavior of all kinds. Its a cauldron and opiate.
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah right, and Hawkings is only famous for his wheelchair.
"Theists do better in society"
Which society? - India for instance has at least twice as many polytheists as the entire population of the US.
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:3, Informative)
Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side' [timesonline.co.uk]
It turns out that wallowing in ignorance is actually harmful to society. Who would have guessed, huh? Oh well. C'est la vie!
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:4, Interesting)
By the way I'm not promoting agnosticism; I think that you have to make a leap of faith [wikipedia.org] somewhere, and on this issue the options seem to me theism and strong atheism.
Nonsense. (Score:5, Informative)
"Learned" implies evidence, and if there were any evidence they would simply change their stance to the appropriate form of theism. That's the rational way to go about things. To date there has not been any single piece of credible evidence for the existence of God(s).
Like the other poster said: Please just read The God Delusion, it explains all of this.
Re: Nonsense. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nonsense. (Score:5, Insightful)
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It might be if the series claimed to be a documentary.
However it is fiction, the writers know that, admit that, and everyone watching who is within a decade of voting age also knows that.
If, sir, you are not by some chance an imbecile then it is surely and purely through lack off effort, and not for want of natural talent. Now be off with you!
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On first glance perhaps. It's an opportunity to make the subtle point that if you have a messiah who actually is cavorting around the space-time continuum messing things up, you should believe in him. I think Dawkins would agree - he doesn't ever say that Gods are impossible, just that there's absolutely no evidence they exist. See another thread here about how Dawkins is tec
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:5, Insightful)
With gods and such, particularly the monotheist version,you just have to sit back and ponder on the entire scheme of the religion at hand to see how bizarre the underlying philosophy is. People think it's the tenets of faith/the law that makes religion un-likable, but that's not really it. I would be willing to accept any of that, but it is the "god" bit itself that is disgusting. Thousands of religions, each thinking they are "right", the others are wrong, their god is the Truth, all of them required of "believe" that. All of them expected to live and die by those respective "beliefs", those "leaps of faith" that become a microcosm of existence for each, sending them to the limits of insane behavior. And all of them not recognizing that it is their respective god that is responsible for this sick scenario, assuming we forget everything we know about physics and the dynamics of the world. Islam, the most philosophically advanced theology of the monotheist faiths(abstract god, non-deification of humans including prophets..etc), had its second Caliph arrest and kill anyone who talked about destiny/determinism debate. He had good reason to do so. The only gods that are not six-year-old in mentality happen to be the ones that do not "want" you to do things.... they sidestep the philosophical debate entirely. And by doing so, they warrant no attention from us as well - i.e the only sensible gods do not matter. It's a catch
Religion is a simplistic, silly idea that has no place in the free world of today. We have strong instincts for it, sadly, but I hope one day we no longer need them to emotionally survive. The world is beautiful without deities. Let's grow up and forget about them.
* This is in contrast to mathematical logic, where you can indeed make statements about provability, both negative (there does not exist...) and positive(there exists...).
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Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:5, Interesting)
All those religions. Not all of them can be right.
By proving that God exists you destroy hundreds of faiths overnight.
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not an important distinction because the set of all possible Gods is infinite, but Theists rarely believe that any kind of a God exists, they believe in their specific flavour. Jehovah, Allah, Zeus, Osiris, Freya, Thor, Ahulane ... there's no specific evidence to support the existence of any of them.
Likewise when you look in detail at the behaviour of the universe and physics, there's no need for a God of any kind to keep it all running. Whether there was a need for a God to start it all 13.7 billion years ago is irrelevant today.
For all his putative omnipresence, God is as elusive as the Unicorn. There's no more reason to believe in any God than there is to believe in Unicorns.
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Now there's a rational, scientific perspective for you. Guys, stop thinking about evolution and the beginning of existence, it's all irrelevant today. Sorry Hawking, you've been wasting your time.
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:5, Insightful)
IMO, that's the *only* viable option. On one extreme, no one can prove that no gods exist. On the other, if you lower your standards of evidence to accept one religious claim, you have to accept them all (or else be hypocritical about it). So the only options are ordinary atheism (as in "I don't believe anyones religious myths") and self-delusion.
FWIW, 'agnostic' seems to have come into use due to a shift in the popular meaning of 'atheist'. Acording to Wictionary, the term didn't even exist before 1870. If people would try to quit reading more into a-theism than the word actually suggests, we wouldn't need a term for the neutral category.
But in excessively religious societies like ours, people tend to interpret atheism as yet another competing claim, rather than merely a rejection of other people's claims. For me, atheism isn't a religious belief; it's a *lack* of religious beliefs. I suppose you could call it "a belief", but only in the same sense that my lack of any particular reason to believe in Bigfoot is "a belief" about Bigfoot.
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You are making an implicit assumption that all religions have an equal amount of (or lack of) supporting evidence.
What about people who believe that there is more supporting evidence (usually strong supporting evidence) for particular beliefs? That is the usual case for people who do believe a religion to be true.
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How's that? I'm pretty much in the same field myself, thinking the whole thing is a lot of hogwash.
However, if one of the gods decided to actually show up and do some, you know, godly stuff, and I'm not talking the
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However, if one of the gods decided to actually show up and do some, you know, godly stuff, and I'm not talking the ambiguous kind but serious, honest-to-whatever god stuff, heck, I'd be cool with that. Assuming he/she/it doesn't mind being poked by scientists for a bit anyway ;-)
I'm skeptical of even that.
Suppose an old guy with a beard approached you on the street and claimed to be Zeus. Would you believe him? What if he said he could call down a lightning strike, and then did it to demonstrate it. Would you then believe it was Zeus?
No, there are too many other considerations. Your first assumption would be that you are dreaming. Failing that, then hallucinating. Or maybe some con artist who figured out that giving the appearance of calling down lightning is as easy as giving the
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But you know what? Science is about eliminating the possibilities until you're left with certainty.
Dreaming? Pinch me.
Hallucinating? Do you see that too?
Con Artist? Do you mind doing that again under controlled conditions?
Alien with sufficiently advanced technology: Which is more likely
That's exactly the Christian claim... (Score:4, Insightful)
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No one says they're an agnostic with respect to unicorns. They just say "Unicorns aren't real."
Well, we haven't found any "unicorn bones" that didn't involve the horn of a narwhal. So there's a complete lack of evidence or reason for the belief in the existence of a unicorn.
On the other hand there is a universe that we live in, and so far no solid (i.e. testable) scientific theory for its origin. The root cause of existence is certainly questionable. It's unlikely to have been an Abrahamic God, Greek Titans, Vishnu, Raven, Aslan, Eru or any other creator and creation process described in human creat
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No one says they're an agnostic with respect to unicorns. They just say "Unicorns aren't real." Only when it comes to this "God" concept, does everyone become such a pedant.
The problem with this analogy is that I have never heard of any reliable witnesses who say they have seen a unicorn.
On the other hand there are many people who claim to have experienced God, in many different times and cultures, some have written about their experiences, some are happy to talk about what they experienced. etc. Many of these people are reliable witnesses (e.g. you would probably quite happily accept their evidence in court), who are sceptical about evidence in many areas, and who have put
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...On the other hand there are many people who claim to have experienced God, in many different times and cultures, some have written about their experiences, some are happy to talk about what they experienced. etc. Many of these people are reliable witnesses (e.g. you would probably quite happily accept their evidence in court), who are sceptical about evidence in many areas, and who have put a great deal of thought into whether their experiences were genuine of delusional.
For the word God in the above paragraph you can so easily substitute the words 'Alien Abduction' or 'Ghosts' or 'The Devil' or many other subjects that are liable to appear in the pages of the Fortean Times.
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:4, Informative)
There is no evidence at all for the existance of any god never mind a specific type of one
There isn't now and never has been any evidence for any type of god like entity
There is nothing at all which requires anything like any sort of god like entity for us to understand it
At least unicorns would be a sort of an animal and we do know that animals exist whereas we have never seen any evidence for, never seen any examples of, never seen any hints of any sort of god like being at all and until we do the argument as to whether "he" exists or not is totally pointless because "he" obviously doesn't in the real world, only in the demented minds of the terminally deluded.
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Seriously, after 9/11 he went out in british media and used the terror acts as a springboard for his anti-religous campaigning, how extremist isn't that? I have no problem with people questioning faith or being agnostics, atheists or whatever, but claiming to be a rationalist and then going all atheist-jihadic like Dawkings has d
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[freethoughtpedia.com] http://freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Atheism [freethoughtpedia.com]
[freethoughtpedia.com] http://freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Atheism_is_a_belief [freethoughtpedia.com]
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:5, Insightful)
Most atheists are aware that you can't prove the absence of God, anymore than you can prove his presence.
So most atheists could be called agnostics, but we are as agnostic about the Christian Yahweh, as we are about Thor or Shiva.
So yes we are technically agnostics, but that may confuse us with those who actually give some credibility to these superstitions.
Almost all atheists, are saying "There is no (credible reason to believe there is a) God"
Remember, Atheism is "Free of Theism", not "God does not exist"
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:4, Insightful)
What a novel and exciting argument, no one's thought of that before!
Theism and agnosticism are orthogonal (as the kids say) concepts. Most atheists are agnostic, most theists are gnostic (not to be confused with Gnostic). There are some gnostic atheists out there, but not many - like you say, it's a hard position to end up in.
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Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:5, Insightful)
There is also no way to disprove that the universe was created by a tea pot orbiting Venus. There is no readily available tool to scientifically disprove that.
We atheists simply think that it is plain silly to believe in the tea pot because some ancient scrolls written by some guru says so. Now, if someone were to find the tea pot, or any trace of it, it would be interesting.
Dawkins as an Aignostic. (Score:3, Interesting)
A hypothetical question, and keep in mind, I'd like to know what you think. Its not that I actually believe this is the way it is, its just, a what if.
What if 500 years from now we are a space fareing species that travels to other planets in space ships, and so on and so fourth. We start exploring the unknowns of the galaxy. Well, eventually, we find... something.... it wanders the universe exploring just like we do, only its been around a lot longer than we have.
More accurate
Re: Dawkins as an Aignostic. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:5, Funny)
don't they call that Scientology?
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There is also no way to disprove that the universe was created by a tea pot orbiting Venus.
Sure there is. You point your big, large telescope (maybe Hubble, if you can get some time on that precious instrument ... especially when you are going to point it so near the sun) in the neighborhood of Venus, and if you don't find a tea pot orbiting Venus, then the universe was not created by a tea pot orbiting Venus.
Also, that statement can be logically ruled out rather easily, by what some people call "causality" (yes, damn experimental verification). The argument roughly follows as below:
1) The sun i
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:4, Informative)
By your reasoning, we should believe every religious claim that has ever been made.
As for "non-theist", that's exactly what a-theism means. (The Greek alpha privative [wikipedia.org] is in fact cognate with our "non".)
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Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:5, Informative)
Usually "agnosticism" means someone who actively believes you cannot know whether God exists or not. Atheism comes in two flavors: strong and weak.
"Strong" and "weak" refer to the comprehensiveness of the propositions encompassed, not to the degree of conviction or its vigor. A weak atheist position is that of a person who is without a belief in God. They don't "actively disbelieve" in God any more than you "actively disbelieve" in the brown chicken in my attic. There is no reason to think such a chicken (or God) exists--you simply lack belief in it, without "denying" the chicken. Or God.
A strong atheist position is the position that no God exists, supported by proof, evidence or belief. Whether this is the sort of thing that can be proved is perhaps open to debate--reasonable people disagree on whether it is a religious belief or not.
In my view, it's pretty slam dunk to see that any time a religious belief has resulted in something testable that could be offered as proof or disproof of God's existence, we have found that that sort of God doesn't exist. I don't know how many times you need to be told by someone that there is a chicken behind this door, no really, only to find when you open it that there is no chicken, before you suspect that there probably aren't any chickens here at all.
No proof does not mean 50:50 probability. (Score:5, Interesting)
But that doesn't mean the odds are the same as a coin toss. If we take Christianity for example, each time we find an inconsistency in the Bible (no walls around Jericho, no reports of anyone outside the middle east reporting a global flood, no town of Nazareth at the time Jesus was supposed to be alive, no reports of graves opening and the dead walking in anything but the gospels) then it lowers the probability of a biblical god.
And people of faith take a much more extreme attitude than most atheists. They insist that the probability of their god existing is 100% exactly, while the probability of anyone else's god existing is 0% exactly.
They need to realise that if you can't disprove that Yahweh exists then you can't disprove that Zeus, Odin or Atum (at least he had fun creating the world) exist either.
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And people of faith take a much more extreme attitude than most atheists. They insist that the probability of their god existing is 100% exactly, while the probability of anyone else's god existing is 0% exactly.
Actually, everything I read in the Bible was more along the lines of "my god can whip your god", not "your god doesn't exist." Examples:
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:5, Insightful)
July, 1998
A juror in Judge Esmond Faulks' court in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, eagerly asked the judge for the defendant's date of birth so he could draw up a star chart to help him decide the case. He was removed.
There ya go. Presuming that you agree it was *appropriate* to forcibly eject that juror, presuming you consider that juror mockable and perhaps even a dangerous loony-toon, now you completely understand atheism.
To elaborate, probably half the other people on the jury read their horoscopes during lunch. Silly, irrational, but Mostly Harmless entertainment value so long as they don't take it seriously and start fucking over other people based upon their faith in magical messages from the sky.
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However most theistic individuals don't believe in that kind of god. They believe in a god who impregnates virgins, who brings people back from the dead, who has a chosen people die by the millions in camps, who has something against people who eat pigs, who hates women, whose retirement plan for sui
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:5, Insightful)
If this seems like a reasonable way to be, then you are delusional.
Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi (Score:5, Insightful)
That's disingenuous: He was rejected because he stated that he would be compelled to force his religiously based views on others -- it had nothing to do with him being Catholic.
This is a fallacy. You positively do not have to be understand very much about Norse mythology to realize that's it's a silly belief system. The same applies to other gods.
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We (you Americans, rather) don't have Kings anymore, but "Business" will do just as well.
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Sorta... I'm Jewish and there's a stigma about putting the name-of-the-lord anywhere but in hallowed places. Slashdot doesn't cut it
Note that this Anglicization
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I've heard him talk on the subject and the symbolism involved (it's set in a church and ultimately a father's love leads to a sacrifice which saves everyone) was very much intentional.
Re:Big Deal (Score:5, Funny)