Richard Dawkins: Not Sure God Doesn´t Exist - Page 2

lostsheep · 02-25-2012, 12:04 PM

Quote:

Irreligious wrote

Too accommodating, in my opinion. Why does no one ever ask these people what a god is supposed to be before conceding that one cannot know the unknowable?

You certainly can't investigate theists claims' of an alleged god. They can't either.

I'm sorry, but placing a probability on such an absurdly unknowable claim is the same thing many of us here derided Jerry for doing. I respect Dawkins' intelligence and his decades long battle to wage the good fight in support of science over unfounded superstition, but I'm not going to applaud him on this one.

Good points, and I agree, no applause here either.

But I did not mean to imply a discreet or quantitative probability. I am not counting on the implosion of our sun in my lifetime, nor am I fretting over the possible existence of an evil Yawhe or whateveritsnameisn't that is waiting to reap my soul when I die. My point is, I think it is highly unlikely, so I don't live my life according to such remote possibilities. There are too many far more likely scenarios that occupy my worrying time.

ILOVEJESUS · 02-25-2012, 12:25 PM

Just shit stirring press. In the Uk we are having a bot of a faith revival push by th eGodly do rights. Funny how many are in financial pot holes, that Jesus pushers are out en force. Dawkins has already stated that philosophically you cannot discount God 100% as we do not know what a god is to be able to completely discount it. However there is no evidence that there is a god of any kind that we have seen so far so he, I think, is a 6 out of 7 on his atheist scale. I think he brought this up on the 4 horsemen set of programmes. Hitchens then steppped up as a 7 I think. Anyhoo we shouldn't add credence to those trying to weaken athesim by dissing the leader of all atheism lol.

lostsheep · 02-25-2012, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Irreligious wrote

Maybe I'm just in an especially prickly mood today. However, I came across this story yesterday and was thoroughly annoyed then, too.

I don't know. I guess I just expected the esteemed professor to be a much better debater than to fall into such an obvious trap when there was never any burden on him to define what these god-botherers won't.

Nah, keep being prickly. It suits you.

I tend to be accommodating when discussing my lack of belief with believers, because I find it tiring and pointless to do otherwise. But I think you are right here: if you have written several books explaining atheism and given countless lectures on the topic using flawless logic and rationale, then more is expected.

lostsheep · 02-25-2012, 12:33 PM

Quote:

ILOVEJESUS wrote

Just shit stirring press. In the Uk we are having a bot of a faith revival push by th eGodly do rights. Funny how many are in financial pot holes, that Jesus pushers are out en force. Dawkins has already stated that philosophically you cannot discount God 100% as we do not know what a god is to be able to completely discount it. However there is no evidence that there is a god of any kind that we have seen so far so he, I think, is a 6 out of 7 on his atheist scale. I think he brought this up on the 4 horsemen set of programmes. Hitchens then steppped up as a 7 I think. Anyhoo we shouldn't add credence to those trying to weaken athesim by dissing the leader of all atheism lol.

Yes. But as Irr pointed out you can't have evidence for a thing without a definition for the thing on which to base evidence, so saying that some kind of god could possibly exist is sort of pointless.

ILOVEJESUS · 02-25-2012, 01:48 PM

Quote:

lostsheep wrote

Yes. But as Irr pointed out you can't have evidence for a thing without a definition for the thing on which to base evidence, so saying that some kind of god could possibly exist is sort of pointless.

Indeed it is pointless, though a small pointless possibility.

divine zombie · 02-25-2012, 02:12 PM

It's because of shit like this (amongst other things) that I avoid labels like 'atheist', 'agnostic' and so on. The labels become the debate.

In my experience Dawkins has always been clear, he cannot completely rule out the existence of a god. That's fair enough.

I do rule it out. There are no gods. In the same way as there are no unicorns, fairies etc. Frankly I don't care whether people agree with this or like it. If they disagree they can describe a god or gods and explain why I should believe in it/ him/ her.

Over the years I've asked god botherers to do so on numerous occasions. It is interesting to observe the techniques they use to deflect from the question.

Eternal · 02-25-2012, 02:59 PM

Quote:

lostsheep wrote

Yes. But as Irr pointed out you can't have evidence for a thing without a definition for the thing on which to base evidence, so saying that some kind of god could possibly exist is sort of pointless.

True. To make such a statement you are agreeing to a loose definition of god. This definition is of course the problem, every religious person out there will instantly think he refers to their god and will not stop to consider much else.

Stargazer · 02-26-2012, 05:40 AM

You know, I have said to Victus numerous times that many issues are not black/white, yes/no, etc. However, I think this issue might be one where that actually is the case. There either is or is not a god. To an atheists, there is no God, due to lack of evidence, until proven otherwise.

ILOVEJESUS · 02-26-2012, 08:00 AM

But as we don't know what a god is, how can we discount them completely? Surely the most honest thing to do is just emphasise their unlikelyhood to exist? The lack of evidence so far for their to be a god. I don't know.

Sol · 02-26-2012, 09:18 AM

Befuddled - if you look in the dictionary there is a scan of Dawkins brain as a definition.

What in Odins name was he thinking, debating with Wormtongue the septic poet.

The dopey sod

ILOVEJESUS · 02-26-2012, 09:48 AM

He is 957 years old remember

divine zombie · 02-26-2012, 11:36 AM

Quote:

ILOVEJESUS wrote

But as we don't know what a god is, how can we discount them completely? Surely the most honest thing to do is just emphasise their unlikelyhood to exist? The lack of evidence so far for their to be a god. I don't know.

We know what thousands of gods would be if they existed and were gods.

For me it is safe to asume that any others out there we've never heard of are fantasies like the others.

So obviously it's up to you how you express the fact that you know there are no gods, but 'there are no gods' does it for me.

Sol · 02-26-2012, 01:24 PM

Quote:

ILOVEJESUS wrote

He is 957 years old remember

He is a 957 year old fuckin dipstick

Stargazer · 02-26-2012, 01:48 PM

Quote:

ILOVEJESUS wrote

But as we don't know what a god is, how can we discount them completely? Surely the most honest thing to do is just emphasise their unlikelyhood to exist? The lack of evidence so far for their to be a god. I don't know.

No, it's a slippery slope. Non existent until proven to exist. The whole God story is so flimsy that the one sane thing to do is to regulate it to fiction, as the Iliad was supposed to be about a fictional city until Schliemann discovered Troy.

When and if concrete evidence is presented, we can revisit the story in that light. But not until then.

DyingStrong · 02-26-2012, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Sol wrote

Befuddled - if you look in the dictionary there is a scan of Dawkins brain as a definition.

What in Odins name was he thinking, debating with Wormtongue the septic poet.

The dopey sod

hahahaha....since English (US Englis) is my second language it took me several minutes to fully understand what you were saying (Scotland English

), but it is so true and so funny.