There's a lot I could respond to, in this thread, but I simply can't keep up. So, I'm just going to touch upon some of the more major points, I think...
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Originally Posted by roachboy
i dont really play in these threads any more because they're essentially always the same thing-filtherton is right in that a commitment to "logic" (which is really just a formal procedure) does not and cannot lead you one way or another on the a/theism question because in logical terms, belief or non-belief is an axiom. your use of logic presupposes it, and so does not and cannot demonstrate it.
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I think "logic" is being used colloquially, here. Indeed, formal logic is a procedure and, alone, can't render decisions.
I think we can all agree that, in general, people don't believe things without due evidence. Theists, however, make an exception for their religion. They rationalize this exception, of course, but under scrutiny, they really have no reason to believe in their religion other than that they want to. I think it's this inconsistency of critical thinking that people often label as "illogical." I prefer to use the term "unreasonable," since "logic" has a specific meaning to me, as a mathematician...
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Originally Posted by filtherton
What exactly were my straw men?
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Originally Posted by filtherton
In any case, I'm not particularly interested in anything that Dawkins has to say on the matter, if he's anything like his most vocal acolytes he is prone to self-serving misunderstandings and undeservedly smug self congratulation. I don't need someone to tell me how to not believe in god or why it might make sense in some sort of overarching way why people would believe in god. In many ways evolutionary psychology has as much relevance to my life as theism does; which is to say, I get enough trivia in my life already.
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If nothing else, he's not an evolutionary psychologist, so that's a strawman. Now, it may very well be that you're just as disinterested in evolutionary biology but say that rather than to dismiss something no one has brought up.
For the record, Dawkins is very fair in his arguments and does not prey on misunderstandings. He's not like Hitchens, whose arguments are often as specious as his theist opponent's. The only reason Hitchens has a career is because he's so funny. He's a witty and vocal atheist writer but not a fair debater...
How did you develop your view of Richard Dawkins? Simply because he's smug?
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Originally Posted by roachboy
on the other hand, if you think about being-in-the-world as processes or through the metaphor of emergence (complex dynamic systems theory, say) it is pretty obvious that logic, as it is built off of the way sentences stage the world, provides incomplete and refracted access to the world--this need not lead you in any particular direction in terms of the a/theism division--but it does point to a potential underlying driver that pushed folk on both sides along, which is their capacity to deal with uncertainty or incompleteness.
for some reason, incompleteness seems to spook people and drives them to more rigid relations to the procedures and frames of reference that situate them than it really makes sense to have, if you think about it at a remove.
i've said this before, all of it, really (this is the effect of the sameness of the threads)---but you cannot account for the processes that go into making a sentence in terms shaped by the sentences that you make. incompleteness is all around you. it's constituitive of being-in-the-world. this doesn't mean that anything goes, that rigor doesn't matter in games that call for rigor--but it does mean that there are fundamental dimensions of being that you don't know about---but not knowing does not require that you therefore go running to a god to enable you to pretend that at some level or another the situation is otherwise any more than it should prompt you to make ludicrous claims about the comprehensiveness of logic's ability to account for the world.
you just don't know.
systems are incomplete.
it's just like that.
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Originally Posted by filtherton
roachboy
Thank you. I was beginning to think that I didn't speak english.
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As always, I have great trouble understanding what the hell roachboy is saying but I'm pretty sure that this is not an endorsement for religion. Now, I understand that filtherton is not looking to endorse religion but I don't understand what he's thanking roachboy for...
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Originally Posted by filtherton
Well, it doesn't make him more right. Dawkins is only right if you happen to subscribe to his very particular notions of what science is and how scientists must interact with the world. To claim that he is "right" isn't correct.
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The claim wasn't that Dawkins' asshole behaviour makes him "more right." Whether Dawkins is correct is independent of his demeanor. I've never understood why people dismiss the arguments of people they dislike, personally. These people are cutting off a world of information based on personal whims. It's simply stupid...
Whatever disagreement you have with Dawkins, his views on what science is happens to coincide with scientists' views on science. Seriously, sceintists share a very particular view on what science is and, in this sense, Dawkins can be said to be right. With what are you disagreeing, in particular?