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They didn't explicitly say it but how that reveals the ignorance of dawkins here is that the attacks he chose were effectively fended off hundreds or in some ca
by giraffe_lady 4y ago
They didn't explicitly say it but how that reveals the ignorance of dawkins here is that the attacks he chose were effectively fended off hundreds or in some cases thousands of years ago by theology and apologetics. It's not just that the refutations are old, it's that they're old and convincing.
Which is not to say that the conversation is over, or that the theologians are correct. But that an informed argument would be to address the (ancient) refutations to the naive attacks, rather than to simply restate the naive attacks as if they are insightful.
The points he raises in that book aren't going to be novel to pretty much anyone. Most believers will recognize them from their own minds. Probably no modern person is a "pure" believer: we are all exposed to and familiar with the mechanisms and logic of unbelief. Believers experience belief more as an inconsistent state, or an active effort or choice, than a simple delusion they are unable to perceive. There's a very interesting conversation there that dawkins wasn't willing or maybe able to have.
Charles Taylor's "a secular age" is one place where you could pick up the conversation our society has been having with itself for centuries about the mechanisms, role & effects of belief, delusion, religion & faith if you were interested in it as a practical or philosophical question and not as a battlefield for self aggrandizement as dawkins clearly was.
- d0mine 4y agoZero actual argument.
- giraffe_lady 4y agoNo, because I'm not making one. I'm pointing out that the argument is in progress already, has been for centuries, and dawkins should catch up if he wants to be taken seriously as a participant.
- epups 4y ago> the attacks he chose were effectively fended off hundreds or in some cases thousands of years ago by theology and apologetics. It's not just that the refutations are old, it's that they're old and convincing Could you provide a couple of examples?
- giraffe_lady 4y agoLiterally just start with the wikipedia article on christian apologetics.
- epups 4y agoI would like you to point out a specific argument that Dawkins used and you feel has been debunked or proven wrong by theologians.
- omniglottal 4y agoI would like you to eat with a spoon. Do you need help with that? You have been pointed to references - genuine engagement in adult discourse may tend to require that you follow through with this prerequisite material to join the conversation.
- epups 4y agoI asked for a specific argument that the parent felt Dawkins made that was sufficiently rebutted by theologians. They replied with a generic list of Christian apologetics. You're welcome to contribute to the debate if you have a specific example in mind to defend their argument.
- skissane 4y agoWell, let me give you a specific example (just one of many): his dismissal of Thomas Aquinas' proofs for God's existence (at the start of chapter 3), isn't even good for an undergraduate; if he submitted that as an essay in a philosophy 101 course, I doubt he'd get good marks. He doesn't bother to understand what Aquinas meant by the terms he uses in his arguments; he shows zero awareness of the historical context, that Aquinas is relying on a specific set of philosophical theories (scholastic Aristotelianism), and it is impossible to properly understand his arguments without first understanding that theoretical background. It appears Dawkins has never read any of the secondary literature (not even a first year textbook!), he is just dismissing these arguments based on a plain English reading of their words. He identifies Aquinas' fifth proof with Paley's argument from design, completely ignoring the (rather standard) position that they are rather different arguments based on quite different assumptions (an Aristotelian theory of causation versus a mechanistic/Cartesian/Humean one) Personally, I'm sceptical than any of Aquinas' arguments actually work. Maybe, if you accept his philosophical assumptions (about the nature of causation, etc), they succeed – but that leaves us with the equally difficult task of proving those assumptions. So, I think Dawkins may well be right in his conclusion, that Aquinas' arguments fail – but the reasoning he uses to reach that conclusion shows he has zero idea what he is talking about. To make an analogy – imagine an anti-creationist book written by someone with a very poor knowledge of the science of evolution, and their understanding of it is riddled with errors and misunderstandings, and Dawkins was asked to review it – while he'd of course agree with the book's conclusion, he'd find its contents an embarrassment – much of The God Delusion is the same thing. Compare Dawkins to someone like the Australian philosopher of religion Graham Oppy. Oppy is, like Dawkins, an atheist. Unlike Dawkins, when he criticises theists' arguments, he actually knows what he is talking about, and doesn't make the kind of juvenile mistakes that Dawkins makes. Unlike Dawkins, he's read all the secondary literature on the topic, and has made significant contributions to that literature. Due to this, many theist philosophers of religion actually have a lot of respect for Oppy, even though they (of course) disagree with his conclusions–among philosophers of religion (whether theist or atheist), Dawkins is mostly viewed as an example of what happens when an expert in one field decides to write a book in a completely unrelated one, and their valuable contributions to the former field are no guarantee their attempt to contribute to the later will be of any value at all.
- marketerinland 4y agoOld and convincing, to those who want to be persuaded by them. I also disliked Dawkins’ book and found my path to atheism elsewhere. However, the problem of evil has a persuasive answer only for those already within the system, to speak. Christian apologetics is nearly exclusively a field of interest for those Christians who want to be more prepared to deal with conversations with non-believers. The problem should be obvious already. If you became a Christian before being exposed to the ‘rational’ arguments for being a Christian, then what exactly caused you to become a Christian? Given the extraordinary amount of effort poured into the field of apologetics with very little outcome in terms of new converts, it seems to me that the primary purpose of Christian apologetics is to help those suffering a bout of cognitive dissonance to stuff it back down. *edited to fix typo
- bearmode 4y agoThere is absolutely nothing convincing in Christian theology & apologetics unless you are already a Christian.