[tpaine]

"Richard Dawkins concluded that "the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference."

--- if the Universe is blind and pitifully indifferent, and we are the products of said blind and pitiably insouciant Universe, then why are we humans truth-loving and truth-seeing organisms?

Because we die if we don't establish true ideas from false ideology?

IE - We have learned, through the scientific method, to cure many ills, -- instead of listening to a medicine mans mumbo-jumbo.

Now that is a blind, pitiless, indifferent truth. -- Right?

36 posted by tpaine

But according to Dawkins, death is neither good nor bad.

Where did he say that? -- But if he did, he's wrong, - imo. - And in any case, so what? It doesn't have much to do with your question, does it?

[Dumb_Ox]

Dawkins sez: "the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good"

The enthymeme, of course, being "therefore, there is no evil and no good." We should only avoid death if there is something bad about it.

And in any case, so what? It doesn't have much to do with your question, does it?

I thought you were defending Dawkins's nihilism, and I was responding on that assumption. Its relevance is that an influential pop-scientist is being embarrasingly self-contradictory. If there is no good and no evil, then one cannot condemn those who pursue falsehood on any grounds whatsoever, but Dawkins and his epigones do just that.

[John Locke]

But according to Dawkins, death is neither good nor bad.

Rest easy, Dawkins never said that. What he did say is much more subtle, and can be found in his book, The Extended Phenotype.