Posted on 08/06/2007 6:03:03 PM PDT by gobucks
Our most celebrated atheist, the biologist Professor Richard Dawkins, has briefly turned his attention away from bashing people who believe in God.
Instead, he is about to bash people who subscribe to 'new age' therapies which he says are based on 'irrational superstition'.
In a TV programme to be shown later this month, Dawkins looks at a range of ludicrous therapies and gurus, including faith healers, psychic mediums, 'angel therapists', 'aura photographers', astrologers and others.
Not surprisingly, he is horrified by such widespread irrationality, not to mention an exploitative industry that fleeces people while encouraging them to run away from reality. He is right to be alarmed.
What previously belonged to the province of the quack and the charlatan has become mainstream. The NHS provides funding for shamans, while the NHS Directory For Alternative And Complementary Medicine promotes 'dowsers', 'flower therapists' and 'crystal healers'.
Indeed, such therapies aren't the half of it. Millions of us are now eager to believe that the world is controlled by conspiracies of covert forces, for which there is not one shred of evidence because such theories are simply bonkers.
Thus Press articles and TV documentaries seriously advance the belief that the 9/11 attacks on America were orchestrated by the U.S. government itself. Similarly, thousands believe that Princess Diana was murdered at the hands of a conspiracy composed of the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles and MI5.
Bestselling books by the former TV sports presenter David Icke, who has announced he is 'the son of God', argue that Britain will be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes, and that the world is ruled by a secret group called the 'Global Elite' or 'Illuminati' which was responsible for the Holocaust, the Oklahoma city bombing and 9/11.
These trends are not just nutty but sinister. Thousands of cults now combine similar crazy beliefs with programmes to control people's minds and behaviour.
Their techniques include food and sleep deprivation; trance induction through hypnosis or prolonged rhythmical chanting; and 'love bombing', where cult members are bombarded with conditional love which is removed whenever there is a deviation from the dictates of the leader.
Disturbing indeed. But where Dawkins goes wrong is to assume this is all as irrational as believing in God. The truth is that it is the collapse of religious faith that has prompted the rise of such irrationality.
We are living in a scientific, largely post-religious age in which faith is presented as unscientific superstition. Yet paradoxically, we have replaced such faith by belief in demonstrable nonsense.
It was GK Chesterton who famously quipped that "when people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing - they believe in anything." So it has proved. But how did it happen?
The big mistake is to see religion and reason as polar opposites. They are not. In fact, reason is intrinsic to the Judeo-Christian tradition.
The Bible provides a picture of a rational Creator and an orderly universe - which, accordingly, provided the template for the exercise of reason and the development of science.
Dawkins pours particular scorn on the Biblical miracles which don't correspond to scientific reality. But religious believers have different ways of regarding those events, with many seeing them as either metaphors or as natural occurrences which were invested with a greater significance.
The heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition is the belief in the concept of truth, which gives rise to reason. But our postreligious age has proclaimed that there is no such thing as objective truth, only what is "true for me".
That is because our society won't put up with anything which gets in the way of 'what I want'. How we feel about things has become all-important. So reason has been knocked off its perch by emotion, and thinking has been replaced by feelings.
This has meant our society can no longer distinguish between truth and lies by using evidence and logic. And this collapse of objective truth has, in turn, come to undermine science itself which is playing a role for which it is not fitted.
When science first developed in the West, it thought of itself merely as a tool to explore the natural world. It did not pour scorn upon religion; indeed, scientists were overwhelmingly religious believers (as many still are).
In modern times, however, science has given rise to 'scientism', the belief that science can answer all the questions of human existence. This is not so.
Science cannot explain the origin of the universe. Yet it now presumes to do so and as a result it has descended into irrationality.
The most conspicuous example of this is provided by Dawkins himself, who breaks the rules of scientific evidence by seeking to claim that Darwin's theory of evolution - which sought to explain how complex organisms evolved through random natural selection - also accounts for the origin of life itself.
There is no evidence for this whatever and no logic to it. After all, if people say God could not have created the universe because this gives rise to the question "Who created God?", it follows that if scientists say the universe started with a big bang, this prompts the further question "What created the bang?"
Indeed, if the origin of life were truly spontaneous, this would constitute what religious people would call a miracle. Accordingly, this claim in itself resembles not so much science as the superstition that Dawkins derides.
Moreover, since science essentially takes us wherever the evidence leads, the findings of more than 50 years of DNA research - which have revealed the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life - have thrown into doubt the theory that life emerged spontaneously in a random universe.
These findings have given rise to a school of scientists promoting the theory of Intelligent Design, which suggests that some force embodying purpose and foresight lay behind the origin of the universe.
While this theory is, of course, open to vigorous counter-argument, people such as Prof Dawkins and others have gone to great lengths to stop it being advanced at all, on the grounds that it denies scientific evidence such as the fossil record and is therefore worthless.
Yet distinguished scientists have been hounded and their careers jeopardised for arguing that the fossil record has got a giant hole in it. Some 570 million years ago, in a period known as the Cambrian Explosion, most forms of complex animal life emerged seemingly without any evolutionary trail.
These scientists argue that only 'rational agents' could have possessed the ability to design and organise such complex systems.
Whether or not they are right (and I don't know), their scientific argument about the absence of evidence to support the claim that life spontaneously created itself is being stifled - on the totally perverse grounds that this argument does not conform to the rules of science which require evidence to support a theory.
As a result of such arrogance, the West - the crucible of reason - is turning the clock back to a pre-modern age of obscurantism, dogma and secular witch-hunts.
Far from upholding reason, science itself has become unreasonable. So when Prof Dawkins fulminates against 'new age' irrationality, it is the image of pots and kettles that comes irresistibly to mind.
Well put ... and from a Brit!!
an unusual essay defining the origin of reason, and origin of conspiracy theorists...
Ha! Ha! Take that crystal gazing libs!
Yes, LOL, I’m guessing Dawkins is going to find his number of ‘friends’ is going to take a big drop.
False. Sounds like something from one of those creationist websites. Or maybe the "Discovery" Institute.
These findings have given rise to a school of scientists promoting the theory of Intelligent Design, which suggests that some force embodying purpose and foresight lay behind the origin of the universe.
False again. What gave rise to the "school of scientists promoting the theory of Intelligent Design" was the U.S. Supreme Court decision of the late 1980s which determined that creation "science" was religion in disguise, and was to be banned from science classes.
Exit creation "science," enter Intelligent Design. Neither is fooling anyone with the pretense that they are actually doing science.
Go Richard, Go! On second thought, just wait a while and Kali with the aid of Skanda will sweep these frauds into the most appropriate to their transgressions of the 18 levels of hell.
"...avoid profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:.."1 Timothy 6:20.
"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,.."Romans 1:22.
Ahhhh....Ignoring the central message of the article I see: that adherence to absolute truth gave birth to reason itself. But now that ‘science’ defines itself as the only way to ‘truth’, scientists wonder why new agers and Harry Potter nuts are everywhere.
Maybe its for the same reason that conspiracy theorists are everywhere too...
False. Here is a definition that deals with "truth" in science:
Truth: This is a word best avoided entirely in physics [and science] except when placed in quotes, or with careful qualification. Its colloquial use has so many shades of meaning from ‘it seems to be correct’ to the absolute truths claimed by religion, that it’s use causes nothing but misunderstanding. Someone once said "Science seeks proximate (approximate) truths." Others speak of provisional or tentative truths. Certainly science claims no final or absolute truths. Source.
There are a lot more definitions on my FR homepage if anyone is interested.
The quote, “when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing - they believe in anything”, should be examined carefully. It says more than it is perhaps intending to say.
This is because there is a subtle, but important difference between “faith” and “belief”.
When a person says they have faith in God, they align themselves with the truly unknowable, graspable only as an abstract, but truly undefinable. God as a singularity cannot be assigned a height, weight, color, or any other identifying characteristic. “Faith” truly is a leap of faith. He is everything, but he is “like” nothing, comparable to nothing, literally. There is only one of It.
Belief, however, is generally seen as more tangible. And things that are tangible, unlike God, can be tested. Almost have to be tested. Beliefs are often thought of as a way to organize knowledge, to act as a spring board to greater insights; but ironically, as soon as they are created, they often become barriers instead. Barriers to new insights that must be overcome to learn.
So when people say they “believe in God”, in truth, they are not treating God with respect. Their beliefs do not, and cannot define God. They cannot test God, so their beliefs cannot stand up. They are constructs of people, abstracts that do not define reality, efforts at understanding what cannot be understood. “God is short and purple”, is a belief as ridiculous as it sounds.
This is not to say that they do not have a purpose. If God is not being considered, beliefs are superb tools to organize ideas, quantify and qualify them, to examine and reexamine, and to test for soundness. Then, if it can be transcended to a better belief, then the old belief can fall by the wayside. A useful tool to define our world.
So to turn the quote on its ear, “when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing - they believe in anything”, people *should* stop believing in God, and if they choose to, to have faith in God instead. Then it is their prerogative to grow and learn by believing in anything else, so that they can test and retest their beliefs, and learn from their experiences. Yet their faith remains.
And one can do both, and richly benefit from both. Have faith in God, and believe in science, or believe in crystal healing, and see what happens. It is your prerogative to test your beliefs, and you may find science or crystal healing wanting, and move on from them to other beliefs; or you may find your beliefs justified, giving you impressive barriers to overcome in your life.
Say you just cannot overcome your belief in science, because it truly seems to always work the way it should. That belief, while useful, still cannot hold a candle to faith, because faith cannot be tested. If it is, then it is not faith, but a mere belief. There is no way for you to prove or disprove God, only God can do that to you.
Richard Dawkins and his ilk are not “science” and it is disingenuous to suggest that they are its standard-bearers.
Agreed. But most MSM consumers wouldn’t get disingenuous anyway.
Pragmatists say that it is objectively true that there is no objective truth, and they know a fact about reality that reality can't be known.I prefer the enlightenment worldview of the American founding fathers which believed in truth, reason and knowledge.
So, just to confirm, you personally don’t believe that there is any thing that exists or has existed which could be defined as ‘the truth’, true? (and I checked your homepage - it seems you’re content to not say anything about what YOU think ‘truth’ is, ....true?)
That's the logical leap he has no business making. There is nothing to support such a conclusion. Irrational beliefs, whether you want to call them religion or superstition are of a piece.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way;
Yet simple Nature to his hope has giv'n,
Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, a humbler heav'n;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the wat'ry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold!
To be, contents his natural desire;
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire:
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.Alexander Pope, Essay on Man
Thoughtful ...
and more mental food for me to chew on; I’m already struggling with the word ‘loyalty’. It doesn’t exist in the KJV of the Bible, but the bottom line is the being saved by ‘faith’ (ahhhh, NOT belief) is really all about performing a kind of betrayal to the carnal self.
Jesus even says this kind of betrayal must extend to immediate family members..., but he doesn’t use the word betrayal of course.
Loyalty and Betrayal....from faithfulness - to the dictates of the flesh, to treason against the kingdom of Satan, to faithfulness to Christ.
In short, the question is are we saved by meeting a minimum threshold of being ‘loyal’ or by ‘faith’?
(I guess my whole quest boils down to this: I’m searching for a set of metaphors which robustly augment the ‘accepted’ lexiography of salvation: by ‘faith’ alone....; many of the teens I teach Sunday School to will be doing rush week at a local college in the fall ... and the issue of what loyalty really means is never discussed. But the implications are real.)
one should not be surprised that most secular people are liberal, if not socialist kooks. Deny your soul and lose your mind.
Thessolonians 2:3 - 2:7
Let no one deceive or beguile you in any way, for that day will not come except the [a]apostasy comes first [unless the predicted great [b]falling away of those who have professed to be Christians has come], and the man of lawlessness (sin) is revealed, who is the son of doom (of perdition),(A)
4Who opposes and exalts himself so proudly and insolently against and over all that is called God or that is worshiped, [even to his actually] taking his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming that he himself is God.(B)
5Do you not recollect that when I was still with you, I told you these things?
6And now you know what is restraining him [from being revealed at this time]; it is so that he may be manifested (revealed) in his own [appointed] time.
7For the mystery of lawlessness (that hidden principle of rebellion against constituted authority) is already at work in the world, [but it is] restrained only until [c]he who restrains is taken out of the way.
“The reason I was born, the reason I came into the world, is to testify to the truth. Anyone committed to the truth, hears my voice.” John 18:37
Fifty years of DNA research has provided so many facts that fit into the framework of evolutionary theory and common descent; that many creationists have retreated to the hypothesis of “Intelligent Design” that acknowledges the age of the universe and the common descent of life, yet argues that the observed, measured, and documented phenomenon of mutation and selection are not a powerful enough mechanism to account for the diversity of life.
Is loyalty used in the Greek? when I think of loyalty, I think of all our failures. Our sin is disloyal. Abram did not have to go between the two halves of the sacrifice as God did because he would not have been able to keep his part, if I remember what I was taught. You may want to ask the Bible answer man, or RC Sproul, or Ravi Zacharias. Just watched a critique of Runaway Bride—”I guarantee one or both of us will want to get out.” God knows how weak we are, and none of us would have been loyal to the Lamb that was slain, but He still gave Peter the keys to the kingdom. One thing—tell your students not to put anyone or anything on the throne that belongs to the Great King. Enjoy your class!
If you want the ultimate jaw breaker for religious philosophy, I heartily recommend Martin Buber’s thin book “I and Thou”, which is an examination of personal pronouns.
On the surface it is a simple read. But in truth, every single simple sentence is a blockbuster of extraordinarily deep philosophical thought. To read it the first time takes perhaps 10 minutes. But to grasp all of its subtleties can take weeks. Literally pondering each sentence for hours.
Buber himself is often regarded as the greatest Jewish philosopher of the 20th Century, an accolade not given lightly. And you can tell by his other books that he was clearly a master of the deepest insights of the human relationship with God.
When “I and Thou” was first published, the Judeo-Christian religious world went ga-ga over it. But the vast majority couldn’t read it deeply, didn’t get it, and soon forgot about it at all.
But it is the first book I’ve ever read that really deserved to be read like rabbinical students read the Torah, one line at a time, which is then mulled over and digested.
And if the deeper meanings of a sentence doesn’t make itself known, then you know that you have missed something grand, a profound thought that is just beyond your grasp. And that is very tantalizing in its own right. It is there, why can’t I see it?
A book of realizations.
bump
A slight tweak there, Coyote.
Cheers! from Minnesota.
Thanks for the food for thought! I’m going to look for that book...
A Brit, who probably doesn’t realize how Thomistic he sounds
As opposed to whom?
I question this. In my considered opinion the heart of Judeo-Christian tradition is not "the belief in the concept of truth", but rather the worth -- the nobility even -- of the individual; this as seen by the belief that man does not go to (a) god, such as a river or mountain or spring, but rather God goes with man, from birth to death where ever he may roam.
In short that man -- individually and collectively -- is worth it. In no other religion will you find such dignity accorded the human spirit.
Thanks for the head's up. I'm always looking for good reading material and I've learned to trust FR recommendations.
The Bible provides a picture of a rational Creator and an orderly universe - which, accordingly, provided the template for the exercise of reason and the development of science.
Yep!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Great article! Pinging a list.
In other words they believe that there are absolutely no absolutes.
I'm pretty sure he did walk thru the gap, but I'm not positive. I don't think God gave him the option of not walking thru it.
ping to 17 btw if you don’t mind...
As for ID, I agree, but don’t see much use it hammering it one way or the other. I used to, but these days geophysical poetry (golf) has taught me much about ‘trouble’...
Culture is different around the world. History is taught differently around the world. Language is different around the world. Religion is different around the world. Nobody can agree on any of these. But Science is the same all around the world because if you disagree you can find the flaw in the argument, measure the unlooked at variable, and publish your findings. Nobody argues about the basics of science because we don’t allow the charlatans to peddle their mumbo jumbo that cannot be measured.
Genesis 16 Only God is said to pass between them.
It seems odd that a scientist wouldn’t know the philosophical basis of science, but then he apparently hasn’t had time to read philosophy even though he has a Doctor of Philosophy degree.
Has to do with the range of things legal. We'll have to check on the etymology.
Are you sure its ch 16?
Sorry, it’s chapter 15, I always read the before and after chapters, too.
Nice quote.
Tell that to algore and the global warming alarmists. Let me know how you make out on that.
The argument is if this correlation in temperature and CO2 measurements is indicative of causality, or how the ground based temperature readings correspond to atmospheric and ocean temperature readings. Disagreements in Science can be settled because one can argue the data. The last glacial maximum was 20,000 years ago and things have gotten warmer since then. How much is attributable to human causes is the subject of the debate.
Now if Al Gore was saying that it didn’t matter what you measured, and that the earth has never been this warm before, and that this was because Gaea was ‘angry’ at us; he would be peddling mumbo jumbo that cannot be measured. As it is he is peddling inconclusive evidence as if it were settled science, and carefully ignoring the contrary measurements of the natural cycle of the earth over time, atmospheric readings, and sunspot activity.
Your inconclusive evidence is his science and I'm sure vice-versa. You imply, I think, that somewhere there is a final arbiter of "science". I believe that's wishful thinking.
However some theories rise to the level of ‘working assumption’. No particle physicists takes issue with E=m*c*c, their equations don't balance without it. Other theories fall into the ‘seldom if ever’ used (except by kooks) category, like geocentrism and Lamarkian evolution.
The bible contains a few dozen stories about miracles, and all of them have rational explanations, at least as to HOW they were brought about. Evolution on the other hand requires an infinite series of probabilistic miracles and zero-probability events. It's Dawkins and other evolutionists who believe in magic, and not Christians.
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