Stupidly deleted post on CB re Unga, mission anecdote

[SeattleUte]

Woot I think it's funny that you say that Eagleton does nothing to rebut "a single one of Dawkins' arguments" while yourself doing nothing to rebut a single one of Eagleton's arguments.

You can't have read his full LRB article and think he "didn't do anything close to rebutting a single one of Dawkins' argument."

And whatever catchy tagline anyone wants to stamp on the argument, it stands: Someone who has no experience of the divine or who rejects prima facie the notion of metaphysical or divine intelligence has absolutely no basis for making a fair evaluation. You and Dawkins and his whole frothing fundamentalist crew might hate the fact - but if you rule it out from the top then you simply have no basis for analyzing it objectively.

This is why agnosticism is an honorable and thoughtful position while dogmatic atheism has always been a playground for poseurs and provocateurs.

I have absolute cognitive clarity regarding some of my spiritual experiences. Knowledge, not imagination. Dawkins is blind and crippled to any of that category of human experience. So he can't very credibly be writing books about it.

I don't think Dawkins attacks your spiritual experiences per se. He does such things as elucidate the chain of custody for the Gospels and some obvious sources for some of the material in the Gospels that had nothing to do with Jesus Christ, to demonstrate that the traditional belief of their authorship by Jesus' apostles is false and even deliberately constrcucted fiction. Just like if I were to point out the implausibility of Joseph Smith translating the Book of Mormon just considering that a large percentage of it is word for word the King James Version. Of course his specialty would be exposing the absurdity of creationism, but he tries to do much more than that.

Briefly put, Dawkins essentially just attacks the God he grew up with, the God of the Bible. If you look at my signature you will see that he does not differ materially from an agnostic. Agnostics disbelieve the canon but don't rule out the possible existence of deity. Dawkins can't explain what caused the universe including life. He has no explanation for it. Not a material difference from an agnostic, in my opinion. It's a matter of self-definition.

Dawkins is a materialist. He simply does not accept what the senses and reason don't support.

[Hot Lunch]

Isn't this forum "The Stadium"? Just thought I would check.

[oxcoug]

Mine is the equivalent of saying "I've been to the Northwest passage and therefore know it exists" his is the equivalent to saying - w/o any basis or knowledge - "there is no Northwest passage because I think it's a silly idea."

That's why agnosticism works but dogmatic atheism doesn't. It isn't possible to positively rule out the existence of a thing you can't disprove. It is possible to have positive experience of a thing and therefore know it's real.

I'd qualify this by saying that knowing a thing is real doesn't mean you can prove it to anyone else - but I'm not claiming it for anyone else.

[oxcoug]

Good point

Isn't this forum "The Stadium"? Just thought I would check.

also Kershaw is a badass and who is that old guy with him?

-)

[Hot Lunch]

also Kershaw is a badass and who is that old guy with him?

-)

yes Kershaw is a badass and the old guy with him is probably the biggest badass lefty to play the game, Sandy Koufax.

[CardiacCoug]

I'd qualify this by saying that knowing a thing is real doesn't mean you can prove it to anyone else - but I'm not claiming it for anyone else.

Gotcha. Fair enough.

[woot]

Woot I think it's funny that you say that Eagleton does nothing to rebut "a single one of Dawkins' arguments" while yourself doing nothing to rebut a single one of Eagleton's arguments.

You can't have read his full LRB article and think he "didn't do anything close to rebutting a single one of Dawkins' argument."

And whatever catchy tagline anyone wants to stamp on the argument, it stands: Someone who has no experience of the divine or who rejects prima facie the notion of metaphysical or divine intelligence has absolutely no basis for making a fair evaluation. You and Dawkins and his whole frothing fundamentalist crew might hate the fact - but if you rule it out from the top then you simply have no basis for analyzing it objectively.

This is why agnosticism is an honorable and thoughtful position while dogmatic atheism has always been a playground for poseurs and provocateurs.

I have absolute cognitive clarity regarding some of my spiritual experiences. Knowledge, not imagination. Dawkins is blind and crippled to any of that category of human experience. So he can't very credibly be writing books about it.

First of all, learn what atheism means. Dawkins is an agnostic atheist, as he discusses at length in his book that you obviously haven't read.

Second, your personal experiences don't matter. They just don't. I'm sure you think they were real, just like lots of other people are 100% convinced of things mutually exclusive with yours. As a rational person, I'm sure you'll agree that all these contradictory personal experiences cannot be made sense of.

The most obvious point here, of course, is that Dawkins and various other authors have effectively torn to shreds the popular beliefs of billions of people. Who cares whether they address the (equally vacuous, but gussied up) arguments of intellectuals whose beliefs do not resemble those of the masses? If the masses believed in the sort of barely-there deistic forces that these guys advocate, Dawkins would never have written anything on the topic.

It is also ironic that you think that one who has no experience with the divine has no basis to reject it. Surely I don't need to provide examples of things that you also have no experience with but which you also reject?

[oxcoug]

I knew that - really...

yes Kershaw is a badass and the old guy with him is probably the biggest badass lefty to play the game, Sandy Koufax.

My question was TIC. I'm a lifetime Dodger man which was sometimes awkward being from No Cal.

[Hot Lunch]

My question was TIC. I'm a lifetime Dodger man which was sometimes awkward being from No Cal.

Ah my bad. We can always use more Dodger fans. This is good to know. Please don't pay attention to mpfunk when it comes to the Dodgers. He is a bitter little troll.

I am sure in Nor Cal there aren't many of you.

[SeattleUte]

Isn't this forum "The Stadium"? Just thought I would check.

JL, why don't you move this thread into the Foyer. It's been about religion since the original post.

[oxcoug]

I've read it

First of all, learn what atheism means. Dawkins is an agnostic atheist, as he discusses at length in his book that you obviously haven't read.

Second, your personal experiences don't matter. They just don't. I'm sure you think they were real, just like lots of other people are 100% convinced of things mutually exclusive with yours. As a rational person, I'm sure you'll agree that all these contradictory personal experiences cannot be made sense of.

The most obvious point here, of course, is that Dawkins and various other authors have effectively torn to shreds the popular beliefs of billions of people. Who cares whether they address the (equally vacuous, but gussied up) arguments of intellectuals whose beliefs do not resemble those of the masses? If the masses believed in the sort of barely-there deistic forces that these guys advocate, Dawkins would never have written anything on the topic.

It is also ironic that you think that one who has no experience with the divine has no basis to reject it. Surely I don't need to provide examples of things that you also have no experience with but which you also reject?

Along with Hitchens and Sam Harris all in the same year. Probably not as attentively as I should have, but I read all three.

I'm not clear on the distinction you're making bt his attacks on the religion of the masses and the more nuanced versions of religious intellectuals, but I'd be interested to hear some specific examples. But the notion that Dawkins has done anything to disprove the existence of God is laughable (but maybe you weren't saying that).

I'd also be curious to know what type of thing I reject and you think is comparable to Dawkins' wholesale rejection of religion. Are you thinking of things material, medical, concrete? I'm trying (really) to think of an example that is comparable but I'm not seeing one.

What did you have in mind?

[oxcoug]

JL, why don't you move this thread into the Foyer. It's been about religion since the original post.

Right, fair enough.

[Jeff Lebowski]

JL, why don't you move this thread into the Foyer. It's been about religion since the original post.

Done.

[oxcoug]

Also

First of all, learn what atheism means. Dawkins is an agnostic atheist, as he discusses at length in his book that you obviously haven't read.

Second, your personal experiences don't matter. They just don't. I'm sure you think they were real, just like lots of other people are 100% convinced of things mutually exclusive with yours. As a rational person, I'm sure you'll agree that all these contradictory personal experiences cannot be made sense of.

The most obvious point here, of course, is that Dawkins and various other authors have effectively torn to shreds the popular beliefs of billions of people. Who cares whether they address the (equally vacuous, but gussied up) arguments of intellectuals whose beliefs do not resemble those of the masses? If the masses believed in the sort of barely-there deistic forces that these guys advocate, Dawkins would never have written anything on the topic.

It is also ironic that you think that one who has no experience with the divine has no basis to reject it. Surely I don't need to provide examples of things that you also have no experience with but which you also reject?

As for my personal experiences and whether they "matter" - well either they are real and accurately reflect reality, or they don't. If they do, they matter. If they don't, they don't matter.

Since you don't know what my personal experiences are - and the most formative ones are not ones I'm likely to share on CUF - you're not in a very good experience to judge whether or not they are real or whether they conflict with other people's experiences. I expect they don't conflict with many experiences and to the extent that they do, they only do superficially.

Now they might conflict with the non-experience of some - like Dawkins - but that's a different question.

[CardiacCoug]

I'd also be curious to know what type of thing I reject and you think is comparable to Dawkins' wholesale rejection of religion. Are you thinking of things material, medical, concrete? I'm trying (really) to think of an example that is comparable but I'm not seeing one.

What did you have in mind?

I would guess he's talking about the fact that religious people are atheists about every God and religion except their own. We Mormons reject Islam, for example, and yet have never practiced or really experienced it.