To Mr. Mackie's credit, he summarizes the arguments of The God Delusion very well, and has a very good understanding of what Dawkins is trying to say. So luckily we won't have to debate about the content of the book itself, and focus instead on the facts, the arguments and the conclusions. Is there a God after all?
Let's forget about what we mean by God for a bit, because it's just going to drag on for too long. Just read the first couple of chapters of Dawkins' book or Mr. Mackie's post, and you'll be well primed on all the definitions.
There are many many arguments for the existence of God, and the vast majority of them are easily dismissed. But there are a few fundamental questions, seemingly related to the existence of God that do deserve special attention.
- How did the universe begin?
- How did life begin?
- How did life get to the point where we are now?
- Science can't explain X
- OK, it can explain a lot of things about X, but it cannot explain everything
- => Therefore God exists
- There is a very low probability of the universe being the way it is
- There is an even lower probability of life on earth being the way it is
- => Therefore God exists
- Science CAN explain quite a lot, and there's less and less room left for God to fill
- Even if science fell short of explaining something, the existence of an omnipotent being is not the only alternative explanation
- OK, after some magical calculations, you've established there is a God (somebody help me with a Bayesian formulation here). What is the probability of God's existence anyway, and who is His creator? The God Hypothesis requires further explanation, you can't just stop there!
EDIT: one more issue I want to address is the pro-God argument from beauty and complexity:
- If you look at a beautiful painting that takes your breath away, would you think it just came together by itself? You would naturally assume there is a creator!
- If you look at the complex machinery of an airplane, and behold the miracle of flight, you would also have to assume that someone made it, and it didn't just happen
- Then how can you look and the beautiful and complex universe of ours and say there is no God? You think the world just came together to its current form?
3 comments:
From what I've hear from Dawkins, he seems to be an excellent rhetorist (is that the noun?) but less of a philosopher. For instance, I heard him on the radio claiming to be driven for a 'care for truth'. Needless to say, the whole concept of truth is not adequately handled by 'Science' alone, but enters into metaphysical territory.
The basic issues I think are philosophical. Essentially, any question *about* science is not a scientific but rather a philosophical or metaphysical question.
Raw modernism/positivism/Baconism (all knowledge should be based solely on experience) has been demonstrated to be too naive, as far as I know.
A more practical issue is that the discussion is twisted by - dare I say it - fanatics on both sides (present company excluded, of course!) Just look at the distribution of review ratings for 'The dawkins delusion',
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dawkins-Delusion-Atheist-Fundamentalism-Denial/dp/0281059276
As expected, the pro-Dawkins crowd outnumbers the anti crowd about 2:1. Reading comments on Dawkins 'homepage reveals the same flame level. Maybe we can keep the debate civil and fruitful on this site, if we don't tell anyone else about it ;-)
I need to read Dawkins' book, just don't have the time. I'm a Christian, by the way, and I think that belief in God - at least the Christian One - can be completely rational. Just so you know :-)
Thanks for spending time writing a great blog Alex!
What's up my favorite Christian!
A very sensible reply, as always.
1. I concede your point that science and truth cannot be handled strictly from science. Science is still based on some degree of faith This includes faith in the scientific method, faith in Hume's Dictum, faith in how to derive theories from evidence. Nevertheless your argument has no bearing on the existence of God.
2. It is indeed interesting to see the distribution of the ratings of the book. It takes a statistician's eye to catch that one :)
3. "Raw modernism/positivism/Baconism (all knowledge should be based solely on experience) has been demonstrated to be too naive, as far as I know" => I don't know where you're getting that from, I completely disagree that this is naive.
Since I'm still unshaken by your seemingly solid argument, I'm going to blog a bit more on the subject before I retire from the analysis of this book.
Aleks D
Hey preferred atheist!
My observations are just really basic and don't make a case for the existence of God or anything near that. Point 1 was not aimed at the existence/non-existence of God.
Maybe point 3 is a good starting point for further discussion. As much as one wants to go crazy and ramble on about all kinds of issues, onereally has to focus to make any headway in the philosophical/metaphysical/scientific/(add your own) jungle.
Ok so you like the positivism/Baconism. I'll dig something qualified up sometime, would love to go into that. Maybe we'll even end up agreeing on something :-) Come to think of it, we probably agree on lots of stuff...
DJ
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