Should we Ban Richard Dawkins Books?

[smiffy]

How many scientists have claimed something doesnt exist........only for others generations later to prove that it does! end of discussion! although I rather it werent!

Ah, but Dawkins doesn't claim that God doesn't exist. What he says that there's no evidence for God's existence and that therefore there's no reason to believe in the existence of God (while allowing for the possibility - however remote - that some kind of God does, in face, exist).

[smiffy]

As one of the leading scientists in this day and age he should have at least supplied some scientific basis for his arguments. I believe his intentions are good and I can sympathise with his views and frustration at the amount of sheeple in the world.

I think you're falling into the trap of looking for proof of a negative here. Perhaps you might identify which specific 'argument' of Dawkins' you feel is undersupported.

[Krabb13]

I keep making the point about empirical data! this is important. Remember, psychology didn't exist a few hundred years ago and believe it or not there are some scientist who don't believe in it today i.e they don't believe in the mind. They think the brain is the mind!

If Dawkins were a true scientist he would serve an apprenticeship with a true spiritual scientist. A science that predates modern science by milennia. The Zen buddhists being the most scientific.

[smiffy]

I keep making the point about empirical data! this is important.

What kind of empirical data do you think might be appropriate in support of a thesis that there is no God?

Remember, psychology didn't exist a few hundred years ago and believe it or not there are some scientist who don't believe in it today i.e they don't believe in the mind. They think the brain is the mind!

If they don't believe in the mind, how can they believe that the brain is the mind? Unless you're saying that they don't believe in a mind that's separate from the brain, which would seem a reasonable position to me.

If Dawkins were a true scientist he would serve an apprenticeship with a true spiritual scientist. A science that predates modern science by milennia. The Zen buddhists being the most scientific.

Scientific in what sense?

[Trampas]

Anyway, if we are banning books on the basis of being based on opinions of religion that are offensive to millions of people, shouldn't we start with the bible?

No we shouldn't - but it would be well up there.

[Krabb13]

Look, let's be blunt here. All Dawkins has done is vent his indcredulity at a ridiculous portrayal of an omniescent being. The same way we did internally when we were young. Ultimately I think the real focus should be on how the Ruthless Roman Pagan Empire took a legitimate spiritual practice and shoe-horned it in to their own belief system. All because they could'nt make the now self-sufficient Christians pay taxes. Remember what Jesus said to them - Your body is your temple, go within and I will meet thee there.

[Trampas]

I keep making the point about empirical data! this is important. Remember, psychology didn't exist a few hundred years ago and believe it or not there are some scientist who don't believe in it today i.e they don't believe in the mind. They think the brain is the mind!

If Dawkins were a true scientist he would serve an apprenticeship with a true spiritual scientist. A science that predates modern science by milennia. The Zen buddhists being the most scientific.

But it isn't always possible to adduce empirical data, nor is it always reasonable to expect that. For example in "The Ancestor's Tale" Dawkins is almost apologetic when he tells us that the only way in which monkeys could have migrated from Africa to South America is on rafts of vegetation. Not very convincing perhaps, yet shortly after publication of that book the tsunami struck and for weeks afterwards survivors were being plucked from the Indian Ocean while riding uprooted palm trees.

[kepa]

Terry Eagleton demolishes Dawkin's ignorant observations on religion. Eageton at his best:

"Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don’t believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be. If they were asked to pass judgment on phenomenology or the geopolitics of South Asia, they would no doubt bone up on the question as assiduously as they could. When it comes to theology, however, any shoddy old travesty will pass muster. These days, theology is the queen of the sciences in a rather less august sense of the word than in its medieval heyday."

The full, brilliant article:
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Not one single example refuting anything Dawkin's has said. Just a rant. If this is Eagleton "at his best" it's time he hung up his flat cap.

[Krabb13]

Smiffy (ya bollocks) you'll have me here all night

I love a good debate especially when I know I'm right just kiddin. But I do need to go to bed now (have four lovely children from 7yrs to 4mths). Make a deal? Reccommend something for me to read................I reccommend The Marriage of Sense and Soul by Ken Wilber. Good night and Good Luck.

[Krabb13]

I keep making the point about empirical data! this is important.

What kind of empirical data do you think might be appropriate in support of a thesis that there is no God?

Remember, psychology didn't exist a few hundred years ago and believe it or not there are some scientist who don't believe in it today i.e they don't believe in the mind. They think the brain is the mind!

If they don't believe in the mind, how can they believe that the brain is the mind? Unless you're saying that they don't believe in a mind that's separate from the brain, which would seem a reasonable position to me.

[quote:71ur7t3b]If Dawkins were a true scientist he would serve an apprenticeship with a true spiritual scientist. A science that predates modern science by milennia. The Zen buddhists being the most scientific.

Scientific in what sense?[/quote:71ur7t3b]