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Originally Posted by Lachean What [Dawkins] meant was [Darwin’s] theory, so elegant and all encompassing, gave us an understanding of the cosmos that did not require a creator. You could now be an atheist, and have an explanation for life and the complexity around you. |
Natural Theology requires a literal creator. Spirituality, as I have been explaining it, does not.
Why does Dawkins spend so much time lumping ALL of religion together, when he has actually met people, such as Francis Collins and Alastair McGrath, that are religious and that often agree with him about literalist theologies? Is it cognitive bias?
Why is it necessary to speak as if he has never heard these arguments, and to constantly state that most religious people appear to believe in things that can’t be true? In the interest of being accurate, more distinction needs to be made. This is really the crux of my argument when I say that the NAs don’t seem to understand spirituality.
In actual fact, Darwin’s theory hasn’t made it possible to to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. Darwin’s theory only refutes Paley, not all religion. Darwin makes it possible to easily disbelieve in Natural Theology.
Anyone that believes that Natural Theology can be true, or
is religion, in light of all the evidence we now have, is delusional. I can agree with that. But likewise, anyone that believes that Natural Theology
is religion, is also delusional.
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Originally Posted by Lachean Actually there are Universities (Liberty University for example), powerful groups like the Discovery Institute, and even movies (Expelled) dedicated to that purpose. They have millions of supporters and like-minded religionists. |
I was wondering about theologians (pardon my typo). You haven’t named any.
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Originally Posted by Lachean It seems you're pretending that these people do not exist. |
I don’t pretend they do not exist. Instead, I make a distinction between kinds of religious people. I don’t (irresponsibly) lump all of religion together and then disregard all of it.
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Originally Posted by Lachean As for Dawkins' alleged estimation of William Paley, I'm going to need a quote on that. |
from the introduction to Richard Dawkins' book,
The Blind Watchmaker:
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”The watchmaker of my title is borrowed from a famous treatise by the eighteenth-century theologian William Paley. His Natural Theology--or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the Appearances of Nature, published in 1802, is the best-known exposition of the 'Argument from Design', …
Paley's argument is made with passionate sincerity and is informed by the best biological scholarship of his day, but it is wrong, gloriously and utterly wrong.”
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What Dawkins’ doesn’t tell you, perhaps because he doesn’t know, is that Paley’s “Natural Theology” has already been dismissed by theologians living during, and since, Paley’s time.
Here’s an example of a famous critic of Paley:
John Henry Newman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Henry Newman wrote these words in the 19th century:
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What, on the contrary, are those special Attributes, which are the immediate correlatives of religious sentiment? Sanctity, omniscience, justice, mercy, faithfulness. What does Physical Theology, what does the Argument from Design, what do fine disquisitions about final causes, teach us, except very indirectly, faintly, enigmatically, of these transcendently important, these essential portions of the idea of Religion? ... What does Physical Theology tell us of duty and conscience? Of a particular providence? ... what does it teach us even of the four last things, death, judgment, heaven, and hell, the mere elements of Christianity? ... I say Physical Theology cannot, from the nature of the case, tell us one word about Christianity proper; it cannot be Christian, in any true sense, at all ... How can that be a real substantive Theology, though it takes the name, which is but an abstraction, a particular aspect of the whole truth, and is dumb almost as regards the moral attributes of the Creator, and utterly so as regards the evangelical?
More: Studies in the History of Science and Christianity |
An Anglican priest, about a hundred and fifty years ago, was explaining to us that Natural Theology isn’t really Christianity. Why haven’t Dawkins, or even the IDer’s, noticed? Human beings tend to believe whatever they wish to, eh?
Newman’s work is part of the body of theology. And it isn’t new. What he wrote appears to jibe almost completely with what I wrote in my OP. Will you agree now that I haven’t tried to tell “the
whole body of theology, that they don't understand religion and I do?”
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Originally Posted by Lachean If you're going to define god as anything, "god is love" etc... then thats perfectly fine; as long as you don't expect me to also buy into any creationist or dogmatic propositions about his acts or will. |
I don’t. Those aren’t my beliefs, anyway.
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Originally Posted by Lachean Useful /= true, pertaining to the human condition does not have anything to do with historical or metaphysical truths. |
Do we disagree about what is metaphysical? In my quote I said “true” in a sense, and you seem to want to get at what is literally true. I would agree with you about the historical part, but not the metaphysical part. For me, the ultimate nature of reality has to do with the “sense of oneness” even Harris acknowledges. And I believe Christ can lead us to that.
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Originally Posted by Lachean It seems to me this thread should be called "Most religionists do not understand spirituality." |
As long atheists take “religionists” at their word, and appear not to notice that theologians and “moderate” religious people have been making the very same criticisms of religionists and creationists now being made by the New Atheists, then it is fair, IMO, to state that the NAs do not understand spirituality.
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Originally Posted by Lachean Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens have arguments against literalist religion AS WELL AS allegorical moderate religion. It seems you've skipped their chapters on those arguments, my worthy opponent. |
No, actually I don’t believe I have skipped anything, not worth skipping.
beliefnet: The Problem with Religious Moderates by Sam Harris
(Please note in the article in the above link, that Harris quotes
no one. Curious.)
I’ve read the arguments against “moderates,” and they too reveal a misunderstanding of spirituality.
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“While moderation in religion may seem a reasonable position to stake out, in light of all that we have (and have not) learned about the universe, it offers no bulwark against religious extremism and religious violence. The problem that religious moderation poses for all of us is that it does not permit anything very critical to be said about religious literalism. We cannot say that fundamentalists are crazy, because they are merely practicing their freedom of belief; we cannot even say that they are mistaken in religious terms, because their knowledge of scripture is generally unrivaled. All we can say, as religious moderates, is that we don’t like the personal and social costs that a full embrace of scripture imposes on us. This is not a new form of faith, or even a new species of scriptural exegesis; it is simply a capitulation to a variety of all-too-human interests that have nothing, in principle, to do with God. Religious moderation is the produce of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance—it has no bona fides, in religious terms, to put it on a par with fundamentalism.” – Sam Harris, The End of Faith, pp. 20-21
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Harris seems to think that “moderates” must be tolerant of every one. I’ve provided several examples of “moderates” critiquing fundamentalism and religious literalism, now. I myself do it all the time. And I’ve also provided examples of “religious moderation” which is not a product of secular knowledge or advancements. Harris seems to think religious moderation is unsupportable by scripture. But only a religious literalist could make such a statement. In my OP I explained the difference between the language of religion and the language of science.
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“… religious moderation appears to be nothing more than an unwillingness to fully submit to God’s law. By failing to live by the letter of the texts, while tolerating the irrationality of those who do, religious moderates betray faith and reason equally.” – Sam Harris, The End of Faith, p. 21
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”Living by the letter”… according to Harris, (and Dawkins, and Hitchens), only a spiritual literalist is truly religious. Scientific minds seek literal explanations, and in so doing, misunderstand spirituality. I said as much in the OP.
Nevermind that the “moderates” tend to be the ones that actually take Christ’s advice, while the fundamentalists actually don’t!
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Originally Posted by Lachean If we are to address the topic as you explained it to me, I'm going to need you to quote an argument of theirs that either:
• I cannot find an example of a religionist that it pertains to
• Is demonstrably false
• Shows a lack of understanding of religion, rather than being an attack on someone who misuses religion by your standards.
If you feel or find that they have not made valid arguments against your particular brand of theology, then I shall provide them for you. In either quoted text or YouTube video; whichever you prefer. |
I hope I’ve done this satisfactorily. Let me know if, and how, I haven’t measured up.
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Originally Posted by Lachean Sidenote: In the paperback preface of the God Delusion, Dawkns addressed the criticism that: "You ignore the best of religion and instead . . . “you attack crude, rabble-rousing chancers like Ted Haggard, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, rather than facing up to sophisticated theologians like Bonhoeffer or the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
His reply was, "If subtle, nuanced religion predominated, the world would be a better place and I would have written a different book." |
It’s telling that Dawkins didn’t actually respond to the charge.