Last night all four of us went to the back to see if the cafeteria ladies left any food. Instead all we found was a pile of old books and an empty box of crackers...We were about to post our complains on the door of the school (that Luther guy was very successful doing the same thing) when one of the books got our attention all at the same time. It was that book cover, it was shiny like a huge square piece of quarter. So we went close and saw the book title "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. I've heard that name before and Christoff was all about how Dr Dawkins is a known atheist and this book was supposed to be his latest venture, so we started reading and sure enough we couldn't put it down. Christoff really enjoyed it and so did the rest of us but I cannot say it really changed my mind about God. I mean in that subject I don't think anybody can change your mind. Naturally Christoff being an atheist himself was ecstatic after the read. JimB and I just enjoyed it and Manolo I think was just angry there were no hot dogs left over from the cafeteria. Here is the gist of the book.
-Christoff
Dawkins's main argument
The question for the author is not 'can we understand nature just using science', but 'can we understand God'? The assumption that if God exists then Dawkins (and any other established scientist, or clever individual) should know him/her may be perceived a bit arrogant. Moreover it illustrates an underlying reason for which many scientists do not believe in God. RD does not consider the middle way of saying "indeed if God exists he/she must be more complex and above all life and though it poses as a mystery now we might understand it tomorrow". Rd's argument for stupidity (just because you don't understand art it doesn't make it divine, chapter 3) and inconceivable science looking as magic, backfires at him in this case.
In the end this all reminds me of Friedrich W. Nietzsche who said " There cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He".
To be fair though to RD here are some other Nietzsche quotes:
"A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation".
"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything".
a) We try to find an explanation for the complexity and the improbability of the universe.
b) The solution must be simpler than the problem.
c) God must be much more complex and improbable than the universe since simpler things come from more complicated sources (the spear from the spearmaker).
So we cannot explain a by using c. What is a simpler explanation to satisfy b? NATURAL SELECTION!
b) The solution must be simpler than the problem.
c) God must be much more complex and improbable than the universe since simpler things come from more complicated sources (the spear from the spearmaker).
So we cannot explain a by using c. What is a simpler explanation to satisfy b? NATURAL SELECTION!
The question for the author is not 'can we understand nature just using science', but 'can we understand God'? The assumption that if God exists then Dawkins (and any other established scientist, or clever individual) should know him/her may be perceived a bit arrogant. Moreover it illustrates an underlying reason for which many scientists do not believe in God. RD does not consider the middle way of saying "indeed if God exists he/she must be more complex and above all life and though it poses as a mystery now we might understand it tomorrow". Rd's argument for stupidity (just because you don't understand art it doesn't make it divine, chapter 3) and inconceivable science looking as magic, backfires at him in this case.
In the end this all reminds me of Friedrich W. Nietzsche who said " There cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He".
To be fair though to RD here are some other Nietzsche quotes:
"A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation".
"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything".
-Christoff
No comments:
Post a Comment