Jack Straw- Women who wear veils make community relations more difficult.

[Artemis]

I've just started The God Delusion myself.

Dawkins does have a very intolerant view point but not unjustifiably so. He is aware of this and does argue his corner. The beginning of the book is just a delight and he comes across as eloquent and very readable. I've heard that a lot of the book is just a re-hash of standard atheistic arguments, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. So far, so good. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I consider George H. Smith's 'Atheism: The Case Against God' as the benchmark by which all other books should be graded, including the so-called 'classics', but Dawkins shedding new light on it all is very welcome, as far as I'm concerned. It's certainly less militant then his 'Root Of All Evil' show which while full of very relevant points let itself down by just how tyrannical he came across.

[Artemis]

Some may be interested in hearing Richard Dawkins guesting on Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller). Click here and go to October 25th. You can download or stream it.

[Brutus Beefcake]

Cheers for that link, here's Dawkins talking to Huw Edwards, towards the end they talk about Straw's comments: http://richarddawkins.net/search,ALL,page1,n,Video,n,n

unearthing neglected aspects of the word, by going into etymology and politics.

Right but that isn't what you did, you said "religion = ethics" which is just rubbish.

Dictionaries are not the source of meaning. If they were you could understand what God is by looking him up in the dictionary. But the notion of God precedes dictionaries, as does the meaning and usage of any word.

God  /gɒd/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[god] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, god‧ded, god‧ding, interjection

–noun 1. the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe.  
2. the Supreme Being considered with reference to a particular attribute: the God of Islam.  
3. (lowercase) one of several deities, esp. a male deity, presiding over some portion of worldly affairs.  
4. (often lowercase) a supreme being according to some particular conception: the god of mercy.  
5. Christian Science. the Supreme Being, understood as Life, Truth, Love, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Principle.  
6. (lowercase) an image of a deity; an idol.  
7. (lowercase) any deified person or object.  
8. (often lowercase) Gods, Theater. a. the upper balcony in a theater.  
b. the spectators in this part of the balcony.  

–verb (used with object) 9. (lowercase) to regard or treat as a god; deify; idolize.  
–interjection 10. (used to express disappointment, disbelief, weariness, frustration, annoyance, or the like): God, do we have to listen to this nonsense?

What's so hard to understand about that?

[Ciarán2]

Must you keep coming up with this tedious dictionary "argument"? I've said all I feel I can do about the unreliability of dictionaries in philosophical debates, if you don't accept the points I make or the thrust of my argument, it's fine.

I think on balance I won't buy "The God Delusion" just yet. The other day I was flicking through it in the bookshop and - I realise it was just a skim reading - it just seemed that I don't even go along with the points he starts his argument from. That chapter in the middle is called "Why God Almost Certainly Does Not Exist". I mean, that's terrible. If you're going to polemical, fair enough, but stick to your guns man! there are several other big problems with it as far as I can tell. The first thing I did when I picked up the book was - as I usually do - skip to the end, to the index. I was looking there to see which religious thinkers and philosophical ideas he'd brought in and accounted for. I was looking for names like St Augustine, de Chardin, St Anselm, St Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Kierkegaard, Hegel, Heidegger, Sartre... and really none of them were there. Actually, Spinoza was on page 18. I think I mentioned before how Dawkins' describes pantheism as "sexed-up atheism" and deism as "watered-down theism". Glib in the extreme, that. You don't cover Spinoza's thought even in an introductory way - much less do his thought any justice - in a paragraph of text. It's the arrogance of that and the bad writing style which really put me off. I'll watch a couple of YouTube clips of his interviews in a few minutes, but I don't have much confidence in Richard Dawkins as a thinker to be honest. And I realise that that sounds arrogant when he's one of the most eminent "intellectuals" in the UK, but there you go.

The other reason is I just have so much other reading to do that I need to picky about what I give my reading time to. So I would like to read Dawkins' book, but I'm not convinced it's worth the time to be honest. Well, for the moment anyway.

Another thing that occurs to me, is I'm very interested in ontology really, and I think it's nigh on impossible to be interested in ontology and be irreligious. If you see what I mean. Any of the great ontological writers have a certain spirituality about them (even the professed atheist, Sartre).

My mother interestingly singled out a couple of problems with Dawkins which are glaring too. She recognised the messianic quality of a man who professes to have solved the problem of God, telling people how it really is, and recommending that they act in this or that way in the light of these revelations. And she said if he's not prepared to really discuss God with religious people, if he believes science and religion are incompatible, then he's as bas as any religious fundamentalist who is incapable of tolerating the other person's viewpoint.

[Pinball]

Religion is illogical, Captain. C'est tout.

[Ciarán2]

Religion is illogical, Captain. C'est tout.

Yes, it is!

I've just watched a few clips from YouTube now (the Newsnight and BBC News24 interviews, three clips from "The Root of All Evil?") and in a way I admire Dawkins' passion. But he is very arrogant... I suppose we're all guilty of that sometimes though.

[Borboski]

My mother interestingly singled out a couple of problems with Dawkins which are glaring too. She recognised the messianic quality of a man who professes to have solved the problem of God, telling people how it really is, and recommending that they act in this or that way in the light of these revelations. And she said if he's not prepared to really discuss God with religious people, if he believes science and religion are incompatible, then he's as bas as any religious fundamentalist who is incapable of tolerating the other person's viewpoint.

I don't think that describes him at all though.  He was on Heaven and Earth the other week!

[Brigadier Pompous]

That chapter in the middle is called "Why God Almost Certainly Does Not Exist". I mean, that's terrible. If you're going to polemical, fair enough, but stick to your guns man!

What is terrible about that?  Is that not just an accurate statement of his view on the matter?  He is a scientist, so he would be well aware of the absurdity of claiming that god certainly does not exist.

[jutl]

That chapter in the middle is called "Why God Almost Certainly Does Not Exist". I mean, that's terrible. If you're going to polemical, fair enough, but stick to your guns man!

What is terrible about that?  Is that not just an accurate statement of his view on the matter?  He is a scientist, so he would be well aware of the absurdity of claiming that god certainly does not exist.

It's a little dissatisfying if you're looking for what a lot of people believe Dawkins can provide - a scientific explanation of the non-existence of God. Without that, the discussion is really about how you choose to expend your own mental energies. There's a very convincing argument that it's not worth worrying about things whose likelihood science currently estimates to be low, but it's met with a strong conviction in believers that - although they can't argue it scientifically - something has happened to them personally which they believe to be real and which provides them with personal evidence of the existence of God.

[Brigadier Pompous]

It's a little dissatisfying if you're looking for what a lot of people believe Dawkins can provide - a scientific explanation of the non-existence of God.

I assume (not having read any of it) that the book attempts to do exactly that.  This doesn't alter the fact that you cannot scientifically prove that god (or anything else) certainly doesn't exist, and it isn't surprising that Dawkins avoids making such a claim.

[jutl]

It's a little dissatisfying if you're looking for what a lot of people believe Dawkins can provide - a scientific explanation of the non-existence of God.

I assume (not having read any of it) that the book attempts to do exactly that.  This doesn't alter the fact that you cannot scientifically prove that god (or anything else) certainly doesn't exist, and it isn't surprising that Dawkins avoids making such a claim.

That's a contradiction, surely? If 'the non-existence of God' isn't something science can demonstrate, how can it explain it?

[Brigadier Pompous]

Science deals in probabilities.  You can try and determine whether something is likely or not, but you can't prove something doesn't exist with 100% certainty.

[jutl]

Science deals in probabilities.  You can try and determine whether something is likely or not, but you can't prove something doesn't exist with 100% certainty.

I know - it's the old problem that disbelief in God is a metaphysical belief.

[Ciarán2]

I do sympathise with Dawkins, because I think that he is acting out of an ethical concern for human relationships. What I disagree with is his manner of going about it, and his thought process. He doesn't seem to realise that, in fact, he's causing about as much damage as he is good. In the clips from "The Root of All Evil?" I watched last night, where he interviews the Jewish man and the Muslim scholar and flits between their opposing viewpoints, the underlying message is "Why the hell can't these people just get on with each other?" Dawkins' basis for his argument though is a belief that God doesn't exist (or at least is as likely to exist as the flying Spaghetti Monster, or Russell's solar-orbiting teapot). But I believe that firstly, these analagous arguments are problematic (I'll say why in a minute), and secondly that he's putting his energy into the least pertinent aspect of the argument. The real question to be asking is not "how can I convince people that they should stop believing in God or the metaphysical or supernatural", but rather "How is it possible to get two people from very different backgrounds and with very different belief systems to engage with each other in an open, ethical manner?" This also tackles the problem of people with ideological, cultural, political and social differences of opinion. So even if I were to consider myself a "fellow traveller" to Dawkins (I like that phrase), I believe he's approaching the problem in the worng way.

The reason I believe the analogy to unicorns and spaghetti monsters and teapots to be a problem, is this is a reduction of religion to the "doctrine". And religion is not just about doctrines, it is not necessarily based on this or that God having specific qualities or attributes. I would agree that to say God wants this or that is the same as believing in an undetectable entity with specific attributes (the teapot for example). But to talk of the God which all religious discourses share, what is all agreed on, this necessarily incomprehensible thing which nevertheless must be comprehended somehow...that's a much bigger question. And really I belive that this is the important thing about God and religion. This is openness to infinity. By infinity, I mean the impossible, the infinity of possibilities which cannot be contained in the rational, logical, totalising human mind. But which are nevertheless intuited.

Another point which cropped up a couple of times in those clips (and I was looking at Jonathan Miller's programme too) was the idea that "you'd have to be mad to believe in this". Yes, perhaps you do! There is an element of doing the impossible in religion, I think. I'm thinking of miracles, visions, religious iconography and so on. This paradox of possibility/impossibility, I believe, is at the heart of religion. And I don't suppose that a scientist who is utterly embroiled in empiricism would have much time for that idea. Nevertheless, this is how I believe religion is inherently ethical. Ethics is actually about fogeing new moral codes and breaking out of the totalising logic of rationality. It is not rational to trust someone who has wronged you, but nevertheless to take that leap of faith and do the irrational thing and trust the person who smited you is a very powerful and ethical attribute to have.

In response to Brigadier Pompous, those people who believe in that sliver of a margin which is not completely disprovable by science...if you consider their religiousness in those terms, I think they're actually taking an ethical leap. They're doing the unthinkable, they're being kind of mad actually. And I wouldn't really discount them.

Last thing I meant to say... Dawkins was telling Jeremy Paxman "I am not interested in comfort, I'm interested in truth" - his argument really falls apart there for me. Cold, dry, meaningless "truth" is precisely that - it is meaningless and irrelevant. What is much more important than this idea of "truth" is "ethics".

[Pinball]

We do need to get Islamic dress sense in perspective though. It's not like they sponsor a coup and invade our country:

Archive Hour
Suez - the Missing Dimension
Saturday 28 October 2006 20:02-21:00 (Radio 4 FM)

To mark the 50th anniversary of the Suez Crisis of 1956, Professor Scott Lucas examines the key role played by the British intelligence services in the ill-fated invasion of Egypt.

He uses new evidence to uncover how MI6 planned for the overthrow of the Egyptian President Nasser, how it shocked CIA colleagues with the proposal to use Israel in the attempt, and how it eventually produced the unsuccessful plan for psychological warfare, with catastrophic results for the Eden government.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/archivehour/

Listen Again

Isn't imperialism great?

[threeism]

The main reason I find I find Levinas' work and thus what you Ciarán say so uninteresting is the lack of social and historical content.

[HKmA]

By infinity, I mean the impossible, the infinity of possibilities which cannot be contained in the rational, logical, totalising human mind. But which are nevertheless intuited.

I may be opening a can of worms here, but could you please explain these two contradictions? In your own words if you could.

[All Surrogate]

Ethics is actually about fogeing new moral codes and breaking out of the totalising logic of rationality.

And science is about forging new theories and breaking out of the totalising logic of Rationalism.

It is not rational to trust someone who has wronged you, but nevertheless to take that leap of faith and do the irrational thing and trust the person who smited you is a very powerful and ethical attribute to have.

Turn the other cheek, you mean?  Is this forging a new moral code?

In response to Brigadier Pompous, those people who believe in that sliver of a margin which is not completely disprovable by science...if you consider their religiousness in those terms, I think they're actually taking an ethical leap. They're doing the unthinkable, they're being kind of mad actually. And I wouldn't really discount them.

Y'see, to me it's sort of the other way around.  What they are doing is very 'thinkable', because they are thinking it.  In fact, they're thinking it to such an extent that they believe it.  I think I've written before on the 'madness' of the scientific, on its failure to be true.

[Ciarán2]

By infinity, I mean the impossible, the infinity of possibilities which cannot be contained in the rational, logical, totalising human mind. But which are nevertheless intuited.

I may be opening a can of worms here, but could you please explain these two contradictions? In your own words if you could.

Okey doke. But it's a kind of difficult thing to describe simply.

When an effort is made to fit everything that could possibly be known into a distinct category, that is when all knowledge is reduced to categories such as "rationale", "logic", "science" etc, or in other words where only knowledge which fits a certain criteria is said to have any validity, then a self-enclosed system of knowledge is produced. Anything outside of that category is deemed insubstantial, irrelevant, etc. So there is a closing off to the other. So for example the other of reason is madness. Madness is dismissed because, well, it is mad, and who the hell weants to engage with a mad person? But this distinction is drawn. And although without the mad, the sane could not be constituted, it is imagined that there is such a thing as a sane sphere without an outside. The question here is of the closing off to the other.

Any idea which does not fit with categories becomes an irrelevance. And in answer to threeism this is not ahistorical, some historical examples of this are the negation of the other which is evident in colonialism, or in the holocaust (and Levinas is a jew for whom the holocaust absolutely had repercussions). The other's voice is alien, and dismised as such. In Levinas' writing especially in Totality and Infinity, there is a sense that he is alerting you to your responsibility to and for the other. When one becomes aware of this responsibility, I believe one acts upon it and does so in the interests of the common good between the self and other. You'd really have to read Levinas to pick up on his style of writing and get that sense for yourself, but it's definitely in there.

so in a universe with countless possibilities, to erect a system of logic which only depends upon itself for its own validity and correction, is to establish a kind of perimeter fence separating truth from falsity. And the "falsity" is utterly dismissed, not tolerated. But how would it be possible to have any kind of ethics without breaching this perimeter fence? To put it in more concrete terms, think of the times when what is in fact counter-intuitive given all the evidence is shown to enhance or extend our knowledge. The self-enclosed sphere of human knowledge is always open to the possibility outside of itself. So what is hitherto unthinkable becomes common sense. To say in 1200 that the earth was spinning around the sun was heresy not just against the Church but against the contemporary science and even society! It was thought mad to say such a thing. Every thing science achieves starts from a sense of wonder, from a speculative sense, from an imagining of what is not already accepted scientific "truth". And this stretching of the boundaries of science does not necessarily have a limit. We really do not fully know where it leads us.

Any attempt by the human mind to say "Ah-ha! Now we have it all understood and accounted for!" does an injustice to the truth, in fact. Because only by considering what calls this totalising human knowledge into question or forces it to re-assess itself can make it open up, continue progressing and make it ethical. It is in this sense that the relationship between the self and the other is shown to be an ethical relationship.

I hope that's clearish.

[Ciarán2]

Ethics is actually about fogeing new moral codes and breaking out of the totalising logic of rationality.

And science is about forging new theories and breaking out of the totalising logic of Rationalism.

Well, no not really. It is always "rational". Dawkins is incapable of understanding what is not "rational" it seems.

It is not rational to trust someone who has wronged you, but nevertheless to take that leap of faith and do the irrational thing and trust the person who smited you is a very powerful and ethical attribute to have.

Turn the other cheek, you mean?  Is this forging a new moral code?

Certainly it is to act irrationally. It is to undermine the principles of rationalism.

In response to Brigadier Pompous, those people who believe in that sliver of a margin which is not completely disprovable by science...if you consider their religiousness in those terms, I think they're actually taking an ethical leap. They're doing the unthinkable, they're being kind of mad actually. And I wouldn't really discount them.

Y'see, to me it's sort of the other way around.  What they are doing is very 'thinkable', because they are thinking it.  In fact, they're thinking it to such an extent that they believe it.  I think I've written before on the 'madness' of the scientific, on its failure to be true.

[/quote]

But they don't completely comprehend what they are doing. They can't sit down and logically work it out, it is based on faith. They are allowing for incomprehensibility to guide them despite all of their rationale telling them it is unwise to do so. Or perhaps they are acting out of a firm concretised belief. Either way they are acting irrationally, and nevertheless ethically.

[threeism]

Levinas' work is ahistorical and lacking in social content because it presents an notion of ethics which doesn't confront their  utterly entwinement with economics and with exchange relations. For instance the etymology of the word 'good'. In a society saturated throughout with the exchange principle, what can the notion of ethics mean?

And it really is arbitrary and a sign of desperation to equate ethics and religion. This is related to your narrow definition of rationality, which you've entirely identified with scientism, or the religion of the facts. A notion of a rationality which attains its truth in the recognition and reconciliation with the non-identical seems to escape you, so you resort to 'irrationality' i.e. religion, with its arbitrary 'leap of faith, as a means of escaping the dominating the prevailing 'rationality', which is in fact profoundly irrational.
You do all this because you are a religious thinker, through and through, and have found a foothold in a world in which there are no compelling ethical choices to be made, except in what might be called fugitive ethical experiences, of which the most obvious is the relation to young children in their vulnerability and trust, unformedness and lack of full initiation into society. Enlightenment 'rationality' sees childhood as something to be permanently overcome, which is one of its greatest evils.
I don't find religion or irrationality in my experience of children, but I do find something of those elements in me which are most subdued by the experience of growing up in a society that denies the possibility of experiences of openess and trust. This is something in the world and has no need of religion.

[Raspberry Jam]

It looks like she was obeying orders from above!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2426770,00.html

[Timmay]

The cleric is a mufti! I thought that was a day at school where you don't have to wear uniform - mufti day! Is there a link?

EDIT: Oooh, my first post in this thread... uhh... I think all religion should be made illegal, that'll fix it. Let me know when you've sorted it. See ya!

[Tits McGee]

Well I think Muslims can wear whatever they want, but they should respect Westerns wanting to wear whatever they want as well. Why shouldnt we wear short skirts and show our tits? Well I don't of course, but s many young women do these days. THe veil is a problem with deaf people or children, so I feel Muslims should remove it when they talk to one of these groups. But apart from that, you can hear what they say through the cloth. My wife's friend is a Muslim and works in a petrol station.

[All Surrogate]

Well, no not really. It is always "rational". Dawkins is incapable of understanding what is not "rational" it seems.

Rationality ain't the same as Rationalism, ducky.  I thought you'd know that much, being into Descartes, Spinoza etc.

Certainly it is to act irrationally. It is to undermine the principles of rationalism.

See above.

But they don't completely comprehend what they are doing. They can't sit down and logically work it out, it is based on faith. They are allowing for incomprehensibility to guide them despite all of their rationale telling them it is unwise to do so. Or perhaps they are acting out of a firm concretised belief. Either way they are acting irrationally, and nevertheless ethically.

You think scientists completely comprehend what they are doing?  Or atheists?

[Ciarán2]

Well, no not really. It is always "rational". Dawkins is incapable of understanding what is not "rational" it seems.

Rationality ain't the same as Rationalism, ducky.  I thought you'd know that much, being into Descartes, Spinoza etc.

Certainly it is to act irrationally. It is to undermine the principles of rationalism.

See above.

Yes, alright, but Levinasian thought challenges even the principles of the Enlightenment, Rationalism and so on.

But they don't completely comprehend what they are doing. They can't sit down and logically work it out, it is based on faith. They are allowing for incomprehensibility to guide them despite all of their rationale telling them it is unwise to do so. Or perhaps they are acting out of a firm concretised belief. Either way they are acting irrationally, and nevertheless ethically.

You think scientists completely comprehend what they are doing?  Or atheists?

I don't know what scientists think, but it does appear that Dawkins for example believes he completely comprehends what he does, just going by his use of the word "truth" here and there.

[HKmA]

To say in 1200 that the earth was spinning around the sun was heresy not just against the Church but against the contemporary science and even society! It was thought mad to say such a thing. Every thing science achieves starts from a sense of wonder, from a speculative sense, from an imagining of what is not already accepted scientific "truth". And this stretching of the boundaries of science does not necessarily have a limit. We really do not fully know where it leads us.

What you appear to be saying here, is that scientific discoveries germinate from ideas not encapsulated within current scientific theories, so in a sense science can look outside of its boundaries for inspiration. If this is the case I believe that this leaves you in a position that you would be unwilling to hold - that science is open and tolerant of 'the other',  as you would put it.

However, I still don't understand how the impossible can be meaningfully described as the 'infinity of possibilities'. Why the obsession with infinite in any case? If one cannot contain these possibilities within the human mind, but can nevertheless intuit them, in what meaningful sense could we ever know their number? Perhaps you intuit possibility to be endless, i intuit possibility to be finite, if we are talking here about things that cannot be used in arguments in the normal way, then what do we say here about our disagreement? The answer seems to be that we can say nothing, so our disagreement still stands, and in principal can never be solved. The problem here is more general though, if we meet up with these possibilities in the strange way you desribe, then as a consequence we are left with no way to settle disagreements about them. I think that this may be a problem in terms of deciding how seriously to take ones intuitions. Do they over ride moral considerations for example (which I hold can be rationally derived)?

I think the problem here is you have a too narrow idea of the rational. You appear to believe that acting ethically, out of a concern for others, is by its nature irrational, and therefore (here's where you seem to get sketchy) part of the realm of the other, specifically the other to science which you characterise as religion. First, I would reject the first notion, that acting ethically is necessarily irrational, that seems to me plainly false. Secondly, even if it were, in a sense irrational, that does not mean that it is religious in any sense. You arent seriously holding that the irrational equates to religion are you?



edit: before someone pulls me up on this, when i use the word 'intuitions' above, i dont mean in the normal sense, merely the sense ciaran would use.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6207593.stm

Idiot vicar hitting out at political correctness yet at the same time calling for Muslim women to remove the veil. Call me old Mr. Predictable but if you take that dog collar off he's just another stupid old moaning bastard.

[Mister Cairo]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6195581.stm

In other veil-related news, there is a concern that terrorists could pose as Muslim women and evade security checks. The Goverment say that veils are lifted at checks. If they had a little wooden box where a female officer could inspect those veiled, this problem would go away.

The shooting of this PC has received blanket coverage. An 11 year old boy kills himself after bullying, and only one story in the Independent. I guess 11 year olds being bullied aren't important any more as we can't link them to terrorism, Muslims or gun crime.

And in an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Mr Nazir-Ali said Christmas was in danger of being destroyed by "thoughtless bureaucracy and the desire to be politically correct".

He said there were people in "Whitehall and town hall... who want to write Christ out of Christmas altogether".

This bishop deserves a good (ear) bashing. I note he gives no examples of this war on Christmas, perhaps he believes everything he reads in the Mail.

//www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/03/26/do2604.xml

He also blames multicultualism for "perverting young Muslims"

http:////www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/08/15/do1501.xml