Dawkins' Theory Power equation and God.

Dawkins' answer to the Edge question of what's your equation.

Theory(God)-> Things explained  ->  Everything
              ----------------     ----------------
               Things assumed      Everything + God

Tat's Addendum: Theory power ratio of less than 1 is more worthless than no theory at all.

Shorter: Lee Siegel

Shorter: Lee Siegel

"I didn't read Mr. Dawkins book but let me just say atheism destroys imagination."

We'd probably even object to Peter Pan being talked about as if he were real. Talk about buzzkills!

Dawkins/Lennox: Download

Worth a listen.

RichardDawkins.net has the download.

Lennox/Dawkins Debate.

So PZ had the good sense to clue us infidels into a debate over the God Delusion, via a large number of Christian radio stations.

The format was intended to go as follows:

1) Some read from Dawkins' book.
2) Dawkins says that he wrote that.
3) Lennox pitches a McGrathian fit.
4) Goto 1.

This was admittedly "frustrating" to Dawkins who promptly started to ignore the stupid rules and rebut Lennox on his next chance to talk. The debate then had Lennox getting crushed pretty hard, mostly because Dawkins didn't need to think of new replies as everything Lennox said was stupid and long since disproven (and long since worked out with the best replies).

As I don't have a copy of the Audio some of PZs commenters pointed out the debate comments on the shows site. PZ also made the pointed out the structural problems. To the credit of Dr. Don McDonald, on the show comments he noticed it too. Dawkins should have been defense and going second rather than the pathetic situation of making the argument at the end.

The comments are rather classic:

"Dawkins conceded much more in the debate than I expected. 1. That God cannot be disproved. 2. He had no explanation for morality. 3. That we don't know the origins of the universe. 4. That the staggeringly evident hypothesis would be creation.

1. Didn't read the book. He says that.
2. Didn't read the book. He gives a good explanation for morality as he did in the debate.
3. And?
4. Complete misrepresentation.

Or as Jason Bradfield notes,

"Dawkins got owned. He got completely ripped on the morality issue and historical issues. He also got ripped on the celestial teapot stuff, which is a category mistake. Dawkins can't deal with God as He is explicitly revealed in Scripture. He has to create his own "created" idol."

Jason doesn't seem to understand a lot of what was said, but he's sure the Dawkins got kicked.

Enemies of Reason

Ah, the wonders of internet video.

Muslim Apologetics

I have a theory that due to the lack of enlightenment thinking Muslim Apologetics are downright absurd. Within the intellectual centers of the west religious arguments evolve to side track the obvious objections to them for example if you look at the first cause argument, you'll notice some subtle difference with the older versions. Anything that exists, has a cause. The universe exists. Ergo, the universe has a cause. That cause is God. This has become "began to exist" rather than exists. And exists has become within spacetime (so that God excluded from spacetime can exist). The principle problem is that the premises are flawed, it commits the fallacy of composition, and any exemption for God could also let the universe slip through.

Also, there are attempts to shift this cause onto an Eternal Cause (this causeless God), a role tailor made for God as a planned loophole in the universe designed to allow God to slip through but ready made to close up and prevent the universe itself from slipping through this absurd hole. And even with proponents capitalizing the job description in deference to the eventual job holder (though they are certainly taking applications, they swear). They still don't answer anything, but it at least takes a couple thoughts to realize this.

It is this sort of evolutionary progress in apologetics which make much of Christian Apologetics in absurd nonsense but evolved beyond the point where a simple belly laugh is a sound refutation. Muslim Apologetics have developed in a bubble. In a sterilized room of faith-belief, and is extremely vulnerable to even the simplest of logics.

Dishonesty in the Baylor Study

http://www.baylor.edu/pr/news.php?action=story&story=41678

Several months back Baylor university did a study which had several interesting findings. One of their claims was that about 94.8% of people believed in God. This was done by running an essentially valid survey and asking a question, number 26.

26. In your opinion, does each of the following exist?
God -------------- Absolutely, Probably, Probably Not, Absolutely Not.

We see from page 27 that the given definition for Atheists: "Atheists are certain that God does not exist." - Apparently only people who answered "Absolutely Not" to that final question are atheists.

This seems like a rather minor nitpick, but I think it's an extremely valid one. A good number of people from the "distant God" category are really atheists in the (non-belief in gods sense of the word). Saying that their findings of only 5% is boon to the religious is wrong. Self declared atheism previous registered at 2% then 3%. It raises a question of how many of these distant God people answered "probably not" to that question, and were still promptly tossed into the theist categories.



The Stephen Colbert / Richard Dawkins piece (airing shortly after the Baylor study hit the waves), we see that Colbert cites this 95% stat and Dawkins states his view on the subject. The irony is, given Dawkins view, he would be a theist in the Baylor study. The Baylor study claims there is a boon to religion in today's culture. However, this is mostly because they willfully shoved anybody who wasn't an unabashed strong atheist into a theist group... shouting "Look Ma, Religion."