NO BLUE HEAVEN FOR ELANJO

[pee dubya]

The Origin of Species hardly offers the same scope for radicalisation as The Bible/Koran etc do.

 

[Paul Lake's Left Knee]

Putting the event of today's tragedy to one side, a moment, the continuing usage of comparing religious to peaceful Darwinism is farcical, in the extreme.

There is NO evidence that you can offer that religion has started wars from Day One. In order for you to do that, you would have to examine the 'fantasy work' that is The Bible. Of course, in doing that you would contradict your whole standpoint of The Bible being a falsehood!

So! Let us consider that religion has been around for a few thousand years, so far and Darwinism has been a couple of hundred and growing its own sect of Believers. The fact is, there WILL be other branch off beliefs from more 'radical thinkers' that deviate more and more from the 'original line'.

Isn't that the nature of Evolution?

So, for one to compare the very early comparative stages of a Belief system to a more established is folly in the extreme!

It is 'flawed'( a favourite word of mine, lately!) in its 'intellectual' base.

Ignore today because it was in the name of religion, and it doesnt suit you that thousands of people die each year because of religion (and that is in India alone), there are more Christians in India than there are in Western Europe one study said recently.

I have read the bible Bigga, and a large part of the Koran, what have you read about evolution? Origin of the species??? The selfish Gene? What is your source of knowledge???

Ever heard of the crusades Bigga??? If they werent a wars in the name of the lord i dont know what was, Richard I had a cross on his chest as he went to war. All in the name of the lord and to try and may i add the start of all the trouble in the middle east.

Face facts - the bible wasnt written by god, it isnt his word. It is like an autobiography (that has been butchered and changed) of Jesus, not a biography... and that is at best.

You dont seem to know much about evolution but you are very quick to comment. Darwin's theory in recent years has been turned into fact. To ignore the blatent facts and massive evidence that lie in the fossil records, the genetic coding of animals and the active observing of evolution happening is daft beyond belief. The doubt isnt whether it is happening, rarther why it is happening. To argue there is no evidence for evolution is like arguing there is no evidence for gravity.

If you dont know about peppered moths, what happened is they used to be light grey/brown in colour, they matched their surroundings the barks of trees and lichen they rested on, then when the industrial revolution happened, in places the tree barks where darkened by the soot in these places, the light moths stuck out and were easy prey for birds. The moths, however, survived, and over a number of years changed colour to suit their environment, the darker moths staying alive and breeding with other darker moths, this repeating itself over generations, till the moth changed colour entirely, no light coloured moths could be found. This was quite something, and was good that it was actually observed, but that in itself wasnt the whole story. When the clean air acts were passed, large carbon deposits into the atmosphere were slashed, the moths were again, easy prey for the birds when the trees reverted to their natural colour, but not to be outdone, the moths, evolved back to their light colour, by the same process in reverse. Evolution happening right in front of our eyes, in this country no less. This is natural selection in full glory, part of the evidence for evolution. Creationists call this microevolution and agree that occurs (the evidence is so massive they cant really deny it), but they say macroevolution (the same but on a wider and much slower scale) doesnt exists.

Massive difference Bigga - there is concrete evidence for evolution and none for that of an all empowering god.

 

[Bigga]

Putting the event of today's tragedy to one side, a moment, the continuing usage of comparing religious to peaceful Darwinism is farcical, in the extreme.

There is NO evidence that you can offer that religion has started wars from Day One. In order for you to do that, you would have to examine the 'fantasy work' that is The Bible. Of course, in doing that you would contradict your whole standpoint of The Bible being a falsehood!

So! Let us consider that religion has been around for a few thousand years, so far and Darwinism has been a couple of hundred and growing its own sect of Believers. The fact is, there WILL be other branch off beliefs from more 'radical thinkers' that deviate more and more from the 'original line'.

Isn't that the nature of Evolution?

So, for one to compare the very early comparative stages of a Belief system to a more established is folly in the extreme!

It is 'flawed'( a favourite word of mine, lately!) in its 'intellectual' base.

Ignore today because it was in the name of religion, and it doesnt suit you that thousands of people die each year because of religion (and that is in India alone), there are more Christians in India than there are in Western Europe one study said recently.

I have read the bible Bigga, and a large part of the Koran, what have you read about evolution? Origin of the species??? The selfish Gene? What is your source of knowledge???

Ever heard of the crusades Bigga??? If they werent a wars in the name of the lord i dont know what was, Richard I had a cross on his chest as he went to war. All in the name of the lord and to try and may i add the start of all the trouble in the middle east.

Face facts - the bible wasnt written by god, it isnt his word. It is like an autobiography (that has been butchered and changed) of Jesus, not a biography... and that is at best.

You dont seem to know much about evolution but you are very quick to comment. Darwin's theory in recent years has been turned into fact. To ignore the blatent facts and massive evidence that lie in the fossil records, the genetic coding of animals and the active observing of evolution happening is daft beyond belief. The doubt isnt whether it is happening, rarther why it is happening. To argue there is no evidence for evolution is like arguing there is no evidence for gravity.

If you dont know about peppered moths, what happened is they used to be light grey/brown in colour, they matched their surroundings the barks of trees and lichen they rested on, then when the industrial revolution happened, in places the tree barks where darkened by the soot in these places, the light moths stuck out and were easy prey for birds. The moths, however, survived, and over a number of years changed colour to suit their environment, the darker moths staying alive and breeding with other darker moths, this repeating itself over generations, till the moth changed colour entirely, no light coloured moths could be found. This was quite something, and was good that it was actually observed, but that in itself wasnt the whole story. When the clean air acts were passed, large carbon deposits into the atmosphere were slashed, the moths were again, easy prey for the birds when the trees reverted to their natural colour, but not to be outdone, the moths, evolved back to their light colour, by the same process in reverse. Evolution happening right in front of our eyes, in this country no less. This is natural selection in full glory, part of the evidence for evolution. Creationists call this microevolution and agree that occurs (the evidence is so massive they cant really deny it), but they say macroevolution (the same but on a wider and much slower scale) doesnt exists.

Massive difference Bigga - there is concrete evidence for evolution and none for that of an all empowering god.

Highly critical and angry, aren't we...?

An evolving state takes on many many forms, so to press upon me that your version is the sole truth is ignorant. Religion 'evolves' as does science. The point of MY initial post was that in many years, fans of Darwinism will split off and evolve in their thinking and, perhaps, there will be a clashing of beliefs. Whether wars will happen, as a result of a new belief system is, of course, up for discussion BUT NOT improbable. To dismiss this out of hand is simply churlish on your behalf.

For your information I know of the Crusades and with it, you miss my whole entire point! In 500 hundred years from now, one can tell me that Darwinism is peaceful and no wars have been fought in the name of it. For now, it as early a concept as Christianity was, in its infancy.

As for your early chastising of my sidestepping what happened today, I did so because you and others would already be using it as a battering ram. I find it offensive that you think I'm not bothered by today's events.

You've never read my views on religion and have gone off half cocked, so on this particular occasion, I'll not insult you as I normally would and just deem you as an ignorant assumer.

 

[Paul Lake's Left Knee]

Highly critical and angry, aren't we...?

An evolving state takes on many many forms, so to press upon me that your version is the sole truth is ignorant. Religion 'evolves' as does science. The point of MY initial post was that in many years, fans of Darwinism will split off and evolve in their thinking and, perhaps, there will be a clashing of beliefs. Whether wars will happen, as a result of a new belief system is, of course, up for discussion BUT NOT improbable. To dismiss this out of hand is simply churlish on your behalf.

For your information I know of the Crusades and with it, you miss my whole entire point! In 500 hundred years from now, one can tell me that Darwinism is peaceful and no wars have been fought in the name of it. For now, it as early a concept as Christianity was, in its infancy.

As for your early chastising of my sidestepping what happened today, I did so because you and others would already be using it as a battering ram. I find it offensive that you think I'm not bothered by today's events.

You've never read my views on religion and have gone off half cocked, so on this particular occasion, I'll not insult you as I normally would and just deem you as an ignorant assumer.

Not at all angry fella, highly critical yes, sometimes the written word doesnt reflect how someone means to come across, there werent any caps or swear words, i certainly didnt mean to offend you, unless you are a RAG, then of course i did!!

I take your point but it is a mute point. Religion is a faith it requires an element of blind belief, open to interpretation, as no 2 people think the same way then there will always be digression. The whole point of science is to have results or observations, which everyone can see as the same, unless you can prove things to be true they are worthless. If something is proven as scientific fact it can’t digress or evolve as you put it, from that stand point, if it does it won’t be a true anymore and wont be a fact. A quadrilateral has 4 sides, 3 sides and it’s a triangle, 5 and it’s a pentagon.

When Darwin first published his work, not everyone (in the scientific community) agreed with it, far from it, primarily because he didn’t have the evidence to back up his theory. That evidence has since come to pass, as his work and theory were ahead of the science. Despite those people not agreeing with him, they didn’t threaten violence against him, but tried to disprove him with science. The only threats he got came from, yes you guessed it, and those he turned away from, Christians.

There aren’t many none religious wars in the history of man, the world wars and the Iran-Iraq war, the 1st US-Iraq war (maybe), every other war in the world, before those and since, religion has played the primary factor.

The reason as to why evolution is happening is still open to debate, as it can never be proven 100% as to why something evolved in the past, but the fact that it has happened, is happening and will happen can not be debated, the evidence is so massive. The most common accepted theory as to why evolution occurs is natural selection; however, this isn’t the whole reason why evolution happens. The 2 are often confused, one a fact, the other a theory as to why the fact is happening. Fact, gravity exists, why does gravity exist is another matter all together.

Never said you agreed with today attacks in anyway, I just said you put them to one side as it doesn’t suit you to discuss it, but I accept your point, it is a raw event and shouldn’t really be used to hammer home a point. The thousands of other attacks that happen each year that aren’t as high profile, can they be used?

I have read all your thoughts on other threads on this matter, I can’t really do much more than that, and I haven’t taken this thread in isolation, if you bothered to read all of the Darwin thread rather than just arguing with a few, you will see some of my comments on the matter. Feel free to insult me if you must, for i am not ignorant of your thoughts, just in total oppostion of them.

 

[ElanJo]

Sorry for my absence posters, I'm working on a short but serious reply to my critics - ElanJo, Gelson's Pater (thank's for the movie - fantastic), Golden Mean, denislawsbackheel even pee dubya.

In the meantime perhaps Elanjo might reflect on this. He seems to think that if God wanted us to believe in him... he'd exist.

"Anyway, all this bullshit is pointless. I'm an Agnostic Atheist, and until there is at least a spot of evidence that there is a creator I will remain so."

Imagine you looked up into sky on a clear night. Spelt out in the stars were the words

ELANJO - I AM THE WAY THE TRUTH AND THE LIGHT

Would that do?

But a God who had to resort to that kind of trick to save your soul ..... I'd be in the NoGod squad with you right away.

It's funny you decide to quote the Christian God, and not one of the thousands of religions before or after. Qute arrogant/sure of yourself, aren't we?

Anyway, If that happened, and it was verified by other sources (ruling out a hallucination on my part) then It would be pretty conclusive that there is a God, tho it could be a practical joke by some extremely advanced alien civilisation who had the technology to move stars around. Either way, it would be science that got to the bottom of it.

The fact that evidence of a God's existence makes you part of the NoGod squad is absurd, especially considering that it was these kind of "tricks" that Jesus supposedly pulled off to prove he was God/'s son. You're either lying, so contemptible of evidence or just flatout jealous that this God picked me and not you.

 

[ElanJo]

That "extract" is a pile of shite based on poor understanding and shaky axioms...

To compare a life form to a tractor is just ridiculous! What you're implying is that an intelligent and complex being should design an even more complex being in it's image... Well no, actually we, as extremely complex beings can only create poor, non self-sustaining facsimiles of ourselves, like tractors, not other life forms. We can only begin to compete with the simplicity and longevity of evolution, which because based on the laws of science and nature, can evolve life as we know, and see it, over aeons of time, not overnight in some Mary Shelley-esque flash of lightning! You misunderstand and belittle the vastness of time with your humanistic view of history...

There is no place for "God" in this process... He/it is unnecessary! The design of life isn't "cobbled together" in someone's garden shed like some steam-driven contraption... It is the result of millions of years of trial and improvement that makes the best of the available resources and environment... Not to mention probability! Please if you are going to use the language of mathematics, then study it and understand it's implications!

Seriously, If you can give me a good summary of this diatribe, I'm willing to listen to it... But I reckon you can't because it's filled with incorrect conclusions and dodgy assumptions...


I'll await your retort....



"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!" Alexander Pope in An Essay on Criticism, 1709:

This is so flawed a piece of 'thinking/ argument', I cannot begin to tell you...

I might let you work it it out from a simplistic stand point, first...

Ah, Bigga at his finest...

 

[ElanJo]

Putting the event of today's tragedy to one side, a moment, the continuing usage of comparing religious to peaceful Darwinism is farcical, in the extreme.

(1)There is NO evidence that you can offer that religion has started wars from Day One. In order for you to do that, you would have to examine the 'fantasy work' that is The Bible. Of course, in doing that you would contradict your whole standpoint of The Bible being a falsehood!

So! Let us consider that religion has been around for a few thousand years, so far and Darwinism has been a couple of hundred and growing its own sect of Believers. (2)The fact is, there WILL be other branch off beliefs from more 'radical thinkers' that deviate more and more from the 'original line'.

Isn't that the nature of Evolution?

So, for one to compare the very early comparative stages of a Belief system to a more established is folly in the extreme!

It is 'flawed'( a favourite word of mine, lately!) in its 'intellectual' base.

(1) I'd be interested to see you explain and expand on that point.

(2) I'm sorry, but evolution isn't some random belief system, unless, of course, you think knowing that the clouds are 'bags of water' in the sky, or that the sun is the centre of the solar system, constitute "belief systems". When was the last time a war was fought in the name of science? Maybe if back in ancient times, when people worshipped the Sun, as a God, and time traveling scientists told them what the sun really is, then maybe the religious people would attack the scientists.... but that would be the fault of ignorant faith based superstitions, not the scientist's knowledge (or, in your words "belief")

I think you highly misunderstand science. Belief doesn't come into it. If some scientists disagree about certain aspects of a phenomenon, they don't break up into sects and wage war on each other. They collect more evidence etc and try and prove/disprove each others hypotheses. Science isn't something that protects faulty understanding for long, and for you to compare factual religious conflicts of the past to the possibility, in your eyes, that in some far flung point in time scientists will split up into stubborn belief based sects, is highly dishonest, biased, irrational.... and, funnily enough(not) faith based(ie. belief based on no evidence) garbage.

 

[ElanJo]

Ignore today because it was in the name of religion, and it doesnt suit you that thousands of people die each year because of religion (and that is in India alone), there are more Christians in India than there are in Western Europe one study said recently.

I have read the bible Bigga, and a large part of the Koran, what have you read about evolution? Origin of the species??? The selfish Gene? What is your source of knowledge???

Ever heard of the crusades Bigga??? If they werent a wars in the name of the lord i dont know what was, Richard I had a cross on his chest as he went to war. All in the name of the lord and to try and may i add the start of all the trouble in the middle east.

Face facts - the bible wasnt written by god, it isnt his word. It is like an autobiography (that has been butchered and changed) of Jesus, not a biography... and that is at best.

You dont seem to know much about evolution but you are very quick to comment. Darwin's theory in recent years has been turned into fact. To ignore the blatent facts and massive evidence that lie in the fossil records, the genetic coding of animals and the active observing of evolution happening is daft beyond belief. The doubt isnt whether it is happening, rarther why it is happening. To argue there is no evidence for evolution is like arguing there is no evidence for gravity.

If you dont know about peppered moths, what happened is they used to be light grey/brown in colour, they matched their surroundings the barks of trees and lichen they rested on, then when the industrial revolution happened, in places the tree barks where darkened by the soot in these places, the light moths stuck out and were easy prey for birds. The moths, however, survived, and over a number of years changed colour to suit their environment, the darker moths staying alive and breeding with other darker moths, this repeating itself over generations, till the moth changed colour entirely, no light coloured moths could be found. This was quite something, and was good that it was actually observed, but that in itself wasnt the whole story. When the clean air acts were passed, large carbon deposits into the atmosphere were slashed, the moths were again, easy prey for the birds when the trees reverted to their natural colour, but not to be outdone, the moths, evolved back to their light colour, by the same process in reverse. Evolution happening right in front of our eyes, in this country no less. This is natural selection in full glory, part of the evidence for evolution. Creationists call this microevolution and agree that occurs (the evidence is so massive they cant really deny it), but they say macroevolution (the same but on a wider and much slower scale) doesnt exists.

Massive difference Bigga - there is concrete evidence for evolution and none for that of an all empowering god.

.......

(1)An evolving state takes on many many forms, so to press upon me that your version is the sole truth is ignorant. Religion 'evolves' as does science. The point of MY initial post was that in many years, fans of Darwinism will split off and evolve in their thinking and, perhaps, there will be a clashing of beliefs. Whether wars will happen, as a result of a new belief system is, of course, up for discussion BUT NOT improbable. To dismiss this out of hand is simply churlish on your behalf.

................

(2)As for your early chastising of my sidestepping what happened today, I did so because you and others would already be using it as a battering ram. .............

(3)You've never read my views on religion and have gone off half cocked, so on this particular occasion, I'll not insult you as I normally would and just deem you as an ignorant assumer.

(1) Religion "evolves", why?
I'd say, religion "evolves" because scientific discovery forces it to. Religious leaders, and ordinary religious people, either have to deny these discoveries or accept them, to survive. They can only deny so much before it becomes blatant, even to the religious people, that it is a false belief...... or they have to accept the undeniable truths that science brings us, and in doing so go against the basis for their beliefs (ie. the (alleged) "word of god") In this sense it is similar to evolution, through natural selection. However, unlike real biological evolution, religion can only "evolve" so much before it eradicates itself.

(2) It is very telling that you (continue - this isnt the 1st time) to withhold facts that go against your argument/beliefs. It is called "Cherry picking", and religious people do it all the time.

(3) You assume, based on what I do not know(well, I tell a lie, I think I know - ignorance), that Darwins discovery of the origin of species is going to, at some point, create violent scientific sects. You even do so as tho it helps your argument! I cant think of a stronger application of assumption than that!



On a side note, I'd like to know whether Bigga and Jonny:

(a) Agree with Darwin's evolution
and/or
(b) understand it.

 

[yep]

If you dont know about peppered moths, what happened is they used to be light grey/brown in colour, they matched their surroundings the barks of trees and lichen they rested on, then when the industrial revolution happened, in places the tree barks where darkened by the soot in these places, the light moths stuck out and were easy prey for birds. The moths, however, survived, and over a number of years changed colour to suit their environment, the darker moths staying alive and breeding with other darker moths, this repeating itself over generations, till the moth changed colour entirely, no light coloured moths could be found. This was quite something, and was good that it was actually observed, but that in itself wasnt the whole story. When the clean air acts were passed, large carbon deposits into the atmosphere were slashed, the moths were again, easy prey for the birds when the trees reverted to their natural colour, but not to be outdone, the moths, evolved back to their light colour, by the same process in reverse. Evolution happening right in front of our eyes, in this country no less. This is natural selection in full glory, part of the evidence for evolution. Creationists call this microevolution and agree that occurs (the evidence is so massive they cant really deny it), but they say macroevolution (the same but on a wider and much slower scale) doesnt exists.

I come in peace (I am a christian) and seek understanding of Darwin.

I have read that Evolution has no purpose and is purely a series of coincidences that changes things but it seems that the moths can change colour pretty quickly. Also I am puzzled that the white moths when it was dangerous to be white moths did survive otherwise who parented the black moths and vice versa.

If moths can "engineer" this that how come man does not grow his own teeth back like sharks, I hate going to the Dentist!.

Only seeking understanding and not trying to score points!

If I have got the wrong end of the stick I am sure you will enlighten me.

 

[r.soleofsalford]

OK Chaps, I confess I did find the advert for Richard Dawkins almost as depressing as him. I was also genuinely taken aback that he apparently had so many converts on Blue Moon.

With apologies for its length what follows is a critique of Dawkins and his fellow YouTube 'Horsemen', Dennett, Hitchins and Harris


The Dawkins Confusion: Naturalism 'ad absurdum'. Alvin Plantinga Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame

Richard Dawkins is not pleased with God:
‘The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction. Jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic-cleanser; a misogynistic homophobic racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal….’

Well, no need to finish the quotation; you get the idea. Dawkins seems to have chosen God as his sworn enemy. (Let's hope for Dawkins' sake God doesn't return the compliment.)
The God Delusion is an extended diatribe against religion in general and belief in God in particular; Dawkins and Daniel Dennett (whose recent Breaking the Spell is his contribution to this genre) are the touchdown twins of current academic atheism. 1 Dawkins has written his book, he says, partly to encourage timorous atheists to come out of the closet. He and Dennett both appear to think it requires considerable courage to attack religion these days; says Dennett, "I risk a fist to the face or worse. Yet I persist." Apparently atheism has its own heroes of the faith—at any rate its own self-styled heroes. Here it's not easy to take them seriously; religion-bashing in the current Western academy is about as dangerous as endorsing the party's candidate at a Republican rally.
Dawkins is perhaps the world's most popular science writer; he is also an extremely gifted science writer. (For example, his account of bats and their ways in his earlier book The Blind Watchmaker is a brilliant and fascinating tour de force.) The God Delusion, however, contains little science; it is mainly philosophy and theology (perhaps "atheology" would be a better term) and evolutionary psychology, along with a substantial dash of social commentary decrying religion and its allegedly baneful effects. As the above quotation suggests, one shouldn't look to this book for evenhanded and thoughtful commentary. In fact the proportion of insult, ridicule, mockery, spleen, and vitriol is astounding. (Could it be that his mother, while carrying him, was frightened by an Anglican clergyman on the rampage?) If Dawkins ever gets tired of his day job, a promising future awaits him as a writer of political attack ads.
Now despite the fact that this book is mainly philosophy, Dawkins is not a philosopher (he's a biologist). Even taking this into account, however, much of the philosophy he purveys is at best jejune. You might say that some of his forays into philosophy are at best sophomoric, but that would be unfair to sophomores; the fact is (grade inflation aside), many of his arguments would receive a failing grade in a sophomore philosophy class. This, combined with the arrogant, smarter-than-thou tone of the book, can be annoying. I shall put irritation aside, however and do my best to take Dawkins' main argument seriously.
Chapter 3, "Why There Almost Certainly is No God," is the heart of the book. Well, why does Dawkins think there almost certainly isn't any such person as God? It's because, he says, the existence of God is monumentally improbable. How improbable? The astronomer Fred Hoyle famously claimed that the probability of life arising on earth (by purely natural means, without special divine aid) is less than the probability that a flight-worthy Boeing 747 should be assembled by a hurricane roaring through a junkyard. Dawkins appears to think the probability of the existence of God is in that same neighbourhood—so small as to be negligible for all practical (and most impractical) purposes. Why does he think so?
 
Here Dawkins doesn't appeal to the usual anti-theistic arguments—the argument from evil, for example, or the claim that it's impossible that there be a being with the attributes believers ascribe to God.2 So why does he think theism is enormously improbable? The answer: if there were such a person as God, he would have to be enormously complex, and the more complex something is, the less probable it is: "However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable. God is the Ultimate Boeing 747." The basic idea is that anything that knows and can do what God knows and can do would have to be incredibly complex. In particular, anything that can create or design something must be at least as complex as the thing it can design or create. Putting it another way, Dawkins says a designer must contain at least as much information as what it creates or designs, and information is inversely related to probability. Therefore, he thinks, God would have to be monumentally complex, hence astronomically improbable; thus it is almost certain that God does not exist.

But why does Dawkins think God is complex? And why does he think that the more complex something is, the less probable it is? Before looking more closely into his reasoning, I'd like to digress for a moment; this claim of improbability can help us understand something otherwise very perplexing about Dawkins' argument in his earlier and influential book, The Blind Watchmaker. There he argues that the scientific theory of evolution shows that our world has not been designed—by God or anyone else. This thought is trumpeted by the subtitle of the book: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design.

How so? Suppose the evidence of evolution suggests that all living creatures have evolved from some elementary form of life: how does that show that the universe is without design? Well, if the universe has not been designed, then the process of evolution is unguided, unorchestrated, by any intelligent being; it is, as Dawkins suggests, blind. So his claim is that the evidence of evolution reveals that evolution is unplanned, unguided, unorchestrated by any intelligent being.

But how could the evidence of evolution reveal a thing like that? After all, couldn't it be that God has directed and overseen the process of evolution? What makes Dawkins think evolution is unguided? What he does in The Blind Watchmaker, fundamentally, is three things. First, he recounts in vivid and arresting detail some of the fascinating anatomical details of certain living creatures and their incredibly complex and ingenious ways of making a living; this is the sort of thing Dawkins does best. Second, he tries to refute arguments for the conclusion that blind, unguided evolution could not have produced certain of these wonders of the living world—the mammalian eye, for example, or the wing. Third, he makes suggestions as to how these and other organic systems could have developed by unguided evolution.

Suppose he's successful with these three things: how would that show that the universe is without design? How does the main argument go from there? His detailed arguments are all for the conclusion that it is biologically possible that these various organs and systems should have come to be by unguided Darwinian mechanisms (and some of what he says here is of considerable interest). What is truly remarkable, however, is the form of what seems to be the main argument. The premise he argues for is something like this:
 
1. We know of no irrefutable objections to its being biologically possible that all of life has come to be by way of unguided Darwinian processes;

and Dawkins supports that premise by trying to refute objections to its being biologically possible that life has come to be that way. His conclusion, however, is

2. All of life has come to be by way of unguided Darwinian processes.

It's worth meditating, if only for a moment, on the striking distance, here, between premise and conclusion. The premise tells us, substantially, that there are no irrefutable objections to its being possible that unguided evolution has produced all of the wonders of the living world; the conclusion is that it is true that unguided evolution has indeed produced all of those wonders. The argument form seems to be something like

We know of no irrefutable objections to its being possible that p;
Therefore
p is true.
Philosophers sometimes propound invalid arguments (I've propounded a few myself); few of those arguments display the truly colossal distance between premise and conclusion sported by this one. I come into the departmental office and announce to the chairman that the dean has just authorized a $50,000 raise for me; naturally he wants to know why I think so. I tell him that we know of no irrefutable objections to its being possible that the dean has done that. My guess is he'd gently suggest that it is high time for me to retire.
Here is where that alleged massive improbability of theism is relevant. If theism is false, then (apart from certain weird suggestions we can safely ignore) evolution is unguided. But it is extremely likely, Dawkins thinks, that theism is false. Hence it is extremely likely that evolution is unguided—in which case to establish it as true, he seems to think, all that is needed is to refute those claims that it is impossible. So perhaps we can think about his Blind Watchmaker argument as follows: he is really employing as an additional if unexpressed premise his idea that the existence of God is enormously unlikely. If so, then the argument doesn't seem quite so magnificently invalid. (It is still invalid, however, even if not quite so magnificently—you can't establish something as a fact by showing that objections to its possibility fail, and adding that it is very probable.)
Now suppose we return to Dawkins' argument for the claim that theism is monumentally improbable. As you recall, the reason Dawkins gives is that God would have to be enormously complex, and hence enormously improbable ("God, or any intelligent, decision-making calculating agent, is complex, which is another way of saying improbable"). What can be said for this argument?
Not much. First, is God complex? According to much classical theology (Thomas Aquinas, for example) God is simple, and simple in a very strong sense, so that in him there is no distinction of thing and property, actuality and potentiality, essence and existence, and the like. Some of the discussions of divine simplicity get pretty complicated, not to say arcane.3 (It isn't only Catholic theology that declares God simple; according to the Belgic Confession, a splendid expression of Reformed Christianity, God is "a single and simple spiritual being.") So first, according to classical theology, God is simple, not complex.4 More remarkable, perhaps, is that according to Dawkins' own definition of complexity, God is not complex. According to his definition (set out in The Blind Watchmaker), something is complex if it has parts that are "arranged in a way that is unlikely to have arisen by chance alone." But of course God is a spirit, not a material object at all, and hence has no parts.5 A fortiori (as philosophers like to say) God doesn't have parts arranged in ways unlikely to have arisen by chance. Therefore, given the definition of complexity Dawkins himself proposes, God is not complex.
So first, it is far from obvious that God is complex. But second, suppose we concede, at least for purposes of argument, that God is complex. Perhaps we think the more a being knows, the more complex it is; God, being omniscient, would then be highly complex. Perhaps so; still, why does Dawkins think it follows that God would be improbable? Given materialism and the idea that the ultimate objects in our universe are the elementary particles of physics, perhaps a being that knew a great deal would be improbable—how could those particles get arranged in such a way as to constitute a being with all that knowledge? Of course we aren't given materialism. Dawkins is arguing that theism is improbable; it would be dialectically deficient in excelsis to argue this by appealing to materialism as a premise. Of course it is unlikely that there is such a person as God if materialism is true; in fact materialism logically entails that there is no such person as God; but it would be obviously question-begging to argue that theism is improbable because materialism is true.
So why think God must be improbable? According to classical theism, God is a necessary being; it is not so much as possible that there should be no such person as God; he exists in all possible worlds. But if God is a necessary being, if he exists in all possible worlds, then the probability that he exists, of course, is 1, and the probability that he does not exist is 0. Far from its being improbable that he exists, his existence is maximally probable. So if Dawkins proposes that God's existence is improbable, he owes us an argument for the conclusion that there is no necessary being with the attributes of God—an argument that doesn't just start from the premise that materialism is true. Neither he nor anyone else has provided even a decent argument along these lines; Dawkins doesn't even seem to be aware that he needs an argument of that sort.
A second example of Dawkinsian-style argument. Recently a number of thinkers have proposed a new version of the argument from design, the so-called "Fine-Tuning Argument." Starting in the late Sixties and early Seventies, astrophysicists and others noted that several of the basic physical constants must fall within very narrow limits if there is to be the development of intelligent life—at any rate in a way anything like the way in which we think it actually happened. For example, if the force of gravity were even slightly stronger, all stars would be blue giants; if even slightly weaker, all would be red dwarfs; in neither case could life have developed. The same goes for the weak and strong nuclear forces; if either had been even slightly different, life, at any rate life of the sort we have, could probably not have developed. Equally interesting in this connection is the so-called flatness problem: the existence of life also seems to depend very delicately upon the rate at which the universe is expanding. Thus Stephen Hawking:
reduction of the rate of expansion by one part in 1012 at the time when the temperature of the Universe was 1010 K would have resulted in the Universe's starting to recollapse when its radius was only 1/3000 of the present value and the temperature was still 10,000 K.6
That would be much too warm for comfort. Hawking concludes that life is possible only because the universe is expanding at just the rate required to avoid recollapse. At an earlier time, he observes, the fine-tuning had to be even more remarkable:
we know that there has to have been a very close balance between the competing effect of explosive expansion and gravitational contraction which, at the very earliest epoch about which we can even pretend to speak (called the Planck time, 10-43 sec. after the big bang), would have corresponded to the incredible degree of accuracy represented by a deviation in their ratio from unity by only one part in 10 to the sixtieth.7
One reaction to these apparent enormous coincidences is to see them as substantiating the theistic claim that the universe has been created by a personal God and as offering the material for a properly restrained theistic argument—hence the fine-tuning argument.8 It's as if there are a large number of dials that have to be tuned to within extremely narrow limits for life to be possible in our universe. It is extremely unlikely that this should happen by chance, but much more likely that this should happen if there is such a person as God.
Now in response to this kind of theistic argument, Dawkins, along with others, proposes that possibly there are very many (perhaps even infinitely many) universes, with very many different distributions of values over the physical constants. Given that there are so many, it is likely that some of them would display values that are life-friendly. So if there are an enormous number of universes displaying different sets of values of the fundamental constants, it's not at all improbable that some of them should be "fine-tuned." We might wonder how likely it is that there are all these other universes, and whether there is any real reason (apart from wanting to blunt the fine-tuning arguments) for supposing there are any such things.9 But concede for the moment that indeed there are many universes and that it is likely that some are fine-tuned and life-friendly. That still leaves Dawkins with the following problem: even if it's likely that some universes should be fine-tuned, it is still improbable that this universe should be fine-tuned. Name our universe alpha: the odds that alpha should be fine-tuned are exceedingly, astronomically low, even if it's likely that some universe or other is fine-tuned.
What is Dawkins' reply? He appeals to "the anthropic principle," the thought that the only sort of universe in which we could be discussing this question is one which is fine-tuned for life:
the anthropic answer, in its most general form, is that we could only be discussing the question in the kind of universe that was capable of producing us. Our existence therefore determines that the fundamental constants of physics had to be in their respective Goldilocks [life-friendly] zones.
Well, of course our universe would have to be fine-tuned, given that we live in it. But how does that so much as begin to explain why it is that alpha is fine-tuned? One can't explain this by pointing out that we are indeed here—anymore than I can "explain" the fact that God decided to create me (instead of passing me over in favour of someone else) by pointing out that if God had not thus decided, I wouldn't be here to raise that question. It still seems striking that these constants should have just the values they do have; it is still monumentally improbable, given chance, that they should have just those values; and it is still much less improbable that they should have those values, if there is a God who wanted a life-friendly universe.
One more example of Dawkinsian thought. In The Blind Watchmaker, he considers the claim that since the self-replicating machinery of life is required for natural selection to work, God must have jumpstarted the whole evolutionary process by specially creating life in the first place—by specially creating the original replicating machinery of DNA and protein that makes natural selection possible. Dawkins retorts as follows:
This is a transparently feeble argument, indeed it is obviously self-defeating. Organized complexity is the thing that we are having difficulty in explaining. Once we are allowed simply to postulate organized complexity, if only the organized complexity of the DNA/protein replicating machine, it is relatively easy to invoke it as a generator of yet more organized complexity… . But of course any God capable of intelligently designing something as complex as the DNA/protein machine must have been at least as complex and organized as that machine itself… . To explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer.
In Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Daniel Dennett approvingly quotes this passage from Dawkins and declares it an "unrebuttable refutation, as devastating today as when Philo used it to trounce Cleanthes in Hume's Dialogues two centuries earlier." Now here in The God Delusion Dawkins approvingly quotes Dennett approvingly quoting Dawkins, and adds that Dennett (i.e., Dawkins) is entirely correct.
Here there is much to say, but I'll say only a bit of it. First, suppose we land on an alien planet orbiting a distant star and discover machine-like objects that look and work just like tractors; our leader says "there must be intelligent beings on this planet who built those tractors." A first-year philosophy student on our expedition objects: "Hey, hold on a minute! You have explained nothing at all! Any intelligent life that designed those tractors would have to be at least as complex as they are." No doubt we'd tell him that a little learning is a dangerous thing and advise him to take the next rocket ship home and enrol in another philosophy course or two. For of course it is perfectly sensible, in that context, to explain the existence of those tractors in terms of intelligent life, even though (as we can concede for the moment) that intelligent life would have to be at least as complex as the tractors. The point is we aren't trying to give an ultimate explanation of organized complexity, and we aren't trying to explain organized complexity in general; we are only trying to explain one particular manifestation of it (those tractors). And (unless you are trying to give an ultimate explanation of organized complexity) it is perfectly proper to explain one manifestation of organized complexity in terms of another. Similarly, in invoking God as the original creator of life, we aren't trying to explain organized complexity in general, but only a particular kind of it, i.e., terrestrial life. So even if (contrary to fact, as I see it) God himself displays organized complexity, we would be perfectly sensible in explaining the existence of terrestrial life in terms of divine activity.
A second point: Dawkins (and again Dennett echoes him) argues that "the main thing we want to explain" is "organized complexity." He goes on to say that "The one thing that makes evolution such a neat theory is that it explains how organized complexity can arise out of primeval simplicity," and he faults theism for being unable to explain organized complexity. Now mind would be an outstanding example of organized complexity, according to Dawkins, and of course (unlike with organized complexity) it is uncontroversial that God is a being who thinks and knows; so suppose we take Dawkins to be complaining that theism doesn't offer an explanation of mind. It is obvious that theists won't be able to give an ultimate explanation of mind, because, naturally enough, there isn't any explanation of the existence of God. Still, how is that a point against theism? Explanations come to an end; for theism they come to an end in God. Of course the same goes for any other view; on any view explanations come to an end. The materialist or physicalist, for example, doesn't have an explanation for the existence of elementary particles: they just are. So to claim that what we want or what we need is an ultimate explanation of mind is, once more, just to beg the question against theism; the theist neither wants nor needs an ultimate explanation of personhood, or thinking, or mind.
Toward the end of the book, Dawkins endorses a certain limited skepticism. Since we have been cobbled together by (unguided) evolution, it is unlikely, he thinks, that our view of the world is overall accurate; natural selection is interested in adaptive behaviour, not in true belief. But Dawkins fails to plumb the real depths of the sceptical implications of the view that we have come to be by way of unguided evolution. We can see this as follows. Like most naturalists, Dawkins is a materialist about human beings: human persons are material objects; they are not immaterial selves or souls or substances joined to a body, and they don't contain any immaterial substance as a part. From this point of view, our beliefs would be dependent on neurophysiology, and (no doubt) a belief would just be a neurological structure of some complex kind. Now the neurophysiology on which our beliefs depend will doubtless be adaptive; but why think for a moment that the beliefs dependent on or caused by that neurophysiology will be mostly true? Why think our cognitive faculties are reliable?
From a theistic point of view, we'd expect that our cognitive faculties would be (for the most part, and given certain qualifications and caveats) reliable. God has created us in his image, and an important part of our image bearing is our resembling him in being able to form true beliefs and achieve knowledge. But from a naturalist point of view the thought that our cognitive faculties are reliable (produce a preponderance of true beliefs) would be at best a naïve hope.
The naturalist can be reasonably sure that the neurophysiology underlying belief formation is adaptive, but nothing follows about the truth of the beliefs depending on that neurophysiology. In fact he'd have to hold that it is unlikely, given unguided evolution, that our cognitive faculties are reliable. It's as likely, given unguided evolution, that we live in a sort of dream world as that we actually know something about ourselves and our world.
If this is so, the naturalist has a defeater for the natural assumption that his cognitive faculties are reliable—a reason for rejecting that belief, for no longer holding it. (Example of a defeater: suppose someone once told me that you were born in Michigan and I believed her; but now I ask you, and you tell me you were born in Brazil. That gives me a defeater for my belief that you were born in Michigan.) And if he has a defeater for that belief, he also has a defeater for any belief that is a product of his cognitive faculties. But of course that would be all of his beliefs—including naturalism itself. So the naturalist has a defeater for naturalism; natural- ism, therefore, is self-defeating and cannot be rationally believed.
The real problem here, obviously, is Dawkins' naturalism, his belief that there is no such person as God or anyone like God. That is because naturalism implies that evolution is unguided. So a broader conclusion is that one can't rationally accept both naturalism and evolution; naturalism, therefore, is in conflict with a premier doctrine of contemporary science. People like Dawkins hold that there is a conflict between science and religion because they think there is a conflict between evolution and theism; the truth of the matter, however, is that the conflict is between science and naturalism, not between science and belief in God.
The God Delusion is full of bluster and bombast, but it really doesn't give even the slightest reason for thinking belief in God mistaken, let alone a "delusion."
The naturalism that Dawkins embraces, furthermore, in addition to its intrinsic unloveliness and its dispiriting conclusions about human beings and their place in the universe, is in deep self-referential trouble. There is no reason to believe it; and there is excellent reason to reject it.

1. A third book along these lines, The End of Faith, has recently been written by Sam Harris, and more recently still a sequel, Letter to a Christian Nation, so perhaps we should speak of the touchdown triplets—or, given that Harris is very much the junior partner in this enterprise (he's a grad student) maybe the "Three Bears of Atheism"?
2. Although Dawkins does bring up (p. 54), apparently approvingly, the argument that God can't be both omniscient and omnipotent: if he is omniscient, then he can't change his mind, in which case there is something he can't do, so that he isn't omnipotent(!).
3. See my Does God Have a Nature? Aquinas Lecture 44 (Marquette Univ. Press, 1980).
4. The distinguished Oxford philosopher (Dawkins calls him a theologian) Richard Swinburne has proposed some sophisticated arguments for the claim that God is simple. Dawkins mentions Swinburne's argument, but doesn't deign to come to grips with it; instead he resorts to ridicule (pp. 110-111).
5. What about the Trinity? Just how we are to think of the Trinity is of course not wholly clear; it is clear, however, that it is false that in addition to each of the three persons of the Trinity, there is also another being of which each of those persons is a part.
6. "The Anisotropy of the Universe at Large Times," in M. S. Longair, ed., Confrontation of Cosmological Theories with Observational Data (Springer, 2002), p. 285.
7. John Polkinghorne, Science and Creation: The Search for Understanding (Random House, 1989), p. 22.
8. One of the best versions of the fine-tuning argument is proposed by Robin Collins in "A Scientific Argument for the Existence of God: The Fine-Tuning Design Argument," in Michael J. Murray, ed., Reason for the Hope Within (Eerdmans, 1999), pp. 47-75.
9. See my review of Daniel Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea in Books & Culture, May/June 1996.

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