The God Delusion - ongoing review

[S.A.M.]

Dawkins is referring to the concept of God as described by Einstein, who himself called this conception "Spinoza's god". The idea is of a God who plays no direct role in human affairs. At the most, he creates the universe, setting the laws of nature in motion and then disappearing, never to be heard from again. i.e. no miracles, no answering of prayers, etc. etc.

Is that what Dawkins says or what Einstein said?

 

[James R]

But actually a rather fantastic God, as fantastic as the one who sticks around.

How so?

And, until further notice from scientists, creating a universe, setting up specific laws of nature and disappearing would all be miracles.

Well, yes, obviously, since anything done by a supernatural being is a miracle. Isn't it?

Is that what Dawkins says or what Einstein said?

It's what Einstein said.

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings. [Telegram of 1929, in Hoffman and Dukas]

 

[S.A.M.]

It's what Einstein said.

He also said he wasn't an athiest or wholly a panthiest

Once in answer to the question "Do you believe in the God of Spinoza?" Einstein replied as follows:

I can't answer with a simple yes or no. I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvellously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's pantheism, but admire even more his contributions to modern thought because he is the first philosopher to deal with the soul and the body as one, not two separate things.

Denis Brian, Einstein, A Life, New York, 1996

 

[Gustav]

so
shall we ridicule pantheism?
this pathological need to apply a failed concept, god, to explain the workings of an entirely mechanical universe?

 

[sowhatifit'sdark]

How so?

At the most, he creates the universe, setting the laws of nature in motion and then disappearing, never to be heard from again.

Well, yes, obviously, since anything done by a supernatural being is a miracle. Isn't it?

I was responding to the implicit 'merely'. As in Einstein merely believed in a Spinozian God. You then go on to mention some possible characteristics of this God and they are pretty wild and sound miraculous. Not merely because a supernatural being did them. Were they done by some guys in Switzerland it would take a lot of work for me not to believe these were miracles. Oh, my wryness may lead us off track. I hope you see what I mean. Even if that was the God he meant, we are still dealing with something that pretty much every atheist considers 1) incredibly unlikely 2) not supported by evidence.

 

[Gustav]

Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations. (einstein)

indeedly doodly

pardon
is god really a failed concept or does it hang error free?

 

[iceaura]

You're talking about car keys you put somewhere, I'm talking about exploring the unknown.

There's nothing "known" about the location of my car keys, at the moment.

We were talking, actually, about the role of faith in establishing objectivity, while exploring the unknown. I observe that it is counterproductive in the exploration itself, in many simple instances of such exploration (it's difficult to avoid "finding" what one strongly believes in) and interferes with what most people term "objectivity" in any case I can think of.

But as you note, it contributes to motivation - exploration is a time and energy intensive activity, only occasionally fruitful, and most who actually do the work of exploration begin with a sense of what they expect and hope to find.

Hence the necessity, when exploring the unknown, of some means of discarding the reified expectation that is the most common finding of explorations. For this, reason has proven invaluable. Faith that will not answer to reason has no claim on respect or consideration, then.

In the case of car keys, it's Sherlock Holmes's maxim: when the impossible has been eliminated (and there's no BS about it - after the third check of the coat pocket, they aren't there, period, nothing about "imminance" or "transcendent presence") what remains (the ignition, draining the battery all night) must contain the truth.

In the case of deity, eliminating the impossible involves clearing a much higher bar - people really, really want to believe those keys are in the coat, and if it takes quantum tunneling between pockets to put them there, quantum tunneling has to be considered and eliminated to satisfy Holmesian analysis. That's impossible. So the other forms of reasoning, the other legit techniques of rhetoric and persuasion, come into use.

And rhetoric, reason, is what it is - - - not science. Dawkins is not doing science, in the God Delusion.

 

[(Q)]

He also said he wasn't an athiest or wholly a panthiest

Yet, another reason why you should shut up and read the book.

 

[S.A.M.]

There's nothing "known" about the location of my car keys, at the moment.

We were talking, actually, about the role of faith in establishing objectivity, while exploring the unknown. I observe that it is counterproductive in the exploration itself, in many simple instances of such exploration (it's difficult to avoid "finding" what one strongly believes in) and interferes with what most people term "objectivity" in any case I can think of.

But as you note, it contributes to motivation - exploration is a time and energy intensive activity, only occasionally fruitful, and most who actually do the work of exploration begin with a sense of what they expect and hope to find.

Hence the necessity, when exploring the unknown, of some means of discarding the reified expectation that is the most common finding of explorations. For this, reason has proven invaluable. Faith that will not answer to reason has no claim on respect or consideration, then.

In the case of car keys, it's Sherlock Holmes's maxim: when the impossible has been eliminated (and there's no BS about it - after the third check of the coat pocket, they aren't there, period, nothing about "imminance" or "transcendent presence") what remains (the ignition, draining the battery all night) must contain the truth.

In the case of deity, eliminating the impossible involves clearing a much higher bar - people really, really want to believe those keys are in the coat, and if it takes quantum tunneling between pockets to put them there, quantum tunneling has to be considered and eliminated to satisfy Holmesian analysis. That's impossible. So the other forms of reasoning, the other legit techniques of rhetoric and persuasion, come into use.

And rhetoric, reason, is what it is - - - not science. Dawkins is not doing science, in the God Delusion.

The keys may be in the last place you look for, but you're not going to continue searching unless you believe there is a key to find at the end of it.

I believe that science is limited by the simple fact that it lacks what Einstein calls truth and understanding. For that you need an input from religion, otherwise, really why bother?

As for the rest of the bells and whistles, I find Maududi makes an excellent case, when discussing the question of what constitutes belief or apostacy:

For the man not capable of deep thought, it is sufficient to accept that God is one, Muhammad is His Messenger, the Quran is His Book, and that we have to appear before Him on the day of Judgment. For the man who can think, this brevity contains such breadth that he can follow numerous paths in the search of truth, in accordance with his capability and aptitude. He can go as far as he likes. He can spend his entire life in this search, without ever reaching a stage where he could say that he had understood all that he could.

Not everyone needs the same thing from religion.

 

[S.A.M.]

There's nothing "known" about the location of my car keys, at the moment.

We were talking, actually, about the role of faith in establishing objectivity, while exploring the unknown. I observe that it is counterproductive in the exploration itself, in many simple instances of such exploration (it's difficult to avoid "finding" what one strongly believes in) and interferes with what most people term "objectivity" in any case I can think of.

But as you note, it contributes to motivation - exploration is a time and energy intensive activity, only occasionally fruitful, and most who actually do the work of exploration begin with a sense of what they expect and hope to find.

Hence the necessity, when exploring the unknown, of some means of discarding the reified expectation that is the most common finding of explorations. For this, reason has proven invaluable. Faith that will not answer to reason has no claim on respect or consideration, then.

In the case of car keys, it's Sherlock Holmes's maxim: when the impossible has been eliminated (and there's no BS about it - after the third check of the coat pocket, they aren't there, period, nothing about "imminance" or "transcendent presence") what remains (the ignition, draining the battery all night) must contain the truth.

In the case of deity, eliminating the impossible involves clearing a much higher bar - people really, really want to believe those keys are in the coat, and if it takes quantum tunneling between pockets to put them there, quantum tunneling has to be considered and eliminated to satisfy Holmesian analysis. That's impossible. So the other forms of reasoning, the other legit techniques of rhetoric and persuasion, come into use.

And rhetoric, reason, is what it is - - - not science. Dawkins is not doing science, in the God Delusion.

The keys may be in the last place you look for, but you're not going to continue searching unless you believe there is a key to find at the end of it.

I believe that science is limited by the simple fact that it lacks what Einstein calls truth and understanding. For that you need an input from religion, otherwise, really why bother?

As for the rest of the bells and whistles, I fond Maududi makes an excellent case, when discussing the question of what constitutes belief or apostacy:

For the man not capable of deep thought, it is sufficient to accept that God is one, Muhammad is His Messenger, the Quran is His Book, and that we have to appear before Him on the day of Judgment. For the man who can think, this brevity contains such breadth that he can follow numerous paths in the search of truth, in accordance with his capability and aptitude. He can go as far as he likes. He can spend his entire life in this search, without ever reaching a stage where he could say that he had understood all that he could.

Not everyone needs the same thing from religion.

 

[iceaura]

The keys may be in the last place you look for, but you're not going to continue searching unless you believe there is a key to find at the end of it.

But that's the known, not the unknown. You don't need faith for that.

I believe that science is limited by the simple fact that it lacks what Einstein calls truth and understanding. For that you need an input from religion, otherwise, really why bother

And yet so many do bother, without theistic input. They seem to find deity unnecessary - do we have then a concrete example of the "invisible church" of the Christian Protestant tradition, and if so where's the Christian God ?

A mystery.

Unless we resort to the observation that the inculcation of meaning, what that same Protestant tradition terms the "holy", is also accomplished through art, music, dance, philosophy, storytelling, humor, etc.

And we note that the least conventionally religious (theistic) of the physicists working on the Bomb at Los Alamos were the ones most likely to have public moral and ethical reservations about Hiroshima.

So that Einstein may have had no religion, and if a God certainly not a recognisable one from most theists' point of view, but he had a violin, and a profound sense of morality.

 

[S.A.M.]

But that's the known, not the unknown. You don't need faith for that.

Exactly.

And yet so many do bother, without theistic input. They seem to find deity unnecessary - do we have then a concrete example of the "invisible church" of the Christian Protestant tradition, and if so where's the Christian God ?

A mystery.

And so many of those devote their lives to NO GOD rather than KNOW GOD.

Unless we resort to the observation that the inculcation of meaning, what that same Protestant tradition terms the "holy", is also accomplished through art, music, dance, philosophy, storytelling, humor, etc.

And yet, its the ones closest to religious traditions that trickle down and survive, time after endless time.

And we note that the least conventionally religious (theistic) of the physicists working on the Bomb at Los Alamos were the ones most likely to have public moral and ethical reservations about Hiroshima.

Not enough to design, build, test and use it, apparently.
And then continue to build them.

So that Einstein may have had no religion, and if a God certainly not a recognisable one from most theists' point of view, but he had a violin, and a profound sense of morality.

And an understanding that without God, it was incomplete.

 

[iceaura]

But that's the known, not the unknown. You don't need faith for that. ”

Exactly.

So the role of faith in exploring the unknown is agreed to be about what I described - an important motivation that without explicit and rigorous regimentation by reason produces self-delusion ?

And so many of those devote their lives to NO GOD rather than KNOW GOD.

Devote their lives ? Hardly. The subject does come up more often than is reasonable.

And an understanding that without God, it was incomplete.

Not your God, or anything much like your God - you objected to it's being called a "metaphorical God", but there's no way to fit it into the Abrahamic tradition. You can't pray to it, for example.

Not enough to design, build, test and use it, apparently.
And then continue to build them.

No, but compared with the strong theists on the team, a certain extra moral depth is visible, no?

And yet, its the ones closest to religious traditions that trickle down and survive, time after endless time.

It's the other way around. Religion, historically, parasitizes and leaches off the arts - first there are rock bands, then Christian rock bands, for a recent example.

People have always sung. Choirs came later. All the musical instruments - except maybe the pipe organ - borrowed. Art and sculpture - developed by despised libertines, coopted by the church. Stories and legends, plays and performances, the very melodies used for hymns - millenia of plagiarism. Holy days - coopted from the local festival traditions, piggybacking the religion on people's desire to get together and have a good time.

Formal theistic religion is a mooch. It has the same relationship to the artistic spirit at the foundation of the soul that a loan shark has to the productive efforts of the human city.

I'll bet Islam takes credit for the Taj Mahal.

 

[S.A.M.]

So the role of faith in exploring the unknown is agreed to be about what I described - an important motivation that without explicit and rigorous regimentation by reason produces self-delusion ?

I think without faith, people can accomplish nothing.

Devote their lives ? Hardly. The subject does come up more often than is reasonable.

Clearly.

Not your God, or anything much like your God - you objected to it's being called a "metaphorical God", but there's no way to fit it into the Abrahamic tradition. You can't pray to it, for example.

The Hindus do.

No, but compared with the strong theists on the team, a certain extra moral depth is visible, no?

No, not when they take on Militant atheism and devote their lives to demonising or killing people for being different.

It's the other way around. Religion, historically, parasitizes and leaches off the arts - first there are rock bands, then Christian rock bands, for a recent example.

Not where I come from. Religion is the exploration of the unknown and music, art, literature, philosophy and science are all expressions of that search.

People have always sung. Choirs came later. All the musical instruments - except maybe the pipe organ - borrowed. Art and sculpture - developed by despised libertines, coopted by the church. Stories and legends, plays and performances, the very melodies used for hymns - millenia of plagiarism. Holy days - coopted from the local festival traditions, piggybacking the religion on people's desire to get together and have a good time.

Clearly popular enough that even atheists will get involved. See any going in the other direction?

Formal theistic religion is a mooch. It has the same relationship to the artistic spirit at the foundation of the soul that a loan shark has to the productive efforts of the human city.

Unlike formal athiesm, which is only about books, TV shows and videos that preach to the choir.

I'll bet Islam takes credit for the Taj Mahal.

The Taj Mahal is pretty unIslamic, considering that its just a fancy grave, and Muslims are not supposed to mark their dead. Though part of it is a mosque.

 

[(Q)]

I think without faith, people can accomplish nothing.

One would have to be living in a cave or completely brainwashed by their religion to make such a statement, or simply intellectually dishonest. In this case, the latter is probably dead on, backed by religious indoctrination.

It is an insult to every free thinking mind.

Faith is about worshipping sky daddies and has nothing to do with accomplishing anything other than what faith has already provided; war, oppression, fear, violence to all those who do not share that particular faith.

Any Islamic state will demonstrate their "accomplishments."

 

[PsychoticEpisode]

I think without faith, people can accomplish nothing.

I think she means before you do something you have to have faith that it can be done or else it won't happen. Even that isn't true but at least it's not as insulting. If you don't succeed then try, try again.

Faith in sky-daddies is another thing. Not sure what faith in an unproven entity actually accomplishes. If I say I have faith in God then what have I accomplished? Did I put an imaginary creature in charge of the universe? Is that a worthy accomplishment? Was that my goal, my something?

 

[iceaura]

I think without faith, people can accomplish nothing.

Sure. Doesn't mean its good for objectivity, though, especially if it doesn't answer to reason.

You can't pray to it, for example. ”

The Hindus do.

Probably ought to get a Hindu to agree with that one. At any rate, you can't, nor could Einstein - it isn't anything like the Abrahamic God.

Not where I come from. Religion is the exploration of the unknown and music, art, literature, philosophy and science are all expressions of that search.

It's a mooch where you come from, too. Takes in, and takes credit for, every scrap of human soul in the community. Originates nothing except its own beliefs.

Clearly popular enough that even atheists will get involved. See any going in the other direction?

If your bar is the only dance floor in the county, everyone will come to your bar - even the teetotalers.

Which is fine - but don't give the beer credit for everything from the music to the boots.

No, not when they take on Militant atheism and devote their lives to demonising or killing people for being different.

They - the ones we're talking about - didn'[t do that. That was a bunch of your precious theists, fighting the Godless Communists, who did that.

Unlike formal athiesm,

No such thing.

 

[S.A.M.]

Sure. Doesn't mean its good for objectivity, though, especially if it doesn't answer to reason.

Searching the unknown is not necessarily an objective proposition. In fact, I'd say looking for a meaning to the universe is very much subjective.

Probably ought to get a Hindu to agree with that one. At any rate, you can't, nor could Einstein - it isn't anything like the Abrahamic God.

Depends on who you ask. Karma for example, is a very Hindu concept arising from the same God.

It's a mooch where you come from, too. Takes in, and takes credit for, every scrap of human soul in the community. Originates nothing except its own beliefs.

Which is why there is a culture stretching back 5000 years and a sense of belonging to it. More meaningful than racheting up hatred on television.

If your bar is the only dance floor in the county, everyone will come to your bar - even the teetotalers.

Yeah, begs the question why teetotalers are unable to come up with an alternative option and insist on hanging around and preaching abstinence.

Which is fine - but don't give the beer credit for everything from the music to the boots.

No they only hang around without drinking.

They - the ones we're talking about - didn'[t do that. That was a bunch of your precious theists, fighting the Godless Communists, who did that.

That expalins why the godless made so many notches on their bedposts that they are left holding only the chip on their shoulder.

No such thing.

Are you OUT?

 

[iceaura]

In fact, I'd say looking for a meaning to the universe is very much subjective.

Thinkign you've found it, and having it agree with your expectations every time, is what is subjective.

Depends on who you ask. Karma for example, is a very Hindu concept arising from the same God.

Isn't there supposed to be a karmic penalty for doing that - claiming other people's stuff as your own ?

Which is why there is a culture stretching back 5000 years and a sense of belonging to it. More meaningful than racheting up hatred on television.

No less for being fictional, though. Is there some reason that can't be a part of it ?

They - the ones we're talking about - didn'[t do that. That was a bunch of your precious theists, fighting the Godless Communists, who did that. ”

That expalins why the godless made so many notches on their bedposts that they are left holding only the chip on their shoulder

So the battle against the Godless Communists,with hundreds of theists building ICBMs in the service of their God, wasn't that big a deal, or what ?

No such thing. ”
Yeah, begs the question why teetotalers are unable to come up with an alternative option and insist on hanging around and preaching abstinence.

It's not a begged question, it's an accusatory answer.

You steal people's stuff, take credit for their work, and monopolize their enjoyment of it, you can expect a few complaints. Give back what you took, or at least acknowledge it, and they might go away.

Are you OUT?

Not my crowd. There is no formal atheism, SAM. It's a meaningless concept.

 

[S.A.M.]

Thinkign you've found it, and having it agree with your expectations every time, is what is subjective.
Isn't there supposed to be a karmic penalty for doing that - claiming other people's stuff as your own ?
No less for being fictional, though. Is there some reason that can't be a part of it ?
So the battle against the Godless Communists,with hundreds of theists building ICBMs in the service of their God, wasn't that big a deal, or what ?
It's not a begged question, it's an accusatory answer.

You steal people's stuff, take credit for their work, and monopolize their enjoyment of it, you can expect a few complaints. Give back what you took, or at least acknowledge it, and they might go away.

Not my crowd. There is no formal atheism, SAM. It's a meaningless concept.

You know, one could easily say all of the above about atheists.

Now they not only want to take credit for all that religious society has given them over the last thousands of years when they could not muster a lasting society, but they also want to make up a religious group and still call themselves unique!