Religion 0 Godless bastids 1 (Williams og)
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams will not take Richard Dawkins' shizzle lying down. Oh no! He come out swinging, The Observer reports.Williams is renowned as an "intellectual". Now there are some who would argue that an intellectual among Godbotherers is a bit like a polevaulter among dogs, but I say we have to judge the man by the output of his formidable mind.
Williams strikes a deadly blow to Dawkins by describing religions as "naturally self-critical". Dawkins misses that, Williams points out. Erm, yes, he does. Possibly because religions are so far from self-critical as to be completely nonself-critical. Religions mostly believe in their own inerrancy. They are bastions of intolerance. When believers stop believing in their particular brand of whateverism, they hive themselves off and form a new sect of intolerance, and start describing their fellow believers as "heretics".
Williams does not stop there. Oh no!
'There are specific areas of mismatch between what Dawkins may write about and what religious people think they are doing,' he said.
Okay, hit us with it, Arch.
He said Dawkins had 'picked up on' the fact that theologians talk about God as a simple explanation but if God was around before the Big Bang, 'he must be complex'.
Well, that's telling us. We say you invented God because the world is too complex for you to understand, and your answer is noes, you fools, God is reaaaaaallly complex.
Williams topped that though, with blather so thoroughly stupid that it makes believing in a transcendental being, capable of creating a whole universe, who cares whether you like arse sex seem sensible.
'Don't distract us from the real arguments by assuming that religion is an eccentric survival strategy or irrational form of explanation,' Williams said.
Erm, Rowan mate, our arguments are that religion is a survival strategy or an irrational form of explanation. What "real arguments" are there, in your view, that make those "unreal"?
Of course, Williams is indulging in the special pleading that religion always insists on with science. Basically, we are not to judge his beliefs by the same standards we do the rest of the universe. No, we must accept them as axiomatic, and then go from there. So when we are arguing about the nature of his god, we must accept that his god exists, even though the argument concerns, erm, his existing in the first place.
posted by Dr Zen @ 10:26 am
6 Comments:
the proof of God is everywhere you look for it, it's just not necessarily formatted to please the scientific method.
(actually, very few things in life are).
for instance, for me, the mysterious beauty of the sound and sight of the wind blowing thru the trees has never been diminished a single iota by my understanding of what "causes" winds (differing temperatures of air masses) or what leaves are made of (glucose and photons and water and time and whathaveyou).
well, maybe for a few minutes it was diminished by that new knowledge, but only because i chose to view it differently for those few minutes.
anyway, beyond all that, prayer itself proves the existence of God.
the details of that proof don't fit easily into a spreadsheet anymore than you could easily scientifically quantify the quality of your angst, yearnings, joys, or regrets.
the extent that people use the idea of "God" to bully other people into their particular brainwashes of submission (or control) is what causes most of the problems and aversions about the "proof of God".
"prayer itself proves the existence of God"
Yes, and wishing on a star proves you can carry moonbeams home in a jar.
"the extent that people use the idea of "God" to bully other people into their particular brainwashes of submission (or control) is what causes most of the problems and aversions about the "proof of God"."
That and the complete nonexistence of "God".
Yes, and wishing on a star proves you can carry moonbeams home in a jar.
apples and oranges, as you know.
but yes, mere wishes are, at the very least, proof of a soul.
would you rather that God existed or not?
and nevermind adding that you also wish that you had a million dollars, just answer the God question all by itself.
Not.
I will blog about why.
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