He doesn't say there is no God
He says there 'almost certainly' is no God, and defends that thesis with a large number of strong arguments and evidence.
People who say absence of evidence is not evidence of absence are just plain wrong. It is impossible to prove that there are no mauve swans in Dorset, but every year you spend observing the swan population without seeing one is evidence in favour of that hypothesis - and there are all kinds of Bayesian methods to quantify exactly how strong that evidence is.
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flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Mon 22 Nov 2010, 15:45,
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There are, but the lack of a deity is not observable.
It is more like saying that there is no life off the Earth. For now unmeasurable.
Aside from this, the man is an atheist. He absolutely has stated this as categorical fact and, as such, his beliefs are not in keeping with his stated doctrine.
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LordManley twitter.com/LordManley, Mon 22 Nov 2010, 15:48,
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Yes, but we can analyse the probability of life...taking into account all of the variables it needs to exist
...compare that to the size of the universe...and reasonably surmise that it probably does exist elsewhere.
It's not the same as the god / no god question at all.
(, Mon 22 Nov 2010, 15:55, Share, Reply)
Strawman.
I was writing off the swan analogy, not providing my own.
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LordManley twitter.com/LordManley, Mon 22 Nov 2010, 16:01,
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Atheism is a broad church :)
There is a logical distinction between the following statements:
'There is no God'
'I believe there is no God'
'There is almost certainly no God'
You can truthfully state 2 and 3. To state 2 is logically equivalent to saying 'I am an atheist'. Meanwhile, 1 is a factual statement that may be either true or false.
I am an atheist ("I believe there is no God"), but that is not inconsistent with saying "The nonexistence of God is not proven". If God were to manifest tomorrow on the roof of St Paul's Cathedral, I would change my belief.
As for your first point, there is a huge difference between the question of extraterrestrial life, about which surely everyone must be agnostic, and the question of God. God is supposed to have an active presence here on Earth. That is a question about which we have empirical evidence. Obviously there is no evidence for or against a passive, non-material God who exists in some sense but doesn't affect the physical world in any way, but who *cares* whether a God like that 'exists'?
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flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Mon 22 Nov 2010, 16:00,
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I agree that one can truthfully state 2 and 3.
I have absolutely no issue at all with people who state 2. I have a problem with those who state 2, but then go on to say that those who have alternate beliefs are wrong.
I have no time for anyone saying that the beliefs of others is wrong, be those beliefs Islam, Hinduism, Atheism, Christianity or any other belief based on non-empirical evidence.
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LordManley twitter.com/LordManley, Mon 22 Nov 2010, 16:05,
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I just disagree
Surely if I believe something different from you I am perfectly entitled (even obliged) to try to persuade you to my point of view. 'I believe there is no God' is the same as 'I believe you are wrong to believe in God'. I *love* being told I'm wrong about things and getting a chance to argue my case or be persuaded to a new belief.
In fact, I'd say this has already happened with me in the case of Dawkins, who certainly pushed me further down the path from vague agnosticism to outright (even evangelical!) atheism.
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flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Mon 22 Nov 2010, 16:10,
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That's wrong, which is a shame, because up until now I thought it was all going very well.
'I believe there is no God' is not the same as 'I believe you are wrong to believe in God'.
I don't really know what more to say about that, it clearly is the case.
I do not like Marmite, but I do not believe that you are wrong to like Marmite.
The existence of any deity is unproven (unprovable even) and therefore people can happily have different beliefs without disregarding the possibility of the beliefs of others.
If you wish to convince others then the onus of proof is on you, not on them (in either direction, of course) and it is precisely the fact that Dawkins tries to convert others to his faith without providing proof, whilst at the same time attacking them for not providing proof, which is so very distasteful.
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LordManley twitter.com/LordManley, Mon 22 Nov 2010, 16:15,
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What is the difference?
'I believe that there is life on other planets'
'I don't believe that there is life on other planets'
Doesn't that mean that each believes the other is wrong? 'I believe A' and 'I disbelieve not-A' are the same thing.
'I like marmite' isn't the same thing at all. 'Liking' and 'Believing' are totally different mental processes. To believe in something is to have an opinion about a putative fact, which has to be either true or false (or a shade of grey in between). It's perfectly possible for one person to say 'I like marmite' and another to say 'I dislike marmite' and for them both to be correct. Isn't that blindingly obvious?
Meanwhile it is perfectly coherent to say 'I believe there is no God. I believe you are wrong to believe in God. But your belief may turn out to be correct'. That's what 'believe' *means*!
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flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Mon 22 Nov 2010, 16:24,
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Okay, scrap Marmite (although i hold that it is sound)
Let's have a race. I believe that the red horse will win. You believe that the blue horse will win.
Neither of us is 'right' so to say that the other is wrong is logically flawed.
Dawkins's faith is not wrong, nor is that of an extremist Muslim. The actions of those individuals can be wrong and, in this instance, it is Dawkins's insistence that those who believe differently to him are 'wrong' which is inconsistent with his arguments.
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LordManley twitter.com/LordManley, Mon 22 Nov 2010, 16:29,
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What?
'Neither of us is "right"'? Of course we are - either the red horse or the blue horse will win, and then one of us will have been right (and will have been right all along) and the other will have been wrong. Just because an event is in the future doesn't make it any less factual (cf 'grue'). And of course, this still isn't relevant to the God question because that's talking about a supposed entity that exists now, or in the past. I'm obviously agnostic about the existence of a *future* God (although I still tend towards the 'there is not now and will never be a God' belief, I recognise that it is a marginally weaker position)
Dawkins doesn't have 'faith'. He has a rationally argued belief based on evidence and laws of probability. Faith is a belief *in opposition* to evidence: "I believe in God and will continue to hold that belief whatever you say". That's emphatically *not* the same as a scientific position.
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flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Mon 22 Nov 2010, 16:40,
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I agree with your last statement strongly.
"I believe in God and will continue to hold that belief whatever you say". That's emphatically *not* the same as a scientific position.
As is "I do not believe in God and, indeed, state that he does not exist, regardless of any lack of evidence.
That would be faith. He believes in something without being able to know it.
You started here well, but fell logically at this rather small hurdle and are now arguing for atheism, rather than accepting logical inconsistencies in Dawkins's argument.
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LordManley twitter.com/LordManley, Mon 22 Nov 2010, 18:07,
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One of you is right...
But unfortunately, in a fair race, the truth value of neither proposition is knowable until after the race.
"It will rain tomorrow" has a truth value; we just do not know with perfect confidence what that value is.
(, Sat 27 Nov 2010, 21:31, Share, Reply)
God vs, Marmite
Not the same thing at all.
Saying "I don't like Marmite" is (unless it's an outright lie), a statement about my personal mental state. No-one else has any valid opinions on the subject. Saying "I don't *believe* in Marmite" would be a closer analogy. If someone can buy me a jar of God from Tesco, I'll change my opinion.
(, Sat 27 Nov 2010, 21:29, Share, Reply)
"It is more like saying that there is no life off the Earth."
Not quite.
Looking for extraterrestrial life would involve looking for things that are basically like us: medium-sized solid objects. We know that we came from somewhere, and so it's not a wild leap to suppose that something similar may have happened elsewhere.
A deity, by contrast, is by definition utterly unlike anything we've experienced, and it's unclear how you'd go about looking for one; a deity is not a medium-sized solid object, and possibly not an object at all. So your analogy doesn't quite fit.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 22 Nov 2010, 16:08,
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