I'll have to check Tyson out. I loathe Dawkins for his use of the spaghetti monster meme, something I find as pervasive and obnoxious as Ron Paulites. Ugh.

I actually wasn't aware of him, so thanks for that.

This is a good quote: "Science is interesting and if you don't agree you can fuck off." I can totally understand and I sympathize with this attitude... but I think there are better ways. Since Atheist Inquisition is not very likely, force won't work and gentler approaches are needed.

At the risk of pushing Tyson, watch this video to get a sense of how such spiritualism is not beyond the ken of atheists.

I'm afraid you're fighting men made of straw...

What atheists rail against is organized religion and religious dogma. Not spiritualism. Surely you can see that difference?

Robby,

I've got two comments for you:

First, I'm not sure what you mean by "spirituality." This isn't an isolated problem in discussing religion: I'm generally not sure what people mean when they talk about God, or the soul, or heaven, or an afterlife. Part of the problem is that so many different people mean different things by those concepts. By "spirituality" people can mean (1) an intensely personal feeling of at-oneness with the universe, (2) the existence or quality of things that are not knowable by empirical means, (3) a characteristic of the "soul" (whatever that is), (4) a feeling relating to being in the presence of the divine, (5) relating to the supernatural, (6) whatever you happen to want it to mean. Several of these concepts are concepts that an atheist would reject (i.e., (4) and possibly (3)). Many atheists would actually argue in favor of the existence of (1) above - Dawkins essentially does in his book, Unweaving the Rainbow. An atheist, without more, may go either way on (2) and (5). Which brings me to my second point:

Second, you seem to be conflating "atheism" with "skepticism." It's easy to do, since many atheists (like Dennett and Dawkins) are also skeptics, and vice versa. Skeptics aren't "deniers of the supernatural" so much as they are "demanders of proof." They are all citizens of the mental state of Missouri: they want you to show them. It seems that some of your complaints are directed more specifically at skeptics than at atheists.

In any event, I disagree with you, but I'm glad we can talk about our differences.

Don't people who actually believe in God define God?

He'll turn that around sometimes and ask a monotheistic person what they mean when they say "God". The general response from those who aren't literalists (which can't be considered straw men since they actually exist) is often less than satisfying. If you really push to get an idea of what such a person thinks God gets involved in, you often find somewhat contradictory beliefs.

Did God direct Katrina? Did he choose to let Nature take its course? Did he save some individuals from that disaster? Where those not saved less worthy? You see, He works in mysterious ways, so who are we to question His plan?

Alternatively, you find a very removed God who started the Universe in motion quite some time ago and has been sitting on the couch with a bag of popcorn ever since.

This was in reply to codegen86.

I was thinking of doing a book review or two here. I'm in the middle of a couple right now (I'm always reading more than one book) so maybe I'll write one up when I finish.

Still surprised most would rather talk about it, than learn about it, treating it as "unknowable."

Hitchens has a drinking problem, therefore atheists are bad people. Brilliant logic.

I don't actually know if the above post was unfunny satire, or really written by a person who hasn't read one single book by Dawkins and managed to turn the positions of Dawkins and other atheists upside down.

First: Dawkins, like other modern atheists, starts from the position that God does not exist and then creates ad hoc arguments to "prove" it.

First: Dawkins does neither.

His argument WRT proof boils down to the idea that it's your job to prove the existence, not his job to disprove.

This philosophical necessity was understood by the "old school" atheists -- Nietzsche, Sartre or Freud, e.g. You had to start over from scratch, with something like "man makes his own meaning." You had to figure out what that meant, and whether it was possible -- could one really reject the theistic underpinnings of a society and continue to live an intellectually honest life within that society? The great early and mid-century writers and thinkers struggled with these questions. They thought the answers were important.

Michael, I think that historically, philosophers have conflated problems of skepticism with questions of faith. Skepticism is a deep philosophical problem without easy answers. Religious faith appears to offer an attractive answer, and philosophers since Descartes have tied faith to epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. But rejecting faith does not entail that you have to answer the problem of skepticism. For an analogy, some appeal to God to explain the mystery of the Big Bang. To argue that the atheist must accept God or come up with another explanation of the Big Bang would be fallacious. Similarly, in rejecting faith, it is not incumbent on Dawkins to solve our skeptical problems. The skeptical problems are certainly worthy of discussion, but when you argue that one cannot criticize faith without addressing skepticism, you've pressed an assumption--that God is a valid answer to skeptical problems--which a philosophical atheist would not be willing to adopt.

Because in America, religion has a lot to do with politics, unfortunately.

Or at least I'm not aware of any other country where presidential candidates need to reject and denounce pastors.

It doesn't, but we've made the conscious decision to take control of our own destinies and work through our control issues and our tendencies towards anal-retentive behavior.

Build the better thread and they will come :)

Fair enough. He does occasionally go after the stronger positions, but (a) he does it far less frequently, and (b) I'm not well versed enough in theology to judge how fair he's being. Also, of course, I'm hardly neutral. (Of course, who is?)

Having been a blooger for a while, I must say that I disagree that the Wikipedia definition is the most common usage of the term "strawman."

Normally, a strawman is the advancement and destruction of an argument NOT made by the opponent. For example, Mr. Powe's assertion that "if you believe that life is meaningless (i.e., no God), then you start from the position that "nothing is true, everything is permitted." is based on the strawman that non-believers believe that life is meaningless.

Another strawman often raised by those who worship some Invisible Superman in the Sky is that all non-believers believe that there is no god. As a non-member of the set of those who believe, I can vouch for the fact that this statement is not only incorrect, but internally contradictory.

A straw-man is easy to tear down, but also not the real opponent.

With regard to Dawkins, attacking eg. creationists is not strictly a straw-man argument, because creationists really exist and really have loony notions. It is only a straw-man in the sense that not everyone who calls themselves Christian takes creationism seriously. But that is a problem with such nebulous labels as 'Christian'.

This is the Ontological Arugument first propounded by Thomas Aquinas, unless I am mistaken.

Extending it just a bit, there must be exquisitely beautiful unicorns, because a unicorn that does not exist could not be as beautiful as one that does exist, and, as we all know, unicorns are exquisitely beautiful.

…it's illogical to believe that perfection doesn't include actual existence, otherwise it wouldn't come close to being perfect…

That seems like a very circular argument. Let me present its inverse: perfection does not include actual existence, because otherwise it couldn't come close to being perfect.

If perfection exists, it exists. If it doesn't, it doesn't. Proving that perfection exists because otherwise it wouldn't be perfection isn't helpful.

Here's another non sequitur for you: unicorns exist, because otherwise they wouldn't be unicorns. (This is based on the assumption that part of the definition of a unicorn is a physical manifestation. If you don't like this definition, then I can create my own definition of a nonsensical object, where the definition requires the object to exist, and we can use that object in place of the unicorn.)

Preach, thanks for these comments. I am a religiousness-phobe, but I do believe strongly in empathy, kindness, and fairness. And it's useful and interesting for me to see those values espoused as an expression of god. (Er, God, I suppose. Sorry. Not used to thinking like that.)

This point, in particular, struck me:

From there, however, you needed stop, thinking that because it's a projection, it has no value. It has value as a way of thinking about what's ideal, especially in the realm of relationships.

Though I appreciate the value of an ideal -- whether imagined or grounded in some concept of reality -- there is also a great deal of danger in ideals without understanding. I guess what I'm getting at is that there's much to wary of in both inflexible understanding of religions and in the power structures that tend to grow around them.

Thanks Preach, You're wisdom is strong.

I've learned and try to remember that atheists feel the need to defend their view very strongly. This is strange to me because I've spent most of my life around atheists, and most of those atheists mostly hang in circles with similarly minded people, so I never understand quite why they're defensive, and who, literally, they're arguing against or why it's such an imperative argument.

But obviously the culture of Christianity in this country is strong, and so the atheists, from my experience, feel that sense of being a minority, and the need to rattle the cages, per se, that come with it.

Anyway, I think it's apparent in this thread, as your clearly articulated personal beliefs are being somewhat nitpicked, rather than appreciated.

Interesting blog, btw, and great thread. Rec'd.

But why do you need to "prove" God? What's the point? I have a simpler solution: ask God if s/he/it exists. Keep asking until you get an answer. And once you have an answer, keep asking. What does the Bible call it? Praying without ceasing?

And thanks to you, too. I know it's easy to feel attacked when you're greatly out-numbered, which on this thread means the non-atheists. (It's great to be a non-minority for a brief while.)

Thank you as well. I have a sneaky suspicion that if everyone who calls themselves Christian was more like you, no one would have heard of Dawkins.