Thread: Richard Dawkins & John Mackay

Well you got the key arguments pretty much covered And I agree in those.

It really do seem as if he's extremely desperate to hold on to his faith in god, because he SHOULD realise that as soon as he starts to take god into the picture, even his own scientific knowledge contradicts his belief in god, at which point he tries to mix the two and everything starts to sound extremely silly, Dawkins also clearly recognizes this

I also tried to check out some of the info on evidenceweb.net which he mentioned, and he did cover his full creationist view extremely well, because that website spew all the classical BS out. He has absolutely no new take on the whole idea behind the creation theory, but he's very good at covering that. In the introduction they make a huge flaw:

No human beings were there to watch the earth being formed.
No man or woman observed the first plant grow out of the soil,
Nobody saw the first creature crawling along the ground except for the Holy One who created!
Our Earth was created by God.

Needless to say I stopped reading after the last line. How did they magically came by this conclusion? .__.

We know this because God the Creator has told us what has happened in the ancient book of Genesis, the first book in the Bible.

Genesis also tells us , the sky, the sea, and dry land were made by Him.

It's like they try to cover all the ordinary nonsense in some sort of new form.

Originally Posted by O'nus

I am not too familiar with John Mackay, but I can tell that he is a rather intelligent person. It is people like this that seem to scream to me, "I want to give up my faith, but I have so much of my life already invested into it to give it up!".

This is exactly what's going on. Reminds me of a few people around here too.

I fully agree with the original post.

Mackay as well as other creationists are placing their analytical and rational reasoning on a theater stage, allowing them to act under the direction of ego. And by ego, I mean a formed identity belief.

Present/past

The reason it is weak is because we can apply it to everything. Imagine if we used this argument in a murder trial; you cannot know that X killed Y because the laws of your proof may have changed over time.

This is a great point! I wish Dawkins asked him that, instead of "why don't you believe the world is flat".

But Mackay seems friendly and nice, and that is enough for me to be able to see from his point of view. I am grateful I can do that, cause it allows me to look at my self. It always brings me back to, what I mentioned in my second paragraph, a question of a formed identity belief, and reminds me instantly - we all have it! Then how can I tell I'm not led by it? From that point on, I reconsider my beliefs. Is it something someone said to me? Or do I honestly see the logic in it?

It's a tricky tricky subject. We can prove something to be logical, but how can we prove logic to be logical? What opinion would one person form if they had no memory whatsoever, no experiences, no identity? Just an ability to learn from that moment on... Now those are the questions Mackay had asked that I found interesting. But the fact that he provides the most contradictory answers...that's where his ego kicks in.

So, what's the difference then, between an atheist and a creationist? Why is atheism not a religion? An atheist keeps an open mind and leaves the cosmological questions open, while the creationist answers them and sticks to those answers, as if word means anything beyond our mind.

I'll skip the part about dinosaurs.

As for the children, Dawkins said it... there is no religious child, like there is no marxist child, or any of parents' accepted ideology. What they are doing is wrong.

Life is a game, but every game has its rules. Creationists simply don't play by the logical rules.

It's a good interview, but it could be better.

re⋅li⋅gion
  /rɪˈlɪdʒən/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ri-lij-uhn] Show IPA
Use religion in a Sentence
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–noun
1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.
3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.
4. the life or state of a monk, nun, etc.: to enter religion.
5. the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of faith.

Atheism does not fit. Atheism is not a belief in anything, it is a lack of belief in all gods. You could turn atheism into a religion...but I say with confidence that this rarely happens, if ever.

It's obvious that John Mackay isn't listening to what Richard Dawkins is saying. He is just regurgitating all of his typical lines without even thinking about what he is saying (try counting how many times he says "its not the past, its the present.") Most of Mackay's answers don't match up with the questions he was asked. Creationism is like a virus of the mind that programs it hosts logical brain to shut down whenever their views are challenged. Dawkins even mentions it at one point, it's as if the person knows on a deep subconcious level that they are wrong but for some reason their concious mind resists even contemplating the possibility of being wrong. You can see it in any public debate on the subject. They kind of sit there smiling while the scientists systematically discredit every claim that was made, then when they open their mouths again it is obvious that it all went in one ear and out the other. This is why it is pointless to debate with creationists, it may not even be that they are not intelligent, it could be a legitimate psychological disorder.

I think it is very similar to the mindset of a conspiracy theorist. I watched a documentary in a class of mine, I can't remember who made it but I think it was Nat. Geographic or Discovery channel. It was about the 9/11 conspiracies where they took every claim made by the conspiracy theorists and they paid experts a great deal of money to create experiments to test these claims. The conspiracy theorists claims fail beyond doubt in every instance. Then they showed the videos of these experiments to the leaders of the "9/11 Truth" movement or whatever they were called. It was very interesting to see their reactions when they were faced with the prospect of being wrong. They asked for proof and they got it. But still they refused to believe what was so clear in front of them. They made all sorts of excuses. They were desperate to find reasons that these experiments were not legitimate. There was also a good interview with an author who wrote a book about the psychology of conspiracy theories, and he seemed to support this idea of a mind virus. I wish I could remember the name of the documentary.

Warning: regard or disregard this as you please. long-winded value judgements and general dead-ends ahead.

i'm sorry. i'm late to this, but even so: i feel as though i was mislead in a way that parallels that of the original post. i felt i was on the same page with this analysis, until the 2nd to last sentence.

this interview intrigued me, as many others, because it potentially offered a way for those on either side of the spectrum to find what lies in the middle. the root cause of the supposed dichotomy, and therefore [in my humble opinion] the grain of truth that could be taken away from it. even though i didn't walk away with the definative conclusion i'd hoped for, i felt it gave me some insight into the crux of the whole disagreement.

...i just can't escape the fact that both Dawkins and Mackay speak from a place of extreme personal bias. granted, each rely on their own set of [opposing] criteria...but each remain a direct result of those criteria, and refuse at all costs any points that deviate from said origins.

an "atheist" choosing to negate any insight that any "creationist" may offer, lends a certain legitimacy to the idea that a "creationist" could rightfully negate any insight that any "atheist" might offer. does either scenario offer the possibility for progress? i would tend to think no, it only reinforces predetermined claims on either end.

again, in my humble opinion, people as one-sided as Dawkins and Mackay will never gain any new insight from one another, and nothing will ever be gained from their interaction...simply because both sides refuse to acknowledge that their original assumptions are beyond critique.

it's as if both men are desperately wishing for something new to enter into the debate, and simultaneously preventing such an concept to take shape.

...and if that's the case, i just hope others who saw this interview saw that such a scenario is utterly fruitless.

Dawkins is possibly one of the most annoying atheists around.

Originally Posted by acatalephobic

Warning: regard or disregard this as you please. long-winded value judgements and general dead-ends ahead.

i'm sorry. i'm late to this, but even so: i feel as though i was mislead in a way that parallels that of the original post. i felt i was on the same page with this analysis, until the 2nd to last sentence.

this interview intrigued me, as many others, because it potentially offered a way for those on either side of the spectrum to find what lies in the middle. the root cause of the supposed dichotomy, and therefore [in my humble opinion] the grain of truth that could be taken away from it. even though i didn't walk away with the definative conclusion i'd hoped for, i felt it gave me some insight into the crux of the whole disagreement.

...i just can't escape the fact that both Dawkins and Mackay speak from a place of extreme personal bias. granted, each rely on their own set of [opposing] criteria...but each remain a direct result of those criteria, and refuse at all costs any points that deviate from said origins.

an "atheist" choosing to negate any insight that any "creationist" may offer, lends a certain legitimacy to the idea that a "creationist" could rightfully negate any insight that any "atheist" might offer. does either scenario offer the possibility for progress? i would tend to think no, it only reinforces predetermined claims on either end.

again, in my humble opinion, people as one-sided as Dawkins and Mackay will never gain any new insight from one another, and nothing will ever be gained from their interaction...simply because both sides refuse to acknowledge that their original assumptions are beyond critique.

it's as if both men are desperately wishing for something new to enter into the debate, and simultaneously preventing such an concept to take shape.

...and if that's the case, i just hope others who saw this interview saw that such a scenario is utterly fruitless.

No, they both implicitly make the same assumptions (that evidence and rational thought is the best means to reach a conclusion). Then Dawkins shows how this inevitably leads to atheism and not MacKay's creationism.

Originally Posted by DeathCell

Dawkins is possibly one of the most annoying atheists around.

Why?

~

Originally Posted by O'nus

This interview really irritated me as I as deceived, by an obviously intelligent person, into thinking that I could learn something enlightening from Creationists.

What do you think...?

I think the same. No real point in repeating things you already said.

Originally Posted by DeathCell

Dawkins is possibly one of the most annoying atheists around.

I used to think he was arrogant and annoying, but I've come to really enjoy his style and his ventures promoting atheism. I think what he is doing is completely necessary, and not at all annoying or arrogant. Sometimes he may come off this way, but how would you feel if you continually experienced the same deluded, irrational, uncompromising people day in day out. These people that Dawkins talks to just end up looking like idiots, but they never seem to care, and never formulate a new opinion because they are stuck on their dogma. They are essentially zombies, dead in every sense of the word yet still roaming a muck, infecting every innocent and gullible victim they can lay their leathery hands on.

I don't know about Dawkins. In some interviews he gives really stupid or tangential answers which he really doesn't need to and which don't dress the fallacies as directly or succinctly as I'd like.

Originally Posted by Xei

I don't know about Dawkins. In some interviews he gives really stupid or tangential answers which he really doesn't need to and which don't dress the fallacies as directly or succinctly as I'd like.

Sometimes I think these comments are out of bias; what are some examples? Too often people utilize ad hominems to denigrate his position rather than listen to him.

~

Why on Earth would I be biased against Dawkins?

Originally Posted by Xei

Why on Earth would I be biased against Dawkins?

Although I can understand what you initially said, Dawkins usually has a good reason for going on a tangent or deviating to address a fallacy. Have you never heard of the Method of Elenchus? Socratic Method? The most ostensibly deviant, but most effective, debating tactic ever.

Note; I am not directly responding to this question because the answer ought to be obvious.

~

Originally Posted by grasshoppa

I used to think he was arrogant and annoying, but I've come to really enjoy his style and his ventures promoting atheism. I think what he is doing is completely necessary, and not at all annoying or arrogant. Sometimes he may come off this way, but how would you feel if you continually experienced the same deluded, irrational, uncompromising people day in day out. These people that Dawkins talks to just end up looking like idiots, but they never seem to care, and never formulate a new opinion because they are stuck on their dogma. They are essentially zombies, dead in every sense of the word yet still roaming a muck, infecting every innocent and gullible victim they can lay their leathery hands on.

These people will continue to be deluded regardless of his "mission" I think of him as akin to someone spreading their holy message.... They don't care, they've made up their mind.. let them live in their ignorance. You can't change the way people have thought their entire lives within minutes. Especially a person who holds himself even in his body language as superior and arrogant.

Science rules the real world, religion doesn't why continue your crusade against their personal misguided feelings? He isn't just supporting atheism, but constantly out their trying to debate and prove his side right. If he's so confident in his ideas being the real truth, why does he feel the need to go after these crazy religion obsessed? It's not as if he's having a debate of science vs science, but science vs theology.. It's utterly pointless.