Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

stahrwe · Sat Apr 30, 2011 6:39 pm

I expect to receive deserved criticism for posting a video without an accompanying trascript here. In an effort to mitigate the criticism somewhat let me say that my primary reason for objection to videos presented on BT is that they are heavily one sided and often misrepresent information, at least in my opinion they do. In this case the video is a conversation between Richard Dawkins representing the atheist position, and Alister McGrath, former atheist, representing the Christian position. The video covers many of the objections to God, Faith, and Christianity which I have encountered here at BT. The interview with McGrath was produced by Dawkins as part of a video series he was going to release. The final DVD series did not include anything from this interview so I also plead importance that it be heard. I also mention that McGrath, though a Christian is not a creationist so some of his answers deviate from what I would have said.


	Quote: Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath From "Root of All Evil? The Uncut Interviews" 3-DVD Set Buy it not at: http://richarddawkins.net/store/index.p ... ducts_id=6 This interview was filmed for the TV documentary "Root of All Evil?" but was left out of the final version. Time restrictions dictated that not all interviews filmed could be used. This was especially regrettable in the case of the McGrath interview, which is therefore offered here now, unedited. See more videos like this at http://richarddawkins.net/home

video.google.com/videoplay?docid=647427 ... 369344626#

Finally, I don't know how long this video will be available for viewing but if it is available due to the generousity of Dr. Dawkins I extend my thanks to him for that. Should he ever feel the need for answers to the questions which Alister McGrath struggled with he should feel free to contact me, I had no such difficulties.

Dexter · Sat Apr 30, 2011 7:45 pm


	stahrwe wrote: Finally, I don't know how long this video will be available for viewing but if it is available due to the generousity of Dr. Dawkins I extend my thanks to him for that. Should he ever feel the need for answers to the questions which Alister McGrath struggled with he should feel free to contact me, I had no such difficulties.

You're going to quote Bible passages to Dawkins? I'm sure he'll be very impressed.

stahrwe · Sat Apr 30, 2011 10:19 pm

Dexter wrote:


	stahrwe wrote: Finally, I don't know how long this video will be available for viewing but if it is available due to the generousity of Dr. Dawkins I extend my thanks to him for that. Should he ever feel the need for answers to the questions which Alister McGrath struggled with he should feel free to contact me, I had no such difficulties.

You're going to quote Bible passages to Dawkins? I'm sure he'll be very impressed.

Dexter wrote:


	stahrwe wrote: Finally, I don't know how long this video will be available for viewing but if it is available due to the generousity of Dr. Dawkins I extend my thanks to him for that. Should he ever feel the need for answers to the questions which Alister McGrath struggled with he should feel free to contact me, I had no such difficulties.

You're going to quote Bible passages to Dawkins? I'm sure he'll be very impressed.

Shallow thinking , assumptions? Why would you assume that? You did not have time to watch the video between when I posted it and your reply. McGrath did not quote the Bible. The discussion was more philosophiclly oriented. I understand your desire to marginalize me by I am not offended by the term fundie, nor does it intimidate me when you suggest I would use the Bible though it this case it was not part of my plan.

DWill · Mon May 02, 2011 5:45 pm

How odd that these two didn't take a seat to have their talk. I watched half an hour and hope that is enough to make an observation or two. As stahrwe noted, McGrath isn't a Bible literalist, which gives a boost to his claim that that his religion is rational and makes sense of the world for him. I mean that on a relative scale, yes, McGrath's is a rational religion. To some extent, monotheism itself is more rational than animist or polytheist religions. There is relatively little superstition in Christianity, pushing it upwards on the scale of rationality. McGrath is moderate, but he uses a similar approach to that of the more conservative. He didn't make concessions to faith, but claimed that his belief has a rational basis. Creationists, too, try to prove their beliefs to be scientifically valid, true without recourse to faith.

Dawkins tried to draw out of him just how his beliefs were entirely rational and how they made sense of the world for him. He didn't get satisfaction in this regard. McGrath answered confidently, though non-dogmatically, but was not able to get across just how the Christian faith explains the world to him. I wouldn't expect him to be able to do that. Religious belief draws on a different aspect of the mind from the conscious, rational aspect. It relies on a sense that many individuals have, originating in the unconscious. In terms of how we now understand the unconscious, that itself doesn't make religious belief irrational.

stahrwe · Mon May 02, 2011 6:54 pm

I agree about not sitting down. I think that is a Dawkins strategy as he seems to do that in other similar situations I have seen. Or, perhaps he did not intend to spend as much time with Alister as he did.

I agree with some of DWill's observations especially how Alister is a bit disadvantaged not being a literalist. I had better answers in a number of instances than Alister did, on the other hand, I felt in several instances that Dawkins belabored points on very thin logical grounds.

Interbane · Mon May 02, 2011 8:29 pm


	Quote: I understand your desire to marginalize me by I am not offended by the term fundie, nor does it intimidate me when you suggest I would use the Bible though it this case it was not part of my plan.

What errors did you see that you would have a plan to answer them? You're speaking of breaks in logic on Dawkin's part? Or perhaps his answers don't sound reasonable to you regardless of logical fidelity. Perhaps there are reasons his answers don't sound reasonable to you, and perhaps those reasons have nothing to do with Dawkin's arguments.

Randall R. Young · Tue May 03, 2011 7:14 am


	Quote: I understand your desire to marginalize me by I am not offended by the term fundie, nor does it intimidate me when you suggest I would use the Bible though it this case it was not part of my plan.

I have to say, stahrwe, your responses seem strangely disconnected from the posts you are quoting. Is this some sort off debating style? Dyslexia? I don't understand why you quote remarks that you don't appear to understand.

For instance, you brought this video to my attention after I asked Harry about Tillich's "ground of being" concept. This video had precisely nothing to add to that argument, except to repeat Tillich's claim. In fact, McGraph rejected and rebuffed repeated opportunities to elucidate the matter, but chose to keep it to himself.

If I were a trial lawyer, I'd shout out "RELEVANCE, your Honor!"

stahrwe · Tue May 03, 2011 8:17 am

Randall R. Young wrote:


	Quote: I understand your desire to marginalize me by I am not offended by the term fundie, nor does it intimidate me when you suggest I would use the Bible though it this case it was not part of my plan.

I have to say, stahrwe, your responses seem strangely disconnected from the posts you are quoting. Is this some sort off debating style? Dyslexia? I don't understand why you quote remarks that you don't appear to understand.

For instance, you brought this video to my attention after I asked Harry about Tillich's "ground of being" concept. This video had precisely nothing to add to that argument, except to repeat Tillich's claim. In fact, McGraph rejected and rebuffed repeated opportunities to elucidate the matter, but chose to keep it to himself.

If I were a trial lawyer, I'd shout out "RELEVANCE, your Honor!"

This attempt was fairly amateurish and a bit thumby.

In a court room the proper protocol is to rise and say, "Objection your honor; or Your Honor I object," and then state your reason. You are suffering from too much exposure to television court dramas. Dyslexia is a condition where perception of word or letter structure is experienced. It does not affect one's intelligence only that an individual has to expend extra effort to overcome it.

I thought the discussion of philosophers was overwrought in the discussion. McGrath should have objected (to use your approach) to their relevance. Honestly, who cares what a philosopher thinks about Jesus? He or she is trying to explain the need for God in humanistic terms which are irrelevant.

stahrwe · Tue May 03, 2011 8:45 am

Interbane wrote:


	Quote: I understand your desire to marginalize me by I am not offended by the term fundie, nor does it intimidate me when you suggest I would use the Bible though it this case it was not part of my plan.

What errors did you see that you would have a plan to answer them? You're speaking of breaks in logic on Dawkin's part? Or perhaps his answers don't sound reasonable to you regardless of logical fidelity. Perhaps there are reasons his answers don't sound reasonable to you, and perhaps those reasons have nothing to do with Dawkin's arguments.

1) There is a fundamental flaw in Dawkins' logic in requiring God to be answerable to him or anyone's satisfaction with respect to what He (God) does.

2) I thought the discussion with respect to disasters/who is saved, etc. was belabored, partly due to Dawkins' obsession and partly due to McGrath's too professorial approach. They were both clearly enjoying the interchange too much and clarity suffered.

I need to go back and watch it again, the lack of a transcript strikes again.

Interbane · Tue May 03, 2011 10:12 am


	Quote: 1) There is a fundamental flaw in Dawkins' logic in requiring God to be answerable to him or anyone's satisfaction with respect to what He (God) does.

For any coherence of definition, there are situations in which it would be immoral for god to not act. You could rationalize in an exemption here by claiming that expecting an infinite being to act in knowable ways is expecting too much. But then, it's also an assumption that he would be exempt. A good half of an infinite set of numbers are even or odd. Quite a bit can be said about infinite things, in fact.

Interbane · Tue May 03, 2011 10:14 am


	Quote: In a court room the proper protocol is to rise and say, "Objection your honor; or Your Honor I object," and then state your reason.

Stahrwe, you're not winning debate points. You don't have to argue against his freaking hypothetical. He's saying your comments aren't relevant to the point.

DWill · Tue May 03, 2011 11:40 am


	stahrwe wrote: I agree about not sitting down. I think that is a Dawkins strategy as he seems to do that in other similar situations I have seen. Or, perhaps he did not intend to spend as much time with Alister as he did. I agree with some of DWill's observations especially how Alister is a bit disadvantaged not being a literalist. I had better answers in a number of instances than Alister did, on the other hand, I felt in several instances that Dawkins belabored points on very thin logical grounds.

Well, I really meant that I come closer to accepting McGrath's claim to rationality because he isn't a literalist. It's true that literalism confers an advantage of sorts, but only in the sense that the talking points are etched in stone. That quality doesn't make literalism rational. I'm not using 'rational' as an all-purpose word of approval, by the way, because I don't think it is.

stahrwe · Tue May 03, 2011 12:24 pm

Interbane wrote:


	Quote: 1) There is a fundamental flaw in Dawkins' logic in requiring God to be answerable to him or anyone's satisfaction with respect to what He (God) does.

For any coherence of definition, there are situations in which it would be immoral for god to not act. You could rationalize in an exemption here by claiming that expecting an infinite being to act in knowable ways is expecting too much. But then, it's also an assumption that he would be exempt. A good half of an infinite set of numbers are even or odd. Quite a bit can be said about infinite things, in fact.

You are not exactly incorrect but you don't understand. Let's take your statement, "For any coherence of definition, there are situations in which it would be immoral for god to not act. " First of all throw out, "For any coherence of definition," you have included it only to justify your argument for discussion purposed and it is not necessary. So, let's start with, "There are situations in which is would be immoral for God to not act."

Let's take an example I have heard before: Some kind of worm burrows into a child's eye and lays its eggs. As they hatch and grow the larva cause horrible pain and blindess as they eat the child's eyes.

Certainly a horrendous situation which any compassionate human would do whatever was possible to remedy so God must be immoral if He doesn't intervene and heal the child. Let's assume for a moment that you are correct so God heals this child and every other child who has the eye worms. Further, He prevents anyone from ever being afflicted by this worm again.

Is God moral now? No! What about the child who gets cancer? Why didn't God stop that?" He can't be moral if He allows children to get cancer.

Ok so God heals every child who has cancer and prevents any child from every getting cancer again. Is He moral now? But wait a minute, what age defines child? 10, 15, 16, 18 years old. That seems kind of arbitrary so let's just require God to do away with cancer for everyone or we will decide that He isn't moral.

Are we good now? Is God finally acceptably moral in our judgement?

No, what about heart disease. Lot's of people die every year from heart disease and it costs lots of money to treat it. A moral God would not allow heart disease would He?

Hmmmm, what about the person who smokes 4 packs of cigarettes per day, eats lard sandwhiches, and whose only exercise is pushing buttons on the remote for his tv; is God required to prevent him from getting heart disease? Let's say yes, no one gets heart disease or dies from heart attacks anymore.

In fact, let's require God to eliminate all disease. People can smoke like chimneys, eat until they weigh 1,000 pounds, oh, and do away with refrigerators as one can now eat rotting meat, forget about sanitation systems and hygiene, the possibilities are limitless.

Now, how about hunger. No one should ever go hungry so if they do God isn't moral right? But what to eat? Not fair for some to get NY Stip steak and others pink slime. In fact shouldn't even be eating animals right, So, God starts up the manna from heaven program again. Manna every morning, as much as you want. All you have to do is gather it. Everybody eats manna every day. Manna, manna, manna. Now God is moral right? But are people happy? Maybe we have matured since the time of Moses because the people were ready to go back to slavery in exchange for a varied diet.

Ok, so God's eliminated disease and hunger is He moral now? What about shelter? Is God moral if not everyone has shelter?

....

eventually, God has revised the world so that there is no disease. There is no hunger, and everyone eats the same thing. Everyone has a job makes exactly the same wage and lives in identical shelters, or, perhaps no one has a job. Why would you need one? If you don't need a job, do you need an education? Is God finally moral enough for you?

God has done this before. We started out in the Garden of Eden, and we chose to leave it.

Interbane · Tue May 03, 2011 12:46 pm


	Quote: Is God finally moral enough for you?

That would make god moral enough, yes. I would expect something similar, but in a few of your examples you there is an overlap of breached free will, which was excluded if you kept the first part of my sentence that you erroneously thought was expendable.

Unfortunately, he built a universe in which he didn't have to act morally. He put two humans in a garden knowing full well what would happen. He did precisely what needed to be done to ensure humanity lived in suffering for all time.

The difference is, YOU blame adam and eve as if the choice wasn't foreordained. But you see, it was foreordained, since we are analyzing this through the perspective of god, and he's omniscient. God knew what choice they'd make, and he could have varied the starting conditions so that they would have made a different choice.

At the heart of your misunderstanding is how you conceive of free will. How "truly, absolutely" free were the wills of Adam and Eve? To what extend did their environments and "pre-formed" mental states contribute to making the incorrect choice?

If god chose one way to create the garden of eden, he was already altering free will. He was already deciding upon environmental factors that would influence how adam and eve made their choice. He could have chosen entirely different environmental factors, which would have had precisely the opposite effect on their choice to eat the apple. He could have done this without any greater influence on free will than the default.

These lines of reasoning are the lowest common denominator. It doesn't matter what other variables and unknowns are contained in the "infinity" of god's existence. Their effects need not be considered, because if they do cancel out these lines of reasoning, they still mean, by definition, that god is immoral (by virtue of his unknowability.) You seem to jump on the unknowability bandwagon for quite a few rationalizations. Faith is strange.

Randall R. Young · Tue May 03, 2011 12:50 pm

stahrwe,

You missed McGraph's & Dawkins' discussion on this matter, apparently. Dawkins' wanted to understand why and on what basis that God would intervene in some cases, but not others. Why would God play favorites, in other words?

Everyone except you apparently has no trouble with a God who lets everyone suffer FAIRLY! But the problem is, the uneven application of divine assistance is a can of worms, throwing the whole theistic position into "apologetic mode"--where reason no longer applies.

For example, we recently had a spat of tornados wipe out sections of Alabama, right in the heart of Bible Belt country. Comparing and contrasting with Katrina's effects on "gay" New Orleans, and the response of Pat Robertson/Rev. Hagee types, I have yet to hear any preacher declare these tornados to be punishment for the sin of being a Bible Thumper. Have you?

Why is it that God punishes gay people with hurricanes, but tornados are just chance occurrences? Also, why doesn't God use more precise surgical tools, in general? Why all the collateral damage? Were the family pets in New Orleans gay, too? Was every citizen gay, or a supporter of gays? Is there not even one gay person in Alabama?

Your position is untenable, and basically absurd.

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