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What if you’re wrong?
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 What if you’re wrong?m.youtube.com |
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I would have respected him more if he had said. If I am wrong then I am wrong and I am ok with that. Rather than his need of affirmation lead him to that obnoxious display of ego. |
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Patz He made valid points. Nothing he said was untrue. |
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"If you were raised a Christian, you are a Christian, if you were raised a Muslim, then you become a Muslim..." Yet there are plenty of people who convert from one faith (or none) to a different faith (or none). Dawkins can't accept that slice of data because it doesn't fit his existing convictions. His is NOT a scientific approach, but confirmation bias defended with excuses. Here is Rabbi Wolpe vs Chris Hitchens; it goes for 1.5 hours and is worth every minute, but possibly the best minute is Wolpe's first answer to the question "What is God?" His answers tarts with "If you're answering a two-year old you answer it one way, but if you're discussing it with an adult you begin with a recognition of human limitations." In other words, "Don't demand an answer that even a child could understand, and then complain that it's too childish." Hitchens spends the rest of the debate ignoring that key point. www.youtube.com |
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Zorroloco It was he who was giving a lecture, did you not hear how his answer got more and more hyperbolic as it went on? Did you not hear the cheer's and the thundering applause and the rye smile that appears across his completely self satisfied face? Yes it is ego, he did not answer her question, he didn't feel he had to answer her question because he believes her question is absurd to begin with. Otherwise he would not have answered her in such a condescending way self serving way. And yes he was wrong about a great deal, not everyone who was brought up in classical Greece believed in Zeus. They are all assumptions, however he is so smug that he believes them to be absolutely correct. No assumptions are correct. No use of absolutes are correct. |
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Bob |
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Patz What if you’re wrong is an egotistical question. We all could be wrong, so what? What if she’s wrong and Islam is correct? That was his point. If he humiliated her while so doing by pointing out the flaws in her thinking, so what? |
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Why Blue laws Bibles in schools In God we trust “Under God” Sunday is special Religious intrusion in health care Creationism in schools, anti-science curriculum 10 Commandments in courts Are just a few ways religion imposes on us. If the zealots would just be content to live and let live, I’d have no issue. Believe whatever the hell you like. But Bibles in schools seems totally ok to these yahoos! And no, it won’t stop there. |
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Zorro 15:47 Oh, that's right! Zorro concedes NOTHING when it comes to religion. He's a bit like a fundamentalist who believes that absolutely everything in the Bible is literally true, and to concede on one point is to deny 'Inspiration' as a whole. Zorro the Fundamentalist Atheist! The point is that his claim that we all believe what we are brought up to believe is not only false, but a logical nonsense. If Dawkins was brought up to believe in God, then he is himself a prominent counter-example; and if not, then his own logic drives to the conclusion that he only believes that himself because he was brought up that way. So how about getting the ad hominem tactic out of it, and discussing the question honestly? Oh, that's right! "Anyone who believes in God CAN'T discuss the question honestly, only us atheists!" Zorro, I loves you bro, but sometimes you need a mirror! Here I am for you. |
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zorroloco 16:38 He literally said," If you were born in Greece you would believe in Zeus " That statement is false. A question isn't a flaw in thinking, you are operating from a position of absolute certainty. You like he already have the answers that's why what she asked was absurd to the both of you and she received an absurd answer. He made a statement that may or may not be correct, everything he said was not all true or all false. And he didn't answer her question. And that sir is the truth. |
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Just because she wasn't able to publicly challenge his assumption of her being a Christian doesn't mean she was one. For all we know she could have been a plant placed there by him so that she would ask him that question and that he would have his snappy answer for her and impress his audience. But in a realm of infinite possibilities you have picked one. |
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Bob Good one. |
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Patz But it doesn’t matter what she believes. What’s important is the answer. We could all be wrong. It’s the human condition. It’s a stupid question…. Unless…unless there’s an implicit understanding… like… if Dawkins is wrong, he’ll BURN IN HELL 🔥!! I mean, otherwise, what if he’s wrong??? So what? |
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Zorro 16:38 1. Blue laws Too vague to be meaningful. Specifics, please, and then we can talk sensibly. 2. Bibles in schools Why not? And why not the Quran, and the Gita and other texts to study Comparative Religion? A quick overview of the major religions in the world, in a purely descriptive way, would do a lot to reduce discrimination. 3.In God we trust; “Under God” I agree here. Such references are not only inappropriate, but also meaningless unless assumptions are imported. Iran makes the same claim. 4. Sunday is special Again I agree with you. So does St. Paul, by-the-way; Romans 14:5 = "One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind." 5. Religious intrusion in health care You fail to note the historical background. For most of Western history, the State provided no health care at all. It was all done by religious institutions, mostly on a volunteer basis. I would be very happy for the State to take over ALL health care so the faith-based systems don't have to carry that burden (or investors see it as an opportunity for their own enrichment!), but politicians see it otherwise. So keep pushing for free universal health care as I do. We are agreed on the aim, but you need to understand how we got to this situation in the first place. 6.Creationism in schools, anti-science curriculum Again I agree. Creationism is not even whispered in Australian science courses. You don't have to be an atheist to support this; you only have to know what science is. 7. Ten Commandments in courts Yet again I agree. The courts are there to decide on the basis of statute and common law, not religious assumptions. If any Australian court tried to import such ideas they would be buried in appeals and such judges moved to deciding parking fines. But to get back to your central question ("Why do atheists spend so much time arguing about something they think doesn’t exist?"), I sympathise. In a nation that notionally separates the State and Religion, it is absurd that these questions even arise. So I can even understand the frustration (and perhaps even a touch of irrational rage?) when you come to religious questions. As the whole world says as they watch in astonishment, "Only in America!" |
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It is fine for a person to share their beliefs, and like I said. I would have respected him more if he had said. "If I am wrong then I am wrong and I am ok with that." That would have been honest, however that wouldn't have served his ego or elicited cheers and applause. You're not see what is there. You are seeing what you want to see. And that is fine. |
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Patz No God worthy of the appellation would judge me on anything but my treatment of other beings. No divine being worthy of worship would demand obeisance. Nor want it. If, in the end, I suffer for living life as an unbeliever, I’ll hold my head up high and know I had lived my life according to the rules of kindness, compassion and peace.” |
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Zorro 16:59 Thank you, and specially so for inserting the word 'trivial' as a special courtesy. <He should have stated he was talking about the vast majority of humanity, not every last individual person.> Yes, he should have, but he didn't. By stating the generality but not answering the question itself in the case of exceptions, he implied that the question was empty; that 'What if you're wrong?' was purely a matter of opinion. Perhaps this might shock you, but I can agree with that 'opinion' to a large extent, although not totally. HOW people think about God and other religious questions certainly IS based on past experience, whether it be overtly religious or more broadly cultural. Even those who have formed their own ideas are still limited by what they can imagine. So what if Dawkins is 'wrong'? What do we mean by 'wrong' in this case? From what I've seen of Dawkins, he nicely demolishes a concept of 'God' as some sort of super-being with immortality and unlimited powers. A lot of people live by that paradigm. But Dawkins never comes even within range of demolishing 'God' as 'The Transcendent Ground of All Being'. He is a bit like an art critic who belittles every child's pencil sketch presented to him by saying 'That can't be the real Bill Smith! It doesn't move, it doesn't breathe!' and then concludes that Bill Smith doesn't exist. |
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Bob Too vague to be meaningful. Specifics, please, and then we can talk sensibly. It’s illegal to sell alcohol on Sundays in many states. Pornography laws Sodomy laws Gay marriage laws (changed now) Bibles in schools …. 2. Bibles in schools Why not? And why not the Quran, and the Gita and other texts to study Comparative Religion? A quick overview of the major religions in the world, in a purely descriptive way, would do a lot to reduce discrimination. Because that’s not what the law says or does. If it mandated all sacred texts be carried, offered or even required a secular comparative religions class, I’ve no problem with that. But you know that and have set up a straw man |
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Zorro 17:17 Amen! Amen! Amen! Now that we have tossed out that false idea of God, let's get into something a bit deeper. I offer a snippet from 'Pope Barnabas', where Barny has a final epiphany which I deliberately crafted to parallel Jesus in the Garden:- "It was not until after he had returned from this flight of the Spirit that he realised that he had not knelt or prostrated himself to pray, as he habitually did. He had stood the whole time." |
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Zorroloco 17:17 |
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Zorro 17:31 1. I agree with you. 2. Not so much a straw man as a trailing bait to get the conversation where I wanted it. I agree with you. Public schools should not teach Religion, but may (should?) teach Comparative Religion. |
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Wait it already is World Religions is typically offered as an elective course that students can choose to take in many U.S. high schools and colleges. Those people have other plans and purposes and it has nothing to do with religion or with this country. They're not teaching the Bible they're supposedly going to teach the Bibles influence on this nation's founding and has Christian nationalism all over it and it's only the beginning and if it continues it will destroy this country. |
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Patz 18:13 |
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bobspringett |
