(no subject)

[sophiaserpentia]

...[A]mong those celebrating the prominence of these two Darwinians [Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett] on both sides of the Atlantic is an unexpected constituency - the American creationist/intelligent-design lobby. Huh? Dawkins, in particular, has become their top pin-up.

How so? William Dembski (one of the leading lights of the US intelligent-design lobby) put it like this in an email to Dawkins: "I know that you personally don't believe in God, but I want to thank you for being such a wonderful foil for theism and for intelligent design more generally. In fact, I regularly tell my colleagues that you and your work are one of God's greatest gifts to the intelligent-design movement. So please, keep at it!"

... Michael Ruse, a prominent Darwinian philosopher (and an agnostic) based in the US, with a string of books on the subject, is exasperated: "Dawkins and Dennett are really dangerous, both at a moral and a legal level." The nub of Ruse's argument is that Darwinism does not lead ineluctably to atheism, and to claim that it does (as Dawkins does) provides the intelligent-design lobby with a legal loophole: "If Darwinism equals atheism then it can't be taught in US schools because of the constitutional separation of church and state. It gives the creationists a legal case. Dawkins and Dennett are handing these people a major tool."

Why the intelligent design lobby thanks God for Richard Dawkins (Thanks to supergee for the link)

Say it with me, now: atheism is not a religion. There is no doctrine, no scripture, no church, no congregation, no priesthood, no tradition, no temple, no ritual, no prayerbook, no dietary restriction, no almsgiving, or any other religious trapping, associated with atheism.

Disbelief in God is not a religious belief. This assertion presumes that "belief in God" is normal and standard, such that disbelief thereof requires maintenance of faith and positive reinforcement. No, "God" is an assertion made by most religions, the burden of proof for which rests on those who promote religion. Not subscribing to someone else's assertion is not an act of faith.

Comments

Re: reposted with clarification

[badsede.livejournal.com]

No it's not, because as you said, you cannot provide proof of a negative.

I didn't say that, I said that it is very difficult to prove a negative. It is possible, but the less specific the assertion, the more difficult it is. I can disprove the existence of a god who will manifest physically and unavoidably perceptibly before me at my very calling by calling and observing that no god appears. I have just disproved the existence of such a god. My criteria was very specific, so it was actually fairly easy. The less specific my criteria is, the more difficult the task becomes. Thus, the assertion that no supernatural being at all exists becomes very difficult to prove, difficult enough to be essentially impossible. It's like a calculus limit equation.

But you seem to be uncomfortable with the idea that a statement can reflect less than perfect knowledge.

Not at all. But that does not change the fact that there are others who are. There is a reason that there are so few strong atheists, it is fairly unsupportable intellectually and would really require that kind of perfect knowledge, or faith.

I personally feel no need to prove the existence of God. I see the evidence all around and within, I have my experiences, and find them sufficiently compelling to believe. Could I be wrong? perhaps, I do not have perfect knowledge .. but I do not need it, compelling reason is sufficient.

But that does not change the fact that there are people out there who make an assertion, and make it in such a way, that would require perfect knowledge. You have never met one, and that is not so surprizing. I think that is why you kept shifting the discussion to the kind of atheist that you have met, but the kind of which I was not speaking.