Originally Posted by Nedusa (Post 7648449)

He is not very respectful of other people's religious views, and has an air of condescending arrogance about him.

Originally Posted by Nedusa (Post 7648449)

He is not very respectful of other people's religious views, and has an air of condescending arrogance about him.

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet (Post 7648459)

how so?

Originally Posted by arista (Post 7648460)

He knows Better than You do.

Buy his great book
I did

Originally Posted by Nedusa (Post 7649954)

I always think he talks down to people like " Daddy knows best" kinda attitude.

He is totally Anti theist and scorns the very idea of religion because there's no proof .

But there's no proof God doesn't exist so he should bear that in mind a bit more before he goes off on one of his condescending anti religious rants.

Originally Posted by Nedusa (Post 7649955)

That's just it.... He doesn't know better than me or you or anyone else for that matter.

He only knows what all of us know but is better at putting the anti religious viewpoint across.

Originally Posted by Kizzy (Post 7650176)

That's his whole point, he deals in science and logic and facts religion doesn't do that it can't.
He isn't anti religion, it's a theory is all and the burden of proof is not on him.

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet (Post 7650051)

The there is no proof gods don't exist is no defence

There is no onus to prove this so ignores it and rightly so

Originally Posted by Livia (Post 7650667)

There is no onus? LOL... He's not in a court of law. And it makes me chuckle that atheists and anti-theists (thanks for that Nedusa) fall back on the argument of the onus being on the religious to prove their faith and think that's a nice, tidy, smug way to win the argument. It is complete bullsh1t. The only way to know definitively that God exists is to die. Dawkins is entitled to his opinion. If only he would grant that courtesy to people who believe differently to him.

Originally Posted by Nedusa (Post 7650578)

Maybe so, but I ask you if 4/5 of the Worlds population believe in a Deity and one fifth do not believe , then surely it is slightly arrogant for the minority to assume they are right and everybody else is wrong.

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier (Post 7650798)

This is a misrepresentation really. They don't all believe the same things. You can't lump numerous belief systems into one group for a "versus"... They can't ALL be right, it's impossible. At best, you could give the title" majority" to the biggest of the bunch (is that Catholicism or a branch of Islam? I'm not entirely sure...) but even then it's far from being an overall majority. There are more non-Catholics than Catholics, there are more non-Muslims than Muslims, etc etc.

There are more non-atheists than atheists, but it's no more arrogant for an atheist to assume that they are right than it is for a Catholic or a Muslim or a Scientologist.

Show me a devout Religious person who doesn't talk about God as if he's sure that God is real (and by necessity, believes that anyone who believes in any other God, or no God at all, is wrong).

Originally Posted by Nedusa (Post 7650840)

Look you don't need to lump together like minded religious people v non religious people to have this argument.

If you take ALL THE people in the World that believe in some form of higher existence and a Deity of some description and pit them against avid non believers then the proportions are quite overwhelming.
90% or more of the Worlds population believe in something so there must be something in our DNA that hard wires us to believe there is more.

So this must be the default position and as much as atheists and the like argue smugly with their scientific logic they must wonder why so many billions of people still believe passionately in something that cannot be proven scientifically.
So yes it is for that reason that I say it is slightly arrogant to assume the 5% is right and smile condescendingly at the other 95%.

Originally Posted by Nedusa (Post 7650840)

If you take ALL THE people in the World that believe in some form of higher existence and a Deity of some description and pit them against avid non believers then the proportions are quite overwhelming.

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier (Post 7650963)

But they all believe different things, sometimes wildly different things, and can't all possibly be right. Even if you argue it's possible that one of those groups is right... Most of them are wrong. And if most of them are wrong then it becomes perfectly feasible (in my opinion, probable) that ALL of them are wrong, even if there is a nondescript higher power of some form.

Chances of there being some sort of intelligent creative force? We don't know anywhere near enough about the universe to state either way, so you could call it 50/50. Chances of ANY organised religion having stumbled upon the absolute truth in a universe of near infinite possibility? Miniscule. Miniscule to the point of being effectively zero.

No I don't buy that, fear of death I agree could be used as a reason people believe in an afterlife, but I believe it is more than that.

Religious people see the world around them as just a small part of the whole, they suspect there is more and although science can't prove it, it is almost an intangible feeling, a quality , a faith that there is more but we cannot comprehend it in our mortal state.

Even with all our science what do we tiny mortals with our small brains really know about anything, this is where the arrogance comes from, the assumption that we have all the answers, we know everything we are enlightened beings.

Well I've got news for you all.... We are not that clever and in the realm of the cosmos across all spiritual planes we are very unenlightened.

So maybe the slight arrogance of people like Mr Dawkins is a veil for the envy he carries at his inability to have any meaningful faith, perhaps science has blinded him to the realm of possibilities that may exist and he is now a prisoner of science and logic and must defend it at all costs.

That's fine for some people but most of us feel there is more , it's as simple as that really we just feel it and no amount of blind logic and proof and science will make us feel any different.

There is. It's called survival instinct. Fear of death is a huge part of what keeps us risk averse and allows us to keep on living. We can't live forever, but we are inclined to wait to believe that we will continue to exist in some form after death.

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier (Post 7650963)

But they all believe different things, sometimes wildly different things, and can't all possibly be right. Even if you argue it's possible that one of those groups is right... Most of them are wrong. And if most of them are wrong then it becomes perfectly feasible (in my opinion, probable) that ALL of them are wrong, even if there is a nondescript higher power of some form.

Chances of there being some sort of intelligent creative force? We don't know anywhere near enough about the universe to state either way, so you could call it 50/50. Chances of ANY organised religion having stumbled upon the absolute truth in a universe of near infinite possibility? Miniscule. Miniscule to the point of being effectively zero.

No I don't buy that, fear of death I agree could be used as a reason people believe in an afterlife, but I believe it is more than that.

Religious people see the world around them as just a small part of the whole, they suspect there is more and although science can't prove it, it is almost an intangible feeling, a quality , a faith that there is more but we cannot comprehend it in our mortal state.

Even with all our science what do we tiny mortals with our small brains really know about anything, this is where the arrogance comes from, the assumption that we have all the answers, we know everything we are enlightened beings.

Well I've got news for you all.... We are not that clever and in the realm of the cosmos across all spiritual planes we are very unenlightened.

So maybe the slight arrogance of people like Mr Dawkins is a veil for the envy he carries at his inability to have any meaningful faith, perhaps science has blinded him to the realm of possibilities that may exist and he is now a prisoner of science and logic and must defend it at all costs.

That's fine for some people but most of us feel there is more , it's as simple as that really we just feel it and no amount of blind logic and proof and science will make us feel any different.

There is. It's called survival instinct. Fear of death is a huge part of what keeps us risk averse and allows us to keep on living. We can't live forever, but we are inclined to wait to believe that we will continue to exist in some form after death.

Originally Posted by Nedusa (Post 7651020)

No I don't buy that, fear of death I agree could be used as a reason people believe in an afterlife, but I believe it is more than that.

Religious people see the world around them as just a small part of the whole, they suspect there is more and although science can't prove it, it is almost an intangible feeling, a quality , a faith that there is more but we cannot comprehend it in our mortal state.

Even with all our science what do we tiny mortals with our small brains really know about anything, this is where the arrogance comes from, the assumption that we have all the answers, we know everything we are enlightened beings.

Well I've got news for you all.... We are not that clever and in the realm of the cosmos across all spiritual planes we are very unenlightened.

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier (Post 7651111)

Yes! Exactly! There is more to existence than we can possibly comprehend or even begin to imagine. We know nothing in relative terms. Our understanding is infantile, we understand a tiny fleck of a boulder on an entire mountain of existence.

Which is WHY organised religion - pretending that the answers are in one book, or another, or that the truth lies in one defined God, or another, is completely ridiculous. THAT is arrogance. THAT is saying, "We have the answers, they are written here, they are the truth and the whole truth".

You are 100% correct. We are intelligent enough to know that there is more to existence than what we see but we are too limited to ever know the extent of it. So we have spent thousands of years constructing deities and writing stories because we as a species are too scared to admit that the truth is UNKNOWN. And by unknown I don't mean that one faith might be right. I mean that the sheer complexity of the truth ensures that none of them are. We have created Gods to explain the unexplainable, to attempt to understand the unfathomable, BECAUSE we are arrogant.

And it's something that I will never understand, because the sheer limitless possibilities - the absolute wonder, majesty and beautiful chaos of the universe - is incredibly exciting.

But people are desperate to explain it and organise it on a human level. To say "this is how it is, don't worry, feel safe". It's limited and depressing in ways that I can't even describe. I don't care if that's arrogant. I'm excited for anyone who shares the way I see it.

Originally Posted by Nedusa (Post 7651243)

Agree with every word of that T.S , yes we do try and couch it in human terms but ultimately we don't really understand much. But I still feel people who close themselves off to all possibilities religious or otherwise are slightly arrogant in their presumption they have all the answers when in we have merely scratched the surface.