Comments on: Responding to Richard Dawkins

By: The Christian Cynic

The Christian Cynic — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 23:52:56 +0000

Thank you for mentioning the point I had neglected to make: reason is of course a double-edged sword and can undercut Dawkins’ case for a reasonable atheism as well. The whole absolutist strategy to writing religion off is a little absurd, really.

Thanks again for the plug; it makes me more fully appreciate when I write things without expecting anyone to respond.

By: Henry Neufeld

Henry Neufeld — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:33:49 +0000

Peter took the words right out of my mouth.

By: Peter Kirk

Peter Kirk — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:21:50 +0000

After many years of painstaking investigation, scientists have failed to detect any trace of the supernatural.

Of course, by definition, since the supernatural is defined as what cannot be detected by scientific methods. If they could detect it, it would not be supernatural.

It is therefore quite clear that those who claim knowledge of its precise internal structure are talking out of their collective rear ends.

You have missed a step in your argument here, which is your epistemological assumption that scientific investigation is the only way of acquiring knowledge of the supernatural.

By: Corkscrew

Corkscrew — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:39:18 +0000

Science is suited to study the natural world and nothing more. But it is an assumption, and a leap whether of faith or not, to go beyond that and say that nothing exists other than the natural world as we perceive it.

I’d like to make a correction here: what we’re saying is that to all intents and purposes nothing else exists. Science is at its core a means of distinguishing between good and bad conjectures, and it’s the only one we’ve ever discovered with any pedigree of success. If this finely-honed tool can’t get a grip on God, how on Earth can religion claim to have cracked that particular nut?

This comes back to Dawkins’ comments in The God Delusion about the four orders of angels in Catholic mythology. After many years of painstaking investigation, scientists have failed to detect any trace of the supernatural. It is therefore quite clear that those who claim knowledge of its precise internal structure are talking out of their collective rear ends.