"When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything." ~UMBERTO ECO, (Foucault's Pendulum)
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
ROFLMAO!
Now here's a brilliant piece of work detailing the Dawkins legacy. I almost feel vindicated enough by this presentation to finish reading the claptrap that is The God Delusion.
7 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Suhweet. That was magnificent! And the responses below the video feed contained some very good comments. Dawkins has indeed become a new kind of believer and his dogma is quite evident in the scriptures he penned and so affectionately calls The God Delusion. Kudos to you man, if you can actually finish reading his canon. I tried and cried. W
Thanks for posting this video -- it's really very funny.
I know how you feel about reading Dawkins' The God Delusion. About a year and half ago, I reviewed the book for a faculty forum at my college. What a headache! In all honesty, I can say that, from the point of view of good reasoning and argument, The God Delusion is one of the worst books I've read in my academic life. In a nutshell, Dawkins is hugely unfair to his opponents (because he misrepresents or under-represents them), plus Dawkins' philosophical reasoning is truly terrible (because his who-designed-the-designer argument/objection involves question-begging, relies on a false implicit premise, and is simply irrelevant as an objection to the design inference).
It's not just me saying this. Alvin Plantinga, a highly respected University of Notre Dame philosopher and past president of the American Philosophical Association, has described Dawkins' philosophical work in The God Delusion as sophomoric; but then added that that would be insulting to sophomores. Also, the well-known atheist philosopher Michael Ruse has publicly stated that Dawkins' book made him (Ruse) embarrassed to be an atheist.
I have written a short review of Dawkins' The God Delusion which will soon appear in Didaskalia, a journal published by Providence College. (Actually the article is a reply to one of Dawkins' defenders, a reply that requires a review and assessment of Dawkins' main argument for God's alleged non-existence.) My article might be helpful as you read his crucial chapter, "Why There Almost Certainly Is No God." If you can't get ahold of the journal, let me know and I would be happy to email you a copy of my article.
Christopher, I always enjoy my visits to St. Cynic. I still chuckle when I think of the atheist "bust" ad. I showed it to my wife, and she just shook her head.
I'm so glad that you continue to stop by at St. Cynic, and that you enjoy what you read. I must admit I was a little nervous about what you might think of the content here -- memories of red ink on my essay concerning the ontological argument resurfaced! Not to worry, however, you gave me good marks, and high praise then, too.
Yes, Dawkins's book is a cruel, and hackneyed attempt at philosophy, and comes up short of anything even approaching thoughtful, or even useful. Which, really, is deliciously ironic given that he seems to think biologists are smarter than everyone else. Evolution would do well to grow Dawkins a third arm stemming from his buttocks: it would make patting himself on the back much easier.
As for your article in Didaskalia, I would love to receive a copy from you. Please, whenever you have it ready, you have my email address, so dispatch it with all haste!
Okay, archaisms aside, Dawkins's 3rd chapter in The God Delusion was a tour de force in brain-curdling illogic, and knuckle-dragging acrobatics. He'd have done better to have scrawled NO DOG on a chalkboard, cocked his head to the side, and grinned stupidly in an effort to prove his thesis than to have penned that twaddle. And I love Plantinga's "The Dawkins Confusion". What a perfect skewering of Dawkins!
Perhaps I'm being a mite bit too harsh. Nah!
Anyway, I really didn't like his book.
Okay. I have to go. Sorry about the brevity, but I have a date with James Bond and my wife. May the best man win! (This should be easy.)
Hey Chris--this is completely off topic (does a really funny, but totally lame rap video mocking Dawkins count as a topic??), but I just happened to notice that the section under which you linked my blog in the sidebar is titled "Theoblogy", which I just found amusing, because I had seriously considered naming Barque of Peter "Theoblogy" in the first place!
As for topics, anything goes here at St. Cynic. Some will be fractal/postmodern in format, and others will be typical formats. It's not exactly random, but I'm certainly not always in the mood for journalistic pieces.
Interesting about "theoblogy". It's probably been done before, I don't know. But it did sound interesting to me when it occurred to me. Glad to see our great minds think alike!
7 comments:
Suhweet. That was magnificent! And the responses below the video feed contained some very good comments. Dawkins has indeed become a new kind of believer and his dogma is quite evident in the scriptures he penned and so affectionately calls The God Delusion. Kudos to you man, if you can actually finish reading his canon. I tried and cried.
W
Well, I thought the arm movements were hilarious ...
J
Christopher,
Thanks for posting this video -- it's really very funny.
I know how you feel about reading Dawkins' The God Delusion. About a year and half ago, I reviewed the book for a faculty forum at my college. What a headache! In all honesty, I can say that, from the point of view of good reasoning and argument, The God Delusion is one of the worst books I've read in my academic life. In a nutshell, Dawkins is hugely unfair to his opponents (because he misrepresents or under-represents them), plus Dawkins' philosophical reasoning is truly terrible (because his who-designed-the-designer argument/objection involves question-begging, relies on a false implicit premise, and is simply irrelevant as an objection to the design inference).
It's not just me saying this. Alvin Plantinga, a highly respected University of Notre Dame philosopher and past president of the American Philosophical Association, has described Dawkins' philosophical work in The God Delusion as sophomoric; but then added that that would be insulting to sophomores. Also, the well-known atheist philosopher Michael Ruse has publicly stated that Dawkins' book made him (Ruse) embarrassed to be an atheist.
I have written a short review of Dawkins' The God Delusion which will soon appear in Didaskalia, a journal published by Providence College. (Actually the article is a reply to one of Dawkins' defenders, a reply that requires a review and assessment of Dawkins' main argument for God's alleged non-existence.) My article might be helpful as you read his crucial chapter, "Why There Almost Certainly Is No God." If you can't get ahold of the journal, let me know and I would be happy to email you a copy of my article.
Christopher, I always enjoy my visits to St. Cynic. I still chuckle when I think of the atheist "bust" ad. I showed it to my wife, and she just shook her head.
All the best to you and yours,
Hendrik
Dr. V.,
I'm so glad that you continue to stop by at St. Cynic, and that you enjoy what you read. I must admit I was a little nervous about what you might think of the content here -- memories of red ink on my essay concerning the ontological argument resurfaced! Not to worry, however, you gave me good marks, and high praise then, too.
Yes, Dawkins's book is a cruel, and hackneyed attempt at philosophy, and comes up short of anything even approaching thoughtful, or even useful. Which, really, is deliciously ironic given that he seems to think biologists are smarter than everyone else. Evolution would do well to grow Dawkins a third arm stemming from his buttocks: it would make patting himself on the back much easier.
As for your article in Didaskalia, I would love to receive a copy from you. Please, whenever you have it ready, you have my email address, so dispatch it with all haste!
Okay, archaisms aside, Dawkins's 3rd chapter in The God Delusion was a tour de force in brain-curdling illogic, and knuckle-dragging acrobatics. He'd have done better to have scrawled NO DOG on a chalkboard, cocked his head to the side, and grinned stupidly in an effort to prove his thesis than to have penned that twaddle. And I love Plantinga's "The Dawkins Confusion". What a perfect skewering of Dawkins!
Perhaps I'm being a mite bit too harsh. Nah!
Anyway, I really didn't like his book.
Okay. I have to go. Sorry about the brevity, but I have a date with James Bond and my wife. May the best man win! (This should be easy.)
Hey Chris--this is completely off topic (does a really funny, but totally lame rap video mocking Dawkins count as a topic??), but I just happened to notice that the section under which you linked my blog in the sidebar is titled "Theoblogy", which I just found amusing, because I had seriously considered naming Barque of Peter "Theoblogy" in the first place!
Gregory ,
As for topics, anything goes here at St. Cynic. Some will be fractal/postmodern in format, and others will be typical formats. It's not exactly random, but I'm certainly not always in the mood for journalistic pieces.
Interesting about "theoblogy". It's probably been done before, I don't know. But it did sound interesting to me when it occurred to me. Glad to see our great minds think alike!
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