RICHARD DAWKINS AND THE FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
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#RichardDawkins #Reason #Philosophy #ThinkingTheology #Religion #Logic
The background context to keep in mind about Dawkins is that he is an evolutionary biologist by profession and has a very full and detailed understanding of the overwhelming evidence supporting evolution as the explanation of the diversity of life. His aggression towards religion stems from the creationist denial of evolution not because of any evidence but because they have a dogmatic, literal interpretation of an ancient book and are unwilling to consider any alternative view. Worse than that, the fundamentalists dont even want evolution taught within science classes. Can you imagine how frustrating that must be to someone that has an in depth understanding of biology. It is the fundamentalists insistence that evolution is wrong just because their holy book says so, regardless of the evidence around us, that drives Dawkins's resentment of religion. There is beauty in understanding the reality of the world around us and the fundamentalists are trying to prevent people from getting that understanding and are preferring people to be ignorant. The Flying Spaghetti Monster isnt a Dawkins idea. He is just using it as an analogy for religious belief.
Very well said!
You're right the comparison is quite absurd: spaghetti actually exists and we can prove it.
I think you are absolutely right , civility is important.
If I was inclined to literally worship a thing , I would like for that thing to at least exhibit a high level of civility.
The Abrahamic God just doesn't fill the bill.
I think the idea that we need to pander to religious people to protect their feelings is also off-putting. If someone had an apt analogy to defeat my position, and resisted doing so to protect my feelings, I would regard this as incredibly patronizing. If any religious person is offended by the flying spaghetti monster, they should ( if they have a brain in their head) immediately seek to reinforce their argument so that the comparison can no longer be made. If the argument for your God is so weak that it can be made analogous to a celestial pasta dish, that's your problem and no one else's.
Spot on
Believing in the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not much different than believing in any of the other Gods. Not one of the 10,000 plus Gods that are being worshipped today have any verifiable evidence that confirms the existence of their God. All that any believer in any God has is faith in their belief of their particular God. Unfortunately, faith in one’s belief is evidence of nothing.
It’s baffling to me that every single believer of God, based on the beliefs of their particular religion, doesn’t stop to think and ask themselves the exact same question that the lady in the audience asked Dawkins. “What if you’re wrong?”
To blindly believe in one God, without verifying that their God is the “right” God is foolish.
How is it possible for so people to believe in so many Gods by so many different religions and not question “WHY” are their so many different Gods being worshipped?
There is not one God out of the 10,000 plus Gods being worshipped today that has any, undeniable, verifiable evidence that confirms the existence of any, one, of these Gods.
Dawkins reference to the Flying Spaghetti Monster is just as valid and deserves about the same amount of respect as any of the other make believe Gods that has been created by man to control the ignorant masses. I think I’ve decided to make the Flying Spaghetti Monster my new God.. it will have the same result in the end so why not?
all of a sudden it's 2005 again with your logic. It's pascal's wager when you break it down. No god, you die; end of story. One God, well you have to spend a little time in introspection. My daughter when she was eight had more brain power than you. She deduced that Santa and God couldn't be real because Santa has the same abilities as God. What you need to do is compare gods. All the gods of the world minus one require good works to move on to whatever level of existence could be, if any. God of the bible required obedience to the law for salvation for the Jews but in the new testament, Christ declares and Paul preaches that your good deeds are nothing. Faith alone--sola fide. It's broken down to three choices. 1)Nothing 2)Salvation by works 3)Faith. Option two is where no one can agree (what works and to what degree?) and also where no one can say with certainty what will happen when they collect the deposit on the meat suit. The only reason a flying spaghetti monster exists is the same reason the rainbow flag exists, to make a mockery of God. But why make a mockery of something you don't believe exists? There's more to say but I'll be charitable and leave you with a dad joke. It's about the dyslexic agnostic insomniac... He stayed up all night wondering whether there was a dog or not.
I'm not sure the existence of 10,000 plus Gods in human culture tells us much about whether God exists. I think I see where you are coming from. You take it as evidence that humans are prone to invent God's so why should we suppose one of the 10,000 is real. Fair enough. But I think theists just see it as disagreements about the nature of God. Is he an impersonal force? Is he a person? Does he ever communicate with humans? Is there one god or many?
Just as a thought experiment, imagine that the world was created by the god of deism. He sets things in motion but never communicates with humans in any way. But they make a few observations and correctly conclude he must exist. But they know absolutely nothing about him and so all we get is 10,000 speculations. What does the large number of religions prove or not prove in this case?
Dawkins is a scientist....please note that scientist never claim that they are absolutely right....they do however generously state that they are open to changing their conclusions in the face of reliable evidence which can improve on their current findings....whereas religious people state that their chosen believe is correct...and they don't budge....but cling to their dogma..
Not sure why there would be a false equivalence in Dawkins response.
I think Dawkins used a sort of spectrum of “respectability” of religions to make the point more vividly. Hard to know based on just the video excerpt. (And my prior perspective largely informs how I react to the short video as much as what was actually said. It seems like there is some Pascal’s Wager in her question and some refutation in his answer.)
I'm not a Dawkins fan boy. I used to be, but he's turned sour as he's aged. Regardless:
"Fair enough."
You should've stopped there. The Flying Spaghetti Monster and the "Great JuJu" are NO LESS RIDICULOUS than your Christian God. There is no false equivalence, besides possibly the sincerity or quantity of respective believers, neither of which tells us anything about the validity of the claims.
"It is hard to argue against..."
That should tell you something about your beliefs.
"I have no problem when someone says, 'I believe that'..."
"I mean, then he used some extreme examples."
We call this cognitive dissonance. Fix it.
"He probably would've been better served not to use the FSM and all that, because that tends to be off-putting to folks..."
The rest of your video is basically just a whine about civility and offense.
You've completely missed Dawkins's point. You find it ridiculous that he would compare your faith to a professed faith in the FSM or JuJu. To anyone who doesn't believe, they're the same.
You probably think belief in Thor or Zeus is ridiculous, or to be clear, deserving of ridicule.
When you understand why this is, you might begin the process of freeing yourself from religious thought.
All things considered, you seem respectful of differing opinions, and I hope you have an inquisitive mind.
May his noodley appendage touch you. R'amen.
@AbsurdlyGeeky You made one major and flawed assumption in framing your points--I do not claim to be Christian and I don't have a Christian god. It makes more sense to me that the matter we see in the universe, including ourselves, whether via evolution or otherwise, was the product of a creator, though not the creator depicted in the texts. And we may not have been, which is a relevant existential matter. Neither is dispositive, merely the product of personal belief. And yes, Dawkins has soured as he's aged, and please don't become like him in that regard. I emphasize consideration in discourse throughout my videos, and your approach, at least in this post, is a more attacking style than convivial disagreement.
@@thinkingtheology I didn't assume anything. What I did was apparently mistake your commentary on a potential Christian's response to Dawkins's challenge as a personal response when you gestured to yourself and "my belief in my Christian God," so thanks for clarifying that. This is the first of your content I've seen. That aside, it still seems to me that most of your commentary in this video is a whine about civility and offense in comparing the beliefs of major world religions to the beliefs of folk religions or faux religions.
They aren't fundamentally different. Thinking they are seems like a product of the same religious hegemonism which is at the core of why Dawkins and others push as hard as they do against theism overall.
When human rights are not being broadly threatened by people who believe their god(s), Christian or otherwise, charge them to do so, and when basic science education doesn't face a major obstacle in people who feel threatened by the very notion that myths are myths, that's when we might talk about aiming for civility and avoiding offense when we talk about differing beliefs. Until then, I'd encourage anyone who happens to not believe in any gods to be as open and vocal as they'd like, any time it's relevant, in pointing out how ignorant and arrogant religious beliefs are.
Not sure if anyone has any cares about what I think, I think Jesus was a good caring man; my opinion
You spent most of this video taking secondhand offence at a passing remark instead of engaging with the substance of the argument.
There is no theology here and precious little thinking.
@TheChessPatzer You're way off, I took no offense at any of the comments--I simply assessed them as part of larger, albeit brief, position he made. I couldn't give a shit what anyone believes, so I don't take offense at beliefs. You came in with a predisposition, as many folks do on the channel, as atheists don't like that I don't accept every argument an atheist makes, and fundamentalist Christians don't like that I say there is a lot of merit to the atheistic side of things. No different than politics--believe EVERY part of our platform or you aren't one of us. Nuance isn't most people's strong suit. In your case, however, insult seems to be a favored tool.
@@thinkingtheology You say that this is your first review or reaction to Dawkins. His brief response to an audience question was to remind us that religious traditions disagree and that they are culturally determined. He spends a bit too long and cites too many examples in labouring this observation, but returns to the point that universal questions of right and wrong religious doctrine cannot be arbitrarily settled by appealing to their apparent plausibility in any particular cultural background. This observation is directly comparable to a philosopher asking whether the Cartesian cogito remains intuitively plausible when expressed in languages that do not rely on a strong subject term (as opposed to French, Latin and English).
You began by essentially agreeing on this response from Dawkins, but then you simply set aside how this might illuminate our understanding of religious doctrine. Instead, your main takeaway from this entire issue of cross-cultural truth and falsity was to take offence on behalf of some other people (i.e. secondhand offence) who you think might be distracted by one of the examples that Dawkins cited.
Very disappointing, as were the immediate assumptions that you made about my comment.
@@thinkingtheology I have to agree with TheChessPatzer here. You didn't engage in the substance of the argument (that spiritual beings are simply human-made constructs), you didn't present any theology that could have addressed that (ie: sensus fidelium), and you didn't express any ideas beyond some basic pablum about civility in discourse, all the while using phrases like "I couldn't give a shit what anyone believes". Well doesn't THAT falls neatly into the 'precious little thinking' category. I enjoy hearing deep philosophical arguments and meaningful theological debates, that's why I know this video will be both my first and last impression of your approach.
Every sentence starting by "I believe..." is a big acknowledgement of ignorance.
Otherwise, the sentence should start by "I know by a fact...".
I've asked many people similar things. Basically, how do you know your religion is correct and all others are wrong? There are only 2 possible answers, as far as I can tell: either assert your own infallibility (maybe 1% of responses), or avoid the question (99% of responses). This video falls into the later category.
I wish the video was not going on and on about civility. Please talk more about the point made and not take up a large portion about how the point was made. I would love to watch videos that intellectually discusses and challenges the likes of Dawkins, Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Matt Dillahunty. (Civil is not the way I would describe the last one. But not a bad person imho.). 585 subscribers in this channel, and now I am one. I'm rooting for ya!
When one has nothing, resort to catchy rhetoric. Are we in 2nd grade nya nya flying spagetti monster? Seriously study Theology if one want to learn about the subject of God. There are lots of intelligent minds like Bishop Barron who can explain all these rehashed objections from the 12th century.
I'm an atheist and if someone tells me that I'm going to hell that really doesn't offend me, because I don't think hell actually exists
If we were raised as they were, we would do as they do.....(Lincoln...I think)
It's important to realize that there is ALWAYS "two religions" when we talk about any singular religion. There is the religion that people use, abuse, and think will get them rewarded either in "heaven" or the here and now, and then there is a more sincere message buried in what otherwise is just dogmatic belief.
To me, genuine altruistic love has always been the benchmark for "divinity." Many of the religions of the world uphold this ideal as the highest, but the majority of religions as we see them are perverted by man for his own gain and power. Love has always required a humility, a humbling of self. That's the opposite of how most religions present today, ESPECIALLY judeo-Christian.
Civility, respect, and kindness all come from a selflessness that recognizes the importance of life in the "other" as well as respecting it in ourselves. I think the vast majority of our religious incongruities come from MAN inserting clauses and subtexts that glorifies HIM far more than the Divine, and we should note that those are the same people writing down these doctrines that are foundational to most beliefs.
I've seen examples of altruism in the animal kingdom, and in mankind, and it's not something that evolution would come up with... the best I can think of is that maybe it's a social action that wandered into psychopathy in some instances, because it certainly does little for individual survival. The argument that it improves pack behaviour is redundant, packs work just fine within their framework and it doesn't require genuine altruism to function, only cooperation and hierarchy.
I'm willing to think that all religions that encourage love and respect come from the same Holy Other, and it's US who make all the conflicts and misunderstandings. "If I obey God or at least trick Him into thinking I've done so, I'll be blessed."
When the reality is that you usually have to give up selfishness and self to get closer to the Divine, in the majority of religions. And that's something we definitely don't want to do.
Altruism makes sense from an evolutionary perspective if one thinks about the perpetuation of related genes into future generations. If an act of altruism benefits the continuation of some of your genes into the future then selection pressure explains that behaviour.
@@davegaskell7680 I guess it would depend on the when/where that said altruistic trait engages, as self sacrifice wouldn't allow an opportunity to reproduce. It seems a bit self-deleterious as opposed to beneficial for the species overall, but if the base concept is always sitting there percolating then perhaps you're right. We do see elements of this in some parental scenarios, (we also see parents eating their children) but I've seen videos of creatures protecting other creatures from different species from predation or harm, and that's... odd. Unnecessary one might say.
But there it is *shrugs* Be safe Dave, thanks for talking with me.
@@wren7195 I have read a couple of books about altruism in the animal kingdom........I cant remember what they were called but one did refer to a field study showing that some social species do seem to behave more altruistically when the act benefits individuals that are closely related.
Best wishes.
@@davegaskell7680 Thanks very kindly, if you ever do recall their name please let me know I'd be glad to read them.
There's *SOMETHING* going on in there, it may even be the evolutionary origin of our hope in divinity. It seems... I just haven't seen a need for altruism in the biological sphere, even in pack species they have a good process that doesn't require self-sacrifice.
Again, thank you, and thanks for talking with me. To you as well, best wishes.