Dawkins clearly said that ironically, as if quoting a cynical and self righteous "intellectual" who believes "lesser" types need religion. That was the whole point he was making. Agree or disagree, but don't be dishonest.
@@susamogus5693 its not a matter of belief, did you watch the video? The full quote is “We, intellectuals, of course know that it’s not true. But all those poor people out there, they need religion. I mean, what a condescending thing to say about those people. Either it's true or it's not, and I have enough respect for people to say if it's not true, people will reconcile themselves to that and not find any need for it.”
Dawkins initial comment struck me as a misrepresentation of what Scruton was getting at. Scruton wasn't suggesting that "only the poor, ignorant people" need a sense of tradition.
+AE Hall Yes, agreed. Of course, what exactly is meant by "religion" is up for debate. Atheism, or something like it, is not an invention of the post-Enlightenment West. I'm coming around to the idea that Islam will probably play a fairly major role in the world history that is still to come, (seeing as Fukuyama has been shown to be quite wrong, there will be more world history!). It's huge (1.9 billion) and virile, as faiths go. Quick to adopt material progress (science, tech and so on), slow to reject superstitious dogma. It has potential, but needs some sort of purge. All those terrible doctrines need getting rid of. Community, fraternity, revolutionary spirit, poetic expression - these are the parts we want to save. We need to do for Islam what 500 years of human reason, wisdom and curiosity did for Christianity. It's futile to imagine that the majority of Muslims will give up their faith, their way of life. So, I do believe we need to stretch our imaginations on this one. Maybe the West *needs* a kind of "infusion of vitality" and, seeing that it is a younger faith, Islam could perhaps act as the delivery system. The demographics have already changed and even if the West were to cease involvement in every conflict in every Islamic land, there would still be a fair amount of migration. It's a function of the global economy. The Documentarian Adam Curtis has raised the possibility of a resurgence of a kind of Romanticism, as a reaction to the sterile, consumerist atomisation of people in this emerging post-Capitalist world, with reference to a few developments in the arts. He seems to think that this has something in common with Islam, but I'm damned if I can say why! It made sense at the time. Islam definitely has a revolutionary potential.
That's obvious. Atheists can't listen nor understand a different opinion. They're just full of bias and prejudices and they start from that. In fact, they will never learn, nor better themselves.
to play an apologetics game for them; you must realize that atheists are people who have rejected the religion they were born in to ( or never had one to begin with). They've heard the arguments and they understand at least a decent enough amount about said religion that leaving it and growing to not believe it anymore is a pretty massive step in their lives. If you suddenly were convinced that the earth was round you'd have a fresh angry thirsting of revenge against those who claim it is flat--and moreover you'd never wish to go back to that flat model. Short version: Atheists often simply no longer believe in religion, having believed it before they see the current believers as people who have yet to make the conclusion that atheists have made.
Chico, that's a very well worded encapsulation of the chiefly *emotional* state of these people. This materialistic and libertine cultural force is just going to have to run its course. Not much else can be done.
Hitchens says "the potential future of a much more noble and enlightened and emancipated humanity." For years I agreed with him. Now, seeing the rise of a new leftist religion that is puritanical and hostile to unorthodox opinions taking the spot that religion vacated, I am not so sure anymore. Scruton's arguments have become much more agreeable to me in recent years.
I mostly agree - except to say that this is 1) Not as important or widespread as one might think and 2) It is not particularly "left". One finds it among radical liberals *and* conservatives. The "anti-SJW industry" is worse than the SJWs who they claim are undermining "Western Civilization" (the latter is just code for White People)
I highly recommend the late Mark Fisher's excellent article "Exiting The Vampire Castle" if you are concerned about the likes of "Left Twitter". He makes a couple of the same points - puritanical, prone to a rigid, moralistic orthodoxy. However, he offers a few ideas about how best to understand (and escape) this movement.
Me too. Totally agree. We have different dogmas, taboos, and faiths which it turns out are not as beneficial broadly speaking as the traditions which have guided our ancestors for 2000 years.
Yes. Im with you. I was a fan of the new Atheist movement growing up. Now i must say it is the most failed movement ever. We truly live in the strangest of times.
Dawkins is like a teenager. He takes things too literally and then gets taken over by anger when reality shows its self to be too complex for him to reduce to his rigid conceptual framework.
I'm still a total atheist, but people like Scruton and specially Jordan Peterson and Joseph Campbell have helped me understand that spirituality (if not organized religion as such) has a value and a role in most people's lives. And that role is what the old horsemen seemed to belittle all the time. Sam Harris still has that arrogant attitude of "oh if only people were as intelligent and independent as me". It's incredible how even very smart people can't seem to understand the complexity of the human experience.
Wholee Dantès Word, word. Though I gotta say I see it as less of a "complexity" and more of a side effect of our advanced intelligence and awareness colliding with our fears and ignorance. A mark of frailty, a let down, a confirmation of our limits as a species.
Wholee Dantès Except that there is a big difference between spirituality and the belief and propagation of ludicrous fairy tales as reality. That is primarily what the Horsemen are arguing against.
Julian Blake What do you mean by 'spirituality'?? Many people confuse intense aesthetic or 'numinous' experiences with spiritual ones. But objectively speaking, are we interacting with personal SPIRITS when we listen to our favorite music, or contemplate a 'beautiful' horizon, or meditate upon the grand arc of history? Perhaps it depends on the case. Perhaps certain kinds of spiritual transaction should be SHUNNED, even as others are encouraged. Christians generally claim a subjective experience of 'knowing' God. But that relationship is often mediated through practices which appear very mundane-----------reading (of Scripture), prayer (talking to God), worship (e.g. singing hymns in church), fellowship (doing things cooperatively with other believers), etc. We also depend ABSOLUTELY on certain well-attested HISTORICAL DATA as the 'sine qua non' of our faith. Paul the apostle insisted that, had Jesus not ACTUALLY risen from the dead, our faith would be entirely useless and we would be 'of all men most to be pitied'.
A decade ago, I would've been rooting for Hitchens. It was his last book "Mortality" that made me question reality deeper, the way it ended in such hope and scribbles. It's amazing to listen to Scruton and how he went over everyone's heads.
Having been a fan in the 4 Horsemen a few years ago, I find it interesting to see Mr. Grayling and Dawkins wrongly stating the oppisitions position by saying that telling the general public "the idea something that isn't true is condesending" and that they "trust people to make up their own minds and make their own descisions"... However, when it comes to BREXIT, the two gentlemen's position is that people aren't eduacated enough to make such descisions and should do what they're told by the experts... Conclusion; Grayling and Dawkins are hypocrits, and the EU is a religion.
Maybe you missed the part when they say people need to take INFORMED DECISIONS, and for that you should rely on science, on facts, and not political propaganda. Also funny you coming here to call them hypocrites because they don't share your political agenda, but you forget that Roger Scruton was caught red-handed accepting money from the tobacco industry to attack their detractors. Isn't Roger Scruton a hypocrite to act in such way after going on and on about conservative values of honesty, virtue and integrity??? Don't your double standards make you a hypocrite as well???
@@rafaeldugatto Christianity built the west superior to the rest of of the world and it might be our last defence... You might come round in the end... It took me 10 years
@@christopherkearney3869 I don't think so, pal. What you call "The West" doesn't even exist, it's something completely arbitrarily defined (Christianity is an eastern religion, BTW, so maybe that distinction you made doesn't add up). It is baffling how you talk like we're at the end of history to come to the conclusion that you're superior to all the rest, using a ridiculous fallacy of the single cause to regurgitate your far-right ideology. Classic extremist brainwashed thinking right there, I would expect a nazi to say the same thing about race. You? Superior? Oh, the arrogance!
Being an atheist with very right-wing views, I find myself siding with religious individuals in such debates. From the looks of it, it appears that many right-wing atheists are in that boat as well. This also appears to be a very nascent phenomenon, as I don't recall seeing such sentiments in the comments sections of 'religion versus atheism' videos, early 2000s.
H Hijazi I've never understood right-wing atheists, yet here you are. As a teenager during the 1970s I had a brief flirtation with aggressive agnosticism (I hate to put it more strongly than that, so shameful is the memory). The reason for this had entirely to do with my emergent political views, which were quite 'leftist' at the time (though not communist by any means). It appeared to me that many leftist figures of the past had been 'freethinkers'. There was nothing of conviction in my attitude, only a certain adolescent defiance and a perverse sense of 'cool'. During this period I was engrossed in unwholesome thoughts and experienced a series of recurrent dreams, hellish in content and indescribably terrifying. I had occasion to meet a man who presented the argument for God's existence from the natural order. I was easily convinced. Curiously, I never experienced a single nightmare after that. Soon I was confronted with clear evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which I had not taken seriously as historical fact, though I regarded Jesus as THE supreme moral teacher. I did not want to 'convert', yet I found the evidence irresistible. However I did not understand the distinction between passive intellectual acceptance and active FAITH, so my actual conversion came a few years later. You are entitled to your own political views, and mine have changed a lot over the years. But no one is entitled to his own facts, so far as the existence of things, persons, and GOD Creator of all are concerned. Only in Jesus of Nazareth do we see God become flesh, appearing in our midst as a human being, sharing in our difficulties and pain, yet WITHOUT SIN. There is no defect in Him. (1st Timothy 2:5) 'For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.'
I’m a right wing atheist, who believes in natural selection, but I’m not a materialist as I’m more inclined towards transcendent idealism which doesn’t need religion per say as it’s a kind of mysticism. Also rationalism and logic isn’t the be all and end all as Dawkins and Hitchens always apply. There’s plenty of right wing thinkers that are atheist. Moldbug and Nick Land to name some. I’m more conservative than a modern day Tory by a long shoot 😂
You don't mention why you side with the lunatics who try to make us believe that the equivalent of fairies and trolls is true. It seems totally ludicrous for you to not side with Dawkins if you're atheist.
@@billionbux3261 that's only if you require to be a follower of either. A lot of people can listen to all sides of a debate and see merit in all contributions. It's called the freedom to come to one's own understanding.
Art and beauty are merely concepts, these concepts do not exist in the material sense (just as your god, or the supernatural if you will). Art is a product of society's zeitgeist, therefore, not necessarily true. Beauty has an underlying evolutionary justification, but it's not necessarily true either. It should be noted that, differently from religion, art and beauty do not present themselves as bearers of some universal truth, nor do they require obedience to dogmas based in faith. False analogy, but nice try.
@@samonvb9622 You totally missed the point. Truth cannot be applied to the concept of "science", "evolution", "empiricism" etc. Only assertions made under science, empiricism, etc, can be regarded as true or not true (not "false", as you put it).
@@samonvb9622 yes, thanks for catching up, that's what I've been saying all along: "truth" does not apply to a concept such as beauty. And yes, we're talking about logic here, therefore there's a huge difference between not true and "false", because "false" is a claim in itself.
@@samonvb9622 You're talking nonsense. The OP, @Zombie Fool, was wondering if art and beauty are "true", but "true" does not apply to concepts such as art, beauty or even science. According to logic, only a specific claim can be deemed as "true" or "not true". Not that hard to understand, is it?
Wanderson Martins (and IANA) Dear sir, Roger Scruton cannot keep the charletans away from the mystical. That's why the atheist have arisen. The person who claims the existence of the mystical means the faithful must sacrifice their hard labors, children and even their minds to them, tarnishes the journey to the mystical experience. People naturally abandon the journey.
I usually disagree with what Scruton says but there's no denying the intellect and passion that lay behind his words. The rapier to Hitchens' bludgeon, though I usually agree with Hitchens.
Richard Dawkins doesn't even get it. It goes right over his head. Religion serves a terribly comforting psychological purpose regardless if it is true or not.
No. Religion itself is simply a construct that taps into the human desire to see patterns and require explanations. Dawkins gets it. His point is that we have much better constructs to provide those answers.
Dawkins is an idiot. He's beliefs have a liberal bias. Otherwise he would be an advocate for fascism or communism which he is not. He chooses to express his religion of atheism from the benefit and ideas of Christendom.
_Why_ is what you see through the Hubble Telescope beautiful and inspiring, Christoper? After all, the things that you look at through there, in themselves, are just collections of dust and metal, superheated and set in patterns. What is inherently beautiful about that? Where does beauty figure in a world of mere material constellations of objects? Nowhere, clearly. Beauty is not even an intelligible concept in a materialistic world because beauty is not an inherent material property of anything. The things at the other end of the Hubble Telescope are beautiful because of what they _point to,_ not because of what they are. And it's your own ability to experience feelings of awed appreciation for beauty, and to ascribe intelligible meaning to them that show that a materialistic worldview is a radically insufficient picture of reality. Beauty would have no meaning and there'd be no reason to pay attention to it in a world without a transcendent God. That's Scruton's point and, as usual, Hitchens completely misses it.
"Beauty would have no meaning and there'd be no reason to pay attention to it in a world without a transcendent God." That may be Scruton's point but it's just a flat assertion with no evidence at all to back it up. What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
@@czgibson3086 - The argument defending that claim was already made in my original comment. You either didn’t read it carefully or didn’t understand it. To repeat: Beauty is not an inherent physical or material property. Physical properties are those things that can be measured, like mass, charge, specific heat, density, etc. Obviously, beauty is not that kind of thing. Therefore, in a world consisting of nothing but physical objects and properties, the term “beauty” is meaningless. It’s not even an intelligible concept. Within a physicalist framework, there isn’t even a way to express what it means. Of course, you can redefine the term “beauty” to mean something which is expressible within that framework, but then, we wouldn’t be talking about the same thing. The most that a materialist can say about beauty is that it’s a term we use when we have a certain kind of subjective experience of pleasure upon looking at, listening to, or contemplating something which is arranged in a certain way. But if this is all that beauty is, there’s no reason to ascribe any significance to it in a materialistic universe because it isn’t in any way connected to the ultimate structure of reality. Even if you were to provide a persuasive argument for how evolution led us to have certain kinds of aesthetic preferences, you would still be missing the broader point. The evolutionary process is contingent. It could have gone a different way, which means we could have had different aesthetic preferences from the ones we do have. On a materialistic worldview, therefore, even the raw subjective experience of aesthetic pleasure (which itself is not even explainable under materialism, but let that pass) would not be worth paying attention to because it’s inherently contingent. Of course, that’s not what Scruton ultimately thought beauty is. If you know anything about what Scruton wrote about aesthetics, you’ll know that he thought beauty was a part of the world itself. And that’s obviously unintelligible under materialism because, again, beauty is not a physical property. But even if you take a totally subjectivist view of beauty, under materialism, it’s still of no significance. Now, if Hitchens had come out and said that there was no such thing as beauty, that aesthetic experiences are just hallucinations that don’t mean anything, that would at least be consistent. It would be stupid, but it would at least be consistent with materialism. That’s not what he did, though. And he didn’t do so because he hadn’t thought clearly about the real implications of his worldview. Judging by your comment, you haven’t either. You are asking for empirical “evidence” in a situation where you don’t even understand the basic terms of the conversation. If you did, then you would understand that that request is unintelligible.
@@IvanTheHeathen We're talking past each other. Let's imagine I go along with you in questioning how materialism could account for beauty. I'm asking what reason there is to assume that a transcendent God is the only way to fill that gap? That's an enormous assumption and none of what you've said addresses it. It's just a deus ex machina smuggled in at the end of the argument.
@@czgibson3086 --- We aren't talking past each other. You just don't understand what's meant by the term "God." When theistic philosophers talk about God, they do not mean -- and for the vast majority of history have not meant -- that God is some sort of wise, benevolent man in the sky, or even that He is a wise and all-powerful spirit. God is the non-contingent, non-composite ground of being, the source of ultimate reality. God is the fount of being itself, apart from whose necessity not even the mere abstract possibility of the existence of anything else can obtain. God is ultimate being, metaphysically prior to everything and anything else, whether that be time, space, the laws of physics, or anything else you can think of. Over nearly the entire course of the history of philosophy, that is how God has been thought of. As for how this helps to explain beauty, the answer is already implicit in what I said earlier. I pointed out that because beauty is not a physical property, its not inherent in any material. And even if its thought of as a description of a feeling that we may have under certain circumstances, then even if we can come up with some evolutionary account of why we have the kinds of aesthetic feelings that we do, this would not make the aesthetic sense anything more than contingent. If we ground aesthetics in God, however, we aren't grounding it in contingency. We're grounding is in the very bedrock, ultimate metaphysical necessity of reality itself. That would mean that there is a reason why the aesthetic sense is the way it is, and why it cannot be any other way. That makes it something that is inherent in the deepest possible level of ultimate reality and therefore meaningful. The problem here is that when you think of God, you imagine Him to be just another being in the universe, in principle like any other being, even if vastly wiser, more powerful and better behaved. That's not what God is. God is not "a" being. He is what remains when you strip away all of the conditions of finitude: contingency, composition (God has no parts), changeability, etc. What this ends up meaning is that in God, things like wisdom or power are not really distinct from one another. In his nature, they are one and the same thing and are identical with his essence. The upshot of this is that it's actually impossible to say directly what God is. We can only say what He is not -- or we can speak of him by analogy, as when we call a group of co-workers at a company a "family" by making an analogy with a biological family. There's a long and detailed philosophical tradition that spells out all of the details of this. The vast majority of atheists are entirely unaware of it, and because they are unaware of it, they make uncomprehending arguments like the "God of the gaps," not realizing that this has precisely nothing to do with what people like Scruton are talking about. You are making a massive category mistake. One final point: It may be true that the vast majority of religious believers may have thought of God as something more anthropomorphic than what I have been describing. This is no reason, however, to dismiss that philosophical tradition, any more than the fact that most people might (wrongly) imagine evolutionary theory to assert that a chimp must have once given birth to a human would be any reason to dismiss evolutionary theory.
@@IvanTheHeathen I have to say you express your point of view very well but I wholeheartedly disagree with you, for reasons that I'm sure you've heard many times before. Yes, you're making a classic god of the gaps argument, where God is the ever-receding pocket of our ignorance as human society continues, where his definition and nature can continually be updated as new and better explanations are found for natural phenomena like thunder, crop failure, disease and so on. Your argument looks like word games to me, just as it does when, say, Aquinas asserts that he has demonstrated several proofs. No, he hasn't. But there's still value in studying Aquinas, Augustine or Kierkegaard or whoever you might name, of course there is. Theism is a major current of thought in human history. You talk of a category mistake because you've just invented a category, adjunct to reality and with no discernible relationship to it. The supernatural is something that I'm sure you could talk about for hours, exploring the various not-thises and not-thats which limit what we can say about God, but at the end of the day, if an appeal to philosophical tradition as a signifier of value is what you bring to the table, ask yourself why roughly 70% of academic philosophers in a 2014 study of nearly 1,000 answered atheist on the God question. They're not convinced, and neither should you be.
Even when Dawkins is giving an example of what a condescending position it would be to say that religion is untrue but necessary for the unintellectual masses, the crowd still boos him as if that were his own position.
KODAK I am convinced, and maybe they were also, that this IS his position. He denies it in a feeble attempt to salvage his reputation. Is he confident that the great majority will eventually arrive at his position? Politicians also speak reverently of the 'will of the people', but do they submit happily when defeated in elections? If the majority, though they may not know God in a specific or personal way, do not accept Dawkins' conclusions, perhaps there is something wrong with his conclusions.
What is the point of symmetry? What does it mean? What is majesty if it signifies nothing more than a phenomenon of the brain? Nobility? In your universe it's simply a valuation of an adaptive behavior. If there is no transcendent reverent, it's all meaningless.
Maybe it is all pointless in the larger sense but so what. Does it get more meaningful if you invent a fantasy to fool yourself? Sound like dangerous behaviour detached from reality. And this behaviour happens to destroy other peoples' lives! For example when religious nuts try to force their anti-abortion views on women. Or force gays to live miserable lives just because they dared to be diffrerent. But more importantly, how empty are you to find meaning in such a boring story as the one of jesus and god. Just open the window and look at nature, how can that not be majestic enough.
Hitchens draws a false distinction between the burning bush and the event horizon. As Roger Scruton alludes to, the voice that spoke from the bush is the voice of the event horizon. All Htchens can do is sneer and shut his mind to the idea that you can have both the black hole and the burning bush.
What the hell, there was no burning bush. It's a fairytale and the fact that a grown (I assume) man (I assume again) cannot understand such a simple and obvious fact is quite frankly disconcerting. Seriously, how can you dismiss gnomes and trolls and yet happily believe in god. How can anyone with access to this much information be so stupid? It boggles the mind.
That is a ludicrous assertion. The event horizon is not a function of the evolution of the human mind, as is god. You could substitute the two, burning bush and event horizon, as conduit for the supernatural, but it removes the scientific significance and leaves you with faith based, desperate grasping. The supernatural is based solely on the concept of faith.
"Transcendance without thousands of bodies." What a remarkable thing to say. The last thing ever seen by over 100,000 people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was "The Great Light of Science". Religious people, we are told, are too simple to understand science. Therefore, the Cold War was sponsored by athiestic scientists. The this fact is too huge and too near for a Dawkins to observe.
Yeah, Stalin really "tapped into" orthodox christians, killing milions of them. Secular soviets did it in my country too, when they tortured christians and made them eat shit and curse God and Christ, while in prison. Really "tapped into it", indeed.
You should remember that the bombs were launched by politicans, not scientists, and science is also medicine, tecnology, religion is nothing of this things.
People instrumental in creating; The atomic bomb: Oppenheimer, Feynman, Einstein etc The neutron bomb: Samuel T. Cohen The hydrogen bomb: Edward Teller They all have a common religion and ethnicity.
Scruton implied that the new wave of atheist zealots have formed a new form of religion, or paganism if you will (though he did not use that term) and then all of the replies from the atheist side basically supported his point. They were imbuing scientific observation with a mystical quality and insinuating that human striving should be towards that goal, which completely ignores the fact that we are humans, or life, as opposed to static material reality. In fact, Dawkins referred to us as having 'flaws' that should be 'cured', which is typical of a scientific mind observing reality through a materialistic and individualistic lense. I fear that aethism as it is today is another tentacle of extreme individualism, or merely a signal of civilisational decay. It is safe in the short-term to abandon religion, but in the long term (as we are seeing) collective groups of individuals who all manifest religions and representation of god-like beings on Earth through conjoined beliefs triumph, as long as those gods (or god) align with natural law, as has been/is passed down through Tradition. Religions exist as a part of soul and spirit, and play a vital function between the individual and collective layers of human activity and accomplishment on Earth. Science can measure body, it can be used in some limited function to assess religion and tradition, but it cannot become a religion or tradition in itself, otherwise it inevitably will lead to nihilism, atomisation and the profound destruction of the people. With that in mind, Nietsche was right, "God is Dead" in the West, and our fall is playing out on a grand and ever accelerating scale.
Religion and tradition was undoubtedly also involved with the formation of new racial groups in our distant past or at least will do in the future as self-awareness plays an ever increasing determining role in natural selection.
When I was a kid I thought Dawkins and Hitchens were the smartest people on the planet. Now when I hear them I cringe. They're childish sophists looking to sell books. They taught a generation of us idiots to accept snark as intelligence.
What are you smoking? Is it snark to argue with lunatics about the existence of fantasy? This is not the middle-ages where we peasants where kept in the dark. Today even a half-wit can find out simple facts online. It's truly tragic that you choose to live in ignorance willingly.
Why do I always sense anger coming from Hitchens and Dawkins when they speak? People believe what they believe. If it doesn't harm you or infringe upon you, it's none of your business.
What if religion harms the whole mankind in a profound manner. Unless you can 100% deny that, you then have to accept that it can be some of their business.
2+2+=4...no amount of polysyllabic rhetoric need be inserted. If you need Sesame Street to explain it you and hold your hand while doing so, then fine...but 2+2=4, and some of us prefer our facts presented factually.
@@gatorbuilt Hahahahaha what are you doing you whole Mathematics is based on axioms on metaphysical pressupposition what you gonna do now tell me ?? Hahaha the same goes for logic. Fact is they didn't answer what scruton said. Dawkins didn't even explain or define what truth is ? And you come here to give an equivalent argument how simple 2+2=4 is but you cannot justify it. That's the problem with you guys..if people ask how to justify things you are getting mad and start name calling and call the other lerosn to stupid. Haha nothing else than ad hoc arguments.
@@user-yy1tt7du8k hold up two fingers...hold up another two fingers...now count them...pretty simple stuff...Math is a REPRESENTATION of the PHYSICAL in a NUMBER format...in my case, Base 10...computers do a pretty good job of VIRTUALLY representing things in Base 2...need any more lessons, SEND A CHECK first...I justifiy the EMPIRICAL with EMPIRICAL evidence...it's really that simple, fool...two fingers added to two fingers equals FOUR fingers EMPIRICALLY which PROVES the math works and CHECKS...2nd grade stuff here...go ahead give me ANY REAL numbers to add together and I GUARANTEE I get the MATH right without having to count parts, or pieces or time, or anything else but using my little pencil and paper...g'head, try me.
Claudius Atlas Please. THis is fanboy level stuff. When he debates equals, and not dumb "spokespersons" for religion, he usually looks foolish. The old atheists (Hume, Nietzsche, Mackie) are fare more interesting and wise than the new ones.
Except that he's not. Roger was just a Victorian reactionary who got schooled several times during this debate. This little excerpt being just one of those occasions.
@Ulf ViKings What you've said is not even remotely true. Hitchens has been debating for DECADES, to many audiences (makes me wonder if you even know his career at all). Btw , William Lane Craig? Oh please, that's the fanatic who says "it's perfectly moral and good to commit genocide sanctioned by the Lord". How can he "win"? His tactic of shameless immorality, word salad and rapid fire unsupported claims is even weaker than Scruton's (supposedly) ironic remarks.
"Take a look through the Hubble telescope, read Stephen Hawking " - yeah, I totally forgot everybody's got Hubble telescope back at their homes and children are able to understand the complex concepts and language of astrophysics. The beauty of transcendental is that everyone can comprehend and experience it , despite their age and intellectual capabilities. Moreover, the beauty of celestial objects that we see through telescopes and that astrophysicists describe to us is trascendental. Science doesn't explain art, music and aesthetics. Who cares whether religion is true, when its purpose is purely pragmatic? Human beings have a religious need and it will always be fulfilled in various forms. Science can only be true about descriptive claims. Our values, however, cannot be described by science.
Everything Dawkins says also applies to secular morality. Just because we evolved to have morality doesn't mean any moral claim is true. You could use that logic to reject the entire moral paradigm that currently dominates the US and Europe. "Racism is wrong" and other moral claims we currently take for granted are literally false statements. That is, unless it's said as an implied suggestion rather than a truth claim, in which case it's misleading language.
He's skating very close to the naturalistic fallacy. He'd have to qualify it by saying that any evolutionary basis for the development of sense of morality necessitates that such a moral sense be flexible, relative to the culture, and responsive to reason. Feelings are rarely a good guide for what is morally desirable (eg: disgust is a poor moral compass, yet is perfectly natural and makes sense from an evolutionary perspective)
@@mattgilbert7347 "responsible to reason ", isn't reason a genetical development as well? How can you trust reason, logic and human knowledge to be real if they are just genetical random features, just there for survival? The argument destroy all human reason as well.
The clamorous atheism of The God Delusion represents a protective feint, and a consistent upgrade of religious reformation, guided by a spirit of progressive enthusiasm that trumps empiricism and reason, whilst exemplifying an irritable dogmatism that rivals anything to be found in earlier God-themed strains. Dawkins isn’t merely an enlightened modern progressive and implicit radical democrat, he’s an impressively credentialed scientist, more specifically a biologist, and (thus) a Darwinian evolutionist. The point at which he touches the limit of acceptable thinking as defined by the memetic super-bug is therefore quite easy to anticipate. His inherited tradition of low-church ultra-protestantism has replaced God with Man as the locus of spiritual investment, and ‘Man’ has been in the process of Darwinian research dissolution for over 150 years.
Moral truths are different to logical truths. If you struggle to grasp this and need to introduce a deity that sacrificed a middle eastern peasant for you, best of luck.
If I had watched this clip just a few years ago, I would have marvelled at Dawkin's eloquence whilst deriding the 'outdated' beliefs of the traditionalists. I was a staunch atheist back then. Since then, Roger Scruton's books have guided me through different thoughts from different ages, which eventually led to my recognising natural law and absolute morality, as well as its role in society. I really must pay tribute to one of the greatest thinkers of our time, Mr Roger Scruton. If only I had found him earlier. It would have been great to meet him in person. However, his books and lectures will live on. His legacy will also continue to thrive, as yet more lost souls are guided away from the road to nihilism and given the directions to the right path (as I have been) by Mr Scruton's erudition. May he RIP.
Dawkins worked out his fundamental beliefs and then closed his mind. He never, ever, says anything new. This shows that his thinking will probably always be somewhat puerile.
This is a brilliant clip for demonstrating how 90% of the Atheist camp's "argument" is made up of false dichotomies, strawmen, red herrings, and poetic metaphors, which is given the glow of righteousness from the Atheist crowd who claps, stamps their feet, and cheers. How do people who supposedly understand so much about humans be so fooled by one of our most basic faculties? I have more respect for the Christians of a caliber of Scruton, even though I despise their religion. It's also a testament to the weakness of these so-called Atheist heavy-hitters that they spent more time "debating" buffoons and conmen than they did great thinkers from their own institutions of higher learning like Scuton
Liberal arts horseshit...defending the waste of your life that is religion has become a business unto its own...nobody likes to be told they were wrong and wasted time, money and lots of other unrecoverable commodities. Hell, Fred Hoyle went to his grave believing in his steady-state theory, but he was wrong, simple as that. Doesn't make his nucleosynthesis theory any less brilliant...Newton was an alchemist, he was wrong...doesn't detract from his brilliant body o work...Georges Lemaitre was a Catholic priest...didn't convince Catholics that he was right...uny thing about human nature: it can't be 100% correct 100% of the time.
"90% of the Atheist camp's argument"??? Do you have scientific evidence of a deity? No? That's the argument. Provide evidence and I'll become a believer.
Brian Odeen if you had any education in metaphysics, you wouldn’t be asking that foolish question. What is the point of demanding evidences of God according to your definition of God when the concept of God itself deals with what lies beyond the sensible experience?
@The Macallan Wrong. An ad hominem is any argumentative strategy that attacks the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself. And Trotsky didn't murder anyone, that's just an idiotic statement you pulled out of your ass.
@@rafaeldugatto I guess u didn't understand the first comment. CH proclaims himself as a Trotskyist and then he claims to worry a lot about evil things done by the religion. And the fact is Trotsky killed way more n CH thinks that he can be a Trotskyist and still worried about evil makes him an idiot. So Ur Ad Hominem won't sell here...
@@Matt10013 Actually, that's still a lousy ad hominem, and anyone with a IQ higher than two digits can see that. But then again, I believe you don't know who Trotsky was, maybe you are mistaking him with Stalin. But even if he was a Stalinist, that wouldn't help you to be less fallacious.
Dawkins and Hitchens managed to prove the very point they were trying to argue against. Dawkins said it is patronizing and condescending to suggest people need religion and that the existence of mankind's evolved dependence on belief in the transcendent and transcendence somehow validates it. That last part is a strawman to begin with, but it is also patronizing and condescending to suggest people need elitists such as Dawkins and Hitchens to teach otherwise uncultured neanderthals to transcend above their violence-inducing religious nature. And then there is Hitchens and his regrettable proving of the question! The question was whether secularism is a religion of its own and whether secularists are its priests - what does Hitchens do, but provide an example of a man looking in awe at the wonders of the universe and being inspired by the majesty of the infinite he has witnessed to evangelize his love and devotion for the truth which has been revealed unto him? THAT IS RELIGION. Those who think themselves the wisest are the most daft among the humble who know better than make fools of themselves before their superiors.
Xchixm No- to me religion is akin to theism which has to include belief in a deity. But are you saying that their argument IS RELIGION as if using the word Religion as a derogatory accusation? If so, then if you are religious aren’t you saying that’s a bad thing?
Hitchens : A War in the name of some invisible creator that cannot be justified. Scruton : Religion, the belief in god is a Transcendence. Dawkins : "WEEEEE INTELLECTUALS."
Dawkins' response serves as an example that, even in intellectual spheres, strawman arguments are used. Scrutin didn't suggest intelligent people don't need religion, or that they can create a moral framework far beyond the masses. The condescending, patronising part is how Dawkins automatically associates himself with the enlightened group, above the common people.
Dawkins, Grayling & Hitchens always use straw man arguments to advance their view. I find Grayling and Dawkins unbelievably self satisfied. Scruton and Rupert Sheldrake are infinitely brighter and more interesting.
I do not believe in God, but saying categorically that God does not exist is extremely arrogant. We don't have any proof for either. If religion can help people cope, that's fine. Also Dawkins says "we intellectuals know that God doesn't exist". I disagree: men more intelligent than Dawkins believed in God, and for example, the man who formulated the thory of the Big Bang was a catholic priest!
He didn't actually say "us intellectuals know that it isn't true", once he was allowed to finish his sentence he continued his point. He was saying it's condescending to say that us intellectuals know ..., but those poor people need it
I agree with Scuton that there is a religious urge. I think this urge is a combination of nomitative infouence, self-fulfillment and the seeking of knowledge. If a random person with no schooling wanted to study science and didn't understand it, they'd feel like it's a dead end of knowledge because they aren't making progress, but religion's easy to follow and all questions are answered by magic. I also agree that there are religious-like elements in sedularism. Scientists are in a way priests but there are important debunks. Firstly no scientist has authority. They have knowledge, and their knowledge is what holds the authority, not them. Stephen Hawking doesn't get to say whatever he wants and be unchallenged, and that's how it should be that's how rpogress is made. Secondly scientists have to actually work, priests just have to read a book and bookmark a few pages (just like in medieval medical training and look what good that did). And, perhaps the most important element, secularism only has ONE single ekement, it is not a claim, it is not a belief, it is the refusal to believe, on the current grounds, that there is a god. That's it. Not that there is no god, not that god's a bad character, just that i don't believe santa is real, i don't believe the spaghwtti monster is real, i don't believe god is real. That isn't the same as saying, god isn't real, which is a claim that requires some support. Some secularists take that post, that god doesn't exist, a lot of them take the position that god is a bad person. But sscularism, and atheism is about this ONE single point. Christianity isn't just 'od as christ did', it is a system of beliefs of authority of doctrine of assumed and asserted claims about the supernatural that has no support to it, no proof to it, no structure to it. You are required to so some thing sand not other things, every demonination has several rules that must be upheld. There are no rules, no doctrine, no absolutes in secularism and that is why it is not a religion. I do really support Sir Scruton, he has said many brillaint and true statements about the nature of music, of greed, or politics and many other topics. But it can be seen that even the most intellectual of all theists, when debating directly about their beliefs, will almost invariably fall upon the same similar arguments and fallacies that can be googled searched on every christian website. It is what religion does to people, often times they assess science vs religion, find that if science is right religion cannot be then discard of science without a thought. Some even say if they were undoubtedly proven wrong, by whatever measure that would be whether it'd be contradictions in scripture or Amen Ra poking his head through the clouds, they woukd admit they were wrong then go right back to their usual religion. When Einstein proposed that Newton was wrong, he wasn't just accepted and he wasn't discarded or hidden from everyone for fear he may disturb the 'religion'. He was put on hold until he proved himself, and he proved himself and science changed. As we speak, Hawking is changing the ways we think about black holes, he's trying tomprove Einstein wrong, and there is no war between Einsteinians, Newtonians and Hawkingnites, there are debates and friendly conversation to entertain the thoughts of each individual, encourage variation in ideas such that knowledge can evolve. That is why Scruton is wrong, on this topic. Not because of my bigotry, not because of his stupidity (as neithe rof us have either of those), but because of the doctrine that has built itself a mental block, a sacred wall that is protected by all the mind's strength to stand strong and keep the idioms inside it safe from all harm
The so called 'human need for religion' could easily be replaced by something less dogmatic, such as the love for art, attachment to a place, or the concept of Humanism.
True greats at work. Where are the great men and minds of our generation? What greatness - beyond material wealth and raw egoism - has emerged from our technocratic era?
They'll never get it, our professors. They may not want to, fair enough. I should like to begin by asking Hitchens what he meant by "curing ourselves"?? Curing ourselves of what?? UNTRUTH?? Fair enough. To what end??
fusion772 Thats probably because you are only hearing him but not actually listening to him. Next time, actually try parsing his words instead of just thinking,"Oh, I hear something and it sounds pretentious... I'll just ignore it".
Scruton's response was ad hominem against Dawkins as implying Dawkins is taking on the affect of religious righteousness but that evades the point of holding religion to the same standard as - you know - knowledge and truth. Scruton isn't wrong, it's Saint Dawkins. But that's not the point, and Scruton knew that.
Hitchens was slightly more aggressive in this video than in others. In two other videos he made it clear that he really didnt want to abolish theism which made Doc Dawkins angry.
The future has shown Scruton's words to ring true. Religious need is still here but religion has been replaced with political ideology, materialism, false celebrity idols and hedonism. Unfortunately I didn't realise this at the time and would have supported Hitchens and Dawkins.
Obviously, events/youtubes like these will polarise viewpoints, but it is also possible, and I would suggest probable, that both sides are wrong. They take opposing views, without considering that there are things in life that we do not understand, and perhaps never will, or perhaps not until some time in the distant future.
I'm perhaps biased (being a agnostic political conservative) but the late Roger Scruton came across to me as more mature (among other things) and less dogmatic. IMO
First of all, Scruton, predictably, buries Dawkins. Secondly, "is religion true ?" may be the dumbest question I've heard in a while. I'm not that familiar with Dawkins because activist atheists tend to bore me with their self-righteousness (and I'm an agnostic), but I didn't know he could... say things like that.
Quite simple. Either a personal God who listens to prayers act exists or he does not. As zero evidence for the supernatural exists it's perfectly reasonable to say one doubts it's existence. .
Scholars have forgotten that you do not even need faith to know that God exists. Existence itself is proof enough of that, and philosophers from time immemorial have readily acknowledged it as a fundamental principle of being.
Michael Walker so because God is defined as that which created us and cause we exist God must be real? By the same logic doesn't evolution also be "true" cause its the process dragged over billions of years which leads to the formation of life and since there is life voila!!!
'Existence itself' is NOT 'proof' of a supernatural being like God. In fact there is neither any 'proof' or scientific evidence for ANYTHING supernatural at all.
Michael Walker I try not to fall into the trap of 'believing' ANYTHING about something that I can't possibly know. So asking someone whether the universe has always existed, or came into being 'by it's own accord' is an unreasonable and irrelevant question to ask anyone. Of course, we can speculate and conjecture all day long, but that is all we can do with a question like that.
But Dawkins argues that a 'meme' within the genes is guiding humankind to a new morality ! But you can't see it , touch it , or feel it. He has faith it exists.
columb murray His atheism rests on FAITH alone, faith in the almighty power of nullity to generate a universe of unimaginable complexity. Meanwhile, more and more discoveries about the magnificent order of that complexity pour forth from the frontiers of science. (Psalm 19:1) 'The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.' He is missing the whole point and all the fun besides. He looks SO GLUM all the time. What a sourpuss.
Hitchens always looks like he's about to explode. To actually think that there are human beings out there who don't get it that I am right and they are wrong, and of course , deluded !
The atheistic position continues to mystify me. Listen to Hitchens talking about the beauty of the cosmos. Yet according to the doctrine of atheism, this beauty is simply a chance arrangement of atoms in a universe which somehow created itself.
He mocked those who say that they know there is no god but think religion is necessary for the plebs. He worded it so badly that even the audience got on the false track.
Whatever you think of Dawkins's views, how many people nowadays could construct a paragraph totally on the fly as he does here in responding to Prof. Scruton 2:02?
dawkins fixation on the truth of religion is like the nerd not getting humor/allegory/nuance and endeavoring to find the truth with a chip on his shoulder
The stars and galaxies and black holes and other physical phenomenon are wonderful and impressive, but the most wonderful and impressive and complicated and enigmatic thing in the universe by far is the human brain. The immortal soul exists in the human brain.
I don't know if many of these great "atheists" realize that what they are attacking is not the God of theism, but rather the god of deism. The manner in which they passionately describe things like Transcendence, Objective Truth, and Wonder/Mystery is very reminiscent of theistic apologetics.
Tudor Tomescu I didn't know about his loss of reputation, but it was well deserved. Of greater concern to him should be the loss of his soul and the agony he will endure, if he does not repent of his diabolical arrogance.
@@malakoihebraico2150 We could at least agree that no compliment was intended. No doubt you have perfect insight into that person's mind. No doubt you are the supreme arbiter of 'morality' as well. On the contrary, you are JUST SPECULATING, and preening over what you perceive as your relative virtue. What do you mean by 'religious'? DEFINE, please. I do not consider myself a 'religious' person. The Bible does not speak well of RELIGION PER SE, does it? The apostle Paul, Jewish apostle to the Gentiles, uses the word 'religion' with regard to his FORMER life in Judaism, which he REJECTED in order to become a follower of Jesus Christ, TRUE MESSIAH of the Jews. (James 1:26-27) 'If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless. Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.' What have you accomplished by your comment? How many minds have you enlightened with useful or edifying information?
'Reason comes from God and reason leads back to God.' - No, that just won't do it. 'Reason comes from Banana and reason leads back to Banana.' That is just as meaningful. 'Reason comes from I must search and reason leads back to I must search'. That's more like it.
@@overseaerusa2913 There are certain things beyond our comprehension, which concludes that they come from a higher being. That same being gives us enough to understand, within our own natural limitations, that hangs on our faith in it.
Mossy500A another assertion without any evidence whatsoever. When you conclude a question without possessing any evidence, it usually indicates that you’ve started with the conclusion and then have shaped your understanding around it. This is High School level logic class stuff and a classic argumentative fallacy.
For Richard Dawkins the question whether religion is 'true' is no different from and as simple as the question whether 2 + 2 = 4 is true or 'light travels at the speed of 186 000 miles per second' is true. Tells you a lot about what kind of a mind he has: it's either/or, yes/no, true/false, black/white, good/bad and so on.
Dawkins criticism is valid wrt the majority of the religious, but he neglects the minority who take it seriously but not literally. Burning bush is literally ridiculous, metaphorically... that's more complicated.
I'm open to the idea of transcendence. I'm open to the idea of the unexplainable (in human terms). I think evolutionists have a lot of questions they can't answer and may never be able to answer. I don't buy the simplistic view of evolution where the mind-blowing complexity of a self replicating cell can just happen in a prehistoric soup given enough time. The question of the first replicating cell is the ultimate chicken and egg question. I'm also not buying under any circumstances that it's all explained in a book of jewish folk tales written in the 7th century BCE. (Just in case someone thinks I'm actually arguing for that God or any god).
"the ultimate chicken and egg question." Did the first egg emerge from a creature, or did the creature emerge from the egg? If the egg was first... what the heck did it emerge from? If the creature was first... what did it come from if not an egg? I reason that some decision process would have had to be at work to place the egg or creature first... otherwise we have a causality dilemma. Questions and answers also exist. Although they are not tangible like chickens and eggs, I'm sure you agree that ideas, answering questions and learning all lead to manifestations in the physical world. Including the devices we type these messages on. So, what came first? Irrelevant. The only relevant factors is one had to of come first and a decision process had to of decided which... or we face a conundrum. I would put to you there is no perplexity, no conundrum, the question came before the answer which came before the chicken (or was it the egg?:P ) TL'DR As chickens, eggs and questions exist, the question came first. I was like you for many years.. "I'm also not buying under any circumstances that it's all explained in a book of jewish folk tales written in the 7th century BCE." "Genesis 2:7King James Version (KJV) 7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Every single object I see around me.. desk, tv, guitar, can of coke, my computer.... everything I can see feel or touch, came from the ground in raw materials. No matter how advanced the technology... it was pulled from the ground by conscious thought. I will try an analogy... My router sends data on the 5ghz band, my wireless adapter receives that information, my pc then converts the information and displays it on my screen. The human hearing spectrum is 20-20000hz (router), you will hear that information when it reaches your cochlea(wireless adapter), and your brain (cpu) converts it to sound. Every object you will ever see, is a geometric object, your brain is converting the information you are seeing and processing geometric data faster than any computer. We are far more advanced than any computer and have a soul, but like computers, we were pulled from the ground by conscious thought. You wouldn't expect a computer to turn up by mistake after billions of years, let alone us, far more advanced and self replicating. Through years of indifference/ hate to all religion.. I gotta say.. Jesus is our only hope.
Ha Ha, bad1, IF IT'S TRUE, IT DOESN'T MATTER IF IT CAN BE CONFIRMED OR NOT! GEEZ, so kill all the bees (which I guess we are doing already) because we can not confirm how they fly! What are you afraid of?
I'm rather late, but may I suggest Ed Feser's philosophical work? I too began from a non-religious starting point. Feser is a rigorous thinker whom you might appreciate.
And to the long haired speaker , how do you explain consciousness, rationality , truth , logic , love , beauty etc , all shared by humanity . How do you explain these by science ? Truth is you don't and don't even attempt it !
I think Dawkins got that wrong, it was more about our urge to create religions. I dont beleive in god but I see that there is an urge to do so by many people, even by those who dont belive in gods. Scruton finally walked off to some meta explaination so this whole clip was not very statisfying.
What is Grayling doing in this company? A turd among diamonds. Hitchens was a great entertainer and Dawkins a great scientist. Rationalists, yes, but they've made a difference. Grayling has hair - that's it. On the other panel we have civilised minds. Grayling is just awful. I would say his effort here is not as painful as that bizarre ramble he did on Wittgenstein.
One of the problems with the atheist (or rather, anti-theist) crowd, is that they seem to equate religion and war to be a single product or definition. As if one is not without the other, but that's not true. Religion and spirituality can exist and be a valid form of interpreting the universe, without any violence required at all. Humans will always find a way or excuse for war. Do people 'really' think that wars in the name of religion, 'really' were for their gods? Or rather.. was religion merely abused, used as a tool for justification for man's greed and lust to own and control others? Christianity in the NT, in its original context, the teachings of Christ, were teaching liberation from religion and corruption, that each and every man could connect with God, without the need of others, without legalism and traditions, and temples and mountains. But the Christian faith was hijacked by Romanism. Another case of religion which started out as something good, to be a tool of conquest. The same can be said of Dawinism and the Nazis and the Soviets. People like Dawkins never say "Evolution is evil, because Hitler weaponised it in the name of his Aryan ideology". Yet, that is exactly what happened. It birthed genocide, concentration camps, eugenics, racism, human zoos. Hence, let us recognise, that each system, does not "Inherently" require war, nor do they cause wars, but it's the individuals in question, who will always weaponise these things for their own ambitions. If then, we can remove the ad-hoc hatred, that comes by such association fallacy, perhaps we can be more fair, and less emotionally biased, when it comes to our examination of the religious, and the spiritual.
Let's face it, some people are indeed to dumb to develope a sense of morality without religion. They need this higher authority to submit them into civility And there's nothing wrong with that. Just don't force it onto others
