What do you think of Dawkins' sentiments?

@JimboSaturn Oh dear. You use Wikipedia. Look, I know all about the scientific method; you don't need to tell me what it's all about and why it works the way it does, but it's not everything!

@emiliya Science is totally neutral. My adage is: If it’s not science, it’s superstition. Why should respect magic?

“You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?”
― Mark Twain

@BlueSkyKing Who said anything about magic? What is magic? We aren't asking enough questions here.

@AbbySvenz What are you trying to say? It is Richard Dawkins' belief that the universe has “blind physical forces” and “no design.” He says there is no good and evil, and only “pitiless indifference.” The universe and us humans are the same to him.

How can he be serious about this? They sound like exaggerations to make a point. People still take it seriously.

There is no good and evil because those are concepts devised by human cultures, and then projected outward.

I’m not saying those are invalid positions to take, but to pretend that they reach beyond this human experience to the universe at large is preposterous.

Universe gonna keep on universe-ing well after we’ve gone extinct @emiliya

@AbbySvenz Im reading a book called Sapiens that says exactly that. The creation of fiction and agreed upon constructs is our defining human characteristic

@calicuz We get this desire from our creator, God.

@JimboSaturn Where did the conscience come from? Evolution has to come after, not before.

@emiliya Conscience evolved in our species to allow us to cooperate. I believe in evolution. All our physical and mental characteristics were shaped by evolution.

@JimboSaturn Why are you mindlessly repeating these words? I want you to say something you thought of in your own head.

@Picklebobble2 What human physical problems are you talking about? Do not all humans have them at some point?

@emiliya As an example (and i stress, example) the human foible of 'depression'.

A massive industry of endless 'therapies' is available IF you have the desire and money to cater to them. In western cultures.

So does that mean people NOT in western cultures are somehow exempt from getting depression ?

If so, how do those in the 'underdeveloped world' address their depression ? Where such 'therapies' are unheard of.

What makes a 'westerner' more prone to the multitude of cancers out there ?
Are women in the African nations just as at risk of breast cancers ?
If the answer is no, there's your 'selfish gene'

@emiliya Just because something seems complex, doesn't mean there's a creator. Plus there's always that question of, if humans need to have had a creator, then who created the creator?

@BohemianBabe We cannot say there is no good and bad when we spend every day of our lives sensing good and bad. Is there anything we do more than this? It does not need to be objective or subjective.

“Plus there's always that question of, if humans need to have had a creator, then who created the creator?”

I think God is the universe. Did he need a creator, or has he always been here?

@emiliya Well if your argument is that complicated beings, like humans, needed a creator, then that means the creator also needed a creator. Personally, I think whether something is complicated is also subjective, and with evolution we can have things that most people would consider complicated, but don't have a creator.

@SparkleLeaf What do you believe in? Where does he make sense?

He is right in that we are all just collections of atoms, a product of a natural world that is not capable of caring one way or another about us. Why would one area be subject to earthquakes, another to hurricanes, while another is a virtually uninhabitable desert, yet another infested with piranha, and other places do not have these problems? Not how do these things occur, which is fully explained by natural law, but why? Where is the morality in the geographic accident of ones birth determining what "evil" will befall them?

But then he mentions "selfish genes," nothing in the immediate context indicating there is anything to balance them out, actually containing the phrase "nothing but pitiless indifference.” We humans are intelligent enough to find meaning, to observe a more altruistic (or at least cooperative) approach has larger benefits for our species. We can do this because, while we do have genes that can make us behave in a selfish way, a genetic predisposition to work together for the benefit of mankind is also present. We can philosophize about this and make conscious decisions. Thus we find meaning in this cold world.

This is also explained by natural law. An animal population where the members will work together, as if toward some common goal, is more likely to thrive than one where they are more selfish and harm each-other. The population that thrives passes this genetic trait on to its offspring and continues to grow. Natural selection occurs. Traits that help the population thrive continue to get passed down, ones that are more harmful get weeded out.

We can see altruistic and cooperative behavior in species that don't have brains that are developed enough to make a choice about it, going on pure instinct. Look at how in different types of insect species the individual insects will sacrifice themselves to protect the colony. They are not capable of making a moral judgement, of believing what they are doing is "good."

There are reasons for these things. Reasons int eh sense of "how," that which is explained in natural law. When we ask "why" we are starting on a journey of finding meaning in it all.

@SparkleLeaf “Why would one area be subject to earthquakes, another to hurricanes, while another is a virtually uninhabitable desert, yet another infested with piranha, and other places do not have these problems?”

The planet is diverse. That is how God made it. If it were less diverse, it would be less joyful and less habitable. It is important that his creations have freedom and variety. God wanted there to be warmth and cold, brightness and darkness, night and day, mountains and deserts, sea and land, and all kinds of colors and creatures.

“Where is the morality in the geographic accident of ones birth determining what "evil" will befall them?”

Where is the morality in not giving us the chance to know evil? Is it moral to only live in a world of goodness? This would make God no different to the fascists who want to stop you from listening to a viewpoint they don't like. If God censored evil, he would not be a moral good, and we would not be moral people. He is moral and we are moral. Morality is flawed, and it is complex. We are supposed to be willing to sacrifice ourselves. We would not be able to follow in the ways of Jesus without trouble and strife.

“Look at how in different types of insect species the individual insects will sacrifice themselves to protect the colony. They are not capable of making a moral judgement, of believing what they are doing is "good."”

The best judgements are those made using our instincts. Instinct comes from God.

@TheOneyouwerewarnedabout This is about Dawkins, not Darwin.

@Nitedoc

if i hear the name richard dawkins. i assume hes going to talk about evolution and i tune out :)

Richard Dawkins (born March 26, 1941, Nairobi, Kenya) is a British evolutionary biologist, ethologist, and popular-science writer

@TheOneyouwerewarnedabout Okay. I didn't realize you were familiar with Dawkins. Just trying to give you a heads up. A lot of people are not familiar with Richard Dawkins. I always thought he was full of himself.

@NativePortlander1970 What about it?

@NativePortlander1970 “They exist alright, BUT, who gets to define them, the religions that instruct how slaves are to be treated and allows young virgin girls to become spoils of war, or a government that still refuses to acknowledge centuries of genocide against the Indigenous Peoples it conquored and subjugated.”

What does religion have to do with God? Why does our perception matter? What I know is there are things going on around me and that people are at odds with one another. Why does Dawkins write books if we are nothing? Why would he argue with a theist if he is not a moral being with a conscience? A conscience is more than feeling bad if you do something wrong. We have will and a desire to do what is right. It may not be what is right for others, but it is right for us, and we often think it is right for others. The Zionists in Israel think it is right to defeat their enemies and rule the region. The anti Zionists think it is right to stop the Israelis and save the Palestinians. Why is that? When we are monsters, we are at our most human. A monster can have the most acute senses, of what hurts and doesn't hurt. It all comes down to right and wrong and right and wrong. Is it right, or is it wrong? Where did we get that from? God, who is the universe and more. Dawkins is trying to tell us there is nothing when he has spent his career trying to prove something. Why would there be anything to prove in a world of nothing?

@emiliya So, ranting against Zionism, hmmm?

@swirlie Then that must mean that you're not real either, because people change over time. What about time itself?
Your claim that "nothing is real" must include time, in order for your claim to be consistent.

@swirlie Oh really? Try telling that to old people who are on their death-beds! If it's just an "illusion", then I should be able to prevent myself from aging somehow, and even reverse the aging process.
And time does exist throughout the entire cosmos, because just like us it also changes.

@emiliya Actually no, he didn't. What he actually claimed, and which has been confirmed via observation, is that gravity warps spacetime. Time dilation, which is clearly what you have in mind here, occurs as we approach lightspeed.