Thoughts on The God Delusion

[Ragamuffin_artist]

I Just finished reading The God Delusion (2006) by Oxford professor Richard Dawkins. Although at present I ultimately disagree with his conclusion, I couldn't take anyone seriously who doesn't take Dawkins seriously...he presents a good argument. My main problems are as follows:


1: Newtons' First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics. These, of course, state that a) energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can only change in form, and b) that the universe is continually moving from a state of order into a state of disorder (entropy). A god-free model of the universe seems to depend on accepting that for billions of years there was a slow and gradual accumulation of energy and order in the universe (as chemicals and order emerged ex-nihlo in space) until the laws of physics literally reversed, and entropy then took effect. If the concept of the cosmic watchmaker is a hard sell, then it seems the alternative is no better on this point.

2: “politics has slain its thousands, but religion has slain its tens of thousands.” My first thought is that most of the religious conflicts in the world are largely political at heart. Bin Laden, for example, uses religion as a tool to help encourage attacks which are ultimately politically motivated (these motivations being the presence of United States' forces on Saudi soil and America's support of Israel).

Dawkins addressed the embarrassing problems of Stalin and Hitler by stating that atheism was not the cause of their violence. Nevertheless, its uncanny that in countries where atheism is mandatory, mass killings consistently occur. I'm thinking of the major communist countries of the 20th century, all of which (to my knowledge) made the free practice of religion a capital offense. Actual numbers vary depending on the political allegiance of the source, but the body count of 20th century Soviet Russia is an estimated 69 million, China (between 1949-1987): 80,000,000; and North Korea: 3,000,000. I also am reminded of the French Revolution, where Parisians famously rejected religion in the name of reason (and even re-dedicated some churches to “the Goddess Reason”); the bloodshed that ensued was no utopia.


There were one or two other minor points on which I disagreed, but this post is already much longer than I wanted it to be. I was simply wondering if anyone had any responses/input. I'd love to hear what people have to say...either about these two points, or about Dawkins...or better yet, the god argument in general.

[Anon.]

Maybe have a dekko at Main/thesinner/33256

[Haunted]

1. Newton has laws of motion not thermodynamics.

a. The arguement from entropy is dead and buried as pro god arguement. Why? Because the no-god scenario does not violate any of these laws. It is true that as time progresses entropy (sometimes crudely called 'disorder') increases.

"But, Mr Scientist, surely we human beings are highly ordered creatures and the theory of evolution would seem to imply that as time went by on Earth MORE order was created not disorder!"

"Quite true youngling, but the overall order of the universe has decreased! You see the second law only applies to closed systems, the Earth is not a closed system because it is constantly being pumped with energy, I'll leave it as an exercise for you to deduce the source of this energy".

2. Debatable point certainly. The arguement from utility however makes no comment on the truthfulness of the belief.

3. All that we have learned from Stalinist russia and nazi germany is that oppression is bad. It was more than just faith that was oppressed. Show me mass slaughterings in atheist scandanavia and I'll rethink. Also, this is essentially an arguement from utility again.

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[munchingfoo]

God killed an estimated 33,041,220 people in the bible.

http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com ... -list.html

Wait - is god an Athiest? Would god "believe in a god"? I wonder.

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[Zucchero]

Science vs. God - round 235 on the Sinner. Science the current heavyweight champion with 235 wins by knockout Now let's have a good clean fight. No namecalling, pedantry, appeals to authority, reductio ad hitlerum or pseudoscience. *ding ding*

Quoting ragamuffin_artist from 13:35, 22nd Jul 2008
1: Newtons' First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics. These, of course, state that a) energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can only change in form, and b) that the universe is continually moving from a state of order into a state of disorder (entropy). A god-free model of the universe seems to depend on accepting that for billions of years there was a slow and gradual accumulation of energy and order in the universe (as chemicals and order emerged ex-nihlo in space) until the laws of physics literally reversed, and entropy then took effect. If the concept of the cosmic watchmaker is a hard sell, then it seems the alternative is no better on this point.

Firstly I think you should perhaps give the alternative the credit of having a LOT of research, scientific theory and mathematical models backing which can't be said for the faulty 'logic' of biased theologians. It's not really a 'hard sell'. It's either evidentially correct or it isn't. Secondly, I'm not sure if I understand your implied similarity between the two. Are you saying that both commit to 'something out of nothing'? Concerning that point, something can indeed come from nothing. See: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/astronomy/bigbang.html#firstlaw.

2: “politics has slain its thousands, but religion has slain its tens of thousands.” My first thought is that most of the religious conflicts in the world are largely political at heart. Bin Laden, for example, uses religion as a tool to help encourage attacks which are ultimately politically motivated (these motivations being the presence of United States' forces on Saudi soil and America's support of Israel).

Dawkins addressed the embarrassing problems of Stalin and Hitler by stating that atheism was not the cause of their violence. Nevertheless, its uncanny that in countries where atheism is mandatory, mass killings consistently occur. I'm thinking of the major communist countries of the 20th century, all of which (to my knowledge) made the free practice of religion a capital offense. Actual numbers vary depending on the political allegiance of the source, but the body count of 20th century Soviet Russia is an estimated 69 million, China (between 1949-1987): 80,000,000; and North Korea: 3,000,000. I also am reminded of the French Revolution, where Parisians famously rejected religion in the name of reason (and even re-dedicated some churches to “the Goddess Reason”); the bloodshed that ensued was no utopia.

Your point here can only state that wars and bloodshed occured in religion-free nations. Not that atheism was the cause or motivating factor behind the violence unlike in religion-fuelled conflicts.

[Ragamuffin_artist]

Quoting Haunted from 13:46, 22nd Jul 2008

"Quite true youngling, but the overall order of the universe has decreased! You see the second law only applies to closed systems, the Earth is not a closed system because it is constantly being pumped with energy, I'll leave it as an exercise for you to deduce the source of this energy".



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I'm just not sure. If the overall order of the universe is decreasing (as you accurately say), doesn't that mean that at one point it was more ordered? And what happened prior to its point of maximum order? I'm not thinking of earth alone, but the universe as a whole. Thats a lot of energy, heat, motion, matter, and order to account for.

Munchinfoo has a good observation. But I am not really playing the advocate for Biblical God here (hence the subtle lower caps in the original post), but rather the 18th century model of god as the dispassionate watchmaker.

[Ragamuffin_artist]

Quoting Zucchero from 14:08, 22nd Jul 2008


Your point here can only state that wars and bloodshed occured in religion-free nations. Not that atheism was the cause or motivating factor behind the violence unlike in religion-fuelled conflicts.

I am aware this does not prove the existence of God any more than Dawkin's argument (that Christians can be jerks) disproves God. I just thought it was an interesting point for its own sake.

Good heavens, was this god-post really preceded by 234 others?

[Haunted]

Quoting ragamuffin_artist from 14:17, 22nd Jul 2008
I'm just not sure. If the overall order of the universe is decreasing (as you accurately say), doesn't that mean that at one point it was more ordered?

Yes and no. Order is such a poor word to use for precisely this matter. To get technical, entropy is a measure of how many possible microstates there are for a given macrostate. A good example is stirring milk into a cup of tea. There are an almost infinite amount of microstates (the distribution of milk molecules throughout the tea) that give rise to the macrostate of a stirred cup. Compare that to the microstates for an unstirred cup (as if the two liquids separated out), for that there is a much more limited amount of possible milk/tea distributions (microstates) that give the overall macrostate of the two liquids separate in the same cup. Because there are far more microstates that end up with the mixed macrostate, you are much more likely to end up in such a macrostate.

Bare with me. Current understanding of big bang theory would imply that the universe began in a state of maximum entropy i.e. a mixed cup of tea. However, maximum possible entropy at the singularity would necassarily be zero. As the singularity expands, the maximum possible entropy increases as more and more microstates become available. Therefore the universe can begin in a state of maximum entropy and then continue to increase in entropy due to expansion. The expansion allows the maximum possible entropy to increase faster than the actual entropy thus the universe gets more 'disordered' overall. But room for 'order' to increase is provided in the gap.

And what happened prior to its point of maximum order? I'm not thinking of earth alone, but the universe as a whole. Thats a lot of energy, heat, motion, matter, and order to account for.

What happened before the big bang? What's north of the north pole?

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[Humphrey]

We have had some pretty epic religion related discussions on this board. In addition to the one Anon posted we discussed ‘fine tuning’ here

http://www.thesinner.net/messageboard-v ... 374&page=1

..and evolution here.

http://www.thesinner.net/messageboard-v ... 055&page=1

The God Delusion was an excellent book; perhaps not the most coherent of arguments but it was very entertaining and provocative. Before it came out I just regarded religion as rather silly and inconsequential. Now it’s something that I do think about a lot, although perhaps not in the way Dawkins intended. The amazing thing about the book is that it has stimulated so much debate, it also provoked an 120% increase in sales of the bible and achieved something miraculous, it actually forced the Church of England to stick up for religious belief, something I never thought I would see happen in my lifetime!.


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[Hennessy]

yay the Church of England sticking up for religion...wait...was that the Shia religious thing?

Nvm mind, it's all going to fall apart pretty soon, pesky gay bishops and all. I think it'll be the first example of an entity liberalising itself out of existence, perhaps a lesson to other churches.

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"There is no Spoon"
Dog Soldiers

[Senethro]

Only the bigoted shall survive!

Its not real liberty unless I'm free to discriminate on gender!

[Mehmsy]

Dawkins is as much of a tosser as any fundamentalist religious person.

Frankly, I don't see the point in fervently trying to argue one point or the other. Why not live and let live? It's called faith for a reason.

Edit: to further the entropy discussion; Haunted's definition of entropy being the number of possible macrostates in a given microstate is a very useful consideration. At the start of the universe, there weren't that many macrostates, as all matter was down to its most fundamental constituents -- as such, matter itself wasn't as complicated (and hence, less ordered) as it is now.

... Or so I think. Please correct me if I am being blatantly idiotic.

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[Zucchero]

Quoting Mehmsy from 12:39, 23rd Jul 2008
Dawkins is as much of a tosser as any fundamentalist religious person.

Frankly, I don't see the point in fervently trying to argue one point or the other. Why not live and let live? It's called faith for a reason.

I don't see how Dawkins is a tosser in his public appearances, writings etc, so perhaps you can explain why he's on the same level as Fred Phelps?

Live and let live for the religious would mean that there are sinners not being saved, infidels corrupting the followers of 'truth' and blasphemies going unpunished. Live and let live for the rational would mean there is the continued proliferation of untruth, irrationality hindering human progress and faith leading to violence.

They are generalizations of course but it goes to show how neither side will let the other just be. I think it's another thing to say just let people have their own private beliefs. If you personally believe in a non-existant sky fairy, fine. Just don't let it infringe on anyone, anywhere at anytime.

[Humphrey]

Quoting Mehmsy from 12:39, 23rd Jul 2008
Edit: to further the entropy discussion; Haunted's definition of entropy being the number of possible macrostates in a given microstate is a very useful consideration. At the start of the universe, there weren't that many macrostates, as all matter was down to its most fundamental constituents -- as such, matter itself wasn't as complicated (and hence, less ordered) as it is now.

I believe the idea of a High Entropy big bang is something of a bugbear for Roger Penrose and he argued strongly against it in 'The Emperor's New Mind' and 'The Road to Reality'. Unfortunately his reasons for objecting to it are a complete mystery to me as I don't own either book and in the preview copy on amazon the relevant pages are obscured. Best I can find is a quote from RTR where he says:

Now let us return to the extraordinary 'specialness' of the Big Bang. The fact that it must have had as absurdly low entropy is already evident from the mere existence of the Second Law of thermodynamics. But low entropy can take many different forms. We want to understand the particular way in which our universe was initially special...
It seems to me that this apparent thermal equilibrium in the early universe has grossly misled some cosmologists into thinking that the Big Bang was somehow high entropy 'random' (i.e. thermal) state, despite the fact that, because of the second law, it must have actually been a very organized (i.e. low entropy) state. A prevalent view seems to have been that the resolution of this paradox must lie in the fact that, soon after the Big Bang, the universe was 'small' so that comparatively few degrees of freedom were available to it, giving a low 'ceiling' to possible entropies. This point of view is fallacious, however, as was pointed out [earlier]. The correct resolution of the apparent paradox lies in the fact that the gravitational degrees of freedom have not been thermalized along with all of those matter and electromagnetic degrees of freedom...In fact, these gravitational degrees of freedom -providing a huge reservoir of entropy -are frequently not take into account at all...Rather than sharing in the thermalization that, in the early universe, applies to all other fields, gravity remains aloof, its degrees of freedom lying in wait, so that the second law would come into play as these degrees of freedom begin to become taken up. Not only does this give us a Second Law, but it gives us one in the particular form that we observe in nature. Gravity just seems to have been different!...physicists have tried to come to terms with this puzzle and related ones, concerning the origin of the universe. In my opinion, none of these attempts comes at all close to dealing with the puzzle...

Anyone know what his objection actually is?

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[Haunted]

Quoting Mehmsy from 12:39, 23rd Jul 2008
Edit: to further the entropy discussion; Haunted's definition of entropy being the number of possible macrostates in a given microstate is a very useful consideration. At the start of the universe, there weren't that many macrostates, as all matter was down to its most fundamental constituents -- as such, matter itself wasn't as complicated (and hence, less ordered) as it is now.

... Or so I think. Please correct me if I am being blatantly idiotic.

Well that is essentially the same as what I said. Except you have muddled macrostate and microstate. Also, lets drop the terms ordered and disordered because they confuse and the universe was both in the beginnig. It had zero entropy but this was also the maximum possible entropy.

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[Haunted]

Quoting Humphrey from 13:23, 23rd Jul 2008
Anyone know what his objection actually is?

He's essentially saying the same thing I did. Though perhaps not appreciating that entropy can be both high and relatively low at the same time. I have knocked up a quick graph

IMAGE:img.photobucket.com/albums/v627/hauntedchippy/entropy.jpg

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[Haunted]

Quoting Mehmsy from 12:39, 23rd Jul 2008
Frankly, I don't see the point in fervently trying to argue one point or the other. Why not live and let live? It's called faith for a reason.

Then tell me why we can't have bishops of the FSM in the house of lords?

Tell me the government sponsored church of the UK isn't that of the celestial teacup?

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[Mehmsy]

Alright, let me start off by saying that I am an atheist, and firmly believe in the separation of church and state, and blah blah blah.

Quoting Zucchero from 13:12, 23rd Jul 2008
I don't see how Dawkins is a tosser in his public appearances, writings etc, so perhaps you can explain why he's on the same level as Fred Phelps?

Live and let live for the religious would mean that there are sinners not being saved, infidels corrupting the followers of 'truth' and blasphemies going unpunished. Live and let live for the rational would mean there is the continued proliferation of untruth, irrationality hindering human progress and faith leading to violence.

They are generalizations of course but it goes to show how neither side will let the other just be. I think it's another thing to say just let people have their own private beliefs. If you personally believe in a non-existant sky fairy, fine. Just don't let it infringe on anyone, anywhere at anytime.

My dislike for Dawkins comes from the fact that in most of his public appearances (ones I've seen) his Q&A sessions involve him outrightly dodging clever questions posed to him by religious people in lieu of personally attacking the fact that they believe in whatever God they believe in. The way he essentially militantly pushes forward the idea of an atheist society annoys me, because I don't necessarily see religion as a handicap. On the other hand, fundamentalism is a serious handicap, but you can be a fundamentalist about anything and still be a retard.

Quoting Haunted from 13:59, 23rd Jul 2008
Well that is essentially the same as what I said. Except you have muddled macrostate and microstate. Also, lets drop the terms ordered and disordered because they confuse and the universe was both in the beginnig. It had zero entropy but this was also the maximum possible entropy.

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Yep, thanks for the corrections.

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[munchingfoo]

Quoting Mehmsy from 14:36, 23rd Jul 2008
My dislike for Dawkins comes from the fact that in most of his public appearances (ones I've seen) his Q&A sessions involve him outrightly dodging clever questions posed to him by religious people in lieu of personally attacking the fact that they believe in whatever God they believe in.

Do you have a video source I could watch for an example of this? Generally I find Dawkins only avoids answering a question when it is so stupid that in answering it he'd be dropping to the level of the questioners.

I haven't heard of a single "clever question" asked of an athiest by a theist. Perhaps you can also quote one of these? (by this I am not implying that they are all stupid question, merely that they are normal, average questions)

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[Haunted]

The only close thing to an example of such dodging I can think of is this (almost famous) clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mmskXXetcg

Though it's obvious he dodged the question to show her how silly a thing it is to ask.

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