At every turn, Dawkins seems to mess up a perfect opportunity to have an intelligent discussion about God. Chapter 6 is titled, “The roots of Morality: Why Are We Good?” and this is a great place to discuss the ultimate goal or purpose of God. Unfortunately, Dawkins squanders this opportunity. Instead of arguing against the […]
By far, I would argue that organized religion has posted the biggest problems for God. Paradoxically, the very institutions that have grown to recognize God have done the most harm. A quick look through history will highlight many problems that the Christian Church has perpetrated in the name of our Holy Father: The Crusades The […]
I refer to chapter 4 (“Why There Almost Certainly Is No God”) as The Ultimate Distraction. Dawkins uses the example of the Ultimate 747 as a red herring that distracts us from the argument at hand, namely, if God exists. After setting up his straw men to “defeat” arguments in favour of God’s existence, Dawkins […]
A straw man argument is an argument that is set up so that it can easily be defeated. This is a favoured technique of politicians. MediaMatters.org provides some excellent examples of George W. Bush’s use of straw man arguments. (Josh Kalven, “Now they tell us: AP exposed Bush’s use of straw man arguments after years of […]
Some housekeeping before I start today’s post: First, please keep your comments clean. I will not post comments that are vulgar or threatening. (Yup, I get those kinds of comments from time to time) I don’t mind disagreement, but keep it respectful. Second, I’ll be posting these updates daily, with one post per day until […]
Todd H Dow