"You can't debate about religion without being rude"

[Telstra]

according to the The Four Horsemen:

 

[vidarr]

While I may agree with some of the things they say in the video, I absolutely despise Dawkins for being so pretentious.
In my opinion Dawkins and his group are just as hard headed as the fundy Christians they're bashing.

 

[Telstra]

While I may agree with some of the things they say in the video, I absolutely despise Dawkins for being so pretentious.
In my opinion Dawkins and his group are just as hard headed as the fundy Christians they're bashing.

Please please tell me what things did Dawkins do which you find so disgusting.
Most of the things he said are true.

 

[Kulindahr]

The first guy is full of shit.

Around eight minutes Dawkins is full of shit with his pretense of not knowing how religions came to have the exemptions they do. A bit later, though, he does have a good point that it would be good to have some atheists around who were right-wing, to demonstrate the separation between religion and politics.

Around eleven minutes the guy on the left shows his ignorance of religion, which makes me wonder why he's worth listening to -- kinda like listening to a "doctor" who never studied medicine.

Then about fourteen, they're agreeing that no scientist would ever make proclamations outside his area of expertise... but that's exactly what they're doing!

Overall, the guy with the beard is a lot more arrogant than Dawkins.

I never have figured out what Harris (on the right) is talking about when he addresses what he thinks religious people do or think -- it rarely has anything at all to do with anything I or anyone I've known thinks or believes. He's got a quiet arrogance that's just hilarious.

The biggest weakness is that they're all proceeding on Harris' false definition of faith as belief with no evidence. That gives them incredible arrogance, because they claim that any evidence there is has to be on their side -- like they own the matter of evidence.

Though I can't believe it that they fall into the fallacy of experience, around 22:30. Just because others have the same subjective feelings as others proves nothing.

Guy in the beard showed he's full of it again, claiming that serious theology is never done by those who deal with people. That's where theology has to prove itself! As a Lutheran college professor I met once said, "All theology is pastoral", which means it applies to people.

At 28 Dawkins demonstrates his ignorance of literature, especially ancient literature -- no surprise, to hear him making pronouncements outside his field of expertise. The dim on the left isn't any better, pretending to make a criticism on the basis of the metaphor of sheep or flock, but he has to throw out the definition of metaphor to do that.

Man, Harris is ignorantly arrogant, or maybe arrogantly ignorant. He can't conceive of anything not being the way he believes it -- in other words, he's just another sort of fundamentalist.

"Religious opinion is wrong by definition." (guy on the left) If that's not close-minded arrogance, I don't know what is. He demonstrates their real problem: they want everything to be science, and they're not willing to concede an inch to anyone who might believe there could be other ways of knowing things!

I can't believe they're dimwitted enough to think there's anything "insoluble" about the Trinity -- it's just simple arithmetic on one level, and set theory on another.

And then the guy on the left comes back and flat out says that they're excluding anything they don't agree with, right from the start! And Harris happily chimes in with his attacks on his little collection of straw men, followed by beard-guy plainly saying he and his get to set the rules and no one can challenge them.

Nice move by left-end, switching from the need to prove a negative to saying it can't be proved as evidence it's wrong....

Shortly after 50, Harris goes into the "I can make anything mean anything" rant, which is irrelevant, because if anything could mean anything, no one would stick with calling anything true at all. It's just a ploy to attempt to put people down, not anything with substance.

It's hilarious when they go into planning what's basically an evangelism campaign, working to get people to believe differently than at present.

Then Dawkins has the gall to ask "How can you live with a contradiction?", when scientists do that all the time! Where's the resolution between wave and particle, for example?

Along 1:16: Dawkins may as well be saying, "I'm a bigot, and proud of it".

What nonsense at 1:20:, claiming all religion wants totalitarianism -- he plainly knows nothing of Christianity, or at least of Jesus and Paul. OTOH, left-guy has a good point about Islam's claim to absolute exclusivity.

Harris is such a hypocrite: here he's sat, maintaining that reality is purely empirical and 'material', but now he wants some room for "the scared"? Give me a break!

Just when they were sounding reasonable, they go off the deep end with the "surrender of the mind" nonsense. They sound like bullies deliberately picking on the easiest targets instead of even bothering someone of some substance.

Enuf notes/commentary.

 

[Telstra]

^ they are doctors, scientist, philosophers ... etc.
Did you tell them that ?

 

[Jacquemar]

I find it amusing when average people try to contend with geniuses.

 

[Kulindahr]

^ they are doctors, scientist, philosophers ... etc.
Did you tell them that ?

I've told people like the the very thing. In the end they get arrogant or they squirm and admit they're doing the very same thing one of them said they're not supposed to do: talking outside their area of expertise.

 

[Kulindahr]

I find it amusing when average people try to contend with geniuses.

What geniuses? Harris at least is no genius, or he wouldn't use the sort of flawed argument he does in support of his secular morality, which picks something with no objective basis and declares it the standard of morality.

 

[Adrock-JD]

Faith by definition cannot be questioned. So what's the point?

 

[Kulindahr]

Faith by definition cannot be questioned. So what's the point?

Where does that definition come from? Anyone who refuses to question his faith likely has a shallow one.

 

[Adrock-JD]

^ Actually, I don't remember where I first heard it, Kulindahr. I just remember it when someone is trying to debate religion with a devout follower. It's like my little reminder not to do that. It's 'usually' a waste of time and I do see where it may be rude.

 

[Kulindahr]

^ Actually, I don't remember where I first heard it, Kulindahr. I just remember it when someone is trying to debate religion with a devout follower. It's like my little reminder not to do that. It's 'usually' a waste of time and I do see where it may be rude.

I guess a non-believer wouldn't have much "standing" to tell a believer that if he never questions his faith it isn't very substantive. For that matter, I don't always make much headway with it, either -- it's not uncommon to get told I'm not really a believer or I'm a false prophet or some stupid thing.

 

[mightbe]

I've always thought Harris was too obnoxious to take seriously. I can't stand him at all--he talks just like a slimy evangelical. He spends lots of time saying nothing, and when he does make an identifiable point it's always to place himself on higher ground.

I've seen several discussions including them, and it seems that all of them get worse when Harris is in the room. Without Harris, the others (at least Dawkins--easily the most intelligent) can usually say something reasonable without ranting. Harris provokes them to say every flawed thing they want to say but often don't; they're feeding off his arrogance and mirroring it.

Dawkins can be particularly good one-on-one, and is best when debating a religious intellectual (e.g. the Archbishop of Canterbury). Usually because of an implied mutual agreement not to dwell on the fundamental differences.

^ they are doctors, scientist, philosophers ... etc.

To be precise, a journalist, a philosopher, a biologist, and a major douchebag. Of them, only Hitchens and Dawkins have any real claim to fame.

 

[bankside]

Where does that definition come from? Anyone who refuses to question his faith likely has a shallow one.

Of course. But when one rejects out of hand how others question one's faith, it is no guarantee of any depth.

 

[bankside]

I've always thought Harris was too obnoxious to take seriously.

Harris easily rivals any writer for style, even maybe Hitchens. His writing is gorgeous. But he has odd ideas about guns and muslims. He thinks that a muslim enlightenment is impossible, and he's never made the case for that. He also has some strange fascination with buddhist mysticism. Of the four though, I often suspect that Dennet has the most insight though I've read less of his work than any other. So my impression may be dispelled by the evidence when I get to his written works.

I'm sorry not to see Stephen Fry in that group. He's easily the peer of any of those thinkers.

 

[Kulindahr]

I've always thought Harris was too obnoxious to take seriously. I can't stand him at all--he talks just like a slimy evangelical. He spends lots of time saying nothing, and when he does make an identifiable point it's always to place himself on higher ground.

I've seen several discussions including them, and it seems that all of them get worse when Harris is in the room. Without Harris, the others (at least Dawkins--easily the most intelligent) can usually say something reasonable without ranting. Harris provokes them to say every flawed thing they want to say but often don't; they're feeding off his arrogance and mirroring it.

That's an interesting observation. I haven't watched any of them extensively except Dawkins, then Harris in second place, but it fits what I have listened to.

Dawkins can be particularly good one-on-one, and is best when debating a religious intellectual (e.g. the Archbishop of Canterbury). Usually because of an implied mutual agreement not to dwell on the fundamental differences.

I think Dawkins is best when his opponent is someone who is demonstrably one who does serious thinking, so he proceeds with at lest a modicum of respect. When he considers his opponent uneducated, he's an unmitigated ass, more so even than the common disdain many educated people have for the ignorant.

To be precise, a journalist, a philosopher, a biologist, and a major douchebag. Of them, only Hitchens and Dawkins have any real claim to fame.

Hard to tell which is which at first.

 

[Kulindahr]

I'm sorry not to see Stephen Fry in that group. He's easily the peer of any of those thinkers.

Jeeves! (IIRC)

Fry would be a definite plus, if for no other reason than that he doesn't seem to take himself quite so seriously. He'd add some needed civility, too, I suspect.

 

[Telstra]

You guys seems to complain about them for no good reason.

What did they do harm ?????

 

[Kulindahr]

You guys seems to complain about them for no good reason.

What did they do harm ?????

People claiming to speak with authority in areas that aren't their fields of study are open to severe criticism for not thinking clearly.

 

[bankside]

People claiming to speak with authority in areas that aren't their fields of study are open to severe criticism for not thinking clearly.

And yet often the most academically vigorous and intellectually fruitful outcomes are derived from a field of study being viewed through fresh eyes. It helps overturn moribund thinking and disrupts inertia and groupthink. For that reason, my old university very actively encouraged "interdisciplinary studies."

Another goal there was to overcome the modern conceit that a man may only think deeply about a maximum of one subject. That would have been completely foreign to thinkers of only a century ago; i.e. before Ford and the assembly line.