Dawkins @ TED
- Started
- Last post
- 97 Responses
- Brookoioioi
http://www.ted.com/index.php/tal…
Seems few people are interested in discussing important matters (see cryptome thread) So heres another Dawkins thread...
- flagellum0
Hold your head high and proudly proclaim to the world that all is an accident and you have no purpose! Nevermind the evidence; cry from the mountaintops that we are all the product of blind, natural mechanisms that did not have us in mind!
...and then rejoice. I say again, rejoice!
More of Dawkins's Darwinian mysticism and atheistic fundamentalism.
- Brookoioioi0
did you watch it or just search for the appropriate pre-formatted response on aig?
- acescence0
you're right, i'd rather my purpose be to please my cruel and egomaniacal master
- flagellum0
http://david.dw-perspective.org.…
Oh I watched as much as I could stomach. It's his usual tired drivel.
- madirish0
all your base belong to someone other than you....
- flagellum0
aecense: who is this strange creator you speak of? The one I know loves me relentlessly despite my shortcomings and has an amazing purpose for my life here and in eternity.
- acescence0
spin it however you want
- johndiggity0
the southpark with him and mrs. garrison getting it on was priceless.
- Brookoioioi0
so you didn't watch it, like you haven't read his books, but still feel you have a valid opinion on his work... Kind of like how you already *know* the answer to the important questions of biology, so you don't need to actually learn anything...
- madirish0
The one I know loves me relentlessly despite my shortcomings and has an amazing purpose for my life here and in eternity.
flagellum
(May 2 07, 06:02if that were true, flagellum, why would you say:
Oh I watched as much as I could stomach. It's his usual tired drivel.
flagellum
(May 2 07, 06:01)seems like someone has a malice-heart toward another one of those which should be a reflection of the one that: "loves me relentlessly despite my shortcomings and has an amazing purpose for my life here and in eternity."
....... sinner.
- Nairn0
It's my usual tired drivel.
flagellum
(May 2 07, 06:01)
- flagellum0
Crawley was too easy on him here...
- flagellum0
Like I said, Brookoioi... I've read enough of Dawkins and listened to enough of his pap to know exactly where he and Dennette, et al. are coming from. I prefer Voltaire.
- Nairn0
Before this thread balloons into another aimless 200 post vitriolic behemoth, can you please explicitly prove there IS a god, Flagellum?
- FrdmOfSpch0
Q: As long as the mind operates, causation is a valid law.
M: Like everything mental, the so-called law of causation contradicts itself. No thing in existence has a particular cause; the entire universe contributes to the existence of even the smallest thing; nothing could be as it is without the universe being what it is. When the source and ground of everything is the only cause of everything, to speak of causality as a universal law is wrong. The universe is not bound by its content, because its potentialities are infinite; besides it is a manifestation, or expression of a principle fundamentally and totally free.
Q: Yes, one can see that ultimately to speak of one thing being the only cause of another thing is altogether wrong. Yet, in actual life we invariably initiate action with a view to a result.
M: Yes, there is a lot of such activity going on, because of ignorance. 'Would people know that nothing can happen unless the entire universe makes it happen, they would achieve much more with less expenditure of energy.
Q: If everything is an expression of the totality of causes, how can we talk of a purposeful action towards an achievement?
M: The very urge to achieve is also an expression of the total universe. It merely shows that the energy potential has risen at a particular point. It is the illusion of time that makes you talk of causality. When the past and the future are seen in the timeless now, as parts of a common pattern, the idea of cause-effect loses its validity and creative freedom takes its place.
Q: Yet, I cannot see how can anything come to be without a cause.
M: When I say a thing is without a cause, I mean it can be with­out a particular cause. Your own mother was needed to give you birth; But you could not have been born without the sun and the earth. Even these could not have caused your birth without your own desire to be born. It is desire that gives birth, that gives name and form. The desirable is imagined and wanted and manifests itself as something tangible or con­ceivable. Thus is created the world in which we live, our per­sonal world. The real world is beyond the mind's ken; we see it through the net of our desires, divided into pleasure and pain, right and wrong, inner and outer. To see the universe as it is, you must step beyond the net. It is not hard to do so, for the net is full of holes.
Q: What do you mean by holes? And how to find them?
M: Look at the net and its many contradictions. You do and undo at every step. You want peace, love, happiness and work hard to create pain, hatred and war. You want longevity and overeat, you want friendship and exploit. See your net as made of such contradictions and remove them -- your very seeing them will make them go.
Q: Since my seeing the contradiction makes it go, is there no causal link between my seeing and its going?
M: Causality, even as a concept, does not apply to chaos.
Q: To what extent is desire a causal factor?
M: One of the many. For everything there are innumerable causal factors. But the source of all that is, is the Infinite Possibility, the Supreme Reality, which is in you and which throws its power and light and love on every experience. But, this source is not a cause and no cause is a source. Because of that, I say everything is uncaused. You may try to trace how a thing happens, but you cannot find out why a thing is as it is. A thing is as it is, because the universe is as it is.
- flagellum0
After you prove explicitly that there isn't one, Nairn.
- madirish0
After you prove explicitly that there isn't one, Nairn.
flagellum
(May 2 07, 06:11)honestly, this is the worst argument/causation for the justification of a belief.... ever.
- Nairn0
and... ta-daa!
*thread ends.
- FrdmOfSpch0
how about i really dont give a shit if there is or isn't a sentient creator,
and i think this whole cult of jesus is facile?