I know that casting a horoscope involves checking the positions of the planets at the time of birth (or other significant time) and predicting characters and events based on those positions. Is that not enough information to test whether there is any merit to astrology, or do you think it is necessary to understand the various methods of casting horoscopes?
(To put it another way - can you not demonstrate that there is no possible way to get from a set of inputs to a desired output, even without testing some particular operations which are said to do the trick?)
No, I don't think so. Just saying "I can't think of a way in which input A could possibly lead to output B" invites the response "Well, there may be forces out there which you don't understand." An example that occurs to me is continental drift, which we believe happens because of empirical evidence that it does, but whose operations are not well understood.
It's not enough to say "the positions of the planets can't possibly have any effect on our destiny, because it's a silly idea to suggest that they do." You have to be able to show that predictions made by astrology are wrong, or inconsistent, or unfalsifiable.
But to point out that the predictions made by astrology are wrong and inconsistent doesn't require that you know how to cast a horoscope yourself. All you have to do is survey the horoscopes that other people have cast. If they respond that there's this new method of casting horoscopes, that uses forces that you couldn't understand and could never detect, then you tell them to stop being so silly.
I would encourage you to read the book, it is very good, although i would say aimed at a the American audience. To say that Dawkins doesn't address theological issues would be a gross misunderstanding of what Dawkins is trying to achieve. If you can offer up good arguments for the non-existence of God without having to get involved in theological debate then why not. I would say it would be a lot like offering massive evidence that the Emperor is not wearing any clothes, any been rebutted with 'You have no experience in clothes manufacture of this kind and can not appreciate it properly.' But if the entire underlying concept is bunk then why study obscure points based of its premise?
Anyhow I digress, Dawkins book aims to provide a scientific debunking of a personal God, and to that he does an excellent job, it is not a theological argument, it is a scientific one.
I would say it would be a lot like offering massive evidence that the Emperor is not wearing any clothes, any been rebutted with 'You have no experience in clothes manufacture of this kind and can not appreciate it properly.'
To me, though, it's as though he were trying to convince mathematicians that infinity can't exist, since 'surely you could add one to it and get a bigger number'. He just can't grasp the concepts needed to discuss what he's discussing.
Anyhow I digress, Dawkins book aims to provide a scientific debunking of a personal God, and to that he does an excellent job, it is not a theological argument, it is a scientific one.
It's also a largely irrelevant one, since most people's belief doesn't have a scientific basis. Dawkins clearly thinks that it should, but that doesn't make it so.
I'd be less annoyed by this if Dawkins were a poor scientist, but the guy invented the meme. And yet all his scientific writing now seems to be focussed on explaining why religion is bad and wrong, which is a huge waste, in my view. I
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I've got to disagree with you there, nhw. Dawkins is engaging with the premise of theology. If he can dismiss that, then the individual variations of theology are irrelevant. The differences between Indian and European astrology (for instance) are interesting culturally and historically, but it is not necessary to understand them to reject the suggestion that astrology is worth mastering.
Having said that, to a European reader Dawkins comes across as shouting at shadows, because nobody really tries to impose theology on us over here, I think.
I disagree. Engaging with ideas is not the same as subscribing to them - it's understanding why people think they way they think, so as to better counter them. Eagleton's argument is that Dawkins fails to do this. Based on the first part of Dawkins' Channel 4 series, I'm pretty much in agreement. Dawkins isn't engaging with religion or theology - instead he constructs a straw man of what he believes religion and theology are, and proceeds to demolish it. The result is a polemic that seems underpinned by the belief that nothing good has ever come of religion, and nothing bad ever come of scientific rationalism, a belief easily countered. And as a response to the rise of intolerant dogmatic religious fundamentalism which is what seems to have motivated Dawkins, a retreat into an equally intolerant and dogmatic scientific rationalism is deeply irrational.
The question is whether or not theological beliefs are immune from criticism. If they are not immune from criticism - what is the basis on which one may criticise them? Let us then seek to use that basis to analyse them and improve or discard them.
However, it seems to me that there is no such ground of criticism which a believer will accept.
My own reaction to Eagleton's review was that I almost totally agreed with him about his specific criticisms of Dawkins but almost equally lost sympathy when he tried extending it into arguments about why atheists shouldn't engage in theology. But confirmed atheists willing to speculate about theological issues seriously can often have useful arguments to contribute
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My own reaction to Eagleton's review was that I almost totally agreed with him about his specific criticisms of Dawkins but almost equally lost sympathy when he tried extending it into arguments about why atheists shouldn't engage in theology.
I didn't see him doing that, which may well be my own blindness. I'd disagree with that point of view, though (being as I am an atheist who sometimes does just that). Which bit of the review do you read as saying that?
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(To put it another way - can you not demonstrate that there is no possible way to get from a set of inputs to a desired output, even without testing some particular operations which are said to do the trick?)
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It's not enough to say "the positions of the planets can't possibly have any effect on our destiny, because it's a silly idea to suggest that they do." You have to be able to show that predictions made by astrology are wrong, or inconsistent, or unfalsifiable.
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Anyhow I digress, Dawkins book aims to provide a scientific debunking of a personal God, and to that he does an excellent job, it is not a theological argument, it is a scientific one.
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To me, though, it's as though he were trying to convince mathematicians that infinity can't exist, since 'surely you could add one to it and get a bigger number'. He just can't grasp the concepts needed to discuss what he's discussing.
Anyhow I digress, Dawkins book aims to provide a scientific debunking of a personal God, and to that he does an excellent job, it is not a theological argument, it is a scientific one.
It's also a largely irrelevant one, since most people's belief doesn't have a scientific basis. Dawkins clearly thinks that it should, but that doesn't make it so.
I'd be less annoyed by this if Dawkins were a poor scientist, but the guy invented the meme. And yet all his scientific writing now seems to be focussed on explaining why religion is bad and wrong, which is a huge waste, in my view. I ( ... )
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Having said that, to a European reader Dawkins comes across as shouting at shadows, because nobody really tries to impose theology on us over here, I think.
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However, it seems to me that there is no such ground of criticism which a believer will accept.
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I didn't see him doing that, which may well be my own blindness. I'd disagree with that point of view, though (being as I am an atheist who sometimes does just that). Which bit of the review do you read as saying that?
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Well, this theist (here via djm4) finds it quite intriguing and wasn't previously aware that Stross had written on it, so thank you :-)
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