Search results
Mar 28, 2007 · Embed. In his most recent book, British scientist Richard Dawkins writes about the irrationality of a belief in God, examines God in all his forms and sets down his arguments for atheism. The book ...
The God Delusion is a 2006 book by British evolutionary biologist and ethologist Richard Dawkins.In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator, God, almost certainly does not exist, and that belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence.
- Richard Dawkins
- 2006
- The First Three Proofs
- Types of Causation
- The Fourth Proof
- The Fifth Proof
- Divine Attributes
- Answering Dawkins with Thomas
- The Real Vacuity
Dawkins’s response to Thomas’s first three proofs begins with the claim that, “[they] are just different ways of saying the same thing.” It is true each proof ends with the conclusion that God as the ultimate cause of the world exists, but they do not reach this conclusion in the same way. The first one, or the argument from motion, proceeds from t...
An accidentally ordered series of causes is one in which one independent object interacts with another independent object and causes it to move or change, similar to a series of dominos falling one after another. These changes take place over a period of time, whether short or long. Dye, for example, is applied to hair, and after a few minutes it c...
In the fourth proof, the argument from degrees of being, Thomas argues from the idea that there is a great chain of being in which creatures become more perfect. For example: rocks, then animals, then man, then angels, and so forth. But if this chain is to be meaningful, there must be a perfect being, or what we call God. A modern understanding of ...
Thomas begins his fifth proof by talking about things that lack intelligence but which routinely act for an end that is good. The Latin text that is often translated as ‘designedly’ in the fifth way is ex intentione, which, in other passages, Thomas identifies with the natural inclinations of non-intelligent things. Since these things lack intellig...
Dawkins also thinks that he can undermine Thomas’s proofs by claiming they are non-sequiturs, or that the conclusion of God’s existence does not follow from the premises in the arguments. He writes: Even if we allow the dubious luxury of arbitrarily conjuring up a terminator to an infinite regress and giving it a name, simply because we need one, t...
So we’ve seen that Dawkins has not undermined the evidence for the existence God in his supposed refutations of St. Thomas’s Five Ways. But there is something else Dawkins has failed to do in The God Delusion. In what he calls his “central argument” Dawkins says that the popular design argument for God actually refutes God’s existence because if th...
So what have we learned? First, Dawkins “central argument” against God doesn’t work because it’s not even addressing the strongest, most logical conception of God that is believed by theists like St. Thomas Aquinas. His objections to the theistic arguments in favor of God also suffer from similar misunderstandings and logical gaps. Dawkins erroneou...
May 18, 2016 · GOD AND HIS EXISTENCE. Dawkins fails to prove God does not exist as asserted, and, therefore, fails to prove the God of the Bible is a delusion. In his preface Dawkins urges atheists to come out of the closet. He says they need to realize they can live happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled lives and so be proud to be atheists.
Apr 12, 2012 · The real problem here, obviously, is Dawkins's naturalism, his belief that there is no such person as God or anyone like God. That is because naturalism implies that evolution is unguided.
In this sense, atheism is a belief that can facilitate and ground other beliefs, in the name of which violence can be committed. Dawkins argues, “I do not believe there is an atheist in the world who would bulldoze Mecca–or Chartres, York Minster, or Notre Dame” (italics mine) (249). In reality, Marxism is an atheist ideology for which ...
People also ask
Is Dawkins an atheist or agnostic?
What does Richard Dawkins say about God?
Who is Richard Dawkins?
Why does Dawkins say there is no God?
What are Dawkins' false arguments?
Does Dawkins believe in evolution?
May 21, 2018 · About twelve years ago evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins published The God Delusion. It has had a huge impact. As Dawkins Australian tour continues, it seems a good time to return to the book. Critics have said it’s a book stronger on rhetoric than substantive arguments. While this may be the case, it is only fair to assess his book on his own terms, namely as a case for theism being a ...
