The inaugural episode of #ThePoetryOfReality is finally here! Join me & Ricky Gervais, actor, writer, irreverent comedian & poignant tragedian. CFI gave him the 2019 Richard Dawkins Award. Then I had an on-stage conversation with him & Richard Wiseman, psychologist, comedian & conjuror.
A disturbing 1995 prediction by Carl Sagan accurately describes America today
Here’s what the inimitable Carl Sagan wrote:
“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”
This is just another version of religious people demanding atheists to prove that there is no god...
Just like the existence of a god, the re-existence after dead, both are huge unproved claims. On the contrary, the claims that there is no such thing as a god and that after death we will never exist again are the simplest and most logical arguments which will be true, as long as there’s no contradictory evidence.
If you’re religious or not has nothing to do with the content of my reply. I was just stating that there are many religious people who are using the same argument that you brought up.
And the reasoning why this argument is twisted and actually must be applied the other way round is absolutely not based on a “faith based ideology” but rather on logic and objectivity.
You write, "On the contrary, the claims that there is no such thing as a god and that after death we will never exist again are the simplest and most logical arguments which will be true, as long as there’s no contradictory evidence."
You don't automatically win because theists have failed to prove their claims.
If you wish to make a HUGE!!! claim, you bear the burden for your claim, just as theists bear the burden for theirs. Reason doesn't equal one rule for you, and another rule for theist.
Like SO MANY Internet atheists, you've confused reason with ideology.
The scientific way of reasoning is exactly there for being able to distinguish between claims that arise out of the limitless imagination and projection capabilities of the human brain and arguments and facts that describe the objective reality we all live in.
So, if I understand you correctly, you still think it’s a “huge claim” that there is no existence after death... But obviously it’s just the other way round: To argue that something does not exist that someone else claimed without evidence or even derived circumstantial evidence, is not a “huge claim”. The claims of a god or a life after death are the huge claims that have no scientific or logical basis at all.
How do you intend to produce facts about death when we have exactly no data from that realm? All the data we have about death is from this side of the life/death divide, such as examining dead bodies.
Yes, the scientific way of reasoning provides facts about the objective reality we all LIVE in. But the reality we all live in is not what's under consideration in the case of death.
We agree that religious claims are unproven. That doesn't automatically make your claims correct. Leaping from one to the other is not reason.
I'm sure you are sincere in your beliefs, and you are of course entitled to them. But what you (along with zillions of others) are attempting to do is establish one standard for religious claims, and another lower standard for atheist claims. That's NOT reason. That's ideology.
The reason so many online atheists are trying to rig the debate in their favor is that they are ideologists, and their bottom line goal is victory. Reason doesn't care who wins. Ideology cares about little else.
A person of reason would say, nobody has proven any of these claims, therefore we don't know. Ideologists of all flavors hate such uncertainty, because it denies them the victory that they seek.
It is so refreshing to engage in a conversation about atheism with informed thinkers. Thank you Richard Dawkins 🙏. I do hope in future posts you might explore the insidious way religion subjugates women... and in a way that helps my cohort see how upholding the scriptures further enslaves us.
This is a four hour series which takes us in to a big tribe of chimps living in the Ugandan jungle. Very well done. The relevant point here is that the subjugation of women began LONG before religion was invented, millions of years before we were even human.
A disturbing 1995 prediction by Carl Sagan accurately describes America today
Here’s what the inimitable Carl Sagan wrote:
“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”
https://bigthink.com/hard-science/a-prophetic-1995-quote-from-carl-sagan-perfectly-describes-america-of-today/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR3sIhzpuvcK9LL8_kwOdJgAoJvvRQz4ijrMrjKW-au_Ja_gLqdBoVepxeg_aem_AQxaq8wOePevFHFtm6r8iQs3qjAknQauos0RcsFBlTXGIvkUT6ilJXJbnmy9er7N_Lk&mibextid=Zxz2cZ#Echobox=1688011225
awh
I was looking forward to an essay with this title :)
loves me some Ricky Gervais... thanks Richard 🙏🏼
SO thrilled to have you back in the public eye! We’ve missed you over here across the pond! We need your brilliance now more than ever! Cheers!!!!!
It's claimed in the video....
"And then we die, never to exist again."
Huge claim + No proof = Faith. Which in the context of the Dawkins realm equals...
Heresy.
This is just another version of religious people demanding atheists to prove that there is no god...
Just like the existence of a god, the re-existence after dead, both are huge unproved claims. On the contrary, the claims that there is no such thing as a god and that after death we will never exist again are the simplest and most logical arguments which will be true, as long as there’s no contradictory evidence.
1) I'm not religious
2) I didn't demand anything
3) I respectfully decline to join your faith based ideology.
If you’re religious or not has nothing to do with the content of my reply. I was just stating that there are many religious people who are using the same argument that you brought up.
And the reasoning why this argument is twisted and actually must be applied the other way round is absolutely not based on a “faith based ideology” but rather on logic and objectivity.
You write, "On the contrary, the claims that there is no such thing as a god and that after death we will never exist again are the simplest and most logical arguments which will be true, as long as there’s no contradictory evidence."
You don't automatically win because theists have failed to prove their claims.
If you wish to make a HUGE!!! claim, you bear the burden for your claim, just as theists bear the burden for theirs. Reason doesn't equal one rule for you, and another rule for theist.
Like SO MANY Internet atheists, you've confused reason with ideology.
The scientific way of reasoning is exactly there for being able to distinguish between claims that arise out of the limitless imagination and projection capabilities of the human brain and arguments and facts that describe the objective reality we all live in.
So, if I understand you correctly, you still think it’s a “huge claim” that there is no existence after death... But obviously it’s just the other way round: To argue that something does not exist that someone else claimed without evidence or even derived circumstantial evidence, is not a “huge claim”. The claims of a god or a life after death are the huge claims that have no scientific or logical basis at all.
How do you intend to produce facts about death when we have exactly no data from that realm? All the data we have about death is from this side of the life/death divide, such as examining dead bodies.
Yes, the scientific way of reasoning provides facts about the objective reality we all LIVE in. But the reality we all live in is not what's under consideration in the case of death.
We agree that religious claims are unproven. That doesn't automatically make your claims correct. Leaping from one to the other is not reason.
I'm sure you are sincere in your beliefs, and you are of course entitled to them. But what you (along with zillions of others) are attempting to do is establish one standard for religious claims, and another lower standard for atheist claims. That's NOT reason. That's ideology.
The reason so many online atheists are trying to rig the debate in their favor is that they are ideologists, and their bottom line goal is victory. Reason doesn't care who wins. Ideology cares about little else.
A person of reason would say, nobody has proven any of these claims, therefore we don't know. Ideologists of all flavors hate such uncertainty, because it denies them the victory that they seek.
It is so refreshing to engage in a conversation about atheism with informed thinkers. Thank you Richard Dawkins 🙏. I do hope in future posts you might explore the insidious way religion subjugates women... and in a way that helps my cohort see how upholding the scriptures further enslaves us.
Here's one solution to the subjugation of women, 14 pages, no religion included.
https://www.tannytalk.com/p/world-peace-table-of-contents
Another perhaps better take on the subject can be found in the excellent Netflix documentary Chimp Empire.
https://www.netflix.com/title/81311783
This is a four hour series which takes us in to a big tribe of chimps living in the Ugandan jungle. Very well done. The relevant point here is that the subjugation of women began LONG before religion was invented, millions of years before we were even human.
30 seconds in - hang on a mo, "public feed"? Hope you are true to your word in the next episode and we get the show a week earlier than the plebeians!