# The Dawkins Delusion



## Scott (Sep 26, 2006)

The Dawkins Delusion by Al Mohler


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## RamistThomist (Sep 26, 2006)

Mohler is a champion.


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## Ivan (Sep 26, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Draught Horse_
> Mohler is a champion.



...and a Southern Baptist.


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## Ivan (Sep 26, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Paul manata_
> 
> 
> > _Originally posted by Ivan_
> ...



It might, since he was educated in Southern Baptist institutions.


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## RamistThomist (Sep 26, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Ivan_
> 
> 
> > _Originally posted by Paul manata_
> ...



Not really, since he is most known for "un-liberalizing" Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The reason he is smart is because, beside obvious gifts, he reads a book a day.


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## crhoades (Sep 26, 2006)

I met Al Mohler in our local (good) Christian bookstore last weekend. He's tall. Actually he was very gracious. I thanked him for his willingness to engage culture through his writings. He doesn't sleep much and does like coffee - confirmed. He walked out with a huge bag full of books and commented that we have a great bookstore that he always stops by because it carries books that no-one else does.


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## BobVigneault (Sep 27, 2006)

Al Mohler's being a Southern Baptist has nothing to do with addressing the Dawkins issue. I'm sure Ivan mentioned the affiliation simply because he's a bit frustrated at watching the Baptists, in general, get slapped around a bit this week.

Their legitimacy as a church has been questioned. Furthermore, the Baptists are a minority on the PB. That is unfortunate because any debate that pits Preby's against Baptists will seem lopsided no matter how good of an argument the Baptist makes. 

So give my brother Ivan a pass here. He mean't it tongue in cheek. It's one small victory for a Baptist but around here any victory for the minority is a big deal. Ease up, ratchet down the filters, have a beer, relax.

Respectfully submitted,
Bob Vigneault - reformed Baptistarian/malformed Presbytist

PS - let's stay on topic

[Edited on 9-27-2006 by BobVigneault]


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## turmeric (Sep 27, 2006)

I'm a Presbyterian - who's Dawkins?:bigsmile:


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## caddy (Sep 27, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Ivan_
> 
> 
> > _Originally posted by Draught Horse_
> ...


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## caddy (Sep 27, 2006)

A Book a Day !





[Edited on 9-27-2006 by caddy]


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## jaybird0827 (Sep 27, 2006)

This Presbyterian got curious and decided to do a little research. From the link above --



> "I do not, by nature, thrive on confrontation," declares Richard Dawkins, the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University and one of the world's leading skeptics concerning Christianity and belief in God.
> 
> "Dawkins is well known as an intellectual adversary to all forms of religious belief--and of Christianity in particular. He is one of the world's most prolific scientists, writing books for a popular audience and addressing his strident worldview of evolutionary theory to an expanding audience. Put simply, Richard Dawkins aspires to be the 'devil's chaplain' of Darwinian evolution."


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## caddy (Sep 27, 2006)

From the Latest Issue of Sceintific America:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=12&articleID=0006559D-DF6D-150E-9D8283414B7F0000

Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, tells of his exasperation with colleagues who try to play both sides of the street: looking to science for justification of their religious convictions while evading the most difficult implications--the existence of a prime mover sophisticated enough to create and run the universe, "to say nothing of mind reading millions of humans simultaneously." Such an entity, he argues, would have to be extremely complex, raising the question of how it came into existence, how it communicates--through spiritons!--and where it resides. 

Dawkins is frequently dismissed as a bully, but he is only putting theological doctrines to the same kind of scrutiny that any scientific theory must withstand. No one who has witnessed the merciless dissection of a new paper in physics would describe the atmosphere as overly polite. 
Sagan, writing from beyond the grave (actually his new book, The Varieties of Scientific Experience, is an edited version of his 1985 Gifford Lectures), asks why, if God created the universe, he left the evidence so scant. He might have embedded Maxwell's equations in Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Ten Commandments might have been engraved on the moon. "Or why not a hundred-kilometer crucifix in Earth orbit?... Why should God be so clear in the Bible and so obscure in the world?" 


He laments what he calls a "retreat from Copernicus," a loss of nerve, an emotional regression to the idea that humanity must occupy center stage. Both Gingerich and Collins, along with most every reconciler of science and religion, invoke the anthropic principle: that the values of certain physical constants such as the charge of the electron appear to be "fine-tuned" to produce a universe hospitable to the rise of conscious, worshipful life. 
But the universe is not all that hospitable--try leaving Earth without a space-suit. Life took billions of years to take root on this planet, and it is an open question whether it made it anywhere else. To us carboniferous creatures, the dials may seem miraculously tweaked, but different physical laws might have led to universes harboring equally awe-filled forms of energy, cooking up anthropic arguments of their own. 

Editors' note: Two other noteworthy books on religion by scientists have appeared recently: E. O. Wilson's The Creation: A Meeting of Science and Religion (W. W. Norton, 2006) and Joan Roughgarden's Evolution and Christian Faith: Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist (Island Press, 2006


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## BobVigneault (Sep 27, 2006)

Everybody take note. Paul really does have his gentle side. Usually if you just grab his spiked collar and give a good yank while firmly shouting 'RELEASE' he'll let the guy up. If he doesn't, well, the poor soul probably had it coming. Good boy Paul, here's a treat.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Sep 27, 2006)

> _Originally posted by turmeric_
> I'm a Presbyterian - who's Dawkins?:bigsmile:



He was the host of Family Feud for a while and then married one of the contestants...no, wait, sorry, that's Richard _Dawson_.


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## BobVigneault (Sep 27, 2006)

That shows great maninimi,..... magnenana,..... magnonimit,....... magnenema,.... shucks, that's really nice of Paul. Thanks!


We are hopelessly off topic now. You almost brought it back on track Andrew, almost.

SURVEY SAYS!!!!!


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## Ivan (Sep 27, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Paul manata_
> Let's say that moler becomes a paedo baptist



Too funny!!


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## Scott (Sep 27, 2006)

Mohler also did amazing things for his seminary, which was very liberal when he took over. He made the professors agree to a reformed confession or leave. All but 3 ended up leaving, ridding the seminary of liberalism. He was young at the time, in his early 30s or so. He is mentioned in the current Christianity Today article on the growth of reformed theology. 

I agree with Jacob - he is a champion.


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## gregbed (Sep 27, 2006)

> From the Latest Issue of Sceintific America:
> ...Dawkins is frequently dismissed as a bully, but he is only putting theological doctrines to the same kind of scrutiny that any scientific theory must withstand.



That would be the same _Sceintific America_ that refused to publish Phillip E Johnson's rebuttal to Steven Gould's hatchet-job on his "Darwin on Trial". 
"scrutiny" my foot.

Greg


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## B.J. (Sep 27, 2006)

Dawkins is quoted as having said....

"Religion is so wasteful, so extravagant; and Darwinian selection habitually targets and eliminates waste," Dawkins explains.



With atheist being the minority, does it not stand to reason that Darwinian selection would be weeding out atheism for extinction? Dawkins should realize that even if atheism were true, it would be better to be religious and claim to have moral absolutes than to assert moral values that are meant to maintain human life. As can be seen in the Mohler article, all the "Commandments" mentioned by Dawkins are easily refuted by asking him, "Why should I listen to you meatbag?"


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