It looks like we here at Scienceblogs are not done talking about Dawkins and The God Delusion just yet. The latest skirmish, which I am about to plunge into, started with a post on Pharyngula, which was responded to at Stranger Fruit. The Stranger Fruit article, in turn, just received a counter-response at EvolutionBlog. The disagreement (this time) is over the relevance of expertise in discussions about the existance (or lack thereof) of a god or gods. PZ and Jason don't think that any sort of special expertise is needed to discuss the question of whether or not there is/are god/s. (They also doubt that it is possible for anyone to have expertise in this particular subject area.) John Lynch, on the other hand, thinks that it's a good idea to be knowledgeable in the topic area if you are going to jump into the debate.
As is often the case, my own view seems to fall somewhere between the two positions that are already out there.
As a militant agnostic, I do not think it is possible to know one way or another if god exist/s. Therefore, I do not think that it is possible for anyone to have an expert opinion on the question of whether or not god/s exist/s. For this particular question, no expertise is necessary or possible, so Dawkins lack of formal background in theology or philosophy shouldn't be held against him. For this particular question, that is.
The question of whether or not god/s exist/s, however, is not the only question Dawkins discusses in The God Delusion. Dawkins also addresses other topics, such as the various arguments that have been advanced in favor of the existance of god. The arguments in favor of gods existance have been discussed for quite some time. Rivers of ink (and in some cases blood) have been spent going back and forth over the arguments. Here, a background in theology and/or philosophy would be helpful, if only because it would provide some familiarity with the ways in which theologans and/or philosophers have answered similar responses in the past. Here, I think Dawkins does lack expertise, and I think that the expertise is very helpful, if not strictly necessary, in addressing those questions.
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Here, I think Dawkins does lack expertise, and I think that the expertise is very helpful, if not strictly necessary, in addressing those questions.
True. Then again I also felt the same way about Michael Shermer's conciliatory arguments in books like How We Believe and The Science of Good and Evil. Of course they lack the sophistication of books aimed at academic audiences, but they are good sparks to get the fire started among the fire-breathing atheists (like myself, PZ, Jason and others) and the ambivalent agnostics and more moderate believers. I wouldn't quote TGD verbatim as the be all, end all of the debate that is going on, even though I fall squarely within Dawkins' camp.
One of the implications that I think I'm reading a lot lately is that science is practiced by people with professional scientific backgrounds, but religion is practiced on an everyday basis by those with no particular education or expertise in it.
Being both a scientist and a minister, I think I carry a different view of this. There are professional and popular versions of both religion and science. Some scholars spend their entire careers exploring theology and the question (among others) of whether a god exists, and non-professionals with a variety of levels of experience and education draw their own understandings of these questions. In a similar way, other scholars spend their entire careers exploring the natural sciences and the questions that are relevant to their field, and ordinary citizens draw their own understandings of these questions. In each case, those scholars might conclude that the popular understanding of their discipline gets it right/wrong.
I find that people get frustrated by the similarities I claim between the two disciplines, but they really do seem to me to function in very similar ways. Science has its own forms of evidence and inquiry that are not always relevant to the questions of religion, and theology has its forms of evidence and inquiry (experiential and phenomenological, generally, rather than measureables) that might not work well in the world of science.
I think that the discussion would be enriched by an acknowledgement that science and religion have their experts as well as their popular practitioners.
I think comparing expertise in science to expertise in theology or philosophy or religion is a poor analogy. In science (mostly) you have tangiable tests you can use on theories. For theology, you're basing your theories on (mostly) untestable processes and ideas.
Being knowledgeable in anything makes you better equipped to understand, but IMHO a knowledge of science is much more of a necessity when going into it's fields than is a knowledge of theology or philosophy of religion when deciding ones belief in a deity. The knowledge doesn't hurt obviously but I personally don't think it matters as much.
Remember that Lynch is a philosopher. He insists on a distinction between "theology" and "philosophy of religion." He has spent so much time reading on the latter that he thinks Dawkins, et.al. ought to be required to jump through hoops in order to comment on the topic. He is the ultimate courtier.
What are the findings of this field of philosophy of religion, which has been in existence for 2.5 millenia? What convincing arguments for the existence of god(s) has Dawkins overlooked? There is curious silence on this point. If you cannot point out what Dawkins has missed, you cannot claim that he has missed anything. This ranks pretty high on the Duh scale.
This whole thing is a crazy discussion... Would people be so intense if we were discussing the existence of fairies or elves or Santa Claus?
One "unseen, unknowing, unknowable" fantasy charachter is pretty much the same as the other to me, so throw god, allah, Vishnu and Jesus into the same group, and life goes on. Period end of story. What's the big deal? "I feel like I am taking crazy pills here"! "Doesn't anyone else see it? He's only got one look!"
(From Will Farrel / Mogatu in Zoolander, not the bible)
Dawkins wins, all preachers are scum-scuking parasites, and anyone that believes in the Big JuJu of ANY sort is still living back in the Stone Age, IMO (with all due apologies to The Geico Neandertal).
The Emperor Has No Clothes, all you religionists. Deal with it.
J-Dog:
Don't hold back - tell us what you really think.
Disclosure: I happen to agree with you assessment, however.
I tend to agree with Friend Fruit.
I think that the main problem with Lynch, Rosenau, Brayton and others is that they're trying to argue for the legitimacy of believing something they do not believe, so upon challenge for their reasoning it's bound to sound unconvincing. We need more actual religionists in this debate.
As has been said a million times before, you don't need to be able to cast a horoscope to knock astrology.
As for the claim that in order to discuss the philosophical arguments for god's existance you must be a good philosopher, I think this too is off the mark. The arguments for god's existance have been around for quite a while and the replies have been as well. Long enough to be distilled into the kind of simple logic that any 5th grader can understand.
The point that everyone who gives the courtiers reply is missing is that it's the QUESTION that recieves the focus and not the study of philosophy (or theology, but I don't give it the same credit as philosophy, if I give it any at all.) as a whole. So while philosophy may be a deep and nuanced discipline, the question that "there are two pizza's one is cheese and one peperonni, you open your box and see cheese, what is the other pizza?" is not hard at all. And to give it a sophisticated answer would be like killing an ant with a magnum. You'd also look pretty silly doing so.
The "Common Arguments For god's Existance" are just the same. They may have been mental feats when they were first thought up, but now they're so damn common that even kids can disprove them. So in the end if Dawkins really is the philosophical and theological toddler that his critics claim he is, it still doesn't matter. He doesn't need to be sophisticated, he only needs to show it's wrong. And that is exactly what he's done.