Originally posted by: Codewiz
Originally posted by: Tom
Originally posted by: Codewiz
Originally posted by: Seekermeister
Codewiz,
Head to B&N and read it. It is a quick and easy read......
If it is so quick and easy, then how do you account for the validity that you attribute to it? I mean, the subject is not one that can be dealt with in such a perfunctory fashion.
Dawkins writing style is EASY to read. As for quick. It is only around 300 pages which I consider short.......
All that has nothing to do with the fact that what he points out is SCIENTIFICALLY correct whether you want to "believe" in the science or not.
This book is not about science..or believing in science.
Believing in science is not the opposite of belief in god(s), one has absolutely nothing to do with the other. The same is true for atheism, it has nothing to do with science.
science tries to explain how the universe works, not why it works that way. It's possible there is no 'why', but science doesn't have any application in deciding that.
btw- by 'universe', i don't mean the heavens, I mean everything, from gravity to human emotion.
Dawkins addresses this also. You say science doesn't address "why". That is a limit you put on it. You say "why" is the area of religion. Why do you believe that way?
If you understand what science is, then it's obvious it cannot give us the why of things. I did not say that religion can tell us the answer of why, all it does is the same thing Dawkins does, profess to have some insight into the answer, and each of us is free to accept it or reject it. Each person has their own opinion about the 'why' of things. And we look for our own answer in lots of places other than science or religion; family, friends, work, love, the acts of others.
My personal problem with Dawkins is, I happen to believe in science too, but I think I understand it's limitations, and it annoys me when someone tries to overstate the value of science. The real value of science is amazing, it doesn't need to have that value inflated and twisted, and ultimately diminished.
And, I don't happen to place all that much value on words or deeds that serve no purpose, which is the way I feel about Dawkins and many religions.
My own personal answer to the 'why' question comes more from seeing firemen rushing into burning buildings, my son signing up for the Marines the day after 9/11, the intellect of someone like Martin Luther King or Albert Einstein, the beauty of calculus or my wife's eyes.
edit- btw, I know what Dawkin's "addresses", unless someone is a believer in the rightness of him, "addressing" something isn't the last word on the subject.