Richard Dawkins claims “psycho” cyclist smashed up his Tesla – while he was in it

hawkinspeter wrote:

Yes, I meant other denominations - I'm mentioning them as I tend to think of religions as huge varied group and even within denominations there will be many different opinions held ("we're all different"). I didn't mean to imply that you were somehow spokesperson for all religions, but the discussion was about different belief systems and not just Christianity.

Where I live in Bristol, we've got the Bethel United Church (very lively singing and dancing from when I've gone past), the Bethesda Methodist Church further down the road, St Marina Coptic Church, St Patrick's Catholic Church, Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha (Sikh), Gurdwara Nirman Sewak Jatha (Sikh) and The Hindu Temple all within 5 minutes walk, so I'm used to thinking in terms of other religions and not just Christianity. It's quite fun when the Sikhs have a procession as they pretty much block the A420 (Church Rd) for an hour or so as they march barefoot along it and back again whilst playing drums etc.

Another picture to show some environmental concern from them:

Yes we are quite a varied bunch, and the world is a better place for it. However when looking for an orthodox point of view I think it is better to look to the large establishments (even if one doesn't agree with their orthodoxy - as is case for me on many points). 

hawkinspeter wrote:

[...]

Where I live in Bristol, we've got the Bethel United Church (very lively singing and dancing from when I've gone past), the Bethesda Methodist Church further down the road, St Marina Coptic Church, St Patrick's Catholic Church, Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha (Sikh), Gurdwara Nirman Sewak Jatha (Sikh) and The Hindu Temple all within 5 minutes walk, so I'm used to thinking in terms of other religions and not just Christianity. It's quite fun when the Sikhs have a procession as they pretty much block the A420 (Church Rd) for an hour or so as they march barefoot along it and back again whilst playing drums etc.

Another picture to show some environmental concern from them:

Environmental concern? They're BLOCKING THE ROAD! That causes pollution! They're not even going somewhere! How will the ambulances get through if we let these minorities with their highly visible clothing and special headgear dictate to ordinary motorists?

chrisonatrike wrote:

Environmental concern? They're BLOCKING THE ROAD! That causes pollution! They're not even going somewhere! How will the ambulances get through if we let these minorities with their highly visible clothing and special headgear dictate to ordinary motorists?

Next you'll be complaining about their swords

hawkinspeter wrote:

chrisonatrike wrote:

Environmental concern? They're BLOCKING THE ROAD! That causes pollution! They're not even going somewhere! How will the ambulances get through if we let these minorities with their highly visible clothing and special headgear dictate to ordinary motorists?

Next you'll be complaining about their swords

*gabbles* did I say anything about swords I've no problems with swords I've always liked swordsmen...

iandusud wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

I vaguely remember reading a sci-fi story where a particular planet was given a "holy" book from some other advanced alien race and it contained amongst the religion, some verifiable scientific knowledge that was clearly beyond what the target planet had achieved. That is what I'd like to see come from a supreme being - cold hard facts. Imagine if a bible contained atomic weights or some basic quantum theory - things that made definite predictions that could be falsified with sufficient tech.

How you understand "cold hard facts" and how someone else would might be very different. You clearly have a world view that is dependent facts that can be observed or measured according to certain set of "scientific" criteria. And that is a very common post enlightenment world view in western culture. It isn't however the only world view. There are many who look at, and experience, nature and would see that as "cold hard facts" that point to a creator. This is particularly true of many indigenous peoples who, many would argue in the light of what damage the results of the enlightenment have brought upon the planet, have had a better understanding and relationship to the earth (creation, as they would see it) than we in the enlightened west. You may not hold their world view but it would be very unreasonable, IMO, to dismiss it.

The enlightenment has clearly had huge beneficial effects on society but I fear that we have thrown out the baby with the bath water.

Definitely time to head to the cafe stop with this discussion, it's grown legs (not wheels).

On the enlightenment the normal gag would be to reuse a quip like "I think it would be a good idea" or "it's too early to tell".

Actually although the enlightenment is certainly associated with increased critical discussion of religion such criticism was not new. Indeed the Greeks were at it (they normally were). Nor did religion disappear in the nineteenth century (sometimes given as an end date for the enlightenment period). And as far as indigenous peoples are concerned they had been on the receiving end of it for centuries if not millenia before. The poxes and conquistadors were already in the Americas decimating the population. The latter in the name of god and the king, naturally. That encounter certainly changed the world-view of the peoples there. (Catholicism in the Americas was changed by the local cultures to a degree also). It also didn't do great things for the environment. Further back it seems our indigenous UK hunter-gatherers and likely their religions were largely replaced by neolithic farmers, who were themselves replaced in turn after a few thousand years by new groups from the continent (exactly what / how this happened is still nicely speculative though).

Looking at history religious organisations are intricately tied up with states and governments. Encounters with other cultures were driven by political, economic and religious factors - normally mixed. Cultural change - more or less profound - resulted. Can you pick apart the "religious" - as a "good" - from the other factors? Missionaries often arrived with not just the goods but the broader ideas of the sponsor culture. Who gets to pick out the beneficial changes in world view - the road.ccs from the worthless bikebiz and bikeradars or harmful dailymail onlines - of these cultural transfers? But maybe the missionaries' more effective medicines more than compensated for the loss of jobs for the local religio-medio experts? Then what about the violence brought about by the power vacuum that followed...?

Have we lost the intimacy of connection with the natural world? Yes. That's why we go bikepacking. Is this loss of connection a cause of some of our issues of pollution and overutilisation? Maybe. Could religion be an antidote to that? Religion as an organising force accompanied us up to and indeed into the modern age. As an such an organising force it might hope to contribute towards keeping people in check, or giving us empathetic understanding of our situation. Alternatively - we could note that as science and technology have magnified the effects humans can have on the earth they also give us a clearer reckoning of those effects. They could also give us a sense of perspective.

chrisonatrike wrote:

.....

Definitely time to head to the cafe stop with this discussion, it's grown legs (not wheels).

....

That's evolution for you.....

chrisonatrike wrote:

Agreed - but even pure mathematicians have to take some things on trust - and undoubtedly did so before even though they shouldn't. There are also certain conjectures which are widely "believed" to the extent of "speculative maths" e.g. "Given the Riemann hypothesis holds true, then..." I don't know whether that's done cheerfully or with a certain foreboding though.

I think both vagueness and inconsistency are features. Vagueness saves you creating yet more myth which you may need to maintain. Also it may help when the religion is competing for different populations.  If you've flexibility to fit some of their existing theories in then the process is easier.

There's a whole can of worms about computer-assisted proofs and how to verify them, but they can be refuted if someone finds a counter-example. As far as speculative maths go, it's perfectly fine to build on top of an assumption (that a particular theorem is true) and then see what results that would lead to and certainly any subsequent inconsistency would disprove that assumption. Of course, since Gödel we now know that any formal system that is complex enough will contain true statements that cannot be proven (or disproved) in that system, so there's plenty of grey areas of knowledge. In some sense, all maths is speculative, but bizarrely a lot of it applies really well to the real world.

Edit: Just found a fun-fact here that if the home countries of the British Isles gain independence, then four colours won't be sufficient to colour the maps.

hawkinspeter wrote:

Edit: Just found a fun-fact here that if the home countries of the British Isles gain independence, then four colours won't be sufficient to colour the maps.

If the home countries gain independence (or the Home Counties get expelled is how I like to think of it) then we'll need more colours than show below. Not just for the flags (which I think could do with a makeover, a la South Africa or Seychelles) but also to accurately render the faces of a sizeable fraction of the political classes.

Quote:

Definitions of faith

Of course one of the problems is that all organisations making use of this term reserve the right to define it for themselves! It would seem to be a pretty fundamental feature of religious behaviour - the more so the larger the "religion". Although at some point the focus may change from orthodoxy to orthopraxy anyone e.g. "professing the faith is most important - who can tell what they really believe?". The importance of believe or faith probably originates in simpler underlying human traits ("You don't believe me?" / "You don't trust me?" -> "He doesn't believe in me" etc.)

Under the influence of Daniel Dennett (who likes sailing - I'm not sure about bikes) I tend to go with a definition of faith in the religious context as a combination of a costly signal and an outsourcing of (moral) decision-making. The latter can be summarised by "I can't know / it doesn't seem possible but my religious specialists says it's so, so I believe". The former is a way of demonstrating - to those who may not know you intimately - your willingness to cooperate in tasks which may require everyone "cooperates" e.g. shares costs / displays altruistic behaviour towards others in the group.

Like many philosophers he's full of them so you should beware, but another quip of his on the subject is that one task of those outside religion is of practicing moral first aid - what you do before the doctor of moral philosophy gets here.

iandusud wrote:

Many in the scientific community find atheism irrational from a scientific point of view. This was certainly true of Einstein. Agnosticism is a much more rational point of view for scientist, who by nature should have an open mind.

I disagree about the rational/logical comparison of agnosticism and atheism. It's really a choice about what the individual thinks is plausible. My problem with agnosticism is that it's too "open minded" in that it opens the door to saying that invisible pink unicorns may exist, but you're unsure. Atheism is in some sense more logical in only admitting phenomena that have some minimal level of evidence, so as an atheist I can declare that invisible pink unicorns do not exist (c.f. Russells' Teapot). This also relates to "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof".

I agree about science and religion not necessarily being at odds (apart from historic tussles about heliocentrism etc.) as they're more orthogonal. Religions don't make testable predictions and reported experiences aren't repeatable, so science can't really say anything about religion except that the scientific method doesn't apply to it.

hawkinspeter wrote:

iandusud wrote:

Many in the scientific community find atheism irrational from a scientific point of view. This was certainly true of Einstein. Agnosticism is a much more rational point of view for scientist, who by nature should have an open mind.

I disagree about the rational/logical comparison of agnosticism and atheism. It's really a choice about what the individual thinks is plausible. My problem with agnosticism is that it's too "open minded" in that it opens the door to saying that invisible pink unicorns may exist, but you're unsure. Atheism is in some sense more logical in only admitting phenomena that have some minimal level of evidence, so as an atheist I can declare that invisible pink unicorns do not exist (c.f. Russells' Teapot). This also relates to "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof".

I agree about science and religion not necessarily being at odds (apart from historic tussles about heliocentrism etc.) as they're more orthogonal. Religions don't make testable predictions and reported experiences aren't repeatable, so science can't really say anything about religion except that the scientific method doesn't apply to it.

I agree that just because there is no evidence for invisible pink unicorns it is not a reason to be "agnostic" on the matter. But I don't believe that scientists who openly adopt an agnostic position do so on that basis. Generally it is because they genuinely believe that there is reasonable cause to not rule out the posibility. 

I also agree that you can't apply scientific method (or at least not scientific method by itself) to the question of the existance of a creator god. But I would suggest that scientific method is not the only reasonable world view. Many cultures across the world see it through a completely different lens and I don't believe their point of view invalid and it would be exremely patronising to suggest it is.

BTW I find it hard to believe that you check the construction of every chair that you sit on for the first time

iandusud wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

iandusud wrote:

Many in the scientific community find atheism irrational from a scientific point of view. This was certainly true of Einstein. Agnosticism is a much more rational point of view for scientist, who by nature should have an open mind.

I disagree about the rational/logical comparison of agnosticism and atheism. It's really a choice about what the individual thinks is plausible. My problem with agnosticism is that it's too "open minded" in that it opens the door to saying that invisible pink unicorns may exist, but you're unsure. Atheism is in some sense more logical in only admitting phenomena that have some minimal level of evidence, so as an atheist I can declare that invisible pink unicorns do not exist (c.f. Russells' Teapot). This also relates to "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof".

I agree about science and religion not necessarily being at odds (apart from historic tussles about heliocentrism etc.) as they're more orthogonal. Religions don't make testable predictions and reported experiences aren't repeatable, so science can't really say anything about religion except that the scientific method doesn't apply to it.

I agree that just because there is no evidence for invisible pink unicorns it is not a reason to be "agnostic" on the matter. But I don't believe that scientists who openly adopt an agnostic position do so on that basis. Generally it is because they genuinely believe that there is reasonable cause to not rule out the posibility. 

I also agree that you can't apply scientific method (or at least not scientific method by itself) to the question of the existance of a creator god. But I would suggest that scientific method is not the only reasonable world view. Many cultures across the world see it through a completely different lens and I don't believe their point of view invalid and it would be exremely patronising to suggest it is.

BTW I find it hard to believe that you check the construction of every chair that you sit on for the first time

I suspect that for many "agnosticism" is less about "open-mindedness" and more of a political choice not to engage in someone else's fraught debate. It's setting aside a question (questions) which doesn't appear immediately relevant to the task(s) in hand for you. Or simply not adopting certain bases / axioms (or their converse) as a given for reasoning from.

Such "angosticism" - if it is that - is opting not to pick one of the many sides in a fight which is sometimes lethal. Although in practice that seldom spares the agnostic that fate. Not that this should necessarily be a goal, death being a given anyway, but given the variety in - or rather the hair-splitting within - "major world religions" e.g. those big enough to have acquired state support and / or armed force I have no confidence that picking any side would avoid the millitant end of a "faith".

I think it's possible to form an intellectually principled and indeed moral view which doesn't directly address certain questions. Offhand I think that Albert Camus would be an example. Apologies, I don't have a picture of him on a bike. Of course to the theist he would be an atheist but I believe he didn't push towards a resolution of that question (so less like e.g. Sarte). He certainly engaged in moral questions and indeed did so with some Christian communities - apparently worthwhile to both sides.

I appreciate it is important - again sometimes lethally so - to the apologists both pro and anti to resolve certain questions. This is the fundamentally political aspect of religions we have heard of - the organisation of large groups of people. After all, "whoever is not for us is against us" or variants is common in many "faiths" and plenty of "atheist" ideologies all over the political rainbow-multisphere. However although there's no escaping from the way the world actually is ("God, save me from your followers") I'd note that - like a survey - those questions are normally framed by others. The themes addressed may have commonality across cultures but they are not entirely free-floating...

You may personally be (relatively) liberal in your Christianity, and know many others who are, but in that case I think you'd be surprised at quite how many modern Christians do take a simplistic and literal interpretation of biblical theology. And they are the most visible ones, the most vocal ones, and the ones growing in number.

To many, if not most, modern Christians, I'm afraid that science in general (and evolution in particular) are considered to be in no way compatible with their faith.

brooksby wrote:

You may personally be (relatively) liberal in your Christianity, and know many others who are, but in that case I think you'd be surprised at quite how many modern Christians do take a simplistic and literal interpretation of biblical theology. And they are the most visible ones, the most vocal ones, and the ones growing in number.

To many, if not most, modern Christians, I'm afraid that science in general (and evolution in particular) are considered to be in no way compatible with their faith.

Agreed - but I think there's an even bigger question here. To what extent do both believers and non-believers (throw in scientists wherever) actually believe in what they profess, or think they do? Essentially are you that you consider yourself to be - do you even think (operate) the way you think (introspect) you do?

Is not a more fundamental deception the one in which we think we adhere to certain beliefs / rules (or "make rational choices based on reasoning from evidence") - but we're actually chimpanzees? Remarkable chimpanzees, true - and there is something "new under the sun" in humans since we have vastly expanded our capacities for self-modification when we acquired language (or vice-versa but that's for another forum). It's like self-referential self-modifying "software". Which we can now install via visual / voice transfer from others and more recently print / screen...

...But when you consider what can happen to the "competent and careful driver" with training / skills (clean licence for 40 years), beliefs in the value of life and rationality when confronted with a cyclist at the wrong moment...

brooksby wrote:

You may personally be (relatively) liberal in your Christianity, and know many others who are, but in that case I think you'd be surprised at quite how many modern Christians do take a simplistic and literal interpretation of biblical theology. And they are the most visible ones, the most vocal ones, and the ones growing in number.

To many, if not most, modern Christians, I'm afraid that science in general (and evolution in particular) are considered to be in no way compatible with their faith.

 

Hi, sorry for the late reply. I would consider myself to be more conservative in my Christianity, although by no means extreme (extremism is not a good thing). I'm not at all surprised at how many modern Christians take a simplistic and literal interpretation of biblical theology - it is sadly true, but they don't represent by any means the majority (certainly not in the UK, although in other countries, notably where Calvinism has greatly influenced theological thinking they will be more numerous). They do not represent contempory, or even for that matter and maybe more importantly 1st, 2nd and 3rd century theology. It is however unreasonable to expect ordinary Christians to have a good hold on theology and science just as it is unreasonable to expect ordinary non-Christians to have a good hold on science and theology. It is for this reason that I hold prominant scientists and prominant Christians to account when they pass off opinion as fact. They do everyone a disservice because you then get people saying "science and religion are incompatible" just because they heard an eminent scientist say it and therefore believe to be fact. Likewise you get Christians who say "science has got it wrong and the world was formed in 6 days".

I must take issue with your last statement. I have been regularly mixing in Christian circles of all flavours for five decades and I would say that those who consider science to be incompatible with their faith to be a tiny minority. As for evolution likewise only a fool would deny it - the evidence is there to see and it is wonderful. But it is in no way incompaltible with the Christian faith unless you are one of the tiny minority who believe in a 6 day creation. Please don't think that Christian don't have brain

iandusud wrote:

No not at all. But his "anti-God science" is an embarasment to the scientific community. 

Given his impressive palmares of awards, honorary degrees and prestigious academic appointments, I'd say the scientific community isn't that embarrassed by him.

Rendel Harris wrote:

.....

Given his impressive palmares of awards, honorary degrees and prestigious academic appointments, I'd say the scientific community isn't that embarrassed by him.

JC Rendel, next you'll be calling him things like "top tier scientist".......

iandusud wrote:

No not at all. But his "anti-God science" is an embarasment to the scientific community. 

How so?

There's plenty of religious and atheist scientists, but the whole point of the scientific method is to reduce and eliminate personal biases from the experimental results (hence double-blind trials) as people are incredibly good at fooling themselves.

I was about to write something about the clash between the Catholic church and heliocentrism, but just fell down a rabbit-hole when I found out that the idea dates back as far as the Indian philosopher Yajnavalkya (9th Century BCE).

iandusud wrote:

Captain Badger wrote:

iandusud wrote:

....

This is also true of his so called science.

Ooo, an evolution denier? 

I'll just go and put some popcorn on....

No not at all. But his "anti-God science" is an embarasment to the scientific community. 

Kindly define "anti-God science" for the class, please.

brooksby wrote:

.....

Kindly define "anti-God science" for the class, please.

It's a cutting edge branch of theoretical atheism. It's quite high risk stuff actually, the initiation ritual alone involves standing on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards!” 

Typically its adherents (those that survive) spend a lot of time glaring suspiciously at the acolytes of "pro-gods science"

(posted with one very reverent nod to Terry P)

Captain Badger wrote:

brooksby wrote:

.....

Kindly define "anti-God science" for the class, please.

It's a cutting edge branch of theoretical atheism. It's quite high risk stuff actually, the initiation ritual alone involves standing on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards!” 

Typically its adherents (those that survive) spend a lot of time glaring suspiciously at the acolytes of "pro-gods science"

(posted with one very reverent nod to Terry P)

Captain Badger's charming quote of Pratchett aside, "anti-God science" is the current scientific consensus among memeticists after centuries of "pro-God science" and hermeneutics lead to logical contradictions and an unmanageable canon of scriptures. Current active areas of study include questions such as "did man make god in his own image or was it aliens?" and "if man made god in his own image why does god always look so funny?"

iandusud wrote:

Daveyraveygravey wrote:

Mr Hawkins version of events seems very one-sided 🤔🙄

This is also true of his so called science.

No, you're thinking of the late physicist Stephen Hawking and his wacky evaporating black holes

It also with noting there are some random nut jobs driving around in cars

Would that be the Pimlico plumbers' Rolls Royce? Did someone later identify the "cyclist" being an employee?

Nope it was the nutter on a bike who attacked another cyclist with a dlock..

https://road.cc/content/news/video-cyclist-attacks-another-rider-londons...

My point was that often the nuttiness is irrelevant to the choice of vehicle at that point in time.  I don't subscribe to the thought all cyclists are angels and all drivers are devils, so am inclined not to form an opinion in the Dawkins case until more is known.

Secret_squirrel wrote:

Nope it was the nutter on a bike who attacked another cyclist with a dlock..

https://road.cc/content/news/video-cyclist-attacks-another-rider-londons...

My point was that often the nuttiness is irrelevant to the choice of vehicle at that point in time.  I don't subscribe to the thought all cyclists are angels and all drivers are devils, so am inclined not to form an opinion in the Dawkins case until more is known.

I'm quite happy to jump to an early opinion on this just based on why some cyclists suddenly attack vehicles and I declare that Dawkins (with whom I'd usually agree with) most likely close-passed or cut up the cyclist and was oblivious to it. He is getting on in age and just because he's successful in his field doesn't necessarily make him a good driver.

Dawkins ate my hamster! Not true but although he was smooth enough when I saw him at a public event once in print he certainly gives the opinion that he can spot fools infallably and is not inclined to tolerate them. I suppose "Old man gets irked" or even "Early self-driving car makes another dangerous balls-up" probably isn't such a notable story as "D-lock wielding psycho on wheels!"