Posted by:
Henry Bemis
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)
Date: August 10, 2019 11:31AM
This reminds me of the story of David and Goliath, where hypothetically it appears that Goliath won. Had that been the Biblical outcome, however, no one would have praised Goliath as a brilliant fighter!
But this particular exchange is much more interesting because if the "debate" was about religious faith, and not about Mormonism, Dawkins clearly lost, even though one could hardly call Flowers the victor. It would be like Goliath dying after stumbling on his own shoelace and knocking his head against a rock. Rather fortunate for David, but hardly a victory.
Here is how Dawkins lost this exchange:
Early on, he is asked about his atheism, and he makes the following three statements as his foundational explanation for his rejection of religion:
A. "Well, I think the world is explained fully by science, or will be explained fully by science."
B. "There is no evidence for any supernatural being of any kind."
C. "So, it goes against the spirit of science to put your trust in the supernatural when the natural explanation is there."
These are standard Dawkins talking points, and the basis for his entire position, including as stated in his book, The God Delusion. What I will now show--no, demonstrate--by clear logic, is that Dawkins' view amounts to scientism; i.e. the view of science itself as akin to religious faith, the very thing Dawkins is arguing against! Okay, here we go:
A. "Well, I think the world is explained fully by science, or will be explained fully by science."
COMMENT: First, nobody in the mainstream scientific community would claim that "the world is explained fully by science." So, that part of the statement is just empirically false, and obviously so. The origin of life, the origin of the universe, and origin of scientific laws, are just a few of the myriad of facts and questions that are not explained by science.
The second part of the statement is nothing more than metaphysical speculation, and completely unsupportable by any evidence. First, it assumes that human beings know everything about the universe that needs to be explained, and second it assumes that humans with their scientific tools, present or future, will necessarily reveal all such truths--"fully." This is an absurd assumption, and no more valid than a religious claim that someday science will reveal God. It is entirely vacuous.
So, with A above, Dawkins is already way over his head.
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B. "There is no evidence for any supernatural being of any kind."
COMMENT: Here, one must first identify what is intended by "supernatural being" and what is intended by "evidence." Let's assume that "supernatural being" means a supreme intelligence that is somehow responsible for creating the universe, and is interested and involved in human affairs; a reasonably standard definition for God.
Now, what does Dawkins mean by "evidence." If he means scientific evidence, then he is question-begging, because by his own statements "science" has been made the issue. Religion is not based upon "scientific evidence." Moreover, if scientific evidence is the standard, what is the basis for the preoccupation and "faith" of scientists in "theories of everything," like String Theory. Even more important what is the scientific evidence for Dawkins's own statement that science will some day fully explain everything. News flash, there is no such evidence!
So, if you want to evaluate religion on terms of evidence, you have to admit empirical evidence that falls short of scientific verification. (Science itself admits such evidence all the time, e.g. through mathematical modeling that cannot be verified by experiment.) This includes subjective experiences, and a host of interpretations, that may point--for some people--toward a God. Moreover, the well established fact that the universe is "fine-tuned" for life and intelligence, such that even for Dawkins it "appears" to suggest design, *is* on its face evidence for just that--design! It does not mean that the universe *was* designed, or that there is no evidence suggesting a natural explanation, but the evidence "on its face" favors design. Again, this is uncontroversial. Such an assumption is defeated only by imposing restrictions on what kind of explanation is allowable, which, again, begs the theistic question.
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C. "So, it goes against the spirit of science to put your trust in the supernatural when the natural explanation is there."
COMMENT: "Spirit of Science"? Is that like the "Spirit of God"? This statement is so obviously question-begging and blatant scientism that one hardly needs to comment. It basically says, that if you want answers to the deep metaphysical questions of life, "Don't put your faith in God, put your faith in science." This is a "normative" "ought" statement, that has no scientific validity. Even if one notes all of the great achievements in science; and how reliable it has been in discovering facts about the world, there is no legitimate metaphysical presumption or inference, that God does not exist, or that knowledge cannot be obtained by non-scientific means.
In short, Dawkins's atheistic argument, position, or whatever you want to call it, falls flat--by his own statements and logic alone! If this was a debate, Goliath loses by default to the inept David. His arguments against Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon are of a different kind, because they address historical and literary facts. So, we can give him a few points there, but Mormonism is easy to refute, as we all know.