Dawkins Delusion 2: Dick's off-the-cuff answers to famous arguments. (With visuals!)

[guacamole]

Okay, I guess it makes sense for deductive arguments to allow for exceptions we have no evidence for depending upon the situation. I admit to being a novice in these matters.

No worries. I'm a beginner as well.

I don't think that's appropriate.

I'm not sure I understand why not. From my reading, quite a bit of philosophy is written with assumed or hypothetical premises. Do you mean that it is inappropriate here? I'm sorry, but I'm probably just not understanding because I'm tired.

Quite a bit of chapter two is comprised of Dawkins arguing against the idea of non-overlapping magisteria. He thinks that religious questions should be solved with scientific answers. So why should his argument against the first cause be responded to with a scientifically dubious conclusion?

It's a good question. And while it might be shabby of me not to answer now, I believe I have a good number of highlights on NOMA that I'd like to discuss in my longer post. So if I can beg off until then...

fwiw,
guacamole

[Doug Shaver]

I believe you are over stating Negal's objections. He represents only a somewhat different view to Dawkins in the same Philosophical Naturalism argument.

To argue your point you need to more fully cite NEgal's view and not a second hand source with a selective citation.

Nagel is not among my philosophical heroes, but your deliberate and defiant misspelling of his name shows a level of disrespect that I find repulsive.

[shunyadragon]

Nagel is not among my philosophical heroes, but your deliberate and defiant misspelling of his name shows a level of disrespect that I find repulsive.

Your humility, and anal retentive sense of perfection is overwhelming.

[Mountain Man]

Not even very original. In "Why I Am Not a Christian" an essay by Bertrand Russell, presented the same question. ["Who created the creator?"]

Yeah. [Dawkins] gives nods to Russell a couple of times. I blame Russell more for some of the worse arguments because Russell was a mathematician and philosopher and should have known better.

There is, of course, the possibility that he did know better but had so thoroughly rejected theism that he simply didn't care.

[Boxing Pythagoras]

There is, of course, the possibility that he did know better but had so thoroughly rejected theism that he simply didn't care.

Nah. Russell despised poor argument even more than he did theism. If he made any poor arguments, and the weakness of that argument was demonstrated to him, he would very likely abandon it.

[Mountain Man]

Nah. Russell despised poor argument even more than he did theism. If he made any poor arguments, and the weakness of that argument was demonstrated to him, he would very likely abandon it.

Which begs the question, why did he present an argument that is so self-evidently poor?

[Boxing Pythagoras]

Which begs the question, why did he present an argument that is so self-evidently poor?

EDIT: Got my Russell arguments confused.

When Russell asks the "from whence God?" question, he notes that the proposed answer to that problem from theology is that God is a necessary, eternal entity. Russell's response is to note that a person could easily level a similar claim for the cosmos, itself.