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Will says that "...religious belief cannot be so easily dispatched" as belief in leprechauns.

I think he's right, if we're talking about a simple belief in 'God' (a supreme being). But this is more deist than theist. Once religions get more specific than that, once they deal in contrived doctrines like the 'Trinity', once they relate various tales of this God's exploits and write them in 'sacred' literature, I think Dawkins has a point.

The problem is that there are so many of these doctrines held by so many religions and systems of belief - they are contradictory. So if not all of them can be correct, then - in the same manner that one could ask the question of leprechauns - in what ways can the case be made that any of them are correct?

Will goes on to say: "Belief in God may turn out to be a false belief, but it is a belief that persists amongst some of the best-educated and most sophisticated people in the world, and is prima facie not comparable to mere fairy stories."

Well of course, 'belief' achieving a certain number of adherents does not 'truth' make. My guess is that Dawkins would ask how Will would like to differentiate the nature of belief in God from belief in fairy tales, if not by appealing to how popular each of them are among the sophisticates.

Dawkins insults every belief he does not agree with. Any belief he thinks is wrong is put in the leprechaun category. You are write to call it a category mistake.

John:

1. The distinction between deist and theist isn't so important here. Dawkins opposes deistic theism on the same terms.

2. The complicatedness of the religious belief may add to its credibility, rather than detract from it.

3. The case for belief in leprechauns doesnt even get started because it is widely held that these are literary creations which have no significant basis in any religious community grouping. Dawkings might as well reject belief in quarks for the same reason.

4. What's the difference between belief in God and belief in leprechauns? You could ask for the difference between belief in quantum mechanics and belief in leps. Evidence. There is actually a large body of evidence which encourages many people to posit the existence of God as an explanation for what they find in the universe.

"surely belief in God and belief in leprechauns are in different "epistemic" categories."

Will,

How exactly do you see do those belief differing?

If the argument consists solely of a reference to other believers - "it is a belief that persists amongst some of the best-educated and most sophisticated people in the world" - it's not an argument.

What's more it's an entirely subjective opinion as to whether those believers are, in fact, amongst the best-educated and, in particular, most sophisticated.

More importantly that's a claim to authority on the subject - without actually addressing the argument.

As for - "and is prima facie not comparable to mere fairy stories."

Well, that's the point isn't it?

A belief in the absence of evidence is just a belief - and not a scientific argument.

When that belief involves a being, of whatever nature, who is not subject to testable physical laws it should be [and is] classified as a supernatural belief.

As both the belief in a god and the belief in leprechauns are.

Perhaps worth noting that Dawkins has acknowledged, in at least one interview, that if he were to be scrupulously scientific he would be agnostic on the god issue.. but that he can cannot see see any logical reason why such a supernatural being should need to be conjured into existence.

Catholic believer #3-

1. "The distinction between deist and theist isn't so important here. Dawkins opposes deistic theism on the same terms."

Actually many of Dawkins' arguments don't apply to deism, though you are right to say that he opposes it as he does theism. I'm simply making the point that it is easier to defend than theism in this regard, and that makes it more difficult to "dispatch".

2. "The complicatedness of the religious belief may add to its credibility, rather than detract from it."

Only if one accepts the idea of 'revelation' in place of evidence. A claim based on empirical evidence which shows a complicated belief to be true is no better or worse than a claim based on empirical evidence which shows a simple belief to be true. If, on the other hand, no evidence is available, and one must accept mere words of testimony to some 'revelation' in order to believe that a claim is true, a complicated belief is much more difficult to swallow than a simple one, and its truth more problematic to establish. If I as a deist claim that a supreme being exists, then even without evidence that claim is easier to accept than if you as a theist claim that a supreme being exists, his name is Jehovah, and he did all the things depicted in the bible.

3. "The case for belief in leprechauns doesnt even get started because it is widely held that these are literary creations which have no significant basis in any religious community grouping. Dawkins might as well reject belief in quarks for the same reason."

It's a hypothetical, given by Dawkins to illustrate that there are many different things people could choose to believe in (whether or not they do believe in leprechauns is neither here nor there, a point I tried to make above in my comment about what William said). So with leprechauns, or Dawkins' use of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it is merely the idea that one could choose to believe in it, and so we come to the question of why belief in God should be any different.

4. "What's the difference between belief in God and belief in leprechauns? You could ask for the difference between belief in quantum mechanics and belief in leps. Evidence. There is actually a large body of evidence which encourages many people to posit the existence of God as an explanation for what they find in the universe."

See, now, this is the heart of your disagreement with Dawkins. He has said, over and over again, that there is "not a shred of evidence" for belief in God. If you have some, maybe that's what your debate should be about?

Pete:

There is evidence for belief in God - even if Dawkin's isn't persuaded, many people are. The arguments for God's existence (natural theology) persuade many philosophers and scientists too. Dawkins is not the arbiter of reason in all matters dealing with logic.

It's also the case that some beliefs are well grounded without having scientific evidence to support them. The principles UNDERLYING science are a case in point. They cannot be scientifically established, yet they create the framework for science itself. If you reject all beliefs because of their lack of evidence, you would have to reject science itself. I know Will made this argument to Dawkins and the latter had no answer to it.

I think belief in God and belief in leprechauns are obviously diffrent kinds of belief. Incidentally, it's not clear that leprechauns (according to lore) were supernatural beings in the proper sence. They could certainly be seen and touched and attacked (even defeated). They are fairy creations and their creation as touch is quite well documented by folklorists. Not so with belief in God. This is a belief that seems to have grown up in every culture in the history of the world.

#3
Obviously a christian believer is going to find christian theology more credible.
I'm sure given time and enough drink I could come up with a very complicated belief system - but that wouldn't make it any closer to the truth.
As you say - it comes down to evidence - so if you could expand on the large body of evidence bit we may be able to establish whether more truth exists in organised religion or a belief in Leprechauns.
Leprechauns may be a literary creation but does it follow that the contents of the bible are completely factual?

#6
"...This is a belief system that has grown up in every culture of the world."
And lots of them believe in completely different interpretations of god. At it's best that is an argument for Deism and against a particular flavour of theism.
The difference between science and religious dogma is that the scientist is prepared to change their mind in the light of new evidence, the true believer is not.

It's not a category error at all; in fact, some of the best and brightest minds have believed in all sorts of rubbish. Arthur Conan Doyle (famously) believed in fairies - or, rather, he was convinced on the basis of very shoddy evidence. That seems directly comparable if you ask me. Saying it's a category error is simply a way of avoiding the core issue.

Religions have built huge superstructures called "theology" on the poorest of foundations, and no matter how breathtaking the superstructure, the foundation remains as solid as superstitions about "the little people", "gremlins", "fairies", etc.

"Theology" is simply a screen that some very intelligent people have erected to allow them to keep the fundamental absurdity of their beliefs at one remove. If there were a field of Leprechology, you would find intelligent people there too. There are even intelligent Mormons, for goodness' sake!

I suggest that the logical errors lie with Dawkins' detractors (the "fleas" as they have become known) rather than with Dawkins himself.

PZ Myers has an interesting take on all this:

-A

Your central argument, William, seems to be that religious beliefs cannot be so swiftly dispatched because a lot of well-educated people hold them. So is it a case of numbers then? If this is so, then belief in Santa must be credible given the millions of children around the world who believe in the chap.

I totally agree with Gwynneth and others that the argument of 'many smart people believe it' doesn't count for anything. Some ~370 years ago all people in Europe except one (and maybe a few around him) believed the earth to be flat. That must have included quite a few smart ones. Williams argument sounds a bit like someone holding up the 186 Answers in Genesis PhDs and dentists.

Evidence is more convincing and some in this thread claim there to be plenty of it. As John Wright suggested, perhaps the believers would move the discussion into that area and point out some of it.

I think Will's right. One (and it is only one) difference between lepreshauns and God is that a significant body of intelligent people believe in God. No one believes in Leprechauns. That's not the key difference (as Will says, there are "epistemic" differences worth noting) but it is important.

It's not comparable to the creationist PhD rota thing. That's a different move altogether.

Dawkins's move is the seriously troubling one. He thinks he can dismiss belief in God simply by putting it in a box with leprechauns. That's like saying that atheists are just like believers in leprechauns (after all, there's no scientific evidence for atheism, as Dawkins accepts).

Let me defend Will on this one too.

I used to think Fundamentalist Christians were the most arrogant grouping in NI. Now it's definately the Humanists. They just take other people's sincerely held beliefs and put them in the same category as a belief everyone things is daft .... as if that makes the other belief automatically daft too.

There is evidence for belief in God. There is NO evidence for belief in leprechauns! Humanists may disagree over the quality of the evidence, but who said they are the be all and end all of evidence?

Take this argument:

Belief in atheism is just like belief in alchemy. In fact there may be more to say for alchemy than atheism. SO athiesm is as daft as alchemy. There's no point listing intelligent atheists and saying that proves something. So how WOULD you separate atheism from belief in leprechauns or alchemy?

Answer: Alchemy and leprechauns have been disproved. Atheism AND THEISM have not yet been disproved. That's what Will means by "an epistemic" difference.

Darwinius- You could expand on why you believe the move you describe by Dawkins is the "most troubling."

Claire- I think you've missed the point. It doesn't matter what the belief is - that wasn't Dawkins' point - it only matters that a belief is not based upon evidence. You have added to the chorus claiming evidence for God, but also provided to cite any.

Claire

Leprechauns have not been disproved, they've just fallen out of favour with believers in the supernatural.

A bit like Odin and Zeus et al.

Pete are you really suggesting that belief in God and belief in leprechauns are in exactly the same category of belief? What about belief in Santa Claus? There is literally no more evidence for a divine creator of the universe than there is for father christmans dropping toys down chimneys? None whatsoever?

And the existence of churches, university theology departments, and some sophisticated minds making ARGUMENTS for God's existence does not convince you at all that these two beliefs should be treated differently?

I'm not arguing that God exists. I'm agnostic. I just believe there is a MAJOR difference in kind (Will's "epistemic difference") between these types of belief.

As for disproof. Santa gets diproved in everyone's maturation (not so God). The evidence, such as it is, for leprechauns suggests that this kind of folk belief developed in much the same way as Santa.

Pete tell me this: How do you explain that Santa and the leps have fallen out of vogue, while God is more popular than ever before?

Anonymoose, you kinda make the point! None of these factors elevate belief in the gods into a different category from belief in leprechauns.

Except, perhaps, desperation.

No-one (it would seem) is desperate to believe in leprechauns. Pity.

The question should therefore be: why are people desperate to believe in gods? And a fine question it is too.

Where Will is incorrect is in suggesting that it is *Dawkins* who is making the category error here. Dawkins has been criticised by some people for not studying theology before attacking belief in the gods. Dawkins quite correctly replies that you don't have to study leprechology to tackle the core question of whether or not leprechauns exist. Not only is this not a category error, it hits the precise nub of the argument.

The fact that otherwise intelligent people spend a lot of time dreaming up intricate arguments that convince people who already believe in gods that the gods exist is really not very impressive.

Sorry.

鈥溾�t seems to me belief in god cannot be so easily dispatched. Belief in god may turn out to be a false belief, but it is belief that persists among some of the best-educated and most sophisticated people in the world and is prima facie not comparable to mere fairy stories.鈥�

If this means you are impressed because of their noteriety or credentials and this gives their belief in god some currency, I could hardly disagree more. Whether it鈥檚 Isaac Newton, Galileo, or Albert Einstein, when they say they believe in god, they have turned their backs on their 鈥渆ducation,鈥� switched off their rational minds which only draws conclusions from coherent logic based on observable facts and retreated to irrational primitives frightened of the dark, the unknown, and eternal death after a life without demonstrable meaning. It鈥檚 the kind of mental disease Dawkins talked about. I for one cannot have any respect for these people, they are very diminished in my eyes, although I acknowledge the great contributions they made to science in those areas they were expert in when they did use their rational minds for critical thinking.

As for leprechauns, I have met many myself and talked with them at length, invariably in Irish bars. As you sip your Irish whiskey, they start to crawl out from between the seat cushions, behind the light fixtures, and the cracks in the moldings where the floors meet the walls, they climb up on your table and they ask you to share a wee-bit of the dew. If you are generous, they will reward you with engaging but preposterous tales of their lives and their pranks but if you don鈥檛 and drink it up all yourself鈥�.heaven help you, the next thing you know you wake up the next morning in bed with a splitting headache having been hit over the head, knocked unconscious with one of their shillelaghs. Those little guys can pack a real mean wallop.

Hello Anonymooose,

"Pete tell me this: How do you explain that Santa and the leps have fallen out of vogue, while God is more popular than ever before?"

Sorry, but that argument is again appealing to numbers of believers to prove a point correct. See the earlier response: at some satge everyone believed the earth to be flat, but that didn't make it correct.
Suppose India had followed an agressive, expansionist foreign policy combined with active Hindu evangelical zeal and all of Asia would be Hindu now. Would their almost uncountable multitude of different gods like Vishnu, Krishna, etc suddenly be real then to you, because billions of people believe in them? The 'so many people believe it' argument doesn't have a shred of validity.

I guess that a number of the posters are gone with the faries including Dawkins.

I think they are very different beliefs, but I don't see what the category mistake is, in the technical sense.

Well let's not get too hung up upon the example used by Dawkins rather than the point he made using that example. Another Dawkins favourite is Zeus. That nobody believes in Zeus anymore is of little relevance, since in a particular human culture you would have been in the minority if you didn't believe in Zeus. What makes the Christian God any different? It's certainly in the same category. Who cares what the example is? The point being made by Dawkins is the same: that you don't need to know all of the theological details ascribed to a given god to disbelieve in that god. I can't see how Dawkins is wrong about that.

No, John, I think he's just wrong because he's that nasty evil professor Dawkins, and instead of tackling his arguments, there's a smug tummy-rubbing contingent who think that it's enough to give off about "New Atheist fundamentalists" and "jejune analyses" in the hope that people who are too stupid to know the difference will look on their dribblings as some sort of devastating rebuttal.

It's not very impressive, and it never was. The problem for the tummy rubbers is that more and more people are realising that.

Well, as you know Amen, I'm a theist (though perhaps I'm more of a deist these days as my comments above may indicate): but, in agreement with your criticisms, I say that these are the wrong things on which to disagree with Dawkins, in my opinion. Dawkins' arguments need to be reckoned with, and I keenly read in hopes that the next critique will be an adequate foe. So far I'm not all that impressed, though I haven't read Cornwell yet. I think people are frustrated by a man who is thoughtful and yet determined and sure of himself; much in the way people react to the cool manner of Hitchens as he calmly issues comprehensively damning carpet-bombs of critique while giving off a distinct air of intellectual confidence. If it's the style that bothers people, I'm afraid they're going to have to get over it. New atheism is an important development in human discourse, I believe, and the manner in which theists respond will be crucial.

Many objecting to the leprechauns analogy seem to be confusing criticism of belief with criticism of believers.

It is less daft to hold a belief in one of the gods, however unfounded, if most people around you share that belief. So believers gain a respectability in numbers - it is more understandable if in our culture you have accepted a god belief than a leprechaun one.

However, Dawkins isn鈥檛 comparing believers as much as the robustness of the underlying beliefs themselves. How can one establish the relative truth content of Christian and Leprechaunian beliefs? By comparing the soundness of the evidence being presented.

Personal testimonial doesn鈥檛 carry much weight as there are ardent believers in all sorts of conflicting beliefs. The existence of the universe might persuade you there could be a creator, but doesn鈥檛 tell you if it is Allah, Zeus, Yahweh or powerful beings unknown. What verifiable evidence makes stories of resurrection more likely than ones of gold stashing?

If you can鈥檛 provide me with any evidence to give plausibility to your claim then why should I give it credence. If you can鈥檛 demonstrate that leprechauns exist then why should I enter into a debate about the colour of their hats?

Leaving leprechauns aside, if Christians cannot provide any greater evidence for the god described by Christianity than the Islamic one then why should I give any greater attention to the Bible than Christians give to the Koran?

The atheist position is generally not 鈥淭here are definitely no gods of any sort鈥�, it is more like 鈥淕iven the evidence presented by believers, I see no reason to think any of their claims are probable鈥�. This is not a faith position, it is the opposite of one.

As for the arrogance of Humanists (?!), how does this differ from believers? Adherents of one religion are effectively saying that the holders of all other religions are wrong 鈥� some types of Christian even think that other types of Christian are hell-bound. Atheists at least have the advantage of treating all such claims equally, rather than favouring whatever god-belief they happened to be brought up with.

Claiming to know your god鈥檚 opinion well enough to seek to impose it on non-believers looks more like arrogance to me.

nonplussed- Thanks for a reasonable position. I agree, largely. But I think atheists are claiming more than you say they are:

"The atheist position is ... more like 'Given the evidence presented by believers, I see no reason to think any of their claims are probable'."

I agree that this is not a faith position. But it also isn't a position which leads inevitably to the conclusion 'There is no God.' It is a position which disputes that the details religious people ascribe to God can be even reasonably asserted, let alone proven. But it doesn't challenge the idea of God, which is a concept beyond such meanderings of religious critique. If atheists wish to do that, they must make 'bigger' claims.

Hi John,

There are comparatively few atheists who positively believe that there is no god - even Dawkins and PZ Myers (https://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula) would not take that position. However, people keep asking for positive evidence *against* the existence of gods, as if they feel that that is unobtainable. Dawkins (with the "Ultimate 747 gambit") provides part of an answer, demonstrating that adding gods into our probability calculations actually makes them worse. I'm not that big a fan of this argument, and I get the impression that Dawkins isn't that fussed on it either, although he makes a big deal of it. Perhaps this is because it shows theists hoist on their own petard, but it's not a great petard.

Personally I find it more philosophically relevant to apply simple rationality to the problem. Can the gods change the value of Pi? Or the fact that 2+2=4? No? Then they are not omnipotent; they are subject to the simple laws of mathematics and logic like we are. They are therefore rendered non-fundamental. If, OTOH, we want to argue that they *incorporate* this fundamentality (as some hand-wavers would like), they can't get away without also embodying evil as well as good, which kinda kicks most religions out of the frame, and makes belief in them pointless anyway.

In fact, the only sensible approach seems to forget about believing in gods of any flavour until evidence is forthcoming. If that makes me a conditional atheist, then I'm happy with that. As a scientist, I go where the evidence leads. If the evidence were to suggest that gods exist and do stuff in our universe, fine & dandy - I'll work with that. But I sure ain't seen any yet, and I am guessing that you haven't either. I think you would make a good conditional atheist too! ;-) I don't think our positions are that far apart.

ATB,
-A

John. You are right, it does not lead to the declaration 鈥楾here is no God鈥�, but in the absence of any evidence atheists want to add the gods to the very large set of things that are imaginable but impossible to definitively disprove. For atheists such as myself, this puts them with orbiting tea pots, invisible unicorns, fairies and the like 鈥� which can then get theists' backs up for seeming to trivialise their strongly felt convictions.

Even Dawkins says only that god almost certainly doesn鈥檛 exist. The degree of improbability assigned varies somewhat with the attributes ascribed to the god under discussion:

* Dawkins excludes the 鈥榞od is energy鈥� or 鈥榞od is nature鈥� completely from his discussion. No one needs to debate the existence of a metaphor.

* The 鈥榣ight blue touchpaper and retire鈥� deistic god is unproblematical as no ongoing intervention is claimed, which fits exactly with the evidence. If all believers were deists, atheists would have little to complain about. The only observation is that it is an unnecessary assumption. The universe looks like it needs an external cause and it feels easier to assign qualities such as uncaused and infinite to something that transcends our material world. I鈥檓 happy to say I don鈥檛 know what came before the big bang and leave the physicists to it, rather than invent something to fill that gap. The existence of a deist god changes nothing about my life as, by definition, no one can know what it wants me to do or whether it has any objections to pork.

* It is, of course, the theists that fuel Dawkins鈥�, and my, annoyance with things religious. Firstly, they make explicit and detailed claims about the nature of god without any apparent justification, they claim gods intervene in the world without any evidence and, by and large, want others to alter their behaviour accordingly. As there are so many more claims to point out the lack of evidence for, it is easier to take a more hard-line atheist position on the theists' gods. However, as it is mostly the theists that atheists are complaining about you are most likely to hear them at their most confident 鈥� hence appearing to justify the 鈥榓theists know there is no god鈥� misapprehension.

As with Amenhotep, I鈥檓 simply awaiting the verifiable evidence, rather than rejecting the concept of god out of hand. If that evidence ever comes then I鈥檇 like to think I鈥檇 be open to it, whether the universe itself is uncaused, was an egg laid by a cosmic penguin, Yahweh on an off day or even by the grace of the mighty Amenhotep. In the mean time, it just seems a bit random to pick one out of so many possibilities.

Nonplussed, you are too kind. Although I think we each have a degree of responsibility for creating our own little section of the universe, and spilling some joy and happiness into adjoining sections, I would hesitate to lay claim to credit for creating the whole shootin' match.

Or maybe this is the Strong Amenhopic Principle?

;-)

Incidentally, Will: top interview with John Humphrys today (you dodged his attempted retro-interview questions impeccably). Love the guy; looking forward to reading the book, even though he has apparently caught his britches on the barbed wire of morality. Maybe we can set him right. "You Kant get there from here, you know!"

-A

Further to the subject of what category leprechauns belong to, here鈥檚 a link to a news story in the Wall Street Journal about a judge in the Philippines who was fired for claiming a personal relationship with three elves who he consulted for advice. Despite claiming not to have sought their input for judicial decisions, the judge was fired.

He has since developed quite a following and is being sought for healing and prediction. A mysterious series of incidents befalling members of the Supreme Court since the judges sacking are being taken as elven revenge.

Amenhotep, such modesty in one so powerful.

To those critics who discount arguments for the existence of an intelligent Mind being responsible for initiating and overseeing the existence of the universe and of life on the grounds that there is nothing specifically Christian about these arguments, of course yo are right. These are arguments that Jews and Moslems could and do put forward aswell. Arguments for Christian theism as opposed to other theistic variations centre, necessarily, around Jesus Christ. The fact of similar arguments for an intelligent Mind does not in any way invalidate the specifically Christian arguments in favour of Christianity. This is another ball game, and it's not the one we're playing here in this forum. But I do ind it fascinating that the gospel of John should begin with the words "In the beginning was the Word (Logos). Francis Collins (and also Richard Dawkins himself) have pointed out that DNA is not just like a language. It is a language, with its vocabulary and its grammar. Francis Collins (whom Dawkins by the way respects as a brilliant scientist) talks about how in studying DNA he was in a sense privileged to listen to the language God used to bring the creation into being". How awe-inspiring is that?

Roger, I respect Collins a great deal, but on this issue his logic is pants. DNA inspires awe in me too, but it's awe of the *DNA*, not of some notional Uberpixie. Perhaps some people are just congenitally unable to be impressed by cool stuff in its own right, and feel the need to thank some*one* for every little thing. That's pretty lame awe.

For a good read, try "The Common Thread" by Sir John Sulston, who led the UK genome effort, and arguably saved the genome from falling into commercial hands. All this while Collins was about to cave in and sell humanity's birthright to one J. Craig Venter.
-A