Muslims & Richard Dawkins: Atheists, what are your views on this video?

Question

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ5f8N2zlQ0&watch_response

"The Reverend" and "Non-Epicurus" could not possibly have watched the entire video in the time they answered it! That proves that at least some atheists rush to judgment! Plonk!

"Set" what "holes" in the argument are you referring to? Can you be more specific?

"kwxilvr" I agree with you that some religions are "invented" religions, but I don't think you can generalize. For example, what evidence that you have that Islam was invented?

Antihero: I think Hamza was making the argument that for atheists to use science as a weapon against religion is rather foolish, because science itself is not without problems, not that religion and science are opposed to each other and one must pick one of the two.

By the way, it's Muslims who invented the Scientific Method (not Roger Bacon) and they saw no conflict between science and religion.

Answer 1

#1 people always misunderstand what science is. Science is not a belief system. All that science is is a disipline and methodology that you use to describe and understand the world around you. That is all it is. No more no less.

#2 So, the guy on the video is well read and well spoken. Good for him. More people should be like that. Still he makes mistakes and assumptions that are wrong like anybody else. Towards the end he talks about how he has never seen an animal that does not behave like its kind. Well, I have. I had a cow who behaved like a dog. When I went to give it water it ran towards me at full speed only to jump out of the way at the last lecond. The cow licked me the same way my dog did. It got happy and started jumping around just like a dog. There are some things that are learned behavior and others that are instinc. So, when he says we behave like demons and not like humans he is wrong. We behave like humans. Humans do good things and humans do bad things. Just like there are dogs who kill and hurt people as there are dogs that are very faithfull to their humans companion. We can be very evil because being evil is an option. Let me explain this last sentence from a more religious point of view. If we accept that there is a God and God created us and the universe, then we must also accept that everything we are able to see and expereince and do is part fo Gods creation. If this is true being a good person is part of Gods plan. If God did not created us to be Good we could had not been good. Just as trees cannot walk because trees have no legs. If God wanted trees to walk he would had given them legs. Why God didn't is a mystery but there it stands. In the other hand we assume that evil is contrary to Gods plan. But, if we use the same logic then we can safely say that being evil is an ability that God have given us just as the ability to be good is an ability that he gave us. Thinking differently from this logic only suggest that evil was man creation and that evil is out of Gods control. But, how can this be. How can we be something we where not designed to be? Ergo, we do not need demons to be bad people because the avility of being evil is in us as much as the avility of being good because God created us this way. Why do we need a middle men then? That is there are no demons making us do evil things. We do evil things because we are able to do evil things. To further prove this point lets remember the story of Jobs. I think thats his name. They guy who had everything and the devil made a wager to God that if he was allowed to hurt Jobs then Jobs would blaspheme against God. Well, the most common interpretation of this story is that the devil can only touch us if and only if Gods allows it. Again, Demons cannot make us do thing because by the rules of the bible (at least Christian bible) say so. So, the term humanising people is somewhat of a misnomer. We all behave like humans. What we are trying to do is to make as many people as possible behave in a way that is fair and benefficial to society as a whole.

#3 Why would an atheist be only judge by only one atheist opinion. Everybody its his/her own person and have their own views and belief. If we are only going to put one person to represent atheism and this person is chosen by christians then let atheist choose one representative for Christianity. I'll vote for Jim Jones how about you? Not to say that Dawkin is wrong. He is in somethings and he isn't in others. Just like anybody else. Even the most Christian of christians is right sometimes and wrong sometimes. What does that means? It means he is human.

#4 The guy on the video again associates science with belief systems when he says that Hitler and some scientific communities wanted to exterminate people to better the human race. The important concept here is that like religion science can be used for both good and bad. Let us not forget the crusades, the spanish inquisition and the salem witch trials. By these accounts then all religion are evil. Hell, lets look at the taliban. opressing people because they are of the wrong religion or don't practice religion from a certain groups point of view. I guess that all religions must be bad then ruight? Wrong. It only means that religion can be abused. That is all. The same with science. You can have some ideas and these ideas can be taken with a power hungry person and make them into a very bad thing. Same dog different name. The thing that people forget to mention is that science is self correcting. Just because a scientist makes some findings it does not automatically makes them true. Before such notions are accepted they must go through reviews. Many more experiments must be made to prove that those findings are correct. Many years pass before these new findings are made into laws. Hell, even in the future we may learn something new that may prove that the original findings where wrong. So, what does science do. It fixes it. It accepts that they where wrong, make the corrections and keep experimenting. This is because this is the only purpose of science. You experiment you discover and you adjust. Repeat again and agin and again. In religion however, it is assume that what is there is correct and there is no review board. All bibles claim to be absolute. Absolute means that there is only one possible outcome. For example death is absolute. Everybody dies. The best you can do is delay it. Nobody escapes death forever. Nobody can disagree with this notion. The bible is not absolute. Take one particular religion from any part of the world or culture and you will find that it has been divided into different interpretations. This is why we have babtist, catholics, evangelical etc etc. The bible is open to interpretation and things that are open to interpretation are not absolute. So, yes, maybe forcing the land to produce yearround is not a good idea. However, you have to look at it from the point of what science is. Science collects data analyses it and in many cases applies it. MAybe at the time all the data showed that it was a good idea to harvest year round. After a few years we again collect data. The new data says that no, it is not such a good idea. So, corrections must be made. Note that at no moment do any belief system comes into play. The data at the moment says that X is right. X is then done. New study on X then shows that X is not right. X is corrected. It has nothing to do with doing good or evil. That we benefit or get hurt by it is a by product of the science not the intention of science. It maybe the intention of an evil dictator to twist and abuse and use science for his evil deed but it is not science fault. It is the evil dictators job to twist things around for his evil purposes thats what evil dictators do. He could science, he could use religion. What he uses is inconsequential because he is looking for certain results not loyalty towards a methodology.

#5 Many believers wrongly assume that scientist are by default atheist. WRONG!!! Again all that science is is a methodology period. Some people may interpret their findings and studies as evidence that there is no God. Others see it completely different and see it as evidence that there is a God. Science at the moment can neither prove nor disprove the existance of God. However, neither can religion because religion is base on belief not on evidence and proof.

What I think is that some religious folks feel a bit threaten by science. Again science has nothing to do with being an atheist. an atheist is the belief of not beliving in a God. Science is just a methodology. The atheist can use science just as the believer can use science. Science is non denominational. IS like saying that you are not allowed to use a calculator because, you listen to rap music. What does rap music has to do with calculators and why would rock and roll be more entitle to use calculator? It doesn't a calculator is just a tool. Scince is just a tool. The problem is that some religious folks come out with out of this world claims that are siply not true. We can use science as a tool to prove that some of these wild claims are not true. If we talk about psychic powers, or horoscopes then religious folks may say, oh is heresy or is simply not rrue. A religious person may use scientific principles like statistics to prove that horoscopes are just entertainment. However, if we use science to disprove some of the religious belief then whoa all hell breaks loose. Yes, is a double standard. Difference is that the religious person uses the bible as claims to their divine right not to be questioned.

Answer 2

Hamza Yusuf accuses the Dawkins and Harris books for not being fair in their religion vs. science style argument, that they present the best of science versus the worst of religion. He said it was as unfair to putting Muhammad Ali against a 90 pound weakling. But I think that putting the best of science versus the best of religious is still putting a champion against an inferior opponent. In terms of reliability, usefulness, data, and methods for arriving at truth, science scores a first round KO on religion.

Then Yusuf spends most of the video pointing out the worst in science then ends with an advocation of God, thus doing the exact same thing that he criticized Dawkins and Harris for. Doesn't he realize that two wrongs don't make him right?

Answer 3

This guy just wanders around, confusing himself in the process about several things (especially science). But the most amusing bit is the end, where he posits that it is "we" who have failed our religions, rather than our religions that have failed us. Well, there's a good fallacy! He doesn't seem to understand that it is "we" who invented all the religions in the first place! LOL. Well, at least he's only a confused mild-mannered ideologue, and not an intemperate sort. Or is he?

Answer 4

Now there's an unbiased view from an educated man. And, this is a sarcastic answer. Seriously, his argument is so full of holes you could say that it is holy.

Addition:
The film starts out with a religious advertisement, “In the name of Allah- the most merciful and compassionate.” Anyone who knows anything about the life of this man knows he was anything but merciful and compassionate. A move in the 1920’s to sterilize poor people is not a scientific endeavor; it is a political one. He calls that bad science when it is actually a bad use of something that was merely made possible by science. An analogy might be; “Guns don’t kill people; people with guns kill people. Guns also save people. He states that Dawkins and Harris are saying that science is the answer and religion is evil, and he bases this statement on the belief that they are taking the best of science and pitting it up against the worst of religion. Scientists acknowledge that they do not have all of the answers. They acknowledge that science can be used in unethical ways. Religious leaders arrogantly deny that their religion has any bad or evil parts in it. They claim it is the unquestionable truth through which all answers can be found. He claims that WW II was not about religion; rather, it was about fascism. Try to convince Jewish people of that. He dismisses millions of religiously inspired atrocities that resulted in suffering and death based on the reasons behind a few examples, conveniently leaving out the most obvious and glaring example; Jihad. This is absurd. He says bad people are not behaving like animals because he does not want to discredit animals, which I’ll agree with, however, he then says bad people behave like demons. There is no such thing as a demon. He says that animals are just being true to their nature, but questions whether humans are being true to their nature. I don’t recall human nature ever being proven to be inherently loving, compassionate, and fair. He has an over simplified view of animal nature and doesn’t seem to realize that humans are just another species of animal. Given what humans have done to each other, this planet, and other species, I think it could be argued that we are not as wonderful as many would like to think of ourselves. In fact, I think compared to the other animals; humans are by far the cruelest, selfish, and inherently evil species on this planet. He says in the end that it is not our religions that have failed us; it is we who have failed our religion. Say the same sentence only replace the word religion with science. His closing statement where he tries to wrap up his entire argument is negated by the simple fact that the word science fits in even better. What’s worse is the fact that religion makes a determined effort to impede scientific progress. Science does no such thing against religion. If a scientific discovery such as evolution contradicts a religious belief, religion uses its power and resources to stifle this information. The only reason religion would even try to do this is because they feel threatened. It’s sad to think that we are being held back in areas such as stem cell research because of some archaic concept of sanctity of human life. Religion claims to have all the answers. Science merely claims to be searching for them. Religion arrogantly claims to be infallible. Science is so demanding of itself that even realities like evolution and gravity are still referred to as theories. A book he didn’t mention written by Christopher Hitchens called “God Is Not Great” states on the cover, “… Religion poisons everything.” I could not agree more.

Answer 5

It's BS. Microevolution caused the Holocaust? The person is insane. How about anti-semetism, the treaty of Versailles, the stock market crash and crazeee Hitler caused it.

Theists failed their religion? Yet their Holy Books condone slavery, murder, racism, sexism and other intolerances. They're just following what their Holy Books are saying.

Answer 6

It's blindingly clear that

1.) The man has never actually read either of the books, and

2.) Doesn't know the first thing about science.

Answer 7

I was going to say almost the exact same thing Reverend Soleil said.

Answer 8

Now that man has some sense,he put,s blame where it
goes and not on God.