A paper you're writing? What class could this be?

And I have a feeling this thread may be much bigger than anticipated...

Unfortunately I think it was Darwyn who quoted it before and he's not been on the forum in a few weeks.

Yeah lol after I posted it I realized it might have just made the newest 1000-post thread. Whatever. The paper is for English class technically but basically he said we could write about whatever we want.

What is your thesis?

@DbJ. I think it was something along the lines of some African tribe believing in witches and a bishop calling it ridiculous to believe in such fairy tales. The hypocrisy is hilarious.

My thesis is... coming along. I guess the thesis would be that the whole God/no God arument is bull because no one can know either way. But first I wanted to set up both sides and wanted to use that Dawkins bit for the atheists.

I've got the book right here. I'm not sure which quote you want: the whole book basically follows that criteria.

i know... i'm not going off much. I once heard him give the argument verbally and then I saw it quoted verbatim here on the forum so I figured it was a famous passage or something. It goes along the lines of generally saying all the screwed up things about the world and why God could just fix it all and why doesn't he and believing in God makes the world bad.

Is there a spot near the begninning where he lays that down for the first time?

Maybe I'm fishing for something that doesn't exist here..

You ought to buy the book if possible. There is a wealth of excellent quotes in it and any quote I can give you would almost certainly undersell the book.

lol.. i would but there are two reasons I'm not going to:

1) I have $11 in my wallet...
2) Even if I got the money, if my dad saw that book lying around he would have a barrage of concerned questions for me. I prefer not to leave of a paper trail of my "heretical" thought processes. ;)

Really, don't buy the book. More and more it's critiqued in academic circles. Info coming...

I think I've found it:
"The God of the Old testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolant bully."
It's at the start of Chapter 2.

maybe a quick google check for "richard dawkins quotes" could help ?

if you don't find the exact one you want, you will probably find someone that fits the bill

Review of "The God Delusion" in "The London Review of Books":

Dawkins considers that all faith is blind faith, and that Christian and muslim children are brought up to believe unquestioningly. Not even the dim-witted clerics who knocked me about at grammar school believed that. For Mainstream Christianity, reason, argument and honest doubt have always played an integral role in belief....Reason, to be sure, doesn't go all the way down for believers, but it doesn't for most sensitive, civilized non-religious types either. Even Richard Dawkins lives more by faith than reason. We hold many beliefs that have no unimpeachably rational justification, but are nonetheless reasonable to entertain....

Basically 90% of all "my god exists" arguments go like this:
{I, We, Science} can't explain X therefor Y.

For X think one of these:
- morals
- why little jenny survived her battle with cancer
- where life came from
- how the universe started
- ...

and Y one of these:
- the christian god
- Allah
- Zeus
- ManU is the best football team in the world

here some examples:
Science can't explain how the universe started therefor the christian god exists and Jesus doesn't want you to be gay.
I can't explain how the eye evolved therefor intelligent design is true.
We can't explain why people are moral there allah made us good.
We can't explain what's really behind this ancient resurrection story therefor Jesus died for our sins and is god and also the son of god.
and so on

yeah thats it omgnso, thanks.

review by Terry Eagleton btw

this is all good stuff though keep it coming.

i love this forum

@sceptic read that review again.

also lmao @ "ManU is the best football team in the world"

Wow. What a balanced review.

@Hereward - Ha! You'd criticize the "London Review of Books" for being skewed towards belief in God?

Was he being sarcastic?

"some African tribe believing in witches and a bishop calling it ridiculous to believe in such fairy tales. The hypocrisy is hilarious."

Yeah Hereward, I think that was it. If someone could quote that....

According to his previous post I'd gather hereward was no being sarcastic.

And to address said post, the hypocrisy you speak of simply doesn't exist. You can assume that all Christians are unthinking faith-leapers but you'll find yourself severely incorrect. Christianity, and belief in a creator God must not be the "leap" that many make it out to be. Now, believing in the "flying spaghetti monster" and the like (which are often brought up in this forum) absolutely would require such a "leap".

Don't throw things in the same bag without doing your research.

Is it the Riddle of Epicurus?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil

Basically, God is having two traits measured: Capability to prevent evil and Willingness to prevent evil.

If He is Willing and Capable, why is there evil in the world?
If He is Willing and Incapable, He is impotent and therefore is not God.
If He is Unwilling and Capable, He is malicious and therefore not any sort of benevolent God.
If he is both Unwilling and Incapable, He is no sort of God at all.

Never mind, I'm late.

@ bartdogg42
The article is biased because what it doesn't appreciate Dawkins arguement, but instead converts it to something easily attackable. Dawkins never states that religious people don't use reason; merely that they avoid using it when it comes to religious beliefs.
It is unreasonable to believe in God and you can live perfectly well, or better, without it skewing the viewpoint.