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@wonkothemagicelf if it wasn't for you pointing it out i wasn't even aware of the "uhh...uhh" so thanks a lot for this crucial piece of information... my viewing of this video would have not been complete without your mastermind telling me such stuff.. and now... i can't stop being annoyed by the "uhh...uhh" so i guess i would have been better off not reading your comment... no pun intended.....just sarcasm.. =)

Dream Team : Dawkins + Hitchens + Harris + Dillahunty = Undefeatable Debating Machine

@javaretia I'd like to say that science and evolution both make sense. Here's a marvelous bit of conjecture from the author/neuroscientist Sam Harris... "Atheism is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We don't have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive... Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs" Just for your consideration ;-)

I can feel for these atheist pastors. I believe that I am now an Atheist, but, everyone I know and love, know me to be at least a spiritual ecclectic, which doesn't make sense. I don't know what to do. Atheism makes so much sense.

@hyperseauton Try climbing on a conceptual horse then. Or are you saying everything is in the mind!?|

my disdain here for Dennet's pejorative dismissal of "deepities." The alternative is to casually use a phrase like "If a ...god can affect the natural world... then mustn't that entity be a part of the natural" To say something is a part of something - without carefully delineating what it means to be a "part of" (which I think requires deepities, or very careful language) or your argument''s own language may assume the very things it seems to be proving, much like Anselm's argument for god.

@jramza, If a supernatural god can affect the natural world in any way, then mustn't that entity be a part of the natural world? Isn't, by definition, anything that can have a real influence on any part of the physical world a part of the natural world--something that science is poised to discover, study, and at least model with some fidelity if not actually explain? On the other hand, we know for a fact that the mere concept of god is quite real and may answer all of your questions. Look there.

@ananiasacts Well, I'm afraid my interests in this are not so much about the utility or pragmatism of religion, nor of spirituality; my main interest is in whether or not there really is a god, and how we relate to such a being. If there is a god (or not) - everything else is a secondary concern to me. And like Coyne, I think this is something that is outside the sphere of science (which is concerned with the observable), and is more a reflection for a philosophy not inconsistent with science.

@jramza, But the net result of Coyne's view is that we should reciprocate love for god despite the elaborate game he's playing with or on us. It makes no sense. If god can do things like sacrifice his only son to forgive us for the wickedness of our ancestors then he's worthy of our contempt for creating the situation in the first place. Saying that our existence itself is what we should be grateful for seems absurd to me. To our parents certainly, but even George admits god didn't create us.

@jramza, Religion seems like a theory desperately seeking a phenomenon to explain and surviving on the most ephemeral wisps of plausibility; themselves mostly artifacts of our language and the underlying memetic knowledge it is built upon. To endorse it on such feeble grounds given the enormous impact in has on young children seems terribly negligent and inconsiderate to me. I believe it would die out if we could find a way to inoculate kids to its most pernicious ideas, eg. blasphemy is a sin.

@ananiasacts If there is a god, reward and fear of punishment may be sufficient reasons to worship, if the more primitive relationship reflects a more primitive creature. Fleshing out the relationship, growing from that primitive creaure into something more - as Coyne nicely explained -is difficult if your god is not a god of explanations. It requires intuition, speculation (philosophizing) to discern what ramifications this relationship has on daily life, like resisting tyranny

@ananiasacts Wow, you're asking a lot of questions, hard to answer in 500 characters. First, Catholic view: man is body and soul, and both (the whole man) live on in Catholic thought. Now, the big caveat in philosophy is defining your terms - by soul, do we speak Aristotelian? Kantian? or a more ancient view of the Greek pneuma/Hebrew ru'ah? My take on Coyne is that he wanted to emphasize the bodily resurrection (but I would have to review the video, and honestly, not up to that task now).

@jramza, This makes me curious, suppose there is a god. Do you think that either a reward, or avoidance of a punishment, is a sufficient reason to worship it (assuming that such a thing is possible?) At what point, if ever, should people begin to stand up for themselves and resist tyranny; regardless of a dictator's intentions? Or perhaps you could explain what utility worship has for entities genuinely worthy of it. Respect (worship, love, trust, etc.) has great utility to the fraudulent.

@jramza, How do you distinguish between yourself and your soul? George tells Richard that he doesn't believe our soul was inserted by god and either doesn't exist or just sort of evolved somehow (I assume he means emerged as an epiphenomenon of the sophistication of brains at that point in our evolution.) But what then does he mean by saying that he believes he survives his death but his soul likely does not? Richard let him get away with quite a few such annoying obfuscations in my opinion.

@ananiasacts I know, with Coyne, one must not "read into" anything he said - or you may be wrong; he was careful to qualify everything he said, not because he was tied in knots, but because he was very specific in what he wanted to convey, and didnt want any extrapolation beyond what he said. Nuances are the lifeforce of a Jesuit - they see the ""million dollar comma's" in everything, and a slight change in the wording of a question may completely alter their answer.

@ananiasacts I cannot speak for general Christianity, only from my limited scope of Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox theologies. And honestly, I cannot speak for much beyond what Rev Coyne said in his video- this was my 1st encounter of Coyne and Dawkins. Not defending religion, nor against it - as I said, I speak from a more uncertain (agnostic) view. But I respect scholarship, logical, coherently well-developed ideas based on reasonable axioms. Just didnt see that in Dennet..

@jramza, Yes, I reviewed it yesterday and you're right that he "acknowledged" belief in those two particular miracles. But the essence of his faith is really very different than that held by most Christians. And had Richard pressed him on, for example, some of the advice of Jesus (like contempt for divorce) I imagine he'd have admitted that it makes no sense and has had a terribly negative impact on humanity. I'd love to know why you seem to be defending religion. What redeems it in your mind?

@ananiasacts I guess we came away with different interp's of Coyne- I do not recall him saying he did not believe in any miracles; in fact, he made it clear he DID believe in the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection. I thought he wanted to emphasize that, by Occam's Razor, he would be hesitant to ascribe a miraculous explanation to something explainable naturally. As far as "tied in knots" - I just assumed he was a Jesuit - that's just how they talk- incredibly precisely (its almost irritating)

@jramza, I think you're misrepresenting that discussion between Coyne and Dawkins. I got the sense that Coyne considers most of what the Church teaches to be complete bullshit. He clearly states that the doesn't believe in ANY miracles. And yes, "tied in knots" is a reasonable description of Coyne's reluctance to clearly state these things. Eventually Dawkins gets him to admit them. I got the sense that Coyne concept of god has almost nothing in common with the average Christian's conception.

I left examples above. Rather than quoting Armstrong, I wish Mr. Dennett would have examined Aquinas or Kant. I watched the series of Richard Dawkins with Rev Coyne; I simply did not appreciate that same level of scholarship in Mr. Dennett's presentation. And, I did not believe either Coyne or Dawkins got “tied in knots” (min 14). I think he missed the conclusion where both men ended with valid points, on a common plane of discourse, without any apparent inherent contradiction.

“Theologians are religion's spinmeisters “(29:50) sounds purjorative, but while it IS true – the same could be said of ANYONE from ANY scholarship- psychologists are spinmeisters of their trade, explaining something not completely understood. As are astrophysicists, as are doctors dealing with diseases they are in the process of diagnosing. Finally, his own words (48:35) “There's no reason to learn any of (theology).” If you are criticizing something, you should understand it well.

1. reverse engineering – the application of this to preachers who had become atheist– had no philosophical application in analyzing religion itself, per se, in my opinion. How to induce pathology into religious concepts (philosophic) was a fascinating concept; but inducing pathology in a human life (psychological) seems less significant; so it happens. The same for his reasoning on “why theology.”(26:00) It is more of a psychological analysis than a philosophical.

to ananiasacts 1 day ago @jramza, can you give us a specific example. I have no idea what you're referring to. This is my first exposure to Mr. Dennett. some examples: 1.he dismissed concepts by his reference to “deepities,” (31 min in) which, yes, are often concpetually difficult to analyze logically given their brevity (at least, by the examples he delineated), but this does not necessarily vitiate the idea which a “deepity” is trying to convey.

@CHistrue, It's precisely because it is so easy for reasonable people to adopt radically different ontologies that I accept Hitchens so wholeheartedly. It's the case with us. I don't believe consciousness is a meaningful distinction in the deep sense. Absolutely everything we can experience is going on totally inside our heads--is a pure fiction who's only utility is that its metaphysical components (memes) model aspects of the real world. Consciousness is like a "heads-up" display for a pilot.

I invite Ana and Eric (and you) to click on my name and watch my videos on mathematics. They deal with infinity, which a lot of atheists may not accept as a philosophical concept. I deal with Cantor and the Continuum Hypothesis. I make a point as to why I believe that CH is true with Axioms independent of Set Theory. (The Axiom of Infinity is itself independent of the other Axioms) OK, I'm outt'a here..