Vol 2 No 8 - March 5, 2007

I’m done talking.[1] I’ll be speaking[2] from now on.[3]

Download

I have often said – in fact, it is the marrow of my argument – that the rational achieves little, if anything, by engaging believers, but to afford a undeserving credibility to the God conjecture… and the God conjecture is not a legitimate alternative weltanschauung worthy of consideration and respect! It simply is not.

Without reconciliation with science religion is doomed to irrelevance by its pre-scientific origin. The politic pope John Paul II recognized this conundrum and indeed did reconcile religion and evolution in 1996 – quoting an “ontological discontinuity”.

Whenever a rational person engages a believer on equal terms, John Paul’s futile endeavour, as is clearly indicated by the efforts of Benedict XVI to undo the “merger”, is afforded credibility it does not deserve.

I’m done talking to godiots.

Godiots?

Yes. Godiots: Individuals convinced beyond a velleity of doubt that a supernatural deity controls human destiny, a conviction based on nothing more compelling than pre-historic oracles recorded in pre-scientific times.

I’ll be speaking from now on. Godiots may either listen, or they may choose not to listen. But I’m done talking!

I’m done talking to godiots. I’m done giving credibility to their invalid weltanschauung by engaging them on equal terms.

I’m done talking to godiots. I’ll be speaking from now on.

Arrogant?

Probably!

But not as arrogant as the believer who gazes at the night sky and declares her complete understanding of the origin of life and the universe and woman’s destiny within this maatschappy – in the face of progressive scientific explanation, in the face of the “deep and sacred”[4] pursuit of the voussoir of evolving insight…

Science does not have all the answers. But this fact does not indicate that religion has any answers at all. In deference to Darwin, it has often and confidently been asserted that man’s origin, for instance, can never be known… but ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. It is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.[5]

Human perspective was irrevocably translated when Darwin made it possible for intelligent people not to be religious. This dynamic was matured by Richard Dawkins who made it impossible for intelligent people to be religious.

Once chemistry was established as a discipline, alchemy was simply no longer an “alternative”. Once astronomy was established as a discipline, astrology was simply no longer an “alternative”. Once neurology was established as a discipline, phrenology was simply no longer an “alternative”. After Copernicus certainly a flat earth ceased to be an “alternative”.

Once Darwinism finally explained the redundancy of God, God was no longer an alternative. Darwinism represents, with deference to Sam Harris, a wholesale exchange of ignorance, at its most rococo, for genuine knowledge.

Says Richard Dawkins, “There has probably never been a more devastating rout of popular belief by clever reasoning than Charles Darwin’s destruction of the argument from design.”[6]

Darwin provided explanations of our existence that completely rejected supernatural agents.[7] Verily, verily, I say unto thee, whomsoever considers “God” as an “alternative” perspective on life and the universe, shall be cast into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.[8]

Shall we pussy-foot around the lunacy that is “belief in God”?

I, for one, will not!

When University of Texas, Austin, cosmologist Steven Weinberg recently admitted (to enthusiastic applause, even from his scientist audience) that he would miss religion once it was gone, Richard Dawkins hastened to indicate that Weinberg was inexplicably conciliatory and "scraping the barrel" to have something nice to say about religion. "I am utterly fed up with the respect we have been brainwashed into bestowing upon religion," Dawkins told the assembly. [9]

I completely concur.

What can possibly be discussed with millions upon millions of believers who still regard homosexuality a “sin” – a sin! – in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that homosexuality is a biological given?

What can possibly be discussed with believers who content that spirits – both good and bad spirits – are all around us an influence people, even “possess” individuals?

What ludicrous folly is religion!

I, for one, do no longer talk to people who accept the God conjecture as a legitimate alternative weltanschauung worthy of consideration and respect. I’ll speak. People may either listen, or they may choose not to listen. But I’m done talking!

---

[1] An exchange of ideas via conversation.

[2] The utterance of intelligible speech; delivering an address.

[3] View Richard Dawkins speaking to the challenge of undermining the power of influence through harsh words.

[4] With deference to Michael Shermer: “What can be more soul shaking than peering through a 100-inch telescope at a distant galaxy, holding a 100-million-year-old fossil or a 500,000-year-old stone tool in one’s hand, standing before the immense chasm of space and time that is the Grand Canyon, or listening to a scientists who gazed upon the face of the universe’s creation and did not blink? That is deep and sacred science.”

[5] Charles Darwin. 1871. The Descent of Man (2^nd edition)

[6] Dawkins. Richard. 2006. The God Delusion. London. Bantam Press. 79.

[7] Suskind, Leonard. 2006. The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design. New York. Little, Brown. 17 (Quoted in Dawkins. 2006:118).

[8] Based broadly, quite incredulously broadly, I should say, on Mathew 25.xxx

[9] Michael Brooks and Helen Phillips. 18 November 2006. Beyond belief: In place of God. New Scientist. 2578: 8-11. Reporting on a symposium entitled "Beyond belief: Science, religion, reason and survival" ( in La Jolla, early November 2006) hosted by the Science Network, a science-promoting coalition of scientists and media professionals convening at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.