Errors of reasoning
I read the first third of it or so before deciding I was too busy tonight to read it all. Even in the part I read I spotted plenty of very bad or even completely unfounded reasoning. Almost right from the start. The first paragraph ends with Sartres quote "God doesn’t exist—the bastard!" And from that mere one short line, he then goes on to produce most in the second paragraph. He must be quite a good mind reader of the dead, as preciously little of what he goes on to write in the second paragraph can be objectively traced back to Sartres line.
Not being content with attributing it all to Sartre, he then goes on to proclaim all of that 'the truth' and those who don't go along with it as being in denial. It's certainly quite different from the thinking of most atheists that I know. Dalrymple is know as a skeptic and clear thinker. It doesn't show from the first part of his piece.
Of the atheist books he mentions, I only read The god delusion. Dalrymple says the authors claim to be conveying lots of new and brave material. I don't recall this from TGD. Much of what I read in it certainly was known to me before I read it and I don't recall Dawkins claiming to bring grand new insights. His purpose was more to go through atheist arguments, some quite basic well known, and encourage those who agree with them to let that be known openly. Someday, you read TGD too. Could you help refresh my memory, what the new ground is that Dawkins was claiming for himself?
The atheist books are also supposed to be bad tempered. If Hitchens' book is anything like his interviews, I could imagine it would be. But please help me out again Someday where TGD is bad tempered. I recall Dawkins summing up of the atrocious sides of the god of the OT, some anecdotes of creationist dishonesty etc. But not really any anger. Do you?
Then it gets really poor. The 'belief in evolution' is placed on the same level as religion. Conveniently forgetting that there is no positive evidence for religion, so there is nothing to disprove. An explanation as to how religion came about is amply sufficient and it is very different from disproving evolution. Yet Dalrymple tries to place them on the same level.
Then he goes on to easily mix purpose as in “methods of locomotion have been ruthlessly optimized for efficiency.” with purpose as in 'why we are here', existence. Does the man honestly not see the difference between the two? Duh.
And then around the analogy about the death of George Washinton I stopped reading.
Brad, you could have a whale of a time cutting this one up. Go for it. Time consuming, but educational perhaps to those who may not have grasped everything fully.
greets,
Peter
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