Einstein is one of US.
"Most people, I believe, think that you need a God to explain the existence of the world, and especially the existence of life. They are wrong, but our education system is such that many people don't know it."
"A universe with a God would like quite different from a universe without one. A physics, a biology where there is a God is bound to look different."
"The trouble is that God in this sophisticated, physicist's sense bears no resemblance to the God of the Bible or any other religion."
"Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."
None of these quotes represent a misunderstanding about religion.
Dawkins takes the extreme fundamentalist's argument that God literally created the world a few thousand years ago, that God is a living entity, etc. and argues against that.
And he is not wrong, but his arguments against religion apply to religious moderates as well. Perhaps you aren't familiar with them. He makes a case against all kinds of gods. Anything "supernatural."
I was amused by the clip because O'Reilly and Dawkins both view religion as this literal thing, and as science and religion as being in conflict with one another. this is the 'cartoon' view.
Actually in cases of overlapping magisteria, where the religious make claims about the natural world that science can dispute, there is conflict between religion and science.
I believe that faith is different than Dawkins characterizes it. Faith can also mean that you enjoy the act of prayer, with the understanding that prayer places your mind in a more humble relaxed state, more conducive to good living.
So it still means believing in something that you have no reason to believe it is true, just because it is comforting? Just because something is comforting or conducive to good living doesn't make it true. Dawkins only cares about what is TRUE.
Dawkins is well aware of the benefits of spirituality and meditation, in fact his colleague Sam Harris (The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation) advocates neurological study on meditation.
Even Dawkins could benefit from that, if he didn't have a mile-long corncob up his ***.
:roll: Very mature.
Dawkins will argue, for example, that you don't need God to explain the physical word. But is that the point?
Yep, nothing that we come in contact with in our lifetimes needs "the god hypothesis" to explain it. If it is real, science is enough; its the only means to truth.
I know several scientists that are also Christians. they explain the world in scientific terms but they also attend church, because it places them in a community that cares for one another and reinforces "love thy neighbor" etc, ...but most of all because they understand that the God of the old testament is not to be understood in literal terms.
Not all Christians think that, and what does the fact that their church community teaches them good values have to do with their beliefs being true?
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." ~ Albert Einstein
“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.” - Albert Einstein
Einstein did not believe in a personal god, he used the word god a lot, but in the pantheistic sense. To him god = the summation of all that is real. He felt a great sense of awe and reverence for the greatness of this universe. Believe me, Einstein wasn't one of you, he was one of us, a man of science.
I was kind of with you there up until the point where you revealed that YOU don't know what religion is.
Actually Voidwar was spot on. Religion is mysticism, the belief in belief, the notion that wish-thinking can effect matter, the belief in creationism, and often the belief in a supernatural meddling personal deity that hears your thoughts and has a vested interest in the actions of we mortals. I also feel that its child abuse to indoctrinate children in the "you are a catholic child" manner.
I see no benefit from religion what-so-ever. Real strength is being able to let go of the illusions that while comforting, we have no reason to believe them to be true.
Faith is the belief in something for which you have no evidence, often in the fact of contrary evidence. Reason, with sound logic and evidence, always trumps faith.
