The Like/Hate Thread

[Ashe]

I'd put Dawkins in the "teenage atheist" circle. I tried getting into some of his stuff but it was so angsty it reminded me of people I knew in junior high school. When I saw him in Ben Stein's movie/documentary, and he assented to the possibility that life on Earth may have been engineered by sentient beings elsewhere, but then said that those beings certainly had to have evolved without intervention I lost any linger respect for him.

Great biologist, sure, but he's no philosopher-king. Also, this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-cho...81095.html

There's a reason why Ben Stein cut the scene of Dawkins comment so short.

That said, what he is answering is more along whether its possible that we specifically were created. And it is possible. Everyone acknowledges that it is. He's saying that any number of things could have engineered many other creatures, in the same way that we have done it with crossbreeding and such. Its not a leap to think that someone could possibly tamper with dna to produce a race with certain characteristics. He's not saying "Yes, I think we were created but our creators evolved", he's saying "Its possible that we were, if you insist that, but somewhere down this line of races creating new races, there would have to be a race that evolved on its own." This is the same as saying "Yes, the domestic house cat could have been engineered. But most likely the race that did this evolved on its own." Ok, so we did it, and we assume we evolved. Perhaps we didn't and WERE engineered, but that doesn't mean that somewhere down the line of infinite creation that the originator didn't evolve by its own path.

He's more or less trying to point out the "You can't have the argument that 'something must have created this, it requires a creator' and then say 'MY creator has just always been there, no creator required'."