Dawkins Neuters Logic and Reason
Posted on September 7, 2015 by Michael
Richard Dawkins defined himself and his fans with the following words:
even if there was this booming voice in the Second Coming with clouds of glory, the probable explanation is that it is a hallucination or a conjuring trick by David Copperfield……a supernatural explanation for anything is incoherent. It doesn’t add up to an explanation for anything. A non-supernatural Second Coming could be aliens from outer space.
This, of course, is powerful evidence of Dawkins’ closed mind. Yet there is something far more interesting to this exchange that a demonstration of Richard’s closed mind. Dawkins is telling us that “even if there was this booming voice in the Second Coming with clouds of glory,” reason and logic would compel us to deny this as evidence for God and instead look to some other naturalistic explanation. As one of Dawkins’s fans said in the comment section of my previous blog entry, “Wouldn’t it be more logical to assume any contact with earth would be ET life?”
Now, rather than argue whether or not it would be more reasonable and logical to attribute the Second Coming of Christ to God or space aliens, let’s assume Dawkins is correct. That is, reason and logic would indeed compel us to attribute such miraculous displays to a naturalistic cause.
If Dawkins and his fans are correct, then it means that when it comes to issues of God, reason and logic are guaranteed to generate false negatives. That is, if Jesus did indeed return in the Second Coming, reason and logic would have us deny this. If there was indeed evidence for God, reason and logic would tell us there was no evidence for God. If God existed, reason and logic would tell us otherwise. If Dawkins and his fans are correct, then logic and reason break down when it comes to the existence of God. Reason and logic can only deliver a negative conclusion regardless of the nature of reality.
All of this means the New Atheist position continues to collapse into irrationality. First, when they demand evidence, they are demanding a Gap, even though they simultaneously insist God of the Gaps reasoning is inherently flawed. Then, it turns out, even if such a Gap did exist, and existed because of divine intervention, they still feel obligated to contradict their previous posturing and insist that reason and logic obligate us to always choose a natural explanation over God. At this point, it then becomes clear they have split reason and logic away from the question of God’s existence since reason/logic are no longer responsive to what would be part of reality if indeed God was part of that reality. Put simply, the New Atheist posture has rendered reason and logic both flabby and useless when trying to determine if God exists.
One can only imagine the intensity of the psychological investment for a New Atheist not only to destroy his credibility with his two-faced positioning on Gaps, but to also turn reason and logic into something that could never possibly detect the existence of God. |
