Comments on: Doubting ‘Doubting Dawkins’

By: Eoin

Eoin — Mon, 10 May 2010 13:23:38 +0000

I’ve also come across this sort of fluffy reasoning from apparently-well-qualified Oxford professors; it’s quite disappointing that after all these years the best they can come up with is to appeal back to Aquinas or whoever.

But the real reason for posting – if the instructions were to kill every last person in the game, why is your avatar still alive? Perhaps suicide is the only winning move? (In the shoot-em-up game I mean, please don’t get the wrong idea…)

By: Orang Putih

Orang Putih — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 07:03:58 +0000

A computer game without a Victory Fanfare?! Forget the existence of God that is a much greater mystery. Could it be some kind of message? Does Prof Ward have the answer?

By: Alec

Alec — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 21:03:54 +0000

‘If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics’.

Richard Feynmann -American Physicist.

So, the theologist was on your level as well, according to Feynmann

The argument is very obscure and theres no argument there for the specifics of orthodox christianity. However, if this is one of the best theologians out there then religion should be embarressed that there arguments are reduced to this.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:58:48 +0000

His arguements seem to me to amount to a deists belief.

He’s using the God of the gaps reasoning really, latching onto scientific theories that arent yet fully understood and shoehorning god into them.

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:36:11 +0000

Prof Ward is ‘bat-shit-crazy’ he has reduced his God to some ethereal uniorganism without any integral parts. If he gave this talk 300 years ago in Rome, he would have been put to death. So there is no Jesus then? There is no Yahweh? So all of Christianity, Islam, Judaism is wrong according to Prof Ward. And he is a Dr of Divinity, so no one can argue with him on what he states(?) Dawkins and Gould were friends, as they talk of each other often in their writings, glowingly. Prof Ward hasn’t the foggiest idea of Quantum Mechanics either. If he says he does he is a better Physicist than RP Feynman (peace be upon his name). Saying the word ‘quantum’ appears to be a meme which ends the discussion with knob-ends like Ward. Basically “I am a Professor at Oxford”, “I think I know what quantum mechanics is – and you don’t”, “God is an amoeba outside the universe”, “I have brought in some ‘ringers’ to refute some statement which has fuck-all to do with the argument”, “I am great” and “You are lesser mortals than I am”

I must say that they are great arguments. I wish I had gone to it now! Bugger! (Marsh wouldn’t let me, and he made me loose my umbrella- he is evil)

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:50:13 +0000

1) Hitman for the win!

2) Steven J Gould’s dead?! Learn something new every day. Then again I thought George Carlin was dead before he even was, so there you go.

3) Being a professor in Divinity (I presume he’s on the theology side rather than the religious studies side) is like being a professor in fairy tales IMO. There’s never going to be a time when we’ll notice a lack of theologians, we just don’t need them.

By: AexMagd

AexMagd — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:49:04 +0000

Ward is an absolute tool; I’ve read some of his stuff and it’s got that heady mix of promising to be rational and conclusive but then trotting out the same arguments you’ve heard a million times before.

He also goes on about his Regius professorship, and about how it’s the most senior position in Oxford so you should listen to him. What a prat!

By: Derek

Derek — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:59:05 +0000

Do you have Keith Ward’s email address? I studied quantum mechanics for three years as an undergrad and didn’t understand it. It’s good to know that someone outside of our religion of so-called science is able to make more sense of it than I could.

By: Rich

Rich — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:27:50 +0000

Thanks for that. I completely sympathise with your position with regards to Ward’s arguments. Coming from a fine arts background I am used to listening to explanations/justifications so tortuous and irrational that there seems to be nowhere to get a foothold to even begin to tear down the twisted logic. I came to the conclusion many years ago that the deliberate obscurantism of these types of arguments is a carefully constructed smoke-screen to boost and protect the ego of the speaker rather than an attempt to approach the truth or to actually clarify an idea.
Oh, and the shoot-em-up analogy was great. You should develop that.