Atheism Good Reasons For "Believing" In God - A Presentation By Dan Dennett For Intellectuals

[BhagatSingh]

If you don't consider yourself an intellectual then don't watch this. I say this because it will be hard to understand and the presenter, Dan Dennett, will come off as arrogant.

I found myself just WOWing at many parts of it. This presentation was just fantastic, it explains a lot!!
He uses the name Hitch many times. This is referring to Christopher Hitchens.
YouTube- Good Reasons for "Believing" in God - Dan Dennett, AAI 2007

Here's another insightful video of Dan Dennett that I posted a while ago...
YouTube- Dan Dennett: A secular, scientific rebuttal to Rick Warren

 

[spnadmin]

Re: Good Reasons for "Believing" in God - A Presentation by Dan Dennett for intellect

Well Bhagat ji

I am at 27 minutes and 23 seconds and I still have not heard anything that has engaged me at all. I hope it gets better. What I have heard so far is self-congratulatory rhetoric among fellow aetheists, false dichotomies, and undistributed premises that make logical deduction impossible.

Almost finished now: The above continues, and is all mixed together with a lot of academic self-importance, hand-picked examples and some kind of weird need to enjoy keeping believers "on the run." Delivered in a paternalistic way.

It does not even represent the best of theological argument in any religion. I don't buy the factual reality versus practical reality distinction either. That part of his presentation is an example of Dennett's cherry-picking of foes in philosophy. He has the upper-hand in the video because his audience is not trained or knowledgeable enough to know what reasonable counter-arguments might be.

Dennett deserves some "credit" for "discrediting" adversaries who are "not credible." That is about all I can give him credit for. However, it is my opinion that anyone with some intelligence, who is well read, and possesses good skills of argument can succeed at demolishing almost anything by selecting the weakest adversaries, be they weak theories, weak concepts, or wobbly minds. What Dennett has managed to do is debate a "straw man" for more than an hour.

I hope it gets better. I may not listen to the second video.

It did not get better. At the very end, it became disrespectful. Let's not term it "arrogant" in the interests of believing ourselves "intellectual." It was disrespectful.

Note: I have moved the thread from Spiritual Articles to Interfaith Dialogs. The aetheist perspective by its own admission would not be "spiritual." In addition, the videos in my opinion are advocacy for aetheism, and in a way propagation of another belief system. Thus Interfaith Dialogs.