Nonfiction Boot Camp discussion

OK, I've finished chapter 1--and I have to say, first of all, that having this reading plan made public is really helping.

One of the things I'm a little unconvinced of here in the beginning is Dawson's insistence on separating scientists/rational thinkers who see transcendence in nature with people who believe in God. He says that he "wishes physicists would refrain from using the word God in their special metaphorical sense" because "deliberately confusing the two is, in my opinion, an act of high treason." But it doesn't seem to me to be deliberately misleading--to refuse to say you're "religious" because you don't want to be identified with religious wing nuts doesn't seem like a good enough reason to reject the label.

I agree that anyone can have their own "god" and using the word isn't an act of treason. I truly enjoyed his belief that there isn't a "muslim child" or "catholic child" just a child of "muslim parents" and so on. I wasn't allowed to learn any other religon than my parents (even when invited to attend with a friends family). I believed because I was told to not because I made an informed decision.

I'm confused. I am up to page 113 or so, but I am not sure how or when we are going to discuss the book. Did I miss something???

I'm about half way through, I am feeling a little like I'm at school and haven't done the pre-reading for the topic. Dawkins is busy disproving endless arguments I have never considered or conceived of before. Not too difficult to read or keep up but I do feel as if the book is directed more towards those who are already into the topic.

I'm keeping going - being part of this group is certainly making me pick this book up in preference to others I have on the go and as a result I'll probably finish it quicker.

I am not sure exactly what we are supposed to be commmenting on, and if there is a certain time we are supposed to have finished the book, or a set way we are supposed to discuss it. So maybe I am doing this all wrong. But here goes.

I was raised Catholic and raised my children Catholic in the Golden Buckle of the Bible Belt, ie., Oklahoma. Baptists are the great majority and they are quite fundamentalist. Bumper stickers like "God said it and I believe it and that settles it." are common. In addition, I was a Biology and Earth Science teacher who taught in a school district and in a town where the largest building in the town was the Baptist church. Partly in order to keep my job I would always start the school year talking what the basis of scientific inquiry was, and what faith was, and how they were not overlapping. (What I now know from Dawkins is the NOMA argument, but I didn't know that until yesterday.) I would say "I am going to teach you what most experts believe about the age of the earth, (or the origin of man, or whatever)and if you don't want to believe it, you don't have to, but you have to know it for the test." Kids would take that pretty well on the whole. I would also say, "Scientists say there is not necessarily a reason these things happen, but if you want to believe God started it all, that is fine too." But the more I said it, the less I believed the God part myself.

In addition, I had some crises of faith I guess you could call them. My mother had a cerebral aneurysm and took five horrible years to die. At that time, my church (which might have been of some comfort to me) had a pastor who was 90% interested in fund-raising, and 100% lacking in persona1ity or anything but uncompromising orthodoxy. The Murrah Building bombing in OKC happened, and then the Christian Right got more and more popular. Then 9/11 which was certainly about God, and the way people perceive him. Then George W and the ill-advised War in Iraq, and all the disasters that have followed it. All of this made me question more and more, "How could a just God want a world like this? And if He doesn't want one, why doesn't He do something about it?"

I guess on Dawkins' continuum of belief/ non-belief, I am about a 5.5 or a 6. I am sort of a "hopeful agnostic." In my heart of hearts, I am not sure I believe in God at all, but in times of stress I do pray and HOPE it is all true. Maybe the "have your cake and eat it too" school of atheism/ theism. Anyway I am finding the book somewhat pedantic and the style somewhat off-putting (especially his tendency to say, "As I will tell you in Chapter 10" or "As I told you in Chapter 4") but I also am finding out a lot and learning a lot.

I'm not sure if this is how the discussions are supposed to go, so if they aren't, EVERYBODY PLEASE TELL ME SO.

Fran: I'll start a "Procedures" thread, but I think this is great.