Although I am a panentheist, I am also a pragmatist

that’s cool, I have some pantheistic leanings myself. I agree with a lot of what you said in your comments

So anyway, I’m sure there are plenty of people who care only one step above me, who are willing to read Dawkins, but not willing to read about the opinions of dead philosophers. They may not get the whole picture, but all this low-level thinking is at least a first approximation of the higher-level stuff, at least a better approximation than whatever I know.

I haven’t read any thinking from theologians fullstop, it just goes vague and ambigious, to the point that they readily admit they don’t even know what they mean by God.

You make my point for me. You don’t seem familiar with prominent theologians like Paul Tillich, Reinhold Neibur, John Cobb, Charles Harteshorne, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Marcus Borg, etc. These folks spell out what they think in very clear terms.

Also, in my opinion, all formal arguments for the existence of God are indeterminate and therefore a non-starter from either side. That’s not going to settle anything.

I disagree, it is not the “best thinking” in religion that should be attacked, but the popular bs. It doesn’t matter what the “best thinkers” have to say if the general religious community thinks what they say is garbage.

But Dawkins and Harris are not just attacking the bs in religion. If they were I wouldn’t object except for the tone. They want to trash religion, per se. To do that they would have to do what everyone else has to do in every rigorous field, study and critique the best thinking available.

You mean they are more vague than Dawkins “memes”. Here’s what J. Allen Orr said about Dennett’s “ways that memes were like genes”.

So does Dennett believe that memes are like genes? He admits: 1) Memes are produced by “directed mutation,” while genes are produced by random mutation; 2) exchange between long-isolated cultures has everything to do with cultural evolution, while exchange between long-isolated species can’t happen; 3) memes can blend together, while genes don’t ; 4) memes show a Lamarckian style of evolution, whereas genes show only Darwinian evolution. By the end of this list, one begins to suspect that the most important feature memes and genes share is the sound of the words. This does not, of course, mean that no sort of theory of cultural change is possible. But it does mean that Dennett’s memetics-founded on a strict meme-gene analogy-is in a bad way.

Clear as an obvious list of contradictions to explain “science” by the foremost academic disciple of Dawkins.

However, that does not relate to the point I was making. If Dawkins and others want to attack religion, per se, they should attack the best thinking available. Just because the general public doesn’t know the deepest thinking doesn’t invalidate religion itself, anymore than the lack of understanding of science in the general public invalidates it.

I haven’t read any thinking from theologians fullstop, it just goes vague and ambigious, to the point that they readily admit they don’t even know what they mean by God. As Dawkins says, if theologians came up with any good arguments that he hasn’t heard before, for the existance of God, he would listen. They concentrate on the area after the assumption that God exists, and all of it is nonsense (it really is), until they deal with God.

Can you hear a scientist saying that not only does he/she not know what he/she’s talking about, but he has no evidence for it either? It’s not surprising not only do Dawkins and intelligent atheists completely ignore them, but that the religious do too. They’re a joke, and it’s ceasing to be funny. That invalidates religion, and it’s always been the point, it’s irrational, amusingly called non-rational by many of them.

Just because the morning post bemoaned the lack of acceptance of evolution in the United States implying that the majority of Americans think it’s “garbage” I don’t think we should discount the best thinking in evolutionary science. Just think what we’d have to discount in math, etc. if that was the standard.

As omniscient as he is used to thinking he is and as he’s, no doubt, come to expect to be regarded, Richard Dawkins doesn’t get to decide what is and isn’t a “real field of study”. Considering that most of the informed reviewers were appalled at the ignorance he displayed in his book, it’s a pretty self-serving stand to take. It’s interesting to hear the new standards in scholarly writing, you get to write a book on something you not only know little about but you get to decide that you don’t need to know something about it. But then, why was PZ Myers so snooty about that book he reviewed? If it’s all right for his idol, why not for other writers? Double standards? I’ve always said that was what the neo-atheism was all about.

Dawkins directly addressed this in his book however, when he stated that he doesn’t consider theology to be a real field of study.

Yes, but alas most religious people seem to be totally ignorant of it.

I agree, just as most people are ignornant of the best thinking in science. This is a problem that theologians as well as scientists has been concerned about.

Or, in the case of the evangelicals that I’ve known, they think that theologians are irrelevant at best, demonic at worst.

I guess it depends on who you are talking to. There are many evangelicals who don’t pursue their own theology beyond simplistic formulations but, in my experience, the more thoughtful pay a great deal of attention to the theologians, albeit the conservative kind.

However, that does not relate to the point I was making. If Dawkins and others want to attack religion, per se, they should attack the best thinking available. Just because the general public doesn’t know the deepest thinking doesn’t invalidate religion itself, anymore than the lack of understanding of science in the general public invalidates it.