And if you demonstrate this then we have something to discuss. So far you have misrepresented a summary of points as being his base premises. These are different things.

Well I have more than a modicum of experience in both philosophy and logic having attained a degree in the subject and I can tell you I do not find his arguments flimsy. There is room for improvement in Dawkins work and by its own admission its not meant to be a complete philosophical work. There are many points where we could get into an interesting and genuine discussion about what Dawkins is saying in the God Delusion but this simply is not one of them I'm afraid. Any one with modicum of experience in philosophy or logic would know this.

Indeed it’s a book for lay people. But this does not detract from the validity of the central message. Yes you can get technical on a number of points, we could get involved in a very detailed metaphysical discussion, or a discussion on the nature of causation or a number of other topics but that would not really have bean book that would appeal.

Also we can oft get caught up in philosophical mental masturbation with these issues. It’s really very simple when it comes down to it. As another poster summed its up

P1- Complex things can't magically pop into existence

P2- God is complex

C- God is either caused naturally by a process like evolution or does not exist.

It’s really that simple. The only reason we get caught up in over philosophizing on this very simple issue is due to millennia of cultural indoctrination. If the God Theory where proposed today as a new theory that no one had heard of before it would simply be laughed at, no one with a modicum of philosophical or logical experience would take it seriously. On its own merits it is a laughable theory, childlike in its Bronze Age reasoning.

The only reason we are even having this discussion is because God Theory is not allowed to be judged on its own merits, it has layers of cultural protection afforded to it like no other idea in human history. Once you strip away the layers of cultural protection and look at it for what it is its really really daft. It does not make any sense what so ever. It fails on so many levels that one is left wondering how anyone with a modicum of philosophical or logical experience can possibly fall for it. This I think is what Dawkins is looking to achieve in his book. If people can free themselves from this indoctrination and look at God Theory objectively and unclouded by the special protections so often afforded to God then any one with the necessary modicums of experience will see that its a load of old tosh. We don't need to get involved in technical philosophical discussions look at objectively God Theory it’s almost self evidently false.

Or was I? [Cue the three beat dramatic music]

Yes.. yes I was.  Partially-in-whole-none. 

Even if I accept P1-- people usually mistake P2 as self-evident. I would contend, however, that there iit is not.

God is not necessarily complex. God is not necessarily simple.

To give it give a way in which I might address the premise: "God is as simple as the culmination of all physical laws."

True, you could dismiss the premise out of hand-- however, if you consider it for a moment you are presented with a reasonable progression of thought:

P: God is as simple as physical as the culmination of all physical laws.

P: Physical laws came into existence, necessarily, through non-evolutionary means.

C: God could have come about through non-evolutionary means.

Granted.. once again, let me state, that someone will probably argue the validity of the analogy, stating that "physical laws is a concept of relationships and not an entity in fact, as God supposedly is."

Yet.. if this is the argument, then the arguer will merely be adding more assertions to the argument that have not yet been accepted or addressed.

Is God NECESSARILY an entity in fact? Hm... who knows. Perhaps he is merely a universal, relational, concept.

In anycase.. merely addressing the thing which is "really simple"--

 Somewhere I read that Dawkins has a website. I've also heard that said website has a forum. Someone told me that in this forum you can leave questions. Maybe even questions like, "did you mean for the God Delusion to be a logical proof against God?"

This whole thread strikes me as mental masterbation when you can just ask the man himself.

Gavagai: It may be factually incorrect to say that Dawkins calls this his "central argument."

Here's the actual introduction to the set of six statements you summarized:

"This chapter has contained the central argument of my book, and so, at the risk of sounding repetitive, I shall summarize it as a series of six numbered points."  (God Delusion p157)

It is clear from this statement that Dawkins says that the *chapter* contains his central argument. The antecedent of "it" in the second independent clause could be "argument" as you postulate, or it could be "chapter."  (There's no way to be sure because of the way that English is structured.)  If the antecedent of "it" is the chapter, not the argument, then the summary is not represented as an argument, but rather as a chapter summary.

argument:

Hamby,

Right. By "argument" I take Dawkins to have in mind the ordinary sense of that word: roughly, a series of statements leading logically to a conclusion of some sort.  Are you prepared to suggest that when Dawkins says "argument" he doesn't mean "logical argument"? That would surely be interesting. 

I don't see why that is. Dawkins is the one, after all, calling it his central argument. I'm just going along with what he says. The atheists here are coming up with the weird excuse that Dawkins doesn't really mean what he says.

 It would be nice if those six statements were not intended as an argument, but rather bullet points or something. Unfortunately, Dawkins quite explicitly considers it his "central argument", so we need to evaluate it as such. How this makes me dishonest I do not know.

Cheers,

Gavagai

Textom,

I just noticed your post. I have to hand it to you. That's a very good point. I see now that the sentence smacks of ambiguity. I think charity requires us now to assume that Dawkins meant to summarize the chapter in which his central argument can be found, but not the central argument itself (whatever it is). Point conceded. Subject dropped.

Cheers,

Gavagai

Thank you, Gav.  I concur with Hamby on your even-handedness.

Score one for grammar--the most overlooked of the seven classical liberal arts.