From the Guardian of all places, an interesting analysis of “anti-faith” proselytizing as a growth industry. Madeleine Bunting, “The New Atheists loathe religion far too much to plausibly challenge it”:
What [the New Atheists] all have in common is a loathing of an increasing religiosity in US politics, which has contributed to a disastrous presidency and undermined scientific understanding. [Daniel] Dennett excoriates the madness of a faith that looks forward to the end of the world and the return of the messiah. What Dawkins hates is that most Americans still haven’t accepted evolution and support the teaching of intelligent design; according to one poll, 50% of the US electorate believe the story of Noah. He argues that “there is nothing to choose between the Afghan Taliban and the American Christian equivalent … The genie of religious fanaticism is rampant in present-day America.”
First things first: I’m an admirer of Dawkins, whose “The Selfish Gene” posited the notion that we are all essentially automatons built for the purpose of reproducing and extending “our” gene line—which is, as arguments go, one of the purest expressions of materialism ever conjured.
But what has always struck me as interesting about the thesis is that, if true, it argues, inter alia, that one of the principle defense mechanism “selected” for humans, because of its success in propagating the gene, is a complex consciousness that has, in many instances (and over the long history of human development), chosen to reject pure materialism for a belief in metaphysics and religiosity1—which, as I’ve pointed out in discussions on the teaching of intelligent design (something I favor, though for reasons other than those advanced by ID promoters), is not necessarily at odds with the idea of Darwinian evolution.
Why Dawkins would rail against what he essentially has always argued for is a product of “his” own biases and, potentially, even his own arrogance: after all, who is Dawkins to argue with the successes of the gene at keeping itself alive, even if it has evolved its host in such a way that the host “believes” in a religious mythology that promotes reproduction and communal cooperation? (Islam raises a special problem, as it would take human progress backwards; whether or not the gene is looking to go this route is yet to be determined, but Dawkins’ decision to equate the religiosity that gave rise to the Enlightenment with the religiosity that hopes to return the human condition to a pre-Enlightenment state is a curious one, and does his master no favors, in my estimation).
Or, to put it another way, Dawkins seems not to like that materialism has given us religiosity—and he is essentially railing against nature. But surely as astute a scientific observer as Dawkins can track the differences between the Taliban and “the American Christian equivalent,” which, if it exists (and I propose that such an “equivalent” exists more in the paranoid imaginations of materialists or “New Atheists” than it does in actuality, the proof being that Andrew Sullivan, for all his attacks on the Christianists, hasn’t found himself buried under a toppled brick wall), is surely far more benign, and has shown a tremendous success in advancing the ability of the gene to survive, reproduce, and, in the longterm, perhaps even outlive its terrestrial boundaries by devising a way to transport itself permanently to a new hunk of space rock.
Naturally, Dawkins and Dennett are entitled to make their arguments for changing the direction of human epistemology—and there are plenty of reasons to fear certain religious impulses—but by hyperbolizing and drawing false and hysterical equivalencies between distinct religious narratives, they hurt their own arguments.
Dennett, for his part, makes the extended case, in Consciousness Explained, that artificial intelligence is certainly possible, and would hardly differ in kind from our current state of evolved consciousness. Again a materialist argument, but one that, Dennett, too, must admit, has “evolved” only because epistemology has tacked a certain way. But as with Dawkins’ argument, I don’t see why one can’t believe in a higher state of being—a first cause that is not the proper purview of either Darwinian evolution or of the study of consciousness—and still remain perfectly comfortable with advancing science. Nor is it clear how believing the story of Noah (and I reject the idea that a full 50% of Americans believe the story in its literal sense)—that is, believing in an an instructive fiction—prevents one from acknowledging that the brain works after a certain fashion.
In short, it is simply ludicrous to argue that, because some people, using religion as a moral justification, believe human “life” to begin prior to socialization, “the genie of religious fanaticism is rampant in present-day America”, or that the end times fantasies of actual religious fanatics should be mapped onto the religiosity that eventually gave us rationalism and, once rejected by a certain branch of thinkers, materialism itself.
Dawkins and Dennett would do well to take their own advice and allow the scientific method to decide just how “useful” to the species the various strains of “religiosity”—which, taken as a structural impulse rather than a descriptive one would include certain materialist beliefs as well—have been to the advance of the species (or, if you prefer, the “gene” that has been using us as its own supercool robot).
As Bunting notes:
[…] the aggression and hostility to religion in all its forms (moderates are castigated as giving the fundamentalists cover for their extremism) deters engagement with the really interesting questions that have emerged recently in the science/faith debate. The durability and near universality of religion is one of the most enduring conundrums of evolutionary thinking, one of Britain’s most eminent evolutionary psychologists acknowledged to me recently. Scientists have argued that faith was a byproduct of our development of the imagination or a way of increasing the social bonding mechanisms. Does that make religion an important evolutionary step but now no longer needed – the equivalent of the appendix? Or a crucial part of the explanation for successful human evolution to date? Does religion still have an important role in human wellbeing? In recent years, research has thrown up some remarkable benefits – the faithful live longer, recover from surgery quicker, are happier, less prone to mental illness and so the list goes on. If religion declines, what gaps does it leave in the functioning of individuals and social groups?
This isn’t the kind of debate that the New Atheists are interested in […].
I suspect the New Atheists are in danger of a spectacular failure. With little understanding and even less sympathy of why people increasingly use religious identity in political contexts, they’ve missed the proverbial elephant in the room. These increasingly hysterical books may boost the pension, they may be morale boosters for a particular kind of American atheism that feels victimised—the latest candidate in a flourishing American tradition—but one suspects that they are going to do very little to challenge the appeal of a phenomenon they loathe too much to understand.
Reached for comment, Michael Newdow dismissed this as so much “godbothering,” while Pandagon’s Amanda Marcotte simply pointed to her vagina and spit.
(h/t Dan Collins. See also, Bloody Scott).
1in fact, one prominent theory, posited by Julian Jaynes (The Origins of Consciousness in Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind), suggests that it wasn’t until a certain evolutionary point that the brain recognized its “inner voice” as being self-contained and not the voice of what it eventually thought to be “gods” or “God.”
I’m so confused. Is the Taliban the one having the pancake breakfast this Sunday?
If you think the Taliban and American Christians are indistinguishable, your understanding of reality is at least as much of a barrier to real debate as your rage.
Elephants and kangaroozies roozies. I’m down.
They don’t want debate, Nano, they use that “reasoning” to Shout You Down.
If it’s true folks used to think that “little voice” was the voice of God, I’ll bet a lot of folks were wondering why God thinks about pussy so much.
Dennet and Dawkins believe that God is a projection of our genes. Why should we believe that Dennet and Dawkins exist? Maybe they’re a projection of “their” publishers?
T&T
Perhaps this explains why on occasional Sunday mornings, rather than go to church, I simply feel a desire to go blow some shit up.
Dawkin’s latest, The Ancestor’s Tale, is pretty good – but I was surprised to read anti-Bush screeds in the middle of discussions about a million years of evolution. You’d think they’d be avoided as a matter of fashion – the book will quickly seem dated although the subject matter is timeless – even if not as a matter of taste.
All of this is going to be dated.
I’m far more inclined to sympathize with Satre’s views on religousity, than Dawkins. Dawkins will be forgetten in a few years, simply because his arguments and rhetorical styles will be seen as very dated in 20 years.
I’ve got a god in my jeans. Or so I’ve been told.
Ahhhh. So the voice telling me to strip naked on the White House lawn, douse myself in chocolate syrup, then start dancing one of the “swan” roles from Swan Lake, is actually God?
Well, I guess I’d better do it then. Wouldn’t want to piss Him off by doing some Twyla Tharp interpretive number whilst trickling some warm butterscotch ice cream topping in my hair…
When you become that hysterical and shrill it is a sign that you are losing; and I think it is also instructive the paranoid nature of the accusations leveled by these evangelical atheists.
They refuse to have a rational debate with their opponents, instead falling back on accusation and smear. An example, I think, of the paranoid style of politics. and the one that exhibits that style is the one who is losing.
“Hey Pat…PAT! Wake up!…Yeah, it’s me, God. Hey, listen – I want you to get up and go check your tire pressure…Yes, right now!…”
— Sam Kinnison, mocking Pat Robertson
There is no ‘special problem’: They are having more children now than the ‘Enlightened West’ and guaranteeing the survival of their genes exactly as you propose.
The ‘special problem’ lies with the weird atheist women in the West who despise God only more than they despise men and children.
In fact, the Muslim Model may prevail and validate your theory.
TW: let81 Allah81 be Allah81.
I think you are misunderstanding Dawkins and Dennett.
For one thing, there is no contradiction in Dawkins’ theory of human evolution and his rational and moral objections to religion.
Let’s say for the sake of argument that an inclination towards religion is a genetic adaptation. (It might be, but it might not be. In fact, the Dawkins/Dennett types have a better explanation for it, which I’ll get to—but for now let’s say it is.)
Dawkins has always said that the fact that a trait might be adaptive doesn’t mean we need to embrace it. The pithier expression of this is “Ought does not follow from is.” An example: there is a theory that it more genetically adaptive for impoverished males (with fewer opportunities to mate) to resort to rape (as a means of propogating their genes). If this theory were proven, it would not follow that rape should be allowed for impoverished males. There are other things to consider, not least of which the needs of the rape victims.
Similarly, even if it could be shown that a genetic predisposition to religion is adaptive, it does not follow that we need to embrace it on those grounds. So, for Dawkins, the practice of teaching children to fear eternal torture in the afterlife for a failure to believe to the unbelievable claims of an ancient document is not morally justified by the (dubious) claim that it will give them an edge in propagating their own genetic recipe. As far as he (and I) are concerned, it’s still wrong. And there is no contradiction with that view and a materialist understand of evolution that includes a selfish gene.
But is religion genetically adaptive? I find that a much more plausible explanation can be found in Dawkins’ most famous and controversial ideas—that of the meme. In a nutshell, evolution need not be strictly for the benefit of the gene as we know it. There might be other forms of replicators, including the meme (which is essentially a self-replicating idea). Therefore, a set of religious beliefs could be prevalent in a given population—not because there is any genetic predisposition to them—but because the ideas themselves are selfish replicators infecting the group through socialization. As the Jesuit’s famous claim goes: “Give me the boy and I’ll give you the man.” In other words, tell a child early enough that he’ll suffer eternally if he fails to believe in this, and that idea will be much harder to shake later in life, even if its confronted with contrary evidence.
In the end both things might be true. That is, humans may have genetically adapted a predisposition to religion, and that predisposition may be exploited by a wide variety meme-plexes, which may range from mostly benign to utterly pernicious—anything from your basic hard-working middle-class Episcopalian, to radical Islam, to those guys with the sneakers who offed themselves when the comet flew by. But if we come to understand this as being so, then we are in a position, as rational creatures, to resist these impulses according to our best judgement.
Personally, I believe—and Dawkins does as well—that there is such a thing as being “religious” or “spiritual” in a materialistic Einsteinian sense. That is, one can feel humbled and awed by the beauty and scale of the universe, and feel that a rational study and celebration of the same has much more to offer than any of the old suites of superstitions and that we know of as religion.
Julian Jaynes? Now there’s a blast from the past. I attended one of his lectures, in the frickin’ seventies, man, about just that same thing, the bicameral mind. I seem to recall we didn’t quite become special until we started talking to ourselves, which for me was as I was walking out of the hall.
Reproduction isn’t the “progress” re. Islam that Jeff’s referring to; I would suggest that the problem is the fact that such a regressive culture is, in fact, having more children than the Western “progressive” ones.
We could argue about what I mean when I say regressive, but I’ll assume for now that we would agree that the Islamic cultures are for the most part, shall we say, more medieval than their Western counterparts.
Where does Dawkins ground his claims of right and wrong? I’m not claiming that atheism is inconsistant with morality, but asking about Dawkins’s acount of it.
T&T
Of course. But all this notes is that “we’ve” learned to weigh options and sometimes sacrifice certain localized biological imperatives for the greater good of the species.
And I never argued that it was morally justified– just that the possibility exists that it is, and that, rather than launch into hysterics, we’d be better off trying to determine, scientifically, if religiosity is useful in such a way or not.
Or to put it another way—and to riff further on Dawkins—just because we need not embrace an adaptive trait (or a memetic viral) doesn’t mean we shouldn’t, either. It’s a question of priorities.
Personally, I’m not religious. But I also don’t find it problematic that others are, provided their religion doesn’t infringe on my freedoms.
And to be clear, I used Dawkins’ “The Selfish Gene” as an analogue (and a bit ironically) to account, as well, for his meme replication argument.
Because to me, it matters not if the predisposition is essential or the product of socialization. The question is, is it useful. And if it is, there is no necessity to reject it, just as there is no necessity to embrace it—but by rejecting it with the venom Dawkins and Dennett seem to, they are choosing the path that undermines what they claim to embrace, even if only from the perspective of history.
Could evolution explain “Lesbian Athesists for Islam”?
I realise you were making a point, but I spent enough years with the Jebbies to know that’s not quite what they mean. Augies and Franciscans? Christian Brothers? Maybe, but Jesuits? Nah. Jesuits live for contrary evidence. Get a random sample of Jebbies in a room and half of them will tell you there is no God, a quarter of them will try and prove it mathematically, and the rest will be lawyers and therefore proof that not only does God exist, but that he wants us to drive nice cars.
Not to don my Marxist Interpretative beanie here, but does anyone else think that a lot of this has to do with
a) class (dislike for those dreadful white suburbanites going to church with their loathsome cherubs all dressed in Sunday best)
and
b) politics (if evangelicals were interpreting the biblical injunctions about helping the poor to advocate radical income redistribution, the Left would value them as useful idiots) – something the Guardian article touches on.
You can gussy it up with explanations drawing upon Darwinian theory, but I’d argue much of this is just because those Gaia-awful Christians are so darn tacky and backwards.
I would be interested to hear Dawkins’s definition of religion. Because as a religious person, I can testify that most of what falls under the rubric of “religion” is crap.
Just because a diamond lies in a heap of cubic zirconiums, glass, and paste (sorry Jeff), it doesn’t mean that the diamond is any less valuable or genuine. It just means that you have to look hard for it, and you have to actually have an idea of what you’re looking for, and you have to want it. The untrained eye sees the pile of shiny stones as being all the same; the expert can examine them each, one by one, and sort out the chaff from the real McCoy.
and there are plenty of reasons to fear certain religious impulses
I would argue that any “fearsome” religious impulse can be found outside religion as well and can be imputed to base human tendencies rather than something inherent in “religious” belief that addles the brain in a way that seculars are immune from.
End-times hysteria? See Al Gore for that. The desire to impose your concept of morality on the rest of the population? Socialism, political correctness, speech codes, and any number of laws in the US can be attributed to non-religious “faiths” such as environmentalism, animal rights, and feminism. Belief that you know the Truth and therefore should be in control? Hello, academia. Belief that you can or should kill the infidel or unbeliever? Stalin? Hitler? Pol Pot?
True religious impulses, at a minimum, consist of the following:
• The desire to transcend the material world to some degree
• The desire to make contact with The Divine
• The desire to be transformed from a “fallen” or flawed person into someone better
• The desire to relieve pain and distress in others through personal sacrifice (not the sacrifice of others’ tax dollars)
• The acquisition of divine virtues such as empathy, compassion, wisdom, hatred of evil, honesty, patience, kindness, integrity, gentleness, etc.
Anything that counters these impulses that calls itself religion is a foul counterfeit.
But Dawkins and his ilk cannot distinguish between the genuine article and the counterfeits, so he condemns them all as fakes, and dangerous fakes at that.
Mr. Dawkins, are you persuaded by straw-man arguments? Me neither.
Bonus from Gagdad Bob at One Cosmos.
I’m not even sure what this means? This jerk is holding forth on genetic predispositions, and makes this claim, which he apparantly fails to support. Just who or what is the equivalent of the Taliban in the US? What were the criteria used to make this breathtaking determination? Death toll? Number of atrocities committed? Number of art works demolished? TV stations seized? Radios and TVs banned? Number of churches attended? Number of children educated? Number of charitable works, programs and hospitals run?
What’s next? A new eugenics movement against religionists?
I agree, and tried to make that implicit by noting that “religiosity” is a structural, rather than a descriptive, impulse—and so obtains in worlviews not normally thought of as religious.
As examples of that, I’ve often used environmentalism and materialism itself.
I think we see the answer to this question manifested daily in the highly secularized world. As adherence to formal religions declines many people seem predisposed to fill the gap with beliefs and activities that, although not formalized as religion, certainly bear much of their trappings, e.g. the church of environmentalism to cite a recent well discussed example. A brief review of the last fifty years will no doubt bring many others to mind.
This is an interesting thread. Some comments.
Many religious people, including myself, abhor that kind of “teaching.” To my mind, religion isn’t about coercion.
Dawkins’ idea of blind genes self-replicating always reminded me of Leibniz’ “windowless monads”, which further reminds me that there’s nothing new under the sun.
All Dawkins is really saying is that the pursuit of self-interest (so to speak) at the cellular level is the cause of change. Sort of a cross between Bernard Mandeville (“Fable of the Bees”) and Lewis Thomas (“Lives of a Cell”). The problem is that this is just another theory that says, “in the beginning” was X, as opposed to Y, who just as easily could be the “God” who started the kinetic sculpture in motion.
The same thing goes for social beliefs. We have them: including God, throwing spilled salt over your shoulder, what have you. The beliefs “replicate”, fershur, but, where do they come from? And why do people believe them? If it was that simple we’d all make millions in the ad biz.
Our God vs Their God: one of the main lines with people like Dawkins and Sullivan’s opponent (I can’t even remember his name), is that look at THEM, THAT shows the bankruptcy of religion, etc. etc.
Oh, bullshit. Religion involves all kinds of rituals to get us through the day, alleviate suffering and anxiety, feel that our lives have meaning, chase black despair, and on and on and on. What are Dawkins and Sam Harris offering as substitutes? Their fucking BOOKS?!?
Religion always has problems when it loses its moral bearings, the basic “tat tvam asi” insight of all religion. If it keeps that, all religions are good. If it loses that, it’s worthless.
To echo Scooter’s comment, with evolution there really isn’t a monolithic “forwards” or “backwards”. Evolution is not “progress” in search of some fixed goal.
If Islam spreads, it may be that it’s better adapted (memetically, as opposed to genetically, much as I hate the over-abused “meme”), and thus evolutionarily superior.
As Ted said, better adapted doesn’t mean morally superior, or indeed, in any way preferable from our point of view.
Better adapted means only better adapted; nothing else is there to be adduced.
(Personally – and I’m a lifelong atheist, having never believed in any God – I find rabid atheists of the Dawkins stripe (or, more accurately and more annoying, his followers) intensely annoying.
They make me want to become a Catholic just to spite them.
They would claim I’ve just read too much Chesterton and Lewis, and I’d probably just tell them to grow up, get over God, and go to hell, figuratively speaking.
But I’m touchy that way.)
Oh, I like this (from the article):
In a another passage Harris goes even further, and reaches a disturbing conclusion that “some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them”. This sounds like exactly the kind of argument put forward by those who ran the Inquisition.
Ya think? Thus supporting my original assertion, that the dangerous “religious” impulses aren’t “caused” by belief in the supernatural.
the practice of teaching children to fear eternal torture in the afterlife for a failure to believe to the unbelievable claims of an ancient document is not morally justified
And teaching children that if they don’t buy compact fluorescent lightbulbs or have more than one child or recycle they’ll kill all the penguins and polar bears is different?
This ancient conflict between science and religion never was about “What Is Truth?” but “Who Gets to Preach It?”
Power, in other words. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.
Dawkins’s understanding of religion is exceedingly childish. It’s as if some kid told a nuclear scientist that his profession was fraudulent because he’d never seen an atom split.
Well, Jeff, you and I are similar, I suspect, in that we don’t object per se that others are religious. Like that stupid bumpersticker says, “COEXIST.” (I’m married to a Christian, after all.)
But I would not go so far as to say that this is not problematic. It is perennially a problem in varying degrees, for all the reasons that Dawkins and Hitchens claim. On one hand, there are large problems—such the particularly pernicious religions that would seek to murder or convert me, or impose through force their version of morality based on ancient texts of dubious origin on me and everyone I love. Then there are smaller problems—such as the requirement that I “respect” beliefs that I know rationally to be false.
Sometimes this is merely and mildly inconvenient—akin to perhaps avoiding a all mention of American foreign policy within earshot of my moonbat relatives. But if I find the objections to, say, gay marriage on the basis of ancient texts irrational, then I ought to be allowed to argue my case, no matter how “disrespectful” my arguments might seem to those who disagree with me. If one objects to gay marriage based on the claims of an ancient text, then its within my rights to point out the many failings and contradictions within that text. Too much is at stake to just be polite and quiet about it.
The examples of these problems are legion. Christian scientists who refuse medical treatment for their children. Stem cell research. Teaching evolution. It’s problematic.
I think Dawkins can be a tad undiplomatic in his arguments. Certainly, Hitchens is. Part of their popularity is that they feel liberated to say what many of the rest of us are thinking but were too polite to say. But I don’t think they’re hysterical either. They only seem so because we are unused to hearing such plain talk.
One might try using the scientific method one seems to embrace to study whether indeed religion is adaptive and useful.
That is Dennett’s approach actually, I think. I haven’t read his latest, but that’s my understanding of what it’s about. I would say that Dawkins would agree with you as well, when you say “to me it matters not if the predisposition is essential or the product of socialization. The question is, is it useful.” Dawkins is fairly certain that it is not, because it is, by his lights, false. And, for him, that’s enough.
I am more willing to consider the possibility that people sometimess need their peculiar fictions to function at their best. But I wouldn’t say that such an approach didn’t have its problems.
Heh. Not a Reformed Meringovian-Missionary Baptist?
And speaking of compact fluorescent bulbs, didja know that they contain significantly dangerous amounts of mercury that can be very expensive to clean up if you break one?
I agree with you, dicentra. It is about the power, nothing new. I just wonder what’s in it, personally, for Dawkins? Honor and glory, money and absurdity?
Well, uh, yeah. First of all, I don’t believe that lightbulbs will save the polar bears, or that having fewer than one child will save the penguins. But even if I did, at least these claims can be tested. Also, they are of little consquence to a child. An light-bulb purchasing, child-bearing adult has the intellectual power to judge these claims on his or her own.
Of course not. (Well, I don’t know about Harris. Never read him.) But Dawkins would say, correctly in my estimation, that there are better remedies for all of the above than ancient fictions. Is that so outlandish a claim?
Your friend is depressed. Do you hand her a Bible or the name of a good therapist?
What is more awe-inspiring? The beauty and scale of the universe that we know through science, or the tale of the burning bush?
by which I think you mean
It’s already being done, and Western Europe is failing to replace itself. Secularism may be giving the selfish gene too much dominance.
We will see, eh?
I’m aware of radical Islamists taking a dim view of everyone else, but do you have anyone else in mind?
Again, any other examples here besides radical Ismlamists? Please include your definition of force.
You just contradicted the first paragraph of your statement about co-existing.
Good news. The legions are no longer drafting anyone. The Christian Scientists aren’t blocking treatment for you and ‘everyone you love’. Stem cell research is being conducted, both privately and in public institutions. Government funding for embryonic stem cell testing is currently prohibited, but being rational and all, I’m sure that this distinction was never in doubt. Teaching evolution? I’ve heard of it, and I went to eeeeeevil Catholic schools from Kindergarten through High School.
Labelling Christians in the US as being the equivalent of the Taliban is to you “ a tad undiplomatic”? Wow. So by that definition, the meeting between Hitler and Stalin to carve up Poland and the Baltic states was what, a Secular Humanist meeting? And we relgionists are unused to hearing such ‘plain talk’. My Grandparents were used to being called bog rats. What you and Dawkins are saying isn’t new, or previously unheard.
Peculiar fictions, peculiar institutions. If you’re not a slave to one, you’re a slave to another.As Lenin said, I’m off to Mass to get my opium. Or something like that.
Not outlandish. I’d like to know what these “better remedies” are. However, since most atheists have a stunted sense of the spiritual, their ‘remedies’ will probably be tone deaf.
Neither. We have a conversation and I reference parables and ideas I have encountered in my life, including spiritual reading. I might also recommend some pill therapy, diet or lifestyle changes.
Actually, a sense of our personal insigificance compared to the heavens is one of the oldest religious tropes. Science doesn’t really add much to what we can see with the naked eye about the vastness of space, although, it does offer some cool pictures.
The joy of having driven my foe before me like cattle so that I may revel in the lamentations of his women and breathe the smoke from his burned villages!
Actually, this was a quote from Jeff, that I forgot to blackquote when I posted it. The part you edited out, which I agree looks like verbal cruft in the middle of the sentence, is Jeff’s reference to Dawkins, et al.
My answer to him was that that is what Dennett is actually doing (It think).
Western Europe (and according one one article I read recently, the rest of the world as well, including the Third World) is failing to replace itself because technology is making it easier for people to delay reproduction. In this sense, it’s evidence of culture subverting the requirements of the selfish gene and not the other way around.
Persoanlly, I’m not worried. I suspect its just a natural “governor” on population. I also don’t expect religion to ever go away. But I do expect that it will continually evolve to better reflect contemporary values, including those of us secularists.
Historically, if you wanted to live anywhere besides a police state, it didn’t hurt to have a morality set imbued in young men and women that incorporates a certain punishment. Suppose we no longer need that morality, I guess because we find the strictures a little too archaic.
What do we replace it with? It had a purpose, we are told, because Thou Shalt Not Adulter-ize kept families of cuckolds from wiping themselves out in revenge. Is the replacement supposed to be CCTV or something?
To ask the extension of the question that lies just past Dawkins: If it is the case that religiosity is a geneitc affect that aided the advancement of the gene and that were proven, what would be the responsibility of those who don’t believe in religion, or at least the course of action perfered, towards those who still have religious beliefs?
It would seem that even presenting this as a position is only going to further be considered antagonism towards religious believers. In that, I don’t think most people will switch based off of scientific evidence, considering the reams of scientific misrepresentation for political purpose and scientific findings that have been uprooted as false in the past by later evidence. In that, people of faith will more than likely reject this information in the simular fashion as to when they reject the big bang, evolution and promoite ID.
Further, I would think that they’d have a difficult time in trying to mandate a change away from religion at a governmental level when the debate here in the US will be centered on individual rights and the Constitution protection of religious expression.
In this, Dawkins observations are an interesting conversation piece. However, the fact that religion has existed past several permutations of philosophical efforts to bring it down raises the greater question of what will the socially binding mechanism be that can kill it and whether that mechanism won’t topple the social stucture that religion has allowed to exist. Those are questions I’d love to see explored because claiming that something is a problem is still observation at it’s core, even when presenting evidence of how it functions and is enabled, but illustrating how the need to discard religion will be enacted and how this feature will interface with the social aspects of morality, self definition and government is much more relevant, in that if they are successful the void religion fills will need replacement. This, i would assume, will need to happen quickly or the bedrock foundations of what the individual freedoms and rights are based off of will erode with no common morality to tether them in place.
Also, since I’m a dirty little Christianist, I have to point out that there is a another option that is less vibrant and not as much fun to discuss. But it could be that these gentlemen’s observation to religion is a visceral response to divine authority and an extension of human hubris and therefore rely on their finite knowledge in trying to define an infinite concept, when all they really need to do is accept that God loves them for who they are, not what they do, have done, or desire to do. Of course, we’ve plunged those waters before, but I still have to say it. You know, being the Devils advocate and all of that.
“Religion” in the sense of a body of unexamined beliefs has always been with us and always will be. Several commentors and Jeff too have been clear-eyed enough to note that something can be a religion without being a “Religion”, and that goes for secular humanism, too.
On the other hand, there have always been two opponents to religion. On the one hand, those who prod us towards Reason, who are usually (or used to be) academics, and then those who think they have discovered something when they have discovered how “silly” religion is. My main complaint against the likes of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens is that they apparently no very little about the history of faith or the history of its opponents, otherwise they might be a little less shrill, more original, humbler, funnier, and in general, more useful. In other words, I think they’d be better to try to be part of the first group, rather than the second group, whose mewlings always strike me as being jejune, obvious, and sophomoric.
I don’t like religious zealots, either.
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers
the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
what is man, that thou art mindful of him
and the son of man, that thou visitest him.
Psalm 8:3-4
I fear that Islam is memetically superior to both Judeo-Christianity and liberal democracy. Having followed (by several centuries) the two other great monotheisms, the founders of Islam seem to have developed much more effective methods of preventing “leakage” (i.e. apostasy or out-conversion). My understanding is that while Muslims have no qualms about converting subject populations at swordpoint, very few of these converts revert to their previous faiths once the pressure is off.
Oh, heck yes. For what it’s worth, I believe a more religious Judeo-Christian society would be far superior to the secular mess we’ll be cleaning up after for the next half-century or so. And I have no trouble accepting a benevolent first-cause type of deity, but I can’t accept the Christian version as anything but a close approximation. At least not yet.
Congratulations, you’ve successfully identified the primary problem with darwinism as social theory: it’s a constant exercise of begging the question and is utterly unfalsifiable.
Rather than starting with the facts and trying to work out what makes sense, the darwinian social theorist starts with the presupposition that evolution answers all our questions and then hammers away at that peg until it fits the hole, no matter what shape either is.
Blue Hen,
There is no contradiction in my saying that I can coexist with religious people, but that I still find the requirement to “respect” their obviously false beliefs as problematic. Let’s just say that its a problematic coexistence, in varying degrees.
I do have other religions in mind besides the Islamicists. For example, I object strenuously to Christian arguments against gay marriage. I find that they have real negative consequences for some of the people I love.
My sister-in-law is married to a woman. I sang at their wedding. You will never meet two finer human beings with a deeper commitment to each other. However, their wedding, and their marriage, are not legally recognized by the state of Pennsylvania where they live. Furthermore, my sister-in-law’s wife has a serious illness. She’s in and out of the hospital all the time. As a consequence, there are serious legal difficulties for them as a couple that result directly from the state’s refusal to recognize their marriage. If they were to move to my state, Virginia, perhaps to be closer to their niece and nephew (my children), they would not even be allowed to make a contract with each other that would confer upon some of the legal rights of marriage, thanks to an amendment to my state’s constitution pushed through by the religious right.
If there is any good reason for this, no one thus far has been able to convince me of it. Their marriage harms exactly no one, and is a tremendous benefit to them both and their respective families. Society is certainly no better off because of their difficulties in this regard. And the whole business is derived from, I believe, a form of bigotry that is reinforced by ancient texts that should have no real world consequences in the modern world. I don’t expect you to agree, but that’s the way I see it, and it behooves me to argue my case with you whern the issue arises. (Ostensibly secularly arguments about the “definition of the word ‘marriage’” have failed to convince me of anything either, Jeff, but that’s a topic for another time.)
Now, is this situation as bad as life in Afganistan under ther Taliban? No. I wouldn’t claim that, and I don’t think Dawkins has ever claimed anything near that either. But it is similar problem to a lesser degree –in that the religious convictions of some are impinging on the rights of others for no good rational reason whatsoever. And, in that sense, it is not beyond the pale, from a intellectual standpoint, to note the places where these belief systems intersect. As I said, it may be a tad undiplomatic (and when I say “tad” you should get a whiff of ironic understatement).
Let’s look at another exmaple: The case I cited of a child who does not get medical treatment because her parents are Christian Scientists may not affect my family, but perhaps my concern for that child’s welfare is still a problem for me, much as, I imagine, your concern for some stranger’s unborn child is a problem for you. There’s an argument we, as a society, need to have about both issues, and at some point I am going to have to question the validity of a “faith” that has no basis in rationality. There’s just no way around it. Is this being “disrespectful?” Are you the one who gets to decide if it is? See? Problem.
I think its particularly interesting that the releigious have adopted the language of identity politics to protect their beliefs from criticism.
See, here’s the trouble with that: I’m an atheist, and I oppose gay marriage on conservative principles alone. Too many of the harmful social innovations of the past forty years or so–the immense destructiveness of the welfare state, the disintegration of the family, the steady erosion of our freedoms, the list goes on–have been foisted upon us by well-meaning people saying, “Well, I don’t see the harm in it.”
“I don’t see the harm” is not a sufficient reason to risk the destruction of institutions that have evolved over centuries of trial and error. “I don’t see the harm” is the epitome of the political-rationalist mindset, which thinks it can “improve” upon longstanding institutions by intellectualization alone. One thing religion provided us with was a framework by which longstanding societal traditions were protected against heedless reform. Remove it, and here’s what you’re left with: “I don’t see the harm.”
And yet, children are being driven to distraction by lectures on this very subject:
If children throughout the country were being taught that touching yourself down there would ruin your life and the lives of those around you, it would be a scandal of legendary proportions. But teach the aesthetic preferences of the Green religion, and it’s treated as normal or even laudatory.
Also, there’s very, very little effort to actually consider the science and engineering underlying the claims of Greens. They’ll sigh and smile at the mention of “renewable energy”, but when you point out that renewables are notoriously unreliable, spotty, and mostly not transportable, it goes past them. Their belief that there’s a better way, that they know it, and that all would be saved if their way was followed is impermeable to actual evidence.
Ted, I don’t think you’re getting Jeff’s point at all. I base my moral values on my religion, or “ancient texts” as you would call them. I oppose certain actions such as wanton and malicious murder of other human beings on these outdated “ancient texts”. The fact you may find that “irrational” is meaningless to this thread.
I personally think Dawkins and Dennet have “childish” views of religion and spirituality of all kinds. That allows them to lump all religions and superstitions into one category and deny their worth altogether. If you want to disagree with me, wonderful. I doubt anyone on this site would find your positions “disrespectful” as you say, nor would anyone interfere with your right to express these opinions.
But I really don’t understand your point that Dawkins and Hitchens talk a “plain talk” that we aren’t used to hearing. Nietzsche was born 163 years ago this october. I’ve heard this “plain talk” like a broken record since the summer of love. Calling it “progressive” and “daring” doesn’t make it so. Frankly, after forty years its kind of dull.
I think Jeff’s point is well taken. As we live through the secularization of our society, rationalism and empiricism were supposed to replace religion. Sorry guys, it isn’t turning out that way. Dawkins’ rants about the “evils” of chrisitianiny and comparing of baptists with terrorist is not only a complete farce, but flies in the face of his own theory of the evolution of the consciousness of mankind. Petulant comparisons like the ones in the article sound more like Rosie O’Donnell than a respected philosopher’s explanation of theory. It’s not “discomforting”, its just petulant irrationality.
I don’t say you need to “respect” religions that don’t infringe upon your rights. But you should tolerate them.
Which doesn’t mean you can’t be critical of their teachings, or deny religion on rational grounds (something which doesn’t really trouble leaps of faith, though). Just seems a bit needlessly presumptuous, is all I’m saying.
In a non-religious world, their marriage is nothing more than a social rights contract and a tax break. So which do you think that they should have a marriage or a social contract and a tax break?
Likewise, while Dawkins hasn’t touched on it, if religion is a genetic device made to perpetuate the gene then homosexuality is a behaviorial abborition that erodes the viability of the gene’s efforts to propigate.
This is why, the question of what happens after they make their point is much more relevant. When you discuss yanking religion out from under society that’s fine but the social construct that we live in is still tied to the ideas and constructs that relgion entails, even the ones that you like. In that venue, why get married at all, adultry doesn’t exist. In that same sense mutualism that doesn’t aid in the raising of young would be socially optional at best and rape that’s just physical breeding dominace.
Those are questions that Dawkins and his pals haven’t addressed and are very relevant in that if they have no better plan then their relevation comes down to simple nitpicking.
The interesting thing about this discussion is that none of us, Dawkins included, really know what, or if, God is. It’s the equivalent of my Border Collie trying to understand the concept of quadratic equations—we just don’t have the capacity. For many, that’s where faith comes in.
Of course, my Border Collie does understand the concept of unconditional love. Which is pretty cool.
doubt33: I have more than 33, but it’s great to speculate on the unknowable.
I disagree. It is evidence of the selfish gene subverting cultural requirements to its own desires. Why suffer the sacrifices chidren require when that can be prevented completely?
Nah, the first explanation is closer to correct, under selfish-gene assumptions. The selfish gene “wants” you to mate like crazy so it can reproduce. Secular culture removes the inhibitions that prevent you from mating with as many people as you can, and even develops technologies to facilitate it. (Ever notice that most of the most dearly-held progressive beliefs boil down to consequence-free sex?)
Schopenhauer made that point about homosexuality over 150 years ago. There’s nothing new ….
I don’t get the two women being married thing, at all. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t count any marriage unless there were natural offspring. Otherwise, it’s just feelgood stuff for the ladies.
That has nothing to do with religion.
I do believe that people who are having and raising children, e.g., Jeff Goldstein, deserve special breaks, in terms of taxes, in terms of head of the line privileges, in terms of social approbabtion. The rest of us—including people like me whose child raising days are done—just do not count.
Well, a litttle off-topic, but… Your argument does not convince me. It’s like you’re saying “You’re sister-in-law shouldn’t be able to have the same rights with regard to her same-sex spouse when they’re in the hospital, because, gosh, I’m just al little worried that there is some unforeseen consequence of that that we’ll regret down the road. I prefer that we just keep everything the way it is.”
The same argument can be and was mustered to resist any number of beneficial social innovations—women’s suffrage, legalizing mixed race marriiages, etc.
But, see, you and I can at least argue this without you saying “Oh, yeah, well, it’s in the Bible, so I don’t have to listen to you anymore. God said it, end of story.” So, yeah, that’s better.
Homosexuals should definitely be forced to subsidize child-bearing families. But not just through income taxes. We should tattoo them so we can charge them higher sales and gas taxes too.
Since you’ve turned the thread into a lament about your sister and her partner, please be specific. I would find it odd that someone’s stance on religion would be determined by whether or not some woman had health insurance, or whatever it is that’s bothering you.
It reminds me of the woman who prayed to God for a Triplex: and then she got one, so now she knows God exists …..
Point taken , Rob Crawford. As a child, I was just as unnecessarily disturbed by secularists predicting the imminent end of the world by fire or ice as I was by my grandmother’s well-meaning insiistence that my atheist mother would burn in hell.
But in the end, this is just a tu quoque argument that if environmentalist can scare the shit out of kids to indoctinate them, then why shouldn’t Christians be able to so as well.
Okay. I’ll play. Where are we supposed to tattoo them? And what are we supposed to tattoo them with?
I remember “Fail Safe” scared me when I was a child. But not as much as “Darby O’Gill and the Little People.”
Homosexuals should definitely be forced to subsidize child-bearing families. But not just through income taxes. We should tattoo them so we can charge them higher sales and gas taxes too.
That’s right, raising taxes solves all kinds of problems, doesn’t it?
Do we tatoo infertile straight people too, and do gays who have children get a pass?
When the lesbians are chattel in burkhas and the homos are thrown off walls, as Ted walks to compulsory prayer at the Mosque; he’ll realize:
“Dammit, I wish we’d had more kids for God, or something….”
I think I’m funny. And my mommy loves me.
1. So co-existence and respect of another’s beliefs are contradictory? You seem to be equating respect with agreement.
2.
And in the same state of Pennsylvania a judge just ruled in a custody case; establishing two moms and a dad (sperm donor who stuck around). Funny how life, and the law works? I doubt that the religious right rammed that one through.
This country was founded upon that ‘bigotry emanating from those ancient texts’. So all of us should stand aside while you rational beings decide what stays and what goes?
Really!?! According to the thread, Dawkins said that there is no choice between the two. We should take cold comfort from you that the difference is only in the degree? In what? Ferocity? Bad press? Shooting women on a soccer pitch? Did one or both of the persons whom you serenaded receive 7.62 mm rounds in front of their children as it was televised? My understanding here is that as of yet, these people to whom you refer have not gotten either a favorable court ruling or election, though I hear that both courts and elections do occur in the Keystone state. If they work their way toward the judge I mentioned, they’ll probably have it by year’s end. I don’t recall too many elections held by the Taliban, tainted by bigotry from ancient texts or otherwise.
Might I remind you that there were few ‘rational’ reasons for the founding fathers to take the risks that they did?
There were many rational reasons for doing the exact opposite. And yet, they did it, at great personal risk.
Not really off-topic at all, since my argument was that religion provides a buttress against heedless change, and the overarching question of Jeff’s post is whether religion has beneficial social effects that justify its persistence through the millennia.
In any case, I’m accustomed to people likening gay marriage to all sorts of previous human-rights struggles, so I’m not swayed by the suffrage and miscegenation examples. In both cases the discrimination in question could not be rectified by any method other than the one adopted: extending the vote to women and making marriage colorblind (as it had been on and off throughout history). The (rather tame) discriminations you cite in your sister’s case seem easily rectified by some administrative tinkering, and fall far short (in my estimation) of the bar required to justify the modification of an ancient human institution to accommodate a definition never before accepted by any society.
Wrong again. My children receive “Christian indoctrination” only if my wife and I so choose. I’m not aware of anyone pushing for mandatory Christian indoctrination. Nice try though. I am required to send my kids to school, one I help pay for, and that eco scare crap indoctrination is compulsory, mandated by the state. The same state that decides if two (or more) gays, Guys, guys/boys, guys and animals can be ‘recognized’. And yes, all of the variations that I’ve listed are currently being lobbied. And I have to deal with interest groups peddling their wares about what’s good for my kids. Which is kinda like the bogeyman religous right pushing their agenda. So the purveyors of the ancient texts should be banned, and NAMBA and ACT UP gets to stay?
There is no contradiction in my saying that I can coexist with religious people, but that I still find the requirement to “respect†their obviously false beliefs as problematic.
Perhaps if instead of thinking in terms of
<blockquote>their version of morality based on ancient texts of dubious origin</b>
you should consider it in terms of
‘their version of morality based on several millenia of experience, knowledge and understanding.’
Not so easy to dismiss anymore, is it?
Hey, I’m doing what I can. I just put in a tape of Spongebob, for Chrissake for one of the tykes just now. What do you want from me?
By the way, we won’t save Western Civ from the Islamicists by forcing gay people to procreate by denying them the right to marry each other. Call me crazy.
I don’t think it’s a question of “denying” gays the right to anything. They can do what they like. Who gives a shit. I don’t. I know several gays, including two lesbian couples across the street. They don’t consider themselves married, and, guess what, neither do I.
They’re nice, I’m nice.
If my wife dies and I end up living with another old gray haired drunk with Parkinson’s disease, the prevailing wisdom appears to be that I will be obliged to marry, and even fuck him, too. No, I won’t!
Marriage is for promoting child-spawning fucks.
A society that pretends that child-spawning couplings are equal to non-child-spawning couplings is condemned to self-extinction. A society that does not recognize and promote the sanctity, nay, the HOLINESS of baby-making is going the way of the Dodo. It’s just a fact.
It has nothing to do with religion, except insofar as gay people tend to think that everything is about them.
Yeah, that’s it, Blue Hen. I want to ban the Bible and let NAMBA into our public schools. Jeezoflip, will you people lighten up?
Hey, I plan to send my children to Sunday school when they’re old enough. In the end, it didn’t hurt me any, and I figure it’s a little like a vaccination. They can make their own decisions someday. Besides, you need to know all those whacky stories. BECAUSE OF THE CUTURAL LITERACY!
You took the L out of NAMBLA. That’s so wrong.
Fine. Let’s have the state dissolve all childless marriages after a set period of time. Or have fertility tests a prerequisite for a license. Too much? Why ever so? The sanctity of child-spawning fucks, and by extension the whole civilization, is at stake!!!
Now who’s hystrerical?
Yeah, I left out of “CULTURAL” too. Either my keyboard is sticking, or I’m getting soppy so ate in the day.
Ted said.”What is more awe-inspiring? The beauty and scale of the universe that we know through science, or the tale of the burning bush? “
Dude. God spoke from the burning bush. Get yer fuckin’ telescope to do that!
Bullshit. One of those is being pushed in tax-payer funded institutions with mandatory attendance. The other is not.
See the difference?
That would be you.
Question: would you (or, rather, your sister) be happy with “civil unions” that amount to the same legal arrangements as marriage? If the same arrangements can be secured by contract without the intervention of the state, would that be an acceptable compromise?
The book was The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, but yeah. And people we deride for hearing “voices” are just throwbacks to the bicameral mind. Part of the theory was that one way for the two hemispheres of the brain to communicate was by those voices. I haven’t heard much about that theory but it explains one reason why ancient Greek classics like the Iliad are so odd to us.
I still have the book, it was a very interesting read. Thanks for the reminder.
Since you asked, I think civil unions would be step in the right direction.
And, yes, at the very least, I think allowing them to make contracts with each other should be legal. (It’s currently not so in my state, Virginia, thanks to the religious right.)
Personally, if you’re willing to allow civil unions, I don’t see any reason not go on and call them marriages. I mean my feeling is: what the fuck do you care what they want to call it? It’s not really any of your damned business anyway. If the ladies want to be married, let them be married. They’re not hurting anyone. It’s important to them and the people who love them, so why don’t you just butt out?
You can argue that society, for secular reasons, has a compelling reason to resist this change, and that’s fine. I have yet to hear such an argument that didn’t sound like so much steaming bullshit, including yours. Their marriage does not cause one fewer child to born. The meanings of words, and the parameters of certain institutions, change all the time through history to reflect changes in norms and perceptions of right and wrong. (Just look at the Old Testament.) In the end all these “secular conservative” arguments just sounds to me like some half-baked flimsy rationalization for you sticking your nose in someone else’s business.
But that’s fine. I am confident that my side will win that argument eventually because your side will eventually be seen for what it is, the vestiges of an outdated form of bigotry. We just have to keep making our case. Someday, we’ll look back on it the way we now look back on those who were worried about miscegenation, etc. Only a matter of time.
But if you claim that the resistance to gay marriage is completely, or even mostly, secular, then I think you’re even more full of shit. There is a religious objection to it, and that’s what motivates most of the resistance. And that means, that I have a “problem” with that aspect of religion. Which is why I brought it up in the first place. It’s just one example. I’ve got a million of them.
Re: the whole environmentalism fear-mongering versus hellfire fear-mongering. I am opposed to them both (if I didn’t make that clear). I don’t see the utility in scaring children with superstitious nonsense about torture in the afterlife, or with probable fates of the planet that they have little or no power to influence anyway. Certainly telling them they need to recycle or the world will end is wrong.
Now pardon me, but I have to go give my kid a bath before bedtime. Civilization is depending on it.
Godspeed, Ted Whileman.
Okay, Ted: here’s what you did. This was a discussion about faith versus atheism and you turned it into an argument about whether or not gays should be allowed to marry. Then, you turned around and called everyone who disagreed with you religious bigots, and full of shit, bullshit, and whatnot. That really wasn’t very nice.
I will say it again. No, I will ask you first. Give me one civilization that normalized homosexuality, and then tell me:
1. What was the status of women in that society,
2. What happened to that society.
Then explain why you would want to normalize homosexuality in our society.
If we normalize any relationship by the name “marriage” we also diminish the institution as a support for women, and children, which is what marriage has always been about.
To the extent that gays are bitching about claiming the mere WORD “marriage”, they are—surprise, surprise—just engaging in the same selfish, self-regarding, and self-pitying nonsense that is the weakness of gay people generally. Sorry.
It is still a fact that most women still regard marriage as the sanctification of their sex lives. It is also still a fact that most women regard sex as a quid pro quo. There are very few mothers, and even fewer fathers, who tell their daughters, “just do it with whoever you feel like and don’t worry about long term relationships, commitment, children, or any of that other stuff.”
Use a little common sense here.
Marriage is not about gay people. It is not about you.
Jaynes’ book was indeed about the “Breakdown”—the core idea is that modern psychology indicates that most of our actions most of the time are automatic (e.g., which shoe do you put on first?) and that we are only rarely “conscious”, that is, aware of ourselves, of our “I”, of what we are doing or planning to do.
His argument is that that phase of “consciousness”, where we see ourselves as self-aware “deciders” only occasionally pops up in our daily lives and was basically absent (or, better put) was not construed as “self”) 2-3 thousand years ago and more.
Put it this way. When confronted with a situation (e.g., “problem”) that requires a “decision”,
1. Modern man feels himself to think through to a decision “I made it”
2. Schizoid man gets a signal, usually auditory, telling him what to do
3. Pre-modern man got a signal, usually auditory, telling him what to do.
I think a more nuanced understanding of Jaynes is that all three are part of a similar state. The difference is that we are conditioned to regard our decision making as being “conscious”, determined by “self”, whereas even when conscious we are influenced by all kinds of subconscious signals. We certainly have a much stronger _expressed_ sense of self than people did in ancient times. Whether that is “objectively” true, is another question.
Jaynes’ position was kind of extreme. It seemed to suggest that the ancients were all basically schizoid. That devalues the sickness we know today. A 21st century schizophrenic would not have been able to function in the Iliad’s world, either.
If I have a thought, I have a thought (rarely, I grant.) In those days, the metaphor was a god appearing with instructions. When we repeat those kinds of metaphors where we put clothes on our thoughts and have them moving around, we call that, today, poetry.
The problem with that, mgl, is the consequence free aspect. Mating produces offspring, the consequences. Consequence free allows the act, but not the culmination, the offspring. Based on that alone, birth control is a hindrance to any mating.
Or something like that.
Thanks, Big Dan. I was gong from memory. Funny thing is, I just realized I have it on the bookshelf above my computer.
I appreciate the conversation. Cut Ted some slack, too. He is arguing in good faith.
Faith.
Heh.
What a pip I am.
I don’t remember having ever been told that “intuition” is simply a conclusion arrived at by the subconscious processing of information that wasn’t picked up consciously as it was gathered, before I came to that conclusion myself.
Apparently, intuitively.
McGeehee: It’s even worse than that, since most intellectual and/or creative insights occur “intuitively”, that is, subconscious or semi-conscious, compare dream states, “sleeping on it”, and the famous triad of Bed, Bath and Bus (in reference to many, Archimedies, and Kekule).
The key however is not to spend an inordinate amount of time in bed. The key is to spend a lot of time drifting with something that’s hard. Then one day you suddenly have got it.
Personally, if you’re willing to allow civil unions, I don’t see any reason not go on and call them marriages.
This is the primary flaw with the “Civil Unions” argument. It’s not a compromise, giving people exactly what they want and calling it something else is not compromise at all. There’s no give and take there, that’s give all by one side, then a bone thrown them with a sneer.
I think that perhaps the difference between primitive man and modern man is mostly in language – which allows us to conceive things we could not otherwise do. If you don’t have a word for ‘self’ it is more difficult to think about it. Isn’t there an idea that people go from the PS (Paranoid-Schizoid) to the D (Depressive) position through development? Schizoid means that you have difficulty cleaving between soul and spirit as Paul might have said? Describing what the PS sees is difficult because the separations that are real are not conceived to them.
It is clear that the ancients understood that their body was them, and often even that they had souls. That is not a PS person, and in fact a PS person cannot function normally (like a Schizophrenic.) I can say that because the way a PS person behaves is exactly like a baby. Some people have holdouts, but to call all ancients Schizoid sounds plain weird.
I think the Ancients’ problem was not that they weren’t developing mentally, but that they did not have the words or ideas to transmit what they were experiencing, a la Ezekiel and the Wheels within Wheels. So they were perhaps Schizoid in some sense in their language, but reading Aristotle does not sound Schizoid at all, he sounds as modern as the translation is. Self Mastery? It seems to be mostly about the evolution of language and concepts (which are expressed more or less effectively due to language…)
Anyway, about the original argument, there is a good old proverb that says, “Only a fool says that there is no God.”
Harsh.
As for ‘ancient texts’ – are we arguing that novelty is superior? Doubtful. So them being ancient is not a point against them at all. The point against them, if anything, may be their accuracy; and if you want to go with that, the Old Testament/Torah is probably the most reliable of all ancient documents. So its old and faithful, which sounds like a pretty good rock to build my house on.
Because if you allow special interest groups to arbitrarily redefine things to suit their own interests, it will never end. Marriage itself is a relatively trivial term, compared to terms like “best interests” or “human being”, but the principle is the same either way.
If you want marriage to include same-sex couples, persuade a majority of Americans to believe that marriage should include same-sex couples. Alternatively, if you believe marriage is a civil right which should over-ride the majority definition of society, persuade a majority of American people to believe that marriage is a civil right. Right now, you would almost certainly not get a majority for either proposition. Without one of those two, what other reason do you have for overruling the majority of American citizens, and why can’t the rest of us cite the same reason for our own pet causes?
I personally don’t believe that same-sex marriage will destroy American society; if it’s that fragile, then it’s doomed anyways. I also think that one can claim some of the legal benefits of marriage as a civil right and might be able to persuade a majority of Americans to agree, but if that’s the argument you want to make, then make it, knowing the result will most likely be civil unions if you are successful.
Same sex marriage is a contradiction. Civil unions is not. I think that’s a fair argument. If you want to argue same sex marriage you are telling us you want to change the definition of the word ‘marriage’. Its been made plenty of times before. We don’t want a new meaning the old one is just fine. There is no reason to believe there is any benefit in changing it, and it goes against not only beliefs but against virtue itself.
Using physical laws to evaluate the metaphysical?
“1in fact, one prominent theory, posited by Julian Jaynes (The Origins of Consciousness in Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind), suggests that it wasn’t until a certain evolutionary point that the brain recognized its “inner voice†as being self-contained and not the voice of what it eventually thought to be “gods†or “God.—
Fascinating. Someone else theorized people were not prone to having any inner voice / narrative until after attaining more self-consciousness.. and/or reflection… re: settling down to think vs. running wild. Thomas Sass I believe. His argument continued that as more and more things were contained, measured, and reflected on (say, the concept of time itself being invented.. followed by clocks being propagated among people… who then had to be conscious of time…)… the inner voice grew and, in western thought, grew in importance (for an example, Duchamp’s argument that art should be valued for it’s representation of the Artist’s mental states / inner voice vs more technical things… like skill and beauty)… to the point that it is often considered to be the whole of ones personality (their self reflected inner voice = self = consciousness)…
ah
the old question: does culture keep genes on a leash?, or do genes keep culture on a leash? or both?
Everyone knows the obvious. Survival of the fittest really equals survival of survivors… just look at your in laws.
Genetic defects galore, but somehow here you are with their offspring amd making more.
Religion is certainly a cultural phenomenom. It has tremendous utility.
The societies that have used religion skillfully and wisely have done well.
I think Dawkins believes that religion is no longer needed in our culture as a behavior tool.
Lots of work has been done on whether religions that use threats of eternal punishment and the gift of heaven modify negative behaviors better than those that just offer an afterlife. In other words, all carrot and no stick doesn’t work. All stick and no carrot works slightly better.
The best religious models for cultural productivity have had some sort of nice afterlife for good people, some sort of hell for bad, and sets of laws and punishments here on earth for misbehaviors.
The existence (or not) of God, heaven, hell etc. are way beyond Dawkins realm of expertise… so he decided to create a neat narrative that Darwinist atheists feel explains it all… if you believe the math, the coincidences.
If you don’t quite buy off on all of it to the point of atheism, you are a heretic.
Of course atheists will be driven back underground by their favorite religion… Islam.
To me, support of Islam by academics here in the west is a directly contrary to self replication… an “i’ll scratch your back…. will you please let me maybe live” gambit at best
You know, I think I’m doing this religiousity thing wrong. I don’t think I’ve mentioned eternal damnation once to my kids, and it certainly hasn’t come up in catechism. For some reason, we (my Catholic church and I) seem stuck on the “Love your neighbor, as I have loved you” stuff.
You noticed that too? We failed to agree with Ted’s dogma, and we’re then condemned as bigots who are oppressing his relatives. Great. And he agrees with Dawkins regading Christians and the Taliban. Thanks for that. That Christian indoctrination is not mandatory, though that of the Taliban was, and that secular gospels such as global warming are most certainly mandatory in our schools matters not.
We didn’t lapse into silence at the approach of this particular brand of athiest, so we are found wanting. Which is, I think why some people look askance at athiests. Many, not all, seem to be quite, evangelical, for lack of a better word. It’s not enough to not believe. So Ted refers to sending kids to Sunday school as if it was health class and they were being taught to avoid STDs. Ironically, I went to a Catholic school, and was taught such subjects in health class, but the nuns failed to teach me to hate, as Ted seems to be. Methinks that he’s bought into the identity politics that he claims to abhor. In this case, he and the other beautiful people are the shining lights in this dark, dank place.
Do athiests perceive that they are impacted by laws, attitudes and opinions that are based in ‘bigoted, ancient texts’? Undoubtably.
Do religionists perceive that they are impacted by things which are contrary to their beliefs? Certainly. Is this grounds for complaint in this country? Usually not.
I suppose that the rotten cherry atop the rancid whip cream was Ted’s substitution of ‘rationality’ for bigoted ancient texts. I noted that he seemed to overlook the irrationality of the founding fathers and their reliance on Divine Providence. But since we’ve devolved to being nothing better than the Taliban, we should write that off as a bad job all around.
Thanks, Jeff.
Hey, Steve,
Actually I did not go gently into the whole argument about whether gays should marry. As I said more than once, “it’s off-topic,” but it was hard for me to resist not responding in some fashion when everyone piled on.
I only brought up gay marriage as a case in point that I have real “problems” with the tenets of some religions, and not just Islamicism. Being tolerant of religions is desirable, but its not always easy, and not only with jihadists. My point was that tolerance for religious belief continually butts up against serious disagreements with real consequences, and so it is not sufficient to say “Can’t we all just get along.” At some point we have to have a rational argument about this stuff, and if your rhetorical ace in the hole is just to point at the Bible and say, “But God said so.” then I’m going to have to call “Bullshit,” and if that’s “intolerant” then, we have a “problem” to use Jeff’s word.
In that sense, I think that Dawkins and Hitchens are not completely out of line for saying “Religion is a problem. See here and here and here.” I do think they are undiplomatic—Hitchens particularly— but I’ve read Dawkins’ The God Delusion, and I don’t think it’s hysterical. He thinks religion is bad, and he’s going to say so, because he can do no other.
There are parts of Dawkins that will make a religious person cringe, to say the least, but I think they are generally within the context of defending the rights of the faithless, rather than impinging on the rights of the faithful. (YMMV.) He has no illusions that he will convert the faithful to atheism, but he hopes to persuade those who are on the fence. His book is aimed at people who have doubts and might be persuaded to heed them, or at atheists, such as myslef, who may at times to hold our tongues in issues of real importance for fear of offending this or that religious group. In that sense, I see it partly as a critique of the religious community’s adoption of identity politics to defend indefensible positions that effect social policy for everyone.
I did not claim that everyone who disagrees with me, on gay marriage or any other issue, is a religious bigot. Perhaps there are secular arguments against gay marriage that might convince me. I’ve yet to hear one. But I do think the religious arguments against it are merely echoes of bigotry in the ancient world that have ossified in texts that are supposedly infallible but obviously aren’t. And the secular arguments I’ve heard are so unconvincing that I confess it does make me wonder if they aren’t drapery for some more base emotional objection— “gays are icky”—or just cover for a religious objection. Or maybe even just a somewhat cynical way for unreligious conservatives to stay in good graces with their religious political allies. Maybe it’s not “nice” for me to use the word bigot, but when you say things like—
–well, then you make my case for me, don’t you.
I also called some arguments heard yestreday “bullshit.” Well, butch up, cupcake, because there’s more where that came from. You want “nice,” you’re in the wrong playhouse.
But in the meantime, let’s agree to drop the issue of gay marriage for now—especially the various “secular” arguments against it (that it will bring the downfall of civilization as we know it, that it’s “changing a the definition of a word” for no good reason, etc.) At the moment, I am as bored hearing your arguments as you are with mine.
I’m more interested in addressing Jeff’s original point, which is that Dawkins, et al, should be more concerned with seeking the genetic utility of religion (or lack thereof) than in “hysterically” attacking it.
I’ve already covered my objections that (a) religion may not be genetically adaptive, and (b) even if it is that does not make it desirable. Jeff’s response was to take my point but add that, conversely, just because religiosity may not be adaptive does not make undesirable.
Which is true, but that’s not where Dawkins is coming from either. Actually, Dawkins is not that interested in sociobiology with regards to humans. As a scientist, he’s more interested in evolution of all life and has been continually cautious and skeptical about applying evolutionary models to human behavior. It’s not surprising that he’s not interested in religion as a genetic adaptation (and it’s not surprising that his friend and colleague Daniel Dennett is). But the point is: Dawkins is not arguing—and in fact would never argue—that we should abandon religion because it’s not useful to our genes. He wants us to abandon religion because it is (a) demonstrably false in a rational scientific sense, (b) the cause of much suffering and bad behavior, and (c) insofar as it is responsible for much good in the world, those good things are entirely possible, and perhaps even more attainable, without it.
I think its safe to say that most of the querulous tenor of his arguments with religion come out of his frustration with creationists, for whom is he a major bugbear. Basically, he’s had it up to here with them. He’s mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore. I can’t say I blame him.
But, if you read him, what you’ll find is that “mad as hell” for him, a mild-mannered Oxford don, is pretty tame. The other thing that you’ll find is that he’s pretty sympathetic to the “religious” impulse and has it himself in spades. (Though he wishes to make a distinction between what he has and “religion.”)
If you are, for example, an agnostic who is willing to consider the case for just out and out atheism, you could do a lot worse than to read The God Delusion (and also Unweaving the Rainbow.)
“Perhaps there are secular arguments against gay marriage that might convince me. I’ve yet to hear one.”
Why should gays get the benefits of marriage when they aren’t producing kids? Marriage is, after all, not a relationship between two people. It’s a relationship between a person and his government. The relationship between two people is called love. And marriage is based on child-bearing. And gays don’t qualify for tax money because they don’t have the possibility of having children. As an objectivist I don’t agree on spending tax money on marriage, but that’s the “secular” argument.
Ted… such as? Cuz I gotta tell ya, as a New York emigre living in LA, I’ve seen secular chicken soup for the soul offered up with every conceivable additive and spice, and they don’t seem to be taking…
Oh, please, Blue Hen.
I think it’s nice that you don’t try to scare your children in to religious belief with stories of hell. That’s commendable.
But I have to ask, why don’t you? I mean you do believe in it, don’t you? Hell is not something I made up to smear Christianity. It’s right there in the Bible, big as life.
Incidentally, I was very frightened by the notion of hell as a child. As I said before, my grandmother—a wonderful, loving woman whom I adored all her life and then some—inadvertantly made me miserable as a child by putting the worry in my mind that my unreligious parents might be destined for eternal torture.
She didn’t mean to. It was the only way she knew how to answer my questions about the matter in a way that was consistent with her own deepest beliefs. At seeing my distress, the best consolation she could offer was that I would forget all about them in heaven, so I wouldn’t miss them or be tortured myself by my knowledge of their suffering. Strangely, that did not console me. It was more than a little heartbreaking for both of us at the time.
Now perhaps you are sufficiently hateful of me as an adult that you have no sympathy for the child I was back then, or for the dilemma that faced my grandmother. On second thought, I shouldn’t presume to know how you would feel about that story. I’d be curious to know, actually.
By the way, I am not a bigot against religious people. I’m married to a church-going Episcopalian. I strongly support the rights of religious people in many regards. I even think that kids ought to be able to pray in public schools, so long as its not compulsory and some effort is made to make kids of all faiths, or lack thereof, feel okay about it. A story:
Years ago, I volunteered for a program in the children’s wing of the local hospital. The idea was that the sick kids would write song lyrics and then local musicians would adapt their lyrics into full-fledged songs, record them professionally, and then release a CD of the work to sell to raise money for the children’s wing. Many of the lyrics the kids had written were pretty rough, and they asked me to come in and work with the kids to polish them so they were a little more ready for primetime.
One kid had terminal CF and was not long for this world. I’d say he was about nine or ten. He’d written a song about how God must have a plan for him to take his life when he was so young and that his suffering must be for some greater purpose. The director of the program told me that, because of hospital regulations, they needed me to help him take the religious stuff out of his song.
I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me. That’s just evil.” She looked surprised and said, “But it’s a state run project. We can’t have any religious proselytizing in it.”
I said, “He’s a kid who’s this close to dying! It’s what he believes! It helps him! He’s not proselytizing! He’s just trying to make sense of his situation with what he knows. That’s what he should be doing. That’s what he wants his song to be about, and that’s what it should be about.”
She told me that I had to do it, or they would probably not be able to include his song on the record. I said, “Look, there’s no way I will encourage this kid to take God out of his song. First of all, it’s not possible. It’s what the song is about. But even if it were, I wouldn’t do it. And I can’t stop you from leaving his song off the record, but I want to go on the record that I think that’s about the most rotten thing I ever heard of. I beg you not to do this.”
Eventually, she saw that I was right and backed down. I helped the kid with his song, and we kept God in it, and it came out on the record in time for him to hear it and be proud of it.
I was hesitant to tell that story because it might seem as if I’m fishing for applause. But I’m not. I just thought you should know who I am and who I am not. I’m just saying you might open your heart and mind to the possibility that my atheism—and even my serious disagreements with religion—does not necessarily make me a bad guy.
Okay, I gotta get to work. Have fun ripping me a new one while I go put my shoulder against the big cold hard wheel of American industry so that Western civilization can live another day.
Using physical laws to evaluate the effect of the metaphysical, which you’ve posited as a memetic virus (and so physical and material).
This should be the scientific approach to judging utility. But as I noted upthread, to the religious, it matters little, as what is required is the precise kind of leap of faith that science cannot account for.
Dawkins comes off sometimes as a little bit mad because religious… primarily Christians question his conclusions and wonder aloud about the moral and ethical problems self replication gene machines raise.
Like rape. Robbery. Cheating…. Cho. Are these robots culpable? Dawkins gets around these problems deftly by claiming that cooperation is necessary for survival. This explains the “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” types of cooperation, but it doesn’t really explain certain typses of altruism.
Truth is that Dawkins simply cannot handle the thought of a creator. He cannot handle the possibility that he might be wrong. “God” is irreducible using current scientific method. So are lots of others things out there if history is any guide. This doesn’t mean God isn’t there and doesn’t mean we can’t sense God.
I’ll take a moment away from the wheel of industry to note that this demonstrates a dim understanding of Dawkins and his theory of the selfish gene.
Are the robots culpable? Yes. The human ones anyway, because, thanks to our big brains, we are capable of choosing our actions. And in part because there are genetic advantages as well in our preventing rapes, robberies and cheaters.
And the cooperation is not only necessary for the survival of the organism or species, but for the survival of the gene—which is the whole point of selfish gene theory. (If you don’t get that you get nothing.)
Which means that all kinds of altruistic behavior—much more than just tit-for-tat on a level of the organism—are genetically adaptive because they evolved in environments where, statistically, they were benficial to the genes that elicited them. In that sense the gene is “selfish” because it does not care a whit for the well-being of the organism that hosts it, only for its own survival in the variety of hosts that surround it (The selfish gene has nothing to do with human selfishness—in fact more to do with selflessness.)
So I love my neighbor in part because my species evolved in an environment in which my ancestors were probably related to their neighbors, and my genes are still operating under that assumption. (Actually, I don’t love my neighbor, but then my ancestors evolved in an environemnt that did not have leaf-blowers and yappy little fucking dogs.)
There’s more to it than that of course once you stir culture into the mix, but that’s all I have time for at the moment.
I did not say whether or not my children were receiving any religious training. That’s not the subject of this thread. I noted that whether they did or did not would depend upon the decision of their parents and no one else. This is contrary to your love of smearing Christians as being similar to the Taliban in all but degree.
Whatever your Grandmother ‘did’ to you was her decision, not the decision of the state, which is a critical distinction between the US and Afghanistan under the Taliban. This seems to have escaped both you and Dawkins. But such conflations serve to be dramatic and lead to persons defending themselves against assertions that you don’t attempt to prove. Example:
Perhaps you are projecting. Additionally, you need to consider that the most likely means of preventing incidents such as the scenario of yourself and your Grandmother would be to forbid at some level, any proselytizing.
Several others here have noted that mandatory indoctrination exists today, whereas religous training is not. We cannot avoid it, and we’re subject to the decisions of others, many of whom declare their positions to be ‘rational’.
Well for my two cents, Jeff is on target. Dawkins is failing to appreciate the ramifications of his own thinking. If religion is an adaptive trait embedded which there is some
evidence that it is:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7147
why don’t he and his evangelical atheists STFU since religious people can’t help it. It’s inborn. Plus, it is probably beneficial if it contributes to genetic survival. Why take the airbags out of the human minivan of life?
Off topic. What is it with evangelical atheists anyway? I’m an atheist. It leads to uncomfortable existential questions. Why would I want to force it on other people?
Plus, they always seem to thinkthat they just dreamed up atheism on their own. Even though he word faith itself automatically implies its antithesis. Non belief has been around for as long aspeople have been.
Just a guess but I would bet Richard Dawkins and Paul Watson are two sides of the same coin. And I say this notwithstanding the fact that I really loved him on Family Feud.