Richard Dawkins - Anti -Christ or Great Thinker?

that reminds me, this program on vodou was super interesting

http://being.publicradio.org/programs/vodou/

if you can stand christa tippett

Hah yeah we're dangerously close to Von Daniken territory now.

wait, where does that episode of Star Trek with the Nazi planet fit in here?

I do like the idea of reconciling religions with the idea of life on other planets, and sometimes it fits more than others. For instance there are a slew of Vaishnavite books written by Eastern holy men literally titled 'How to travel to other planets'.

arguing over what "belief system" killed more people is probably the least productive way to have this conversation

― ban drake (the rapper) (max), Tuesday, May 24, 2011 9:14 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

i'm astounded that any thinking person trots out "well, look at the amount of death, injury and suffering religion has caused!" as a serious argument. human interaction causes death, injury and suffering. period.

most every form of human social organization that has ever existed seems to wind up causing (and preventing) untold death, injury and suffering. this is true of family, tribe, ethnicity, government, philosophy and, yes, religion. so do we blame social organization for all the evil in the world? do we blame the mere existence of government? of course not! that would be idiotic. no more and no less idiotic than blaming religion.

and theology is a branch of philosophy, more or less. it's not science and isn't made more or less valid by its material falsifiability.

i'm astounded that any thinking person trots out "well, look at the amount of death, injury and suffering religion has caused!" as a serious argument.

That is because these people aren't thinking.

"so do we blame social organization for all the evil in the world?"

there's a certain kind of collective evil that is not possible without a religious mandate.
the kind of evil that goes on without such a mandate is more the kind of evil of inaction/legislative paralysis,
which is a pretty mild kind of evil in comparison, like people who can't decide what kind of pizza to get.
(though probably between dawkins and hitchens, hitchens will probably get his way w/r/t toppings)

there's a certain kind of collective evil that is not possible without a religious mandate

? I can't imagine what this is referring to.

xp: Do you think the Industrial Revolution was driven by religion or capitalism?

"there's a certain kind of collective evil that is not possible without a religious mandate
? I can't imagine what this is referring to."

"We're getting pizza... WITH ANCHOVIES!"
"What???"
"ANCHOVIES... GOD HAS SPOKEN"
"..."

That kind of collective evil.

tribal/ethic/racial conflicts (often dressed up in religious guise, sure) cause at least as much harm/evil/whatever as purely religious conflicts. think slavery in the americas. same is true of wars between nations.

pretty sure that kind of collective evil happened with um certain "collectivist" political regimes

xp

damn I thought this was the 2012 Republican candidates thread.

there's a certain kind of collective evil that is not possible without a religious mandate

you're reading this kind of thing in only one direction, and it isn't.

if a lot of people a) are members of a given religious system and b) really want to do x shitty thing, then you're going to see religious justifications of x from those people pretty quickly.

but don't you see, religion made them do it

'pretty sure that kind of collective evil happened with um certain "collectivist" political regimes'

no doubt due to the zeal of an-Chou-vy En Lai!
sorry

religious faith, thinking, fanaticism and conflict have distinguishing characteristics, of course. religion is special, in its way, and the evils it enables are hardly generic.

nevertheless, i reject the idea that religion introduces an unique quality or quantity of evil into the world - that the world would, on the whole, be less evil were it somehow expunged. again, i compare religion to government. governments can forcibly compel the cooperation that enables massive armed conflict. they enshrine petty historical resentments fostered by greed, perceived betrayal, frustrated ambition and/or desperation as national identity, forcing the spread of these toxins throughout the social body. such national pathologies often explode in fits of frenzied hatred and violence, with or without the whip of religious difference. many anarchists use this as an argument against "coercive" forms of social organization, an argument i find no less ridiculous than the idea that religion is responsible for the evil that men do in its name.

xp: if you have been arguing this line as an extended set-up for that horrible almost-pun

What I'm saying is religion isn't so much the mask under which evil is perpetrated as it is the hammer, and if you remove the hammer from people's arsenal, it's much harder to coordinate people to do something as simple as ordering a pizza, much less inflict war or slavery etc...

i'm not sure what non-aggressive ideological mechanism you think would've been in place in the absence of religion?

cos tbh the Romans and ancient Greeks didn't really smack their neighbours about in the name of religious bigotry

if you remove the hammer from people's arsenal, it's much harder to coordinate people to do something as simple as ordering a pizza, much less inflict war or slavery etc...
wrong

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Hammer_and_sickle.svg/414px-Hammer_and_sickle.svg.png

tbf Romans did kill a lot of Xtians

xp

yeah but not out of religious intolerance funnily enough. also probably didn't kill that many iirc

dude there's a hammer right there!

yeah a GODLESS HAMMER

cos tbh the Romans and ancient Greeks didn't really smack their neighbours about in the name of religious bigotry

dude read Gibbon. Things got hoary for Christians and then pagans for a few hundred years.

yeah but not out of religious intolerance funnily enough. also probably didn't kill that many iirc

yeah they were a small "cult" at that point. Roman prosecution of Xtians always seems kind of funny to me - like you read transcriptions of the trials and the magistrates are all eye-rolly "geez, not these loonies AGAIN! guess we might as well have a little fun throwing them to the lions *yawn*"

I have read Gibbon! Not the best source in many ways considering his gleeful atheism but iirc he downplays the extent of killing during the Christian persecutions, and points out that what irritated the authorities wasn't their religious difference but their refusal to behave like good Romans and recognise other people's gods too. What happens after Constantine is the butt-end of the Empire anyway and they didn't do v. much smiting in an outward direction from then on.

religion isn't so much the mask under which evil is perpetrated as it is the hammer, and if you remove the hammer from people's arsenal, it's much harder to coordinate people to do something as simple as ordering a pizza, much less inflict war or slavery etc...

― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, May 24, 2011 11:53 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

this might be true if religion's hammer-like quality were unique. but it isn't. humans have many such hammers at their disposal, and in the absence of one will likely use another. again (again), we happily butcher, rape and mutilate one another in the name of tribe, race, nation, philosophy, religion, etc. should we strive to eliminate all such "hammers," in the hope that we will then coexist peaceably? i think not.

the human will to evil is the problem, and where such will exists, i'm certain we'll find a way.

Early Christian writers like Eusebius are also forever arguing about what to do with Christians who recanted at the first sign of persecution and then wanted back into the church when the heat was off.

also lol "evil"

What happens after Constantine is the butt-end of the Empire anyway

there's a city with that guy's name on it you know...

I think Noodle's mostly OTM there

altho What happens after Constantine is the butt-end of the Empire anyway and they didn't do v. much smiting in an outward direction from then on

...well there was that whole Crusades thing. altho by then the Roman Empire was barely Roman or an Empire in anything more than name only.

xp

can't call the assorted post-Viking thugocracies in Western Europe the Roman Empire at that point, Holy or otherwise. also one of those Crusades ended up pillaging the fuck out of Constantinople cos it was easier iirc

i.e. religious justification or not the Crusades were strictly bidness all the time

"this might be true if religion's hammer-like quality were unique. but it isn't."

it is unique in strength, in that any other coercive tool cannot resort to "because I said so"
"because I said so" requires an unimpeachable higher authority, which is tautologically religious
so even "godless" states under Stalin and Mao qualify.

Stalin and Mao now considered religious states eh, nicely done

fun thread.

going back to the post that revived the thread, on theology as an academic discipline: I feel very strongly that if the problem the "new atheists" have with religion is to due with authoritarian violence and false certainty, then we need MORE theology, not less. And make it practically required in public schools. I can think of almost no more humbling discipline (other maybe than theoretical physics).

it is unique in strength, in that any other coercive tool cannot resort to "because I said so"
"because I said so" requires an unimpeachable higher authority, which is tautologically religious
so even "godless" states under Stalin and Mao qualify.

― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, May 24, 2011 12:12 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

i reject this entirely. the power of the state can be "unimpeachable" without being in any sense religious. the state typically reserves a material ability to compel obedience that is, arguably, far sterner than any merely religious edict.

i further reject the attempt to brand all forms of absolutist certainty as "religious." religion is a specific thing, and if you wish instead to speak of philosophical absolutism in general, then do so. i would agree, by the way, that absolutist belief systems are profoundly and inherently dangerous, and that they exist outside religion. atheism, in the hands of certain adherents, tends towards just this sort of pernicious, aggressive and dehumanizing absolutism (i.e., religious believers are dangerous idiots who believe the wrong thing and should be eradicated).

yes, and i think theology as a discipline (especially contemporary theology) does a pretty good job of reminding you to not mistake your own limited point of view for God's. partially why the book of Job is pertinent in its "who do you think you are?" section.

the state can surely compel utter obedience, but from where does it draw its authority to do so?
let's put it this way -- it is far more cost-effective to compel obedience through appeals of divine righteousness than a paycheck, and for governments that can no longer afford its paychecks (c.f. N. Korea), divine righteousness becomes the de facto currency, regardless of any putative positions the state might have on the theological nature of existence.

The kind of absolutism you're describing is tantamount to magical thinking. I don't know what to call that but religious.
It's certainly cult-like. I understand the hesitance to call something like Zappos a religion, but just wait till they start sacrificing customer reps to Zapato the shoe god.

If you start using words like "we're chosen", "we're the chosen ones", "we have been chosen for this task", then the implication is we are chosen by God, even if your party line professes He doesn't exist.

Is the "who do you think you are?" section the part where Job starts whining? The subversive thing about that section is that Job has a point, and is probably the few places where God's authority is challenged. One way to read that is of a low level clerk asking for a raise and the manager makes a big noise so as not to lose face, then later gives in to the clerk's demands.

If you start using words like "we're chosen", "we're the chosen ones", "we have been chosen for this task", then the implication is we are chosen by God, even if your party line professes He doesn't exist.

that is entirely your baggage

I don't know what to call that but religious.

if are talking about secular things you can call them metaphysics.

sure Philip, Job may have a point. God does see fit to respond after all! God sorta outranks most managers tho ;)

sorry how is a guy who subtitles a book "how we know what's really true" not engaging in absolutist thinking?

also remember when dawkins wondered out loud if harry potter books being popular was the reason young people werent as enamored with rationalism as he

"God sorta outranks most managers tho ;)"

somewhere Kirk Cameron is busy shooting a parody of Undercover CEO where it looks like God is going to have trouble handling the lunch rush and cleaning the slurpee machines, but instead He just aces it.

The kind of absolutism you're describing is tantamount to magical thinking. I don't know what to call that but religious.

there are many things we might call it. absolutist, for one thing. i don't believe, however, that "magical thinking" necessarily fit, and i'm certain that "religious" is far to specific in its meaning to cover all types of absolutist belief. what you seem to be doing is lumping a much larger and more pernicious issue in with religion, then faulting religion unfairly for all the sins of absolutism. the extremes of socialist/communist faith in the perfection of a single political/economic system (and the philosophy behind it) might be metaphorically liked to religious certainty, but it it simply is not a religion. nor is monetarist faith in the inherent stability and "correctness" of unmonitored free markets. people believe all sorts of strange things, and their beliefs often lead them to conflict. not every belief that seems less than sensible, however, is "religious," except in the most loosely metaphorical sense.

again, if you simply want to fault zealotry and fundamentalism, then do that.

let's put it this way -- it is far more cost-effective to compel obedience through appeals of divine righteousness than a paycheck, and for governments that can no longer afford its paychecks (c.f. N. Korea), divine righteousness becomes the de facto currency, regardless of any putative positions the state might have on the theological nature of existence.

paychecks work, jackboots & rifles work, appeals to divine righteousness work. in the dungeon of my father are many mansions. not sure that the relative affordability of options is really the issue here.

xp - contenderizer otm in prior post

Conflation of religion with zealotry and absolutism is a mental error common to those who have no other ideas of religion. It is difficult to dissuade them from this oversimplification, because, as with most forms of conservatism, admitting more complex ideas of religion ruins the beautiful symmetry of their beliefs and requires them to return to thinking matters through. As ever, thinking is hard and unattractive compared to having all the answers pat.

i mean, we can't even make "magical thinking" synonymous with religion. imagine someone who thinks, "if i do everything right, buy the right presents, cook the perfect meal, smile and give thanks, then we will have a perfect christmas and be a real family." this person is engaged in magical thinking. likewise couples who believe things like, "so long as our love is true, everything will work out." these sorts of belief depend on a kind of faith-based magic, but they have nothing to do with religion per se.