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unionist, I have nothing to say to your response to my post in the previous thread. In fact, it's quite consonant with my own views. I avoided commenting because frankly, I have no idea how to respond to the polarity and antagonism popping up in these threads, and sometimes I just shy away from comment.
The only thing I might comment on is that the wider enlightenment project to move myth to the margins of society, or to the private sphere (also a continuation of the reformation) is itself historically based. I have a suspicion, rooted in Marxist thought, that by taking metaphysics out of public life, we further the reification strategy of capitalism. I don't know how to respond to this thought, because I certainly don't want to advocate ushering religious teaching back into schools and government, for obvious reasons. But I can't help but suspect that something of the radical secularization project (especially when it comes from the worst kind of liberals, Richard Rorty and Christopher Hitchens) is intrinsically connected to global capitalism.
There is something suspicious about the commercial "atheist niche" that John Gray cynically alludes to.
[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: Catchfire ]
But do you honestly perceive a pressure for secularization coming from the champions of global capitalism? I'm not talking of some irrelevant Hitchens - I'm talking of Bush and Brown and Harper and Sarkozy and Putin and the like? Surely the opposite is true.
Rather, I think of Max Weber's words at the end of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism:
If Weber wrote it today, he might title his (dull, ponderous, but compelling) book "The Secular Ethic."
[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: Catchfire ]
Ok. I'll give you an example of Communists being rehabilitated in direct support of the war against Islam. I recently went to see a very interesting and engaging movie by an Iranian cartoon animator, Marjane Satrapi. The movie is called Persopolis. This is a really great film and one that I highly recomend anyone go see.
Basicly it is an autobiogrphical account of a young woman coming of age in revolutionary Iran, and her experience of the Iran/Iraq war. It details many of the gross indignities imposed upon her as a woman, and her as a member of a mostly secular communist family. She and her immediate family manage to escape the claws of Islamic repression and the war but also many of her family are arrested and executed. This is an important story, one that has needed to be told for nearly 20 years, in some fashion or another.
But it has not.
I ask, why is it only now, that we are we allowed to see sympathetic and personal accountings of Communists in Iran? Why is now ok to talk about the terror inflicted on the Tudeh movement in Iran? Why now is this kind of postive portrait being funded by major European studios to be met with popular critical acclaim and a raft of awards and major theatrical distribution?
None of this detracts from the movie, the art or the importance of the story that is told, but there are critical questions that need to be asked about how the legacy of the terror inflicted against Communist in Iran is being used as a tool to further vilify Islam and Muslim people, today, when only a short while ago, "the west" did not give a flying fuck about Marjane Satrapi, a fact which clearly comes across in the movie, by the way.
Released by Sony no less
[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]
Cosmologist Sean Carroll, and probably the most widely read physics blogger in the world, wrote a very long blog entry on the recent expulsion of Myers (but not Dawkins) from Expelled, and went on about the debating tactics of modern atheism. Here: http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/03/23/politicians-and-critics/
Not sure exactly what you're asking for here. Could you clarify what you mean by the 'real roots'. I know about a lot of books that may be of some interest that explore various aspects of historical development but not sure if they would be what you are looking for. Feel free to take it to pm to not deviate from the thread.
Finding the real roots of a religious belief or ritual, even if only one at a time, explains religious views by reference to social history rather than theology. That's how atheists should approach religion, at least in part, in my view. However, I expect that much of this has been lost, or erased, forever. The history of religious ideology is a history of book burning, obliteration of contrary views, and so on.
Example: In the Torah (Exodus 23:19), God commands (in the KJV):
"The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk."
This simple sentence evolved into the Orthodox Jewish prohibition against eating meat dishes and dairy dishes (milk products) at the same meal - or, depending on the order of consumption and specific items, less than 6 hours apart.
I not only studied such dogma, but certainly my family practised this prohibition. It meant maintaining two entirely separate sets of dishes, and using a tub within the kitchen sink (we couldn't afford those newfangled double sinks) to keep the dishes separate while washing.
Now, even though the original dictum was the word of God, our teachers and rabbis spared no effort to come up with "explanations" of where and why such customs may have originated - hygiene, breaking with pagan rituals, etc. etc. You see, they thought that rational socio-economic historical explanations wouldn't challenge the divine nature of the injunction at all, but rather bolster it and make it meaningful in modern times.
It's sort of like trying to justify why men should wear ties and suit jackets on formal occasions.
I'll stop there, N.Beltov. Is this what you mean? If so, why does it fall to atheism to explain away the apparent absurdity or arbitrariness of religious practices? Surely that job falls to religion - and if the best it can come up with is, "God told me to behave, or else", then that's unconvincing.
If you meant something else, please try again.
[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]
Tokarev also discusses the Judean and Muslim custom of circumcision as a brutal way to prevent young men from violating sexual taboos, and the Christian dogma of immaculate conception as harking back to a time when, in the period of group marriage, the role of a man in the birth of a child was not recognized at all or only poorly understood.
These are but 3 examples of the roots of a religious belief or ritual. My question earlier was simply ... do the new atheists provide any more examples like these ones?
[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]
Okay, that's more clear. I believe though that there is a lot more info about that sort of thing from both secular and religious viewpoints for that matter then you're thinking there is. In the past I've done quite a bit of personal study in this area. For instance a good part of a course I took once talked about various environmental and social factors that may have led to various food and material restrictions. It's been a while and memory of specific sources is rather fuzzy but I'll see what I can come up with over the next few days. Might have to see if I can dig up some old uni notes from the dusty boxes in the corner.
Are you interested in anything specific beyond baptism as you mentioned? For instance I do know that there is quite a bit out there about the rise of 'fundamentalist' type theology (which is actually a relatively modern phenomenon) which is directly referenced to the social context of the time.
There is also quite a bit about the intersection of social and religious aspect with regards to the treatment of women and patriarchy in general.
Why, because atheists shouldn't sit on their asses and let religion rule the roost. There's a battle of ideas going on, didn't you know? Heheh.
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
That does tend to debunk textual literalists. But that's not much of a challenge.
It doesn't prove anything about core religious beliefs. If we hypothetically accept for the purposes of discussion that the religion of early beleivers was 'real'... such people might still adopt rituals arising from a shared culture that they knew did not owe their origins to their own religion.
I told you that our religious teachers spared no effort to find "rational" social and historical explanations - i.e. justifications - for seemingly arbitrary customs.
You are saying that atheists should be doing so.
I am telling you that this pursuit is a way of legitimizing religion as having some scientific or cultural merit. Why would we want to lend credence to superstition?
ETA: I crossposted with Ken, and I agree with his comments. I just don't get where you're going with this, N.Beltov.
[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]
I think you're trivializing, somewhat, the significance and importance (for atheists) of finding those roots. Textual literalism and core religious beliefs often amount to the same thing.
The importance to atheists should be obvious.
Well he's not an atheist, though he's perceived by many from the the more fundamental/literal forms of the Christian world as no better then one (tongue in cheek) but Tom Harpur, in the Pagan Christ puts a good case forward that a lot if not most of the ritual and dogma (immaculate conception in particular)is nothing but an evolution of previous forms of ritual and mythos from places like the mid-east and Egypt. It's a book that has appealed to both atheists and religious folks alike. If I remember correctly he delves into the social context of the time as well as extensively covers historical aspects of various beliefs around that area.
Heh. Neither am I.
Edited to add - Harpur, however, is not what we would call a "new" atheist", eh?
[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]
Well, call me thick. I see it as legitimizing religion.
Sure, if someone say: "My people don't eat pork because God came down to earth in 1974 and told my grampa not to" - and you can prove that in fact, the eating of pork was discouraged in that region for hundreds of years because of a legendary outbreak of trichinosis - then you can make that person sound dumb, or perhaps gullible.
But religion easily survives such "exposures". It emerges unscathed, as a natural part of the ethos of a people, the lessons of life handed down from forebears, perhaps not perfect but evolving along with its human believers...
My problem with religion is not that it has odd rituals like trying to drown people or telling them they can't have bacon with their eggs.
My problem is twofold:
1. It offers, indeed enforces, anti-scientific explanations for real phenomena.
2. It divides people and justifies racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, cultural supremacism, and war.
Pecking away at the allegedly divine origin of culinary or like customs is not a worthy or useful preoccupation.
[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]
It's not that simple. What writers like Daniel Dennett does, what exposing the real roots of religious practices does, etc., - all of these contribute to the cause.
It's not enough to snap your fingers. C'mon.
No kidding. Thanks for the advice as to how to defeat religion. If I disagree with your approach, does that mean I'm lazy?
Something happens to your (normally razor-sharp) argumentative skills when you land in a religion thread.
That's one of the best arguments against religion I can think of right now.
Or was that tongue-in-cheek, Cue?
I guess this last foray more or less answers my previous question in the negative.
No there will be no discussion of this issue which is not redolent with derrision, in place of reason. "Reason" being the supposed cause in which the derrision is doing service.
[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]
Best: refuting the other person's arguments.
Second-best: shutting the other person up.
Sometimes you have to settle for second-best.
I've read a couple of your comments on this and forgive me but I still don't understand the connection between exploring the environmental factors of why as your example of stipulation against pork legitimizes religion. Maybe I'm just not reading clearly but how do the rabbis jump from there to it still being justified as a 'God given law' that still should be practiced.
I guess perhaps I have a different perspective because I've experienced many 'relgious' people that do this type of study where the results don't lead to a justification and continued practice but rather a sort of relief that this 'rational' explanation means that in many cases they can drop some of what I refer to the detail things that they thought maybe they should be believing but all along thought were quite silly and inconsequential to whatever their overall faith is.
And what was this then:
This is an arguement? This is just an insult gilded in rhetoric.
Neither am I. And no he's not a 'new' atheiest.
Heh.
They're not stupid. Neither they, nor lay people, believe in the literal truth of some rather strange ancient texts, replete with burnt offerings, miracles, ghastly punishments for silly-sounding offences, etc.
So, they modernize; they adapt; they sex up the file; they elaborate trendy explanations for outmoded beliefs, and they all say, "don't take it literally, look to the spirit". And so, they look for a lease on life among ever smarter, more worldly wise, more skeptical youth.
That's what I meant.