God: The Failed Hypothesis
Wed, 2007-02-21 17:11
#1
M. Spector
God: The Failed Hypothesis
Wed, 2007-02-21 17:11
#2
M. Spector
[url=http://www.prometheusbooks.com/catalog/book_1867.html]God: The Failed Hypothesis[/url]
How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist
by Victor J. Stenger
quote:
Many authors claim that modern science supports the proposition that God exists, but very few authors have directly challenged this assertion. Physicist Victor J. Stenger points out that if scientific arguments for the existence of God are included in intellectual, not to mention political discourse, then arguments against his existence should also be considered. In [i]God: The Failed Hypothesis,[/i] Stenger argues that science has advanced sufficiently to make a definitive statement on the existence — or nonexistence — of the traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic God. He invites readers to put their minds and the scientific method to work to test this claim.
..."Darwin chased God out of his old haunts in biology, and he scurried for safety down the rabbit hole of physics. The laws and constants of the universe, we were told, are too good to be true: a setup, carefully tuned to allow the eventual evolution of life. It needed a good physicist to show us the fallacy, and Victor Stenger lucidly does so. The faithful won't change their minds, of course (that is what faith means), but Victor Stenger drives a pack of energetic ferrets down the last major bolt hole and God is running out of refuges in which to hide. I learned an enormous amount from this splendid book." - Richard Dawkins
Looks like a good read. I'll let you know what I think after I get my hands on it.
Wed, 2007-02-21 19:14
#3
And for only $19.95, we can worship at the temple for the enrichment of Dawkins and Stenger.
Wed, 2007-02-21 19:28
#4
M. Spector
I'm getting it free from the library as soon as it comes in. [img]tongue.gif" border="0[/img]
Wed, 2007-02-21 22:17
#5
quote:
Fidel: And for only $19.95, we can worship at the temple for the enrichment of Dawkins and Stenger.
For your pledge of only $10 to my church, you help can spread the Word of God to those damned to hell....
What are you saying here, Fidel? Dawkins and Stenger are religious in their anti-religiousity? And because they are religious in their attacks on religion does that make them more evil than those that defend religion with religious intensity and damn the unbelievers to fire and brimstone? Are you saying that the church(es) are at a fundemental level based on a capitalist principle (to make money)? Or maybe atheism? Are you equating religious worship with militant atheism? Are you some post-modern philospher that despises all points of view and thinks it all relative (and can be bought for a price)?
Are you equating science with belief? Testability with faith? The price of religious books to the price of books that support atheism?
Do tell.
edited: I have a problem writing "of" as "or" and it pisses me off.
[ 21 February 2007: Message edited by: clockwork ]
Wed, 2007-02-21 22:29
#6
As a matter of fact, nnnnnyes, I am. Their god is mammon. I believe there were Greek and Roman gods of prosperity.
Today, capitalism has reduced it to a few gods but demands many more human sacrifices than the gods of ancient history. UNICEF says 29,000 children, 21 every minute on your wrist watch, are sacrificed to economic gods each and every day around the democratic capitalist third world. They die of malnutrition and treatable diseases. This is a particulary cruel capitalist god referred to as the free market. Like most religious beliefs, the free market requires faith but doesn't have the same escape hatch reward of an afterlife for the faithful. It has the next best thing though - it's called the economic long run. [img]frown.gif" border="0[/img] (condensed religious analogy borrowed from Linda McQuaig, "Greed, Lust and the New Capitalism: ALL YOU CAN EAT")
Sorry M. I couldn't help myself. I was thinking of monumental failures in general. Back to the thread topic: [b]God: The Failed Hypothesis[/b]
[ 21 February 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]
Wed, 2007-02-21 23:24
#7
This may be hollow coming from me, but I like the answer, "nnnnnyes". I giggled at that.
So you're beef is capitalism, not science and religion (the tie in, I assume, to the thread is equviolency in belief and the price that can be put on it). You view capitalism as much as a beleif as religion (or atheism). This is correct, no? (And sorry, M. Spector, I'm, we, are bit off topic but I already admit to digressing and being confortable about it.)
Thu, 2007-02-22 05:22
#8
Catchfire
I wonder, if after this book is published, the fundy atheists will wring their hands, pat themselves on the back and congratulate themselves on a job well done. God doesn't exist. Mission Accomplished. We can move on.
God, I hope so.
Thu, 2007-02-22 06:33
#9
Did anyone hear the excellent CBC Tapestry program last Sunday interviewing Francis Collins (I think I've got the name right?) talking about his journey from aetheism to belief? Dr. Collins is the director of the Human Genome Research Project in the US, and he points out that he is hardly a scientific freak. He mentioned a poll done which found that about 40% of scientists believe in a creator God who has a particular interest in human beings. Collins has debated Dawkins repeatedly, I believe, and while he has great respect for Dawkins as a debator, there's little doubt in my mind that Collins wiped the floor with him, argument-wise. Not that there is any definitive proof from science, one way or the other, about God's existence. The thing is, to argue, as Dawkins does, that belief itself is disprove-able by reason, is an irrational argument.
Thu, 2007-02-22 06:56
#10
I read Collins book over the holidays. A cogent argument that science and religion address two very different topics. I look forward to reading Dawkins most recent work.
Thu, 2007-02-22 07:26
#11
quote:
Originally posted by Caissa:
[QBI look forward to reading Dawkins most recent work.[/QB]
I did; it's extremely boring. Dawkins rambles too much. He makes his point on the cover blurb; no need to read the rest.
Thu, 2007-02-22 15:23
#12
I don't think they will stop. We live on a very religious continent. If an author says that God doesn't exist in this part of the northern hemisphere, it is an extraordinarily controversial statement and is bound to get a large number of Usians and Canucks to purchase his or her books. There is also the fact that the best-known representatives of Christianity in North America are backward fanatics who use their faith to spread hatred and misinformation. As a result of this blinkered appoarch to religion, people like Dawkins have a pretty big audience of bitter, confused and undeniably angry lapsed Xtians to preach to. If the moderate branches of the Christian faith were more strongly represented in Canada and the US, Maybe soviet style atheism wouldn't be such an attractive option for these poor, traumatized souls, but unfortunately that third option dosen't seem to be available on this side of the atlantic.
quote:
I wonder, if after this book is published, the fundy atheists will wring their hands, pat themselves on the back and congratulate themselves on a job well done. God doesn't exist. Mission Accomplished. We can move on.
God, I hope so.
[ 22 February 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]
[ 23 February 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]
Thu, 2007-02-22 16:25
#13
quote:
The thing is, to argue, as Dawkins does, that belief itself is disprove-able by reason, is an irrational argument.
How so? Religion is based upon no reason at all. How is arguing against a completely unreasonable and contradictory set of books irrational? Can anyone come up with a reasonable question as to how, exactly Adam and Eve managed to start world population? How about how two of all species in the world managed to fit on a boat?
Religion is completely irrational and requires noting from a person accept complete blind faith. We're all going to hell, according to most of the world's religions. Is that a reasonable hypothesis?
Thu, 2007-02-22 16:30
#14
Cueball
Since, in my view, "god" is primarily a human concept, the idea that scientist can disprove its existance, is, in my view, insane. Barking mad, actually.
Thu, 2007-02-22 16:35
#15
Cueball
That said, people who are interested in such mental gymanstics, might want to try and figure out how this machine operates:
[img]http://www.lightandmatter.com/html_books/2cl/ch01/figs/perpetual-motion-...
Thu, 2007-02-22 23:22
#16
quote:
Catchfire: I wonder, if after this book is published, the fundy atheists will wring their hands, pat themselves on the back and congratulate themselves on a job well done. God doesn't exist. Mission Accomplished. We can move on.
I don't get this comment at all. Are you saying that, like Iraq, the fight ain't over? Are you saying atheists have a poor position and are argueing from a point of view that is obviously false? Are you argueing that athiest, in order to do anything, need a 22000 troop surge to maintain societal norms in the US?
Why is the author a spinster? Why is Dawkins (another athiest who has a book out) a spinster? Why is any preacher of the Word of God [i]not[/i] a spinster? Why don't preachers pat themselves on the back on some stupid supposition of rightness?
The equation of atheism to Bush's position on Iraq.... needs further comment. Why is it so inherently false that "Jesus is my philosopher" Bush, the one that precipiated all the errors in Iraq, the religous disciple, can be used as a metaphor to seemingly attack an atheist polemic?
This makes absolutely no sense to me and I need further comment.
Who needs to move on? Who was defeated by a book? Which Kansas school board backed down from not teaching creation science in their cirriculum?
Fri, 2007-02-23 15:22
#17
I believe that Catchfire is saying that he is sick and tired of atheists that refuse to see that religious faith and science are compatible and pour scorn on people who believe (regardless of how they interpret their religion) I haven't read any of Dawkins work, but judging from the blurb in the quote box at the beginning
of this thread, I'd say he uses rhetoric that could quite easily have been spouted by Vladamir Lennon.
Why do we have to ferret out religion and make it disappear? If a person of faith isn't violating someone's human and/or civil rights, and isn't encouraging anyone else violate human and/or civil rights, why can't we just leave them alone?
edited because the last part of this post was badly written.
[ 24 February 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]
[ 24 February 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]
Fri, 2007-02-23 15:36
#18
Catchfire
My point is that Dawkins, Stenger and Spector here have formed themselves a smug little coterie that believes they've figured it all out. Religion is stupid because...because...because it's just stupid, that's all. They don't bother to understand it at all.
As Cueball says, and as Marx famously said in a quote now routinely taken out of context, God is a human construct. It is the opiate of the people because people created it to soothe their pain. God is society's representation of compassion and of loss. For society to then turn around and say--no, "prove" by science, natch--that God doesn't exist is pure lunacy. Is God any less real than Egos and Ids? Than desire? Than homelands?
So I was simply hoping beyond hope that if these atheists have finally "proved" without a shadow of a doubt, with quantum physics, differential calculus and complex geometry that God doesn't exist, they no longer need to keep publishing their tripe. The God equation is solved. Next question.
Isn't it rather odd that Dawkins et al. believes that the easy solution to conflict in the Middle East and America is simply to get two billion people to stop believing in God?
Fri, 2007-02-23 15:40
#19
Frustrated Mess
quote:
I believe that Catchfire is saying that he is sick and tired of atheists that refuse to see that religious faith and science are compatible
I am equally sick and tired of religious people trying to redefine science to fit their narrow preconceptions or denying it altogether.
quote:
Why do we have to ferret out religion and make it disappear? If a person of faith isn't violating someone's human rights, and isn't advocating that anyone else should violate human rights, why can't we just leave them alone?
Because religion prevents us from moving forward along a rediscovery and respect for life. Because religion all at once fears death while glorifying it, religion often becomes a culture of death. But more than that, religion externalizes responsibility to ourselves, each other, and the planet. Only when we realize it is nature, not some invented concept, that is responsible for the "miracle of life", will we begin to protect and restore the health of the planet.
Of course, that time is limited.
quote:
Isn't it rather odd that Dawkins et al. believes that the easy solution to conflict in the Middle East and America is simply to get two billion people to stop believing in God?
If we remove God from the equation, then what are they fighting for?
[ 23 February 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]
Fri, 2007-02-23 15:44
#20
The problem with Dawkin's position is that he conflates fundamentalist intolerance with "religion" in general, and starts to sound intolerant himself. He also seems to think he can "reason" people out of their perfectly pedestrian need to believe in something "more" than an often meaningless and painful existence which usually ends before we're ready. Talk about hubris. Science unfortunately can offer nothing of comparible personal value, except greater convenience, higher productivity rates and much more interesting creation myths.
Lucky for the rest of us, most "believers" are only nominal at best, they also recognise more concrete civil authorities, and noone in their right mind actually Relies on divine intervention when they're on the job. Unless their boat is caught in a hurricane perhaps. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]
Fri, 2007-02-23 16:05
#21
Catchfire
quote:
If we remove God from the equation, then what are they fighting for?
Ha!
Fri, 2007-02-23 16:28
#22
quote:
If we remove God from the equation, then what are they fighting for?
King and country. Why do you think the soviets faught so hard to drive the Germans out of Russia?
Why do you think the PLO (a profoundly secular organization) battled the Isreali army?
[ 23 February 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]
Fri, 2007-02-23 16:38
#23
That's another of his arguments flaws, that human conflict is largely a result of big bad religion. Organized religion may aggravate it in some ways, by appealing to invisible authority figures that some maybe too superstitious to question, but the idea that it's a prime Cause for violence or ignorance is doubtful at best.
Fri, 2007-02-23 16:39
#24
How the hell can anyone "disprove" the existence of something that's supposedly completely transcendental anyhow?
Fri, 2007-02-23 16:58
#25
Frustrated Mess
quote:
Science unfortunately can offer nothing of comparible personal value, except greater convenience, higher productivity rates and much more interesting creation myths.
I couldn't disagree more. God can only offer what death delivers: final peace. Nature, on the other hand, can offer wonder, awe, meaning and purpose far beyond the invention of a God that requires dogmatic behaviors that are often xenophobic, intolerant, and life destroying.
quote:
King and country. Why do you think the soviets faught so hard to drive the Germans out of Russia?Why do you think the PLO (a profoundly secular organization) battled the Isreali army?
Excellent. Now, would you rather negotiate or fight with someone who says he wants your land and resources or with someone who says God gave him your land so get off?
Most would choose (if you had to pick one), I think, the latter. Because bullies and brutes will go away in the face of resistance, Believers will tell themselves they are doing God's work and "evil", the other side, must be overcome.
Conversely, would you rather confront someone who says "your policies and dispossession of me and my people is driving me to desperation and violence," or someone who says "I an strapping dynamite onto my chest and I am walking into a crowded space to be a martyr for God"?
Again, I think I would prefer the former.
quote:
That's another of his arguments flaws, that human conflict is largely a result of big bad religion. Organized religion may aggravate it in some ways, by appealing to invisible authority figures that some maybe too superstitious to question, but the idea that it's a prime Cause for violence or ignorance is doubtful at best.
You miss the point. The real reasons for conflict, land, water, oil, are less important than the reason people enlist in the fight: "because God gave me this land". Remove God from the equation and what do you get? Well, Catchfire said it best: Ha!
quote:
How the hell can anyone "disprove" the existence of something that's supposedly completely transcendental anyhow?
I think the premise is misplaced. There should be no effort to disprove something that doesn't exist. The effort should merely to abandon it.
Fri, 2007-02-23 17:08
#26
Please stop telling me "I missed the point", it's others who framed the question this way not me. The assumption that I'm arguing "for" religion is patronizing and misses MY point, I've been laughing at bible thumpers since I was a kid. Saw some of the BS all on my own. What I'm saying Here is that Dawkin's arguments are at best unoriginal and poorly put, and will convince Noone needing convincing. The ability to exploit others desires, fears or ignorance does not begin or end with religion, nor does the drive to do so. That's all I'm saying, I'm not Defending it. Some religious communities Have played a role in Resisting most forms of exploitation and aggression too. So once again, it depends on How we choose to interpret their "teachings".
[ 23 February 2007: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]
Fri, 2007-02-23 17:20
#27
Frustrated Mess
But you did miss the point and I didn't make the assumption you were arguing for religion. Why do you assume I did?
quote:
The ability to exploit others desires, fears or ignorance does not begin or end with religion, nor does the drive to do so. Thats all I'm saying.
And I agree with that except that religion makes the job easier.
quote:
Religious communities hasve also played a role in Resisting most forms of exploitation and violence.
I would disagree with that. In fact, religion has been a standard bearer behind virtually every colonial expansion and almost every atrocity. Yes, there have been cases where religious people have acted in a Christian way, but against the whole fabric of history, a few bible carrying missionaries in Latin America can hardly begin to answer for, say, the inquisition, or the Crusades, or the Spanish priests who marched alongside Cortez as indigenous peoples in the "New World" were liquidated.
But I really have no interest in painting religion as evil. I will leave that to religion. Rather, my argument is that people must be emancipated from religion, as Marx argued, before the human race can come to terms with itself and its place on this planet. A failure to do so will severely limit humanity's future.
Fri, 2007-02-23 17:28
#28
[i]FM:[/i] "quote: Science unfortunately can offer nothing of comparible personal value, except greater convenience, higher productivity rates and much more interesting creation myths.
[i]I couldn't disagree more. God can only offer what death delivers: final peace. Nature, on the other hand, can offer wonder, awe, meaning and purpose far beyond the invention of a God that requires dogmatic behaviors that are often xenophobic, intolerant, and life destroying.[/i]"
And that's an exanple of what I'm arguing against. You yourself as potraying "religion" as such and such a thing, bound by your our own Western limitations. Does Dawkin's even Consider other religions from other cultural traditions, or does he qualify his assertions about "religion" in general? So far I've seen little of either in his rants.
(And since I was cut off at the pass before I had a chance to reply to an earlier thread on him, I have read some of his articles and he's frequently evoked by the likes of Stephen Pinker, alonside EO Wilson, in defence of His ideas of Biological Darwinism, or socio-biology. No word that either disagrees with His representation of it. Not Social Darwinism, as I had already said, but a belief nonetheless which Does take seriously the "positive" effects of biological selfishness on natural selection, which does have a bearing on what's commonly thought of as public morality and the success of Some groups and cultures over others. But that's another subject, yes)
[ 25 February 2007: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]
Fri, 2007-02-23 17:36
#29
[i] FM "Religious communities hasve also played a role in Resisting most forms of exploitation and violence.
I would disagree with that. In fact, religion has been a standard bearer behind virtually every colonial expansion and almost every atrocity. Yes, there have been cases where religious people have acted in a Christian way, but against the whole fabric of history, a few bible carrying missionaries in Latin America can hardly begin to answer for, say, the inquisition, or the Crusades, or the Spanish priests who marched alongside Cortez as indigenous peoples in the "New World" were liquidated.
But I really have no interest in painting religion as evil. I will leave that to religion. Rather, my argument is that people must be emancipated from religion, as Marx argued, before the human race can come to terms with itself and its place on this planet. A failure to do so will severely limit humanity's future. " [/i]
I have no problem with what athiests believe either, but asserting that people Must be freed from a particular belief system before they can free themselves, is very much in the mainstream of Western historical currents as well, and would be seen by many as inviting another kind of crusade, if seen as "self evident" -whether desired by the author of such statements or not. Marxes' ideals too were taken as a call to crusade, though I doubt he'd want to take responsibility for some of the eventual results. But once again, believers have played a major role in many reformist movements, including the propogation of Marxes teaching. Including Some who obviously missed the egalitarian humanist spirit of what he was trying to get at. And many "believers" from other cultures live (or have lived) an unusually peaceful and egalitarian lifestyle, for some centuries apparently, moreso even than the more secular ones we've slowly advanced.
[ 23 February 2007: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]
Fri, 2007-02-23 17:36
#30
Frustrated Mess
quote:
And that's an exanple of what I'm arguing against. You yourself as potraying "religion" as such and such a thing, bound by your our own Western limitations
And you are not? Have you read The God Delusion? Dawkins tends to go a bit easier on Bhudists and polytheists. His main attack is on the monotheists of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.
Maybe for good reason:
quote:
Buddhism goes beyond most of these other religions in that it is positively anti-theistic because the very notion of God conflicts with some principles which are fundamental to the Buddhist view of the world and the role of humans in it (see section "The God-Concept and Buddhist Principles" below).
[url=http://www.buddhistinformation.com/buddhist_attitude_to_god.htm]Buddhism...
Fri, 2007-02-23 17:53
#31
Good to see. Yet you still seem to be arguing against "religion" in general. Whether Dawkins "goes a bit easier" on Buddhist or socalled "polytheistic" religion is almost irrelevant to this too. Most Buddhists aren't exactly "anti-deistic" in practice either, The majority "Mahayana" (greater vehicle) sects definietly include deities in their cosmology, they just don't put the same onus on them or see "One God" as being exclusive to others, as again, it's not the prime focus or motivating principle invoked.
OTOH Buddhist societies aren't immune to the same problems we have in the West. The more "a-theistic" Theravada schools, which some say comes closer to the Buddha's original teachings, just happens to support two of the most oppressive regimes in the entire world, using religious chauvinism taught to the masses to further their causes. Without religion, cults of leaders and beliefs in immutable "market forces" or self correcting "forces of history or evolution" often spring up, to the advantage of rulers and destroyers alike. From that perpsective I'd say it's more likely that the Organization of religion for the potential profit of professional preisthoods might be somewhat closer to their ultimate corruption.
[ 23 February 2007: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]
Fri, 2007-02-23 18:01
#32
Frustrated Mess
quote:
Yet you still seem to be arguing against "religion" in general.
Not really. It probably comes across that way as it is difficult to discuss God without discussing religion. But to me, the problem is God. It is the concept that we are not responsible to ourselves, each other, and our planet. Did you read The Pagan Christ? I found that book very useful.
Harpur's argument is that by externalizing God, by making God responsible for all that happens and for forgiving our sins, we ceded responsibility for inner growth and development. He argued the pagan Christ was an inner spirit. That people were individually responsible for nourishing that spirit and becoming more God like, if you will. That by externalizing God, we contracted out our own responsibility to become better people.
As Homer Simpson so brilliantly put it, "don't worry, sweetheart. If I'm wrong, I'll recant on my deathbed".
Anyway, off to say my calculus calculations and then to bed.
[ 23 February 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]
Fri, 2007-02-23 18:10
#33
I would agree with that, no problem. If there's one common Tendency I've noticed even among more moderate nominal "believers", it's a slightly greater tendency towards political passivity or complacancy, as opposed to the Truly Orthodox who combine inward complecency wirth the need to control Others. But then "God helps those who help themselves"...just ask any robber baron. [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]
Fri, 2007-02-23 18:32
#34
One more point though, I always read that the Mahayana traditions of the North are commonly considered to be the ones with the stronger tendancy towards Diesm than the Theravada schools practiced in the South by the Singhalese or Burmese.
[url=http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/schools-three-vehicles.shtml]http:...
Guy must be a faithful follower of the Mahayana branch. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]
[ 25 February 2007: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]
Sat, 2007-02-24 11:26
#35
quote:
Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
[b]But to me, the problem is God. It is the concept that we are not responsible to ourselves, each other, and our planet. Did you read The Pagan Christ? I found that book very useful.Harpur's argument is that by externalizing God, by making God responsible for all that happens and for forgiving our sins, we ceded responsibility for inner growth and development. He argued the pagan Christ was an inner spirit. That people were individually responsible for nourishing that spirit and becoming more God like, if you will. That by externalizing God, we contracted out our own responsibility to become better people.[/b]
[url=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%203:7-10;&version=31;... Moses (likely) asked God why He allowed the Israelites to suffer, He said:[/url]
quote:
"I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt."
This passage, to me, helps to deal with the question as to why God allows evil and injustice to reign, and is a clear call for us to stand up against it.
[url=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James%202:14-19;&version=31;]So you believe in God?[/url]
quote:
What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.
You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
Sat, 2007-02-24 18:44
#36
quote:
Because religion prevents us from moving forward along a rediscovery and respect for life. Because religion all at once fears death while glorifying it, religion often becomes a culture of death. But more than that, religion externalizes responsibility to ourselves, each other, and the planet. Only when we realize it is nature, not some invented concept, that is responsible for the "miracle of life", will we begin to protect and restore the health of the planet.
Totally stereotyping religion. Some religions are exactly the opposite of this. Some of these could hardly be classified as faiths though.
quote:
Yes, there have been cases where religious people have acted in a Christian way, but against the whole fabric of history, a few bible carrying missionaries in Latin America can hardly begin to answer for, say, the inquisition, or the Crusades, or the Spanish priests who marched alongside Cortez as indigenous peoples in the "New World" were liquidated.
The abolitionist movement leading to the end of the slave trade is a positive for at least some religions, notwithstanding that there are more slaves now than there ever have been (partly because there are more people).
Sun, 2007-02-25 08:36
#37
quote:
Originally posted by Stargazer:
[b]How so? Religion is based upon no reason at all. How is arguing against a completely unreasonable and contradictory set of books irrational? Can anyone come up with a reasonable question as to how, exactly Adam and Eve managed to start world population? How about how two of all species in the world managed to fit on a boat?
Religion is completely irrational and requires noting from a person accept complete blind faith. We're all going to hell, according to most of the world's religions. Is that a reasonable hypothesis?[/b]
What I was trying to get at was this, Stargazer - rationality is only part of the way humans know the world. We also have intuition, personal revelation, etc. In fact, rationality has little to tell us about the most important questions in life. Why is there suffering? What happens after we die? What is love? Who can I trust? Dr. Spock may be able to navigate on sheer rationality and science, but we can't, in our real lives. Think of the person you trust most. Is there any way to prove that trust, or the basis for it, scientifically? Do you think that science will ever be able to completely account for the felt love of a mother for her child?
These may not be the best examples, but I hope you take my point - rationality and reason have inescapable limits in their capacity to understand and explain human reality. That's why we have art. There is a tendency these days for some people to assume that rationality can answer all questions. A moment's reflection will demonstrate the falseness of this assumption. That's the problem with Dawkins, whether one believes in God or not. He's simply not very bright and ends up producing a rather meaningless treatise.
In our present world, I'd say the tyranny of reason, which tends towards producing rather anti-human systems, such as our modern global system of predatory capitalism, represents as great or greater a threat to freedom and humanity as do religions. For a look at a classic anti-human, be-nighted and dangerous worshipping of pure reason, check out the discipline of behaviourism as propounded by BF Skinner. Only the United States could conceivably have produced such a souless, empty and pathetic view of our world. This is a good example of where reliance on science alone leads.
"We're all going to hell?" Actually Jesus' message was that we are all going to the "Father's Kingdom" or rather, it is coming to us, here and now, if we only recognize it (in ourselves and in others - someone said that God exists in the spaces between people). The core of Jesus' message is that God loves us, in spite of, rather than because of, as someone here put it so well recently. Islam and Judaism stress God's benevolence and mercy. Budhism perhaps comes closest to locating us all in hell - this world is an illusion and pure suffering at its core, according to its tenets. But even Budhism offers the chance of escape into primal peace - to all.
One could endlessly point out the misuses and abuses of the religious impulses. I like to remind myself that, as the Sufi said, there would be no counterfeiters, were it not for the existence of real gold.
[ 25 February 2007: Message edited by: Brett Mann ]
Sun, 2007-02-25 09:41
#38
quote:
In fact, rationality has little to tell us about the most important questions in life. Why is there suffering? What happens after we die?
Actually, I think rationality and reason have everything to tell us about these topics.
For example, suffering exists for a thousand reasons, such as unequitable distribution of resources.
What happens after we die? we rot.
The problem with the "limits of reason" school is that if "X" can be justified on the basis of not rational criteria, so can "Y", and so can the holocaust.
Generally, those who argue for limits to reason do so because they do not want any criticism of the status quo based on shared criteria. Instead, they want everyone to say: "Oh, I intuit this!" What do YOU intuit?" Progress in reducing unfairness can never come with that sort of public discourse.
Sun, 2007-02-25 09:44
#39
M. Spector
quote:
Originally posted by Brett Mann:
[b]... rationality is only part of the way humans know the world. We also have intuition, personal revelation, etc. In fact, rationality has little to tell us about the most important questions in life. Why is there suffering?[/b]
Indeed a very important question in life. What is the answer, based on intuition and revelation alone? Anybody? I didn't think so.
quote:
[b] What happens after we die?[/b]
Another very important question. Science and rationality have an answer for it that has never been disproved in the entire history of humanity. What's the answer that intuition and revelation provide, and why should we accept that answer?
quote:
[b]Do you think that science will ever be able to completely account for the felt love of a mother for her child?[/b]
We don't have to wait. Science says that over a period of time, mothers who love their children tend to have children who live long enough to reproduce. Those who don't love their children, on the other hand, tend to be eliminated from the gene pool, because their children tend to die young. We who think rationally like to call that "natural selection". As a result of natural selection, we are all descended from a long line of mothers who loved their children. That's why it's such a common phenomenon today.
What's the intuitive or revealed explanation?
quote:
[b]A moment's reflection will demonstrate the falseness of this assumption. That's the problem with Dawkins, whether one believes in God or not. He's simply not very bright and ends up producing a rather meaningless treatise.[/b]
Perhaps more than just a "moment's reflection" is called for here. Certainly Dawkins has given it more than that. The least you could do is read the fucking book before you trash it and call him not very bright.
Sun, 2007-02-25 10:43
#40
Don't be blaspheming Dawkins, Brett. It's sacrilegious around here.
Sun, 2007-02-25 10:46
#41
"Why is there suffering" is an odd choice for a question which "reason" supposedly can't answer.
In fact, "why is there suffering?" has always been the most difficult question for believers in a benificent God. If God is good, why does He allow suffering?"
[url=http://classiclit.about.com/cs/articles/a/aa_candide.htm]http://classicl...
Sun, 2007-02-25 10:50
#42
M. Spector
Here's an even more difficult question: Why assume God is "good"?
Sun, 2007-02-25 10:52
#43
Catchfire
quote:
Indeed a very important question in life. What is the answer, based on intuition and revelation alone? Anybody? I didn't think so.
Jacques Lacan gave a lecture challenging Immanuel Kant's [i]Critique of Pure Reason[/i]. Kant asserted that man, as an autonomous ethical being, if offered the choice of sex with a beautiful woman followed by execution, would never choose sex if it meant he had to hang. Because Man is a reasonable entity.
What Kant misses, however, as Lacan points out, is that our reasonable man would think about it.
Sun, 2007-02-25 10:55
#44
Cueball
That's neat.
quote:
Originally posted by M. Spector:
[b]Here's an even more difficult question: Why assume God is "good"?[/b]
Well, well I guess if one were a believer, one would inevitably come to the conclusion that god was the supreme arbiter of what is good and bad, and thus determine that "gods will" was ultimately good, no matter how bad it seemed to us. This theme appears commonly in religion when the subjects of any religious orthodoxy are confused as to the intentions of the supreme being when disaster befalls them, no?
[ 25 February 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
Sun, 2007-02-25 11:38
#45
The logic proposed so far says, if there is a god, then life should be easy and pain-free. But there is wide-spread suffering, so therefore god doesn't exist.
From this I have to conclude that not all human beings are intelligent, and so therefore natural selection rules, and we have no hope of ever escaping insect-like dominance of a few over the many.
Sun, 2007-02-25 11:44
#46
M. Spector
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
[b]...o therefore natural selection rules, and we have no hope of ever escaping insect-like dominance of a few over the many.[/b]
You seem to think that natural selection is some theory that explains the rise of capitalism. You seem to have Darwin confused with Marx (who admired Darwin, by the way).
Sun, 2007-02-25 12:01
#47
What I wanted to say is that I do see the logic that says we can "believe" only what's known to us now, in this life and this existence. There is no tangible higher truth for humanity than what science can prove empirically. And so, there do exist theories of the way the universe operates on the scale of the very large(Einstein etc) and on the scale of the very small(Bohr, Heisenburg etc). But there's something missing inbetween to tie the two theories together to have it all make complete sense and truth for scientists.
According to people like David Deutsch, one of the physicists who contributed to DWave of Vancouver's creation of the first commercial quantum computer, there could be multiverses of existence. And to be fair to the non-believing scientists, these proposed extra dimensions of reality might not prove useful to people in any meaningful way. At least not in this reality. Some physicists, like Fritjof Capra, propose that we do interact with these theoretical other existences on different levels and perhaps on the creative level, intuitive levels, dreams, and through (cough) some sort of psychic level.
I find discussing something as wild as a possible existence of god or a number of god-like entities is only as far away as theoretical physics. And some of the world's best and brightest think paradigm shifts and outside the box all the time. Science may not be in total agreement with string theory and possiblity for multiverses of existence, but these kinds of theories do exist in the here and now and thought up by real human beings. And David Deutsch is one of the more conservative theoretical physicists. His theories are not as fantastic as some are.
[ 25 February 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]
Sun, 2007-02-25 12:04
#48
M. Spector
Are you making a [url=http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/god_of_gaps.html]God of the Gaps[/url] argument?
Sun, 2007-02-25 12:15
#49
No, I am not pessimistic about science. I can admit to myself though that there are unknowns and that science will discover the truth at some point in the future. The real hurdles for science and humanity right now are not the ponderance of whether god exists, believe it or not.
[ 25 February 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]
Sun, 2007-02-25 15:37
#50
quote:
Originally posted by jeff house:
[b]Actually, I think rationality and reason have everything to tell us about these topics.
For example, suffering exists for a thousand reasons, such as unequitable distribution of resources.
What happens after we die? we rot.
The problem with the "limits of reason" school is that if "X" can be justified on the basis of not rational criteria, so can "Y", and so can the holocaust.
Generally, those who argue for limits to reason do so because they do not want any criticism of the status quo based on shared criteria. Instead, they want everyone to say: "Oh, I intuit this!" What do YOU intuit?" Progress in reducing unfairness can never come with that sort of public discourse.[/b]
Ken Wilber has a useful way of thinking about this. Off the top of my head, read two years ago, it goes something like this:
We need to view reality through four quadrants to fully know it. The dimensions are: subjective and objective: personal and group.
We may "understand" suffering in an intellectual way as a necessary and beneficial part of human evolution. "Understanding" the most immediate and personal and irrational loss in one's own private life - I'll leave the reader to fill in the details - this requires a bit more than an understanding of the broad evolutionary purposes of suffering. We need a good reason why we shouldn't just cut our own throats right now. There are different kinds of "knowledge". It is not an offence to rationality to point this out. It is an offence to rationality to presume that everything can be understood by rationality, or that rationality is always the only and best way to approach things.
Edited to add - damn it Jeff, some part of me feels like I could just as easily argue your side of this question. Even the current Pope has said that it is important that faith be grounded in reason. I'm not even sure I have a point to defend anymore. I'm just enjoying seeing where this whole thread will go. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]
[ 25 February 2007: Message edited by: Brett Mann ]
Sun, 2007-02-25 17:12
#51
N.Beltov
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Dennett kicks Dawkins ass. Yea, i know they're friends. But Dennett is better. He addresses the concerns of believers and is convincing anyway. Dennett shows that "God" is [i]unneccesary.[/i]That's a more powerful argument. But you and I, Spector, have had this argument already. [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]