| StoreTags: new, atheism, god, religion, science
Author: nagrom on January 04 2007 Viewed 10764 times. 12 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
People who enjoyed reading this: emulsion, astroid, cbit, datathinner, soft, Doron, flies, bsr, GregTArtZ, mixedtape, everamzah, nicknotis
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Interview with Sam Harris, author of "The End of Faith".
Basically a very rational argument for questioning, not religious freedom, but the acceptance of religion in society.
Also, if you scroll down a bit, there's an article about the origins of public school, which I implore everybody to read before sending your kids off to be hammered into cubes.
Anybody who was intrigued by the public school blurb, you may be interested in this book on the subject by John Gatto: link (it's free online) | |
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edited: Jan 06 2007
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cbit
everamzah said: "squeal: our state of "uncertainly" will be with us for as long as we try to describe reality with physical means only. it won't be until we start using our consciousness more freely that we understand the nature of things."
You declare this without any justification to support your claim. As i understand you my experience tells me you're likely to be wrong. In the last century people thought that we would never understand the substance of stars. Now we do. There are countless other examples like this. You can't know what science will reveal to understanding.
In any case some agreement about by what you mean by certain words is necessary first: "consciousness", "'understand'", "uncertainty". Three are too many vague terms here for this to be taken further.
Until we can prove otherwise i don't see a reason to assume that there are anything but physical mechanisms in our universe (including the workings of consciousness).
everamzah said: "religion has done much harm. however, technology has done much harm. science has done much harm. modern medicine has done much harm."
This is nonsense. religion inherently, at its core, demands the throwing out of reason in favour of blind acceptance. It's plain to see how damaging this demand is, even in the modern age. Modern medicine and science have no such inherently dangerous characteristic.
edited: Jan 06 2007
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bsr
'This is nonsense.'
rubbish. his statement holds up.
religion has done much harm - yup.
technology certainly has done much harm - bombs and guns facilitate humans to do harm (like religion they're abused  )
science certainly has done much harm - hiroshima & nagasaki
modern medecine has done much harm - having taken ssri's i'm 100% sure there's nothing wrong with this claim
swings-and-roundabouts. i can't agree with the meme that religion is inherently bad. it's people and their inability to rise above what they are.
01/06/07
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bsr
(day two - morning thom )
edited: Jan 06 2007
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cbit
morning
cbit said: "religion inherently, at its core, demands the throwing out of reason in favour of blind acceptance."
do you agree/disagree with this? i see this as one of the defining aspects of religion (not _all_ reason has to be thrown out, but wherever reason contradicts doctrine, doctrine wins).
edited: Jan 06 2007
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bsr
no, i don't agree with that. or at least not as a negative or a blow against theism.
there's nothing to stop us in the future, theoretically or not, producing a computer inside which we have a system, the agents inside that system are aware of themselves and each other but not aware that they're sat inside a computer. some of these agents think their existence came about just because it could, other disagree and decide/believe that there must've been some creator (or plenum on which reality exists).
in this instance it's the athiest view which looks foolish - to us viewing it from outside the system, but from inside it's perfectly valid and it's the theist view that seems incredible.
the thing is, i don't believe it'd be impossible for us to create such a system - so to be honest to myself i can't call myself athiest, religion too doesn't do it for me (for many of the same reason you critisise it - but most definitely not all - i respect a lot of it) - so i'll remain agnostic. anything other than agnosticism, and i mean no offense to you or theists, dawkins or anyone else, reeks of self assured arrogance (this opinion is born out of MY worldview which of cource could be incorrect).
edited: Jan 06 2007
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cbit
cbit said: "religion inherently, at its core, demands the throwing out of reason in favour of blind acceptance."
bsr said: "no, i don't agree with that. or at least not as a negative or a blow against theism."
? you either accept it or not, it's up to you to determine whether you think this is a negative thing or not but that doesn't affect the proposition.
bsr said: "there's nothing to stop us in the future, theoretically or not, producing a computer inside which we have a system, the agents inside that system are aware of themselves and each other but not aware that they're sat inside a computer. some of these agents think their existence came about just because it could, other disagree and decide/believe that there must've been some creator (or plenum on which reality exists).
in this instance it's the athiest view which looks foolish - to us viewing it from outside the system, but from inside it's perfectly valid and it's the theist view that seems incredible."
You're wrong about this, in this situation too the theist keeps tight hold of the trophy for foolishness Dawkins book has a very good chapter about probablility entitled 'why god almost certainly doesnt exist'. An atheist doesn't necessarily preclude the possibility that we are a computer simulation designed by a superior intelligence. What atheism does insist though, is that the ultimate originator is not an intelligent being. we now understand that complexity and intelligence are both products of evolution. Invoking an all powerful creator as the root of everything causes more problems than it solves:
Why there almost certainly is no God
He states in Chapter 4 that evolution by natural selection can be used to demonstrate that the argument from design is wrong. He argues that a hypothetical cosmic designer would require an even greater explanation than the phenomena that they intended to explain, and that any theory that explains the existence of the universe must be a “crane”, something equivalent to natural selection, rather than a “skyhook” that merely postpones the problem. He uses the argument from improbability, for which he introduced the term "Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit", to argue that "God almost certainly does not exist": "However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable. God is the Ultimate Boeing 747."[17]
The "Boeing 747" reference alludes to a statement reportedly made by Fred Hoyle: the "probability of life originating on earth is no greater than the chance that a hurricane sweeping through a scrap-yard would have the luck to assemble a Boeing 747".[18] Dawkins objects to this argument on the grounds that it is made "by somebody who doesn't understand the first thing about natural selection". A common theme in Dawkins' books is that natural selection, not chance, is responsible for the evolution of life, and that the apparent improbability of life's complexity does not imply evidence of design or a designer. Here, he furthers this argument by presenting examples of apparent design. Dawkins concludes the chapter by arguing that his "Ultimate 747" gambit is a very serious argument against the existence of God, and that he has yet to hear "a theologian give a convincing answer despite numerous opportunities and invitations to do so".[19] Dawkins reports that Dan Dennett calls it "an unrebuttable refutation" dating back two centuries.[20]
edited: Jan 06 2007
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bsr
there's holes in that and big ones - the notion of religion for many is born out of a fear of death [edit - death being directly related to this existence having 'time'], a system which created the one we live in now - whether originated at the top level by intelligence or naturally - doesn't have to exist in cartesian space and time - by all resonable definitions it could be heavenly, beings could be immortal. immortals creating a system of mortals... sounds a lot like the theist point of view no? being stuck in an existence governed by time colours every idea we have about how any system higher up the ladder may function.
for me, this is a problem with athiesm and not easily explained away - there doesn't need to be any evidence whatsoever of anything remotely 'super' natural. the whole athiest 'empirical yadda yadda' argument is (for me) very weak and doesn't apply, it doesn't tackle the issue but makes naive theists look foolish; as in the example i described in my last post - the athiests point of view is completely valid inside the system but to anyone outside the system they got it very wrong. for me, that's a boolean state, hence agnostic.
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cbit
bsr said: "as in the example i described in my last post - the athiests point of view is completely valid inside the system but to anyone outside the system they got it very wrong. for me, that's a boolean state, hence agnostic."
I understand your position, and as i mentioned before beliefs of this kind are undisprovable. It sounds as though you hold the position defined in dawkin's book as PAP agnostic ('permanent agnosticism in principle', you believe we can never know either way and should therefore not rule out either possibility).
My objection to this stance is that it seems completely unnecessary and exuberant to suppose there might be any extra undetectable complexity outside of 'our' system without any evidence for it.
We can't disprove that they is an extra plane of existence, but why should they be one?
To me this is exactly the same as the unicorn situation:
Perhaps there are invisible intangible inaudible unicorns in our system, we can't disprove that they are there, but why should they be?
[edited: oops, got mixed up here]No one can prove that these unicorns don't exist, And yet no one would define themselves as 'invisible inaudible intangible unicorn agnostic'. this is quite telling
01/06/07
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bsr
not really - you're labelling your mythical thing as being a creature and giving it human traits - thus making it seem foolish (is this related to the popular straw man meme here at em411 lately?) - the sensible argument is: there is or isnt, without trying to descibe what 'it' might be, it's an intellectual argument with no winners. if it was easy to prove either way the argument would have been buried years ago. it never will be. ever.
(therefore agnostic is the only way for me)
01/06/07
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bsr
and yeah - dawkins label sounds somewhat appropriate.
edited: Jan 06 2007
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cbit
The search for the invisible inaudible intangible unicorn
There's no evidence for its existence yet. Whats your stance?
1. Rule out the possibility of its existence. Re-evaluate your position if and when evidence of its existence becomes available.
2. You consider that it might exist. Because we can't ever know for sure you consider the chance of its existence to be equal to the chance of its non-existence.
3. You know in your heart that the unicorn exists.
?
edited: Jan 06 2007
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bsr
4. none of the above. i would never attempt to label what 'it' might be. but to allow the chance that 'it' might exist is enough.
[the whole unicorn idea isn't useful or relevant to this discussion - it's a cheap party trick, probably why dawkins seemingly didn't use it in his book - but why you saw the relation between what he said and what you've read elsewhere - it doesn't apply]
edited: Jan 06 2007
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cbit
bsr said: "you're labelling your mythical thing as being a creature and giving it human traits - thus making it seem foolish"
This in itself is extremely important to notice. For the sake of example, can you think of one thing, apart from god obviously, for which there is NO evidence of its existence that could be substituted into this example that wouldnt make the proposition look foolish? if you can, please name one.
It looks foolish precisely because it is foolish.
01/06/07
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cbit
bsr said: "4. none of the above. i would never attempt to label what 'it' might be. but to allow the chance that 'it' might exist is enough."
ive told you what 'it' is. its the unicorn. you're dodging the question.
01/06/07
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bsr
it's not dodging the question at all, the question is at fault, it has no place in this discussion.
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