IC Forum Archive

dhex · Posts: 2963

dark steve · Posts: 3002

man this guy

man

internisus · Posts: 961

wow. i thought south park was exaggerating?

edit: "the process of nonthinking... called FAITH" aaaaah this is awesome

dhex · Posts: 2963

i don't always like dawkins on religion particularly. the godwin's law violation at 22:30 is beyond the pale.

however, he does raise the question as to why religious beliefs - as opposed to political, or social beliefs - are beyond criticism on their own terms.

i mean, dude's a biologist. when you have people opening creation science museums, well, that's scary. and infuriating. like everyone else, he got his brain a little bit broken after 9/11, when he got on his current bugaboo.

however, ted haggart! he's kinda creepy.

internisus · Posts: 961

dhex wrote:

however, he does raise the question as to why religious beliefs - as opposed to political, or social beliefs - are beyond criticism on their own terms.

And that is a good question -- for those who think that way. But he's doing the same thing by exhibiting such an extraordinary bias that drips off of his every word and by maintaining that science is clearly a superior force like some robot monkey that actually thinks the human person can or should be so clear-cut.

dhex · Posts: 2963

well, in the realm of evolutionary biology and natural phenomena, science is the superior force.

as proven by this conversation we're having now, etc.

but yeah, dawkins lacks poise. if the dude had more poise, he'd be a little more palatable to fence sitters. but that's not really his aim - his aim is to back people into a corner and say "this is what i believe; it is undemonstrable" and then point at them and say "these people rule the world and we are fucked."

he certainly succeeds at that. he misses a lot of the social/communal aspects of religious belief, of course.

edit: haggard at 24:30 minutes and going is basically the issue. evolution as an accident? and the scientists are arrogant?

hell, i like dawkins a lot more than i did before seeing this, though i wish he'd chill a little bit.

internisus · Posts: 961

Well, sure, okay, but no matter how pragmatic and results-driven you want to be, you can't pretend that everything else is a poison and completely disposable.

I mean, for example, I sometimes think about the PROJECT of humanity, you know, and how in this age of developing genetic and nano technologies we had better start deciding what we want to do with and to ourselves. I believe in pragmatism and in careful scientific goals, but I also firmly believe in the spiritual qualities of a scientific view. What's the point of intellectual transcendence if you can't feel awe about anything?

The guy just needs to read The Irrational Man by William Barrett, is all.

Doesn't he sound as frightening as any religious fanatic?

internisus · Posts: 961

Will I miss anything here if I listen to it without watching it?

dark steve · Posts: 3002

science is a scary religion too

we need Back To Natural Philosophy t-shirts

dhex · Posts: 2963

internisus · Posts: 961

I'm posting just to suggest this be moved to General Discussion. I'll reply in detail later. I'll try, anyway. It's much more difficult to explain why any spiritual feeling is worthwhile than it is to justify science. Have you ever read Schleiermacher or Bergson?

dhex · Posts: 2963

i am somewhat familiar with bergson's ideas. i'm more familiar with james and his precursors, however.

i think the moral/creative/interpretive/intuitive side of things (aka spiritual, which i find to be a somewhat difficult term to define correctly) are important and worthwhile. they're just not very useful for explaining mechanical things, nor necessarily helping unlike-minded people get along. for every mennonite group or society of friends, there are lots of unfriendly types. feeling something deeply is not a form of validity in and of itself; if anything, it is a source of tremendous evil.

the intuitive side, the pre-rational, is important. but to lionize it often leads to things like that 2012 whackadoodle with the quetzalcoatl hangups i linked to the other day.

anyway, even atheists feel awe. i mean, it's impossible not too. it's part of being human. it's not like the world is losing out on irrationality and drowning in secular humanism or anything (even if such things create much of the techne of the world, and hence the world itself).

Sawtooth · Posts: 2350

dhex wrote:

anyway, even atheists feel awe.

I've met one in my entire life that will admit to this :(

also while it would silly to say that dawkins doesn't have a point, I am sick of condescending atheism :(

oh man shot of dawkins scowling down at a mass of catholic pilgrims

dhex · Posts: 2963

the second clip isn't as good unless you've never seen hell house in which case skip forward to 20:00 minutes. the anti-gay stuff is brilliant in its utter depravity.

i dunno, i've met plenty of irreligious people who were happy, sad, and indifferent. hardcore "atheists" as such, well, i turn to eric hoffer to explain that.

i actually feel dawkins a bit more on this point than i used to. though most of his books are really tight. but there is the issue that despite his condescension people right now have voted against a secular arrangement of gay marriage because of religiously-rooted feelings. it's hard not to think of that as poisonous.

the typical example is that if i started denouncing gay marriage in the name of wotan. (zeus is a bad example in this case, obviously, though most people wouldn't know that) people would treat me as if i were mentally ill, perhaps with good reason. wotanism, outside of a few mystical neo-nazis, is utterly extinguished as a belief system.

internisus · Posts: 961

I'm watching much further along in the video you linked to up top and actually it's really good.

When I was speaking about "spirituality" in science, what I was talking about was interpreting meaningfulness through scientific fact and scientific cosmology.

I certainly wasn't talking about anything related to this stuff. This video really is disturbing as hell.

Darkins is really impressing me as a level-sounding narrator, once the bile of his opening remarks is through. He's making me more scared than I usually would feel.

internisus · Posts: 961

i can't watch this, it's too fucked up. the interview with the islam fundamentalist at the end is devastating. i have to go out and buy final fantasy xii now. the girl in that game is really pretty, she'll make me feel better.

oh science help us

Sync-Swim · Posts: 634

You fellows should all join in on my phil of tech class to amend the legion of glassy-eyed CS and industrial design majors staring into the void of their technological neutralism, or IMing.

The thing that makes me cranky about Dawkins (I may be miseducated) is that if humans function intrinsically on the basis of nothing more than passing on their genetic code as often as possible, then what's to stop a technocrat "naturalist" from declaring homosexuality, celibacy and the like are contrary to human nature and therefore should be abolished and their "adherents" euthanized? You essentially end up with the same psycho-sexual ethics and mandates you would under a Christian/Abrahamic theocracy.

Another bothersome thing is how Dawkins purports to speak universally, yet doesn't really know very much at all about the Eastern faiths or really anything except the Christian Robed Snow-Bearded Jove concept of monotheism. He admitted as much at the end of his NPR interview a few weeks ago.

Maztorre · Posts: 1175

I saw this back when it was originally put out (on Channel 4 I think?). Its a good laugh because he always goes for the throat even though he's intelligent/capable enough to question their beliefs in a more easygoing manner. It is actual challenging television because it is truly tough on the issues to the point where you almost don't want to look.

dhex · Posts: 2963

Sync-Swim · Posts: 634

Well that's true. While syncretism is usually lionized as a wonder of Eastern religious thought, it also played into the warping, distortion and fracturing of a lot of traditions. Chinese Buddhism, Mahayana is particular (one of the more widespread sects), is a retooling of the original Indian philosophical basics into a devotional theistic religion with lots of shiny baubles and social structure.

And Tibet.. uh.. yeaah. I did a presentation on the Bardo Thodol and Tibetan Buddhism's views on death last year. Zen or even Theravada it ain't.

Daoism was essentially a compilation of traditional proverbs and folk philosophies that were already ancient at the time(3rd or 4th century BC). Laozi was right to be reluctant about writing his stuff down though. The philosophy remained intact for a whole five seconds after his disappearance before it went absolutely batshit. I'd go into a spiel about it, but i'm already off-topic and will instead recommend everyone read a few pages out of the daodejing, then visit Taipei and hit up a "Daoist temple" there. Five pages, compare & contrast.

Back to the real subject-- has the case for homosexuality occuring in animals other than humans been proven/refuted yet? Rotten Library had a great article on the topic, but, well it's Rotten Library.

dhex · Posts: 2963

no, let's derail this into a subject about taoism.

see, taoism is insane, completely and utterly, unless taken as an atheistic philosophy about the mechanics of the universe, in which case it's a kind of very pretty pantheism, which is totally someone's thing if they wish it to be.

now, it's sort of my kind of insanity, and i have a soft spot for chuang tse, but i also see it in the context of the confucian world in which it became popular. i'm not really into natural law so the dao te ching isn't that appealing to me, but the text is so widespread and open that dozens of religious traditions could (and have, in some sense, if you count the "internal" schools of chinese martial arts) arise from varied interpretations. politically he's not much different than plato. i don't find plato very palatable politically, for what it's worth. rothbard and other anarchists who sort of pick him as the first libertarian don't, i think, read very deeply. natural law is not very compatible with minarchism or anarchism, for a number of reasons. (spontaneous order is not, as someone might suggest, purely natural or purely artificial, but a mixture of many different biological, ecological and cultural factors)

i don't think either chuang tse or lao tsu (laozi) actually existed (or rather, i don't think the evidence is very strong in favor of their existing) which is both immaterial and very interesting.

homosexuality in animals has been observed for a very long time.

extralife · Posts: 3316

I'd watch this if the sound on my computer worked. :(

I mean, watching this guy is probably going to be interesting to me. I'm not a religious person in the slightest, but I think scientists are wooden, crazy dudes that live on their own kind of faith anyway. They disregard emotion. They disregard what they haven't studied in complete detail. I don't know what my point is exactly, but I can't say I enjoy either side of this issue outside of the obvious "dude, these scientists are at least right on this issue, so can we all shut up now?" I mean, I'm pretty sure no non-crazy religious person is going to have their faith destroyed because they found out the Earth isn't eight thousand years old or whatever.

Broco · Posts: 546

extralife wrote:

I think scientists are wooden, crazy dudes that live on their own kind of faith anyway. They disregard emotion. They disregard what they haven't studied in complete detail.

Replace "scientists" with "Richard Dawkins and his ilk" and you have a point, otherwise no. Most scientists have strong opinions only on the particular subject they're studying -- being a scientist neither requires nor necessarily leads to an all-encompassing, schematic, Enlightenment-style scientific worldview. Heck, I read a survey showing that a supermajority of U.S. scientists are religious.

Psiga · Posts: 3990

Nudged to General.

I've watched one Dawkins video in the past, and found it greatly amusing. I'll watch this stuff later, after I get food. (Edit: Root Of All Evil? Yeah, I think I've seen this one.)

The Science vs. Religion, the Science of Religion, and the Religion of Science issue is too deep for me to start into right now.

zebadayus · Posts: 672

Guys, religion + science = good.

They should be friends. Why can't most people see this?

"Okay, here's God's creation... and here's how it works!"

Also how's my new avatar? It's not coming on too strong, is it?

Sync-Swim · Posts: 634

The problem with reading interpretations into the daodejing or zhuangzi (chuang-tzu), or anything else in ancient Chinese is that you have a hundred interpretations of what was written in an already obscure and open-ended written language.

I've got one translation of the daodejing in the popular Pseudo-New Age Self Help Enrich Your Life! interpretive tradition, another ultra-wordy "philosophical translation" that includes the original characters and page-long interpretations after each chaper (which I absolutely hate) and one by sinologist poet David Hinton.

My translation of Zhuangzi's Inner Chapters is by David Hinton and I think it's fantastic, though a friend in asian studies has told me i'm a total tool for liking Hinton's translation over a more "academic" edition like A.C. Graham's.

Anyways, it's been theorized that the daodejing, especially the second half, is mostly a primer on how to manage a dukedom or fief with maximum efficiency, a bit like the Republic, yes. As depressing as I find that view, it's also one of the best explanations.

It's tempting to call them the first libertarians, but neither Laozi or Zhuangzi (real or not, probably not) really fit the bill. As stated, Laozi leaned more towards the platonic ideal of the possession-less philosopher kings and hoplite subordinates. Zhuangzi makes a more compelling libertarian/anarchist case, but really, he's simply not concerned with politics. Especially in the great Inner Chapters, Zhuangzi is more concerned with the individual liberating themselves from the things like politicka, organized society ("filial piety, tradition, Order") and organized thought ("yes this and no that"), which he viewed as useless shit that gets in the way of being human.

Zhuangzi's friend Huizi (Hui-tzu) makes several cameos in the book. Huizi was supposedly the great Aristotelean figure in the Hundred Schools of Thought period, he belonged to a school called the Logicians. The story goes that Zhuangzi scuttled rationalist philosophy's from becoming the predominant school of Ancient Chinese thought, the way it did for the Greeks, through his repeated debates with Huizi.

It's funny to wonder why we instinctively wince whenever someone is portrayed as anything other than a total moon-worshipping nutbag for criticizing Logical thought.

dhex · Posts: 2963

i like collecting translations. the oldest i have is a translation from the 1880s. it's interesting to compare it to the newer stuff, like the one hippie-ish translation i bought for a quarter in amsterdam. that one is particularly shitty and agenda-filled. it's kind of weird to pick up on a civilization you have no connection to and use it for your own ends without specifying such, though. like that 2012 nutbird. (the whole phenomena irritates me. like "zen runes", though this is particularly uh special.)

chuang tze may be my favorite philosopher in any translation, however. the story of his wife's death sticks in my head, and hopefully will forever.

Sawtooth · Posts: 2350

dhex wrote:

i dunno, i've met plenty of irreligious people who were happy, sad, and indifferent. hardcore "atheists" as such, well, i turn to eric hoffer to explain that.

yeah, i guess that's it. The one exception in my last post was someone whom I knew nothing about until I engaged him in a discussion last year (similar to this topic), whereas all the other people I know personally are bitter catholic runaways who like to scream I'M ATHEIST DEAL WITH IT every time religion comes up.

Psiga · Posts: 3990

Hm. I remember watching a video called The Root of All Evil, but this doesn't seem to be it. New stuff for me to watch! Yay! (Edit: Looks like I saw the second episode, but not the first. Still! New stuff!)

One of the first things that flags for me is the statement, "Science is a discipline of investigation and constructive doubt." I agree with that ideal very much -- it's what I strive to live by when I dip into fringe science research. The problem that I see is when other people turn around and use science as a shield, condemning anything that seems weird to them. When they call themselves skeptics and behave merely as cynics, showing no signs of desire to investigate or be constructive. Condemnation, by assumption and non-sequitur, rules the day.

The 'religion of science' has a tendancy to throw the baby out with the bathwater simply because they have no apparatus for quantifying the presence of 'baby'. Point out an old apparatus that does, and they condemn the apparatus without experimentation because of who may have been associated with it forty years ago. Point out footnotes in history where the Maxwells and Einsteins of the world proposed functional mathematical theories that support such apparatuses, and the conversation ends in excuses and noncommittals.

The subtext of all that is that we as humans are built to defend our current concepts. If we acknowledge that we may be wrong, it is like a partial or total admission of defeat, necessitating a relearning of topics that we thought we already understood. It is innate to our thinking minds, regardless of whether we believe in a religious or scientific doctrine. It was once considered scientifically appropriate to believe that the world is flat, earth is the center of the universe, and the heart is an eternal fountain of blood -- if simply because we had no apparatuses which could produce irrevokable proof otherwise. What is so thoroughly disappointing is that those concepts were replaced only over disappointingly long periods of time, because the established 'scientific' hierarchy used its verbose escapist rationalization skills to save themselves the trouble of admitting partial or total defeat.

Between the professors and authors whose pride would be hurt by that, and the societal leaders whose influence and profitability would be hurt by that, it's difficult to get the established leadership to even consider openly questioning and critically testing the weakenesses and extremes of their established 'knowledge'.

Scientists are people, people like to believe, and people hate to be wrong about their beliefs. Merely being a scientist does not make one immune to self-satisfaction and the emotional motivation to defend personal beliefs.

Dawkins highlights this, of course: He looks so viscerally self-satisfied at pointing out the fallacies and weaknesses of the religious.

If we could earnestly believe that Science would Deliver Us from the Shackles of Id and Ego, then so be it. As things stand, this is the latest and greatest conceptual tool which humanity uses to evolve itself. People continue to be instinctually- and emotionally-motivated creatures, yet our technologies are catalogued and advanced in a vastly more orderly fashion.

Sync-Swim · Posts: 634

extralife · Posts: 3316

That's kind of what I was trying to say when I said "they disregard what they haven't studied in complete detail."

Scientists are great at being right, but terrible at being wrong.

Psiga · Posts: 3990

Psiga · Posts: 3990

Sync-Swim wrote:

Hooray the liberal promise! There's the whole issue of techno-science to take into account.

Have you ever read anything by Albert Borgmann? Also recommended is Don Ihde, especially his theory of transformations of seeing.

Neither of these guys will be an easy swallow for a technological/scientific neutralist (which I used to be).

I haven't read any of their stuff, to my knowledge -- though admittedly I do not buy many/any books anymore. I'd love to respond, but I'm not sure what I'd be responding to, having never heard of "the liberal promise," or "techno-science," or what it means to be a "neutralist" thereof.

extralife · Posts: 3316

Psiga I think he is talking about Switzerland.

Scratchmonkey · Posts: 2229

Sync-Swim wrote:

Have you ever read anything by Albert Borgmann? Also recommended is Don Ihde, especially his theory of transformations of seeing.

Please to be suggesting a starting point for both of these dudes.

dhex · Posts: 2963

dawkins is engaging, antagonistically, with people on a level where there can't really be compromise. if the earth is 10,000 years old, it can't be millions of years old. really basic questions - again, phrased antagonistically - that boil down to "does religion explain natural phenomenon better than the sciences do?" you find very few people willing to argue that folk magic is real in the same way electricity is real, and for good reason.

this isn't even getting into the sociology of science. this is still real basic level, arguing against sympathetic magic type stuff. "teach the controversy" et al.

i came across these videos from someone i know who was claiming that one of the reasons dawkins comes across as a dick is because religion is afforded a position of rhetorical respect, generally, that does not apply to politics or other kinds of opinions/lifestyle choices. i was less sympathetic to his argument before watching the videos; ultimately, i do consider dawkins engaging in a kind of breach of decorum. it's one thing to be insulted for a lack of religious belief, and yet another to be insulted for what is considered ordinary beliefs. this may be unfair, but so is a lot of life. but i find it hard to argue against this premise, that because he's attacking religion the way someone might attack a fortuneteller, he's getting more heat than if he were messing with a fringe political group.

i think his fighting against it is somewhat unwise, if only because it changes no minds. outside of some school districts and book sales here and there, michael behe and discovery institute are not going to force accepted biology out the window anytime soon. they are not a threat to anything in the long run. giving them attention in many ways is worse than ignoring them entirely; the folks who believe the earth is 10,000 years old aren't going to change their minds either way, but giving them cause to believe in martyrdom, due to certain properties of their belief system, is foolish.

violating godwin's law is still a big no-no, though. then again, if he weren't bombastic, he wouldn't get any airtime. i really wish he'd tone it down, however. why argue with hacidic jews? other jews don't argue with hacidic jews, if they can avoid it. sure, it's fucked that their women are born into a kind of social slavery, but the other choice is giving the government the power to break up social orderings. that cannot possibly end well; did driving polygamy underground really help women born into fundamentalist LDS sects?

it's a nice idea that kids would be allowed to completely make up their own minds about religion, and it's often horrible when you meet someone who was scarred by the cultural vat they grew up in, but it is entirely unreasonable. excepting extreme examples (mennonites, hacidic communities, etc) kids will eventually make up their minds anyway, one way or the other, and perhaps even change them a few times over. the vat you're born into helps make you who you are; cutting down on the hebraic storm gods or whatever floats their cosmic boat is not going to make people less likely to believe in dubious metaphysics.

dhex · Posts: 2963

ok party break:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8047087636458478893&q=dawkins+duration%3Along&hl=en

this is great.

Psiga · Posts: 3990

dhex wrote:

ok party break:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8047087636458478893&q=dawkins+duration%3Along&hl=en

this is great.

Wow, so that's what Kirk Cameron is up to these days. He really does look the type, I guess.

OH FUCK. Even twenty seconds past the intro theme, my brain is hurting.

...

This is so offensive. I've given up after 4 minutes. What a twisted method of doing all of this. Wantonly misrepresenting theories and interviewing nobodies on the street as though they're credible information sources. Ugh.

Psiga · Posts: 3990

dhex wrote:

this isn't even getting into the sociology of science. this is still real basic level, arguing against sympathetic magic type stuff. "teach the controversy" et al.

You're quite right, yeah. Part of the issue is that he doesn't merely teach the controversy, he dickishly asserts his position in contrast to the religious ones, as though it should be self-evident that he's right because the other guys are making fools of themselves.

~Faith is a virus! Faith is the root of all evil!~

What? Plenty of neuroscientists would quibble about how the brain percieves and interprets 'faith' and 'evil', let alone where they come from or which came first. Dawkins makes a fool of himself in that light.

He amuses me greatly, no doubt. His skepticism seems healthy, and his willingness to give consideration to the reasonable suppositions of others is good. At the same time, his logic is not unyieldingly potent, and the war on faith is as pointless as a war on terror.

dhex · Posts: 2963

yo lan pa · Posts: 10

these people care too much.

Psiga · Posts: 3990

dhex wrote:

What? Plenty of neuroscientists would quibble about how the brain percieves and interprets 'faith' and 'evil', let alone where they come from or which came first. Dawkins makes a fool of himself in that light.

what do you mean?

If his own statements are to be believed, Dawkins' definition of "faith" is "the process of non-thinking." Thus all "evil" -- all ruin, pain, malice, blame, spite, anger -- is merely the result of non-thinking. This does not strike you as odd? Have you never seen somebody be slighted, ruined, or angered by very logical intent? The inherent unfairness of natural law, coupled with humanity's inherent chemical instability and potential for antisocial psychological development, is a deeper root of evil, regardless of how much thinking a person does.

There's more I could blither about, but I'm in a hurry today, so NOT NOW.

Lick Meth · Posts: 154

I can't remember the quote, but my favourite* description of "evil" went along the lines of "when a person is lacking in apathy".

*'favourite' as in "most sensible", as opposed to blaming things like 'sin' and so forth.

finnagain · Posts: 181

I am so glad I didn't jump into this thread earlier. Because it has been an engaging, surprisingly civil discussion of Dawkins, and that is something damn rare to find. And I am sure I would not have been civil or engaging on the subject, because he is just as totalitarian as the straw-men religious nutjobs he mocks.

Usually.

Psiga · Posts: 3990

I was going to say that at least Dawkins doesn't present a straw man himself, but I suppose that would be contradicting my own critique of his methods: For him to claim that faith is the root of evil simply because it is the process of non-thinking, that in itself is a straw man. If he'd provide a more functional description of his definitions of faith and evil, that might help a bit. Some people equate faith specifically with religious belief, while some equate it with the general-purpose belief that better days can come to those who are good. Even scientists have different definitions of what is or is not good to do.

It's a lot like dhex said, of course: This is establishing an introduction of sorts. The logical (if bitterly condescending) counterpoint to mass irrational belief in something that has no appreciable evidence in its favor. There is little or no middle ground to be found in Dawkins' work, but it sure does have some fun impact to it anyway.

Broco · Posts: 546

finnagain wrote:

it has been an engaging, surprisingly civil discussion of Dawkins

It's been civil because everybody here pretty much agrees on Dawkins: what he says may be partially correct, but he's still a simpleminded jerk. If either a Dawkins supporter or religious fundamentalist hopped in, Godwin's Law would apply within three posts.

finnagain · Posts: 181

Broco wrote:

finnagain wrote:

it has been an engaging, surprisingly civil discussion of Dawkins

It's been civil because everybody here pretty much agrees on Dawkins: what he says may be partially correct, but he's still a simpleminded jerk. If either a Dawkins supporter or religious fundamentalist hopped in, Godwin's Law would apply within three posts.

I had to look up Godwin's law.

You are entirely right, and now I have a new phrase to add to my personal lexicon.

SIDEBAR: Why always Hitler? Why not Stalin, or Pol Pot, or Andrew Jackson?

chosun · Posts: 288

finnagain wrote:

Hitler?

Gasp! He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!

bort · Posts: 319

finnagain wrote:

SIDEBAR: Why always Hitler? Why not Stalin, or Pol Pot, or Andrew Jackson?

I'm not exactly sure, and even if I was, there's the whole issue of techno-science to take into account. Sorry.

Scratchmonkey · Posts: 2229

Because Hitler and the Nazis are the most well known "humans as monsters" situation.

It's also good to remember that Godwin's Law just states that the probability of Hitler or the Nazis being mentioned approaches one the longer that the discussion goes on, so it doesn't really say that the discussion is then worthless or whether the mentioning is relevant or not, just that it is increasingly inevitable. Godwin himself has stated that the main reason to avoid using it is because it's unlikely to be a valid comparison and won't have much rhetorical weight.