God is dead - Page 3

Ophiel Ophiuci · #41 08-21-2007, 10:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kesh

i did say modern memetics. him and daniel dennett, who i know books ablaze loves, plus a few others got it all going again in the 70s/80s. more than about belief, but applying evolution to belief

Well, it's just applying time to belief, really. I don't want to undermine the achievement here, I'm just saying that it's only a tiny development on the stuff Levi-Strauss and co. were doing, really.

kesh · #42 08-21-2007, 10:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ophiel Ophiuci

i.e. "Hey, if you believe something and I can't disprove it, you go ahead. And if you believe in something I can disprove, I don't really care."

I can understand why scientists like dealing with atoms. Atoms don't have moodswings (at the non-quantum level, anyway).

Well quite. I'm not a scientist at all. I believe that, if people who are scientists think there was a Big Bang once, they probably know more about it than me, and I'll just take their word for it.

But science is based on a major leap of faith - that if something happens a bunch of times, it's fair to assume that it will probably happen again under the same conditions. Since that is impossible to prove or disprove, it's essentially still a belief. Now, this does not for one second mean that I don't trust gravity to keep working or whatever. Like the Big Bang, it only affects me on the academic level at this point in my life. But like you say, science's subtle humility means that it takes it as read that it doesn't know everything. Whereas you listen to some of these Indian gurus, and they literally do just work to the assumption that if it's in a specific book then scientists who disagree are just doing it to be rascals, and that anyone who doesn't agree is just a bit silly. They don't advocate blowing them up because of it, but underneath all the serenity there's a total lack of any capacity to acknowledge that their beliefs might be even slightly flawed.

every scientific assertion has to be potentially disprovable else it's not science, so even if something has happened a bunch of times someone else can still show it's wrong. this has happened thousands of times and continues to happen. that's the humility and that's why it is powerful.

scientists forget this though, especially when their theories are wildly succesful.

Ophiel Ophiuci · #43 08-21-2007, 10:55 AM

Or when they have books to sell

Dawkins doesn't seem like the sort to be comfortable with the idea that God might turn out to exist after all.

kesh · #44 08-21-2007, 11:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ophiel Ophiuci

Or when they have books to sell

Dawkins doesn't seem like the sort to be comfortable with the idea that God might turn out to exist after all.

he usually tackles it with science, instead of admitting it falls outside of science because it's not a scientific assertion, as detailed above. but at his best he tackles religion with politics, not science

see his answer to russell's teapot

Ophiel Ophiuci · #45 08-21-2007, 11:06 AM

If you're going to "tackle" it, it should be with psychology if anything.

Ophiel Ophiuci · #46 08-21-2007, 11:12 AM

While I get the answer to the teapot, I think he ignores the likelihood that religion came into existence because of the way human minds work, and that because human minds are still basically the same, getting rid of it would just mean that it'd be replaced with something else (generic spirituality rather than organised religion, for example). If Dawkins' beef was with religion because of the way it controls people, then he'd have a point, but the fact that he also has a problem with a lot of these alternative beliefs (many of which do little more harm than occasionally taking money away from people who are too dumb to deserve it anyway) would seem to suggest that he's not really just out to rid the world of that particular evil, but rather to convert people to his brand of reason.

And to be honest, look at his teapot response, and then look at scientology (i.e. teapot followers). His "development" on the idea seems a little short-sighted, as if no new religions are ever going to develop and inspire the kind of "passion" that the established ones have in the past.

kesh · #47 08-21-2007, 11:15 AM

did you watch his tv show last night? it was like watching a grown up kicking children in the face for fun

Ophiel Ophiuci · #48 08-21-2007, 11:20 AM

As for the remark he makes about religion being "passed on to children too young to defend themselves", if anything shows his failure to appreciate/encorporate the positive roles that belief (if not religion) plays in us, it's that. Casting off beliefs you had as a child in order to become your own entity is an important rite of passage, and if the beliefs that are cast off aren't in stupid stories, they're likely to be in something more profound and valuable, like right and wrong. I know that, as a result of my father's staunchly anti-religious beliefs (brought about largely by his convent-school education, or so he says), I've become a lot more considerate and tolerant of religion, seeing it as a necessary evil rather than a cancer to removed from society at the earliest opportunity. I am also aware that I largely started thinking along these lines to piss him off. I doubt it's much different for all the white people with hippy parents who've started wearing the jilbab. I don't claim to know everything, but I can't help but feel that the psychological role of religion, or any other kind of belief, is a lot more complex than it's made out to be.

Ophiel Ophiuci · #49 08-21-2007, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kesh

did you watch his tv show last night? it was like watching a grown up kicking children in the face for fun

I saw the one where he was being a jerk to dowsers, and it was pretty much what secured my belief that he's a destructive element to society, not because I think dowsers have magic powers, but because he didn't seem to get that, okay, maybe dowsers do rely on extraneous factors to find water, but if they find it, why is that a problem? I'm told that he does come within 100 miles of maybe suggesting placebo drugs aren't the worst atrocity ever committed by mankind at some point in the series, but since I don't consider him a great authority on the subject it doesn't really matter to me whether he agrees with me or not.

bort · #50 08-22-2007, 01:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kesh

did you watch his tv show last night? it was like watching a grown up kicking children in the face for fun

So was it pretty fucking awesome?

Sophia_ · #51 08-22-2007, 01:56 AM

Albert Einstein was a dowser.

bort · #52 08-22-2007, 02:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sophia_

Albert Einstein was a dowser.

Where's the requisite quote from teh Karpent0r? I look forward to reading them.

kesh · #53 08-22-2007, 08:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sophia_

Albert Einstein was a dowser.

he was also convinced about orgone boxes for a while. did he believe it had a supernatural explanation or that the dowser was responding to cues in the environment that he couldn't consciously discern?

Ophiel Ophiuci · #54 08-22-2007, 09:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sophia_

Albert Einstein was a dowser.

Thus proving that people who are really smart and knowledgable on a subject aren't necessarily any smarter than the rest of us outside their own field. Einstein also quite famously used to forget where he lived. His genius was great, but that doesn't mean he knew everything.

Sophia_ · #55 08-22-2007, 12:38 PM

He was not a failed dowser!

Sophia_ · #56 08-22-2007, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kesh

he was also convinced about orgone boxes for a while. did he believe it had a supernatural explanation or that the dowser was responding to cues in the environment that he couldn't consciously discern?

He had a compensating connection with the Unus Mundus, thus he brought the unconscious to the conscious-the inner fountain connected to the outer.

kesh · #57 08-22-2007, 03:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sophia_

He had a compensating connection with the Unus Mundus, thus he brought the unconscious to the conscious-the inner fountain connected to the outer.

hmmmmm, innerressing. but did he believe.... well you can read the question i actually asked 4 posts up

Sophia_ · #58 08-23-2007, 01:05 PM

Responding to unconscious environmental influences sounds somewhat supernatural in itself. There's a need to discern definitions here. Subjective affects is different from objective observations....would you agree?