Richard Dawkins: Anti-spiritual or Anti-superstitious?

[sourceofmiracles]

I think Dawkins and other atheist have a point about religion. But they tend to be a little over zealous to the point of almost acting like the very thing they condemn (irrational nonsensical nonscientific ideas and the unchecked promotion of the same).

Dawkins (and other neo-atheists) are also very one sided and just as close minded as the faithful that they abhor. Its almost like they are making science into another religion, "scientism". Just dogma from modernism, IMO.

[Megan]

Sourceofmiracles, yes, and as dor put it so well, the two sides are "eerie reflections" of each other.

[ethereal]

hehe, small quote and some calibrations from Dr. Hawkins from his most recent lecture, "God vs. Science":

God vs. Science - two different paradigms.

“Ism” – you can be secular but don’t push it onto somebody else, as in secularism – 165.

God Delusion – 190 - He has the delusion that God is a delusion. From his paradigm of reality, God is a delusion because it’s not provable.

Richard Dawkins – He missed it by one letter!

Anti-Religionism – 180
Scientism – 190

Whatever you put your faith in as the ultimate truth becomes your religion!

Natural skepticism – 195 (I don’t believe skepticism should be natural in a normal human being!)

Narcissistic Reductionism – 185
Vanity of the ego (pride) – 190
Atheism – 165

Skepticism – 160 People who have faith in their own thinkingness. They have profound faith in their own skepticism. To the skeptic, the nonlinear domain has no reality and anyone who believes in God is an idiot.

Nihilism – 120
The God Gene (Dean Hammer) 190
Negation of Faith 90
Negate Nonlinear Reality (context) 90
Crick: Source of Consciousness
is Neuronal 140

[Megan]

Well, I'm skeptical of Hawkins and Dawkins. I'm probably a zero.

[Megan]

Free log-in, if you don't have one:

Evolution and Religion - Darwin’s God - Robin Marantz Henig - New York Times

Ethereal, don't get me wrong, I think Hawkins says some interesting things.

I just don't buy his brand of neo-fundamentalism, not to mention pseudoscience, preferring to think for myself, however imperfect and probably-below-200-calibration that may or may not be.

[dor]

Good article.
The God Gene
The God Gene

The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, Houghton Mifflin, 406 pages & Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Daniel Dennett, Viking, 448 pages

by Patrick McNamara

Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion and Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon argue that religion is a delusion or, at best, a misfiring of basic cognitive systems evolved for other more useful purposes like “agent detection” and placebo responding. But the authors do not believe that the delusion is harmless. Instead, they make clear that they see religion as a major source of evil in the world and go so far as to say that the religious instruction of children is “child abuse” when unaccompanied by countervailing scientific instruction.

If Dawkins and Dennett really believe that raising a child in a religious tradition is abusive, then they are morally bound to call for the protection of children subject to such abuse. Theoretically, abusers should be subject to legal penalties and perhaps even jailed. The state, in such cases, should use its coercive powers to restrain abusive parents and require them to undergo some sort of psychiatric treatment or thought-retraining program to cure their delusionary illness.

Given the widespread nature of the delusion—both authors cite statistics showing that better than 64 percent of the U.S. population believes in God—America’s psychiatric system will have to be expanded. It may be necessary to build retraining camps similar to those used throughout the Communist world to free recalcitrant religionists from their delusional devotion to God and their irritating resistance to the state. Too bad we can’t all be “brights,” as the merry band of Dawkins- and Dennett-inspired atheists has dubbed itself. If only everyone were as emancipated as the brights from religion’s dangerous spell, the world would be a better place!

Why can’t religionists see the error of their ways, especially when the bright brights point this out to them? It must be that they are stupid. Dawkins is so convinced of the religion-as-delusion equation that he seems to endorse the long discredited notion of a correlation between high religiosity and low intelligence.

Yet no convincing data exist to warrant such a claim. There is, however, a well-attested inverse correlation in many Western cultures between years of education (not I.Q.) and religiosity, but most scientists who study religion believe that the correlation simply indexes one’s level of exposure to the secular culture regnant in most Western universities. It simply demonstrates, in short, one’s level of servility toward and indoctrination in that culture

[Megan]

Excellent points, dor, and as I said earlier, a Reign of Terror is scarcely to be preferred over an Inquisition.

Dawkins is thinking emotionally and not pragmatically, and certainly not scientifically on religious issues, IMO.

Here is an example of a pragmatic agnostic's thinking, which I can easily find common cause with--how about you, dor?

I worry more about the religious when they want to impinge on my rights from the point of view of a US citizen than the point of view of an agnostic, because my rights as the latter are predicated on my rights as the former.

This is an important distinction to make, because there are more US citizens than US agnostics/atheists, and because as it happens, when the religious-minded wish to impinge on my constitutional rights, they also usually end up impinging on the rights of others who are not the same religion as they, or if they are of the same religion, have beliefs that do not require they try to shove them on others.

Therefore, I have common cause with religious people who, like me, do not wish their rights abridged by some noxious group of enthusiastic God-thumpers who believe their religious fervor outweighs the US Constitution.

And I'm happy to make that cause with them, and I'm not going to go out of my way to say to them "thanks for your help, even if you are a complete idiot to believe in that God thing." I'll just say thanks.

I think that should be sufficient for anyone, including Richard Dawkins.

Whatever: Thinking About The God Delusion

[dor]

Originally Posted by Megan

Excellent points, dor, and as I said earlier, a Reign of Terror is scarcely to be preferred over an Inquisition.

Dawkins is thinking emotionally and not pragmatically, and certainly not scientifically on religious issues, IMO.

Here is an example of a pragmatic agnostic's thinking, which I can easily find common cause with--how about you, dor?

"When you're student, grad student or associate professor, you vent in your blog; when you get tenure, you get to vent in a book." ...and some of us are just confined to message boards .....

i think he sound pretty sensible - he doesn't get caught up in this crusade to stamp out religion, which is Dawkin's 'religion'.

Concerning his point i agree, but we probably disagree on the where the line is drawn....
I guess then it goes to what we believe the constitution to say - is it really to the point that the city of los angeles most remove a cross from its seal (by that logic st. paul and st. petersburg are 'discriminatory cities') or did the founding fathers ,who had a chaplain reside over the convention, more concerned about a central official state religion rather than removing religion from the public square -
or to the point where private schools are compelled to remove chapel or not get federal funds- isn't that discriminating against religion?
its my belief the amendment was meant to keep the goverment from getting so heavy handed as to tell towns they can't (or must have!) a creche.
Most famously, at the same time the ACLU sued to remove a cross from a National Park, they sued to force taxpayers to fund an Elephant dung Virgin Mary painting Catholics (which I am not) found offensive. That should tell you something about their agenda.

[Megan]

<double post>

[Megan]

Well, dor, the US has become much more of a cultural melting pot since the Founding Fathers wrote, and the rights of minorities are given much more consideration than in previous generations today, and rightfully so, I believe.

It's inevitable that things once not considered offensive now are considered offensive by our burgeoning mixture of cultures.

I agree that this can be reduced to absurdity, but still the issue remains about whether we, as a nation, wish to privilege Christianity over other faiths in our national and local governmental expression.

I, as a Christian, do not wish to see that happen.

I believe in the evolutionary process, and I believe in the democratic process.

We have plenty of freedom to express ourselves religiously without forcing our version of spirituality through government channels, thus making it a stench in the nostrils of those we hope to influence.

It all comes down to not shooting oneself in the foot, I think. We're all in this together.

[dor]

Originally Posted by Megan

Well, dor, the US has become much more of a cultural melting pot since the Founding Fathers wrote, and the rights of minorities are given much more consideration than in previous generations today, and rightfully so, I believe.
.

and if may venture off track a little bit and sound like a wacky conspiracy theories - by design, that was the exact intention of the individuals and organizations that advocated those agendas and it is the motivation behind continuing them.

The effects are easily seen in England -up until a two decades ago relatively homogeneous, recently national health services canceled easter break as not to offend non Christians. A nation cannot last long under such conditions and that's the point.

Very well documented in "Death of the West" (Buchanan) and who are we (huntington - the harvard poly sci prof who called 'bs!" on Fukuyama's end of history 'theory' that led to the disastrous war in iraq)

[Megan]

...if S/He set evolution in motion in this quantum-entangled cosmos.

Maybe we should get with the program?

Nothing stays homogeneous forever, it's not even desirable! As my friend, Dennis Hokama, said:

If you look at the trajectory in the Bible, in terms of the character of Jehovah as a fierce, fickle, and tribal God in Genesis, and the first few books after that, to the God of the New Testament, you can see an increasing concern with a broader and broader justice that embraces more and more of humanity.

If there is such a trajectory, then there is no reason to assume that trajectory necessarily ended with the close of the Canon.

The logical end of that trajectory is universalism, where every individual’s circumstance gets the full benefit of the doubt.

So if the data within the Bible can be analyzed inductively, (as opposed to deductively the way fundamentalists do) then it is perfectly permissible to argue that universalism is implied by scripture.

And, by extension, it is perfectly permissible to extend full rights and protections to all religious persuasions within the Constitution, while privileging none.

[dor]

Originally Posted by Megan

...if S/He set evolution in motion in this quantum-entangled cosmos.

Maybe we should get with the program?

Nothing stays homogeneous forever, it's not even desirable! .

Why not? What has brought us to think like this? Multiculturalism is one of those theories that sounds nice -on paper (to some) but it just doesn't work. Worst of all its a hideous, heavy handed attempt at social engineering.

homogeneous countries have a tendency to be democratic, and have higher levels of trust, multiculturalism is usually equated with empire. Basically between different groups you have high levels of mistrust and they are usually held together with strong central authority. For an example, take a look at what a little Freedumb has done in Iraq.

Further, nearly all great societies are homgenus =multiculturalism doesn't produce great artists, and art- its more likely to stifle it. -think of all the great artistic periods in history - all of them came from small, obscure ' cities that were largely homogeneous - Athens, Florence, backwater Elizabethan england.. what do we remember of Darious multicultrual Persia? Or Ottoman Empire?

Its no accident that nearly every law restricting free expression and that the stifling atmosphere created on campuses all centered around racial sensitivity.
its no accident that the increasingly undemocratic and authoriatarian EU deliberates attempts what can only be called race replacement in European countries. - if Sweden is no longer full of Swedes they won't object to the elimination of country of Sweden.

Fragmented Future
Fragmented Future
Multiculturalism doesn’t make vibrant communities but defensive ones.
by Steve Sailer
In the presence of [ethnic] diversity, we hunker down. We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us.
—Harvard professor Robert D. Putnam

It was one of the more irony-laden incidents in the history of celebrity social scientists. While in Sweden to receive a $50,000 academic prize as political science professor of the year, Harvard’s Robert D. Putnam, a former Carter administration official who made his reputation writing about the decline of social trust in America in his bestseller Bowling Alone, confessed to Financial Times columnist John Lloyd that his latest research discovery—that ethnic diversity decreases trust and co-operation in communities—was so explosive that for the last half decade he hadn’t dared announce it “until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity, saying it ‘would have been irresponsible to publish without that.’”

This is a truth people just don't want to hear - its one the good liberal professor didn't want to come to......
personally I prefer a world there there's difference - what so called multiculturalism is doing is trying to remove national differences. ...everyone wears gap and banks at HBSC, and reads from the same history book (last example taken from a proposal currently being kicked around the EU, requiring students in all member countries to have the same textbooks )

I am not for preserving everything as is there is always natural change but opening up our borders and trying to be more diverse for idealogical reasons is patent insanity.

[Megan]

We don't have to try to be more diverse. We already are diverse.

Diversity is a fact, and no amount of wistful reactionary wool gathering is going to change that.

Hunkering down, however, is a choice.

Evolution is in our own hands. The greatest art comes from the most evolved artists.

History isn't destiny.

[dor]

Originally Posted by Megan

We don't have to try to be more diverse. We already are diverse.

Diversity is a fact, and no amount of wistful reactionary wool gathering is going to change that.

Hunkering down, however, is a choice.

Evolution is in our own hands. The greatest art comes from the most evolved artists.

History isn't destiny.

well studies are showing - even by researchers who openly said they wished to find the opposite - that its very bad for us. As I mentioned loss of individual is directly attributable it.
I personal don't want to risk whatever freedoms we have left on an 'experiment' - and that's what its proponents call it. The US and Europe are not petri dishes for social engineers to play around with.
Multiculturalism Starts Losing Its Luster by Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal Summer 2004
USATODAY.com - In Britain, multiculturalism under siege

anyone who can remember Europe of twenty years ago, or California would be hard presses to say mass immigration or multiculturalism has done any good unless you're a rapist or a criminal because rates of violent crime have skyrocketed in Europe.

more importantly there was never any mandate for this - some bureaucrats and activists - often skirting the law or abusing it (as in the UKs asylum scandals) without the consent of the people or the law.

Its not a matter of 'hunkering down' - anymore than the lock on your door means you're a paranoid xenophobe...... its' returning to sensible levels of immigration and sensible social policies, which in many cases just means leaving people alone.

Sorry about the rant but I have seen too many negative changes in my lifetime to speak up on the matter. I've seen old women afraid to walk the streets of the towns they grew up in, i've seen school children pounded with marxists idealogy and made to feel ashamed of their ancestors, and I'm tired of it.

[Megan]

Sure wish we'd left Iraq alone. I too have lived long enough to see horrendous social changes. I think it is simplistic to lay them all at the feet of immigration, though, and my comments are not about immigration policy, which may need rethinking, I agree.

However we got here, evolution is about rising to the challenge.

Diversity is challenging us. In the short term, that is producing some negative numbers. In the long term, we shall have to rise to the challenge, as the arrow of time only moves forward.

I believe in the process of evolution. I believe in the democratic process. I believe in the moral development process. I believe in the spiritual process.

I believe we can rise to the challenge.

Wassily Kandinsky:

Only with higher development does the circle of experience of different beings and objects grow wider. Construction on a purely spiritual basis is a slow business. The artist must train not only his mind but also his soul.

Robert Henri:

When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressive creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and opens ways for a better understanding.

Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it and shows there are still more pages possible.

I believe we can rise to the challenge. I believe there are still more pages possible.

No one ever said evolution wasn't messy.

[elai]

I haven't read the thread, but whenever i encounter richard dawkins writings & speeches they always piss me off because of his fundamentalist baptist preachy preacher tones, speaking in absolutes and and other varieties of fanatical thought processes.

[dor]

I was looking for this several weeks ago but had forgotten the author- an example of an atheist who disagrees with what i might call 'total Evolution." - he agrees evolution explains some things, but not everything.

Amazon.com: Darwinian Fairytales: Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity and Other Fables of Evolution: Books: David Stove,Roger Kimball

From Publishers Weekly
Like a clever agnostic in Sunday school, Stove (Scientific Irrationalism) relentlessly frustrates Darwinism in this posthumous collection of 11 linked essays. To the chagrin of creationists, however, he also takes pains to note he is of no religion and believes it's "overwhelmingly probable that humans evolved from some other animal." His more modest objective is to show that Darwinism, while largely valid, fails to explain known humanity.

.....
Stove then shows how the theory of kin selection lead naturally the ideas of individuals such as Richard Dawkins that it is the genes which are in a constant struggle to survive. Stove totally demolishes Dawkins' theories (making him look like a lunatic quite frankly). Stove asks the simple question "How can genes be selfish doesn't that imply purpose?". As Stove shows, Dawkins has waffled on this point since the beginning. Stove calls Dawkins' theory a "puppet theory of human behavior" and he shows how such theories are not only irrational but result from an unbalanced and positively "demonological" cast of mind. Such he attributes to Mr. Dawkins. Stove also annihilates Dawkins so-called discovery of memes. Compared to the discovery of genes, which involved actual science and experimentation, memes turn out to be nothing more than a simple rhetorical trick and in fact a "pseudo-discovery".

[Angela]

Anyone who has read "The Selfish Gene" by Dawkins knows that the "purpose" question was explained by the author at length. Additionally, Dawkins didn't "discover" memes; he coined the term to describe a phenomenon that he saw at work.

"Lunatic" all depends on your point of view, I reckon.

[esn]

Originally Posted by Megan

Regarding science and religion being evolutionary drivers of each other; thinking of the world in terms of dynamic axes, rather than conflicting polarities; the oscillations of Zhabotinsky soup, etc....

Eric's quote:



That is just so rich. Reminds me of a bunch of things. Like the dynamic yin-yang symbol:



Also reminds me of the double-triangle Star of David (Mogan David), which is dynamic in a similar way to the yin-yang symbol above. There's a perfect animation somewhere on the Net--for now, here's the plain symbol:







Also reminds me of colliding galaxies:



Perhaps when our scientific imaginations and our spiritual imaginations become vast enough, they can "interaccomodate one another in non-interfering frequency ways" as the dancing galaxies do.

Bucky's words also remind me of the cerebral nasal cycle:



In the end, the quarrel between religion and science may just be our right brains and left brains working desynchronously, and writ large at the cultural level.





The fact is that scientific knowledge and spiritual knowledge are already married, as Muktananda keeps reminding us.

Megan, thanks for leaving these breadcrumbs.

I wanted to respond, but rather, chose to begin my deep dive into various domains of artificial intelligence - from which I have returned.

...and remain intrigued by this dialog.

Does epistemic arrogance = cognitive bias.
Is “The world we live in is vastly different from the world we think we live in.” ?

What is implied by precessional side effects and evolutionary oscillators ?

Why do we 'need' to be right about spiritual stuff ?

Originally, I thought this thread was limited to the passionate rebuttal(actor-observer bias) of Dawkins((apparent) megalomania), but began to question if the effort of this discussion simply manifests the Observer-expectancy effect, and began to question if we can objectively ascertain if our thinking is capable of producing the right answer.

Is cognitive bias implicit and is ego implict and do they conspire to allow our fallacies to deceive us into thinking we are good at thinking ?

But, OK - some very cool things have happened since we began exploring these fascinating concepts. Perhaps we were feeling speculative about sacred geometry and colliding universes. These themes continue to emerge in new TOEs.

Are we destined to use geometry as a unifying language/thought ?

...there's a lot left to do.

Best wishes,
Eric



there's a lot more to do...