Christopher Hitchens is one of the best intellectuals the Western World has.

[thekremlin]

My point is that it is too costly to be purely vestigal; you haven't addressed this point at all.

[DJ FC]

Originally Posted by thekremlin

Really? You agree that it has been beneficial for thousands of years of human history, but in 2011 it is not so? Because "this time is different".

This time it really is different.

During our lifetime the concept of "foreign" is dying. We're not tribal anymore.

[thekremlin]

Meh. They've been saying that since WW2. They've been saying that since the telegraph. They've been saying that since the discovery of the New World. They've been saying that since the invention of the compass.

Sure, this time is different. It's always different, in some way. But the overarching themes are going to be the same.

Just because Muslims have the internet doesn't mean they're going to stop being Muslim. Just because Americans can watch live streaming rugby matches doesn't make us australian.

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by thekremlin

My point is that it is too costly to be purely vestigal; you haven't addressed this point at all.

Missed that underlying point. I don't have the book with me, but he does mention that it is indeed a very costly thing for a society to do without "good reason". I'm in the middle of that part of the book now, but he does outline some other explanations (besides "religion is good, that's why") and possibilities as to why we pursue such endeavors. Really, I think you'd enjoy the book. Dennett is definitely an atheist but he's a philosopher by trade, and a very scientific one, so he gives all possibilities a very fair shake.

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by thekremlin

Just because Muslims have the internet doesn't mean they're going to stop being Muslim.

Are you kidding me??? Not all Muslims, sure, but the internet is the WORST thing to happen to religion, probably ever. At least for anybody interested in being intellectually honest with themselves...there are certainly far more people losing their religion now because of the internet than at any point in history.

[thekremlin]

What book?

BTW through all of this I have very intentionally not claimed to know what the reasons are that it is good, because I have only very rough ideas.

[Mr. Blonde]

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by thekremlin

What book?

BTW through all of this I have very intentionally not claimed to know what the reasons are that it is good, because I have only very rough ideas.

Breaking the Spell: I linked it on the previous page Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[DJ FC]

Originally Posted by thekremlin

Meh. They've been saying that since WW2. They've been saying that since the telegraph. They've been saying that since the discovery of the New World. They've been saying that since the invention of the compass.

Sure, this time is different. It's always different, in some way. But the overarching themes are going to be the same.

Just because Muslims have the internet doesn't mean they're going to stop being Muslim. Just because Americans can watch live streaming rugby matches doesn't make us australian.

Do you really believe that Globalization hasn't sped up DRAMATICALLY during our lifetime? I find it kind of hard to believe that you could argue that 2011 is the same as WW2, let alone the telegraph. Kids be speaking English in China, yo. The internet started during our generation. Imagine what the world will be like when the internet has been around for 3 generations: it's a whole new world. I'm not saying people wont have religious differences, that shit will linger on for a long, long time. The emphasis, however, is on linger.

[thekremlin]

Yeah. Internet is pretty cool. Bigger than oceanic navigation? Globalization has accelerated, sure, but it's sure as shit not COMPLETED.

Re: Blonde's nice little chart. First of all, come on, you're going to let some little chart make your argument? Second of all, you know what a lot of those peers are saying to each other? "Jesus is cool." "Praise allah."

EDIT: Can a nigga get some backup? I'm trading punches with two of the more opinionated pricks on this website, I'm solo, and I'm also busy watching my fantasy teams rack up points against FC's.

[Mr. Blonde]

I didn't intend for that image to make my argument for me, it's just a neat example to help illustrate my point; using effective images is not off-bounds. It's not supposed to symbolize people "just talking" to each other, rather the sharing of free information with each other in a highly effective and accessible way, and also allowing anonymous discussion of the topics at hand without having to worry about being socially outcast or, in previous times (and some countries still today), much worse.. In almost all of history, you couldn't bring up doubts about religion except in secret meetings or with very close friends, for fear of repercussion.

More images:





Sure there's a lot of people who are still saying "Praise Jesus" to each other, but as long as the internet is around, science, truth, and reason will always prevail, even though it might take a while for most humanity to snap out of it. We're changing and I really don't think religion is going to have much power at all in about 100 years.

In regard to backup, it's not a right/wrong thing -- I mean you're culturally Jewish, but I imagine you don't pray, go to temple, or worry about a deity on a daily basis. You are probably acting as Devil's advocate for those who are religious, but remember, they are not the ones who are oppressed, given they're a huge majority, so I don't know why you feel the need to stick up for them. If they're oppressed with anything, it's reason and logic, something nobody should be defending them from (and also the underlying thesis of aforementioned book)

[thekremlin]

I promise, I'm not playing devil's advocate. Not that I'm religious. I wouldn't call myself atheist, but I don't have any specific beliefs in a diety either. The opinions I'm espousing here are a result of the travelling I've done in the past 1.5 years. I saw a viking ship in a museum covered in religious decorations. The obscene wealth on display in the temples in the middle of Bangkok. Trying to imagine the effort it took to build Notre Dame. The churches on top of steep hilly neighborhoods in Lisbon. Hell, the massive Mormom church on the side of Route 2, five miles from my parent's house in MA. All of these are observations, and I've drawn conclusions from them. I'm not making this argument because of my religious beliefs, I'm trying to apply logic to society's most common cultural phenomenon.

[Beebs]

The reason why religion worked is essentially the same as why it is an impediment to modern progress: It gets large groups of people all going in one direction. Good for controlling illiterate peasants to stop them drinking and fucking all day, bad for quantum physics.

[thekremlin]

Being religious and having a scientific mind are not mutually exclusive. There are uncountable examples of people who have made contributions to science who were also religious. I highly doubt that 100% of the scientists at CERN are atheists, although I have done no reading to confirm that.
Edit: two minutes of googling:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...0th_century.29
My cheeky highlight:
"Max Planck: He won the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics and is considered the founder of Quantum mechanics. He had been raised an observant Lutheran and was an elder in his church from 1920 to his death. In 1937 he delivered the lecture, "Religion and Natural Science", stating that both religion and science require a belief in God.[note 7][108]"

[Mr. Blonde]

There undoubtedly brilliant men in the field of science who are still believers. However, despite their brilliance, not one of them have come up with a single shred of evidence for a deity. Francis Collins has come the closest, given his work on the Human Genome Project, but all you have to do is read his works to see that it's clearly an emotional need, not a science and evidence-based one, and his claims still come down to "we don't know, but...." (which, minus the "but" and ellipses, should be the default position for one without evidence)


Also, as long as we're appealing to authority....

List of atheists in science and technology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stephen Hawking's religious views

Albert Einstein: The word "god" is a product of human weakness

[Beebs]

Originally Posted by thekremlin

Being religious and having a scientific mind are not mutually exclusive. There are uncountable examples of people who have made contributions to science who were also religious. I highly doubt that 100% of the scientists at CERN are atheists, although I have done no reading to confirm that.
Edit: two minutes of googling:
List of Christian thinkers in science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
My cheeky highlight:
"Max Planck: He won the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics and is considered the founder of Quantum mechanics. He had been raised an observant Lutheran and was an elder in his church from 1920 to his death. In 1937 he delivered the lecture, "Religion and Natural Science", stating that both religion and science require a belief in God.[note 7][108]"

Religion as a large institution, not as a personal belief. You can be a great statistician who still has a lucky hat, that isn't really the point.

An example of my point would be Jewish law having the basis of being born Jewish as your mother, as until recently this was the only way to be sure of a bloodline; with DNA testing it becomes superfluous.

[Mr. Blonde]

Nature, "Leading scientists still reject God"* July 23, 1998

Also something you may be interested in (I personally disagree with this)"

Non-overlapping magisteria - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[DJ FC]

Originally Posted by thekremlin

EDIT: Can a nigga get some backup? I'm trading punches with two of the more opinionated pricks on this website, I'm solo, and I'm also busy watching my fantasy teams rack up points against FC's.

I dare you to find a post of mine sharing an opinion on religion. Quite frankly I don't care about this argument at all. Just asinine to say that modern globalization hasn't dramatically changed the course of history. One little point. That's all I have.

[thekremlin]

I mean, no doubt that the scientific community would have a higher frequency of atheism than the general population, I was definately not trying to claim otherwise.

The point I guess I wanted to make (and didn't make at all) is that there is more than one type of "religious belief." There are the whackjobs who believe that Jesus literally did do all the things that the New Testament says, or that there really are seventy-two virgins waiting in heaven for suicide bombers, or even just the people who think that God is a giant white dude with a beard and a toga. There are also people who think that there is a greater power, something more to life than what we can observe and quantify. Could this be one of the things that makes religion beneficial to a society's ability to spread/survive? Shit, it could be. Dunno.

P.S. I'm kind of riffing here, but doesn't the fact that science has come as far as it has mostly under religious rule kind of add to my additional point? Remember, my original argument was not "religion makes society go." It was "religion does so much to fuck with the workings of society that the fact that we keep it around must mean it's also adding something pretty awesome."

[Repugnant Abomination]

You keep harping on evidence, Blonde. You're making the empiricists argument. I want you to address rationalism, and what it means for God. For example, Chomsky is such a big shot because he showed language is a priori when he studied linguistics. It revolutionized linguistics. It did for linguistics what Einstein did for physics. All this linguistic ability residing in our minds, before independent experience.

And since you seem to basically be reiterating all of Hume's positions, what do you have to say about the fact that Kant slapped all that shit down and fused empiricism with rationalism?

[DJ FC]

Can you please make 4 posts in a row without sucking Chomps dick?

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by Repugnant Abomination

And since you seem to basically be reiterating all of Hume's positions, what do you have to say about the fact that Kant slapped all that shit down and fused empiricism with rationalism?

Haven't really gotten to much 18th century stuff yet, so, nothing. Summarize?

[thekremlin]

Yeah, also it's not really fair coming into this thread with some actual philosophy education. Amateurs-only, brah.

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by thekremlin

P.S. I'm kind of riffing here, but doesn't the fact that science has come as far as it has mostly under religious rule kind of add to my additional point?

If you study the history of religion, and basically how throughout history they basically controlled almost all of the flow of information until the enlightenment, I think that should answer your question pretty easily. IIRC working for the church was almost the only place most "thinking men" could go. A lot of times men had to keep discoveries secret or it took much longer than necessary to get findings out into the public, if they were allowed to be published at all. Same argument with brilliant pieces of architecture and art that came to be under the church's funding; If something else was in the church's place, would something not equally as beautiful have been created?

[thekremlin]

Right. If there were something else unifying people and motivating science and art, societies wouldn't have needed religion.

Lawyered.