251. Comment #179097 by Dr Benway on May 12, 2008 at 2:30 pm

After a year of debating with theists, I'm starting to think of theism as a form of substance abuse. I see the same convoluted lawyering in service to the substance, which the brain has come to value even above reality.

I sympathize. I can imagine myself in a situation where my need for something was so intense I'd say or do almost anything rather than give it up. Example: Someone is heating up hot lead and is about to pour it up my ass if I don't spill a few government secrets and so betray my country. Well I'm sorry, country, but my need to avoid having hot lead up my ass likely will trump my sense of duty to you.

Unless you're unusually strong willed, the capacity to think rationally may depend upon a life free from extreme need or suffering for long periods of time.

The believer, like the drug addict, indulges in denialism and control games that replace what might have been relationships. And this high price is so unnecessary. It's like chasing a mirrage in the desert, when someone beside you has a canteen of water and likely would be willing to share.

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252. Comment #179108 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on May 12, 2008 at 3:47 pm

ThoughtsonCommonToad, why is it such a hard decision? Why is it hard to decide to do the right thing?

Begging the question

i think I'll take your lead and get the answer from the Bible. Let's just have a flick through here.
In the Beginning ...
Eve, and all women after her, with the pains of childbirth and subjection to men ...
Incest ...
Lot gives his daughters over to be raped ...
Lot shags his daughters and they have his children ...
God threatens Genocide (he loves doing that but actually carrying them out whoa thats good killing)...

WHOA this is just getting dirty now, polgmamy incest, murder everywhere im going to skip a bit

Ah here we are

And if it be from a month old even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver. -- Leviticus 27:6

So what a baby has to be one month old to count hang on that can't be right

Number the children of Levi after the house of their fathers, by their families: every male from a month old and upward shalt thou number them. And Moses numbered them according to the word of the LORD. -- Numbers 3:15-16

There it is again.

Because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. -- 2 Samuel 12:14
God kills newborns, nice!

Wow I missed something buried in all the incest and murder and torture

Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt. -- Genesis 38:24


There are many more but I'm getting bored and quite sick. God really is a nasty prick.

Other Comments by ThoughtsonCommonToad

253. Comment #179114 by Quine on May 12, 2008 at 4:14 pm

Toad, relax; take a few deep breaths; here, read about the Golden Hemorrhoids to cheer up.

P.S. If anyone needs any more cheering up, just look at this perfectly pleasing preposterous Pentecostal Pig Panties piece PZ purposely pokingly posted.

Other Comments by Quine

254. Comment #179115 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on May 12, 2008 at 4:18 pm

Quine
Thanks that did cheer me up.

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255. Comment #179262 by Tyler Durden on May 13, 2008 at 1:43 am

Comment by Artful_Dodger:

Christian parents in my experience do not subject their kids to threats of eternal damnation unless they behave in a particular way.

Oh Boy! We got a live one here folks!

"unless they behave in a particular way"

Are you for real?? Seriously? An you call yourself a parent? Is this how you "parent" your children?

Art,

please list the ways that you think appropriate where these kids would deserve to be subjected to "threats of eternal damnation", what exactly would they have to do in order to have that type of child abuse inflicted upon them - I'm all ears.

I would think Child Social Services would also be quite interested. Muppet!!

Other Comments by Tyler Durden

256. Comment #179265 by hungarianelephant on May 13, 2008 at 2:02 am

222. Comment #178985 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 10:50 am

And it's not based on consent of the majority, the general structure, the constitutional structure if you will is determined not by consent of the actual majority, but consent of hypothetical, perfectly capable but entirely equal persons.

And what does that mean?

The problem is firstly in determining what hypothetical, capable, equal persons might decide. And secondly in resolving disputes between competing interpretations. As I mentioned in the previous post, it's perfectly possible to imagine more or less unequal societies on which there would be differing opinions as to fairness, even from behind the veil of ignorance.

If you want a working demonstration of different preferences, consider recruitment into the US Army. Most of the front line infantry are from poor backgrounds. They may join for a number of different reason, but the basic economics of the situation are quite clear. You have a small chance of being killed. If you survive, you get your college fees paid for, which gives you a chance of a less poor life. You have no idea when you sign up what your personal outcome will be - a true veil of ignorance. There are plenty of people willing to take that chance, and plenty who are not - a difference of opinion.

Once it's recognised that there are possible differences of view, there are two obvious ways of resolving them. One is simple coercion based on the views of a "correct" group, which I doubt Rawls would have endorsed. The other is majority rule. Granted, I don't recall him specifically endorsing that, but it seems to be the logical conclusion.

That's not to toss out the entire body of work. It's useful to try to imagine society might look without the current vested interests. It's also useful to ask whether a given society is one which could possibly be said to be Rawlsian. The treatment of the mentally ill springs to mind - a disgrace in this country (Ireland) at least, and one couldn't reasonably be chosen in ignorance of whether of not you will suffer.

In any event, I'd be interested to read your paper on Rawls and religion. Is it published yet?

Interesting how far this discussion has come from the original topic. Jurisprudence is usually discussed in a vacuum. You lose marks in the exam by trying to link it back to the natural world.

Other Comments by hungarianelephant

257. Comment #179274 by MPhil on May 13, 2008 at 2:32 am

Artful,

As I said, it may often be the case that parents teach their kid their religious dogmas without employing such mental torture directly - BUT, if they succeed in making the child sincerely believe the dogmas, then the dogmas have that same effect... the kid then is convinced that all people are inherently stained with original sin and must accept Jesus as their saviour in order not to suffer the worst fate possible,.. and when you have a child believing this, it will also have to want others to be saved, too. If you genuinely believe that those who don't embrace Jesus as their saviour will suffer eternal separation from their loved ones and from god's love (at minimum) and eternal "physical" torture, then you cannot let others live in piece - and that is the virus of religion. Rousseau recognized this, so did Bentham and others.

The dogma itself is incompatible with political liberalism. The first principle of justice can only be realized in a society where the people recognize the equal claim of others to the same maximal set of freedoms, rights, liberties.
"No marriage for homosexuals" does negate this equal claim. And of course the doctrines of sin and hell negate all freedom - as they installs god as a celestial dictator worse than 1984's Big Brother who is allknowing and allpowerful, and can convict you of thoughtcrime and have you tortured for all eternity - then calling this just and merciful and praiseworthy. That negates all civilisation, all freedom - freedom is autonomous use of one's faculties guided by one's reason. This is impossible if one truly believes in God, Sin, Heaven and Hell - for then to affirm the equal rights of everyone to embrace or reject any belief is impossible, because it is morally wrong, even wicked not to praise and worship the right god (ever read Deuteronomy?. And they will suffer the worst fate possible so they have to be saved or killed or expelled.

That's the natural consequence of belief in God, Sin, Heaven and Hell... and it's incompatible with Rawlsian political liberalism.


I would also question whether Christian parents indoctrinating into their children the belief that homosexuality is something morally bad is no different from indoctrinating into their children the belief that having dark skin is something morally bad. A participant in a just society, in order for there even to be the possibility of an overlapping consensus must affirm that everyone has an equal claim to the maximal scheme of liberties compatible with the same maximal scheme for others.

So, I think parents may educate their children about their religion, but not indoctrinate them to affirm the dogma - that is somethng that should be affirmed freely and responisbly.

Having outlined the general incompatibility of religious dogma with a modern, liberal society - I think it is correct to say that we would not tolerate it when parents brought their kids to institutions where the kid is indoctrinated with the belief that one political party has the eternal truth and that the party has to win over all voters because the leader loves all these people, and that we all have the sacred duty to get others, especially those we love to accept the leader - because only with the leader can there be peace, prosperity and security.

We would never allow such indoctrination camps - for a good reason - it's cultive, it's brainwashing, its deprivation of liberties.

I don't claim that all religious upbringing is that bad, I am able to differenciate - but I was talking both about the questionable methods of getting the child to believe AND the content of the belief.

I say let everyone affirm any religion he or she wants to - but we will not allow the expression of a belief that has the effect of infringing the rights, freedoms and liberties of others. Making religion something freely adopted between informed and consenting adults - ie comparative religious studies till the age we consider them to be generally able to be a reasonable and rational person with an adult view of the world - and also about atheism, agnosticism etc - and the philosophical perspectives of the various positions. Then, if they want - they can join any religion they want and do whatever they want among themselves as long as it doesn't negate the first principle of justice - and their kids will get to know the religion of its parents by witnessing its parents express their belief and educate them about their religion - but the child mustn't be indoctrinated into that belief-system. Then in school the child learns about the facts about various belief-systems, positions and their relations - and can only then (and even then only in the best possibble case) freely chose to embrace or reject any religion - ie really have the factulty to make use of his freedom of religion.

_______________

Hungarianelephant,

I hope you won't mind if I only say that I think the "algorithm" Rawls gave for determining, based on only very few, very common premises (idea of person as capable of conception of the good, with an interest in cooperation and beyond a veil of ignorance) is a rational, working process - it may not provide a unique set of values, but still the variation in the values you could get from different models is a very narrow range, and as such the procedure is a valid, rational means of determining a rationally grounded set of rules for a society. It may not be complete, but I think it's simply the best theory of justice there is.

The paper is a term-paper, so it won't be published. I am, as I said, a student of philosophy, logic and philosophy of science at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich and am 1 year away from my MPhil degree.

I did, however, plan on expanding and refining that paper - and who knows, I might get a final version some day.

Other Comments by MPhil

258. Comment #179307 by Bonzai on May 13, 2008 at 5:16 am

Mphil

It postulates non-physical entities with some connection to the real world.

What is "non physical"? Here is an example of why I am having so much trouble with philosophical "discourse".

It is all words and words which in the end probably don't mean anything other than a sophisticated verbalization of our thinking habits.

I have no idea what "materialism" or "non materialism" really means because "matter" is a loose concept whose meaning changes with time. Not until E=Mc^2 and probably the atomic bomb many "materialistic" philosophers argued dogmatically that energy was not "matter" but a property of matter, just like being red, say (or reflecting light of a certain wavelength under room temperature). The more sophisticated philosophers might argue that potential energy was just a book keeping device introduced to preserve conservation of energy and thus it might just reflect the way "our brains process information" blah blah blah followed by big words. It just shows you that kind of word games don't really advance knowledge in any real way.

With regard to dualism. It is interesting to observe that it is tacitly assumed by people like Dawkins and Pinker when they argue that we are able to overide the 'selfish gene' imperative without saying exactly how. Pinker puts it rather bluntly when talking about his childless lifestyle, he said basically he told his genes to take a hike. Where does his "free will" of telling his genes to fuck off come from? Now there is a way out of this provided you recognize civilization has a "real" existence above the biological level, in other words dualism can be overcome in this context only at the cost of rejecting reductionism (actually pan selectionism).

Mathematics is work with a formal system. Deterministic production and testing (proof-theory) of statements which are logically true. The entities are abstractions, which in turn are mental objects, which in turn are specific processes in the brain - and those are linked to the world via perception and via being a biological system that does information-processing, ie processing of information about the "outside" world as well as about itself (meta-level information processing).

Sorry, that is bloody nonsense for anyone who actually works with mathematics instead of just making arm chair theories based on crude caricatures.

First of all, to say that mathematics is just a formal system not only confuses form with substance, it also forgets Godel's theorem.

Secondly to say that mathematics is a "mental process" is like saying we see colour because of certain neural chemical responses in the visual cortex. This is true in a sense but it answers the question of the physiologist who tries to understand colour perception, not the physicist who seeks to discover the laws of optics instead of say, drug induced hallucinations of seeing colours. Optics is not just a physiological response.

This accounts for the applicability of mathematics, since the brain and its structure follow the same "rules" of biology and physics as everything else, it's - I think - no wonder that a system that can process information that well can model quantity and properties of quantities, set theory, arithmetic and the whole of mathematics.

No, the paragraphs cited above (and below) don't answer any question regarding the effectiveness of mathematics. It is a lot of hand waving.

Set theory, for example, talks about a whole heirarchy of infinities (of ordinals and cardinals) and such things don't exist in physics. So you may argue that set theory is just a game of axiomatics, which I think is not a unreasonabe idea, many mathematicians who work in "real math" think that way too.

But here is the rub. There are very specific theorems in arithmetic which can only be proved by making a detour into the transfinite numbers. Arithmetic is about very concrete properties of whole numbers and you can demonstrate (not prove) by say, listing the first million instances and check them with a computer. Now why is it that by some mumbo jumbo about transfinite numbers we are able to "predict" the outcome of ALL "experiments" of the type I just described for ANY finite set of integers that you can actually carry out if you have a powerful enough computer?

Why does symmetry considerations alone allow physicists to predict the existence of new particle which were later confirmed by experiments? (Note that theory preceeds data here, as is often the case in theoretical physics)

It's the capacity to construct a formal system (a narrowly defined language-game with highly specific axioms, inference rules and statements) and that the structure of the information processing in the brain as a physical system reflects the laws that determine the behaviour of physical/biological systems.

What laws, what logic? Why must the world conform to any rule or logic? Are you not then indulging in dualism?

Other Comments by Bonzai

259. Comment #179310 by MPhil on May 13, 2008 at 5:27 am

Bonzai,

I won't get into that again - you are hellbent on misreading and misrepresenting my position, and are yourself, I have to say, quite dogmatic. I have no desire whatsover to point out the mistakes and rectify the misrepresentations and the dogmatic implications.

Other Comments by MPhil

260. Comment #179313 by Bonzai on May 13, 2008 at 5:31 am

Mphil

Sorry, I think you are the one spewing dogmas here and I doubt that I misrepresnted you unless you have misrepresented yourself with your own words.

Other Comments by Bonzai

261. Comment #179314 by MPhil on May 13, 2008 at 5:33 am

Now you're just being childish... think what you want, I couldn't care less... have a nice day.

Other Comments by MPhil

262. Comment #179356 by phatbat on May 13, 2008 at 6:52 am

229. Comment #179009 by Artful_Dodger

I'm not denying that it happens in some cases, but it contradicts the whole thrust of Scripture, which is respectful of the will of every human being to orient his or her life towards God or away from Him. When we choose the latter we are choosing our own destiny. God does not force a relationship with Him on anyone, either in this life or beyond.

Oh come on.

How can you call 'if you don't believe in this particular god you are going to go to hell and experience agony for all eternity' not forcing then just about nothing is forcing.

A man with his gun to your head saying he'll shoot you in the head if you don't hand over all your money, that's not force is it? because you can simply choose to just not give him your money, and if you do that he will kill you and everything will be fine because you made your bed, you chose not to hand over your cash and the gunman is very unhappy because he didn't want to kill you, he liked you really, but you spurned his kind intentions and chose to die.

Perhapse you would prefer to use an analogy of an out of control car speeding towards you. Unless you jump out of the way the car will mow you down and kill you. The car isn't forcing you to jump out of the way, it is your free choice to make. You can choose to stand there and die. Or you can choose to jump out the way, but there is nothing forcing anyone. Just freewill.

In fact the only time you are ever forced to do anything is when someone is forcing you physically using either superior strength or physical restraints.

Are we agreed?

I suspect not, i'm sure you agree that those situations are infact examples of force being applied if the word has any meaning at all.

The problem is though that your free choice to reject god has a couple of factors involved which make your suggestion even more abhorrent.

1. I don't even know for sure i even have a choice. God didn't tell me directly, how do i know i'm not being conned. At least the gunman is telling me i have this choice, your bible god won't even bring himself to let me know i have this choice.

2. I simply am incapable of believing in your bible god, I do not have the free choice to believe it. I can say i believe, but it would not be true. If your god made me, he made me completely unable to believe any of it.

And then you have the audacity to say that you think the entity who has set this whole system up is so great and that you love and worship him.

If you want to believe in it then fine, but don't think you aren't doing something moraly abhorrent by telling us you think he is a great guy and loves me. At least admit he is a nasty character but you believe all the same and are actualy scared of him.

Other Comments by phatbat

263. Comment #179389 by zbob on May 13, 2008 at 7:44 am

I have not been on this website for awhile and was pleased to hear this audio from Dr. Dawkins. As a previous commenter stated, I will also add the following statement to my list of great quotes: "I'm a passionate Darwinian in the academic sense (...), yet I am a passionate Anti-Darwinian when it comes to human social and political affairs."

How true it is that humans have evolved to the point where we can now understand the negative aspects of selfishness and to attempt to rationally overcome our Darwinian impulses in order to act for the good of the whole. As the unique beings of this planet who can realize the true nature of interdependence and interconnectedness of all life and to reject the ultimately illusory "self"(individual and group), we have started our path to a more peaceful, cooperative world. Rational humans need to be proactive in advocating and implementing this path.

Other Comments by zbob

264. Comment #179538 by Quine on May 13, 2008 at 11:27 am

Comment #179307 by Bonzai:

I have no idea what "materialism" or "non materialism" really means because "matter" is a loose concept whose meaning changes with time. Not until E=Mc^2 and probably the atomic bomb many "materialistic" philosophers argued dogmatically that energy was not "matter" but a property of matter, just like being red, say (or reflecting light of a certain wavelength under room temperature). The more sophisticated philosophers might argue that potential energy was just a book keeping device introduced to preserve conservation of energy and thus it might just reflect the way "our brains process information" blah blah blah followed by big words. It just shows you that kind of word games don't really advance knowledge in any real way.

Who are you talking about? Are you pulling some philosophers out of the past as straw men and then beating them up about what wasn't known when they lived? Yes, we are stuck with some obsolete aspects of the term "materialism" and there is encroachment from so called "economic materialism" such that modern philosophers have generally switched over to "physicalism" to keep it straight. No big deal.

With regard to dualism. It is interesting to observe that it is tacitly assumed by people like Dawkins and Pinker when they argue that we are able to overide the 'selfish gene' imperative without saying exactly how. Pinker puts it rather bluntly when talking about his childless lifestyle, he said basically he told his genes to take a hike. Where does his "free will" of telling his genes to fuck off come from? Now there is a way out of this provided you recognize civilization has a "real" existence above the biological level, in other words dualism can be overcome in this context only at the cost of rejecting reductionism (actually pan selectionism).

What kind of dualism are you talking about? I thought the discussion was about substance dualism beyond physicalism. What kind of reductionism are you talking about? Do we have to reject reductionism because we cannot deduce your fingerprints or retinal scan data from your DNA?

Other Comments by Quine

265. Comment #180040 by phasmagigas on May 14, 2008 at 6:15 am

dr benway

Example: Someone is heating up hot lead and is about to pour it up my ass

the bastards, so they got you upsidedown too!

Other Comments by phasmagigas

266. Comment #180274 by Stafford Gordon on May 14, 2008 at 1:23 pm

Succinct!

Other Comments by Stafford Gordon

267. Comment #180610 by Mitchell Gilks on May 15, 2008 at 10:21 am

Bonzai, I also don't know what "non-physical" is supposed to be. As I understand it, it is just a way of talking about things that some people think exist in some sense that can't be described, alluded to, explained, or demonstrated.

I also don't understand materialism, despite constantly being accused of it. If taken as a metaphysical position I will contest it, when taken as a methodology, I won't. The former because I take not metaphysical positions, and the latter because it is rather a truism that we only have the material world to work with.

Now, I'm not a mathematician, and frankly I have no idea what any of the things you said even mean. Though I do think that you misunderstood MPhil.

Mathematics is tautological? Yes? It is build on definitions and abstractions that if properly adhered to their conclusions are necessitated? Mathematics is a refined and formalized version of reason, yes? It requires animals with big brains or programs with well defined and established parameters to perform, yes?

If you agree with that then I think you agree with MPhil no matter what else you may think about mathematics, and it's applicability to reality.

Just as your example with colour, in any case, colour does not exist without visual perception. No matter how abstracted or derived from reality it is. It is still dependent on, and the result of agents like us. I see MPhil as saying nothing more than this, although I may be misunderstanding him.

Especially when both of what you say is heavily jargon-ladden and hard for a poor layman like me to follow.

Other Comments by Mitchell Gilks

268. Comment #184389 by Basilfilm on May 25, 2008 at 12:48 am

How is planning for a better future for the world going against Darwin? We're just extending our foresight.

And bees practice ultimate altruism with their "I die when I use this" stinger, but do we say they've risen above Darwinism?

I don't get it.

I'm a fan, but I think he's flat wrong on this.

Other Comments by Basilfilm

269. Comment #189514 by Uruguayan on June 6, 2008 at 11:44 am

I would love this ten minutes to be the central theme of next Richard Dawkins book. Will we be able to build a post darwininian society than can avoid its own self destruction and take decisions based on long term brain analysis or will our selfish genes prevail and we will destroy the rainforests and generate a climatic chaos, victims of our own success?
Our contradiction of decisions based on our big brains, and the short term criteria of our selfish genes are a really big evolutionary human issue in my point of view.
And please don´t loose your time with Artful Dodger, he is not interested in understanding or in truth. Enough strikes.

Other Comments by Uruguayan

270. Comment #189999 by ape-woman on June 8, 2008 at 5:48 am

the desire to extend the overall life of the human species, and quality of that life, for example, by cutting down on our release of CO2 into the atmosphere, is arguably pretty explainable through Darwinian theory. We want to extend the life of our genes. That is in-built into our lower brains. We also have a higher cognitive brain which is plainly telling us that in order to do that, we need to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. So here we have an example, just one of many, where our lower and higher evolved brain functions are acting in concert. Of course, there is the problem that our lower-brain function also has evolved to tell us to make life as comfortable for us, NOW, as is possible... so crank up that heater, guys cos its getting cold in Sydney! :D


... Don't hit me. I was being ironic.

Other Comments by ape-woman