151. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58500 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 3:52 am

what should a parent do to prevent his/her child from being indoctorined? Stop being themselves?
Don't you think that it is a wasted effort to prevent this indoctrination. It will be more immoral to police what believing parents should tell their children. On the other hand, we could ask them not to restrict their children from learning about other opposing viewpoints. Thats all that we can practically hope for. I think all we should be asking is for parents to not censor their children from learning about what our side has to say. Isn't that enough?

152. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58495 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 3:35 am

But what if a child picks up the concept from somewhere else, say school?

153. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58492 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 3:17 am

ok i guess that point was redundant.

154. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58491 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 3:13 am

Goldy, your use of the word understanding is a tricky one. Often when we think we understand something we might not have really understood it. A child may understand why she prays, in her own little way and these reasons may or may not be religious.

155. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58488 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 3:03 am

hmmmm.. I had an imaginery God like friend when i was very young. I use to bet with him, usually on trivial issues. Like for instance, i used to bet him that i'll run up a flight of stairs in less than 2 seconds and so on. Interestingly I discovered my sister too had similar tendencies. I don't know if it was something I got from moderately religious parents. I also remember my mother telling people that I used to recite prayers. Anyway, the Idea didn't latch on for long. By about age ten I was pretty much an atheist. Anyway, I think its a very interesting thing. Often children can be seen talking to themselves and chiding themeselves or even congradulating themselves. Does this have to do with our sense of self? In other words, are we in someways our own God?

156. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58483 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 2:52 am

Quetzalcoat1- I agree.
I don't think we should be whining about how these parents spoil everything for us by indoctrinating their children at an early age. We have no voice in such matters. Its better to demand "equal time" for other opposing viewpoints. Sound familiar? :D

157. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58479 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 2:25 am

well steve99, i wouldn't see it as due to their loyalty to Dawkins. I guess many of us here are pretty much convinced Dawkins does have a point. Religion is not a good ally to enlightened living. But trying to hastely dismantle it will prove ineffective. Also, about the question of morality. I think religion has it going for them in this department, because they have certain fixed moral tenets which if taken without questioning can also lead to a Happy life. Secular morals will always try to evolve and hence it will be something a person has to actively engage in, rather than passively recieve from scripture or preachers. Its a bit like learning science. There are people who wanna learn it as facts and there are people(researchers) who actively read journals and articles and do research and find new knowledge. Secular morals can only work with people of the second kind. Only such people can start to realise that morality is a social phenomena and actively use their moral instints to come up with better and better moral rules.

158. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58476 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 2:11 am

Philip, I have no problem agreeing with you on the ill-effects of religious indotrination. But we are not just trying to fix what is wrong or right, we are also trying to come up with a better way of articulating about the problem. Because, as i say above, you can't just go upto a person and say don't indoctrine your child with your religious beliefs, because its his right, in a way, to impart his knowledge onto to his child. A better way of putting the point across might be by saying "Indoctrination leads to fixation of Identity and that as resposible parents they should not be stifling their child from esploring other ideas freely".

159. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58472 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 2:02 am

But not all religiou teaching is about "Us versus Them". So how can you claim "religion is no different" ? I don't think we should be citing "indoctrination" alone as the reason for there being suicide bombers in our world. There must be a way to make our point without necessary putting all sorts of religious indoctrination into one bracket.

Even though religion may have some good moral things for children to learn from, it inevitably leads to a sense of belonging to one sect or tribe of people. Trying to fix the identity of children at such an early stage makes them ill-equipped to deal with differing opinions as they grow into adults. Its such sectarian devides,emmanating from religion indctrinations of an extremme kind, that lead to global disharmony. Even Dawkins makes this point during the interview. Probably its time for him to realise that this is a better way to put it next time than using words like wicked and labelling.

160. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58461 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 12:05 am

I'll try putting it in a better way. We have two jobs ahead of us. One- To prove that religion is bad. Second- To prove that religious indoctrination is bad. You can't talk about "wicked labelling"(2) when you haven't convinced people that the (1) is true. Only those people who are not very scriptural or literalist will see the 2nd point as true or plausible. Those who admire their religion will only see this as propaganda or name-calling.

161. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58457 by the_assayer on July 24, 2007 at 11:49 pm

I agree with fides. Labelling cannot be termed as a wicked thing. Its something we do inorder to qualify someone's character. As for forceful labelling I'm not sure that applies to many households. But even in this case, you can't say that parents should not try to indoctrine their chrildren, because it is impractical. Parents will try passing on whatever they've learned to their children and this cannot be forcefully stopped. Though Dawkins and most of us here do agree that childhood religious indoctrination will have its adverse effects when they grow up, we cannot do anything about it, except ofcourse speak out against it. However, naming it as "wicked" strikes me as a bad marketing strategy. We can't stop the religious fundies from indoctrining their children. Our only hope is with the moderate folks, and we have to realise that words like "wicked" and "child abuse" just does not cut it. Instead, we should betalking about how being exposed to just one kinda thought makes children close-minded and so on and avoid pejorative remarks that could turn people away what we have to say.

Lordfenriz- Politeness may not be a belief system, but it is certainly a belief and most often a result of the belief system one adheres to. Naming someone as "polite" may be seen as equally stifling, 'cause then people might always expect a kid to be polite and never express his disagreement with things. All parents are guilty of some sort of indoctrination. But luckily they are not the only source of information for a child and perhaps this is where we should be really focussing our attention. Schools, friends, books, internet, movies etc also can make significant changes to a persons belief system.


Also, why does Dawkins say stuff like " Well, that is his approach.... but mine is a sort of in-your-face approach"? He forgets to site the merits of such an approach, if any.I wish he could stop playing bad cop. It does have its moments though...

162. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58363 by the_assayer on July 24, 2007 at 3:53 pm

what is the precedure to get articles posted?

163. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58362 by the_assayer on July 24, 2007 at 3:51 pm

hmmmm... i realised a mistake in my argument... this was an interview, not a debate...

But I guess an interview is bound to become a debate especially with touchy subjects like religion.

164. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58360 by the_assayer on July 24, 2007 at 3:43 pm

crumbledfingers
I think this sort of argument at best is only ideological. A person who reads any book may not understand or follow the arguments completely. It could be that the author has poor communicative ability or it could be that the reader is too conditioned prior to the read that he takes off on a tagent of his own with every argument posed. Might it be, that idea of calling religious people "faithheads" further tightens the grip these prejudices have on them? I can think of a lot of books that I didn't completely
'get' on my first read or even the second. Often when we do a background search on the author or read a few of his/her articles you connect with the book in a better way.

I think the interviewer was clearly prejudiced, but that is what is required for a debate to be a debate. If the interviewer had completely followed our side of the argument and had't taken an effort to compare it with his existant prejudices, he would be agreeing with Dawkins all the way.

Dawkins was moderately good in this debate.I don;t think he handled the point of Stalin and Hitler very well.

But I see a major problem here. Atheists are constantly being suspected of having no moral values or atleast our position seems precarious. To a believer an important reason for belief in God is that it gives a ready-made system of morality which for the most part gaurantees a life of peace and happiness. Assuming an authoritative God makes these rules absolute and uncompromisable.
You see they have figured out a way towards peace and harmony, albeit a pretty close-minded and dogmatic one.

Now the basis for secular morality will have to be a rational one. Can there be one? I'm optimistic.
We need to amp up our research in psychology and neuroscience inorder to come up with emperical findings that we can use to propose a secular theory of morality.

165. Susan Blackmore interviews Dan Dennett

Comment #58342 by the_assayer on July 24, 2007 at 2:38 pm

Bonzai


Hmmmm... interesting point. But can we judge the merit of such an act of ignoring a priori?

And i don't think this problem applies to Dennett, since is he is pro science and thinks the falsifiable nature of scientic theories will shed more light on those areas where Philosophers have managed to crap on incessently time an again.

OK I give up..... Dennett may still be leg-tied by the limits of his profession. But atleast he realises these shortcomings.

I have come a long way, from Defending a Hero, to saying atleast he doesn't suck... :D

166. Susan Blackmore interviews Dan Dennett

Comment #58326 by the_assayer on July 24, 2007 at 1:24 pm

Bonzai, you might be right. But then I don't get why Dennett being overrated should cause any distress.
As far as I know, he has been very clear to admit philosophers have very little to say about consciousness. Instead he's been cheerleading the latest advaces in neuroscience. In this interview he states how philosophers have to stop following a sort of "vacuumn philosophy". I'm actually quite confused now. I'm only defending the guy 'cause I like him. Maybe the Santa face?
I probably don't have much ammo by way of argument.

167. Susan Blackmore interviews Dan Dennett

Comment #58324 by the_assayer on July 24, 2007 at 1:09 pm

To LDmiller...


I concede, Dennett has not been very illuminating in the quest for consciousness. But his battle is mostly with his philosopher friends who mostly still do cling on to those unproductive ideas like the cartesian theatre.
Dennett may be a fan of AI in general, but he has written critically about the lacking in AI research and thinks that the "society of mind" theory just wont cut it.
As for your suggestion of numenta, I'm aware of this project by Jeff Hawkins and yes it does seem promising.


To RTambree- Yes, philosophers have in a lot cases been wide off the mark. Thats OK. I don't see them necesserily as an alternative to actual scientific enquiry. I think they serve the purpose of keeping the debate alive.

But yes, I have to admit. I really don't have much of a case when it comes to his contributions towards explaning the puzzle. Probably he was being too bold with his book's title "Consciousness explained".

168. Susan Blackmore interviews Dan Dennett

Comment #58316 by the_assayer on July 24, 2007 at 12:10 pm

well.... I agree with you, although not completely. I only meant to say, he was "trying" to find an explanation. I consider him a theoretician, a good one at that. But its too early for him to theorize using data from neuroscience, as this field is still in its adolescense and there is not much we know about how information is represented in the brain. So he is making an effort with what we know so far, albeit a miniscule effort.

169. Susan Blackmore interviews Dan Dennett

Comment #58314 by the_assayer on July 24, 2007 at 11:41 am

As far as i could see, the interview was about defining what consciousness is or atleast what he thinks it is. It wasn't about explaining it. Dennett was trying to make the point that there are certain deep rooted intuitive convictions about consciouness that most of us cling on to, which may need revision.
To BMMcArdle- Dennett is not trying to give a magical account of consciousness. He is among the very few philosophers who try to find naturalistic explanations for the phenomenon.

170. Susan Blackmore interviews Dan Dennett

Comment #58310 by the_assayer on July 24, 2007 at 11:23 am

How can I get an article posted?

(http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/badmoves.php)
Check this out. There are some articles here detailing the various ad hominum and logically false arguments that we see so frequently employed in debates and rebuttals these days.
Can anyone get these articles posted?... if found interesting.

171. Darwin or Design

Comment #56772 by the_assayer on July 17, 2007 at 7:02 am

phasmagigas brings up an interesting point. There are quite a lot of the half-hearted believers. Who are too iffy to be called believers. I mean, we do not call a person a communist if he thinks that Karl Marx had some nice stuff to say. It takes an extra bit of conviction closing in on dogmatic certainity for that person to merit such distinction. Also there are many who follow a syncresis of religions, combining beliefs from different faiths sometimes even those which are contradictory. In India (my place) this is quite common.

172. Darwin or Design

Comment #56768 by the_assayer on July 17, 2007 at 6:49 am

Let me put it this way. If we are given a choice between eternal life and death within 20 years, I think we all would choose eternal life. This shows that however hard we try to treat death as natural or even a good thing, eternal life is always more appealing. Now comes the major question. Is eternal life an option? I think its reasonable to say that we will find anti-aging treatments within the next 500 years. Do you feel less privilaged(like me) thinking that you can't avail that service now? Now don't think I'm a total pessimist. The time that we live in now is extremmely interesting. We are exploring very interesting subjects like Consciousness(something I have a special liking to) and so on. Yet.... I find the idea of all this coming to an end quite saddening.Hmmmm.... Probably I'm straying from the subject of this thread???

173. Darwin or Design

Comment #56763 by the_assayer on July 17, 2007 at 6:23 am

hmmm... i disagree jeepyjay. Sure death is a natural thing and we don't know any way of beating it at present. However, I do find it a sad thought that i'll not be around when they plan the first manned mission to extra-solar planets. I find it sad to think that I might die not knowing what initiated the big bang(maybe thats the wrong question to ask). I feel sad thinking that i can't continue living with people that I love. Ofcourse All these things are fears that I can't resolve at present. But does that mean these thoughts shouldn't matter?
You did make an interesting point about leaving stuff for others to sort out. I think that does partly make death sound less limiting on ones freedom, but then again not being able to continue my experiences as "ME"-in whatever limited form you can define the conscious "ME"-
is still a limitation.

174. Darwin or Design

Comment #56743 by the_assayer on July 17, 2007 at 4:58 am

I was thinking about Death the other day. And I think I found out why Religion scores more brownie points in this department.
To an atheist this life is pretty much it. We see no evidence that suggests that it isn't so. So how would an atheist respond, if i told him "you will die in the next two days"(and suppose i'm a believable source :))? Surely he would not know what to do with his plans for the future also he would not know what death is gonna be like. Would he be aware of his different body parts shutting down? Given the fact that the brain only processes info which can be carried to it through sensory neurons, i doubt if we would know this. Anyway, the atheist will have enough to worry about because he insists on admitting his ignorance.
However, the religious have it all figured out. We die we go to heaven. If we wait for a little while, we will joined by our family there. To be honest, I'm impressed with how well the religious have managed to tackle the fear of death by proposing a self-consistant worldview which we can all believe, only if we stop insisting on evidence.

Also, It is interesting to note that a believer who gives no thought for tomorrow and prepares for death by way of pre-dparture prayers and appeasments, he can manage to get all the psychological advantages of a placebo and die peacefully or atleast something like that. hmmmmmm...

Thoughts?

175. The New New Atheism

Comment #56735 by the_assayer on July 17, 2007 at 4:24 am

I think most religions fail to notice that atheism is not a competant faith. The new atheism movement is about bringing sense to the world, questioning the credibility of religious stories. We need to do so because religion is trying to depict the scientific enterprise as bogus and filled with liars. Who would have thought that evidence based outlook towards life would need defending? It is quite sad that the religious try to discredit the movement by calling it "money minded" and "dogmatic", all the while proudly presenting themselves as humble servants of a dogma(religion).
But I think we should try understanding the deep psychological motives that drive the religious to hold such baseless beliefs with conviction. I think it might have to do with certain underlying concerns like- death, the need sometimes to hope that the impossible be possible or the thought that in a Godless world there would be no justice.

176. Darwin or Design

Comment #56709 by the_assayer on July 17, 2007 at 2:16 am

thesciphishow, one thing i find in all your creationists is that you think its enough to have a consistent world-view. That it is enough that it makes sense within the premise(like God) you assume to be true. That is not true. I can site many cases where i can picture a consistent worldview and still be quite wrong.
Supoose I belong to a religion which preaches that we all live in the Matrix and that all of us living inside a program. I can also make claims like all the politicians are agents of the matirx and so forth. In my view that would make sense.
COnsider another example. Suppose i believe the earth is inside the belly of a giant octopus. And i say that all these planets and stars are the undigested left-overs in its inside. That would make sense too, in my world-view.
The flat earth theorists do the same thing too. They say that all the scientists are lying to us and that the images of the Earth taken from space are fake. Within their view it makes sense.
Even for you creationists. You people like to believe that every word in the bible is fact and you discount evidence from science by saying that all the scientists are trying to lie to the public in an attempt to bring "not believing in God" as a religion.
The fallacy in all these cases is the same. It is not enough to say that "I live in the Matrix", there should be good evidence that supports the hypothesis. Not realisisng this logic fallacy would mean that our judicial systems would convict innocent people based on the judges personal convictions.

Now does the Bible provide proof for God? It does. It says "God Exists". Right? But using the bible to justify its assertions is laughable. The eivdence for evolution is not of this kind. We have no reason to believe that all the dino bones and all the different species of animals conspired to be in such a way that evolution could be justified. The bones are there and evolution describes its existance beautifully. when evolution failes to fit emperical evidence, we try out other hypothesis like evo-devo.

Naturalism is not a choice, it is the only option for us if our objective is to explain the mysteries of the universe and not explain it away! Religion is explaining away the mystery of our existance by saying that something magical using magical means created the universe. Tell me, what is the difference between saying, "something magical using magical means created the universe" and "I don't know what created the universe"? ...I say none. There is no extra information in the first sentence.

Also bear in mind. Once people say, "Yes God did it", they would not care about mystery any more. 'Cause to them the mystery is solved. I like to be honest about my ignorance about the workings of the world and i like to find out more. To assume that there is no need to look for answers and that instead i should settle for an answer like " God did it", is very naive and close-minded a view about life and its meaning.

We in this forum,or atleast me, reject God because of its poor explanative power. This makes me wonder why do you feel that "God" is an explanation? What is motivating you to defend God?
Is it becasue of your fear about Morality- that without God there would be no absolute standard for morality? Do you really think that in a Godless world, people would just start killing each other becasue of their sudden realisation that the God police is a myth? How would you then justify religious reform movements, like the feminist movement? Doesn't that show that Man can dictate and bring forth new moral rules even if no God stated it in the scriptures. What makes you so confident that humans are just so helpless and immoral without God?