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| ...a modern continuation of Darwin’s “M” project [About Frans de Waal2] |
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| Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had a heavenly move |
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| Christopher Hitchens |
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| Jonathan Franzen |
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| Antonio R. Damasio |
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| Sam Harris |
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| Jonathan Safran Foer |
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| Stieg Larsson |
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| Richard Dawkins |
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| Ayaan Hirsi Ali |
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| John Le Carré |
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| Philip Roth |
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| Martin Cruz Smith |
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| Daniel C. Dennett |
Every good doctor knows that a few simple tricks of self-presentation that compose a good "bedside manner" can make a huge difference. It isn't really dishonest, is it? Every priest and minister, every imam and rabbi, every guru knows the same thing, and the same gradation from knowingness to innocence can be found today in the practices of revival preachers, as vividly revealed in Marjoe, the Oscar-winning 1972 documentary film that followed Marjoe Gortner, a charismatic young evangelical preacher who lost his faith but made a comeback as a preacher in order to reveal the tricks of the trade. In this disturbing and unforgettable film, he shows how he makes people faint when he does the laying on of hands, how he rouses them to passionate declarations of their love for Jesus, how he gets them to empty their wallets into the collection basket.
The article contains a memorable observation from the president of American Atheists: “I have heard many times that atheists know more about religion than religious people. Atheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge. I gave a Bible to my daughter. That’s how you make atheists.”As qualified, Ken's conclusion doesn't seem to be a non sequitur (in the original, logical way that Aristotle and I use the term). Christians, among the groups identified by the study, might indeed be the most ignorant about religion. [Note that as Goodstein's article points out, "There were not enough Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu respondents to say how those groups ranked."]
Some of the stats in it are jaw-droppers. For example: "53% of Protestants could not identify Martin Luther as the man who started the Protestant Reformation."
[Given the religious views that predominate in the Western world and the fact that I've met a great many ignorant Christians,] I must conclude that no one is more ignorant about religion than a Christian.
The philosopher George Santayana was a Catholic atheist, if you can imagine such a thing. According to Bertrand Russell..., William James once denounced Santayana's ideas as "the perfection of rottenness," and one can see why some people would be offended by his brand of aestheticism: a deep appreciation for all the formulae, ceremonies, and trappings of his religious heritage, but lacking the faith. Santayana's position was aptly caricatured: "There is no God and Mary is His Mother." [pp. 514-515]Then, Dennett confesses to somewhat the same predicament:
But how many of us are caught in that very dilemma, loving the heritage, firmly convinced of its value, yet unable to sustain any conviction at all in its truth? We are faced with a difficult choice. Because we value it, we are eager to preserve it in a rather precarious and "denatured" state—in churches and cathedrals and synagogues...keeping alive traditions, rituals, liturgies, symbols, that otherwise would fade. [p. 515]Personally, I don't get it. I just don't feel anything for the traditions, rituals, liturgies, or symbols of religion, and I was amazed to read that Dennett doesn't feel the same way. (I wondered whether he was being disingenuous.) He even includes an Appendix with the musical score for a song that he used to sing "when I was a child, around the campfire at summer camp, at school and Sunday school, or gathered around the piano at home":
Tell me why the stars do shine,Dennett seems to have had an exceedingly sentimental childhood. My experience, even of Sunday school and summer Bible camp, wasn't like that, either in fact or in memory.
Tell me why the ivy twines,
Tell me why the sky's so blue.
Then I will tell you just why I love you.
Because God made the stars to shine,
Because God made the ivy twine,
Because God made the sky so blue.
Because God made you, that's why I love you. [p. 523]
Who plants a seedBut I recognize the author of Darwin's Dangerous Idea again when Dennett goes on to say:
Beneath the sod
And waits to see
Believes in DNA
But hasn't there been a tremendous rebirth of fundamentalist faith in all these creeds? Yes, unfortunately, there has been, and I think that there are no forces on this planet more dangerous to us all than the fanaticisms of fundamentalism...Is there a conflict between science and religion here? There most certainly is.I must add that Dennett suggests a zoo for religious heritage not only to protect us from religion's dangerous elements, but also to preserve it "because it was," as we preserve all sorts of archaeological and historical artifacts. Religious and other cultural artifacts are unique and, like species of nature (which, in a way, they are too), once lost, cannot be re-created.
...My own spirit recoils from a God Who is He or She in the same way my heart sinks when I see a lion pacing neurotically back and forth in a small zoo cage. I know, I know, the lion is beautiful but dangerous; if you let the lion roam free, it would kill me; safety demands that it be put in a cage. Safety demands that religions be put in cages, too [emphasis mine]....
...the deliberate misinforming of children about the natural world. According to a recent poll [early 1990's], 48 percent of the people in the United States today believe that the book of Genesis is literally true. And 70 percent believe that "creation science" should be taught in school alongside evolution. Some recent writers recommend a policy in which parents would be able to "opt out" of materials they didn't want their children taught. Should evolution be taught in school? Should arithmetic be taught? Should history? Misinforming a child is a terrible offense. [pp. 515-516]
The first use noted by the [Oxford English Dictionary] is from 1915: "an aeroplane pilot commanded to remain in place (aloft) for another hour, replies 'the machine is not fitted with skyhooks.'" The skyhook concept is perhaps a descendant of the deus ex machina of ancient Greek dramaturgy: when second-rate playwrights found their plots leading their heroes into inescapable difficulties, they were often tempted to crank down a god onto the scene, like Superman, to save the situation supernaturally. Or skyhooks may be an entirely independent creation of convergent folkloric evolution. Skyhooks would be wonderful things to have, great for lifting unwieldy objects out of difficult circumstances, and speeding up all sorts of construction projects. Sad to say, they are impossible. [p. 74]Dennett uses the term extensively in his 1995 book, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (there are thirty-six page citations in the index, some of them spanning several pages of text).
I've come to the realization that people's brains are wired in entirely different ways such that truth is as useless a concept to some as it is useful to others.I suppose, for "full disclosure," that I'd better provide the rest of Xavier's comment, for he was counseling me on the futility of trying to convince certain people by appealing to reason:
As such, skepticism is either a personal endeavor or an endeavor pursued with like-minded individuals.Xavier appears to have developed better tongue-biting skills than I.
To put it bluntly, when it comes to certain subjects, I just bite my tongue and see the conversations as an exploration into the human psyche.
Spirituality can refer to an ultimate reality or transcendent dimension of the world; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his or her being, or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.”The Wikipedia article also lists some spiritual practices:
...Spirituality is often experienced as a source of inspiration or orientation in life. It can encompass belief in immaterial realities and/or experiences of the immanent or transcendent nature of the world.
Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop an individual's inner life; such practices often lead to an experience of connectedness with a larger reality>: a more comprehensive self; other individuals or the human community; nature or the cosmos; and/or the divine realm.A cogent statement of spirituality has to address the transcendence/divinity question, if only to deny it as based on a delusion (or to restate transcendence in terms of the evolved human desire for more). Three months ago, I defined "God" as the main true thing. To me then and now, the main true thing is that our marvelous consciousness is a product of billions of years of the blind play of material forces that on Earth developed into Mother Nature. For me, that is, the traditional "God" doesn't exist.
Is no one inspired by our present picture of the universe? This value of science remains unsung by singers: you are reduced to hearing not a song or poem, but an evening lecture about it. This is not yet a scientific age.A story by which to exult is precisely a dance!
Perhaps one of the reasons for this silence is that you have to know how to read the music. For instance, the scientific article may say, "The radioactive phosphorus content of the cerebrum of the rat decreases to one-half in a period of two weeks." Now, what does that mean?
It means that phosphorus that is in the brain of a rat—and also in mine, and yours—is not the same phosphorus as it was two weeks ago. It means the atoms that are in the brain are being replaced: the ones that were there before have gone away.
So what is this mind of ours: what are these atoms with consciousness? Last week's potatoes! They now can remember what was going on in my mind a year ago—a mind which has long ago been replaced.
To note that the thing I call my individuality is only a pattern or dance, that is what it means when one discovers how long it takes for the atoms of the brain to be replaced by other atoms. The atoms come into my brain, dance a dance, and then go out—there are always new atoms, but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday. [p. 244, quoted by Dennett on p. 360 of Darwin's Dangerous Idea]
