I love that "sophisticated defenses of theism" never are. They're just the same stupid defenses but wrapped in vaguer terms.
Simulation argument!
Simulation argument!
That barely counts as theism and certainly has nothing to do with the theism put on the table by actual religions.
You could also reverse the direction and say that "Gods" can evolve. Say, a sentient nanomachine cloud we create lands on Jupiter and forms a symbiotic organism with the Great Red Spot. A being 3x the size of earth that functions as a giant networked brain would certainly be like a "God," and maybe it will exist one day, but again, this doesn't really have anything to do with the actual religions of the world; it's a sci-fi scenario with naturalistic rules.
Most of 20th Century history is not very kind to "reason", which is what (and correct me if I'm wrong here) both Dawkins and Hitchens claim should supplant religion.
W... What?
Can you please be more specific so I can actually respond?
Most of 20th Century history is not very kind to "reason", which is what (and correct me if I'm wrong here) both Dawkins and Hitchens claim should supplant religion.
W... What?
Can you please be more specific so I can actually respond?
"Reason" is not defined as exclusively against religion. The opposite of "reason" is not "religion". The opposite of "reason" is "unreason", of which religion is a subset. There are many other ways to be unreasonable, be they political, economic, medical, or moral.
In what way has the 20th century been unkind to reason?
I love that "sophisticated defenses of theism" never are. They're just the same stupid defenses but wrapped in vaguer terms.
Simulation argument!
Simulation argument!
That barely counts as theism and certainly has nothing to do with the theism put on the table by actual religions.
I count it as theism. I don't care about the other guys, they're full of shit.
Okay, well... there you go.
Also, the simulation argument falls prey to the same criticism (made by Hume) that Aristotle's unmoved mover argument does (or the "cosmological" argument). Where did the dude running the simulation come from? And if he's simulated, where did his simulator come from? And so on?
IT's either an infinite regression, or you have some arbitrary "first simulator" that would violate occam's razor since our universe could just as easily be the first simulator.
Qingu on
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
I've always wondered why people don't really like Hitchens. Is it just because he isn't polite when pointing out bullshit? Or do people perceive him as being smarmy, to which I have to wonder, how do you NOT be smarmy when some guy is making totally bullshit arguments that take only an instant's thought to demolish? Especially in D'Souza's case, where he repeatedly makes arguments that have already been repeatedly demolished.
Well, I think Hitchens is a pompous contrarian who deserves scorn for his continued support of the Iraq War as part of his whole post-9/11 freakout about Islam.
Plus, his thesis that religion is the root of all evil only holds up if you pretty much ignore most of 20th Century history.
I'm sure there's some value for atheist propaganda that features as much subtlety as the lyrics to a Venom song, but then again I'm a bit past the whole "everyone who's not an atheist is a moron" thing.
Really? Most of 20th century history is not very kind to religion. But religion as the root of all evil is the Dawkins slogan, which I might add, was foisted on him against his will.
Hitchens' slogan is religion poisons everything. Which isn't exactly difficult to agree with.
Most of 20th Century history is not very kind to "reason", which is what (and correct me if I'm wrong here) both Dawkins and Hitchens claim should supplant religion.
Hitchens is also more than willing to No True Scotsman his way out of any examples of how religion inspires positive change, such Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights movement.
What do you mean "supplant religion"?
I'm not seeing where reason ran into anything like the troubles that religion made worse and directly inspired? Of course, even if we were to call something like The Great Leap Forward "reason"* both Hitchens and Dawkins and indeed all of the New Atheists are opposed to any commitment to ideology that overrides reason.
Hitchens doesn't No True Scotsman out of inspirations of positive change. The argument around MLK is not that he wasn't a real religionist, but that there were just as many secular, liberal supporters of the civil rights movement and there was a huge amount of opposition from the religious for religiously supported reasons.
Plus, the New Atheists make Qingu's point - at best it's Enlightenment morality dressed up in religious language that brings about social change, not religion itself.
*Referring to such things like so would be some serious bullshit. EDIT: Alternatively, what Loren said.
Also, the simulation argument falls prey to the same criticism (made by Hume) that Aristotle's unmoved mover argument does (or the "cosmological" argument). Where did the dude running the simulation come from? And if he's simulated, where did his simulator come from? And so on?
IT's either an infinite regression, or you have some arbitrary "first simulator" that would violate occam's razor since our universe could just as easily be the first simulator.
Irrelevant, I don't seek to answer where it all came from, just whether there are omnipotent or nigh-omnipotent beings relative to us. I'm not postulating an origin story for the whole shebang, I'm just going for a probabilistic explanation for our specific existence, and the potential existence of gods.
Personally, I view the whole thing as a Möbius strip of Russian nesting dolls, but that particular belief is more a function of "I like to believe this kind of thing" than "seems like it makes sense".
Loren Michael on
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Yahweh, a divine tripartite being who had a son who is himself that he sacrificed, to himself, to save humanity from his own need to punish us for disobeying the set of bronze-age rules...
Why did God need to sacrifice his son (or anything, really), to save us from his own wrath? As opposed to, I don't know, appearing to mankind and saying "Don't worry, I've chilled out. As long as you believe in me and make your best effort to follow these rules, you're good". If the sacrifice was necessary, that means God is beholden to a set of rules. If it was unnecessary, that means God is arbitrary.
Most of 20th Century history is not very kind to "reason", which is what (and correct me if I'm wrong here) both Dawkins and Hitchens claim should supplant religion.
W... What?
Can you please be more specific so I can actually respond?
"Reason" is not defined as exclusively against religion. The opposite of "reason" is not "religion". The opposite of "reason" is "unreason", of which religion is a subset. There are many other ways to be unreasonable, be they political, economic, medical, or moral.
In what way has the 20th century been unkind to reason?
Except that Hitchens paints every negative consequence of secular unreason as being in some tenuous way the fault of religion, thus painting "reason" as the opposite of religion. For example.
The 20th Century is chock full of examples of terrible things that have been done in the name of secular "reason" even if, in hindsight they seem irrational. Eugenics and Social Darwinism, for one. Pretty much the entire history of Communism, from Lenin to Stalin to Mao to Pol Pot to Castro.
I agree that it's quite possible for secular people and governments to be unreasonable to a dangerous, even lethal and totalitarian degree. Hitchens apparently disagrees.
Also, the simulation argument falls prey to the same criticism (made by Hume) that Aristotle's unmoved mover argument does (or the "cosmological" argument). Where did the dude running the simulation come from? And if he's simulated, where did his simulator come from? And so on?
IT's either an infinite regression, or you have some arbitrary "first simulator" that would violate occam's razor since our universe could just as easily be the first simulator.
Irrelevant, I don't seek to answer where it all came from, just whether there are omnipotent or nigh-omnipotent beings relative to us. I'm not postulating an origin story for the whole shebang, I'm just going for a probabilistic explanation for our specific existence, and the potential existence of gods.
Personally, I view the whole thing as a Möbius strip of Russian nesting dolls, but that particular belief is more a function of "I like to believe this kind of thing" than "seems like it makes sense".
I think it's probable that there are beings who, relative to us, are like how we are to electrons. I'm fine with the idea that the universe is essentially a fractal and that our mode of existence is simply one arbitrary degree of "zooming in," largely because I got high and watched this.
I just really don't see why we need to bring the word "God" or "theism" into this. Those words, historically, have meant personal deities who take an active role in human history. At best, this would be Deism. But even that is misleading. I don't think we are "Deist Gods" to the electrons whose movement we control in our electronic devices. That would be a loaded and misleading description of our relationship with electrons.
Edit: I realize the electron-human thing is technically different from the simulation argument but I think you get the gist of it.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Most of 20th Century history is not very kind to "reason", which is what (and correct me if I'm wrong here) both Dawkins and Hitchens claim should supplant religion.
W... What?
Can you please be more specific so I can actually respond?
"Reason" is not defined as exclusively against religion. The opposite of "reason" is not "religion". The opposite of "reason" is "unreason", of which religion is a subset. There are many other ways to be unreasonable, be they political, economic, medical, or moral.
In what way has the 20th century been unkind to reason?
Except that Hitchens paints every negative consequence of secular unreason as being in some tenuous way the fault of religion, thus painting "reason" as the opposite of religion. For example.
The 20th Century is chock full of examples of terrible things that have been done in the name of secular "reason" even if, in hindsight they seem irrational. Eugenics and Social Darwinism, for one. Pretty much the entire history of Communism, from Lenin to Stalin to Mao to Pol Pot to Castro.
I agree that it's quite possible for secular people and governments to be unreasonable to a dangerous, even lethal and totalitarian degree. Hitchens apparently disagrees.
Called it.
You know that even if we grant that as a non-retarded use of the term 'reason' there is no analogy?
Also, the simulation argument falls prey to the same criticism (made by Hume) that Aristotle's unmoved mover argument does (or the "cosmological" argument). Where did the dude running the simulation come from? And if he's simulated, where did his simulator come from? And so on?
IT's either an infinite regression, or you have some arbitrary "first simulator" that would violate occam's razor since our universe could just as easily be the first simulator.
Irrelevant, I don't seek to answer where it all came from, just whether there are omnipotent or nigh-omnipotent beings relative to us. I'm not postulating an origin story for the whole shebang, I'm just going for a probabilistic explanation for our specific existence, and the potential existence of gods.
Personally, I view the whole thing as a Möbius strip of Russian nesting dolls, but that particular belief is more a function of "I like to believe this kind of thing" than "seems like it makes sense".
I think it's probable that there are beings who, relative to us, are like how we are to electrons. I'm fine with the idea that the universe is essentially a fractal and that our mode of existence is simply one arbitrary degree of "zooming in," largely because I got high and watched this.
I just really don't see why we need to bring the word "God" or "theism" into this. Those words, historically, have meant personal deities who take an active role in human history. At best, this would be Deism. But even that is misleading. I don't think we are "Deist Gods" to the electrons whose movement we control in our electronic devices. That would be a loaded and misleading description of our relationship with electrons.
I view it more of us being really complex Sims, with the controller having a much broader range of capabilities and powers. That's basically a god. I think I'm a borderline deist. I think it's more likely that something with an interest in creating a simulated reality is going to want to do shit with it but: a) there's no evidence of such interference and b) there wouldn't be any necessary problems with there being interference all the time and us not knowing about it.
I like to bring the word "god" and "theism" into it because, for one, omnipotent and semi-omnipotent beings are basically gods by anyone's definition, and also because I enjoy appropriating and secularizing religious language.
and also because I enjoy appropriating and secularizing religious language.
Let it go, Indiana.
I'm not super-opposed to syncretism in the abstract, but this somehow feels dishonest and manipulative. I mean, I can understand the appeal of it; many great movements in history worked because they appropriated religion as window-dressing for secularist/enlightenment ideals. It just feels ... dirty. (Not that I don't like the cut of your jib!)
The 20th Century is chock full of examples of terrible things that have been done in the name of secular "reason" even if, in hindsight they seem irrational. Eugenics and Social Darwinism, for one. Pretty much the entire history of Communism, from Lenin to Stalin to Mao to Pol Pot to Castro.
I'm sympathetic to your view, people enjoy appropriating terms that sound lucid, intelligent, comforting. Who could be against reason? And that people who are unreasonable rarely view themselves as such. But I'm more interested in what actually is reasonable than what people self-identify as.
and also because I enjoy appropriating and secularizing religious language.
Let it go, Indiana.
I'm not super-opposed to syncretism in the abstract, but this somehow feels dishonest and manipulative. I mean, I can understand the appeal of it; many great movements in history worked because they appropriated religion as window-dressing for secularist/enlightenment ideals. It just feels ... dirty. (Not that I don't like the cut of your jib!)
I think it would be dishonest if I didn't actually believe it. Of course it's manipulative, I want to be as manipulative as possible. I have no interest in casting haymaker bromides if they don't actually affect anything.
The 20th Century is chock full of examples of terrible things that have been done in the name of secular "reason" even if, in hindsight they seem irrational. Eugenics and Social Darwinism, for one. Pretty much the entire history of Communism, from Lenin to Stalin to Mao to Pol Pot to Castro.
I'm sympathetic to your view, people enjoy appropriating terms that sound lucid, intelligent, comforting. Who could be against reason? And that people who are unreasonable rarely view themselves as such. But I'm more interested in what actually is reasonable than what people self-identify as.
Except when you define "reason" as "anything I agree with" then that term ceases to have all meaning.
Lawndart on
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
The 20th Century is chock full of examples of terrible things that have been done in the name of secular "reason" even if, in hindsight they seem irrational. Eugenics and Social Darwinism, for one. Pretty much the entire history of Communism, from Lenin to Stalin to Mao to Pol Pot to Castro.
I'm sympathetic to your view, people enjoy appropriating terms that sound lucid, intelligent, comforting. Who could be against reason? And that people who are unreasonable rarely view themselves as such. But I'm more interested in what actually is reasonable than what people self-identify as.
Except when you define "reason" as "anything I agree with" then that term ceases to have all meaning.
ACSIS also thinks he's presenting a sceptical and rational viewpoint, so how people label things isn't of magnificent utility either.
The 20th Century is chock full of examples of terrible things that have been done in the name of secular "reason" even if, in hindsight they seem irrational. Eugenics and Social Darwinism, for one. Pretty much the entire history of Communism, from Lenin to Stalin to Mao to Pol Pot to Castro.
I'm sympathetic to your view, people enjoy appropriating terms that sound lucid, intelligent, comforting. Who could be against reason? And that people who are unreasonable rarely view themselves as such. But I'm more interested in what actually is reasonable than what people self-identify as.
Except when you define "reason" as "anything I agree with" then that term ceases to have all meaning.
ACSIS also thinks he's presenting a sceptical and rational viewpoint, so how people label things isn't of magnificent utility either.
D'souza talks about engaging Hitchens on his own terms, but claiming that science is "completely inert" in the understanding of the purpose of life is really the same old argument from theologians. Its NOT the language of reason.
You cannot compare the scientific method of falsifiable hypotheses with using the concept of "god" as a stopgap for concepts, either philosophical or scientific, that we do not yet understand.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
The 20th Century is chock full of examples of terrible things that have been done in the name of secular "reason" even if, in hindsight they seem irrational. Eugenics and Social Darwinism, for one. Pretty much the entire history of Communism, from Lenin to Stalin to Mao to Pol Pot to Castro.
I'm sympathetic to your view, people enjoy appropriating terms that sound lucid, intelligent, comforting. Who could be against reason? And that people who are unreasonable rarely view themselves as such. But I'm more interested in what actually is reasonable than what people self-identify as.
Except when you define "reason" as "anything I agree with" then that term ceases to have all meaning.
ACSIS also thinks he's presenting a sceptical and rational viewpoint, so how people label things isn't of magnificent utility either.
ACSIS?
Check out the scepticism thread.
But that's incidental.
You can insert "9/11 Truthers", "Conspiracy theorists of all stripes" or whatever the fuck else.
Essentially, when proving the existence of god the lack of evidence is not an evidence of lack, but the reverse seems to be true when D'souza talks about scientific concepts he understands very little about "ie: dark matter".
Argumentum ad ignorentium
As Hitchens himself says, it is more admirable to hear an argument from a position of pure faith and personal conviction than a halfhearted pseudo-scientific justification of the 'purpose' of faith couched in lazy Darwinian terms. Advancements in sociological thinking, philosophy, psychological study, neuroscience have all sought to answer the specific questions of human desires and interactions for the last 150 years. These fields are all relatively young, but that is no excuse not to include relevant modern ontology beyond what the men on the Beagle observed.
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CorehealerThe ApothecaryThe softer edge of the universe.Registered Userregular
I think it's probable that there are beings who, relative to us, are like how we are to electrons. I'm fine with the idea that the universe is essentially a fractal and that our mode of existence is simply one arbitrary degree of "zooming in," largely because I got high and watched this.
I just really don't see why we need to bring the word "God" or "theism" into this. Those words, historically, have meant personal deities who take an active role in human history. At best, this would be Deism. But even that is misleading. I don't think we are "Deist Gods" to the electrons whose movement we control in our electronic devices. That would be a loaded and misleading description of our relationship with electrons.
Edit: I realize the electron-human thing is technically different from the simulation argument but I think you get the gist of it.
Green indicates the most useful information i've derived from this thread. Thanks for making my walls start moving inwards and outwards, Qingu. :P
I agree with what you've also been saying. Having an open mind and being abstract can be possible while also being grounded in reason and science. The universe doesn't need to have a beginning or an end brought about by a God. The more I think about it, the more like an atheist I become.
Never thought i'd be writing that.
Religion in your definition is correct as well, but assuming every part of the definition is universally true for all religions and all their rules and ideas is a bit incorrect. "Religion is the set of specific stories, rules and theological claims that serves as scaffolding for this fundamental view of the nature of reality". Stories, yes. Rules and theological claims, mostly yes. Dismissing all the claims of religion is like denying all the claims of reason and math in the abstract sense. You don't need to subscribe to the brand but you can still look at the ideas.
I still think there needs to be a balance between reason and spirituality. Science and religion are here to both compliment each other and work towards the common understanding of all mankind in all affairs. Dismissing one or the other for a fundamentalist view of one or the other is wrong. I didn't really watch the debate much, but I honestly think both men are incorrect because they refuse to accept the truths of the other side because they perceive that as undermining their views.
The 20th Century is chock full of examples of terrible things that have been done in the name of secular "reason" even if, in hindsight they seem irrational. Eugenics and Social Darwinism, for one. Pretty much the entire history of Communism, from Lenin to Stalin to Mao to Pol Pot to Castro.
I'm sympathetic to your view, people enjoy appropriating terms that sound lucid, intelligent, comforting. Who could be against reason? And that people who are unreasonable rarely view themselves as such. But I'm more interested in what actually is reasonable than what people self-identify as.
Except when you define "reason" as "anything I agree with" then that term ceases to have all meaning.
This claim is based on the idea that it is impossible to objectively identify things that are actually reasonable from things which are not.
Which is simply not true.
EDIT:
Which really goes back to the fact that reason is not the opposite of religion specifically, but rather all unreasonable beliefs. That secular humanism is the most reasonable belief, perhaps even the only one, is a separate claim that probably should be dealt with separately.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
The 20th Century is chock full of examples of terrible things that have been done in the name of secular "reason" even if, in hindsight they seem irrational. Eugenics and Social Darwinism, for one. Pretty much the entire history of Communism, from Lenin to Stalin to Mao to Pol Pot to Castro.
I'm sympathetic to your view, people enjoy appropriating terms that sound lucid, intelligent, comforting. Who could be against reason? And that people who are unreasonable rarely view themselves as such. But I'm more interested in what actually is reasonable than what people self-identify as.
Except when you define "reason" as "anything I agree with" then that term ceases to have all meaning.
This claim is based on the idea that it is impossible to objectively identify things that are actually reasonable from things which are not.
Which is simply not true.
Which really goes back to the fact that reason is not the opposite of religion specifically, but rather all unreasonable beliefs. That secular humanism is the most reasonable belief, perhaps even the only one, is a separate claim that probably should be dealt with separately.
Except that's not the claim I'm making. It's possible to derive an objective standard for "reason," however that objective standard is value-neutral.
My biggest issue with Hitchens is that he bases his entire argument on the basic concept that anything religious is a detriment to society and everything secular and rational is a benefit to society, which leads him to make some truly spectacular leaps of logical incoherence in order to redefine anything that's secular, logical, and negative as being somehow the fault of religion and to redefine anything that's religious and positive as being not "really" religious.
The 20th Century is chock full of examples of terrible things that have been done in the name of secular "reason" even if, in hindsight they seem irrational. Eugenics and Social Darwinism, for one. Pretty much the entire history of Communism, from Lenin to Stalin to Mao to Pol Pot to Castro.
I'm sympathetic to your view, people enjoy appropriating terms that sound lucid, intelligent, comforting. Who could be against reason? And that people who are unreasonable rarely view themselves as such. But I'm more interested in what actually is reasonable than what people self-identify as.
Except when you define "reason" as "anything I agree with" then that term ceases to have all meaning.
This claim is based on the idea that it is impossible to objectively identify things that are actually reasonable from things which are not.
Which is simply not true.
Which really goes back to the fact that reason is not the opposite of religion specifically, but rather all unreasonable beliefs. That secular humanism is the most reasonable belief, perhaps even the only one, is a separate claim that probably should be dealt with separately.
Except that's not the claim I'm making. It's possible to derive an objective standard for "reason," however that objective standard is value-neutral.
My biggest issue with Hitchens is that he bases his entire argument on the basic concept that anything religious is a detriment to society and everything secular and rational is a benefit to society, which leads him to make some truly spectacular leaps of logical incoherence in order to redefine anything that's secular, logical, and negative as being somehow the fault of religion and to redefine anything that's religious and positive as being not "really" religious.
You're mischaracterising his argument regarding MLK.
As I said before:
"Hitchens doesn't No True Scotsman out of inspirations of positive change. The argument around MLK is not that he wasn't a real religionist, but that there were just as many secular, liberal supporters of the civil rights movement and there was a huge amount of opposition from the religious for religiously supported reasons."
And the other stuff I said that I forgot to copypasta about how the positive effects are enlightenment morality couched in religious terms.
You're also missing the point about Stalinism. He also wasn't answering the question as explicitly or as well as he could. But still...
The 20th Century is chock full of examples of terrible things that have been done in the name of secular "reason" even if, in hindsight they seem irrational. Eugenics and Social Darwinism, for one. Pretty much the entire history of Communism, from Lenin to Stalin to Mao to Pol Pot to Castro.
I'm sympathetic to your view, people enjoy appropriating terms that sound lucid, intelligent, comforting. Who could be against reason? And that people who are unreasonable rarely view themselves as such. But I'm more interested in what actually is reasonable than what people self-identify as.
Except when you define "reason" as "anything I agree with" then that term ceases to have all meaning.
This claim is based on the idea that it is impossible to objectively identify things that are actually reasonable from things which are not.
Which is simply not true.
Which really goes back to the fact that reason is not the opposite of religion specifically, but rather all unreasonable beliefs. That secular humanism is the most reasonable belief, perhaps even the only one, is a separate claim that probably should be dealt with separately.
Except that's not the claim I'm making. It's possible to derive an objective standard for "reason," however that objective standard is value-neutral.
No, it is not. Reason is a virtue. Things which follow reason are, by virtue of being reasonable, also good.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
The 20th Century is chock full of examples of terrible things that have been done in the name of secular "reason" even if, in hindsight they seem irrational. Eugenics and Social Darwinism, for one. Pretty much the entire history of Communism, from Lenin to Stalin to Mao to Pol Pot to Castro.
I'm sympathetic to your view, people enjoy appropriating terms that sound lucid, intelligent, comforting. Who could be against reason? And that people who are unreasonable rarely view themselves as such. But I'm more interested in what actually is reasonable than what people self-identify as.
Except when you define "reason" as "anything I agree with" then that term ceases to have all meaning.
This claim is based on the idea that it is impossible to objectively identify things that are actually reasonable from things which are not.
Which is simply not true.
Which really goes back to the fact that reason is not the opposite of religion specifically, but rather all unreasonable beliefs. That secular humanism is the most reasonable belief, perhaps even the only one, is a separate claim that probably should be dealt with separately.
Except that's not the claim I'm making. It's possible to derive an objective standard for "reason," however that objective standard is value-neutral.
No, it is not. Reason is a virtue. Things which follow reason are, by virtue of being reasonable, also good.
First, why is reason a virtue?
Second, does that mean that, for example, eugenics and Social Darwinism are both good?
The 20th Century is chock full of examples of terrible things that have been done in the name of secular "reason" even if, in hindsight they seem irrational. Eugenics and Social Darwinism, for one. Pretty much the entire history of Communism, from Lenin to Stalin to Mao to Pol Pot to Castro.
I'm sympathetic to your view, people enjoy appropriating terms that sound lucid, intelligent, comforting. Who could be against reason? And that people who are unreasonable rarely view themselves as such. But I'm more interested in what actually is reasonable than what people self-identify as.
Except when you define "reason" as "anything I agree with" then that term ceases to have all meaning.
This claim is based on the idea that it is impossible to objectively identify things that are actually reasonable from things which are not.
Which is simply not true.
Which really goes back to the fact that reason is not the opposite of religion specifically, but rather all unreasonable beliefs. That secular humanism is the most reasonable belief, perhaps even the only one, is a separate claim that probably should be dealt with separately.
Except that's not the claim I'm making. It's possible to derive an objective standard for "reason," however that objective standard is value-neutral.
No, it is not. Reason is a virtue. Things which follow reason are, by virtue of being reasonable, also good.
First, why is reason a virtue?
Because truth is a virtue, and reason is the process by which one arrives at true beliefs consistently.
If something is reasonable, it is far more likely to be true than something that is unreasonable.
Second, does that mean that, for example, eugenics and Social Darwinism are both good?
No, because neither of those things is reasonable. The later is not even factually, scientifically correct; and both transgress against the Natural Rights and thus are incorrect regardless.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
You're mischaracterising his argument regarding MLK.
As I said before:
"Hitchens doesn't No True Scotsman out of inspirations of positive change. The argument around MLK is not that he wasn't a real religionist, but that there were just as many secular, liberal supporters of the civil rights movement and there was a huge amount of opposition from the religious for religiously supported reasons."
And the other stuff I said that I forgot to copypasta about how the positive effects are enlightenment morality couched in religious terms.
He explicitly states that MLK was not "really" a Christian. His other arguments about the Civil Rights movement as a whole, most of which I agree with, don't somehow change that.
Also, if religion has been used to convince people to adopt the morality of the Enlightenment, how does that then mean that religion in total is a bad thing?
In both cases, he's No True Scotsmanning all over the fucking place, or more accurately claiming that only the most fundamentalist, pre-Enlightenment take on Christianity is "really" Christianity.
natural rights? If we are to believe anything is natural it must exist in nature. If I were to observe nature and derive morals from that, I might be inclined to believe that it is perfectly okay to kill someone because they are interfering in my access of food resources. Maybe I should kill some wal mart employees so that I can take their job.
Because truth is a virtue, and reason is the process by which one arrives at true beliefs consistently.
If something is reasonable, it is far more likely to be true than something that is unreasonable.
Second, does that mean that, for example, eugenics and Social Darwinism are both good?
No, because neither of those things is reasonable. The later is not even factually, scientifically correct; and both transgress against the Natural Rights and thus are incorrect regardless.
So if someone logically reaches a conclusion which contradicts the morality you've arbitrary decided is the truth, it's inherently incorrect?
That's not reason, that's secular theology.
Edit: Now that I think about it, the concept of Natural Rights is a prime example of a concept that's not inherently logical or rational (since it pretty much contradicts how almost all animals including primates behave in nature) but yet belief in that concept provides an overall societal benefit.
Religion in your definition is correct as well, but assuming every part of the definition is universally true for all religions and all their rules and ideas is a bit incorrect. "Religion is the set of specific stories, rules and theological claims that serves as scaffolding for this fundamental view of the nature of reality". Stories, yes. Rules and theological claims, mostly yes. Dismissing all the claims of religion is like denying all the claims of reason and math in the abstract sense. You don't need to subscribe to the brand but you can still look at the ideas.
I still think there needs to be a balance between reason and spirituality. Science and religion are here to both compliment each other and work towards the common understanding of all mankind in all affairs. Dismissing one or the other for a fundamentalist view of one or the other is wrong.
But the Bible says what it says, and the Bible is largely wrong. Large chunks of the Bible are not only scientifically bullshit, but morally despicable. The Old Testament is, at best, an interesting and influential historical text that records the beliefs of a tribe of savage nomads; at worst it is the only religious text in history to condone genocide.
Now, again, you can fine-tune the definition of the words "spirituality" and "religion" so that they are so nebulous and so far removed from actual religious texts that they can somehow complement science. What I am most concerned with, however, is the Bible, and what the Bible says. And I think that, to the extent that "religion" is based on what the Bible says, it is both incompatible with science and with modern society and morality.
and also because I enjoy appropriating and secularizing religious language.
Let it go, Indiana.
I'm not super-opposed to syncretism in the abstract, but this somehow feels dishonest and manipulative. I mean, I can understand the appeal of it; many great movements in history worked because they appropriated religion as window-dressing for secularist/enlightenment ideals. It just feels ... dirty. (Not that I don't like the cut of your jib!)
I think it would be dishonest if I didn't actually believe it. Of course it's manipulative, I want to be as manipulative as possible. I have no interest in casting haymaker bromides if they don't actually affect anything.
Yah, ultimately I think there's room for both approaches ("religion is bullshit!" vs "religion and science are expressions of the same truth, which as it happens is basically science") whatever qualms I have with yours.
Also, if religion has been used to convince people to adopt the morality of the Enlightenment, how does that then mean that religion in total is a bad thing?
For the same reason that getting a child to take medicine with a spoonful of sugar doesn't mean eating a spoonful of sugar is healthy.
Edit: Now that I think about it, the concept of Natural Rights is a prime example of a concept that's not inherently logical or rational (since it pretty much contradicts how almost all animals including primates behave in nature) but yet belief in that concept provides an overall societal benefit.
I think you are conflating two different meanings/uses of the word "natural" here. Though the philosophers who came up with natural rights did have plenty of problems with how they viewed the "state of nature."
Okay, a lot of it is really not all that bad. It's a conversation between the hero archer Arjuna and Krishna (the avatar of the god Vishnu who has taken the form of Arjuna's charioteer). Much of it involves a discussion of duty, and how best to fulfill your duty, though there's mystical and philosophical shit in there too.
The problem with the Gita is that too often it's treated as this standalone philosophical text; but in the context of the Mahabharata (the huge epic that contains it) the Gita is really about Krishna convincing Arjuna to go to war with his whole family, for no reason, because it's his duty as the warrior-caste to go to war.
Fucking bullshit, man! Especially since hippies always have had a boner for the Gita.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
The thing with the hindu texts though is that they're much more pick and mix because there's much less of a unified tradition. I tried getting a handle on the whole thing once and it made less and less sense the more I read.
Okay, a lot of it is really not all that bad. It's a conversation between the hero archer Arjuna and Krishna (the avatar of the god Vishnu who has taken the form of Arjuna's charioteer). Much of it involves a discussion of duty, and how best to fulfill your duty, though there's mystical and philosophical shit in there too.
The problem with the Gita is that too often it's treated as this standalone philosophical text; but in the context of the Mahabharata (the huge epic that contains it) the Gita is really about Krishna convincing Arjuna to go to war with his whole family, for no reason, because it's his duty as the warrior-caste to go to war.
Fucking bullshit, man! Especially since hippies always have had a boner for the Gita.
Hippies have a boner for Hinduism in general
I remember getting the impression that that speech was bullshit when I was being read it aloud as a kid, but I got distracted from that train of thought by arrows that turn into millions of arrows and kill entire armies.
I see a lot of pseudoscience/mystical stuff coming from that direction too. Something about the Nataraja at CERN because it reminded someone of the dance of particles, there's the whole cyclic Universe thing with vast timelines, and unsourced quotes from European physicists (even Einstein) praising the Vedas and Upanishads.
After embarrassing memories of years of kow-towing to statues, I'm pretty wary of this science connection some of the priests seem to be pushing.
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You could also reverse the direction and say that "Gods" can evolve. Say, a sentient nanomachine cloud we create lands on Jupiter and forms a symbiotic organism with the Great Red Spot. A being 3x the size of earth that functions as a giant networked brain would certainly be like a "God," and maybe it will exist one day, but again, this doesn't really have anything to do with the actual religions of the world; it's a sci-fi scenario with naturalistic rules.
I count it as theism. I don't care about the other guys, they're full of shit.
Can you please be more specific so I can actually respond?
"Reason" is not defined as exclusively against religion. The opposite of "reason" is not "religion". The opposite of "reason" is "unreason", of which religion is a subset. There are many other ways to be unreasonable, be they political, economic, medical, or moral.
In what way has the 20th century been unkind to reason?
Also, the simulation argument falls prey to the same criticism (made by Hume) that Aristotle's unmoved mover argument does (or the "cosmological" argument). Where did the dude running the simulation come from? And if he's simulated, where did his simulator come from? And so on?
IT's either an infinite regression, or you have some arbitrary "first simulator" that would violate occam's razor since our universe could just as easily be the first simulator.
What do you mean "supplant religion"?
I'm not seeing where reason ran into anything like the troubles that religion made worse and directly inspired? Of course, even if we were to call something like The Great Leap Forward "reason"* both Hitchens and Dawkins and indeed all of the New Atheists are opposed to any commitment to ideology that overrides reason.
Hitchens doesn't No True Scotsman out of inspirations of positive change. The argument around MLK is not that he wasn't a real religionist, but that there were just as many secular, liberal supporters of the civil rights movement and there was a huge amount of opposition from the religious for religiously supported reasons.
Plus, the New Atheists make Qingu's point - at best it's Enlightenment morality dressed up in religious language that brings about social change, not religion itself.
*Referring to such things like so would be some serious bullshit. EDIT: Alternatively, what Loren said.
Irrelevant, I don't seek to answer where it all came from, just whether there are omnipotent or nigh-omnipotent beings relative to us. I'm not postulating an origin story for the whole shebang, I'm just going for a probabilistic explanation for our specific existence, and the potential existence of gods.
Personally, I view the whole thing as a Möbius strip of Russian nesting dolls, but that particular belief is more a function of "I like to believe this kind of thing" than "seems like it makes sense".
What Qingu said. Also, I think the simulation argument rather unconvincing.
Thanks for the pithy one-liner. But you didn't address the question, which Qingu portrays more succintly (and in somewhat more absurdist terms).
Why did God need to sacrifice his son (or anything, really), to save us from his own wrath? As opposed to, I don't know, appearing to mankind and saying "Don't worry, I've chilled out. As long as you believe in me and make your best effort to follow these rules, you're good". If the sacrifice was necessary, that means God is beholden to a set of rules. If it was unnecessary, that means God is arbitrary.
Except that Hitchens paints every negative consequence of secular unreason as being in some tenuous way the fault of religion, thus painting "reason" as the opposite of religion. For example.
The 20th Century is chock full of examples of terrible things that have been done in the name of secular "reason" even if, in hindsight they seem irrational. Eugenics and Social Darwinism, for one. Pretty much the entire history of Communism, from Lenin to Stalin to Mao to Pol Pot to Castro.
I agree that it's quite possible for secular people and governments to be unreasonable to a dangerous, even lethal and totalitarian degree. Hitchens apparently disagrees.
I just really don't see why we need to bring the word "God" or "theism" into this. Those words, historically, have meant personal deities who take an active role in human history. At best, this would be Deism. But even that is misleading. I don't think we are "Deist Gods" to the electrons whose movement we control in our electronic devices. That would be a loaded and misleading description of our relationship with electrons.
Edit: I realize the electron-human thing is technically different from the simulation argument but I think you get the gist of it.
Called it.
You know that even if we grant that as a non-retarded use of the term 'reason' there is no analogy?
I view it more of us being really complex Sims, with the controller having a much broader range of capabilities and powers. That's basically a god. I think I'm a borderline deist. I think it's more likely that something with an interest in creating a simulated reality is going to want to do shit with it but: a) there's no evidence of such interference and b) there wouldn't be any necessary problems with there being interference all the time and us not knowing about it.
I like to bring the word "god" and "theism" into it because, for one, omnipotent and semi-omnipotent beings are basically gods by anyone's definition, and also because I enjoy appropriating and secularizing religious language.
I'm not super-opposed to syncretism in the abstract, but this somehow feels dishonest and manipulative. I mean, I can understand the appeal of it; many great movements in history worked because they appropriated religion as window-dressing for secularist/enlightenment ideals. It just feels ... dirty. (Not that I don't like the cut of your jib!)
I'm sympathetic to your view, people enjoy appropriating terms that sound lucid, intelligent, comforting. Who could be against reason? And that people who are unreasonable rarely view themselves as such. But I'm more interested in what actually is reasonable than what people self-identify as.
I think it would be dishonest if I didn't actually believe it. Of course it's manipulative, I want to be as manipulative as possible. I have no interest in casting haymaker bromides if they don't actually affect anything.
Except when you define "reason" as "anything I agree with" then that term ceases to have all meaning.
ACSIS also thinks he's presenting a sceptical and rational viewpoint, so how people label things isn't of magnificent utility either.
ACSIS?
You cannot compare the scientific method of falsifiable hypotheses with using the concept of "god" as a stopgap for concepts, either philosophical or scientific, that we do not yet understand.
Check out the scepticism thread.
But that's incidental.
You can insert "9/11 Truthers", "Conspiracy theorists of all stripes" or whatever the fuck else.
Argumentum ad ignorentium
As Hitchens himself says, it is more admirable to hear an argument from a position of pure faith and personal conviction than a halfhearted pseudo-scientific justification of the 'purpose' of faith couched in lazy Darwinian terms. Advancements in sociological thinking, philosophy, psychological study, neuroscience have all sought to answer the specific questions of human desires and interactions for the last 150 years. These fields are all relatively young, but that is no excuse not to include relevant modern ontology beyond what the men on the Beagle observed.
Green indicates the most useful information i've derived from this thread. Thanks for making my walls start moving inwards and outwards, Qingu. :P
I agree with what you've also been saying. Having an open mind and being abstract can be possible while also being grounded in reason and science. The universe doesn't need to have a beginning or an end brought about by a God. The more I think about it, the more like an atheist I become.
Never thought i'd be writing that.
Religion in your definition is correct as well, but assuming every part of the definition is universally true for all religions and all their rules and ideas is a bit incorrect. "Religion is the set of specific stories, rules and theological claims that serves as scaffolding for this fundamental view of the nature of reality". Stories, yes. Rules and theological claims, mostly yes. Dismissing all the claims of religion is like denying all the claims of reason and math in the abstract sense. You don't need to subscribe to the brand but you can still look at the ideas.
I still think there needs to be a balance between reason and spirituality. Science and religion are here to both compliment each other and work towards the common understanding of all mankind in all affairs. Dismissing one or the other for a fundamentalist view of one or the other is wrong. I didn't really watch the debate much, but I honestly think both men are incorrect because they refuse to accept the truths of the other side because they perceive that as undermining their views.
This claim is based on the idea that it is impossible to objectively identify things that are actually reasonable from things which are not.
Which is simply not true.
EDIT:
Which really goes back to the fact that reason is not the opposite of religion specifically, but rather all unreasonable beliefs. That secular humanism is the most reasonable belief, perhaps even the only one, is a separate claim that probably should be dealt with separately.
Yes. It's also not incompatible with it.
Except that's not the claim I'm making. It's possible to derive an objective standard for "reason," however that objective standard is value-neutral.
My biggest issue with Hitchens is that he bases his entire argument on the basic concept that anything religious is a detriment to society and everything secular and rational is a benefit to society, which leads him to make some truly spectacular leaps of logical incoherence in order to redefine anything that's secular, logical, and negative as being somehow the fault of religion and to redefine anything that's religious and positive as being not "really" religious.
Such as him describing Martin Luther King Jr. as not really being a Christian and saying that Stalinism was somehow the fault of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
You're mischaracterising his argument regarding MLK.
As I said before:
"Hitchens doesn't No True Scotsman out of inspirations of positive change. The argument around MLK is not that he wasn't a real religionist, but that there were just as many secular, liberal supporters of the civil rights movement and there was a huge amount of opposition from the religious for religiously supported reasons."
And the other stuff I said that I forgot to copypasta about how the positive effects are enlightenment morality couched in religious terms.
You're also missing the point about Stalinism. He also wasn't answering the question as explicitly or as well as he could. But still...
No, it is not. Reason is a virtue. Things which follow reason are, by virtue of being reasonable, also good.
First, why is reason a virtue?
Second, does that mean that, for example, eugenics and Social Darwinism are both good?
Because truth is a virtue, and reason is the process by which one arrives at true beliefs consistently.
If something is reasonable, it is far more likely to be true than something that is unreasonable.
No, because neither of those things is reasonable. The later is not even factually, scientifically correct; and both transgress against the Natural Rights and thus are incorrect regardless.
He explicitly states that MLK was not "really" a Christian. His other arguments about the Civil Rights movement as a whole, most of which I agree with, don't somehow change that.
Also, if religion has been used to convince people to adopt the morality of the Enlightenment, how does that then mean that religion in total is a bad thing?
In both cases, he's No True Scotsmanning all over the fucking place, or more accurately claiming that only the most fundamentalist, pre-Enlightenment take on Christianity is "really" Christianity.
So, what was the point about Stalinism?
Reason is a virtue because Ayn Rand said so:...:
So if someone logically reaches a conclusion which contradicts the morality you've arbitrary decided is the truth, it's inherently incorrect?
That's not reason, that's secular theology.
Edit: Now that I think about it, the concept of Natural Rights is a prime example of a concept that's not inherently logical or rational (since it pretty much contradicts how almost all animals including primates behave in nature) but yet belief in that concept provides an overall societal benefit.
Now, again, you can fine-tune the definition of the words "spirituality" and "religion" so that they are so nebulous and so far removed from actual religious texts that they can somehow complement science. What I am most concerned with, however, is the Bible, and what the Bible says. And I think that, to the extent that "religion" is based on what the Bible says, it is both incompatible with science and with modern society and morality.
Likewise for the Quran.
And don't get me started on the fucking Gita.
For the same reason that getting a child to take medicine with a spoonful of sugar doesn't mean eating a spoonful of sugar is healthy.
I think you are conflating two different meanings/uses of the word "natural" here. Though the philosophers who came up with natural rights did have plenty of problems with how they viewed the "state of nature."
please do!
The problem with the Gita is that too often it's treated as this standalone philosophical text; but in the context of the Mahabharata (the huge epic that contains it) the Gita is really about Krishna convincing Arjuna to go to war with his whole family, for no reason, because it's his duty as the warrior-caste to go to war.
Fucking bullshit, man! Especially since hippies always have had a boner for the Gita.
Hippies have a boner for Hinduism in general
I remember getting the impression that that speech was bullshit when I was being read it aloud as a kid, but I got distracted from that train of thought by arrows that turn into millions of arrows and kill entire armies.
I see a lot of pseudoscience/mystical stuff coming from that direction too. Something about the Nataraja at CERN because it reminded someone of the dance of particles, there's the whole cyclic Universe thing with vast timelines, and unsourced quotes from European physicists (even Einstein) praising the Vedas and Upanishads.
After embarrassing memories of years of kow-towing to statues, I'm pretty wary of this science connection some of the priests seem to be pushing.