From Beyond Belief 2006:

[chefranden]

I've just about finished watching the whole of the Beyond Belief conference on video. With participants like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Patricia Churchland, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Carolyn Porco and Elizabeth Loftus the weight of argument is going towards Reason vs. Religion as might be expected.

 

However, I think that the supporters of Reason and Religion have raised some legitimate objections. The most interesting objection IMHO is that not enough thought and research weight is being given to how people actually think. The fact that most people are religious to some greater or lessor extent (including some of the "academy" as they put it) has been to this point danced around and not really addressed except as a lament.

 

It would seem to me that this is the core question to be asked, what makes people religious in the first place? This has been dismissed in the conference with the usual, well they are scared of dying and they want something to base moral behavior on. Therefore, much of the discussion has gone towards wondering whether a non-religious moral system is plausible and what it might look like.

 

I find myself wishing that they would have invited George Lakoff to the conference and concentrated more on why people are religious instead of "how will we get rid of religion." It seems to me that they are jumping the gun, or haven't really even gotten to the real starting line yet.

 

I think that Lakoff and Johnson have their finger on at least the shadow of how the mind works* and I think their findings indicate that religion will always be with us one way or another. If this is the case, and you may have reason to think otherwise, wouldn't it be better to co-exist with religion rather than hope or work for its demise?

 

* The prototypically human reason is not disembodied nor can it be approached as consisting of independent or semi-independent modules. Several empirical evidences, based on functional neuroimaging, suggest that complex cognitive acts (mathematical modeling, for instance) result from pressure from the sensory-motor systems, suggesting the existence of limits to the modularisation hypothesis.

* Reason results from evolutive pressure and depends on the older phylogenetic structures from which it developed. As an important methodological consequence, an empirically responsible Darwinian epistemology is required.

* Reason is not predominately conscious, but subconscious, and is based on uncontrolled activities; a convincing indication that observations based on introspective methods (e.g., Phenomenology), supported by generalization of data obtained through the focus of attention, are bringing into consideration just the top of the cognitive iceberg.

* Language competence is context dependent. The Chomskian syntactical person, which assumes that language can be broken down into a discrete, structured, and atemporal set of forms and rules, must be reconsidered.

* Reason is essentially metaphoric and the cognitive metaphors through which reason is possible are based on sensory-motor systems.

* Reason is emotionally engaged. Rational processes cannot separated from emotional processes.

[Ouroboros]

It would seem to me that this is the core question to be asked, what makes people religious in the first place? This has been dismissed in the conference with the usual, well they are scared of dying and they want something to base moral behavior on. Therefore, much of the discussion has gone towards wondering whether a non-religious moral system is plausible and what it might look like.

 

I find myself wishing that they would have invited George Lakoff to the conference and concentrated more on why people are religious instead of "how will we get rid of religion." It seems to me that they are jumping the gun, or haven't really even gotten to the real starting line yet.

Very good points Chef.

 

My personal "belief" is that we'll never can get rid of religion (or should I say destructive religion), unless we fully understand why evolution caused humanity to be so easily fooled, and how to correctly train and educate kids to think and reason the right way before they become Thought Slaves. If we don't, we're just bound to invent new religions when old ones die, and any ideology could become the next tyranny.

[ML13]

Hans

Where did you get that avy from? I want to use it as a desk background.

Back to subject at hand.

[Ouroboros]

Hans

Where did you get that avy from? I want to use it as a desk background.

Back to subject at hand.

Oh. Yeah, that's a very good question... I really don't remember, but I will take a look if I have the original somewhere.

 

(Btw ML13, I can't respond to your PM, because you have blocked me!? )

[chefranden]

Very good points Chef.

 

My personal "belief" is that we'll never can get rid of religion (or should I say destructive religion), unless we fully understand why evolution caused humanity to be so easily fooled, and how to correctly train and educate kids to think and reason the right way before they become Thought Slaves. If we don't, we're just bound to invent new religions when old ones die, and any ideology could become the next tyranny.

 

 

I have some thoughts on the matter.

 

The first is that this is a side effect of civilization. It could be labeled the taming or puppy effect. Some Russians wanted to domesticate the silver fox so that they wouldn't have to go out and trap it. Adult silver fox do not get along with well with humans or each other. To fix this the Russians breed for juvenile behavior and got something more dog like. This may be part of what has happened to humans as we came out of the wild and were domesticated or tamed. I think there is some evidence that as civilization has "progressed" that juvenile behavior has come to last well into the 20's and even 30's in some people. I think that I was well into my 40's before I knew what it meant to think for myself (at least I hope I know how now.) These days you would rarely come across 16 year old people that are ready to start families at least in Western Culture. However that was a common starting point just a few generations ago. Now I wonder if 20 somethings should be allowed to start families.

 

The second idea that I have is that this is an artifact of consciousness in that consciousness overruns our native (in the brain/mind) ability to collect, collate, and store data. This probably does little harm in wild human populations, but now like with the wizard's apprentice the cool spells we've learned easily get out of hand.

 

The