The War Against Christianity

[articulett]

And one thing that really bothers me about religion is the way that they promote this idea of "divine truths" that you can only access through faith. I think it's weird and wrong to assert divine truths and then the corollary lie that faith is a good means of knowing them.

If you believe in "divine truths" than you are vulnerable to whoever convinces you they have access to them. And most, if not all religions, even the most benign seem to proffer this notion of "higher truth" that you can feel or find through faith. It makes for a world of people convinced they have some higher truth, but they don't agree with each other and there's nothing objective about each version of this "truth".

I think it's dangerous and wrong to be claiming to have "special truths" and that "faith is a gift" and that "belief is good". It's weird, untrue, divisive, and dangerous. If faith is good--then extreme faith is better. And you cannot reason with faith. Encouraging faith is like encouraging the opposite of skepticism and critical thinking.

 

[biomorph]

The only ideas of yours that I disagree with are the ones that would violate the First Amendment.

I've heard this one before, and i'm going to have to counter this argument right here and now.
Let me quote you from
http://www.illinoisfirstamendmentcenter.com/history.php
"Only two Supreme Court justices, Justice Hugo Black and Justice William O. Douglas, insisted the First Amendment rights are absolute and their dissenting opinions fell to the wayside. Most court cases involving the First Amendment involve weighing two concerns: public vs. private. Also, the Supreme Court has often defined certain speech, also known as “at risk speech,” as being unprotected by the First Amendment:
Burning draft cards to protest draft – prohibited because of superior governmental interest.
Words likely to incite imminent violence, termed “fighting words.”
Words immediately jeopardizing national security.
Newspaper publishing false and defamatory material – libel."

So the 1st is not absolute. It has had some flaws which were corrected by the supreme court.
Religion's practise encourages libel and slander (lies). As in the last paragraph.
Unless one considers that printing "If you do not convert to our god you are a sinner and will go to hell", to be true. That is not the only example.

If it's not true (that is factual) then is that not false and defamatory material? False because its a lie, and defamatory because to call one a sinner is just that. It states that one is something one is obviously not, and to the detriment of the person who is not converted.

Let me quote from that site again, with your kind permission.

"While some Supreme Court justices have declared that First Amendment freedoms are absolute or occupy a preferred position, the Court has routinely held they may be limited so as to protect the rights of others (e.g. libel, privacy), or to guard against subversion of the government and the spreading of dissension in wartime. Thus, the Court’s majority has remained firm – the First Amendment rights are not absolute."

And I see here we have

"to protect the rights of others (e.g. libel, privacy)"

Again, even in the unconverted child all religion as regard to privacy (Thrusting unwanted literature into ones hands in the street too in adults etc) has contravened this because religion is given, directly from the 1st, a special place in the legislation. This is a historical legacy, at the time in history when it was written the concept was that persecution from the English was about religious values. Those settlers from Europe were, as a top priority, trying to escape religious persecution.
That is why they left Europe.
The concept of church as state and government was also in effect to a high degree. the only freedom those settlers were really after was religious freedom.
Any atheistic tendancies where "works of the devil", and non-believers did not have the tools of scientific knowledge we have now. They were, in effect, censored by the 1st.

How is it then that now atheists have the tools, they still defend the absurd and freedom destroying religous institutions rights embedded in the 1st to inflict brainwashing inconsistancies on the populace and their innocent childrenwithout restriction?
If they do, and that is my assumption here, and only that.

So to me the place of religious freedom in the 1st is to me then is a historical oddity, an error, relevant to the time 200 yrs ago, and not now.

also I think that the protection of religion by the 1st has allowed erronious, divisive, maliciously platitudinous religious bullys to be regarded as "special".
Now there we have the foundations of religious radicalism and fundamentalism.
That special place, a womb for the biggoted , misbegotten and so-called "beneficial" baby of erronious thought.
A place reserved in law for lies and absudity.
If you look at Islamic states, where religion is the law, then thats nearer to how Europe and the US was 200 yrs ago than we are now. The 1st was written on that type of basis, and could not have been written in any other way, because of the mindset of the early Americans.
So I put it back on the agenda, postulating that it is a valid tactic to modify the 1st amendment. It's been done before, and it needs doing again. I know this may seem odd or just plain wrong to some, and maybe my quotes from another website are wrong. But my argument does i feel carry validity.

In order for skeptics and atheists to keep our right to say what we wish about religion, we have to let them spew whatever crap they want to as well. Ideally in a free society, the way you counter objectionable speech is with more speech of your own, not by censorship.

Well you said it. crap..... Objectionable speech is not the issue. Whether the viewpoint is correct or incorrect is the issue. not whether someone thinks it is. The facts speak for themselves. If a person considers a fact of reality to be objectionable, then they are the ones who will be disappointed, not reality.

Consider as well that when religious representatives get up in public and say stupid things, it exposes them for the nutjobs that they are. If you don't like what they've said, then fire your own speech right back at them. If they're going to put themselves in that position, then they're just asking for mockery, because that's all they really deserve.

Well thats a fine and good analogy, but gives the impression that free speech is the same as the equal opportunity to do so. Religion also has a long history of trying to suppress free speech and rational thought. It starts by indoctrinating children with false dogma. After that its all downhill.

In other words, you had the right idea when you said this:

The weapons of my choice are the Dawkins, Hitchins et al of the world.

Thanks, my point here is though, that these are too few and far between...
I know i'm going to get flack for my views here, as in the recent past.
I urge those detractors to try and understand the points i'm making here, rather than fall foul to gross generalisation and lack of historical context (given that my history is correct, if it isn't then that is fairplay)
I am not insulting the essential and great freedoms of the US citizen, merely i wish to point out the priviliged position that religious activity enjoys could be curtailed by a legal system that reduces it to a mere absudity, which is what it is.
I have my asbestos knickers on too, so flaming will not be effective. not that there is much of that here, but, well, they feel nice......ok thats too much detail. ......

 

[Lonewulf]

Religion's practise encourages libel and slander (lies).

Wrong. Libel and slander directly involves another person, and it cannot be prosecutable unless it can show demonstrable harm. If I claim that you are a pedophile, and because of this claim you lose money in sales because I spread this as a deliberate attack on you, I can be prosecuted with libel. Libel does not just mean "a lie".

You'd have to work very hard, to the point of Orwellian editing, to get it to mean that religion is "libelous" or "slanderous".

You'd also have to prove, in court, that religion is an intentional "lie" and not a belief system.

Just because you don't agree with a belief system, does not make it a "lie". I wish someone people would understand that...

 

[biomorph]

Lemme just say that I will never say that religion shouldn't be criticized. I just don't think it should be unjustly bashed.

I can see your point here, however the usage of "unjustly" implies that there is some merit to it.
I have difficulty with that concept.
You are playing by religion's own rules are you not?

I think there is no injustice in breaking the hold of a terrible misconception that has supressed rational and scientific thought in order to perpetuate a myth.
There is no way in my mind that it can be considered unjust to free humanity from an alienating, restrictive, reproductively active infection of the mind.
An infection that has tried stop women getting anesthetic when it was invented, while allowing males to have it for instance. There are many examples of this type of restriction, even today.

Yes there are religious asshats, but I think that they'd be atheistic asshats, given the chance.

My opinion is that they would be less inclined to be asshats if religion was unavailable. knowledge and understanding of the reality we live in would hopefully be the replacement.
There will always be asshats of course, but feed them religion and you have an asshat with attitude do you not? The world does not need the attitude part of that equation from my perpective.

Remember, religion is a human construct. It's got all the foibles that come from being one.

the keyword here for me is construct. This only a human mental construct. and as such I take it to be a false one. Demolishing that false construct takes only an level of observation of the world. Observation shows it to be an inaccurate construct of the mind, nothing more surely?

One thing that I know that I have to remember is that I need my more militant atheist brethren and sistren to help keep me honest. I hope that you can use me in a similar manner.
Don't let your dislike of the piss poor actions of certain theists make you totally negate the role of religion in humanity.

Certain theists?, the only reason they are there is because they have the basic foundations of the less radical to support them. And the role that religion plays is only restrictive, repetitive and blatently dishonest. It needlessly divides families, it creates divisions where there need be none. Religions net effect is negative, no i'll correct that. not the net effect , the only effect.
Good and kind people are not made so by religion, it just hijacks the best and the worst in humanity's natural predisposition to be either.

I hope, too, that it eventually collapses under its own weight, but humans have shown a certain resilience against violent change. I think the Canadian ideal of "evolution, not revolution" is the name of the game here. Yeah, it takes longer, but the universe has time.

Thats to me is like saying that "I hope malaria cures itself", i know that is not what you've actually said, but to me that is how it sounds. like malaria it needs treatment, it is not enough to stand by and watch your fellow humans suffer surely?. That is the whole point of what I've posted in this thread. I'm not that much of a radical either , really, just rational. (well maybe not always!)

As regards some sort of intellectual and legal supression of religion, that is surely the only recourse of the rational in the face of the priviliged, biased and intrusively destructive nature of the self perpetuating myth that infects the human mind through religion. Or do you have other weapons?

 

[biomorph]

Wrong. Libel and slander directly involves another person, and it cannot be prosecutable unless it can show demonstrable harm. If I claim that you are a pedophile, and because of this claim you lose money in sales because I spread this as a deliberate attack on you, I can be prosecuted with libel. Libel does not just mean "a lie".

You'd have to work very hard, to the point of Orwellian editing, to get it to mean that religion is "libelous" or "slanderous".

You'd also have to prove, in court, that religion is an intentional "lie" and not a belief system.

Just because you don't agree with a belief system, does not make it a "lie". I wish someone people would understand that...

ok i might be at fault on a legal premise here, i am no lawyer (i don't prefer carrion). I will have to think about the libel and slander sider of things a bit more.......
however, my agreement or not with a belief is not the issue.
The factualness of that belief is though, isn't it?

And if religion is not an intentional lie, what is it? are you saying that the practitioners of perpetuating this falsehood think they are being honest? Really?

 

[biomorph]

also Lonewulf, am i anywhere near the mark on the 1st amendment?
I await your response with anticipation, and expect a good and critical reply as you can muster. Or are you going to agree with me?

regards and happy new year

if libel and slander are out, what about fraud? any good?

 

[biomorph]

I think it's dangerous and wrong to be claiming to have "special truths" and that "faith is a gift" and that "belief is good". It's weird, untrue, divisive, and dangerous. If faith is good--then extreme faith is better. And you cannot reason with faith. Encouraging faith is like encouraging the opposite of skepticism and critical thinking.

And ignoring it, is in my opinion, tanatamount to encouragment......again Articulett, i must say I find your words agreeable.

 

[Lonewulf]

The factualness of that belief is though, isn't it?

It cannot be proven that any religious belief is entirely wrong, especially in any place such as a court of law or even the court of science.

Uninteresting, maybe, especially with unfalsifiable hypothesis', but not 100% certain to be wrong.

And if religion is not an intentional lie, what is it? are you saying that the practitioners of perpetuating this falsehood think they are being honest? Really?

I am saying that practitioners usually believe in what they are preaching, yes.

Do you have evidence that they are not?

if libel and slander are out, what about fraud? any good?

You'd still have to prove intentional dishonesty.

Some televangelists, though (and hell, some evangelists) I can see that working on.

 

[kmortis]

kmortis, a claim I often make that has yet to be truly contested is this:

The more power religion has -- over the state, or the mind -- the worse off it tends to be.

I can agree with this. Any mode of thought that gains too much control of the brain can cause problems. Personally, I think that those who become too heavenly conscience that they're no earthly good, no matter the impetus, have either made a horrible mistake (in some cases) or are mentally ill (in some other cases). Think of OCD. Is there anything really wrong with double checking the locks, especially if you live in an urban area? No. It's when that impulse becomes uncontrollable that it's an issue.

Something that is personal and does not affect someone's actual reasoning ability, is a much more harmless version of, say... the way most religion is handled in any country (even Buddhism or Hinduism, just that their injustices aren't quite as commonly touted).

Even then, I have seen no benefit of religion at all, even from an evolutionary viewpoint. If you can point out one, I'd like to see it.

About the only thing that I can think of, and mind you that I'm not a evolutionary biologist, I just like puzzles, is that religion reinforces the tribal unit. Stop thinking about modern religions. Think about the animistic and polytheistic ones that our stone-bronze aged ancestors had. Hell, look at the Roman Myths. Roman paganism was all about the strength of the state. If the proper rituals were followed, then the state prospered. If they weren't, it lagged or failed. Sure, that's one example, but we could go on. It's not a coincidence that there were a lot of divine kings, if the gods were happy, the tribe prospered. If you didn't keep the gods happy, then the tribe failed, and it was your fault.

Even in ancestor worship, it amounts to the same thing. Keep the ancestors happy...and so on. An idea that I've had for a while, but I've no way of proving it is that the "god lobe"'s strength ebbs and wanes across the spectrum of humans (you know, like every other biological thing). Those that have it the strongest become the most religious, sometimes to the point of fanaticism. Those that don't feel it at all were the atheists of the day. However, it wasn't safe to buck the system, so they would mouth the words and dance the dances and move on.

Now that a good portion of the stigma against atheism has been removed (as evidenced by us being able to discuss this openly) now it's easier for atheists to breed with other atheists. If I'm right and a portion of atheism/theism is genetic, we should start seeing a decline in theists and an increase in atheists. Granted, that trend could also be a general lessening of the stigma, but I think those are confounding factors. More atheists = lessening of stigma, which leads to more openness which leads to more "really" atheistic babies (IOW babies that are not only born atheistic, but stay that way).

"It helped make sense of the world once upon a time" counts about as much as liberals or conservatives are part of religion IMO.

This "religion trigger" I'd like to see more evidence for.

I don't understand this part. Could you expand it, please? It may be that I've not had enough coffee yet.

 

[Lonewulf]

I don't understand this part. Could you expand it, please? It may be that I've not had enough coffee yet.

I'd like to see more evidence of this "god lobe", and any of it's genetic details.

Ascribing an idea like religion to a biological organ seems... rather odd to me.

 

[kmortis]

Lemme just say that I will never say that religion shouldn't be criticized. I just don't think it should be unjustly bashed.

I can see your point here, however the usage of "unjustly" implies that there is some merit to it.
I have difficulty with that concept.
You are playing by religion's own rules are you not?

I think there is no injustice in breaking the hold of a terrible misconception that has supressed rational and scientific thought in order to perpetuate a myth.
There is no way in my mind that it can be considered unjust to free humanity from an alienating, restrictive, reproductively active infection of the mind.
An infection that has tried stop women getting anesthetic when it was invented, while allowing males to have it for instance. There are many examples of this type of restriction, even today.

No, I don't think I'm playing by religions' rules. I'm a misanthropic humanistic discordian, I'm not all that interested in what organized religion is cooking.

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it. If there's an injustice that you see, fight it. If that anesthesia story is true (and I don't doubt it, I just have no direct evidence), then that needs to be corrected (and it sounds like, in that particular example, it has).

I think our entire argument can be as follows. I think you should go after the person or persons that are performing the offending actions. You think that religion needs a global RICO act to get to the underlying corruption.

Yes there are religious asshats, but I think that they'd be atheistic asshats, given the chance.

My opinion is that they would be less inclined to be asshats if religion was unavailable. knowledge and understanding of the reality we live in would hopefully be the replacement.
There will always be asshats of course, but feed them religion and you have an asshat with attitude do you not? The world does not need the attitude part of that equation from my perpective.

I still think that if religion were to go away tomorrow, those same asshats would find a new path of oppression. WE humans are really inventive when it comes to lording over our own kind.

Remember, religion is a human construct. It's got all the foibles that come from being one.

the keyword here for me is construct. This only a human mental construct. and as such I take it to be a false one. Demolishing that false construct takes only an level of observation of the world. Observation shows it to be an inaccurate construct of the mind, nothing more surely?

I doubt it. See my discussion about the temporal lobe elsewhere.

One thing that I know that I have to remember is that I need my more militant atheist brethren and sistren to help keep me honest. I hope that you can use me in a similar manner.
Don't let your dislike of the piss poor actions of certain theists make you totally negate the role of religion in humanity.

Certain theists?, the only reason they are there is because they have the basic foundations of the less radical to support them. And the role that religion plays is only restrictive, repetitive and blatently dishonest. It needlessly divides families, it creates divisions where there need be none. Religions net effect is negative, no i'll correct that. not the net effect , the only effect.
Good and kind people are not made so by religion, it just hijacks the best and the worst in humanity's natural predisposition to be either.

See, I disagree with that assertion. I know that Dawkins wrote it, but I disagree with him. How do the Unitarians support al Queda? How does the Taoist priest support the Falun Gong? It's nice that Dawkins can make that assertion, but he forgot the most important part, the evidence that supports his theory.

I hope, too, that it eventually collapses under its own weight, but humans have shown a certain resilience against violent change. I think the Canadian ideal of "evolution, not revolution" is the name of the game here. Yeah, it takes longer, but the universe has time.

Thats to me is like saying that "I hope malaria cures itself", i know that is not what you've actually said, but to me that is how it sounds. like malaria it needs treatment, it is not enough to stand by and watch your fellow humans suffer surely?. That is the whole point of what I've posted in this thread. I'm not that much of a radical either , really, just rational. (well maybe not always!)

As regards some sort of intellectual and legal supression of religion, that is surely the only recourse of the rational in the face of the priviliged, biased and intrusively destructive nature of the self perpetuating myth that infects the human mind through religion. Or do you have other weapons?

Well, given a virulent enough strain of malaria and enough time, it could be bred out of humanity.

I think we're both rational (Lake Woebegon Effect, anyone? ), it's just that a similar data set is passing through different filters, producing different results.

I don't think it's ever a good idea to suppress ideas. That has a bad tendency of just making them stronger, in the long run.

 

[kmortis]

I'd like to see more evidence of this "god lobe", and any of it's genetic details.

Ascribing an idea like religion to a biological organ seems... rather odd to me.

Well, as soon as I become a neurologist, I'll pass it along.

Actually, I posted a video clip of Dr. Ramachandran talking about it. I don't know if he's the one who discovered it, but he's the first one I heard about it from. I know that it was discovered by observing temporal lobe ecliptics while they were having a seizure. This paper says that it was Ramachandran who discovered it in 1997. I can't find anything else on the web.

 

[Fiona]

Wrong. Libel and slander directly involves another person, and it cannot be prosecutable unless it can show demonstrable harm. nal "lie" and not a belief system.

Sorry to interrupt when the discussion seems to have moved on but I just wanted to ask: is there protection for atheists from discrimination in employment etc in US law? I know that in the uk it is illlegal to discriminate on the basis of religion: atheism is not a religion but that is not very important here because there is not strong anti-atheist feeling. At least not in my experience.

But I read somewhere else in the forums that there is quite strong anti-atheist feeling in at least some part of the US. It could presumably lead to demonstrable harm to characterise someone as an atheist in those circumstances.

Having said that libel and slander laws would not help because the attribution would be true if the victim is atheist and truth is a defense to such a charge. So even if there is harm and even if it could be prosecuted it could only be prosecuted by a relgious person .

I am still curious though

 

[kmortis]

Sorry to interrupt when the discussion seems to have moved on but I just wanted to ask: is there protection for atheists from discrimination in employment etc in US law? I know that in the uk it is illlegal to discriminate on the basis of religion: atheism is not a religion but that is not very important here because there is not strong anti-atheist feeling. At least not in my experience.

But I read somewhere else in the forums that there is quite strong anti-atheist feeling in at least some part of the US. It could presumably lead to demonstrable harm to characterise someone as an atheist in those circumstances.

Having said that libel and slander laws would not help because the attribution would be true if the victim is atheist and truth is a defense to such a charge. So even if there is harm and even if it could be prosecuted it could only be prosecuted by a relgious person .

I am still curious though

From a stand point of EEOC and Census, atheism would be a religion. From a belief system, it's not. The religious discrimination laws would apply to atheism.

 

[Fiona]

Thank you

 

[biomorph]

It cannot be proven that any religious belief is entirely wrong, especially in any place such as a court of law or even the court of science.

Uninteresting, maybe, especially with unfalsifiable hypothesis', but not 100% certain to be wrong.

I knew we would get to this one, I've had this out with a few in my time. let me explain my personal reasoning here....

The reason is that religious belief makes claims. those claims are not backed up by any evidence, and never have been.

To claim something is real (and that is what is being done) means the onus is on the party doing the claiming. As an example I provide the following illustration.

A bank gets robbed in your town.
You were in the bank at the time of the robbery.
All the forensic and eyewitness accounts point to you not being the robber in a manner that is hard (let us say almost impossible) to dispute.

According to the hypothesis you put forward here, there would always be some doubt as to whether you were the robber. You were there after all.

However according to this type of argument even if you did not in actuality rob the bank that doubt would still be there, would it not? I think it would.

But you know that you did not rob the bank, and all the (substantial) evidence supports that knowledge that you have not done so..

So for some person (a detective maybe) to say that you might have or actually (according to his belief) have robbed the bank would not be based on evidence.

Because the many and all the evidences produced do not only point to you not doing it, but point away from you as the robber.

So, in this type of case if you went to court over that allegation to defend yourself, the prosecution would have to find irrefutable, and possibly extraordinary evidence to convict you. Not evidence that flys in the face of reason, but evidence that is so reasonable as to be leading to a firm conviction and on top of that, to disprove all the other evidence that you did not rob the bank......a tall order you may think, and you'd be right.

The court correctly finds no evidence that you are guilty, and you know you are not. (and you did not do it of course) However our pet detective refuses to believe the courts decision, simply on the basis of belief.

Did you rob the bank?
No of course not.
Is the detective wrong? Yes. what the detective believes does not matter, and is simply false, and the incredibly tiny amount of probability that you did rob the bank is reliably and accurately reduced to zero. Practicality steps in and takes over.

If it did not, then we would be living in an untenable world of fantasy based on an inaccurate and (for all practicle purposes) unworkable system of thought, and that is just what religion does, as it goes..........

And even if there is still some doubt in the less well informed (uneducated) minds out there (the detective goes to the press!!) it can be discounted as in error....why? because in reality you actually did not rob the bank, and there is no evidence to support such an (outlandish) claim.

So a negative is proved enough for a very reliable (read realistic) judgment. One side is simply wrong.......and proveably so by evidence against, and no evidence for.

I am saying that practitioners usually believe in what they are preaching, yes.

Do you have evidence that they are not?

Yes. one word. Hypocrisy. And whatever they personally believe is irrelevant, either they are lying or not. And they are....

You'd still have to prove intentional dishonesty.

Intention is not the issue, come on, you know that, unintentional dishonesty is still dishonesty to the recipient is it not? . I need prove nothing on this one I think and you know it, don't you? Really?.....maybe not........

Some televangelists, though (and hell, some evangelists) I can see that working on.

so can I.....
Intention is not the issue to me, unintentional fraud is still a class of fraud. though i can see where you are going with this, though i consider this type of intellectualism pure rhetoric, nothing else.
This is akin to what i call the "Robin Hood" syndrome. He thought what he was doing was an upright and moral duty. He was still a robbing S.O.B. the people he robbed still suffered from the losses he inficted on them............

Look, religion asserts that it is highly probable that some sort of god exists.
Evidence shows us that any gods of such nature are highly improbable.

One cannot sit on the fence with this, just because one may have a small, highly improbable suspicion that the evidence is not complete. That to me is madness.

 

[biomorph]

No, I don't think I'm playing by religions' rules. I'm a misanthropic humanistic discordian, I'm not all that interested in what organized religion is cooking.

Ok fair enough

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it. If there's an injustice that you see, fight it. If that anesthesia story is true (and I don't doubt it, I just have no direct evidence), then that needs to be corrected (and it sounds like, in that particular example, it has).

It was, I think, I had a good link but I can't find it now...damn and double damn.

I think our entire argument can be as follows. I think you should go after the person or persons that are performing the offending actions. You think that religion needs a global RICO act to get to the underlying corruption.

Yes, sort of, mu attitude is go for the most vocal, and the most prominent. we could finish off the rest for tea.

I still think that if religion were to go away tomorrow, those same asshats would find a new path of oppression. WE humans are really inventive when it comes to lording over our own kind.

You are entitled to think that and i respect that, and i cannot refute it, so I 'll say yup, i'll go with that one.

I doubt it. See my discussion about the temporal lobe elsewhere.

I think the temporal lobe stuff is a derail. i wait to be proven wrong though. Genetices has nothing to do with it. Religion has simply not been around long enough to prove its benefits. Humans are way, way, older than religion. (I think)

See, I disagree with that assertion. I know that Dawkins wrote it, but I disagree with him. How do the Unitarians support al Queda? How does the Taoist priest support the Falun Gong? It's nice that Dawkins can make that assertion, but he forgot the most important part, the evidence that supports his theory.

That sort of cross polination does not happen so much, the assertion desribes a radicalisation of moderate views within a given meme. Cross transferance happens, but not much. Thats a protective feature of the individual viruses.

Well, given a virulent enough strain of malaria and enough time, it could be bred out of humanity.

I doubt this very strongly. Evidence supports outside intervention as the really effective cure. And why wait?

I think we're both rational (Lake Woebegon Effect, anyone? ), it's just that a similar data set is passing through different filters, producing different results.

Agreed.

I don't think it's ever a good idea to suppress ideas. That has a bad tendency of just making them stronger, in the long run.

I cant subscribe to that view, suppresion of the flat earth system is nearly complete. forced suppression is not, in a classical sense the answer either. the answer is to remove the foundational, fundamental right for it to thrive. Under mine it and watch it fall, though you might think my suggested tactics are not a fine example of this method. That might well be true!

 

[Herzblut]

Look, religion asserts that it is highly probable that some sort of god exists.
Evidence shows us that any gods of such nature are highly improbable.

Quantify that probability, please.

 

[tsg]

See, I disagree with that assertion. I know that Dawkins wrote it, but I disagree with him. How do the Unitarians support al Queda? How does the Taoist priest support the Falun Gong? It's nice that Dawkins can make that assertion, but he forgot the most important part, the evidence that supports his theory.

If it's the statement I think it is, what Dawkins is saying is that the mindset of religious belief, the unconditional acceptance of that which cannot be observed, and the encouragement of others to engage in that behavior by moderate believers is what enables the fundamentalists to act as they do. The only difference between moderate belief and fundamentalist belief is how far you take it. As articulett has said, the meme that faith is good is the underlying cause of fundamentalism.

 

[articulett]

I'd like to see more evidence of this "god lobe", and any of it's genetic details.

Ascribing an idea like religion to a biological organ seems... rather odd to me.

http://www.nationalpost.com/most_popular/story.html?id=197496
http://www.slate.com/id/2165004/

We actually evolved to associate correlation with causation, trust those in authority, form in-group attachments as a kind of insurance policy, detect agency, and tell stories to pass on knowledge-- religion hijacks some of these things...

In some ways it rides along primal instincts (fear of death) and hijacks them to spread itself similar to the way a venereal disease uses the sex drive of animals to spread itself.

Not all of them are dangerous, but they all do support this notion of "divine truths"-- that can be accessed by faith... I think that is dangerous. We have mental quirks that make us very vulnerable to believing this, and it simply is not true. And truths arrived at via "faith" are not controllable or subject to reason-- as long as people believe someone has access to divine knowledge, they are vulnerable to whomever can convince them that it's they who has that knowledge. And I think society, with it's silence, encourages this notion that faith IS good-- a means of knowledge--necessary for morality, happiness, and salvation.