The "What should replace religion?" question

[Quinn]

And since your very cynical ideal appears to be a society "where religion simply (?!) wasn't part of day-to-day life, for the bereaved (!!!) or for anyone (!!!) else",

Do you really find that notion horrifying enough to warrant italics, two sets of triple exclamation points, and an interrobang?

 

[mutile]

Nothing is needed in its place, it serves no useful purpose.

 

[dann]

Do you really find that notion horrifying enough to warrant italics, two sets of triple exclamation points, and an interrobang?

Yes, apparently I do!

As a race we tend to like other people. We're not like bears, roaming the woods alone, meeting up only once a year to mate. We also tend to empathize with others, but among atheists the notion that losing loved ones can make us so desperately sad that we find it unbearable to deal with the loss, to the extent that we make up fairy tales to comfort ourselves, seems to be worse than the bereavement itself.
Why do some atheists think less of other people, to the extent of acquiring "a rather dim view of human nature", merely because these other people aren't very good at handling this loss or other "things going south"? Unfortunately, some of the things that may drive us to the brink of insanity are also very important and necessary parts of what makes us human.
Love and empathy and the need to feel safe and secure make us susceptible to religion, but it requires quite a bit of misery to turn us into true believers, which is why the best and only successful way to fight religion is to create conditions where people can feel safe and secure. And it is actually possible to accomplish.

 

[Correa Neto]

So now you blame the pattern-seeking tendency of humanity? You don't seem to grasp the fact that we're not living in the times when mankind huddled together around the campfire, at the mercy of the elements, when nobody knew anything and had to make up stories to explain what (= who) made it rain and snow. A religious person doesn't ask questions. A religious person doesn't want to know. The religious sentiment requires very specific (= comforting) answers. This has nothing to do with pattern seeking. Neither do the answers "**** happens" or "it was your fault", by the way, answers favoured my many atheists, apparently.

"Blame the pattern-seeking tendency of humanity"? Its one of the factors behind magic thinking, which is one of the things within and behind religion, in my opinion. That's my position and its far from "blaming" anything. You do seem have a tendency to oversimplify the positions of those you do not agree with.

Regarding what you wrote about the times we live, right now people are living at very different conditions regarding safety, health, education, culture, etc . Religion quite often may be the only thing giving them hope, reason, sense, answer. Most humans, ufortunately, are not living in conditions similar to Scandinavia and I bet even there some people find a much needed shelter in religion.

Many atheists seem to enjoy their own cleverness when they come up with these answers - unlike Christians, who blame God or the Devil. And indeed, hurricane Katrina may simply have happened, but being dirt poor and unable to get out of its way didn't just happen. The same thing can be said about most other so-called natural disasters this day and age. They may be natural, but their disastrous impact on people's lives isn't. People aren't poor and miserable because "**** happens".

To a point, yes, people are poor and miserable because "**** happens". They are poor and miserable because the odds of a random human being being poor and miserable are much higher than the odds of him/her being rich. That's the nature of our society as a whole, due to its demographic distribution of wealth. Puting the blame on something else - be it Satan, the evil imperialists or the unbelievers - is an old and tried tactics used by religious and politic leaders countless times across history. Another tactic used by religion is to promisse a reward in the afterlife. Both are good ways to provide answers and keep the people obedient, especially because these answers sound good to many. Its just one of the things religion uses; its not something clever atheists enjoy to use as an answer. Its a tool -one of the tools- used by religions.

It is impossible! There is always going to be somebody who is struck by lightning, dies from a rare and until now undiscovered genetic defect etc. - and that somebody's relatives - who may therefore (and in spite of knowing all there is to know about electricity, the atmosphere, genetics etc. - feel the need to come up with comforting answers that are out of this world. This, by the way, is how some religious people argue the alleged necessity of religion, as if comforting, supernatural answers cannot be made up on the spot when somebody feels the need.
The fundamentalism of atheists in this question begins when they try to argue against this religious argument, instead of simply acknowledging that, yes, it is impossible to eradicate the need for religion one hundred per cent, since it's impossible to eradicate unfortunate accidents one hundred per cent, but 99,5 % would be satisfactory, too!
And the prevalent misery doesn't result from a stroke of fate ....

You say its impossible to "end" religion. I don't know if it is or not, I see no clear trend. Even if possible, I don't know how long it would take, neither exactly how it could be done. I tend to believe (note the chosen words) its possible but only on the very long run (centuries, maybe), through secular education and secular states coupled with a brutal improvment in the overall conditions of life. A huge and unlikely shift in our societies (at least anytime soon). By the way, I hope you have noticed I am not defending the end of religion or a fight against religion. I defend, I support the combat against fanatics and the influence of religion in the state. Its a more realistic target, despite not being an easy one.

As for the prevalent misery, its not fate. I don't think fate exists. It comes from our society, from our culture, from our economies. They force most human beings to live in harsh conditions. Religion has a role on this, its part of this.

Sorry, but it seems to me that you tend to forget what the argument was:
I said:
Originally Posted by dann
I don't know, I didn't count them. Did you?! Who cares if the dying turn to woo anyway? I can't think of anything to lift their spirits in that situation - except, maybe, that I hope that they've lived fulfulling and satisfying lives, which, on the other hand, I know that many of them haven't. I certainly don't intend to preach atheism to them. I'm concerned with the living, not the dying, sorry!
Because you had said:

Originally Posted by Correa Neto
How many well educated people with secure lives we know turned to woo, for example, when faced with death?

It seems you somehow concluded "when faced with death" was a refference restricted to the dying ones. That was not the intent, I meant the dying, those who care about the dying and those who face the possibility of dying. In my personal worldview, all of them must be supported through all possible and reasonable means.

Which to me seems to indicate that you don't really know what you're talking about. Religious fanaticism is more or less a thing of the past in Denmark and Sweden. I don't really care if it happened too slow for your tastes, nor do I find your argument against decreasing "religious fanaticism and fundamentalism" particularly bright: that it does not "make religion go away", since it actually does seem to make religion 'go away' for a lot of people.

Religious fanaticism may not be an issue for those who are lucky enough to have been born in Denmark and Sweden, where "it is more or less a thing of the past". Too bad its an issue for me, since I am seeing an increase in these things, because by chance I happened to born and to live in Brazil. But hey, I don't know what I am talking about...

By the way, are you sure I actually want religion to "go away for a lot of people"? Are you sure I think the decrease in religious fanatism in Denmark and Sweden or anywhere else was "too slow for my tastes"?

I am not arguing religions should be terminated because I see no reasons and no means, no ways for this happening anytime soon. Do you think I should be asking for it? Fanatism, the interference of religion on science and the societies supposed to be secular and the use of religion to support prejudice, well, these things I oppose to, I am quite vocal against them. I see no reasons why I should not adopt strong positions against them.

I do think many aspects of our society and behavior -religion is one of them- have roots in or evolutionary past. Yes, in my views we are nothing but very complex apes with very complex behaviors (even tough I don't know how predictable our behaviors can be based solely on these evolutionary ties). I think this is one of the things we disagree. If we will ever be able to, through reason, completely overcome this heritage and if this would be a desirable goal, I don't know, I don't pretend to know and don't think we will be able to know anytime soon.

Yes, I do agree with many -but not all- positions from Dawkins. Yes, my views quite often clash with those from some of the people who don't like the "New Atheist" positions and with some of the people who do. By the way, I happen not to like the "New Atheist" labell but also to see in some of their critics high dosis of the very same "radicalism" they accuse the "New Atheists" of. Like as if nothing good can ever come out from "the other side" and no quarter should be given. It seems we also disagree on this.

 

[dann]

"Blame the pattern-seeking tendency of humanity"? Its one of the factors behind magic thinking, which is one of the things within and behind religion, in my opinion. That's my position and its far from "blaming" anything. You do seem have a tendency to oversimplify the positions of those you do not agree with.

No, it's not "one of the factors behind magic thinking". You might as well blame the ability to think: Without it people wouldn't be able to make wrong conclusions, i.e. no religion! So where do we stop when we are looking for "factors"? I recommend that we include only those that are significant for religious thinking and not any kind of thinking. (Or should we include oxygen as well? Without it the brain doesn't work too well, so no oxygen = no religion!)

Regarding what you wrote about the times we live, right now people are living at very different conditions regarding safety, health, education, culture, etc . Religion quite often may be the only thing giving them hope, reason, sense, answer. Most humans, ufortunately, are not living in conditions similar to Scandinavia and I bet even there some people find a much needed shelter in religion.

I wouldn't bet against you because you're right! But you shouldn't pretend that I've been trying to say that conditions all over the planet are the way they are in Scandinavia. The most obvious comparison in this discussion has been with the USA. Even so, we come to very different conclusions: You say that religion "may be the only thing giving them (poor people everywhere) hope" etc., but you seem to forget that this is what I've been saying the whole time: When people see no reason for hope anywhere in the real world, they tend to find it beyond the real world, i.e. in the unreal world, in religion, in the "opiuim of the people".
And thank you for the opportunity to make it absolutely clear that I'm not trying to idealize conditions in Scandinavia. Phil Zuckerman, by the way, tends to do so, but it is actually quite difficult to avoid giving that impression when you compare conditions in Denmark and Sweden with conditions in the USA. And the whole time my point has been that even the level of safety and security of living conditions in Scandinavia appears to be enough to make a significant difference in the impact of religion.
Now your argument appears to be that since a lot of people in the world lead incredibly ****** lives we should be grateful and say, thank you, God, for religion. Hallelujah. (But maybe I misunderstand what you're trying to say here.) My argument is that people shouldn't have to lead these incredibly ****** lives, and when they do, they should resort to changing the conditions rather than seeking comfort in an imaginary 'meaning of life'. Even the fight against these conditions is a step away from religion, by the way.

To a point, yes, people are poor and miserable because "**** happens". They are poor and miserable because the odds of a random human being being poor and miserable are much higher than the odds of him/her being rich.

The odds??! You seem to think that we are talking about some kind of heavenly bet, like the one Lucifer had with God about Job?

That's the nature of our society as a whole, due to its demographic distribution of wealth.

Yes, indeed, it is the nature of our society as a whole, which is why society as a whole stinks and should be done a way with.

Puting the blame on something else - be it Satan, the evil imperialists or the unbelievers - is an old and tried tactics used by religious and politic leaders countless times across history. Another tactic used by religion is to promisse a reward in the afterlife. Both are good ways to provide answers and keep the people obedient, especially because these answers sound good to many. Its just one of the things religion uses; its not something clever atheists enjoy to use as an answer. Its a tool -one of the tools- used by religions.

You are actually more right than you probably think that you are: Even imperialism cannot be explained away by pointing at evil imperialists!
However, now you seem to explain away religion the same way Acleron did: Evil religious leaders use it as a "tactic" as a "[/QUOTE]". In reality, if it isn't there already people make it up as they go along. When the need is there, religion is there. When it isn't, religion dies away. Case in point: present-day Scandinavia.

You say its impossible to "end" religion. I don't know if it is or not, I see no clear trend. Even if possible, I don't know how long it would take, neither exactly how it could be done. I tend to believe (note the chosen words) its possible but only on the very long run (centuries, maybe), through secular education and secular states coupled with a brutal (??!) improvment in the overall conditions of life. A huge and unlikely shift in our societies (at least anytime soon). By the way, I hope you have noticed I am not defending the end of religion or a fight against religion. I defend, I support the combat against fanatics and the influence of religion in the state. Its a more realistic target, despite not being an easy one.

Sometimes (now, for instance) you're a little hard to understand. However, in the case of Scandinavia, it didn't seem to take centuries for religion to lose its grip on (most) people's lives. Feel free to limit yourself to your more "realistic target". The irony in Scandinavia, of course, (and one that Phil Zuckerman isn't blind to), is that religion seems to have lost its hold on peoples souls not least because we are 'blessed' with a state church: see point 4) and 5)!

As for the prevalent misery, its not fate. I don't think fate exists. It comes from our society, from our culture, from our economies. They force most human beings to live in harsh conditions. Religion has a role on this, its part of this.

I couldn't agree more!

It seems you somehow concluded "when faced with death" was a refference restricted to the dying ones. That was not the intent, I meant the dying, those who care about the dying and those who face the possibility of dying. In my personal worldview, all of them must be supported through all possible and reasonable means.

Since I'm irreligious I can't think of anybody who doesn't "face the possibility of dying". Some of them may be in denial of the fact, but ....

Religious fanaticism may not be an issue for those who are lucky enough to have been born in Denmark and Sweden, where "it is more or less a thing of the past". Too bad its an issue for me, since I am seeing an increase in these things, because by chance I happened to born and to live in Brazil. But hey, I don't know what I am talking about...

I don't see religion dying out any day in the near future in Brazil. Living conditions being what they are, it doesn't seem possible, but why limit ourselves to the near future?

By the way, are you sure I actually want religion to "go away for a lot of people"? Are you sure I think the decrease in religious fanatism in Denmark and Sweden or anywhere else was "too slow for my tastes"?

No, I'm not, but it seemed to be what you were saying.

I am not arguing religions should be terminated because I see no reasons and no means, no ways for this happening anytime soon. Do you think I should be asking for it? Fanatism, the interference of religion on science and the societies supposed to be secular and the use of religion to support prejudice, well, these things I oppose to, I am quite vocal against them. I see no reasons why I should not adopt strong positions against them.

Neither do I. What I've been saying the whole time is that in order to fight religion you have to fight the conditions that give people the need for it.

I do think many aspects of our society and behavior -religion is one of them- have roots in our evolutionary past. Yes, in my views we are nothing but very complex apes with very complex behaviors (even though I don't know how predictable our behaviors can be based solely on these evolutionary ties). I think this is one of the things we disagree. If we will ever be able to, through reason, completely overcome this heritage and if this would be a desirable goal, I don't know, I don't pretend to know and don't think we will be able to know anytime soon.

Yes, we do disagree: Religion isn't natural. There's no such thing in the animal kingdom, no congregations of apes or dolphins gathering to worship the one true .... something. You might argue that without the natural need to feel safe and secure we also wouldn't have the need for an imaginariy deity to give us this feeling when reality doesn't provide it, but that is the extent to which nature is relevant in this context.
(I already mentioned mankind's tendency to empathize with fellow human beings, and you could, of course, argue that without it, losing loved ones wouldn't make some people turn to religion for comfort.)

Yes, I do agree with many -but not all- positions from Dawkins. Yes, my views quite often clash with those from some of the people who don't like the "New Atheist" positions and with some of the people who do. By the way, I happen not to like the "New Atheist" labell but also to see in some of their critics high dosis of the very same "radicalism" they accuse the "New Atheists" of. Like as if nothing good can ever come out from "the other side" and no quarter should be given. It seems we also disagree on this.

Maybe. As I've said before: The comfort that religion offers people is what makes religion dangerous. If crystal meth didn't make people feel so good, they wouldn't use it in the first place ...

 

[dann]

How many well educated people with secure lives we know turned to woo, for example, when faced with death?

I already mentioned (and quoted) the woman working in a hospice, who claimed that fear of death was something she experienced in Christians rather than in atheists/agnostics.

This was probably the only thing that surprised me when I read Society without God, and ever since, I've been wondering why it may be so. I think I've come up with a probable explanation:
In a recent article Jamy Ian Swiss has the following explanation for why people cling to their belief in psychics even when they've reached a point where it should have become obvious that their psychics are nothing but predatory frauds:

Already, testimony has been given by a 72-year-old grandmother who claims to have given Marks about one million dollars over a thirty-year period, much of which she had borrowed from a friend in order to keep from losing the psychic’s predatory counsel.

Another woman had provided the psychic with a half million dollars in cash and gold coins that the psychic had allegedly only borrowed, promising to remove curses and other bad vibes from the riches before returning them all to their rightful owner. But then after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City, the psychic told her client that all of the valuables had been destroyed as they had been in a safe located in the World Trade Center.

And most dramatically so far is testimony from a woman who enlisted the psychic’s assistance in trying to regain the romantic attentions of her husband, as well as seeking to obtain portions of his estate following his death, despite his having left her out of his will. And in a truly soapy operatic turn, the former wife was also trying to prevent the deceased husband’s subsequent lover from using the frozen sperm he had donated for the purpose of her having his child post mortem.

Still to come: anticipated testimony from world-renowned romance novel author Jude Deveraux who allegedly was taken for 17 million dollars over a twenty-year period.

Doubtless readers – and perhaps jurors as well – will find it difficult to understand how such people continue to pour good money after bad into the pockets of these cold-blooded predators. There is no simple answer, but much of it can be found in this sentence quoted in an article in the “Orlando Sun-Sentinel”:

"I was in so far, I had nothing to do but believe her. I didn't see any way out.”
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/2204-psychic-secrets.html

This must be similar to what Christians (and other people who believe in an afterlife) experience when they are about to die. Unlike unbelievers, who have lived their lives as if there is just the one, believers have bargained with their own imagination and given up on a lot of enjoyable (but sinful!) experiences during their lifetimes in order to avoid being punished by God and to be allowed into Heaven when they die. But since they're believers, not knowers, they must be aware of the fact that their renunciation of (some of) the pleasures of life at least may have been in vain. And now they worry that they may have given up 'living their lives to the fullest' - with no reward in an afterlife to make up for the sacrifice. It doesn't make much difference if they haven't actively renounced any pleasures but were forced by (societal) circumstances to work hard and earn enough to remain alive and poor, i.e. have comforted themselves with the idea of an afterlife as compensation for the valley of tears that was forced upon them.

I hope that Christians at least appreciate the irony that they aren't even rewarded with the one thing that they always seem to think that atheists envy them: the peaceful ending free from worries.

 

[Correa Neto]

No, it's not "one of the factors behind magic thinking". You might as well blame the ability to think: Without it people wouldn't be able to make wrong conclusions, i.e. no religion! So where do we stop when we are looking for "factors"? I recommend that we include only those that are significant for religious thinking and not any kind of thinking. (Or should we include oxygen as well? Without it the brain doesn't work too well, so no oxygen = no religion!)

Magic thinking arises, I think, because humans seek answers, reasons, connections and patterns. A mistaken connection may create magical thinking. This happened in the past and still happens. Og thought performing a given ritual increased the odds of killing a big deer 10Ky ago – never mind all the hours he spent tracking the beast. Two hours ago, Joe concluded Jesus was behind his cure – never mind the hospital, the medicines and the doctors.
Religion has multiple factors, some irrational, some rational; there’s no functional simple approach, there are too many individual cases and situations.

I wouldn't bet against you because you're right! But you shouldn't pretend that I've been trying to say that conditions all over the planet are the way they are in Scandinavia. The most obvious comparison in this discussion has been with the USA. Even so, we come to very different conclusions: You say that religion "may be the only thing giving them (poor people everywhere) hope" etc., but you seem to forget that this is what I've been saying the whole time: When people see no reason for hope anywhere in the real world, they tend to find it beyond the real world, i.e. in the unreal world, in religion, in the "opiuim of the people".

I am not pretending this. I think you are not taking in to consideration, at least with the weight I think should be given, the cultural, historic, economic, etc. differences that exist across the world and among individuals. If it’s good for USA it may not be good for Brazil (the original sentence said the opposite). If it works for me, maybe it will not work for you. Your utopia may not be mine’s.

Now your argument appears to be that since a lot of people in the world lead incredibly ****** lives we should be grateful and say, thank you, God, for religion. Hallelujah. (But maybe I misunderstand what you're trying to say here.)

Yes, you are deeply, completely misunderstanding it all. For whatever reason you sometimes somehow conclude I have positions I do not, usually antagonistic to yours. Its true I do not agree with everything you think but I also happen not to disagree with everything you think.
My argument is that nowadays religions are the main if not the only source of comfort for many people around the world. That’s one of the reasons they are not going away anytime soon, any attempts to turn these people away from religion will most likely be doomed to failure and if successful, there’s a good chance it’ll wreck even more some of these people.
I happen to know not a few of these people who live in ****** conditions –its one of the consequences of living in the developing world. Some of these people adopted rather radical interpretations of religion, diametrically opposed to my views. Guess what? I do not discuss religion and god with them. I avoid these topics. Seeing their beliefs questioned would be stressful for them, losing their faiths would do them no good at all – its what keep them going.

My argument is that people shouldn't have to lead these incredibly ****** lives, and when they do, they should resort to changing the conditions rather than seeking comfort in an imaginary 'meaning of life'. Even the fight against these conditions is a step away from religion, by the way.

I do not disagree. I happen to agree, actually. I think, however, it will not make religion go away, just decrease its relevance. Note, however, that there is a huge pressure to avoid actually changing the way of life. Priests, pastors, mullahs and politicians try to make sure it will not happen.

You are actually more right than you probably think that you are: Even imperialism cannot be explained away by pointing at evil imperialists!
However, now you seem to explain away religion the same way Acleron did: Evil religious leaders use it as a "tactic" . In reality, if it isn't there already people make it up as they go along. When the need is there, religion is there. When it isn't, religion dies away. Case in point: present-day Scandinavia.

See? You are doing it again… Oversimplifying my positions… And being condescendent “You are actually more right than you probably think that you are”.
Demonizing, creating an external enemy… These tactics are common in politics (and religion can quite often be reduced to politics and economics) and can be easily seen in religion and in the horrible politics-religion mix. This doesn’t mean I said or wrote or think or concluded religion is all about it! Religion and many religious leaders use it, among other tools. Some use more than others, a few don’t use it at all.

Since I'm irreligious I can't think of anybody who doesn't "face the possibility of dying". Some of them may be in denial of the fact, but ....

Please… You know what I am talking about. You know it, you understand it. I am not such a bad writer. And remember: it may work for you, but it may not work for the human being standing next to you.

I don't see religion dying out any day in the near future in Brazil. Living conditions being what they are, it doesn't seem possible, but why limit ourselves to the near future?

That was a link towards an article about Venezuela, Neobolivarianism and Hugo Chavez, stuff for the politics subforum. I failed to see the links between it and the future of religion here in Brazil.
I also happened not to see where I wrote something about limiting speculations about the possible futures of religion to the near future. I think, however, we can not see too much far beyond in time. Recent history can provide examples of it.

Yes, we do disagree: Religion isn't natural. There's no such thing in the animal kingdom, no congregations of apes or dolphins gathering to worship the one true .... something. You might argue that without the natural need to feel safe and secure we also wouldn't have the need for an imaginariy deity to give us this feeling when reality doesn't provide it, but that is the extent to which nature is relevant in this context.
(I already mentioned mankind's tendency to empathize with fellow human beings, and you could, of course, argue that without it, losing loved ones wouldn't make some people turn to religion for comfort.)

Religion is natural to human beings. It is something we created. It is natural for human beings to build bridges, create political systems, love, hate, make wars, build airplanes just like it is natural for chimpanzees to eat fruits, hunt other primates in groups, build nests, wage wars against other groups of chimpanzees, display a given hierarchical structure, etc. We can and should argue, discuss, decide if this or that human creation is or not desirable, ethical, whatever, for a given culture or individual within a given background, etc. Not to mention humans being great apes, whose antecessors and “cousins” are known for exhibiting social behavior (being social animals), our empathizing with other members of our species is something to be expected, natural for us. Just like waging wars against other groups. But maybe this is material for another thread- actually I bet there are already some threads about it around.

Maybe. As I've said before: The comfort that religion offers people is what makes religion dangerous. If crystal meth didn't make people feel so good, they wouldn't use it in the first place ...

Not all chemical sources of pleasure and comfort are equal. Beer, meth, LSD, pot, wine, peyote, etc. should not be dumped at the same bin. Same is valid for religions. There are many variants, some are more harmful than others, just like drugs. Use with caution.

 

[deaman]

The greater the fear/anxiety within a person (about past, future and current situations), the greater the attraction of religions.

 

[dann]

I collected some links to studies of this theme in a post in this thread:
How a lack of control leads to superstition

 

[dann]

Magic thinking arises, I think, because humans seek answers, reasons, connections and patterns.

No, it doesn't! And this is where not only you but also Dawkins and Skinner go wrong. Like I said, the ability to think, i.e. to "seek answers, reasons, connections and patterns" may be the precondition for coming up with wrong answers, reasons, connections and patterns, much the same way science is the precondition for wrong science, but it's not the cause of religion or superstition. Religion and superstition aren't 'science gone wrong'.
I happened to watch the Dawkins documentary The Enemies of Reason two days ago, so now I know why many Dawkins fans seem to be so infatuated with Skinner and his pigeons - and I also know exactly why they're wrong. I'll return with my explanation in a couple of days.

 

[Correa Neto]

No, it doesn't! And this is where not only you but also Dawkins and Skinner go wrong. Like I said, the ability to think, i.e. to "seek answers, reasons, connections and patterns" may be the precondition for coming up with wrong answers, reasons, connections and patterns, much the same way science is the precondition for wrong science, but it's not the cause of religion or superstition. Religion and superstition aren't 'science gone wrong'.
I happened to watch the Dawkins documentary The Enemies of Reason two days ago, so now I know why many Dawkins fans seem to be so infatuated with Skinner and his pigeons - and I also know exactly why they're wrong. I'll return with my explanation in a couple of days.

Of course religion and superstition are not 'science gone wrong'! I never said or wrote they are. This is just wrong. I doubt Dawkins would say something like that and if he said, well, I disagree with him. Science is not religion, religion is not science. Yes, they do overlap, as attempts to understand the world. Science shows you why and how the apple felt from the tree, how fast it will hit the ground, the heat generated by the impact, etc. Religions propose meanings for this event (note- some philosophers also try to find or see meanings). Religions are not mere quests for answers; they contain behavior guidelines, cultural identities and power/status structures. If they are desirable or not is something else.

As for pigeons and their rituals, remember while writing your explanation that to say an inherited trait lies at the root of a given human behavior (or can be recognized within it) is quite far from saying that it is the single and only cause and sole conditioning variable. Otherwise you may find out you are countering a position that was never actually held or a mistaken interpretation of it. Another thing that must not be forgotten, is the possible cumulative effect of reinforcement, even if subtle. We are animals, after all, billions of years of evolution are behind us. Reinforcement is there within superstition, within religion and why not, within science. This doesn’t mean that’s all those human constructs are all about. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean free will is real.

 

[dann]

Of course religion and superstition are not 'science gone wrong'! I never said or wrote they are. This is just wrong.

Yes, it is wrong, and it is possible that I may have misunderstood what you were trying to say. What you did say, however, was:

Magic thinking arises, I think, because humans seek answers, reasons, connections and patterns. A mistaken connection may create magical thinking.

Seeking answers, reasons, connections and patterns, however, is what science does, and it does so by collecting data and analyzing them, whereas religion from the word go is looking for particular answers and only uses empirical data to 'prove' the 'answers' that it came up with in advance without these data. Thus a preacher is able to see God's creation (and nothing but that) because it's the only answer he's looking for.

I doubt Dawkins would say something like that and if he said, well, I disagree with him. Science is not religion, religion is not science. Yes, they do overlap, as attempts to understand the world. Science shows you why and how the apple fell from the tree, how fast it will hit the ground, the heat generated by the impact, etc. Religions propose meanings for this event (note- some philosophers also try to find or see meanings). Religions are not mere quests for answers; they contain behavior guidelines, cultural identities and power/status structures. If they are desirable or not is something else.

Well, I already mentioned how science and religion differ from the very outset, but you could say that science contains guidelines as well: If nuclear power, for instance, cannot be harnessed in a way that makes it safe, it's a bad idea to build nuclear power plants if your intentions are to supply ordinary people with electricity. (You could say the same thing about capitalism if your analysis of this means of production comes up with a similar result.)

As for pigeons and their rituals, remember while writing your explanation that to say an inherited trait lies at the root of a given human behavior (or can be recognized within it) is quite far from saying that it is the single and only cause and sole conditioning variable. Otherwise you may find out you are countering a position that was never actually held or a mistaken interpretation of it. Another thing that must not be forgotten, is the possible cumulative effect of reinforcement, even if subtle. We are animals, after all, billions of years of evolution are behind us. Reinforcement is there within superstition, within religion and why not, within science. This doesn’t mean that’s all those human constructs are all about. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean free will is real.

The documentary The Enemies of Reason claims (according to Wiki's summary):

Dawkins next attempts his own explanation of belief in the paranormal in a combination of evolutionary and psychological terms, saying: "we don’t want to believe things just happen", and he suggests superstition is just the sort of animal error committed by Skinner’s pigeons.

What we see is a pigeon whose behaviour, spinning around to the left, has been reinforced by feeding it every time it does so until the pigeon has 'learned' to expect food to appear whenever it makes this turn. And why not? If the pigeon actually managed reasoning to the extent of drawing conclusions, it would know that when it does a certain thing, food appears. Now the trick is to stop feeding it, and it is no big surprise that the pigeon continues to spin around itself, to the left, expecting food to arrive - in vain. And this is what Dawkins interprets as a rudimentary form of superstition.
And it's not that I'll deny certain similarities between pigeon and human behaviour in this respect. I had to change a password 10 days ago, and ever since then I have been repeating the pattern of using my old one to gain access to my account - also in vain, of course. So in some respects I may be as dumb as a pigeon, but what does it have to do superstition? Absolutely nothing! It's a case of old habits die hard. In me as well as in the pigeon.
And I comfort myself with the fact that even though I may be as dumb as pigeon when it comes to breaking with a behavioural pattern that has been rendered obsolete, Dawkins is actually dumber: Interpreting this as superstition is something that would never have occurred to the pigeon. And it only occurs to Dawkins because his reasoning in this case is partisan: Religious people are dumb pigeons, clinging to obsolete behaviour, unlike superior analytical observers like Dawkins whose behaviour is never temporarily influenced in the slightest by the patterns of old habits.
Yeah, right!

And I hope that his (and probably Skinner's) flawed thinking has become obvious to you by now: Even the pigeon with the reinforced behaviour stops at a certain point when the reward no longer appears. (Of course, it may also continue, placed as it is in an environment where getting food is completely out of its control: What else is a dumb pigeon to do?) Religion, however, is a 'reward' in itself, the 'opium of the people', since it is invented from the very beginning to comfort you in circumstances where you need comforting exactly because reality doesn't provide you with any 'rewards'.

And let me stress again for the umpteenth time: This is not a praise for religion. This is severe criticism of the conditions that make people need to be comforted by superstious/religious ideas.

 

[dann]

My argument is that nowadays religions are the main if not the only source of comfort for many people around the world. That’s one of the reasons they are not going away anytime soon, any attempts to turn these people away from religion will most likely be doomed to failure and if successful, there’s a good chance it’ll wreck even more some of these people.
I happen to know not a few of these people who live in ****** conditions –it's one of the consequences of living in the developing world. Some of these people adopted rather radical interpretations of religion, diametrically opposed to my views. Guess what? I do not discuss religion and god with them. I avoid these topics. Seeing their beliefs questioned would be stressful for them, losing their faiths would do them no good at all – its what keep them going.

I agree. When dealing with people in similar circumstances, I'll rather talk about what's wrong with the world (and what we might do to change it) than about religion, which is only a symptom of these circumstances. Unless they resort to harmful alt med, I'm not particularly interested in talking about the way they try to comfort themselves.

I do not disagree. I happen to agree, actually. I think, however, it will not make religion go away, just decrease its relevance. Note, however, that there is a huge pressure to avoid actually changing the way of life. Priests, pastors, mullahs and politicians try to make sure it will not happen.

Decreasing religion's relevance by improving the standards of living for everybody is fine by me.

Studies also suggest that income inequality is bad for people’s well-being, health and happiness.
Consider Denmark. According to the CIA’s World Fact Book, Denmark is the fifth most equal society in the world. Danes regularly rank as the happiest people on the planet.
Bent Greve, a social scientist at Roskilde University in Denmark, likes the way Danish society is set up – Danes have essentially free health care and education.
“We have trust in each other, we can walk safely down the streets at night, having a lower level of crime,” said Greve. “We don’t have to be afraid of growing old, because we have a social security safety net.”
But this also comes with a cost: Danes are among the most heavily taxed people on the planet.
http://www.theworld.org/2013/07/pre...al-argument-against-rising-income-inequality/

This is what made religion go away in Scandinavia to the extent that priests, pastors and mullahs have become more and more irrelevant and this is what has made many of them doubt their faith and become cultural Christians rather than true believers. (Not to the extent of making religion obsolete, however. There is still poverty and thus the need for the imaginary comfort that religion supplies has not died out completely.)
Unfortunately, the same thing did not happen to politicians, and we have an abundance of them who would like to reintroduce the conditions that make many people resort to magical thinking.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...nequality-rising-in-most-developed-countries/

 

[dann]

Religion is natural to human beings. It is something we created. It is natural for human beings to build bridges, create political systems, love, hate, make wars, build airplanes just like it is natural for chimpanzees to eat fruits, hunt other primates in groups, build nests, wage wars against other groups of chimpanzees, display a given hierarchical structure, etc.

Unlike the need for air to breathe, water (or some concoction with water as the main ingredient) to drink, food to eat, temperatures within a certain limit, pleasant company, the expectation of a safe and secure life for yourself and your loved ones, and sex for pleasure (independent of what nature may have intended), however, the need for religion tends to go away as long as the former needs are met. Homo Saps can actually live good lives without religion (and most certainly without making wars!!!).
That's how natural religion is. I know that a condition without abject poverty may seem to be a rather alien concept to somebody living in Brazil - much the same way that US psychologists tend to be unable to discover nothing but genetic dispositions for competitiveness in all of their experiments - but there is nothing natural about it.

And you may not have noticed, but wars aren't waged by poor suckers who just can't help themselves because they are unable to suppress their own urges for aggression. Some of the poor suckers who do the actual fighting for the war mongers may find it hard to manage their anger, but in the army they are trained (more or less successfully) to shoot only the people that their commanders order them to shoot.
Unsuccessful anger control may result in a pub brawl or two. It doesn't make you invade Poland!

And this also appears to be something that many Americans find it hard to grasp - in spite of the lessons from Jon Stewart and The Daily Show: Not only do we not have any guns in most European countries. The vast majority of us also don't miss them! That the state has a monopoly of guns and violence and uses it all the time also doesn't make it natural.
You actually do appear to have bought into the ideology of biological determinism of guys like Dawkins (Pinker etc.)

How I miss Stephen Jay Gould!

 

[Humes fork]

dann, again, you have the point of view of a sociologist, which most here don't. Religions make claims about how the world works, to refer to poverty doesn't come into it. Dawkins, and (I presume) many people here would rather see people get educated so that they realize that religious claims are false. Living standards don't enter into it.

I could get into economic ruin, yet I wouldn't become religious, because I know that religious claims are false.

 

[dann]

Humes fork, you couldn't be more wrong, and even though you seem to imagine that you have the 'point of view' of a scientist, there's actually nothing scientific about it.

When I insist on treating religion as what it is, you (and Dawkins) insist on treating it as what it isn't, i.e. as science gone wrong. Thus your opening question was, at best, disingenuous: You knew from the outset that the 'correct' answer to your question was SCIENCE, of course. Since religion to you is nothing but wrong claims about how the world works, it should be replaced by the right claims about how the world works, i.e. your (and Dawkins's) naïve notion of what constitutes science.

Consequently any talk about what religion actually is and what makes people believe in it is simply a disturbance of the purpose of your thread, it is the wrong 'point of view'. And the most embarrassing thing is that you don't even seem to be able to recognize the fairly obvious mistakes that your idol makes when he tries to define what religion is:

What we see is a pigeon whose behaviour, spinning around to the left, has been reinforced by feeding it every time it does so until the pigeon has 'learned' to expect food to appear whenever it makes this turn. And why not? If the pigeon actually managed reasoning to the extent of drawing conclusions, it would know that when it does a certain thing, food appears. Now the trick is to stop feeding it, and it is no big surprise that the pigeon continues to spin around itself, to the left, expecting food to arrive - in vain. And this is what Dawkins interprets as a rudimentary form of superstition.
And it's not that I'll deny certain similarities between pigeon and human behaviour in this respect. I had to change a password 10 days ago, and ever since then I have been repeating the pattern of using my old one to gain access to my account - also in vain, of course. So in some respects I may be as dumb as a pigeon, but what does it have to do with superstition? Absolutely nothing! It's a case of old habits die hard. In me as well as in the pigeon.
And I comfort myself with the fact that even though I may be as dumb as pigeon when it comes to breaking with a behavioural pattern that has been rendered obsolete, Dawkins is actually dumber: Interpreting this as superstition is something that would never have occurred to the pigeon. And it only occurs to Dawkins because his reasoning in this case is partisan: Religious people are dumb pigeons, clinging to obsolete behaviour, unlike superior analytical observers like Dawkins whose behaviour is never temporarily influenced in the slightest by the patterns of old habits.
Yeah, right!

And I hope that his (and probably Skinner's) flawed thinking has become obvious to you by now: Even the pigeon with the reinforced behaviour stops at a certain point when the reward no longer appears. (Of course, it may also continue, placed as it is in an environment where getting food is completely out of its control: What else is a dumb pigeon to do?) Religion, however, is a 'reward' in itself, the 'opium of the people', since it is invented from the very beginning to comfort you in circumstances where you need comforting exactly because reality doesn't provide you with any 'rewards'.)

And let me stress again for the umpteenth time (+1): This is not a praise for religion. This is severe criticism of the conditions that make people need to be comforted by superstious/religious ideas.

Concerning what you appear to think of as an argument:

I could get into economic ruin, yet I wouldn't become religious, because I know that religious claims are false.

Well, congrations! Isn't that wonderful? Like in my case, I suppose, "economic ruin" probably wouldn't entail the dire consequences that it does in other parts of the world, so maybe you are right, maybe you wouldn't feel the need to comfort youself with superstitious interpretations of your fate. Neither would I, I think and hope, but it is much too easy to make that claim, and it's nothing but anecdotal evidence anyway.
At the risk of being accused, "again" (!), of having "the point of view of a sociologis", I'll encourage you to read Richard Sennett's book The Corrosion of Character about what happened to "a group of middle-aged IBM programmers" when they lost their jobs.
And speaking of anecdotal evidence and the 'exception that proves the rule', let me present you with Bob Bakker, a paleontologist, who probably knows more about evolution and false religious claims than could dream of knowing.

So come again with your claim that education is a panacea for magical thinking ....

And let me stress again for the umpteenth time (+ 2): This is not a praise for religion. This is severe criticism of the conditions that make people need to be comforted by superstious/religious ideas.

 

[dann]

PS

"The offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can’t give way, is an offer of something not worth having. I want to live my life taking the risk all the time that I don’t know anything like enough yet; that I haven’t understood enough; that I can’t know enough; that I’m always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom. I wouldn’t have it any other way." - Christopher Hitchens

Congratulations again! How wonderful for you, too, C.H.
I just love it when a guy born with a silverspoon in his mouth praises his own courageous risk-taking. He was more on the money when he described himself as a bourgeois romantic.

 

[Correa Neto]

Yes, it is wrong, and it is possible that I may have misunderstood what you were trying to say. What you did say, however, was:

It is more than possible; actually it is happening frequently. Sometimes I have the impression you are trying to find in what I write things, meanings and implications that are just not there.

Seeking answers, reasons, connections and patterns, however, is what science does, and it does so by collecting data and analyzing them, whereas religion from the word go is looking for particular answers and only uses empirical data to 'prove' the 'answers' that it came up with in advance without these data. Thus a preacher is able to see God's creation (and nothing but that) because it's the only answer he's looking for.

Science and religion have very different goals and methods. Science, for example, attempts to remove the emotional elements from the analysis whereas religion gives a huge emphasis to them. Science is a set of tools and methods and a database built from the application of them. Science was created to gather information about the universe, how it works and what benefits humans can obtain from this knowledge.
Religion is different. First of all, religion is a multi-purpose tool: it is not just a quest for answers and comfort; it is also a set of behavior and ethics guidelines which bonds together individuals in cultures, giving them a sense of individuality, belonging to community and purpose within it. Religion may quite as well have been at its very start the product of the quest for answers. It may have started as organized superstition, if you want to call it that. But at the moment superstition was organized and formalized as a set of behavior rules and a hierarchic organization it turned in to a powerful tool which did much more than providing answers.

Well, I already mentioned how science and religion differ from the very outset, but you could say that science contains guidelines as well: If nuclear power, for instance, cannot be harnessed in a way that makes it safe, it's a bad idea to build nuclear power plants if your intentions are to supply ordinary people with electricity. (You could say the same thing about capitalism if your analysis of this means of production comes up with a similar result.)

Sorry, that would not be just science. Those types of decisions would have a huge influence of ethics. Science’s guidelines are just about methods to gather and store data and build conclusions over it. Ethics is our attempt to provide a set of rules to decide if this or that act will be acceptable or not within a given context created by culture, economics, politics, etc. Religion is something many seek to find these answers, regardless if we like we or not of this fact.

…snipped for brevity… And I comfort myself with the fact that even though I may be as dumb as pigeon when it comes to breaking with a behavioural pattern that has been rendered obsolete, Dawkins is actually dumber: Interpreting this as superstition is something that would never have occurred to the pigeon. And it only occurs to Dawkins because his reasoning in this case is partisan: Religious people are dumb pigeons, clinging to obsolete behaviour, unlike superior analytical observers like Dawkins whose behaviour is never temporarily influenced in the slightest by the patterns of old habits.

Well, that’s your interpretation. I will not comment on the documentary for I have not seen it (I hope you understand why I refuse to comment it based on Wikipedia’s entry), but I based on the books I read from Dawkins (no, I have not read all of them), I think yours is a rather radical interpretation of his positions.
Pigeons can’t interpret too much things… Humans can and among the things we can interpret is that some of our traits were inherited from animals – yes, they are now highly altered by countless years of biologic and social evolution. This is by no means equal to say we are dumb pigeons, for we can change our behavior – if the right conditions for it are present. The religious people are “acting like pigeons” because their conditions do not allow them to break this behavior. Their societies, their cultures reinforce religion. Dawkins tries to show people the shortcomings of religion from a “hard science” approach. IMHO, he should give more relevance to the points of view derived from social sciences. His focus on the “hard science” aspects coupled with his abrasive, aggressive style, I believe, potentially can make some people fail to get the whole message.

And I hope that his (and probably Skinner's) flawed thinking has become obvious to you by now: Even the pigeon with the reinforced behaviour stops at a certain point when the reward no longer appears. (Of course, it may also continue, placed as it is in an environment where getting food is completely out of its control: What else is a dumb pigeon to do?) Religion, however, is a 'reward' in itself, the 'opium of the people', since it is invented from the very beginning to comfort you in circumstances where you need comforting exactly because reality doesn't provide you with any 'rewards'.

Sorry, I disagree. I find such an approach to religion too focused on the “ritualistic reward” aspect. More than once I said religion is a multipurpose tool. Skinner’s pigeon behavior is just one aspect of it and quite possibly not the main one. Joe D. Believer is not a religious person just because he sees (or was taught to see) a link between praying at a mass and the good things in his life. He is not religious just because some religious leader said there’s more to this life than random good and bad events. Joe D. Believer is religious because religion is an integral part of his culture. It gives him an individual and a group identity. These are the main reinforcing agents when it comes down to religion and this is what actually keeps a lot of people (I suspect most of them) within religion’s embrace. “Pigeon’s ritual rewards”, as I wrote countless times before, is just one aspect at the very root of it, because religion is much more than this aspect.

I know that a condition without abject poverty may seem to be a rather alien concept to somebody living in Brazil - much the same way that US psychologists tend to be unable to discover nothing but genetic dispositions for competitiveness in all of their experiments - but there is nothing natural about it.

As a Brazillian, I found your comment above to be rather offensive. Few Brazillians –actually I believe few humans- would think the absence of poverty to be an alien concept. We may disagree on what causes poverty, what is poverty and how to end it, but few of us would consider its absence as an “alien concept”. However I’d rather not build any conclusions on the reasons for your comment neither extrapolate any meanings from it.
It is natural for humans to eat. It is natural for humans to think. It is natural for humans to build roads and cultures. It is natural for us to compete, to wage wars in several scales. It is natural for us to build moral and ethics codes. All these things are natural for we humans because evolution shaped us in a way which allows us to create these things. It’s the use of some things which are natural for us – the ability to think and ethics, for example, within a given social, politic, cultural and economic context- which will determinate if a given group of humans will or not do another thing which is also natural for them: going to war. If it was or not the right thing to do, well, that’s another history and it is also natural for us to try to figure out if it was or not, based on things which are natural for us.
I can’t help but having the impression you are extrapolating beyond reason what I write while searching for views antagonistic to yours and trying to polarize the discourse.

I had no intention to write such a wall of text. I think we are nearing a point where our opposite approaches to such subjects are making dialogue improductive.

 

[dann]

I will not comment on the documentary for I have not seen it

Youtube clip (pigeon example approximately at 32 min.)

 

[dann]

Now that I've taken the time to see it again, I have to correct myself. What Dawkins actually says is:

"... they can seem to detect a pattern when there isn't any, and that's superstition.
(...)
"Sixty years ago the American psychologist B. F. Skinner investigated the behaviour of pigeons, rewarding them with food when they learned to peck a key in the feeding apparatus. But then Skinner set the apparatus to reward the birds at random. Now the pigeons just had to sit back and wait. But that isn't what they did. Instead the majority developed what Skinner called "superstitious behaviour". When an individual pigeon for example happened to look over its left shoulder and the reward mechanism just happened to click in at that point, it would have got the idea that it was looking over the left shoulder that had got it the reward, so it tried it again. By sheer luck, as it happened, the reward mechanism delivered food at the same time again, and so the pigeon was reinforced in its idea that looking over the left shoulder was what got it the reward. And it went on and on and turned into a maniac for looking over the next shoulder.

Humans can be no better than pigeons. We constantly create false positives, we touch wood for luck, see faces in toasted cheese, fortunes in tea leaves. These provide a comforting illusion of meaning. This is the human condition. We desperately want to feel there's an organising force at work in our bewilderingly complex world. And in the irrational mindset, if you believe in the mystical pattern you've imposed on reality, you call yourself spiritual."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CyMglakWoo

So where he goes wrong is:
1) Detecting a pattern where there isn't any is a mistake. You may choose to turn it into superstition, but in itself it isn't.
2) Repeating something that (at first) seems to work also isn't superstition. Insisting that it should work and coming up with mysterious reasons for why it should work, when it obviously doesn't, would be superstion.
3) Touching would for luck, yes, superstion! Seeing fortunes in tea leaves, definitely superstition. Seeing faces in toast, well, not so much: If you insist that they are either actual faces or the likeness of faces placed there by divine intervention, yes, that would be superstitious. Noticing that the brown spots on a piece of toast or the mouldy splots on your bathroom wall look like faces (even those of Jesus or Napoleon) may be a result of the tendency to see patterns where there aren't any, but it's not superstition. Seeing patterns is "the human condition". Trying to find a "comforting illusion of meaning" is not - even though pigeons are unable to so.
Some of us aren't very 'desperate'. And what's wrong with the world is not its alleged 'bewildering complexity'.