I know my opinion is uncivil. I do want to clarify that it's coming from an apatheist POV.
As for the 'religion is an evil meme' theory, the substantial point I made, I think Dawkin's memetics are generally simplistic and reductionist -- but that is another argument. The point is, the entire argument is based upon assuming that there is no god and no afterlife, which in the context of a public debate in which believers also take part, is a form of begging the question.
I will answer your challenge in full later on.
The argument then is that if you want to be consistent, then you cannot reject belief in some of the above and retain belief in others solely by your say-so. You have to propose some kind of principle by which to distinguish between those unevidenced beliefs that you hold to be true and those that you hold to be false.
That argument, of course, is based upon certain assumptions about the nature of philosophy (e.g. the emphasis given to consistency and the use of physical evidence to discriminate between beliefs), and those assumptions can certainly be subjected to criticism with varying degrees of success. But accusing them of begging the question is quite absurd.
Disclaimer: I haven't read Dawkins' books, nor most of his writings elsewhere, so my comment is based on the arguments associated with him here and elsewhere.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
This article by Dawkins:
Viruses of the Mind
is mainly what shaped my negative opinion of him.
It is the height of scientism, IMO.
you are the media you consume.
I am pragmatic. You need a different model for relationships than you do for appreciating art. Sometimes the entire idea of a model might be... unhelpful.
You need a different model for relationships than you do for appreciating art.
Indeed. How does that relate to understanding how the brain operates?
With regard to the mind, I think that attempts at a purely positivistic understanding are not very promising. So I think that scientific research into the mind should, preferably, incorporate a significant 'internal' perspective. I explained this at greater length here.
Discounting law as a science, the only fields of research I know enough about to start to recommend specific methodologies are in social science (political science; political economy). Within these fields, the analytic narratives approach shows some promise in combining qualitative and quantitative research.
I do not think that this approach can be easily transplanted to anthropology because the set of issues dealt with in that field is just different. I also don't know how it would relate to mental research.
To my knowledge, it has never gotten past that stage to the actual work of science (like, in social science, formulating and isolating dependent and independent variables, testing them empirically, contrasting results with alternative hypotheses to show why a better explanation has been yielded...).
And: If you want to think about thought at all, banish "meme" from your vocabulary. A crude and reductionist parallel to an overly crude and reductionist interpretation of genes as the operational components of DNA, the concept of "meme" is useful only if your goal is to reduce thinking to inanity.
What I know of Dawkins is not inspiring further interest on my part. The Fates are kind.
What I know of Dawkins is not inspiring further interest on my part.
Your preference for denunciation rather than specific, reasoned argument doesn't inspire interest in what YOU have to say. Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
He's proposing a(n occasionally somewhat speculative) model for how social constructs spread and compares some of its features to those of religion. He then comes (unsurprisingly) to the conclusion that religion is a social construct. Now, one can certainly argue with his model and one can certainly question his analogies, but what part of the basic strategy is not a valid exercise?
Section 4 (about whether science is also a mental virus) is weakly argued, though. It reads more like a case of apologetics and special pleading than a real argument (I think that there is a case to be made that the conclusion is at least partially correct, but this piece clearly does not make that case).
That being said, I too have the impression that Dawkins occasionally errs on the scientistic side. But I don't see how that affects his arguments vis-a-vis religion.
This, however, was good for a laugh:
It came in an interview with a rabbi undertaking the bizarre task of vetting the kosher-purity of food products right back to the ultimate origins of their minutest ingredients. He was currently agonizing over whether to go all the way to China to scrutinize the menthol that goes into cough sweets. ``Have you ever tried checking Chinese menthol... it was extremely difficult, especially since the first letter we sent received the reply in best Chinese English, `The product contains no kosher'...
Looks like they thought 'kosher' was some kind of contamination :-P
I may post it as a separate diary later, because the issues raised are not specific to Dawkins as much as they are to the general faith-science discussion that has been going on at this site more generally.
One thing I learned (the hard way - I used to have a very unstable internet connection) was that copy-pasting your post into a .txt document is a good way to prevent the software gnomes from eating your posts. Another, if somewhat more shaky, way is to cut-and-paste it into the comment field itself - that way it'll still be in your clipboard if the software decides to eat it later on.
"Real men don't backup. Real men cry." - Proverb
The existence of god is an extremely slim possibility. I don't have a problem with that. I don't have a problem having it taught in our school system.
I am not interested in having innuendo being described as science. So far on this thread we do not have any definition of what religion even is though some have no problem claiming its evilness. That is not science at all. The question is, is it religion or is it human nature?
That brings us right back to Dawkins and his "proof" of the evils of religion.
aspiring to genteel poverty
It is tempting to propose
Any set of beliefs and/or traditions justified exclusively through magical thinking.
But that is simply shifting the problem, because now we have to define magical thinking. So let's try this instead:
A collective, institutionalised set of traditions and/or beliefs that are justified chiefly through appeal to the authority of tradition and/or arbitrary authority figures.
There will be some borderline cases (some kinds of Buddhism come to mind, which are so loosely structured that it can be argued that they are not institutionalised in any meaningful sense of the term). On the other hand, it has the advantage of capturing a lot of social phenomena that behave very much like religions: The cults of personality surrounding some politicians as well as some of the more outré socio-economic ideologies, for example.
At the same time, it does not devolve into the absurdity of covering personal quirks and habits, like how you pack your lunch or order your file system, because they are not particularly collective. The result of advertising campaigns are borderline, but I'm inclined to say that it's not a religious response, but closer to Pavlovian conditioning. Which in itself says some rather ominous things about human nature, but let's take that another time...
If it has a flaw, it is that it doesn't catch most of the new-age woo-woo that clearly belongs under the 'religion' heading. But that seems to be mainly because most of their ideas are not coherent enough to be institutionalised.
New Age philosophy ranges. I think that the term is a grab bag term. Some of it fits quite clearly into magical thinking. It also can in some circumstances be extremely anti-judgmental in some circumstances - perhaps to the point of becoming an authority.
To expend on your own criticisms: Quakers do not fit, Unitarians do not fit, Christian Anarchists may or may not fit. I don't know enough about eastern religions to place them in your definition.
Your definition fails to understand the aspect of philosophy and ethics within religion.
When you talk about tradition you are entering a completely different field. I think that in this case you have added something that is dicey. Government is not religion, and yet there is the appeal to the authority of tradition. The point is not that that you are somehow wrong - but we have gone from describing religion to describing the family that religion belongs to. Government, Religion, Charities, Political Action Groups, etc. etc. Part of the problem is that Science belongs to a different family. It is not as easy to describe religion as 'not science'.
If you wanted to explore this idea further I would recommend Systems of Survival by Jane Jacobs. It describes the morality of work. This is an extremely narrow examination of morality. Dawkins, for example, has no place within the book. He is presenting a meta issue to the book.
I don't have a definition of religion. I tried. Bluntly, I am not up to the task.
This is what religioustolerance has to say:
The English word "religion" is derived from the Middle English "religioun" which came from the Old French "religion." It may have been originally derived from the Latin word "religo" which means "good faith," "ritual," and other similar meanings. Or it may have come from the Latin "religãre" which means "to tie fast." Defining the word "religion" is fraught with difficulty. Many attempts have been made. Most seem to focus on too narrowly only a few aspects of religion; they tend to exclude those religions that do not fit well. As Kile Jones wrote in his essay on defining religion: "It is apparent that religion can be seen as a theological, philosophical, anthropological, sociological, and psychological phenomenon of human kind. To limit religion to only one of these categories is to miss its multifaceted nature and lose out on the complete definition." 1 All of the definitions that we have encountered contain at least one deficiency: * Some exclude beliefs and practices that many people passionately defend as religious. For example, their definition might include belief in a God or Goddess or combination of Gods and Goddesses who are responsible for the creation of the universe and for its continuing operation. This excludes such non-theistic religions as Buddhism and many forms of religious Satanism which have no such belief. * Some definitions equate "religion" with "Christianity," and thus define two out of every three humans in the world as non-religious. * Some definitions are so broadly written that they include beliefs and areas of study that most people do not regard as religious. For example, David Edward's definition would seem to include cosmology and ecology within his definition of religion -- fields of investigation that most people regard to be a scientific studies and non-religious in nature. * Some define "religion" in terms of "the sacred" and/or "the spiritual," and thus require the creation of two more definitions. * Sometimes, definitions of "religion" contain more than one deficiency.
Defining the word "religion" is fraught with difficulty. Many attempts have been made. Most seem to focus on too narrowly only a few aspects of religion; they tend to exclude those religions that do not fit well. As Kile Jones wrote in his essay on defining religion:
"It is apparent that religion can be seen as a theological, philosophical, anthropological, sociological, and psychological phenomenon of human kind. To limit religion to only one of these categories is to miss its multifaceted nature and lose out on the complete definition." 1
All of the definitions that we have encountered contain at least one deficiency:
* Some exclude beliefs and practices that many people passionately defend as religious. For example, their definition might include belief in a God or Goddess or combination of Gods and Goddesses who are responsible for the creation of the universe and for its continuing operation. This excludes such non-theistic religions as Buddhism and many forms of religious Satanism which have no such belief. * Some definitions equate "religion" with "Christianity," and thus define two out of every three humans in the world as non-religious. * Some definitions are so broadly written that they include beliefs and areas of study that most people do not regard as religious. For example, David Edward's definition would seem to include cosmology and ecology within his definition of religion -- fields of investigation that most people regard to be a scientific studies and non-religious in nature. * Some define "religion" in terms of "the sacred" and/or "the spiritual," and thus require the creation of two more definitions. * Sometimes, definitions of "religion" contain more than one deficiency.
My favourite definition is:
1. Barns & Noble (Cambridge) Encyclopedia (1990): "...no single definition will suffice to encompass the varied sets of traditions, practices, and ideas which constitute different religions."
"...no single definition will suffice to encompass the varied sets of traditions, practices, and ideas which constitute different religions."
There are a series of different definitions of religion at the site for those who are interested.
That you can take something so complex as "religion" and reduce it to such simplicities is fascinating.
nanne: The point is, the entire argument is based upon assuming that there is no god and no afterlife, which in the context of a public debate in which believers also take part, is a form of begging the question.
What argument are you talking about ? If you're referring to Dawkins' book (which you haven't read) it's just not true that he simply begs the question. He spends some time on criticisms of arguments for the existence of god. You're entitled to say he got it wrong (evidence ?) - as are believers - - but not that he simply ignores the issue. Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
... the longer response is still upcoming.
I was talking here, as in my reply to TBG's diary, about the "viruses of the mind" argument.
As usual it helps if you're specific, preferably with a quotation and/or reference.
Fear and trembling (to quote THE book and a very sophisticated Christian) :-)
Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
No link here to the comment, you'll have to search ;-)
