If you are for real..we have one of the best experts in the world here in the UB. Manuel Delgado.. if you want to come..you may attend his classes. Believe me, they are absolutely great :)
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
Ted.. I am sorry i do not get it. Why do you attack me.? i ahve never attacked you. I do not have but respect about your position about religiona nd science (though I obviously disagree).
yes I happen to think Dawkins is a very bad scientists, but I think we can happily have a coffeee and discuss it.
Frankly I guess you tried to mock at me.. i am sorry.. it was not my intention to hurt you so that you will be back at me.
Actually I really feel very bad when this happens.
But jsut to claify to Colman.. in case he might have interpreted in other ways.
I was saying that Colman is completely right actually. Understanding why people pray is something tough. At first sight it makes absolutely no sense whassoever why people pray.. and preciesely I was saying that trying to udnerstand why this happens using scientific means has been the job of religious antrhopologists in the last centrureis. During these years they have gaines some insights that can be very useful... adn knowing COlman I was sure he would love to come here and attend those classes becaue they are really great and funny.
Colman, I do nto know if you take it like I am saying here, but after Ted comment , i do nto know, maybe it could have been interpreted as something similar to an attack.. I really have no idea how it could be.. really, you know I am for real.. and i would never attack anyone personal in ET. So, let me insist.. I was absolutely with you.
It seem my previous comment could ahve been interpreted as some kinof attack or sanrk at you.. I frankly do not know in which sense or how, but certainly Ted thought it was.. so there is a chance that you actually could read it the same way.
SO in case you might have interpreted in other ways.
I was saying that you are completely right actually. Understanding why people pray is something tough. At first sight it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever why people pray.. and preciesely I was saying that trying to understand why this happens using scientific means has been the job of religious antrhopologists in the last century. During these years they have gained some insights that can be very useful... and knowing you I was sure he would love to come here and attend those classes becaue they are really great and funny.
So the first sentence was about telling you that there is a whole field of science trying to answer precisely the same question. .. so I was saying you'd be interested in ne of thsoe topics or youw ere just putting a question in the air as a general statement (I guess it was the second, but now I do not know anymore).
The second part of my answer was to try to tell you that those classes can indeed be funny although they deala bout a topic which can be.. let's say tense, like religion... but M. Delgado is really an excellent teacher on reiligious antrhopology and you would really love him... well actually classes are in spanish now that I think. So maybe you can just come here because of the weather :)
Colman, I do nto know if you took it like I am saying here, but after Ted comment , i do nto know, maybe it could have been interpreted as something similar to an attack.. I really have no idea how it could be.. really, you know I am for real.. and i would never attack anyone personal in ET not even in disagreement. So, let me insist.. I was absolutely with you.
And in any case, sorry if necessary.
Though that was a rhetorical device rather than a literal question, it's nice to know that there are people studying the roots of the illness. Maybe we can find a treatment.
well.. you know here we disagree.. the danger is the attack on enlgihtenment values which does not come precisely directly from religion. So I do not see religion as some kind of illness... well at least no more than science :)
The treatment should be about defending enlightenment values in front of a tribe of nationalistic groups and oligarchies that use different narratives to attack it. The fact that they also use the religion hierarchical structure to force a literal imnterpretation of the sacred books so as to generate a defending/attackign attitude against science is what should worry us.
Religion can be used to fight for enlightenment values (as it has been done int he past) as much as against it.. because the core of the beliefs is bascially inconsecuential to the fight at hand.
But ,well this is another topic and I think Brit speaks foor me better than I would ever do.
But I am really glad you took my comment as it was.
That would come as a surprise to the Philosophes - see the quotation at the end of the diary from the history of atheism. But, yes, some Christians have retreated from some of their most barmy ideas and have accepted the validity of evolution - even the Pope - and Dawkins has joined with such Christians in fighting the spread of creationism.
Sigh, yet again, D acknowledges the diversity of Christians and works with some of them - see diary. But he is opposing the powerful influence of the many extremists, particularly in the US - who, for example, push creationism and ID. But he is also critical of moderate Christians as he feels they give respectability to the extremists - they make reliance on faith more acceptable.
Then I'm very sorry for you, since, as I showed at length in the diary, his criticism of Dawkins is based on ignorance and misinterpretation. Despite that he blithely makes the same mistakes in comments here - see my replies. Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
ugh. that's tough, ain't? I mean, it seems that this is somewhat personal for you. I mean , probably Brit and I do not care about Dawkins in particular, and we think his way to approach the fight agaisnt elnlightenment values is not the correct one. Probably because Brit and myself have a very different idea about what science is about, and about his position in society. Maybe it is because we see religion with a different perspective haavily influence by our readings on symbolic antrhopology and mythology that we have disucussed here in ET thoroughly.
I think that if you look at the other diaries where we have proposed another approach to this fight and argued that the approach of Dawkins and ohter are probably detrimental you could see that Brit problems with dawkins do not arise fron ignorance or lack of understanding in dawkins propositions. The disagreement is more fundamental basically because they do not take into consideration (probably they would call it too postmdoernist for their taste) the inputs of symbolic and religious antrhopology about how people take symbolism and hierarchical symbolism in their hands.
But in any case. Let me tell you, it is not personal at all. It is just an opinion on the approach on this issue. It is in no way an attack against you in any sense. It is a strong disagreement about his approach as a social commentator (which he shares with other people so I find completely unfair to criticize him or single him out because we think it is a mistake.) and, well, a not very high regard about his scientific work. But sometimes it looks as if you take any disagreement about his approach or any attack about his scientfic credential as something personal.
Not too fast on this Pope. John Paul II did send an encouraging sign to a seminar back in 1996. The present Pope Ratzinger is in full regression on evolution and not only.
To set the tone of recent views on Darwin, the Pope has rested the matter in the competent hands of Cardinal Schonborn of Vienna, whose 2005 NYT article caused a major stir.
It is comforting to see that this Pope is very much concerned with the defence of reason against the ideologies of relativism, evolutionism and reductionism. That's True Reason, of course.
