tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28755195.post7138690524947665740..comments2023-09-25T04:26:51.568-06:00Comments on The Barefoot Bum: Doubt, faith, certainty and convictionLarry Hamelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08788697573946266404noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28755195.post-37523028451890305692007-09-01T05:13:00.000-06:002007-09-01T05:13:00.000-06:00Potentilla: I'm not scornful of Cornwall directly ...<B>Potentilla</B>: I'm not scornful of Cornwall directly because he's a believer, I'm scornful of him because his powers of reason appear to have utterly failed him; I attribute his failure of reason to his faith.<BR/><BR/>I mean really: Dawkins sees religion as a disease, the Nazis talked about the disease of Judaism, therefore Dawkins is a Nazi. This is not the reasoning of a mature person; Such intellectual garbage deserves only my scorn. Mature people learn how to integrate their emotions and their reasoning.<BR/><BR/>I think if we get a little Altemeyer on our Dawkins, we see that religion is an expression of our tendency to be authoritarian-submissive; God is, of course, the ultimate authority. The problem is that authoritarianism is no longer adaptive in a densely populated, technological society. Our mechanisms for authoritarian submission can't keep six billion people under a single authority, nor is there sufficient room for competing authorities.<BR/><BR/>I don't think the disease model is a <I>fundamental</I> way of looking at religion. I think disease models might, at best, give us some worthwhile intuitions governing how ideas propagate. I definitely think that a gene/clade model doesn't at all fit the bill (which is why I don't like "memes".)<BR/><BR/>I think we will get rid of religion. Indeed, I'm <I>convinced</I> we will do so one way or the other: either by developing past it or just exterminating ourselves.Larry Hamelinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08788697573946266404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28755195.post-70655232966891563532007-09-01T04:35:00.000-06:002007-09-01T04:35:00.000-06:00Am I right in thinking that you agree that the hum...Am I right in thinking that you agree that the human race has an evolved tendency (whether adaptive or as a spandrel) to be susceptible to religion, with individual variation?<BR/><BR/>It seems probable to me that Cornwell is someone who has a strong genetic tendency to be open to God-explanations. Rather than feel scornful of him (or whatever emotion summarises your first paragraph - "scornful" may not be strong enough), I feel sorry for him. It can't be comfortable to have your intellect and your emotions pulling different ways all the time. (A bit like being a paedophile, perhaps?)<BR/><BR/>I have been trying to think of an analogy, another proclivity with a genetic substrate which is actually about something for which there exists a factual truth - as opposed to a matter of personal taste (like sprouts) or even a moral "truth" (like paedophilia). But I haven't come up with a very good one.<BR/><BR/>I actually don't think this particular article would be so easy to fisk in the detail as you do - certainly Cornwell seems much more likely to have read TGD than many people inveighing against it. I certainly agree with him that we won't get rid of religion.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28755195.post-56693420538441414282007-08-31T13:11:00.000-06:002007-08-31T13:11:00.000-06:00I was being ironic by understatement.I was being ironic by understatement.Larry Hamelinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08788697573946266404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28755195.post-38830975865147037552007-08-31T12:56:00.000-06:002007-08-31T12:56:00.000-06:00...which The Guardian inexplicably saw fit to publ...<I>...which The Guardian inexplicably saw fit to publish. </I><BR/><BR/>Don't be surprised by the bullshit the Guardian sees fit to publish. They espouse the worst kind of liberalism, which occasionally gets things right, but also manages to be stoopid fairly often.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com