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Off Topic => Beyond Belief => Topic started by: ka9q on January 13, 2013, 07:19:25 PM

Title: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 13, 2013, 07:19:25 PM
Plus, he knows Superman. (http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2012/12/03/166246743/neil-degrasse-tyson-helps-his-new-bud-superman-get-a-glimpse-of-home);D
Wow, I hadn't heard that. I'm a big fan of Tyson, and as a few people in the comments say, he has finally filled Carl Sagan's empty shoes as a popularizer of science. If anything, I think Tyson does a better job. (And I say that as a Cornell graduate who saw a lot of Sagan in his prime.)

It was also interesting to see the discussion on the NPR site about Tyson vs Dawkins. I'm among those who think their tactics are complementary, but anyone who thinks Tyson can't get as hard-edged as Dawkins when he wants hasn't seen him in action. Tyson gives an entertaining and passionate talk about how religious fundamentalism destroyed a once-flourishing Islamic scientific community, and how it's now destroying us. I saw him give it in Las Vegas in 2011 at the JREF convention. His talk alone made the trip worthwhile.


Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: raven on January 13, 2013, 07:40:22 PM
Maybe it's just me and my upbringing, (growing up in a Christian home of young earth creationists who at the same time encouraged my scientific curiosity) but Dawkins comes across as, well, an asshole. :-[
Dr. Tyson is great at encouraging the wonder and enthusiasm of science, the majesty and marvel of creation, like a more grand and mature Bill Nye, or, yes, Sagan.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 13, 2013, 08:16:17 PM
Maybe it's just me and my upbringing,...but Dawkins comes across as, well, an asshole.
No it is not just you.  Dawkins is a scientific genius but is also very politically anti-religious and his judgmental nature comes across clearly.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 14, 2013, 04:08:23 AM
Look for videos of Tyson's talk. He's given variations of it for some time, and you'll find some of them on Youtube.

Maybe he was unusually blunt because the JREF conference where I saw him was attended largely by atheists, but he wasn't at all accommodating to religion.

In fact, he reminded me much of Dawkins in the way that he dissected the "God of the Gaps" argument. He cited examples of how even Isaac Newton, who he felt was not only the greatest scientist but also the smartest human who ever lived (and he's probably right), fell for the God of the Gaps when discussing something he didn't understand yet scientifically -- but which we do now.

Sure, one is an astronomer while the other is a biologist, and they have different personal styles, but they often say the very same things.


Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 14, 2013, 04:22:25 AM
he's solely preaching to the choir.
And, uh, we're not?  ;)
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: gillianren on January 14, 2013, 12:17:13 PM
he's solely preaching to the choir.
And, uh, we're not?  ;)


No, we're not.  We, at least most of us, are actively trying to avoid antagonizing those people who might disagree with us on an irrelevant social issue.  It's also why I'm so determined that throwing mindless insults that cover all people in a category is a bad idea, no matter what that category is.  By insulting religious people so generally, what Dawkins is doing is ensuring that the very people who need the education most--those who don't believe in evolution because they only understand the strawman certain religions have put up--will ignore anything he has to say.  He can explain evolution in the most beautiful, accurate language, language which makes it obvious how little you understand the world around you if you don't accept it, and it won't matter.  The people who need the explanation won't listen to him, because he insulted them in the title of his book.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 15, 2013, 05:45:40 AM
I actually agree that we need religious people who understand, accept and can clearly explain evolution simply because so many creationists refuse to even listen to anyone they know (or suspect) to be an atheist or agnostic. That's why Brown biology professor Ken Miller (a Catholic) is such an effective opponent of "intelligent design". (Then again, many fundamentalists don't even consider Catholics -- or anyone who accepts evolution, for that matter -- to be legitimate Christians.)

People like Miller can also make a theological argument for evolution that I could never make (at least not honestly): "Who are you to tell god how he can or can't work?"

That said, Dawkins, as a humanist philosopher and social critic has important things to say about the harmful effects of religion that only an atheist like him can say without being hypocritical. I don't think he really needs to pull any punches; he just needs to be more explicit about whether he's speaking as a biologist or as a philosopher.


Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 15, 2013, 07:28:03 AM
That said, Dawkins, as a humanist philosopher and social critic has important things to say about the harmful effects of religion that only an atheist like him can say without being hypocritical. I don't think he really needs to pull any punches; he just needs to be more explicit about whether he's speaking as a biologist or as a philosopher.
Educating the public is role in which he's seen in popular media. Books like The Blind Watchmaker and God Delusion are part of this role; respectively, they try to tell in easy terms how complexity can arise from simple beginnings and rules, and why a theistic belief is intellectually dishonest. His books targeting the general audience are scientific only in the sense as is Hawking's A Brief History of Time: A simplified overview of the current understanding.

I don't think that any "New Atheist" book can convert a true believer, in the same vein that true Apollo hoax believers can't be converted (cf. Heiwa). However, it's the fence-sitters who can learn the feeble basis of a theistic belief compared to our scientific knowledge, and Dawkins's site has plenty of reader stories about this. Another example is the late Christopher Hitchens, who also had a book with a seemingly insulting title (God Is Not Great) making an impact even among Christian preachers: http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/dennett-and-lascola-study-on-nonbelieving-clergy/

Elaborate philosophical arguments don't work in theistic belief/non-belief for the general public. Nietzsche for example had little impact, and same goes for Bertrand Russell. In a world where Jesus appearing on a toast is taken as a sign of a higher power, basic education in an easily accessible form is definitely needed, and a way to get people to actually read it is using pointed titles.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: raven on January 15, 2013, 07:55:06 AM
Eh, just because you are religious doesn't mean you automatically think some toast burned in a pareidoliac pattern is actually some kind of miracle. It fascinates me, sure, but only because the way the human brain so easily latches onto face like patterns fascinates me.
It's as much a stereotype as saying *all* atheist are all Dawkins clones.
What makes stereotypes wrong is not that there isn't examples of the stereotype, but that it assumes everyone who has one thing in common necessarily has another.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 15, 2013, 08:17:33 AM
Eh, just because you are religious doesn't mean you automatically think some toast burned in a pareidoliac pattern is actually some kind of miracle.
That's not what I said. What I said that in a world where we still have individuals taking such things as miracles, there's a definite need for public education.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: raven on January 15, 2013, 08:37:29 AM
Perhaps I did overreact, I apologize. :-[
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 15, 2013, 08:43:58 AM
the feeble basis of a theistic belief
The basis for theistic belief only look "feeble" from a reductionist point of view.  If one does not hold a reductionist point of view, then beliefs, theistic or not, can be firmer than any narrative or proof offered by science.  The "problem" is that humans are by nature not universally reductionist.  My reading of Dawkins is that he dismisses the human characteristic of "wholism," for lack of a better word.  A characteristic that make up the essential nature of a sizable portion of the human kind, and always will.  That is what make him come off as an ass to many people. 
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 15, 2013, 08:54:24 AM
The basis for theistic belief only look "feeble" from a reductionist point of view.
No. The basis is feeble from a scientific point of view, i.e. the one where evidence is what matters.
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My reading of Dawkins is that he dismisses the human characteristic of "wholism," for lack of a better word.  A characteristic that make up the essential nature of a sizable portion of the human kind, and always will.  That is what make him come off as an ass to many people.
I have no idea what you are talking about here. What do you mean by "wholism"?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 15, 2013, 10:38:44 AM
The basis for theistic belief only look "feeble" from a reductionist point of view.
The basis is feeble from a scientific point of view, i.e. the one where evidence is what matters.
That is certainly true.  But science does not matter to all people in all circumstances.
 
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My reading of Dawkins is that he dismisses the human characteristic of "wholism," for lack of a better word.  A characteristic that make up the essential nature of a sizable portion of the human kind, and always will.  That is what make him come off as an ass to many people.
I have no idea what you are talking about here. What do you mean by "wholism"?

Sorry for the confusion, it is properly spelled "holism."  Holism is the counterpart to reductionism.  It is the view that takes things as a whole, with no objective basis for a reduction into constituent parts.   We get into trouble when we apply reductionism to what is not reducible, either because it is inherently irreducible or because we lack sufficient knowledge of the constituent parts.  Reductionism has been the game since modern science, from Newton, began to show its vast explanatory power.  Since that time, people have sought to apply it everywhere.   

Literature is one category that reductionism does not work well on and romanticism is a literary response to the over reaching of reductionism.  Many fundamentalist use a reductionist strategy to explain theological beliefs and give meaning to the Bible.  Breaking the Bible, for instance, into chapter and verse and selecting individual constituents to make a larger point.  The wrongness of the approach starts with the fact that that division or groupings in literature are largely arbitrary, that is non-empirical.  We divide literature in a way that makes sense to us, not because the division approximates something in nature.  The conception that God, envisioned as an all powerful supernatural entity, can be reduced by looking at essentially arbitrary chapters and verses of the Bible has always appeared to me as the height of arrogance. 

One poor use of reductionism that scientist are prone to is extending into areas where the knowledge of nature is far to incomplete for a meaningful division to me made.  I have read critiques of Dawkins books from fellow atheist evolutionary biologist that make this claim.  Sorry I don't have citations, just casual reading.  The technique is useful in  developing hypothesis, but Dawkins appears to some, to extend his claims regarding religion from the hypothetical into a scientific theory without sufficient evidence.  That is what, in my opinion, makes him arrogant.

The reductionist explanation appeals to modern humans because we are so used to accepting its explanatory power.  Many of us on "faith," because few of us can personally perform an empirical check.  The dark side of reductionism is that when misapplied it gives us a false sense of the underpinning of our beliefs.  I think we should embrace holism, for what it is, and be adamant in pointing out the overreaching of reductionism when it occurs.

edited for clarity
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: gillianren on January 15, 2013, 11:35:43 AM
And the thing is, he does need to pull punches if he wants to convince people.  Very few people are fence-sitters on the subject on religion; I'm pretty rare because I know my religious beliefs don't make any sense, and that if it were entirely under my control, I wouldn't believe.  Belief in a deity is not scientific, because I have no evidence and I know it.  However, I believe nonetheless and cannot explain why.  Is it a delusion?  Perhaps.  Is telling me so going to change what I believe?  No.  And if I can't be reasoned out of my beliefs, who is he going to convince?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 15, 2013, 11:54:45 AM
That is certainly true.  But science does not matter to all people in all circumstances.
Of course not. An often mentioned example of this is "why do I find this song beautiful?" Science can't answer that question, at least at the moment. However, when you are making claims about a deity or deities affecting our lives, you are making a claim that can be tested by the scientific method.
 
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Sorry for the confusion, it is properly spelled "holism."  Holism is the counterpart to reductionism.  It is the view that takes things as a whole, with no objective basis for a reduction into constituent parts.   We get into trouble when we apply reductionism to what is not reducible, either because it is inherently irreducible or because we lack sufficient knowledge of the constituent parts.
OK. What are those irreducible parts? The elementary particles (quarks, gluons, electrons, and so on)? What part of a human is irreducible in your opinion?
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Literature is one category that reductionism does not work well on and romanticism is a literary response to the over reaching of reductionism.
Now we are talking about value judgements. One might claim that a collection letters in a certain order brings forth the emergent property of beauty in the text, but you'll probably also find people who don't find the produced text beautiful. 
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We divide literature in a way that makes sense to us, not because the division approximates something in nature.
Sure. That's because value judgements in this sense have little to with more fundamental things like survival or basic particle interactions. You need an intelligence capable of making those evaluations in the first place, and the results of the evaluations may well be the result of more fundamental properties of the intelligence.
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The conception that God, envisioned as an all powerful supernatural entity, can be reduced by looking at essentially arbitrary chapters and verses of the Bible has always appeared to me as the height of arrogance. 
You lost me here. Should we not judge the God of the Bible by his actions depicted in the book?
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One poor use of reductionism that scientist are prone to use is extending into areas where the knowledge of nature is far to incomplete for a meaningful division to me made.  I have read critiques of Dawkins books from fellow atheist evolutionary biologist that make this claim.
This sounds like hand-waving. Dawkins is surely and correctly critiqued on a scientific basis for some of the scientific hypotheses he is putting forth in his books, but I've yet to see a proper rebuttal of his religious claims, i.e. the lack of evidence and the problem of the cornucopia of different religions.
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The technique is useful in  developing hypothesis, but Dawkins appears to some, to extend his claims regarding religion from hypothetical in a scientific theory without sufficient evidence.  That is what, in my opinion, make him appear arrogant.
Have you actually read for example God Delusion? He  acknowledges the possibility of a god or gods, that's why he puts himself to a grade of 6.9 out of 7 on the disbelief scale, meaning that he's pretty sure at the moment that there is no higher power, but still doesn't outright deny the supernatural.  That's the scientific stand: There is no evidence at the moment, so we discard the hypothesis, but reserve the right to revisit it if any evidence emerges at a later point.
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I think we should embrace holism, for what it is, and be adamant in pointing out the overreaching of reductionism when it occurs.
Again, what is this "holism" of a human? Are we not a collection cells? Do our brains not work by the combination of electric and chemical interactions, governed by the laws of physics? What is the holism we should embrace?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 15, 2013, 12:02:39 PM
And the thing is, he does need to pull punches if he wants to convince people.
What are the punches he should pull? Do you deny that he has actually made an impact in turning people away from religion? 
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Very few people are fence-sitters on the subject on religion; I'm pretty rare because I know my religious beliefs don't make any sense, and that if it were entirely under my control, I wouldn't believe.
There may be few fence-sitters in the US, but that's not the case in the rest of the world. 
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Belief in a deity is not scientific, because I have no evidence and I know it.  However, I believe nonetheless and cannot explain why.  Is it a delusion?  Perhaps.  Is telling me so going to change what I believe?  No.  And if I can't be reasoned out of my beliefs, who is he going to convince?
No offence meant, but I've seen this time and time again. What do you believe in? Is it omnipotent, omniscient, the ultimate good, and so on? Would you believe in another deity, had you been born in India, Afghanistan, or Japan? What is your basis for believing in the deity? And most importantly, what would be the evidence that'd make you not believe in your deity?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: gillianren on January 15, 2013, 01:26:25 PM
What are the punches he should pull? Do you deny that he has actually made an impact in turning people away from religion?

Well, he should stop calling religious people mentally ill.  I am mentally ill and religious both, but I know plenty of people who are only one--and it isn't all the same one.

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There may be few fence-sitters in the US, but that's not the case in the rest of the world.

I don't know if that's true or not; my definition of "fence-sitter" in this case is one who can be convinced of the existence, or not, of God/gods by pure reason.  However, I don't think there's ever been a study that showed how frequent it is, so we'll have to agree to disagree here.

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No offence meant, but I've seen this time and time again. What do you believe in? Is it omnipotent, omniscient, the ultimate good, and so on? Would you believe in another deity, had you been born in India, Afghanistan, or Japan? What is your basis for believing in the deity? And most importantly, what would be the evidence that'd make you not believe in your deity?

I don't know what evidence would make me not believe, because evidence isn't why I believe in the first place.  I have intellectually accepted that there almost certainly is no God, and yet I still self-identify as religious.  I haven't reasoned myself into the position; quite the opposite.  Ergo, I don't see any way I can be reasoned out of it.  I know it's unscientific of me, and I wish there were something I could do about it, but there doesn't seem to be.  Why do I believe?  I don't know.  I have no basis for believing, and quite a lot for not, but I just feel something resonate sometimes.  I can't help it.

And certainly my deity isn't the ultimate good, because I do not believe in such a thing.  I'm not quite a "there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so," but I certainly don't believe that most of the universe cares what we do.  I don't believe in an interventionist deity--but on the other hand, I do find myself praying, probably out of the force of habit instilled by a Catholic childhood.  I might well believe in another deity were I born somewhere else, but I don't know.  I do know that the deity I currently believe in isn't the one I was raised to believe--in a few months, I'm going to have to have the "I'm not having the baby baptized" conversation with my mother, which isn't going to be fun.  In a sense, the deity I believe in is the rules of the universe.  This may be a variation on the anthropic principle; I don't know.  Of course, I also believe that any deity that a human can truly understand isn't much of a deity.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 15, 2013, 01:47:16 PM
Perhaps I should have said this earlier in case there was a misunderstanding.  My initial response to you was not to dispute what you say, so much to explore a tangent that your post brought to my mind, I do that alot and it simultaneously annoys and amuses my friends..  I do not think we have any fundamental disagreement about science and I appreciate your taking the time to read my post and respond with pointed questions.


OK. What are those irreducible parts? The elementary particles (quarks, gluons, electrons, and so on)? What part of a human is irreducible in your opinion?

The human spirit, the joy of music and literature, the sacrifices we make for our children...  Many things that give meaning to our lives. 


You lost me here. Should we not judge the God of the Bible by his actions depicted in the book?

The God of the Bible is a literary character, I see no more need to judge him that I do for Sauron in Lord of the Rings.  But we certainly need to understand why people see one as as more than a literary character and not the other, and how that view affects their lives and ours.  Something that cannot be done by parsing people into "quarks, gluons, electrons, and so on."

Now we are talking about value judgements.
Life is full of value judgements.  The more we understand the human nature of assigning value the better off we are.  That is why I chose to study  economics and finance rather than science. (Finance also lets you support a family with a bachelors or master degree.) We do make value judgements in characteristic ways, no doubt driven in part by biology, but not universally nor predictably.


This sounds like hand-waving.

It is a personal opinion supported by my thoughts on the mater and presented as such.

Have you actually read for example God Delusion?

No, reviews and excerpts.  The digression from the OP was started largely to discuss why several of us perceive Dawkins as an abrasive or arrogant.  This is my contribution.  To me, and some in his field, he gives an veneer of science to his public presentations on atheism, and against religion, beyond that which is supported by science.  I make no claim to expertly judge the science.  Dawkins abrasiveness has nothing to do with the science of evolution, but Dawkins is making his case directly to the public sphere with the intent of affecting how we live and govern ourselves.  There is more to life and governance than science.  The arts of life and governance need to be addressed for what they are.

Again, what is this "holism" of a human?

Holism is an approach to understanding meaning. That meanings are gained by taking works as a whole that can cannot be empirically broken into constituent parts because the parts do not retain the meaning they have within the whole.  That a sentence in a book is not the same as identical words used as a song lyric.  This stands in counterpoint to science, where a hydrogen atom extracted from dung is indistinguishable from hydrogen taken from the sun.  The human body yields to reductionism.  A human life does not.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Sus_pilot on January 15, 2013, 01:51:42 PM
Of course, I also believe that any deity that a human can truly understand isn't much of a deity.

This is probably the most profound thing I've read in weeks.  Brings to mind Arthur C. Clarke's "The Nine Billion Names of God".
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Sus_pilot on January 15, 2013, 01:57:57 PM
The human body yields to reductionism.  A human life does not.

OK, two great quotes in one day. 

BTW, in my opinion, the hidden danger in reductionism is that it ultimately lessens the value of life.  If all we are is a few dollars (what is that number these days?) of chemicals, then why are we important to each other?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 15, 2013, 02:09:29 PM
The human spirit, the joy of music and literature, the sacrifices we make for our children...  Many things that give meaning to our lives. 
One of those is different from the other two. "The human spirit" at least to me means an urge to explore new things and to advance, to make sacrifices for your offspring is more or an evolutionary trait, ensuring that your children have the best possible starting points for their lives without their parents. On the other hand, there are plenty of people who haven't read a book in their lives, nor enjoyed a song.
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The God of the Bible is a literary character, I see no more need to judge him that I do for Sauron in Lord of the Rings.  But we certainly need to understand why people see one as as more than a literary character and not the other, and how that view affects their lives and ours.
Could the cultural and ancestral contest have something to do with this? Maybe quite a lot fewer mothers have been telling their children stories of Sauron compared to Jesus. Would you tell your children that Sauron is going to judge them when they die? If not, do you think that's it's OK to tell your children that God will judge them when they die? 
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Something that cannot be done by parsing people into "quarks, gluons, electrons, and so on."
So you don't think that human consciousness can be reduced to physics at the bottom level? Where is the cut-off point? There are plenty of mind-altering drugs that work simply on the chemical level, for example.

[edit:] Sorry, left the rest of the post at the bottom accidentally. Will be answered soon.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 15, 2013, 02:31:00 PM
We do make value judgements in characteristic ways, no doubt driven in part by biology, but not universally nor predictably.
Why should universality or predictability matter? The quantum theory tells us that at the bottom level, there is no predictability in the conventional sense. There are only probabilities.
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Have you actually read for example God Delusion?

No, reviews and excerpts.
And that shows, to be honest. The book is nothing like you describe, no fire and brimstone, and only coolheaded arguments.
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The digression from the OP was started largely to discuss why several of us perceive Dawkins as an abrasive or arrogant.  This is my contribution.  To me, and some in his field, he gives an veneer of science to his public presentations on atheism, and against religion, beyond that which is supported by science.  I make no claim to expertly judge the science.  Dawkins abrasiveness has nothing to do with the science of evolution, but Dawkins is making his case directly to the public sphere with the intent of affecting how we live and govern ourselves.  There is more to life and governance than science.  The arts of life and governance need to be addressed for what they are.
Yet you say that you haven't even read what the man has to say. Your dislike of Dawkins seems to be based solely on second-hand accounts. How about going to source?

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Holism is an approach to understanding meaning.
New Age rubbish, to be honest. If you disagree, please provide peer-reviewed literature.
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The human body yields to reductionism.  A human life does not.
That's again rubbish. The human body may develop cancer due to decay of a radioactive particle in an inconvenient place, which ends the human life.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 15, 2013, 02:45:07 PM
Well, he should stop calling religious people mentally ill.
And when did he do so? A hint: Delusion doesn't mean mental illness.
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I don't know what evidence would make me not believe, because evidence isn't why I believe in the first place.  I have intellectually accepted that there almost certainly is no God, and yet I still self-identify as religious.  I haven't reasoned myself into the position; quite the opposite.  Ergo, I don't see any way I can be reasoned out of it.  I know it's unscientific of me, and I wish there were something I could do about it, but there doesn't seem to be.  Why do I believe?  I don't know.  I have no basis for believing, and quite a lot for not, but I just feel something resonate sometimes.  I can't help it.
As a talking point, what would you think/say about a person who'd say the same thing as you do above, replacing God with "unicorns" for example?
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And certainly my deity isn't the ultimate good, because I do not believe in such a thing.  I'm not quite a "there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so," but I certainly don't believe that most of the universe cares what we do.  I don't believe in an interventionist deity--but on the other hand, I do find myself praying, probably out of the force of habit instilled by a Catholic childhood.  I might well believe in another deity were I born somewhere else, but I don't know.  I do know that the deity I currently believe in isn't the one I was raised to believe--in a few months, I'm going to have to have the "I'm not having the baby baptized" conversation with my mother, which isn't going to be fun.  In a sense, the deity I believe in is the rules of the universe.  This may be a variation on the anthropic principle; I don't know.  Of course, I also believe that any deity that a human can truly understand isn't much of a deity.
I was baptized as a child, my parents are very religious, yet I left the church and didn't baptize my child. I'll also note that you don't seem to want to put down any specifics about your god.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 15, 2013, 02:55:35 PM
The human spirit, the joy of music and literature, the sacrifices we make for our children...  Many things that give meaning to our lives. 
One of those is different from the other two. "The human spirit" at least to me means an urge to explore new things and to advance, to make sacrifices for your offspring is more or an evolutionary trait, ensuring that your children have the best possible starting points for their lives without their parents. On the other hand, there are plenty of people who haven't read a book in their lives, nor enjoyed a song.


Reading this as "more of an evolutionary trait...."

Are you sure that the sacrifices we make or our children are exclusively for evolutions sake?  If you ask a parent who would willingly give a life for a child do you think the answer would be, "it was to for evolutions sake?"  A young parent that would do this to save an only child when a second, third or fourth could easily come along to provide a greater chance of passing genes along?   Humans are the product of evolution, no doubt, but at what level can science say our decisions are guided by evolution?  The point is that individual decisions cannot be scientifically reduced to evolutionary motives.   Evolutionary explanations for decisions both trivial and profound are passed around like candy, I am pretty skeptical of them.


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Could the cultural and ancestral contest have something to do with this?

I think we can agree that it has the greatest effect.

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do you think that's it's OK to tell your children that God will judge them when they die? 

That is a not a practice I have used or suggest using in child rearing.  There are far better ways to teach personal responsibility and how to treat others fairly, such as role modeling, discipline and etc.

So you don't think that human consciousness can be reduced to physics at the bottom level? Where is the cut-off point? There are plenty of mind-altering drugs that work simply on the chemical level, for example.

I see no basis for human consciousness outside of the material.  Nevertheless, it does not seem that science has a full understanding of what consciousness is, much less a full understanding of the matter.  So a claim as to how the science of consciousness should change the way we live should be regarded skeptically. 

Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 15, 2013, 04:01:21 PM
And that shows, to be honest. The book is nothing like you describe, no fire and brimstone, and only coolheaded arguments.

I never reviewed or characterized his book in any way.   But I did mention that some review of his book by atheist evolutionary biologist have criticized it for being overreaching in its scope on the subject of the biological underpinnings of religion.  They may or many not be correct, but it appears that the matter is still open to question.  One may be both cool headed and wrong.  Sorry I can't cite them but it has been along time.   The discussion has always been about Dawkins overall public stance public religion and evolution.  It started by a comment that he was an "ass."  Some may agree some may not.  I think he is and have given my reasons why. 

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Yet you say that you haven't even read what the man has to say. Your dislike of Dawkins seems to be based solely on second-hand accounts. How about going to source?

I have not read God Delusion but have read other things by him and seen a number of his presentations. All second hand, as you say.  Never met the man in person.  But his lambaste of Rebecca Watson is sufficient proof that he is a man that can needlessly overstate his case to the point of being an ass. 

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New Age rubbish, to be honest. If you disagree, please provide peer-reviewed literature.

First, this is not science.  Second, there are scores of lit crit profs that have lambasted reductionism in peer reviewed lit journals.  If I dug into the lit crit lit to produce one would you change your mind?

It is neither new age nor rubbish, it simply isn't science. The anti-reductionist movement started almost immediately after Newton, when people were applying indiscriminate reductionism to all sorts of things.  The great mathematician, scientist and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz is one of those indiscriminate users.  In doing so he put forward the idea that we live in the best of all possible worlds.  One romantic response was Voltaire's Candide.  We now see Leibniz's optimism as naive. 

So this discussion goes back far further than new age crap.  Holism as an idea does not make the claim that nature is indivisible, but that human experience cannot be dived into interchangeable parts.  Holism lets us more clearly see how hucksters use ideas from both holism and reductionism to fool us.  Modern, new age hucksters are particularity good at fooling people because they use the trapping of both.



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The human body yields to reductionism.  A human life does not.

That's again rubbish. The human body may develop cancer due to decay of a radioactive particle in an inconvenient place, which ends the human life.

"A human life" means our existence from when we are born to when we die.  The concept has a beginning and end are embedded in the meaning.  If you think it is rubbish, then I suggest you ask the oldest person you know to sum up their life in terms of particle decay.

I'd rather run the gauntlet of the Bulgar army than live without science. But I'd also run the gauntlet rather than be limited to a reductionist perspective. 
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Andromeda on January 15, 2013, 04:49:43 PM
Well, he should stop calling religious people mentally ill.
And when did he do so? A hint: Delusion doesn't mean mental illness.

Repeatedly, and worse - just do a quick Google search.  Richard Dawkins says far more than he just wrote in his books.  He is a public speaker and very active online, including Twitter.  He breaks the Wil Weaton rule a LOT.  Don't even get me started on the way he started on Rebecca Watson or his comments about child sex abuse (http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamonds/2012/11/24/child-sexual-abuse-what-yucky-means/)


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I'll also note that you don't seem to want to put down any specifics about your god.

Um, why should she?  Gillianren may or may not know entirely what she believes or does not.  Even if she does, it is an intensely persona thing and not something you should demand to examine.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 15, 2013, 06:22:57 PM
I do find myself praying, probably out of the force of habit instilled by a Catholic childhood.
Having been raised Catholic is a major reason why I am so anti-religion now. As a kid, before I knew better, I was continually taught absurdities like "1==3", that as a mere human being I was simply too stupid to truly understand them, and it was morally wrong to even use my brain to question them.

More importantly, I was constantly reminded that my thoughts were constantly being read and that "wrong" thoughts (not just actions) would be punished by eternal, horrible torture should I have the misfortune of dying before I "apologized" for them to certain designated adults.

And, I was continually reminded, those "wrong" thoughts included (among many others) those universally engaged in by every single normal human being who reaches adolescence.

If that's not psychological child abuse, I don't know what is. And I'm supposed to pull my punches and not criticize those who continue to do the same to other kids today?

This is why Dawkins and other atheists are often so strident. When you see something that has caused, and continues to cause so much human suffering, aren't we supposed to speak out? Why is religion the one thing we're not supposed to criticize out of fear of offending others? Is that maybe because it's so hard to defend, and people know it?

Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: raven on January 15, 2013, 06:57:07 PM
Is the Trinity that absurd a concept? When we say things like quarks have flavour and electrons  have spin, we don't literally mean they have those properties,  but rather that it is a model to help us comprehend the rather impossible and outside the concept of the human brain is capable of understanding except through allegory and mathematics world of quantum mechanics.
Is it so odd an idea that the posited creator of a universe should be so far outside of our understanding that one way to understand them is to separate them into three individuals?
My own beliefs are a little confused and probably heretical to some Christians.
I don't believe the Bible as the 'word of God', but rather a book written by people who saw certain extraordinary and supernatural events, filtering it through their own understanding and biases. Some, even maybe  many, events likely did not happen at all.
Atheists have caused their own share of misery in the 20th century.
Is it Atheism itself that is to blame, or people, considering others less than themselves?
Religion or, rathe,r faith, has also inspired great works of beauty.
Many of the greatest works of art throughout history have been done as an act of worship.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 15, 2013, 07:09:55 PM
Having been raised Catholic is a major reason why I am so anti-religion now.

About half the people I've met that say they are anti-religious are from Catholic backgrounds and describe an experience similar to yours. I went to fourth grade at a Catholic school and found they could be a despicable lot, with a few exceptions.  I begged my Mother not to send me back.   The other half are from families with various fundamentalist faiths.  Episcopalianism doesn't seem to produce that strong a a reaction.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Noldi400 on January 15, 2013, 08:31:24 PM
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The human body yields to reductionism.  A human life does not.


I would agree with the first sentence only up to a point.  The human body is such a complex system that I don't think it's possible to completely explain it in terms of its separate sub-systems. (At last being trained in biology instead of astrodynamics is germane to a discussion here.) The same could be said for weather, or global ecology, or any other complex, highly interactive system.

It's kind of interesting to note that our common opponents, the HB-ers,  almost always use reductionism as a primary tool in their contentions - they tend to pick out one aspect of Apollo (generally one they have an imperfect or nonexistent understanding of) and pound on that while ignoring the "big picture".  I'm not comparing anyone here to an HB - just stating my opinion that we ignore the complexity of systems at peril to our understanding of them.

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Atheists have caused their own share of misery in the 20th century.

Not nearly as much misery and bloodletting as people acting on the basis of "religion".

Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 15, 2013, 08:33:09 PM
As a kid I didn't have much to compare it with, but as I began to learn about other religions I realized that Catholicism is actually among the saner religions, relatively speaking. And that's not saying much for it.

I want to make it clear that I believe very strongly in freedom of religion. I wouldn't even think of trying to ban it even if that were possible, and the very same reasoning leads me to also support the legalization of drugs.  But just as the end of alcohol prohibition didn't legalize drunk driving, I  want to limit the harm that religion causes to third parties. That harm can take many forms, from terrorizing children and keeping them ignorant of modern science, to promoting the spread of disease, and even to inducing fanatics to fly airplanes into buildings.

One of the most pernicious effects of religion is how it lets people hide their own prejudices. Isn't it strange how often someone's god feels exactly as they do about other ethnic, racial and sexual groups?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 15, 2013, 08:38:58 PM
A hint: Delusion doesn't mean mental illness.
The formal definition of a "delusion" is a belief held with absolute conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary with the exception of religious beliefs widely held in the person's culture.

Isn't it interesting that such an exception had to be explicitly made?




Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: raven on January 15, 2013, 08:40:33 PM
That's not just religion, or maybe, religion is broader than that.
Religion is something made by people, and people make mistakes.
Some of those mistakes have been simply horrible, the kind of thing that make me weep for humanity.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 15, 2013, 08:57:07 PM
The human body is such a complex system that I don't think it's possible to completely explain it in terms of its separate sub-systems.
I think the expression people are looking for is 'emergent behavior'. Many systems, not just living organisms, exhibit behaviors that cannot be found in their individual components. This is certainly recognized by science even if we don't understand much of them yet.

As a computer person I see such things in terms of layers of abstraction. Since the early-mid 20th century we've had a pretty good handle on nature's lowest layer of abstraction, the fundamental laws of physics relevant to us on an everyday basis. Vitalism (the view that there's something "special" about living things that distinguishes them from nonliving things) was rejected long ago.

But even though living things obey all of the fundamental laws of physics, and even though in principle their behavior can be predicted entirely from those laws, they still exhibit complex "emergent" behavior that we're still figuring out and will be figuring out for some time. Biology can be seen as another layer of abstraction built on top of fundamental physical laws. Understanding the latter is necessary but not sufficient to understanding the former.

The 20th century was the century of physics. I think the 21st century will be the century of biology, and this will only be possible because of the understanding of physics that we gained in the 20th.


Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 15, 2013, 09:10:52 PM
Religion is something made by people, and people make mistakes.
You're absolutely right: religion is a purely human invention. I just think it's an especially pernicious one as its very nature tends to negate some of the most positive attributes of human beings, specifically our ability to reason, to understand the world through empirical observation and to predict the likely consequences of our actions.

The ability to predict the likely consequences of your actions is about as succinct a definition of "intelligence" as I can think of. And when those consequences involve human happiness or suffering, intelligence (or the negation of same) takes on a fundamental moral tone.

Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: raven on January 15, 2013, 09:41:31 PM
Religion is not alone in these features. Look at fandom for sports and media for example.
Frankly, in my case, it was my belief in a divine creator that inspired my sense of curiosity and fascination. It is said "by their works you shall know them." and how better to know a Creator then by Their Creation?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: gillianren on January 15, 2013, 09:48:10 PM
Um, why should she?  Gillianren may or may not know entirely what she believes or does not.  Even if she does, it is an intensely persona thing and not something you should demand to examine.

To be perfectly honest, because I am not a member of an organized religion, explaining my religious beliefs and practices is a lot more complicated than "I'm Catholic" or "I'm Shinto."  Indeed, my chosen religion is so new and erratic that I don't even agree with a lot of the people with whom I perform rituals about how to define God.  Heck, probably more than half of them are polytheists, and I'm more of a Deist! 

I went to a relatively liberal Catholic church, I think.  Yeah, they did "Right to Life Month" every October, and I was hugely opposed to that, but the priests were sometimes more sympathetic than my mother.  Mom made my sister go to confession on Christmas Eve '93, the day she found her house had been robbed while she was on vacation, and the priest let my sister just sit there for a few minutes and relax.  He said she could talk if she needed to, but she wasn't required to.  She'd obviously had a bad day.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 15, 2013, 11:12:57 PM
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The human body yields to reductionism.  A human life does not.


I would agree with the first sentence only up to a point.  The human body is such a complex system that I don't think it's possible to completely explain it in terms of its separate sub-systems.

Yes, up to a point.  I'll expand the idea.  By "yields to reductionism" I mean for example that a study of the biology of a small subset of bodies properly examined will produce information that can be generalized to most.  The whole human kind is reduced to a sample and a model of what is learned from that sample.  Whereas I would say that a similar examination of a few lives, to determine for instance the objective traits to build a model of how people should live their lives, will not generalize to all people, because each experiences life differently and weights the value those experiences diffidently. 
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Not Myself on January 15, 2013, 11:42:26 PM
Religion is not alone in these features. Look at fandom for sports and media for example.

Or look at the crude caricature of science which substitutes for real science among a large portion of the CQ membership.

One of the top posters there told a story about how he used to be some sort of religious fundamentalist, until he read a book by some angry atheist, and now he believes in science.  Although he's changed teams, he's still playing the same sport - I don't see much evidence of scientific thought processes in his posts.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Not Myself on January 15, 2013, 11:45:48 PM
I  want to limit the harm that religion causes to third parties. That harm can take many forms, from terrorizing children and keeping them ignorant of modern science, to promoting the spread of disease, and even to inducing fanatics to fly airplanes into buildings.

Was the value judgement that caused you to describe these things as "harm" based on scientific principles?  ;D
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 16, 2013, 03:48:42 AM
Was the value judgement that caused you to describe these things as "harm" based on scientific principles?  ;D
Of course not, because values per se are not a part of science (except the axiom that knowlege itself is inherently good).

Every system of philosophy has its axioms. The fundamental axiom of religion (at least the Abrahamic ones) is that there exists an omniciscient and omnipotent god who must be obeyed at all costs, even if doing so causes humans to suffer horribly.

But does this omnipotent god simply tell everyone what he wants them to do? No. You have to find out indirectly from other humans acting as self-appointed communication channels, often by "interpreting" documents written by long-dead humans that must be accepted as, uh, gospel.

One would think the extreme hazards of such practices would be obvious, but I guess not.

I'm a humanist, a philosophy (not a science) based on the axioms that human happiness is good and human suffering is bad. There's still plenty of room for debate here, particularly when trading off one human's interests against another or when considering other species that may share our self awareness. But at least we have the tools to further the debate by determining if our actions are consistent with those axioms.

That's a hell of a lot easier (and a lot more honest) than determining if our actions are consistent with the wishes of an imaginary diety.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 16, 2013, 03:58:48 AM
Evolutionary explanations for decisions both trivial and profound are passed around like candy, I am pretty skeptical of them.
Okay, then explain the strength of the human sex drive without recourse to evolution.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 16, 2013, 08:08:59 AM
Evolutionary explanations for decisions both trivial and profound are passed around like candy, I am pretty skeptical of them.
Okay, then explain the strength of the human sex drive without recourse to evolution.

I do not doubt that the mating drive is best understood through evolution nor do I disdain the explanatory power of the theory of evolution.  The meaning is that it is easy for anyone, biologist or layman, to make a plausible sounding claim of an evolutionary mechanism for an array of conditions, decisions or actions without much evidence.  E.g. eugenics.   One simply needs to be skeptical in accepting specific evolutionary claims from those who are simultaneously working on a social or political agenda.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 16, 2013, 07:33:12 PM
The meaning is that it is easy for anyone, biologist or layman, to make a plausible sounding claim of an evolutionary mechanism for an array of conditions, decisions or actions without much evidence.
I actually agree.
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  E.g. eugenics.
This belongs in a different category. By definition, science is descriptive, not proscriptive. It merely explains what is or what has been; by itself, science says absolutely nothing about what should be. That's an entirely different error from making a description that is simply wrong.

Science can be an extremely useful tool to show that a certain set of values is (or is not) furthered by a certain course of action, but the actual choice of those values is outside the realm of science.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: raven on January 17, 2013, 06:33:21 AM
Religion is not alone in these features. Look at fandom for sports and media for example.

Or look at the crude caricature of science which substitutes for real science among a large portion of the CQ membership.

One of the top posters there told a story about how he used to be some sort of religious fundamentalist, until he read a book by some angry atheist, and now he believes in science.  Although he's changed teams, he's still playing the same sport - I don't see much evidence of scientific thought processes in his posts.
CQ? I do not believe I am familiar with that acronym.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Tanalia on January 17, 2013, 07:05:00 AM
CQ (Collegiate Quarterly) is a devotional Bible-study guide for young adults, ages 18–35, published by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: raven on January 17, 2013, 07:14:12 AM
Ah. I am unfamiliar with that publication, though I do agree that some people treat Science! more like a religion as opposed to the process that actual science is.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 17, 2013, 08:54:31 AM

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  E.g. eugenics.
This belongs in a different category.

No.  It is an example of the category I am discussing, albeit extreme.  The overstepping of scientist into social policy without a sound scientific grounding for his beliefs.  Eugenics was promoted by scientist and politicians, such as Woodrow Wilson, to justify prejudiced.  In using the imperature of science, it gave people in power justification for all sorts of horrible acts.  Histories have tied eugenics and how it was applied to the South during the early part of the century into today's evolution debate.  The thought is that people in the poorer and more rural South were essentially told that science had deemed them less fit, and the anti evolutionary trend we see today is,in part, a descendant reaction to that. 

I do not mean to tie Dawkins intentions into this or question his motives.  But the  following is among the reasons I get concerned about his, or anyone's, overstepping science in an effort to affect social policy.  People, as a whole, are no different  a century after the eugenics movement and can and do use external "justifications" for our prejudices.  The title of Dawkins books claims the idea of God is a "delusion", it is not a far stretch for someone else to refine this into the idea that religious people are delusional. And not far from there for some authority to claim religious people, or more likely some troublesome religious minority, are mentally ill or naturally defective and should be treated as such.  Justified under the false, but nevertheless socially compelling, imperature of science. We did it a hundred years ago with eugenics and Nazism based on a false reading of Darwin. We can do it again. 
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Not Myself on January 17, 2013, 10:51:23 AM
Ah. I am unfamiliar with that publication,

As am I.  I meant this place (http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forum.php).
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 17, 2013, 06:31:49 PM
CQ (Collegiate Quarterly) is a devotional Bible-study guide for young adults, ages 18–35, published by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
CQ is also an amateur radio magazine; "CQ" is the traditional Morse Code symbol for "calling any station". I had trouble figuring out how it fit into this discussion. :-)
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: raven on January 17, 2013, 07:14:23 PM
Ah. I am unfamiliar with that publication,

As am I.  I meant this place (http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forum.php).
I had a feeling that was what you were referring to.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Tanalia on January 17, 2013, 07:40:19 PM
Ah. I am unfamiliar with that publication,

As am I.  I meant this place (http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forum.php).
Ah, I had assumed the religious connection from the overall discussion.  I did know about the radio reference (CQ = seek you) and the Congressional Quarterly, but didn't see any way they fit the topic.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: George Tirebiter on January 17, 2013, 11:14:54 PM
As am I.  I meant this place (http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forum.php).

Oh, you mean BAUT.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 18, 2013, 02:39:29 AM
But the  following is among the reasons I get concerned about his, or anyone's, overstepping science in an effort to affect social policy.
I understand, but I think Dawkins and other biologists are still best known for reacting to those who overstep social fields into science, specifically those who deny evolutionary biology and other firmly established scientific principles on religious grounds. He's entirely right to emphasize that evolution isn't any less true just because some misguided people misused it to rationalize all sorts of odious behavior. Science is descriptive, not proscriptive.

As a biologist, Dawkins is ideally situated to refute creationism. But why should he limit himself to that when he sees religion causing many other kinds of nonconsensual harm? There are all sorts of false but firmly unshakeable beliefs that prompt people to do horrible things to each other and we don't seem to have a problem labeling them as "delusional" unless they involve religion. Why should it be exempt?

Dawkins and other outspoken atheists continually cite the harm they perceive religion causes to others, and I don't think they need to apologize for this. Governments and laws exist (or are supposed to exist) precisely to protect people from harming each other, and as citizens in liberal democracies we're supposed to continually participate in improving those laws.

But if Dawkins were to advocate action against people solely for their personal religious beliefs that harm no one else, he would cross the line just as the bluenoses do when they tell consenting adults what they can't do within the privacy of their own bedrooms. Now I might have missed something, but I've never seen him do this.

Many people falsely portray Dawkins and other atheists as out to deny their freedom of religion because they're simply in denial that their religiously-motivated actions do in fact harm others. Worse, some feel that their religions entitle them to cause such harm. They just don't seem to understand that while religious freedom is a basic principle of our country, it does not include the freedom to harm others or to use the machinery of the state to coerce others to follow their personal views.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: raven on January 18, 2013, 05:04:21 AM
That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater though. Yes, said bathwater is so scummy the baby certainly could use a change. My God, it is among the most toxic and horrifying bathwater possible, to continue the metaphor. But religion and faith though have also inspired great acts of good and beauty. Many men and woman of faith have also been scientists. Michael Faraday in particular is well known for treating his research almost as an act of worship.
"The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork." to quote one old book.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 18, 2013, 08:31:53 AM
That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater though. Yes, said bathwater is so scummy the baby certainly could use a change. My God, it is among the most toxic and horrifying bathwater possible, to continue the metaphor. But religion and faith though have also inspired great acts of good and beauty. Many men and woman of faith have also been scientists. Michael Faraday in particular is well known for treating his research almost as an act of worship.
In a time where religion was much more pervasive and prevalent, it's not wonder that most scientists were religious. They were also times of much lesser scientific knowledge, so a lot of natural things that needed explaining were not explained, hence allowing more room for a god hypothesis. Nowadays, the religious scientists are a small minority.

Nobody's forcing others to abandon their faith here. However, as I've tried to point out,  a religious scientist is in an intellectually dishonest position, requiring evidence for everything else but his/her faith. And one should keep the faith to himself, it should not affect others, especially in a negative way.
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"The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork." to quote one old book.
And see how it got science stuck when people tried to fit those firmaments to match observations.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 18, 2013, 08:45:56 AM
But the  following is among the reasons I get concerned about his, or anyone's, overstepping science in an effort to affect social policy.
I understand

I am glad we are communicating on this topic. 

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As a biologist, Dawkins is ideally situated to refute creationism.
Yes he is, and he tears them a new on with regularity.

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he sees religion causing many other kinds of nonconsensual harm?

This begs the question that "religion" is causing the harm. Rather than lets say, an underlying human trait that manifests in many ways.


Quote
There are all sorts of false but firmly unshakeable beliefs that prompt people to do horrible things to each other and we don't seem to have a problem labeling them as "delusional" unless they involve religion. Why should it be exempt?

There are also all sorts of false unshakable beliefs that we don't recognize as delusional.  Look at what socialism did in the Soviet Union.  We don't scientifically label modern Marxist or Hegelian believers delusional.  My thought on the mater is that humans have a vast array of behaviors and modes of mind within the overall continuum of "normal."  Dawkins selects one subset of one portion of that continuum (religion) and plants a label on it.  In labeling them "delusional," instead of addressing the practical modes and behaviors, he stops the debate.  It is an unscientific practice.  His gene centered evolutionary view is not proven in any empirical way to support his work on this topic, so say his scientific critics.  It may be a good contribution to explain what we have observed about evolution, but it has not been show to be a complete or exclusive mechanism for evolution with predictive powers that stretch to all human behavior, in my understanding. 

I think we should be investigating the undying human traits and root social causes that lead people to hold fundamentalist  beliefs and acknowledging that it is a human behavior that occurs both in and out of religion, rather than focusing on religion.  It is a far more interesting, scientific and less divisive way to address the problem.  The problems of fundamentalist thinking can fall on the religious and the secular.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Andromeda on January 18, 2013, 08:47:12 AM
However, as I've tried to point out,  a religious scientist is in an intellectually dishonest position, requiring evidence for everything else but his/her faith.

I disagree with this.  There is a big difference between a scientist's intellectual life and his/her internal, personal life.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 18, 2013, 08:59:46 AM
a religious scientist is in an intellectually dishonest position
There is nothing intellectually dishonest about acknowledging holding non-scientific beliefs.  Dishonesty comes only in portraying beliefs s other than what they are and it cuts both ways. 

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requiring evidence for everything else but his/her faith.


You beg the question that one can, does and should require evidence for everything in life.


Quote
And one should keep the faith to himself, it should not affect others, especially in a negative way.


People should not share their unscientific thoughts and experiences?  Who is to decide what is "negative?"
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 18, 2013, 09:57:51 AM
They just don't seem to understand that while religious freedom is a basic principle of our country, it does not include the freedom to harm others or to use the machinery of the state to coerce others to follow their personal views.

To respond a bit more  to this post. We are in a situation today where some people do claim, as you say, that freedom of religion is tantamount to the freedom to practice only a certain religion and that freedom should be enforced by the state.  It is a bizarre twisting of logic.  Many others do rightly point out, and Dawkins is sure to be one of them, that an individuals freedom of religion intrinsically includes a freedom from religion.

For freedom of religion to occur, the state must be neutral on the religious content of our beliefs and focus on observable behaviors.  That way we can deal with unlawfulness while respecting the individuals right to hold either mainstream or outlier ideas. 
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 18, 2013, 10:40:17 AM
However, as I've tried to point out,  a religious scientist is in an intellectually dishonest position, requiring evidence for everything else but his/her faith.

I disagree. There is nothing intellectually dishonest about believing in a divine entity that looks over us all while being a scientist examining the way the world works. Science by definition cannot cover things like divine entities or the afterlife because there is no way to test it. That doesn't mean a scientist can't believe he will go to heaven or be judged by a god when he dies.

I personally do not believe in a god. I see nothing 'intellectually dishonest' however, about believing that some divine entity set the universe in motion and scientifically trying to understand that setup, while all the time that entity is looking over us all and seeing how that universe he created gets on.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 18, 2013, 10:44:33 AM
For freedom of religion to occur, the state must be neutral on the religious content of our beliefs and focus on observable behaviors.  That way we can deal with unlawfulness while respecting the individuals right to hold either mainstream or outlier ideas. 

The difficulty there comes from deciding what is lawful and unlawful, considering that a number of religions disagree on those points. Some 'observable behaviours' might be quite acceptable to some religions while being totally abhorrent to others, and the state has to try to legislate. Whatever it decides about the acceptability or otherwise of those behaviours, one group will disagree and claim discrimination and the forcing of other beliefs, religious or otherwise, on them.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 18, 2013, 11:06:11 AM
For freedom of religion to occur, the state must be neutral on the religious content of our beliefs and focus on observable behaviors.  That way we can deal with unlawfulness while respecting the individuals right to hold either mainstream or outlier ideas. 

The difficulty there comes from deciding what is lawful and unlawful, considering that a number of religions disagree on those points. Some 'observable behaviours' might be quite acceptable to some religions while being totally abhorrent to others, and the state has to try to legislate. Whatever it decides about the acceptability or otherwise of those behaviours, one group will disagree and claim discrimination and the forcing of other beliefs, religious or otherwise, on them.

Also disagreement among the non-religious.  Politics is one sticky wicket after another.  I think when politics works to address behaviors over beliefs, it is more likely to reach a reasonable consensus that also respects minority rights.  But there is simply no getting around the fact that some people feel put out or offended. 
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 18, 2013, 11:23:53 AM
However, as I've tried to point out,  a religious scientist is in an intellectually dishonest position, requiring evidence for everything else but his/her faith.

I disagree. There is nothing intellectually dishonest about believing in a divine entity that looks over us all while being a scientist examining the way the world works. Science by definition cannot cover things like divine entities or the afterlife because there is no way to test it. That doesn't mean a scientist can't believe he will go to heaven or be judged by a god when he dies.
I'll use this one spot to address all the disagreeing posts.

If you believe in a god that doesn't affect our lives or the universe in general, you are very far from "mainstream" religious beliefs. A god answering prayers, for example, is a testable hypothesis, and one that has been tested, too. Science can't cover things that don't affect anything we can observe even in principle, but then you'll have to somehow justify your belief in such a thing, when you have just acknowledged that you couldn't have had any information about it.
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I personally do not believe in a god. I see nothing 'intellectually dishonest' however, about believing that some divine entity set the universe in motion and scientifically trying to understand that setup, while all the time that entity is looking over us all and seeing how that universe he created gets on.
This is the God of Einstein, a deistic belief. It's still a baseless belief, and a scientist should know that at the moment, we can't know what actually happened at the beginning of our universe. However, this thread has concerned theistic belief, where there's an active god.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 18, 2013, 11:43:53 AM
a religious scientist is in an intellectually dishonest position
There is nothing intellectually dishonest about acknowledging holding non-scientific beliefs.
Then how can you justify your scientific views? Why can the burden of proof be shifted, when it's about a religion? What's the intellectually honest answer from the scientific point of view for, say, "why do you believe in the Christian God and not in Ukko ylijumala?"
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requiring evidence for everything else but his/her faith.

You beg the question that one can, does and should require evidence for everything in life.
No, you misinterpret me. To make it easier, what other things would you believe to exist without proof?
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And one should keep the faith to himself, it should not affect others, especially in a negative way.


People should not share their unscientific thoughts and experiences?  Who is to decide what is "negative?"
It seems that you really want to deliberately misinterpret me. Just take a look at the position of homosexual people, and their rights compared to say heterosexual couples in the US. It shouldn't be that hard to see why having a religious belief, justified or not, is very different from having the belief and having it affect others without their approval.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Andromeda on January 18, 2013, 11:47:13 AM
you'll have to somehow justify your belief in such a thing, when you have just acknowledged that you couldn't have had any information about it.

With all due respect, who the heck are you to tell someone they "have to justify" a personal belief?  Who are you to judge?

I agree that one person's beliefs should not impinge on the rights of others, but that's not what you are saying here.  Any beliefs I do or do not have are none of your business and I do not have to justify them or myself to anyone.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: gillianren on January 18, 2013, 12:23:14 PM
I took a picture around the November election of a board in front of the church near our library.  It normally lists what the sermon was going to be.  For a considerable length of time, it instead announced that people of faith should support love and support our gay marriage initiative.  Now, as it happens, I still don't want that church to announce its political stance that way, even though I agree with it.  I don't think churches should tell people how to vote.  However, I think they were driven to it by all those people (on both sides of the religious spectrum) saying that all religious people are opposed to gay marriage.  Given the statistics of religious people in the US and people in the US who support gay marriage, that literally cannot be true.

A few of you might be aware that I watch the occasional movie.  I also write reviews.  Those reviews are different from the reviews of everyone else, unto what I liked and disliked about the movie.  Personal opinion is unscientific.  Saying, "I enjoyed this movie" is subjective and not answerable to the same specifications as every other person out there.  Every day, we all think and act in ways that are different from one another.  Why?  Who knows?  But saying that religion is the "only" personal belief that doesn't meet scientific justification misses a large amount of the range of human thought.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 18, 2013, 12:32:59 PM
With all due respect, who the heck are you to tell someone they "have to justify" a personal belief?  Who are you to judge?

I agree that one person's beliefs should not impinge on the rights of others, but that's not what you are saying here.  Any beliefs I do or do not have are none of your business and I do not have to justify them or myself to anyone.
Why the aggression? How about justifying a belief to yourself, for starters? How many beliefs do you take for granted, without any actual basis? At least to me, this is basic self-reflection.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 18, 2013, 01:20:40 PM
I took a picture around the November election of a board in front of the church near our library.  It normally lists what the sermon was going to be.  For a considerable length of time, it instead announced that people of faith should support love and support our gay marriage initiative.  Now, as it happens, I still don't want that church to announce its political stance that way, even though I agree with it.
If you live in the US, I think that the church can't do that and still be exempt from taxation.
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However, I think they were driven to it by all those people (on both sides of the religious spectrum) saying that all religious people are opposed to gay marriage.  Given the statistics of religious people in the US and people in the US who support gay marriage, that literally cannot be true.
Would you please present us those statistics? This may be one more case where a vocal and fundamental religious minority tries to affect the society, with the silent approval of the majority of their faith.
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A few of you might be aware that I watch the occasional movie.  I also write reviews.  Those reviews are different from the reviews of everyone else, unto what I liked and disliked about the movie.  Personal opinion is unscientific.  Saying, "I enjoyed this movie" is subjective and not answerable to the same specifications as every other person out there.  Every day, we all think and act in ways that are different from one another.  Why?  Who knows?  But saying that religion is the "only" personal belief that doesn't meet scientific justification misses a large amount of the range of human thought.
Yes, a personal opinion on matters of taste is not scientific, at least at the moment (I can fathom a future where it's actually possible to tell whether a person will like a movie, and why, by observing the brains of the person). However, would you write a review of a movie you never saw? If you did, would you think it'd be meaningful to compare your review with another made by someone who also didn't see the movie?

When writing the review, you are basing all the rational and emotional evaluations on something that exists, and exists in the same form for all the others who view the movie.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: gillianren on January 18, 2013, 01:42:10 PM
If you live in the US, I think that the church can't do that and still be exempt from taxation.

Ha.  Look into the history of California's Proposition 8.

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Would you please present us those statistics? This may be one more case where a vocal and fundamental religious minority tries to affect the society, with the silent approval of the majority of their faith.

Well, these days, vocal disapproval, if you look at those gay marriage initiatives that succeeded in November.  We were all poised to be the first state to approve gay marriage by ballot, not legislature or judiciary, and we were in fact the third--because two other states had polls that closed before ours.  53% of Americans (depending on what poll you're looking at) currently support gay marriage.  That doesn't include those who support "civil unions."  On average, polls show that eighty percent of Americans consider themselves religious, which doesn't include "religious unaffiliated"--religious, but they don't know what they believe.  Assuming that everyone who isn't religious also supports gay marriage--not a safe assumption--shows that there has to be about a thirty percent overlap of "religious" and "supports gay marriage."

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Yes, a personal opinion on matters of taste is not scientific, at least at the moment (I can fathom a future where it's actually possible to tell whether a person will like a movie, and why, by observing the brains of the person). However, would you write a review of a movie you never saw? If you did, would you think it'd be meaningful to compare your review with another made by someone who also didn't see the movie?

Well, I've written a review or two of a movie I didn't finish, generally to explain what was so awful about a movie that other people really seem to like that made me angry enough to turn it off.  (See my review of In and Out, actually.)  However, I am currently in the middle of a series of discussions with friends about why I'm probably not going to see a fairly popular movie at all.  Certainly not in the theatre.  I have made that decision without what some people consider to be enough evidence, based in part on my feelings.  (Also on certain glaring historical errors that have been brought to my attention and a visceral dislike for the director.)  And indeed, at the point the conversations started, none of us had seen the movie.  We were taking fragmentary evidence and deciding if we felt it made it worth pursuing further.

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When writing the review, you are basing all the rational and emotional evaluations on something that exists, and exists in the same form for all the others who view the movie.

Okay, then what about love?  Do you think love is quantifiable?  How about beauty?  Yes, we know that human standards of beauty are generally based on symmetry, but why, then, do so many people even within a culture have such varying standards?  Why were my best friend and I able to argue Charlie Sheen versus Emilio Estevez when we were in eighth grade?  Yes, both men exist, but if beauty is quantifiable, why can't two girls the same age, who attended the same school district--even the same school, at the time--and the same church, and who had mostly the same interests, agree on which one was better-looking?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 18, 2013, 02:15:37 PM
If you live in the US, I think that the church can't do that and still be exempt from taxation.

Ha.  Look into the history of California's Proposition 8.
OK. I don't live in the US, but my understanding is that if you want to be tax exempted as a charity or such, you can't participate in politics in this sense.

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Well, these days, vocal disapproval, if you look at those gay marriage initiatives that succeeded in November.  We were all poised to be the first state to approve gay marriage by ballot, not legislature or judiciary, and we were in fact the third--because two other states had polls that closed before ours.  53% of Americans (depending on what poll you're looking at) currently support gay marriage.  That doesn't include those who support "civil unions."  On average, polls show that eighty percent of Americans consider themselves religious, which doesn't include "religious unaffiliated"--religious, but they don't know what they believe.  Assuming that everyone who isn't religious also supports gay marriage--not a safe assumption--shows that there has to be about a thirty percent overlap of "religious" and "supports gay marriage."
While I do hope that what you describe about gay marriage approval is correct, I'd still like to see some actual statistics. It's not legal in more than a couple of states, after all.

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Well, I've written a review or two of a movie I didn't finish
But you saw enough to make your mind that the movie actually existed, and that it wasn't to your liking.
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However, I am currently in the middle of a series of discussions with friends about why I'm probably not going to see a fairly popular movie at all.  Certainly not in the theatre.  I have made that decision without what some people consider to be enough evidence, based in part on my feelings.  (Also on certain glaring historical errors that have been brought to my attention and a visceral dislike for the director.)  And indeed, at the point the conversations started, none of us had seen the movie.  We were taking fragmentary evidence and deciding if we felt it made it worth pursuing further.
Fragmentary information is not what I meant. If all of you got about the same information about the movie, and you could even agree that you were talking about the same movie, that's fine. It has nothing to do what I meant, though. Could you actually make a review of the movie?

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Okay, then what about love?
In the context of this discussion, I've never loved anything that I haven't observed to exist. 
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Do you think love is quantifiable?
Perhaps not, but I know I love more my wife and my child than my parents, for example. I've also observed that all of them exist.   
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How about beauty?
I'll make my judgment when I see it. 
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Yes, we know that human standards of beauty are generally based on symmetry, but why, then, do so many people even within a culture have such varying standards?
I'm not sure. Perhaps it has something to do with "compatibility", like tall people preferring tall partners. This still doesn't mean that the object of desire doesn't exist in a physical sense. 
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Why were my best friend and I able to argue Charlie Sheen versus Emilio Estevez when we were in eighth grade?  Yes, both men exist, but if beauty is quantifiable, why can't two girls the same age, who attended the same school district--even the same school, at the time--and the same church, and who had mostly the same interests, agree on which one was better-looking?
You tell me. Did you write down the features that you found attractive?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 18, 2013, 02:37:06 PM
a religious scientist is in an intellectually dishonest position
There is nothing intellectually dishonest about acknowledging holding non-scientific beliefs.
Then how can you justify your scientific views? Why can the burden of proof be shifted, when it's about a religion? What's the intellectually honest answer from the scientific point of view for, say, "why do you believe in the Christian God and not in Ukko ylijumala?"


An intellectually honest answer would be, "That is my faith. I believe it without proof." An answer much like the one Gillianren gave earlier.  (Not intending to put words in her mouth.)

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No, you misinterpret me. To make it easier, what other things would you believe to exist without proof?

I interpreted "evidence for everything in life" as well, everything in life, material and non-material.    I see your  statement of "believe to exist" as perhaps meaning only material existence.  If you meant only material existence, then we are in agreement. One needs to have proof for a claim of something having materiel existence or an ability act on the material.  One need not have proof to say that one's spiritual impulse exists and influences decisions in one's life.

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It seems that you really want to deliberately misinterpret me.

I really did mean those questions as questions that I would like you to clarify, not accusations.

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It shouldn't be that hard to see why having a religious belief, justified or not, is very different from having the belief and having it affect others without their approval.

This does occur with beliefs religious and not.  The director of the Bolshoi Ballet was attacked with acid to the face yesterday and may loose his sight.  News reports attribute the attack to artistic differences.  Union members may attack or kill scabs.  Although religious hatred may be the most prevalent, I just don't see much ultimate difference between religious and secular hatred.

If we are not communicating, please do not take my misunderstandings as deliberate.  I think our conversations here are productive. 
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: gillianren on January 18, 2013, 02:41:34 PM
OK. I don't live in the US, but my understanding is that if you want to be tax exempted as a charity or such, you can't participate in politics in this sense.

And that is supposed to be true.  Supposedly, you should lose your tax-exempt status if you tell people how to vote.  However, there's a certain Utah-based faith that poured unknown dollar amounts and volunteer hours into the Proposition 8 campaign, and they still have tax-exempt status.  I'm sure one marquee on one obscure Olympia church isn't going to change a thing.

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While I do hope that what you describe about gay marriage approval is correct, I'd still like to see some actual statistics. It's not legal in more than a couple of states, after all.

Assuming the Supreme Court overturns Prop 8, it will be legal for a quarter of the US population.  That will be because California is the most populous state in the Union--and it's legal in New York, which also has a rather large population.  It is legal in nine states, the District of Columbia, and two Indian tribes.  Obama has publicly declared his support of same-sex marriage.  Three states made it legal in one day, which is fairly impressive.  On that same day, another failed to pass a constitutional ban, becoming only the second to do so.  What statistics do you want?  I gave you current poll numbers.  Do you want links to the actual polls?  Because I can do that, too.  Heck, it doesn't take much looking around to discover that the support for same-sex marriage is increasing in the US, whereas the amount of people who consider themselves religious is relatively static.

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Fragmentary information is not what I meant. If all of you got about the same information about the movie, and you could even agree that you were talking about the same movie, that's fine. It has nothing to do what I meant, though. Could you actually make a review of the movie?

Probably, but I wouldn't.  I know there are several movies I haven't actually seen that I could not only write reviews of, but could write accurate reviews of.

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Perhaps not, but I know I love more my wife and my child than my parents, for example. I've also observed that all of them exist.

You're missing my point, perhaps deliberately.  I can't remember the exact quote, but in Hogfather, Death talks to Susan about how humanity is all about the things that don't exist.  She argues, but he suggests she mill the universe down to its smallest particles and find her an atom of "justice" or "love."  Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez certainly exist, as does your family.  Your love for them, and their beauty, do not have tangible existence.  They are names we have assigned to something that, from an objective perspective, can be said not to exist.  "Compatibility"?  Find me a particle of that.  The object of desire exists, but "desire"?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Andromeda on January 18, 2013, 02:53:43 PM
With all due respect, who the heck are you to tell someone they "have to justify" a personal belief?  Who are you to judge?

I agree that one person's beliefs should not impinge on the rights of others, but that's not what you are saying here.  Any beliefs I do or do not have are none of your business and I do not have to justify them or myself to anyone.
Why the aggression? How about justifying a belief to yourself, for starters? How many beliefs do you take for granted, without any actual basis? At least to me, this is basic self-reflection.

Why so personal?  When someone tries to tell me what to think, yeah I get annoyed.

Again, it is none of your business what I do or do not believe or why.  You don't know me, and you do not know how deep my self-reflection runs or what I have put in to achieve it.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 18, 2013, 02:57:03 PM
I took a picture around the November election of a board in front of the church near our library.  It normally lists what the sermon was going to be.  For a considerable length of time, it instead announced that people of faith should support love and support our gay marriage initiative.  Now, as it happens, I still don't want that church to announce its political stance that way, even though I agree with it.
If you live in the US, I think that the church can't do that and still be exempt from taxation.

In practice, a church or any entity situated in the same legal category, can say what they want as long as they don't make explicit endorsements for parties or candidates, but nothing prevents a minister from speaking publicly of personal thoughts.   Where it really becomes a legal issue is fund raising and the authorities may take a closer look at that.  Some groups of churches have been able to violate these prohibitions with impunity because they a have political protection.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 18, 2013, 03:13:26 PM
but then you'll have to somehow justify your belief in such a thing, when you have just acknowledged that you couldn't have had any information about it.

Why would anyone have to justify any belief they had if they simply hold it for themselves? You want to try and dictate how others behave based on your beliefs, yes, you justify it. You have a personal belief that makes no difference to anyone but you, no, you don't have to justify it.

[/quote]This is the God of Einstein, a deistic belief. It's still a baseless belief, and a scientist should know that at the moment, we can't know what actually happened at the beginning of our universe.[/quote]

I am a scientist. I do know it. That also means we can't scientifically rule out a divine creator either. Therefore, if a scientist chooses to believe that a divine creator lit the blue touch paper that set off the Big bang, what is intellectually dishonest about that?

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However, this thread has concerned theistic belief, where there's an active god.

With respect, you made a broad statement that religious scientists are intellectually dishonest. You added no such clauses to that until just now.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 18, 2013, 03:20:18 PM
Then how can you justify your scientific views? Why can the burden of proof be shifted, when it's about a religion?

Because the one has objectively testable evidence and the other does not. There is a lot that science does not know. Since science cannot rule out a divine entity (because said divine entity can do whatever the hell it wants, including mess around with our 'testable hypotheses', if it chooses to do so), it cannot possibly have a 'burden of proof' attached to it.

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What's the intellectually honest answer from the scientific point of view for, say, "why do you believe in the Christian God and not in Ukko ylijumala?"

"I do not know."

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It seems that you really want to deliberately misinterpret me. Just take a look at the position of homosexual people, and their rights compared to say heterosexual couples in the US. It shouldn't be that hard to see why having a religious belief, justified or not, is very different from having the belief and having it affect others without their approval.

The problem here is your massive overgeneralisation in your initial statements. Earlier on you said religious scientists were intellectually dishonest, then rejected disagreements such as a belief in a non-interventionist god as if we were supposed to know you were not covering all religious beliefs. Similarly, what about Buddhism? Doesn't believe in a god or a divine creator at all, but is definitely a recognised religion.

Here you made a blanket statement, then suggest we misunderstood because you were specifically referring to things such as religious anti-homesexual activities. I think we're all pretty much agreed that things like that are bad, but you didn't specify that to start with.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Andromeda on January 18, 2013, 03:20:48 PM
With respect, you made a broad statement that religious scientists are intellectually dishonest. You added no such clauses to that until just now.

Thanks, Jason, I hadn't noticed that until you pointed it out.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 18, 2013, 03:24:49 PM
Why the aggression?

Well it might have something to do with the fact that you are implicitly accusing several people here, intentionally or otherwise, of intellectual dishonesty. You don't think people might get a little upset about that?

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How about justifying a belief to yourself, for starters?

Why should it require justification? I believe certain things because I just do. There is no intellectual dishonesty involved in admitting to oneself the irrationality of some of one's own beliefs. We're human beings, not machines. It is quite possible for us to be rational about some things and irrational about others. The intellectual honesty is in recognising one from the other, not trying to pretend one is the other.

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At least to me, this is basic self-reflection.

I think you'll find Andromeda's self-reflection is quite adequate, thank you, and that will be quite enough on the subject.

Incidentally, you don't know her, as she says, and I do, so I feel quite comfortable making such a statement on her behalf, and I'm sure she won't mind.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: gillianren on January 18, 2013, 04:25:41 PM
Indeed, I think the statements of several people have been indicative that they spend considerable time in self-reflection.  The fact that those reflections don't always return the same results is further evidence that not everything in the human experience is inherently quantifiable.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 18, 2013, 04:35:10 PM
But religion and faith though have also inspired great acts of good and beauty.
I was waiting for you to say that, and I already knew what I would say in response:

What good there may be in religion can be preserved in a far purer form as secular humanism. Additionally, merely inspiring (some) good and beautiful acts hardly proves a religion factually true or even morally beneficial as a whole; consider Greco-Roman art. We now call it "mythology" only because nobody actually believes their religion anymore. Some day in the future, the art inspired by Judaism, Christianity and Islam will probably be considered in the same light, only they won't provide as many deity names for future space programs.

As the saying goes, today everyone is an atheist with respect to the Greco-Roman gods; I'm just an atheist with respect to one more god than you. When you understand why you reject the Greek and Roman gods you'll understand why I reject yours.

It all comes down to your fundamental axioms. If you argue religion is (sometimes) good because it (sometimes) makes people happy or (sometimes) alleviates their suffering, then why not just adopt those specific criteria directly as humanism does?

The fundamental axioms of (at least western) religion are something else: that doing the will of a deity is fundamentally good and disobeying a deity is fundamentally bad. When that coincides with humanism, it's only by accident.


Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 18, 2013, 04:47:41 PM
In a time where religion was much more pervasive and prevalent, it's not wonder that most scientists were religious.
Right. As Neil Degrasse Tyson is fond of pointing out, this even includes Isaac Newton, probably the smartest man who ever lived. Yet he also dabbled in alchemy, which few still defend today. Unlike religion.

Newton stood on the shoulders of giants, and himself became one of the giants that we stand on today, but he was still a product of his time. Imagine how much more even he could have accomplished if he hadn't wasted so much of his time on alchemy -- or religion.


Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Andromeda on January 18, 2013, 04:49:53 PM
consider Greco-Roman art. We now call it "mythology" only because nobody actually believes their religion anymore.

...

Today everyone is an atheist with respect to the Greco-Roman gods

That's not true.  Many pagans of various flavours have a Greco-Roman pantheon.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 18, 2013, 05:03:20 PM
That's not true.  Many pagans of various flavours have a Greco-Roman pantheon.
I stand corrected; I knew there are pagans, but I didn't know any active modern beliefs were based directly on the Greco-Roman gods. The ones I've heard of seem more animist in nature. So do many of the eastern (non-Abrahamic) religions.

Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: raven on January 18, 2013, 07:30:12 PM
ka9q, from your earlier comments, it seems you think that the beliefs a scientist should have are those that can be empirically proven, and anything else is either hypocritical or delusional. Deriving from that, they therefore should not cheer for one sports team over the other, or like a book, game, or movie over another, have a favourite food even. One could argue that they shouldn't fall in love with one particular person either from that premise as well.
Even further, crimes of passion are distressingly common, the anger that arise from disagreements over various examples of media can reach ludicrous heights, the ardour that can arise form their shared passion for it, the riots that can break out after a loss, or even a win, of a sports game of a professional can cause millions in property damage and result in injury or even loss of life.
Are those reasons to blanket media, sports, and even love as bad?
I can't address the rest without getting a little peeved myself.
Aggressively secular societies have done there own share of horrors. Just look at the 20th century, and likely earlier, so removing religion ain't suddenly going to make us angels.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: gillianren on January 18, 2013, 09:26:37 PM
I stand corrected; I knew there are pagans, but I didn't know any active modern beliefs were based directly on the Greco-Roman gods. The ones I've heard of seem more animist in nature. So do many of the eastern (non-Abrahamic) religions.

Most of the ones I know are inspired by either Norse or Celtic faiths, but I know people who are into Egyptian, Greco-Roman, and of course various New World pantheons.  Or my own disorganized, "I don't really use any of those names" variation, which is closer to Deism than animism or any specific pantheon.  If someone has worshiped a deity, and we still know they did, someone is worshiping them in the present, even if it's just to piss off their parents.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: BILLR on January 19, 2013, 12:33:30 AM
I think the belief in a god started the first day a mind understood that there is a "next day". Most animals have no concept of "what happens to me tomorrow ?". That is when the concept of death..an ending, would have to start preying on the mind.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Not Myself on January 19, 2013, 02:53:58 AM
ka9q, from your earlier comments, it seems you think that the beliefs a scientist should have are those that can be empirically proven, and anything else is either hypocritical or delusional.

I can't speak for ka9q, but to me, empiricism (and deductive logic) is what science is about.  I have yet to meet the scientist who believes only what has been shown empirically.  I don't see anything remotely hypocritical about believing things which haven't been proven empirically, nor even in believing things which have been disproven empirically, unless in the latter case one also claims to believe in empiricism.  To reject empiricism in favour of belief is in my opinion wrong, but it doesn't sound hypocritical to me.

Delusional?  I don't know.  I know mathematicians who believe the Riemann conjecture is true, and I know others who believe it is false.  None of them can prove their beliefs at this time (unless there has been some big news which I somehow missed recently), and they're all aware of this.  If the question is one day resolved one way or the other, then we will know which group of mathematicians believed in the false delusion and which believed in the true delusion.  (And this one isn't even an empirical question!)

Religious beliefs?  Seems to me, it would depend on the particular religion.  If your religion tells you things which contradict what we observe empirically, then you need to throw away your religion, or you need to throw away empiricism.  If your religious beliefs are not falsifiable, then you won't ever face that dilemma.  If your religious beliefs are in principle falsifiable, but haven't been falsified yet, then the day may be coming when you have to choose.

Deriving from that, they therefore should not cheer for one sports team over the other, or like a book, game, or movie over another, have a favourite food even. One could argue that they shouldn't fall in love with one particular person either from that premise as well.

The thing that I've noticed about internet faux-science boards is, the shriller the denunciation of religion, the more unproven (and unprovable) beliefs the denouncer seems to have.  To me, whether we should want the Wallabies to beat the Springboks in the upcoming tournament is not within the realm of science.  (The tournament itself could be viewed as a sort of empirical test about which team is better by a particular metric, but that's a different question.)  My science is about understanding the laws the universe operates by.  It won't ever tell me which team I ought to root for, whether Mozart is better than Beethoven, or anything like that.  Certain types of science, psychology, sociology, et al., provide me with some tools I could use if I wanted to answer the question of how a society ought to be ordered, because they let me judge what the consequences of implementing some policy will be.  But ultimately, the value judgement that tells me whether those consequences are good or bad, is not a scientific question.  My science doesn't tell me what is good and what is evil.

Some seem to have a more all-encompassing version of science, that tells them what is good and what is evil.  Rather like a religion.

Aggressively secular societies have done there own share of horrors. Just look at the 20th century, and likely earlier, so removing religion ain't suddenly going to make us angels.

That's just the thing, to me.  How do we decide what is and what is not a horror, and which people are or are not angels?  It seems to me that a person who claims only to believe that which can be demonstrated scientifically shouldn't even be asking whether something was a horror or whether someone is an angel.  And yet ...

Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: BILLR on January 19, 2013, 03:39:41 AM
"Aggrssively secular societies". They were not that. In all cases the leader became "God". And the people, to a horrible degree, were true believers.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 19, 2013, 04:07:14 AM
Indeed, I think the statements of several people have been indicative that they spend considerable time in self-reflection.
There's a lot to be said for going through that on your own instead of just adopting your parents' belief system without question. It wasn't easy but I had no choice.

Dawkins makes the "modest proposal" of insulating children from religion until they're old enough to understand and choose (or not) one on their own. The usual response is "but if we don't indoctrinate our kids from a young age, they won't adopt our religion when they're older!"

Precisely.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 19, 2013, 04:30:55 AM
Indeed, I think the statements of several people have been indicative that they spend considerable time in self-reflection.
There's a lot to be said for going through that on your own instead of just adopting your parents' belief system without question. It wasn't easy but I had no choice.

Dawkins makes the "modest proposal" of insulating children from religion until they're old enough to understand and choose (or not) one on their own. The usual response is "but if we don't indoctrinate our kids from a young age, they won't adopt our religion when they're older!"

Precisely.

My reply to such a modest proposal is that is is nonsensical rhetorical BS.  Does Dawkins really want the government  to censor parents to such a degree that they cannot include their children in a substantial portion of family life?  What does he expect parents to do, take children to government daycare centers every Sunday morning for governmental indoctrination  programs?     I doubt that is what he really means, and such satirical proposals sound like stupid anti-religiosity because they take no account of the practical result. 
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 19, 2013, 04:36:12 AM
Well it might have something to do with the fact that you are implicitly accusing several people here, intentionally or otherwise, of intellectual dishonesty. You don't think people might get a little upset about that?
Perhaps people shouldn't get upset for being called out on such a position, then?

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There is no intellectual dishonesty involved in admitting to oneself the irrationality of some of one's own beliefs.
That's true. However, the intellectual dishonesty comes from the burden of proof part, which should be very clear to scientist. We are not talking about why I think that Repo Man is so bad that it's sort of good; I'm not basing my world on such a trivial irrationality, and it doesn't affect others.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 19, 2013, 04:40:09 AM
The problem here is your massive overgeneralisation in your initial statements. Earlier on you said religious scientists were intellectually dishonest, then rejected disagreements such as a belief in a non-interventionist god as if we were supposed to know you were not covering all religious beliefs. Similarly, what about Buddhism? Doesn't believe in a god or a divine creator at all, but is definitely a recognised religion.

Here you made a blanket statement, then suggest we misunderstood because you were specifically referring to things such as religious anti-homesexual activities. I think we're all pretty much agreed that things like that are bad, but you didn't specify that to start with.
I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, but Tyson and Dawkins explicitly cover theistic beliefs, so as they are the topic of the thread, I thought it'd be clear to others, too.

Buddhism is quite similar than other main religions in inventing rules and regulations without evidence.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 19, 2013, 04:50:05 AM
You're missing my point, perhaps deliberately.  I can't remember the exact quote, but in Hogfather, Death talks to Susan about how humanity is all about the things that don't exist.  She argues, but he suggests she mill the universe down to its smallest particles and find her an atom of "justice" or "love."  Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez certainly exist, as does your family.  Your love for them, and their beauty, do not have tangible existence.  They are names we have assigned to something that, from an objective perspective, can be said not to exist.  "Compatibility"?  Find me a particle of that.  The object of desire exists, but "desire"?
Emotions, while seemingly immaterial, are the result of chemical and electrical interactions in our brains. We have at least some sort of understanding on how they happen, and a plausible physical basis for the phenomena (I don't mean to say that science actually tries to explain love, for example). For a god or gods, there is no such basis.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Andromeda on January 19, 2013, 04:50:56 AM
Well it might have something to do with the fact that you are implicitly accusing several people here, intentionally or otherwise, of intellectual dishonesty. You don't think people might get a little upset about that?
Perhaps people shouldn't get upset for being called out on such a position, then?

So in arguing against religions which you believe affect others badly, you are dictating how others should think and feel?


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Quote
There is no intellectual dishonesty involved in admitting to oneself the irrationality of some of one's own beliefs.
That's true. However, the intellectual dishonesty comes from the burden of proof part, which should be very clear to scientist. We are not talking about why I think that Repo Man is so bad that it's sort of good; I'm not basing my world on such a trivial irrationality, and it doesn't affect others.

Again with the personal insults.

As I have said repeatedly any personal, private beliefs I may or may not hold don't affect anyone else, either.  Therefore there is no burden of proof because I make no claims one way or the other.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 19, 2013, 05:00:45 AM
ka9q, from your earlier comments, it seems you think that the beliefs a scientist should have are those that can be empirically proven, and anything else is either hypocritical or delusional.
That's not what I said. I explicitly said I strongly support freedom of religion. Consenting adults have the right to believe whatever they want just as they can do whatever they want in the privacy of their own bedrooms. They don't have to justify either to anyone else.

But I draw the line when these beliefs are used to justify harming third parties. There are many examples, but one of the worst is forcibly indoctrinating children in a religion that systematically engages in psychological child abuse (and now, we discover, physical abuse as well).

Everyone in a liberal democracy has the right to say what they think the law should be. But this can't work unless we demand a rational basis for any proposed law. I am sick and tired of people saying that gay marriage (or sex), fornication, birth control and all manner of so-called "immoral" behavior should be outlawed simply "because God said so". And I resent being told that I'm out of line (not necessarily by you!) to point out that hiding personal prejudices behind religion is a cowardly way to short-circuit the debate over public policy. This is a secular liberal democracy, not a theocracy.



Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 19, 2013, 05:09:07 AM
An intellectually honest answer would be, "That is my faith. I believe it without proof." An answer much like the one Gillianren gave earlier.  (Not intending to put words in her mouth.)
I think we'll just have to disagree on this one. You and several others don't seem to agree with me on the burden of proof part, so I don't see how this part of the conversation would lead to anything fruitful.

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I interpreted "evidence for everything in life" as well, everything in life, material and non-material.    I see your  statement of "believe to exist" as perhaps meaning only material existence.  If you meant only material existence, then we are in agreement. One needs to have proof for a claim of something having materiel existence or an ability act on the material.  One need not have proof to say that one's spiritual impulse exists and influences decisions in one's life.
I have seen no evidence of a separate spiritual part of human beings. Why is it exempt from burden of proof?

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This does occur with beliefs religious and not.
Of course.
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Although religious hatred may be the most prevalent, I just don't see much ultimate difference between religious and secular hatred.
To me, the main difference is that the former is totally unnecessary, sometimes being bred to people from childhood (see for example Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi's antisemitic statements). There can be justified hatred, when for example you have been grievously wronged, but "God says so" is not a justification.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 19, 2013, 05:17:26 AM
Does Dawkins really want the government  to censor parents to such a degree that they cannot include their children in a substantial portion of family life?
What about parents who deny medical care to their children on religious grounds, or forcibly marry them off at age 12 to their cult leader, or what have you?

You probably agree that parents' rights aren't that absolute. But what about a much more widespread and worrying practice: denying their children a proper education because established scientific topics like evolution, comprehensive sex education, and even global warming conflict with their backward religious beliefs? I'm sure there are some excellent homeschoolers. But there's no quality control, and most parents who homeschool sure aren't doing their kids any favors.

I used the phrase "modest proposal" for a reason. Yes, it's satirical but like all satire it has a serious point: to make people think about what they're doing.

Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 19, 2013, 05:21:37 AM
So in arguing against religions which you believe affect others badly, you are dictating how others should think and feel?
To begin with, the word is not "believe" in the sentence above. It's "observe".

Many countries have, and in my opinion all should have, freedom of religion, including freedom from religion. Unfortunately, those things are still more an ideal and not the practice.
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Again with the personal insults.
What would those be?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 19, 2013, 05:23:39 AM
Perhaps people shouldn't get upset for being called out on such a position, then?

Excuse me? I will certainly get upset when someone accuses me of dishonesty where there is none.

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That's true. However, the intellectual dishonesty comes from the burden of proof part, which should be very clear to scientist.

There is no burden of proof. Many beliefs cannot be explained rationally, and cannot be proven. By definition you cannot prove the existence of an omnipotent entity that can do whatever the hell it wants because there is no way to test it. A test requires a frmaework of rules and patterns that must be followed. If the god I am trying to prove exists operates that framework anyway, how can I judge the results of any test? He could have just messed with my test to make himself appear to be non-existent. (According to some, he does that anyway by making the world appear to be billions of years old when it's only 6000. I don't think he is, and i wouldn't want to worship any such intentionally deceitful entity anyway, but I have no way to prove that he isn't doing that, have I?) But equally you cannot disprove it either. That only leaves belief. Whenever it comes to questions of religion and gods, belief is all we have and all we can have. Every single person, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu or atheist is operating on a belief system because there is no other way to work in such an area. The only intellectual dishonesty comes from claiming that one's beliefs in the matter are rational. I have not done so, Andromeda has not done so, and gillianren has openly stated her beliefs are irrational. Where is this dishonesty you crow about?

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We are not talking about why I think that Repo Man is so bad that it's sort of good; I'm not basing my world on such a trivial irrationality, and it doesn't affect others.

Many people's belief in their god or gods does not affect others significantly either. You are taking the worst excesses of religious oppression and tarring all religions and religious people with the same brush.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Andromeda on January 19, 2013, 05:35:39 AM
So in arguing against religions which you believe affect others badly, you are dictating how others should think and feel?
To begin with, the word is not "believe" in the sentence above. It's "observe".

Many countries have, and in my opinion all should have, freedom of religion, including freedom from religion. Unfortunately, those things are still more an ideal and not the practice.
Quote
Again with the personal insults.
What would those be?

"Intellectual dishonesty"
"Trivial irrationality"
Your constant assertion of your absolute opinion that religious beliefs always cause harm.  Beliefs cause no harm to anyone except the person who has them, if at all.  Actions and behaviour can cause harm, but that's not what you are saying.

Some people cause harm to others in the name of religion.  Most people don't.  Some people cause harm to others in the name of a sports team, a video game, a movie etc etc.  Most don't.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 19, 2013, 05:49:27 AM
Excuse me? I will certainly get upset when someone accuses me of dishonesty where there is none.
As the word "dishonesty" seems to antagonize you, perhaps you can come up with a better one for a person who follows certain rules for everything except for one thing, which is for reasons not given exempt from those rules.

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Many people's belief in their god or gods does not affect others significantly either. You are taking the worst excesses of religious oppression and tarring all religions and religious people with the same brush.
I'm not sure where I have done that, but for the main religions, one part of the situation are the moderate believers, who either silently approve or at least don't vocally object the actions of the more fundamental believers. How often do you see Muslims decrying for example the recent US embassy attack? Or Buddhists denouncing the Buddhist-led acts of violence in Asia?

Of course there are different kinds of believers, and it hasn't been my intention to put them all into the same basket.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 19, 2013, 05:52:46 AM
"Intellectual dishonesty"
As I've already said above, perhaps you can find a better term for it, then.
Quote
"Trivial irrationality"
How can something I used to describe myself be a personal insult?
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Your constant assertion of your absolute opinion that religious beliefs always cause harm.
Where have I said that?
Quote
Beliefs cause no harm to anyone except the person who has them, if at all.  Actions and behaviour can cause harm, but that's not what you are saying.
I don't see it in so simple terms. Beliefs can be the basis of those actions.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 19, 2013, 05:58:15 AM
As the word "dishonesty" seems to antagonize you, perhaps you can come up with a better one for a person who follows certain rules for everything except for one thing, which is for reasons not given exempt from those rules.

The reasons are given: the rules cannot be applied. There is no dishonesty in simultaneously being a rational scientist and holding irrational beliefs that have no way to be rational in the first place. That's just being human. It's not just one thing either. You have already conceded that things like which movie or music you like best are irrational. Is that being dishonest? Must a scientist refuse to acknowledge his preferences for a certain music because he cannot justify it to himself and others? If not, why is holding a religious belief dishonest?

As I said, the dishonestly lies in pretending irrational beliefs are rational, not in holding the irrational beliefs in the first place.

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How often do you see Muslims decrying for example the recent US embassy attack? Or Buddhists denouncing the Buddhist-led acts of violence in Asia?

Actually quite a few. It just doesn't get as much front page media attention as the atrocities themselves. Nonetheless I have seen numerous news reports, blog entries, and personal conversations where muslims, for example, have denounced the extremists and terrorists who claim to be acting in the name of their religion.

http://www.muhajabah.com/otherscondemn.php (http://www.muhajabah.com/otherscondemn.php)

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Of course there are different kinds of believers, and it hasn't been my intention to put them all into the same basket.

It certainly does come across that way when you make blanket statements.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Andromeda on January 19, 2013, 06:00:15 AM
Excuse me? I will certainly get upset when someone accuses me of dishonesty where there is none.
As the word "dishonesty" seems to antagonize you, perhaps you can come up with a better one for a person who follows certain rules for everything except for one thing, which is for reasons not given exempt from those rules.

You have got to be kidding!




Quote
Quote
Many people's belief in their god or gods does not affect others significantly either. You are taking the worst excesses of religious oppression and tarring all religions and religious people with the same brush.
I'm not sure where I have done that, but for the main religions, one part of the situation are the moderate believers, who either silently approve or at least don't vocally object the actions of the more fundamental believers. How often do you see Muslims decrying for example the recent US embassy attack? Or Buddhists denouncing the Buddhist-led acts of violence in Asia?

Of course there are different kinds of believers, and it hasn't been my intention to put them all into the same basket.


Googling for "Muslim decry US embassy attack" and there are several examples of what you claim isn't happening.

Remember, those who shout the loudest get the most media attention.  News agencies prefer to feature the screaming violent minority because it sells more papers than the quiet majority calling for peace.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 19, 2013, 06:07:29 AM
The reasons are given: the rules cannot be applied.
As I've already said, there doesn't seem to be any common ground on this, so there's little point in continuing it. My point is that a religious belief is one big claim about the world, and I don't see how it could be exempt from burden of proof, even if you are just making the claim to yourself.
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You have already conceded that things like which movie or music you like best are irrational. Is that being dishonest? Must a scientist refuse to acknowledge his preferences for a certain music because he cannot justify it to himself and others? If not, why is holding a religious belief dishonest?
Preferences in art are not positive claims about the world.
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Actually quite a few. It just doesn't get as much front page media attention as the atrocities themselves. Nonetheless I have seen numerous news reports, blog entries, and personal conversations where muslims, for example, have denounced the extremists and terrorists who claim to be acting in the name of their religion.
Then why aren't the moderate Muslim outcasting the fundamentalists en masse?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Andromeda on January 19, 2013, 06:12:02 AM
There is a difference between believing something (a passive process) and making a claim about it (active).

Bear in mind this is something I am currently studying in-depth for professional qualification.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 19, 2013, 06:15:18 AM
There is a difference between believing something (a passive process) and making a claim about it (active).
So believing in say the atomic theory doesn't require evidence?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Andromeda on January 19, 2013, 06:19:38 AM
There is a difference between believing something (a passive process) and making a claim about it (active).
So believing in say the atomic theory doesn't require evidence?

No.

Claiming to others that it is fact does.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 19, 2013, 06:21:19 AM
I don't see how it could be exempt from burden of proof, even if you are just making the claim to yourself.

And my point is you can't apply burden of proof in the first place, since there is no possible way to prove it. It's not an exemption: it's a completely different ball game.

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Preferences in art are not positive claims about the world.

No, but they are irrational.
 
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Then why aren't the moderate Muslim outcasting the fundamentalists en masse?

Such 'outcasting' is precisely why we don't just have one huge version of each major religion. Why we have protestants, catholics, methodists, sunni muslims, shiite muslims, islamists and so on. Why there have been many wars of religion. It does happen and is happening.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: raven on January 19, 2013, 06:27:25 AM
Why we have Trekkies verses Trekkers . . .
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 19, 2013, 06:29:48 AM
Claiming to others that it is fact does.
Why are others required? I've already made the claim to myself, and I honestly can't see how I could take it as likely true if I didn't also justify the belief to myself.

What you are saying is that all beliefs are equal, as long as they exist only in the head of the believer. This is certainly not the case.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Halcyon Dayz, FCD on January 19, 2013, 06:33:30 AM
"Aggressively secular societies". They were not that. In all cases the leader became "God". And the people, to a horrible degree, were true believers.
There are some interresting paralels between marxism-leninism (in its muliple incarnations) and eschatological cults.
(Marx was raised in the Prussian Lutheran Church.)

"The forces of history" is God.
Marx is its Prophet.
Revolution is the End Time struggle.
Lenin/Stalin/Mao/Pol Pot etc. is the Second Coming.
Communism is Heaven on Earth.

Marxism likes to dress itself in sciency gobbeldygook, but Marx, or anyone following in his footsteps, have never been able to actually proof their basic premisses.
Like pretty much all ideologies it's faith based.

ETA: This probably explains why regimes based on such ideologies tend to clamp down on organised religions.
Nobody likes competition.

I don't see how it could be exempt from burden of proof, even if you are just making the claim to yourself.
And my point is you can't apply burden of proof in the first place, since there is no possible way to prove it. It's not an exemption: it's a completely different ball game.
Why?
Why would you want to exclude the believe in the supernatural from rational inquiry?

Without it it will never become knowledge. Something much better than mere believe.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Andromeda on January 19, 2013, 06:36:05 AM
Claiming to others that it is fact does.
Why are others required? I've already made the claim to myself, and I honestly can't see how I could take it as likely true if I didn't also justify the belief to myself.

Others are required because making the claims out loud or acting on them can and will have an effect on those others.  If the beliefs stay inside a person they have no effect on anyone but them and therefore it is that person's choice how they deal with those beliefs.


You choose to justify your own beliefs to yourself and that is just fine, but you cannot insist on telling other people how to think without them being affected.


Quote
What you are saying is that all beliefs are equal, as long as they exist only in the head of the believer. This is certainly not the case.

No, I'm not.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 19, 2013, 06:37:11 AM
Why are others required? I've already made the claim to myself, and I honestly can't see how I could take it as likely true if I didn't also justify the belief to myself.

Fine, that's your view. Why do you think others are obliged to share it? I am quite comfortable with accepting that some beliefs are simply irrational and unjustifiable by any such means, so I don't feel the need to justify my beliefs to myself. If you do then fine, but that's your view, and not one that needs to be shared by anyone else. Otherwise you're doing what you claim is so bad: telling others how they should think and feel.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 19, 2013, 06:43:10 AM
And my point is you can't apply burden of proof in the first place, since there is no possible way to prove it. It's not an exemption: it's a completely different ball game.
Why?
Why would you want to exclude the believe in the supernatural from rational inquiry?

Without it it will never become knowledge. Something much better than mere believe.
[/quote]

I don't want to exclude it. And there's not just one level of supernatural. Lots of things have been thought of as supernatural and are now considered natural. Rational enquiry has done that and done it well.

However, if we are talking about an omnipotent entity that can control the entire universe and the framework on which we base our rational enquiry, how can we possibly test it? Rational enquiry requires that framework to be fixed somehow. There is no basis for testing the existence or otherwise of an entity that can do anything it likes. For one thing it can simply ignore the test!

In Star trek Voyager the producers were worried about including Q in too many episodes because he could simply snap his fingers and send Voyager home, short-circuiting the entire premise of the series. John DeLancie pointed out that Q could simply refuse to do it because he has that choice. So it is with rationally trying to test the existence of a god or gods. If they can do what they want, how can we formulate a falsifiable hypothesis on which to test them?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: raven on January 19, 2013, 06:48:21 AM
The very basic framework  of science is faith.  Postulates are taken on faith as a staring point, but are not themselves proven. It is by faith alone we know we can even have observations that can lead to truth.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 19, 2013, 07:00:17 AM
The very basic framework  of science is faith.  Postulates are taken on faith as a staring point, but are not themselves proven. It is by faith alone we know we can even have observations that can lead to truth.
I'm in a rush, so I'll try to answer the posts of Andromeda and Jason Thompson later today, as they take more thinking, but for this one, I have a quick reply:

While you may be right from a philosophical point of view, science has long since transcended such objections, for the reason that it works. Science is unique in the sense that it's repeatable from the very beginning, and it continues to produce predictions that are later found to match the observed reality.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: raven on January 19, 2013, 07:23:43 AM
Yes, this is pretty pedantic, but it is still important to realize nonetheless. More practically, every so often we find old axioms and principles overturned by new results.
Even Einstein, who helped change the way we think about the universe, had a very difficult time accepting quantum mechanics.
Science is a beautiful thing, but it is not the only thing.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 19, 2013, 11:32:04 AM
An intellectually honest answer would be, "That is my faith. I believe it without proof." An answer much like the one Gillianren gave earlier.  (Not intending to put words in her mouth.)
I think we'll just have to disagree on this one. You and several others don't seem to agree with me on the burden of proof part, so I don't see how this part of the conversation would lead to anything fruitful.

We can certainly agree to disagree.  But I would like more clarity on what you are saying so let me make a few statemetns so that your response might help me.

I don't see how the claim that religion exists is in need of proof, we are all in agreement on that.

A claim by an individual to belief in a deity is a statement of a state of mind and inherently untestable, therefor no burden of proof can be required because none can be offered.  One may personally accept or reject the veracity of such a claim but there is no scientific dispute.

A claim by a religious group to collectively have a theology based on the belief in a deity is usually self evident, but is easily shown by the existence of documents or a spoken testament of the theology.   

A claim of the existence of a deity that has no interaction in the material world, a demiurge or creator that is content to wind the clock and lets it run, is inherently unscientific and untestable because there is no interaction with the material.   One can require no burden of proof but one is also under no obligation to accept as more than a personal statement of belief either.  One might wonder what the point of belief in such a deity might be.

A claim to the existence of a deity is scientifically testable to the extent that the claimant proclaims the deity affects the material world.  So far no claim of a deity has produced a modicum of proof.  Most such claims since the invention of science seem to have fallen into the "god of the gaps" style arguments and quietly retreat as science has advanced.  They are superficial reductionist social arguments that may seem persuasive to some but are folly. 

A claim the "God hates... or God wants me to... and the like are inherently untestable because they beg the question of the existence of God.  We can atheistly view them as a learned or invented description of an internal psychological states and regard them as such. 

Given these statements, please elaborate on where we disagree about where testablity lies in religion, separate from other beliefs or belief systems.  I do not understand how you think, as it seems to me, that a statement such as "That is my faith. I believe it without proof," which contains no material claim is an intellectually dishonest description of an internal state, rather than an honest but personal description.  "Religion" cannot have a burden of proof, because it is nothing more than a concept that unquestionably exists.  Claims by the religious and non-religious alike can be subject to a burden of proof.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Andromeda on January 19, 2013, 11:40:54 AM
^^This
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 19, 2013, 12:07:08 PM
Quote
I interpreted "evidence for everything in life" as well, everything in life, material and non-material.    I see your  statement of "believe to exist" as perhaps meaning only material existence.  If you meant only material existence, then we are in agreement. One needs to have proof for a claim of something having materiel existence or an ability act on the material.  One need not have proof to say that one's spiritual impulse exists and influences decisions in one's life.
I have seen no evidence of a separate spiritual part of human beings. Why is it exempt from burden of proof?

I haven't made a claim for a "separate spiritual part of human beings."  If you are reading my words of " one's spiritual impulse exists" to mean this, let me expand.  By spiritual impulse I mean an internal state that people describe with this word.  I don't think there is a question that everyone is guided by various internal psychological states, the mechanisms of which are poorly understood by science. (ETA: oxygen deprivation to parts of the brain is in my understanding one cause for spiritual experiences.)  We choose diffident words to describe them, some call a subset of the states "spiritual."  I certainly do because the word best communicates to others the effects of what I have experienced.  The word does not necessarily mean a claim a specific deity or anything beyond a psychological state, although people do often mean various things beyond the psychological. So when people say "spiritual" it is best to clarify what they mean because the word is so broadly defined.

If this does not address your post, kindly point to what I have said and explain why you think that it leads you to this statement, I will attempt to further clarify my meaning.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 19, 2013, 12:22:02 PM
My point is that a religious belief is one big claim about the world

This seems to be at the crux of our misunderstandings.  At least I do not understand what you mean by this.  Perhaps you could elaborate in more detail on this point to help me and others comprehend what you mean.   
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: gillianren on January 19, 2013, 12:36:29 PM
Indeed, I think the statements of several people have been indicative that they spend considerable time in self-reflection.
There's a lot to be said for going through that on your own instead of just adopting your parents' belief system without question. It wasn't easy but I had no choice.

Dawkins makes the "modest proposal" of insulating children from religion until they're old enough to understand and choose (or not) one on their own. The usual response is "but if we don't indoctrinate our kids from a young age, they won't adopt our religion when they're older!"

Precisely.


I was raised Catholic.  At the age of nine, I wanted to be a nun.  As I got older, certain things about Catholicism started to bother me, and I did not consider myself Catholic anymore.  This process happens to quite a lot of people as they get older who then find other religions--heck, my dad was raised Methodist!  This is part of why I'm so irritated at the assumption that my beliefs are unthinking.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 19, 2013, 01:20:21 PM
I'm considering locking this thread because I can tell it's a little bit heated. One thing I can't stand is when arrogant atheists tell faithful people that they are basically stupid or dishonest. It's just as bad as when religious people try to convert non-believers. If you can't have a discussion without insulting people then don't have the discussion. And if you can't manage that on your own I can help.

I consider myself an "agnostic atheist" because while I don't believe (theist/atheist) in a god I don't claim to know (gnostic/agnostic) for sure that there isn't one. I personally require evidence, but I understand that just because I haven't found it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It only means I haven't looked in the right place. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

True atheism doesn't seem like the scientific way to me. You can't prove that god doesn't exist, so claiming that you know there isn't one is making a conclusion that you can't really support. Agnosticism is closer to what I consider the ideal scientific stance regarding god because it leaves open the possibility that you're wrong. I'm "agnostic" about alien life too, for example, because I can't prove aliens exist, but I can't say that I know with certainty that they don't. I have to assume that they might.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 19, 2013, 01:43:47 PM
Thank you for summing up the discussion so far, making it a lot easier for me to show my point.
I do not understand how you think, as it seems to me, that a statement such as "That is my faith. I believe it without proof," which contains no material claim is an intellectually dishonest description of an internal state, rather than an honest but personal description.
This is where we differ. It's taking a position with no evidence. You wouldn't allow to add such things into a scientific theory, therefore the dishonest part comes from allowing one thing to do so. You wouldn't take seriously a theory of relativity identical to Einstein's, except for the little addition that space-time is brown and emits a pleasant sound (but the two additions are only observable by the proponent of the theory).   
Quote
"Religion" cannot have a burden of proof, because it is nothing more than a concept that unquestionably exists.  Claims by the religious and non-religious alike can be subject to a burden of proof.
What religion exists without making any claims? I don't agree with your definition of religion, as they invariably make unsupported claims of the world we live in.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Andromeda on January 19, 2013, 01:54:28 PM
Sorry, Valis, but I cannot have a discussion with you unless you drop the "dishonesty" business.

Believing something within oneself is not the same thing as claiming something is true.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 19, 2013, 02:08:15 PM
Sorry, Valis, but I cannot have a discussion with you unless you drop the "dishonesty" business.

Believing something within oneself is not the same thing as claiming something is true.
I've asked for a better word for it. What would you call a scientist believing in the modified relativity I specified above?

[replaced "person" by "scientist" to better make the point]
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 19, 2013, 02:23:35 PM
It's taking a position with no evidence. You wouldn't allow to add such things into a scientific theory, therefore the dishonest part comes from allowing one thing to do so.

You still continue to insist that we should be treating everything like science just because we are scientists. That's not how it works. Not everything breaks down to science, at least not with our current level of understanding. Therefore we separate that which can from that which can't. It is not dishonest in the least to admit to that separation. There are things I can test, and there are things I cannot. I am comfortable with that, and as long as I make clear which is which when making claims to other people, exactly how am I being dishonest?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 19, 2013, 02:25:59 PM
It's taking a position with no evidence.

We may take the position that nature inspires us, our love is pure, or our commitment is eternal, all without a requirement of proof.  My point is that a statement of faith is ultimately no different.  It caries various social meanings and consequences but is not scientific.  If you place other attributes on such a statement that is fine, but please expand them and on the scientific determination of the attributes you ascribe to a simple statement of faith. 

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You wouldn't take seriously a theory of relativity identical to Einstein's, except for the little addition that space-time is brown and emits a pleasant sound (but the two additions are only observable by the proponent of the theory).   

That would be a special pleading of an empirical claim.  If it fails empirical testing it need not be taken to mean any thing about the material world.   Thus it is no different than a creationist account of the beginning of the world. Are we agreed on that?

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What religion exists without making any claims?

Short answer.  Religions don't make claims, people do. 

That is someone had to say or write it and someone had to interpret it to have a particular meaning.  This is a process of human living.  Could we say "What history exists without making claims" without really referring to documents and historians, even in an nonspecific way?  Or "What philosophy exists without making claims" without really referring to philosophers their interpreters.    If one takes an functional materialist mode of thought, religion becomes another social phenomenon that can be understood as not much different from other social phenomena. 
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 19, 2013, 02:27:14 PM
I've asked for a better word for it.

We cannot offer a better word when you are insistent that that word still has to mean 'dishonesty'. It's not the word it's the meaning that is the issue.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 19, 2013, 02:37:29 PM
You still continue to insist that we should be treating everything like science just because we are scientists. That's not how it works. Not everything breaks down to science, at least not with our current level of understanding. Therefore we separate that which can from that which can't. It is not dishonest in the least to admit to that separation. There are things I can test, and there are things I cannot. I am comfortable with that, and as long as I make clear which is which when making claims to other people, exactly how am I being dishonest?
See above. You are asking what allows you to make ad hoc assumptions about the world. Again, the dishonesty (still lacking the better word) comes from allowing this one thing to be exempt from the rules you apply to other such claims.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 19, 2013, 02:42:37 PM
I'm considering locking this thread because I can tell it's a little bit heated.
Do what you feel is best.  I am enjoying the tread but we all seem to have stated our positions and had ample opportunity to clarify them.  We certainly shouldn't let this topic sidetrack us from our main purpose.

I now refer to myself as an atheist. It seems the differences between people who identify as atheist or agnostic are largely social, since both share a common characteristic of the understanding of an absence of evidence for any god.  Identity, it seems, is as much of a problem in this world as religion. Let's always focus on our first identity as moon hoax debunkers.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 19, 2013, 02:47:43 PM
See above. You are asking what allows you to make ad hoc assumptions about the world. Again, the dishonesty (still lacking the better word) comes from allowing this one thing to be exempt from the rules you apply to other such claims.

I'm sorry, but who are you to decide what rules I am applying to other claims, or what rules I should be applying?

Some things cannot be subject to burden of proof. It is not dishonest (or any other word that means something like it) to fail to apply some rules when they cannot be applied in the first place.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 19, 2013, 02:53:50 PM
We may take the position that nature inspires us, our love is pure, or our commitment is eternal, all without a requirement of proof.
All these things, if taken true, have evidence (except for the eternal part, but you probably meant that in the human context). 
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My point is that a statement of faith is ultimately no different.  It caries various social meanings and consequences but is not scientific.
Depends on the faith, really. You yourself showed really well in your earlier post how different beliefs can be scientific.
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That would be a special pleading of an empirical claim.  If it fails empirical testing it need not be taken to mean any thing about the material world.   Thus it is no different than a creationist account of the beginning of the world. Are we agreed on that?
No, I don't agree. By the terms you have put forward, it's a reasonable belief, as it depends on the internal state of the believer. It's not amenable to scientific testing.

Quote
Short answer.  Religions don't make claims, people do. 
I'm totally lost here. Can you please tell me what is a religion without the claims that the people have made?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 19, 2013, 03:05:02 PM
I'm sorry, but who are you to decide what rules I am applying to other claims, or what rules I should be applying?

Some things cannot be subject to burden of proof. It is not dishonest (or any other word that means something like it) to fail to apply some rules when they cannot be applied in the first place.
Your own example about the omniscient god deceiving us to make the world look as it does is a good one. On what grounds would you think that having such an untestable belief is in line with requiring evidence for the other theories of the world?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 19, 2013, 03:13:11 PM
That would be a special pleading of an empirical claim.  If it fails empirical testing it need not be taken to mean any thing about the material world.   Thus it is no different than a creationist account of the beginning of the world. Are we agreed on that?
No, I don't agree. By the terms you have put forward, it's a reasonable belief, as it depends on the internal state of the believer. It's not amenable to scientific testing.

I don't think you understand my differentiation between material and non-material and I am at a loss to put it into different words. 

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I'm totally lost here. Can you please tell me what is a religion without the claims that the people have made?
A religion, in my view is a human institution that is made up of more or less loosely or tightly affiliated people and ideas.  Saying that a religion makes a claim is in the same form as saying "the government hoaxed the moon missions."  The government is an institution that required people to do and say things. So the more accurate way to say it is people within the governmental hoaxed the moon mission.   Saying "the government did it" can be a useful short hand for describing events or it can be sloppy thinking.  With hoax believers it is easy to tell the difference.     

See L.O. there is a tie in. ;)

Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 19, 2013, 04:08:07 PM
That would be a special pleading of an empirical claim.  If it fails empirical testing it need not be taken to mean any thing about the material world.   Thus it is no different than a creationist account of the beginning of the world. Are we agreed on that?
No, I don't agree. By the terms you have put forward, it's a reasonable belief, as it depends on the internal state of the believer. It's not amenable to scientific testing.

To revisit this.  I am confused here, you do not agree that a requirement for "additions (that) are only observable by the proponent of the theory." is a special pleading? or not equivalent to a creationist claim?   

This is one of the reasons I am at a a loss to explain.  I put forward a straight answer and proposition to search for points of agreement and your response is apparently to ignore what I say and simultaneously tell me I am wrong by some unspecified criteria that you attribute to me.  Understanding can only be gained if we each speak for ourselves. 
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 19, 2013, 04:32:57 PM
Your own example about the omniscient god deceiving us to make the world look as it does is a good one. On what grounds would you think that having such an untestable belief is in line with requiring evidence for the other theories of the world?

On what grounds do you assume they have to be in line?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 19, 2013, 08:29:14 PM
To revisit this.  I am confused here, you do not agree that a requirement for "additions (that) are only observable by the proponent of the theory." is a special pleading? or not equivalent to a creationist claim?   
If I understood you correctly, you are saying that the creationist claim can fail empirical testing. For that reason, I don't agree with the latter part. Replace the physical qualities of colour and sound by "love" as the addition, if that better helps to see the point I'm trying to make.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 19, 2013, 08:39:44 PM
Your own example about the omniscient god deceiving us to make the world look as it does is a good one. On what grounds would you think that having such an untestable belief is in line with requiring evidence for the other theories of the world?

On what grounds do you assume they have to be in line?
For a consistent world-view. Next, you'll ask me why I think it needs to be consistent, to which I'll answer that it's the requirement that a scientist uses for everything else that makes up the world, and we go back in circles, so I think I'm dropping this here, as I don't have anything more to add.

In my view, what you are asking me is the same as asking why we teach people that our planet is billions of years old. The age of the earth doesn't affect the life of your average person, yet we are explicitly telling them what to think, possibly against their belief that the earth is only thousands of years old. For this reason I'm having so hard time to see why a belief doesn't need justification.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 19, 2013, 08:49:15 PM
To revisit this.  I am confused here, you do not agree that a requirement for "additions (that) are only observable by the proponent of the theory." is a special pleading? or not equivalent to a creationist claim?   
If I understood you correctly, you are saying that the creationist claim can fail empirical testing. For that reason, I don't agree with the latter part. Replace the physical qualities of colour and sound by "love" as the addition, if that better helps to see the point I'm trying to make.

Something to the effect of
Quote
You wouldn't take seriously a theory of relativity identical to Einstein's, except for the little addition that space-time is permeated with love that only some can feel?

That would be a nonsensical claim.  I still don't know what you are getting at.   

We have been quoting each other for so long I don't know what "latter part" are you referring here. 
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: gillianren on January 19, 2013, 10:54:03 PM
Okay, so you don't like "love" as unquantifiable.  How about "morality"?  "Ethics"?  "Justice"?  These vary from culture to culture and society to society.  They are clearly not objective qualities, and they can't be said to spring from chemicals in our brains.  Yet almost all people believe they exist, and if they don't, we almost always believe there's something wrong with that person.  There is no empirical right and wrong, but do we criticize all scientists who have a sense of right and wrong for believing in that without evidence?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 20, 2013, 03:09:33 AM
That would be a nonsensical claim.  I still don't know what you are getting at.
It's to point out that a scientist can't make such nonsensical additions to theories. Yet he can do so, if it's about a religious faith, which, at least to me, is inconsistent.
Quote
We have been quoting each other for so long I don't know what "latter part" are you referring here.
Empirical vs. non-empirical claim, as I took you to present the creationist claim as empirical, while my example was pointedly trying to be non-empirical, so the two aren't equal.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 20, 2013, 03:55:43 AM
How about "morality"?  "Ethics"?  "Justice"?  These vary from culture to culture and society to society.  They are clearly not objective qualities
I'll stop you here. Religions (or, if Echnaton objects, the people who have laid down the rules of the religion) commonly claim that they are objective, with their way being the right way. 
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and they can't be said to spring from chemicals in our brains.
Perhaps not. But they can be said to spring from social interactions, which can be studied by scientific means (observations combined with logic).
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  There is no empirical right and wrong, but do we criticize all scientists who have a sense of right and wrong for believing in that without evidence?
I wouldn't say without evidence. If I kill someone at random, that person is definitely gone, and the act has probably caused grief to other people. The act has caused a reduction in the general well-being, and thus it's almost certainly wrong.

In fact, there's work being done towards deriving human values from science, see Sam Harris for example. Science can also help in answering moral questions. For example, an objection to abortion has been that it causes pain for the fetus. Scientific inquiry can determine the development of the nervous system and set an age for the fetus where it's incapable of feeling pain, making the moral question a little bit simpler. This is in sharp contrast with the theistic beliefs that come with absolute morals. The God of the Old Testament ordering genocide is one case I've often seen discussed. The discussions have sometimes contained absurd rationalizations from the Christian apologetics, like God ordering the children to be killed too was a good thing, as they were innocent and would go to heaven. Instead of attempts to evaluate the morality of the genocide, the believer is reduced to attempts to explain the behaviour of God who has been defined as an entity that doesn't do immoral acts.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: gillianren on January 20, 2013, 12:33:37 PM
I notice you trimmed out all my stuff about differing beliefs in differing societies.  Why do the social interactions of one group permit, say, the death penalty, but not the social interactions of another?  Why do the social interactions of one group mandate that turning right on red is illegal but not another within the same nation?  (That's obviously a nation that drives on the right-hand side of the road!)  There is a whole wide range of actions that we consider right and wrong, few of which are as extreme as murder.  There is no tangible Thing called "justice," but we believe in it anyway.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 20, 2013, 04:22:01 PM
For a consistent world-view. Next, you'll ask me why I think it needs to be consistent,

Please don't put words in my mouth.

What i was actually going to say is that it is consistent. I am consistent in my view that some things can be empirically proven and some things cannot, and I have no more problem applying different 'rules' to my thoughts on those different areas of experience than I do with not trying to play snooker by the rules of cricket.

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it's the requirement that a scientist uses for everything else that makes up the world

See my previous responses. I am a scientist, and I recognise that some parts of existence don't happen to fall within the realms of science, at least not yet, and not in terms of having supported answers. To use a slightly less contentious example than religion, the question of alien life springs to mind. We have no evidence for alien life. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, however, therefore the question 'is there alien life in the Universe' does not have a scientifically supported simple answer. I recognise and accept this and will gladly point it out to people when asked. If i am asked if I believe there is alien life, however, I'd have to say honestly that yes, I believe there probably is. I couldn't tell you why. Maybe it's just a romantic notion and I like the ideas of shows like Star trek being a reality some day. The point is that it's a question to which my rational mind cannot be answered one way or the other but irrationally I do believe it. Now why do I need to justify that belief when I have already conceded that there is no satisfaction of a burden of proof to provide a rational answer one way or the other to the question?

Quote
In my view, what you are asking me is the same as asking why we teach people that our planet is billions of years old. The age of the earth doesn't affect the life of your average person, yet we are explicitly telling them what to think, possibly against their belief that the earth is only thousands of years old. For this reason I'm having so hard time to see why a belief doesn't need justification.

But that's nothing like what I am talking about. That's a question where we do have a satisfied burden of proof that says the Earth is billions of years old, and we teach it because of that. The belief that the Earth is younger than that requires a lot of empirical evidence to be discarded or argued away. The belief needs justification in the face of mountains of evidence that it is incorrect.

What I am talking about is things that don't have any evidence one way or the other, and so the burden of proof question can't be met anyway. If I can't draw a rational conclusion then all I have are irrational beliefs, and I don't see why I need to justify them to anyone when I have already conceded their irrationality.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 20, 2013, 07:19:44 PM
That would be a nonsensical claim.  I still don't know what you are getting at.
It's to point out that a scientist can't make such nonsensical additions to theories. Yet he can do so, if it's about a religious faith, which, at least to me, is inconsistent.

I think everyone in this discussion is in agreement that religion and faith are not science.  Please quote what paragraphs are saying otherwise and explain the reasoning of your interpretation. 

Quote
Quote
We have been quoting each other for so long I don't know what "latter part" are you referring here.
Empirical vs. non-empirical claim, as I took you to present the creationist claim as empirical, while my example was pointedly trying to be non-empirical, so the two aren't equal.

Again I am unsure what paragraph of mine you are referring to in saying, "present the creationist claim as empirical." Can you please directly quote what it is you want me to respond to.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 20, 2013, 07:29:14 PM
Religions (or, if Echnaton objects, the people who have laid down the rules of the religion)...

Thanks for humoring me.  :)  It may seem pedantic to some, but I think it is an important point.

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commonly claim that they are objective, with their way being the right way.

So what if they do? No one else is obligated to pay them any mind.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 20, 2013, 07:50:44 PM
Quote
I interpreted "evidence for everything in life" as well, everything in life, material and non-material.    I see your  statement of "believe to exist" as perhaps meaning only material existence.  If you meant only material existence, then we are in agreement. One needs to have proof for a claim of something having materiel existence or an ability act on the material.  One need not have proof to say that one's spiritual impulse exists and influences decisions in one's life.
I have seen no evidence of a separate spiritual part of human beings. Why is it exempt from burden of proof?


Valis, do you accept my response to your statement.   Made here? (http://www.apollohoax.net/forum/index.php?topic=335.msg10092#msg10092)
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 20, 2013, 10:31:00 PM
I think the problem is that Valis considers a statement of belief to be the same as a claim of knowledge. To me, saying "I believe in God" is different than saying "I know God exists".

I have no problem with a scientist believing something (eg. that aliens exist in the universe) that they can't prove. I would only have a problem with them saying that they know something that isn't provable.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: gillianren on January 21, 2013, 12:54:11 AM
Right.  As I've said several times, I don't know that there's a God.  I have no reason to assume that there is.  I believe, which is to me by definition without evidence and based solely on faith.  It's not unlike, well, my belief in the existence of life on other planets.  (Which, so we don't get sidetracked by that, does not mean I believe they've ever been here, because I don't.)  I believe that, somewhere in the vastness of the universe, there is other life.  Far, far away.  We'll probably never encounter it; we almost certainly won't in my lifetime.  I certainly wouldn't take any actions based on that belief.  Still, I believe.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Andromeda on January 21, 2013, 02:09:27 AM
I think the problem is that Valis considers a statement of belief to be the same as a claim of knowledge. To me, saying "I believe in God" is different than saying "I know God exists".

I have no problem with a scientist believing something (eg. that aliens exist in the universe) that they can't prove. I would only have a problem with them saying that they know something that isn't provable.

Yes, that is exactly what I have been trying to say about the difference between having a belief and making a claim.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: gwiz on January 21, 2013, 05:21:35 AM
I have no problem with a scientist believing something (eg. that aliens exist in the universe) that they can't prove.
There is indeed a book of people providing such beliefs:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Believe-But-Cannot-Prove/dp/1416522611/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358763438&sr=1-7
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 21, 2013, 05:30:59 AM
I notice you trimmed out all my stuff about differing beliefs in differing societies.  Why do the social interactions of one group permit, say, the death penalty, but not the social interactions of another?
Nothing says that an underlying set of rules produces the same kind of result every time. Evolution can produce different solutions to the same problem. The societies may also be (or have been) under different kinds of internal and external pressures; a society under constant threat probably becomes different from an isolated society with no external threats.
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Why do the social interactions of one group mandate that turning right on red is illegal but not another within the same nation?
Examples like these greatly depend on law-making party's current (collective, if the party consists of more than one individual) opinion. If the majority has valued the risk (to others, like getting run over; or to oneself, in questions like alcohol age limits) of the act low, it'll probably be permitted. It is clear that science can help in making those rules, but of course there's a lot more to especially in the complex societies we now have.   
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  There is no tangible Thing called "justice," but we believe in it anyway.
Justice is again a value judgement.

Correct me if I've interpreted you wrong, but you seem to try to get me to acknowledge that there are intangible things. I do acknowledge it: Beauty of a song is intangible, so is love, or justice. However, those things are meaningless when they don't deal with things that exist. Justice is an empty concept, if you have nothing to apply it to.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 21, 2013, 06:15:54 AM
Please don't put words in my mouth.
Sorry.
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To use a slightly less contentious example than religion, the question of alien life springs to mind. We have no evidence for alien life. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, however, therefore the question 'is there alien life in the Universe' does not have a scientifically supported simple answer.
Right. However, we can observe one instance of life in our Universe, we can study how it works and how it came to being, all scientific ways to draw a basis for an estimate for life elsewhere in the Universe. We have the science of astrobiology, trying (among other things) to figure out the limits where life can exist. Compare this to theology, which tries to prove the existence of a god through philosophy (or just plain defines it to exist, and then attributes properties to it).
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If i am asked if I believe there is alien life, however, I'd have to say honestly that yes, I believe there probably is.
So would I.
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I couldn't tell you why.
This is where we differ, then. I can list a lot of reasons for the positive probability estimate:

1) Life has already become to being once. We haven't found a process that'd limit life to this one instance.

2) We can observe the basic materials of carbon-based life all over the universe.

3) We can observe a lot of stars long-lived and stable enough to have planets where life could exist.

4) We have made the observation that other stars have planets. Current observations suggests that planets are not uncommon. We also have an observation of at least one planet in the habitable zone.

5) Looking at life here on earth, we have evidence of life appearing relatively soon after the formation of the planet. The estimated age of the Universe is much larger than this time.

There's nothing irrational in giving a qualified answer like "probably yes", if you have a proper basis for the qualification. It'd be irrational to answer "probably yes, because I have dreamed of green Martians".
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But that's nothing like what I am talking about. That's a question where we do have a satisfied burden of proof that says the Earth is billions of years old, and we teach it because of that. The belief that the Earth is younger than that requires a lot of empirical evidence to be discarded or argued away. The belief needs justification in the face of mountains of evidence that it is incorrect.
But you've told me earlier that I can have belief in this kind of trickster god without any justification. All the physical evidence is faked. Telling me about old earth is telling me what to think.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 21, 2013, 06:19:11 AM
I think the problem is that Valis considers a statement of belief to be the same as a claim of knowledge. To me, saying "I believe in God" is different than saying "I know God exists".

That is also my observation.

Valis, kindly just lay down what you think on this topic , in a straight forward manner.  This dancing around criticizing people for being inconsistent is not very productive. 
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 21, 2013, 06:50:22 AM
Valis, do you accept my response to your statement.   Made here? (http://www.apollohoax.net/forum/index.php?topic=335.msg10092#msg10092)
Yes. The main objection was the word "spiritual", as in the common usage it comes with a dose of supernatural. The fact that "spiritual" experiences or states can be artificially induced by mind-altering drugs or alternating magnetic fields is why I wonder why the experiences are sometimes used as evidence for a god.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 21, 2013, 07:07:05 AM
Valis, do you accept my response to your statement.   Made here? (http://www.apollohoax.net/forum/index.php?topic=335.msg10092#msg10092)
Yes. The main objection was the word "spiritual", as in the common usage it comes with a dose of supernatural. The fact that "spiritual" experiences or states can be artificially induced by mind-altering drugs or alternating magnetic fields is why I wonder why the experiences are sometimes used as evidence for a god.
Good, then we have a point of agreement. 

It is not a wonder to me that people engage in wanting to "prove" their faith.  It seems a comprehensible social phenomenon of trying to find identity and community with the most productive and accustomed tools of modern thought.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 21, 2013, 07:17:30 AM
Yes, that is exactly what I have been trying to say about the difference between having a belief and making a claim.

To tie this back to the origins of this thread (without putting words in your mouth,) my opinion is that Dawkins ignores this and other subtleties of thought then oversteps the sound science of his work to bash people over the head about religion.  In doing so he is practicing social science not biology.  He deserves to be criticized for doing so based on the strengths and weakness of the social sciences and his practice thereof.  Religion is a broad descriptor for a vast array of assumptions, assertions, thought processes, personal identifications, and needs for community that occur within and outside of any theistic beliefs. I can't think of a broader topic in human history.  It seems to me that focusing on religion and trying to explain a very complex and ill-defined array of thought and behaviors within the developing theories of gene centered evolution has some similarity to Social Darwinism and is an ultimately as counter productive as that movement was a century ago.  Science seems to be developing the ability to enlighten us on the constituent elements of thoughts and belief, common to so many human endeavors, but the current focus on one manifestation of them is overstepping, IMHO.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 21, 2013, 07:27:47 AM
Sorry.

Apology accepted.

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There's nothing irrational in giving a qualified answer like "probably yes", if you have a proper basis for the qualification. It'd be irrational to answer "probably yes, because I have dreamed of green Martians".

Yes, but this is the whole point of what we are trying (and apparently failing) to put across. There is no issue with giving an irrational answer unless you try to pretend it is rational and act as if it is. There is no issue with believing something that cannot be proven unless you treat it as though it is.

Do some religious people do this? Undoubtedly. Do all religious people do this? No. Many are happy to admit that their belief in a god or gods is irrational and nothing more than personal faith. As long as that admission of irrationality exists and they treat it accordingly then they are being perfectly honest about it.

And a further point to consider is that for some people the burden of proof for the existence of a god has been met to their satisfaction. Whether it's because of the amazing beauty and elegance of our natural world, the incredible intricacies and complexities of the interactions of matter and energy, or simply someone who lost his job, wrote off his car, got divorced and accidentally dropped a toolbox on his beloved pet cat all in one week who prayed for help and won the lottery the next day, to them that qualifies as evidence of a god, and therefore they are still applying the 'burden of proof' rules to their internal beliefs about that god and coming out with a satisfactory answer to say he exists. There's no dishonesty there either.

And that was why we took issue with your original blanket statement that religious scientists are intellectually dishonest.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 21, 2013, 11:52:49 AM
I'll try to take this spot to sum up the reasons for my participation in this thread.
I think the problem is that Valis considers a statement of belief to be the same as a claim of knowledge.
No, I don't consider them exactly equal. This is in part a language problem (there's a difference between belief without basis and belief with basis, for starters), and part philosophical (how can we ever really know anything?).  An example:

I believe that a water molecule is made from one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms. Is this a statement of belief or a claim of knowledge? It's the former, for I have to acknowledge that it can be incorrect. Does that matter? No, for all intents and purposes I can treat is as the latter.

Going a step further, there's the question about alien life. "I believe there is alien life" clearly can't be treated equally to the statement of belief in the nature of water molecules. I'll need to add a qualifier, like "probably", to make the higher probabilistic nature of the statement clear. The big distinction is that I can't treat this case as practically true.

Enough with scientists at this point. When a person tells me "I believe that UFOs are alien craft", I can be pretty sure that the person doesn't mean "I assign a probability over 50 % based on this and that to the hypothesis that UFOs are alien craft", he means "UFOs are alien craft". At least, I've never met one. Same goes for many Apollo hoax believers; they don't usually come here to compare evidence, it's to show why their version is true. And, unfortunately, that's the case with many religious believers.

I really don't have much to say about a person who has a religious belief and keeps it to him/herself. I can only show the scientific world-view, which may contain parts that go against specific tenets of the faith, like a young earth. It's up to the person to decide whether he wants to listen or even amend his faith. It's no more telling him what to think than the members here showing evidence based on the official Apollo record to a hoax believer are telling him what to think. While I do not understand willful ignorance, it's not my decision.

What I strongly object in these beliefs is that they seldom are contained within the believer. Indoctrination of children has already been mentioned. So is the inequality based on sexual orientation. Most recent example for me is our deeply religious interior minister demanding tighter limitations to situations where abortion is allowed.

Another objection is that religious faith seems to be out of bounds for criticism. Just recently a suggestion was made in UN to classify such criticism as hate speech. Criticizing a faith is not criticizing the person, and neither is showing that teachings of a religion don't match the observed reality.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Andromeda on January 21, 2013, 12:08:48 PM
What I strongly object in these beliefs is that they seldom are contained within the believer.

How would you know?
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 21, 2013, 12:21:25 PM
and part philosophical (how can we ever really know anything?). 

I believe we can all agree that the problem of knowledge has been adequately dealt with.  As you describe, science hold knowledge tentatively and subject to revision.  It is an approximation of reality that becomes scientific theory when the chance that the theory does not mirror reality is very small.  This effectively answers proponents of philosophical skepticism, the proposition that we can't really know anything.

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What I strongly object in these beliefs is that they seldom are contained within the believer. Indoctrination of children has already been mentioned.

This is a social problem, not science.  I am not sure what you would propose as an alternative to the practice of parents passing along culture to their children? Should we censor parents? 

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Another objection is that religious faith seems to be out of bounds for criticism. Just recently a suggestion was made in UN to classify such criticism as hate speech.

100% agreement with you here.  That some people want to censor criticism is a the most blatant sign of the weakness of their position.  Dawkins and anyone else can pound away day and night.  But it is not just the religious that call for this, there is a secular social science trend (http://www.amazon.com/Words-That-Wound-Assaultive-Perspectives/dp/0813384281) that supports censorship too when applied to "race."
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 21, 2013, 12:23:58 PM
What I strongly object in these beliefs is that they seldom are contained within the believer.

How would you know?
By observation. What I mean to say while not every believer is "leaking", there's certainly enough of them that the impact of the beliefs is easily seen outside the believers. An anecdotal example is that in all the cases where a person I know has had (even mildly) religious parents, the persons have also had some sort of religious education.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 21, 2013, 12:41:45 PM
This is a social problem, not science.  I am not sure what you would propose as an alternative to the practice of parents passing along culture to their children? Should we censor parents?
No, I don't think it'd be  possible to censor the parents with anything that could be claimed as reasonable measures. There's little else to do than educating the children before they become parents. Abandoning the religious part of your inherited culture doesn't mean abandoning your whole culture; cultural (but not religious) Jews aren't uncommon, for example.

[edit:] This part didn't come out correctly. I don't approve censorship. Education is the way forward.

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100% agreement with you here.  That some people want to censor criticism is a the most blatant sign of the weakness of their position.  Dawkins and anyone else can pound away day and night.  But it is not just the religious that call for this, there is a secular social science trend (http://www.amazon.com/Words-That-Wound-Assaultive-Perspectives/dp/0813384281) that supports censorship too when applied to "race."
Secularity doesn't mean the absence of oppressive views.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 21, 2013, 01:19:17 PM
No, I don't think it'd be  possible to censor the parents with anything that could be claimed as reasonable measures. There's little else to do than educating the children before they become parents. Abandoning the religious part of your inherited culture doesn't mean abandoning your whole culture; cultural (but not religious) Jews aren't uncommon, for example.

[edit:] This part didn't come out correctly. I don't approve censorship. Education is the way forward.
Agreed


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Secularity doesn't mean the absence of oppressive views.

Agreed too. 
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: ka9q on January 21, 2013, 11:22:22 PM
Having just caught up on several days here, I think people are largely in violent agreement.

(Most of) those of us who call ourselves atheists are actually agnostics, in that we know we cannot conclusively prove the absence of any and all deities. Even Dawkins says as much. How about if the religious/spiritual people here accept that in exchange for my/our acceptance that not every religious person asserts their beliefs are factually true and are sufficient justification for public policy or injurious acts to others?

This is distinct from rejecting the tenets of specific religions, as I often do. This is a distinction many (but not all) adherents fail to make. I've lost count of those (usually Christian, since I live in the USA) who've told me "how do you really know there isn't something greater than yourself?" Perhaps this is understandable since they already think their own religion is the only correct one, so it's either that or nothing.

If you want, think of me as anywhere between "atheist" and "deist" because I believe those positions are all consistent with what we observe around us. The Abrahamic religions, on the other hand, are in my opinion inconsistent with observation (and logic) and that's why I reject them. I think it telling that when deism was popular several centuries ago, many people with Abrahamic beliefs considered it equivalent to "hard" atheism. And ironically, many fundamentalists now see religious terms in the writings of the founding fathers (many of whom were deists) and jump to the conclusion, against all evidence, that they must have believed and advocated exactly as the fundies now do, that the US was a "Christian Nation" and all that nonsense.

Basically, there's a whole lot of equivocating going on.

 

Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: gillianren on January 21, 2013, 11:48:42 PM
(Most of) those of us who call ourselves atheists are actually agnostics, in that we know we cannot conclusively prove the absence of any and all deities. Even Dawkins says as much. How about if the religious/spiritual people here accept that in exchange for my/our acceptance that not every religious person asserts their beliefs are factually true and are sufficient justification for public policy or injurious acts to others?

Hey, I think agnosticism is the only truly rational position!  I think there's a good presumption toward atheism, and certainly I think we have good evidence against an interventionist deity, but I've been called an idiot or what have you too many times by atheists to accept that all atheists hold that position.  Of course, I also get called Hellbound a lot.  It's pesky, not fitting into either convenient pigeonhole.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Valis on January 22, 2013, 02:43:45 AM
(Most of) those of us who call ourselves atheists are actually agnostics, in that we know we cannot conclusively prove the absence of any and all deities.
Well yeah, it's more a definition issue for the terms. Why I don't like to use the word "agnostic" is that it's usually defined with a component that states that the whole thing is unknowable. I don't see how, say, the Christian God is unknowable, as there's nothing in Christian dogma or teachings that'd prevent it from making itself known to all mankind. On the other side, would you say that you are agnostic about invisible unicorns?

As theism involves an active and present god, I prefer the term atheism in the sense that I see no evidence for such an active and present god, so for me, such a god doesn't exist for all intents and purposes.
Title: Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
Post by: Echnaton on January 22, 2013, 06:45:47 AM
As theism involves an active and present god, I prefer the term atheism in the sense that I see no evidence for such an active and present god, so for me, such a god doesn't exist for all intents and purposes.

That is pretty much how I use it too.  My friends that have identified as "agnostic." have stated it as s state of uncertainty.  For a situation where not only is there an absence of evidence, but an absence of plausibility, I chose "atheist" as the best description.  Nevertheless, I stay away from atheist groups because, in my experience, there is a notable lack of self-skepticism applied inside the revival tent.