5 ms·
How about unscientific? You're still going to run into problems applying and adjective to people, since they can think scientifically in one area and unscienti
by brlewis 15y ago
How about unscientific?
You're still going to run into problems applying and adjective to people, since they can think scientifically in one area and unscientifically in another.
For example, Dawkins, presumably thinks scientifically in genetics. However, when it comes to religion being a cause of wars and other violence versus a pretense for wars and violence, Dawkins hangs onto the "cause" hypothesis despite data pointing to the "pretense" hypothesis.
The difference is important. If you get rid of a cause, you solve the problem. If you get rid of a pretense, people find another pretense. Robert Pape's data is consistent with the pretense hypothesis. Nonetheless, Dawkins devotes himself wholeheartedly to propagating the cause hypothesis. If he took a scientific approach, he would devote himself wholeheartedly to testing his hypothesis instead.
It's Dawkins "who doesn't see presented/available evidence and just think that no matter what, their beliefs are true."
- Tichy 15y agoSo you think religion does no harm at all?
- brlewis 15y agoI don't see how that relates to what I posted, but to answer your question, I think all human activities do some form of harm at some time.
- Tichy 15y agoYou wrote that religion is merely a pretense, which I interpreted as religion being not harmful, since it never really causes anything. Dawkins presumably is convinced that religion is harmful. Even if it is not the root cause for wars (which I can't comment on), I suspect it still enables wars, for example by paying soldiers with empty promises. Therefore I personally would have to agree with Dawkins.
- brlewis 15y agoYou're certainly free to suspect what you like -- it's impossible to rigorously test every opinion. I would hope, though, that if you were considering making it your life's work to campaign for eradicating religion, you would do so based on more than a suspicion. My suspicion is that if religion were eradicated, people who want to compel others to do war or terrorism would quickly find other pretenses and other empty promises. This suspicion is consistent with Robert Pape's finding controlling variables for increasing/decreasing terrorism that are not connected to religiosity.
- Tichy 15y agoReligion encourages people not to question things (including reasons for wars), which is reason enough for me to oppose it. That is just my personal preference, though, I'd like people to question things and generally be rational. Of course it is possible to not question things and not be religious, which might explain the terrorism study. Also, of course there are sometimes valid reasons for wars, and clearly not all wars have anything to do with religion at all. So maybe I am not campaigning against religion so much as for logic and rational thought. Religion just happens to be in the way.
- brlewis 15y agoI'm all for campaining for logic and rational thought. If Dawkins confined himself to the instances where religion (or at least religion-flavored politics) interferes with science and education, I would have no problem with it.
- Tichy 15y agoCan't comment because I haven't followed his campaign against religion. I enjoyed some of his earlier books on evolution theory.
- loumf 15y agoReligions are complex systems that can be used for good or evil -- it's the people that choose which. You can find justification for nearly every action in the bible -- but, to do that, I think, is a gross perversion of the overall spirit of Christianity.
- Tichy 15y agoSure, the fundamental issue then maybe is, should humans be made to function according to some system? I seem to have some fundamental aversion against that, which makes me reject religion as much as communism. I mean at least if said humans don't reflect on what they are doing. If they have come rationally to the conclusion that some action is the best, sure, go for it. But religion puts some authorities in charge of programming other people. For instance, why not just drug everyone and make them docile slaves? I am sure such a society would function very well, so why not do it? Nature of course doesn't care - a society running on religion is just another ant colony (mindless agents acting out a system). Maybe the system prevails, maybe it doesn't. The harm I see is that religion prevents adaption and evaluation of new strategies, which might lead to peril in a lot of circumstances.