>I read it and I dont know if his arrogance is overly excesive...
If they're genuinely intelligent, it does not involve the supernatural.
If you had to make a case for religion-one positive, if minor, thing religion has done--what would it be?
...I really don't think I can think of anything; I really can't.
What I hope for is a world ruled by enlightened rationality
And "rational", of course, is what Prof. Dawkins considers as such. I know a bit about rationality, after all I study at a place that is called The Center for the Study of Rationality. Let me tell you: first of all, there is a debate on what exactly "rational" means. There is, for example, personal, egoistic rationality. On the other hand there exist cooperative rationality among various groups. There could be short-term or long term rationality. There is full rationality or bounded (heuristic) rationality. There is deterministic rationality or rationality under uncertainty. And more.
There are about only two things people more or less agree upon: (1) egoistic deterministic short-term rationality (like, it is irrational to wait for a bus at a place where you know full well it does not go) (2) full long-term rationality under uncertainty is infeasible, and therefore people have to rely on heuristics (quick and dirty solutions that work most of the time in most of the cases). Those heuristics are so deeply entrenched in human psyche that often lead to contradictions even in short-term decision-making (usually non-deterministic). There are really facinating examples (I'll try to find and post some) of such contradictions. When confronted with the results, some people change their minds in one of the cases, some do not understand that there is a contradiction, and there are some that understand the contradiction, but stand by their decisions - they are just hard-wired that way.
So if there is no agreement on what "rational" is, and people, by their first nature, are irrational, the words "enlightened rationality" become just that - empty words. Nothing more than a nicely-sounding slogan for militant atheists.
By the way, there is a school of thought that tries to explain social phenomena (and religion is certainly one of the biggies) as a product of social evolution. In other words, if a phenomenon exists, it must be somehow good under the existing circumstances for the mankind (it does not mean that the result is optimal, it just means that the system in an equilibrium).
You say religion is so ingrained in society that it's like a computer virus. Can it really be eradicated?
Only by education and reason.
It seems the guy still lives in the 19th century, when they believed reason could do anything. Herbert Simon, for example, in Reason in Human Affairs says that reason is a powerful tool to take you from your assumptions and facts to their conclusions. But your assumptions could be, really, almost anything. And your facts must be straight (which is not always possible) and complete (which is almost never possible). I submit that he made his decision to become an atheist not on complete and exhaustive examination of the facts, but rather on a gut feeling.
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timeasmymeasure
On Dawkins's arrogance
Date: 2007-07-18 07:36 am (UTC)If they're genuinely intelligent, it does not involve the supernatural.
If you had to make a case for religion-one positive, if minor, thing religion has done--what would it be?
...I really don't think I can think of anything; I really can't.
What I hope for is a world ruled by enlightened rationality
And "rational", of course, is what Prof. Dawkins considers as such. I know a bit about rationality, after all I study at a place that is called The Center for the Study of Rationality. Let me tell you: first of all, there is a debate on what exactly "rational" means. There is, for example, personal, egoistic rationality. On the other hand there exist cooperative rationality among various groups. There could be short-term or long term rationality. There is full rationality or bounded (heuristic) rationality. There is deterministic rationality or rationality under uncertainty. And more.
There are about only two things people more or less agree upon: (1) egoistic deterministic short-term rationality (like, it is irrational to wait for a bus at a place where you know full well it does not go) (2) full long-term rationality under uncertainty is infeasible, and therefore people have to rely on heuristics (quick and dirty solutions that work most of the time in most of the cases). Those heuristics are so deeply entrenched in human psyche that often lead to contradictions even in short-term decision-making (usually non-deterministic). There are really facinating examples (I'll try to find and post some) of such contradictions. When confronted with the results, some people change their minds in one of the cases, some do not understand that there is a contradiction, and there are some that understand the contradiction, but stand by their decisions - they are just hard-wired that way.
So if there is no agreement on what "rational" is, and people, by their first nature, are irrational, the words "enlightened rationality" become just that - empty words. Nothing more than a nicely-sounding slogan for militant atheists.
By the way, there is a school of thought that tries to explain social phenomena (and religion is certainly one of the biggies) as a product of social evolution. In other words, if a phenomenon exists, it must be somehow good under the existing circumstances for the mankind (it does not mean that the result is optimal, it just means that the system in an equilibrium).
You say religion is so ingrained in society that it's like a computer virus. Can it really be eradicated?
Only by education and reason.
It seems the guy still lives in the 19th century, when they believed reason could do anything. Herbert Simon, for example, in Reason in Human Affairs says that reason is a powerful tool to take you from your assumptions and facts to their conclusions. But your assumptions could be, really, almost anything. And your facts must be straight (which is not always possible) and complete (which is almost never possible). I submit that he made his decision to become an atheist not on complete and exhaustive examination of the facts, but rather on a gut feeling.
I can understand doubt. I hate snobism.