[extropy-chat] Edge: Thank Goodness! By Daniel C. Dennett

[Samantha Atkins]

On Nov 6, 2006, at 12:05 AM, Russell Wallace wrote:

> On 11/6/06, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
> Did you actually read the piece?  It is beyond me how you go from  
> the gentle thoughtful ruminations on actual good that just saved  
> this man's life as compared to the claimed good of religious acts  
> like prayer to the evils of communism.   There in nothing whatever  
> of force in Dennett's remarks yet you act as if there is.
>
> I did not claim there was anything of force in Dennett's remarks; in  
> the text you quoted, I was agreeing with Eliezer that the most  
> precise analogy would be with "a theologian who *peacefully argues  
> with you*, for what he conceives to be your own benefit, that you  
> are committing a mortal sin by denying the existence of God."

This is not the tone of your earlier remarks.  I am glad you are  
calming down.
>
>> As for who's being more irrational, whatever your opinion of  
>> religion, it worked. Look at the results once religion is gone: the  
>> prime examples of evolution in action are precisely those who  
>> believe in evolution. If I believed in God I'd say He had a wicked  
>> sense of humor.
>>
>
> What do you mean "it worked"?  What worked exactly?  I am really at  
> a loss as to what you meant by this paragraph.
>
> Religion worked for survival.

What worked was largely the demise or defanging of religion.   
Individual and market freedom, freedom of thought, science and  
technological progress all owed some of their existence to religion  
losing power.  To rewrite history as religion being what made things  
work is rather remarkable.  If this is so then societies with the  
deepest religious cohesion should be most successful.  This is not  
what history generally shows.


> Look at what happens to modern cultures where religion is gone: they  
> fall apart into self-hatred and nihilism, birth rates plummeting  
> below extinction level, their people rapidly headed for oblivion.  
> The greatest civilization that ever existed on this planet is dying,  
> in what should have been its hour of triumph - dying not of any  
> external threat, but of its own parasite memes; and who will pick up  
> the torch once we are gone?
>

Many factors start the decline of a civilization.  I see no evidence  
that a decline in religiosity is in the least primary.


> Really?  I know an awful lot of atheists who are very delighted with  
> life and this universe and consider life extremely full.
>
> If that works for them, great, though I will note that most people  
> who give up belief in God, in order to find meaning in life, need to  
> substitute some equivalent belief: aliens, the Singularity,  
> reincarnation or whatever.

Yeah?  Show some data.


>
>> What fanatical religious preachers taught them this, you may  
>> wonder? Why, some of the names are quite familiar. Gould, Dawkins,  
>> Dennett.
>>
>
> This is beyond the pale.
>
> I'm sorry it offends you to see things called by their right names.
>

I see a ranting opinion backed by nothing but hand-wringing and bluster.

- samantha

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