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

[Keith Henson]

At 02:38 PM 11/4/2006 -0800, you wrote:
>On Fri, 2006-11-03 at 22:57 -0500, Keith Henson wrote:
> > Besides, it's the wrong way to approach the problem.
> > Ranting against epidemic disease didn't save a single life.
> > What was needed was to understand what causes infectious diseases.
> > People have religions like they have chicken pox.
>
>There are several different ways of viewing religion. If one views
>religion as being infected by a set of bad memes then ranting can make a
>difference if the ranting has an impact on the bad memes.

For reasons I don't completely understand, but are rooted in the stone age, 
I don't expect ranting against religions to have a positive effect and it 
might well be counter productive, switching off rational thought by 
mechanisms that originated in wars between hunter gatherer bands.

>Consider the
>decline of infectious disease with the advent of better sanitation.
>Dennett, Dawkins, Harris and others are hopefully causing a more
>critical focus on the memes associated with religion.

You might note that better sanitation memes are an outgrowth of 
*understanding* infectious disease, particularly what *causes* it.

Ranting against religions might be really effective if religions were 
understood to the level we understand infectious disease.  As it is, what 
this crew is doing is like ranting against fevers without the least 
understanding of what causes fevers.

I have been doing a bit of ranting on this subject myself on the Harris 
page. 
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060916_sam_harris_rottweiler_barks/

I can transplant it here if you want.

Frankly I suspect that if people understood the origin of the human 
capacity for religions they would be horrified.

Best wishes and give my best to the Silicon Valley crew.

Keith