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When scientists become activists (pg. 2)
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| RJT |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
Dangerous? How? |
He fools people who claim to be smarter than they are into believing he's somehow empirically debunked all possible deism - and his acknowledgment of his own religious ignorance on the sole basis that he deems it "irrelevant" is utterly absurd.
Wolf in sheeps clothes. Just because he's more intelligent and careful about his words than his evangelical right counterparts, doesn't mean there aren't countless idiots out there who claim to have read Dawkins and then proceed to say things like "He basically proves there can't be a God."
And I think it's pretty funny he made an argument regarding 9/11 being the event that should have fundamentally changed our perception of religion, because that was obviously the most horrific religiously motivated event in history, right? |
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| Subey |
Lira, if I ever find myself in Brasilia, I'll tell you after I've left what I thought :clown:
Now I have to run along and watch last night's episode of House again while eating a white castle burger. |
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| we_R_DNA |
TECHNOCRACY!! TECNOCRATS FTW!!!!!
tHAT IS right! The future will be less political bull and people/humans who are technocrats. . . . You know someone who actually knows something rather than having some politically BIASED party make your decisions for you.
Technocrats are individuals with technical training and occupations who perceive many important societal problems as being solvable, while proposing technology-focused solutions.
Bush only proposed solving global warming only 7 years after his election. What a @#$!@#! Waste of time. Plus congress passes a bill only making it so cars by 2020 have to be running @ 35miles per gallon. Slowly the country is moving more towards a technocratic approach.
This country has a long ways to go before technocracy becomes a reality. Fortunately those of us who become educated will have an advantage at making a technocracy a reality.
At any rate I'm just ranting on how I'd like to see the politically biased systems destroyed by a technically advanced educated system. One that doesn't make irrational decisions based on the merrits of its contemporaries of the time, but rather rationally based decisions with science as the contemporary which dates back thousands of years.'
So to Answer your question, the academia should take over congress, and the presidency, along with the judicial system. Psychologist in the Judicial ftw. Green Technocratic ORganizations (GTO) ftw. Also more funding will be dumped back into educational systems this way, in the long run futher educating the people. |
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| wizniz |
siensis...
i don no bout them |
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| RJT |
| quote: | Originally posted by we_R_DNA
. . . |
This was the kind of fellow I was talking about.
Technology: The Cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems! :gsmile: |
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| wizniz |
On a completely ignorant note, I've just started reading Daniel Dennett's "Breaking The Spell: Religion As A Natural Phenomenon".
Interesting approach... |
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| KiNeTiC ENeRgY |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJ Mikey Mike
I approve of anything Richard Dawkins has to say; on any subject matter. He is one seriously clued up mother er and his book, 'The God Delusion,' is one of the most satisfying reads of my life. Arrogance and intellect - What a sexy combo! |
I like how Dawkins uses Robert Pirsig's quote to define religion in his book:
"when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion."
~quote from Robert Pirsig~ |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | | Originally posted by KiNeTiC ENeRgY |
Characterizing one's opponents as insane does make a debate much easier, doesn't it? |
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| HardTranceProd |
| quote: | Originally posted by RJT
He fools people who claim to be smarter than they are into believing he's somehow empirically debunked all possible deism - and his acknowledgment of his own religious ignorance on the sole basis that he deems it "irrelevant" is utterly absurd.
Wolf in sheeps clothes. Just because he's more intelligent and careful about his words than his evangelical right counterparts, doesn't mean there aren't countless idiots out there who claim to have read Dawkins and then proceed to say things like "He basically proves there can't be a God."
And I think it's pretty funny he made an argument regarding 9/11 being the event that should have fundamentally changed our perception of religion, because that was obviously the most horrific religiously motivated event in history, right? |
i don't really get what you're trying to say
Although he can't disprove the existence of a god, he lays out the case why it's extremely improbable that there is a god.
And the 9/11 case is noteworthy because it happened in a post-Enlightenment period where the West is nowhere as religious as it once was, so it's easier to contrast enlightened people with religious fanatics.
I know that many Americans have a really hard time swallowing Dawkins' witty and irreverent style, while Brits (as shown by Mikey Mike) tend to be disposed much more favo(u)rably toward him |
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| RJT |
I love how you make a correlation between different nationalities ability to make sense of Dawkins. What a ing crock.
Most of the intelligent/academic individuals I know scoff at Dawkins and his "solid argument" for why the existence of "God" is improbable. I would also think that someone who displays such a vehement distaste for Christianity would at the very least try to learn about the very people he's criticizing.
At the end of the day, he's nothing more than a zealot not unlike any other religious zealot, he just claims the realm of science and reason will without doubt provide mankind with all the answers he seeks - and I simply don't have time for anyone who falls at either extreme of the "Atheist/Theist" debate. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
If you're after nuanced and interesting writings on the "science / religion" bit, Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould are both very good.
And both of them are, interestingly enough, more accomplished as scientists. |
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| RJT |
| The best way I can sum up my opinion on Dawkins in any kind of academic sense (without going on for pages) is to say that all metaphysical positions require fundamental presuppositions about how the universe works, and this is independent of their supposed "probability." That being said, regardless of how much any one individual can believe science has proven as fact, there is a disproportionate number of things it hasn't yet "proven," and belief that science will indeed prove these yet unproven theories and ideas true is, in my opinion, not all that far from religious "faith." |
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