Originally posted by NoXion+October 05, 2007 12:24 pm--> (NoXion @ October 05, 2007 12:24 pm) Because history tells us not to be complacent. The height of the Roman Empire was ruled by a secular elite, and was one of the most advanced civilisations of its time. Later, the temples to Jupiter et al were officially closed down or cnoverted into basilicas (churches). A few centuries later, we're in the Middle Ages and up to our arses in religious cack. [/b]
Factually incorrect. Rome was never ruled by a secular elite; they took their polytheistic religion very seriously. The office of Pontifex Maximus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontifex_Maximus) was always a highly important one in the Roman state, and after the Empire was established, Roman Emperors increasingly took on the trappings of Eastern god-kings.
As far as the Dark Ages are concerned, the most advanced civilization of the time was arguably the Islamic Caliphate - hardly the poster child for secular government.
The point is that the relationship between religion and scientific and economic development is not a simplistic one like you want to believe.
Originally posted by NoXion+--> (NoXion)Apart from the lesson not to be complacent, another lesson is contained in that part of history - that religion can be intentionally abolished. The Pagan gods did not fade quietly into the night, they were abolished. Why not go one god further?[/b]
Well, to some extent, the Roman gods did fade quietly into the night. By the 4th century the old Roman religion was in terminal decline, replaced by a series of new religious movements such as Christianity and the cult of Isis (or the short-lived cult of Sol Invictus that Diocletian tried to institute).
But you are correct that religions have been abolished by force before. The Roman Empire, however, is not a good example. The best example is the abolition of Central American religions by the Spanish invaders. Though that particular action also involved a hefty dose of genocide. I doubt you would suggest that atheists adopt the methods of Spanish conquistadores.
Originally posted by NoXion
Until you can pin down the exact material "cause" of your current ideology, I don't think you have a leg to stand on. Until then we can safely assume that in the absence of Marxist ideas, you would not have become one. That is my point - if religion is removed as a viable paradigm from human society, it won't matter what the material conditions are, if those people who are receptive to certain ideas due to material conditions don't adopt them due to their absence, so much the better.
The material cause of the fact that I am a Marxist is the economic disaster created by the introduction of capitalism in Eastern Europe and my personal experience with it. There. I've pinned it down.
But regarding the presence or absence of Marxist ideas, first of all I'd like to point out that you cannot compare something as generic as "religion" with something as specific as "Marxism". A more adequate comparison would be between religion and political ideologies (all of them), or between Marxism and a specific given religion. Would it be possible to imagine a world without Marxism? Certainly. Would it be possible to imagine a world without political ideology? I don't think so. Political ideology cannot be stamped out of existence - people will continuously make up new ideologies. Likewise, though you might stamp a given religion out of existence, people can always just make up a new one. Superstition has existed for at least as long as we have written records of human activity, and perhaps longer. It has coexisted with every mode of production since primitive communism. Good luck trying to get rid of it.
Originally posted by NoXion
Religion can be dealt with at an individual level also - if a child is not exposed to religious ideas, and instead taught to value reason and a rational mode of thinking as he or she grows up, I can find no possibility of that child growing up to be religious.
I was raised in a secular family and grew up an atheist; I converted to Christianity in my teenage years.
It is an enormous fallacy to assume that a person has to grow up religious in order to be religious later in life.
Originally posted by NoXion
And don't you think giving a child a non-religious upbringing has anything to do with material conditions?
Of course it does. The upbringing that children typically receive is an effect of the material conditions that exist in their society at a given time.
Originally posted by NoXion
Leaving that aside, I first need to point out that, according to Dawkins, all ideas - not just religious ones - spread by infection of vulnerable minds. Which raises the question, how do you determine whether a mind is vulnerable?
By observing that an vulnerable mind takes all ideas as given without critical analysis, no matter how preposterous or out-of-wack with reality that idea is.
Circular definition. The whole reason why you were trying to identify vulnerable minds in the first place was because I asked you how you could determine which minds will accept ideas without critical analysis.
What you said comes down to this loop: "Which minds accept ideas without critical analysis? Vulnerable minds. What are vulnerable minds? They are minds who accept ideas without critical analysis."
Originally posted by NoXion
Except that Dawkins does apply a measure determine a mind's vulnerability to bad ideas - the measure is whether or not a given mind applies critical analysis to an idea before accepting it.
Yeah, good luck getting any empirical results to test your hypothesis using that measure.
Besides, it's not so much a "measure" as a boolean value. You either apply critical analysis or you don't. 0 and 1. Then things get messy when you realize that people may apply critical analysis to some ideas but not to others.
Originally posted by NoXion
His hypothesis also never explains a key phenomenon that occurs in all successful religions: conversion. Granted that people accept religious ideas from authority figures (parents, priests, tribal elders etc), how do you explain the fact that many popular religions spread out exponentially in their early days in spite of the active opposition of the authority figures of the time? Granted that people are more likely to accept the views of authority figures than any other views - even if those other views are more obviously true, as Dawkins insists - why does anyone ever convert to a religion other than the one endorsed by their community?
The human mind can be vulnerable for more reasons than simply being underdeveloped. Maybe a person's critical faculties have never been fully developed, or outright suppressed by an earlier superstition that deplores reasoning. Vulnerability by lack of critical thinking is the key, not the underdeveloped human mind.
"There must be something wrong with a mind in order for it to accept religion; I'm not sure what that might be, but there must be something wrong."
This was not part of Dawkins' hypothesis. And your own proposed hypothesis that conversion is due to previously held superstition would imply that people may convert from one religion to another but atheists will never convert to a religion, which is blatantly false.
You may go on to say that not all atheists have well developed critical thinking, and that is why some of them convert. But if that is true, then atheism by itself does not provide any protection against religion and superstition, and Dawkins' entire crusade to promote atheism is misguided - he should be promoting a scientific education for all children instead, with atheism to be expected as the natural result of such an education.
If indeed all religion exists solely because of a lack of critical thinking, then it is not necessary for you to argue against religious ideas or the existence of God. All you have to do is ensure that all children will receive a proper scientific education and they will spontaneously become atheists.
(I believe that this conclusion of your hypothesis is obviously false and therefore disproves the hypothesis, but you are free to attempt to test it - it would be a good thing if all children were given a sound scientific education, even if this was done in the misguided belief that they will become atheists)
Originally posted by NoXion
To say that religion is spread and sustained by authority figures is stupid. If authority figures had their way, religion would never change. But religion does change; new religions replace the old. Why?
One could say that new wannabe authority figures come and go, and that some of are successful. Maybe the native leadership is deposed by foreign invaders, who force their own version of superstition on the populace. There's more than one way to slice a carrot, and you personal incredulity is not reason enough to doubt it.
Maybe, maybe, maybe. Not all new religions spread by conquest (in fact, most of them did not spread by conquest most of the time).
And my personal incredulity is more than enough reason to doubt an untested hypothesis. The burden of proof is on the person proposing the hypothesis - you. Surely you wouldn't expect me to accept your claims without rigorous critical analysis, would you?
Originally posted by NoXion
A Marxist would reply, "because different religions can be used by different classes or social groups to promote their different and antagonistic material interests."
That's just a different way of saying what I just said, except it is couched in Marxist political language.
Not quite. My statement implied that people accept religious ideas because it is in their interest to do so. Your statement implied that people accept religious ideas because some authority figure tells them to.
Originally posted by NoXion
Most religious activity that has no economic benefit for the individual involved or for her class does not make any significant impact on society on a large scale.
Abortion clinic bombings, for instance, never have and never will make a serious dent in the number of abortions performed. Lies spread about condoms are likewise completely ineffective in promoting abstinence. As for Intelligent Design, you may have noticed that the campaign to get it taught in schools is and will continue to be a complete failure.
And yet is still goes on, despite repeated failure. Where reason would tell one to give up already, religion with it's endless promises tells you to keep on going.
Yes, but that just proves my point: Actions carried out for purely religious reasons cannot and do not significantly influence society as a whole.
Originally posted by NoXion
Mind you, the lies about condoms in Africa seem to be rather successful in promoting the spread of AIDS/HIV.
Perhaps (I'm not sure what the availability of condoms is, or whether there are other factors involved in their use or lack thereof). But they certainly did not help serve their intended purpose of promoting abstinence.
[As a side note, I could never understand the kind of thinking that goes on in some Catholic communities. If you're not going to trust the Catholic Church about how premarital sex is bad, why would you trust it when it says that condoms are bad?]
Originally posted by NoXion
Overall, religion is in decline in the West despite the best and most desperate efforts of religious fundamentalists.
The West is not the world, and there is no reason to be complacent about it either.
Fine; if you don't want to be complacent, I suggest you focus your efforts on combating newborn religious movements and cults. After all, historically, religious revival tends to take the form of new religions or new splinter groups from existing religions, rather than a sudden surge in popularity for an old religion.
But I would also suggest that there are other, much more important ideas to combat right now, such as neoliberal ideology.
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Suicide bombings are a bit different, in that there are parts of the Middle East where suicide bombings are arguably in the material interest of the classes of people who provide the suicide bombers (or at least those classes of people believe that the bombings will further their material interests, by ending a foreign occupation for example - whether the bombings are actually serving their intended purpose is another question entirely).
Yes, but that's not true an in individual level is it? remember that the the London bombers were carried out by otherwise pleasant young men who had no reason to believe that their relatives would be compensated unlike their Middle East brethren, which kind of indicates that such compensation and martyr's pensions are pragmaticism on the part of the planners.
The London bombings, however, fall under the category of religiously motivated actions that have no significant impact on the society in which they take place. Same as abortion clinic bombings.
Compensation may not be necessary to have some suicide bombings, but it probably is necessary if you want to have enough bombings to make a difference.
NoXion
The point is that he's trying to get people to identify with their religious (or non-religious) affiliation rather than with their class, which is always bad whether it's done by atheists or religious fundamentalists.
And I think that getting as many people as possible to shake off the chains of religion is the best way to unite the working class - no religion, no division.
Oh please, you don't honestly believe that religion is the only thing keeping the working class from uniting, do you? The working class is fractured even in the most secular countries in the world, as well as in religiously homogenous countries where there is little opportunity for religious divisions to appear.
The most significant factors promoting working class division in the world right now are racism and nationalism.