On 12/9/2014 2:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 08 Dec 2014, at 16:50, John Clark wrote:
On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 5:59 AM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>> At one time the human race was knowledgeable enough to construct the
Antikythera Mechanism, but 200 years after it was made Jesus was born
and
started a major world religion, and 630 years after Jesus Mohamed was
born and
started another major world religious; and by the time Mohamed died
we'd lost
over 90% of our smarts. Actually there is some truth in what you say,
certainly
during Mohamed's lifetime nobody on the planet knew how to make
something like
the Antikythera Mechanism, a device that was made nearly a thousand
years before.
I said it before I'll sat it again, religion makes people stupid.
> Not religion, but the imposition of a religion to others,
Until just a couple of centuries ago the 2 things were virtually synonymous, and even
today it remains true for hundreds of millions of people, especially in the Islamic world.
Yes, but the same for science. We have separate science from politics (very
approximattely), and religion is still a problem because we don't have separate it from
the argument of authority.
You can't separate religion from authority. Religion is institutionalized Platonism.
From prehistoric times every tribe had their shaman who explained the world and predicted
things based on his visions and revelations (often chemically aided) of a greater,
mystical world beyond the senses. They explained why the tribe had to paint themselves
blue or women had to sleep apart during their menstruation or why they couldn't eat the
meat of cloven hooved animals. This bound the tribe together and distinguished it from
those other, inferior, barbarian tribes that painted themselves red and ate beans. It was
the invention of religion and it was an evolutionary step in cultural Darwinism. Plato
was just the most famous shaman of the Greeks. His ideas were incorporated into
Christianity by St Augustine.
> that is made possible by the separation of religion from science
Religion is made possible by the separation of critical thinking from the
population,
Bad science is made possible by that separation. You confuse religion and the use of
religion by people wanting to control other people.
That has always been the role of religion. Without the institutionalization it's just
mysticism. In polls of peoples religion one of the most common answers in the U.S. is,
"I'm spiritual but not religious." There can't be a one person religion.
I agree with you if you replace "religion" or "theology" with "institutionalized
religion/theology". That is why I insist
Whenever someone "insists" you know they have no argument.
that we have to separate "theology" from any form of temporal power, except the
academies, where we can question everything and adopt methodological questionning, make
theories, etc.
You can have a one-person theology - which is what those people mean by saying, "I'm
spiritual, but not religious."
that's why critical thinking was illegal and punishable by death in the past, and still
is in many places.
Yes. Again this is true for all branches of science, including theology.
Yes we all remember the inquisition that burned all those scientists at the stake for not
accepting the geo-centric theory of the universe - except they were burned for incorrect
theology.
You seem happay that we can use critical thinking, so why not promote it in all field,
including health and religion.
I am very happy to promote critical thinking AND empiricism in health and religion.
Health had benefitted greatly from empiricism. But religion dare not allow critical
thinking because it is contrary to its basic function of binding together the tribe.
> You have never refute my argument that (strong) atheism is de facto ally
with the
Churches against reason.
Let me see if I understand you correctly, you believe I have not spent enough time
refuting your monumentally silly "argument" that atheist is just a slight variation of
Christianity. Did I get that right?
Yes. Just saying "silly" is not an argument. It is just plain obvious that as long as we
don not promote reason in theology, we let the field to those who promote the use of
violence (verbal or not).
You keep switching between Christianity, which is a religion, and theology which is an
academic field of study of the supernatural. These are two very different things.
So strong atheism maintains the religion in the hand of the irrationalist.
It must be irrational. If its beliefs and practices were wholly rational then anyone
could adopt them and they would have no significance in distinguishing the tribe. Try
reading Scott Atran, David Sloan Wilson, or Loyal Rue. These are your scientists who
actually study religion.
Then most strong atheists believe in primary matter in a dogmatic way. They say you are
mad if you doubt it, for example. In thats sense they share the main metaphysical axiom
of the christian, and obliterate the fact that science is born from taking a distance
with that dogma. Then atheists share the definition of God taken by the
Christians-Jews-Muslims, even if it is used to ass
And Platonists deny it dogmatically. The difference is materialists can point to what
they think exists while Platonists have private dreams of it.
ert its non existence, forgetting buddhism, hinduism, taoism, platonism, neoplatonism.
except that some string atheists asserts those gods does not exist, but those are the
one who believe the most in primitive matter, without providing any evidence for it.
You always throw in the word "primitive" to make the materialist seem dogmatic. But I
don't know of any materialist who thinks they know what "primitive" matter is. It's just
working hypothesis that whatever is found to explain or experience will obey some
comprehensible, mathematical laws. That it won't include any supernatural agency.
Yes, atheism, seen from Plato, is a variant of christianism: same God, same Matter, same
mockery of the entire field of theology, same attempt to hide the mind-body problem
under the rug, etc.
Plato "solved" the mind-body problem by just assuming thoughts (of philosopher/shamans)
and the soul were real and bodies were illusory. He assumed that nothing transient could
be real so the soul was eternal. Both were taken over as basic dogma of Christianity (and
later, Islam). Empiricism was deprecated and arm chair scholasticism replaced science for
900yrs.
And of course, same dismiss of applying reason on fundamental questions, a bit like your
"refutation" of step 3 of the UDA, where everyone show you the error(s) you made, and
then you redo it again and again and again. That is typical of people having religious
dogma. They stop thinking.
Which is the whole point of having religion. Did Plato ever suggest a test of his
theology? Does any theologian/shaman?
Brent
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