Technology, scientism, non-belief and the future of religion

[aaqucnaona]

Science is pushing past its infancy - it’s become the next greatest thing our species has achieved. The most direct effects of our progress have been felt by individuals and the masses in one thing - technology. Technology has always been our extensions - something extra to make up for the things we lost in the bid for our brains, something to make our life better and something further still. Earlier technologies prevailed in our experience for dozens of thousands of years - these technologies, from simple machines to utensils, from weapons to writing were all practical technologies. They were invented by using things creatively to better fulfill a need.

On the other hand, since the late 1800s, the effect of modern science really started to be felt - though new inventions helped people do things previously difficult or impossible, it was not yet something that would saturate the daily experience of the individual. Hence, the person lived in a progressive world nevertheless rooted in and composed of things of old times. That familiarity is quickly being lost. Call it future shock if you wish, but this sharp disconnect with both familiar objects and familiar rates of progress and knowledge acquisition is real for a large portion of the masses. And technology is what pushed people into this new and unfamiliar world. The computational revolution was followed by a barrage of objects which really and totally saturated most of the living moments of a massive part of the world's population. VCRs, PCs, Cds, video games, the internet, handheld computational devices like mobiles, PDAs, gameboys, smartphones, tablets, genetically engineered food, new medicines - all of these massively invasive forms of ideas and objects were introduced in the last 50 years. Today, one cannot help but feel this invasion with electronic billboards everywhere, people on subways busy with their cellphones and computers in every major environment - be it the office, the home or the cafeteria.

This situation elicits 2 main responses from people - they either welcome this change and dig into this world or they retreat to ranches and resorts. Either way there exists a palpably strong effect of science on the daily experience of an individual's life. The appreciation of and attraction towards science is rooted in this feeling more than anything else. And that is why scientism is becoming popular, in education and popular culture, it is a major component of the sleeper curve*. This is what really takes it one step further - the technological invasion of science into our lives is complemented by education and thus pervades our culture - from words like email to sites like youtube and facebook to concepts like memes and demotivational posters - this massive overhaul of the very world we live in is what lies at the root of the desire many people have to be a part of it. The opposite response - that of resort to religion or new age ideologies is fairly complimentary.

This is how and why the new atheism movement is fairly popular or atleast prevasive in the mass media - for only some people can compartmentalise their religious beliefs and scientific knowledge. However, the acceleration and achievements of science are hard to match up by religion, for now they surely are at crossroads despite the fact that their paths often intertwined in the past. Of this can arise a few expected outcomes - the win-win would be the retreat of religion to a philisophy and the advance of science to knowledge-gathering. The two other alternatives are the destruction or retardation of science by religion, be it in cuture or in practice; and the collapse of belief in the supernatural once science outstrips religion to its breaking point, where the escalation which boosted science breaks the religion's back. Each of these alternatives have its followers, hence the strong and evident confict in the mass medias. The win-win is of course baised, but it is IMO the only realistic and long term maximum gain outcome of out current situation.

* the sleeper curver is the name given to the general trend towards complexity is popular culture like tv shows, articles, games, etc.

 

[lightgigantic]

Science is pushing past its infancy - it’s become the next greatest thing our species has achieved. The most direct effects of our progress have been felt by individuals and the masses in one thing - technology. Technology has always been our extensions - something extra to make up for the things we lost in the bid for our brains, something to make our life better and something further still. Earlier technologies prevailed in our experience for dozens of thousands of years - these technologies, from simple machines to utensils, from weapons to writing were all practical technologies. They were invented by using things creatively to better fulfill a need.

On the other hand, since the late 1800s, the effect of modern science really started to be felt - though new inventions helped people do things previously difficult or impossible, it was not yet something that would saturate the daily experience of the individual. Hence, the person lived in a progressive world nevertheless rooted in and composed of things of old times. That familiarity is quickly being lost. Call it future shock if you wish, but this sharp disconnect with both familiar objects and familiar rates of progress and knowledge acquisition is real for a large portion of the masses. And technology is what pushed people into this new and unfamiliar world. The computational revolution was followed by a barrage of objects which really and totally saturated most of the living moments of a massive part of the world's population. VCRs, PCs, Cds, video games, the internet, handheld computational devices like mobiles, PDAs, gameboys, smartphones, tablets, genetically engineered food, new medicines - all of these massively invasive forms of ideas and objects were introduced in the last 50 years. Today, one cannot help but feel this invasion with electronic billboards everywhere, people of subways busy with their cellphones or computers in every major environment - be it the office, the home or the cafeteria.

This situation elicits 2 main responses from people - they either welcome this change and dig into this world or they retreat to ranches and resorts. Either way there exists a palpably strong effect of science of the daily experience of an individual's life. The appreciation of and attraction towards science is rooted in this feeling more than anything else. And that is why scientism is becoming popular, in education and popular culture, it is a major component of the sleeper curve*. This is what really takes it one step further - the technological invasion of science into our lives is complemented by education and thus pervades our culture - from words like email to sites like youtube and facebook to concepts like memes and demotivational posters - this massive overhaul of the very world we live in is what lies at the root of the desire many people have to be a part of it. The opposite response - that of resort to religion or new age ideologies is fairly complimentary.

This is how and why the new atheism movement is fairly popular or atleast prevasive in the mass media - for only some people can compartmentalise their religious beliefs and scientific knowledge. However, the acceleration and achievements of science are hard to match up by religion, for now they surely are at crossroads despite the fact that their paths often intertwined in the past. Of this can arise a few excepted outcomes - the win-win would be the retreat of religion to a philisophy and the advance of science to knowledge-gathering. The two other alternatives are the destruction or retardation of science by religion, be it in cuture or in practice; and the collapse of belief in the supernatural once science outstrips religion to its breaking point, where the escalation which boosted science broke the religion's back. Each of these alternatives have its followers, hence the strong and evident confict in the mass medias. The win-win is of course baised, but it is IMO the only realistic and long term maximum gain outcome of out current situation.

* the sleeper curver is the name given to the general trend towards complexity is popular culture like tv shows, articles, games, etc.

or alternatively ...



At the beginning of the twenty first century the situation remains very similar: for every atheistic scientist who supposes that science supports (or does not undermine) their atheism, there is a religiously inclined scientist who supposes that science supports (or does not undermine) their theism. Thus the atheist simplifies the very complicated and much contended question of the relationship between science and atheism/religion if they suppose that the evidence provided by the scientific study of the natural and social world unequivocally points to atheism. This is evident in each of the main branches of science, both natural and social, which have some relevance to the issue of the truth or falsity of atheism/religion.

:shrug:

 

[aaqucnaona]

or alternatively ...



At the beginning of the twenty first century the situation remains very similar: for every atheistic scientist who supposes that science supports (or does not undermine) their atheism, there is a religiously inclined scientist who supposes that science supports (or does not undermine) their theism. Thus the atheist simplifies the very complicated and much contended question of the relationship between science and atheism/religion if they suppose that the evidence provided by the scientific study of the natural and social world unequivocally points to atheism. This is evident in each of the main branches of science, both natural and social, which have some relevance to the issue of the truth or falsity of atheism/religion.

:shrug:

That is correct, but fields like biology and cosmology are fast filling in the spaces that God was supposed to inhabit or influence. That is what makes the link between science and atheism.

 

[lightgigantic]

That is correct, but fields like biology and cosmology are fast filling in the spaces that God was supposed to inhabit or influence. That is what makes the link between science and atheism.

if you understand it is correct why do you continue to exemplify it?

 

[Aqueous Id]

Thomas Paine would be my first nominee for one of your late 18[sup]th[/sup] century scientists who rejects religion. Paine would even demonstrate how a person who believes in God (he was a Deist) can arrive at a rationale that rejects religion. He says all it takes is curiosity and not necessarily much schooling. This leads to the "true religion", as he calls it—the study of nature.

He remembers where he was the day it occurred to him that the god who would create a son for the purpose of slaughtering him for something as trivial as "the eating of the apple":

it was to me a serious reflection, arising from the idea I had that God was too good to do such an action, and also too almighty to be under any necessity of doing it. I believe in the same manner to this moment; and I moreover believe, that any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system.

He next describes his curiosity about nature, and his experiences with a orrery — a mechanical model (or mobile) of the solar system, with planets and moons. He can not help but contrast the ideas it evoked against the prevailing religious myth:

After I had made myself master of the use of the globes, and of the orrery, and conceived an idea of the infinity of space, and of the eternal divisibility of matter, and obtained, at least, a general knowledge of what was called natural philosophy, I began to compare, or, as I have before said, to confront, the internal evidence those things afford with the christian system of faith.

Though it is not a direct article of the christian system that this world that we inhabit is the whole of the habitable creation, yet it is so worked up therewith, from what is called the Mosaic account of the creation, the story of Eve and the apple, and the counterpart of that story, the death of the Son of God, that to believe otherwise, that is, to believe that God created a plurality of worlds, at least as numerous as what we call stars, renders the christian system of faith at once little and ridiculous; and scatters it in the mind like feathers in the air. The two beliefs can not be held together in the same mind; and he who thinks that be believes both, has thought but little of either.

So for Paine, who we would call a theist, only the slightest evidence from science was enough to reject religion. It is this appeal to reason that sets in motion the ideas in the OP. In general, both atheists and scientists prefer best evidence and logic over myth and superstition. This fairly well describes Paine's idea of a "true religion", with the added detail that he throws in a Creator, because he had no other explanation. If he had lived to see later discoveries, say, natural selection or the cosmic microwave background, he would be hard pressed to carry on with his Creator notion much longer.

 

[Yazata]

I think that the rate of technological change has been slowing down noticeably over the last 50 years. Just compare life in life in 1950 with life in 1890, then compare life in 2010 with life in 1950.

About the only new innovation that's really impacted people's lives over the last 60 years has been digitalization and computer technology. In the previous 60 years, people saw the arrival of automobiles, jet airplanes, commercial airlines, radio, TV, the first experimental computers, nuclear weapons, antibiotics, mechanized warfare, guided missiles...

By 1970 mankind was standing on the Moon. Nobody's been back since.

I don't see physical science impacting our lives in the future as dramatically as it has in the past. That's because most of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked. We already understand the physics and chemistry of everyday objects well enough that most of their practical implications have already been explored.

The forces that are going to be driving technological change in the future are probably going to be more cultural than hard-core science and engineering. Social media is an example of that. Silicon Valley used to be geekland -- by-engineers, for-engineers. Today engineers are just 'staff', hired and fired at an MBA's whim. It's all about e-business concepts. It's about style, image, packaging and selling.

The wildcard in all this, and it's a huge one, is biotechnology. Understanding the genome has been the bigtime development in pure science over the last 60 years. That's where the really new scientific discoveries have been coming from. We might be about to see a biotech revolution, not unlike the industrial revolution of 200 years ago.

Bioscience hasn't really turned into technology yet and it hasn't really impacted regular people's lives. But that day might be coming in a few decades. The day might dawn when bio-engineers can design living organisms the same way that they design computers and chemical processes.

Combined with the inevitable depletion of fossil fuels and economically exploitable mineral resources, we might see a future day when we grow most of our artifacts, using the sun as energy and simple dirt as our feedstock. We might live in genetically engineered tree-houses, use genetically engineered nervous systems as information processors, travel around on artificial animals designed to function as vehicles, living vehicles capable of reproducing themselves and fueling themselves with grass. We might even choose the features of our own children from catalogs and live in a world of superhumans designed with heightened abilities and slave-like subhumans designed for docility and servility.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Earlier technologies prevailed in our experience for dozens of thousands of years - these technologies, from simple machines to utensils, from weapons to writing were all practical technologies.

"Technology" has been defined in many ways, but the one that works best for many scholars is "the set of tools we have invented to transcend the limits of nature." The knapping of flint to create sharp blades was a technology, perhaps the first one that made the others possible, such as the sharpening of sticks to create points. Spoken language is also commonly referred to as a technology, with the unique characteristic that it is entirely internal and neither creates nor employs physical artifacts. Written language is, of course, one of the most powerful technologies we ever invented. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The Paleolithic Era (nomadic hunter-gatherers) was brought to an abrupt end by the discovery of the twin technologies of farming and animal husbandry, which are often referred to as a single technology: agriculture. This technology both permitted and required people to build permanent settlements, which paved the way for all kinds of new inventions. It also created the first food surplus, so tribes no longer had to fight each other for survival during lean years; coupled with the soon-obvious advantages of division of labor and economy of scale, this encouraged tribes to merge and create larger communities, which eventually became cities, then states, then... well you get the picture, we're now very close to a global village, thanks to the people who first figured out how to cultivate fig trees around 11.5KYA.

On the other hand, since the late 1800s, the effect of modern science really started to be felt - though new inventions helped people do things previously difficult or impossible . . . .

You're basically talking about the Industrial Revolution. The key technology that made it such a Paradigm Shifter was the conversion of the chemical energy in fossil fuels into kinetic energy for driving industrial processes. This leveraged the physical power of human muscles by a factor or more than 100 at first, and today much, much more than that. The key impact of this technology was that for the first time ever, 99.99% of the population of this planet were no longer doomed to "jobs" in the food production and distribution "industry." By the end of the 19th century that percentage was down to 50 in the developed countries, and today it's somewhere around 3%. This means that 97% of the population is free to do... well, to do just about anything EXCEPT feed us!

This is why there has been such a explosion of new fields of endeavor and scholarship: there are people available to work in them!

Call it future shock if you wish, but this sharp disconnect with both familiar objects and familiar rates of progress and knowledge acquisition is real for a large portion of the masses.

Indeed. The Neolithic Era (Stone Age agricultural villages) lasted for many centuries before people invented Stone Age civilizations. The Bronze Age endured for a couple of millennia before we figured out how to smelt iron. But the Industrial Era only had a run of about 200 years before the Electronic Revolution began to change the world. And since that happened, the rate of change has been dizzying. Less than two generations from the telephone and radio to the rise of television; barely one generation from that to the digital computer; another generation to the internet. And here we are one generation later with tiny computers in our pockets on which we watched real-time videos of Neda Agha Soltan dying at the hands of a repressive government in the streets of Tehran. Despite the fact that our government assures us that the Iranians are our enemies, we wept and wrote songs for her. If they now set out to bomb Iran and kill Neda's friends and family we'll march into Washington and burn down the Capitol Building--and the bastards know it! This is the power of modern technology: to strengthen the bonds of civilization.

The two other alternatives are the destruction or retardation of science by religion, be it in culture or in practice . . . .

The religionists are certainly taking that tactic in the United States. They are attempting to discredit evolution and even briefly got so-called creation "science" into the curriculum of one state's schools.

. . . . and the collapse of belief in the supernatural once science outstrips religion to its breaking point, where the escalation which boosted science breaks the religion's back.

In other, more advanced civilizations, the mythology of religion has been recognized for what it is: metaphors that are useful for focusing on major issues in life. The problem with the Religious Redneck Retard Revival in the USA is that these people think that there are only two ways to interpret an idea: it's either true or false. They don't understand the concept of metaphor. The people in Europe and the Antipodes don't seem to have this problem. They still go to church and celebrate Christmas and Easter, but they don't think that means they have to believe that God and Satan are any more real than leprechauns and the Tooth Fairy, but rather are very useful metaphors, just like leprechauns and the Tooth Fairy.

Thus the atheist simplifies the very complicated and much contended question of the relationship between science and atheism/religion if they suppose that the evidence provided by the scientific study of the natural and social world unequivocally points to atheism.

Perhaps more succinctly: they see that science actually does discover evidence. Untold millennia of religious practice have failed to turn up one mote of respectable evidence: merely one tortilla out of billions that appears (if you squint) to have a scorch mark resembling the face of a biblical figure of whom no portraits exist against which to compare it!

I think that the rate of technological change has been slowing down noticeably over the last 50 years. Just compare life in life in 1950 with life in 1890, then compare life in 2010 with life in 1950. About the only new innovation that's really impacted people's lives over the last 60 years has been digitalization and computer technology.

"Only"??? That innovation has turned our lives upside-down and inside-out! Having been alive since 1943 I can personally attest to the utter revolution in the way I live. Everything that has to do with society, with civilization itself is right here on my desktop, instantly accessible. (Sorry, I have my limits and I don't type on keys the size of sesame seeds and read a screen the size of a stopwatch--while trying to walk without tripping. ) Friends, entertainment, scholarship, it's all here, and there are a hundred times more of it than there were in the 1950s. Life is far richer.

By 1970 mankind was standing on the Moon. Nobody's been back since.

You don't seem to have any warm feelings about cyberspace. Many of us live there.

I don't see physical science impacting our lives in the future as dramatically as it has in the past. That's because most of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked. We already understand the physics and chemistry of everyday objects well enough that most of their practical implications have already been explored.

Well maybe you're not looking at the right physical science. The 19th century was the century of chemistry and the 20th century was the century of physics. This one is widely predicted to be the century of biology. Talk about low-hanging fruit!

The wildcard in all this, and it's a huge one, is biotechnology. Understanding the genome has been the bigtime development in pure science over the last 60 years. That's where the really new scientific discoveries have been coming from. We might be about to see a biotech revolution, not unlike the industrial revolution of 200 years ago.

Okay, so you do see it coming.

Bioscience hasn't really turned into technology yet and it hasn't really impacted regular people's lives. But that day might be coming in a few decades. The day might dawn when bio-engineers can design living organisms the same way that they design computers and chemical processes.

Did you not get the memo about GMOs? That technology is in its infancy and it has already got people coming after it with torches and pitchforks.

 

[lightgigantic]

Thomas Paine would be my first nominee for one of your late 18[sup]th[/sup] century scientists who rejects religion. Paine would even demonstrate how a person who believes in God (he was a Deist) can arrive at a rationale that rejects religion. He says all it takes is curiosity and not necessarily much schooling. This leads to the "true religion", as he calls it—the study of nature.

He remembers where he was the day it occurred to him that the god who would create a son for the purpose of slaughtering him for something as trivial as "the eating of the apple":



He next describes his curiosity about nature, and his experiences with a orrery — a mechanical model (or mobile) of the solar system, with planets and moons. He can not help but contrast the ideas it evoked against the prevailing religious myth:



So for Paine, who we would call a theist, only the slightest evidence from science was enough to reject religion. It is this appeal to reason that sets in motion the ideas in the OP. In general, both atheists and scientists prefer best evidence and logic over myth and superstition. This fairly well describes Paine's idea of a "true religion", with the added detail that he throws in a Creator, because he had no other explanation. If he had lived to see later discoveries, say, natural selection or the cosmic microwave background, he would be hard pressed to carry on with his Creator notion much longer.

I guess now we can move on to bolding the other part of the paragraph :

"... for every atheistic scientist who supposes that science supports (or does not undermine) their atheism, there is a religiously inclined scientist who supposes that science supports (or does not undermine) their theism. Thus the atheist simplifies the very complicated and much contended question of the relationship between science and atheism/religion if they suppose that the evidence provided by the scientific study of the natural and social world unequivocally points to atheism. "

:shrug:

 

[lightgigantic]

"Technology" has been defined in many ways, but the one that works best for many scholars is "the set of tools we have invented to transcend the limits of nature."

I'm surprised that you still run with that definition since your use of the word "transcend" in that context was thoroughly trashed the last time you dragged it up.

:shrug:

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

I'm surprised that you still run with that definition since your use of the word "transcend" in that context was thoroughly trashed the last time you dragged it up.

I'm just full of surprises.

 

[aaqucnaona]

I'm just full of surprises.

In the sense that we have lifted ourselves above the usual way of things in nature, achieving numbers, power, capabilities, range, control and knowledge far beyond any other species, we indeed are transcendent. I wonder if you mean it in any other sense?

 

[aaqucnaona]

(Sorry, I have my limits and I don't type on keys the size of sesame seeds and read a screen the size of a stopwatch--while trying to walk without tripping. )

Lol. Dont forget that music blaring in our headphones too. But indeed, be it games, studies or activities, such multitasking and complexity is something that I think all teens crave, having been born into a world already full of computers, we seem to have integreted it into our very lives - I got my first gameboy at 8 while my 1.5 year old cousin is already playing kiddie games on her dad's Iphone. She will be even more uncomfortable just sitting around doing nothing for even 15 minutes - I cant do nothing, sit still, stay quite and meditate without thinking much for that time even if it could get me a 100 bucks - talk about restless! The long hours lying in the park looking at clouds are not quite appealing - but a game with limited resources, long campains, excellent art, complex puzzles and sophisticated combat AI and tactics - bring it on!

Did you not get the memo about GMOs? That technology is in its infancy and it has already got people coming after it with torches and pitchforks.

And that shows the insane irrationaity prevalent within the masses - playing god? We have always played god. Every kind of crop or farm animal we have today has been shaped, changed and controlled by us through centuries of artificial selection - GMO are the logical next step in the speeding pace of life, and yet people consider it and go after it as if it were the worst thing since evolution!

 

[wynn]

In the sense that we have lifted ourselves above the usual way of things in nature, achieving numbers, power, capabilities, range, control and knowledge far beyond any other species, we indeed are transcendent. I wonder if you mean it in any other sense?

We had a thread on this a short while back: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=112339

 

[Aqueous Id]

for every atheistic scientist who supposes that science supports (or does not undermine) their atheism, there is a religiously inclined scientist who supposes that science supports (or does not undermine) their theism.

I'm not sure if Paine would agree it's a binary classification. The deity he assumes seems to be merely a placeholder or hypothesis for the putative prime mover. His closest expression of religion comes from observing that ideas can arise in the mind spontaneously that are sometimes insightful. He concludes that pursuing these ideas is the only "true religion" insofar as such pursuits are directed at discovering truth. He doesn't seem to use "religion" in this context as more than a metaphor.

He would probably see a third category (or at least he speaks well for others who may be in a third category) in which the person adamantly rejects all religion, yet is not closed to the possibility of a prime mover, which, if it is remotely compatible with any religious definition, would be utterly unknowable, and therefore this prime mover is either awaiting scientific discovery, or else further consideration of its existence is moot. This would be consistent with the Deist view that a Creator God merely causes the universe, but does nothing more.

This third class wouldn't fit too well by your definition since (physical) science was only one of many Enlightenment era influences in play. Consider their esteem for reason. So, for example a, person with a bent towards geometry might arrive at the same conclusions as Paine with little or no exposure to any actual science, or a philosopher, or a laborer who merely develops the ability to reason through mundane life experiences.

Paine notes that some things are the way they are without any cause. For example, he notes that a triangle is what it is merely because it manifests itself in accordance with the principle of triangularity. The principle itself can be neither created nor destroyed, so there is no prime mover involved in the possibility of triangularity. What Paine might have concluded if he were here today, is that there are enough of these principles available from the smorgasbord of modern scientific discovery to recognize that the principles that come together in a phenomenon we call the Big Bang are sufficient to explain origins without a prime mover whatsoever.

If that kind of reasoning were developed and presented to Paine in a format he could digest, I think a fourth class would emerge, initially as followers of his. And these would be people who are adamant atheists, yet have no particular attachment to science. These folks would seem to evolve on top of the deep technical probing by people they may regard as nerds, among the pop cults, the arts and humanities, the guy mowing his yard across the street or anyone with little interest in science.

I'm leaning towards a fifth group that doesn't particularly care whether or not a deity exists, they don't care about science or history too much, but they happen to have reached the same conclusion as ideas floating around as early as 5[sup]th[/sup] c BC Greece (Critias), who simply reasons that the notion of a deity was a scam invented by someone who "introduced the Divine, saying that there is a God flourishing with immortal life, hearing and seeing with his mind, and thinking of everything and caring about these things, and having divine nature, who will hear everything said among mortals, and will be able to see all that is done.". The apparent motive for this is: "he introduced the pleasantest of teachings, covering up the truth with a false theory; and he said that the gods dwelt there where he could most frighten men by saying it." I have no idea of Paine cloned himself from Critias or not. If not, it at least speaks to the universality of their ideas.

I just wouldn't put all my eggs in the pro/anti-science basket as far as the rationales people use for arriving at their views. The basket that's busting at the seams is the one that acknowledges that religion (as usually defined) is a speculative venture entirely outside the domain of science, until it encroaches with its own strictures in place concerning phenomena which science has already addressed. Then religion turns anti-science, and the fur starts to fly.

 

[lightgigantic]

I'm not sure if Paine would agree it's a binary classification. The deity he assumes seems to be merely a placeholder or hypothesis for the putative prime mover. His closest expression of religion comes from observing that ideas can arise in the mind spontaneously that are sometimes insightful. He concludes that pursuing these ideas is the only "true religion" insofar as such pursuits are directed at discovering truth. He doesn't seem to use "religion" in this context as more than a metaphor.

good example of ... "Thus the atheist simplifies the very complicated and much contended question of the relationship between science and atheism/religion"
:shrug:

 

[Yazata]

If they now set out to bomb Iran and kill Neda's friends and family we'll march into Washington and burn down the Capitol Building--and the bastards know it! This is the power of modern technology: to strengthen the bonds of civilization.

Burning down the Capitol building? That's civilized.

In other, more advanced civilizations, the mythology of religion has been recognized for what it is

What civilizations are those?

The problem with the Religious Redneck Retard Revival in the USA is that these people think that there are only two ways to interpret an idea: it's either true or false.

If you want to argue for a more thoughtful view, you might want to start by avoiding phrases like "Religious, Redneck Retard Revival". That's just inflammatory.

They don't understand the concept of metaphor. The people in Europe and the Antipodes don't seem to have this problem.

European intellectuals have produced new and aggressive faiths of their own -- Marxism, Naziism and postmodernism... and spawned two devastating world wars in the span of a single generation that finally brought Europe's world leadership to an end.

Is that really the model that the rest of the world should be copying?

 

[Arioch]

@Yazata --

European intellectuals have produced new and aggressive faiths of their own -- Marxism, Naziism and postmodernism... and spawned two devastating world wars in the span of a single generation that finally brought Europe's world leadership to an end.

Is that really the model that the rest of the world should be copying?

Are you really going with a "guilt by association" fallacy?

 

[aaqucnaona]

Yaz and Arioch - all places have their problems. America is powerful and well to do but most estimates indicate that the indo-china sector is the next big thing with almost 2.6 billion members and a very powerful hunger for progress, indochina is fast filling in any places they can - it would probably rise back to its former share of power and production in the 1700s by 2050.

 

[Arioch]

@aaqucnaona --

That every place and political ideology has faults isn't what I was commenting about, and I'm not sure that such a statement could be legitimately argued against anyways. However Yazata's statements here are a perfect example of the guilt by association fallacy whereby all "European intellectuals" are being demonized thanks to the actions of a few of them when the majority of such intellectuals not only had literally nothing to do with the formation of the mentioned ideologies, but actively refute most(if not all) of them.

It's a logical fallacy and I tend to not let those rock out like that.

 

[aaqucnaona]

@aaqucnaona --

That every place and political ideology has faults isn't what I was commenting about, and I'm not sure that such a statement could be legitimately argued against anyways. However Yazata's statements here are a perfect example of the guilt by association fallacy whereby all "European intellectuals" are being demonized thanks to the actions of a few of them when the majority of such intellectuals not only had literally nothing to do with the formation of the mentioned ideologies, but actively refute most(if not all) of them.

It's a logical fallacy and I tend to not let those rock out like that.

Indeed. Hence I said that all places have their faults. Europe was the hub of civilization for a long time - its to be expected that the best and worst of humanity be found there at some point in history.