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Wild Horses
The 'God' of Sikhism isn't much different really though.
Richard Dawkins
- Thread starter Bangpuss
- Start date
The 'God' of Sikhism isn't much different really though.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
But you're not a Sikh, are you? I'm just interested in what leads someone to theism when it's not a conversion to one specific religion. Have you had some kind of epiphanic experience or was it more of a gradual thing? ('soto' as opposed to 'rinzai', if you like)
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Wild Horses
No I'm not a Sikh. I'm a dancing yogi from a lineage that draws from Sikhism, as well as Hinduism. But I'm also a philosophy graduate. And I've given people shit for indulging huckster 'scientists' who babble on about 'reprogramming DNA'. I enjoy being both in and out of the tent, it's good clean pomo fun 
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Wild Horses
I recently had a dialogue with a vegan about amino acids. He found some quack John McDougall who has made a career out of promoting veganism, who reckoned he had addressed the issue. When you really, really look (as I did) - you find the studies he relies upon are from 1945 and 1928 and the latter involves two people eating nothing but potatoes for a fortnight and not falling ill or losing weight. Is Dawkins going to get more people doing that sort of fact-checking? I doubt it.
slowtrain
Well-known member
Yes I would say that.
You don't notice they are horrible people at first, but eventually they will crack and say/do something appalling.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
That describes a lot of people, religious or not! In my experience applies more to closet tories...
Not had time to get stuck into this thread but interesting reading. Cheers all.
I've mentioned this before but there's a very strange page or two in Dawkins' Unweaving the Rainbow, where he mentions the X-Files. He states it's a type of "propoganda" for an irrationalist worldview, and compares it to texts that promote racis. Very weird, misjudged, and betrays some kind of horror, or at least distaste, for the less predictable parts of our nature, or anything you can't nail down with stats and numbers.
This makes me think of his comments re. Skepchick mentioned above. You can read her pov. here, Ollie, if you're interested: http://skepchick.org/2011/07/dear-richard-dawkins/
For me, as a man, if a woman is trying to talk about feminst concerns, it behooves me to shut up and listen. Trying to present her concerns as slight by totally off the wall comparisions (basically, "You've still got a clitoris haven't you? Shut up FFS!" is really wrong headed).
I've mentioned this before but there's a very strange page or two in Dawkins' Unweaving the Rainbow, where he mentions the X-Files. He states it's a type of "propoganda" for an irrationalist worldview, and compares it to texts that promote racis. Very weird, misjudged, and betrays some kind of horror, or at least distaste, for the less predictable parts of our nature, or anything you can't nail down with stats and numbers.
This makes me think of his comments re. Skepchick mentioned above. You can read her pov. here, Ollie, if you're interested: http://skepchick.org/2011/07/dear-richard-dawkins/
For me, as a man, if a woman is trying to talk about feminst concerns, it behooves me to shut up and listen. Trying to present her concerns as slight by totally off the wall comparisions (basically, "You've still got a clitoris haven't you? Shut up FFS!" is really wrong headed).
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Wild Horses
Just to clarify, although there probably be is a sense of territorial warfare, I think the continental philosophers charge against naive empiricism is pretty decent . As vimothy points out, someone like Dawkins essentially wants to argue from the false authority of the scientist. If he want to be a modern empiricist, pragmatist, realist (I was taught ethics by Glen Newey incidentally) or whatever philosopher then he should become one.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
i think you're right./
guess my point was that i know or have known people who would self-define as Christian or Muslim, but who are also some of the most liberal and politically sound people I have ever known. They have been able to reject all the bullshit bits.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
In other words, to consciously ignore much of what it says in the basic scripture of their respective religions?
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Wild Horses
Yes sure, but why is that such a huge point? I don't really understand the significance of this kind of reductionism.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
@Tea absolutely. as does almost everyone religious, moderate or complete nutter. they take the bits they want to. which is fine, because it's what human beings do everywhere, including in their relationships with each other.
i'm not saying this is completely ok, but it's hardly just the province of moderate religious people, and it's far less of a big deal to do this (simply ignore bits you don't like as if they don't exist) with a book/philosophy etc than it is to do it with other people. As long as (if your'e a moderate) you're also critical of the mad bit, which all the people in question have been.
Sorry that is getting slightly off topic perhaps. Basically I dont' see any evidence in my personal life that, person for person, that atheists are any less bigoted. Bigotry has become systematised more obviously in some religious thought, true, but it has also been systematised in a less immediately obvious way in society (what slowtrain says).
I'd opt for a non-paternalistic-type religion if I ever had the inclination though. Great book by Erich Fromm on the parallels between Buddhism and psychoanalysis, which are many.
i'm not saying this is completely ok, but it's hardly just the province of moderate religious people, and it's far less of a big deal to do this (simply ignore bits you don't like as if they don't exist) with a book/philosophy etc than it is to do it with other people. As long as (if your'e a moderate) you're also critical of the mad bit, which all the people in question have been.
Sorry that is getting slightly off topic perhaps. Basically I dont' see any evidence in my personal life that, person for person, that atheists are any less bigoted. Bigotry has become systematised more obviously in some religious thought, true, but it has also been systematised in a less immediately obvious way in society (what slowtrain says).
I'd opt for a non-paternalistic-type religion if I ever had the inclination though. Great book by Erich Fromm on the parallels between Buddhism and psychoanalysis, which are many.
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IdleRich
IdleRich
Well, by cheeky I meant question-begging.
But it seems that that is at least a crude distinction of the position you've outlined.
But more than that, seems like a lot of avoiding questions going on there, perhaps we've reached a dead end.
So this
Well, like I say, I think that removing the spiritualities/religions that are nonsense leaves a space for someone to come up with something good (and maybe even true). Probably it won't be Dawkins.
I kind of think that religion follows the times rather than leads - I mean, Christianity was a religion of the oppressed - a country that saw no way of stopping being occupied by the Romans dreamt up a religion that said "Don't worry, when you die it will be good". Comforting to believe and maybe going to make life bearable (but also great news for those who wanted to preserve the status quo). Now Christianity is the religion of the wealthy in the west, you've got Blankfein from Goldman Sachs saying (straight-faced) "We are doing God's work". In a capitalist world Christianity is not altruistic. It's just a tool for Texas Governors to use as they justify electrocuting another mentally handicapped black man. I don't really see how any -ism can be any less altruistic than something that effectively says whatever the (not especially altruistic) people who run the world want it to say.
As for 3 - I just find that a bit depressing as a reason to be honest.
(that link doesn't seem to work by the way)
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
For one thing, because it gives the fundamentalist followers of their religion ample ammunition to call them heretics, apostates or whatever. You can be painted as 'the enemy within' in a way that an atheist can't.
For another, if you have to gloss over much of what it says in the book that forms the cornerstone of your religion in order to make it palatable to your nice modern liberal progressive sensibilities, doesn't that rather call into question whether it's worth following that religion at all?
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
I dont' think this is true. (Ostensibly atheist) capitalism works in exactly the way you have described. Occupy is only the most obvious example - the bile unleashed towards the movement from many capitalist fundamentalist quarters was quasi-religious in the sense that you are describing, bypassing any logical or morally engaged assessment of what exactly was wrong with the protest. The arguments being levelled were totally dogmatic madness. And, of course, the Church emerged as less right-wing than the government (Although that is a side point maybe).
But what is interesting is why you find that problematic. If someone has progressive views, why does it matter if they identify as religious in some way? It seems to me to be fighting the wrong battle - where ire should be directed is at bigots, religious or atheist.
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comelately
Wild Horses
Either both statements are potentially meaningful, or neither are. You're trying to have it both ways, I am not. The statement 'there are no facts' is part of a different narrative than 'there are facts'. But to the extent one is suggesting that one is saying 'it is a fact that there are no facts' is nonsense, then 'it is a fact that there are facts' is also nonsense.
But what is this hypothesis actually based on? This is a deeply non-scientific statement? Is it not then nonsense?
Is that a fact? I think the idea that religion either 'follows' or 'leads' is obviously a massive simplification. And I have to ask again, what is this proposition really based on - how would you test it exactly? You're playing with structures and narrative to persuade, rather than proposing any kind of rigourous testing.
Again, sure if you perform this magical reduction of the relationship between state power and religion then that makes a certain amount of sense. But it's pretty obviously facile to do so. No doubt any criticism of a left-wing critique of Dawkins is going to perceive structures and narrative differently and there's a debate to be had about that - not a debate I particularly want to have today actually if I'm honest. But again, a debate - not a series of double-blind experiments. There is nothing outside the text.
Additional: This idea that 'clearing the space' will create room for something 'good (and maybe even true)' just sounds fantastical to me. The idea that people are going to start reading 20th century empirical and pragmatist philosophy or 'improving books' or whatever, is crazy.
http://cardiff.academia.edu/PaulBowman/Papers/94136/The_Tao_of_Zizek
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IdleRich
IdleRich
I don't think that was what I was talking about there. But obviously the statement "It is a fact that there are facts" is not nonense - though maybe tautological.
It's hypothetical. It seems we both agree that the idea vacuum would be filled by something - any speculation such as you've engaged in on what could replace religion remains as speculation.
But you want to trap me into making an unscientific argument and call me a hypoocrite. So let's say this - neither of us can know what will replace religion, it might be something, it might be something else, it might be nothing. I'm happy with that situation cos I don't like religion.
I don't know whether it's a fact. It's the impression I get. I'm just indulging my thoughts in some meandering, don't take it as something I am certain about, it's just what I happen to think. I'm certainly willing to change my view on this if evidence or argument (as opposed to a tedious return to a sarcastic demand for measure every time) presents itself.
So we should just stick with what we have even though we don't believe in it and we don't think it does us any good? Seems more than defeatist.
As an aside - an argumentative style that constantly denies the need for scientific evidence on the most outlandish claim yet oh so hilariously demands double-blind tests and impossible metrics for even the slightest hint of a suggestion from anyone else is kinda boring. We get the point, sometimes scientists say things that aren't scientific, you're right well done.
I'm not in any shape or form a scientist by the way.
Anyway, yeah, got the link working the second time, cheers. Interesting stuff - think I'm with Laclau in that Zizek's rejection of anything except total revolution kinda makes him irrelevant. Also, I've always thought that Zizek's (and many on the hard-left's) insistence on CAPITALISM as the evil answer to all questions is a pre-thought ideology that is a dead end.
As for Zizek's thing about Tao as a response to capitalism - I'm not sure - for one thing, as I said above I think you don't need a new religion because the one we've got can be changed to mean whatever you want/need it to (this certainly happens on a personal level even if I can't prove it on a larger scale), and, secondly, I suspect that half of the books that are written as the Tao of X have nothing whatsoever with Tao and just use it cos it's trendy. Of course I can't prove that, it's just a guess.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
It doesn't bother me, I just find it puzzling. Sure, I'd rather be friends with moderate, unbigoted Christians, Muslims etc. than hate-filled, prejudiced atheists, that goes without saying. It's just that to me, as someone who isn't a believer and never has been, I have trouble with squaring the supposedly ineffable word of God as revealed through his Son/Prophet/gurus etc. with an attitude that allows one to cherry-pick the 'nice' bits of a creed and sweep the less nice bits under the carpet. That's a pragmatic attitude and, as far as I understand faith, it's rather inimicable to pragmatism.
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