Why wee do you think Dennett’s and Dawkin’s doctrinaire atheism comes from? — Joshs

Why would any of us presume to know where someone else's thinking comes from? My own atheism is a very simple one: I don't buy that brand of insurance. Even more sim[ply put: I think the god idea is a silly one.

I woukd ask them if they don't believe in any God, tell me why you don't believe in my personal interpretation. Which of course they cannot, until I describe it. — Benj96

Of course we can. Nobody believes in anybody else's personal interpretation: believers all believe in their own interpretation, which is usually, but not universally, based on some description given to them as dogma, but varies slightly or widely from one believer to the next. I believe you have one, which is fine, as long as you don't bully other people or scare the horses, but I don't believe in any.

Would that not make them agnostic? — Benj96

If it gives you comfort to classify them thus, I'm sure most would be tolerant of your label, but would not choose it themselves. Reason: to call oneself agnostic is to suggest - especially to theists, who tend to grab the slightest hint of uncertainty and run amok with it - that one still entertains the god ideas that have been presented in doctrine form - particularly their doctrine, because they tend to be unfamiliar with any other.
This is not the case for most people who identify as atheist: they reject the whole concept of gods, in any and all forms that have been thus far promulgated in religion, and any future iterations that rely on the same idea.

It would also be my preference except for perhaps genetic brain augmentation like increasing the size of the brain's visual cortex coupled with a Brain Machine Interface (BMI) would be sweet. The brain's capacity needs to also be increased to deal with higher bandwidth data coming in from a BMI. An enhanced visual cortex (the brain's GPU) for instance will increase our ability to process and understand complex models and run simulations in our minds eye. — punos

I can't desire any of that for myself. I have nothing against cyborgs in principle - up to the point where they're weaponized - but don't want to be one.

Boy, would that be useful in scratching inside my ear! OTH(npi) how vulnerable when chopping onions.

BUT had the alchemists given up, we might never have discovered chemistry. — Art48

Hardly! People were brewing beer, poisoning arrows and embalming corpses long before they tried making gold. Chemistry has always been part of human endeavour, as have all the sciences, long before they were formalized into a system. Alchemy was a mere blind alley along the path of science, just as many of the religions and philosophies people have tried and abandoned were diversions along the path of formulating a collective psychological stance toward the vastness of reality.

Of course, atheists may be right in that there is no deeper reality to be found, at least, not a reality that could in any sensible way be called “God.” — Art48

Why would you need or want a reality under reality? I find reality as a whole quite deep enough to be going on with, since humans much smarter than me have barely scratched its surface. And, following from that, since humans presumably smarter that you have barely scratched the surface of reality, do you not consider a little presumptuous to think we're ready and equipped to look any deeper?

But how to apply science’s epistemological method to religion? — Art48

You don't. Science and philosophy run on parallel rails.

Evolutionary pressures aside, is a more advanced hand imaginable? — TiredThinker

Some fictional aliens have longer fingers with an extra joint. I don't see the advantage in our present environment, which we have altered to suit our specific configuration, but it might be useful in some natural environments. The fingers might also be thinner and more widely spaced, like the frog's and chameleon's. Our fat short fingers are crowded together; they get in one another's way and the cup handles are usually too big for two and too small for three, which is awkward. (Come to think of it, why is that? We know what human hands look like and how they work, so why don't we make the mugs properly? Might be a micro story subject.)

Here's the list of animals that have opposable thumbs: — T Clark

Also monkeys (plus the prehensile tail!), lemurs, chameleons, some frogs, koalas, and while Perhaps not fully opposed, but quite functional are also the hands of raccoons, squirrels and rats. One might think of birds, too, though technically it's not the thumb but a toe. Not all that rare, and each time a new ability is evolved, an old one has to be sacrificed .

Slight shame but also happy that thinking about women is still part of my psyche. — universeness

Flashback to a scene in Caveman which is prohibitively off topic. ...
.... not that an elderly person of any gender couldn't do some mischief with a grabber....

That is the result of education no longer transmitting the culture that was transmitted before the 1958 National Defense Education Act ended that education. — Athena

That's your version and you're sticking to it. I disagree, but admire your tenacity.

Why do they fail? — Athena

Because "the old country" is immediate and real to the grandparents; a nebulous memory to the parents, irrelevant to the children. Because their children's world is different from their own. Because the future is different from the past. Because things change. You can't bring back your grandmother's kind of teaching. It belongs in the past. You can't reconstitute an ideal America that never was. It is what it is and will become what it will become.

At least the women could slap them from a distance! Would it change the rules of boxing — universeness

Well, if you guys are going to abuse the innovation, I take it back. I'll invest in a better reach tool.

Now what about being an American and what it means to be a good citizen in the US? — Athena

That would have to include:

what is important about being Iroquois — Athena

What is important about being a Jew — Athena

Christians and Muslims and Hindus teach their children what is important about being one of them — Athena

and a lot more besides. People do try to teach their American children all of those things, and they more or less fail.

Does this mean following Trump and attempting to take over the Capital Building with force and threatening people like election workers and members of congress? — Athena

I'm afraid it does include that, too. That very large, noisy disaffected minority is not an accidental byproduct of education-for-technology: it's the product of crappy political and economic organization.

Some of us believe our democracy is going in the wrong direction — Athena

Don't the drain? Yes, I would agree that's the wrong direction.

Do we want to continue ignoring our lack of culture that did give us a lot of liberty? — Athena

I don't know what you-all, collectively, want. I only know you can't seem to agree.

Average people are mathematical reality. — Athena

Show me one! Mathematical realities are average income, average intelligence, average height, average vocal range, average running speed. What number is "average personhood"?

What? You believe the priority of education should be transmitting a culture based on what was best of the Greeks and Romans? — Athena

I said nothing about priorities or 'should's'. I agreed that what was lacking was lacking and will continue to be lacking, because nobody has a good enough understanding of culture to fix indelibly into a whole federally mandated curriculum. Especially as culture keeps changing.

Every generation prepares its young for the world they themselves inhabit - not the world in which in the children will live when they grow up. Every generation, every faction, every denomination and nationality tries to impart its own beliefs, mores and values to its children - and the children invariably disappoint their parents: they change. The best that can be done is to let 'em at knowledge and let 'em go.

Greek and Roman cultures are interesting to study. So are plankton and whales. So are solar flares and meteor showers. So are poetry and music, math and pottery.

But is there a way to logically design what the next logical step would be for our hands? — TiredThinker

Extendable wrists would be good. I can't reach things on the top shelf and my cheap grabber is too feeble to lift down anything heavier than a herb jar; mostly it just dislodges things which then fall on my head. It's a way to get them, but I would prefer a more dignified way.

How do you suppose we should do this? — Agent Smith

I have my own little theory of how the young should be socialized and trained, as Athena has hers, and we each seem to have little comprehension of what the other is advocating. No doubt many, many other people all have their different theories. "We" can't do anything. If "we" existed as a coherent unit with a single vision of how things should be done, "we" would already have a plan in place. In fact, all that the US and Canada have done in this regard has been done by regional (state and provincial) governments, with loosely enforced standards tied to the federal purse-strings, and subject to policy and administrative change at four-year intervals, plus the aforementioned hodge-podge of private, religious, trade, military, specialty and reform schools. IOW, spotty and full of cracks.

The Finns and the Japanese and the Israelis apparently made quite good education systems for their children... But. On one hand, they have the advantage of being unicultural societies concentrated in small territories, and on the other, the systems that are competitive in the present state of affairs may turn out to be utter failures when the global economy implodes. They'll figure something out...

I don't think we need to worry about education. It will follow from what's perceived as needful.
What "we" have to create is a political structure built on the needs of the polity, not the requirements of big money. That is quite challenge enough for a "we" that's divided into at least five age denominations and five diverse world-views.

What was lacking is a good understanding of what culture has to do with high human potential, liberty, and justice, and what education has to do with culture. — Athena

Always! You won't change that.

The issue was whether education makes a difference/not. How would you go about answering this question? — Agent Smith

Of course it makes a difference. It turns people who don't know something into people who do know something. What they are taught varies by time, place and culture, as well as economic, political and military considerations.

In the context of the OP, changing education - in any country - would have no effect on automation or the advancement of technology or the ownership of the means of production, or the government's power to regulate business, industry and the movement of capital. So, if it made a difference, it would be on the individual level.

One kind of change could make some employees more compatible with emerging technology, and thus employable longer, while having no effect on the redundancy of most. Another kind of change in education might render the surplus population better adapted to their unemployable status, while still having no effect on their ability to make a living. Yet a third kind of change might prepare students for occupations outside industrial production, packaging, transport and distribution - all of which are in the process of automation - again, bearing in mind that this can apply only to a minority of workers.

If we had in place the political and economic mechanism to guarantee all the redundant employees a decent standard of living, they would then be free to choose whatever kind of education they personally considered most useful to themselves and/or their children. Only then would education be changed to meet those demands.

How about if I ask "what would most Americans/Iranians do?" Does that make sense? — Agent Smith

It might, if you provided a context. What would most Americans do, if... when... with... about... what?
In any case, I don't know most Americans. I know some things about some Americans. If you asked "What would Heather Pilsik do if she suspected her son of taking drugs?" I could hazard a guess.
"What would Stewart Rhodes do if his fearsome leader accused his vice president of disloyalty?" I would be able to say definitively.
But most Americans or any Iranians? No frickin idea.

I'd change the whole punishment and reward system. No more hell, if it exists. Instead, all of us would have to experience all the pain and unhappiness we have inflicted on others. — T Clark

Sounds good on the surface. But there are some assumptions I'd question. Like: Does everyone really always have total control of the pain and unhappiness they cause? Does everyone start from the same point of self-determination and play on a level field? Do pain and unhappiness have a cause traceable back to a single person who caused them? How easy is it to calculate individual culpability down to the last hour?

The average person, how would you define him/her? — Agent Smith

I wouldn't. I don't believe in them.

Well, that's because some things can't be mathematized ... or can they? — Agent Smith

How should I know? You said it!

The universe is 13.8 billion years old; galaxies, though younger, are also billions of years old; our earth is roughly 5 billion years old; life on the planet is around 4 billion years old; homo sapiens are about 2 million years old. Do the math. — Agent Smith

Not very clear what equation is to be solved for what unknown.

Number one all those people knew no more about education than you do. Nor do Americans know any more about philosophy and the Age of Enlightenment and what both have to do with democracy and education than you do. — Athena

If they didn't know, your grandmother had wasted her effort on them.

if they did know about education for democracy and good citizenship as my grandmother did, they were powerless — Athena

What's the point of a democracy where the properly educated citizens are powerless against an elected government's decision to change their good education system for a bad one?

Do you see many people engaging in the argument? — Athena

Yes, quite a lot, now, present company included. But I didn't hear any arguments in 1958 (granted, I was 11 and wouldn't have understood much), when Americans were, according to you, educated in good and democratic citizenship. What I should have asked, more literally was: Why didn't they stop Eisenhower??"

You seem to think they were gulled into compliance by paranoia (The threat of nuclear war was pretty damn real; I understood that!) and a large civil service. If they all had the superior democratic education you claim for them, why was it so easy to hoodwink them? And if they were powerless, what do you expect from Americans now, with their inferior education?

Who is a better human being? The average American, the average Chinese, the average Indian, ...? — Agent Smith

Two things about that: NONA and There is no such animals as an average person.

Sean Connery was the only 007 (1962-71) for me. :wink: — 180 Proof

Yeppers!

Democracy through education lifts the human potential. — Athena

So, where did all of those properly educated citizens - which should be ever American who went to school - go? What happened in 1958 to disappear any effect they might have had? Why didn't they stop the steal?

In the past, we associated virtues with strength, and our honor or reputation was very important along with our dignity. — Athena

I don't know which past or which "we" that refers to, but it doesn't leave much trace in the history books. Maybe it's just in the elementary school readers and the inscription of statues. Symbolic.

Who is supposed to run -- us or them? — Bitter Crank

I took the question to mean: What would I say to the aliens?

The past is vital to our understanding of the present & the future. What happened to our Neanderthal cousins? Questions, questions, questions. — Agent Smith

That doesn't sound like math. Anyway, I'm not that good at stringing 0's.

We initiate scientific protocols,.... — Christoffer

A most responsible approach! You'd better have chosen your exploration team carefully - no impatient hotheads - but, of course, you would have.

Today that is true of most Americans thanks to education for technology replacing the education for citizens that we had. — Athena

You keep talking about this wonderful education you used to have. I find no historical trace of it, and no resemblance to the Athens that also didn't live up to your ideal representation. And I still can't see any relevance of either to the thread topic.

My question is if you knew that some scenario like this happened how would it impact you? — Andrew4Handel

Obviously, it would impact me for very much longer than my has. But I know nothing about this afterlife - not its characteristics, requirements, rules, form, expectations - nothing. Some kind of disembodied consciousness continues after biological. Is that the good news or the bad news? Is it mandatory or optional? Do I get a choice of manifestations? Do I get judged, rewarded and punished?

We knew the parents would learn from their children. — Athena

"You" must have been very wise to realize that all non-English speakers are too stupid to understand about democracy before they decide to make the huge sacrifice of leaving their kith, kin, worldly goods and homeland and take a chance on the new World.

Were you beamed aboard the alien ship from earth by the aliens to provide guidance on how to approach us, what would you say? — Bitter Crank

Run!

(Sorry - been rewatching Doctor Who. But, yes, on the whole, that would be my advice.)

What is our likely response? — Bitter Crank

nukes?
Maybe not. I guess it would depend partly on how they made the approach and partly on who did the first responding.

Before one can have good moral judgment, one must learn the rules of logic. — Athena

How do you teach the rules of logic to a three-year-old? By the time formal educators can teach him anything, he's already absorbed his society's values. They're not about logic; they're about what's cheered and what's booed.

Socrates was concerned with broadening our conscience, — Athena

No, he couldn't have cared less about us. He was concerned with the adolescents of his own time and place. His idea of virtue was probably a little different from the average American's, which is a little different from above and below average Americans'.

This is why classical literature is important. — Athena

It isn't, you know, any more important than all the literature that's been written in the last 2000 years. You seem to make a direct link between the golden age of Athens (less than 20 years, and even in that short time, some questionable situations arose) and some kind of golden moment, or maybe distilled essence
of America. There is no such link: everything in between happened. All the awful and hopeful, shameful and triumphant stuff happened. The moving finger writes; it erases nothing, forgets nothing.

I was trying to illustrate how compromise can be harmful and can hide societal malaise. — Andrew4Handel

I did not understand the illustration. It sounded as if some asshole refused to compromise his belief that people he regards as his inferiors have no right to consideration. Assholes exist. Social rules are supposed to hold them in check so they can do less damage.

So do you believe compromise is always possible and healthy? — Andrew4Handel

No, not always. But it takes a great many compromises, large and small, personal and collective, practical and theoretical, to make a society work.
I think the DUSofA will have Civil War II pretty soon, because a large minority of the population refuses to compromise its [incorrectly] perceived privilege.

But that person case indicates that people who want something to change for them can face extreme hostility.

A peaceful society might be a mentally ill apathetic one where people have given up hope of serious change. — Andrew4Handel

That sounds contradictory to me. And both seem to contradict what you said before about not taking beliefs seriously enough. Now, I can't tell what you're advocating.

You are putting the onus on someone else to compromise their beliefs for you it would seem. — Andrew4Handel

No. I'm putting the onus on everyone to exercise lawful civic behaviour. In theocracies, you get to chop off the heads or hands of non-conformists under the law. In secular democracies, you don't. People can believe whatever they like; they just can't force others to believe it.

The goal of getting a car to move is not simply a shared goal but one that leads to an undesirable outcome. — Andrew4Handel

You don't know that. If you were determined never to do anything that might have an undesired outcome, you would never do anything.

If I opposed abortion I would not want to do anything to assist an abortion — Andrew4Handel

Nobody asked you assist; just to mind your own business.

If I was pro abortion I wouldn't want to do anything to prevent an abortion happening. — Andrew4Handel

It doesn't just happen; it's performed by one consenting adult on another. Nobody else's business.
The position as stated above fails to consider the single fundamental difference between the two "beliefs". One side believes in everyone's freedom to decide; the other believes it should be empowered to take away the other's freedom.

I wouldn't drive someone to pro life rally or alternately to an abortion clinic. — Andrew4Handel

Fine. All we're asking is that people wouldn't stop beating up people who would.

But just by forming a society with an education system etc you are helping everyone achieve a variety of goals. — Andrew4Handel

Yep. That's what makes a society.

But my hypothesis is that the majority of people are in denial about the consequences of their beliefs possibly for an easy life. — Andrew4Handel

Maybe so. But do the majority of people really have an easy life, or does it just seem that way to someone who doesn't know what they challenges and difficulties are?

Suppose the planet is 100 light years away from Earth and the ship approaches 95% of light speed fairly quickly. — jgill

If we choose to deal with that in any serious scientific way, we don't get to travel in space. So, for purposes of fiction and thought-experiments, we usually let the question slide, or invent an imaginary warp drive of some variety.

There would be no reason for that to cause conflict between us unless one of us tried to inflict our beliefs on the other. — T Clark

That's it! There's the MacGuffin! It's not the belief that kills amity (and many, many people) but the drive for dominance. (Which meek, cheek-turning, cloak-sharing Cristians are not supposed to exhibit.)

Atheists are far more likely to push for assisted suicide and abortion than religious people. If religious people don't backdown than you have a serious conflict. — Andrew4Handel

All they have to back down from is a determination to control other people. I've known a great many Christians who do not believe they have a right to tell everyone else how to live, and it may be that some day, more of them can persuaded to tend their own garden. In fact, the evangelical sects in the US were considerably more tolerant of other people's beliefs and practices, too, until they were radically politicized, starting in the 1970's, by the Republican party - in what would be a particularly egregious form of exploitation, were it not symbiotic.

I don't think it is a case of short term goals. People are helping things that go against their own stated aims and values. — Andrew4Handel

Those are two different cases. Getting the car to move is a very short term practical goal that does not call any deeply held values into question (or the contents of trunk or glove compartment. I wouldn't ask, "I'll help if you prove you're not carrying drugs, firearms, underage girls, dead bodies, untaxed cigarettes or an open beer bottle. Would you?). It's the same with haying and roofing and lots of other practical tasks that are faster done if people co-operate. There may be some philosophical debate over which books should be available at the public library, but there is no argument over what happens to books when they're rained on.

People are helping things that go against their own stated aims and values, usually because they have not taken the time to think about it,
either to 1. articulate the proper manifestation of their stated values (repeating "thou shalt not kill" is easy; figuring out what circumstances are exceptions to that rule, and why, and how to determine which applies in a given situation is hard. People who have been browbeaten all their lives by 'spiritual' and political leaders find it hard even to try.)
or 2. project the probable effects of going along with something they're asked take part in by someone they have no reason to distrust, especially a leader
or 3. to assess the qualifications and sincerity of the people who set themselves up as leaders.
Some people are just plain gullible. A lot of people are mentally lazy. Even more are intellectually timid - been slapped down so often for so long that they're afraid to question or doubt.

people don't take seriously enough conflicts in values and aims. — Andrew4Handel

But they sure get het up over conflicts in meaningless slogans.

But clearly people are complacent and half hearted about their own beliefs. — Andrew4Handel

Some are complacent, yes. The half-heartedness, though, may be be because a lot of the beliefs are absurd or macabre and they've been given the system of belief (eg. Islam or Capitalism) as a package deal; they're not allowed to accept some parts and reject others --- but yet, a functional mind does exactly that; it can commit to the good but not the bad items in the package. Lots of people's belief is, literally half-hearted.

That was not only a drastic change in the purpose of education but also a change in how we value people. — Athena

That's what I keep telling you. It didn't. "People" as a concept may have been "valued" as a concept in the official documents, but on the ground, in the battlefields and cotton fields, mines, railroads and factories, the vast majority of people certainly never had been valued as anything but commodities. The "labor market" is not, and never has been, far removed from the stock market or the cattle market.
The purpose of education was always to turn out whatever kind of work-force the economy required. The requirements of the economy changed after the US dropped Fat Man and Little Boy, yes. It had to be directed more toward technology, more toward space race and world dominance, sure.
And education had to adjust. Again. Just as it had had to adjust in the early 20th century, when automation made a lot of illiterate unskilled labour unnecessary, and demanded more skilled and clerical workers. Just as it had in the west, when tractors and harvesters rendered many farm labourers redundant, and young people going to seek work in the city needed new skills. As it changed in the south, when white farmers became sharecroppers and needed all their kids to lend a hand, just so they could scrape out a living, but the landowners, bankers and war profiteers sent their kids to private schools in Europe. Education follows the economy.

Education for a technological society with unknown values is important to our present reality. — Athena

Obviously.
As the economy needs fewer engineers and computer programmers, those salaries fall and the courses leading to those careers will not be worth the tuition. (That's already happened, I believe; not sure all people know it yet.) When the economy no longer requires so many money-changers, fact-spinner, facilitators and executives, the education machine will stop churning out MBA's.

Not the other way around. As people become surplus to employment requirements (That was happening before Covid; now, it's less clear; a shift in attitude is under way.), they will stop trying to earn useless college degrees. For a while, there will be a continuing up-trend in building and maintenance trades, design and the crafting of functional items; some kinds of personal services, as well, but as the income distribution changes, so will the dynamics of who can afford what service.
Philosophy, literature, art and music, as well as nursing, early childhood education, food-craft, etc. will be taught after the economy settles down to some form of human-machine co-operative arrangement, so that people don't have to compete for increasingly scarce well-paid jobs. Of course, the government will to figure out a new way to fund itself before it can fund a new sort of education.

You are in a philosophy forum. What do you think education for good moral judgment is? — Athena

Probably not what you think it is. I believe good and bad moral judgment are not products of formal schooling, but the example children are shown, and the values they absorbs from their family, peers and culture. You can teach them that honesty is best policy all you want, but if their life experience shows that cheaters do prosper and the honest man is considered a sucker, most of them will cheat.