Progress is relative. We aim to make things better in the foreseeable future than they are now, and to maintain the improvements we have over the past... — andrewk

I am not armed with evidence right now, but I bet if I had the time and other resources I could find a lot of evidence of horrible things done in the name of "progress".

The removal of Native Americans is probably one example.

Sometimes we fail... — andrewk

And a lot of times we succeed.

I am sure that the many people who have had their lives, cultures, land, etc. destroyed by the West's march of progress can attest to that.

That's life. It's not a reason not to try, else nobody would ever try to do anything... — andrewk

But if history is cyclical and not linear and cumulative then it is foolish to act under a progress myth.

Acting according to historical reality will yield the best outcomes.

And there seems to be an unspoken premise here: we can only do good if we have faith in progress, real or mythical. That premise is highly debatable.

From time to time civilisations may collapse, and periods of bloody anarchy ensue. That's life too. But again not a reason not to do anything. And from the desperate low point of that anarchy, perhaps civilisation will one day again start to emerge - relative progress... — andrewk

But that is characterizing history as cyclical.

Believing in progress means rejecting history as cyclical.

And in the end the universe will die a long slow heat death.

But if we do our best to be kind to one another in the meantime, perhaps there will be more happiness and less misery across the broad sweep of spacetime then there would otherwise have been. — andrewk

Again, it is probably safe to say that a lot of horrible--unkind to one another--things have been done in the name of progress.

Still for now, life is better than it was in 1067 or 1867. — Bitter Crank

Better for who?

Building can be (and sometimes are) built so that the stability of the structure depends on a few members at ground level--City Bank Bldg. in NYC. Other buildings (thinking of a very, very big low-rise building like the Pentagon) aren't going to collapse all at once -- indeed, can't collapse all at once. Philosophical systems can be more like the pentagon. or they can be like a City Bank Bldg. One won't fall all at once, the other one could (theoretically--given the right stresses). — Bitter Crank

That made me think of this: I believe that Niall Ferguson has written that civilizations do not gradually decline--they suddenly collapse.

Is it the case that all disagreements come down to Metaphysical beliefs (and faith in those beliefs)? Is it possible to come to any agreement on any issue, when the root issue is Metaphysics? — anonymous66

I am not an expert on the work of Ken Wilber--I have only read "A Brief History of Everything". And I am aware that somebody who reads this is likely to respond with something like, "Ken Wilber is a New Age quack!". But the way that I understand it, Wilber has spent much of his life trying to integrate all of the intellectual traditions from every corner of the Earth from every period of history and prehistory.

Maybe he is nothing more than a quack. Or maybe he is a philosopher in every best sense of the word who simply has no home in academia or mainstream intellectual circles. Or maybe he is something in between. Or maybe no matter who or what he is, his work is a failure.

Or maybe he is onto something.

Either way, his work that I have read is enjoyable, fascinating, a valuable tour of intellectual history, and packed with fresh, original (to me, anyway) insights.

Maybe I am mischaracterizing his work--again, I am nowhere near being an expert. But I would characterize it, based on my initial impression, as saying, "Rather than trying to ferret out and evaluate everything, let's integrate everything into a coherent whole". It might be worth stepping outside of the philosophical canon and giving Integral Theory some attention, if you haven't already.

I voted in opposition because it's true intent is to limit free speech, which includes the artistic experession known as pornography. — Hanover

How does it limit free speech?

You know that's not going to work, don't you? Can Luna2 be the idea of Luna2? That way, infinite regress lies... — Srap Tasmaner

It is an idea, I, of a being, B, that is, M, another moon of the Earth, and has the name, N, Luna2.

It is conceivable to see the second one, B, as a constant and all of the others as variables. It is conceivable being able to modify or eliminate some or all of the variables without removing the existence of B. I could be changed to P, physical object, and B would still exist. M could be changed to D, dust after a collision with an asteroid, and B would still exist. And so on.

Fine. It's an idea. What is it an idea of? — Srap Tasmaner

Another moon of the Earth named Luna2.

— TheMadFool

The Empire State Building could be a trace of something and humans lack the perspective to see the whole being that it partially constitutes.

99.9999999999999999999999999999% of that trace could disappear. There could be only one electron left. But we would still have one small trace of the Empire State Building left--a trace of a trace. Just because humans do not have the perspective to see that that electron is part of the Empire State Building does not mean that the Empire State Building categorically does not exist. Just because humans have to have the presence of an identity to recognize a being does not mean that if only one electron is left and the identity has disappeared that the being is categorically non-existent.

This is starting to sound like holons--everything is simultaneously a whole and a part of another hole.

I think we're veering towards the concept of identity here. To my knowledge the issue remains unresolved in philosophy. All that means, to me, is that identity is a nebulous idea - look up Ship of Theseus.

It seems you think that the identity of an object is indestructible throughout the process of change from one form to another.

My answer to that is:

Take a human being Mr. X. You will agree that there's a difference between the living Mr. X and an urn containing his ashes. I pin my argument on this difference - something has become nonexistent during the transformation from Mr. X to the pile of ash. This something may persist in memories, books, photos, videos, audio, etc. However, these too will fade and vanish. Then we have the categorical nonexistence you're looking for.

The key factors in your mind-game are the two realms of existence - the mental and physical. In my example above I've shown you an entity, a car that straddles both realms. It's a mental-physical entity. Well, now that I think of it, ALL objects are like that. In effect, identity necessarily requires aspects of both realms of existence - the physical AND the psychical. Losing the physical and/or the psychical part entails loss of identity i.e. the object becomes nonexistent. It's like the set of integers - made of positive numbers AND negative numbers. If you remove either/both, the concept/identity of integer becomes nonexistent.

So, you may reconstitute the car from its parts but that's just the physical aspect of identity. You can't restore the psychical component of the car's identity because people forget, people die. Isn't this categorical nonexistence?

But if something spontaneously comes into existence rather than simply moving from one form of existence to another, then that means that it previously was categorically non-existent.
— WISDOMfromPO-MO

I think you're begging the question, as in you're already assuming categorical nonexistence is impossible.

You can use the same rationale I provided above that the car was categorically nonexistent before it was made. It lacks the physical component of identity, existing only in the mental realm. — TheMadFool

If something is categorically non-existent there are no traces of it.

That's not the same thing as saying humans do not have the tools to find traces or the intelligence to connect traces and recognize the being that they compose. To say the latter would be extreme anthropocentrism.

All of this even applies to identities. Just because humans do not have any further knowledge of an identity, such as Harry Potter, does not mean that traces of it do not exist.

I'm asking if you see a problem with the idea in principle. — Reformed Nihilist

I am a champion of the liberal arts tradition, so, no, I don't have a problem with it.

What I said about what I wasn't taught until the 6th grade didn't sound good. But then I thought about it and remembered that in 4th grade we studied state history, 5th grade we studied U.S. history, and then 6th grade we studied classical civilization and contemporary world civilizations. That sounds better.

The anti-Dennett ideology. You seem to be focused on taking sides, and you seem to have pre-concluded that his side is the wrong one, regardless of what is actually said or proposed. That is behaving like an ideologue... — Reformed Nihilist

I have said all along that all of them--Dennett; the ID movement; the Sexual Revolution sex-positivism disciples who want to advance their agenda under the guise of "comprehensive sex education"; the cultural conservatives who want to advance their agenda under the guise of "abstinence-only" sex education--should keep their "sides" out of public education.

If there is any "side" that I have shown I am on, it is the side of the intellectual autonomy of kids.

Again, if I could have my way the policies in force would make none of the ideologues on any side happy.

Regarding the rest, I'll ask the question simply once more. Do you object to teaching kids what various different religions believe in first grade? Just things like the difference between monotheism and polytheism, and that the Judeo-Christian religions are monotheistic and hinduism is polytheistic. That there were other religions in the past that mostly people don't believe any more? I accept that you would like to see more done. I am asking if you can agree that at the very least we should at least teach the facts of what people believe? — Reformed Nihilist

I would have to see the material, lesson plans, etc.

I wasn't taught about classical or contemporary world cultures / civilizations until the 6th grade, so I can't imagine how you would effectively extensively teach 1st graders something as complex as the world's various religious traditions.

On the other hand, I'm sure I could right now go to the children's section at a public library and find a book for small children about the variety of religions. Anybody who is concerned about religion-illiteracy in society and thinks it is important to reach people when they are small children might want to consider children's books as a tool--it would probably involve a lot less of a fight from and get more reception from parents, administrators and lawmakers who have a zillion other, much bigger, priorities like addressing the "STEM shortage" and churning out the next Albert Einstein or Steve Jobs

I wouldn't be surprised if that aforementioned book is already right there in a school library waiting for a child to check it out.

Here's an example that has real-world consequences:
In Pew Research Center polling in 2001, Americans opposed same-sex marriage by a margin of 57% to 35%.

Since then, support for same-sex marriage has steadily grown. And today, support for same-sex marriage is at its highest point since Pew Research Center began polling on this issue. Based on polling in 2017, a majority of Americans (62%) support same-sex marriage, while 32% oppose it.
http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/
Changing beliefs don't directly cause the laws to change, but it's hard to imagine the latter happening without the former. What's more, you have to assume the aggregate shift represents either many individuals changing their minds or generational replacement, but that leaves unaddressed why younger people would have different views than older people.

But I can see you have a more teleological or even eschatological view of things than I do. I still can't help but think what people think matters. — Srap Tasmaner

What "belief" that evidentialism says must be epistemically justified caused people to respond one way or the other?

The belief that homosexuality is / is not a sin? The belief that marriage has / has not always been defined as one man and one woman? The belief that homosexuality is / is not a genetic trait?

The poll tells us what people support or oppose, not what they believe. It may just be "anecdotal evidence", but it is not uncommon to hear about people changing their attitude after a child, sibling, friend, etc. comes out. Their changed emotional stakes, not their changed cognitive beliefs, explains their stance, a case could be made.

People may not even have a belief that can be isolated and attributed to their attitude. People may not even know what to rationally believe--they could be confused (the marriage equality debate always confused me, and still does; how is it "equal protection under the law" when a person like me, single and living alone, doesn't get any of the benefits/protections from the government that couples do?). People could be defaulting to their intuition to form a stance on an issue while doubting all of the beliefs being presented from every side.

So let's say that this is my idea, not his. I can assure you that the spirit by which I propose it is sincere. Now can we talk about it like rational people and not ideologues?... — Reformed Nihilist

What ideology have I espoused in this discussion?

Edit: The agenda of ID proponents is not the problem, it is that they are suggesting teaching something either outright false, or misleading to a degree that encourages outright false beliefs. I am suggesting teaching kids actual facts about religions. — Reformed Nihilist

Like I have been saying for many years, if kids accept as true everything that teachers tell them then the actual content presented is the least of our problems.

The same applies to any source that claims to be presenting truths, such as the mainstream news. The same applies to adults.

But I have already said on several occasions that the solution is to present material as what it really is: what people think.

Anybody who thinks he is merely presenting "facts" may not be as deceiving as ID proponents, but he/she is playing the same game as them.

Tell kids what people think. Make it clear that it is what people think. "This neuroscientist defines religion as...". "This ethnographer recorded in her field notes this thought about all religions after being a participant-observer in that group's religious ritual." Etc. Then ask the kids, "What do you think?". Then ask them to present their thoughts in an essay. Encourage them to interview religious leaders in the community for extra credit. Have them do a project. Break them up into groups. Assign each group a different religious tradition. Have them then research that religious tradition and then role play its believers/followers, the way that they understand them, in front of the class. Put kids in charge of their intellectual lives like they should be. Don't make them sponges absorbing facts from an authority figure and regurgitating them onto a test so that adults paranoid about people's "beliefs" can be temporarily appeased.

It's still fallacious. It does not logically follow that the idea is bad because it's inspiration is somehow flawed. — Reformed Nihilist

Remember what Kenneth R. Miller shows is the real agenda of the Intelligent Design movement? If they get their way the impact won't just be students being exposed to a controversial worldview. The impact will be that students will be turned into pawns in a battle that has nothing to do with their well-being, and their lives during and after school will be weighed down with that baggage.

It is no different if it is Daniel Dennett calling for "facts" to be taught. The spirit of the policy matters, not just the letter.

I agree with most of this, so I find it strange that you are so resistant to the idea that we teach children about religions without value judgements. No indoctrination for or against any religion. Of course we should also teach critical thinking, but that is a separate concern. We should teach critical thinking not specifically as it applies to religions, but as it applies to everything. From your responses, I feel like you think I have a secret agenda to teach children that religion is bad, and my suggestion is just a Trojan horse. That's totally implausible though, as a majority of teachers, assuming they fall into the broader demographic pattern, are religious. Perhaps you could take the suggestion at face value. It really seems like an unusually reasonable and uncontroversial notion to be getting such push back. — Reformed Nihilist

See above.

That's the genetic fallacy. You can't conclude an idea is bad based solely on it's source. Even if Dennett was the most fallible, wrongheaded thinker in the history of human thought, even a stopped clock is right twice a day... — Reformed Nihilist

I judged the idea based on its inspiration , not its "source".

Where did scholars and intellectuals come from? I'm talking about teaching children. I think Aquinas might be jumping ahead a little. How about just teaching them about the basic tenets and orthodoxy of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, etc.? No value judgements or critiques. No justifications or apologies. Just the facts.

How is withholding value judgments betraying an agenda? It is the opposite.

I think you are talking about teens or young adults, not children. I am referring to starting to teach children about religion at the same time as we start to teach them about everything else in school. Basically starting at 5 years old. — Reformed Nihilist

If there is a political struggle, like with sex education, then no matter what curriculum we end up with it has the baggage of the agenda of various political interests.

A "save them from indoctrination" education is not about the well-being of students. It is powerful elites using students as pawns in a political battle.

I don't care what age the instruction starts at, the material should be designed to help develop a critical perspective that can be used for a lifelong process of self-education and creatively contributing to society.

Creating lifelong narcissists whose modus operandi is being McCarthyists paranoid about indoctrination is not a good idea. Giving people the power to be effective responsible, autonomous self-educators and independent thinkers is.

Different people can have different experiences of the same thing. That doesn't make it a different thing. Some people hate cilantro, some people like it, but it's still cilantro. What you and I and Dennett are talking about is the same thing if we're all speaking English and using the word in a conventional sense. I know I am, and I have no reason to believe Dennett isn't, so unless you're intentionally using the word unconventionally, then we're all talking about the same thing. Even if we experience it differently. — Reformed Nihilist

Yeah, if we are talking about something concrete, like the Reverend Billy Graham, then it's oranges and oranges.

But something abstract and ambiguous like "religion"--something that, to my knowledge, nobody has satisfactorily defined/demarcated--can mean many different things. And the "religion" that people like Dennett talk about is very strange and foreign to me and looks a lot like part of a straw man argument. Again, it looks like what they are really talking about is fundamentalism.

I have found plenty of sources, including Terry Eagleton--who I am pretty sure is an atheist--who say almost the same things that I am saying here.

I never asked you to refute his conception of religion. I asked if it was reasonable to teach children the facts about what different religions believe, without treating any one as right or wrong, in publicly funded schools? You could still answer that question if you wanted. — Reformed Nihilist

The way I recall it, you asked me specifically about Daniel Dennett's idea. I responded that if Daniel Dennett is the inspiration then it is a bad idea.

I then said that if it was going to be done with a spirit more appropriate for a public institution of learning then, by all means, teach children what scholars/intellectuals say about religion.

The "facts" and "without treating any one as right or wrong" language betray a political agenda. Instead, teach what archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, historians, linguists, philosophers, political scientists, psychologists, religious studies scholars, and sociologists have said / are saying about religion. It probably won't make many adults happy--the evangelical atheists, the religious conservatives, the secularists, etc.--but objective truth does not take sides and would give children a powerful tool to defend against the various political interests, left and right; agnostic, atheist and theist; secular and traditional, who are trying to control their lives.

Here is an article about the Coca-Cola professor: http://www.denverpost.com/2015/12/26/cu-nutrition-expert-accepts-550000-from-coca-cola-for-obesity-campaign/

How about this quote from the article: "The Coca-Cola connection highlights the secrecy surrounding much of the corporate money pouring into CU’s prestigious Anschutz medical campus."

Maybe I just happen to live in a good market, but as someone who is often in job seeker mode and frequently sees every job opening being advertised, I never see anything starting near the federal minimum wage. The state and local minimum wages are not higher as far as I know, so that is not the reason.

If there were tons of jobs paying only the minimum wage to start, I could understand why it is an issue. But such jobs seem extremely rare, so I don't understand what the problem is.

Are you seeking an academic study on how academia bends over backwards to please whoever gives it give it money? I'll give it a look and see. Maybe, I'll come up with something. — Rich

What about that professor in Colorado who did research--obesity research, I believe--funded by Pepsi or Coca-Cola (I forget which one) that concluded, surprise, soda consumption is not responsible for certain negative health outcomes. I don't remember the exact details, but he got perks from Pepsi or Coca-Cola like staying in expensive hotels, trips to nice vacation destinations, etc. Again, I don't remember the exact details, but I think that that is a fairly accurate outline.

There was definitely the appearance of a conflict of interest.

You understand why anecdote is not a good basis for drawing conclusions?... — Reformed Nihilist

What conclusion did I claim could be drawn?

I really don't find your anecdote very compelling... — Reformed Nihilist

What did I try to compel?

not only because my experience is almost completely the opposite,... — Reformed Nihilist

Again, nearly every time I see/hear discussions about "religion" the "religion" being scrutinized and "religion" as I have experienced it are apples and oranges respectively.

but more so because I understand the fallibility of anecdotal evidence in principle. — Reformed Nihilist

Oh, you mean like "My grandfather smoked a pack a day and never got cancer".

I never said anything like that. I illustrated, again, "religion" according to people like Daniel Dennett = apples; "religion" as I have experienced it = oranges.

I can't refute Dennett's version of "religion" because, like I said, if every time you see it or hear about it it walks like a straw man and talks like a straw man, it is most likely a straw man. Or a bogeyman.

Now if it is fundamentalism that the "religion" alarmists have in mind, then it starts to make sense--the stuff about indoctrination, and the like.

Even then it is difficult to take the "religion" alarmists seriously--their understanding of religious fundamentalism does not coincide with religious fundamentalism as it has been explained to me by sources such as professor of anthropology Richard H. Robbins in Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism.

I think the spirit is that indoctrination is bad, and making sure that children can make properly educated decisions regarding religion. I would hope that we all could agree with that. I think it would be wrong to pass any judgement, either pro or anti. Just teach kids what people believe. Like Joe Friday used to say "just the facts ma'am ". — Reformed Nihilist

My experience in public elementary and secondary school felt like indoctrination, not my experience in Sunday school and the church sanctuary.

Like I said in the discussion about people submitting to science, thinking critically about the material, especially in math and science class, was not on the radar until I got to college.

My private, church-based religious education, on the other hand, encouraged things like thinking critically about popular interpretations of Scripture, avoiding legalism, etc., the way I remember it. I certainly never experienced or witnessed admonishment for questioning the material or not taking it seriously. I can't say the latter about my science education in my youth.

Regardless of your opinion on Dennett in general, I would be curious if you dispute that it would be a worthwhile enterprise to teach the cultural/social phenomena of religions to children in public school, and if so, on what grounds? — Reformed Nihilist

It is the spirit of the policy, not the letter of the policy, that matters.

A policy conceived in the spirit of "Religion is bad! We must educate children about this monster!" won't make a positive difference.

But if the spirit of the policy is "The bigger the map of the physical, social and spiritual world you develop, the more rich and fulfilling your life can be", then, yes, teach children what intellectuals/scholars have said about religion--along with scientism, the Enlightenment/modernity (you know, what postmodern theorists have to say about it), physicalism / philosophical materialism, etc.

But good luck getting either spirit legislated into official policy: formal education is increasingly seen as nothing more than factories churning out technicians to perform the tasks that AI does not take over, not as a process through which to gain any understanding or appreciation of things.

We're still waiting, as Billy Bragg said, for the great leap forward.

But you're back in the usual bind here. Granting for the sake of argument that Kuhn is right about how one paradigm replaces another, and that the reasons are extra-scientific, it remains that the coming paradigm has to have been created, has to be seen as a contender, has to have achieved some prestige for it to be in a position to take over when the old guard retires or dies.

People still have to do stuff for change to happen, even if you can't just make change happen by doing stuff. — Srap Tasmaner

But doesn't evidentialism require every individual to structure/organize his life around "the evidence"? And, like I said before using a criminal investigation and trial as an illustration, isn't "the evidence" something that is inherently biased and the result of who has the power to allocate resources for activities such as evidence gathering?

If something greater than an individual self overwhelmingly determines what choices are available to him/her, then I think it is absurd to think that outcomes would have been different if he/she had just taken responsibility for the contents of his/her own mind and policed them the right way.

Of course not, and like with virtually every complex phenomena, there is no bright demarcation line. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be considered distinct at points outside the blurry lines near demarcation. At the most private, personal beliefs are not publicly shared, and then are not subject to public scrutiny or critique. At the least private are proselytizing religions, which are most open to the same critique. I would suggest that Daniel Dennet's proposal that all children be taught about all of the major religions of the world without a suggestion that one or another is the "right" one at public schools would be a great way to approach the subject, to counteract what could be considered the indoctrination of children into a particular religious heritage and dogma. — Reformed Nihilist

Personally, I think that Ken Wilber's analysis of the stages of consciousness / moral understanding offers a lot more than I have heard from Daniel Dennett or any other theorist in mainstream academia. You know, the part about moving from ethnocentrism to worldcentrism.

And, honestly, when I hear people like Dennett talk about "religion" I think that they are talking about some bogeyman or straw man. I doubt that "Us" vs. "Them" and "Us are right, them are wrong" is how a lot of people would characterize their religious experience. It certainly in no way characterizes my religious experience.

Ah, so your question was exactly that: is there anything on the Geertz side, say, that at least aspires to scientific rigor as Harris did? Harris may not have succeeded but at least he properly identified the goal. Yes?... — Srap Tasmaner

Probably right.

So what do you think of the sort of cracker-barrel statistical approach I presented earlier? — Srap Tasmaner

It says to me that culture structures intellectual functioning and that policing my own personal "beliefs" won't change anything at the group level--that something like a Kuhnian paradigm shift is needed to prevent outcomes like war, genocide, impoverishment, etc.

You might also want to check out Timothy Snyder's Black Earth which repeatedly explains the events of the Holocaust in terms of the local political situation instead of attributing everything to anti-Semitism. — Srap Tasmaner

I just read the description and some customer reviews at an online retailer.

Again ecological instability is said to be a precursor to horrible events.

I think there was something that historians (and maybe anthropologists) used to call the "intellectual fallacy," which was supposed to be overstating the importance of culture and beliefs relative to the material conditions of life. There's the stuff Marvin Harris did in anthropology, for instance. (I had forgotten this one, but Wikipedia says he argued that Aztec cannibalism can be explained by protein deficiency instead of religion!) — Srap Tasmaner

Many years ago I read Marvin Harris's Our Kind: Who We Are, Where We Came From, Where We Are Going. Recently I read a few chapters in a book presenting opposing viewpoints in anthropology. In the chapter asking if anthropology is a science and should try to emulate the natural sciences, Clifford Geertz says no, Marvin Harris says yes.

Harris's cultural materialism is controversial, as far as I know. He is famous for saying Hindu's go malnourished even though there are calories available in their environment in the form of beef and that their seemingly irrational refusal to consume beef is rational because abstention from beef consumption minimizes ecological inputs and maximizes ecological outputs.

Yeah, if Harris is right it is further evidence that the causal relationship between belief and behavior is unfounded.

I don't recall hearing Harris say anything about Aztecs and cannibalism. But I did recently hear the same thing you said from a different source. The writer said that the cannibalism of the Aztecs occurred at a much greater rate than that of other people in the New World and that it was because there was much less non-human protein calories in their environment than other places. In other words, cannibalism was practiced to consume protein, not to appease gods or anything like that.

Aye, and there's the rub. Justification, in real life, is a post hoc process, unlike how it is regularly viewed in philosophy as being the reason for, or cause of behavior. In any sufficiently complex scenario, multiple rationally defensible but mutually exclusionary justifications are possible. I would submit that it makes more sense to explore under which circumstances people are more likely, or less likely to behave in ways that lead to such things as wars and genocides. I think that there is a case to be made that religions are for the most part exclusionary in principle (heresy is a sin in every religion), if not always in practice, and that this buttresses in-group thinking. There's a great deal of research on in group/out group dynamics, and the social discord that come from it, which include wars and genocide. Again, I think some people overstate this connection as a direct causal chain, but I don't think it's unreasonable to draw some lines. Here's a very reasonable take on the matter:

http://bev.berkeley.edu/Ethnic%20Religious%20Conflict/Ethnic%20and%20Religious%20Conflict/1%20Identity/Journal%20of%20Peace%20Research-1999-Seul-553-69.pdf

I also don't think that it's unreasonable, given those sorts of associations, to conclude that it is more prudent to reject religion. In a sort of a reverse Pascal's wager, I would suggest that religion offers little of value that can't be acquired otherwise, and there is at least some reason to believe that it underpins some of the worst parts of our nature, so it is the most moral choice to both reject it for oneself, and to speak out about it's possible ills. — Reformed Nihilist

But are religion and personal, private belief the same thing?

Even if we could satisfactorily demarcate what is and is not religion--as far as I know nobody has been able to--and eradicate it, things like people personally believing in the existence of God might remain.

A growing number of people in the Western world are identifying as "spiritual but not religious". That is further evidence that religious belief is to a great degree, if not entirely, personal rather than institutional.

Usually, if an institution is destructive we don't throw out the baby with the bath water. Instead, we reform or replace the institution. If the marriage institution is failing we don't say that sex and romantic love are bad and have got to go. Instead we reform the marriage institution or replace it with something else to facilitate and regulate things like sex and romantic love.

And I am not convinced that any cultural tradition, let alone religion, causes intergroup conflict. I have read plenty of accounts of diverse groups with diverse backgrounds coexisting peacefully before being pitted against each other by political actors who use social division/fracturing to gain and maintain power. It seems like the constant in such outcomes is deteriorating economic conditions. In other words, if economic life was steady people would not get politically divided over resources and there would be no advantage to belonging to a particular religious or ethnic group. Alas, environment, ecology, economics, etc. are volatile. Read John R. Bowen's "The Myth of Global Ethnic Conflict". Another good source is Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism where Richard H. Robbins shows how the actions of the World Bank / IMF led to division in places like the former Yugoslavia.

While I think the point in the original post is reasonable to an extent, I also think it is reasonable, to an extent, to make judgments about how someone's beliefs motivated their actions based on their own explanations. Is it unfair to conclude that 9/11 was motivated by a belief in a specific form of Islamist fundamentalism (a belief system)? Bin Laden explicitly explained it to be part of a holy war. I suppose we could psychologize him, and try to determine proximate vs ultimate causes, but for most practical purposes, can't we just say that his belief, and the beliefs of those who took part in the attack were a significant, even primary, motivating factor?

I'll agree that some people play this hand too strongly, saying that all wars through history have been caused by religious belief. But the overstatement or poor formulation of an idea doesn't mean we should dismiss every formulation of that idea. I would suggest that we should concern ourselves with determining motivation instead of cause, and figuring out to what degree various beliefs or cultural/social institutions help to motivate positive and negative behaviors. Surely it isn't unreasonable to suggest that the various dogma of the social institutions of religion have historically been a large motivating factor in various violent incidents, including many wars and genocides? The Spanish inquisition, the Crusades, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the Indian/Pakistani conflicts,etc. Surely that's not controversial? — Reformed Nihilist

In general, all of that is reasonable.

But we are talking about a specific context here: evidentialism, epistemic justification, and the assertion that it is morally wrong to have a belief if certain conditions are not met.

Okay, it is morally required that I not believe a proposition when there is insufficient evidence that it is true and that I believe a proposition when there is sufficient evidence that it is true, because failure to maintain such rational hygiene causes me to engage in behaviors that are destructive and cause suffering. Where is the sufficient evidence for the latter claim? It is never presented.

And this barely scratches the surface of problems that such a philosophy presents. Another problem: if we must re-program ourselves according to "the evidence" then that puts us under the control of whoever is deciding how evidence-gathering resources are spent. If the people who make decisions about how resources are allocated decide to spend 80% on research in theoretical physics and only 1% on research in cultural anthropology then the body of "evidence" that is available and that we must form or discard beliefs around is extremely biased.

It would be like all of life is like a criminal trial. There may be exponential amounts of evidence to consider, but things like what evidence the law allows to be presented in court, the skill of detectives, the whims of attorneys and judges, good luck and bad luck (the murder weapon is discovered by a construction worker seconds before it washes down a storm sewer; a witness dies before being able to testify), etc. limit the evidence considered to a small portion. Evidentialism, the way that I understand it, would mean that our entire lives would be dictated in the same limited way that a criminal investigation and trial is. Who decides what counts as evidence, who decides where evidence-gathering resources are spent, the skill of the people gathering evidence, good luck and bad luck like evidence being discovered by accident or never being discovered because it is lost, etc. would dictate every second of our lives.

Some influential people on the intellectual landscape, it seems, want all of us to adjust our lives to a moral system that does not meet the requirements it demands: sufficient evidence.

Maybe there isn't any! — Wayfarer

So, evidentialism says that one is justified in having a belief only if there is sufficient evidence and that this is of moral necessity because unjustified beliefs cause a great deal of harm, including wars, genocide, poverty, etc., yet there is absolutely no evidence of the latter.

If everything I wrote in that previous sentence is true, then it seems to me that we may be flirting with the height of absurdity.

Look at the current political debate about health cover in the USA. I would say 'belief' plays a huge role in that. The hardline conservatives believe that individuals ought to look after themselves and that government interference in the marketplace is comparable to socialism and communism. The democrats believe that society has a responsibility to provide a baseline of care for any citizen. I don't want to debate the issue in its own right, other than to observe that these are very much matters of belief...[/b]




Does anybody really "believe" those things?

Or are they just using them as rationalizations for their positions and actions?

How do we know if a person really has a "belief" or what his/her response to that "belief" is? Rather than accepting a belief as corresponding with external reality, a person could have strong doubts about a belief.

And how can we isolate and compare beliefs? I believe the concept I need is reductionism. We can reduce material to an enzyme and any further reduction makes it something other than an enzyme. We can compare one enzyme to another and see, I suppose, that they are almost completely identical (I don't know; I could be wrong; somebody might say something like, "Wrong! Scientists say that no two atoms are alike!). Those enzymes, I supposed, would be interchangeable. We could replace one with another and it would behave the same. But can we say any of this about beliefs? Is it scientifically possible to demonstrate this about beliefs? Can we transplant one person's belief that God exists in place of another person's belief that God exists and not change anything about the former person?



— Wayfarer

Also there's a very porous boundary between belief systems and ideologies. If you look at some of the notably destructive political and terrorists movements, such as Pol Pot, Al Queda, and many communist movements, I don't see how you can claim that belief doesn't form a strong component of those movements... — Wayfarer

I haven't seen conclusive evidence that people's personal beliefs caused things like the deaths under the dictatorship of Pol Pot.

Did somebody in a lab put Cambodia in several petri dishes, added some personal beliefs to half of them, and the brutality of the Khmer Rouge appeared in the latter but not the rest of them?

That is the so-called 'new atheist' polemics - Dawkins and his various acolytes.



As of January 2010, the English version of The God Delusion had sold over 2 million copies.[70] As of September 2014, it increased to 3 million copies.[71] It was ranked second on the Amazon.com best-sellers' list in November 2006.[72][73] It remained on the list for 51 weeks until 30 September 2007.[74] The German version, entitled Der Gotteswahn, had sold over 260,000 copies as of 28 January 2010.[75] The God Delusion has been translated into 35 languages.[6]

This in turn is grounded in the 'enlightenment narrative' that religions are oppressive, reactionary powers that try to preserve their own power and work to suppress freedom of expression and individual conscience. In a way, it is itself a quasi-religious narrative, but it puts man in the place of God, and science in the place of religion. Dawkins' view has been described as:



We find an initial idealised state, an evil intrusion, a present dreadful state caused by the intrusion, the promise of a future idealised state assured by the elimination of the intrusion. There is a glorious leader and even a sort of New Man. The message is pitched both at the level of humanity and at that of the individual.

Dawkins's message is basically that we are social animals on an evolutionary trajectory to ever more rational and therefore higher moral standards, but that the process has been derailed somewhere along the line by the appearance of religion. It had looked until recently as though we were shaking off religion and entering an Age of Reason. But now, with the rise of religious fundamentalism, there is a relapse which accounts for the world's present troubles. Nevertheless, thanks to the enlightenment Science brings, we can root out religion and get back on track. 1

You can certainly make the case, but on the other hand, the very idea of 'freedom of conscience' and many other principles of liberal politics, were derived in the framework of the Christian idea of the sanctity of the individual. That case has been put by many of Dawkins' critics.

But I think the argument is basically irresolvable either way. It's a matter of belief. — Wayfarer

Well, the New Atheists don't seem to apply their evidentialist, "evidence-based" standard to their own position. I have never seen them or any of their disciples present conclusive, scientific evidence of "beliefs" determining behavior.

Are you familiar with Max Weber? His Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is a classic study of just these questions. — Wayfarer

I have read Max Weber: A Critical Introduction, by Kieran Allen.

Tonight I have been reading some F.H. Bradley and thinking about the concept of the reality of the world.

I'm trying to get clear on my thoughts about this.

The question I am raising comes down to this: The world we inhabit is the world of our experience. This is what people usually mean by "the world." But metaphysicians are always seeking a world behind the world; a reality behind the appearance.

I would differentiate these with the terms the-world-for-us and the-world-in-itself.

I do not deny the existence of a world-in-itself. Surely, trees, dogs, rivers, mountains, planets, solar systems and stars would exist regardless of whether humans were here to experience them.

What I deny is that such a world is philosophically relevant, because such a world, in principle, cannot be experienced. The world-in-itself exists, but it is not "like" anything. It just is.

And everything we know about the world is the world-for-us, even when discussing cosmology or quantum mechanics. Such studies are meaningless in the face of a world wholly unrelated to our experience of it.

I take this view to be an essential tenet of traditional phenomenology. The goal of phenomenology is to describe the only world that can ever be experienced, the world-for-us. The world-in-itself, like the Kantian thing-in-itself exists - there would still be entities if there were nobody to experience them. But they wouldn't be like anything in particular, because because like something requires experience of those things. They would just be there, exist, as pure being. And there's nothing else to know about such a world physically, other than that it is coherent and exists.

The goal of philosophy is not to see through appearance to get to the world in itself, but to immerse yourself in mastering the world-for-us, the only world we ever have any access to.

I believe pragmatism and existentialism deal with this in a very distinctive and logical way. The world-in-itself exists - it just shouldn't make the guest list for the big philosophical party, because it's a basicalaly useless cognitive placeholder for us.

Thoughts on these themes? — Brian

It reminds me of the manifest image vs. scientific image question.

Which branch of science do you think ought to be in the business of investigating the causal power of belief? — Wayfarer

Anthropology, neuroscience, political science, psychology and sociology could be used to investigate it.

cl

Right. I think folk psychology endorses (2) and (1) is just a sloppy attempt to express (2) in most cases.

I couldn't tell you what the scientific support for (2) is. Certainly there are studies that address how people's attitudes and choices vary depending on the information you provide them. There are also studies that show reasons aren't everything, that people make choices that differ from what you'd predict given their self-identified reasons. — Srap Tasmaner

But it is 1.) that what I would call evangelical evidentialism is trying to combat.

I am inclined to think that any scientific investigation would not find 1.)--that "beliefs" determine behavior. I am inclined to think that it would show 2.)--that beliefs are simply something we must respond to / cope with. We could respond in many different ways. We could ignore them. We could doubt them. We could be annoyed by them. We could let them inform our choices.

The evangelical evidentialists, on the other hand, seem to unequivocally say that beliefs determine behavior and that they therefore must either be justified or removed and that the failure to either justify or remove them is extremely morally irresponsible. Unjustified beliefs lead to horrible things like genocide, they say. But they never present any conclusive evidence to support the latter. It could be that certain behaviors cause beliefs, not the other way around. And it could be that those belief-causing behaviors are the result of other variables, such as ecological conditions.

What if, instead of saying your beliefs caused your actions, I said only that you had acted on your beliefs, or acted with your beliefs in mind? Would you still object?... — Srap Tasmaner

I don't know what science says. If science has investigated it, such investigations and their findings are never presented.

The way that you phrase it makes a belief sound like emotions; and information and other stimuli--things that one must cope with, respond to, etc. That is different from saying that a belief is something that people create and that, due to its power to determine behavior, must be created responsibly, never created in the first place, or removed.

I can think of a bunch of other ways to put this too. Suppose I believe you are an armed and dangerous intruder in my home, and I shoot you. I could say I shot you because I believed that you were ..., that my belief was a or the reason I shot you, that it was a contributing factor in my shooting you. I think we would only say it was a or the cause of my shooting you or that the belief caused me to shoot you if we were speaking very loosely indeed. — Srap Tasmaner

1.) It is one thing to say "I had this belief, B, and B caused me to do action A".

2.). It is another thing to say, "I had this belief, B. I had to decide what to do. I decided, based on B, to respond with action A".


1.) is passive.

2.) is active.

Where is the evidence that beliefs act on people?

If there is any scientific investigation into the matter to be found, should we be surprised if that investigation shows that, on the contrary, people choose to act on (or not act on) beliefs? Should we be surprised if it shows that most beliefs are inconsequential and just take up neurological space and never play a role in anything?

The way I see it is a particular form of a thing acquires an identity over and above that given by its composition. For example, take metal, plastic, rubber and glass and make a car. These materials have their own existence and yet, they interact to create a car whose identity as a vehicle is something more. Further interaction with its owner and his/her family will add to this identity. However, a time will come when it will be discarded, dismantled into its composite parts. We could say that it has simply changed form but it has lost the identity it acquired over its lifetime as a car. We could then say it changed its form into, hopefully, fond memories, pictures, etc. But these to will fade away over time - pictures decay, people die. Eventually, the car will literally vanish both from the physical and mental planes. It is then that the car will be categorically nonexistent. I think if we take something closer to home, like a person, the message becomes even poignantly clearer, for in death lies the answer to your question of categorical nonexistence... — TheMadFool

Someone recently told me how often the material that a human is composed of is replaced. If I recall correctly, he said every 13 years. So a human alive today is not composed of the same matter he/she was composed of 13 years ago.

I think that the car is the same. The car preceeds any material that makes it tangible. Even if the car lost all physical manifestation and ended up absent from all other forms such as photographs, the car could be physically reconstituted at a later time.

If the latter is false and the car can never again appear in any form, what was the process that took it completely out of existence? How does it work?

You have a point but it doesn't help your case because it matters not how something, anything arose. What matters is, well, cateogrical nonexistence... — TheMadFool

But if something spontaneously comes into existence rather than simply moving from one form of existence to another, then that means that it previously was categorically non-existent.

Please read above. — TheMadFool

The process through which something is taken out of existence is missing.

Suppose in a few centuries no living person has ever encountered the Harry Potter stories. It's a thought experiment. All that remains of them is a dusty box with the (by then) old books, hidden away somewhere, all else long since having been recycled.
Can it then be said that Harry Potter still exists (as a fictional narrative), perhaps as a kind of extended memory found in that dusty box?
Or, can Harry Potter only "come back to life", as it were, once someone has read the old books?
Can one speak of any ontological status worth mentioning?

It is said that Zeno devised 40 thought experiments, paradoxes, though only 9 are known, and only second-hand. We might suppose they could still be uncovered in ancient texts of course, perhaps even Zeno's own words, however unlikely it seems by now.
What might be the ontological status of these alleged 31 thought experiments supposedly devised by Zeno?
After all, I just referred to them, hypothetically at least. — jorndoe

Harry potter would exist out of the context in which we now know Harry Potter. Either:

1.) The present context would be reconstructed enough that Harry Potter would be manifested the same as today. That would probably take quite an archaeological feat.

2.) Harry Potter is incorporated/assimilated into a different context.


I think you already answered your second question. They would be things that allegedly / hypothetically exist.

Suppose I have the thought that Earth might have another moon, call it "Luna2." If I determine that there is no celestial object that actually qualifies to be called a moon of Earth, I'll say, "Luna2 does not exist."

You will say that Luna2 does exist, as an idea. Okay, Luna2 is an idea. What sort of idea? Is Luna2 an idea of something? If so, what? — Srap Tasmaner

Here's a list:

1.) An idea: A as manifested in your mind.
2.) A physical embodiment of A outside of your mind.


You ask what if it is determined that there is no 2.).

Okay, let's delete 2.) and update the list.

Here is the updated list:

1.) An idea: A as manifested in your mind.


We still have A.

I am not saying how I feel or what I think is true. I am just articulating a possibility:

One theory from sociology is that deviance serves a function: everybody gets reminded of the consequences of deviance, therefore social control is maintained and society is able to continue to function and stay together.

I guess, therefore, that you could say that it is possible that evil is the most extreme form of deviance that serves that aforementioned useful, important social function.

Actually my long-standing view is that the dynamics of ecclesiastical power held by the Church has a great deal to do with the way this conflict has unfolded in Western culture. This is because of the power wielded by religious orthodoxy and, conversely, the treatment meted out to heretics and schismatics. That played out over centuries in the West, and of course it also became deeply intertwined with politics, in the Wars of Religion and the 30 Years War, not to mention many bloody episodes in the Inquisition, such as the persecution of the Cathars.

I am inclined to think that is the underlying cause of the anti-religious attitudes of the so-called 'secular West'. That, in turn, grew out of the Enlightenment and the belief that science, not religion, ought to be the 'arbiter of truth' - which is, of course, true, in respect of the kinds of matters that can be made subject to scientific measurement. But religions deal with many ideas and values that are quite out of scope for science.

Actually this is a subject which Karen Armstrong's book The Case for God, talks about - that essay is basically an abstract of it. She shows how early modern science, by appealing to 'God's Handiwork', inadvertently brought about its own undoing - 'Fatally, religions tried to defend themselves against science by arguing that they knew the truth better than the geologists, rather than presenting themselves (as one feels Armstrong would have wished) as the guardians of mystery and therapeutic manoeuvres of the mind. 1.'

That impulse is what gave rise to biblical fundamentalism and the 'culture wars'. Most people don't realise that Augustine and Origen were fiercely critical of biblical literalism and fundamentalism, in the early days of the Christian church. — Wayfarer

It seems to me that the reverse has also occurred: the irreligious have dragged science and rationalism into a culture war against "religion".

Chris Hedges wrote I Don't Believe In Atheists: The Dangerous Rise of the Secular Fundamentalist. But atheists in general, the New Atheists, and others responded that they are not fundamentalists, there is no such thing as secular fundamentalism, etc.

In Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul, Kenneth R. Miller shows that the Intelligent Design movement is not about evolution. The Intelligent Design movement, he shows, uses evolution as a smokescreen to hide their actual agenda: changing the definition of science and in the process subjugating or destroying science. If I recall correctly, it all started with a small meeting in the home of Michael Behe.

Again, it is not about truth, spiritual well-being, improving the human condition, etc. It is various interests struggling to gain and maintain power.

If there were nothing to gain politically from it, would anybody care about what personal "beliefs" people have?

And the people who claim that they are on the side of Enlightenment liberalism seem to be very illiberal when it comes to people's "beliefs". True liberalism accommodates a diversity of beliefs, lifestyles, religious practices/traditions, etc. The "belief" police, on the other hand, say that some beliefs, such as the belief in supernatural beings, have got to go.

And I don't believe that it is all some understandable response to millennia of oppressive ecclesiastical power. It is one thing to want to liberate people from an oppressive power structure by emphasizing the rights of individuals, the primacy of the individual subject, the efficacy of reason/rationality, etc., it is another thing to say that "beliefs" determine behavior, to single out certain generic beliefs such as the belief in the existence of deities, and to treat anybody who possesses or supports the latter like they are inferior, in need of reform, deplorable, etc.

Most significantly, again, the "belief" police never hold their position to their own standard. They say that only anything "evidence-based" is reliable, but they provide no evidence to support their view that "beliefs" determine behavior. They display the same irrationality that they say religious people display.

Finally, I don't know the whole history or sociology of fundamentalism, but in Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, Richard H. Robbins shows how Protestant fundamentalism developed as a response to the expansion of capitalism. Maybe trying to prove logos with mythos set the intellectual stage for it, but if Robbins is right it is the encroachment of capitalism and globalization that has been the impetus behind the religious fundamentalist response.