Haven't read this article yet but I wanted to get on my religion soap-box early.
In class today Pete distinguished between weather or not a person has a tendency to believe in a god and weather or not a "supernatural" force dictates some portions of our lives.
These are two entirely separate questions. I would like to address the first.
The genetic tendency hypothesis would favor two variations that would be observable along a gradient within a population (the gradation is because the behavior/attitude would probably be polygenic). In one, a person sees a burning bush in the desert, hears a voice proclaiming that it is a divine force, and then supposes that she is hallucinating. In the other, she sees the same bush, hears the same voice, and supposes that the stories she has heard about God are true. Here is the evidence, it is manifested in her observations of the world around her.
This is what I feel is of particular importance. Assuming that this hypothesis turns out to be correct, it is vitally important to determine what sort of person one is. This responsibility extends to a lot of other arenas with varying importance, political party affiliation for example.
This responsibility is the opposite of hubris, and it should not be repellent to anyone, regardless of their beliefs.
Secondly, I don't think it follows necessarily from something being polygenic to that polygenic trait manifesting as a gradation (I think of eye color, which is polygenic but also does not manifest as a true gradation, rather as a discrete number of possibilities).
I agree however that (from the way I understood it in class) different people will be affected differently by the same situation based on how full their "containers" are in the five basic moral categories, leading to some people perhaps being able to believe in supernatural explanations more easily than myself.
Wouldn't you say that it's just as much someone's responsibility to determine what sort of person they are as it is to determine what kind of people others are, so as to better understand where they are coming from when you disagree on issues? I think that's one of the most useful conclusions we can extract from the Pinker article.
I like how Hitchens distinguishes between Deism and Theism.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,995465,00.html
Haven't read this article yet but I wanted to get on my religion soap-box early.
In class today Pete distinguished between weather or not a person has a tendency to believe in a god and weather or not a "supernatural" force dictates some portions of our lives.
These are two entirely separate questions. I would like to address the first.
The genetic tendency hypothesis would favor two variations that would be observable along a gradient within a population (the gradation is because the behavior/attitude would probably be polygenic). In one, a person sees a burning bush in the desert, hears a voice proclaiming that it is a divine force, and then supposes that she is hallucinating. In the other, she sees the same bush, hears the same voice, and supposes that the stories she has heard about God are true. Here is the evidence, it is manifested in her observations of the world around her.
This is what I feel is of particular importance. Assuming that this hypothesis turns out to be correct, it is vitally important to determine what sort of person one is. This responsibility extends to a lot of other arenas with varying importance, political party affiliation for example.
This responsibility is the opposite of hubris, and it should not be repellent to anyone, regardless of their beliefs.
Firstly, here's another good Ted talk from one of my favorite authors, Richard Dawkins:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/richard_dawkins_on_militant_atheism.html
Secondly, I don't think it follows necessarily from something being polygenic to that polygenic trait manifesting as a gradation (I think of eye color, which is polygenic but also does not manifest as a true gradation, rather as a discrete number of possibilities).
I agree however that (from the way I understood it in class) different people will be affected differently by the same situation based on how full their "containers" are in the five basic moral categories, leading to some people perhaps being able to believe in supernatural explanations more easily than myself.
Wouldn't you say that it's just as much someone's responsibility to determine what sort of person they are as it is to determine what kind of people others are, so as to better understand where they are coming from when you disagree on issues? I think that's one of the most useful conclusions we can extract from the Pinker article.