"If faith, belief without evidence, were not such an integral part of religion it would be much easier to engage in rational discussion with its members."

This goes to something someone said in the Jan 29th thread making the point that they thought legitimate religious belief is based on personal experience, which I tend to agree with. Faith needn't be an integral part of religion and - in fact - many Buddhists consider that it isn't and shouldn't be.

The topic of religious experience has been neglected, here. Plenty of people have spiritual experience. The difficulty of objective proof for others is that its personal experience.

But look at the writings of mystics of all cultures of all times. ..Many of which were iconoclastic, not stuck in tradition, seperated by geography, etc, yet tended to have similar experience.

Seems to me that any serious discussion of religion needs to investigate direct experience, perhaps primarily.

I mean, undoubtedly we can all agree that religion sounds silly, and there's lots of confusion in it. But "is there any truth in it" is really a seperate question.

"Seems to me that any serious discussion of religion needs to investigate direct experience, perhaps primarily."

In other words, we need to apply the scientific method to claims of spiritual experience. I agree, but it would be a very soft science, since there is no way to reliably reproduce spiritual experience, and hence no way to conduct valid scientifc experiments.

Dawkins undercuts his own argument with the funny line about murderous dictators with mustaches.

People hate and kill each other because of difference. On the whole, we are fearful wretches and we often react violently to the Other.

Obviously, religion has been an important part of the way societies define themselves as different from others. Therefore it's given rise to a lot of violence.

And he's right to say that without religion we wouldn't have faced the specific events of 9/11, 7/7, the Crusades, etc. But over the course of this alternate history, we certainly would have found some OTHER reason to kill each other. Atheists like Mao and Stalin found a reason, right?

If the the Crusaders hadn't been "Christian" with a bunch of infidels to kill, they probably would have killed each other over their own petty real estate, just like the rest of European history.

When we do bad things, we justify them for a variety of reasons.

I am sorry, but Dawkins is losing me from his fan crowd. I start to have difficulties understanding what his goal is. Yes, many wars and wrongs have been done in the name of faith or/and religion, but anyone with a history book can easily realise, that it is never the true reason behind such an "evil" (especially when it is nation spanning like a war), but a pretext that is easily incorporated into propaganda. We are an intelligent species and probably one side of us that allows us to use the adjective "intelligent" when we describe ourselves, is the fact that we will always find reasons to annex, kill and ransack. And that we seldomly do it without making up silly reasons.

Btw... I am also an atheist, some days I prefer being an agnostic (especially when things go wrong). I have no desire to be a part of organised faith and it is not a world I can feel comfortable with (I do not count the artistic traditions of churches in this), but even if faith or/and religion were not a part of our world, we would still kill eachother. We wouldn't be jihading (is it extreme sports? Extreme jihading?), but blood would still soak the ground by the gallons.

I know things are dire in the US. I understand you are trying to remain sane in this whirpool of new found religiousness, but I think it is a bit too easy laying the blame full frontal on religion. Not because it doesn't deserve any (by... God... it does), but because this is a system of power-hunger that would even exist in a parallel universe world without religion.

(Side note, as I was remembering my old philosophy teacher in 9th grade... (don't think I have evolved much since then)...

The right question for me would be: "Is energy the root of all evil?"

Every war I know off had something to do with energy... be it sexual, if you believe in the myths about the trojan war... energy of human work force, if you think of the Spartans using the Messenians as their working force... or thermodynamic, if you don't believe in "mission accomplished".)

Cheers for reading me...

Faith is belief without evidence? Not for me. I'm a Buddhist and quantum chemist, and my faith comes from discovering that Zen principles govern the quantum world.

Good post.

The point is that faith in god is like that one switch that, if you can make a fair argument (or even a convincing un-fair one) that God says war is his mission for them, well then a proper believer is sort of compelled to comply. If we could finally be done with gods, then we would have to make do with more worldly reasons for killing our fellow man. We also wouldnt have that as our absolution for such things as we cant stand to take responsibility for. Its just another cop out so we can sleep and look at ourselves in the mirror.

We might even learn that diplomacy is better, cheaper, less likely to create long standing hatred, when we dont have to do away with the enemy because "the man in the sky" wants us to.

We would also have more reason to care for our planet/bodies/minds/children/scocieity/civilization/historical record if we didnt think the "manufacturer" could just fix/replace it under warranty.

C.

"Dawkins undercuts his own argument with the funny line about murderous dictators with mustaches."
If you believe it undercuts his argument then perhaps you don't understand what the argument is. There are few actions we take for a single reason. If ones religion is a primary reason then it is fair to argue that religion if not "the cause" is an important cause. The mustache analogy makes that point clear. Whereas the religion of the attackers in 9/11, 7/7 was a primary motivation Mao's or Stalin's atheism was insignificant. To my Buddhist friend, The reason I defined faith the way I did is it accurately describes the sense in which many religions understand it. That you reject the definition and require rational reasons for your belief is to your credit.

FYI simon mayo was a popular music DJ who now does five live talk radio, he is a christian, not an in your face fundie, but nevertheless he is a religious person; consequently I would not say he was a disinterested/objective interviewer.

Mao and Stalin were both believers. Not in -religious- faith, but political faith. Dogma. That's the problem. Dogma.

Did Ghandi and MLK Jr. act from dogma? No. They acted from a sort of 'faith' that has nothing to do with dogma. So much of this is a definitional problem. Did the woman who forgave whatever (I never heard of that) actually forgive based on dogma? Or based on some -other- aspect of what we call faith?

I believe love is morally better than hatred. I believe that without evidence (and without God--I'm an athiest). That is faith. But it is not dogma. It's my personal belief, that I choose to personaly believe: I don't claim this as an unchangeable everlasting Truth.

 I'm firmly in the athiest camp.

But I find the Mao and Stalin arguments to be our weak heel.

Their atheism mitigated their ruthlessness not a whit.

Moderate Christians, whose moral outlook comes from Chistian culture (if not the Bible), not unreasonably believe a little faith might've tempered their cruelty.

It'd be nice if somebody had a better rejoinder than the mustache argument.

I suppose I'd bring up secular Humanism, and the two manifestos, but that seems a bit complicated for a snappy comeback.

"Moderate Christians, whose moral outlook comes from Chistian culture (if not the Bible), not unreasonably believe a little faith might've tempered their cruelty."

Not faith in the sense I'm using it here, namely believing something without evidence. For example believing simply because they find it in the Bible, or because an authority figure says it is so.

My understanding is that Mao & Stalin's atheism may not have 'caused' them to murder millions, but it taught them that individuals have no innate value, and are only worth preserving in relation to the value they provide to 'the people' as embodied by the state government. Humans were just a resource to them to be managed, and culled if necessary. This is a direct concsequence of their atheist beliefs. I personally don't see anything inconsistent with that line of reasoning, but I imagine (and hope) that other atheists have been able to find 'materialist' reasons for assigning value to individuals, regardless of their 'apparent worth'.

Could it be possible that Mao's and Stalin's actions were not based on anything more then an addiction to control and power and were not based on their lack of any spiritual or religious belief.

Just a thought.

Consider the startling revelations about the "contract" mercenaries currently based in Iraq who drive by absolute innocents and fire their weapons into their autos. To me that is people who are "drunk" with power and have no fear of reprisal. Indicative of addiction. I know this may be a few isolated incidents but I am using it to illustrate the possibility.

I saw what killing did to men in Viet Nam. Blood thirsty is not just an expression. Some men - not all - and it sure wasn't based upon any partcular religious belief or the lack thereof - enjoyed the confrontation - the rush of battle and killing.

I wonder if that power amplified by the knowledge that "you" (as in Stalin or Mao or Hitler or many others throughout history) are not being immediately held accountable for your actions may be part of the sense of ultimate power. We have all heard that absolute power can corrupt absolutely and that it takes a man/woman who is aware of their inner responsibility to resist the possibilities of that corruption.

What is the basis for that resistance is another topic of discussion but suffice it to say that there can be many claims for cause.

At the end of the day, to me, it comes to the inner commitment that all life has value - not because someone tells me so or that I fear reprisal at some point in time (or non-time) but because I see it from the value I have of myself and my immedate world.

How does adherence to a particular brand of religion or spiritual practice or lack thereof constitute the justification that is acceptable to slaughter another human being? To hunt down and destroy life because a particular brand of ideology makes it part of a central agenda does not make it right. It just makes it more palatable to those doing it and those sanctioning it.

As Einstein stated: "We cannot simultaneously prepare for peace and prepare for war."

and another by Einstein:

"Peace cannot be kept by force, it can only be achieved by understanding."

Nowhere in those statements does dogma or religious beliefs enter in. To me, they indicate rationality and clear thinking. And the willingness to see your adversary as yourself - a flesh and blood individual who has hopes and dreams and desires as you.

All in all, it really is not about religious fervour or, as some would like to believe, the cold calculated detached actions of an atheist - it is about our willingness to see the sameness that is myself in others. I belive this is part of what Dawkins is trying to say.

Whether particular practices grew from an attempt to explain away certain or all fears or if they had an individual epiphany that in some mystical way changed their lives - if that basis of belief becomes a justification for murder, then it is not truly an adherance to the sacred.

I hold life to be sacred - does that make me a religious zealot? Or does it make me a man who sees that this is it and all that is here is a part of me and my life.

What would Jesus do? If the Jesus (Christians are supposed to model themselves after) returned, would he model Himself after them? Would He be a "Christian"? Or would He rebel, would He be "he," a thoroughly modern Mensch? Also, are some religions more religious than others, some fudamentalisms more fundmentalist than others (of course not!)? Could Islam be the most... ...evil yet? Do we dare think such thoughts, now, after the next shoe drops? I would like to hope not. I would like to have faith, charity, but do I have enough? Do any of us?

I think the post which mentions dogmatic thinking is right on the money. It seems that by taking on religion and the doctrine of faith, which are egregious examples of dogmatism, Dawkins somewhat misses the point. The idea that nothing good can rise from dogma is false, of corse faith or dogma can lead an individual to do very generous, compassionate things, what it lacks is the element of reason, of skepticism. Mother Teresa did many good things but her stance of birth-control and use of condoms contributed to the problems she was trying to address. Her absolute belief did not allow her to reconsider her position. What science teaches us is that all knowledge is a judgment. It casts some doubt on our assumptions and allows us to change our minds. Perfectly reasonable people are quite capable of doing horrible things but because their thinking is not dominated by absolute truth, there is at least the opportunity for reform. I applaud Dawkins for putting religion in the cross-hairs not because it is evil but because it promotes and propagates dogmatic thinking which does contribute a lot of suffering to the world.

Hebrews 11:1,3 1 "Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld."

3 "By faith we perceive that the systems of things were put in order by God’s word, so that what is beheld has come to be out of things that do not appear."

Is there a better definition of what faith, true faith, is? This faith is not a dogmatic unreasonalbe type but rather it is a positive motivator. It is what provides hope for man. Verese 3 explains rather plainly the argument that although we did not see creation, but by our observance of it we would come to the conclusion of a creator. The strength of the argument of evolution when compared to religions of today is not a testament to it's veracity but rather to the weakness of religion. Their histories of bloodguilt and corruption, their failure to follow their own teaching, and most importantly because of their history have pushed people away from understanding or even wanting to believe in a god.

Dawkins is very arrogant. He can be. He knows he can out reason these people. It doesn't prove him right but reveals how wrong they are. I am glad he is taking religion to task. They should be held accountable. The sooner religion is removed from it's position of unquestioned authority will we finally grasp the full extent of the damage it has done. Not just the lives lost, but the time they have stolen from sincere people of faith and science. They have driven a wedge between the two that now it is becoming unthinkable to reconcile them. David W

Agreed on all points. I'm reminded of Gödel's incompleteness theorem: every logical system contains elements that cannot be derived within that system.

In other words, even formal mathematics has the element of belief - or at least intersubjective assumptions that cannot be proven.

Agreed on all points. I'm reminded of Gödel's incompleteness theorem: every logical system contains elements that cannot be derived within that system.

In other words, even formal mathematics has the element of belief - or at least intersubjective assumptions that cannot be proven.

Dawkins isn't arrogant so much as informed and passionate.

Norm,

You're right, "undercuts his own argument" was imprecise and inaccurate. (I wrote my comment before my morning coffee, which is always a mistake.) Dawkins' argument was that atheism was not demonstrably the cause of the Communist purges, which is valid, and supported by the mustache joke.

...But was this even the point of Mayo's question? That atheism caused Communists to do horrible things?

I don't think it's necessary to assert that atheism caused Communists to act horribly. The example of Stalin and Mao shows that people do evil things for reasons other than religion, for reasons other than atheism, and for reasons other than mustaches.

Therefore, it isn't self-evident that a world without religion would be less violent, from my perspective. I really think we'd invent other dogma to stoke the passions of the bloodthirsty.

...But I'm a cynic!

at the risk of beating a dead horse, I think dawkins has pointed out a correlation between religion and EVIL, but hasn't proved causation. He's made some suggestions about causal links, but hasn't really made a formal attempt at it. Maybe a project for next year :)

You've got to provide evidence not that they just were atheists but that it was their atheism that motivated them to do these terrible things.

Yeah, just like the laughable bastards who've been unable to determine when someone does something "religious" vs. something for money or power or any form of tribalisim, you know, like Dawkins.

A society without dogma would be like a society without a spoken language. The society would be unable to function normally, and people just naturally pick up unproven assumptions from other around them.

Steven Weinberg summed things up nicely, in a quote that has appeared elsewhere on Onegoodmove: "...without it [religion], you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion."

Sam Harris has written a book discussing many of the issues are coming up around Dawkin's interview. Specifically, he talks about the 'Mao' problem, and suggests that unreason was the common element, not atheism. I suspect Dawkins is making the same point, but in a way he hopes won't bamboozle his audience (perhaps he failed at this).

Harris also acknowledges spiritual experience and how we might study it more (he is undertaking a PhD in Neuroscience).

The book is heavily irreligious, and can at times suffer from the same errors Harris criticises in others. Nevertheless, it contains some interesting ideas and is written without kid-gloves - something worth applauding at this juncture in history.

"...without it [religion], you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion."

This is the sort of aphorism that sounds so great, we think it must be true.

On its face, I find little wisdom in this. Religion is not the only driving ideology that could make a fundamentally moral person act in a depraved or unjust way. Nationalism ring any bells?

Even digging a bit deeper, I'm not convinced. The whole notion depends on confused definitions of "good" and "evil" that are of little use to me. I prefer to think that morality is defined by behavior. By that standard, when a "good" person does something "evil," they are no longer good.

Isn't "good" and "evil" defined by the community where the action took place?

With or without the "influence" of religion, doesn't the society wherein the action takes place collectively decide as the the goodness or evilness of the event?

On Papua New Guinea, it was acceptable to shrink heads and eat the brians of your departed parents or grandparents, so that the knowledge of the generations would pass on and be held within the community. When this was first discovered by Occidential explorers, it was considered evil and depraved.

That didn't deter the PNGs. They continued and when I was there a couple of years ago - out bush - I was told that the practice continues to this day in some areas. It is still "good".

The fluctuating definitions and applications of good and evil, to me, are subjective and not objective. It is, in today's perspective, considerably different than it was even 20 years ago.

My daughter thinks that cockroaches are evil. She considers boggens (rednecks) evil, too. Some whites here in Oz feel that all of the Aboriginals are evil and need to be part of a final solution - as with any non-white non-European (read United Kingdom descendant) who is still here. Prior to 1972, Australia had an official all white immigration policy. Much to the contrary of many who will clamour otherwise, the policy still lives in the lives of the every day folks here in Oz.

How do I know? My wife is part Chinese, part Welsh and part Australian (as in Us Mob - what the Aboriginals call themselves). When we go shopping or to a restaurant or to a movie or walk through a mall, she is given looks of utter disdain. As a child, she was beaten and told to get out of "our" country by her "all white" classmates and she went to a very upper scale private school.

Who in these various events is the good or evil one? To most One Nation supporters my wife is the evil one - for just being alive.

Did anyone's religious beliefs define who was good or evil? I think not.

MR stated that when a person commits an evil act then, by the standard that was established in MR's post, that person can never be good again.

I believe in the process of learning to recognize that error is an opportunity to grow with in the established norms of your society which has established a particular type of activity as evil.

If I am able, as an offender, to negotiate with my community to make amends for the "evil" act and make restitution then I believe that it is possible to see the good in the event. If all of the community is made aware of the path from "evil" to "good" that is established by the consensus, then the event may actually serve the community.

I am not condoning the "evil". I am saying that there is a possibility that the path of public restitution can be a catalyst for change in the community.

I think Dawkins may agree that may be one scenerio of how society initially developed a "rule of law" for the early communities that formed ever so long ago.

Here are three quotes that I like because they illustrate the slippery nature of "belief" - whether justified by faith or another process, such as science:

Leon Lederman, Physicist and Nobel Laureate; Director Emeritus Fermilab:
"To believe without knowing it cannot be proved (yet) is the essence of physics."

Maria Spiropulu, Physicist, currently at CERN:
"I believe nothing to be true (clearly real) if it cannot be proved.

Following Bohr's complementarity I would spot that belief and proof are in some way complementary: if you believe you don't need proof, and (arguably) if you have proof you don't need to believe"

Gregory Bateson, Philospher: "Any descriptive proposition which remains true longer will out-survive other propositions which do not survive so long. This switch from the survival of the creatures to the survival of ideas which are immanent in the creatures (In their anatomical forms and in their interrelationships) gives a totally new slant to evolutionary ethics and philosophy. Adaptation, purpose, homology, somatic change, and mutation all take on new meaning with this shift in theory."

In the end, you have "faith" (the prospect that something can be proved) as one motivation for scientific inquiry. However, the best you can hope for is "truth" with a small "t", and truth changes over time (both due to the nature of the scientific process as well as the mutability of ideas).

To tie this back to religion, the question is not so much about faith as it is about the justification of beliefs, and whether those beliefs are subject to revision. Scientific beliefs inherently come along with doubt, and doubt breeds caution. On the other hand, religious beliefs cannot tolerate doubt because they are not subject to revision. When there is no doubt, there is no caution. Other posters have pointed out the consequences of "true belief" and the abdication of personal doubt. My two cents. My first post here. Thanks for the air time. I enjoy this forum very much. - Dave

Here are three quotes that I like because they illustrate the slippery nature of "belief" - whether justified by faith or another process, such as science:

Leon Lederman, Physicist and Nobel Laureate; Director Emeritus Fermilab:
"To believe without knowing it cannot be proved (yet) is the essence of physics."

Maria Spiropulu, Physicist, currently at CERN:
"I believe nothing to be true (clearly real) if it cannot be proved.

Gregory Bateson, Philospher: "Any descriptive proposition which remains true longer will out-survive other propositions which do not survive so long. This switch from the survival of the creatures to the survival of ideas which are immanent in the creatures (In their anatomical forms and in their interrelationships) gives a totally new slant to evolutionary ethics and philosophy. Adaptation, purpose, homology, somatic change, and mutation all take on new meaning with this shift in theory."

"Faith" (the prospect that something can be proved) is one motivation for scientific inquiry. However, the best you can hope for is "truth" with a small "t", and truth changes over time (both due to the nature of the scientific process as well as the mutability of ideas).

To tie this back to religion, the question is not so much about faith as it is about the justification of beliefs, and whether those beliefs are subject to revision. Scientific beliefs entail doubt, and doubt breeds caution. On the other hand, religious beliefs exclude doubt (because religion, unlike science, is not subject to revision). When there is no doubt, there is no caution. Other posters have pointed out the consequences of "true belief" and the abdication of personal doubt.

My two cents. My first post here. Thanks for the air tme. I enjoy this forum very much.

• Dave

Here are three quotes that I like because they illustrate the slippery nature of "belief"; whether justified by faith or another process, such as science:

Leon Lederman, Physicist and Nobel Laureate; Director Emeritus Fermilab:
"To believe without knowing it cannot be proved (yet) is the essence of physics."

Maria Spiropulu, Physicist, currently at CERN:
"I believe nothing to be true (clearly real) if it cannot be proved.

Following Bohr's complementarity I would spot that belief and proof are in some way complementary: if you believe you don't need proof, and (arguably) if you have proof you don't need to believe"

Gregory Bateson, Philospher: "Any descriptive proposition which remains true longer will out-survive other propositions which do not survive so long. This switch from the survival of the creatures to the survival of ideas which are immanent in the creatures (In their anatomical forms and in their interrelationships) gives a totally new slant to evolutionary ethics and philosophy. Adaptation, purpose, homology, somatic change, and mutation all take on new meaning with this shift in theory."

"Faith" (the prospect that something can be proved) is one motivation for scientific inquiry. However, the best you can hope for is "truth" with a small "t", and truth changes over time (both due to the nature of the scientific process as well as the mutability of ideas).

To tie this back to religion, the question is not so much about faith as it is about the justification of beliefs, and whether those beliefs are subject to revision. Scientific beliefs entail doubt, and doubt breeds caution. On the other hand, religious beliefs exclude doubt (because religion, unlike science, is not subject to revision). When there is no doubt, there is no caution. Other posters have pointed out the consequences of "true belief" and the abdication of personal doubt. My two cents. My first post here. Thanks for the air tme. I enjoy this forum very much. - Dave

Here are three quotes that I like because they illustrate the slippery nature of "belief"; whether justified by faith or another process, such as science:

Leon Lederman, Physicist and Nobel Laureate; Director Emeritus Fermilab:
"To believe without knowing it cannot be proved (yet) is the essence of physics."

Maria Spiropulu, Physicist, currently at CERN:
"I believe nothing to be true (clearly real) if it cannot be proved.

Following Bohr's complementarity I would spot that belief and proof are in some way complementary: if you believe you don't need proof, and (arguably) if you have proof you don't need to believe"

Gregory Bateson, Philospher: "Any descriptive proposition which remains true longer will out-survive other propositions which do not survive so long. This switch from the survival of the creatures to the survival of ideas which are immanent in the creatures (In their anatomical forms and in their interrelationships) gives a totally new slant to evolutionary ethics and philosophy. Adaptation, purpose, homology, somatic change, and mutation all take on new meaning with this shift in theory."

"Faith" (the prospect that something can be proved) is one motivation for scientific inquiry. However, the best you can hope for is "truth" with a small "t", and truth changes over time (both due to the nature of the scientific process as well as the mutability of ideas).

To tie this back to religion, the question is not so much about faith as it is about the justification of beliefs, and whether those beliefs are subject to revision. Scientific beliefs entail doubt, and doubt breeds caution. On the other hand, religious beliefs exclude doubt (because religion, unlike science, is not subject to revision). When there is no doubt, there is no caution. Other posters have pointed out the consequences of "true belief" and the abdication of personal doubt.

My two cents. My first post here. Thanks for the air tme. I enjoy this forum very much. - Dave

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