Concerns About Sony's Religious Intolerance

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by msmith

... this seems to imply that ....

Perhaps he's more agnostic than atheistic, or he may simply be willing to admit to the theoretical possibility of scenarios that he believes to be not the case.

I'm working solely from the attributed, paraphrased comment, you understand, I don't mean to imply that I know what he might have been thinking.

[Patricia]

Originally Posted by msmith

In the following interview, Dawkins categorically admits that no one knows how life began, including evolutionary biologists. He has absolutely no answers when it comes to a First Cause of life.
It shows, I think, that most of the vitriol he spews has much more to do with his own anti-religious bias and opinion rather than actual research and application of the scientific method.
He goes on to say that life on Earth could have begun by the seeding of a "higher intelligence" or "intelligent design". Noting the fact Dawkins does not believe in God, this seems to imply that he may believe in aliens and/or spacemen.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlZtEjtlirc

A statement about the remote past cannot be 100% verified. (We can't go back in time to confirm the hypothesis.) However, some hypotheses can be shown to be better founded than others. Dawkins's caution is entirely consistent with scientific method and shows (to my mind) a refreshing humility and intellectual honesty. No one on Earth does know how life began.

Incidentally, the Panspermia hypothesis has been held by quite repectable scientists (e.g. Chandra Wickramasinghe - see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandra_Wickramasinghe)
and doesn't actually imply anything much as regards the origin of life as a whole. If life on Earth actually developed as a result of organic matter brought in from meterorites then it just pushes the question of the ultimate origins back a step or two.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by slayda

Some people have anti-religious biases because of the bias directed toward them by religious people!

True -- and even the perception of a bias can be sufficient to seed such a counter-bias as the sort your referring to.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by msmith

He goes on to say that life on Earth could have begun by the seeding of a "higher intelligence" or "intelligent design". Noting the fact Dawkins does not believe in God, this seems to imply that he may believe in aliens and/or spacemen.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlZtEjtlirc

When a scientist do not know how something works he says so. But not knowing how something work does not imply that it works in a specific way (God).

Saying that something could be true does not imply that you think it is true.

The moon could be a telepathic green cheese (telepathic so it can implant observations in us humans). Would you claim that I believe that the moon is a green cheese just because I think it could be?

[Ak Mike]

tompe - with respect, I still think you do not quite understand what msmith was saying about charitable giving. If you were looking to government foreign aid plus private giving to foreign causes, that ignores most private charity, which is given to unfortunates closer to home.

I don't think that government aid reflects individual virtue. Charitable donors are taking their own money, that could be spent on themselves, and giving it to others. Foreign aid is merely an allocation of tax revenues as to which the individuals in the donor country have no discretion to pay or not pay.

Anyway, I am skeptical about the "goodness" of much foreign aid, as I hinted in my prior comment. It is fairly common for such aid to actually be tied to using donor-country businesses, so it is really a form of taxpayer support of domestic business. Also, most foreign aid goes to poor country governments, and vanishes into corruption and incompetence (after all, one of the main reasons poor countries are poor is that their governments are corrupt and incompetent).

According to the Index of Global Philanthropy published by the Hudson Institute, U.S. private donations just to the developing world are far in excess of government expenditures, amounting in 2006 to about $34 billion. Sweden, for example, which did have a very large government foreign aid program, had about zero private donations (Norway, on the other hand, does have a lot of private donation). The two top countries in private donations to developing countries, per unit of gross national income, were the United States (by a long way) and Ireland.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Ak Mike

tompe - with respect, I still think you do not quite understand what msmith was saying about charitable giving. If you were looking to government foreign aid plus private giving to foreign causes, that ignores most private charity, which is given to unfortunates closer to home.

I don't think that government aid reflects individual virtue. Charitable donors are taking their own money, that could be spent on themselves, and giving it to others. Foreign aid is merely an allocation of tax revenues as to which the individuals in the donor country have no discretion to pay or not pay.

And the voters have decide how much tax to pay and how much to give in foreign aid.

I am pretty sure that donations in the US does not reflect individual virtue. I think they are done for mostly egoistical reasons.

[amgoforth]

Heh, I've had a few glasses of biodynamic wine, so my senses might be a little dull, but this is kind of like saying, "If the fat stupid bible-thumping rednecks, have seen what I've seen, and have learned what I've learned, then they might have something to say on the subject." [/QUOTE]


Touche How did you know I am a fat stupid bible-thumping redneck?

[Ak Mike]

tompe - you are still ignoring my first point, which is that most charity is domestic and not reflected in foreign giving numbers.

Your tax rates are unlikely to change based on how much foreign aid the government gives - it would just reallocate. So I do not think anybody really gives up anything by have the government give foreign aid. By contrast money you give to charity is money that you personally cannot spend or save.

Your claim about charitable giving being an example of egoism rather than virtue is a splendid example of advanced philosophical thinking. I assume that you also think that heroism in battle is just showing off, that diligence in study and work is just lack of imagination, that caring for your family is a form of racism, and so forth.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by Patricia

A statement about the remote past cannot be 100% verified. (We can't go back in time to confirm the hypothesis.) However, some hypotheses can be shown to be better founded than others. Dawkins's caution is entirely consistent with scientific method and shows (to my mind) a refreshing humility and intellectual honesty. No one on Earth does know how life began....

Hear, hear.

We have, however, taken another step toward better understanding of the process, by successfully creating synthetic self-replicating RNA: http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2...catingrna.html

Oh, and also, deep down, we are all sponges
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/0...sils-life.html

Even if some Bronze Age herders believed we were fashioned out of dirt, or a blood clot.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by tompe

I am pretty sure that donations in the US does not reflect individual virtue. I think they are done for mostly egoistical reasons.

Obviously I can't speak for anyone else, as I neither have nor claim any power to peer inside other people's hearts to weigh their motives and thoughts. Further, I admit to being uncertain as to what, precisely, you might consider to be an "egoistical reason" for donating to charity.

Within those, merely human, limitations, I can only say that the charitable donations I, personally, make are based primarily on two things: a desire to help others who are less fortunate than I, and an acceptance of a responsibility to use the resources in my keeping in the service the God that I believe in.

Please note that nothing in any of that requires or expects anyone else to believe as I do. Nor, unlike taxation based "giving," does it require anyone else to contribute to the causes I find worthy of my support.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Gideon

I doubt it is "I'm educated, so I don't believe in God." But I'd have to see those studies in more detail. The general tone of that website would make me suspicious towards its use in any real way.

The assertion that well-educated people are less prone to superstitious beliefs seems a reasonable one to me. Education teaches people to seek rational explanations for the world around them, rather than believe in "invisible supernatural beings".

[pdurrant]

An interview edited by and with a voice over by creationists.

See http://richarddawkins.net/article,23...ichard-Dawkins for Richard Dawkins' comments on it.

Originally Posted by msmith

In the following interview, Dawkins categorically admits that no one knows how life began, including evolutionary biologists. He has absolutely no answers when it comes to a First Cause of life.

It shows, I think, that most of the vitriol he spews has much more to do with his own anti-religious bias and opinion rather than actual research and application of the scientific method.

He goes on to say that life on Earth could have begun by the seeding of a "higher intelligence" or "intelligent design". Noting the fact Dawkins does not believe in God, this seems to imply that he may believe in aliens and/or spacemen.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlZtEjtlirc

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The assertion that well-educated people are less prone to superstitious beliefs seems a reasonable one to me. Education teaches people to seek rational explanations for the world around them, rather than believe in "invisible supernatural beings".

It could also be related to affluence. A large part of the world's population live in grinding poverty, with very little hope of improving their living standards.

For them, religion can be a genuine source of hope.

As an atheist, living a very privileged life in comparison (merely through an accident of birth), it seems to me a bit heartless to deny them even that consolation. Time enough to lecture them on their 'delusions' when they have something meaningful to replace them with.

(I imagine this will generate the 'but religion makes thing worse' comeback - but I am powerless to prevent that. )

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

It could also be related to affluence. A large part of the world's population live in grinding poverty, with very little hope of improving their living standards.

Generally speaking, however, people who live in grinding poverty are poorly educated, so the correlation between education and religious belief does, I think, still hold true.

[Patricia]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

It could also be related to affluence. A large part of the world's population live in grinding poverty, with very little hope of improving their living standards.

For them, religion can be a genuine source of hope.

Which is why Marx called religion
"The cry of the heart in a heartless world, the opium of the masses."