[Vision2020] Are you enabling extremism?

[Kai Eiselein, editor]

I think Dawkins is focusing his energy on just one point rather than looking 
at human nature as a whole.
Whenever dogma, be it religious or political, is taken to the extreme, it is 
a dangerous thing.
There are polical groups on both the left and right that are willing to 
kill, yet have no religious motivation. Most notably on the left are 
extremist environmental groups that engage in eco-terrorism. Using Dawkins 
line of reasoning, anyone who is environmentaly friendly could be seen as 
supportive of eco-terrorism.
Any belief, taken too far, can result in fanatical zealots willing to kill 
anyone opposed to their viewpoint.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andreas Schou" <ophite at gmail.com>
To: "Paul Rumelhart" <godshatter at yahoo.com>
Cc: "Vision2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2007 11:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Are you enabling extremism?


>> So by treating faith as if it was a good ideal, it enables extremists to
>> use it for almost any purpose they care to name.  So, are you enabling
>> extremism?
>
> In terms of what I actually believe to be objectively true, I'm more
> in line with Dawkins than I am, for instance, with Keely. However, in
> terms of what I believe to be *correct*, in terms of ethics, I'm far
> more in line with Keely than I am with Dawkins.
>
> Dawkins doesn't believe he has to prove that reasonable ethics are
> better than unreasonable ethics. That may seem like a flip
> observation, but I've seen no indication that it's better to construct
> your ethical system based on reasonable, rather than unreasonable
> principles. Either way, most people seem to get to roughly the same
> answers.
>
> If ethics were a function of reason, rather than some deeper, more
> automatic function of the human mind, then one would expect that a
> greater capacity for reason would correlate strongly with a greater
> capacity for ethical behavior. I haven't ever seen that to be the
> case.
>
> -- ACS
>
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