[Vision2020] Are you enabling extremism?

[Paul Rumelhart]

Ted,

I'm not sure if I agree with Dawkins or not.  I think he makes a good point.

The idea of blind obedience and blind trust in some being that is 
apparently involved in some sort of hide-and-seek game is one that I 
have a hard time swallowing.  To me, the search for truth through 
science should be raised above the search for truth through simple 
faith.  Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather go to the source (look at 
Nature, myself) rather than take some beings word for it, especially if 
it's been handed down in the form of some books that were written a 
couple of thousand years ago.  The fact that the books involved tell you 
that you should take what they say as the literal truth should throw red 
flags up for anyone, and I'm amazed that they don't.  I would expect 
that if a being much more powerful than us wished to let us know of his 
existence in a way that would teach us something and bring us together, 
he would provide ways for us to come to Him.  It would be more like the 
movie Contact than simply reading a book.

That doesn't mean (as you rightly point out) that you can't be spiritual 
without an absolute belief in a Creator god.  It's ok not to know all 
the answers.  On the NPR interview, Dawkins explained how he came to be 
an atheist.  He wondered, at the age of 12, why he should believe the 
one religion that he randomly was born into when there are thousands of 
religions out there.  It was basically a crapshoot, and he had a hard 
time believing that he was that lucky.  He also made a statement that 
I've heard before.  Very few people believe in Apollo or Thor anymore, 
they are an atheist when it comes to those particular gods.  He is just 
an atheist for one god more than most of the rest of the people in the 
world.

I'm curious if I will be called a "secular fundamentalist".  It would be 
funny to me, based on some of my beliefs.

Paul

Ted Moffett wrote:
>  
> Paul et. al.
>  
> I'm not sure if you are saying you agree with Dawkins exactly or not. 
>  
> But these questions have relevance in most communities...And the good 
> theistic people of faith among us will not judge too severely, I hope, 
> for raising these questions, so your "good will" should remain...with 
> some exceptions.
>  
> I agree for the most part with the claim that a broad acceptance in 
> society of legitimizing absolute belief in propositions that 
> contradict evidence or are weakly supported by evidence, that are 
> central to a person's ethical outlook, does offer "cover" to 
> extremists who take the idea that faith alone, absent reasonable 
> evidence, can justify destructive or cruel behavior (like martyrdom 
> for a suicide bomber guaranteeing a place in heaven).  If it was 
> widely assumed that reasonable evidence is necessary for believing, 
> for example, that the Bible or the Koran are the direct inspired 
> literal word of God, rather than books of wisdom that should be 
> interpreted metaphorically or allegorically, etc., more people would 
> question the extremism these books inspire, when they are applied too 
> literally in some cases.
>  
> But get ready... You will be labeled a "secular fundamentalist" for 
> thinking that central beliefs in life should be supported by 
> evidence.  In other words, some will claim you are an extremist!
>  
> What can we say about the state of intellectual discourse when those 
> who think central beliefs about life should be based on reasonable 
> evidence are labeled in this fashion?
>  
> Sad.
>  
> I also describe my view on the idea of a supreme creator of the 
> universe by a monotheistic God as agnostic...There is not enough 
> evidence to support or deny such a proposition.  However, I believe a 
> profoundly spiritual view of life on Earth is possible without 
> absolute belief in a creator God, and without insisting on core 
> beliefs that are not supported by evidence.
>  
> Ted Moffett
>
>  
> On 9/30/07, *Paul Rumelhart* <godshatter at yahoo.com 
> <mailto:godshatter at yahoo.com>> wrote:
>
>     I was listening to NPR a little while ago, and they had Richard
>     Dawkins
>     on the program.  He is the author of "The God Delusion", and is
>     one of
>     the best-known athiests out there.  Part of his notoriety comes
>     from his
>     clear, direct, and usually taboo questioning of religion.
>
>     For example, in this broadcast, he expressed the argument that the
>     idea
>     of "faith" (meaning unquestioning faith) is dangerous for a number of
>     reasons.  For example, it is dangerous because it teaches you to
>     accept
>     explanations without questioning them, which is anti-science.  He also
>     described the argument that I'm sure you've all heard, that faith
>     encourages certain individuals to commit very anti-social acts such as
>     shooting abortion doctors or flying planes into the sides of
>     buildings.
>     In answer to this, the question that was put to him by the
>     interviewer
>     was: "don't you have to make a distinction between the extremist and
>     everyone else"?  I found his answer intriguing.  He said that of
>     course
>     the average person of faith was a well-mannered individual that would
>     never execute an act of extremism.  However, what they are doing is
>     enabling extremism by putting a moderate face on it.  Not his exact
>     words, but the general gist of it, anyway.  For example, a
>     well-mannered
>     person of faith might raise a child into that faith that becomes an
>     extremist.  The danger as he sees it is that faith allows any act
>     to be
>     justified, no matter how cruel or how evil an act it is.  If you think
>     God is telling you to do it, then, by God, you'd better do
>     it.  This, of
>     course, is not helped by the fact that the holy books of the most
>     common
>     Western religions contain passages that can be rationalized as a
>     reason
>     for murder, among other crimes.  For example, my favorite, "you
>     must not
>     suffer a witch to live".
>
>     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?
>
>     I should point out that I don't happen to be an athiest, I'm an
>     agnostic
>     on the idea of a Creator god.  I do have a problem with "blind faith",
>     so I can sympathize with him here.  I also think that this
>     question has
>     a lot of relevance in this particular community.
>
>     Paul
>
>     P.S.  There's nothing like blowing whatever good will you might have
>     garnered in the community with one simple post...
>