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Author Topic:   Creationism IS a 'Cult'ural Movement!
duf31
Inactive Member


Message 181 of 188 (376256)
01-11-2007 3:34 PM
Reply to: Message 179 by Modulous
01-11-2007 2:36 PM


Re: religious dogma vs religion in totality.
Hi Modulous, our posts must have crossed.
Sam clarifies his position as being anti-dogma not anti-religion
I have yet to find the time to get beyond the second session of those videos, so I can't comment on this. Interesting that he felt the need to "clarify his position" though. As I said, I enjoyed Harris's presentation and agreed with most of his points. However he was a bit extreme on some of them, and sounded more like a creationist waxing lyrical than a scientist.

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 182 of 188 (376257)
01-11-2007 3:49 PM
Reply to: Message 179 by Modulous
01-11-2007 2:36 PM


Re: religious dogma vs religion in totality.
Modulous writes:
To narrow things down, later in Beyond Belief Sam clarifies his position as being anti-dogma not anti-religion.
But with religion it's all dogma, isn't it? I've been watching about a third of a session per night (I'm about to start Beyond Belief 2006: Session 3), but maybe you can give me a preview regarding Harris's views. How does he distinguish between good dogma (the Golden Rule) and bad dogma (Genesis is a literal account of creation)?
--Percy

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 Message 179 by Modulous, posted 01-11-2007 2:36 PM Modulous has replied

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 183 of 188 (376274)
01-11-2007 4:56 PM
Reply to: Message 182 by Percy
01-11-2007 3:49 PM


Re: religious dogma vs religion in totality.
How does he distinguish between good dogma (the Golden Rule) and bad dogma (Genesis is a literal account of creation)?
During the debate he seems sympathetic to Buddhism, and that shows a weakness in his position. He stresses that even dogmatic ideas which seem to be fine can have negative consequences (actually I may be overlapping with Dawkins' points) for example the idea that souls join embryos at conception can seem perfectly neutral to someone unexposed to the debates that follow from it.
The problem he has is that dogma is too rigid by definition. Even the golden rule can be applied dogmatically to be a complete asshole.
You have a long way to go though - I think its all the way down in session 9. To be honest, its a solid debate and both sides have their weaknesses exposed, but in all the anti-dogmatists (in my opinion) present the more cogent defense. I was probably a Neville Chamberlain before I watched it all, but by the end I was more of a Moranist or Dawkinite now
Tyson is right when he rebukes Dawkins, but Dawkins is right that one has to be brash to raise consciousness - burning bras wasn't the way towards rational dialogue, but it raised awareness of the issues anyway.

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Discreet Label
Member (Idle past 5063 days)
Posts: 272
Joined: 11-17-2005


Message 184 of 188 (376383)
01-12-2007 12:18 AM
Reply to: Message 178 by Percy
01-11-2007 1:29 PM


Re: Not all anti-creationists are evolved equal
I'm sure there will be another significant confrontation in the courtroom between science and creationism sometime within the next 10 years, and I'm betting that this time it will be a doozy. The outcome that I think American evangelicals haven't anticipated is that the more successful the efforts of organizations like ICR and the Discovery Institute, the greater may be the eventual backlash. Potentially you could lose your voice in public education.
I would quite agree to your statement in this regard. History has continuously demonstrated what occurs when religions over steps its bounds in the public. As demonstrated in the second and third great awakenings. Wonderfully enough the second great awakening brought us the civil war which may or may not be counted as a blessing as slavery was still on its way out due to labor saving devices. Third great awakening also brought us the temperance movement and prohibition some of the most powerful moves religion have made within the US. The difficulty of course was that soon after that amendment was passed it was rolled back and thus religion hit another setback.
However, in regards to fundamentalists losing their voice in public education, arguably it would be a truth that they would. But the point is that the need not really be concerned about losing a voice in public education, because they already have a booming voice in the private education sector, as Jar wonderfully pointed out in other threads one of the by products of the Civil Rights movement was a mass exodus out of southern schools that were becoming integrated into private schools funded for religious reasons and or home schooled.
One might conclude that the largest reasons fundamentalists participate in public education is so that they can bring public education closer to what they teach.

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 185 of 188 (376487)
01-12-2007 11:19 AM
Reply to: Message 181 by duf31
01-11-2007 3:34 PM


Re: religious dogma vs religion in totality.
Interesting that he felt the need to "clarify his position" though.
He came under some attack from some other talkers and was given the opportunity to rebut as it were. He did so by explaining that his critics were pursuing a strawman.

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 186 of 188 (376507)
01-12-2007 12:28 PM
Reply to: Message 125 by TheMystic
01-09-2007 12:32 PM


conservatives vs liberal. more education vs less
Conservative Christians believe the Bible is scientifically accurate when it is not
You're just not going to give up these wild generalizations, are you?
Recently reported in Science magazine, some 'hard'* statistics:
Commentary by PZ Myers can be found on his blog
*irony, gotta love it
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

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subbie
Member (Idle past 1254 days)
Posts: 3509
Joined: 02-26-2006


Message 187 of 188 (376531)
01-12-2007 1:20 PM
Reply to: Message 186 by Modulous
01-12-2007 12:28 PM


Re: conservatives vs liberal. more education vs less
Curious that the high school and college numbers for fundies are virtually the same.

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin
We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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platypus
Member (Idle past 5753 days)
Posts: 139
Joined: 11-12-2006


Message 188 of 188 (376628)
01-12-2007 10:11 PM
Reply to: Message 187 by subbie
01-12-2007 1:20 PM


Re: conservatives vs liberal. more education vs less
Curious that the high school and college numbers for fundies are virtually the same.
Not really. Accepting evolution is only a minor factor in getting into and doing well in college given the diversity of possible majors, whereas it is much, much, more important when getting into a biology grad school. It's unfortunate that where the majority of people leave the system, we still have really big problems.

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