1. The Problem with Atheism

Comment #75537 by banzaib on October 3, 2007 at 12:53 am

As usual, a very thoughtful article which generated some thoughtful responses.
I'm with Sam on his assertations about the word atheist and the downside of aligning oneself with it.
I'm also with him in principle about his thoughts on meditation. My reservation about meditation is that while it may be effective for some, it's my guess that it's not for everyone. I think the really important thing Sam is saying is that we should not close the door on finding healthy, reasonable ways to feed our (for lack of a better term) spiritual selves while trying to diminish superstitious thought in the world.
Dennett has pointed out that religion has always been good at keeping love involved in its orginizational practices. Something that atheism struggles with for completely understandable reasons.
Personally for me I struggle to understand what sort of blend we are of being collective, social beings and to what degree we are individuals.
I think that the lion's share of what we are is actually more collective than many of us care to admit. I think we are afraid to admit that because there are aspects of ourselves that we perceive to be personal/individual. These seem to need some "attention" too.
The atheist in me reawakened and began a thinking jouney back in Febuary. It was so refreshing to hear voices like Richard, Sam, Daniel, and Christopher (I've read and listened to you guys enough that I give myself first name privilges).
Eventually we will have to move away from the God/No God question. I have. It's simply no longer intersting.
What is amazingly interesting is to try to understand why and how we've ended up in the situation we're in, and what should we try to head towards.
For that, I think we need Sam to go back to school and finish his neuroscience degree. More about evoutionary psycology (Pinker), Richard's memes, Dennett's scientific philosphical perspective (with a nice dash of Santa Claus like warmth), and we need to get Christopher to smoke and drink a little less so he can hang around longer to provoke us into using our minds
for more than just agreeing with ourselves.
I look forward to hear more about what comes out of this conference. This is making the times we live in much more interesting than they would be without it.

2. The Future Forum Presents: Christopher Hitchens and Marvin Olasky

Comment #49918 by banzaib on June 14, 2007 at 5:04 am

Olasky resembled Al Sharpton in this debate since neither one of them spent much time off just the cover of Hitchen's book. Olasky tries to make the point that since religious people at times do altruistic things, religion therefore does not "poison everything."
The problem is that the discussion then moves to altruism and there is a strong case that our altruistic tendencies do not have a religious origin. If that is indeed the case, falsely attributing them to religion is a form of poisoning.
The notion that we are inherently bad and need to be rescued by religion needs the same treatment as putting faith on a pedestal.
We have entertained enough false shame and guilt to last an eternity...no more of this nonsense.

3. The Future Forum Presents: Christopher Hitchens and Marvin Olasky

Comment #49853 by banzaib on June 13, 2007 at 11:45 pm

I wonder how long religious moderates will keep lining up to be embarrassed in these debates. Whether it's Hitchens, Dawkins, or Harris debating with the faithful…the faithful never fair well. In a way, I'd like the faithful to do better just so it could be more interesting. If they haven't been able to perform by now I don't think it's going to happen.
This shows so clearly how little it takes to let the air out of a balloon that is already basically empty. It also seems to support the notion that these faiths have only been able to exist through protective shields. Violence and threats of it in this world and the next have been effective but have lost their viability in the moderate world. Silence and "respect" have been the replacements. What a breath of fresh air to see these begin to be eroded in our public discourse. I hope it lasts.

4. Tome truths

Comment #49299 by banzaib on June 11, 2007 at 12:29 pm

Excellent! I keep wondering where all this will go. Will this idea of new social norms for the treatment of religion and the religious in conversation and public settings take hold or will it go the path of the dinosaurs. It's great to read such an article that keeps the optimism up. I love this stuff!