1. The Science of Religion and the Religion of Science

Comment #201931 by Mokusatsu on June 30, 2008 at 12:35 pm

"When a Sunni Muslim suicide bomber kills 100 Shiite Muslims in a mosque, what exactly is being selected against?"

On the whole probably nothing if the other side kills just as many.

But nevertheless, the way evolution works is about a gradual ratchet. Bugs will evolve into perfect stick insects if there is a slight evolutionary advantage to looking a little more like a stick than the next bug.

Of course some of the very stick-like bugs will still get eaten, but if there is some pressure on the remaining population they'll evolve despite a few unlucky bugs being eaten along the way.

Similarly, if there has been some general trend toward the elimination of non-religious people by religious people, there would be a survival advantage to at least appearing religious.

How genetic that effect would be is something I'd like to know, but it isn't my field!

If RD is reading this, or if someone could point this question out to him, I'd really like to hear his opinion on this "artificial selection against religious skeptics" theory. :)

2. The Science of Religion and the Religion of Science

Comment #200621 by Mokusatsu on June 28, 2008 at 2:02 am

Some rather weird questioners in the second one. After that kooky military-industrial-university complex guy (looking this term up in Google finds a bunch of weird political sites) there was a guy that sounded like that Gumby character in Monty Python, started off congratulating Dawkins over British educational traditions and then started making no sense at all. Then there was a lady that seemed to be coming from a post-modernist type viewpoint who, if I'm getting her question, was asking something about whether we can ever objectively know anything...

This is Harvard University?

3. The Science of Religion and the Religion of Science

Comment #200603 by Mokusatsu on June 28, 2008 at 1:19 am

I don't think I've ever heard of another possible mechanism for breeding religious susceptibility into human minds.

What about the possibility that this isn't natural selection at all, instead it is artificial selection?

i.e. many religions have at one time or another taught that non-believers should be sacrificed or executed.

A few thousand generations of systematically exterminating infidels may well have a significant impact on the breeding of religious minds.

4. It is possible to be moral without God

Comment #104978 by Mokusatsu on December 30, 2007 at 8:59 am

"grandparents for whom morality and religion were fundamentally bound up"

My grandparents and great grandparents' generations were by today's standards a bunch of narrow minded racists and homophobes, among other things. They had a lot going for them, but in many ways if you go back a few generations you meet people who would be considered obnoxiously bigoted today.

In many ways we are a lot MORE moral today than any previous generation.

At any rate, what are Christian morals and ethics anyway?

Presumably one would answer that with some sort of reference to Jesus' sermon on the mount, but aside from that one sermon the rest of the bible including much of the new testiment is downright horrible.

The old testament says you're supposed to kill homosexuals, children who talk back, people who work on the sabbath, apostates, people who plant more than one type of crop in a field, people who wear shirts made from a blend of cotton and polyester, adulterers, people who blaspheme, people who marry a person from another race or faith etc.

i.e. the old testament recommends you become a serial killer.

If Christian morals are biblically based, then why do they tend not to follow the guidance of the old testament? Why do we just gloss over the nasty old testament stuff?

The reason is because we have developed a morality which is separate from the bible, a moral code which we can call on to make judgements of which parts of the bible we choose to follow, and which to ignore.

The moral code which we filter the bible with is not Christianity, because Christianity is supposedly based on the bible. This moral code is a secular moral code, and you'll find most of its tenets contained in almost every religion, fundamentally because societies tend to work better when we're not all killing, raping, pillaging and burning each other.

5. An Open Letter to Richard Dawkins

Comment #104147 by Mokusatsu on December 28, 2007 at 2:31 am

And by the way, I do not believe in the tooth fairy.

I admit that some of the most ghastly crimes in history have been committed by people who don't believe in the tooth fairy and if Fr Morris' logic is sound then we who share this lack of belief all share a degree of responsibility for that.

Is there anyone who could rightly be considered the spiritual leader of the religion (or philosophy, if you prefer) of atooth fairyism?

If not, perhaps I could nominate myself and if others will accept my authority as spiritual leader of all the world's people who do not believe in the tooth fairy and then I will take the first steps toward righting this injustice by issuing an apology.

Mokusatsu

6. An Open Letter to Richard Dawkins

Comment #101761 by Mokusatsu on December 20, 2007 at 10:56 pm

I reckon we should take Father John's idea and run with it. Here goes. But why limit it just to people who lack a belief in deities?

On behalf of all people in the world who do not play tennis, I apologise for the actions of fanatical non-tennis players.

For too long people who do not play tennis have stood idly by while extremist non-tennis players have hijacked the non-tennis playing agenda and inflicted terrible cruelties on their fellow humans, both tennis players and non-tennis players alike.

It is the responsbility of all members of the non-tennis playing movement to condemn all acts of violence and cruelty carried out by people who do not play tennis, for these acts stand completely against the principles on which our great movement of non-tennis playing is built.

We must unite together, celebrating what we all have in common - that for lack of time, money or inclination or maybe because we just don't like tennis much we the non-tennis players don't play tennis.

How about we hear an apology from someone representing the international movement of people who do not play a musical instrument. From what I hear neither Hitler nor Stalin nor Mao were the least bit musical, and I think non-instrument players have something to answer for here.

Mokusatsu