BS: The God Delusion 2010

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 30 Sep 10 - 05:21 PM

Pah - the God I don't believe in is far superior to the God you lot don't believe in.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: GUEST,Ebbie, housesitting
Date: 30 Sep 10 - 05:05 PM

Sheesh, Pete *******, I must have missed it- I didn't notice any atheists slagging or abusing each other.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 30 Sep 10 - 03:30 PM

it has been faintly amusing to read the good upright atheists slagging each other on this thread.im sure some"religious"people are abusive as well,but unless ive missed it,i havent read any on here!

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Sep 10 - 02:30 PM

well, the USA is where some fairly fundamental church goers went in order to BE fundamental. Their decendants are keeping up the tradition. There are shelves of books written to explain the history and politics of it all.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 30 Sep 10 - 02:03 PM

""What makes it especially interesting is that the US, as a whole, is far more 'religious' than the UK is and, I understand, most of Europe.

What is the rationale, I wonder?""

That's easy Ebbie.

We tend to be a little more laid back in our approach to religion in the UK. There is much less here of what I would call aggressive evangelism, which has led to a decline in church attendances in adulthood.

Happy Clappy churches are a comparatively new phenomenon here, and our major churches tend more toward dignity and decorum, which makes them rather dull.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: GUEST,Ebbie, housesitting
Date: 30 Sep 10 - 09:16 AM

(That last guest, of course, was me)

Hmmmm. Interesting. What makes it especially interesting is that the US, as a whole, is far more 'religious' than the UK is and, I understand, most of Europe.

What is the rationale, I wonder?

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Sep 10 - 05:42 AM

are more enthusiastic

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Sep 10 - 05:37 AM

I live in the UK. Religious worship is a legal requirement in state schools. Some schools do the bare minimum and get round it quite nimbly, and blind eyes are turned, but many schools, including the ones my kids went to, were more enthusiastic. Parents have the right to opt their kids out of the worship but in practice very few do for the reasons I stated. That's just the way it is here. I was a teacher myself in a state school (not a faith school) in which all the members of the senior management team were devoutly religious. I had many a stand-up battle to exempt myself from attending prayer assemblies, harvest festival thanksgiving services and carol concerts, etc. I tell you, you couldn't make it up.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Sep 10 - 11:31 PM

Poster identified as Ebbie. -Joe Offer-

---

Now I am really confused. Where in the world did your children who are now in their 30s go to school? When I was a young'un, they had already dropped prayer and religious classes of any sort - on campus.

When I was in fifth grade, about 10 years old, - in a small rural school - they started a Bible study class at a local church basement. I don't know how many schoolmates attended but most of them went.   Those of us who did not attend - I was one of them - had study period in that same time period.

You go on to say that your children would have felt it was a very uncomfortable arrangement to be released from the worship.

Well, reared as I was, I was often set aside, because I wasn't like the others. The very worst was when my parents refused to give me a dime to donate to the American Red Cross fund drive. Their decision came about because it had been documented that the RC in some military units was charging soldiers for things that people had actually donated, but that didn't matter to me - I felt like everyone could tell that I hadn't donated- besides, everyone was wearing the little red and white buttons for their dime.

I stole a button as I went by the teacher's desk- and then was miserable. I couldn't wear it because "everyone" knew I hadn't donated. The next really bad thing was to replace the button in the box but I managed it. That was an awful day

I suppose that the reason that my grammar school years were mostly happy ones was because the 10 or 11 Amish kids in that school happened to be good students and were stars in the various ball games we played. None of us were allowed by our parents to attend out of town games so none of us were ever captains of the teams but at home, ah, we shone. :)

All that is pretty far afield of what you were saying but your last post made me like you a lot better. :)

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Sep 10 - 10:41 PM

"Who said anything about design?? We are talking about functional capability."

*sigh*..that was an attempt to compare 'style' and argument form....I never tried to suggest you were with the 'intelligent design' folks. I am suggesting a similarity in cognitive correlation of supposed evidence.

Now who is misunderstanding whom?

(and I am not qualified to even comprehend the details of quantum entanglement, much less discern whether it is supposed to be related to our discussion.)

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Amos
Date: 29 Sep 10 - 07:13 PM

(PhysOrg.com) -- The rules that govern the world of the very small, quantum mechanics, are known for being bizarre. One of the strangest tenets is something called quantum entanglement, in which two or more objects (such as particles of light, called photons) become inextricably linked, so that measuring certain properties of one object reveals information about the other(s), even if they are separated by thousands of miles. Einstein found the consequences of entanglement so unpalatable he famously dubbed it "spooky action at a distance."

Now a team led by Yale researchers has harnessed this counterintuitive aspect of quantum mechanics and achieved the entanglement of three solid-state qubits, or quantum bits, for the first time. Their accomplishment, described in the Sept. 30 issue of the journal Nature, is a first step towards quantum error correction, a crucial aspect of future quantum computing.

"Entanglement between three objects has been demonstrated before with photons and charged particles," said Steven Girvin, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics & Applied Physics at Yale and an author of the paper. "But this is the first three-qubit, solid-state device that looks and feels like a conventional microprocessor."
The new result builds on the team's development last year of the world's first rudimentary solid-state quantum processor, which they demonstrated was capable of executing simple algorithms using two qubits.

The team, led by Robert Schoelkopf, the William A. Norton Professor of Applied Physics & Physics at Yale, used artificial "atoms"Ñactually made up of a billion aluminum atoms that behave as a single entityÑas their qubits. These "atoms" can occupy two different energy states, akin to the "1" and "0" or "on" and "off" states of regular bits used in conventional computers. The strange laws of quantum mechanics, however, allow for qubits to be placed in a "superposition" of these two states at the same time, resulting in far greater information storage and processing power.

In this new study, the team was able to achieve an entangled state by placing the three qubits in a superposition of two possibilitiesÑall three were either in the 0 state or the 1 state. They were able to attain this entangled state 88 percent of the time.
With the particular entangled state the team achieved, they also demonstrated for the first time the encoding of quantum information from a single qubit into three qubits using a so-called repetition code. "This is the first step towards quantum error correction, which, as in a classical computer, uses the extra qubits to allow the computer to operate correctly even in the presence of occasional errors," Girvin said. ... (PhysOrg)

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Amos
Date: 29 Sep 10 - 07:08 PM

What? Who said anything about design?? We are talking about functional capability.

I am all for the notion that evolution is the descriptive path that explains what it does in terms of structure, don't get me wrong.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Sep 10 - 04:45 PM

but Amos..(if you are not already on a plane)...

you once again say something like "... as you are being unusually obdurate .... That doesn't do justice to my position OR intent.

When you say: "I would rejoin that complexity alone cannot explain a phenomena that is profoundly, qualitatively different in nature." it 'feels' like a creationist saying "I can't imagine all this complexity being just a random series of events...it MUST be 'intelligent design!"

Well...*I* can't imagine a mind or entity being complex & powerful enough to design all this stuff!....and neither can I imagine the metaphysical entities you argue for......and..... I suspect that if I DID have an experience such as you suggest would change my ...ummm... attitude, I think I would look for causal explanations first....who can say what they would do *if* they had an experience they can't even imagine yet?

But I can assure you, I am NOT intentionally mis-understanding your points...or metaphors. I simply see logical problems with some of them......(read the exchanges between Ebbie & I on the "Open topics' thread...)

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Sep 10 - 04:43 PM

Memories are re-created every time you recall them. That is why Alzheimer's and stuff - memories aren't, cannot become, static.

(Take a bunch of cognitive psych classes and you'll see.)

Are we still having fun? I am!

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 29 Sep 10 - 04:15 PM

Smokey, if you were worth the trouble, I might actually get pissed off at your bullshit. I was quoting snail so how in the hell did your obviously overblown ego translate that into me quoting you at 8:22??? Did you write what I quoted??? No? Was it addressed to you?? No? Did I stick your moniker in there anywhere? No?? Do I find you so interesting that every post I make is addressed to you?? No.

Stay out of it. It's between me and snail. Why would you even think to insert yourself in something that doesn't concern you? Are you even in your right mind? Go away.

Josep, in that post of 08:22 you said: "I had you pegged the day you quoted that ad--waiting for you to keep dragging it up until I had to set you straight but I had hoped you'd grow a brain in between."

TheSnail didn't quote that ad, I did. There was no ad hominem attack on Goswami, particularly as the bit I quoted was not even by him, it was merely on the same website as his advertisement. You are merely trying to wriggle out of making a fool of yourself. You owe me an apology.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Sep 10 - 03:28 PM

"Question: Do you have children, Steve S? Or are you the proverbial childless auntie who knows it all?

In my case, as I've written before in other places, my daughter at the age of 12 started going to church. I didn't discourage it but I never went with her; as it happens I don't go to church, per se, and haven't since I left home the last time when I was 19, and I'm coming on 75 now.

So I have little patience with your stance. It reminds me more of propagandizing on a theme than of normal role modeling."

I find it depressingly frequent that religious people have little patience with the atheistic stance. Oh, well. As I only ever post under my real name on forums I'm a bit reluctant to share certain elements of my private life but I'll make one small exception. Yes, I have two children, aged 30 and 31. They went to schools at which religious worship was foisted on them (and some rather more enlightened religious education, I should add). We had no choice in the matter of schools as we live in a remote rural area with few schools within a reachable radius. We discussed whether to exercise our right to withdraw them from the worship, but we decided that this would have set them conspicuously apart from their fellow pupils (and the children agreed). It would have been a very uncomfortable arrangement for them, as you can imagine, what with them sitting outside the assembly hall on their own every morning. Pragmatism had to outweigh principle, and I should like to thank you for challenging me on this: it gives me this perfect opportunity to show how even we "militant atheists" can be horribly squeezed by organised religion.

I'm sure you worked your own conscientious path with your daughter. It isn't easy, any of this, for parents with consciences, and it's organised religion that, alone, creates the difficulty.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: TheSnail
Date: 29 Sep 10 - 01:33 PM

GUEST,josep

I was quoting snail

Indeed you were but you went on to say -

Yes, that's right. I had you pegged the day you quoted that ad--

I didn't quote the ad, Smokey did. You continued -

waiting for you to keep dragging it up until I had to set you straight but I had hoped you'd grow a brain in between. You didn't. So keep attacking Dr. Goswami, who is infinitely more qualified and more intelligent than you--but then who isn't? If that's how you think you can one-better people but you're only proving they are better than you.

How about that for ad hominem?

Could you please explain why pointing out that Dr Goswami is on the faculty of The Quantum University through which he sells The Quantum Activist Course constitutes an attack on him? Could you also, as I have already asked, quote anything I have said that you consider to be an attack on Dr Goswami?

TheSnail BSc., BSc., MSc., MCP, RYA(Yachtmaster)

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: GUEST,Ebbie, housesitting
Date: 29 Sep 10 - 01:21 PM

"The idea that children are not indoctrinated in religious views at an early age just shows how some parents have already been brainwashed." Stringsinger

But Frank, no normal child is brought up in a laboratory; they - and we - are exposed to the implicit and explicit views of those who rear us and to the views of those around us. There is no 'ideal' world, such as some would wish for. And I say, Thank God! :)

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Stringsinger
Date: 29 Sep 10 - 01:08 PM

The idea that children are not indoctrinated in religious views at an early age just shows how some parents have already been brainwashed. Children should be allowed to make up their own minds when they reach the age of reason. In the meantime, going to church may not be the best thing for them. However, they might want to experience it and then make up their own minds.

Memories change all the time. What you think you remember might not be actual.
Memories can easily be distorted. History is replete with distorted memories and actual falsehoods. There is no universal memory. Memories are relative to the experiences of people that have them. Trying to make a universal concept out of memory or consciousness is propaganda to deny evolution, the function of the brain and modern
physiological scientific studies in order to foster a Teleological view of the world. It's
a form of theological proselytizing.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Amos
Date: 29 Sep 10 - 12:57 PM

Bill:

WE do not 'endow' anything...we merely note that brains that GET beyond a certain size & complexity are able to achieve understanding and self-awareness

May the circle be unbroken, pal!!

Let me put this another way, as you are being unusually obdurate about NOT getting what I am saying. You observe a complex, physical device. You observe a correlation in said device and moments of understanding. You conclude that the understanding is inherent in the device. You therefor conclude that the device is itself DOING the understanding.

In my somewhat sarcastic analogy, the device is a cellphone. Thirty years back it could have been a transistor radio or a television set.

In your world-view the device is a wet-ware one rather than a hardware one.

So far the only defense of this conclusion, contrasted with a cellphone, is a couple of orders of magnitude in complexity.

I would rejoin that complexity alone cannot explain a phenomena that is profoundly, qualitatively different in nature. You could hook up all the gears, chains, wheels, valves, lightbulbs and switches ever built into a gigantic electromechanical system and never get it to tell you a story. Even a fairy-tale like "once there was a pile of meat that woke up and understood things...".


A

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: GUEST,josep
Date: 29 Sep 10 - 12:19 PM

///Josep, you appear to think you are quoting my post, but you aren't. Kindly take your childish smugness elsewhere.///

Smokey, if you were worth the trouble, I might actually get pissed off at your bullshit. I was quoting snail so how in the hell did your obviously overblown ego translate that into me quoting you at 8:22??? Did you write what I quoted??? No? Was it addressed to you?? No? Did I stick your moniker in there anywhere? No?? Do I find you so interesting that every post I make is addressed to you?? No.

Stay out of it. It's between me and snail. Why would you even think to insert yourself in something that doesn't concern you? Are you even in your right mind? Go away.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: GUEST,Ebbie, housesitting
Date: 29 Sep 10 - 10:20 AM

Question: Do you have children, Steve S? Or are you the proverbial childless auntie who knows it all?

In my case, as I've written before in other places, my daughter at the age of 12 started going to church. I didn't discourage it but I never went with her; as it happens I don't go to church, per se, and haven't since I left home the last time when I was 19, and I'm coming on 75 now.

So I have little patience with your stance. It reminds me more of propagandizing on a theme than of normal role modeling.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Sep 10 - 05:45 AM

I challenged you to show how your child received a balanced and fair view of religion in order for them to make a free and informed choice about how they should go on to live their lives, i.e. to embrace religion or fearlessly reject it. Note, informed. That would involve one giving correctives to any unconscious one-sided view one admits to passing on to them and checking and balancing what they were getting in religious "education" in their schools. It happens to be my model for the only right way for parents, religious or not, to deal with their children apropos of religion. Giving children one view of religion (and perhaps doing all the churchy stuff like christenings, weddings, carol-singing etc.) then telling them they're free to reject it is not the same thing at all - but it's a cop-out claimed by an awful lot of people. I actually think (as an atheist) that there isn't anywhere near enough religious education. But then I'm using the word "education" in its strict sense.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: GUEST,Ebbie, housesitting
Date: 29 Sep 10 - 12:08 AM

Sorry, I tripped. Guest at 12:44 was me.

Steve S., you quote me and then continue "...my own brand of unconsciously transmitted religious undoubtedly presented the Protestant view..."

"Protestant view of what? Morals? God? What did you do to present them with equally-valid views that were other than protestant, including atheism, to level up the playing field? Did you check that their teachers were transmitting it equally unconsciously and that they were giving that balance?"

You know, suddenly I don't think you deserve an answer from me. But let me say - in case you are in a more receptive mood than it appears to me - that when I said that I undoubtedly transmitted a Protestant view to my daughter I meant that as a non-Catholic I didn't, inadvertently or otherwise, mention masses, the Virgin Mary, priests or any of a number of other signature words and phrases. Neither did I yell 'Allah' when something went wrong. Nor did I bring up Wiccan holiday observances.

I did say 'God' at times.

See, I thought my reasoning was self-evident.

As for what was subliminally taught her in school, as they said in the 80s: get real.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Amos
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 11:56 PM

If memories crystallize into an unchanging state, that argues that they are recorded as some form of matter rather than ad momentum creations.

In any case, I do not think they become unchangeable; but I think we do tend to regard them as solid fact, rightly or wrongly. That doesn't mean they aren't plastic, just that the belief that they are static is part of the process of looking at them..


A

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 09:44 PM

Here you go, Josep, a bit of light reading for you, mate.

Click

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 09:03 PM

There's only been one ad hominem attack around here..

I posted the link because I thought people would be interested, and because it amused me.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: TheSnail
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 08:58 PM

josep

Would you please quote anything I have said which you consider constitutes an ad hominem attack on Dr. Goswami?

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 08:51 PM

I'm referring to your post of 08:22PM

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 08:47 PM

Josep, you appear to think you are quoting my post, but you aren't. Kindly take your childish smugness elsewhere.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: GUEST,josep
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 08:37 PM

///We don't know that memory becomes static and unchanging. This is a hypothesis that has not been tested.///

It's self-evident. Every memory you have eventually reaches a point where it will not change. Early on it will change. But at a certain point, it becomes set. You recall it over and over and it's the same. Early on, the memory was fresh, vibrant. But as time wears on, details of that memory drop out. Sensations invoked by that memory fade. Whatever confusion you had about the order of the events and the events themselves have long been resolved. Probably not all the accurate but that's beside the point. Think back to a memory you had at 7. Does it change now? No, not unless you remember something that you never before considered but that is virtually never going to happen. The memory is set now--all you remember are certain essential bits because you were conscious of them when they happened. 20 years from now, that memory will still be the same and even if it isn't (it may in fact grow even dimmer) it just means it hasn't reached the stabilizing point yet but it will. It has to.

At the end of time, all memories will have become set and unchanging and all sensations will have dwindled to zero. If that were not the case, it wouldn't be the end of time.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Amos
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 08:35 PM

Well, of course, it is not a tautology, Bill. At least not to those who have experienced it!! :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 08:32 PM

Well, of course, if you can't experience beingness, it woudl escape you entirely that there is such a thing.

You lost me there, Amos - isn't that self-evident? What's 'beingness', and what does bad taste have to do with it?

Interesting link btw - not surprising results.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 08:25 PM

"..if you can't experience beingness, it woudl escape you entirely that there is such a thing."

I'll see your tautology, and raise you a a better one: "Being is as Being does."

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: GUEST,josep
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 08:22 PM

///I notice Josep has made no further reference to Dr Goswami.///

AH! That's what I was waiting for. Your attack on Dr. Goswami is ad hominem. It is invalid and betrays a complete inability to argue his statements.

You remind me of a Christian who attacked Robert Green Ingersoll because the man was a ruthless lawyer who ruined people and enjoyed it. My response? SO WHAT???? What has that got to do with the man's attacks on religion??? Nothing.

What has your attack on Dr. Goswami have to do with the statements by him that I quoted? Nothing. You left those statements unaddressed because you can't attack them. Then you think you can attack the man and that somehow validates you. It makes you look like a petty idiot.

So, yes, I refrained for your sake from further mentioning Dr. Goswami--whose personal endeavors are no business nor interest of mine. He is a qualified physicist and so if he says there is no such thing as a classical object, then it's worth considering. If you choose not to because you are not versed enough in science or philosophy to even be participating on this thread, I thought I would save you the trouble of further embarrassing yourself. And I wasn't going to say any of this as long as you had the sense to shut up after your ad hominem attack--I knew you never think to apologize for engaging in it but I had hoped you might be intelligent enough not to resort to it again. You're not. So this time I won't let it slide.

Yes, that's right. I had you pegged the day you quoted that ad--waiting for you to keep dragging it up until I had to set you straight but I had hoped you'd grow a brain in between. You didn't. So keep attacking Dr. Goswami, who is infinitely more qualified and more intelligent than you--but then who isn't? If that's how you think you can one-better people but you're only proving they are better than you.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Amos
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 08:13 PM

Well, of course, if you can't experience beingness, it woudl escape you entirely that there is such a thing.

Chacun a son mauvais gout, I always say.

In other news a recent science report concludes that people choose brands to be loyal to for the same reasons they choose religions. Things go better with ____. :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 07:48 PM

Indeed, Smokey...and as poetry and metaphor, metaphysical ideas fill some of those needs quite well.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 07:22 PM

I like to think that we developed the arts to express that which we perhaps cannot express any other way.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 07:11 PM

"...you endow a complex physical object with understanding."

Ya' know, Amos, that is no stranger than positing an entire realm of 'beingness' that we can't see, describe, examine or demonstrate.

WE do not 'endow' anything...we merely note that brains that GET beyond a certain size & complexity are able to achieve understanding and self-awareness.......and at that point, we are also able to imagine states of being that we can't pin down...except linguistically....and even that distinction is not clearly explicated by those who LIKE the concept.

I am not 'against' the idea of metaphysical concepts, I just see most of them as artificial ways of expressing subjective feelings.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 05:48 PM

Just because of the "billions and billions" factor?

Yes, possibly. We don't really know what 'understanding' actually is, only what it appears to be, and that seems to vary ludicrously from person to person.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Amos
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 05:12 PM

The similarity is that you endow a complex physical object with understanding. How is that not comparable? Just because of the "billions and billions" factor?


A

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 05:02 PM

I am saying that the error made in assuming that this complexity accounts for the difference between transmission and understanding is COMPARABLE to the obviously flawed assumption about a cellphone.

I don't think it necessarily is though - that's all I meant.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Amos
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 04:40 PM

LEt me repeat myself, if I may. I know there is a large difference in the order of complexity. I am saying that the error made in assuming that this complexity accounts for the difference between transmission and understanding is COMPARABLE to the obviously flawed assumption about a cellphone.

Remember, it was not that long ago that the notion of that much switching power crammed into something smaller than a bar of Ivory Soap would have been unthinkable! To have seen such a thing at that time would have beenm mystifying and bewildering, and one might well imagine a non-technical person succumbing to the temptation of saying the little talking box understood what you said to it. How else could you account for the appropriate responses coming back?

Well, OBVIOUSLY that interpretation relies on a lot of ignorance. But I don't see that simply multiplying the number of switches by a couple of orders of magnitude so that it becomes "unfathomably complex" is really an explanation for the difference between switches, transmissions and understanding, anymore than it makes sense to say the complexity of a cell phone accounts for it.

Xerox the word "understanding" ten thousand times and make a HUGE pile of it and see how much understanding it generates.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 04:27 PM

That's not a fair comparison, Amos. The brain is, in most cases, billions of times more complex than a mobile phone.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Amos
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 04:08 PM

Frank:

Your assertion is that it is the brain (and only the brain) that crosses the bridge between transmission (of the chemical and electronic sort) and understanding.

In making this assertion you are endowing a biochemical complex with the attribute of understanding.

When I say this is _comparable_ to asserting that a cellphone understands, I am saying that there is _a_ similarity--that of attributing understanding to an electronic and chemical device.

In disputing this similarity by asserting that the brain can too understand you simply repeat the orginal assertion/assumption in a circular fashion.

My claim is that there is a qualitative difference between mechanics--even complex mechanics such as those of our wetware--and understanding, a leap from one whole kind of phenomenon to another.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 03:55 PM

"...my own brand of unconsciously transmitted religious undoubtedly presented the Protestant view..."

Protestant view of what? Morals? God? What did you do to present them with equally-valid views that were other than protestant, including atheism, to level up the playing field? Did you check that their teachers were transmitting it equally unconsciously and that they were giving that balance?

"Children, some people believe in God or gods, supernatural beings who are supposedly separate from all the rules of nature we tell you about in science lessons and that you can often work out for yourselves. God, or the gods, created the universe, according to these believers, and they watch over us and one day will judge us. Believers don't ask for evidence for their gods - they rely on faith. The churches, synagogues and mosques you see around us are the places these believers go to in order to worship their gods. A lot of people, on the other hand, think that the laws of nature are all we need to explain everything, including the things we're not clever enough to explain just yet. They insist on having clear evidence for everything anyone tells them and regard faith alone as being nowhere near enough to believe in supernatural beings. Here are the facts about these two opposing sets of people... When you have these facts you can decide whose side you're on, but it's a good idea not to decide at too young an age either way. It takes a lot of thinking about. One thing is certain. It doesn't matter which side you're on - you can end up being good or bad either way. Neither believers nor non-believers can tell you they know best about that because being a good or a bad person has nothing to do with religion. Finally, you are free to choose or reject religion, and you will be fully respected for the decision you arrive at."

Well, I can dream.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Stringsinger
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 03:44 PM

"Next thing will be a religion tonic."

This effect can be accomplished by certain electrodes placed on the brain.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Stringsinger
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 03:40 PM

"Frank's argument is similar to the "my cellphone generates all kinds of interesting messages" assertion. The wiring may definitely be mappable to the sending of messages, but that is no certain demonstration that it generates them. It could similarly be argued that asserting that understanding is brought about solely by brain mechanics is comparable to asserting that your cell phone understands the messages people leave on it, and saves them and relays them to you with comprehension, which is silly on the face of it."

Amos, your analogy doesn't hold. A cellphone is a mechanical contrivance that if it doesn't serve by sending messages, why even bother with one? The brain, by contrast, is capable
of understanding messages that is not like the physical principles involved in the cellphone.
To claim that the cellphone can of itself comprehend messages is fallacious, of course, but the human brain is not a cellphone. The brain can comprehend a message and respond to it whereas a cellphone can not. The human brain can generate messages and without its activity, there will be no sending of messages on a cellphone. The human brain is genetically mapped to send and receive messages unlike a cellphone.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Stringsinger
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 03:24 PM

"Suppose all religion really is a delusion.
Dawkins should apply his understanding of selection and evolution."

Evolution is not a belief. It is a scientific fact. The evolution-deniers are delusional in this regard.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Stringsinger
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 03:21 PM

The reason that religious teaching that is force on a child is harmful is that it doesn't accept the ability of a child to make up his or her own mind to believe or not. This is
a form of mental abuse. Religious training offers nothing concrete in determining whether behavior will be moral or anti-social. Much of this comes from life's experiences and choices that have little to do with religious dogma. There are plenty of examples of moral and socially-conscious people who help society without being religious.