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Britain's new cultural divide is not between Christian and Muslim, Hindu and Jew. It is between those who have faith and those who do not.

404 replies

bossykate · 26/02/2007 16:46

fascinating article in today's guardian.

here

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UnquietDad · 27/02/2007 12:18

Piffle - I would. It's a textbook after all, or a work of fiction if you prefer. I'm happy to have one in the house in the same way I'm happy to have Ovid's Metamorphoses or a book about Egyptian gods, or Aesop's fables.

Monkeytrousers · 27/02/2007 12:20

The consensus is with 'kin' selection rather then 'group' selection, but it's too complicated to get into.

Most animals however live in small groups where most members will be related to each other anyway so this is often mistaken for group selection. If you think of the unit of natural selection being the gene acting upon the individual 'vehicle' then it helps. Anyway, here endeth the lesson

bossykate · 27/02/2007 12:22

would that be the selfish gene

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Monkeytrousers · 27/02/2007 12:25

Only selfish in a biologiocal sense, yes. Don't be applying morals to it!!

bossykate · 27/02/2007 12:36

er, mt, i was referring to richard dawkins book "the selfish gene"...

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Monkeytrousers · 27/02/2007 12:38

er, I know you were BossyKate.

Many people just read the title though and extrapolate from it that life is 'selfish', survival of the fittest, etc and don't understand that alturism arises from 'selfish' genes.

Piffle · 27/02/2007 12:40

Exactly our point it's a textbook, the school provides all other textbooks and workbooks...

Aloha · 27/02/2007 12:45

How odd Piffle. Presumably they think they are letting a little light into your godless home

I suspect BK knows a fair bit about those pesky genes MT. Though I do know what you mean about the misrepresentation of the terms 'survival of the fittest' and 'selfish gene'.

UnquietDad · 27/02/2007 12:45

I see your point, Piffle; sorry, I'd missed that.

Monkeytrousers · 27/02/2007 12:47

sorry if I'm teaching granny to sucik eggs BK

Piffle · 27/02/2007 12:50

I'm 37 wks pregnant and feel about ready for combat
The fact that ds's RE teacher is also the deputy head will be fun, she is rather erm... scary.

I think a lot of the clash of religions comes from the idea that one who worships another God is an infidel and should be struck down. Whether that's only true of fundamentalists or extremists I do not know but either way it's a dangerous aspect.

madamez · 27/02/2007 13:18

Piffle: I'd ask the school why this particular textbook has to be bought by the parents when others are provided by the school...
Bloss: religions provide frameworks for not caring and sharing, as well (ie don't associate with or assist the infidels; it's OK to kill the infidels etc). The majority of human beings empathise with others, believers or unbelievers and find that generally behaving in a co-operative manner works a lot of the time.

Oh, and Hitler wasn't an atheist, he was well into all manner of mystical claptrap. And has anyone done (or can anyone provide a link to) a proper comparative body count between atheist totalitarian regimes and people killed in doctrinal or conversion wars?

DrDaddy · 27/02/2007 13:26

Good question, but impossible to measure. We can't be sure how many were killed during the Crusades (on either side) for example and does anyone really know the extent of Stalin's purges, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein etc. etc.
The point is, I think, extremists will always emerge and they will use any convenient hook / ideology upon which to execue their warped view of reality, religiously based or other....

DrDaddy · 27/02/2007 13:32

And Dawkins is so typical of his generation of scientists who believe, in a kind of 19th century grand theory kind of way, that rational, empirical science really will solve ALL of our problems and provide us with all the answers.
I see it in my own father and his colleagues who were also academic scientists slightly older than Dawkins, but the same generation.

UnquietDad · 27/02/2007 13:36

DrD, agree with you about the genocide stats - they'll never be proved beyond doubt and people will interpret them for their own purposes. Don't agree on Dawkins though - he explicitly says (at least in "The God Delusion") that what keeps him questing as a scientist is the very fact that he doesn't claim to have all the answers, and it's his job to keep asking questions. I paraphrase, but you get the idea.

Aloha · 27/02/2007 13:45

And yes, wars are waged and people killed for other reasons than religion, such as political creeds. Of course that's true. and religious people can be good, even exceptionally good. But that doesn't mean that religion, which claims to be about peace and love, hasn't been responsible for an awful lot of killing.

Aloha · 27/02/2007 13:46

And yes, Dawkins is obsessed with questions and truth.

Tortington · 27/02/2007 13:48

usually not about relieon - rather in the name of - usually about powe isn;t it?

Aloha · 27/02/2007 13:50

Well yes, but as someone who doesn't believe in any god, that is what I think religion is about, basically.

Aloha · 27/02/2007 13:50

Am reading about Eleanor of Acquitaine and it is interesting to realise that religion and politics were really the same thing in the middle ages.

Aloha · 27/02/2007 13:51

aquitaine. My spelling is shocking today.

edam · 27/02/2007 13:57

Bloss, I think we are arguing about how to construct an argument. I think you can develop an argument that leads to a statement that 'I believe' rather than starting from a position of belief. For instance, you could object to hitting people from a pragmatic point of view - you don't want to be hit yourself so it's best to outlaw violence. Or because an eye for an eye eventutally leaves everyone blind. It's a philosphical approach - looking logically at a statement and saying, does this make sense, what are the inherent assumptions, does it stand up to logical argument, if so, I accept it as a working hypothesis until something comes along that challenges what is by that stage a belief.

Religion often says 'X is wrong because God says so and if you believe in God/Allah/Yahweh/whoever you must agree'. Rationalism says 'examine a statement using the process of logical argument'. You might get to the same place but from a different starting point.

Blu · 27/02/2007 14:03

"Blu, one way or another, all laws are based on some form of faith, whether religious or not. Your moral values either come from religious belief or are simply an act of faith in themselves - you believe X is right or wrong, simply because you believe it.

Secularists have a completely unfounded sense of superiority in this regard, and this spurious argument then forms the basis of pointless attempts to distinguish themselves from those who argue from a religious viewpoint. "

I tend to think that the core morals of most religions have actually co-incided with the moreals most societies have in common because they co-incide with the morals we have evolved in line with our sense of community, society, mutual nurture, non-nomadic societies, rather than they have been decreed from a god. I DO know why I believe my morals are right, and it is to do with what I instinctively understand as what will enable society to survive, and to ensure that I do not harm another without good cause (defence of my children, for e.g).

I don't think that is the preserve of either the religious or atheists...listening to many Christians recently they have found themselves profoundly torn between their innate sense of justice and comon sense (personal morality), and the morals as defined by their church. I guess fundementalists would follow the letter of the theological law rather than thier personal morals which are aided and abetted by contemporary experience.

DrDaddy · 27/02/2007 14:11

edam - yes, exactly. They had this discussion in the Middle Ages about if or how rational thought could be applied to understanding the existence of God (Anselm's Ontological Proof). Philosophers have been arguing about it ever since; it essentially started a whole branch of philosophy.

UQD - yes, I take your point. Haven't read the God Delusion yet (despite asking for it on both Xmas and Bday lists! ). It was my impression, however, from the TV prog he did recently that he believes science eventually WILL have all the answers. The quest for the ultimate truth. I paraphrase also, clearly. I can't help wondering whether he feels so threatened ultimately because ID / Creationism is so diametrically opposed to evolution, but in the final analysis he cannot prove (by controlled experiment in a lab) that evolution occurs the way he purports. Maybe that rankles a bit, I don't know.
(However, I do believe in theories of evolution myself btw and thought his book, The Ancestor's Tale was fascinating and compelling.)

UnquietDad · 27/02/2007 14:25

I'm sure it does rankle that he can't "prove" evolution in the same way he can prove water boils at 100 degrees C. I have heard him address this in the past, though; can't recall which book deals with it specifically but it's certainly featured in some of his public talks.

I think his answer comes down to it being all about evidence and probability. Non-existence is never really "proveable" but you can't go through life assuming nothing - at some point you have to weigh up the evidence and make an informed, adult decision. That's what frustrates him about religion - the fact that people make the decision on little or no evidence.

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