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Spent some time with a Legend of Freethought and a Champion of Reason today...

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Robert Tulip

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Re: Spent some time with a Legend of Freethought and a Champion of Reason today...

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Mr. P wrote:
With scientific thinking, the psychology is that people extrapolate from actual fact based knowledge to justify irrational beliefs, trading on the cachet of science to give credibility to their political opinions.

You must be following that other science, because I do not see this happening in any real way at all. Unless you are just going with a false equivalency to set up...
Hi Mr. P, I was not referring to scientific thinking in general, but rather to the misuse of science in the specific example of climate politics. I totally support evidence-based policy. What seems to happen, in my observation, is that political activists see the need to mobilise science in support of their agenda, which leads to the use of false claims to support a political myth.

This touches on my specific concern that the popular climate movement has overstated the role of emission reduction in potential cooling solutions.
Mr. P wrote:
This leads to the refrain "follow the science", whereby believers in emission reduction extrapolate from scientific knowledge of what is the case to insist 'the science' requires cutting emissions as the only reasonable response...
I have never heard this before...that cutting emissions is the ONLY response. Sounds Straw-y. But at the least, cutting emissions is still better than prayer.
Let me give an example. Leading Climatologist Dr Michael Mann states in this interview https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -interview that Bill Gates’ “view is overly technocratic and premised on an underestimate of the role that renewable energy can play in decarbonising our civilisation. If you understate that potential, you are forced to make other risky choices, such as geoengineering and carbon capture and sequestration. Investment in those unproven options would crowd out investment in better solutions. Gates writes that he doesn’t know the political solution to climate change. But the politics are the problem buddy.”

Mann’s view has led to cancellation https://www.reuters.com/article/us-clim ... SKBN2BN35X of scientific studies of methods to cool the planet. My frustration is that I regard such scientific studies as crucial to planetary stability and security, and see opposition to them as grounded in emotion rather than reason. What Mann calls ‘unproven and risky’ is entirely essential, showing that he is misusing an alleged scientific argument in support of a dubious political analysis of how to fix the climate. This is not just a disagreement about science, but about how politics can mobilise science to achieve desired results.
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Robert Tulip

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Re: Spent some time with a Legend of Freethought and a Champion of Reason today...

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geo wrote:For every "militant atheist" there are probably hundreds of fundamentalists and evangelicals who push a faith-over-facts authoritarian worldview, much to the detriment of reason and logic.
That is undoubtedly true, but it reminds me of a point Harry recently made, referring to the philosophical idea from Hegel that a thesis generates its own antithesis. In this case, pure scientific atheism has emerged as the antithesis of fundamentalist religion. The problem, as Hegel argued, is that the antithesis is not a solution, because it fails to recognise the elements of validity within the original thesis. So what is needed is a synthesis, integrating the valid points from both sides. Holistic thinking is generally viewed within the scientific community as irredeemably wooistic. And yet it offers the only way to integrate the emotional perspective of spiritual identity with scientific analysis of logic and evidence. Dawkins wrote The God Delusion as a refutation of fundamentalism, and commented that he just was not interested in engaging with more enlightened religious approaches because they are so politically marginal. That is a tactical decision on his part that can be questioned in strategic terms.
geo wrote: [fundamentalist] beliefs hardly qualify as myth anyway. They are tenets of religious dogma.
The term ‘myth’ has two conflicting meanings. The popular meaning is that a myth is an untrue belief. The second meaning, which writers like Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung and Rollo May explored, is that a myth is a story that provides meaning for life. As such, Christian creationist dogmas are a paradigm of myth, as exemplars of both meanings of the term, as untrue beliefs that provide meaning for life. The fact that these dogmatic beliefs are generally recognised as untrue shows just how fragile and brittle religious culture has become. It is also valid to see the ‘civic religion’ of the USA with its origins in the ideas of Thomas Paine as also serving as a myth in the second sense, as a framework of meaning.
geo wrote: So be kind to "militant atheists" because they fight a very hard battle indeed.
It is important to have respect for atheist thinking, while at the same time offering a constructive critique. That is what Harry seems to be suggesting with his point about holistic perspectives. Atheism may be logically coherent, but its general lack of respect for religion makes it unsuitable as a social replacement for conventional religious mistakes. Religion has essential social functions (awe, reason, ritual, teaching) which are better achieved through a mythological framework than a purely rational one. What is needed is an integrating synthesis between the antithetical psychologies of faith and reason, presenting a path for the rational evolution of culture in a way that builds upon the precedent of faith by reforming religion. A key part of this reform is to recognise that all traditional beliefs are primarily symbolic rather than literal, so the heritage of faith can be respected while its interpretation can be changed.
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Re: Spent some time with a Legend of Freethought and a Champion of Reason today...

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That Reuters article does not seem to site Mann as the reason they canceled the test and does cite some other seemingly valid reasons for canceling, for now, the test.

From what I read of the Mann article, he seems to have some valid points and does not seem to slam his fist down on only reduction. But let's be honest, reduction is necessary for more reasons than climate change. No matter how vast, finite resources as a fuel for our future is a losing battle.
Let’s dig into deniers’ tactics. One that you mention is deflection. What are the telltale signs?

Any time you are told a problem is your fault because you are not behaving responsibly, there is a good chance that you are being deflected from systemic solutions and policies. Blaming the individual is a tried and trusted playbook that we have seen in the past with other industries.
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Re: Spent some time with a Legend of Freethought and a Champion of Reason today...

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Two thoughts, left unfleshed:

1) Is Hegel the authority in this matter, because we can easily just reject the thesis/antithesis conundrum.

2) Is it that scientific atheism is an antithesis to fundamentalist religion or is it that it just happens to be a progression away from it and has a vastly different approach to reality that shines a light on antiquated systems? Any other world view then is in danger of being unjustly relegated to an antithesis to religious systems simply by coming along after it. That can also be called intellectual growth.

Again, I don't find a cold, rigidly scientific, un-holistic path to a more harmonious future in the ideas I espouse, find sense in, or endorse. I find very 'spiritual' things to drive me without the BS of any faith.
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Re: Spent some time with a Legend of Freethought and a Champion of Reason today...

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Mr. P wrote:That Reuters article does not seem to site Mann as the reason they canceled the test and does cite some other seemingly valid reasons for canceling, for now, the test.
I don’t want to divert the thread into a debate about climate change, except to use it as an example of how members of the scientific community can develop a quasi-religious approach in which allegedly scientific opinions acquire an unchallengeable authority. In the case of the cancelled Swedish Scopex geoengineering experiment, it was not about directly citing Mann, but rather how the views that he presents, like those from McKibben, https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-o ... ic-hacking place climate policy within an intransigent and intolerant political ideology. Greg Rau, a prominent climate scientist, made the following comment, which well summarises my concerns, about the McKibben article, illustrating how heated this debate is: “McKibben et al apparently view anything besides emissions reduction (until 2030) as a threat to the planet. Anyone else see this as dangerous? Let’s make sure we fail at emissions reduction before thinking about additional methods of climate/CO2 management? What planet is this guy on?”

I see this as relevant to the legacy of Thomas Paine, who I think offered a more conciliatory and conversational approach to politics based on the centrality of rational moral principles.
Mr. P wrote: From what I read of the Mann article, he seems to have some valid points and does not seem to slam his fist down on only reduction. But let's be honest, reduction is necessary for more reasons than climate change. No matter how vast, finite resources as a fuel for our future is a losing battle.
Indeed, Mann has many valid points, when it comes to the objective description of our planetary situation. Where things get more dicey is as we move from description to prescription, eliding from facts to values. The tendency is to assume that facts imply values, where a far more cautious approach should be considered. Emission reduction is essential for removing pollution and achieving a more economical approach to energy production. The problem as I see it is that climate advocates like Mann and McKibben take a highly conflictual approach that wrongly imagines that decarbonising the economy could be sufficient to stabilise the climate, because they see the geoengineering methods of planetary brightening and carbon conversion as providing succour to the enemy.
Mr. P wrote:
Let’s dig into deniers’ tactics. One that you mention is deflection. What are the telltale signs? Any time you are told a problem is your fault because you are not behaving responsibly, there is a good chance that you are being deflected from systemic solutions and policies. Blaming the individual is a tried and trusted playbook that we have seen in the past with other industries.
The implication of this quote from Mann is that deflection of the call to shut down the fossil fuel industry as fast as possible is nothing but denial of climate change. That is a quite widespread belief which creates a toxic polarisation in the debate, excluding the middle path advocated by people like Bill Gates that sees planetary cooling technology as enabling a more gradual shift to a renewable economy. Emotions of anger and disdain get in the way of a dispassionate analysis of data.
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Re: Spent some time with a Legend of Freethought and a Champion of Reason today...

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how members of the scientific community can develop a quasi-religious approach in which allegedly scientific opinions acquire an unchallengeable authority
I get that you want to show this. I just do not accept that it is in any way a major issue in the practice of science. Yes, there are folks that resist new theories or default to old, but that is partly due to the very nature of science, namely that it takes alot for established research and Theory to be proven wrong. That's not a bad thing in most cases.

I any event, from what I read, there seems to be very valid reasons other than kowtowing to Mann. All I see is scientists following good protocol.

And even if it weren't for global warming...we need to get past fossil fuels for many reasons. I mentioned the finite nature of it, but it is also extremely inefficient.

I'm just not sensing any real danger here. There are others out there researching other ways and again... That's science. These two, even if we grant the power over their flock that you suggest, won't stop real solutions from emerging. Eventually, good science will always win because it is the best possible answer to a problem.
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Re: Spent some time with a Legend of Freethought and a Champion of Reason today...

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Mr. P wrote:
And even if it weren't for global warming...we need to get past fossil fuels for many reasons. I mentioned the finite nature of it, but it is also extremely inefficient.
At risk of making the thread about global warming, I wanted to comment that the finite nature of fossils had for me, too, always seemed a great reason for replacing them with renewables. Then I read the BT selection The Wizard and the Prophet, by Charles Mann, in which Mann gives credence to the view that fossil fuels are essentially inexhaustible. I know that sounds pretty crazy, but Mann is so evenhanded and deeply-versed toward his subject that I had to pay attention and to consider that such a counter-intuitive could be true.
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Re: Spent some time with a Legend of Freethought and a Champion of Reason today...

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geo wrote:For every "militant atheist" there are probably hundreds of fundamentalists and evangelicals who push a faith-over-facts authoritarian worldview, much to the detriment of reason and logic. Much of this is politics cloaked in religion and so it gets a free pass in terms of vetting in the marketplace of ideas.
Well, as you know, I am not one to side with fundamentalists. I basically agree with what you say here. Still, I am no longer a believer in the "marketplace of ideas." I think more in terms of a court than a marketplace, since we have already seen that the Fox News crowd is "buying" based on what they want to believe rather than on the basis of reason, evidence or any kind of criterion that "ideas" have a claim to be assessed on. A court is more about hearing the evidence and weighing it carefully, (even though the weighing process has been seriously abused in the actual courts).

The Armed Forces, for example, tend to be a part of our collective society which sticks to the facts. Because mythology has a very bad record when it comes to winning battles (see Valmy for a possible exception). I don't always like what they do with facts, but I respect their willingness to accept them. On climate change, for example, they go right ahead and plan for it and price it in.

The particular accusation I was leveling against the militant atheists was failing to engage with the issues of holistic understanding of life. Anyone willing to believe that every biological trait must be adaptive to something in the environment should surely be ready to engage seriously with the idea that religion serves some useful social purpose. Harris even engages, but on an "I alone know how to fix this" basis. The others, Dennett included, just form their own hypothesis about what bad purposes religion is suited for, and stick to it out of motivated reasoning. No sense whatsoever that "truth" has a values and social dimension that needs to be addressed for a life well lived. Anything that can't be evidenced is, in their view, just "mythology." As if mythology had no useful social purpose.
geo wrote:Delusional fantasies such as: 1) the Bible is the inerrant word of God, 2) Noah and the ark really happened, 3) God made humans about 10,000 years ago, 4) Jesus was literally the son of God and was resurrected after death, and 5) the souls of good "Christian" people go to heaven when they die are assumed to be true. Indeed, as this editorial says, Donald Trump "rose to power with the determined assistance of a movement that denies science, bashes government and prioritized loyalty over professional expertise."
Well, and that's dumb, but considering that they hold these views for social reasons here on Earth rather than because supernatural sources have revealed it to them, it might be a good idea to evaluate those forces. Forced to choose between listening to Richard Dawkins and listening to Franklin Graham, I would take Dawkins hands down, but I think that's a false dichotomy, which is itself a sign of having lost the knack for holistic thinking.

Consider that Jesus is the "anti-military" deliverer, and was from the very beginning. He argued for a "kingdom" based on mutual affection, on rooting for one another, you might say. So is it such a terrible thing to assert, even 2,000 years later and post-atomic bomb, that this is a good Kingdom to aspire to? That the logic of the universe (which we could call God) favors such an approach and came to dwell in one Jesus of Nazareth to demonstrate the point? If you are going to build your life around either that or "people who have more money are worth more" as a guiding principle, "Jesus is the Son of God" has at least as good a claim. And building your life matters more than objective evidence. Objective evidence matters only to the extent that it helps us build a good society of people living good lives.
geo wrote:So be kind to "militant atheists" because they fight a very hard battle indeed.
They don't need my kindness any more than Franklin Graham does. Or, as Brene Brown says, "Clarity is kindness."
I was pleased to see that major Evangelical figures, including Robert Jeffress (a Trumpista) are coming out strongly for vaccination.
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Re: Spent some time with a Legend of Freethought and a Champion of Reason today...

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Robert Tulip wrote: illustrating how heated this debate is:
"Why are academic debates so nasty?"
"Because the stakes are so small."
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Re: Spent some time with a Legend of Freethought and a Champion of Reason today...

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Mr. P wrote:So here again, I am not sure what you are reading from these folks, but I NEVER got that they simply offered calculations with no consideration of something more. Many folks seem to use the term spiritual because of a need to conflate every basis of morality with religion or religious thought.
Yes, many do. And usually, in their experience, religion is the sole basis for moral motivation. People who live in the concrete world of auto mechanics and tree-trimming don't spend a lot of time analyzing Stoicism or the enlightened theories of Spinoza. Dawkins and his pals make be deeply offended that Evangelicals care more about the implications for their community's commitment to respectability and responsibility than they care about the evidence for various theories of biology, but that's the world we live in. A person with as much intelligence as the Four Horsemen have should not have to have it explained that people resist being told they are ignorant for affirming their deepest values.
Mr. P wrote: And guess what, I admit that the spiritual and religious basis came first...it may have even been necessary because progress always requires an antecedent. But if we are being honest, spiritual and religious thought processes are all about the very physical mind reasoning things out. It did it poorly in the past, based on limited knowledge and understanding...as you would expect from children, but that is exactly what it did. Faulty reasoning created religion, thus the mind created the basis for morality.
In my view, religion was not created by faulty reasoning. The problem came when a scientific alternative to mythological communication arose and the fundamentalists, invested as they were in an authority-based religion, insisted on literal accuracy of the Bible. That, in turn, came out of an authority-based view of the nature of the church's mission. Karen Armstrong has done a good job of showing that fundamentalism is a broad reaction to modernity, not limited to Christianity or even to the Abrahamic faiths. The whole tension has helped a lot of us realize that the authority obsession was never the most faithful understanding of Christianity or even Judaism.

I think when you talk about "thought processes" and "understanding" you are understandably looking for an account of life and its struggles that can accommodate both the facts we know from science and the values we seek to cultivate within society. The problem with focusing on accounts, and thought processes, is that human motivation is caught, not taught (as the Evangelicals say). As a result, what is needed is both a viable, sustainable way of life (which can be caught) and an account of the reasons for pursuing it (which are the teachings, or doctrines, and help pass on the way of life). The militant atheists are much more interested in tearing down the supposed basis for religious authority than in constructing either a sustainable way of life or an account of why such a way of life makes sense.

If you are educated and like learning about science and nature, you are probably fairly well insulated from the demons of low self-esteem and frustrating material challenges and the resulting household tensions that ordinary people find spiritual solace from. So if you don't get the problem, you are probably unlikely to appreciate the solutions that are out there. In fact you are likely to focus on the authoritarians' challenges to your liberty, which makes you look even more like a dishonest advocate than motivated reasoning by an Evangelical would already have considered you.

There is a chicken-and-egg problem with changing ways of life while at the same time changing accounts of the reasons for a way of life. Which comes first, raising children without spanking them or explaining that thinking for yourself is more important than affirming the rules? People who live relatively stress-free lives have already moved through both major changes, and may not understand why other people think giving up the priority on affirming the rules is completely crazy.

A holistic approach is willing to walk with people struggling to make the transition, rather than just scolding them for their ignorance (as if sensitivity about that was not already a major reason for needing tough authority in the first place). It is willing to demonstrate tolerance and appreciation for the reasons others don't always agree, recognizing that the message of appreciation is actually more persuasive than all the facts and evidence. In essence, a holistic approach understands that evidence-based atheism is itself an authority-based approach to life, and is an enemy to the transition we are seeking.
Mr. P wrote:Are Paine's ideas spiritual? I guess you can use that as a term to help some folks understand it. But it is not spiritual in the same way that the experience of eating flesh and drinking blood is. Freedom, equality, etc... These are real concepts, based on the realization of the fact that we are all individuals trying to live together in a society. It's not an appeal to some mythical or mystical thing.

This is where I stand on rejecting a spiritual or religious basis for connecting with reality. I don't think approaching matters with a fact based approach necessarily precludes identifying holistic approaches to reality. I just think that I reject the hypocrisy of what the religious basis has shown, precisely because it is based on myth.
Paine was very concerned with courage, which is one of the true bases of spirituality. No courage, no spirit. He was also concerned with justice, which is the basis for democracy, and reflects the mutuality between people which is the animating force for the social side of spirituality ("if you cannot love other people, whom you can see, how can you love God, whom you have not seen?")

Consider a difficult question for a moment. You say freedom and equality are "real concepts" and not mythical or mystical. And yet the people who were moved by them to fight a war of independence were not moved far enough to insist on an end to slavery. So their reality was adapted to the social motivations of the time, rather than standing on their own conceptual ground. With such a glaring inconsistency between the real concept and its actual, living and breathing presence, are you sure it was not mythical?
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