ProblemA: Opinions are like assholes; everyone has them, and they usually stink

Gray's Corollary: Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence

(or stupidity. I never get it right the first time anyways)

yeah, on Hamby's blog

Shit, Gray's Corollary: Any sufficiently advanced incompetence or ignorance is indistinguishable from malice.

hmmm...........

HRRRMMMMM......................................................

HMPH!

So I guess RRS'ers are gossiped about as well the goings on of RRS being discussed by regular posters... offsite. Well, Kevin...

You have just (unintentionally) confirmed a theory I have been speculating and building upon for quite a while!

I think I agree with Capt. on this.  Specific religious belief is certainly a direct cause of certain behaviors we categorize as negative, but the root cause is more likely to be something like social groups and labels that discourage feelings of empathy for the 'other' and the loss of morality that goes along with that void.

Investigating the root psychological cause seems like a noble and effective tactic.

I suppose you could say that it was not useful to tackle the problems caused by religion in that way, but you would have to show that it was easier to eradicate theistic belief and replace it with atheistic rationalism than it is to mold and liberalize religions that are traditionally 'exclusive', thereby removing the worst behavior associated with some strands of theism.  Now, you might be able to show that by pointing to modern secular societies...not sure, that would be an interesting discussion.

It seems like the opposition to Capt. might be valuing the 'truth' of atheistic rationality over actual human benefit unless they can demonstrate that atheistic rationality is statistically more beneficial than a benevolent, liberal, inclusive religion.

On the other hand, it is late and I just used a lot of fancy words.

 If I have one major complaint with Alison's position, it's that she consistently uses what I call the "straight line fallacy."  It goes something like this:

* There is no peer reviewed evidence that Religion Causes X.

* Therefore, religion is not a cause of X.

It sounds intuitively correct, but it's being over-simplistic.  Where I also think Alison hedges to make herself look better is in not acknowledging my actual position.  I don't believe religion is THE cause of very many things at all.  In fact -- and Alison's seen this at least five hundred seventy two times, and has never really come up with a reasonable objection to it -- I don't claim RELIGION is the problem.  I claim that FAITH BASED REASONING is a CATALYST and FACILITATOR of many of the more despicable ills that humans wreak on themselves and others.

It so happens that religion is the most widespread and socially acceptable vehicle for faith-based reasoning, so I can understand why the casual reader might think I was talking about the same thing, but I'm not.  However, I've said it clearly, in as many words:

I have also said -- in as many words -- that faith based reasoning might be a symptom of a bigger problem:

This brings me around to a clear statement of why I find Alison's objections... objectionable.  I believe that she is the equivalent of an empiricist dog chasing its own tail.  No matter how many times you go in a circle, that damn tail is still just out of reach.  So it can be when we discuss causation and human psychology:

* I got up because I wasn't sleepy anymore.

* I got up because I needed to go to work.

* I got up because I knew I'd be hungry soon.

* I got up because my cat kept meowing at me.

* I got up because I needed to take a dump.

These are all true for me this morning.  When it comes right down to it, any one of these "causes" might have been described as the straw that broke the camel's back and led me to get up.  But they all played a part.  But it's not even that simple:

* I wasn't sleepy anymore because my serotonin levels changed.

* I wasn't sleepy anymore because I already had 9 hours of decent sleep.

* I wasn't sleepy anymore because my cat's consistent meowing shifted my awareness to more awake.

So...

* I got up this morning because I already had 9 hours of sleep.  

Simple, right?  Except...

* I got 9 hours of sleep last night because I was tired from lack of sleep over the weekend.

And...

* I was tired over the weekend because I was playing darts at a tournament in Charlotte.

And...

* I was playing darts because I'm good at it and have been playing for a decade.

And...

* I started playing darts because it was the only game in the bar.

And...

* I was in the bar to try to meet a girl.

So...

I got up this morning because I was trying to meet a girl.

Technically, it's correct, but at some point, we're just playing a silly game of cause and effect.  And Alison's objections to "cause-effect" statements seem more like chasing the dog's tail than trying to be a part of a meaningful solution to a real problem.  Do we need lots of scientific research into the exact psychology of religion and faith-based thought?  Absolutely!  Do we have to have a complete psychological profile of every member of a country before we can say:  "That country has a religious problem"?  Clearly not.

If I were making specific scientific claims, such as "94% of all Faith-Based-Believers have X psychological condition, which is directly attributed to childhood indoctrination at Jesus Camp," sure.  Hang me from the flagpole by my underwear if I don't have the peer review to back it up.  But what I say, and what I think most non-psychologist atheists say, is very simple:

* There's a high correlation between certain societal ills and faith based belief.

* People's faith based beliefs clearly have something to do with their behavior.

* We should try to help people believe things based on reason, not faith.  It will probably make them more likely to make at least some decisions better in the long run.

Those links:

http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail4451.html

and

http://www.world-science.org/forum/hidden-brain-shankar-vedantam-unconscious-minds/

Yes Hamby, I've read that entry and acknowledge it.

However your entries are mostly about wacky things religious people do, so that's why religion seems to inevitiably comes up in conversations. Come to think of it, I don't think you really ever wrote an entry about stupid things or evils or atrocities commited by non-religious people.

If you made a post about the wackyness of PETA or wackyness of political liberals or conservatives I think the conversation would be the same.

My usual pestering for evidence and of cause and effect, and to take into account other factors would still be applied and come out my mouth regardless of whether the action was commited by a religious person or not.

I find it rather amusing that I have constantly demostrated that I understand your position and the distinction, yet you constantly accuse me of not understanding.

Here it is[again] in my words:

While nasty things are in our nature, faith based belief system in which faith and intuition is valued over empirical and critical thinking allows these ills to be amplified to levels that they would not be able to reach sans the value of faith and intuition.

I've done it before and I did it again.

Now here's another funny thing: I don't think you understand mine, seeing as you simply gloss over my constant requests for you to state it.

yeah, that does seem to be hamby's position.

that would also be my position, with one key addendum: the aforementioned "value" can never be removed, eliminated, or neutralized to any degree even approaching what would be required to overcome the inertia of humanity's general ignorance.

in other words, irrationality, as a motivating factor (if not the motivating factor) behind human specific behavior, including and especially religion, will never be overcome.

ever.

yes, bob, but my question has always been if there isn't a human specific behavior that is something more than just the combined sum of each human's individual behavior.  i honestly wonder if it would make any difference if every individual human could be properly trained and educated--if, when humans reach a certain level of mass, there isn't a deeper, hardwired instinct that takes over.  i know this is why some people champion elitism, but who knows if the elite themselves don't unwittingly serve the instinct?

i don't know, maybe it's because i'm in the middle of the foundation books right now.  asimov's idea of psycho-history really seems plausible.  unfortunately, what doesn't seem plausible is hari seldon.

more or less, asimov's psycho-history is the idea that social dynamics are mathematically predictible to a very low margin of error.  of course, it's a fictional device and i'm not sure of the plausibility of the mathematical angle (not sure asimov was either; he certainly didn't attempt to give any details) but the idea that human history is bound by social dynamics that are incontrovertible by any feasible human action has stuck with me.  oddly enough, it doesn't depress me.  i was more depressed by human stupidity when i was convinced it was willful.

now, as far as the foundation books go, asimov makes it quite clear that the carefully executed efforts of hari seldon to minimize the negative effects of social dynamics (characterized in the books by the fall of the first galactic empire) require an entire millennium of careful incubation, with little room for deviation if everything is to go according to plan, the plan being to reduce the inevitable 30,000-year period of galaxy-wide anarchy between the fall of the first empire to the rise of the second to a mere 1,000.

That was the first part of your post in which you accuse me of thinking that you think it's religion and me not understanding your distinciton between religion and faith.

There's a bunch of problems I have with your line of thinking on causation and psychology:

 If my line of thinking was applied to anything else it wouldn't get so harsh a critisim.

If a feminist were to come in here and say that the portrayal of women in the media and the consumption of porn is the cause of US's high rape rate hence we should stop consuming porn and taking pictures of scantly clad women in order to lower the rape rate,  then would she not require evidence to back it up? Would "it's obvious" be a sufficent answer?

Second thing I can't wrap my head around is when peer review is required and when it's not. When I was taking science classes, I was told peer review was required for pretty much any and every claim. It may seem "obvious" that matter is solid and that there is no space between the particles, that wouldn't hold to peer review even if it's intuitivly true.

I mean if you don't need peer reviewed evidence why do feminists? Why do Theists?

You've read my previous post in this thread, was I wrong for getting rid of my God belief because of lack of peer reviewed evidence, even if I thought I was obvious and that the order mystery of the universe pointed to the direction of there being a God?

Of course you'll answer "no", but WHY? When I think holding on to it would have been doing the same thing you are?

Hamby, from your previous post and your first one in the topic,I don't think you understand why I focus on the cognitive and group dynamics, I'll just assume that this is because I haven't expressed clearly.

You rightly say that we should actively act to change things. To do something against the Facism and ignorance that is getting around.

I think you're going about it in a way that just won't work and you'll be chasing your tail for far longer than me. Of course you seem to think the same of me.

Your example of whether you woke up because weren't tired or your cat jumped on your head was a bit of an exageration of my stance.

Anyway, you know why I think that by focusing on the group dynamics will help to the ills? Because that's how the ills are being spread.

If I told you to say and believe that one line is bigger than another when it's clearly not, you'd tell me to go suck on an egg. It won't work. But if I use group dynamics, it makes it far far easier to do it. In fact there's about a 67% chance you'll do it.

So the Facist Christian movement who wants to change Texas school books, or legislate out religious freedom are exploiting this either by design or by accident.

This happens everyday to everybody.

The perfect example of this is advertising. If I'm selling a product and have a good team of marketers and my competition doesn't, then it doesn't matter if my competition's product is superior. It doesn't matter if my competition offers better service and support and is cheaper.

What DOES matter is my advertising campaign.

Sure, some people will see through my clear techniques and buy the cheaper, better product, but the majority won't.

Of course you could mention that my competition has a better product and prove it, and some will be swayed, but if I have a good campiagn, it wouldn't matter. Even if I lose Joe to the competition, 10 new suckers will be waiting to put their money in my pocket.

Look at the emphasis on healthy eating in America, then look at America's waistsize. Hint: The people who advocate for healthy eating are doing it wrong.

Don't get me wrong. Letting people know the healthy benifits of eating, or a product is better, or that the arguments for God belief fall flat, is good and we should still do it, but that isn't enough.

So getting people to eat healthy and spreading the knowledge of nutrition is all well and good, but it will be overrun by KFC's multimillion dollar ad campaign and get people to eat a cucumber and then buy two pieces of bacon sandwiched between two deep fried chicken breasts.

In order to get people to eat healthy, we HAVE to counteract KFC, Burger Kind etc... ad campaign

So you see, while there is nothing wrong with critisizing religion, nothing wrong with pointing out barbaric ancient beliefs, if we can't counter act the group dynamics, we're chasing our tails.

Hamby, rather than go back and forth accusing you of accusing me of accusing you what I accuse you of accusing me of I actually want to make sure we are on the same page.

No, I know you target atheists. But you target atheists to do the same thing you're doing which I don't think will get us far.

Of course group dynamics isn't everything. In Canada there is social pressure for my age group to drink, but I don't. In fact I said this in my post. That some people won't fall for the advertising trick.

Of course advertising isn't the ONLY reason why Americians are fat asses, and of course advertising isn't the only reason people buy products, but it's much easier to sell Scope mouth wash if you put out a commercial implying women will want to have sex with you if you use it.

Of course the quality matters, if I shell out $50 for a state of the art teeth cleaning kit and they send me 10 toothpicks, I'm going to be pissed regardless of how good their ads are the group pressure can only go so far.

So I do have things to ask to make sure we get on the same page:

1] Why do you think religious memes are a more powerful spreader of ills than group dynamics? And by group dynamics, I don't JUST mean groupthink.

The reason I think that group dynamics are a more powerful spreader is because of that study I posted a while back that showed when coalition [i.e group cohesion] was controlled for, non-devoted people showed the same level of ills that the devoted.

Not to mention Asch line experiments, the Robber's cave expirement etc...

Have you seen my topic about the video Person in a world of people?

http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/20148

2] You accuse me of moving the goal post to steer the blame away from religion. Why do you think I do this?

3] Do you think I am ignoring the aspect of religious memes?

4] 

Ok, then why is your approach better than mine?

5] Do you really think I'm cutesy? 

I really don't 'get' what's so hard to 'get', Cpt.

What's worse, ordinary organ failure, or a highly-contagious virus that causes organ failure? Yes. Organ failure is bad. We should study it and try to prevent it. Studying organ failure will even help us to prevent deaths related to the virus. But if we ignore -- or worse, minimize or deny -- the fact that the organ failure is spread by a virus, then we will only waste time and resources in endless 'fire fighting' mode trying to keep people from dying of organ failure, while the virus spreads and spreads.

What makes viruses dangerous is not any particular symptom or even any particular mechanism of pathology. What makes them dangerous is that they are contagious and they evolve.

If religions use group dynamics, sure that's interesting. It's worth studying. But more important is the study of the spread and evolution of religions themselves. This crucially includes studying how they evolve and adapt to exploit human irrationality. Irrational group dynamics are only one kind of irrationality.

What's worse, ordinary delusion, or a highly-contagious meme that causes delusion?

What's worse, ordinary irrational group dynamics, or a highly-contagious meme that causes irrational group dynamics?

The studies you tout do not address the question of whether religions themselves can be the source of irrational group dynamics. Even within a religion, there are many sects, and some sects may be more 'virulent' than others. Thus, overall, it may appear that a religion such as Islam isn't very virulent, because of the billion or so Muslims, only a tiny handful are terrorists. But of those that are terrorists, what they share are the ideas and concepts of particular interpretations of a holy book. And they spread those interpretations to others, and those interpretations mutate and sometimes form particularly virulent interpretations, and some of those particularly virulent interpretations exploit irrational human group dynamics, et voila, 9/11. If you just focus on the group dynamics, you will completely be at a loss to deal with the real problem, which is the contagion.

Whenever I see you go on your tirades, it brings to mind an image of someone with their fingers in their ears chanting, "No, no, it has nothing to do with religion! It has nothing to do with religion! It couldn't possibly have anything to do with religion! How could anyone think it has anything to do with religion?!" Maybe that's not what you intend, but that's how it looks.

This is what I was saying earlier: to you, this whole affair is just some intellectual pissing game. You weren't involved in the debate at all before the New Atheist movement reared it's head; you'd have had nothing to say regarding the abuse of women in the Persian Gulf, the mass rape of children in Ireland, the death squads in Iran, etc, if Sam Harris & Dan Dennet hadn't published their books - and once they did, you decided it was an excellent opportunity to be a contrarian.

I happily accept the accusation that I get heated and inflammatory when it comes to this subject. I wonder how anyone could not, unless they're the sort to find a little smirk creeping over their lips as they hear about the bodies piling up.

I've been having this dispute, just as an example, with a fellow on Facebook - Mr. Whitlock - who's brain has plainly been diseased beyond any hope of recovery by attending the late 'Dr.' Falwell's Liberty University. He's of the opinion that every illegal refugee from Mexico ought to be rounded-up and sent back to their country of origin to be murdered by the Los Zetas cartel, consequences be damned, statistics be damned, methods be damned; they're a 'menace', the cause of all of America's traffic woes, unemployment & the economic recession, and America will be able to retake it's former glory only if this cancer could be cut from it. Now, this is an issue where I am actually fighting very strongly, with very strong language, on the side of persecuted Christians - most Mexican refugees who have fled the teeth of the drug lords follow the patron of the Virgin Mary; 'Our Lady of Guadelupe, Queen of Mexico, Empress of the Americas'. The Los Zetas cartel, which currently has it's fingers around Mexico's throat, has allies within the fundamentalist evangelical criminal organizations in Texas, and have been systematically stamping-out the traditional Christian sect in their home country. Those fleeing the cartel rather than joining local cults that shell out protection money are hunted, even after passing the American border, by assassins contracted out through the Texas Syndicate - if they're caught by the border authorities and sent back whence they came, they're summarily executed by the local cartel authorities and our wonderfully PC media reports the deaths as part of the ongoing 'War on Drugs'. In reality, we're witnessing a very thorough and wretched sectarian religious cleansing in Latin America, and the consensus seems to be one of either obliviousness or apathy.

So I attempt to explain this geopolitical mess to Mr. Whitlock, and that he's sending his own Christian sheep to be torn apart in the hope of improving his own job security, and he throws-up his hands and says:

"America is the author of the three things you just mention [Liberty, Justice & Equality], but justice is for the just, and liberty should be confined to those who pay taxes and pledge allegiance to promote the liberty, and equality means we are all under the same law, and if the law is broken or abused then a person should be punished according to that law."

This from a Libertarian Randroid, who otherwise had espoused nothing but contempt for the establishment and the laws it created.

Why this bizarre compartmentalization? Because 'Dr.' Falwell's 'educational' institute teaches it's students that all illegal immigrants are scumbag criminals out to steal the jobs of good 'ol home grown Americans, and 'Dr.' Falwell must be correct, and must've been a great man, because he was an emissary for the ultimate judge & benchmark for morality - the deity Mr. Whitlock was indoctrinated into believing in.

There's an obvious subtext here of racism & dehumanization, but the credibility for those things that Mr. Whitlock's brain has latched onto is the religious authority held by one of his dear mentors. This isn't a matter of out group or in group dynamics; we're talking about a Christian throwing other Christians under the bus because his religious master told him to do it. 

These people don't care how Christian or not you are; they think that they've heard the One True Voice, and everyone else can just go to Hell.

So how does this fit Alison's world view, where Kevin is just some rabid theist-ist who hates every religious person on Earth, and the best method for defeating fundamentalism is some softball 'infiltration' technique combined with shrugging at the problem, voting in your local Conservative MP and playing some video games.

...Are you in Ms. Ambrogia's riding, by chance? Fascinating lady to talk with. 

Kevin you don't even know me.

After 9/11 [I was 16] I fully supported the invasion of Afghanistan.

2 years later after the propoganda campaign against Iraq, I was so outraged from the atrocities of Hussein, I wanted Canada to be at the front lines there too. But I did realize the patently wrong claims of WMDs and also realized that Canadian and Americian troops are spread thin in Afghanistan.

In fact, it was the reason I actually joined the military [reserve force] in the first place [I left a couple years ago]. I wanted to go to Afghanistan, however my parents were REALLY hesitant to let me put my name in and kept pestering my about school so I didn't, and frankly I regret it.

However after I left, and since I'm done school, I'm looking to re-join and go there before we pull in December 2012.

May I mention is that I joined [and left] well before I even knew who Hitchens/Harris/Dawkins/Dennet was? Well before I heard of the atheist movement? Well before I was actually an atheist?

So no. I'm not standing idealy by while these things are happening here and overseas.

You see Kevin, I'm not planning on sitting around hoping these people read my posts on Hamby's blog.

But since you missed the entire point of the topic let me make it clear.

We must try our best to put emotions aside and actually work to try and fix it though sometimes it is very difficult.

Firefighters don't run around outraged and just watch with emotion when they see a daycare on fire and there's children inside [even though that would most likely be my reaction].  They put aside their emotions and actually do something about it. If they just followed their emotions, they would just run in there after they got out of the truck rather than making sure it's safe for them, or putting on the safety gear. Because they know if they follow their emotions, it would do more harm than good.

So in other words Kevin, we need rich empirical research into the psychology of terrorism, so we can best determine why they do and how they recruit in order to stop them?

Isn't this what I've been insisting on the whole time?

I can see both sides here, and it seems to be that there's quite a bit of miscommunication going on.

You could call me a bit of a coward in conversations- I do come off strong, but I'll only usually speak up when there's something I can prove (that is, I'll only argue when I'm obviously correct.

This subject- well, there's really no absolute proof on either side- only nebulous probabilities, and perhaps some ample evidence... but proof... not so much.

I'll speak to the impossibility of gods.  I'll speak to the self-evident nature of the many worlds interpretation.  I'll underscore the illogical idiocy of moral absolutism, and any philosophy that holds that humans are fundamentally different in some way to all other creatures.

Whether religion is ultimately good or bad for society?  Well... there are a bunch of correlations- and certainly quite a bit of causation too... but the evidence isn't absolutely irrefutable.  I used to argue about this more, but when it comes down it it, I don't like such hard fights- and I don't like being backed into a corner, which is possible in such a discussion.

I suspect that religion is, over all, bad for society, but I could be wrong.

It *could* be that something else is causing these aggressive actions and causing religion.  Suicide bombing may be caused by polygamy, which leads to a bunch of horny guys who can't get laid (yes... because of social conservatism... which isn't just caused by religion).  We can see that religion doesn't cause polygamy- more often than not, it prohibits polygamy (which is likely the natural state of humans, observing other great apes)-- Islam (along with some other religions) just happens to be permissive on this subject.

Now then, of course we can go into counter-examples, like married men who martyr themselves, and even women (though these are less common than the single men)- some of these potentially being driven by anger over what they see as American Imperialism, and some of the things our troops have been doing over there.

It's hard to investigate the deepest reaches of human motivation properly, and say for sure why people are doing things; suggestions for other motivations aren't all just ad-hoc.

Anyway, how could this be made worse without religion?

Well, in particular, religion has been an organizing force, and atheism would be dis-organizing.  The fact of these extremists organizing themselves provides venues for negotiation, and actually stabilizes the actions in a way that is politically conscious.

Of course, completely disorganizing would make it less potent at the same time (fizzling out with lack of provocation)- it would depend on exactly where it went.  The probability is that the disorganization would reduce potency more than negotiation is likely to help us.

At the same time, religion is a force of ignorance, and in particular makes the adherents ignorant of certain measures of scientific knowledge that they find in conflict with their beliefs- particularly biochemistry and evolution- which they could, without those beliefs enforcing their ignorance, make use of in their terroristic capacity.  That is, dismissing the ignorance would risk making them more effective.  These people have patience and means to breed micro-organisms; if they believed in evolution and god ahold of some antibiotics, how fucked would we be?

We could hope that, at the same time, the hate would also disappear with the new found potential for education (or at least be mitigated).  And arguably, without the organizing force, they would no longer have the collective means to manufacture biological threats on that scale.

Moderate imams are speaking out against terrorism, and I don't think we have any reliable estimates regarding how many people have turned away from it due to this.  While there may be less motivation and driving force, the mitigating force of these moderates would be completely lost without the religion.  That is, now that the political tide is turning, the entire religion is changing its mind, which is forcing individuals to change their minds with it.

We could hope that, similar to the last counter-note, that the hate has a majorly religious origin, and that without the religion, it would vanish.  I would bet on this, but I wouldn't call it an absolute certainty.

There's an astronomically overwhelming possibility that pushing a magic button that made everybody atheist would resolve this conflict... and that the resultant frustration would be redirected into something less harmful to us, like simple street gangs (the equivalent natural even to Chimps).

There is an overwhelming probability that religion is, overall, bad for society- and it does need to be ended anywhere we can reasonably do so.

However, there is no such magic button, and the process of obliterating their religion itself might piss them off more than help in the current context.  We might, if we identified other causes, simply be able to pressure the country into, for example, ending polygamy, and solve this particular problem at a more fundamental level.  Remember that all actions have opportunity costs.

Atheism itself is very unlikely to hurt (though the means by which we produce it could stir hornets' nests), and religion might channel frustration into more dangerous causes, and cause people to be bigoted and hateful even without so much frustration in ways that don't cause them as much inconvenience as martyrdom (like voting against giving other people fundamental human rights)- but there also might be more core elements of this that are more easily addressed.

I suspect, perhaps, this might be what our good skipper Ananas Comosus is suggesting.  Am I very off bat here?