2008 World Question Arrives :D

[Jeremy]

So the 2008 Edge Question is here, and the question is;

The Edge Annual Question — 2008

When thinking changes your mind, that's philosophy.
When God changes your mind, that's faith.
When facts change your mind, that's science.

WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?

Science is based on evidence. What happens when the data change? How have scientific findings or arguments changed your mind?"

http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_index.html

I thought it would be cool if we all tried to answer and discuss the question as well, but I recall doing this with a previous question, and failing miserably, so perhaps people could keep in mind the preamble when answering. I guess it doesn't matter. Also feel free to post and discuss some of the real answers. It's important to remember that the answers are personal answers, so they're not attempting to convince anybody of their perspective. Nevertheless there's a lot of conscious raisers, especially in the fields I haven't read much about. I've only read the first page so far, but I found Colin Tudge and Douglas Rushkoff to be the most interesting (I'm always more interested reading views that contradict my own, although in the case of both, I don't hold a necessarily opposing view to them, just a different view).


My answer;

I've realised that religious people can't control their views so it's wrong to blame the individuals for their views. While I've pretty much always disliked religion, and not been religious, my strength of atheism came about because of some annoying evangelicals who would preach at the same market (and the same place) where I play footbag every week. Having to listen to them constantly inevitably lead to me engaging with them, and having a number of discussions. This lead to me reading various atheist texts. However the question that most interested me was; "why are some people religious and others are not?" To me the idea of God seems so incredibly unbelievable that I find it impossible to empathise with how religious people feel. I understand how they feel, but not emotionally. So for the last 6 months or so I've been reading evolutionary psychology (Wolpert, Haidt, DS Wilson, Pinker etc.) and it's become clear that religion is essentially an outcome of evolution, like our like for music. We don't have a need for religion, but because of the way our brains have evolved, it's very appealing to us, and I'd go as far as to argue that people who are not "religious" engage in other activities that bring about the same social and emotional benefits (for me this would be sport, but it could be many things: music, work, school, cars, a strong friendship group).

So it's silly to dislike religious people, even ones like George Bush, Osama bin Ladin or Fred Phelps. That's not to say religion can't go away and that we shouldn't oppose religious views that oppress people or have warped senses of morality, but I think we need to recognise that these people are not insane or evil, but rather, they're normal people with bad ideas in their heads.

[PoisonTaffy]

My problem isn't with people's belief in religion. They can believe in flying unicorns for all I care. But the problem begins when religion acts as an excuse to harm, alienate or discriminate others, and when people seek to brainwash children as early as possible to pass on beliefs, before they can really decide for themselves. Problem is, most of the time, belief leads to at least one of the above.

The funny thing is that religious people consider religious teaching to children brainwashing as well, as long as it's the teaching of an opposing religion/sect.

[Jeremy]

See that's the exact view I changed my mind from. Religious people actually believe what they say they believe. Religion isn't "an excuse" for doing good actions or bad actions, it's the reason. When people do something in the name of religion, they are actually doing it in the name of the religion.

If we want to dispel the bad actions that occur in the name of religion, we either need to come with a false reason for the difference between religions (some kind of Machiavellian criticism of the bad religious views), or we need to recognise that the problem stems from the way we've all evolved, and it's the ease of which we accept the things that we're told.

Religion exists for two reasons. Firstly it exists because of our cognitive structure. We are typically gullible, we like anthropomorphic answers to questions and we dislike worry and doubt. Secondly it exists because it connects people together, giving an ideal that people are prepared to make sacrifices to protect. Just like the vast majority of ants essentially sacrifice their lives (in not breeding) for the greater good of the colony, religious people are (and certainly were much more so before the enlightenment) prepared to sacrifice their lives, or parts of their earnings, or their time in order to help the group. A group that does this is naturally more likely to survive than groups that do not. I'm sure you'll notice the similarities with nationalism, and it's important to note that most nations began as religious groups, and separated themselves from other groups because of their religion. It's only in relatively recent years that we've seen a difference between national groups and religious groups.

So religious and superstitious beliefs first arose as an unlucky side effect of advantageous evolution of our brain (related to ancestor worship - we had great respect for our ancestors as a survival trait, but being around their dead bodies was not a positive survival trait, so believing that there was some seperate non natural part to them allowed us to continue worshipping them after death without catching disease) and then typical natural selection of groups.

We're all still subject to these forces, even if we aren't religious, and it's that unlucky side effect that we really should be criticising. If we can understand how it came about, we can recognise it in ourselves and hopefully be aware of when we're being rational and when we're not.

[PoisonTaffy]

Ok, using the word "excuse" was inexact and I agree with that. It's not that religion grants aggressive individuals that moral right to act on their aggressiveness, it drives otherwise un-harmful individual to a state of mind or soul of doing harm to others. If anything, that's even worse than what I said earlier.
I don't fully agree with saying that religion is the reason for good actions as it is of bad actions. Granted, religion preaches to altruism. Problem is, it usually preaches to unrealistic (or unhuman) levels of it, that it makes no difference if you follow some of it, or none of it (love thy neighbor as you love thyself, turn the other cheek, etc). Altruism rises occasionally and naturally with all people of all beliefs or non-beliefs, and religious people attribute religion as the cause, while it never was.

I can't accept that people believe so strongly in religion and thus do irrational things solely because that's how our brain is wired. I agree that we are wired to accept superstition to some degree, but that's not enough to account for the wonders religion have inflicted on the world so far. Compare an equally evolved superstition, like astrology, with religion. It's inconceivable that someone would fly a plane into a building because that's what the horoscope said he should do. For belief to trigger such an extreme physical action, you'd require a mental foothold as early as possible in the person's development, and a constant confirmation of the physical manifestation of the superstition, in the likes of mutilation, discrimination of women, corporal or capital punishment systems etc.

[Jeremy]

Well I think it's hard to deny the facts; religious people give more money to charity than non religious people, and in particular altruism is seen more in people who belong to any group that promotes altruistic values than people who do not belong to such groups. That clearly makes sense, if people around you are telling you to give money to charity, you're more likely to do so then if people around you are not. The strength of religion is the fact that it encourages people to behave in the best interests of the group they belong to.

It's obviously illogical to attribute the bad aspects of religion to religion but the good aspects to human nature.

It seems equally illogical to group all religion as one thing, and to claim that "religion" as a whole is responsible for the 9/11 attacks, but to give some kind of dispensation to something as ludicrous as astrology. It's impossible to imagine Quakers flying a plane into a building either.

We can either target specific religious views which we find to be subjectively immoral, or we can target the specific thought processes that lead to people flying planes into buildings. The thought process is being convinced that something is true without question and without genuine evidence. Every time that occurs, as I believe you've done with your criticism of religion, we should comment.

The human brain may be hard wired to fall for religion, but it's also capable of recognising mistakes and accepting reason.

There are a bunch of scientists that are worth reading on the subject of the evolution of religion, and despite the counter intuitive nature of it, I'm much more prepared to believe theory based upon empirically tested observational evidence than I'm prepared to believe hearsay.

I'd recommend Daniel Dennett, David Sloan Wilson, Lewis Wolpert, Scott Attran, Jared Diamond and Jonathan Haidt to begin with. It's hard to put forward a strong case of what to do about religion if you don't understand where it comes from.

[AUTsider]

my few for religion has changed a lot lately. i have never been really religious in the "official way" (believe in Jesus Christ, his rebirth, all wonders which are written in the bible), but i always believed in a god (what ever he may look like).

i see religion as an social system (don't kill, steal, fuck your neighbors wife, ... ), which helped to get people some kind of standard in daily live to get more easy along with each other. something that just wasn't there thousands of years ago. (getting a child with a cousin was totally okay, because the wealth stays in the family and so on )

today its the "behave in the best way for the group thing", but i realized for myself, that the catholic church is an organization, which also only helps it self. (priests go after some sex scandals with little boys from Europe to brazil and do the same thing again. they just support and protect each other. in brazil the really poor people pay a lot every month, so they will go to haven. in south America the catholic church has more power than in Europe and there they do the same thing, like they did with Europe in the Middle Ages. they just use the strong believes of the people to get their money!)

the same thing (i am not so sure and actually i know very little, so please correct me if i am mistaken) goes for the Islam. they keep rules and believes very straight and tuff, because otherwise they would run out of power.
for example the president of the Iran is just the political leader. the true leader is the Rahbar and his council of guardians (all religious leaders).
if religion would get less important, nobody would accept a leader which has the power over the armed forces for LIVETIME! (reminds me a little of the pharaohs, which where also treated as gods)

so what’s my point?
i also think, like jeremy, that people do good and bad things out of religious believes, because they think they are all right and good.

your hole live your "society" tells you, what is right and what is wrong. you behave in the way you learned and as a effect you get social accepted, because the controlling interest thinks the same.

i think it really just depends on the circumstances where you are raised. so nobody can be blamed to be write or wrong.
(only the religious organizations itself)

[PoisonTaffy]

Well I think it's hard to deny the facts; religious people give more money to charity than non religious people, and in particular altruism is seen more in people who belong to any group that promotes altruistic values than people who do not belong to such groups.

This point is partly right. People's wallets are more open when encouraged by religion. That's why Ron Hubbard, the mind behind the church of Scientology, is famous for saying "The way to make a million dollars is to start a religion". The fact that most sects and mainstream religions use that very fact to become stinking rich is the strongest proof. There's a famous Indian guru whose believers wanted him to have 365 Rolls Royces, for each day of the year, and they almost reached that goal.
I would argue that the fear of eternal damnation has some roots in the matter and therefore "altruism" may not be the perfect description, especially when these charities tend to promote only goals and people of the same religion. But even so, if giving money for charity is your indicator for altruism then I think you place too much emphasis on money.

I've heard and personally experienced that aid workers who volunteer in communities not of their own culture or religion, are most often secular or atheists. On the other hand, a part of the missionary tactic of Christians and Muslims have been to provide humanitarian aid to those who "choose" to convert their religion accordingly. This distasteful opportunism has been exhibited during the aftermath of the Tsunami in Southeast Asia.
Finally, it is not charity that has been increasing life expectancies, increasing food supplies, reducing mortality due to infections, providing techniques for clean energy, etc. It is mostly the work of secular or atheist scientists who are most often than not opposed by religious groups, in our days and in the past. The way I see it, it is those people who put the benefit of all humankind, not just their own "flock", that deserve the title of altruism.

[mc]

I changed my mind about Uni. if you just add a drop of honey on top, it takes away all the bitterness!

for those not in the know, uni is raw sea urchin.