Was watching TVO's "Genius" a few nights back. Cuz I'm a nerd like that. Had a surprising epiphany: I really like Richard Dawkins. No, really. This will come as a surprise to anybody who's ever debated his merits with me.
smart AND handsome
He was talking about Alan Turing's death at 41 years old, and the causes thereof.
For yall who don't know:
Alan Turing was a brilliant mathematician whose legacy includes things like inventing the computer, cracking the "Enigma" (which meant Britain could intercept and decode Nazi communications, allowing them to keep D-Day a surprise and - in tandem with Robert Watson-Watts' invention of radar - know when the Luftwaffe was coming), and being convicted of homosexual behavior (a criminal offense at the time).
Got a nice plaque for it though...
In talking about that last bit, Dawkins' compassion was palpable. Turing was given the choice between jail and chemical castration; he chose the latter. He then moved to America, worked for a while, and then killed himself. In all likelihood anyway. Might have been an accident; slight possibility of homicide. All available evidence says suicide.
Not to disregard a great tragedy of the 20th Century (and an example of the inadequacy of humanity's laws), but I started out talking about Dawkins.
It's no secret to those who know me that I never had a nice thing to say about the man. When he talks about God, I get the distinct impression that he's crossed a line somewhere between demonstrable fact and personal opinion. And he's crossed it with guns drawn & firing. No doubt he comes at the subject with plenty of personal experience and a legitimate bone to pick. But before getting into any talk about God, I gotta say something about religion.
Religion is ideally a means for people to build a community that is conducive to Love. At its most basic, religion is for people who just don't get compassion; the rules shape your behavior until you understand how to love people. That's it, that's all. Same reason for the Laws of Solon. It exists for no other reason.
"What about religion as a means to get closer to God?" Yeah. What do you think getting closer to God means? Your "relationship" with God is your own personal thing, and it isn't religion. Religion is - by definition - communal. If the preceding question was bubbling away in your brain, you were thinking of spirituality. Religion is often mistaken for spirituality, and does spirituality a disservice when that happens.
Anyway...
I get that religion can be (and too often is) used as a tool of oppression. And there are a LOT of ways to do it. You can use it to keep people ignorant, and therefore easy to manipulate en mass (or individually... whatever). You can use it to justify actions that blatantly contradict the above-mentioned reasons for religion's existence in the first place.
...and it ain't always this obvious...
Even with the erroneous understanding of homosexuality that led by degrees to Alan Turing's suicide, homosexuality needn't have been a crime, and Britain needn't have maimed one of its greatest heroes for it. Religious infractions presumably have consequences in the afterlife; civil infractions can have the consequences of this life.
Seriously. If you got something like this waiting for you, who needs jail?
With me so far?
Okay, so what are the roots of such travesties? I'd go with the idea that a misinterpretation of the purpose of religion is the problem here. Been guilty of it myself. You know... "I know what's right and wrong, and you should bend your life to my (immature) understanding of the universe. Failure to do so means that you are inferior to me! After all, I am privileged with secret deifying knowledge. That means I'm better than you."
This mentality is indicative of a total misunderstanding of religion. Even if you are privileged with secret deifying knowledge - even if you KNOW somebody's going to Hell just for being who they are (which you fucking DON'T KNOW) - it's only because you need guidance in learning how to exist on a planet with other people. This is not an insult; for the vast majority it's the human condition.
On the other hand, Dawkins appears to believe the problem is even more basic - that belief in a deity is symptomatic of a warped human mind, of the sort that willfully misunderstands the universe. This in turn leads one to impose that view on everyone else. So we need to get rid of God. Everybody who believes in God must be stupid or crazy, and anyone who raises their children religiously is guilty of child abuse. And we must convince everyone of the truth of this.
I hope I'm not the only one who sees the sad irony in this.
Richard Dawkins is a brilliant scientist, and I love it when he talks about science. When he goes off about God, he utterly loses me. How can someone so clearly possessed of a superior mind so easily suspend rational thought as soon as he steps outside his field of competence?
He was talking about Alan Turing's death at 41 years old, and the causes thereof.
For yall who don't know:
Alan Turing was a brilliant mathematician whose legacy includes things like inventing the computer, cracking the "Enigma" (which meant Britain could intercept and decode Nazi communications, allowing them to keep D-Day a surprise and - in tandem with Robert Watson-Watts' invention of radar - know when the Luftwaffe was coming), and being convicted of homosexual behavior (a criminal offense at the time).
In talking about that last bit, Dawkins' compassion was palpable. Turing was given the choice between jail and chemical castration; he chose the latter. He then moved to America, worked for a while, and then killed himself. In all likelihood anyway. Might have been an accident; slight possibility of homicide. All available evidence says suicide.
Not to disregard a great tragedy of the 20th Century (and an example of the inadequacy of humanity's laws), but I started out talking about Dawkins.
It's no secret to those who know me that I never had a nice thing to say about the man. When he talks about God, I get the distinct impression that he's crossed a line somewhere between demonstrable fact and personal opinion. And he's crossed it with guns drawn & firing. No doubt he comes at the subject with plenty of personal experience and a legitimate bone to pick. But before getting into any talk about God, I gotta say something about religion.
Religion is ideally a means for people to build a community that is conducive to Love. At its most basic, religion is for people who just don't get compassion; the rules shape your behavior until you understand how to love people. That's it, that's all. Same reason for the Laws of Solon. It exists for no other reason.
"What about religion as a means to get closer to God?" Yeah. What do you think getting closer to God means? Your "relationship" with God is your own personal thing, and it isn't religion. Religion is - by definition - communal. If the preceding question was bubbling away in your brain, you were thinking of spirituality. Religion is often mistaken for spirituality, and does spirituality a disservice when that happens.
Anyway...
I get that religion can be (and too often is) used as a tool of oppression. And there are a LOT of ways to do it. You can use it to keep people ignorant, and therefore easy to manipulate en mass (or individually... whatever). You can use it to justify actions that blatantly contradict the above-mentioned reasons for religion's existence in the first place.
Even with the erroneous understanding of homosexuality that led by degrees to Alan Turing's suicide, homosexuality needn't have been a crime, and Britain needn't have maimed one of its greatest heroes for it. Religious infractions presumably have consequences in the afterlife; civil infractions can have the consequences of this life.
With me so far?
Okay, so what are the roots of such travesties? I'd go with the idea that a misinterpretation of the purpose of religion is the problem here. Been guilty of it myself. You know... "I know what's right and wrong, and you should bend your life to my (immature) understanding of the universe. Failure to do so means that you are inferior to me! After all, I am privileged with secret deifying knowledge. That means I'm better than you."
This mentality is indicative of a total misunderstanding of religion. Even if you are privileged with secret deifying knowledge - even if you KNOW somebody's going to Hell just for being who they are (which you fucking DON'T KNOW) - it's only because you need guidance in learning how to exist on a planet with other people. This is not an insult; for the vast majority it's the human condition.
On the other hand, Dawkins appears to believe the problem is even more basic - that belief in a deity is symptomatic of a warped human mind, of the sort that willfully misunderstands the universe. This in turn leads one to impose that view on everyone else. So we need to get rid of God. Everybody who believes in God must be stupid or crazy, and anyone who raises their children religiously is guilty of child abuse. And we must convince everyone of the truth of this.
I hope I'm not the only one who sees the sad irony in this.
Richard Dawkins is a brilliant scientist, and I love it when he talks about science. When he goes off about God, he utterly loses me. How can someone so clearly possessed of a superior mind so easily suspend rational thought as soon as he steps outside his field of competence?
Keep in mind, he comes from a place of empirical evidence backing up his logic...Evolution vs. Creationism. He thinks that way about ppl who believe in deities simply due to their lack of credible proof and blind belief in a fantastical story/stories of epic and epically absurd proportions. I personally wouldn't call them CRAZY per se, just misguided...but misguide them enough and it can potentially breach the fabric of sanity.
ReplyDeleteIt's the same as coming up with/BELIEVING in a "pink elephant" of my own...preaching it to as many people as possible and CONVINCING them that the bullshit I came up with is legit all of it without producing ANY credible evidence for my beliefs.
Can't say I blame him for the way he thinks. I would definitely have to think that someone who has the capacity to do that and believe his own codswallop in the process has some issues up top. As for the ppl who follow such a person, well, not CRAZY... but I can see why Dawkins would think so.
On another note, reading "The Greatest Show on Earth" - The Evidence for Evolution.. good book so far, although a bit long winded for my taste. Worth checking out if this stuff interests you.
ReplyDelete"How can someone so clearly possessed of a superior mind so easily suspend rational thought as soon as he steps outside his field of competence?"
ReplyDeleteThis sentence amuses me, because it seems to me that belief in a god is irrational, and therefore any discussion thereof is irrational. Saying that Dawkins has a rational mind when discussing science and an irrational mind when discussing God seems obvious. There is nothing rational about the belief in any gods.
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ReplyDeleteDub, you suffer the same limitations as Dawkins, just as I suffer the same limitations as any other agnostic. And we are going to have this argument until we die.
ReplyDeleteKenpoKu, I appreciate the diatribe. Seriously. But...
First: Evolution vs Creationism is not the argument here. Creationism is not the only possible outcome for belief in a deity (or whatever you wanna call it). There are plenty of "god-fearing" scientists who eschew Creationism, even to the point of (shock!) embracing Evolution. Because they are scientists.
Second: George Carlin's "invisible man in the sky" is not the only concept of god around. It isn't the god that many scientists believe in. In fact, that god is a relatively recent idea, developed (using the term loosely) by intellectually lazy control freaks.
Third: My whole point here isn't even to argue the existence of God anyway. You've missed the point completely. Try reading the last three paragraphs again. See how I'm trying to point out that no human intellect - no matter how highly developed - knows everything, or can judge the validity of another's believe (or active lack thereof). At not point do I say Dawkins is WRONG about believing there is no god; for all I know, he may be right. That wasn't my point.
Dude, you know me better than that I would hope. It wasn't an attack on your opinion at all.. merely my view. I was only commenting hypothetically why Dawkins might hold the opinion he does...I acknowledge I don't know the man personally, but in a nutshell, this is what I gather from reading in between the lines of his book. It seems I have taken a firm stance in assuming I know how he thinks.. which of course I don't.. just my 2 cents is all... I tend to offer my personally hypotheses on others' opinions.
ReplyDeleteI personally am with Bill Maher preaching the church of 'I don't know'...because - and you said it - we don't. I just wouldn't go so far as to call religious ppl crazy is all.. I'm just saying, I can see why Dawkins and even Maher would think that to some degree.
Kunal
I guess the point in a nutshell is.. where did the "crazy" start.. blind leading the blind and so forth... Dawkins is a scientist through and through.. hypotheses, experimentation, conclusion.. having something of a scientific process oriented mind myself, I can appreciate the certainty that only science has been able to deliver so far about much of life's mysteries... but through my martial art training - and it is a science - my eyes have been opened to the fact that I know nothing.. therefore, I don't know.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you that Dawkins is guilty of the very thing he's chastising religious ppl of doing. Evolution Theory after all is yet another box... but it is the one that has SOME defined sides... and to him that's less crazy than creating a box out of thin air.
No diatribe, good write, carry on.
I like that: "Evolution Theory after all is yet another box... but it is the one that has SOME defined sides... and to him that's less crazy than creating a box out of thin air."
ReplyDeleteTotally. It just really gets under my skin when somebody - anybody - starts dismissing people outright for believing something that can't be conventionally proven. Gets my back up.
In fairness to Dawkins (like he needs it from me), he does distinguish between reasonable deists (using "deists" loosely) vs rabid assholes who just want to stick it to the science man.