Alex's religious beliefs?

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by scomsjw

I don't like the use of that word "smirky". It doesn't seem too appropriate from someone who can't quote Richard Wiseman without snorting derisively and what about all that sniggering on the podcasts about James Randi and the challenge? In comparison "smirking" seems quite affectionate.

Now come on everybody, let's try to keep our discussion on an intellectual plane!

David

[Venom]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

From the Royal College of Psychiatrists website ....


There you go ....

It's an interesting page Open Mind. Thanks for the quote. Do you have the link so I can read the rest of it?

Spirituality, described as “linking the deeply personal with the universal”, is inclusive and unifying. It naturally leads to the recognition that to harm another is to harm oneself, and equally that helping others is to help oneself. It applies to everyone, including those who do not believe in God or a ‘higher being’.

The problem I'll have with that kind of definition is that's it's really, but really vague. What does it really mean?

the recognition that to harm another is to harm oneself

Factually, it's plain wrong. If I stab someone else, I doesn't stab me at the same time (or you need to have a really weird anatomy ). So what does it really mean to say that?

If it's the Golden Rule ("Don't do to someone else something you wouldn't like them to do to you"), well EVERYBODY agree with that rule. It's really basic. So everybody would be spiritual in that sense.

It applies to everyone, including those who do not believe in God or a ‘higher being’

On what ground? I mean they're stating that, but what are their argument for holding that position? I won't be convince just by a statement like that.

If you give me a defnition like: "To be spiritual is to have more peak experiences than the average, independently of your worldview", I would probably agree with a definition like that (and you can have a psychological measure of peak experiences, and put people who are above average in the "spirituality" colomn of your graph). But you must acknowledge that you'll have also a lot of artistic people in it.

Peak experience - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Let's take my definition for the sake of the last argument:

"To be spiritual is to have more peak experiences than the average, independently of your worldview"

Well, I really don't feel like when Alex is talking on his podcast, his using the word "spirituality" in that sense. My impression is that for him, spirituality includes being theist AND a believe in an afterlife. What do you think?

[eyemsougly]

Originally Posted by scomsjw

I don't like the use of that word "smirky".

I think that for guys like PZ Myers and Dawkins the word "smirky" is actually pretty generous.

[Venom]

Originally Posted by eyemsougly

I think that for guys like PZ Myers and Dawkins the word "smirky" is actually pretty generous.

PZ Myers and Dawkins are great. I can read them (or listen to them) for hours. We need more people like that to defend science and rational thinking.

ps: well to be fair my favorite new atheist so far is Sam Harris.

[David Bailey]

Venom,

The best book on Christianity is Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion". The interesting thing is that most of that book is not concerned with "scientific evidence", but the sheer inconsistency and cruelty of Christianity and the bible story. To be fair, I have not read them all - you can easily overdose on books like that.

The paradox is that while all that is true, RD's extension of that to cover all spirituality/Ψ seems far more flaky. The truth is as Craig Hogan said - research into spiritual matters has been hugely suppressed by the Church and probably other religions. After all, the last thing the Church wanted was people doing real research into all the stuff that it claimed as revealed truth! Indeed, you hardly need to do any research to discover that the doctrine was stitched up in a series of conferences such as "First Council of Nicaea", or that important practical doctrines - such as those relating to sex - have been changed repeatedly over the centuries.

The danger now, is that skeptics are trying to suppress that research yet again - not by burning people at the stake but by ridicule and lack of funds. When you scoff at Ψ experiments that seem to have a low S/N ratio, or at the various theories of Ψ, I really think you should be more generous and remember what physical science was like 3 or 4 centuries ago.

David

[eyemsougly]

Dawkins doesn't really care about Psi or understand it. All he cares about is religion and evolution, he just throws in the anti Psi stuff as an add on.

Myers is bonkers and is a feminist. My favorite thing about skeptics is that they tend to be anti-feminist but not Myers.

[eyemsougly]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

The danger now, is that skeptics are trying to suppress that research yet again - not by burning people at the stake but by ridicule and lack of funds.

That's not supression. There have been enough funds for 120 years of Psi research and who cares about what Skeptics scoff at?

[Venom]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

The best book on Christianity is Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion".

Well, I disagree with that. I think that someone like Bob Price write better books debunking christianity than Dawkins book does. I read last month Bob Price "The reason-driven life" and I think it was really great.

Dawkins "The God Delusion" is of course interesting, but he's at his best when he writes about evolution (like "The Ancestor's Tales", wich is amazing).

There's a lot to be said about religion from a scientific point of view. By the way, I did a degree in Psychology of Religion a few years ago (a post-graduat degree of some sort in Belgium). But that wasn't the point of Dawkins's books anyway.

[scomsjw]

Originally Posted by eyemsougly

I think that for guys like PZ Myers and Dawkins the word "smirky" is actually pretty generous.

But the world would be a worse place without them. These guys really get you thinking. They are both gifted writers who enjoy a good argument. I say God bless 'em.

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Venom

Well, I disagree with that. I think that someone like Bob Price write better books debunking christianity than Dawkins book does. I read last month Bob Price "The reason-driven life" and I think it was really great.

I can't really argue this because I have only read Dawkins' book. I prefer to take on Christianity on its own terms - I mean what does the bible say, what have Christians said and done, is there any coherence in their beliefs?

However the important thing is not to equate that mass of inconsistency and cruelty with our main subject here - the many possible manifestations of Ψ.

David