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• A reply on Conversation: Why should presuppose that the cause of religious experience must be natural?

  Mar 16 2012: Devin,
  
  For some odd reason it won't let me reply to your response to me (where you lay down the Kalam cosmological argument). What's up with that?
  
  There are lots of issues with the KCA. First, I reject premise 2. There may be "other universes" (I question the semantics when physicists speak of "multiverses") beyond what we call our universe; that which came into existence after the Big Bang. What is beyond "our universe" is unknowable to us, and we don't know if it came into existence or if it has always been here. Second, why is the belief in a creator more plausible than, say, an infinite regress? Third, I'm not certain how you infer from a timeless cause producing a temporal effect that that which did the causing is therefore personal. Fourth, if this creator is timeless, then doesn't that mean it is unchanging (assuming that time is change)? And if it's unchanging, how can it produce a temporal effect? Producing something, after all, implies change. Fifth, I'm not sure I understand your criticism of Hume's view of miracles. Could you rephrase? Lastly, regarding your remark of Haidt excluding a supernatural explanation, let me see if I can provide an example. Recently I watched a video of James Randi about how he exposed Uri Geller. Geller claimed that he could bend spoons and Randi was able to replicate the act himself without paranormal means; e.g., he could produce the same results naturally. Now, as Randi himself stated, this doesn't prove definitively that Geller isn't bending spoons via paranormal means, but since we have no evidence for the paranormal and all of the evidence points towards a natural explanation, is it not more rational to accept the natural justification over the paranormal one? If there was compelling evidence of a supernatural realm and its influence on the natural (would it still be supernatural?), I'm sure Haidt would take such an explanation into account, but as things stand there is no such evidence.

• A reply on Conversation: Why should presuppose that the cause of religious experience must be natural?

  Mar 16 2012: R H,
  
  Your response attacks a misrepresentation of my position(s), and it is therefore irrelevant.
  
  "When did we get so grand that we thought our little selves on this pathetically tiny microdot of a dust ball in an oscure postiion in the universe can see its totality (might I add 'the known universe')?"—Where do I say that we can?
  
  "We've just begun to have confidence in scientific method within the last few hundred years. Yet we're 'there'? We 'get it' now?"—Where do I say that we do?
  
  "We can discount intuition, experience, sensitivity which we have yet to fully explore."—Where do I say that "we can discount intuition, experience, sensitivity"?
  
  "We discount through our self-importance and mutually agreed upon groupthink and prove we are correct to each other."—Argument ad hominem.
  
  "We like to be 'right' so we can destroy our 'opponent' rather than take in humility that which we can offer to each other for the betterment of all."—Argument ad hominem.
  
  "There is no evidence therefore it doesn't exist."—Where did I make this argument?

• A reply on Conversation: Why should presuppose that the cause of religious experience must be natural?

  Mar 16 2012: Nicely put, Simon.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Science is a religion

  Mar 16 2012: Peter,
  
  Why do you think that "evolutionary biologists have faith that these systems are the end result of millions of years of mutation (?) & natural selection"? Multicellular life has evolved in about 60 days,
  
  http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/01/evolution-of-multicellularity/
  
  while fruit flies adapt to their new environments almost overnight:
  
  http://articles.cnn.com/2000-01-28/nature/fruit.flies.enn_1_invasive-species-spread-of-exotic-species-fruitfly?_s=PM:NATURE
  
  Do you still think that evolution is a matter of faith? You also state "If I operate a light switch I have every faith that the light will operate," which is not a matter of faith. Your expectation that the light will turn on when you flip the switch is based on induction, and inductive reasoning is not faith.
  
  "We can't know for sure, so it's a matter of faith" is a false dichotomy. Whether or not it is rational to believe in some belief B is not binary; that is, just because we can't know for sure doesn't mean that we ought to suspend judgement or that B is faith-based—it is a matter of degree. We can have good reason to believe B even if we cannot know B with certainty.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Why should presuppose that the cause of religious experience must be natural?

  Mar 15 2012: Devin,
  
  I don't think Haidt is dismissing the idea that religious experiences are supernaturally caused on a whim; I believe that he has good evidence to reject a supernatural explanation. After all, religious claims are made time and time again, and science eventually debunks them; that is, science shows that said claims have some *natural* cause rather than a supernatural one. Isn't it logical, then, to assume that religious experiences can *also* be explained naturally? Moreover, David Hume's criticism of miracles is applicable here, I believe. What's more probable? That religious experiences are supernatural in nature, which entails a domain of existence that no one has *objectively* confirmed (and we can't assume that it exists in the case of religious experience), or that religious experience, like all of our other experiences, have a natural explanation? There are other problems, too. For instance, person A has revelation X and person B has revelation Y, and X and Y are contradictory. Again, what is the *best explanation* for this phenomenon? That a "cosmic revealer" discloses contradictory messages to some people, or that there is no such revealer and their revelations are the result of natural causes?

• A reply on Conversation: Why should presuppose that the cause of religious experience must be natural?

  Mar 15 2012: Edward,
  
  I fail to see how "Faith, Hope and Love elude scientific explanation." Why do you think so?

• A reply on Conversation: What topics/subjects/concepts do you think should be taught in primary public schools that are not being taught today?

  Mar 15 2012: Allan Bloom has some important things to say about all of this:
  
  "Education in our times must try to find whatever there is in students that might yearn for completion, and to reconstruct the learning that would enable them autonomously to seek that completion."
  
  And again:
  
  "Fathers and mothers have lost the idea that the highest aspiration they might have for their children is for them to be wise... specialized competence and success are all that they can imagine."
  
  But not only fathers and mothers, I would add. All that seems to matter today is the "specialized competence and success." I do not necessarily have a problem with "specialized competence and success" in themselves, but education has lost its way when it pushes the notion that these things are all that matter. Education should also provide what Bloom talks about in the first quote—"to find whatever there is in students that might yearn for completion, and to reconstruct the learning that would enable them autonomously to seek that completion."

• A reply on Conversation: Science is a religion

  Mar 15 2012: Richard,
  
  OK, perhaps I could've been more thorough in my post, but I think my point still stands: there are important distinctions between science and religion, are there not? Does religion have the "rigor" in its methodology that science does? I do not believe so. There are a number of assumptions made in science, but it takes more than the making of assumptions to call something a religion.

• A reply on Conversation: What topics/subjects/concepts do you think should be taught in primary public schools that are not being taught today?

  Mar 15 2012: You're welcome, and thank you for a great topic. We're in agreement that an "in-depth study of the many branches of philosophical nuance would however be (. . .) more appropriate within a college-level framework. I don't think high school students need to spend an entire year studying metaphysics, for instance. What I propose is that three philosophy courses be offered: logic/critical thinking, ethics, and an introductory course (that covers epistemology, metaphysics, ethics and aesthetics). This way they learn a little bit about philosophy and "right thinking," like what is and isn't permissible in argument, how to calculate the implications of any given belief, and how to relate this thinking to other areas of study. Philosophers are having to seek scientific understanding now more than ever—it is wise for metaphysicians to study quantum mechanics; ethicists to be well-read in psychology/sociology; philosophers of mind to be acquainted with neuroscience. Since science has many philosophical underpinnings, I think students should be familiar with philosophy because it will also sharpen their understanding of science. As for your questions, I'm not sure how it is done. I know of two professors at my school who are pushing to get philosophy into high schools (in North Carolina), but they're not really making any progress.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: What is your favourite quote and why?

  Mar 15 2012: I was in high school when I came across my favorite quote; it was on the cover of an English textbook:
  
  To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
  — Lord Alfred Tennyson
  
  I am big on quotes that echo the notion that we ought to always be looking to make progress, always looking to better ourselves and those around us. Even though we often encounter insurmountable obstacles, or what seem to be insurmountable when we are before them, we should approach life with forward intent. This idea is also captured here:
  
  There is death in stagnation. There is life in movement.
  — Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan