TED Community » Jack Danger Canty

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Feminism, Theology, and learning from people who disagree with me.

An idea worth spreading

The Silent Voices Bible (http://silentvoicesbible.com) is a bible with the genders of all characters and pronouns swapped. It's an illustration of the inherent patriarchy in foundational western literature as well as a tool to help Christian women read their inherited religious stories in a way that explicitly supports their gender.

Talk to me about

Feminism, Javascript, CrossFit, Robotics, Seattle, or burritos.

People don't know that I'm good at

Making phenomenal French omelettes. It's just two beaten eggs in a well-buttered pan on high heat, shaken around until the eggs have just barely congealed. Try it out.

My TED Story

During nearly every TED talk I watch I cry at the end. I can't seem to stay away from this place because it's so informative, so moving, and so damn hopeful.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +0.90 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A reply on Conversation: Has religion outlived it's usefulness?

  Feb 28 2011: Birdia, I appreciate your contrast of philosophy and science, I see them fulfilling complementary roles as well.
  
  I'm curious how you'd describe the difference between religion and philosophy. Particularly when they creep close together like with Pythagorus or Plato. Is it just belief in a theistic being that separates them, or is it something more?

• A reply on Conversation: Has religion outlived it's usefulness?

  Feb 28 2011: This is in reply to "daniel hehir" above (the reply system is broken, no?):
  
  Daniel: thank you for sharing that experience. Please know that I have no desire to minimize the power that that had in your life. I believe you had that experience and I'm glad for it.
  
  But when people who claim to be clairvoyant are tested they are, as a rule, found to be frauds. Otherwise the Pentagon would have found a way to weaponize such talents (the economic argument: http://xkcd.com/808/)
  
  "I had a profound mystical experience that affected me" isn't a problem. But systematizing it is. The benefit of religion is limited to personal growth, only science can provide us with facts that are equally true for each of us.
  
  What would you think of a large social movement that tried to rely on clairvoyance for determining important matters like who should be elected to Congress and how income should be distributed?

• A comment on Conversation: Is there a realistic approach to provide a "comfortable" way of life to every human being on the word? Can the Earth support it?

  Feb 27 2011: Most of the comments seem to be discussing maximum population and food production. I think your actual question is more interesting: can we sustain a moderate level of comfort for everyone?
  
  There's currently enough food produced in the world to feed everyone, the problem is distribution. Enough produce is thrown away in American supermarkets to feed great quantities of hungry people.
  
  But can we construct social, legal, and architectural system to provide comfort to everyone? That's tricker. To spur some conversation, I'll outline a first draft of what I'd say 'comfort' should look like:
  
  - access to clean water
  - reliable source of (a minimum amount of) food
  - architecture to protect people from the hazards of their environment (e.g. air conditioning in Texas, insulation in Siberia)
  - reliable legal rights, especially property rights and the protection of women
  
  Most of the discussion so far is about the first two points. I think most of our work is in the last one. Even were there to be massive food surpluses (as there are every few years) there is no comfort to be had if a population of women fear for their safety or if citizens cannot rely on a court system to enforce equal protection.

• A reply on Conversation: Has religion outlived it's usefulness?

  Feb 27 2011: Daniel, I think there's a big difference between senses of smell and clairvoyance. Namely: testability.
  
  If you have someone who claims to have a good sense of smell you can blindfold them and hold items under their nose, asking them to identify each. This is a loose application of science and it's a good way to measure the validity of the person's claim.
  
  If you have someone who claims to be clairvoyant you can apply the same sort of test. The reason many people don't believe in clairvoyance isn't because they have their allegiance with science. It's because clairvoyance always fails under scrutiny, revealing itself to be false.
  
  Which is not so say that non-observable phenomena should all be chalked up to brain malfunction. But anything that cannot be measured should not be relied upon as if it were a usable fact.
  
  I doubt you'd pay real money for a computer that was built using mathematical rules devised by clairvoyant people. You'd be pretty certain the thing wouldn't work.

• A reply on Conversation: Has religion outlived it's usefulness?

  Feb 27 2011: Don, I appreciate the illustration that horrors have come both from religious and fiercely atheist regimes. That's worth contemplating.
  
  I disagree with your claim that religion is belief in the supernatural. That's a common element of religion but it's by no means required. Many modern Jews practice the Jewish religion while having no supernatural beliefs.
  
  Religion is a means of tying together cultural values into a form of tradition and narrative. I consider myself a practicing Christian even though I've long since left behind any concept of the supernatural. I do it because I come from a Christian background and I've found the narratives of redemption and forgiveness (in all their varied manifestations) to be quite moving. I apply those themes to my own life whenever possible.
  
  If you're interested, Karen Armstrong's book The Case for God is a lovely study of religious history that depicts literal belief in the supernatural to be a deviance from healthy religion.

• A reply on Conversation: Has religion outlived it's usefulness?

  Feb 27 2011: Kathy, I appreciate how, in your last line, you discuss the reverence people have for their holy text. I think that's something that the modern atheist movement should take more note of: people actually care about the text and feel connected to it.
  
  Your claim that the bible withstands scrutiny is in need of massive clarification. It continues to be a source of meaning and connection for billions of people, yes. But there are large religious movements that treat the bible as some kind of encyclopedia in which one can look up facts about God. And that's a problem.
  
  I think what Tim Colgan and Richard Dawkins are trying to point out is the great horror that comes when we take a text that has a rich narrative tradition but is not factually reliable and use it as a replacement for the rigorous application of science.
  
  I'm sure you can understand the fear some people have if a president of the United States believed that dinosaurs walked the earth seven thousand years ago and that Jesus was coming back "any minute now." Somebody who has the launch codes to our nuclear arsenal cannot be permitted to believe that those are facts. It could mean the death of us all.
• +3

  A comment on Conversation: Can people who deny science be educated? How?

  Feb 26 2011: There's a wonderful line at the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade:
  
  "Archaeology is the search for fact...not truth. If it's truth you're interested in, Philosophy class is right down the hall"
  
  I think this distinction is powerful. When your students think that science is attempting to take away from them their understanding of the *meaning* of the world, then they will resist it. But if they understand that the goal of science is narrowly limited to exploring the reliability of facts then they may be able to properly partition those concepts in their head.
  
  This is how professional religious academics maintain their personal faith. They understand that their work is an exploration of historical fact but their religious practice is an exploration of meaning. This skill helps them freely uncover facts that would otherwise ruin their personal spirituality.
• +3

  A reply on Conversation: Has religion outlived it's usefulness?

  Feb 26 2011: @Tim: the trick about your question is the word "rely."
  
  To rely on dogma when evaluating facts is a recipe for disaster. But relying on rationalism when trying to create meaning in one's life is fruitless.
  
  I'd suggest rewording it:
  "How do we convince others to rely on rational thought for discovering reliable facts?"
  And:
  "How do we convince others to use the power of myth and storytelling to give their lives meaning without disregarding these tools just because they are not rational?"
• +2

  A comment on Conversation: Has religion outlived it's usefulness?

  Feb 26 2011: Tim, if by 'religion' you mean 'theism', then I'd say yes. But I believe that religion, in the general sense, is one of our most potent tools to solving the world's problems.
  
  Consider this definition of theology: "A lens that combines a person's or group's set of values into a single narrative."
  
  Dawkins attacks a straw man, singling out a specific type of narrative that causes destruction. Specifically, he points to religious traditions that conflate truth and myth and are unable to distinguish between story and fact.
  
  Here are some excellent examples of how religion, as crafted by humans, has enabled people to transcend their normal limitations and do good:
  - Evangelical Christians in Britain were the singular force pushing for the abolition of English slavery.
  - various Christian groups in America specifically crafted an abolitionist theology to oppose the pro-slavery theology of the American South. That battle was not rationalism vs religion but a struggle between two religious narratives with very different values on human life.
  - Immigrant groups, from all cultures, use the skills of creating religious narrative to retain personal and corporate relational ties when they find themselves isolated within a new foreign culture.
  - Food moralism in the modern progressive movement is a form of religion (though it hates to think of itself as such). It places moral values on eating various foods based on the sustainability and perceived cleanliness of those foods.
  
  So is it obsolete? No. It just requires that good and intelligent people commit themselves to keeping the narratives of their culture on track. If we abstain from religion entirely then the fools among us will hold a monopoly on moral language. It's our job to weave our values into a single story that can be understood by many and do good for all.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: How would you describe the purpose of life in one sentence?

  Feb 26 2011: I'd say it's to choose a purpose in life. For one's life to be meaningful one must take full responsibility for it - including deciding on what direction to go.