Guardian "Face to faith"

jimbob

Uncritical "thinker"
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jimbob
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2057074,00.html

Spot the logical errors and strawmen...
For example:

A "religion" is a story we inhabit that makes sense of what would otherwise be nonsense. You don't have to be explicitly "religious" in order to do this (Marxists, Darwinists and Freudians are all in the same game
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Yet why do we assume that a better future will necessarily follow from an increase in scientific knowledge, or that the spread of global capitalism will bring about universal salvation? Is it really true that competition - whether in evolution or economics - is more basic to human nature than, say, cooperation?
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Exactly the sort of self-regarding, woolly flop-doodle you'd expect from someone who wants to be a Crutch of England "priest" (they used to be called "vicars", as I recall. To distinguish them from Papists. Back when they wanted to be distinguished from Papists). If this is the enemy, we've got it made, bro'.

An Oxford man, you'll have noticed. Cromwell and Fairfax should have done a full Drogheda on the place.
 
This part was particularly fun to read -

"In the days of the Roman empire Christians were called atheists because they did not worship the gods of the state. We have come full circle: Christians are once again atheists and heretics because they do not worship the "gods" of today's orthodoxy. Now that atheism is the new "religion", religion is the new "atheism". To be a Christian in such circumstances is to be unconventional and nonconformist: it is to be something of a freethinker, espousing a radical vision of human flourishing that shows us how we can be more than what we are, rather than reducing us to less than what we should be."
 
Wheezebucket said:
This part was particularly fun to read ...
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What adds to the pleasure is the knowledge that he's been building his tower of babble to reach this point. Technically known as the "peroration". You just have to scan it to know "Oxford man". (Greek rhetoricians have less impact in Cambridge and London.) Also good for nothing but the CoE since it's such a crap example of the genre.
 
All the replies on the website, except one, agree that this is woolly-headed piffle.

What a load of malecow defecant.

:jaw-dropp
 
This nonconformism thing really is a scream.

I reiterate:

Two billion Christians in the world. Christianity, therefore, is not really nonconformity. Sorry.
 
jimbob said:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2057074,00.html

Spot the logical errors and strawmen...

Yet why do we assume that a better future will necessarily follow from an increase in scientific knowledge, or that the spread of global capitalism will bring about universal salvation? Is it really true that competition - whether in evolution or economics - is more basic to human nature than, say, cooperation?
For example:
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Yes, compotition is more basic than cooperation. True altruism does not exist.
 
ReligionStudent said:
Yes, compotition is more basic than cooperation. True altruism does not exist.
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Actually, co-operation is pretty much the entire reason for humans eventually turning so successful that we're one of the few species that covers the entire planet. Can't get much more basic than that.

Whether true altruism exist, it's hard to say. But true co-operation does exist, and you find it just about everywhere in nature as well. Most obvious example are all the ones where the biological parent of a child/chick/fledgling/etc. will feed it and keep it safe from harm until it's capable of being on its own.
 
Hawk one said:
Actually, co-operation is pretty much the entire reason for humans eventually turning so successful that we're one of the few species that covers the entire planet. Can't get much more basic than that.

Whether true altruism exist, it's hard to say. But true co-operation does exist, and you find it just about everywhere in nature as well. Most obvious example are all the ones where the biological parent of a child/chick/fledgling/etc. will feed it and keep it safe from harm until it's capable of being on its own.
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Yes, but cooperation that does take place is part of competition, basically cooperation seeks to make it better for one's own genetic legacy, so I would say competition is certainly more natural to humans.
 
ReligionStudent said:
Yes, compotition is more basic than cooperation. True altruism does not exist.
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I'm going to disagree because I think that statement is a bit mammal, and more specifically human centric. Many humans who have not reproduced have given thier lives in times of war or emergency to save fellow humans and other mammal species like cats and dogs have done things that if not exhibit altruism border on it (a mother saving her offspring for an example of the latter), but when you look at certain swarming insect species they clearly exhibit a form of altruism.

Obviously a bee drone with a brain the size of a pinhead doesn't think about defending the hive being an act of self-sacrifice, but it's just what it does. But humans, because of a billion+ year legacy of altruistic or borderline altruistic (mothers {and fathers} sacrificing themselves so their young may survive) actions as well as instincts inherited by our common ancestors with insects which had social groupings like we have are a perfectly naturalistic way of explaining altruistic behavior in humans.

I myself take exception with Dawkins idea of a Selfish Gene in this particular area. As I observe the biological world, many species are individually genecentric to coin a phrase, but many others are speciescentric and exhibit behaviors where collective survival is as important as the survival of any particular individual.

Some people might take offence to any suggestion that humans and cockroaches or bees might share behavioral characteristics, but when I look at the overwhelming evidence of common ancestry, it weaves a beautiful tapestry of life that I am proud to be a string of.
 
What is the relationship between a better future from scientific knowledge, the spread of capitalism bringing salvation, and competition being more basic to human nature than cooperation?

These sound like three completely distinct claims to me, and one could well believe the first without believing the other two.
 
UnrepentantSinner said:
I'm going to disagree because I think that statement is a bit mammal, and more specifically human centric. Many humans who have not reproduced have given thier lives in times of war or emergency to save fellow humans and other mammal species like cats and dogs have done things that if not exhibit altruism border on it (a mother saving her offspring for an example of the latter), but when you look at certain swarming insect species they clearly exhibit a form of altruism.

Obviously a bee drone with a brain the size of a pinhead doesn't think about defending the hive being an act of self-sacrifice, but it's just what it does. But humans, because of a billion+ year legacy of altruistic or borderline altruistic (mothers {and fathers} sacrificing themselves so their young may survive) actions as well as instincts inherited by our common ancestors with insects which had social groupings like we have are a perfectly naturalistic way of explaining altruistic behavior in humans.

I myself take exception with Dawkins idea of a Selfish Gene in this particular area. As I observe the biological world, many species are individually genecentric to coin a phrase, but many others are speciescentric and exhibit behaviors where collective survival is as important as the survival of any particular individual.

Some people might take offence to any suggestion that humans and cockroaches or bees might share behavioral characteristics, but when I look at the overwhelming evidence of common ancestry, it weaves a beautiful tapestry of life that I am proud to be a string of.
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Bees support the hive, since it and the queen are their only means of genetic survival. The same is true of many hives, etc. Especially since those within the hive all have an extremely high rate of genetic similarity, thus at the very least atributable to kin selection. This is not true, unconcerned for the life of self (or more accuratly the survival of one's self to pass on genes), altruism.

As for parent sacrificing for child == Trivers' kinship altruism, which I do not dispute, but which is a way to ensure the survival of genes, not true altruism

Additionally, theories concerning those who go to war or rescue others are likely part of social instincts, likely inherited from periods where these behaviors would have been necessary fo the survival of the group. It is important to remember that early homo likely developed in small groups based on kin. Survival of the group would have been a necessity for genetic success. As for cats, dogs, etc these have been integral parts of human groups for millenia, helping them to succeed and have. They been bread to present the equivalent of infant/young child attraction to humans. One can also possit that the increased attractivness of one able put his or her life on the line for an animal and succeed adds to his or her attractability as a mate, by both displaying strength and fitness and ability to parent.

I don't believe there is a clearly defined example of species centric. There may be examples of group centric behavior, but these would still be to the individuals benefit more than detriment.

If altruism or species selection were to be present in a given species, it would only take one selfesh individual to ruin it and outbreed/outsurvive the altruistic individuals.

Aditionally, saying that humans have common ancestors with bees/roaches etc, does not offend me. But it seems to create questionable support. Bees can fly humans cannot, but we have a concestor at some point. Even if this concestor had bee's hive mentality there is no reason to presume that it would have passed on to us through other mammals, such as catarine ancestors of modern homo. additionaly, if such behavior were to give humans some survivable advantage, and thus be more likely to have survived, its equaly likely to have re-evolved seperatly as a convergant evolution. Perhaps more likely when one looks at the many intervening types of mammals etc beteen humans and insects which do not have hive behavior or the countless insects without hive behavior which could just as likely have a more recent concestor with humans than bees do.
 
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Bees can fly humans cannot, but we have a concestor at some point.
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Right - which was neither bee nor human so comparing bee and human characteristics misses the point.
 
cyborg said:
Right - which was neither bee nor human so comparing bee and human characteristics misses the point.
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My point was just because there was a concestor, it does not mean one can say "well bees have this behavior" so humans must too. Even with some relaitionship, it does not lead to any valid comparisons, except for things we know for sure about the concestor (probably carbon based)
 
I don't think that was the argument - it was more a case of not arguing that humans cannot behave in a similar way to bees just because some people may have a problem with any argument that makes humans less removed from the rest of biology.

As far as I can see any social construct needs to apply certain rules in order to function. As such I would not argue common ancestry but parallel evolution.
 
cyborg said:
I don't think that was the argument - it was more a case of not arguing that humans cannot behave in a similar way to bees just because some people may have a problem with any argument that makes humans less removed from the rest of biology.

As far as I can see any social construct needs to apply certain rules in order to function. As such I would not argue common ancestry but parallel evolution.
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Arguing parallel evolution between bees and humans is problematic, as one lives in a collony, and only the queen and a few males (who are gaurded inside the hive) reproduce. The others, those who "altruisticly" will give their lives cannot reproduce, and thus ensure their genetic survival by defending the queen and the males, who do not defend the hive till death.

Humans each (generally) have chances to reproduce. There is no reason to see parallel evolution between these two.

Additionally, UnrepentantSinner said
overwhelming evidence of common ancestry]
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and I appologize for missinterprating this. But I stand by the idea that the presence of behavior in one species is not evidence of it in another, even with the possibility of parallel evolution.
 
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