The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins

[Forkbender]

And I have to disagree with those who think he is trying to replace a dogma for another. I think that's misinterpretation of his work: he is fighting against the major dogmas of our times and his style reflects just that, an attack similar to those we have been victims of, by religions and others. If you think he is dogmatic, try reading the God Delusion :lol:

I did read the God Delusion and I was thoroughly disappointed in his flaky representation of religion. He misrepresents religion and then proves that this misrepresentation is delusion. How's that helping anyone?

Anti-dogmatism always introduces the dogma of having no dogma.

Well, I have to say he really is one of my favourite authors, and the proposal he does in the Selfish Gene is now considered science. Evolution DOES operate at the gene level. Also on the species and groups levels. That is what is accepted when talking of theory of evolution.

But it is strange that he says that our genes somehow know what is best for us (and therefore for the procreation of the genes), while at the same time we can rebel against this ingeneous tyranny (read the last sentence of the book). This implies that we, humans, are somehow different than all other animals in our ability to control nature and its laws. It is a quite Christian idea, I might add.

Also, interpreting memes as natural selection of ideas has been used by a wide variety of authors and is considered not only a thought exercise but a valid idea.

I still don't understand why Dawkins would fight against one of the biggest memes of them all, religion.

 

[????????]

I still don't understand why Dawkins would fight against one of the biggest memes of them all, religion.

you don't understand why someone would fight religion? i don't understand why you say this. why do you say this?

 

[restin]

????????, I didn't read any books by him but some of his articles. He is not fighting against the church but against belief in general, even agnostics. He says, that atheism is THE ultimate solution to the God Question. He tries to rip down every inch of religion - from what I read - and therefore creates the Dogma of Atheism. He does not want to, but by going into the extreme of Atheism, he does. Not that I am in any way against atheism, but as long as Atheists consider themselves as children of Reason and Enlightenment (era) they need to understand, what the Main thing, this Era showed us was: tolerance, open-mindness, which he is preaching against.

 

[Forkbender]

I still don't understand why Dawkins would fight against one of the biggest memes of them all, religion.

you don't understand why someone would fight religion? i don't understand why you say this. why do you say this?

I don't understand why he, specifically, would fight (a simplified version of) religion. Whatever you give attention will grow. Dawkins obviously doesn't like religion, so why is he giving it fuel? People who agree with Dawkins will stick to what they believe and people who don't will probably believe even stronger? Why would you want to proseletize, when you say that proseletizing is the worst thing in religion? Dawkins is making the exact same mistakes as what he thinks are the flaws of religion by fighting it. I think the guy, reaching his pension, should f*cking grow up and seek a more reasonable way to spend his time.

 

[Ahuaeynjxs]

The illuminati have fought religion since forever

 

[Brugmansia]

People who agree with Dawkins will stick to what they believe and people who don't will probably believe even stronger?

Carlos Castaneda was a notorious liar on purpose during some crucial episodes. Which he had written by picking sentences and combined scenario's so, that the human mind has difficulty with it to keep it's rational orientated balance and choice.

His writings tend to melt very easily into the minds of his readers. He was a good guy, although his books may have made some victims who didn't understand the training motive.

He primairly did it that way to train his audience for becoming invulnerable for facades, and life has a lot of these with control as the motive of the founder, architect or creator.

Facades are set up by many to get other individuals under their control by pushing them into certain directions without their notice, a direction choosed by primairly the mind of the author. The reader may believe that he's rewarding himself by finishing the book.

I don't admire a prick like Dawkins, but at least I want to read his book because he has programmed very strong. Like you said, every convinced mind through this book loses a lot of it's general orientation resulting in the known tunnel path and it's long lasting, if not eternal.

Especially because Dawkins' reading audience believes that they have gotten themselve into some privileged high intelligent disclosure which transcends them from what the main audience knows and believes.

In fact, another new dagger.

 

[Ahuaeynjxs]

Interesting parallels ! :lol:

aranoid:

 

[????????]

mmm. i know what you are talking about, i've seen it in atheist blogs and it becomes a rather childish game of us vs them. well, i just haven't had that vibe from him. i perceive him as a guy who grew up as a lot of us do, with the unasked hat of religion in our heads, and he started pondering stuff and thinking about what it means to think we have a magical creator with whom we can chat telepathically at will. reading him made me remember my teen self, when i too tried to think rationally about fantastical beings and other magical phenomena. the bottom line i got from his book was that there are alternatives to this and that removing the father god idea from the throne does not make a boring or implausible universe.

i agree people won't change their believes easily but i am sure some doubtful kid somewhere is going to read the book and know that it makes sense to not believe in gods if you don't want to. of course if you want to it'd also make sense... but the point is whatever your metaphysical believes are they should not harm your fellow man. anyway, i like there's a guy like him out there. if he's guilty of something maybe it'd be that he's a little too proud of being an atheist but then again that's why reading him is interesting. i still think the image of him as an "atheist soldier" is not self imposed, he just gets in that place because his arguments are appealing, make sense and he has remarkable rhetorical skills.

brugs - yes, is interesting to read such a person. the book about genes is basically about how considering that evolution acts at the gene level is interesting and what conclusions and ideas can be derived from thinking that way. also, the metaphors he uses to explain how genes get shuffled and arranged when a new person is assembled are very useful. it certainly made me understand the topic a bit more. have you gotten to the part where he introduces the evolutionarily stable strategies (ESS)? it would be nice if people played tit-for-tat in their relationships with one another...

 

[????????]

Fork watch this:

 

[Brugmansia]

I haven't started with it yet, but I probably will. I'll definitely give it a chance although I'll make sure that I just pick up the content of the book. I'll add it to my memory as knowledge but won't make a believe out of it. The author himself is not someone who comes to my mind as someone with crystal clear motives.

 

[Forkbender]

To me Dawkins is a mindnumbed version of Krishnamurti:

The hypothetical doubtful teen who is looking for something that makes sense doesn't need Dawkins, he need to convince himself of what truth is.

His arguments are not that strong IMHO, because he misrepresents religion, reduces it to something onedimensional. He takes everything too literal, just like a lot of believers out there, instead of learning from the wisdom embedded in some of these ancient texts. Monotheism isn't a bearded man on a cloud, it is much more than that. By reducing religion to a charicature, he is himself reduced to a charicature of someone that has a critical perspective. Dawkins is no real critic of religion, like he claims to be, he fights stupidity and taking things for granted, but this happens in (the practice of) science as well as in religion, it is a common human trait. Projecting all of this on religion is quite ignorant, to say the least.

 

[Forkbender]

Interesting article by John Gray on fanatical atheism.

 

[????????]

well yes, perhaps he is blaming religion of too much, missing the bigger point of human nature. we should ask him if he thinks a world somehow deprived of religion would be "a better world".

haha this episode is so relevant to this thread:

http://www.southparkzone.com/episodes/1 ... d-Go!.html

i didn't see the krishnamurti vids because i'm on my father's laptop and i get weak audio.

 

[????????]

i wonder what Dawkins thinks about the experiences triggered by psychedelics.

what would be the "better future" for religion? i'd like at least that the initiation rites a la Eleusis would make a comeback.

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

Yes, that's a great South Park episode. "Our science is better!!"

what would be the "better future" for religion? i'd like at least that the initiation rites a la Eleusis would make a comeback.

I'm not looking forward to a revival of anything. The future for religion is no religion (belief in a supernatural being, groupthink, blind following).

 

[Forkbender]

^Religion is not that. It gets equated with that, but it is not that. You know that religion means "joining together" (with the universe/God/etc.). It is direct spiritual experience, not rules and dogma. The future of religion is religion rid of superstition and critical thinking.

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

It is direct spiritual experience

I know that ethymologically it's correct to describe that as religion (same meaning as yoga), but in modern usage direct spiritual experience free from dogmas is more unambiguously described as mysticism I think.

"The term 'mysticism' is used to refer to beliefs and practices which go beyond the liturgical and devotional forms of worship of mainstream faith, often by seeking out inner or esoteric meanings of conventional religious doctrine." (wiki)

The future role of mysticism as a unifier of science and spirituality is illlustrated by this paragraph:

"The pursuit of knowledge in the realm of physics has been accepted for much of history as inseparable from understanding the mind of God - including the 20th c. comment by Albert Einstein that "God does not play dice," referring to the unfathomable discoveries of quantum physics. The rift between mysticism and the modern sciences derives mainly from elements of scientism in the latter: certain branches of the natural sciences, broadly disavow subjective experience as meaningless, misunderstanding the limitations of the ancient languages. That said, several areas of study in biology (work of Mae Wan Ho and Lynn Margulis are two examples) and philosophy address the same issues that concern the mystic, and modern physicists now struggle to understand a multiple dimensional reality that mystics' have attempted to describe for millennia. Physicist David Bohm speaking of consciousness expressing itself as matter and/or energy would be completely understood by the mystic, whatever his cultural/religious heritage."

 

[????????]

I'm not looking forward to a revival of anything. The future for religion is no religion (belief in a supernatural being, groupthink, blind following).

you know, it's not going to just disappear. it'll morph and become a new paradigm. and some form of revival is needed.

religion + science + mysticism + initiation ritual + earth consciousness = PROFIT!

yeah, i know i'm daydreaming...

 

[Ahuaeynjxs]

Earth consciousness hardly fits in the equation... you rather mean who maybe the earth thinks it is interpreted by people who have the rest of the equation in mind

 

[????????]

wut? i mean people having a global consciousness, as in a global religion (i'm still daydreaming i know...)