I'm having an interesting discussion in the comments of this post. The author is defending a criticism that Richard Dawkins and other atheists (who I've taken to mean Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens) are "incurious" and otherwise unserious about examining religion's root causes before they dismiss it. He's also claimed that they ignore any position effects of religion. I've generally argued that the first claim is incorrect but rather irrelevant, and that the second is just wrong. Along the way I've defended evolutionary psychology and memetics against his derision.
Go see if what I've said makes sense.
3 comments:
Have you read Fahrenheit 451? I'm reading it now. It projects some interesting things on religion. The book doesn't focus on religion nor use it as a strong device, but in the context of the story, the death of religion was concomitant with the death of intellectualism. Or rather, religion was campily and thoroughly commercialized and not really "spiritual" anymore. While the story itself seems more like an intellectual exercise than a prediction of the future, it makes you wonder what it would take to bring down religion.
Another book I just finished, of a far different breed, is World War Z. It's treatment of religion as both a reunifying force, an authoritarian force, and a useless force, is quite interesting. Who knew I liked to read all the sudden?
Just random thoughts.
Haven't read either. I read a lot but rarely fiction, though I just read 1984 which was awesome but tremendously depressing.
I'd recommend 451. I still haven't figured out why it was banned.
If you like zombie/apocolyptic stuff and want a pretty easy read, World War Z is good.
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