Dawkins on Mormonism

[_Mercury]

Dawkins is a great intellect, and a great speaker, and I've come to agree with him in just about everything I hear him say.

Balderdash. Dawkins is a great intellect within one tiny niche of human understanding.

Yes, that tiny niche that all the other niches look to, Science.

And he is a great intellect within Science. Your discounting of him is tawdry and extremely inaccurate.

[_Mercury]

Dbl Post

[_Mary]

In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins cites an article by Paul Bell in Mensa Magazine, containing a meta-analysis of studies relating to the connection between religiosity and intelligence. Analyzing 43 studies, Bell found that all but four reported such a connection, and he concluded that "the higher one's intelligence or education level, the less one is likely to be religious or hold 'beliefs' of any kind."

Hmmm. I'm not sure of that... I also read a book a long while back that claimed that there was a link between intelligence and race.

Has anyone questioned Bell's methodology or statistics?

Mary

The hypothesis of an inverse association between education and religiosity has, IMHO, much greater ex ante validity than one asserting an inverse relationship between race and intelligence. Very broadly, one who has been trained in rational, critical thought is probably more likely, all else equal, to view religious (e.g., magical) claims with greater skepticism than one who has not received such training. It's by no means 1-1 in either case, but very generally, this strikes me as a reasonable hypothesis.

Yes. I agree, it does seem a reasonable hypothesis, (I can't totally disagree with it, since my skeptism around the LDS church reached its apex, I suppose whilst studying at university. My attendance at uni was later than most at ages 24-28).

Just thinking of many of the Islamic terrorists for instance. Atta was well educated, as were the recent group of Dr's who tried to bomb our airports...and in terms of 'beliefs', I'd like to know just what Bell meant. Did he include agnosticism? My husband (and son) is very much of the scientific bent, but he does entertain the possibility that he doesn't know all there is to know, and that there might be existence beyond this life... How would Bell have categorised him....?

As I remember the association between race and intelligence was later questioned because of the nature of the IQ tests themselves which tended to favour our own culture. Which makes sense, since it is the Westerners that developed the tests in the first place. I suppose it depends on how one defines intelligence, but if I were marooned on a desert island I'd rather have a practical companion that can survive in the environment, than someone who was book learned!!!

Mary

[_Tarski]

Perhaps he and we should then not pontificate on cereology or the study of the social life of fairies. We aren't experts in that!
LOL!

How much practice did it take to be able to articulate an utter irrelevancy of this kind within the context of a serious discussion? Do they hand out degrees in this kind of thing somewhere?
?

I am quite serious and I apparently you do not have the intelligence to get the point.

Let me spell it out. The silliness of fairies helps to make the point. See how that works? I have to choose something like that because it is hard to find unscientific things that people like you might not actually believe in!

Fairy experts are to fairies what theologians are to gods. (I'd rather listen to Dawkin's on the nature of fairies)
Doyle fancied himself such an expert: http://www.thefairyfaith.com/fairydoyle01.html

Cereologists are to alien crop circle origins as theologians are to gods (I'd rather listen to Dawkin's on the origin of crop circles too)

The idea that Dawkin's has to be declared incompetent to pontificate about God because he hasn't immersed himself in the arcane, fanciful metaphysical and religious fantasies of theologians is absurd.

You may as well say that a mainstream evolutionary biologist is incompetent to judge creationism because he didn't read his Bible enough.
Oops, but you probably believe in creationism. I bet you even think that lawyer has something important to say on it. What's his name? Phillip Johnson?? LOL

[_Mary]

Richard Dawkins, also did a set of programs over here on the God Gene. He looked at various brain based theories of spirituality and looked into the idea that some people are more likely to feel religious experience than others, simply because of the way their brain is wired. (I don't remember him looking into the effect of nurture on this, though it would be reasonable to assume that like any other form of development, the relationship between spirituality, nature and nurture is complex).

Anyways, he put himself under the hammer, and came out experiencing very little. Apparantly his brain just isn't wired for religious experience, for whatever reason, and through whatever cause. No surprise then that he tends towards atheism.

http://richarddawkins.net/article,361,T ... r-Magazine

This was the best link I could find.

Mary

[_barrelomonkeys]

Richard Dawkins, also did a set of programs over here on the God Gene. He looked at various brain based theories of spirituality and looked into the idea that some people are more likely to feel religious experience than others, simply because of the way their brain is wired. (I don't remember him looking into the effect of nurture on this, though it would be reasonable to assume that like any other form of development, the relationship between spirituality, nature and nurture is complex).

Anyways, he put himself under the hammer, and came out experiencing very little. Apparantly his brain just isn't wired for religious experience, for whatever reason, and through whatever cause. No surprise then that he tends towards atheism.

http://richarddawkins.net/article,361,T ... r-Magazine

This was the best link I could find.

Mary

Miss Taken, I've been reading about the God Gene. Thanks for that link. I thought this was interesting:

Intriguingly, Newberg has found some overlap between the neural activity of self-transcendence and of sexual pleasure. This result makes sense, Newberg says. Just as orgasms are triggered by a rhythmic activity, so religious experiences can be induced by dancing, chanting, or repeating a mantra. And both orgasms and religious experiences produce sensations of bliss, self-transcendence, and unity; that may be why mystics such as Saint Teresa so often employed romantic and even sexual language to describe their raptures.
The overlap between rapture and orgasm isn't total. The hypothalamus, which regulates both arousal and quiescence, seems to play a larger role in orgasms, while the brain's frontal lobes, the seat of higher cognitive functions, are apparently more active during spiritual practices. Nevertheless, Newberg concludes, an "evolutionary perspective suggests that the neurobiology of mystical experience arose, at least in part, from the mechanism of the sexual response."

[_Tarski]

Dawkins is a great intellect, and a great speaker, and I've come to agree with him in just about everything I hear him say.

Balderdash. Dawkins is a great intellect within one tiny niche of human understanding. Outside of this, he need be taken no more seriously than anyone else. Indeed, Dawkins has no more credibility pontificating on theological subjects or Mormonism specifically than Larry Flynt has discoursing or moral philosophy.

I answered you above but I will let Dawkins answer this very complaint here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGmALkvcG2M

ITS REALLY GOOD AND FUNNY!

[_ktallamigo]

Would Dawkin’s (and other critic’s) qualms disappear if the Book of Mormon was written solely in 19th Century Upstate New Yorkian dialect?
For some reason, I think that would provide additional fodder for the "frontier fiction" crowd.

I can't imagine that critics qualms would 'disappear', but I - for one - would find it more credible. (To some degree)
I think the fact that the Book of Mormon is written in essentially King James Bible 'English' was one of the first things that struck me as 'odd' about it - as I was starting my 'descent'. (Or my 'ascention' - depending on your point of view!). It was probably the second in fact.
...I think the first thing was all the essentially 'New Testament' stuff going on 100's of years before Christ was born...

EDIT: In the full Q&A clip, Dawkins clarifies some of his opinions on his 'religious child abuse' views. I'm glad he did - their not quite as extreme as I thought they were.

May I just interject here (off-thread) that, as you know, Solomon Spaulding wrote his book "Manuscript Found" in King James Bible English to make it sound more "ancient".

[_Some Schmo]

Perhaps he and we should then not pontificate on cereology or the study of the social life of fairies. We aren't experts in that!
LOL!

How much practice did it take to be able to articulate an utter irrelevancy of this kind within the context of a serious discussion? Do they hand out degrees in this kind of thing somewhere?
?

I am quite serious and I apparently you do not have the intelligence to get the point.

Let me spell it out. The silliness of fairies helps to make the point. See how that works? I have to choose something like that because it is hard to find unscientific things that people like you might not actually believe in!

LMAO

So funny how the religious mind can be such a fertile garden for supernatural fantasy.

[_Dr. Shades]

Fairy experts are to fairies what theologians are to gods.

SO TRUE!!

I find it fascinating that there can be an entire academic discipline devoted to a topic for which there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever.