Latter Day Saints and the Tower of Babel

[_huckelberry]

I mention that because I suspect that getting rid of religion and religious leaders may leave people grooming Trump's to give them the promises they lust after.

You mean like the religious right community who supported him early?

yes, exactly.

[_Physics Guy]

Unfortunately, your example doesn't apply to modern fundamentalist phenomena like the Ark Park.

True, it doesn't.

The Ark Park *should* be mocked as an anachronistic antiscientific fantasy.

Yep.

[Guest]

I still think that had mankind not been encouraged for millennia to place more stock in religious faith than in demonstrable reality, the election of people like Trump would have been far less probable.

And if humanity had not been encouraged for millennia to place more stock in carts and horses than in combustion engines, we would have had much higher speed downloads by now.

Had it not been for religiously inspired superstition and fear of real innovation, real progress in science and technology would probably have started sooner and proceeded at a faster pace.

... And it wasn't science that brought us away from that. It was brutal cultures being displaced by slightly less brutal cultures; savage gods displaced by less savage gods.

I strongly disagree with that! Nothing did more than science to reveal the absurdities and injustice of racism, slavery and human brutality. The strongest voices in opposition to ending slavery, racism and witch hunts were based on religion. It was advances in science and technology, more than anything else, that finally made the practice of slavery no longer viable or necessary, for example.

Science pouring scorn on religion is like the kid who now goes to Harvard laughing at his immigrant great-grandparents for polishing boots in the 1930s and speaking terrible English. They put him where he is and he owes them everything. He doesn't have to talk like them now, or live the way they did. But how dare he mock them?

I think that religion started out as primitive mankind's first attempts to understand the world in which they lived, and assuage their fear of the daily terrors and uncertainties they faced. I agree that it would not be fair to disparage or condemn them for that. It was probably an unavoidable and necessary step on the road to the establishment of real science and discovery. Too soon, though, religion devolved into a tool for the powerful and clever to intimidate, control and abuse the less clever, and slow or halt real progress that threatened the status quo and unrighteous dominion that religious leaders wished to impose on others for their own selfish ends. I acknowledge, though, that science and technology can also be used for malicious and selfish ends, and this is something we must constantly be on guard against.

[_ClarkGoble]

It is obvious that some time in the distant pass there had to have been a first human language, and it is certainly possible (though not inevitably so) that all subsequent languages were derived from that original language.

While that's definitely possible I'm not sure it's necessary. Much like say the ability to digest milk language might have evolved independently in a similar way in different communities.

Of course if when language evolved human populations were not dispersed then that's far less likely. The exact time frame and method of evolution seems still a matter of debate. I've not followed the debate for a bit but last I checked it was usually dated to around 100,000 years ago. I think most dating of the initial move out of Africa is usually around 50,000 years later. That suggests a small community in Africa and more likely enough intermixing so as to have a single language. Yet it's still possible that the evolution of the physical aspects necessary to language happened first and then two semi-separated groups evolved psychologically particular language that weren't related. If those other groups then were dominated by an other I'm not sure we'd ever be able to tell if particular languages evolved separately and then merged.

[_Themis]

I think the religious right were slow to come around to Trump and always had reservations (outside of a few prominent Evangelical figures). During the primaries there was a pretty strong correlation between those weakly religious who supported Trump and those very religious (in terms of going to church) who tended to not.

i.e. http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/ ... avor-trump

Once Trump got the nomination then people slowly came over to him for various reasons. Primarily because many saw it as a choice between two evils and trying to pick the least bad choice. But even if the #nevertrump crowd (of which I consider myself part) didn't end up being as large as we might have hoped, there's still a lot of complicated views people have on Trump. My guess is that it wouldn't take too many screwups for many of the religious right to abandon him.

Mormons were slow, but other religious groups seem to have supported him while other very religious right candidates were still very much in the running.

[_Themis]

yes, exactly.

That makes no sense. I don't see most atheists or agnostics supporting Trump, while much of the religious right did, and they have religion and religious leaders guiding them.

[_Gunnar]

yes, exactly.

That makes no sense. I don't see most atheists or agnostics supporting Trump, while much of the religious right did, and they have religion and religious leaders guiding them.

Agreed. I know of no prominent atheists or agnostics who supported Trump.

[_Gunnar]

It is obvious that some time in the distant pass there had to have been a first human language, and it is certainly possible (though not inevitably so) that all subsequent languages were derived from that original language.

While that's definitely possible I'm not sure it's necessary. Much like say the ability to digest milk language might have evolved independently in a similar way in different communities.

Of course if when language evolved human populations were not dispersed then that's far less likely. The exact time frame and method of evolution seems still a matter of debate. I've not followed the debate for a bit but last I checked it was usually dated to around 100,000 years ago. I think most dating of the initial move out of Africa is usually around 50,000 years later. That suggests a small community in Africa and more likely enough intermixing so as to have a single language. Yet it's still possible that the evolution of the physical aspects necessary to language happened first and then two semi-separated groups evolved psychologically particular language that weren't related. If those other groups then were dominated by an other I'm not sure we'd ever be able to tell if particular languages evolved separately and then merged.

I find that quite reasonable, and it doesn't conflict with anything I said.

[_huckelberry]

That makes no sense. I don't see most atheists or agnostics supporting Trump, while much of the religious right did, and they have religion and religious leaders guiding them.

Agreed. I know of no prominent atheists or agnostics who supported Trump.

A group of atheists did not support Trump. Neither did I. But these observation are unrelated to what I said.
I proposed, that over time people train their potential leaders to offer them what they desire. That is what Trump offered. I was looking to a possible future when that group of trainers were a much larger percentage atheist than now. I think they could very well still seek what Trump offers.

I think the same kind of improvements in peoples goals are necessary whether religious or not. I was most certainly not expecting that clasping the faint authority of the religious right would guide us anywhere (except perhaps into a hole).

[_huckelberry]

Science pouring scorn on religion is like the kid who now goes to Harvard laughing at his immigrant great-grandparents for polishing boots in the 1930s and speaking terrible English. They put him where he is and he owes them everything. He doesn't have to talk like them now, or live the way they did. But how dare he mock them?

If you're looking at it in a historical context, as the role of religion in helping science to evolve, I would agree with you. Unfortunately, your example doesn't apply to modern fundamentalist phenomena like the Ark Park. The Ark Park *should* be mocked as an anachronistic antiscientific fantasy.

I enjoyed Physics Guys way of explaining this. Well said

Muksutov, I agree Ark Park deserves rejection. I know of no way to stop it quickly. Perhaps humor would help. Reason clearly has no immediate impact as observed on our message board. I think continued improvement, expansion, of science education will work in the long run.