Dawkins-Inspired Discussion from YouTube

[libertylover76]

Hi, again.

Initiating another thread to carry on discussion begun at YouTube. This discussion was started in the comments to the excellent video of Richard Dawkins taking questions in response to his reading of The God Delusion at Randolf-Macon Women's College in Lynchburgh, VA. The title of the video is Dawkins in Lynchburg VA (part 2) The God Delusion (I'm not allowed to post links, yet.) I highly recommed both parts 1 & 2.

I've invited someone called spid3rboy to come and play here, since this forum is not dedicated to any particular religious view. I consider it neutral territory, and hope I won't get the boot (like I did at christianity dot com) just because I express views that religion is superstition.

Our discussion seemed to be getting into the question about the limits of science and if evolution has led us to our appreciation of sunsets.

spid3rboy wrote:

following his logic, the loss of life in the tragedy with Hurricane Katrina would be one that would amount to a 'huge cosmic boot smashing an ant hill.' A disaster such as this would have to be taken, by an athiest, as part of the physical world, unavoidable and inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. So why do we grieve so? There are too many scenarios that fall outside the realm of hard science that it cannot answer.

I replied:

spid3rboy,
You're not following the logic at all. Try again. How many scenarios are "too many?" Hard science does not tell us what is morally right or wrong, nor is it intended to. It might explain how we _decide_ what is right and wrong, but even with the knowledge, we must decide for ourselves. Even though I'm pretty aware of the scientific explanations for why a sunset looks the way it does, and why I react to it the way I do, I still enjoy it. No religious dogma can take that away from me.

and spid3rboy responded thusly:

liberty,I'm not trying to take it from you,but why do
you enjoy it?From what we know there is no evidence a monkey/dolphin stops to ponder the beauty of a rain forest/ocean.What in Darwinism would necessitate that in the next step,humans?Back to Katrina,Dawkins would say people that had relatives/friends could grieve because of self-preservation of clan.But we without connection should logically be able to detach ourselves and say humans will reproduce,the world goes on, that's not true.

Nothing in Darwinian evolution would necessitate that humans have the capacity to appreciate sunsets. No one who understands how evolution works would claim that Darwinian evolution necessitates anything at all. The use of Darwinian evolution is to explain how complex life arose from less complex life. It doesn’t compel any particular path into the future.

Why do I enjoy a sunset? I have no idea. If I understood neurobiology I could explain which parts of my brain are affected. If I understood developmental and evolutionary biology better I could explain how those parts of my brain formed the way they did from the joining of egg & sperm in the womb, and from my ancestors back to the smallest unicellular organism. But none of that would answer the philosophical question of “Why do I enjoy a sunset?” and I don’t expect to find that answer in the physical sciences. Why should I?

I’m not sure I understand what you are saying about the losses from Katrina. If you mean that people who are personally unaffected would not feel as badly as people who lost loved ones in the tragedy, you are correct. Many people die all over the world every day, and neither you nor I stop what we are doing to pine for the loss the way we would for the deaths of the people we know and love. That doesn’t mean we don’t think about tragedies like Katrina and Rwanda and wonder how we can mitigate the losses, but we don’t drop everything and break down in tears every time we hear of a disaster.

[shadowman]

you ejoy the sunset because you are creative and because you have the capacity to enjoy.

this capacity to enjoy helps humans get along, spread ideas, gain camradery, which helps them get together in societies and make lots of babies.

this creativity does the same. its the creative ones that invented the wheel and the fire stick that helped take fire form one place to another....

science can explain this, who knows if it is right but it does have the answer, and it does make sense.

life is fun

sure, maybe life is just fun becuase we evolved the capacity toconsider certain things fun so that we wouldnt become existentialists and kill ourselves, maybe we have fun becase it helps keep society together and society helps keepus safe, and procreating,


hey guess what, if you carry this athiest thing to all its logical conclusions, start thinking about how brainwashed you are (its not as hard as it sounds, ever wonder why you think of time interms of days monday tuesday wednesday, one o clock two o clock, this is all brainwashing that helps society function)

well if you start thiking about this, think about why you consider yourswelf you

who do you have a name?

why did your parents give you that name? why do you have a family?

are you always you

what about when you are angry? are you still you? are you angry you? is it all you?

you exist, and have existed?

you are therefore you are.

you are that you are

jesus was indeed wise.


anyway if you follow all tis to its lofgical conclusions, there is still reason to live.

becuase we are all one.

we arep rotons and electrons that are self aware.

and not everyone is in a good position.

you are lucky, you can help others

and guess what else you are, you have reached a level of buddhist enlightenment

tohughts are just energy

turn that energy into positive enrgy or you wont be happy!

words only exist to help convey ideas.

ideas are only important because tey help us commuicate


communication is important because it helps our community.

[libertylover76]

Originally Posted by spid3rboy

hi shadow,

for one, that doesn't satisfy me. and it doesn't satisfy you either(you may not know it, yet).

and let's take it one further. if existence is for existence/experience sake, for 'community' and in say a billion more years our sun goes nova and (for the sake of argument) we haven't gotten to faster than light travel yet, all of us are gone. from your point of view, all the experiencing and fun of life, scientific knowledge, development, history, it's wiped out. completely. you would say you're ok with that because that's how the universe works and it will all start again in some pre-biotic soup somewhere else in the wide world? because if that is the case, it really doesn't matter whether you live another 80 years or die tomorrow.

But it matters to me if I live another 80 years or die tomorrow. There's no requirement that it matters to you. Neither is it a requirement that it matters to some sentient life form living on a planet in another solar system. Why does our existence have to matter to anyone other than ourselves?

[spid3rboy]

hi shadow and liberty, we'll get this figured out finally, LOL.


for one, that doesn't satisfy me. and it doesn't satisfy you either(you may not know it, yet).

and let's take it one further. if existence is for existence/experience sake, for 'community' and in say a billion more years our sun goes nova and (for the sake of argument) we haven't gotten to faster than light travel yet, all of us are gone. from your point of view, all the experiencing and fun of life, scientific knowledge, development, history, it's wiped out. completely. you would say you're ok with that because that's how the universe works and it will all start again in some pre-biotic soup somewhere else in the wide world? because if that is the case, it really doesn't matter whether you live another 80 years or die tomorrow.

this is what I was getting at with the Katrina thing which I think Liberty misunderstood. regardless of whether we know someone affected from things like that or say the Tsumi in Indonesia, somewhere deep inside says,' that's terrible, that should not happen to human beings.' If we just evolved and are part of the 'food chain' like every other creature, why would we care?

you guys talk of 'fun' or 'enjoyment of a sunset' and say it doesn't fall under the realm of science, you can't explain it, and it doesn't need to, but it does. If why we're here is evolution, EVERYTHING came from it and falls under it whether you've thought it all the way through or not.

You can argue with me that I contradict myself with physical and spiritual beliefs, but I hold that they both exist so at least I have somewhere to argue from. Any abstract for you be it love, fun, enjoyment, happiness, etc, is now left without a home because you have no where to put it.

[spid3rboy]

hahaha, oh man, this is getting confusing. I reposted and you grabbed my post from the other thread before I got mine up. sorry.


anyway, so Liberty and Shadow are not even in agreement. Shadow says it's all about community and Liberty all that matters is me.

Liberty, so you've never seen a couple that just got married or had a baby, or a sporting event where one team struggled and won and YOU felt genuinely happy for them without anything you would gain from it personally?

Once again I hear these 'logical' arguments but if you really get down to it, you couldn't really live that world view out in your own life.

You say that all that matters is that YOU matter to you. I don't buy it for a minute and no one could convince me other wise. We were created (evol or God) to give meaning to ourselves AND others, which is why even though I disagree with you both I fall closer to Shadow's tree than yours because of his community comments.

[libertylover76]

Demonstrate some requirement that my happiness matters to you.

There's nothing stopping me from enjoying the joy of others, but I'm certainly no worse off if I have other commitments and pass on by without noticing.

If this statement is true:

no one could convince me otherwise

then why have a discussion?

[spid3rboy]

Originally Posted by libertylover76

Demonstrate some requirement that my happiness matters to you.

There's nothing stopping me from enjoying the joy of others, but I'm certainly no worse off if I have other commitments and pass on by without noticing.

If this statement is true:

then why have a discussion?

oh come on, it's a common phrase. I merely used it to show how diametrically opposed I am to that particular sub-point. the sheer fact I'm in here shows I'm open minded to listening to your ideas

[libertylover76]

Sorry, then.

[spid3rboy]

you know that time at night when you're lying there in the dark, not quite asleep, alone, thinking about life, all the questions you have, all the hope, doubt, things you would change about the world, yourself, feeling vulnerable no matter how confident you are during the day? I don't know about you, but I have that. Well, it's in those times I realized that the idea I was just randomly firing synapses and tissue was as foreign to my being as trying to breath water. But me being a rational, thinking individual, why did I care? If this is what we are, I should and would have accepted it. I can't explain it to you or make you understand, just sharing. It's the jumping off point to asking if there may be something more out there.



hey, I'm Mulder and you guys are Scully, LOL.

[libertylover76]

The way one asks the questions determines the answers one is likely to find.

What do you mean by "out there"?

[shadowman]

you can do whatever you want and no one has to care about you. but you are not helping society, and you are doing things against the societies/cultures that shaped your mind. this might lead to crazyness unless you really know what you are doing.

[spid3rboy]

beyond myself.

you guys have a good night, I'm out.

[juantoo3]

Kindest Regards, Liberty!

Since the old science vs religion debate is an old and tired one around here, may I take the liberty (pardon the pun) to point you to at least one old thread that may be of great service to you in this discussion?

morality within evolution

I think you will find that the discussion was as neutral and scholarly, and encompassing, as those who participated were able to make it. Enjoy!

[juantoo3]

Besides, if I may leave you with but one thought...Why are we moral if we are not naturally inclined to be, and G-d does not exist?

[juantoo3]

Oh, BTW, we also did a thread on Dawkins Memes quite some time ago, if you would like I will look it up for you. In it, I pointed out how by Dawkins definition of "meme," used to denigrate religion, was equally applicable to science. Therefore science is but another religion, in the sense Dawkins speaks of. Pot calling the kettle black, methinks....