Pages
The only strategy: reframe religion and religious meaning. In other words, find a religious paradigm that expands the mind, increases the curiosity that fuels science, fuels creativity, and emphasizes wisdom. If not, rote thinking will be too heavy to move. And such rote thinking can not help a society.
3 comments
From the link:
But where all of this gets really interesting, says Blume, an evolutionary theorist and religion researcher at the University of Heidelberg, is where the illusion of intelligent design intersects with a reproductive imperative—essentially the commonplace idea that God “wants” or “intends” or “demands” us, as faithful members of our communities, to have a litter of similarly believing children. You’ve been blessed with your pleasure-giving loins for a reason, so the unspoken logic goes, and that’s to get married to the opposite sex and to breed. By God, just look at the Old Testament. “Be fruitful and multiply” is the very first of 661 direct commandments. God doesn’t seem to be merely making a suggestion here but instead issuing a no-nonsense order.
Blume has found that those religions that actually put this issue front and center in their teachings are—for rather obvious reasons—at a selective group advantage over those that fail to endorse this stern commandment. […]
This is why I’ve suspected that the creationists will “win”. They will simply out reproduce the modernists.
Fascinating. I suppose I’ll have to read more of Blume’s work to find out whether I can go along with this:
Since religiosity is to some degree a heritable trait, offspring born to religious parents are not only dyed in the wool of their faith through their culture, but Blume believes that they may also be genetically more susceptible to indoctrination than children born to nonreligious parents.
Right now I’m thinkin’, “No.”
re: #1 freetoken
The way through this is an insistence, gently—like Keep America Beautiful, on emphasizing literary skill, being able to read a text, and knowing how to understand it.
Take Bering, the author of the piece, for instance. How persuasive can he be when talking to someone who is religious if he thinks there are 661 commandments? There are 613, or if you are more knowledgeable, about 620. As soon as he says ‘661’, the conversation is over.
You’ve got a point, that creationists will ‘win’ through reproduction. That’s what the article is about.
Even now, discussions between religious folks and non-religious folks are entirely predictable. That’s why Hitchens can go anywhere and debate anyone with great confidence he will win—the points are completely predictable. And Hitchens is no less literal in his biblical interpretation than the fundamentalists.
The conversation does not have to follow the template. There are plenty of religious people who would absolutely love to find the cures for the diseases that plague civilization. They would love to find the scientific links that could change our energy infrastructure. Once you break through the idea that religiosity is a monolithic belief system, once you can see the subtle shades of differences among believers, then conversations can happen, rather than having two people reciting their talking points at each other.
Once Praised, the Settlement to Help Sickened BP Oil Spill Workers Leaves Most With Nearly Nothing When a deadly explosion destroyed BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, 134 million gallons of crude erupted into the sea over the next three months — and tens of thousands of ordinary people were hired ...
Cheechako
Alone in a Bathroom: The Fear and Uncertainty of a Post-Roe Medication Abortion Angel tucked two white pills into each side of her mouth, bracing herself as they began to dissolve. Her deepest fears and anxieties took over. Angel had wanted to talk to a doctor before she took the pills to ... Cheechako
They Were Desperate to Get Pregnant. Then IVF Gave Them Extra Embryos. One morning last spring, Ashley Harrolle put her 1-year-old daughter down for a nap and went to the kitchen. She pulled up her fertility clinic’s contact information. It was time to make the call. In a freezer several hundred ... Cheechako
Joe Bacon ✅
March FavoritesYou've seen these all already but looking back, just because. These are my favorite shots of this last month. That 1937 Zeiss Sonnar is such a gloriously wonderful bit of glass. Thanks for looking.
William Lewis
Russia’s New Combat Robots Blown Up by Drones Near Avdiivka When we landed on the moon, I thought about how science fiction had become real. Now, the robot wars have begun. It's more poignant somehow on the ground than in the missile wars we have in the air as ...
Rightwingconspirator
Why Did More Than 1,000 People Die After Police Subdued Them With Force That Isn’t Meant to Kill? An investigation led by The Associated Press has found that, over a decade, more than 1,000 people died after police subdued them through physical holds, stun guns, body blows and other force not intended to be lethal. More: Why ... CheechakoKGxvi
The Pandemic Cost 7 Million Lives, but Talks to Prevent a Repeat Stall In late 2021, as the world reeled from the arrival of the highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus, representatives of almost 200 countries met - some online, some in-person in Geneva - hoping to forestall a future worldwide ... Cheechako
Texas County at Center of Border Fight Is Overwhelmed by Migrant Deaths EAGLE PASS, Tex. - The undertaker lighted a cigarette and held it between his latex-gloved fingers as he stood over the bloated body bag lying in the bed of his battered pickup truck. The woman had been fished out ... Cheechako
