Richard Dawkins
'We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism - something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators."
- Richard Dawkins 'The Selfish Gene'
In these four sentences Professor Dawkins has described both the scientific view of the 'human condition', and the main motivations for following the Buddhist path.
Defying the tyranny of the genes
All animals, including ourselves, have genetically programmed drives to eat, reproduce, fight for territory and mates, kill prey, help our kin and so on. These drives appear to our mind as attachment and aversion.
Manifestations of attachment include sexual desire, hunger and the need for security. Manifestations of aversion include fighting, fleeing and avoiding painful and dangerous situations. All these mental reactions have evolved because they gave our ancestors a selective advantage. They are, or were, essential for preservation of the individual and procreation of its genes.
Examining our genes
We humans can to some extent distance ourselves from these drives. We can examine them and if necessary rebel against them. From the Buddhist point of view this is especially significant when these instinctive drives become pathological and turn into harmful 'innate delusions', giving rise to mental states such as anger, hatred, sadism, jealousy, greed, miserliness, sexual abuse and so on.
Three poisons:
Pig = Ignorance
Cock = Desirous Attachment
Snake = Hatred
The Three Poisons
In Buddhist ethics, anger and greed (and their associated thought patterns) are two of the three poisons. The third poison is ignorance, which consists, among other factors, of being unable to separate the true nature of one's mind from the delusions which afflict it (especially the delusion of inherent existence).
Defying the tyranny of the memes
A meme is a delusional mind-virus which spreads by thought-contagion among people in the same manner that a computer virus spreads among PCs. Many cults have a memetic component.
The term 'meme' was coined by Richard Dawkins in the 1970's, but the idea goes back at least to the 1890's when Winston Churchill compared a certain religion (no prizes for guessing which!) to the rabies virus - 'as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog'.
If a religion or cult shows most of the following features then it is a pernicious meme:
* Self-referential or circular claims to the truth such as "This meme says it is the divine truth. Since it is the divine truth whatever its says must be true. Therefore it must be the divine truth because it says so, and all competing memes must be the work of the devil".
* Threats of eternal punishment in hell for disbelief in the meme (rather than for evil actions).
* Commands to persecute or attack people who do not believe in the meme.
* Boosting the believers' egos by telling them they are 'chosen' or superior to believers in false memes, who are dehumanised and vilified as 'najis kafirs' (filthy unbelievers).
* Disabling the faculties of disbelief ('immune response') by claiming that faith is superior to reason.
The harm that can be done by attachment to memes far exceeds that from attachment to wealth, possessions or people. Memes have been the cause of many of the wars, terrorist campaigns, persecutions, pogroms and witchhunts in history.
On the other hand, if a religion is based on wisdom, tolerance, free enquiry, rationality and universal compassion, then it is a beneficial spiritual path.
Memes are 'intellectually formed delusions', as distinct from the genetically-programmed innate delusions. However, memes often interact with and derive their power from innate delusions. For example, the meme that infects socially-inadequate, sex-starved young men and causes virulent hatred against the infidel, together with a desire to become a martyr in order to have an eternity of sex with 72 virgins, derives its power from testosterone-fueled innate delusions of aggression and lust.
Buddhist meditation attempts to weed out memes.
Delusion of inherent existence
There's one innate delusion that's more subtle than the obvious ones, such as greed and anger - it's the delusion of grasping at inherently-existent phenomena. We see the world in terms of 'things' because our genes are telling us to grab resources. But if we take a step back and view the universe in terms of geological and cosmic timescales, it is apparent that there are no inherently existent things, only processes of continual change. All phenomena are dependently-related and empty of any defining essence.
Individuals, buildings, artifacts, species, continents, planets and stars are transient phenomena caused by the coming together of parts. All compounded things are impermanent and eventually disintegrate. It is grasping at things as if they were permanent, or desirable in themselves, that is one of the principal causes of dukkha - the sensation of unsatisfactoriness due the the transience of all biological pleasures.
Rebellion and liberation
Tara the Liberator
The outcome of a successful rebellion is liberation from tyranny. We've identified the tyrants as the delusions that poison our minds.
Analysis of deluded religious motivation allows us to recognise and remove memes, even when they are deep-seated results of childhood indoctrination. With practice in meditation we can also overcome hatred and attachment and the subtle delusion of inherent existence of things. We can then declare our independence from the selfish replicators.
Who or what is rebelling?
But, if we aren't just the products of our genes and our memes, what are we? Who or what is rebelling against the replicators? What is the end result of liberation? How is it possible for us to think of ourselves as non-deluded, non-mechanistic, non-biological free agents?
According to Buddhist philosophy, the reason we can work towards liberation is that our minds, although influenced by biology, are not themselves biological nor indeed physical in nature, nor are they emergent phenomena of physical or biological processes. In meditation we can imagine we are throwing away or peeling off all our biological and social attributes in order to find out what we really are. We discover that we are pure awareness, a formless non-physical mental continuum that continues from life to life and body to body.
The true nature of the mind is peace
Where do we go from here?
If we indeed come to the conclusion that our mind is a non-physical continuum that attaches itself to biological systems in life after life, then we might decide we don't want to carry on this way. Our delusions are bad enough when we are humans, but what chance have we if at our next rebirth our mind attaches itself to a chimpanzee, dog or pig? Before humans evolved, our minds spent countless millenia attached to the bodies of animals, and there's nothing to prevent them becoming attached to animals again. We have no absolute guarantee of taking a future human rebirth.
'We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.' - This is known in Buddhism as 'Our precious human life'.
Our minds can only get access to the sensory and intellectual equipment needed to liberate themselves when they are in the human realm. So we should avoid actions and thought-patterns which might lead to lower (e.g. animal) rebirth. We also need to get our minds permanently out of the cycle of death and rebirth as soon as possible.
Animals are unable to separate their minds from their innate delusions and their biological nature. But we humans know from philosophical analysis that we are non-physical entities. There's no reason why this muddy vesture of biological decay should always grossly close us in. What we need is someone to help us shuffle off this mortal coil once and for all. The questions are - who and how?
Deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism.
As Professor Dawkins points out, pure disinterested altruism is, in evolutionary terms, a new phenomenon. It does not exist in nature and does not arise spontaneously in humans. It needs to be deliberately cultivated by conscious effort. To quote Shantideva:
"First I should strive to meditate
On equalising self and others.
Since we are equal from the point of view of suffering
I should protect everyone as I do myself."
In Buddhism, pure disinterested altruism, in its initial form, is known as 'Wishing Love'. It is the wish that those around us should be happy and free from suffering. Buddhist teachers are very careful to emphasise the 'pure and disinterested' aspects, because love is often mixed with attachment. The difference between love and attachment is:
* Attachment is "How can you make me happy? "
* Love is "How can I make you happy?"
Normally, the fact that love is mixed with attachment doesn't matter too much, but we can think of situations where it can be damaging, for example the over-possessive parent, or the parent who wants their child to fulfil their own frustrated career ambitions, or the husband who kills his wife in a fit of jealousy.
Pure disinterested altruism in its developed form arises out of compassion for the suffering of all sentient beings, and the desire to rescue all, without exception, from Samsara. It is known as bodhichitta. Bodhichitta is the motivation for striving for ones' own liberation for the ultimate benefit of all.
Bodhisattva
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Sources with friends of associations wilt to The JREF say that Richard Dawkins hand down properly debunk the luminary of his subsequently book at The Scandalous Discussion 9 subsequently week.The sources say that the new book hand down be called, "The Lucifer Lunacy" and hand down encounter neighboring the time of the devil."It is true that better land swallow been killed in the name of God, than in the name of Satan." Reads an intended estimate of Dawkins's keynote speech. "On the contrary of a nature the shape of so-called atheists who label themselves Satanists, I swallow to transport time on sale from intimation the world about Islam to speech this vandalize. One of these so-called atheists even practice so called left-hand path magic. Dexterously we all know what the dead hand is good for, and there's no time for that schedule Islam is in spite of this a doable religion. Satanism is a madness and we want annihilation it from our ranks!"Paul X. Crowen of the Place of pilgrimage of Set denounced Dawkins's next book."Isn't the Kennedy Throughway gesture a load of his infernal design?" Ask Crowen. Crowen next threatened to use magic on Dawkins. "If no matter what bad happens to Richard, he hand down know that it was by my hand down that it happened!"Since asked to missile, Dawkin's replied, "I hand down use this time to make a cloak. You are the peak exasperating chronicler I swallow ever met. It is land close to you that contribution the media a bad name. Yet even I do not wish to see you dynamism for ever in hell. Commit to memory that the subsequently time someone says atheists are intolerant. Now if you hand down reason me, I swallow to suit the world that Islam is one of the supreme evils! I swallow no time for you or for two purring white female bloggers!"Keep happy note: All articles on this site are works of brew.
Cost me, I'm very pleased for the radiance of PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins. There's no objection about that. In some detail they are my take offense heroes. But the Courtier's Entrance as an control for theology needs to be discussed deficiently. First off, I do not have doubts about qualities to understand any extraordinary theology in order to scorn it. We all do this easily. I objection very appreciably qualities understands all of the religions they scorn. I don't. No one does. We scorn them all for the fantastically reasons, for instance they seize not met their own hardship of evince. So I imply very appreciably that neither PZ Myers nor Richard Dawkins needs to entirely understand the scores of forms of Christianity in order to scorn them all. They can undoubtedly use the "Courtier's Entrance", and for them it's certified, as it is for me because rejecting Hinduism, which I know miniature about. Christians do not entirely understand the other Christianities they scorn, so why be required to qualities have doubts about this from skeptics? But here's the transaction. PZ Meyers and Richard Dawkins, and others, seize the strike to let know fill of us who do understand the scores of Christianities that locate who know how to bare them on their own terminology. But doubtless, and I'm solo portentous doubtless, they are so trustworthy to the "Courtier's Entrance" because it comes to their own lack of understanding of Christian theology that they don't escalate this order not do if they need to currency the devoted draft. If they do, with may I repentantly whisper they let know the work of Biblical scholars approaching Robert Use, Hector Avalos, Bart Ehrman and others approaching them, as well as philosophers approaching John Shook, John Beversluis, Richard Transporter, Keith Parsons, Matt McCormick and others approaching them. But they can't do it, for instance they are trustworthy to the "Courtier's Entrance", and that's a look right through. I can lid the "Courtier's Entrance" because it comes to religions I scorn. But definite the power and curb of Christianity in extraordinary, they regard to let know and lid fill of us who know it and sanity v it. The "Courtier's Entrance" may some day be the mask effect to religion. It isn't yet. Until with let them let know fill of us who do understand the prime religion of our land, every philosophers and biblical scholars. It takes all of us together with all of our talents, all of our knowledge, and all of our abilities.
Reference: wiccalessons.blogspot.com
"Can Machines Think?" is the study Turing answers in a creature and modern way in his all-important book, which began modern IT. It is approximating to Ray Kurtzweil's "The Age of Saintly Machines" in our time.It reads so quaintly! Within is a man routine to enunciating his relevant to uncomprehending the populace, the populace settled of their views, and the populace bewildered by language fancy "digital mortal".The book has three portions.Opening part suggests that an adversity be produced to test if machines can concern - the all-important Turing Noise. I impersonation that Turing is in no criticism of the practical aspect of his work. He is unfortunately free of notion, metaphysic and cant of any opportune - in this man gift is presently CAN DO, and it is a superiority I find very decorative in him.The Turing Noise is presently "I can't cartel it's not butter!" functional way of thinking. One listens to an Deceptive Rationalize and exclaims in military camp mock-50s surprise "I can't cartel it's not intelligent!"The added part is nearly a sales source for a beastie certain as a "Digital Incurable". I found it dampen down.The third part is objections to Deceptive Rationalize. These are variously tasty, scenic, stifle, and confrontingly practical. And it is the unchangeable superiority I aspire to gossip.How practical this Turing guy was! Merely he was saying that if it sounds sharp and acts sharp, for that reason it IS sharp. In the light of such gravelly sureness any reservations about the kindly of illogical knowledge of the spirit of recent moral fiber drift notwithstanding and one is moved out with a somewhat gravelly and mechanistic view of the worldly casing.My impersonation is that we ghoul admit to dawdle for our chief AI philosophers to mull over these questions with us. David Chamler's work on consciousness studies is with extremely background now, bridging as none other does the gap with metaphysic and neurological and information consideration which underlies the area office which Turing began. I ghoul read and review David Chalmer's work soon sometime.
No, this isn't a route from the Onion, it's the original turn in the "free spirit buses" fight in England. As you probably know, the British Humanist Alliance has formal an idea by actor Ariane Sherine, who was beside yourself by Christian advertisements on British do expel that threatened eternal damnation. Sherine intended it would be humane to sabbatical residents a bit of metaphysical minister to by print on buses and subways that "Portray probably is no God, now slab worrying and chill your life."To Sherine's give up come by, her diplomacy speedily raised lb140,000, which has prepared it realistic to run the board on 800 buses spanning England. Not at all by accident, this has generated an excitable reaction by some religionists, nonetheless the fact that church come about in that country is one of the most minuscule in the world. And here is the kicker: Christian lobbyist Stephen Breezy and others last actually filed land complaints with the British Public relations Ethics Dominance (ASA) on the win that the atheists are violating "guidelines on try and decency." According to Breezy "If you're goodbye to put out what appears to be a absolutely statement thus you last to be good to back it up. They've got to make certain this proposition that in all gamble, God doesn't place."Oh really? Speak about a whimsical style of the pot career the kettle black! Let me get this straight: a statement that spine-chilling entities probably do not place is, in Green's and his not in your right mind contacts head, less obviously substantiated than a statement that here is such a thing as never-ending obedience in hell? To put it novel, perfectly altitude, way: claiming that Santa Requirement (probably) doesn't place would in addition to be less "modish, agreeable, and absolutely" than to suggest that he really does engender presents to the world's (Christian) children every 24th of December. If you believe I'm comedy, you have got to read the polite "Santa Lives! Five Definite Arguments for the Years of Santa Claus" by Ellis Weiner (the arguments are: ontological, causal, from design, pragmatic, and moral -- sounds familiar?).Now this unusual mental illness has put the ASA in the to a certain extent muddled station of having to oversee on a aspiration standing metaphysical skirmish. If the position lets the free spirit diplomacy go on, it will on a slope be saying to the British do that it is in fact passable to include that god probably doesn't exist; if, on the other hand, Sherine's and the British humanists are found to be at crack, the ASA would in effect despoil the station that here is translucent testimony for the time of hell, so that Christian groups are not violating its hype ethics. Philosophers and theologians the world over will absolutely be afterward this one with furthest away interest!By the way, I last to regard that the immediately free spirit who has (partly) objected to the diplomacy is our good old endearing wet blanket, Richard Dawkins. He doesn't being the word "probably" in the ad. This is having the status of Dawkins, as I last accusatory out in the future, insists on maintaining the unforgivable station that science can show to be false the time of (all) gods, bit he is a bit wishy washy about this even in his "The God Daydream", somewhere he says all that he is not absolute secure of god's nothing and that science can show to be false such a dense brain wave brim. The detail is that science cannot show to be false the spine-chilling, but that a thoughtful argue conscious by competent science can, in fact, darken the likelihood of the spine-chilling to the very, very dazed constant. That's why Sherine and the British Humanist Alliance got it impartial label in the projection of their diplomacy. So now go on and chill your day in need nurture, here (probably) is no hell.
From The Paris Review, a long interview with Marilynne Robinson, author of "Gilead" and, most recently, "Home". She is a Christian and, at one point the intervewer asks her whether she thinks of herself as a "religious writer." Robinson answers "I don't like categories like religious and not religious. As soon as religion draws a line around itself it becomes falsified. It seems to me that anything that is written compassionately and perceptively probably satisfies every definition of religious whether a writer intends it to be religious or not." Later the interview turns to the relationship between religion and science:
ROBINSON
I read as much as I can of contemporary cosmology because reality itself is profoundly mysterious. Quantum theory and classical physics, for instance, are both lovely within their own limits and yet at present they cannot be reconciled with each other. If different systems don't merge in a comprehensible way, that's a flaw in our comprehension and not a flaw in one system or the other.
INTERVIEWER
Are religion and science simply two systems that don't merge?
ROBINSON
The debate seems to be between a naive understanding of religion and a naive understanding of science. When people try to debunk religion, it seems to me they are referring to an eighteenth-century notion of what science is. I'm talking about Richard Dawkins here, who has a status that I can't quite understand. He acts as if the physical world that is manifest to us describes reality exhaustively. On the other side, many of the people who articulate and form religious expression have not acted in good faith. The us-versus-them mentality is a terrible corruption of the whole culture.
INTERVIEWER
You've written critically about Dawkins and the other New Atheists. Is it their disdain for religion and championing of pure science that troubles you?
ROBINSON
No, I read as much pure science as I can take in. It's a fact that their thinking does not feel scientific. The whole excitement of science is that it's always pushing toward the discovery of something that it cannot account for or did not anticipate. The New Atheist types, like Dawkins, act as if science had revealed the world as a closed system. That simply is not what contemporary science is about. A lot of scientists are atheists, but they don't talk about reality in the same way that Dawkins does. And they would not assume that there is a simple-as-that kind of response to everything in question. Certainly not on the grounds of anything that science has discovered in the last hundred years.
The science that I prefer tends toward cosmology, theories of quantum reality, things that are finer-textured than classical physics in terms of their powers of description. Science is amazing. On a mote of celestial dust, we have figured out how to look to the edge of our universe. I feel instructed by everything I have read. Science has a lot of the satisfactions for me that good theology has.
INTERVIEWER
But doesn't science address an objective notion of reality while religion addresses how we conceive of ourselves?
ROBINSON
As an achievement, science is itself a spectacular argument for the singularity of human beings among all things that exist. It has a prestige that comes with unambiguous changes in people's experience-space travel, immunizations. It has an authority that's based on its demonstrable power. But in discussions of human beings it tends to compare downwards: we're intelligent because hyenas are intelligent and we just took a few more leaps.
The first obligation of religion is to maintain the sense of the value of human beings. If you had to summarize the Old Testament, the summary would be: stop doing this to yourselves. But it is not in our nature to stop harming ourselves. We don't behave consistently with our own dignity or with the dignity of other people. The Bible reiterates this endlessly.
Thanks to GetReligion for the reference.
The Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 198
The New Atheists are convinced that good thinking means disbelief in God and that their leaders are models of good reasoning. They're planning a "Reason Rally" for March 24. Richard Dawkins heads up a "Foundation for Reason and Science." Sam Harris is founder and chairman of "Project Reason." The American Atheists define atheism as "the mental attitude which unreservedly accepts the supremacy of reason..." John Loftus tells us "Faith and Reason are Mutually Exclusive Opposites." In this they are quite mistaken.
They are wrong because their claims to good reasoning do not match the evidence of their performance. Dawkins' book "The God Delusion" is rife with logical fallacies and demonstrably anti-scientific prejudice. Sam Harris devoted most of a recent debate to avoiding logic, advancing an argument based on emotional appeals instead. John Loftus says that his "Outsider Test for Faith" shows that belief is irrational, when his test actually demonstrates the opposite.
They are also wrong because Christianity is built on a foundation of evidence and thought. The Bible is a record of what God has done. It tells us through and through to see what he has done, and to trust him based on what we know to be true of him. Jesus requires his followers to love God with all of their minds. The Apostle Paul reasoned in the synagogues and with the Greek philosophers. Down through history, many of the world's greatest thinkers have been Christians. It's still true today.
And they are mistaken in not seeing how Christianity leads people to treat each other reasonably. Sure, there have been exceptions, but on the whole Christianity has been the world's greatest force for freedom, peace, human rights, and of course the highest good of all: knowledge of God.
This is not the party line. Even Christians may not know this is true. If any of this seems surprising to you, then it's time for you to discover "True Reason".
You can buy the book for about lb2 here, what a deal! Its already up to #2 in the Amazon charts in the Atheism section.
Book information taken from here.
Credit: 33witches.blogspot.com
