contact@onbelief.orgReader Responses Page 3
Frank: 'I really like your new website, and your 17 propositions (plus your somewhat humorous list of examples of Beliefs). The propositions that speak most strongly to me as a scientist are numbers 6 and 15. The cosmologist Steven Weinberg said that "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless." I believe that may be the hardest aspect of atheism for a deist to accept, thereby inhibiting any possibility of conversion.
Commentary: Many thanks for your support. I agree with you. I have come across many Christians who cannot live with the idea that there is no meaning to life. I recently passed an evening with an otherwise intelligent Christian who told me all religions were rubbish, that Christianity was not a religion, it was the truth, and that he could not possibly accept biological evolution as it gave no meaning to life. The comfort that his religion provided him was undeniable. Moving to a stage where he would have to question this meaning to life would be asking him to step outside of his comfort zone. I suppose the only action we can take is to try and prevent religionists poisoning the minds of our children and so protect them from developing a life long addiction to beliefs of that variety.
Frank: "I heartily concur with the last point in your response to my comment. Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, put it well: "Now you know Christianity may be okay between consenting adults in private, but I really do feel the time has come to say somewhat firmly that it should not be taught to young children." [At Wikipedia Francis Crick, Also see a review of a biography of Crick ]
Dave: ( who's other response is quoted on another page)
I thought I might introduce you to some outstanding thinkers and critics:
http://fatmanonakeyboard.blogspot.com/
http://modies.blogspot.com/
http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/
http://www.badscience.net/
http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/
Commentary: Many thanks. I was unaware of these sites. I would particularly recommend http://www.badscience.net/. I have now cited an article about homeopathy on the Expansion to Proposition 1 entitled The end of homeopathy?.
Stuart: [ some flattering remarks then ] ............ "So, whilst what you write on the site will be eminently clear and understandable to you (and perhaps to me (if I'm in the "appropriate" mood)) I wonder how others really see it. In fact, the 17 statements actually constitute a belief system themselves, bit like the Creed...
I will learn to distinguish between the value of belief systems with an internal logic and the utility of ideas based on observation and will not attempt to impose belief systems on others.
I will not accept the intellectual and moral authority of believers or belief systems but will learn from others without 'believing in' them.
I promise to teach the importance of value systems to others who would learn from me, without inviting them to believe and will hold an utilitarian view of science and other systematic observation systems and welcome their evolution.
I do not accept the 'truth' of religions, mysticism, or political philosophies nether do I treat faith as a human virtue.
I will replace ritual with remembrance, celebration, investigation, contemplation, and debate as is fitting.
I do not believe in the absoluteness of law and will not build belief systems around social status and economic or military power. Whilst I will not denigrate believers I, myself, will find harmonious ways of living without belief and will not confuse non-belief with immorality or an amoral state and I will not search for a meaning to life.
I aim to approach death in a state of non-belief and will enjoy the freedom of non-belief in a responsible manner.
Amen. "Commentary: Many thanks for the effort involved in your long reply. I hope that the injunctions on the front page of the site to consider alternatives or the opposite way of thinking and debate the points with others would prevent anyone from "learning" the 17 propositions and adopting them as dogma that should not be questioned. It might be appropriate for others to write their own manifesto then debate their ideas with those who they respect. A very important point to make is that I am not denying the value of belief systems in imparting a sense of well being. I am merely inviting people to be less dogmatic and have a willingness to examine new ideas. It is my contention that changing your belief set or shedding much of it can be life enhancing. For example, if you 'believed in' the efficacy of homeopathy and were set on homeopathy for the treatment of an HIV infection I would encourage you to consider taking anti-retroviral drugs instead. If such a change of ideas were to prolong and improve the quality of your life that would be advantageous. I realise that for some changing their beliefs would be uncomfortable and so they might seek a replacement. I would urge them however not to adopt the 'NoBrainer creed' as you have written it.
Doug: Website of interest www.edge.org, Darwin@LSE, and Alan Alda Scientific American Frontiers
Commentary: Many thanks. Edge.org and Darwin@LSE are now listed on the links page with comments. Also see as you suggest see Scientific American Frontiers at http://www.pbs.org/saf/
Ruth: Basically what our saying is that we should be open minded. If Christopher Columbus had believed that he would have fallen of the end of the world by sailing west he would not have made his discoveries.
Commentary: That is a very important part of what I am arguing for on this web site. I am also advocating that we apply tests to judge the value of our beliefs.
Eileen: 'I am concerned with the problem that I know no physics, except the very broadest and imprecise outlines. Superimposed on this ignorance of mine , I am faced with certain theses that quantum mechanics has arrived at something very like the sixth century BC Greek philosopher Heraclitus's notion that all matter is flux of energy, and consciousness makes entities from the flux . I need to know if the flux of undifferentiated matter does in fact coalesce in wee get-togethers which have the capability of being entities, PRIOR to consciousness using these and manifesting them as real entities. Regards to all participants in NoBrainer's good website
Commentary: I agree that we owe much to the ancient Greeks. My personal view is that our descriptions of consciousness of should be based soundly on neuroscience. As this is a relatively young discipline much is yet to be learned. Our view of consciousness is therefore of necessity very limited at present.
Anonymous (possibly Eileen above): 'You define 'religion' as belief. This is too narrow, Sometimes religion is belief, or belief may be a lot of what Christianity in particular is about.You get to be saved if you have the right beliefs. But some religions are mostly about doing rituals which are pleasing to the Divine Monarch whatever his name may be. I understand that Judaism and much of Islam is this type of praxis religion. In any case, even in the case of Christianity the defining myth of sin and salvation is a rationalisation of the Western attachment to acquisition of personal belongings and of what passes for fun, and the actions that pertain thereto, and the necessity for those actions to be subject to religiously sanctioned legal control.
Commentary: You make an excellent point. I agree that there is more to religion than 'belief'. However it is difficult to imagine a religion that does not have belief at its core. I will develop this point at length in future.
Your Response
Please indicate if your response is not intended for publication on this site. Your response might be shortened or paraphrased or be restricted to a particular point you have made.
I am happy to discuss the ideas expressed on this site with religious and non-religious people alike. However despite my contentious remarks about religion, I no longer see any personal value in debating the correctness of particular details of the many theologies that exist with the religious or 'non-believers' and do not obtain any satisfaction from doing so. Perhaps you could direct such comments to a 'believer', priest, minster of religion, theologian, philosopher, atheist or skeptical thinker as you think appropriate. I hope you will not see that request as arrogance on my part but merely as a desire to move on to other areas of debate, which at this time in my life, I view as more productive. If you have been personally insulted by what I have written you have my sincere apologies for I seek to challenge rather than insult. I can say very little to those who see all challenges to their beliefs as an insult, especially if those challenges come in the form of newspaper cartoons. Otherwise your comment is very welcome.
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On the Nature of Belief
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Scotland, 12th October 2007 and thereafter
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