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Re: Good Reasons to Keep the Faith

DW1 — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:23:52 -0000

juris naturalist,
kin selection is a very powerful force of behavior in nature, but to suggest that biological altruism can only be explained by kin selection unfortunately leaves many otherwise inexplicable examples. reciprocal altruism is also only one form of altruism in biology. i have included a couple of more references for you.

Science. 1994 Nov 11;266(5187):1030-2, on long-tailed manakin mating (two males court, but only one gets the female)

Superorganism by E.O. Wilson explains why kin selection is insufficient to explain the evolutionary beginnings of altruism in biology.

Also, unless i misunderstood your post, are you suggesting that christians alone have a unique ability to act altruistically? humans are by far the best example of altruism in biology, regardless of religious preferences or the entire lack thereof. I think to try to explain it by calling it the joy of god leaves millions of people's altruism unaccounted for.

Re: Good Reasons to Keep the Faith

DW1 — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:54:36 -0000

Incidentally, the data supporting biological altruism, though still somewhat controversial, is becoming increasingly more accepted by the scientific community. It is likely that it will be beyond doubt within the next 20 years. I have included links to a handful of journal articles representing the most well-studied current theories. This field is increasingly being studied by zoologists, evolutionary biologists and even political scientists. I apologize if these links are not accessible to all of your readers-I am currently a research scientist at Oxford University and have fairly broad journal access-if you cannot access without paying, i strongly recommend googling "warblers/ reciprocal altruism" or "bonobos/ reciprocal altruism" for the most widely studied research models for those interested. This is well on the way to becoming one more gap filled by naturalism rather then supernaturalism.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

http://www.springerlink.com...

http://www.sciencedirect.co...

http://ezproxy.ouls.ox.ac.uk:2346/nature/journal/v456/n7220/pdf/456326a.pdf

Re: Good Reasons to Keep the Faith

DW1 — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 05:23:08 -0000

It is a common (and somewhat misleading) ploy by theists to present the paragraph from the very beginning of bertrand russell's 'A free man's worship' in an apparent effort to show that one of the most well-known atheist thinkers despaired of life and its lack of meaning. Why do they always stop quoting there? (Not that it is necessary for bertrand russell to have found meaning in life in order for any other atheist to, but regardless) If they'd read the remaining 9/10s of the essay, it is quite evident that Russell did believe that meaning could be had in spite of the unavoidability of death:

"From that awful encounter of the soul with the outer world, enunciation, wisdom, and charity are born; and with their birth a new life begins...United with his fellow-men by the strongest of all ties, the tie of a common doom, the free man finds that a new vision is with him always, shedding over every daily task the light of love...Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instil faith in hours of despair."

(full essay link)
http://www.philosophicalsoc...

teleprompter, your very last sentence makes an excellent point. The intangible quality of the objective meaningfulness of life somehow automatically bestowed by belief in god is suspicious. It seems somewhat akin to the theistic claims of an objective moral foundation.

Re: Good Reasons to Keep the Faith

DW1 — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:57:40 -0000

Thanks for the post. Very well thought-out. Having an extremely religious immediate family (including a pastor and a music minister for brothers) i've dealt with this for over a decade, and hoped you'd address it at some point. After a rocky period of not talking for a couple of years, my family and i eventually got past our problems, but it is still difficult relating to them. the ironic thing is, as much as i know they pray for me daily and have great concern for my soul-as i'm sure your father does for yours, i similarly have a burden to share with them the joy of the way i see the world now. For many years i let it go, as i have felt that it is more important that we get along than to try to get them to see the problems with their belief, but as the bulk of my free-time has slowly been taken over by humanist pursuits and the desire to spread awareness of the potential danger of belief systems and the benefit of what you have eloquently labeled 'common sense atheism,' i am reluctant to ignore the issue anymore. i apologize for taking up blog space with personal stuff, but perhaps your other readers can relate. any advice for how to go about spreading the joy of not believing in evidence-less claims to loved ones? or is best not to risk messing with the powerful emotional attachment of religion with the hopes of convincing someone else of a better, more moral way of life?

finally-in response to Anselm's comment, i find it interesting that believers so often like to insist out that atheists live unfulfilled lives, and that no one can find meaning without god. the fact is, the christian worldview simply cannot account for happy, adjusted, satisfied atheists, and their only possible response is to deny that they exist. Certainly, camus and many other atheists grappled with what they perceived as the the absurdity of life, but there are currently millions of atheists who live happily and productively and the number is growing. in my experience, the christian answer for this is inevitably that atheists aren't genuinely happy, or have only convinced themselves that their life has meaning, and that there will always be a 'hole that they need filled' with a jesus-shaped plug. if they expect nonbelievers to accept their direct sensory-free experience of jesus or the holy spirit, than shouldn't they accept a nonbeliever's experience of a life filled with joy. how and why is happiness inconsistent with atheism?