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In this interview with Bill Moyers, Dan Dennett delivers a sharp and clear synthesis of a library of evolutionary, anthropological and psychological research on the origin and spread of religion.
Composer John Adams http://bit.ly/Us4NWp
Mythologist Joseph Campbell http://bit.ly/1epLzuo
Dan Dennett @ wikipedia http://bit.ly/1aUcBro
The Clergy Project http://clergyproject.org/
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I am amazed that one can make a living rambling on like this. blablabla. wow
I guess age, a fancy beard and cultivated speech will do the trick. this guy is an amazing marketing person
I wonder if this man ever doubts himself or his views. he expresses quite a few opinions/assessments of what religious people think. curious indeed. religious people often struggle. I suggest this man should give it a try and struggle with his belief. it's a good excercise. I feel sorry for him. had parents like that. know it all pompous man
oh my gosh. I actually have to stop listening now. this guy is actually spewiing falsehoods as facts. this man is a scoundrel
1 second ago
Mel Dobra
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If the proponents of evolution believe that it was evolution alone that brought our world into existence and all living species on it and the creator had no part in, Then all the aberration and difficulties that we encounter on this earth can only be the fault of a random chance of mutation spinning of in its wrong course of direction since evolutionist proposes that how it all came into existence . God can not take any blame what so ever since He does not exist or had any part in the formulation of the cosmos. How then Can Richard Dawkins the late Christopher Hitchens or Strauss point the finger at any religious people and their mistakes if they have been directed by a God that is the only figment of their imagination?Their circle argument is a lot of nonsense since they maintain God is only an allusion of the mind. These Guru"s I am afraid to have lead millions up the garden path and I don't think they know what they on about. Boris Dobra.
The PHIVE like Angels og PHilanthropy
Happy Birthday ware two or more are gatheresd…..!
PEPPER. 528.mi.mi.mi.
We have a sweet tooth for god…I love that.
Bravo to Bill Moyers for playing such a Devil's Advocate!
Dennett is being far too kind to the ignorant & intolerant organized religions
If you liked this talk, you may like this video: https://vimeo.com/208442766
To those who are criticizing Moyers, please realize he is trying to be a devils advocate here. He isn't necessarily putting his own view forward, but rather, provide a rational and calm voice for the people who disagree with both Dennett and myself.
I commend him for doing such a great job at doing this and Dennett of course was absolutely brilliant here.
Atheist aren't critical thinkers. They're Master Debaters. Atheist search for truth, the same way a Bank Robber seeks Law enforcement. If an Atheist had a good idea it would die of loneliness.
I love how Dan was able to say, "I do not know," and Bill isn't playing gotcha-god-of-the-gaps.
Consciousness is knowing, it is the nature of reason and intuition to see and understand, nature or God is not a personal thing, but acts from laws, such as: the law of necessity, the law inertia, the law of motion and rest, and the law of self-preservation. Love and happiness follow understanding: Teaching Gurdjieff and Spinoza… wayofspinoza.com
All of this certainty that there is no God is is pure hubris.
Atheism is as faith based as any religion.
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"where does such longing arise?" – the same place god dwells, Bill, – in your mind
Dennett is such a graceful and patient bright. Moyers is such a comparative moron.
Not many animals mourne their love ones.
I witnessed directly crow do it a few times. However, a few hours later, i didn't see the crows come back to the dead body.
Elephants seems to recognize the bones of love ones. It is difficult to find any elephant who don't know every other over 70 years life.
That he still has a strong desire to thank something for the universe undermines his atheism.
If we think deeply, even "survivall' makes no sense in atheism!
Let's see the 3 basic questions of existence answered by the atheist macro escale cosmic view:
1) Who am I? A THING.
2) From what did I come from? NOTHING.
2) For what am I going? NOTHING.
– So why survive? atheism answer: "THERE IS NO REASON TO SURVIVE, because EVERYTHING came from nothing is going to become nothing anyway."
– Why care for something? atheism answer: THERE IS NO REASON TO CARE TO ANYTHING, because everything came from nothing and is going to become nothing anyway.
– WHY OR FOR WHAT ARE YOU ATHEISTS DOING THE THINGS YOU DO? Your own beliefs say that all your movements are meaningless and totally void of any importance.
The word "why" makes no sense in a atheist cosmic view, neither the word "reason" and also there can not be the word "purpose", neither the word "importance", neither the word "right" or "wrong", neither the word "fight", neither the word "science", neither the word "love".
*I pray that this atheists wake up*.
All Glory to our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, the Self-existing One, the Creator of the Heavens and earth and of humankind and all living creatures.
Opening remarks….. People in USA who profess to being an Atheists are not going to win any popularity contests…..
What kind of sick fucked up country ostracizes somebody because their default position is that they do not believe in something that has not been proved…. yet gives somebody huge respect for believing in an imaginary being…..So if I believe in Santa, the tooth fairy, bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster or an imaginary friend….I will gain huge respect.
Horsemen of apocalypses aren't usually this nice. I disagree with a few points: one at around 43 minutes is where he says that secularists don't posit over-confident, simple answers to complicated problems. We repeat all manner of truisms: the work ethic; economic growth; general expansion of virtually everything in the human sphere, more people, cities, roads, products; that we behave as rational agents; the trickle-down effect; meritocracy is good; free will; just-deserts responsibility…etc., etc. Unfortunately, our politics amounts mostly to competitive assertion of the capability to actualize these tenets, or even just empty virtue-signaling with respect to them. There's almost no critical thinking about them, certainly in the mainstream media.
Just think about every powerful person: a politician, a president, even a dictator. And imagine their minds being as Daniel Dennet's. The Earth would be a much better place.
The brain is an area of neurophysiology activity. Neurophysiology activity consists of electrochemical reaction. Thus at any given time, the brain state is defined by a subset of electrochemical reactions, derived from a large set of possible reactions. Consider the phenomenon of a. conscious thought. As at any given time the brain physical state consists of a collection of electrochemical reactions (events), it can be inferred that they are collectively responsible for the conscious thought. This means that at least in part, simultaneous events are responsible for thought. In other words, thought creates a connection between simultaneous events. This is in contradiction to the consequences of special relativity, which states that the fastest connection between events is the speed of light and thus excludes the possibility of connection between simultaneous events. Consider the memorizing of, say, the value 5. This would necessarily involve more than 1 point in space as, say, if it is assumed a single electron records 5 by taking a particular potential. Then it by itself cannot define (or know) 5, as its magnitude would be defined only with respect to another datum or event defined as a unit potential, thus involving at least 2 simultaneous events. Consider the experience of vision. While we focus our attention on an object of vision, we are still aware of a background and, thus, a whole collection of events. This would mean at least an equal collection of physical events in the brain are involved.
Take the experience of listening to music. It would mean being aware of what went before. Like vision, it would probably mean that while our attention at any given time is focused at that point in time, it is aware of what went before and what is to follow. In other words, it spans the time axis. Many great composers have stated that they are able to hear their whole composition. Thus their acoustic experience is probably like the average person's visual experience. While focusing at a particular point in time of their composition, they are nevertheless aware of what went before and what is to come. The rest of the composition is like the background of a visual experience. Experiencing the composition in this way, they are able to traverse it in a similar fashion to which a painting is observed. In this sense, an average person in comparison can be seen as having tunnel hearing (like tunnel vision) when it comes to music, thus making it very difficult for him or her to reproduce or create new music. It can be seen that consciousness is a 4-D phenomenon. If it is a physically explainable phenomenon, such an explanation would involve EPR type effects and as such physical explanations at a quantum level will be involved.
https://philpapers.org/rec/DESCAS
20:40 The sugar/saccharin analogy for God. If God is sugar then we have evolved with a God shaped hole inside. If Saccharin, then we have evolved with a paternal/all powerful/magical person shaped hole. (think demi-god-like status for tribal leaders/witchdoctors/kings like Pharaoh, Leaders like Moses the Magician, Hitler, Mao, Kim Dynasty, etc). and religions then invented as a way to take that yearning for a great leader, create a God, introducing him as the greatest king of all, with powers outside this world as well as in, and then use that God as a puppet who directs the people according to the wishes of the state or principality. I don't think it matters to be honest. But one thing I do know…artificial sweetener is disgusting..
48:40 You're an atheist for all religions except one, I'm just an atheist for all of them. Brilliant.
An educated populace is THE cornerstone of democracy. When education fails, so does democracy, it devolves into the whim of the day driven by the ad men of religion, politics, industry, and business. Then it collapses.
Love Dennett! I can never stop listening to him! Its so easy to destroy religious arguments, they're pathetically-feeble!
Dennett even looks like Darwin! Haha 😉
Evolution = mutation that is or was environmentally advantageous
Common sense is a wonderful thing.
Yes teach them! “What are they afraid of?” …indeed.
42:00 Religions don't deal in love(!). They deal in CONTROL, through fear and repression.
I would like to thank Steve Jobs for this smartphone I'm holding.
I'm an Atheist my wife's an Atheist, my sons are Atheist and we all LOVE CHRISTMAS! If you just added up the amount of money we spend on gifts you would have to shake your head. We also tried our best for the longest time to keep our kids from discovering that Santa Claus was a real treat. Our Atheist family embrace Christmas to the extent that makes everyone think that we are Christians. Even our lifestyle is so straight with our participation with the schools that our kids went to and our involvement and the number of friends we collected from our kids school associations and all the volunteer work which was fantastic & rewarding. We look so normal everyone thinks we are Christians. We are not Christians but we sure the heck are humanist and we would give you that impression if all you did was observe our lifestyle.
Didn't know Denett was this brilliant. The articulation of ideas was just superb: "This is a bad pun. This isn't something they all believe in ."
What do they believe in ?
"They believe in belief. They believe that belief in god is so important that you should never think of abandoning it even if it meant changing the meaning of god so much that it is unrecognizable to everyone else"
yeah no one calls themselves a bright it didnt catch on