darktango78
A clip from Daniel Dennett’s talk, ‘The Evolution of Confusion’, at the Atheist Alliance International 2009 Convention in Burbank, California.
The full length, original video was filmed by Josh Timonen and edited by Joel Pashby and is available from the richarddawkinsdotnet channel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_9w8JougLQ
Source
Dennett is not promoting atheism or science, Dennett is promoting Dennett.
he is showing off his brain power to manipulate other people's meaning and what you see as the facta that govern your life.
that was Dangerous when it was first done buy another 8% group called the Marxists.
I am going to take the point of view of history before Dennett's
@AfterFauve001 haha i do not believe anyone has the answers sir. and secondly your arguing semantics. what i clearly meant is that atheist reject the claims of people who claim to know that god exists and to know this god personally. everything else is not a point of view of an atheist.
@AfterFauve001 do you understand this difference. athesit could well disagree on every other fact or question that this world offers. atheism only mean non-theistic. all claims that religions make are unconvincing and not backed up. i dont know how you misconstrued my argument to be militanlty or evangelically atheist.sorry for your misunderstanding of my position. theres ur PM.
@AfterFauve001 an agnostic atheist is one who admits he doestn know but has been given no compelling proof that any god, (christain, hindu, muslim, deists, etc.) exists. there are a millino other ways we could have come about some possiblities we cant even comprehend. so the real sad thing is your utter lack of knowledge about what it means to be athesits. you commit hyperbolic generalizations which is a fallacy. and science IS objective inherently, it has to be.
'theologians have often said it was impossible' eg Augustine, although it wasn't theology until Acquinas after Aristotle= a combination of science and philosophy.
Dennett is disingenuous, he is not talking about theology but about disciples and departments (those things that make up a discipline)
You can apply what he says to philosophy and science, which nobody does, you do astronomy or logic or ethics, and Dawkins and Dennett explain to atheists how to think like a good atheist…tu quoque
the course is called Rhetoric, everyone should take it, but it died out in the middle ages and with ethics, physics, grammar and logic became philosophy:)
@davdevalle I gotta say, I'm having a hard time figuring out what you're saying.
which bit? tu quoque -is you apply the argument you use against others to yourself. attacking someone ad hominem never defeats an argument. Dan accuses theologians of being disingenous, its all spin….
what he says about theology 'its all spin' has has been said about philosophy (eg by Wolpert and Dawkins) and the 'science' of biochemical psychiatry, this spin the psychiatrist believes, patient believes the psy. Psy charisma is the predictive variable in successful therapy, spin as placebo
@davdevalle Just to focus on something concrete, could you tell me where exactly Dawkins has said that "Philosophy is all spin"? I've never heard him say anything of the sort.
@darktango78 "quotes" don't mean Dawkins said it per se. It is a paraphrase. But let it pass. When I worked in building I did use concrete. But nothing I say is concrete or not concrete but just WORDS. As Dawkins theory says minds get infected by memes. Words are one way memes work. Dennett never worked on a building site in his life, I have seen his hands. let's focus on
on philosophers like Dennett
@davdevalle I was obviously using "concrete" as an adjective meaning "specific".
So, let me get this straight: you don't seem to think concrete meaning is conveyable, you invent positions for your opponents and then won't cite your sources, you obfuscate by changing the topic (to Dennett's building skills) and you still wonder why a position such as yours would be criticized as unhelpful at best?
@darktango78 no – nope using concrete has implicature (see Grice) you want to focus upon. I did not invent a position, Wolpert has said and Dawkins implied what I wrote. You need to read more carefully. Opponent who said anything about opponent, Dawkins and Wolpert are colleagues in the scientific enterprise. I value philosophy, the irony is that philosophy is to theology for many scientists. My position? Tu Quoque loook it up. Dennett criticises the man not the argument. Like you do.
@davdevalle First, regarding "concrete", Webster's definition 3b of the term states: "specific, particular".
Second, you're the one making a claim about Dawkins. You're the one who should support it. Telling me to "look it up" is inadequate.
Third and final, saying "well, some people think your field is BS too" is not even a valid defense. You're not countering any of the arguments presented by Dennett, nor even denying the charge, for that matter.
@darktango78 your talking to me not a dictionary. Conversational implicature, you know the connotations of concrete in these kinds of discussion. Its your rhetorical ploy or are you naive? I didn't say "your field is BS". Dennett did not present any arguments. This is utube not a conference, look it up. 'Charge' . I am a scientist, Dennett is a philosopher. Tu quoque is a an argument against those who argue against the man and not the argument which Dennett did and which you are also doing.
@davdevalle
"you know the connotations of concrete"
The dictionary definition agrees with my intent. Telling me what I meant is ridiculous.
"This is utube not a conference, look it up."
You made the claim. YOU look it up and give me a link
Dennett and Dawkins are friends. Dawkins is in the audience at this conference. Dawkins consults Dennett. To say Dawkins has no respect for philosophy is simply false.
I'm not "arguing against the man". I'm saying you have yet to make an argument.
@darktango78 err, tu quoque is an argument. 'figure it out, or try wikipedia' or Aristotle'. I didn't say no respect, I said spin, I mentioned Wolpert, and Dawkins on 'fashionable nonsense' you may say what he criticises is not philosophy sure, but that is only opinion. The philosophy of philosophy is another discussion. Theologians have said theology is impossible. To portray a discipline as only about application is selective most disciplines are, including preachers of scientism.
what worse philosophy than theology? Ascribing emotions to inanimate objects.
Genes cannot be selfish or unselfish, any more than atoms can be jealous, elephants abstract or biscuits teleological. Why don't Dennett and Dawkins get on with some real original work improving their ideas instead of wasting time with stuff they hold in contempt, shooting fish in a barrel? Have they run of ideas? Read Eagleton vol 28 no 20 London Review B 19 october 2006 on Dawkins bad theology etc…
@darktango78 to help you look it up, here is Eagleton "With dreary predictability, Daniel C. Dennett defines religions at the beginning of his Breaking the Spell as "social systems whose participants avow belief in a supernatural agent or agents whose approval is to be sought," which as far as Christianity goes is rather like beginning the history of the potato by defining it as a rare species of rattlesnake" (p. 50). Reason Faith and Revolution. Many memes infected minds -truthfulness needed
@CartesianTheist Nonsense.
@Zenome What "normal facts" do you claim I'm "deranging"? They only person I asked to "look it up" was someone who asked me to do so first in lieu of making an argument.
This is from a longer presentation where Dennett is summarizing his study on atheist preachers. What he says about seminary isn't his own guess but statements made by people who attended seminary and lost faith.
@rainbowofhazes Yup. I name and link the full video in the information bar.
@AegeanKing If you're interested in seeing where his knowledge about seminaries comes from (first hand accounts from theologians who attended the seminaries) you can watch the full length video which I link to in the description box.
@AegeanKing Also, if you're interested in jumping straight to where he describes the theologians involved and how the interviews were conducted for the study, you can go to the 5:35 mark in said linked video were he begins.
@AegeanKing He's not claiming to be a biblical scholar, but he is citing people who are; e.g. Bart Ehrman. In my second comment to you, I give you a timestamp in the linked video where he states where he's getting his information. Namely, it's the result of interviewing attendees of theological seminary.
@AegeanKing Ok. So make a video about it 🙂
do people really pay to see other people laugh about religion? LOL I can do that for free…
@alfredozaher You can also play football, tell jokes and sing for free, too. People pay to see things done well.
@KenMacMillan How do you figure?
@KenMacMillan I would say that it was theologians who in *part* gave rise to *aspects* of science (particularly some forms of logic, which, if you see the entire lecture by Dennett, he mentions and grants).
But even so, that doesn't imply that modern day theology is warranted and that their conclusions should be considered valid.
One could say, "if it weren't for alchemy there'd be no modern chemistry". That doesn't make alchemy true. Newton was also an alchemist, by the way.
@KenMacMillan That's like saying we wouldn't have chemistry without alchemy. So if you are intellectually honest and think that such an evolution of thought gives credibility to earlier counterparts, prepare to be embarrassed.
@davdevalle he doesn't actually, you know, say that genes actively think and are selfish…
@GotmyplaceinHell what are you talking about
really informative and interesting
Something is missing in his explanation, an example. I'm sure he could make a great one, but he didn't, I suppose.
I can top that. Without theology atheism would not exist.
[the big intellectual issues of faith] What big intellectual issues? Any theologian accepts by default the truth of the proposition he tries to "investigate". There´s no inquiry, just an attempt to find new ways to justify your a priori assumptions about reality. A theologian knows he is not doing his work well when he fails to properly rationalize and justify his biases, so he need to train and research a little more until he can. No rational endeavor works this way.
Daniel Dennet is the most overrated thinker in America. Here he demonstrates his usual sophomoric take on religion and theology that should embarrass anybody his age. When Christopher Hitchens did these types of attacks on religion, his vast understanding of the subject, his great intellect, wit and skill as a speaker held you spellbound. Dennet sounds simply like an arrogant old fool.
"It was theologians who gave rise to science"
Yes, but it was fish who gave rise to humans.
Theology does have some interesting aspects, such as historical documents, to even exploring primitive cultures, but to give theology a place into exploring the natural world or the unknown, is fallacious, and historically not that effective, unlike science.
bu orospu çocuğunu daha fazla konuşturmasınlar darvin kılıklı piç
niye senmi konuşacan amk 😛
Theology is like philosophy systemically shapes the Christian worldview, not merely a matter of viewing the historical past through ancient and classical Jewish documents. Rather it articulates how humans relate to God & one another. It encompasses ethics, politics, law, doctrines and creeds about how we should order and live our lives. It fosters culture, science & scholarship. Through it the West has evolved to this point in history; before encountering Christianity Europe was lost.
For the sake of winning the game, please sit him down. Both as a philosopher and atheist, his' is a losing cause. Why replace religious fundamentalist mythopoeia with that of an effete atheist? Your team must be desperate for players. He is not on a par with superiorly trained Christian theologians and philosophers who do an entirely great job at presenting their worldview. After reading and listening to him and Dawkins, I am fascinated with Christian apologists like Craig and Plantinga.
Probably a theologian or biblical scholar would be the best possibly trained atheist scholar. Generally speaking, these scholars (PhD’s) know history, traditions, philosophy, philology, interdisciplinary studies and anthropology quite well. The atheist who is not a theologian is not an authority on atheism. The theologian is an authority on atheism.
Somebody could help me to understand what he says on the minute 1:23 ?
I am trying to translate it to Portuguese, but I can't understand the English words he used in.. "For years I though it was just a sort of an "excretion"?? That's what I heard 🙁
Someone can type the full sentence here?
Thank you 🙂