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http://www.ted.com Philosopher Dan Dennett calls for religion — all religion — to be taught in schools, so we can understand its nature as a natural phenomenon. Then he takes on The Purpose-Driven Life, disputing its claim that, to be moral, one must deny evolution.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers are invited to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes — including speakers such as Jill Bolte Taylor, Sir Ken Robinson, Hans Rosling, Al Gore and Arthur Benjamin. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, politics and the arts. Watch the Top 10 TEDTalks on TED.com, at
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To devote yourself to anything is you de-voting, surrendering your vote and giving up on facts.
Modern "Intelligent Design" does not work because it assumes a mechanical worldview with no teleology. Teleology or final causality must first be argued in order for the overall argument of Intelligent Design to work. Aristotelian metaphysics can be utilized to effectively argue for final causality. It is reasonable to teach about all religions but always keeping in mind that each religion makes exclusive truth claims that contradict other truth claims from other religions so logically either one is true or none of them is true. This Protestant Pastor is offering a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis which comes from 19th-century fundamentalism and not from the traditional Christian interpretation of the Bible which come from ancient schools of Antioch and Alexandria.
Looks like Socrates finally started writing things down.
Looks like he has been punched in the nose allot. He still fails to explain how everything came to be from something the size of a basketball. The poetry is fine though.
Atheist talk about God more than Religious people do. Talk about ironic.
it is hilarous 'cause there are NO facts on religion
I am SO grateful that this poor misguided man showed exactly where he was coming from, in under a minute and a half, saving me from, having to watch the entire video, which would be more of the same. We live in a country where this man is free to speak what he believes, right or wrong, because the founders of this country believed that God had inspired them. If you doubt that, read the addresses given by Washington.
Let's put a finer point on what is often a muddled idea. Religion is not necessarily based on God or his directives. Often, religion is a replacement system for following God. Following God is based on his Word. The problem for the non-believer is differentiation, or what the Bible calls "discernment.". The non-believers have the problem of not being able to tell a blue Chevy from a blue Pontiac. To them, they are just blue cars, essentially the same. Telling them apart requires more effort, and that is an effort they do not wish to exert, because it takes them way from viewing themselves as the center of their own "accidental" universe. In a way, this ego driven desire to be in charge blinds them to God, and pushes them toward trying to make government their replacement for God. This is why socialism and God cannot exist in the same person.
Dennett has quite the prodigious brain.
Good talk. But trim that beard!
But…what is Nature?
Scientists claim to prove everything. Its nothing more than theories. Just like people say religion contradicts it self so does science. How is that there are over 200 parameters of the universe for human life to exist. If the universe were created ever so slightly different we couldn't exist. Yet every thing fell into place so perfectly by an explosion that exploded out of nothing. Yet none of these geniuses have an explanation. Science doesn't explain everything. They say that thermodynamics that every cant be created or destroyed yet they say the universe was created by a big bang. It takes more faith to believe that this universe was created by accident than to believe in a Intelligent designer.
We didn't design the cow, for fuck's sake!! It's called artificial selection.
Simply by questioning and analysing the sense and veracity of RW's ideas in his thoroughly open-minded, scientific manner, Dan Dennett gives undue credence is given to RW's ridiculous non-sequiturs.
Atheists are fools following fools. It is spiritually natural for us to create religion. It's natural for us to worship the Creator. Sin made us unnatural. We now have the ability to worship the unnatural.
"Be careful to do everything I have said to you. Do not invoke the names of other gods; do not let them be heard on your lips." Shemot/Exodus 23:13
Rick Warren, Daniel Dennett, Harris, Dawkins, Dsouza, and on and on can all just STFU until they're willing to give away everything they have to validate their positions. I give leeway to Hitch – he was unapologetic about his elitism.
Moral to this presentation is: don't listen to your brain, its infected by bs of men (the paint). Listen to your guts, infected by millions of fellow micro-organisms living along with you ( the machine below the paint). Well, what am I wasting time here sharing ideas with youtube and its minions.
You can't get yourself to release the people
of the world into the wilderness of freedom for
their own self-determination?
You want to propose to bring the religions of
the world closer to our children? Maybe some will
listen. Not the moral people. Not those who
stand on ethically firm ground.
Only the desperate, only those left behind by
fate. Only those who are burdened by the load of
the world. And those who try to balance their
malice with piety.
Tell them about the promises of the religions,
and if these poor people have to suffer again and
again, tell them again the stories of the
religions.
But please also condemn those who, with the
ignorance and credulity of the common man, do
their dark business in the name of religion.
Convincing Delusion.
One has o be so brain washed to believe in ancient myths it is hard to fathom. Religion has always been a way for the more intelligent to control the masses. The Roman Catholic church has been doing it for 1700 years. Islam has been doing it for 1500 years. P.T. Barnum was so right when he said there is a sucker born every minute.
I was educated on religions since 2012, in history class. This is the exact way they were presented. Thank you, Dan Dennett.
He must make the best Santa Claus impersonator at Christmas. Even the voice sounds festive.
THIS IS UPSIDE DOWN,BACK TO FRONT AND INSIDE OUT….ask the Auroch..ask the Mouflon….oh thats right …you can't
But it goes exactly against the idea of religions in the first place. We were hardly able to go to another baptist church(i mean we were always under the churches desire that we never go to any other church unless we moved)let alone learn about any other religions.
So how do you do anything with this kind of fundamentalism that has divided and alienated and polarized a whole nation of willing subjects.
People who cannot tell poetry from prose take religious myths (poetry) literally, as if the myths were prose.
Both professional atheists, and a large chunk of Christian ministers are such people. The religious impulse, combined with culturally bound ideas, has given rise to all sorts of myths throughout world history. To suppose that because these myths are not literally true the religious impulse is somehow invalidated is absurd in my opinion. Of course folks who cling to myths, mistakenly identifying the myths as the essence of religion, are subject to a host of absurdities such as denying evolution, and science in general. If people inclined to the spiritual could recognize myths as poetic stories, not meant to be taken literally, and people who are not inclined toward the spiritual could look a bit deeper into man's inherent capacity for transcendence, from which the religious impulse originates, there would be no need for conflict.
Clearly Dan, political expediency doesn't justify erroneous conclusions. If you actually believe in Al Gore's false global warming science I find you not based in objective truth but rather in hysterical religious belief. If you convince China and India first, who are far greater threats to your well being, to take responsibility for their destruction of our environment in proportion, then I will join your parade but remember all I have seen in the past 65 years is handing the reigns over to despots who destroy all of us even faster. Support where you came from don't assist it's destruction. Christian morals laid the foundation for fair trade not Nietzschean ideals.
Common sense speaking.
Wow, the professors and teachers have no intelligence. It basically doesn't exist. All we are is just chemicals. So don't call anybody and intelligent life form.
Is this fool for real?
If you look up educated idiot, you'll see this guys face.
It is interesting to note that if you were proposing the mandatory teaching of differences in the world of art, or culture, or math, or technology, or politics, or food, or myths & legends, or anything else but religion, it would be completely without controversy. However, because you are proposing that kids be subjected to the different religious beliefs in the world, people reject the idea, almost reflexively. Apparently, we don't want our religion (whatever that may be) to be subjected to comparisons with other ones. We also, apparently, don't want our religion(s) to be talked about objectively, and by people who are not necessarily in favor of it, and by people who are also equally discussing other religions. Why? Well, control, of course! And fear, as well! Fear that they will lose control of their own ability to indoctrinate the young in the subjective untruths of their own religion!!! You'll never 'get away' with it. Too bad, because it might actually inform an otherwise ignorant youth. And we just can't have that, now can we? I submit to you that evolution is at work again. We fear that we can't raise our own children to believe what we believe, because doing so is necessary for our species, since we lack much of what other species already possess in the form of instincts. Even though we've gone beyond the need for such things (in many cultures, at least), we still retain the instinct to try! We are suspicious, superstitious, paranoid, afraid, and prone to belief in myth, legends & religions. That, at least, we have not outgrown. The only thing for it is to fight within ourselves, for control of ourselves! That is what we need to teach our children!!! Rikki Tikki.
But it depends how one surrenders, and for what cause— e.g. The Good Samaritan. The profoundness of its meaning is that the goses {Heb} is half dead/half alive, and each respondent can hide in his religion's dogma to be 'clean'. Once you commit to a religion, you put on the lenses it knows you've submitted to…. unless u repent.
at 1:29 it becomes obvious the speaker is a fool; Thinking himself wise of course by filling his mind with things that are not real nor true because he has some hatred for God? He wants to feel comfortable in rejecting God and needs others to share in his severe error. Its a cow. God created it around 6000 years ago or so. It didnt evolve, it didnt come from a fish. Likewise man and woman were created by God as human. It takes far more faith in the invisible and unprovable to accept evolution than it does to accept that God created this earth. So this bearded old fool will spew his poison for the minds of a TED audience and they will applaud. sad.
I'm a committed Christian, and I buy 90-95% of what Dennett is saying here: develop broad awareness of the religious world, recognize the sophistication and explanatory power of leading scientific theories, don't give up on reason, try to develop a realistic picture of human life within the universe, act as responsible stewards. I even think the Bible would side with Dennett over Rick Warren on a couple of points–for example, Creation is not built around human life (see Gen. 1; things were good before there were people). Dennett, on the other hand, might do well to read the Book of Jonah to get a better understanding of how Christians and Jews see God engaging those outside of our faiths; God cares about Muslims and Hindus too. Dennett's closing comments are uncharitable and misinformed (likely conflating cases where Christianity is someone's excuse with cases of bona fide ortho-praxy).
He's a silly unself-aware Marxist who denies how people learn and pretends not to be a propagandist for nihilism.
I like his point. I just wish he could have expressed it better.
Does this guy believe the quackery he’s spewing?
Hey, while we are at it, lets require that all children understand the full history of the Democrat party. Trail of Tears, Slavery, Jim Crow, KKK, Japanese internment and embracing communism/socialism (we could do a whole course on the connection of the Democrat party to Fascism, Socialism, Communism as well).
The trouble with teaching children about every religion is that the heart, the core of each religion is in the experience of it (see Joseph Campbell's interviews with Bill Moyer). the outward "look" of the religion gets taken as the definition of it, rather than what it accomplishes inside for people learning and growing within that particular religion through daily experience, habit ritual or ceremony. Other people's religions often get conveyed to children (even by well-meaning teachers) as primitive or backward or misguided.
For 5 years I was a benedictine monk: we had a farm, our neighbor raised sheep. People don't realize how incredibly stupid domesticated sheep are. They will stand in front of empty food troughs and water bins instead of looking for sustenence. People growing up in urban or suburban environments, where all their food comes from the grocery store, neatly packaged, don't have a clue what farm animals are like, and when they cheerfully sing about being the lambs of god don't understand most of those lambs are Easter Dinner …
Most of the adherents of any given religion will protest that the "teachers of world religions" in schools (at least public schools) do not / will not be correctly teaching their doctrine. Therefore, to be fair, such classes will need to have a quick succession of 'true believers' doing the actual teaching. i.e., A rabbi comes in on week 1 to teach judaism, a priest instructs them in week 2 on catholicism, a towel-head describes islam in week 3, etc., where the nominal teacher acts as a moderator or the 'counter-point' person to play devil's advocate (teach the kids the drawbacks to each religion that the rabbi's, priests, etc., failed to point out).
We have Greek mythology,Roman mythology, Norse Mythology and on and on and we also have Jew Mythology.