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Daniel Dennett’s talk at ImagineNoReligion3 2013 Kamloops, British Columbia
Daniel C. Dennett, the author of Breaking the Spell (Viking, 2006), Freedom Evolves (Viking Penguin, 2003) and Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (Simon &Schuster, 1995), is University Professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He lives with his wife in North Andover, Massachusetts, and has a daughter, a son, and three grandchildren. He was born in Boston in 1942, the son of a historian by the same name, and received his B.A. in philosophy from Harvard in 1963. He then went to Oxford to work with Gilbert Ryle, under whose supervision he completed the D.Phil. in philosophy in 1965. He taught at U.C. Irvine from 1965 to 1971, when he moved to Tufts, where he has taught ever since, aside from periods visiting at Harvard, Pittsburgh, Oxford, and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.
His first book, Content and Consciousness, appeared in 1969, followed by Brainstorms (1978), Elbow Room (1984), The Intentional Stance (1987), Consciousness Explained (1991), Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995), Kinds of Minds (1996), and Brainchildren: A Collection of Essays 1984-1996 (MIT Press and Penguin, 1998). Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness, was published in 2005 by MIT Press. He co-edited The Mind’s I with Douglas Hofstadter in 1981. He is the author of over three hundred scholarly articles on various aspects on the mind, published in journals ranging from Artificial Intelligence and Behavioral and Brain Sciences to Poetics Today and the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.
He gave the John Locke Lectures at Oxford in 1983, the Gavin David Young Lectures at Adelaide, Australia, in 1985, and the Tanner Lecture at Michigan in 1986, among many others. He has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Science. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1987.
He was the Co-founder (in 1985) and Co-director of the Curricular Software Studio at Tufts, and has helped to design museum exhibits on computers for the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Science in Boston, and the Computer Museum in Boston.
Credits: http://www.inr3.com/ – Imagine no Religion 3
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Jesus said He didn't come to earth to bring peace to the world, but a sword. When one looks up the word "sword" in the Greek, it means "to separate or divide". Jesus is the dividing point that separates those who are FOR Him – from those who aren't. We are choosing which side we stand on, just by our everyday choices and decisions.
A person doesn't even have to make a conscious decision about what side they are on. It's being made regardless, by the individual's daily choices and decisions.. Jesus doesn't need to send anyone to Hell, because they send their selves, based on the stance they take in life; whether its FOR Jesus or against Him. Its all about JESUS, who's at the center of it all. No worries or arguments needed … everyone just keep doing what you're doing, and it will all sort itself out.
Sing along with me: Ooooh, Dennett is dead but Dennett don't know it; his philosophy's dead but his philosophy don't know it; they're both of them dead and they're in the same bed; and neither one knows that the other is dead.
I agree with this analysis, but a word of caution. The Internet can be a swift vehicle for religion, too.
this talk made me want to go to seminary and pursue a master in divinity and go get a job as a pastor so badly.
i'm an atheist born and raised in atheist family by the way
i think more atheists should go to seminaries and pontifical universities and Christians should not, because if Christians are going to suffer their faith being shattered while we atheists don't have that problem why not let us take over?
therefore in a perfect world all clergy people will be atheists and the real believers are all lay people.
i wish in my lifetime there will be an atheist Pope. flag
Recieving Christs graces is about opening your heart, not expanding your mind or trying to make sense of the world through science and the like. When i opened my heart and accepted my lord, i began to understand what had confused me about my life and the world. Life made sense when I let go of the reigns and let God take me to where he wanted me to go. I realised how the world came about, where I come from. Why I am here and what i have to do. Why my life had no meaning in the past. Why I always wanted to complicate my life. Why I use to feel alone. Why I was afraid of death. I realised my biggest problem was me and my desires, my little plans to make money, gain prestige, gain pleasures. When I abandoned these wants and sought a simple union with God, I was reborn!
Makes sense these institutions would prey upon weak good hearted well meaning folks because even when it does dawn on them whats going on there is a low likelyhood of violent or harsh backlash against their suckerhood situation!??
Anthony Pinn makes a similar point in an excellent video. If you take away the church you leave people with nothing. What will you give them to replace it?
All those debutantes in Houston, baby, couldn't hold a candle to you.
THANK GOD FOR DARWIN !!!
Your talking about the Church of England for a century…. Just a role playing exercise from top to bottom.
I went to a school based around a major English cathedral in the 1960's and can honestly say I never met
a single person who actually believed in God.
41:50 'priests per parish' in Ireland. Here in SW France, in the Perigord, locally there are 12 village churches served by one minister – the diehards have quite a bit of travelling to do!
Daniel Dennett or Richard Dawkins for president either will get my vote
Jesus said that I had to hate my Mother to follow him. When I read that I was out of the church, permanently. St. Luke 14:26. My own brother is so besotted in the sickness that is Christianity that he abandoned his sick, elderly Mother and took no thought for her care.
Any such passage as Luke 14:26 that is so immoral as to be incomprehensible, Christians say, "Oh, that's not what that means." Even after avowing to the "in-errant word of god" test.
That's exactly what it says in the ancient Greek manuscripts.
As an afterthought, what was Jesus doing in the Garden of Gethsemane with a naked youth when the Romans came for him? Anointing him with the Water of Life, straight from the spiggot, I suppose.
Is there any precious material than Gold at this point of human evolution? I don't know that much, but he spoke the finest and purest form of Golden words here https://youtu.be/EBSeXp5juxo?t=3320 Those words are TRUE. (English is not my native language)
There will always be fools who don't believe in God — even some who go to church on Sunday… Why should anyone believe in God? … Because the study of the universe, astrophysics, quantum dynamics, particle physics, nuclear fusion, botany, biology, ecology, and zoology eventually forces us to acknowledge Intelligent Design in creation… For instance — quantum theory is so complex it confounds the greatest scientists.. Not only are we humans incapable of making a living cell in a laboratory — we humans can’t even make a single functioning atom, electron, or a quark… We've come to know atoms are tiny perpetual motion machines… But even taking atoms apart to try to make sense of the parts taxes man’s intellectual powers to the maximum.
Re: Cotillions. I'm a freelance video editor, and one of the perennial projects I'm assigned is a cotillion for African American youth in Northern California. It's… weird. Seems like a rather extreme adaptation.
The greatest crime is Religion.
A video game character does not know they are inside a video game. However, if the video game character were to start inspecting its environment closer and closer, it would start to wonder at the foundation upon which the world it lives within is built. The video-game character might then see that there is an order to the world in which it exists, it would discover that the objects in this world are composed of planes, and those planes are composed of edges, and those edges reduce to vertices. Now when the video-game character begins to wonder what is below the vertices level of its reality, it may upon further inspection discover a coded language by which all things in the characters reality seem to be accurately represented by. If the video-game character is truly intelligent, it would begin to wonder, how all of this could be, how this order and design came about, how it is that the things within its reality are so accurately described by a codified language. It would then seek to know, what designed such a language. We call this language mathematics, and it is the evidence of God, which many refuse to accept, yet worship and praise independent of its source. Math is not a thing created by man, but it is a language discovered by man, and created by an intelligence beyond our perception. Man has marveled and wondered and worshipped the created thing, while completely disregarding all evidence of the Creator. Man has served self in everyway possible, whilst denying God in every way possible. That is until Jesus Christ arrived on the scene and made a claim to rival all claims, that He is THE WORD of God and God Himself: He demonstrated and proved the reality of His claims (which even History attests to), and that is why He is the Truth, The Way, and The Life.
Romans 1:19 For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts.…
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son (Jesus Christ), that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
NON SENSE LECTURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What a goofball. An atheist talking for an hour about religion.
Brilliant mind
I was a hard core fundamental Christian for 35 years, and after attending seminary for 3 years I've come to realize the exact thing Daniel talks about from about half way of this video. The religion itself is designed to trap people and pastors knowingly mislead them. I now call pastor fraudulent con artists. My belief system no longer tolerates the lies of the church anymore. Strangely enough because of the academic learning I got from the seminary I now have no problem with believing in God but not associating with the religion. Knowledge gives power back to you and I encourage all atheists and Christians to invest some time into verifying what they believe.
Jay Kline: an excellent comment. Your experiences parallel those of so many others.
The cosmology and science in the Old Testament is Babylonian. The story of Noah is the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Babylonians considered the world to be a bubble within a universe of water. The Windows of Heaven were the windows in the east and west, that were opened to allow the sun and moon passage. Pi was the Babylonian value if 3 1/3. This is known by the dimensions of the sea of molten brass to be placed in the temple.
Some things I have learned in the last 3/4 of a century.
Most Christians do not read the bible. I have asked them to show me the Ten Commandments in the bible. They can't even find the two separate versions of the so-called Law of God given to Moses.
At different times I have taken the opposite side of a biblical question or discussion. By just quoting the bible, I have made the opposing side mad.
If one questions any cherished belief of Christians, they do get very angry. I have gotten death threats just by quoting biblical passages, that oppose their beliefs.
The really sad, or hilarious, whichever, is that most of their beliefs and practices are not scriptural.
Most low-church Protestant churches are anti-Catholic to the extreme, yet they keep Catholic holidays, their theology is Catholic, their practices are Catholic or derived from Catholic practices.
Bishop Ussher was not an ignorant bible thumper. He was probably the only cleric of that time who knew Latin, Hebrew and Greek. He did not count the generations in the bible. He determined the age of the earth using the latest scientific, historical and scriptural records available. Scientists on the Continent had calculated, by various means, that the earth was between 5,000 and 10,000 years old. Isaac Newton put the figure and some 6,000 years.
King James of bible fame, was the homosexual sex slave of the Duke of Buckingham.
The king was so good that the Duke gave him Buckingham palace..
The frontispiece of the KJV bible used to have a notation that it was the Authorized Version.
I discovered that it was the only bible allowed to be printed in England by order of Parliament.
That the middle East, from India to Greece and Mesopotamia had about 16 crucified savior gods. Each god's story is almost identical. Many of these god's mothers were some variant of Mary, kind of strange.
Judas Iscariot was the only disciple that Jesus could trust. After all Jesus could read their minds. The entire Plan of Salvation depended on the betrayal, torture, death and resurrection of Jesus. Nothing could be left to chance. Judas was probably the only one who actually loved Jesus. And as a result Jesus trusted him to carry out His instructions. Remember, Jesus could read their minds!
The gospels were not written until some one hundred years after the supposed events.
That the period of 2,000 years ago was the best recorded in all of ancient history. Not a single author related any of the events of the New Testament. Later histories did mention Jesus and the events, but they were written, usually by Christians at a later time.
The New Testament is mostly copied from the works of Flavius Josephus.
The passage in Josephus about Jesus is a blatant forgery. Even the people who put it in there now consider it forged.
The Muslim scholars saved nearly all the literature and history of Europe and the Middle East from the Church.
The only religious figure of the New Testament who existed was Paul, who was probably a Roman government agent.
I will leave on this thought, what was Jesus' name? The possibility of Palestinian parents giving a child a Greek name was as remote 2,000 years ago as it is today. Probably the only god to ever be worshipped where the worshippers don't know his name.
So, what was Jesus' name?
I believe that the growth of christianity in China is happening for TOTALLY unreligious reasons. The people of China have for decades looked at the west as the source of income and the sign of wealth. Wealthy people in China have adopted the religions of the world not only for supporting business relationships, but more recently, to show that they are "Of the World" that they are well traveled and that they are "Connected" with those wealthy cultures of the west. Just my 2 Cents.
Harold
Dennet's anti-catholicism is essentialy fruit of his misanthropy. Might one suggest reading Thomas E. Woods : How the Church Built Western Civilization.
What a wonderful lecture. As a brand new atheist submerged in a religious family and culture, I'd love to get this message out. I have no expectations that believers are going to listen to an hour contradicting their beliefs. This may be a talk most useful for those closet atheists he mentioned still in the church.
When God made Man, she was only joking!
What the hell is a "Devout Atheist"?
I've shaken off my religion but not my faith in a power greater than myself.
1:00 that is the swallowtail jig!
The demise of secrecy is the end of religious Nicolaitanism, as well as the mobilization of anti-fascistic Literalism in Churchianity. The collective will of orthodox Christianity has proven to a be a collective WON"T.
A different Thought Experiment helping you to understand the greatest enigma of all times. Who or what opened the Space-Time Inversion and set off the "Big Bang". Listen to my Podcast: https://youtu.be/2nTtoiNIkDk
This really speaks to me.
Coming out as atheist to my family would not benefit me at all. They don’t thump bibles per se, but change and difference are too threatening to them. A few cousins seem to be anti-religion, but I perceive that as more rebellion and anti-establishment than critical reasoning. And they are not well-received by the rest.
So I stay in character. I play the role of the anthropologist, studying while not perturbing. I use Street Epistemology when it fits, but mostly I don’t rock the boat. I am well received there, which suits me fine. I find intellectual fulfilment elsewhere.
Come out. Come out. It makes things change when people know.
Faith we must have in people's intelligence, to Be with The One!! Technology allows & Groovism is the belief system, for us all to unite. http://www.groovism.org will broadcast The One Groove. upon completion. When enough of us are with The One, for a long enough period of time, miracles are foreseen to begin occurring. Faith in the unseen power of Grooving creating an epiphany!!
Hang on the internet was designed ,so who designed that ? cognitive dissonance this guy has and no one question him as he said this .He is also steering the audience who also has cognitive dissonance to what ..?
I more than respect a scholar who can say "I don't know" to a question.. not all piss and wind like the barber's cat.. "I don't Know.."… RESPECT..
Can a Natural misunderstood event cause a culture or belief system to evolve? Did a volcano erupting, clouds swirling, deluge of rain falling cause the town, Mr/Ms Wisdom to come up with an answer for all those asking for security and answers, Did Mr/Ms wisdom feel compelled to come up with the concept of something more Wisdomness than themselves because they could not explain what they were now having to deal with their own evolving sense of reason . God Slowly materialised.. or @50:47 fiction stories that over time became legends and a real ness attached to them
I assume this presentation was this year (2018). (I am a firm atheist and have always been and I thoroughly enjoy Mr. Dennett). But, Hello!, he is certainly not watching world events. Just look who's in the U.S. white house, look at the crazy middle east (crazy as ever). I would also like to be optimistic but humans do not change quickly (despite "the fall of the USSR") if at all. Evolution is can be painfully slow, ie. many millennia. Any progress towards reason/rationalism will likely be incremental and all we can do is make slight changes and brace ourselves for the steps backwards that will inevitably follow. Humans are humans and will always be. Our increasingly sophisticated toys and weapons aside, the fact is that our brains are steeped in a very long pattern of tribalism which has always included mysticism and the paranormal to gain and maintain power and control of resources and each other and that will assuredly continue far beyond our current ability to foresee the future. Thank you, anyway… Keep up the good work…
SIR CHRIST LIVED 200 YEARS AGO THAT YOU MAY HAVE THE CHANCE TO RECEIVE THE FREE GIFT OF SALVATION THROUGH PUTTING YOUR FAITH AND TRUST IN HIM
AS GOD'S MESSIAH AND DEDICATING YOUR LIFE TO HIM….I FIND IT SO HEARTBREAKING TO HEAR FROM NATURALIST, HUMAN SECULARIST, OR RELATIVIST WHO SPEAK OF LIFE LIKE A DAY AT THE BEACH THEN COMPLAIN "WELL IF GOD EXIST THEN WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN" PROBLEM IS YOU DO REALIZE ALL THE BLASPHEMY YOU HAVE ALREADY SPOKE OPPSED TO GOD BEFORE THAT STATEMENT…THE QUESTION BECOMES WHY DOESN"T HE CRUSH ALL OF MANKIND AND IMPART SOULS TO SOME OTHER BEAST AND HAVE THE BEAST GORGE ON THE FLESH OF IRREVERANT ARROGANT HUMANITY TO EXTINCTION…??? THE scientist after 6000 years of written history came up the origin of species (A THEORY) and time + SPACE + MATTER + CHANCE is how the universe began when in genisis 1;1 said that 5000 years ago…"In the begining(time) +GOD CREATED THE HEAVENS (SPACE)+ AND THE EARTH(MATTER) ….the ignorant scientist was beaten to the punch by , ohhhhh, 5000 years….it was there in the 1800 during the age of enlightenment when men of science said in 100 years we will fully understand origin,morals,meaning, and destiny , through philosophy,science ,math physics etc…etc…wa waa wa waa waa waa wa waa wa wa waa…. N O T O N E
S I N G L E answert other than the one that sat in the very first words of GOD for millennia…..MEN of S C I E N C E are not looking smart A T A L L and haven't answered any of the questions they promised 200 years ago , in fact it magnifies the extreme arrogance and ignorance of all those who L O V E sounding so smart but like their predcessors are just lost little ignorant boys playing with pencils…lol ha
EVEN DARWIN RECANTED CHANCE AS THE LAST FACTOR OF BIG BANG time+ Space + matter GARBAGE by the time of his DEATH IN FAVOR OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN ….A CREATOR HAD BEEN ABOUT THE GARDEN…….RAVE ON SELF IMPORTANT MEN OF ARROGANCE, I"LL CHOSE THE CREATOR THE GOD OF ABRAHAM , ISAAC, AND JACOB….CHRIST SAVES IGNORANT, ARROGANT SINNERS LIKE YOURSELF, FIND HIM FIND LIFE>