Rorty00
Daniel Dennett deconstructs pastor Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life.” This is only a segment of the discussion given by Dan Dennett at TED. Please see the entire discussion to see how THIS portion fits into Dennett’s larger discussion on the design and evolution of religions themselves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w036xAbSEs
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Daniel Dennett deconstructs “Purpose Driven Life” (SEGMENT)
I read the "Purpose-driven life…" and I am more than convinced that it is sheer garbage. But he made a fortune because of it!
Those who are trying to tell the truth don't make money!
Think of the fortune made by Pat Robertson with his Christian Coalition!
Again: people that lie to us are money-makers! Those who want to live honestly are poor!
Dennett is a very, very, very forgiving guy….
@DragMeToHellLuc "There is no meaning in life outside of faith in God."
This opinion and is false. There is no proof that any god exists. We are faced here with a problem: indeed, there is no meaning in life, except for the meaning WE are assigning to our life.The only condition to understand our life consists in us being sincere.
Many of us prefer the lies to being truthful. It is obvious that Jesus was wrong when he said that we can move a mountain with faith. This is a lie. We cannot!
@DragMeToHellLuc "All morality comes from religion and from God."
Again, this is false! In the Ancient Greece people were moral. They said "you need to help the foreigner who comes from afar"! And yet those were people who doubted the existence of gods!
On the other hand, the worst person i know is a born-again American who went to the Romanian land of Moldova to convince those people that the gays should be killed!
So much for the "godly morality"!
His name is …Erik Brewer !
@DragMeToHellLuc
"to not believe in God is ridiculous"
No, it is ridiculous to believe in god without any proof! You are wrong again!
@DragMeToHellLuc "That is why children naturally flock to God from the age of five." What planet are you living on? In my experience, kids hate going to church and have to be bribed with toys and Taco Bell to behave. Also, kids often ask difficult questions that their parents have no good answers for, like "Why does my (Jewish) friend Sarah have to go to hell?" It isn't until high school that some kids start to ask the questions that religion provides easy, unthinking, comfortable answers for.
@DragMeToHellLuc "Everything we have was based on the Bible." Wrong, sir! Let's try one out. Do you think slavery is wrong? Where is that stated in the Bible? How about democracy? Are you a fan of that? God favors theocracy, but will grudgingly accept monarchy. In the New Testament the position is modified so that any government must be supported regardless of how corrupt it is. Do you agree with that statement? How about tolerance of religious minorities? Good luck! Think before you speak.
@DragMeToHellLuc (1/2) "There is no meaning in life outside of faith in God." Speak for yourself. The arrogance of monotheism lies in the conviction that everyone on Earth must have the same purpose – conveniently the purpose which they have already chosen for their own lives. According to the book, the purpose of every human is to palliate the easily bruised ego of an intergalactic super-being. Furthermore, if I fail to agree and work toward this purpose the aforementioned being will…
@DragMeToHellLuc (2/2) look the other way as I am shunted off to eternal torment for my difference of opinion. The book would even go so far as to say I deserved such treatment. My response is, fuck you. Eternal punishment for any discrete crime is wrong, as is any punishment for one's thoughts. So eternal punishment for one's thoughts is fractally wrong. Not to mention, if one is "surrendered," i.e. a slave, then one is enacting not their own purpose, but the purpose of their master. I'm free.
@DragMeToHellLuc I've read the Bible, my friend. That's why I know God favors corrupt monarchies and sanctions slavery in both the New & Old Testaments. That's also why I'm familiar with the Christian message of unthinking obedience to arbitrary authority based on self-interest and fear. Am I stubborn? No. I was actually hoping you'd give a more thoughtful reply. Am I rebellious? Against a tyrant who threatens to torture me for my thoughts, yes. Have I asked God for help? I'd rather ask Hitler.
@DragMeToHellLuc Are you at least willing to concede that at least some of our morals come not from God, but from reason and experience? Even in your storybook, we only acquired "Knowledge of good and evil" against God's direct orders. He punished men with work and women with a painful childbirth for all time. How many millions of women, according to you, have bled to death with ruptured vaginas as a direct result of your God's "mercy"? How many men have been enslaved for their labor? E-V-I-L.
@DragMeToHellLuc The fact that you've never heard of Daniel Dennett is not a credit to you, and may explain why your reasoning and debating skills are so poor. He may be the greatest living American philosopher, as you would know had you ever taken a single course on the subject. As for parroting lies, all of my accusations against your evil God come directly from the Bible you believe he "inspired." I can cite chapter and verse for all of them. Can you do the same? I doubt you've ever read it.
@DragMeToHellLuc You're right, we don't have slavery anymore. Do you know why? People, in various societies over centuries, observed firsthand the cruelties of slavery, developed a rudimentary philosophy of human rights, and came to the conclusion that owning a human being was inherently wrong, even if one treated them well. The Bible was not helpful in the least. There were Christian abolitionists, but there were also Christian slaveholders, and the latter had the support of the text itself.
@DragMeToHellLuc Ah, the old ad hominem attacks. This is the oldest trick in the book. Feminists might say that anyone who disagrees with them has been brainwashed by a phallocentric culture. Communists might say that anyone who disagrees with them is a tool of international capitalism. And Christians say that anyone who disagrees with them is serving the Devil, or is a "fool". Paul was the first, in Romans. A muslim might say the same about you. This is a hateful, small-minded logical fallacy.
The cadence of the words, "Every time you read it or say it, you make another copy in your brain," was very pleasing. I think I'll repeat that a few times out loud…. Ah, now that's good stuff.
@orionclock Haha, not really. Dennett's critiques are always done in the old-philosopher style, which means he lavishes superficial compliments on the author he's critiquing, which is actually a way of being condescending.
Thank goodness that your perspectives are essentially irrelevant, due to almost no one actually ever wanting to hear what you say, except for a few santa clone students from his school.
@48acar19 I can't help thinking you are serious.
@instereovideos Yes. Reference also Marcus Antony's lines in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
For Brutus is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men, —
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.
maybe a pedantic point, but the word "deconstructs" is really misleading in the title.
How is right and wrong justified without an ultimate authority?
I do not believe there is any discernible reason any authority should have the capacity to offer you any reconciliation or justification for anything… not in the sense that one might hope to make of transcendental objective morality.. try to imagine an organism (made of carbon molecules) which is said to attempt to lend you moral justification.. appealing to that organism for guidance… now imagine that this organism is made of evaporated vaporous water..i hope this organism begins to vanish
So you don't believe in an objective morality?
I believe it is objective, no matter how infinite the number of situations it may be there will always be a right answer. If it were to be subjective than all answers to any situation were all to be equal, and that right and wrong doesn't exist. Clearly it does, and the fact that every civilization known to man has laws against rape and murder, regardless of how imperfect the system was, there must be an objective morality that we are striving for.
i don't agree. We can more plausibly interpret rape/murder to be fundamentally civil disobedient and dysfunctional behaviors.. And, in actuality there have been numerous civilizations which have and remain to be murder/rape permitting… it is important to acknowledge that function is not a measure of moral certitude or info. what's more, if we were to hold moral codes which were ubiquitous (shared among all cultures) it would not evidence moral objectivity.. universality cannot speak to kind..
Theists are so anthropocentric. They think whole universe is a stage for their deeds. Seeking for "an ultimate authority" is so pathetic. Just imagine – that Gods chosen spiece is, lets say, ants. And ants got their own Testaments, in which humans are described as plague.
To be gnostic means to know that Jesus(Yeshua) cursed the proverbial fig leaves, said not take vows, and replaced the old covenant with the new one to love one another at the last supper….and of course the creation and flood stories are just parables.
What a class act. Fellow atheists take notes ….maybe try a posture more like Dr. Dennett's over the typical approach of "you're creatard moron, etc."
book is crap
Religion is about painkilling. When you can win the physical battle, you win it in your head. Life is unbeatable. On our own, life gets us and tears us apart sooner or later, one way or the other. There's no beating it, no getting around it except through our head. This is where religion comes it. Religion dopes us into believing that our wishful thinking is afterall true, the same way panadol dopes us into thinking our back pain is gone even though it's still 100% there.