Daniel C. Dennett, author of "Breaking the Spell" on what the internet is doing to religious belief and why.

http://www.wsj.com/article_email/why-the-future-of-religion-is-bleak-1430104785-lMyQjAxMTI1MzIwODUyOTg2Wj


Once I was exposed to Daniel and others who thought and published the opposite of what I was taught my whole life to be "truths" only then did life begin to make sense.

Only then did I see the deliberate ignorance being taught so those being controlled would never look at the other side of the coin, therefore robbing myself and those around me of our rights to decide by a lack of informed consent.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/2015 10:49AM by AmIDarkNow?.

From the article:

"Laughter is particularly subversive. A Mormon watching the episode of “South Park” that lampoons the Church of Latter-day Saints doesn’t just see some outsiders poking fun at her religion. She learns that vast numbers of people find her religion comical, preposterous, ludicrous, as confirmed by the writers’ decision to belittle it and the networks’ decision to broadcast it. This may heighten her loyalty, but it also may shake her confidence, and as soon as she even entertains the hypothesis that belief in God might be a life-enhancing illusion, not a rock-solid truth, she is on the slippery slope."

Mormons have in the past done a spectacular job of controlling what the members know about the rest of the world, other religions, and even their own religion. In the "information age," they can no longer control those things...and TSCC loses.

This one phrase stood out to me,

"Religious leaders of all faiths are struggling to find ways of keeping their institutions going, and one of the themes emerging from the surveys they conduct is that creed should be de-emphasized and loyalty and community should be fostered."

Nails what the mormons are doing right now.

Truths along the same lines:

http://www.alternet.org/belief/take-christian-right-americans-go-church-about-much-godless-europeans

(Mr. Dennett, if you want to chastise others for accepting Templeton Foundation funds then the least you can do is refrain from writing for Mr. Murdoch. Isn't that fair?)

Human

I heard Dennett deliver this same message in a debate organised by a Christian university a few years ago over here. He annihilated the opposition (a bunch of Christian professors, publicists and politicians) to the point where even the creationist crowd in attendance admitted he won the debate.

I have loved Dennett since he participated in a Dutch philosophy TV show in the early 1990s. I think he is the smartest American alive today and a most amiable fellow too. He even signed my copy of Darwin's Dangerous Idea.

O, and in case you're wondering what a philosophy TV show is:

You put Dennett, Oliver Sacks, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Toulmin, Rupert Sheldrake and Freeman Dyson in a room with 6 chairs, let them talk for 15 hours and broadcast it in 7 nights without commercials:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpwW1A7bLV_yxWe9_l7rt4X09plJ6SFLw

Daniel C. Dennett encourages me TO THINK, along with other intelluctuals, commentators, journalists, etc. such as Christopher Hitchens, Richard Carrier, Stephen Fry and so on. I appreciate and thank these people and so many others for their dedication and sacrifice towards the goal of enlightenment and dialogue.

The Black-Suit Doofuses standing at the Mormon conference building podium pontificating in their drooling sing-song special so-spiiritul voices, NOT SO MUCH! They DO NOT make me think but rather they make me.....

*** very, very angry at times

*** laugh at their ridiculous views, cover-ups, hats and faces of many colors which they think they look so wonderfully good wearing

*** shed tears for what they say and the damage it is doing and has done. ESPECIALLY TO INNOCENT AND BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN

*** continually rally me to action TO EXPOSE THEIR SILLY RIDICULOUS FRAUD.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/2015 03:01PM by presleynfactsrock.

Daniel Dennett is foolish and wrong on this topic in a way that only smart people can be.

It requires a near-total incomprehension of religion AND humanity to think that *the internet* will "destroy religion" in any general sense. Certainly, in particular cases, it has been the medium for information which has blown up religious worldviews. Many RFM readers would fall into this category. But that the internet will destroy religion in any general sense is a very different proposition, and a very naive one. Religion continues to grow as a global phenomenon, and its growth is particularly robust in countries which are modernizing technologically (like China and Brazil - the very sorts of nations which should be experiencing religious *decline* if Dennett's thesis were correct).

Dennett's view probably comes out of the conventional orthodoxy that religion is, and is only, a sort of primitive version of science (from which it is mistakenly assumed that the spread of science will supplant religion, until it entirely eclipses religion). The problem is the premise: religion is not like that. Whether we like it or not, the fact is that for most people on our planet, religion (which usually entails things like myth, claims about transcendent purpose and meaning, clear ethics, non-rational group ritual, sacralized ceremony, etc.) meets deep and abiding human needs in ways that science does not, and is therefore not seen (or perhaps I should say, is not *felt*) to be incompatible with science.

By the way, the hard demographic data show that religion will grow even stronger in the future. Rates of reproduction rise in perfect correlation with levels of religious conservatism; and those rates crush secular breeding rates (which at best hover around replacement level). In some cases (say, orthodox Jews in Israel) the demographic changes have already been massive (with implications for politics, of course) in only a few decades. Give this planet a few centuries, and the difference between the fantastic breeding rates of conservative Christians and Muslims and the dwindling breeding rates of secularists breeding rates will be eminently manifest in all sorts of ways. Religion will continue, probably more strongly than before. At that point, the claims of people like Dennett, if they are remembered at all, will only be laughed at.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/2015 08:22PM by Tal Bachman.

Tal Bachman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Daniel Dennett is foolish and wrong on this topic
> in a way that only smart people can be.

Of course, you can't just claim he's wrong, you have to also throw in a personal attack and call him "foolish." Typical.

> Religion continues to grow as a global phenomenon,
> and its growth is particularly robust in countries
> which are modernizing technologically (like China
> and Brazil - the very sorts of nations which
> should be experiencing religious *decline* if
> Dennett's thesis were correct).

Where's your data to back up that claim? The Pew research noted in the article showed that worldwide, as a percentage of population, the fastest-growing group is "no religion." The ONLY other group showing ANY growth is Islam, and their growth rate was very, very small. All other religious groups are declining in percentage of population. That data shows your assertion that "religion continues to grow as a global phenomenon" is false. Got any data to back up your claim shown false by actual data from Pew?

> Dennett's view probably comes out of the
> conventional orthodoxy that religion is, and is
> only, a sort of primitive version of science (from
> which it is mistakenly assumed that the spread of
> science will supplant religion, until it entirely
> eclipses religion). The problem is the premise:
> religion is not like that.

And of course, you simply speculated as to what his view "probably" came from, and have no evidence to back that up. Which makes the "premise" you claim a straw-man to argue against. Again, typical.



> Whether we like it or
> not, the fact is that for most people on our
> planet, religion (which usually entails things
> like myth, claims about transcendent purpose and
> meaning, clear ethics, non-rational group ritual,
> sacralized ceremony, etc.) meets deep and abiding
> human needs in ways that science does not, and is
> therefore not seen (or perhaps I should say, is
> not *felt*) to be incompatible with science.

Probably not true in the first place, and even if it is, it's an argument against a straw-man, which was simply your own speculation...so not a useful argument.

> By the way, the hard demographic data show that
> religion will grow even stronger in the future.

As the data from Pew in the article showed, that's not the case at all. That "hard demographic data" shows the opposite. And you presented no "demographic data" at all to back up your claim, though you claimed it exists. So where is it?


> Rates of reproduction rise in perfect correlation
> with levels of religious conservatism; and those
> rates crush secular breeding rates (which at best
> hover around replacement level). In some cases
> (say, orthodox Jews in Israel) the demographic
> changes have already been massive (with
> implications for politics, of course) in only a
> few decades. Give this planet a few centuries, and
> the difference between the fantastic breeding
> rates of conservative Christians and Muslims and
> the dwindling breeding rates of secularists
> breeding rates will be eminently manifest in all
> sorts of ways. Religion will continue, probably
> more strongly than before. At that point, the
> claims of people like Dennett, if they are
> remembered at all, will only be laughed at.

Your claim assumes that any child born to religious parents automatically is that religion, and will stay that religion. Which isn't the case at all (you being a single data point to contradict that idea, me being another one). In fact, as the Pew data shows, the largest growth in the "no religion" category comes from the societies that are currently the most religious -- also contradicting your claim. So even if Muslims or christian fundamentalists "outbreed" the "nones," as they're currently doing, the "nones" are still growing faster (much, much faster) than Muslims or christian fundamentalists. Again contradicting your claim.

So, Tal -- where's the "hard demographic data" that backs up your claims? Hmm?

Some simple math shows why Tal's "they're outbreeding us" argument has big problems.

Let's assume for argument's sake that the mormon church's claims of 15 million members, and a 2.3% annual growth rate, are correct (yes, we know they're not, but I'll use them anyway for the example). That 2.3% growth rate includes growth from the infamous mormon fecundity and converts.

Let's also assume the current world population is exactly 7 billion, and the reported world population growth of 1.14% for the world is correct.

That would put mormons, currently (with 15M members) at 0.21% of the world population.

After one year, there would be 15,345,000 mormons (2.3% increase). And there would be 7,007,980,000 people in the world (1.14% growth rate). Thus after one year, the percentage of mormons in the world population would be: 0.21%. What it was the year before, despite having a growth rate twice that of the world's population.

After ten years, if rates stay the same, we'd have:

World population: 7,798,000,000
Mormon population: 18,450,000
Mormons as % of world population: 0.23%

So with more than double the world's growth rate, over ten years, mormons as a percentage of the world's population manage to increase by 0.02%. Not exactly making huge gains. And that assumes that the mormon's numbers are correct (which they probably aren't), and that every "new" mormon (born or converted) stays a mormon for life, which is also certainly not correct.

To reproduce at a high enough rate to significantly change a group's percentage of the world population is very difficult, as no one group makes up a majority of the world's population to begin with, and you'd have to assume that all "new" members of the group produced stay in the group -- which they don't. Tal's argument also assumes other groups, like the "nones," have no growth at all -- which the Pew data clearly shows isn't the case.

Ya know, one of the downsides of Mormonism is that it teaches you that ideas need to be defended.

bradley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ya know, one of the downsides of Mormonism is that
> it teaches you that ideas need to be defended.

Odd, I never learned that in mormonism.
I did learn it in science courses.
But of course, the defense had to be with facts and evidence, and not just "opinion stuff..."

you people are awesome. happy to meet some recovering mormons who are fighting for the cause of reality. it's inspiring.

(as for me, I guess you could say I'm recovering Presbyterian, but honestly I left that world behind when I was 13. I've never found a forum for us, but it'll make me laugh if Google says it exists...)

Religions used to rule the land in Europe up until about 100 years ago. It was a serious force in Canada in general and Quebec in particular up through the 1960s. Look at the churches built in that era. The churches commanded serious money back then.

In both places it collapsed in a couple of generations. I read the same Pew research article Tal is referring to. It did not take into account the changes that are being wrought by the Internet. Dennet is. I agree with Dennet. As Quebec now is, Iran and India may, and will become.