“Morality is an “acquired dialect”, which is a very useful metaphor. Like a dialect, it is conventional, and varies by geography. It is not inborn (although the capacity to acquire it, like that of language, is), and it doesn’t correlate with biology (a Sicilian raised in Japan would speak Japanese, not Sicilian). This is what Sayre-McCord refers to as social conventions. And these things evolve at the social level, not (in general) at the biological. So to explain why, for example, it is regarded as moral to marry a first cousin in Louisiana, but not in London, while marrying within “seven degrees of kinship” in Orthodox society, or marrying anyone with the same family name in Korea (but a first cousin of a different name is acceptable) are considered taboo; these things are best explained in terms of the historical process at the level of social institutions, conventions, economic and cultural factors, rather than biology.

But explaining why it is that humans are disposed to learn and accommodate themselves to these cultural rules is another matter. Moreover, it may be that some moral rules are in fact biologically based, or biased, or at least agreeable. (…)”

The Four Horsemen – Hour 1

The Four Horsemen – Hour 2

RichardDawkins.net, The Four Horsemen: on Christmas:

“All four authors have recently received a large amount of media attention for their writings against religion – some positive, and some negative. In this conversation the group trades stories of the public’s reaction to their recent books, their unexpected successes, criticisms and common misrepresentations. They discuss the tough questions about religion that face to world today, and propose new strategies for going forward.”

“We do, however, need to be clearer about the difference between secularism and atheism. Secularism, in my view, should be an argument about arrangements for a shared public and social life; atheism is an argument about scientific truth, individual liberation and the nature of the good life. Today’s debate around Islam is bedevilled by a confusion between the two. Atheists must be free to say to Muslims, Christians or Jews: “Your mind would be much more free if you gave up your ridiculous belief in God.” Believers must be free to argue back: “You would have a more profound sense of personal freedom if you did believe.” But neither is entitled to demand that of the other as a condition for participating as a citizen in a free society. The public policy argument about freedom for religion and the private conviction argument about freedom from or in religion should operate on different levels.”

Flying Spaghetti Monster – Touched by his noodly appendage. (Wikipedia)

AP, Religious scholars mull Flying Spaghetti Monster:

“”For a lot of people they’re just sort of fun responses to religion, or fun responses to organized religion. But I think it raises real questions about how people approach religion in their lives,” said Samuel Snyder, one of the three Florida graduate students who will give talks at the meeting next Monday along with Alyssa Beall of Syracuse University.

The presenters’ titles seem almost a parody themselves of academic jargon. Snyder will speak about “Holy Pasta and Authentic Sauce: The Flying Spaghetti Monster’s Messy Implications for Theorizing Religion,” while Gavin Van Horn’s presentation is titled “Noodling around with Religion: Carnival Play, Monstrous Humor, and the Noodly Master.”

Using a framework developed by literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin, Van Horn promises in his abstract to explore how, “in a carnivalesque fashion, the Flying Spaghetti Monster elevates the low (the bodily, the material, the inorganic) to bring down the high (the sacred, the religiously dogmatic, the culturally authoritative).”"

“Steven Pinker and Rebecca Goldstein, America’s brainiest couple, confess that belonging to one of America’s most reviled subcultures doesn’t mean they believe scientists can explain everything.”

Jonathan Miller geinterviewd door Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers interviewt Jonathan Miller naar aanleiding van diens BBC-serie A Rough History of Disbelief uit 2005, binnenkort in de VS door PBS uit te zenden. De 3-delige serie is in fragmenten of integraal ook hier (wederom) te bekijken. Bijzonder de moeite waard.

Sir David Attenborough on God

“Faith will unsettle politics everywhere this century; it will do so least when it is separated from the state”

The Economist: Faith and politics. The new wars of religion:

“Atheists and agnostics hate the fact, but these days religion is an inescapable part of politics.”

“Haidt concludes his essay with this happy blandishment: “every longstanding ideology and way of life contains some wisdom, some insights into ways of suppressing selfishness, enhancing cooperation, and ultimately enhancing human flourishing.” Surely we can all agree about this. Our bets have been properly hedged (the ideology must be “longstanding” and need only have “some” wisdom). Even a “new atheist” must get off his high horse and drink from such pristine waters. Well, okay…

Anyone feeling nostalgic for the “wisdom” of the Aztecs?”

“If you are a religious apologist invited to debate with Christopher Hitchens, decline. His witty repartee, his ready-access store of historical quotations, his bookish eloquence, his effortless flow of well-formed words, beautifully spoken in that formidable Richard Burton voice (the whole performance not dulled by other equally formidable Richard Burton habits), would threaten your arguments even if you had good ones to deploy.”

“The study, published in the September 2007 issue of Psychiatric Services, also found that religious physicians, especially Protestants, are less likely to refer patients to psychiatrists, and more likely to send them to members of the clergy or to a religious counselor.”

While Dawkins makes a strong case for why one doesn’t require a thorough grounding in theology to refute religious certainties (you don’t need to be an expert in fairyology to dispute the existence of fairies), and Hitchens draws on his acute observational skills and tireless globetrotting to report on the way “religion poisons everything” – from “Belfast to Beirut to Baghdad, and that’s without leaving the B’s”– Onfray takes another tack entirely. As befits his role as “France’s most popular philosopher” (is there another country in the world where these two words go together?), Onfray delves deep into the internal logic of the three monotheisms, performing what he calls “a pitiless historical reading of the three so-called holy books”. Nor is he alone in his battle: he enters the field backed by a gang of thinkers as bizarrely incongruous as the Dirty Dozen – Epicurus, Nietzsche, Georges Bataille and Jean Meslier, Baron d’Holbach and Michel Foucault, Jeremy Bentham and Freud.

Caspar Melvill: Atheism à la mode

“Says Barbara Meade, a co-owner of the Politics & Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C.: “Part of the appeal is that he’s a personality; we sold 106 books when he visited our store.”"

Woensdag: God Is Not Great.
Donderdag: Was Muhammad Epileptic?
(update) Vrijdag: Mormonism: A Racket Becomes a Religion