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#2 |
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Originally posted by Kidicious
I don't think either religions or ideologies are protected in western culture. Everything is fair game. If you are deluded you are deluded. That is BS and you know it. Specific ideologies are protected. It is also politically incorect to criticize several religions. Also delusion isn't objective, anyone is deluded in the right social frame. The West is just better at hiding its implied values and noncrimethink that other cultures are. |
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#3 |
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Originally posted by Kidicious
No, no. Just because something isn't objectively true, doesn't mean it isn't true. Some truths are subjective. Everyone is not delusional. sigh You misunderstand, a lot of things are objectively true, but judging whether someone is insane/deluded is always a subjective procces. Since the only benchmark for delusion is society itself, and it is in the nature of psychiatric institutions to be at risk of becoming servants of teh elite. Extreme example: Many Chinese dissidents are in locked up in psychiatric hospitals. Silly example: Muslim Extremist considered "deluded" in Austria, is "normal" in Iran |
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#4 |
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Originally posted by Heraclitus
sigh You misunderstand, a lot of things are objectively true, but judging whether someone is insane/deluded is always a subjective procces. Since the only benchmark for delusion is society itself, and it is in the nature of psychiatric institutions to be at risk of becoming servants of teh elite. Extreme example: Many Chinese dissidents are in locked up in psychiatric hospitals. Silly example: Muslim Extremist considered "deluded" in Austria, is "normal" in Iran The only point of contention that I have with your opinion is the case where the psychologist or psychiatrist is not diagnosing someone as delusional when they aren't actually delusional. Actually I don't have much respect for psychologists as a group, but my statement stands, "if you are deluded, you are deluded." That's independent of subjective opinion. |
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#5 |
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Originally posted by Heraclitus
The US has classical military power, Europe has soft power. Many argue that while soft power seems ineffective it has proven to have a greater impact on events. Now let me draw an analogy between military power and mind control. Iran has strong and obvious control, the West has far more subtle methods. It's the difference between 1984 and Brave New World. Disclaimer: Am sleepy and on pain meds, may not be making sense. Will make sense tomorrow. I hope. I don't think it's as much "the West is better at hiding it's implied values." Many people in the West are delusional, and psychologist actually believe that a certain level of delusion is healthy. That said, I do not personally prefer to be delusional. |
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#6 |
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#9 |
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#10 |
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#11 |
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Not at all. Do you approve of the folks in Kansas screaming about how man was made in the image and likeness of God, God isn't a monkey, so Darwin must be wrong? I'm guessing not. Well, I don't approve of the inversion of that situation any more than I approve of that situation itself. I've no doubt that Dawkins is a splendid biologist, which is why he should stick to biology and STFU about things he doesn't know about.
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#12 |
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Originally posted by Elok
Not at all. Do you approve of the folks in Kansas screaming about how man was made in the image and likeness of God, God isn't a monkey, so Darwin must be wrong? I'm guessing not. Well, I don't approve of the inversion of that situation any more than I approve of that situation itself. I've no doubt that Dawkins is a splendid biologist, which is why he should stick to biology and STFU about things he doesn't know about. So nobody should ever write a book about anything they aren't a professional at? Nobody should ever write a book to simply express what they want to express, to tell the world, "This is what I think, and these are the reasons why I think so"? |
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#13 |
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Originally posted by Elok
Not at all. Do you approve of the folks in Kansas screaming about how man was made in the image and likeness of God, God isn't a monkey, so Darwin must be wrong? I'm guessing not. I don't see that as the same thing. Such people really aren't interested finding out about truths. I've heard people like that say many times that it must be depressing to not believe in God. To me that means that they have to real interest in considering that their beliefs might be wrong. Well, I don't approve of the inversion of that situation any more than I approve of that situation itself. I've no doubt that Dawkins is a splendid biologist, which is why he should stick to biology and STFU about things he doesn't know about. So you are comparing Dawkins to some redneck from Kansas? Nice. |
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#14 |
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#15 |
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Because I like what he's saying there :-). The man's a good scientist, the selfish gene is a fantastic concept that really strips out a lot of intellectual clutter and focuses you on an underlying dynamic of evolution and memes are useful (if far more nebulous) concepts. Dawkins can probably be blamed for the explosion in viral marketing.
But he's still an arsehole. I see him as an atheist fundamentalist, just as immovable as any religious fundamentalist. He's like it with lots of his pet theories though, just check out the long running and bitter battle with Gould over gradual evolution or punctured equilibrium evolution. My lab has its more philosophical moments and one of our recent ones was on the nature of science. It's tempting, and very heady, to think that science = truth. It doesn't though. Science is observing and building models based on observation of what we think is going on. Any good scientist would ditch his model in favour of another one provided the new model did a better job of making sense of the data. Dawkins doesn't let go so easily and takes the battle into areas where making models is rather difficult. (conversely, belief = truth isn't correct either. Religious models of the observable universe tend not to be changed so frequently) |
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