Last night I went to my second yoga class and it just happened to fall one day before the winter solstice...a big day for yoga people. The yoga master spoke about eliminating shadows, embracing shadows, and the significance of seeking light on the day when we experience the longest night (yin-yang theory).
So, when I came home and starting searching the Internet for information on "shadow dancing" as it relates to yoga and all that, it prompted Mickey to bring out one of my Christmas presents early: a book called "Humanist Anthology: from Confucius to Attenborough".
Of course I quickly leafed through the pages (it is chronologically listed - thereby the name), so toward the end I found my favorite humanist, Richard Dawkins. What he wrote dovetailed nicely with the blog I posted yesterday from Huff-Po (Huffington Post) on the "Ending Religious-Based Bigotry" blog (link here).
"A new study out of Yale University confirms what argumentative liberals have long-known: Offering reality-based rebuttals to conservative lies only makes conservatives cling to those lies even harder."
That was a quote from a recent news story, but now read what Margaret Knight & James Herrick deemed worthy to publish from Richard Dawkins in their "Humanist Anthology":
Viruses of the Mind
Like computer viruses, successful mind viruses will tend to be hard for their victims to detect. If you are the victim of one, the chances are that you won't know it, and may even vigorously deny it.
Okay, I have to interrupt right now. The Mormon Church mastered the art of implanting mind viruses before the church was even formed. Wait...I'll go even further than that. The pilgrims had mastered the art of planting mind viruses by the time they started burning witches in Salem. The Mormons just captured the moment from the 1830's and between them and the other fundies they have kept the many viruses alive.
Along that vein, of all my brothers and sisters, Fara would be the only one who has stopped to ask herself if there is a chance that she might "have a virus". Anyway, back to Dawkins.
He suggests that a person look for the following tell-tale signs that might suggest that you are "infected" with a mind virus.
1) The "patient" will find himself impelled by some deep, inner conviction that something is true, or right, or virtuous: a conviction that doesn't seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless, he feels as totally compelling and convincing. We doctors refer to such a belief as 'faith'. [Note that this by itself does not indicate a virus...keep reading.]
2) Patients typically make a positive virtue of [this] faith being strong and unshakable, in spite of not being based upon evidence. Indeed, they may feel that the less evidence there is, the more virtuous the belief.
From a scientific perspective, can you see the paradox? This is where I have to remind you about the Huff-Po article: "Offering reality-based rebuttals to conservative lies only makes conservatives cling to those lies even harder."
Let me see if I can illustrate the connection better than Dawkins did...I had to read his excerpt a couple of times to connect it, but this is how the virus infects the brain.
a) There is no evidence, but you truly believe this inner conviction that you have. Let me illustrate with something that is quintessentially "Mormon"; like Joseph Smith really was lead to a rock on the Hill Cumorah and told to dig it up and flip it over to find gold plates.
b) Now, where normal thinking would tell you to doubt something that could make you play the fool (for example, somebody hands you six numbers and tells you to buy a lottery ticket because tonight will be the night those numbers win), in the case of a mind virus the actual lack of evidence is used to elevate the quality or importance of holding fast to this inner conviction of yours.
So, when I came home and starting searching the Internet for information on "shadow dancing" as it relates to yoga and all that, it prompted Mickey to bring out one of my Christmas presents early: a book called "Humanist Anthology: from Confucius to Attenborough".
Of course I quickly leafed through the pages (it is chronologically listed - thereby the name), so toward the end I found my favorite humanist, Richard Dawkins. What he wrote dovetailed nicely with the blog I posted yesterday from Huff-Po (Huffington Post) on the "Ending Religious-Based Bigotry" blog (link here).
"A new study out of Yale University confirms what argumentative liberals have long-known: Offering reality-based rebuttals to conservative lies only makes conservatives cling to those lies even harder."
That was a quote from a recent news story, but now read what Margaret Knight & James Herrick deemed worthy to publish from Richard Dawkins in their "Humanist Anthology":
Viruses of the Mind
Like computer viruses, successful mind viruses will tend to be hard for their victims to detect. If you are the victim of one, the chances are that you won't know it, and may even vigorously deny it.
Okay, I have to interrupt right now. The Mormon Church mastered the art of implanting mind viruses before the church was even formed. Wait...I'll go even further than that. The pilgrims had mastered the art of planting mind viruses by the time they started burning witches in Salem. The Mormons just captured the moment from the 1830's and between them and the other fundies they have kept the many viruses alive.
Along that vein, of all my brothers and sisters, Fara would be the only one who has stopped to ask herself if there is a chance that she might "have a virus". Anyway, back to Dawkins.
He suggests that a person look for the following tell-tale signs that might suggest that you are "infected" with a mind virus.
1) The "patient" will find himself impelled by some deep, inner conviction that something is true, or right, or virtuous: a conviction that doesn't seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless, he feels as totally compelling and convincing. We doctors refer to such a belief as 'faith'. [Note that this by itself does not indicate a virus...keep reading.]
2) Patients typically make a positive virtue of [this] faith being strong and unshakable, in spite of not being based upon evidence. Indeed, they may feel that the less evidence there is, the more virtuous the belief.
From a scientific perspective, can you see the paradox? This is where I have to remind you about the Huff-Po article: "Offering reality-based rebuttals to conservative lies only makes conservatives cling to those lies even harder."
Let me see if I can illustrate the connection better than Dawkins did...I had to read his excerpt a couple of times to connect it, but this is how the virus infects the brain.
a) There is no evidence, but you truly believe this inner conviction that you have. Let me illustrate with something that is quintessentially "Mormon"; like Joseph Smith really was lead to a rock on the Hill Cumorah and told to dig it up and flip it over to find gold plates.
b) Now, where normal thinking would tell you to doubt something that could make you play the fool (for example, somebody hands you six numbers and tells you to buy a lottery ticket because tonight will be the night those numbers win), in the case of a mind virus the actual lack of evidence is used to elevate the quality or importance of holding fast to this inner conviction of yours.
From an evidentiary standpoint the two qualities won't hold water because b) uses a) to support itself. It is self-referencing, but because of the brain virus (just like a computer virus often uses a programming loop to infect thousands of files in a matter of seconds), this "belief" now automatically undermines opposition to itself and the infected brain starts to malfunction and normal reasoning soon fails to find any traction.
"Why do you believe in the Book of Mormon? People dug up the Hill Cumorah for decades after Joseph Smith made those claims and found nothing. Where are all the bones from that final battle? Why haven't they been found? Why is the DNA from American Indians connected to Asians, not Middle-Easterners?
There is no evidence, and in spite of the best efforts of the Mormon apologists (trust me, I've heard all the arguments), the answer is always the same..."I believe it in my heart".
Huh? In case you missed it, here is the viral loop: "I know the gospel is true because I believe it is true."
Now, in the case of something where there is no evidence to refute it, that works, but every year science makes it increasingly difficult to be religious, and what has been the consequences of these scientific advances?
We have to fight in order to have evolution taught in American schools because the Christianists want to teach that the Earth is just 7,000 years old and was once completely covered with water...including Mount Everest.
We have to fight in order to have AIDS prevention and other sex education taught in American schools because to actually tell kids to use a condom you would have to admit that some of them might actually experience sexual intimacy before they get married.
We have to fight to afford gays their right to love according to their biological composition because somebody decided in the ancient world that it was just weird that a man would lie with another man...just like it was weird to that one single race of people to mix fibers in cloth and eat shellfish.
But Dawkins didn't end there. The rest of his excerpt is in the next post and it is even more important than these points are.
"Why do you believe in the Book of Mormon? People dug up the Hill Cumorah for decades after Joseph Smith made those claims and found nothing. Where are all the bones from that final battle? Why haven't they been found? Why is the DNA from American Indians connected to Asians, not Middle-Easterners?
There is no evidence, and in spite of the best efforts of the Mormon apologists (trust me, I've heard all the arguments), the answer is always the same..."I believe it in my heart".
Huh? In case you missed it, here is the viral loop: "I know the gospel is true because I believe it is true."
Now, in the case of something where there is no evidence to refute it, that works, but every year science makes it increasingly difficult to be religious, and what has been the consequences of these scientific advances?
We have to fight in order to have evolution taught in American schools because the Christianists want to teach that the Earth is just 7,000 years old and was once completely covered with water...including Mount Everest.
We have to fight in order to have AIDS prevention and other sex education taught in American schools because to actually tell kids to use a condom you would have to admit that some of them might actually experience sexual intimacy before they get married.
We have to fight to afford gays their right to love according to their biological composition because somebody decided in the ancient world that it was just weird that a man would lie with another man...just like it was weird to that one single race of people to mix fibers in cloth and eat shellfish.
But Dawkins didn't end there. The rest of his excerpt is in the next post and it is even more important than these points are.
0 comments:
Post a Comment