For a long time I've been fairly convinced that Dawkins' ideas about memes, viruses, worms, etc., were all a project to build the theoretical foundation from which he could attack religion. Thoughts are not genes, however, nor are ideas DNA, and all Dawkins is doing is arguing by analogy--creating illusions like a fairy-tale magician.

Dawkins is no more an orthodox Darwinian than Orrin is an orthodox Christian.

The impulse to invent gods is, very likely, an evolutionary development, not for increased fitness but a by-blow of the crazy way our brains work.

It does enhance fitness to apply intelligence to our environment, but our brains are not charge-coupled device sensors that note the passage of each photon.

They work, it seems, according to a bunch of ad hoc "algorithms." One effect of this is that a certain kind of "noise" in the brain leads to feelings of ineffability. Combine that with the ability to imagine the imaginary and you get gods.

Bullfrogs can recognize flies only if they are buzzing around. Surround a frog with mounds of dead flies, and he'll starve.

Our brains are similarly able/unable to create/apprehend sensations.

Harry,

Or perhaps the Spirit has a certain buzz?

Ideas DO matter, and can effect the course of social and physical evolution.
For instance, we can now clearly see that Greek philosophy and Hebrew religion is the "fittest" combination of social organization... But the combination wasn't inevitable.

Dawkins is either the most ignorant person alive, or he's laboring under profound mental disability.

"[C]hildren do not question their parent's beliefs" ????
That's so laughable, I won't even address it.

Religion is universal, BUT, provides NO obvious benefits, nor has it helped humans to adapt or survive ?
What are the odds of that ?
What other universal feature of humans, or mammals, or fauna in general, has NO obvious benefits, and doesn't help survival ?

It seems far more likely that Dawkins simply doesn't understand what the benefits are.
For instance, humans have a psychological need for the world to be ordered and predictable.
Thus, we make all kinds of assumptions, that may or may not be true, but that allow us to go throughout the day without having to analyze the threat level of common events or objects, which allows humans to be far more productive.
If phenomena happen that CANNOT be explained, it's far more healthy to attribute it to a big man in the sky, even if said being is fictitious, rather than permanently retreat under the bed.

Another obvious benefit of religion is that it gives societies an organizing concept, and a stabilizing influence.
OJ has posted many, many articles and opinion pieces about how religion enhances and facilitates social intercourse, so I'll go no further.

As to the costs of religion, they are many... But, rather than focus solely on the costs, a better analysis might ask: Would the world be a net better place, if there were NO religion ?
Europe seems to answer that question quite nicely.

As a quibble, why call Dawkins a "scientist", when he obviously hasn't done any research on this subject ? He's simply a "commentator", and a poor one, at that.
To give Dawkins his due, however, he would be absolutely correct, IF he was speaking on the planet Vulcan.

Ah, yes, the "costs" of religion. Heavy, obvious, direct and measurable to all sensible people. But, of course, there are no costs of atheism.

Dawkins is following the footsteps of Russell and Sartre and is becoming a old, raving crank that only an undergraduate mind would find interesting.

If we can argue with God, our children can argue with us

Bravo, Harry!

Now, this is just silly. Anything that promotes a community, a sense of belonging and conformity is obviously survival-philic.

Exactly Michael; he's nothing more than a commentator. And they do need to replace the lead pipes at Oxford.

I think Harry is correct, in that it is a by-product of how our mind evolved. I think that one of the "algorithms" responsible is our "relationship management" subsystem. Human social relationships are highly complex, and requires a very sophisticated solution to the problems of identifying agency and intent in the actions of others, uncovering deception, reading power relationships, calculating social strategies, influencing powerful individuals, etc. Religion is the process of personalizing the universe so that it can be acted upon by this algorithm.

I agree with Peter, Dawkins is a crank. The negatives that he attributes to religion are the result of inbred weaknesses of human nature. Ideologies of any sort will prey upon these weaknesses. Derbyshire's article on ideology at today's NRO hits the nail on ideology.

All;

I must disagree with R.W. that memetics is inherently useless. Ideas aren't genes, but at a high but still useful abstract level they work the same way.

Now, it may well be that Dawkins' purpose was an attack on religion - I can't speak to his motivation. But it is kind of wierd so that many members of ideologically related groups are going insane at roughly the same time.

Dawkins, here, is a sad case, since the very point of memetics is to allow evolutionary theory / population dynamics to be applied to ideas. I actually had a related post a few days ago. The bottom line is that while memes can drift, they are still ultimately judged by the survival of their adherents. It's beyond belief that something like religion could persist almost universally for thousands of years without being beneficial (or least, less harmful than irreligion).

David, I can think of a ton of things that promote a sense of community that are not, in themselves, survival-philic.

The romance of the Germans with Deutschtum and Naziism leaps to mind.

It matters what you believe, only up to a point. If you believe that speeding bullet will not harm you because you have a religious amulet around your neck, you may be wrong.

If religion, on balance, useful? Hard to say. Where has there been the no-religion society to compare it with?

And which religion. The early settlers of Hawaii had, we think, a simple animistic religion. The Tahitians arrived later, with a priest, who was horrified to discover that the Hawaiians did not sacrifice humans. So he went back to Tahiti, gathered an army of priests and warriors, conquered Hawaii and introduced the indigenes to the solace of having their brains beat out with a club.

Cuius regio, eius religio, but does religion come off positive or negative?

Harry:

The German's survived WWII. To the extent that they risk not surviving the new century, it seems to be related to their abandonment of religion.

Nor am I arguing that religion guarantees survival. But you write "Where has there been the no-religion society to compare it with?" as if that was a neutral fact. The fact that areligious communities are scarce on the ground certainly suggests something about religion and survival. While evolutionary psychology, or whatever we're calling it these days, is nuts, it does seem a little hard to believe that something as obviously burdensome as religion does not have some pro-survival payoff for the species.

Harry is right, something about our brains makes religious belief virtually unavoidable.

But that doesn't mean you can make any conclusion about whether religious belief confers greater survival value than its absence.

So as reluctant as I am to contradict AOG, I will.

Traits can survive simply because they fail to cause enough damage to reproductive fitness to cause their elimination, or because other requirements driving the trait predominate.

Pre-modern medicine, maternal mortality ran at about 20%. Clearly that wasn't good for species survival, but there it was, nonetheless. Why? Because even neonates have big brains, and female anatomy was a trade off between surviving birth and being able to walk.

So religious belief may have greater survival value, because populations that lacked it did not survive. Or it may be an unavoidable part of the territory that comes with having a brain with enough horsepower to attempt understanding the universe.

If the latter, then it isn't possible to compare survival value with irreligion, any more than it is possible to have big brained people and mothers who can both walk and not die in appalling numbers during and after childbirth.

Or it's unavoidable because true.

Always possible, but there are different kinds of religions, and presumably they might have different survival value.

Like the rest of natural selection, though, it does not depend solely upon what the religion comprises, but also upon what it faces. There are not any Albigensians left, though -- cf, David -- their beliefs were strong community builders.

They just ran into a particularly ruthless other religion.

It is curious that our gods have gotten nastier as time passes. This may be just an artifact, because we don't know what the really early ones were like.

But the first god we do know anything about, Inanna, was -- so far as the evidence has come down to us -- kind, loving and protective.

She does not have any worshippers left, though.

All subsequent Gods have been much fiercer.

Odd, as if humans cannot stand to have a really lovable God around.

OJ, the question of whether religion is true and whether it promotes survival are two different questions. It can be both untrue and useful for survival.

My guess is that, as Jeff put it, it comes from having a brain with enough horsepower to attempt understanding the universe. Unfortunately, I think that our brains lack the horsepower to actually comprehend the answer to the questions we ask (not that we will ever get close to an answer). Like the joke about the man who looks for his keys under the streetlight, even though he dropped his keys elsewhere, religion provides an answer compatible to what the "streetlight" of our comprehension can illuminate, which is a personalized god creating a person-centered universe.

I personally believe that religion does provide a measure of survival value. I don't believe that religion is true, but truth and usefulness need not coincide.

Robert/Jeff:

But surely your efforts to deny any truth to religion while admitting its usefulness leads you to some pretty uncomfortable dead ends. In the first place, this is 2003, not 1859. The idea that unbelief is a courageous, slightly scary minority position suitable for courageous, angst-ridden intellectuals but dangerous for the masses has been played out for several generations now. Religion is no longer the default position in the West, not even in America. Nobody believes simply because their parents did or because they are uneducated traditionalists who never thought about it, which makes Dawkins a fool. Why do atheists assume so often that religious people don't doubt, think or question or that their faith is based upon the comfort and security of the nursery?

Secondly, the moment you assert something is untrue, but useful, the whole foundation of scientific thought and independent inquiry starts to crack, not to mention political freedom. Free adult citizens become young children in need of protection from true, but dangerous ideas. Science and knowledge become forces we should consider putting under the control of priests, who will decide when we are ready to learn the truth about Santa Claus. The Grand Inquisitor becomes the hero for the ages. Truth may be an elusive, protean and maddeningly obscure thing, but to pronounce for error? Talk about a Pandora's box!

Thirdly, with respect, that is the kind of patronizing line that can only be held from a position of remoteness of place or time. Consider the kind of cheerful, tolerant atheist who says breezily that he does not believe that Christ was divine, but accepts that He was a great teacher. When you ask that person whether he would describe as a great teacher someone he saw on the street saying: "Be good, love one another and I'm G-d.", the squirming starts.

Lewis wrote about this a lot. We all know the combination of fundamentalist religious certainty and political power is an explosive, dangerous cocktail. Respecting and accommodating incompatible theologies is a trying and perplexing challenge, as Harry and Jeff remind us daily, but one that is being met quite successfully in North America. However, the idea that it is all a big fairy tale useful for keeping our streets safe and marriages secure is absurd and just as dangerous. Either there is some "Truth" there or Harry is right--it is all dangerous madness.

Peter:

You read far more into my comment then the words support.

My only assertion is that the universal presence of religion in all known human societies is not a de facto case that religious belief is more fit than the alternative. Rather, unless there is an alternative that was tested and failed in comparision--none that we know of--the question is unanswerable.

I don't agree with Dawkins about a whole lot--sometimes I think he just likes stirring up hornets nests to get people thinking--but he is right about one thing: virtually all people have their parents' religion. People believe, by and large, what their parents believe. Virtually all Jews, for instance, fit in precisely that category.

Why do all religionists assume the worst of areligionists, simply because the latters' questioning was incompatible with organized religion.

There might be some truth out there. But the problems that should, but rarely, get religionists squirming, are: which one? any of them?

Revealed truth and those two questions are poles apart.

Robert:

There something self-loathing about that kind of materialist insistence that everything about us--including beliefs, emotions, etc.--is simply a function of biology and chemistry. One of the reasons I think it necessary to believe in God and reject materialism is that the latter is just too ugly. Even if it's true who would want it?

Harry:

Everyone gets the God they deserve.

Jeff -- I'm not sure that I get your point about childbirth, but I'm willing to accept equivalence to childbirth as being the upper limit on religion's contribution to survival.

Another problem with the big brain analogy is that it's hard to figure out the evolutionary advantage of having a big brain. It's not necessary for finding food, finding a mate or avoiding danger. It's not necessary for forming herds or or pods or troops. It is counter survival in the way Jeff describes, in the food and oxygen debt it imposes on the rest of the body and, of course, in its role in creating our most dangerous predator. Under the materialist theory, we get consciousness out of it, but under the materialist theory consciousness is not quite as useful as a peacock's tail feathers.

So, there's two of the big things that define homo sapiens that are a little hard to justify with a theory of undirected evolution. So, are you sure you wouldn't like to claim that religion is pro-survival? That doesn't make it true, of course. It might even make it less likely to be true.

Peter,
Per Jeff, you read way too much into our comments. I am not being condescending with my remarks, and I certainly don't see myself as the trendy countercultural athiest you portray. I have been on both sides, I was a religious Catholic for the 1st half of my life, and I don't see that I am a superior person now for being an atheist. On the contrary, I would say that I am remarkably the same in most aspects of my moral outlook. If anything, I have become more conservative.

To say that religion is untrue but useful is a philosophical position, not a scientific one, so it does not threaten the foundations of science. In any event, neither you or I can prove or disprove religion's truthfulness. Your second point goes off into a bit of hysteria. The American experiment proves that a society can hold together and thrive with multiple, competing ideas of philosophical truth.

To your third point, I agree that it would be madness to expect any benefit from religion without being able to believe it is true. I am not suggesting that people disbelieve but continue to practice religion. Once you stop believing, it is silly to go through the motions of being religious. To say that religion is useful is not to say that it is indispensable. You can get on with life without it, if you have to.

I don't buy the truth or madness dichotomy. Beliefs are a necessary element to human behavior, for the human mind beliefs are "good enough" substitutes for factual truth. There may be truths in religious belief, just not the literal truths about creation, revelation and final judgement that it claims. It is not the factual accuracy of religious traditions that make them useful or not, it is their ability to elicit positive, socially productive behaviors that are true to human nature.

I hope this helps esplain my position more.

Robert:

Why would losing faith in religion but continuing to comport yourself by it be any less sensible than being dubious about a scientific theory but using it because it "works" in some respects? Why is it important that an individual have a personal intimation of God of the society around hiom has it?

Robert --

I think that there are many benefits to religion even among those who don't believe it to be true. Among other things, if people fear ostracization from not outwardly conforming to religious principles, it cuts down on transaction costs considerably.

Also, I believe that you think that you're just as moral having left the Church and I'm even willing to believe that you're right. But how exactly does that work: I don't believe he's the Lord my G-d, idols aren't an issue, I'm ok with not murdering, once I'm married I'm ok with no adultery, but right now my neighbor's wife is hot, and his ass ain't bad either? I'm not mocking (well, ok, I'm mocking a little bit), but you see the problem. If you get to decide for yourself, then I've got to assume that all the commandments are up for grabs and suddenly my transactions costs shoot through the roof.

OJ
I don't get the "self-loathing" bit. You either loathe yourself or not. How does materialism come into the equation? Do you loathe music because it is "only" wave motions in the air? You need to upgrade your opinion of biology and chemistry, not downgrade your opinion of man.

I actually think that denying a personal god brings more amazement and wonder to the universe. The human personality is too unstable and restricting an entity to serve as the template for the ultimate source of all existence. To paraphrase W.C. Fields (or was it Groucho Marx?) "I don't want to be a member of any universe that is created by a being that would have me as his image". If anything, god would have to be "supra-personal". But we don't have a word for such an entity, neither can we even conceptualize or imagine what such an entity would be like.

Robert/Jeff

I had no intention of criticizing either of you personally and I apologize if it came off that way. Nor do I believe that atheists are likely to be less moral than the faithful. We are arguing about ideas and I hope not characters.

I was talking about secularists who take the position that religion is wrong, but useful and therefore to be encouraged. That is not the same thing as gladly tolerating other faiths. I respect my Muslim co-citizens and wish them peace and long and happy lives. That doesn't mean I see Islam as being wrong, but useful.

Robert:

You loathe mankind if you believe that Bach is simply a function of brain chemicals, rather than inexplicable functioning of the unique free will and soul of a human.

David,
In reality, I believe that we all "decide for ourselves". Your question assumes that human nature is only driven by base, selfish desires. "Will to Power" is not the single, overriding human motivation, there is also the "Will to Meaning". I find meaning and purpose in my marriage, and I avoid the temptations that would destroy it because I value my marriage more than my urges. Another thing that keeps me on the straight and narrow is that I care what other people think of me, especially my parents, but my wife, daughter, brothers, sisters, and community as well.

To answer your question "how does it work", I don't know. It just does.

Robert:

There's the point: do you believe in the love in your marriage? Or do you believe it's merely biology and firing synapses convincing you there's something we call love? Do you think things mean something in themsdelves or only because brain chemistry tells us they do?

OJ,
You are wrong. I do not loathe mankind. You need to adjust your theory, it has been falsified.

Robert:

Nice about your marriage and your family--really. But what happens when your brother's bright, mature daughter tells him she has thought long and hard and has decided she wants to be a stripper?

How does your biological determinism allow you to pass on the wisdom inherent in the way you are living and that has brought you such happiness?
Should we care?

OJ, it is not an either/or choice. Take out the words "merely" and "simply" from your descriptions of materialism, for if chemicals and synapses can produce love, music, and life itself, then there is nothing simple or mere about them.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter how life and consciousness come into being. All that matters is how you live life, how you utilize your consciousness. To quibble about such details is to miss the whole benefit of being alive.

Robert:

No I don't think you loathe mankind, precisely because, as above, you reject the implications of materialism and revert to faith. That you can't accept God hardly seems to matter since you arrive at such a similar metaphysical place. It is of course an either/or proposition, and your choice of both does you well in terms of your humanity, if not in terms of scientific reason.

Peter,
My "biological determinism" doesn't allow or disallow me to do anything. All of your (I'm including OJ and most all religious people here) arguements about what makes people act morally are based on an assumption that I believe is incorrect. That assumption is: philosophy drives morality. I believe that the opposite is true: morality drives philosophy.

Religious theology and philosophies such as biological determinism are attempts to understand, among other things, why people have a moral capacity. But the capacity is not dependent on the philosophy, that is, you don't have to understand why we act morally in order to act morally. Say that your beliefs are true. We are capable of acting morally because we are created in God's image. It is not necessary to know this to act morally, because the capacity is inherent in our nature as images of god. If god created us, he gave us the ability to walk. Do I have to know that god gave me the ability to walk in order to walk? Can athiests walk?

To answer your question: I would tell my niece in as persuasive a way as possible what a mistake it would be for her to become a stripper. My argument would be based on my sense of what is right and wrong, and on whatever wisdom I have gained in life through my experiences. Biological determinism, or any other philosophical argument, would not even register in my mind. When it gets down to the real business of living life, sophisticated philosophies (I'm including theology here) really aren't that useful. Like the book title says, everything I know I learned in kindergarden (or something like that). Some of the happiest, most moral people you will meet in life get by with only the most rudimentary philosophies.

Robert:

But the belief that philosophy drives behavior is anti-materialist and is anathema to the evolutionists. It's a faith-based notion.

Robert --

Another thing that keeps me on the straight and narrow is that I care what other people think of me, especially my parents, but my wife, daughter, brothers, sisters, and community as well.

That's all I'm asking for. Conformity to religious norms driven by the threat of social ostracism. As long as we can all agree on that, I don't care whether people believe or not.

Robert:

Impressive answer. I will do you the honour of reflecting on it for a while before coming back and telling you why you are wrong. :-)

I confess that the issue of the teenage stripper (apologies to your undoubtedly delightful niece) bothers me terribly. I cannot shake the idea that we are making a horrible mistake, both theologically and sociologically, by taking the "reasoning and sharing" approach. She is obviously making a horrific mistake, as you admit, so why can't we just tell her that and threaten consequences if she does it? Why can't we just blast her on the basis that that we are not prepared to allow her moral failing to influence her siblings or disrupt her family? I realize that "Daughter, do not darken our door." is far from modern thinking, but is "Let's bake some muffins and emote together as equals." the only alternative?

Robert:

Wow.

David:
My point on maternal mortality is narrowly related to AOGs comments on the putative fitness of religious v. irreligious belief, and the universality of the former.

And it is this: his assessment of fitness was too narrow. Maternal mortality is the counterexample. It is universal, and clearly, ceteris paribus, doesn't contribute to species fitness. However, one can't implicitly invoke that ceteris paribus clause. We exist, in many ways, as the result of tension between opposites. On the one hand, women need to walk. On the other hand, large brains convey enough survival value to not become extinct.

The result being that, until the, oh, 19th century, the human population growth rate zero, or as close to it as darnnit is to swearing.

Your point about the evolutionary advantage of a big brain is a good one. But it appears to betray a certain misunderstanding of the process. All any variation has to do to get propagated into the next generation is to avoid dying before multiplying. So the variations--all of them--that led to us proved themselves insufficiently unfit.

Evolution, in short, does not produce optimal results, only adequate ones. As anyone who has suffered hemorrhoids--a legacy of quadrapedal anatomy--would attest.

Which means none of the things you cite as problematic are evolutionarily hard to justify.

Anyway, as a consequence, I didn't claim religious belief isn't fitness enhancing, only that its universal presence is inadequate to make, or refute, that claim.

Also, you have made the transaction costs claim before, taking as true what isn't proven. That is, people may well fear ostracism, but not necessarily from non-conformance to religious principles. Sensitivity to reciprocity and betrayal are part of human nature. Unless, of course, you think human nature is malleable.

OJ:
You are most persuasive when you refrain from telling people what they feel as a consequence of their beliefs. When I step back and view (in my faith) the unbroken chain of being that links me with the very first spark of life on this planet, I am not filled with mankind-loathing, but rather stand in awe at the immensity of time and my connectedness with all life. Never mind the boggling set of contingencies that led to us being here and able to appreciate it all. That, in turn leads to a whole set of philosophical knock-on effects beyond the scope of this thread.

Also, I think you got Robert's argument backwards. You can make whatever philosophical/theological claims about the nature of the beast you want. Unfortunately, the nature of the beast could not possibly be less affected by the content of those arguments. It is what it is. Just like the solar system couldn't care less about epicycles.

Peter:
Is this girl niece or daughter? You answer as if this girl is his daughter, implying he has disciplinary control over her that wouldn't attend an uncle-niece relationship.

Interestingly, you seemed to have forgotten the one thing that repeatedly comes through in your posts. I'll bet you would have to look long and hard to find a stripper with a committed and caring father. I'm sure they are out there, but swamped in number by girls who had to grow up with the alternative.

Jeff:

Your necessary belief that Man has no capacity to shape his destiny, by his beliefs, is precisely what I mean by self-loathing. Even if true who would choose to believe such a thing who cares about human dignity?

A bit late to the party, but back to AOG:

Population dynamics wouldn't require a religion to be benificial to survive; the point of 'meme theory' is that they are in a sense organisms evolving alongside us.

The persistance of Catholicism no more proves its usefulness than the persistance of Smallpox; both use humans as carriers but have their own dynamics (or, to anthropomorphise, their own agendas).

Jeff --

Also, you have made the transaction costs claim before, taking as true what isn't proven. That is, people may well fear ostracism, but not necessarily from non-conformance to religious principles. Sensitivity to reciprocity and betrayal are part of human nature. Unless, of course, you think human nature is malleable.

I've probably elided something I should have been explicit about. I don't think that people necessarily fear "ostracism . . . from non-conformance to religious principles", more's the pity. I think, to be overly reductive about it, that human society is a powerful conformance generating machine into which almost any standard from altruism to xenophobia can be slotted. Looking around, my preferred program is Judeo-Christian morality, with an American Zion subroutine. I want to use the social machinery to enforce this code, but as long as people, by and large, conform to the code I couldn't care less whether they believe in the Judeo-Christian G-d.

Among the many benefits of this conformity is that, if we can rely, more or less, on people conforming to a well-understood moral code -- whether because of fear of hell, hope of salvation, desire for the respect of our peers or the need to keep a golfing foursome together -- then we need much less private checking and government regulation.

To the extent we can know anything about each other over the internet, you and Harry seem to be perfect examples of the efficacy of this process. You're godless heathens, but fit perfectly comfortably into Judeo-Christian society. Harry, of course, is a little too xenophobic for my taste and you're a little too homophilic. Ironically, in this you both conform better to the social zeitgeist than I do.

(Oh, I'm not suggesting that human nature is malleable. I'm suggesting that the definition of Us and Them is malleable. The great American experiment is to see exactly how malleable it is. Is it so malleable that it can be separated from kinship, geography, race and religion. Can we be us just because we agree to believe in the same idea? That is the great question that, after two centuries, has still not been answered. "Can any nation, so concieved and so dedicated, long endure?")

OJ & David,
I'm glad that we have some level of agrement.

Peter,
Please let me know when you've figured out where I am wrong, I can use all the help I can get. Per Jeff's comment, I wouldn't presume to use such heavy discipline on my niece, that would be her parent's role. I think that young people are actually more predisposed to receive kindly advice from aunts & uncles more than from their old parents - kind of like good cop, bad cop. Often, the relationship with the parents is too close and personal, and children often have a need to defy parents to establish their own sense of independence. Often it is the calm, kindly advice that is able to sneak past the defensive shield.

I actually do have a niece who has been getting herself into some trouble (not stripping). She has a contentious relationship with her father and step-mother. She came to visit us once without her parents. I can't say that we set her on the straight and narrow, but it was helpful for her to be around a married couple who got along and didn't bicker and argue constantly (my wife handled the heart to heart talks).

David, you write "Among the many benefits of this conformity is that, if we can rely, more or less, on people conforming to a well-understood moral code -- whether because of fear of hell, hope of salvation, desire for the respect of our peers or the need to keep a golfing foursome together -- then we need much less private checking and government regulation."

I think this is spot on. It is also very close to what the signatories of the Williamsburg Charter were saying, that we can arrive at a common code of civil conduct even though we may start from differing first principles.

Rather those without principles conform to those established by others.

Robert is right.

Our civil moral code seems to work regardless of one's starting point. Results count, and people go with what works.

In some places the civil moral code didn't work so well--mob controlled areas of the northeast, for instance--despite pervasive religiousness.

What you look for is conformance to a our civil moral code. The ability, or desire, of one to do so is independent of religious affiliation.

Otherwise, we wouldn't all be able to do it.

Jeff:

You remind me of someone who thinks all that is required for safe driving is that we all follow the rules of the road. However, you ignore the obvious point that you have to stay on the road that someone built. In the West, Judeo-Christianity built the road and the state gets to tinker with the rules.

Jeff:

"Our civil moral code seems to work regardless of one's starting point."

I know you intend that to be a conclusion, but in fact it is your ex cathedra starting point. How would you notice if it wasn't working? To add to OJ's road analogy, you strike me as one whose view of the health of the family is based upon the wonderful Tahnksgiving dinner yours had the other day, which offsets soaring rates of abortion, porn, divorce, single-parenthood, teen mental illness, etc. Ever hear of Dr. Pangloss?

OK, your neice comes to you and says:

1. I'm thinking of becoming a stripper

or

2. I'm thinking of joining a celibate religious order

or

3. I'm applying to Rome for permission to scourge myself with lead whips.

2 out of 3 sanctioned by religion and belief in god. Are those 2 better ideas than 1?

Not in my book.

We are always going to have religion and people who believe in god. We materialists and rationalists must do what we can to restrain their worse impulses.

The way to do that is not to convert them to atheism, but to point out the deleterious consequences of their beliefs.

Pointing out the deleterious consequences of any belief system -- whether it is Catholicism, Islam, free trade or Marxism -- upsets people. Depending upon how closely their day-to-day beliefs are tied to their cosmic beliefs, it can be a crippling assault on their psyches.

Well, it's a choice to make. Religion is not nearly as handy a guide as most people think.

"In the West, Judeo-Christianity built the road and the state gets to tinker with the rules."

And Microsoft invented the graphical user interface and the Internet browser.

OJ, the "road" is constantly under construction and repair. We are all responsible for the road. Don't pretend that the road that we drive on today is the same road that our Christian ancestors traversed 200 years ago, or 500 years ago. Same building code, different roads.

Robert:

True, but the road still leads in the same direction. OK, everybody, block that metaphor!

Robert:

Strike that, reverse it. Same road, different building code. There's been no significant change in Western morality in thousands of years. Y'all just tinker at the edges.

Peter:

If those rates are as high as you imply (although I think you overstate the rate of change), then you have simply pointed out religion's irrelevance.

Because, based on the odds, virtually all the people you talk about are Christians. Odd, that for all the value religion is supposed to have, it doesn't seem to be doing much good.

OJ:

Up until 138 years ago, slavery used to be an accepted part of Western morality.

That it isn't anymore would seem to be a significant change.

Unless my idea of significant needs recalibrating.

Ask the guys at Gitmo if this is an improvement over classical slavery. The kind of systemic exploitational slavery of the plantation system was an aberration, not the norm, and therefore didn't last long.

Where do you get the idea that the plantation system was an aberration?

It was not different from the Classical latifundia, except for the racial aspect.

The relative decline in large-scale plantation slavery was due to economic conditions and a scarcity of slaves that lasted over a thousand years. But the ideal of plantation slavery -- and enough living examples to keep it fresh -- was maintained throughout.

The eagerness to control the asiento hardly comports with the idea that the thinking behind that was novel or aberrational.

Race makes all the difference. A racial slave is a slave by nature. A captured enemy made a slave is pretty clearly only in a temporary, and even reversible, situation. That's why they were generally treated somewhat decently in classical times.

The eagerness to control the asiento hardly comports with the idea that the thinking behind that was novel or aberrational.

Precisely, Harry.

It would seem the widespread Western revulsion at the concept of slavery did not have anything like a counterpart, say, 500 years ago.

That is a significant change.

Women are no longer viewed as chattel in the West.

In the West, people no longer get burned alive, or threatened with that end, for holding minority religious beliefs.

Those also sound like significant changes.

Jeff:

2000 years ago they took prisoners in wars and enslaved them--we just kill the civilians too. Why are they worse than we?

OJ:
Your view of history is entirely too sanitized. When they conquered a city, the result was frequently wholesale slaughter and salting the fields to boot.

The term "sacking a city" wasn't invented in the 20th century.

You are avoiding the point though. You asserted there has been no significant change in Western morality over the last couple thousand years.

Well, either those things I cited didn't happen, or they aren't significant, or your assertion was overly broad.

Which is it?

Jeff:

No significant change. Killing enemies or enslaving them seems a 50-50 proposition.

You pose a false dichotomy.

We still kill. We no longer enslave.

How a dichotomy? We consider ourselves entitled to treat enemies roughly.

You said "Killing enemies or enslaving them seems a 50-50 proposition."

Since one can not do both simultaneously, then that is an Exclusive Or. So since we don't enslave our enemies any longer, we must kill them all, right?

(Never mind that given a choice between death and enslavement, few would find that a 50-50 proposition.)

Except we don't. I happen to know from direct personal experience we aim to kill as few as we can possibly manage.

So it is a false dichotomy in that it poses only two alternatives.

We effectively sacked Tokyo, Berlin, Hiroshima, ad nauseum.

We didn't even try to sack Baghdad, Mosul, or Kabul (we would have been too late for that, in any event).

So, no sacking, little killing and no enslavement. That is quite the change from even 50 years ago.

We killed two million people in Vietnam. We'll kill two million more in the Middle East if we think we need to. It would be no worse to enslave them, distribute them throughout the West, and force them to assimilate, as was historically done with slaves.