Richard Dawkins: Religion as a By Product

[Minimalist]

Is that why all things die?? They're all bad adaptations????

It's WHEN you die that matters....not IF.

If you die before passing on your genes that is nature's way of saying "FUCK YOU."

[Ishtar]

The reason I posted Church Going was because I'm watching the second hour of The Four Horseman and this question, similar to the one we're asking here, is coming up. (This is a DVD of a discussion between Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett and Harris.)

Christopher Hitchens mentioned this poem to describe his response to the question: "Would you like to see all the churches closed?"

All four agreed that they would not like to see the churches closed. That they should continue to be used for contemplation of the sacred, with rituals and music particularly for births, marriages and deaths - and for 'group solidarity' which takes us back to War Arrow's ties that bind.

However, they all said that events that took place in the churches should only be allowed if they were underpinned by the rational, and not the irrational. So already you have a religion of do's and don'ts forming here.

[rich]

Min wrote:

It's WHEN you die that matters....not IF.

Yeah - but all things die so it's the big ef in the end anyways for everything. Guess all life is just a series of unfortunate events leading to the final blowout sale!
I mean, what's worse - knowing just you're gonna die or you're whole lineage and futures?

[Minimalist]

Guess all life is just a series of unfortunate events leading to the final blowout sale!

It does seem that way, most of the time.

[rich]

Eh - I just like the idea - like I keep tellin' my wife - I'm gonna' take somebody with me when I go - even if it's a nurse tryin' to help! She tells me I'm just mean. Either way - we ain't none of us goin' alone. Was it Carlin or someone else that said somethin' about not knowin' why they put fences around graveyards because the outside don't want to get in and the ones inside sure ain't comin' back?

[Minimalist]

Sounds like something Carlin would say.

[Ishtar]

Still watching the Horsemen, and they've all agreed that they'd like to keep some sort of faith going, in churches, and respect for the sacred, with only rituals based on rational ideas, Christopher Hitchens has just said:

"And if we could find a way of enforcing the distinction between the numinous and the supernatural, we would be doing something that's culturally important ...."

Enforcing!

I'm sorry. I guffawed.

I don't want to be in the Four Horsemen's religion!

[War Arrow]

All four agreed that they would not like to see the churches closed. That they should continue to be used for contemplation of the sacred, with rituals and music particularly for births, marriages and deaths - and for 'group solidarity' which takes us back to War Arrow's ties that bind.

However, they all said that events that took place in the churches should only be allowed if they were underpinned by the rational, and not the irrational. So already you have a religion of do's and don'ts forming here.

And even my eyes start rolling heavenwards at this last point. Arguments such as this serve only to give an impression that their atheist cause is not so far off of train spotting, but without either the fun or the trains.
Mind you, you've made me want to watch this thing now. Unfortunately you've made me want to watch it for the wrong reasons.

[Ishtar]

And even my eyes start rolling heavenwards at this last point. Arguments such as this serve only to give an impression that their atheist cause is not so far off of train spotting, but without either the fun or the trains.
Mind you, you've made me want to watch this thing now. Unfortunately you've made me want to watch it for the wrong reasons.

I think it was the Scotch talking! CH had had quite a few by this point!

I know what I'm like on that stuff. I would have started telling Dawkins that I loved him!