Stream Your Event | Partners | Speakers CART ITEMS: - | CHECKOUT

Great Issues Forum: What Is Religion?

Watch Full Video | previews

The Graduate Center, CUNY

Info
Bio
Chapters
Preview
Download
Zoom In

Daniel Dennett on Pastors Teaching Intelligent Design

04 min 40 sec

Add to Profile

Philosopher Daniel Dennett argues that it is immoral for pastors to teach intelligent design as "good science."

"That is inexcusable spreading of ignorance, and we should hold the pastors responsible," he argues.
An Ecological Approach to Eradicating Fundamentalism

02 min 10 sec

Add to Profile

The best way to wipe out fundamentalism? Change the environment that created it, says evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson.

"If we want to eradicate fundamentalism, there's actually one way -- and only one way -- to do it: make the world more existentially secure."
The Religion of Science: Worshiping at the Altar of Truth

01 min 06 sec

Add to Profile

Evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson presents the notion of science as a religion. "Science is just like a religion, but its god is the truth."
Watch Full Program

01 hr 15 min 52 sec

Add to Profile

There are 19 comments on this program

Please or register to post a comment.

Previous FORAtv comments:

Page 1 of 2

socratus

Posted: 11.18.11, 05:19 AM

Science and Religion. =. What is the vacuum? Answer. # ‘It might even give us some ground to speculate that the vacuum itself (and hence the universe) is ‘conscious’. / Book ‘The quantum self ’ page 208. by Danah Zohar. / # ‘If we were looking for something that we could conceive of as God within the universe of the new physics, this ground state, coherent quantum vacuum might be a good place to start.’ / Book ‘The quantum self ’ page 208. by Danah Zohar. / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danah_Zohar ========.

phoboskitty

Posted: 02.22.10, 01:58 PM

communication technology has also brought religious crazies together. people will always seek out like minds to communicate with weather by the internet or the pony express , over time however fundamentalism will be in decline. it just takes awhile, the internet has only been available to the general public since 1995, so i would give it a few more decades when instant communication is available to every human on earth. then when we can ALL talk to each other at any time, literally, fundamentalism will die out for the most part

phoboskitty

Posted: 02.22.10, 01:45 PM

is there not an evolutionary reason why one would want to control a population, i mean if you talk about religion are they (we) including spirituality, not necessarily the worship of a god, but an acknowledgment of something outside our normal existence, this way of seeing the world doesn't even conflict with science, a shaman would not see any conflict, a shamans role is to explore the spirit world and to guide others when experiencing it, but at some point, perhaps with the advent of agriculture and permanent large scale settlements, like cities and states, there became a need to control the populations buy a ruling class, so Government and religion evolve hand in hand, government is the technique of ruling over large groups, Religion became the panacea, the excuse the reason behind a governments power, is this not something of evolutionary value, 50,000 years ago we as humans lived in small groups numbering 30-40 individuals, the leaders of these groups do not need religion to help lead, common goals and a common good legitimize the leaders of a tribal group, the need to survive as a group, if you then throw in agriculture and can feed 100's of individuals, even 1000's how do the leaders control there community, they create a religion. you can see a fundamental difference in the spiritual beliefs of more ancient cultures like Australian Aborigines, the Natives of the Amazon basin, Ancient African tribal beliefs, which go back the the very origins of human spirituality. there is no conflict with science and empirical investigation, the Shaman is using his tools ( things like psychedelic substances ) so seek out knowledge and learn new things about the world both physical and spiritual and to explore the human consciousness religion ( and i mean the western religions ) is a tool of control, so if science is undermining religion those who are religious are going to be in conflict with it, those who lead the religions in there communities will be in conflict with it. those who do not see or experience there religion as a tool of control ( this can and dose even include people who are christian ) have no conflict with science my 2 cents anyway

Sarenth

Posted: 02.09.10, 07:57 PM

I think part of the issue is that people look at science as simply an institution, or some way of study while not thinking about the fact that the term is ambiguous. Ambiguous, in that it also means "a method of learning about the physical universe by applying the principles of the scientific method, which includes making empirical observations, proposing hypotheses to explain those observations, and testing those hypotheses in valid and reliable ways" ( http://www8.nos.noaa.gov/coris_gloss....aspx?letter=s ) In short, science isn't here to make you feel good, or to answer these Big Questions of God, a potential afterlife, etc. until it has the theories, ability, and methodology to do so. Scientists can expound on what they believe to be the case or lack of case for God, but at this juncture it is conjecture and speculation more than actual testing. Knowing the limitations of science is as valuable as knowing what it can teach, and teach well. The same could be said of religion.

ajstavely711

Posted: 01.06.10, 06:39 AM

Obviously my short but to the point comment did exactly what it was meant to do...It got yours and others attention. Yes, it was a short and some what immature comment as it was mean to be. However, your long drawn out comment went absolutely no where other than to scold me. Religions are special to people and I understand this but there comes a point when societies need to keep myth and spirituality personal. This is not the case in America and yes it does bother me. As long as we continue ACT as if religion is somehow equal to science or should be considered an alternate to the scientific method society will suffer. One has proven beyond a shadow of doubt to have advanced society, saved billions of lives while the other has done niether. One is personal and should be kept personal while the other should be what guides societies. I will be more than willing to discuss why I made my comment if so needed...Otherwise I accept your motherly scolding for what it is. Thank-you!

soahc

Posted: 01.03.10, 08:19 PM

Truth isn't any more real than God is. Science is a fallacious religion, just like Christianity.

blainedeyoung

Posted: 12.31.09, 03:44 PM

Repression of "academic freedom." That's the new thing. The Flying Spaghetti Monster argument still applies. Ever since Galileo (and Newton really spelled it out) science has been a naturalistic enterprise; of course, those two were devout Christians, but they understood that you can't study the world with all that religious baggage. A hypothesis that includes an invisible, intelligent agency isn't a scientific hypothesis. The "freedom" that they want is the "freedom" to eat potato chips and call it caviar. Ben Stein's "Expelled" was all about it. On top of being intellectually deficient, it was also really poorly film-making.

blainedeyoung

Posted: 12.31.09, 03:33 PM

Most of the panel discussion was really painful. Dennett objected to "scienticism," and then defined "naturalism" in almost exactly the same terms Hott (I think was his name) used. And there's the real problem. There never was any need for this term "scienticism." The terms "naturalism" and "materialism" cover all the ground that needs to be covered. The popularizers of that term as well as "fundamentalist atheist" were trying to invent straw men to burn, as Dennett suggested but really should have said more about. Dennett let both of the other panelists get away with calling science a religion that people believe by faith. He never even called them to task about it. For what it's worth, Joseph Campbell, recognized as one of the world's foremost religious scholars during his life, said that every culture ever discovered had a series of stories that included two key features: a creator god and an afterlife. That was his definition of "religion." That is *exactly* what naturalism does not have. Hott's definition of "faith" wasn't clear enough for me to say that it was wrong, and no one seems to be able to define this term in any sensible way. Let me just say that if, by faith, people know to a certainty that halfway around the world two thousand years ago that there was this one particular guy who walked on water, faith is something that I do not have and do not understand how anyone could have it. Mark Twain once said, "faith means believing things that you know aren't true." That's better than any other definition that I've ever heard. The moderator didn't want Dennett to talk about creationists for fear of making a "distorted argument" that doesn't deal with reality. Meanwhile, 40% of the American population doesn't believe in evolution (Conservapedia claims that it's 60% and growing and includes 2/3 of medical doctors). The "distorted argument" that doesn't deal with reality is having the only religious individual on the panel being this theologian who's hanging onto the idea that that book of fairy tales is kind-of-sort-of-in-a-way-almost-something-like-truth, a belief that is condemnable in its own right but is not representative of what we mean when we say "religious people in America."

afzalrizvi

Posted: 12.27.09, 01:45 AM

In my view, the concept of fundamentalism is wrongly attributed with Islam/Islamic teachings.The veritable truth is that the socio,politico, strategic/economic thinking which come under the cover of protecting the interests of a particular group/ nation/ community may be linked with the core/centripetalisation of fundamental attitude or deportment.Given this conceptual spectrum,One may better discern the ongoing ideological/hypothetical perils that the international community seems to have been facing.