So now you’re touting Freud and John Gray? Two monumental and irrelevant frauds who have about as much credibility as a certain Mr Hundal of this parish…erm…commune, I mean.

You know, I’m not a big fan of Dawkins or Hitchens myself – I agree that both have an annoying tendency to claim reason and the Enlightenment for their own annoying and frequently ludicrous ideas… But it’s when I hear this kind of waffle about Christian atheism and our religious heritage that I reach for my revolver.

The good thing about irreligion is that you don’t have to waste your time with this kind of Let us practice an atheism that doesn’t offend the credulous pish – you just get on with it. I tend to show religious people the respect I would anyone, i.e. I don’t go round to their houses and openly laugh at their beliefs. On the other hand, anyone who puts their religion and their politics side by side in public is asking for a brutal fragging, and a deserved one at that.

(And the point about Eichmann’s anti-Christianity is fatuous – the one about Sam Harris loving a bit of torture and collateral damage is risible. I note that the people running Iranian jails ain’t atheists, and neither were the jokers who ran the War on Terror and the US black prison network).

[1] “So now you’re touting Freud and John Gray?”.

I don’t think Gray’s interest is religion primarily, but rather the the religious fervour that humanists imbue their beliefs with – Gray says these grand (humanist) scheme’s are just as untenable as the old testament.

I found this to be a strong refutation of the sort of ideas you express:

http://heresycorner.blogspot.com/2010/02/why-innate-morality-trumps-ten.html

As I observed in the comments thread, I am an atheist, & I will not want to support or advocate religion because I would see it as hypocritical & patronising. I had this to say:

“As far as I’m concerned, even if religion did have wonderful social effects [which the enclosed link suggests it doesn't], I won’tbecome religious until I am convinced of the truth of a particular theological claim.

I would consider it grossly insulting to humanity to be “pro-religion” if that meant advocating that people (lesser breeds by comparison with me, presumably) believe in things I don’t believe in myself. I have always found the concept of the “noble lie” deeply offensive to mankind”

I am not as forthright as the new atheists, but I am with them. I am glad that Dawkins is strident, someone needs to be, & he is passionate about science because he finds it a wonderful thing that he wants to be widely known & understood. I am pleased to say that I have all his books. Chapter 7 of The God Delusion I find especially strong on secular versus religious morality. You can browse it in the library if you can’t be arsed to buy it.

Er, your last paragraph seems to argue that all humanist societal change has a “Christian heritage”. But Plato’s Republic is surely utopian, and definitely wasn’t influenced by Christianity. Didn’t Marx believe in social change? I remember he was rather fond of Aeschylus; not so much on the new testament.

Whatever John Gray may say, society has changed, and the engines of change have been democracy and technology.

As for the influence of Freud and his apostles on public affairs, IMO it really is worth watching on YouTube this engaging doc from BBC2 by Adam Curtis about Edward Bernays (Freud’s nephew) and the beginnings of the Public Relations profession: The Century of the Self 1/3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dA89CBBOC0

Oh dear.

Is Liberal Conspiracy aspiring to become “Comment Is Free (but evidence-based reasoning costs?)”

This is an appallingly poor article – Freud as an authority, linking atheism with the Nazis (yawn), straw man caricature atheists…

Oh, and most of what flyingrodent said (they’re overstating about Dawkins, but nae mind).

The author of this piece would do well to recall one of David Hume’s wee suggestions from 250 years ago: “the wise man, accordingly, proportions his belief according to the evidence”.

Shame Freud wasn’t too interested in that pesky “evidence” business, either.

Ho hum.

Interestingly I see that Hitchens has writte a forward to a new edition of Freuds writing:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Civilization-Discontents-Complete-Psychological-Sigmund/dp/0393304515/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266104451&sr=8-1

There’s a pretty interesting talk with Sam Harris where he makes he makes the case that science can help in deciding questions of morality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hNy6IYMj4s

I tend to take a somewhat moral absolutism position, so while you might be able to argue that the ‘new atheists’ are borrowing from Judeo-Christian hertiage, I’d suggest that the bits they borrow existed in humanity in any case.

On our sources of morality, how about this from David Hume in 1748?

“All moral duties may be divided into two kinds. The first are those to which men are impelled by a natural instinct … which operates on them, independent of all ideas of obligation, and of all views either to public or private utility. Of this nature are love of children, gratitude to benefactors, pity to the unfortunate. … The second kind of moral duties are such as are not supported by any original instinct of man but are performed entirely from a sense of obligation, when we consider the necessities of human society, and the impossibility of supporting it, if these duties were neglected. …. We shall only observe, before we conclude, that though an appeal to general opinion may justly, in the speculative sciences of metaphysics, natural philosophy, or astronomy, be deemed unfair and inconclusive, yet in all questions with regard to morals, as well as criticism, there is really no other standard, by which any controversy can ever be decided.”
http://www.constitution.org/dh/origcont.htm

This article is toilet-spattering arse-water from start to finish.

Freud barely rates as a footnote in contemporary psychology. Outside literary studies, the crankier elements of radical feminism (hi, Laurie!) and the ‘recovered memory’ movement, psychoanalysis hasn’t been taken seriously since the fifties. When I took psychology we spent as much time on the coke-fueled confabulations of that snake-oil vendor as my geologist mate spent on creationism.

I know Sunny has a problem with evidence-based arguments but unless you want to turn Lib Con into a Social Text level laughing stock you have to do better than this.

You’ll be quoting fucking Lacan or Zizek next.

“Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason.”

My favourite Hume quote on theology is this one:

“If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, ‘Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?’ No. ‘Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?’ No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”

and people call Dawkins & co outspoken…

‘John Gray, in his take on the phenomena of the new atheists, rightly identified that ‘zealous atheism renews some of the worst features of Christianity and Islam’.

Some? Not the murder of doctors, stoning of ‘immodest’ women, flogging of rape-victims, lynching of homosexuals from cranes or the throwing acid in the face of schoolgirls bits obviously.

John Gray is opposed *in principle* to either the *possibility* or the *desirability* of progress. He’s a thorough reactionary. He is a medievalist. He represents precisely the *opposite* of everything the Left is supposed to believe in.

Here’s what AC Grayling, a proper philosopher, with lovely hair, has to say about John Gray:

http://newhumanist.org.uk/1423/through-the-looking-glass

I just love how atheist try anyway that they can to dispute the truth of God and all that he has done in this world (and continues too). I have heard all of these supposed genius debates from the leader of the “free thinkers” out there and I wouldn’t hesitate to debate a single one of them. Or you for that matter. If you like you can find me here…
http://www.kevinspeaks.com
Hope to hear from you!

So now you’re touting Freud and John Gray? Two monumental and irrelevant frauds who have about as much credibility as a certain Mr Hundal of this parish…erm…commune, I mean.
So if you find him irrelevant why do post on this site ?

“I am not as forthright as the new atheists, but I am with them. I am glad that Dawkins is strident, someone needs to be, & he is passionate about science because he finds it a wonderful thing that he wants to be widely known & understood. I am pleased to say that I have all his books. Chapter 7 of The God Delusion I find especially strong on secular versus religious morality. You can browse it in the library if you can’t be arsed to buy it.”

Your right but I kinda agree with Howard Jacobson’s view on the role of the agnostic. Better to hedge your bets.
I just don’t want to get into the situation like that fantastic Atkinson sketch “The Devil”.
When I am lining up with Dawkins and the Devil bellows out ” I bet your feeling like a right bunch of Charlies”

“

#So now you’re touting Freud and John Gray? Two monumental and irrelevant frauds who have about as much credibility as a certain Mr Hundal of this parish…erm…commune, I mean.
So if you find him irrelevant why do post on this site ?#

The obvious answer is: to tell him how irrelevant he is..but then again I didn’t call him irrelevant, I said he had no credibility..

the quote suggests that Freud and Gray are irrelevant, not Sunny…it was Sunny’s credibility that I was questioning along with the other two. Sunny has some relevance of course in as much as he is emblematic of that breed of liberal idiot who have destroyed the left in this country…a would be little radical who does little more than help sustain the middle-class identity / victim / single issue brand of politics that passes for progressive and has instead abandoned any real commitment to economic equality or the working class. As such, along with a growing band of others, it seems, I nip over here now and again for a quick laugh at the pretension, wishful thinking and plain wrong headedness of the place…it’s funny…(see his take on the ‘racist’ sheep cartoon…or his ‘Blue Peter Appeal’ to shut up Rod Liddle).

The best bit is when Sunny shows up, reads stuff like this and tries to deliver a magisterial slap down which generally reads as though it’s straight from the glowing nib of a 10 year old…then the little pack of morons follow up with increasingly hysterical shouts of “Troll”. It’s fine sport.

but anyway…whether I think him irrelevant, lacking credibility or whatever…this is a comment site. People are invited to comment. I do…that’s the whole point..so I tell him exactly what I think..it would be dishonest to do otherwise.

#Better to hedge your bets.
I just don’t want to get into the situation like that fantastic Atkinson sketch “The Devil”.
When I am lining up with Dawkins and the Devil bellows out ” I bet your feeling like a right bunch of Charlies” #

Is that really your take on the whole thing?..a kinda better safe than sorry piece of juvenile philosophising?…you must fit right in around here.

Btw for a realistic take on Sunny’s rep…take a look at this little beauty

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/03/bbc-climate-change-denier

He really is well respected…no?

Now it has taken you at least an hour to write that post.
Why if you can’t stand Sunny or his site ?
Tim W and other Tories don’t dislike Sunny but enjoy the debate.
If you want a site where your right wing prejudices are reinforced. Go to Harry’s Place or Working Class Tory

Oh Earnest
Chill out.#

Howard Jacobsens point about agnotism was a little more detailed, But as you spend your time to comment on sites you despise and making snide comments . Well why not, it’s better that than seeing you on the street screaming at single mothers and black people.
So comment away Earnest Ernest (love the name).. Wildean in it’s wit

“Now it has taken you at least an hour to write that post.”

Nope..about 4 minutes..anyway as Mr Hundal likes to spout where’s your evidence?

“Why if you can’t stand Sunny or his site ?”

Entertainment..thought I’d explained that..what else?..oh..wait..don’t tell me: you’re here to change the world?

“Tim W and other Tories don’t dislike Sunny but enjoy the debate.”

Sorry Bub..not a Tory…a concept that all kindsa would-be left-liberals have a problem grasping…you just can’t stand criticism from the left can you? Don’t like it pointed out just what a bunch of useful liberal idiots you are…call yourself ‘progressive if you like (whatever that means these days)…think you’re radical and dissenting if you like but the “Mail turns out to have right-wing bias Shock” spiel that is peddled on here and the “Guido Fawkes has xenophobic tendencies” exposes have been pretty much done to death and never really informed anyone of anything and might well have been produced by a precocious teenager…but don’t start thinking you’re on the Left…you just aint.

“If you want a site where your right wing prejudices are reinforced.”

Just delineate my right-wing prejudices then…you seem to have detected them on the basis of a single post…impressive…maybe you and Freud have something in common..he liked to draw unwarranted preordained conclusions from limited evidence too, didn’t he?..So go on..tell me (other than the standard “if he doesn’t like Sunny, he must be a Tory” line of thinking which, of course conceals the monumental conceit of this place..what do you base your diagnosis upon)

Btw on not just shouting “TROLL”…you’re a cut above the average clone on here..

Oh…and I’m timing you…GO!

@ 1 “So now you’re touting Freud and John Gray? Two monumental and irrelevant frauds”

Interresting. Polls of psycologists (ie people who actually know what they are talking about) show Freud to be viewed, consistently, as the most influential thinker in the subject, ever. On what basis do you consider him to be fraudulent ?

“Howard Jacobsens point about agnotism was a little more detailed”

…and a qualitative improvement of Pascal’s centuries old argument?…not really…why bother Gordon? It’s a basic argument that appeals to adolescents and morons…Jacobson trying to render it up to date with a bit of cynicism and knowing ennui doesn’t change the basic premiss…any more than Mr Hundal can disguise his “I want to be important” spiel in every miserable sentence he concocts.

On what basis do you consider him to be fraudulent ?

On any number of studies which show him to have invented testimony from patients and drawn untenable conclusions, not to mention the fact that psychoanalysis has repeatedly proved ineffective and its theories untestable and …in fact I’m pretty sure the word pseudoscience was coined specifically to deal with psychoanalysis.

Here’s a really good intro into why he should be regarded as a total fraud

http://www.amazon.com/Memory-Wars-Frederick-Crews/dp/0940322072/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Come on Gordon…I’m waiting…what’s taking you mate..fingers too fat for the keys?…trying to find something in my first post to back up your Right-Wing accusation?…good luck with that btw

Sorry Golden…you’ve proved a bit of a disappointment…I’m off out..back about 2…I look forward to your scintillating response…that leaves you 4 hours to find the Tory bias in my posts..otherwise an abject apology will do…or better still..email Sunny and get him to delete the posts…that way you won’t come across as an arrogant tosser who’s wandered a bit out of his depth

[13] thanks for that link Shatterface – the item includes an additional link to Laurie Taylor’s session with Gray (and an audience at the ICA) which also well worth a read;
http://newhumanist.org.uk/939

Taylor, correctly, pinpoints Gray’s outlook in the following extracts from Straw Dogs;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/sep/07/highereducation.news2

“To believe in progress is to believe that, by using the new powers given to us by growing scientific knowledge, humans can free themselves from the limits that frame the lives of other animals. This is the hope of nearly everybody today, but it is groundless.”
And:
“Modern humanism is the faith that through science humankind can know the truth – and so be free. But if Darwin’s theory of natural selection is true this is impossible. The human mind serves evolutionary success, not truth. To think otherwise is to resurrect the pre-Darwinian error that humans are different from all other animals.”

Are ‘evolutionary success’ and ‘the truth’ mutually exclusive concepts – I must admit I’m not really sure – perhaps the answer can be found under the flowing locks of AC Grayling?

On a slightly different tack – I read that the average for species survival is 100,000 years;

Now given that humans (or hominids) have been around for 100,000 years and have almost reached a global population of 7 billion (while ravaging half of the planet in the process) I am inclined to agree with Gray’s proposition that evolution success is a greater driver of human behaviour than truth?

Back early Golden…match was called off. Still no reply? Oh well..that’s you marked down as another strident, lippy smart-cunt who bails out when challenged…never mind mate. Next time just scream “troll”…and if I reply, you can scream..”I don’t waste time debating with trolls” and think you’re being all principled and superior..it seems to work for most other posters on here.

Right, I’m off to look for a rather more challenging debate…might try the News of the World or Village idiot.com

I think Dawkins has said that natural selection is a horribly cruel process. For every positive mutation there are millions of negative or neutral mutations. What we do have now are brains and the ability to intervene to change ourselves. Whether we do that in a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ way is moot.

‘Interresting. Polls of psycologists (ie people who actually know what they are talking about) show Freud to be viewed, consistently, as the most influential thinker in the subject, ever. On what basis do you consider him to be fraudulent.’

He is the most ‘influential’ in the public’s mind. He was also almost entirely incorrect. He made an astounding series of ridiculous and untestable claims that caught the public imagination. He invented new concepts on the hoof whenever he realised there was something he’d missed. He defined the public’s image of what ‘psychology’ actually is, and how it is practiced. His theories created entire art movements (such as surrealism) which are occasionally startling but fundamentally bollocks.

On the basis of a handful of ‘studies’ he claimed that the male infant is sexually drawn to his mother; that fear of castration causes him to identify with his father; that the female child believes she has already been castrated (even if she has never seen a penis); that this process is blocked from conscious thought by ‘repression’ (though Freud and his cronies were somehow immune from this); that all adult personality traits can be explained in terms of real or imaginary childhood ‘trauma’ (a term defined so loosely that it can include anything from childhood abuse to the sight of a dog drinking water from a glass) and that repression is one ‘defence mechanism’ among many that he invented ad hoc and which also include the awesome ‘denial’ which conveniantly explains every objection that his critics make.

It’s pseudoscience. It ‘explains’ absolutely everything without the possibility of testing it’s claims. It is a steam-aged model of the operation of psychodynamic forces which do not exist. When psychology departments abandoned it, psychoanalysis (by way of Lacan and Althusser) found refuge in the literary and cultural studies departments of universities and ‘intellectual’ communists who had abandoned economics and the class struggle.

‘Are ‘evolutionary success’ and ‘the truth’ mutually exclusive concepts – I must admit I’m not really sure – perhaps the answer can be found under the flowing locks of AC Grayling’

I don’t see any evolutionary advantage in having brains incapable of telling truth from falsehood. Ideas evolve. Those fit to survive – i.e. those which best match the world as it is – do so. Science is ultimately derived from the observations and simple theorising of our animal ancestors. The laws of gravity are ultimately derived from the thinking ‘that’s a big drop – think I’ll stay clear of that cliff top.’ if your ancestors thought otherwise – truth or falsehood were irrelevant – they wouldn’t have lived to become ancestors.

Shatterface,

Hence, the ‘Darwin Awards’.

http://www.darwinawards.com/

‘…psychoanalysis (by way of Lacan and Althusser) found refuge in the literary and cultural studies departments of universities and ‘intellectual’ communists who had abandoned economics and the class struggle.’

Terry Eagleton is exemplorary in this respect. Started off as a Marxist, discovered Freud and Lacan, now spouts garbage in The Guardian about Jesus being a Marxist: one all-embracing, untestable theory leading inexorably into the next – even when they are contradictory.

I ‘m sure we are all familiar with these discussions about which ideologies achieved the highest body-count—the religious or the atheistic.
Of course the term “atheistic”brings communism or nazism to mind.
As always,it is difficult to see the woód because of the trees.
Communism / Marxism or to take one off shoot flavour in particular– (western,campus,cafe,proggressive,liberal,ect ect whatever)
And we have a religion which is barely distiguishable from Christianity.
Thats what communism /marxism and its western off shoots are–religions.
They are faith based.
They have an Adam and Eve
A Garden of Eden.
A Tempting Serpent
An Original Sin.
A Paradise Lost
A Fall from Grace
A Moses
Prophets
Saints
A Messiah
A Crucifixion
The Devil
A Bible
Martyrs
A Priesthood
An Inquisition
A Witch Hunter General
Mortal Sin
Ten Commandments
A Church
Atonement
Self-Flaggelation
KIngdom Come and
Heaven on Earth.

The Garden of Eden? The Stone Age–before industrialization and pollution.
Paradise Lost ? Capitalism
Crucifixion you ask.? That would be the Holocaust.
The Devil? You can guess
The Messiah? You must be kidding.
The Priesthood? The Frankfurt School and Saul Alinsky
The Bible? I would not insult your intelligence.
Heaven on Earth? Ah.–I’m afraid thats Sunny Hundals department.

Your welcome to fill out the rest.
Best Regards
journeyman

‘Hence, the ‘Darwin Awards’.’

The real world is a laboratory for testing hypotheses like ‘tigers are friendly’.

“When psychology departments abandoned it, psychoanalysis (by way of Lacan and Althusser) found refuge in the literary and cultural studies departments of universities and ‘intellectual’ communists who had abandoned economics and the class struggle.”….and instead devoted their energies to transforming society by ‘textual revolution’: seeking to change society by transforming the cultural superstructure.

So, having abandoned the economic base, they launched an ill-conceived and calamitous scheme to challenge the forces of reaction by highlighting tacit bourgeois capitalist assumptions in literature, the arts and throughout civil society…instead of raising class consciousness or bringing down the establishment, they simply replaced it with a new middle class, identity obsessed version of the same which gradually found a political voice through the likes of NuLabour in the UK and gained a foothold in the media through such outlets as, for example, Liberal Conspiracy on the web. There a bunch of soi-disant radical dissenters merely acted as the ‘angry’ wing of a well ensconced free-market centrist elite for whom real social change and working class empowerment were regarded as passe…it also let them play out their student-political fantasies well into middle-age.

Their most endearing feature was their tendency to shout “Tory”, “Troll” or “Racist” at any dissenting voices..especially those from the old “traditional” left who were by this time, thanks to their association with the working classes, deemed ignorant BNP fodder and hence racist. Really…you couldn’t fuckin make it up or believe that in this day and age any group of people could be that up themselves.

Okay, an example of the relationship between science, religion and every day life.

You are about to cross the road so what do you do? You look both ways. Knowledge and experience allows you to judge whether an oncoming car will hit you. Knowledge and experience tells you if it does hit you that it will hurt you. Physics and biology are merely a more abstract, formalised way of understanding the movement of the car relative to yourself and the potential damage to your body. There’s nothing divorced from your experience in what the science tells you of the situation, it’s just more precise. It’s perfectly *natural*. To reject science is to reject your experience of the world.

Now there are certain elements of science that are counterintuitive. There isn’t a survival advantage in understanding relativity or quantum mechanics. However from our experience of the world we know that it can be modelled mathematically. There is no reason to assume that this should not continue at scales larger or smaller than the scale in which we generally percieve the world. The mathematical models of the gravitational effects on space or subatomic events give rise to testable hypotheses. These in turn have provided us with a picture of the universe we might not have guessed from every day experience but ultimately consistant with it.

Religion, on the other hand gives us a fantasy world entirely inconsistant with experience, in which the rules of physics are sudpended arbitrarily. To accept religion is to reject the rules of cause and effect your ancestors relied on for survival.

Terry Eagleton is exemplorary in this respect.

My favourite Eagleton argument went like this –

- The Godless atheists say that God doesn’t exist because we have no evidence.

- Well, the whole point of religion is that it’s about faith, because God is inherently unseen.

- Ergo, God totally exists and all men are Socrates. Take that, Dawkins!

I’m probably doing his argument some violence by reduction, but that was his basic premise. Spoken by the man in the street, my response would be Whatever gets you through the night, pal. From an academic and columnist, it doesn’t really deserve much more consideration than But that’s bullshit, you bullshitter.

What I’d like to know is whether God, if (S)He exists, as the source of Intelligent Design, is accountable for the Lisbon earthquake in 1755, the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, the Tsunami at Christmas time 2004 and the recent earthquake in Haiti as well as all the virulent pandemics?

If so, what should we do about it and, if not, then who exactly is responsible for the flawed design?

I think we should know.

‘- Well, the whole point of religion is that it’s about faith, because God is inherently unseen.’

Apophatic theology: God is inherantly unknowable so don’t ask bloody questions.

God is defined in terms of what we know he is not. If he’s not mortal he must be immortal! You can see the appeal god might have for post-structuralists like Eagleton: apophatics maps easily onto his misreading of Saussure.

And yet, despite being inherantly unknowable we ‘know’ ‘god is love’. We know he’s been tinkering with evolution (if it exists at all). We ‘know’ he doesn’t like homosexuals and he’s not keen on pork or shell fish. He doesn’t want menstruating women in his temples and he doesn’t think girls need an education.

And the apophatics identify the ‘unknowability’ of god with the ‘unknown’ of physics. Don’t know what kick started the universe? God did it.

@Earnest Ernst (34)

Well,thats what I thought but it would have taken me a book to formulate it. .Do you have a blog site.

“Really …..you couldn’t make it up or believe that in this day and age any group could be that up themselves”.

Its called narrcism
I pop in every now and again.I’ve had to wonder myself when they go into defence shield mode if I should bugger off entirely or confront them head on.
I wish that some off the stereotype parodies of a 68′s student union one-liner campus cliche merchants would stand in someone elses shoes for just a moment and expirience what its like.
The problem is that we have a “pandemic”. Literally 90%+ of all western universities will have an “anti-racist “welcoming committe if any speaker like Robert Spencer from Jihad Watch ,Tammy Bruce,or David Horowitz turns up to give a lecture.(ot lets face it any old heretic).
Everything is done to intimidate and disrupt the lecture.And now a security detail is a standard requirement.
Diversity is wonderful of course but not diversity of opinion.If the subject matter of the lecture is the one that has a habit of being in the news with monotonous regularity (ISLAM)then you can be sure the Muslim Students Union will be working over time with emotional black-mail and their guilt indoctrinated infidel dupes to silence any opposing ideas from outside the bubble.
It getting to the point now of critcal mass And a threat to western cvilization.The left and freedom of speech.Absolutely frigging amazing.
Hey…when is Sunny Hundal going to get the “Free Geert Wilders” campaign going.
Oh sorry—I forgot—hes a racist—right,and deserves to be tried under the (O.I.C’s)
“Defamation of Islam” 7th century Sharia law,slipped in by the back door to appease Islam.
And do you know why. Becuse its the least line of resistance and Dutch commercial interests might suffer the same fate as Denmark after the Cartoon crisis.
But what goes around comes around.And remeber the old adage.

“And when they came for me,there was nobody left to speak up ”

Shame on you.Hypocrits.

‘What I’d like to know is whether God, if (S)He exists, as the source of Intelligent Design, is accountable for the Lisbon earthquake in 1755, the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, the Tsunami at Christmas time 2004 and the recent earthquake in Haiti as well as all the virulent pandemics?’

And why don’t my nipples work? Am I doing it wrong?

And To Bob B. Yes there is a God. And yes he does let all these things happen. Why? Because He must. God sees life through two lenses. When He witnesses these individual events it sad’s Him in ways we could only imagine. But He also sees things in the wider spectrum. The one that encompasses all of existence. From the beginning of time to the end. We are so affected by these events because we only see what we see, very little. I hope that this might have helped a little.
http://www.kevinspeaks.com

journeyman

No I don’t have a blog site…I don’t even come on here that much…generally just when CIF ban me and I lie low for a few days before signing up again. The atmosphere here is just too ridiculous but it is certainly highly amusing to see the way the react to being told what hypocrites they are and how totally lacking in self awareness.

I’ve been accused of impersonating another poster already this morning for daring to call him abusive and childish…apparently, I’m a sick and damaged individual…the way they throw around hysterical accusations is astounding and I’m sure your post, which let me assure you I found cogent, lucid, balanced and entirely reasonable will have you branded a racist and/or islamophobe any time soon…

Look at this …http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/02/12/amnesty-and-impartiality/#comment-105296

absolutely fuckin mindblowing

It is very reassuring that none of the clowns on here are ever likely to achieve any sort of political power…that would usher in a repressive era of politically correct McCarthyism…posting something like your post would lead to a subpoena to appear before Senator Hundal and his ethics committee..you’d be off to the gulag before you could say…”free speech”…or “well that’s not very liberal, is it?”

@Earnest Ernst

Thanks for your reply.(Theres also the ´”Intellectual gulag “)
Talking about the trial of the millenium the future of freedom of speech and Wilders.There has been the usual B.B.C/Pravda —N.U.J. maínstream media blackout.
if it wasn’t for the “Underground” resistance media as we might as well be honest and call it for what it is (the internet)while we still have it—one would never know it was happening.
Is anybody aware here that:

1)Wilders is on trial for offending Islam

2)The court has stated publicly and in writting that, the purpose of the trial is not to establish if Wilders has stated the truth–but if Wilders is guilty of breaking the law.

3)That the 17 witnesses Wilders requested to testify on his behalf have been denied ,and the court will only accept three witnesses.

4)And that these three witnesses will not be allowed to testify in open court,but in closed session awa y fromthe public eye.

5)No jury trial

6)France will try him when the Dutch kaffir are finished with him.

7)Jordan as requested his extradition.

8)The charge comes with the verdict and sentence included as a forgone conclusion because the court has declared the “truth”is not the issue.

9)this is freedom of speech on trial. If this becomes a landmark precedent,Liberal Conspiracy will hear the echoes.

Kangaroo “Wahabi” Court.—Welcome to Eurabia.

Regards.

@25

There is no linkage between evolutionary success and the truth, so how can they be mutually exclusive?

The driving force behind evolution is natural selection. A trait is succesful if it is suited to its environment or offers a greater advantage to its carrier. Posession of “the truth” may be such a trait but it doesn’t have to be.

Wonderfully, for some reason our brains have evolved the ability to deal with amazing abstract ideas. Though we cannot see them we can probe the fundamental particles of matter, we can use the scant information carried by a few photons from distant space to understand how the universe formed. More prosaically we do not have to pray or sacrifice animals in our efforts to heal disease or grow enough food.

In the past the best we could come up with was religion. It seemed logical and it was enough. Some people think we have outgrown such ideas and that they are holding us back. Look at the efforts people have gone to on this page arguing about religion, something ultimately impossible to prove or disprove. What a waste of intellect! The point is, we can do without it.

While we’ve sparred on the subject of Wilders, journeyman, I, for one, oppose his trial, let alone a conviction, and I think I speak for most people here, who’d challenge his views but defend his right to propound them.

Answering several above: Freud is flawed, not useless. A number of things he figured out from first principles work; much of the debate is about whether they’re a good idea. And unfortunately, a number of his interpretations of things are complete crap, although his recognition that there was a thing there to interpret was often both spot on, and up to 60 years ahead of his time.

Almost all of which can also be said about Jung. But not, I’m afraid, Skinner.

#A number of things he figured out from first principles work;#

I can only assume you’re working on the much exercised trope that Freud somehow posited or even ‘discovered’ the unconscious. Couple of points…first, is there anything in his notion of the unconscious that wasn’t there in embryo in Shakespeare or Schopenhauer?

Second..from Francis Galton writing in “Brain” 1879…to which the then largely unknown Freud (receiving his degree in 1881) was a subscriber… “[The mind is] a complex system of drains and gas and water-pipes…which are usually hidden out of sight, and of whose existence, so long as they act well, we never trouble ourselves.” He went on to discuss “the existence of still deeper strata of mental operations, sunk wholly below the level of consciousness, which may account for such phenomena as cannot otherwise be explained.”…so we can potentially add plagiarism to the charges of fraud, deception and irrelevance.

Or..the historian of psychology, Mark Altschule, wrote in 1977: “It is difficult – or perhaps impossible – to find a nineteenth century psychologist or medical psychologist who did not recognize unconscious cerebration as not only real but of the highest importance.”

Freud discovered nothing…his gifts were for fiction and self-promotion. Why the fuckin hell anybody would regard his views on religion as containing anything of worth or note is beyond me…why anyone would publish an article based on a premiss of Freud’s is similarly mysterious…am tempted to say “where’s the evidence?” but even the dogs in the street could tell you…Freud doesn’t “do” evidence.

@BenSix

I appreciate your reply. Yes ,we’ve sparred on this before.
I remember that.
I checked your link.Thanks for your stance against the trial.
Maybe its just me coming by for the occasional rant against the ,er…..enemy.
Just to make sure they hadn’t forgotten that there’s a trial going on that could turn out to be a defining legal presedent.Which is the whole point of it. We wouldn’t want anybody falling asleep now,would we.
I think you know how it is these days.Interesting times and all that.
Anybody with convictions can hardly get away from it.
Its a bit like playing “wack the mole”. It sticks its head out of one hole,and then another.
I do the blog rounds.
Yesterday it was a strike in Norway by 1000 muslim taxi drivers and a 2500 person muslim demonstration against an article and cartoon in a Norweigan newspaper.
Tommorow it will be….well….its becoming somewhat predictable isn’t it.
But it all has for some strange reason,the samé underlying theme.
The one thing that has brought us to where we are.Freedom of speech.
And the one sunlight- shy cult in particular,that is absolutely petrified that we still have it.

All the best
journeyman.

46
Although Freud didn’t discover the unconscious I think he was the first to propose its’ psychodynamic quailities and also postulate how it interacted with the environment, in fact he was the last grand theorist. Whether you are a fan of Freud or not, within his theories (which were , to a large degree, a regurgitation of several older theories), there were several new proposals. Firstly, mental health problems had been viewed as organic/biological in nature whereas Freud proposed that many resulted from the normal socialization processes. Secondly and more importantly, Freud proposed the concept of ‘overdeterminism’ (chaos theory or butterfly effect) as being the norm rather than the exception.
Freud did draw on the work of other researchers/scientist, but isn’t that the norm?

Ernest Ernst

Boasting of ones knowledge of Fruedian psychology was a great way to impress and entertain people at cocktail parties.
It is full of symbolic theatrics.One only needed to know a couple of incestuous tragedies and that was it.You were an expert.
It was the arty-farty theatrical crowd that really went for it.
I met a few of them way back in 72 in West Berlin.
Heidi had a Freudian dictionary. The first word was Ab Reaktion.She read a bit of Erich Fromm as well.
It had a little something for everybody.
Now I’m far from being an expert.But there is one sentence I remeber falling over in some book.
It was some professional research psychologist who said that “Sigmund Freud put the advancement of psychology back by several decades.
That arty-farty theatrical crowd that I mentioned above,got older,got degrees,got jobs and influence.
They are still here and have never ceased in their relentless ambition to screw the whole fucking world to a dystopian hell.
One thing they forgot to do—-was grow up.
We have several generations of middle age adolescents.
And now that I come to think about it.—its because of those very same people,that I am now, 28 years later—-writting this on this blog.
How ironic.

journeyman,

32 years later. What would Freud make of that?

Oops! 38!

#I think he was the first to propose its’ psychodynamic quailities and also postulate how it interacted with the environment, in fact he was the last grand theorist.#

…indeed..but it was bullshit

#Whether you are a fan of Freud or not, within his theories (which were , to a large degree, a regurgitation of several older theories), there were several new proposals.#

indeed

seduction theory…bullshit
oedipus complex..bullshit
dream analysis….bullshit
sublimation……bullshit

I could go on..

#Firstly, mental health problems had been viewed as organic/biological in nature whereas Freud proposed that many resulted from the normal socialization processes.#

You read Hamlet? King Lear? Macbeth?…I think you’ll find someone got there first.

Sophocles? Aeschylus…sorry mate…you’re out by 2000 years

I think you’d do well to read #49 for a more realistic appraisal of his continued influence.

‘Answering several above: Freud is flawed, not useless. A number of things he figured out from first principles work’

As a way of getting money out of people with too much of it, psychoanalysis is more efficient than Marxism. It takes years of expensive ‘therapy’ before the patient gets better of his own accord, if ever: the ‘cure’ is then attributed to the therapy.

‘…And unfortunately, a number of his interpretations of things are complete crap, although his recognition that there was a thing there to interpret was often both spot on, and up to 60 years ahead of his time.’

It’s not that his particular interpretations are crap, it’s that the entire methodology he uses is crap. Every bit of information he conjours up from the supposed ‘unconscious’ of his patients, or more frequently from their imagination, simply confirms the diagnosis he’d already made. There’s no way to falsify any of his claims.

But if you really think he was 60 years ahead of his time maybe we should continue to perform cliterodectomy’s on ‘hysterical’ women who fail to achieve vaginal orgasms.

‘“[The mind is] a complex system of drains and gas and water-pipes…which are usually hidden out of sight, and of whose existence, so long as they act well, we never trouble ourselves.”

Psychology draws too much on the dominant technologies of the time the theories were derived. In Victorian times it was steam power, today it’s computing. The metaphor then takes on a life of it’s own as new functions are added to the metaphor through metonymy: it is assumed that because a steam engine does THIS or a computer does THAT then so does the brain.

52
Freud did draw on Hamlet for the oedipus complex, but as I have already stated, all researchers draw on previous works, theories and frameworks are generally the result of an evolutionary process I doubt if any ideas are truly spontaneous. Hegel illustated this process, and, of course, Marx drew on Hegel to illustrate the impetus of social change, whether you embrace or reject Freud, Marx or any other theorists, there is little, if any, that can be truly attributed to one person.

Shatterface @ 54,

Good point. Though I expect that that is true whenever analogies are invoked.

There is apparently now a desire to compare the brain to a quantum computer, which is really not at all helpful as most of us haven’t a clue what a quantum computer actually is, and the science of quantum computing itself is very much in its infancy.

#Freud did draw on Hamlet for the oedipus complex, but as I have already stated, all researchers draw on previous works, theories and frameworks are generally the result of an evolutionary process I doubt if any ideas are truly spontaneous.#

Yes..but should a scientist really be drawing on a playwright for inspiration? The fact is: he decided there was an Oedipus complex and then confirmed it by arbitrary interpretation…if he’d decided on an entirely different theory..he could have drawn an entirely different interpretation from the same ‘testimony’. The fact that he invented and added to these testimonies is now widely accepted…as is the fact that a piece of surgical gauze left in a patient’s nose was the actual cause of her ‘hysterical’ nosebleeds rather than the trauma or seduction theory which he proposed to explain it.

By any objective standards Freud and his legacy are a busted flush and the notion that he can be regarded as an authority on anything is deluded. The article above is consequently, regardless of your views on the ‘New’ Atheists effectively a meaningless unsupported piece of sophistry. I agree largely with #49 but I also feel that there remains a generation of psychologists who want to resurrect all they can from Freud simply to try and reassure themselves that a good part of their years of study were not actually spent on the work of a complete charlatan…hence the “yeah but he did the groundwork” or “yeah but he gave us the canvass…” type observations. He retains influence to satisfy the vanity and conceit of generations who were taken in by it all. They don’t want to say “oh fuck..what were we thinking?”…and so, rather than abandon the guy completely he still has clout within the discipline and acts as drain on enterprise and innovation. He should be dropped entirely, except as an historical curio / anomaly and lesson to future generations about the danger of the cult of academic celebrity.

@douglas clark

(50) “32 years later. What would Freud make of that”

(51) “Oops 38″

He’d say it was an “Ab Reaktion”. The first and only Freudian term that I could ever remember from Heidi’s Freudian Dictionary.
It means ,—- “delayed reaction”.
Jesus,these coincidences are getting creepy.

He’d also presume that I can’t count.

57
I am certainly not a Freud apologist and neither do I have any faith in psychotherapy being more efficacious than a cup of tea and a chat, however, I do believe that Freud was creative. His model of the human-being is a true precursor to the holistic approaches we now see in modern medicine and healthcare. I personally can’t see anthing wrong in gaining inspiration from Shakespeare, prior to psychology, it was considered the job of poets and artists to explore the nature of humaness, and, I don’t think that many people would argue that Shakespeare (whoever he turns out to be) got much wrong,

Journeyman,

Cheers.

The short version of the arguement appears to me to be that atheism is a rejection of parental influence.

Funny, then, that the new atheists – who include well-known figures such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens – all include in their anti-religious polemics appeals to the, slapdash, early Freud view that religion is illusory, a view that, as Ana-Maria Rizzuto reminds us in her excellent book Why Did Freud Reject God: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation, was born out of a rebellious reaction to his Father’s beliefs.

I am no expert, but that sounds awefully Freudian. If you start from a premise and prove it from the same premise have you proven anything? I have no idea.

Would Ana-Maria Rizzuto be, herself, a Freudian? Who knows? It’s all German to me:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ana-Maria_Rizzuto

It seems to me, if you are brought up in the modern world you have less reasons to believe in the old ‘God of the Gaps’ than you used to. Seems reasonable to me. Perhaps Freud thought so too.

@douglas clark

no, it’s not that atheism is some kind of rejection of paternal influence (although this could be some kind of quasi-Freudian notion that rejection of God as the Father – but we won’t go there…yet), but rather having looked at the writings of Freud and his reaction to his Father’s strong beliefs, he rebelled against them.

One of Freud’s, and Freuadianism’s, legacy is that our selves, our personalities, all emanate from our attitudes to things around us, and more specifically, our sexual relationship with our bodies and the things around us – particularly those closest to us (for example our parent/guardians). But it would not be so simple to say that if our parent’s attitude to gays, for example, was fear, that we would necessarily take on that attitude ourselves. However, their attitude would in some way shape our attitude, even if that meant us reacting negatively towards it. So although embrace for gays is a noble thing (of course it is), our decision to practice this attitude may emanate more from a negative reaction to, well, a negative reaction (if you follow). Although in nice society we like to think of our attitudes towards things to stem from our moral scrutinising, and things we feel are wrong, but by and large we are emotionally attached to certain attitudes, that in turn stem from our proximity to other attitudes.

Freud’s attitude towards religion may have come from this very overproximity to his Father’s strong religious Judaism. This just happened to mould his atheism, it is not that paternal rejection and atheism are interlinked in any way.

Carl,

Yes, all that may be true. I can never understand why everyone doesn’t agree with me!

But it is stretching your, (his?) case to suggest that we are uninfluenced by subjective reality. For instance, the publication of ‘The Origin of the Species’ had a huge impact on Victorian society, underpinning a different idea of the tale of our creation, compared to what had gone before. Same with Copernicus and the heliocentric model, or Einstein and the atomic bomb. We are forced by ideas to adapt, well, some of us are anyway. I don’t think of these things as right or wrong, in a moral sense, I just think they are true.

My point merely being that external narratives, memes if you like, also have a huge influence on us.

I get quite irritated if someone says the Darwin was wrong. If I had been born a couple of hundred years ago that arguement, that option if you will, would not exist. Ideas are out there to be adopted or rejected at will, when they exist.

It is the automaton model of the human psyche that I suppose I find most problematic. This is down to an early rejection of a tick tock universe where everything is inevitable, something John Gray appears to embrace with enthusiasim. His views may be more nuanced than the links here, and that is all I have to go on, for I am certainly not a reader of his works. What would be the point?

Freuds’ beliefs (or not) may also have come from looking around him and reading, as much as parental influence.

Douglas,

I can never understand why everyone doesn’t agree with me either, it’s just not on is it.

The general point doesn’t have to be controversial or difficult, the philosopher Michael Sandel explained recently his slight opposition to individualist liberalism as opposed to a more Rawles-inspired liberalism by noting that the former often imagines an “unencumbered self” – a self that has no regard for others or society – whereas for Sandel we are “situated selves” which means we have a place in a historical, societal situation, and this comes out in the decision we make etc etc. Now the difference here is not from someone who chooses at their will and someone who is situated and has his decisions made for him, but rather our situation influences our will and our future choices. So it is not simply that if Freud’s father practised a very hardline Judaism that Freud would blindly go along with it, nor is it a product of Freud’s free will that he didn’t go along with it, but rather the impact of his Father’s religion has had the effects it did have on Freud.

Another example, more appropriate to the subject of new atheism, is Darwin, who you mentioned.

One of the reasons Darwin became what we’d know as an agnostic or non-believer had nothing to do with his theory – but rather his loss of faith around the time of his daughter’s death. My crux in both the above article and others is to say that both believers and non-believers have peculiar reasons for appealing to the philosophical and religious outlooks that they have. Francis Collins turned to belief when he saw a frozen waterfall, Darwin turned away from religion because his daughter died – neither of these really stand up to scrutiny, yet Dawkins will have you believe that a Darwin-inspired atheism is more apt in today’s world of knowledge than Collin’s wacky frozen waterfall. For me there is no difference. That’s where John Gray comes in, the enlightenment was not going to do away with, for want of a better way of putting it, stupidity, it was only going to mimick some of the stupidity of an age where science was not answering all the major questions. But unlike Gray I see room for progression, it’s perhaps not neccesarily in enlghtenment thinking (the way the new atheists opine), though I acknowledge this term has been misrepresented.

[66] “But unlike Gray I see room for progression, it’s perhaps not neccesarily in enlghtenment thinking (the way the new atheists opine), though I acknowledge this term has been misrepresented”.

Gray does not dispute ‘progression’ if we take progression to mean incremental steps in accumulated knowledge, technology, and so on, but contends that this knowledge has not been matched by a concomitant progression in social organisation (when we look at the bigger picture).

The evidence he cites includes perpetual war, poverty, famine, crime, and political instability, especially if we consider these perennial failings from an international perspective.

Materially, life in the West may be far more comfortable (for some) compared to 100 years ago – even so, we are still sleep walking toward an unsustainable global population, which, when allied to destruction of much of the planet, and depletion of natural resources, tends to give some credence to Gray’s concerns?

Carl,

Interesting discussion.

I can see Sandel’s point, indeed I’d assume the same thing really, although I would expand it a bit to see our situated selves as being quite influenced by both universal(ish) education and the globalisation of our technological culture. A few hundred years ago or so we wouldn’t even be aware yet that there had been an earthquake in Haiti. Neither would there have been – correct me if I am wrong – the global response. So, the narrative that an individual responds to nowadays is considerably different from the one available to them in the past.

This applies equally to ideas, where the arguments pro and con a deity for instance, probably sees more exposure – from the layman or observers point of view – than they ever did in the past. It is a bit difficult to believe that all these spokesmen are merely preaching to their own choirs. So, if someone suddenly stands up at the equivalent of a Billy Graham event and shouts ‘I believe’, I am not completely convinced that a post hoc explanation (by them) actually explains a great deal.

I am not entirely sure that your case re Freud is very strong, sorry. It seems to me that, if Freud, or multiple Freuds, can take whatever they want from their religious father from complete acceptance to complete rejection, then, whilst free will is established there is nothing to be drawn from the parental influence? Perhaps Freud took other things from his father and ate his greens throughout his life, for instance.

67. the a&e charge nurse

In Black Mass he notes that many grand narratives all appeal to the Christian notion of End Time – be that narrative marxism, neoconservatism, fascism – political philosophies that were to emerge from out of the enlightenment. What is existing in all of these philosophies is a belief that one day there will be mass convergence, or rather a time when society’s nationwide will all be singing from the same hymnbook. Gray see’s no such convergence in the future – near nor far.

Of course the way Gray uses the word progression is up for debate, and he has not put me off using it to describe my own political persuasion, for what I can see he means by progression, and why he opposes it, is the fatuous belief that one day we will enter into a perfect utopia – and quite frankly no sensible leftie should assume this to be the case – but there are a number of people from all sorts of persuasions who do believe in this so-called ‘enlightened End Time’.

So I like Gray, when he criticises the political confessions of certain Trotskysts, Apocolyptics, Fukuyama followers, neo-nazis, neo-cons, textbook Hegelians of all stripes left, right and centre, then I’m there with him, and when he talks about certain secular movements of postenlightenment being offshoots of the most despised areas of Christian End Time, I also want to scream this aloud myself, but I wouldn’t subscribe wholesale to what he identifies as political realism (a kind political arrangment which acknolwedges wicked issues) for I think that my political subscriptions can allow for these issues too. Therefore, the a&e charge nurse, I think you’d be better disputing Gray’s usage of the word progression, because to be sure he is talking about progression the way other people talk about stagnant political theories.

68. douglas clark

My case on Freud is not entirely predicated on the Father-Son relationship, my point is basically that a chap in his early days had an aversion to religion that looks akin to teenage rebellion, going as far as saying in his professional context to reject it as an illusion, but later in life, having a more mature, nuanced understanding of religion and the human psyche in general noting that from time to time illusion provides great intellectual scope, and those tied to illusions are not limited to the religious themselves, believers and non-believers alike can all have illusions. Some of his work on Moses in his later life has just the sort of method that an atheist should employ with regards to religion, not laughing at it because it is illusory, but understanding that illusion is not limited to the religious alone.

I don’t know whether Freud ate his greens or not, but I do know he was partial to coca leaves whilst walking in Bolivia – rumours would have us believe this developed somewhat.

Just browsed my mate’s copy of “Nurtureshock”…a review of academic research into children’s behaviour. There’s a chapter on sibling rivalry..subtitled “Freud was wrong, Shakespeare was right”. Seems in research on why siblings fight, only 9% of incidents are down to a struggle for parental affection. Apparently, in virtually all texts on the topic, there is no empirical research, just a blind assertion that a battle for parental affection is “of course” the underlying cause..another example of the charlatan’s legacy polluting and distorting thinking on psychology.

Fuck me, I thought…shoulda been a scientist…it really is time Freud was dropped as an example or authority on anything.

70. Earnest Ernest

Why was Shakespeare right? Would it be in reference to Romeo and Julliet (I really don’t know)?

I haven’t read Nurtureshock so I cannot comment on that, but what is the relevance of sibling rivalry here?

#Why was Shakespeare right? Would it be in reference to Romeo and Julliet (I really don’t know)?#

No..King Lear..Regan and Goneril who exhibit motivations far more typical of most sibling rivalries than anything alluded to Freud.

The relevance of sibling rivalry is to draw yet another example of Freud getting things completely wrong. I just don’t understand why anybody would cite him as any kind of authority when so much of what he claimed has since been dismissed as completely mistaken and the man himself is widely regarded as an fraud. This would apply as much to his take on say football, making cupcakes or indeed any supposed religious urge. The guy lacks any credibility. It would be akin to Sunny suddenly decided that despite her other failings, Melanie Phillips was worth listening to on say transport policy..it wouldn’t happen..and rightly so.

…and don’t get me started on John Gray…as far as I’m concerned the article is a piece of idle speculation with nothing to support it.

#Instead of avowedly viewing their conscious-raised utopia as being not too dissimilar from the Christian efforts for transformation by salvation of the existing social order, it instead chooses to caricature religion as indefinitely and unalterably evil, while upholding the folly that atheism is fully grounded on reason, humanism and a pursuit of good, morally superior as a consequence. Such is the nature of the new atheism delusion#

Other than Gray’s unconvincing conflation of any humanist project with Christianity…I’m not sure where the idea behind this paragraph comes from. And what exactly are “the Christian efforts for transformation by salvation of the existing social order”? Christianity is about the salvation of individual souls is it not…in fact early Christianity was an apocalyptic cult which expected the imminent end of the world and no interest in transforming any social order. As it became clear no such eventuality was indeed imminent, they sought moral guidance from pre-existing secular ethics. Gray insists…mainly by calling any belief, theory, movement or political persuasion a “religion” that the enlightenment was inspired by Christian ideals…that is rubbish…he is the ultimate conservative and reactionary..a modern day Edmund Burke…I’ve never understood why he is so lionised by some would-be liberals.

btw…I haven’t read Nurtureshock either..just the one chapter..but, contrary to the negative review it received in the Guardian and Observer, it seemed quite convincing to me..and backed by evidence..it does however run counter to instinctive liberal thinking on childrearing. However,on examination this is largely built on assumptions and wishful thinking , much of which can be traced in origin to Freud.

The main influence of Christianity on the Enlightenment was the notion of one god, which meant all phenomena should follow one set of rules – his – rather than the entirely seperate rules implied by belief in many gods. Hence the behavior of falling objects and the movement of stars, or of lightning and lodestones, which appear to be entirely seperate phenomena, ‘miraculously’ manifest the same properties.

The problem for Christianity then was that God himself doesn’t fit that same set of rules – and can therefore be dispensed with.

‘Freud’s attitude towards religion may have come from this very overproximity to his Father’s strong religious Judaism. This just happened to mould his atheism, it is not that paternal rejection and atheism are interlinked in any way.’

Maybe, maybe not. Either way, unless Freud started on coke at a very early age I doubt his opinions were shaped by a fear his father would cut his cock off.

Earnest you really have hit your freud for dummies this week haven’t you. Dreams of nasty black men bonking your mum eh.
Explains alot

Golden

Is that it?…best you can do?..fuckin lightweight moron?…haven’t you got a few comments to justify upthread…couldn’t manage it…decided to come out with a random insult..?

Classy..real classy

#Dreams of nasty black men bonking your mum eh.#

Leave out the ‘nasty black men’ and I think we’ve hit on your life story..or the highlights anyway…you’re the Freudian matey

#Explains alot#

does it?…explains alot of what..I believe you were gonna tell me how you’d decided I was right-wing earlier..fell free..I’m waiting…oh yeah..

I notice you only took 36 hours to reply..make it a bit quicker next time eh?

74
The concept of monotheism dates back to the Old Testament, which is centuries before the pre-Enlightenment period. One of the central influences which Christianity (Protestantism) brought to the Enlightenment,wasthe notion that each individual had a unique relationship with God, and judgement would be made on the basis of each individuals’ actions. If Weber is to be believed, it was also the protestant ethic which brought about capitalism. Durkheim also explores the Protestant’s unique relationship with God in ‘Suicide’

one of the better threads on LC.

Thanks for the thought provoking input.

Interesting how judeo-christianity played a role in the enlightenment, in bringing the notion that the behaviour of things have a consistent explanation that can be found by the human mind.

And then Goedel’s theorem comes along, which says that actually even mathematics, the most rigorous of sciences, depends on assumptions which can never be proven.

Which undermines the notion after all, that everything can or will one day be explained.

#And then Goedel’s theorem comes along, which says that actually even mathematics, the most rigorous of sciences, depends on assumptions which can never be proven.#

Not really..Godel was a mathematical platonist. He believed that mathematical truths had an external objective existence..an ideal to which humanity could never really aspire. He didn’t think it depended on assumptions but that our capacities could never wholly contain it, no matter how many assumptions we made.

#Which undermines the notion after all, that everything can or will one day be explained.#

Not explained..proved. Or at least proved with a finite number of axioms. He posited a theory which could be proved along with its negation within the axioms of Russell’s Principia Mathematica. By adding extra axioms, we could then negate the negation but another theorem would then become provable and disprovable in its place…the process could then be repeated ad infinitum / nauseam. He showed mathematics (or number theory at least was inconsistent using axiomatic proofs. But they could all be ‘explained’.

He took this as an indication that there was a ‘true’, consistent mathematics ‘out there’ in some ethereal, ideal realm…and as far as I know, nobody has ever disproved the notion.

Golden Graham

I’ll lend you a copy of my Dummies guide to Godel’s Incompleteness theorem if you ask nicely…still waiting btw.

79 80
Just to play devil’s advocate, Freud also asserted that everything could not be explained as much was hidden. Consequently when he discussed that outcome of apparantly similar circumstances could/would have opposite outcomes, he was derided for being non-scientific. When Lorenz proposed the butterfly effect he was given a Kyoto prize, the equivalent of a Nobel prize (he proposed the butterfly effect in the early 1960s)

#When Lorenz proposed the butterfly effect he was given a Kyoto prize, the equivalent of a Nobel prize (he proposed the butterfly effect in the early 1960s)#

The Butterfly effect isn’t non-scientific though, it’s just counter intuitive…and can be demonstrated by calculating the massively different solutions to various differential equations resulting from minuscule changes in initial conditions. The Butterfly effect had a sound, proveable and well-documented mathematical basis. Freud’s theories were mere speculation aimed at justifying pre-decided outcomes.

82
‘Freud’s theories were mere speculation’, but despite the counter intuitive quality of his version of the butterfly effect, he did get it right nearly 70 years before Lorenz
Remember, Freud was writing in a time when linear causality, positivism and the notion that all could be predicted with the right knowledge, Although Freud was not the only theorist exploring this, he was in the field of psychology, where Pavlov and the various behavoural theorists followed on from the old 19th century notions of physical sciences.
Although I dislike psychoanalysis as a therapy, I still believe that Freud does have merit for creative thinking.

# I still believe that Freud does have merit for creative thinking.#

I agree..he created some wonderful works of fiction…and I dare say he’d have his own column in the Guardian if he were alive today…right next to Ben Goldacre?

I like a lot of your comments here. I too felt that Dawkins was and is ridiculously simplistic in his analysis. Dishonest in a way, too, while pretending to take the moral high-ground of straightfowardness and honesty. – there is something zealous in his fervour to ‘not believe’ as you so rightly point out.

I’ll lend you a copy of my Dummies guide to Godel’s Incompleteness theorem if you ask nicely…still waiting btw.
Thanks Ernie. Your a star