What's the most evil/controversial thing the Prophet has asked you to do?

[tooblue]

Originally Posted by woot

I have some thoughts on that, but John Wilkins is working on a summary that promises to be pretty good. There's some good discussion about these issues in the comments of the two relevant entries. He's trying to find published sources for everything, so I'm not sure how far he'll get. The explanations I provided above are those that make sense based on what I know, but I'm not sure how falsifiable any of them are and therefore how likely they would be to appear in journals. This stuff seems pretty tangential and potentially offensive, and a lot of it resides squarely in speculative, popular books as far as I know. It'll be interesting to see what he comes up with.

His preliminary list of explanations includes social cohesion factors that I also find fairly compelling.

I wonder how vehemently you will deny the irony of this entire discussion? You deride “faith-heads” as irrational and yet you, the soft or hard scientist must also resort to faith in order to accept the ‘truths’ you espouse in this thread.

In this instance your apostle is a man named Wilkins and his General Conference address is a promising summary …the ‘truths’ you champion are in fact fluid, ever changing, ever evolving and no more than mere supposition.

Your derision is misplaced and evidence of your insecurity. You struggle to contend with Archaea the faith-head’s very rational and informed opinion and therefore you must endeavor to diminish his intellectual acumen.

[tooblue]

Originally Posted by Solon

Some things aren't the church's business.

Then of course some things are! Why are we so worried about what isn't the church's business, should we not be more concerned with what is the church's business?

[woot]

Originally Posted by tooblue

I wonder how vehemently you will deny the irony of this entire discussion? You deride “faith-heads” as irrational and yet you, the soft or hard scientist must also resort to faith in order to accept the ‘truths’ you espouse in this thread.

In this instance your apostle is a man named Wilkins and his General Conference address is a promising summary …the ‘truths’ you champion are in fact fluid, ever changing, ever evolving and no more than mere supposition.

Your derision is misplaced and evidence of your insecurity. You struggle to contend with Archaea the faith-head’s very rational and informed opinion and therefore you must endeavor to diminish his intellectual acumen.

You've misunderstood everything I've written. If you're not willing to at least make an attempt, you're not worth the effort. That a science blogger and his commenters are working on a summary that I think might be more interesting than what I could quickly produce makes him an apostle? I'm afraid that your outlook is far too simplistic to come close to grasping what's going on here.

Those explanations for the origin of religion are very speculative, and I never identified them as "truths," as much as you wish I had. Of course, you agree with Archaea and therefore seek to exaggerate his acumen and diminish mine. Very predictable, but I think I've proven how much better an understanding I have on this particular topic than Archaea. I'm sure there are many other topics where the roles would be reversed.

[Archaea]

Woot, you're looking at this topic too narrowly, too two dimensionally. You've decided what the right answer is and now look for evidence to support your conclusion. I'm sure glad we have paleoecologists, where would our foodstuffs be without them.

Let's look at "necessary". You seem to define necessary as essential or the the sine qua non.

I don't define it so narrowly. I see it to also include useful and one that surfaces to the top.

For a civilization to rise, it needs order, a sense of purpose, authority, and an ethos so that the populace will govern itself.

You want to engage in the student's linear regression analysis to see if "religion" is necessary for formative civilizations. I admit my acquaintance with anthropology is limited mostly to post historic civilizations, starting with the Egyptians, Sumerians, Indic-Aryans, and Chinese societies. I have a little bit of information about pre-historic civilizations in Japan, Mongolia and elsewhere.

However, the patter of development requirement organization, government, authority, police powers, self-rule. Religion has provided all that, and what substitute has there been for formative civilizations.

I suppose if we could turn back the clock, we might find isolated civilizations of a limited scale which functioned without religion, but the examples you use of speculations for certain explanations are tortured at best, and usually untestable.

[woot]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Woot, you're looking at this topic too narrowly, too two dimensionally. You've decided what the right answer is and now look for evidence to support your conclusion. I'm sure glad we have paleoecologists, where would our foodstuffs be without them.

Let's look at "necessary". You seem to define necessary as essential or the the sine qua non.

I don't define it so narrowly. I see it to also include useful and one that surfaces to the top.

For a civilization to rise, it needs order, a sense of purpose, authority, and an ethos so that the populace will govern itself.

You want to engage in the student's linear regression analysis to see if "religion" is necessary for formative civilizations. I admit my acquaintance with anthropology is limited mostly to post historic civilizations, starting with the Egyptians, Sumerians, Indic-Aryans, and Chinese societies. I have a little bit of information about pre-historic civilizations in Japan, Mongolia and elsewhere.

However, the patter of development requirement organization, government, authority, police powers, self-rule. Religion has provided all that, and what substitute has there been for formative civilizations.

I suppose if we could turn back the clock, we might find isolated civilizations of a limited scale which functioned without religion, but the examples you use of speculations for certain explanations are tortured at best, and usually untestable.

Changing the definition of the most important word you've used, at the end of the discussion no less. Is pretty severe equivocation. Even then, you still use the word "required" so I can't accept that you actually believe in your milder definition of the word.

I've acknowledged at least twice now that possible explanations for religion are, as far as I know, completely speculative. They are based on good science, but are not themselves testable, and represent the dreaded "just so" explanations that less-informed folks try to use to give science a bad rap. Proof isn't the point here. If we can come up with several compelling explanations based on phenomena that we know exist, then they become quite a bit more likely than explanations that require appeals to revelation and supernatural forces. They're also fun as an intellectual exercise.

I just don't think you'd ever, in a million years, attempt to say that religion was required for civilization if you didn't have a vested interest in saying so. It's pretty widely thought that it was either beneficial or closely attached to something beneficial, and I think probably both, but the idea that it was necessary or required has no grounds.

I meant this question to be a rhetorical device, and feel bad that we took so much time discussing it.

[tooblue]

Originally Posted by woot

You've misunderstood everything I've written. If you're not willing to at least make an attempt, you're not worth the effort. That a science blogger and his commenters are working on a summary that I think might be more interesting than what I could quickly produce makes him an apostle? I'm afraid that your outlook is far too simplistic to come close to grasping what's going on here.

Those explanations for the origin of religion are very speculative, and I never identified them as "truths," as much as you wish I had. Of course, you agree with Archaea and therefore seek to exaggerate his acumen and diminish mine. Very predictable, but I think I've proven how much better an understanding I have on this particular topic than Archaea. I'm sure there are many other topics where the roles would be reversed.

Modus operandi affirmed. What you meant to say is my outlook is inferior. You infer that I am less intelligent and learned, and that my reading comprehension is insufficient. Such is condescension and derision ...

I did not attempt to diminish your acumen -the irony of the discussion, which you have vehemently disregarded, and is beyond all participants influence puts your acumen in proper perspective.

To further accentuate such one must demand; who/what is authority here, and by what process was authority installed?

[woot]

Originally Posted by tooblue

Modus operandi affirmed. What you meant to say is my outlook is inferior. You infer that I am less intelligent and learned, and that my reading comprehension is insufficient. Such is condescension and derision ...

I did not attempt to diminish your acumen -the irony of the discussion, which you have vehemently disregarded, and is beyond all participants influence puts your acumen in proper perspective.

To further accentuate such one must demand; who/what is authority here, and by what process was authority installed?

I'm not sure what your outlook is, but if it is best described by this sort of mumbo jumbo, I have a hard time not suspecting that it must be inferior.

[Archaea]

Woot most of us are aware of our own shortcomings and neither tooblue nor I are impressed by ourselves.

You are truly dazzled by your own self-proclaimed brilliance. I have no agenda and no reason to hope religion is essential to the formation of early, primitive civilizations. It appears evident to me, but you would argue with anybody about anything positive about religion. We get it. You have shed your ignorance in favor of your omniscience.

In your book, religion has virtually, no net positives, was unnecessary and those of us who, even as observers and not partakers, believe religion to be useful and necessary, are ninnies.

Talk to us when you are published and at least a Phd.

[tooblue]

Originally Posted by woot

I'm not sure what your outlook is, but if it is best described by this sort of mumbo jumbo, I have a hard time not suspecting that it must be inferior.

My outlook is clearly stated in my first post in this thread; "I wonder how vehemently you will deny the irony of this entire discussion?" You have vehemently denied irony and your derision appears set to degenerate into acrimony.

[woot]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Woot most of us are aware of our own shortcomings and neither tooblue nor I are impressed by ourselves.

You are truly dazzled by your own self-proclaimed brilliance. I have no agenda and no reason to hope religion is essential to the formation of early, primitive civilizations. It appears evident to me, but you would argue with anybody about anything positive about religion. We get it. You have shed your ignorance in favor of your omniscience.

In your book, religion has virtually, no net positives, was unnecessary and those of us who, even as observers and not partakers, believe religion to be useful and necessary, are ninnies.

Talk to us when you are published and at least a Phd.

Yes, thanks again for repeating the same garbage for the nth time, once again proving how much you enjoy responding to what you wish I'd written and not what I've actually written. I know how much easier it is to ascribe an absolutist position to someone, as it absolves you of any responsibility to actually understand their arguments. I'm glad that you've ignored my arguments in favor of your straw man. We should do this again sometime.