Cognitive Progression

When atheism increases, what happens to morality?

Video: Religion and Statism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wylXssulQIQ

http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_atheist.html

http://www.freedomainradio.com

Duration : 18 min

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My opinions on the free will debate and the important point which everyone misses.

keywords: free will philosophy intellectual debate conspiracy politics theory atheism evolution health peak oil central banking economics avoidance

Duration : 0:13:29

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http://khydraa.ucoz.com/

Duration : 4 min 7 sec

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More words of wisdom from Carlin Theatre.

WARNING: I apologize for any audio or video burps, but sometimes the audio overlaps and I have to cut it where it ends. Doing so allows for brief flashes of video or audio due to morons interupting George, or camera changes in mid speech. Thanks.

Duration : 0:7:28

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Cognitive Dissonance — Carol Tavris interview with D.J. Grothe

– Why we have so much trouble accepting information that conflicts with a belief we know for sure is right.
– The brains blind spots that make us unable to see our own prejudices, biases, corrupting influences, and hypocrisies.
– Why our memories tell more about what we believe now than what really happened then.
– How couples can break out of the spiral of blame and defensiveness.
– The evil that men and women can do in the name of God, country, and justice — and why they dont see their actions as evil at all.
– Why random acts of kindness create a virtuous cycle that perpetuates itself.
– How all of us can learn to own up and let go of the need to be right, and learn from the times we are wrong—so that we don’t keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

Carol Tavris is a social psychologist, writer, and lecturer. Her books include the landmarkAnger: The Misunderstood Emotion and the award-winning The Mismeasure of Woman: Why Women Are Not the Better Sex, the Inferior Sex, or the Opposite Sex. She has written hundreds of articles, editorials, and book reviews for magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times op-ed page, Scientific American, the Times Literary Supplement, and The Skeptical Inquirer. An acclaimed lecturer, she has addressed general and professional audiences of all kinds—including attorneys, judges, physicians, psychologists, business leaders, and students—on many topics having to do with psychological research, including the difference between science and pseudoscience in psychology. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science, and on the editorial board of Psychological Science in the Public Interest. She lives in Los Angeles.

http://www.mistakesweremadebutnotbyme.com/index.html

Douglas James “D.J.” Grothe is a writer and public speaker who talks about issues at the nexus of science, critical thinking, secularism, religion and the paranormal. He is Vice President and Director of Outreach Programs at the Center for Inquiry, a “think tank that advances science, reason and secular values in public affairs.” He is associate editor of Free Inquiry magazine, and lectures throughout North America at colleges and universities. He edited On the Beauty of Science, about the worldview and life’s work of Nobel Laureate Herbert Hauptman. He hosts the nationally popular radio show and podcast Point of Inquiry which features leading thinkers in the sciences, skepticism and humanism. He is a former professional magician and “psychic entertainer.”

http://www.pointofinquiry.org/

Duration : 0:9:30

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Irrationality in religion is perpetuated by desire, not reason

Duration : 0:3:48

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Richard Dawkins @ Big Think: While science is indelibly distinct from the field of ethics, Richard Dawkins believes that there are a number of ways in which its facts and reasoning could greatly benefit our ability to understand and repair the worlds suffering.

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—

Question: Can science shed light on any moral issues?

Richard Dawkins: Science is not in the business of shedding light on moral debates, but I think it can do sometimes — the whole subject of moral philosophy, of examining moral questions in a logical way to expose inconsistencies, for example.

When you’re looking at moral questions, so-called moral questions, like abortion or euthanasia, you can show that people who take a very strong absolutist line may be being inconsistent with themselves because they are taking a strong line on one thing while at the same time inconsistently not taking a similarly strong line on another.

So that would be a scientific way of thinking; it’s not science per se. It’s moral philosophy, but it’s a kind of scientific way of thinking. But also I think scientific facts can illuminate moral debate. In the case of abortion again, for example, a scientist might contribute to the debate information about at what point during the development of an embryo the nervous system comes into being.

And presumably, before the nervous system comes into existence there is no ability to feel pain or to suffer. And so maybe something important happens at the moment when the nervous system comes into being.

On the other hand, you might say, well, even when a human embryo develops a nervous system and develops the capacity to perhaps suffer, it’s still a much smaller nervous system than the nervous system of an adult cow. And so what about balancing the suffering of a human embryo against the suffering of an adult cow when it’s being slaughtered for meat.

An absolutist moralist would say, well, humans are just plain special, and cows are not humans, so they don’t deserve the same moral consideration. But a scientist might come along and say, well, what do you mean by that? I mean we are, after all, all evolved; we’re all cousins.

At what point in the evolution — since we know evolution is a fact — at what point in the evolution of humans would you suddenly draw the line and say, all right, from now on they’re all human and before that they’re not?

In the evolutionary progression from the common ancestors with chimpanzees, who lived about six or seven million years ago, to modern humans, going through creatures which might have looked a bit like Lucy, might have looked a bit like the newly discovered fossil Ardi, would you have given special human moral ethical consideration to Lucy? Or would you count Lucy as though she was a chimpanzee?

Does this perhaps suggest to you that we shouldn’t be in the business of drawing lines between species in this kind of way, and maybe these lines should be regarded as more fuzzy and less clear cut. Our absolutist moralities that do draw hard and fast lines between humans and all other species — even taking a human fetus and calling that human, whereas an adult chimpanzee is not and doesn’t deserve the same moral consideration — is that consistent with science? These are ways that science can at least inform moral discussions.

Question: Is there ever a point where scientific reasoning can harm society?

Richard Dawkins: You can, I suppose, make a utilitarian justification for obnoxious practices. You could make a utilitarian justification for torture. Moral philosophers sometimes pose the hypothetical case where the world is about to be blown up.

Only one person knows the secret password to stop the doomsday bomb going off. This one person is a suicide bomber who refuses to give up the password. Are you right to torture him? And most people, I think, say you are. I mean, it’s a horrible thing to torture somebody, but under those extreme conditions, to save the world you would torture somebody. And that would be a utilitarian justification for an otherwise obnoxious practice such as torture.

http://bigthink.com/

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Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist and the former Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. He is the author of several of modern science’s essential texts, including The Selfish Gene (1976) and The God Delusion (2006). Born in Nairobi, Kenya, Dawkins eventually graduated with a degree in zoology from Balliol College, Oxford, and then earned a masters degree and the doctorate from Oxford University. He has recently left his teaching duties to write and manage his foundation, The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, full-time.

http://bigthink.com/richarddawkins

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Duration : 0:4:43

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Words of wisdom from Carlin Theatre.

WARNING: I apologize for any audio or video burps, but sometimes the audio overlaps and I have to cut it where it ends. Doing so allows for brief flashes of video or audio due to morons interupting George, or camera changes in mid speech. Thanks.

Duration : 0:6:5

Read the rest of this entry »

Cognitive Dissonance — Carol Tavris interview with D.J. Grothe

– Why we have so much trouble accepting information that conflicts with a belief we know for sure is right.
– The brains blind spots that make us unable to see our own prejudices, biases, corrupting influences, and hypocrisies.
– Why our memories tell more about what we believe now than what really happened then.
– How couples can break out of the spiral of blame and defensiveness.
– The evil that men and women can do in the name of God, country, and justice — and why they dont see their actions as evil at all.
– Why random acts of kindness create a virtuous cycle that perpetuates itself.
– How all of us can learn to own up and let go of the need to be right, and learn from the times we are wrong—so that we don’t keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

Carol Tavris is a social psychologist, writer, and lecturer. Her books include the landmarkAnger: The Misunderstood Emotion and the award-winning The Mismeasure of Woman: Why Women Are Not the Better Sex, the Inferior Sex, or the Opposite Sex. She has written hundreds of articles, editorials, and book reviews for magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times op-ed page, Scientific American, the Times Literary Supplement, and The Skeptical Inquirer. An acclaimed lecturer, she has addressed general and professional audiences of all kinds—including attorneys, judges, physicians, psychologists, business leaders, and students—on many topics having to do with psychological research, including the difference between science and pseudoscience in psychology. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science, and on the editorial board of Psychological Science in the Public Interest. She lives in Los Angeles.

http://www.mistakesweremadebutnotbyme.com/index.html

Douglas James “D.J.” Grothe is a writer and public speaker who talks about issues at the nexus of science, critical thinking, secularism, religion and the paranormal. He is Vice President and Director of Outreach Programs at the Center for Inquiry, a “think tank that advances science, reason and secular values in public affairs.” He is associate editor of Free Inquiry magazine, and lectures throughout North America at colleges and universities. He edited On the Beauty of Science, about the worldview and life’s work of Nobel Laureate Herbert Hauptman. He hosts the nationally popular radio show and podcast Point of Inquiry which features leading thinkers in the sciences, skepticism and humanism. He is a former professional magician and “psychic entertainer.”

http://www.pointofinquiry.org/

Duration : 0:9:41

Read the rest of this entry »

Cognitive Dissonance — Carol Tavris interview with D.J. Grothe

– Why we have so much trouble accepting information that conflicts with a belief we know for sure is right.
– The brains blind spots that make us unable to see our own prejudices, biases, corrupting influences, and hypocrisies.
– Why our memories tell more about what we believe now than what really happened then.
– How couples can break out of the spiral of blame and defensiveness.
– The evil that men and women can do in the name of God, country, and justice — and why they dont see their actions as evil at all.
– Why random acts of kindness create a virtuous cycle that perpetuates itself.
– How all of us can learn to own up and let go of the need to be right, and learn from the times we are wrong—so that we don’t keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

Carol Tavris is a social psychologist, writer, and lecturer. Her books include the landmarkAnger: The Misunderstood Emotion and the award-winning The Mismeasure of Woman: Why Women Are Not the Better Sex, the Inferior Sex, or the Opposite Sex. She has written hundreds of articles, editorials, and book reviews for magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times op-ed page, Scientific American, the Times Literary Supplement, and The Skeptical Inquirer. An acclaimed lecturer, she has addressed general and professional audiences of all kinds—including attorneys, judges, physicians, psychologists, business leaders, and students—on many topics having to do with psychological research, including the difference between science and pseudoscience in psychology. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science, and on the editorial board of Psychological Science in the Public Interest. She lives in Los Angeles.

http://www.mistakesweremadebutnotbyme.com/index.html

Douglas James “D.J.” Grothe is a writer and public speaker who talks about issues at the nexus of science, critical thinking, secularism, religion and the paranormal. He is Vice President and Director of Outreach Programs at the Center for Inquiry, a “think tank that advances science, reason and secular values in public affairs.” He is associate editor of Free Inquiry magazine, and lectures throughout North America at colleges and universities. He edited On the Beauty of Science, about the worldview and life’s work of Nobel Laureate Herbert Hauptman. He hosts the nationally popular radio show and podcast Point of Inquiry which features leading thinkers in the sciences, skepticism and humanism. He is a former professional magician and “psychic entertainer.”

http://www.pointofinquiry.org/

Duration : 0:9:36

Read the rest of this entry »