Accommodationism Undefining religion 15 Feb 201429 Jun 2024 [This will be a series of posts based on a book I am writing – see last post] When anthropologists began to study religions in cultures other than the European context, which itself was based upon Roman jurisprudence, they encountered a difficulty. Until this time, in the mid-nineteenth century, “religion”… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Can Religion Accommodate Science? 12 Feb 201420 Feb 2014 Recent posts and stuff online has led me to suspect it would be worthwhile my writing a book on this topic, as short posts often lead to misunderstandings and trolls. I’ve started sketching out the contents, and putting in various posts from here to use as a skeleton, but I… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Degrees of religion 8 Feb 201420 Feb 2014 Larry Moran quotes Jason Rosenhouse disputing Phil Plait: So, after all, that, let us return to Plait’s argument. He tells us that the problem is too many people perceiving evolution as a threat to their religious beliefs. Indeed, but why do they perceive it that way? Is it a failure of… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Science outreach: A conversation 2 Feb 201420 Feb 2014 From the Freethinkers Blog Con: With PZ Myzer and Aron Ra. Continue Reading
Accommodationism How to argue with silly thing believers 30 Jan 201420 Feb 2014 [Apologies this took a while; I’ve been rather sick] So, given all this [Why believers believe silly things, why they believe the particular silly things they do, and the developmental hypothesis of belief acquisition], how can you change a believer’s mind? It is tempting to say that you cannot, or… Continue Reading
Accommodationism The “developmental hypothesis” of belief acquisition 29 Jan 201420 Feb 2014 In the last two posts I have discussed why members of belief-groups have silly beliefs (that is, beliefs that the wider population finds silly), and why those particular beliefs, whatever they are, are the ones they believe. In broad terms, the answer is that these are arbitrary, costly hard-to-fake signals… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Why do believers believe THOSE silly things? 28 Jan 201420 Feb 2014 If, as I argued in the last post, believers believe silly things in order to make the community cohere in the face of competing loyalties of the wider community, why is it that they believe the things they believe? For example, you will often see Jews attempt to argue that… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Why do believers believe silly things? The function of denialism 26 Jan 201420 Feb 2014 Bishop Butler wrote in a sermon in 1729: Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be: why, then, should we desire to be deceived? [Sermon 7] It’s an interesting question. Why should we seek to be deceived about the consequences… Continue Reading