I dont think I ever got so much out of a web article, it was fascinating from start to finish. It’s a very rich area of human interest from the psychological and scientific point of view. Most highly recommended!
Maybe Reviel Netz who is researching the Archimedes Palimpsest thanks to the generous owner, and has published _The_Works_of_Archimedes_Translation_and_Commentary_Volume_1 through Cambridge University Press.
The Google library is a real paradigm shift for publishing. The old books that are now public domain used to be old tattered rare books, but are now just a click away. Very democratizing. Interview the people at Google.
He is a philosopher and main player in consciousness and neurological research, and has profound ideas about spirituality. He sees religion as opposed to spirituality, and science and spirituality as originating from the same value.
Should interest Chris Mooney… And surely some others on this forum too.
That ties into the idea that religion is a byproduct of something that is actually useful for humans as social animals to have. There’s ultimately no qualitative difference between religions and cults, just quantitative differences in the degree to which they control and isolate their members from non-members. Just like appendicitis is a byproduct of the benefit of having a little reservoir of friendly gut bacteria around to repopulate your gut after you’ve consumed something that threw off your gut ecosystem. How’s that for a slogan? Religion is appendicitis of spirituality!
Annie Laurie Gaylor and/or Dan Barker of FFRF.org They might have something to say on the accommodationist vs “hard” atheist approach. Annie Laurie may be one of the few female “hard” atheists around. It might be interesting to hear her take on why that is… considering how religious nonsense tends to have consequences which fall most heavily on women…. (abortion, “obey thy male relatives”, etc.)
I recently read the fascinating book “Wicked Company” by Philipp Blom and reckon he might make a really interesting interviewee, not only because of his knowledge of enlightenment history but also because of his thoughts on why a “watered down”, deistic enlightenment was more compatible with the French revolution and industrial 19th century than the “radical” views of Holbach and Diderot, or how enlightenment is under attack today. Perhaps a new angle on the whole issue of accomodationism?
Also, I second Thomas Metzinger.
Get Jerry Coyne or Ophelia Benson on your show and debate the ethics of science journalists taking money from evangelical Christians apologetics organizations. Follow it up with an episode debating the ethics of the so-called New Atheists.
Just a couple of ideas to mix it up a bit and get away from the weekly Climate Change shows.
Sincerely,
Darron
Indeed. Also, please touch on the ethics of CFI employees taking Templeton money (let’s be explicit about it), unfairly maligning outspoken atheists by taking cheap shots and characterizing their views falsely at every turn, and the wisdom of suggesting that a large portion of the people likely to make up CFI membership should be quiet and asked not to speak up because they’re extreme and “unhelpful.”
I don’t think Chris Mooney would be the right host for that week’s show.
I agree, this would be a good topic for a future POI, but see no reason why Mooney shouldn’t be the host for it. He might clarify his side of this ongoing fight. I’ve listened to a lot of podcasts now that he’s hosted and he’s very good in that role. I’m agnostic re his ethics—in that I don’t know the details (and am not that interested in them) of how this fight got started. There’s nothing unethical in taking Templeton’s money per se, IMHO, unless he’s adjusting his professed beliefs to line up better with Templeton’s to get the gig. The Templeton sponsored prayer study pretty much demonstrates that Templeton isn’t being unethical by (for example) distorting the results of the studies they fund.
As far as maligning outspoken atheists… they are outspoken, so let them speak out to refute any unfair charges… or refute the charges yourself. AFAIK, I’ve not read anything in the “New Atheist” literature to which one could object on the grounds of being “unhelpful”, but Mooney is (as are we all) entitled to his opinion on that point and any others. Let’s have a definitive clearing of the air on this issue ... if that’s possible.
Nothing wrong with the climate change shows, IMHO. The continuing habitability of the planet does seem to merit some serious consideration. There should be more of them. I’m listening to 4/9/2010 POI now and re the geo-engineering idea, I’m wondering if maybe the Icelandic volcano eruptions are a portent of planetary feedback mechanisms which might solve the problem for us by extra volcanic activity as the ice caps weight is reduced. The extra volcanism could amount to several Pinatubos (and maybe even a few Krakatoas) with enough particles ejected into the stratosphere to ground world air traffic and induce dramatic global volcanic winter effects to (at least temporarily) reset the state of global warming and give us time to come up more permanent solutions.
I’m a bit befuddled about all the vitriol in the debate about your ethics. The Templeton thing seems to be a question of some “New Atheists” being a bit puritanical regarding associating with an organization whose aim is clearly to promote religion. Since the Templeton Foundation allowed the true results of the Effectiveness of Prayer study to come out without attempting to influence the outcome, I don’t see a problem taking their money as long as you use it to pursue the truth. I have no fear that the truth will come out on the side of the religionists. All the discoveries since the beginning of the Enlightnment have come out against religious dogma. I don’t see how that trend could end. As far as you telling the “New Atheists” to sit down and shut up… I’ve not seen anything anywhere near that direct.
I don’t agree that the “New Atheists” ... even Hitchens ... are being unhelpful, but obviously, you’re entitled to take a different view on that (or any other) point.
I think you should have a POI podcast session (or several of them if necessary) with some of the more vociferous of your detractors to go over all these issues.
I recently read the fascinating book “Wicked Company” by Philipp Blom and reckon he might make a really interesting interviewee, not only because of his knowledge of enlightenment history but also because of his thoughts on why a “watered down”, deistic enlightenment was more compatible with the French revolution and industrial 19th century than the “radical” views of Holbach and Diderot, or how enlightenment is under attack today. Perhaps a new angle on the whole issue of accomodationism?
Also, I second Thomas Metzinger.
I second Blom’s nomination. Holbach and Diderot anticipated the New Atheists in many ways. You can read the introduction to A Wicked Company here:
Hey, I would like to hear an interview w/ Walden Bello, author of Dilemmas Of Domination and The Future In The Balance. Our economics, our capitalism is destroying the planet, it is already true—and I would like to hear what he has to say about this. As I’ve said before, America is the windiest place on the planet and yet we rely upon crude oil and subsidize the industry which is the most profitable on planet Earth at the same time.
Here’s a short speech by Philipp Blom on the topic of fanaticism, which he uses to touch upon some of the matters discussed in his book A Wicked Company.
