Note: This post and the following one were written in response to a link to
http://www.youtube.com/user/ScienceReasnRational#p/a/u/0/9tl_PdsJAfo
that somebody (a Facebook “friend”?) directed to (newsfed to?) my seldom-visited Facebook page a few days ago.
"Why We Believe What We Believe." When someone you don't know -- and sometimes even if it's someone you know well -- starts throwing "we" around, it's often wise to ask, "Who's 'we'? Ya got worms?" One feels confident that what the SRR believes is not going to be on the table, and "Why You Believe What You Believe," or "Why Those Numbskulls Believe What They Believe" might be more accurate titles.
It's nice of the SRR to offer to tell me why I believe what I believe. A trifle presumptuous perhaps, but kindly meant, no doubt.
More portentious is the subtitle, suggesting we are to be offered insights into "The Psychology of Religion." Now, if by "psychology" the SRR means the modern academic discipline purporting to constitute one of the empirical sciences, as an empirical science it can support only a statistical definition of the norm (and thus, of the distinction between normality and abnormality). We might therefore claim greater interest for a study of the psychology of irreligion.
The piece itself, and the reactions to it, are interesting data. A low-production-value pastiche of borrowed and largley irrelevant snippets interspersing a s-l-0-w and barely coherent lecture, itself almost entirely an attack on straw men (no -- what's flimsier than straw?), what could possibly have caused otherwise intelligent people to gush over it?
Contemporary America harbors a large movement -- perhaps better described as a subculture -- of Fundamentalist Christianity. Like other religious fundamentalisms, it has its genesis in panicked reaction against modernity. Accordingly it turns defensively inward and is basically anti-intellectual. This is not the place for an extensive discussion of its foibles. My thesis, however, is that most of the enthusiastic recipients of the propaganda of the New Militant Atheists are, in one way or another, escapees from this Fundamentalism.
For these recovering victims of intellectual and/or psychological abuse, pieces like this one fall under the psychological classification of "reinforcement." The emotional value with which some invest an item such as this video derives from its psychic usefulness. Some want to punish their abusers by heaping ridicule on them, others value whatever helps drown out the siren call of the all-embracing “lifestyle” ideology they once found so comfortable. (And these two groups are by no means mutually exclusive.)
I have great sympathy for such people. Nevertheless I would encourage any of them to seek insight into the connection between his or her personal history and his or her fascination with the New Militant Atheism. If you'd remained in the “Forever Family,” you'd happily be working to inflict it on others – is an equal and opposite reaction, however natural, really an improvement?
http://www.youtube.com/user/ScienceReasnRational#p/a/u/0/9tl_PdsJAfo
that somebody (a Facebook “friend”?) directed to (newsfed to?) my seldom-visited Facebook page a few days ago.
"Why We Believe What We Believe." When someone you don't know -- and sometimes even if it's someone you know well -- starts throwing "we" around, it's often wise to ask, "Who's 'we'? Ya got worms?" One feels confident that what the SRR believes is not going to be on the table, and "Why You Believe What You Believe," or "Why Those Numbskulls Believe What They Believe" might be more accurate titles.
It's nice of the SRR to offer to tell me why I believe what I believe. A trifle presumptuous perhaps, but kindly meant, no doubt.
More portentious is the subtitle, suggesting we are to be offered insights into "The Psychology of Religion." Now, if by "psychology" the SRR means the modern academic discipline purporting to constitute one of the empirical sciences, as an empirical science it can support only a statistical definition of the norm (and thus, of the distinction between normality and abnormality). We might therefore claim greater interest for a study of the psychology of irreligion.
The piece itself, and the reactions to it, are interesting data. A low-production-value pastiche of borrowed and largley irrelevant snippets interspersing a s-l-0-w and barely coherent lecture, itself almost entirely an attack on straw men (no -- what's flimsier than straw?), what could possibly have caused otherwise intelligent people to gush over it?
Contemporary America harbors a large movement -- perhaps better described as a subculture -- of Fundamentalist Christianity. Like other religious fundamentalisms, it has its genesis in panicked reaction against modernity. Accordingly it turns defensively inward and is basically anti-intellectual. This is not the place for an extensive discussion of its foibles. My thesis, however, is that most of the enthusiastic recipients of the propaganda of the New Militant Atheists are, in one way or another, escapees from this Fundamentalism.
For these recovering victims of intellectual and/or psychological abuse, pieces like this one fall under the psychological classification of "reinforcement." The emotional value with which some invest an item such as this video derives from its psychic usefulness. Some want to punish their abusers by heaping ridicule on them, others value whatever helps drown out the siren call of the all-embracing “lifestyle” ideology they once found so comfortable. (And these two groups are by no means mutually exclusive.)
I have great sympathy for such people. Nevertheless I would encourage any of them to seek insight into the connection between his or her personal history and his or her fascination with the New Militant Atheism. If you'd remained in the “Forever Family,” you'd happily be working to inflict it on others – is an equal and opposite reaction, however natural, really an improvement?
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