Enlightenment Under Threat (incl. Bill Maher & Pat Condell)

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Enlightenment Under Threat (incl. Bill Maher & Pat Condell) - Sir Harold Kroto @ The Science Network - Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0

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Sir Harold Kroto, Chairman of the Board of the Vega Science Trust, a UK educational charity that produces science programs for television, in 1996 shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley for the discovery of a new form of carbon, the C60 Buckminsterfullerene. He has received the Royal Society's prestigious Michael Faraday Award, given annually to a scientist who has done the most to further public communication of science, engineering or technology in the United Kingdom.

As you watch the conversation in Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0, it might help to know about one of the sources that was helpful to me in formulating the agenda, assembling the cast of characters, and setting the tone for the meeting. I quoted this passage from Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century by Jonathan Glover (who directs the Centre of Medical Law and Ethics at King's College, London):

"Now we tend to see the Enlightenment view of human psychology as thin and mechanical, and Enlightenment hopes of social progress through the spread of humanitarianism and the scientific outlook as naïve...One of this book's aims is to replace the thin, mechanical psychology of the Enlightenment with something more complex, something closer to reality...another aim of the book is to defend the Enlightenment hope of a world that is more peaceful and humane, the hope that by understanding more about ourselves we can do something to create a world with less misery. I have qualified optimism that this hope is well founded..."

I say Amen to that. If Enlightenment 1.0 took a thin and mechanical view of human nature and psychology, I think Enlightenment 2.0 can offer a much 'thicker' and cognitively richer account - less naïve and also, perhaps, less hubristic. If there's one thing we've learned - particularly from cognitive neuroscience - it is that we need to have some strategic humility about the hobby horses we are inclined to ride.

Roger Bingham
Director, The Science Network
http://thesciencenetwork.org/

BEYOND BELIEF DVDs are available at:
http://www.beyondbeliefdvd.com/servlet/StoreFront
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[baldurus1]

"Christian history is no longer written in blood" Are you sure about that Pat?

Take another look.

In 2010 46 people were executed in the United States, the only people defending the death penalty are fundamentalist christians.

Mass-murders in Norway, committed by a fundamentalist christian.

Ireland terrorism, fundamentalist christians.

etc. etc. etc.

[gleehmee]

@BlueShark20201 I didn't say they were the same thing.

All Catholics are christian, but christians are not all catholics. It's not a difficult fact to understand.

None of what you have said makes any statment about jesus not being the savior. they still believe he is the savior and are therefore, by the definition YOU GAVE ME, christian.

[baldurus1]

@dylangray64 Then wouldn't it be easier to address the real issues when the guise of religion was gone?

[dylangray64]

@baldurus1 sorry lad, but 'terrorism' in Ireland goes way beyond Christianity, I agree with what you're saying in general, but ethnicity and a history of violence and persecution from both sides is what creates troubles now, it just takes the form of religion

[TurpentineRec]

That is stupid. The dead penalty is not about "the suffering of the criminal", is that he never will be walking on the streets, on the news asking parole, writing books and so on. That guy alive is punishment to civil society.

[tomaselvis]

@baldurus1

Killing is always wrong? How do you know that?

If someone had killed Hitler 55 milion people would not have died.

You think it would be wrong killing him?

One should only kill people that are 100% proven they did the crime.

When in doubt... jail.

You want me to answer the same questions again?

[robertgaudlitz]

@baldurus1 one isolated deed in norway, islamic terrorism surpassed that number in the next three days. the terror in ireland is SOOO last century. yes, the death penalty in the states is a bloody shame.

[baldurus1]

@tomaselvis Look: wikipedia List of exonerated death row inmates.

From 1970-2010 139 people have been exonerated, that's a shocking number.

Most of these people were executed and posthumously exonerated.

"California taxpayers pay $90,000 more per death row prisoner each year than on prisoners in regular confinement." California state bureau of justice.

And finally, killing is ALWAYS wrong. And should not be practiced in any civilized society.

[tomaselvis]

@baldurus1

1, It's not about me being better by killing them. It's about saving their future victims.

2, The sister example is really stupid. It's not what I'm saying.

3, Rotting in a cell costs money. A bullet is cheaper.

4, The death penalty should be used VERY cautiously. Only when proven 100% guilty.

Good answers for you?

[baldurus1]

@tomaselvis Then you're no better than Hitler or Stalin.

There's a reason we think those two are horrible individuals, because they killed.

How would you be any better by killing them?

If someone rapes your sister, wouldn't it then be fair to go and rape his sister? Because that's what you're proposing, an eye for an eye.

And isn't rotting in a cell a worse punishment then swift death?

And what about the hundreds of innocent executed in the U.S. in the last 20 years?

[tomaselvis]

@baldurus1

You're wrong.

I think the death penalty is right and I'm an atheist. People like Hitler and Stalin should get a bullet in the head.

Secondly the Norwegian mass murderer is found to be crazy by psychologists.

But I'm sure christianity can find new ways to kill people.

Right now they're pretty calm.

[Ryakki]

@baldurus1

Don't forget about Christian Scientists (the religious movement) and what happens in Africa. If you want to point to any one area and say, "This is what happens when Christianity gains power, and why it needs stopped", Africa is the place.