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Sunday, January 28. 2018

The case that religion's origins are in brain disease

I think Sapolsky is a smart Harvard professor, but by having an ax to grind here he makes countless logical and factual errors. I do not have time to go through them one by one.




Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 15:53 | Comments (13) | Trackbacks (0)

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He's actually a Stanford professor, but you say pōh-tay-tōh and I say pōh-tah-tōh....and, as we all know, smart ≠ wise.
#1 mike m on 2018-01-28 16:29 (Reply)
He makes several fashion errors as well.
#2 forest on 2018-01-28 16:56 (Reply)
Haha! Yes
I thought it was strange that he talked non-stop for 19 minutes and there wasn't much back and forth with the students. Just drilling his ideas out to them. That's not the best teaching method.
#2.1 LP on 2018-01-28 18:48 (Reply)
I wonder what he thinks of the accomplishments of the atheistic Soviet Union, which persecuted the religious? Is is an accident that persecution of the religious was accompanied by a plethora of nasty deeds?

Disclaimer: I am not a churchgoer.
#3 Gringo on 2018-01-28 17:28 (Reply)
Religion isn't a mental illness; but, constantly bashing it is a little on the nutty side.
#4 charles on 2018-01-28 20:53 (Reply)
And yet the big "sell" on the university campus is to be a part of something bigger than yourself. Seems more like a marketer trying to first denigrate the competition.

QUOTE:
What Is Religion?
Author(s): Frank Sargent Hoffman
Source: The North American Review, Vol. 187, No. 627 (Feb., 1908), pp. 231-239 Published by: University of Northern Iowa
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25106079

No new-born babe or full-grown idiot has any religion, but every normally developed human being has. Whenever a man knows enough to distinguish the outside world from himself, and tries to act in accordance with this knowledge, he begins to be religious.

The first element, therefore, in religion is the recognition of the existence of a power not ourselves pervading the universe. And another is the endeavor to put ourselves in harmonious relation with this power. Of course the feeling or affective element is presupposed as coming in between the other two. For without it the endeavor would lack a motive, and could therefore have no existence whatsoever. Every sane man believes, at least, that he is only a fraction of the sum-total of things. He also feels some dependence upon this sum-total, and he is obliged to put himself in some sort of accord with it. This is what Caird has condensed into the statement, "A man's religion is the expression of his ultimate attitude to the universe" ("Evolution of Religion," Vol. I, p.30).
#5 JK Brown on 2018-01-28 21:53 (Reply)
I just left an hour with Jordan Petersen, and listening to this guy is just painful. No data. No self awareness. How sad.
Just what the hell is superstition in a rat? I once operated on dozens of people with "temporal lobe epilepsy" and cannot remember a single one with his "syndrome"

Leland Stanford, Junior University.
#6 rascalfair on 2018-01-28 22:07 (Reply)
I am more interested in what makes's America Great again (MAGA)
Than I am interested in what makes us question our sanity.
If you want what is best for yourself, your family and your friends then you are sane. Deal with it. If you read Nietszshe for more that 5 minutes then you are simply sidetracked from reality. This professor simply can't distinguish from Jesus and Nieteszhe. Since he only got laid once in his life and got syphilis for the effort I can somewhat sympathize.
#7 Marc A Anderson (Link) on 2018-01-28 23:31 (Reply)
Religion is far too universal to be considered an illness. I suspect it's a by product of our complex social instincts. It forms a coordinating set of social structures.

It doesn't have to be 'true' (though some religions are rather destructive), the fact that successful religions often contradict one another is evidence of this.

In reality, religion is essentially a by product of our evolution.
#8 jay on 2018-01-29 06:28 (Reply)
Religion is the poeticization of ethics.

Levinas, Difficult Freedom, "A Religion for Adults"
#9 rhhardin (Link) on 2018-01-29 10:00 (Reply)
I tried to make sense of Sapolsky's "Behave". It was just one fact after another, but without a unifying theme other than "it's complicated". The meaning was missing, but the left-wing and materialist assumptions were ever present. A David Bentley Hart would find and destroy Sapolsky's metaphysical assumptions before Sapolsky even knew what had happened. Time with Jordan Peterson is better spent.
#10 Timothy Denton (Link) on 2018-01-29 16:29 (Reply)
IDK... maybe it's me, but I get a few minutes into these Atheist videos and am overwhelmed with boredom. They are tedious, tiresome and monotonous. These atheist lack meat.

I just picked up a copy of Pope Benedict's "Jesus of Nazareth" at an Estate sale. It will be part of my Lenten reading.

Life is short. God exists. I'd like to know Him.
#11 L.B. on 2018-01-29 18:45 (Reply)
So the majority of mankind has been mentally ill? Good to know. I'm glad there are atheists who can prevent religious folks from committing mass atrocities like murdering millions, deliberate famine, or insane reeducation.
#12 TWS on 2018-01-30 19:27 (Reply)

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