Stephen Fry .. debate on the catholic church

[charlou]

[youtubeuk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqB3F6N527U[/youtubeuk]

[hiyymer]

A quick perusal of evolutionary biology and neuroscience will tell you that he's wrong. Life is not just about "love" and "making the world a better place".

[Trolldor]

Firstly, he never declared that it is "only" about those things.
Secondly, why not?

[hiyymer]

Firstly, he never declared that it is "only" about those things.
Secondly, why not?

Step back and look at it. We are replicating biological organisms that have multiple implicit motivations of which bonding and cooperation are only a small subset. We all have this illusion that we want to "make the world a better place", and we are certainly welcome to make the effort, but it is not what is and not the professed goal of the Catholic church and not anything objective or rational. Can't you see the contradiction of someone getting up and making other people wrong while professing brotherly love? He's an "enlightenment" guy, and being enlightened means being right. If he wants to make a difference he needs to stand for what he wants, because it's what he wants, and leave the being right to someone else. There are no reasons.

[Trolldor]

I see nothing in your post that establishes your particular perspective as the only possible one to take.

[Pensioner]

Brilliant video, thanks for posting.

[hiyymer]

I see nothing in your post that establishes your particular perspective as the only possible one to take.

My perspective is that science has got it basically right about what is really out there. Evolutionary biology says that out there there is no right and wrong, only species replicating. Our experience, including our experience of right and wrong, is only a mechanism in that process which has evolved through natural selection. Neuroscience confirms that our life decisions are irrational, driven by our limbic system in accordance with our evolutionary agenda and biological regulation, and only made rational by post facto conscious rationalization. To me the rationalist position is contradicted by the very knowledge that it espouses as enlightening. We are not self-caused rational agents that have reasons for what we do, and can be made morally improved by stuffing our heads with knowledge. That is a position which is taken entirely from our experience, and has no objective scientific validity whatsoever. The "enlightenment" is a cultural myth. If you doubt it, find out what people really thought about the shape of the earth in 1492 and what the devout Galileo actually got arrested for.

The rest is just an interpretation of human nature, and you are right, I have no proof. When someone has a complaint, like Steven's complaints about the Catholic church, with it's they are ALWAYS like this and they ALWAYS do this and the church IS evil in the world, then what I see is a mechanism of dominance. Every time the Catholic church does something or says something, then it gets interpreted according the story and reinforced. It's not what's happening. What's happening is just human beings being human beings in all our glory of conflicted motivations. We're all in this thing together. The story makes you right and on top, but it precludes love and free expression and the possibility of something else actually occurring. It is living through the past. It's fine. It works. There's nothing evil about it. But it's not love, and if you really want to create something new, and "make the world a better place", it isn't going to do it.