Re: An insult


"Lance" <LanceGary@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Philip wrote:
"Lance" <LanceGary@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Aug 28, 12:27 am, "Philip" <pp...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Lance" <LanceG...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

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On Aug 27, 9:33 am, "Peter H.M.Brooks" <pe...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Lance wrote:
On Aug 26, 10:18 pm, Dave Smith <da...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On 26 Aug, 07:40, Richard Corfield <Richard.Corfi...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

I wonder if it's a human nature to look for god like things at
times.
E. O. Wilson has certainly claimed so. In his book 'On Human
Nature'
he commented:

"The predisposition to religious belief is the most complex and
powerful force in the human mind and in all probability an
ineradicable part of human nature. Emile Durkheim, an agnostic,
characterized religious practice as the consecration of the
group
and
the core of society. It is one of the universals of social
behavior,
taking recognizable form in every society from hunter-gatherer
bands
to socilaist republics....."

Surely atheists contradict this claim? And note that atheism is
not
a
modern phenomenon - there were plenty in roman and Greek times.

Atheists are a counter example, yes, but that doesn't mean that it
isn't
a fundamental part of human nature. Sex, after all, is an even more
fundamentally powerful part of animal nature, and we have monks,
nuns,
hermits and others who all provide possible counter examples.- Hide
quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Hmm. The quote says relious practice is the "core of society" and a
"universal of social behaviour." Are tehse things the same as human
nature? It seems to me entirely possible to have societies,
organisations, and social behaviour without religious practice.

It may seem possible but are there any actual examples that have
lasted
for
more than a generation or two?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Many scientific societies don't mention religion anywhere in their
constitutions or their practices. How long have they been around? Many
businesses have been around a long time, and don't mention religion or
practice religion. How long has the British Humanist Society been
around?

Here you seem to be using "society" to mean "association" or "club". Do
you
think that is the sense in which Durkheim and Wilson were using it?

I have no idea what Wilson meant by the word. I think Durkheim meant
"society" as a something that exists and has structural properties of
a very abstract kind. I am not terribly sure that that kind of society
really exists. For me the proper unit of society is the organisation,
and the institutions and customs that ultimately derive from the way
organisations function. (Methodologicakl individualists would argue
that only individuals exist, but I think this is false.) So for me
showing that an organisation can exist without religion also shows
that the collection of humans and organisations that we call society
can function without religion.

Surely Peter B's point about sex shows this reasoning to be just as flawed
as your earlier suggestion that existence of individual atheists contradicts
what Wilson and Durkheim claim.


.

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