RE: Critique of "God is Not Great" by Christoper Hitchens
January 23, 2016 at 5:29 pm
(This post was last modified: January 23, 2016 at 5:33 pm by phil-lndn.)
(January 23, 2016 at 4:43 pm)Cato Wrote: "But the same criticism can in a sense be levelled at Christopher's own 300 year old enlightenment perspective which I would argue equally offers insufficient explanatory power in a world of multiple developmental worldviews,..."
What does this even mean? You are attempting to jettison a rather successful broad range of ideas without argument for what appears to be nothing more than a "can't we all just get along" plea. Unless I missed something you have failed to address why enlightenment principles are outdated (all of them with your broad brush) or suggest an alternative.
No, not attempting to jettison in an absolute sense, as mentioned I think Christopher's book perhaps has value for people who are still struggling to dig their way out of a religious worldivew into an enlightenment worldivew.
However it's probably clear I personally have already jettisoned it because I find it too facile. The reason I am saying Christopher's perspective is outdated is twofold:
(1) It's not capable of rational analysis of human perspective, a required capacity to understand a writing in the terms of the speaker
(2) a human perspective of higher cognitive complexity already exists, a perspective which can undertake a rational analysis of perspective itself (and so understand writing on it's own terms). so the enlightenment perspective has already been left behind in the rear view mirror of the history of cultural evolution.
In the attached chart of developmental stages, an enlightenment perspective is broadly speaking represented by stage 4, whereas the current leading edge of human thinking has moved on to a new stage - stage 5.
FYI, the "religious" pre-rational worldview appears on this chart as stage 3
![[Image: Five_Stages_Chart.png]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=developmentalobserver.blog.com%2Ffiles%2F2010%2F08%2FFive_Stages_Chart.png)
(January 23, 2016 at 4:44 pm)Pandæmonium Wrote: I want to ask why we should not mock and ridicule the beliefs of others, and what interest any of us should have in sharing a planet with people who are prepared to blow themselves up to appease their imaginary friend?
Simple - because it's not optional. There are billions of pre-rational religious people on the planet.
Unless we are going to somehow wipe out around 2/3rds of the planet's population, we are going to have to find a way to live with them peacefully.
We already live successfully with lots of primitive dangerous beings. Crocodiles, lions etc. The key to living successfully with dangerous organisms without living in fear is to understand them.
