Over at Effect Measure, Revere takes a few shots at Matt Nisbet:
It's not just that the Dawkins/Hitchens “PR campaign provides emotional sustenance and talking points for many atheists,” although it does that too. It's that the various writings of Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, PZ and now a number of others has opened up a space -- and a wide space, not a narrow one -- to talk about belief and non-belief in ways not possible before. Even Matt's post is an example. I'm glad we are talking about the best way to talk about harmful delusions -- and make no mistake, that's exactly what we are talking about. It's not that religious ideas are just delusions. Delusions are plentiful, even in science. It's that by and large religious delusions are harmful delusions. The idea you can separate the fat from the muscle (the Good from the Bad in religion) runs up against the brute fact religious meat is marbled meat and the fat is a major risk factor for a lethal disease of the heart.
I think that sums it up well. My own take on Nisbet is available here.
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I like the meat analogy. That's something I can really sink my teeth into.
Oh, well, off to dinner.
~David D.G.
And solipsism is that guy on the island, in the Stephen King short story, who finger by finger starts devouring himself...
Shrews actually do that. They have such fast metabolisms that they have to eat about eight times their weight every 24 hours. They are relentless predators. If you keep one overnight without food (and it can't go into its semi-hibernating dormant state) it will die. I read about someone keeping a few confined like that. If not fed for a while they start to eat themselves from the hind legs forward until they die. God's plan for shrews. Scary!