Dennett on how religion offers an excuse to stop thinking 

Well said by Dennett. Religion is shallow and does not require thinking, but only faith to believe pre-packaged ideology. Religion preaches submission and obedience, and the worst is, religion convinces believers they should not trust their own minds. In this regard people that do not think are easier to manipulate and be useful tools to accomplish political and social objectives.

Dan Dennett is one of the smartest well reasoned intellectually honest thinkers on the planet today.

'Lucille is a friend of mine, and she is allways right.' :-)

There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings. Friedrich Nietzsche

I doubt it. A scientific education has only strengthened my belief in that faith is completely useless. If I can't see it or measure it I see no point in assuming that it exists. The idea that some bronze age people had a better understanding of the cosmos than we do today strikes me as, frankly, ridiculous. Just my two cents.

“Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet” - Napoleon Bonaparte

Quite a good discussion, free thinking is a gift, surrendered mind can't have it.

There is no difference between faith and fantasy.

Dan good job.. That "Lucille " bit was really strong. It's putting the shoe on the other foot. If you say that to a Christian , it should hit home that it's exactly what they do with their fake God

why do you people have to be part of any kind of religion??? why don't you start for believing in yourself? that would be interesting

“lucille says u're wrong"😂😂 perfect timing

I love the Lucile argument soooo much !! :D

"what does god want, cos this is a weird way to achieve it, if god is perfect he should be happy in his own company, what does he need humans for, or, if he does need humans for some obscure reason, why not make us sycophantic god-worshipping robots at the outset?"

Dennett is absolutely right,....thank you. FFD

Bill Moyers is by far and large my favorite journalist and host. He is so friendly. Draws out the guest. Seeks common ground while discussing differences. He never puts forth his beliefs as adamantine. He comes close in this one. The faith gene. This is part of Dennetts issue. People who stop thinking. Bill incorrectly asserts and describes faith as a biological component. As if to say you have to remove his religious DNA to not be faithful. This is gross thinking and proves that theists stop thinking. No one is born a theist. There is no DNA coding for theism. You learn it and it tells you to stop learning. Theists, as Dennett says, have a faith card that so far everyone is supposed to respect. But in actuality fear. The non faithful, by the faithfulls behavior, has been taught to fear the faithful. So when the non believer tries to assert equality the faithful denies it and claims privilege. This is what the faithful are taught. You are exceptional. You are favored. To engender bonding to the religion. Its BS. Atheist want theist to think because if they do they may realize they are harming humanity. And ideally, that religion isn't real. Try reading any religious text with a critical mind. Try to see it from an intelligent perspective. You will realize what atheists are trying to tell you. It doesn't make sense and if you follow it truly, you will be a criminal. The problem for theist who take religion lightly is that as long as you are a theist you will always have one foot in the world that brings suffering and death to others. All it will take to go from theist who loves thy neighbor and does no harm to others is on seriously bad thing happening in your life and now you want apostates dead. Atheists don't do that. They follow natural morality. There is no trap to fall into. No scripture that tells us genocide, murder, slavery, rape, etc... is good because an imaginary friend says so.

I tried as hard as I could to believe in religion because I wanted to be a good person. And that’s why I wasn’t a good person.

@UsmanHaider03 if you are implying that a higher power saved you, what would you say to the families of the 7 people who died beside you? Why didnt this higher power save them??

4:30 He just said “if it says so (in the book), then it settles it for me (that it’s true).” But then that would mean that he would be beholden to every text of every religion, because they all assert that they’re the truth. They’re all different, and they can’t all be right, if any of them are even right at all... And believing just because it’s in there...oh man, proving god with the bible is like proving Superman with comic books 🤣

As herp derp as Moyers occasionally is here, he still did a good job with the interview. This one is a real gem.

In other words, the believers owe the non believers an explanation, but they can't give it. They hence have no option but to dance around and lie about things.

I belong to religion but I still agree with this guy. I think it's important that I can explain my views past the fact that the Vedas or Bhagavad Gita say something is right. What I personally like about my scripture is that they offer me room to do so and encourage me to do so, but I really think this is something that people of other religions can and need to make sure they're doing as well. It's doable; you don't need to be an atheist to be able to explain yourself. :)

Luciel told me. Lol that's awesome

I have never been treated for any mental conditions but I happen to know many people who struggle with anxiety, trauma, addictions & have tried just about everything without any success. I have a degree in Biopsychology, I have also a certificate in counselling but I won't work in a system that only offers band-aids as a solution. I have read dozens of books written by scholars on Trauma, PSTD and Addictions & I have a tendency to draw my own conclusion. My current interest is on epigenetics.

My only thing is to keep it to yourself. Just because your religious doesn't mean anybody else should have to follow YOUR set of rules.

The problem with religion is that it relies on vagueness by nature and probably by design. It allows a Christian to find messages from God in anything if he believes hard enough, even the Christian tagline, "God works in mysterious ways" advertises the fact that their concept of God is vague enough to let you justify anything, while their punishments are extreme enough to keep you fearful and control your behaviour. The fact faith is prioritized over rational thinking constantly, should be a red flag to anyone.

He gives a truncated view of religion. St Augustine said 'I believe that I might ultimately have understanding.' He does not say 'I don't have to think because it's cut and dried...' or anything like it. He is simply striking down an unthinking view of religion.

I really appreciate what Dennett is saying here - it's different from the typical naïve atheist position you encounter on RU-vid. His point is actually quite tolerant to faith. What really matters is "what should we do?" rather than "how old do you think the earth is?".

@r0rozx the words between [>>>] is from the translator , not present in the original arabic text. As the newest translation is 50 years old , so they didn't know piercing what , so they explained it like that . Now as we know the black holes , the verse and arabic word (thokb) is is very indicative to the black hole (in arabic>> al thokb al aswad)

Bible thumpers are content to let someone else do the thinking for them. It's called laziness.

Science asks physical questions. You can find evidence for those, hence the reliance of empiricism. Religion asks metaphysical questions. By definition, there is no evidence for those, hence the reliance of revelation. Peace!

I truly feel free in my mind now I am grateful

Western culture puts too much emphasis on the power of thought; and it's brought us nowhere. Humans are still suffering, the world is collapsing. The truth is thought provokes blind worship. What we need is to go beyond the thought. In the East, they sought to transcend thought and mind to become one. We call Hinduism, Buddhism etc. religion in today's society but they were a way of living not a form of blind worship.

Hallefuckinglujah!!!

Wonderful post. Wow, intelligent discussion. It can give a person hope.

The God delusion was created by humans to avoid having to take responsibility for each other. Similarly the delusion of free will is used for the same purpose. Mainly for those with power to oppress those without. Power creates the illusion of choice.

When faced with a mystery, we can either investigate said mystery or claim “I dunno, god did it” and call it a day. Attempting to solve a mystery by appealing to an even bigger mystery is an ignorant excuse not to think and doesn’t lead to new knowledge.

You can "think" about how something can come from absolute nothing for a billion trillion light years and not know. Just because we can "think" doesn't mean that we will know. So, stopping thinking about things that will never be known (e.g. something coming from nothing) is not illogical.

You're right. And it's a tendency we should all be aware of in ourselves. Ideologies are the lenses through which we view the world and they can give us a very distorted perception. We need to be willing to look honestly at information that doesn't 'fit' our preferred version of reality. Hard to do.

Right, we're on the same page then. I just never had any. I was born into a Christian family, went through Sunday school, church etc. But it never caught on. I remember that even from an early age I didn't believe much of it. It's not that I had a bad experience ether, I had good friends in the church and we had a good time there but at the end of the day I just lacked faith. I prefer it that way, it led me to become more interested in science and I ended up as a chemical engineer!

And if you don't want to talk - fine, but don't act more busy than you are because no one is forcing you to reply, you are choosing to engage in this conversation yourself.

The faith card is the following equation: (ignorance + stupidity) × (arrogance + intellectual dishonesty) = faith = god.

You don't have to belong to a group: atheists , Christians, Jews, etc. We were designed to think, reason, question. I believe "God" understands this.

Even if there were a god from which we got our morality, that morality would be the subjective, personal preferences of that god.

You first. Come back in a year or two and tell us how it went. I look forward to your report.

"Apologists do not seek truth. They're basically like lawyers...advocate for their client no matter what the truth actually is" And let the chuch say "Amen" as we turn to the book of "Evidence that Demands a Mistrial" :-)

@FellOnSoundGarden John Wheeler: "The universe does not exist 'out there,' independent of us. We are inescapably involved in bringing about that which appears to be happening. We are not only observers. We are participators. In some strange sense, this is a participatory universe. Physics is no longer satisfied with insights only into particles, fields of force, into geometry, or even into time and space. Today we demand of physics some understanding of existence itself."

My religion doesn't pick my pocket? It has been picking non-religious people's pocket by organised, coerised societies for not paying tax but run as a business.

Thinking of new ways to deny reality and indoctrinate ignorance is not what Daniel was speaking about.

Yes, as Dennett says theists should explain why they believe in their religion. So, then atheists should explain why they believe in atheism, going beyond the usual case of only attempting to disapprove the arguments for the truth of christianity, by giving original arguments, reasons to think that atheism is true. But it is quite refreshing and respectable to finally see a serious atheist man!

there's always a returning back ,It doesn't make sense to leave Islam because of one Imam who misunderstood Islam.

The morality from that god would still be that god's opinion.

I think in many cases it's better for people to not be thinking. People do some seriously messed up stuff based on what they think. Religions feed people bs, but telling people they need to think is also religious bs. I don't need an excuse to stop thinking because I have no obligation to think. Why tell people what to do at all? All anyone wants is to be dominant and victorious. Trying to intellectually better the world is futile. Yet I'm still typing, because I want everyone to know I'm right.

I love Dennett's passion and purpose but I still wish he had the determination to take this argument so much further. It is not enough to challenge people of faith yet allow them to exist and to defend their faith. The very concept of believing in gods with no evidence is foolish, stupid and destructive. And humanity's inability to overcome this is sad. Why do we have to show any respect for, or patience with, or tolerance of people who spew these irrational ideas? No other area of human existence tolerates such irresponsibility while rewarding those who spew it. Yet we still are demanded to respect people of faith. Makes no sense. There is no need to encourage those of faith to demonstrate their reasons to us. We should be doing the opposite. We should be clearly demonstrating to them how irresponsible their faith is. And we should be shunning them, ostracizing them, isolating them and calling them out. People of faith do not deserve a platform. They have been allowed to control the dialog all along.

Excellent clip! :D

@FellOnSoundGarden I didn't say that using critical thinking is religious bs. Critical thinking does not make the world a better place. You can use it to justify anything you want. Telling people they would be better off if they did more thinking is the same as telling them they'd be better off following your religion. People don't need to be told how to live. We are already alive.

What you fail to acknowledge is that none of those philosophers can formulate a valid argument for the existence of a god.

Faith, by definition, is an excuse to believe without thinking. I have never met a creationist who understands the theory of evolution, yet they all deny it based on faith. Faith means believing without evidence to support your belief, coincidently that is almost identical to the definition of foolishness!

Just because they're YOUR beliefs doesn't make them the RIGHT beliefs, especially when there is no substantive evidence to back it up (i.e. no one can prove that Jesus was/is the son of god). That goes for me, too- just because I have strong convictions doesn't mean they're right. But the difference between you and I is that you assume a story is true until proven false. I don't believe anything until I have substantial evidence to suggest that it is true.

Religion is more than a mere excuse to stop thinking - it's a mandate. "Truth" is a tricky word that hovers between "fact" and "belief". Notice how it is used depending on who is using it. If anyone describes something as "my truth", then they have abandoned reason in favor of emotional attachment to an idea that comforts them. There are facts, and there are batshit crazy delusions. Not even worth arguing.

@Downfurlife: You forgot a federal crime: religious discrimination in the workplace, housing, schools, public accommodations and facilities, zoning, persons and properties, and even prisons. "In this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States." ~ George Washington Downfurlife: hating is bad for your mental health.

Yes. What's the problem with people not wanting to think? Who am I to tell people that they should be inquisitive about the world/reality/universe?

@BlameRepublicans Nominally. He had a vague sense of ''providence'' guiding his actions. But he also planned to destroy the Catholic Church (his family's faith) after he won the war. Thousands of priests died under his rule. Stalin viciously persecuted all religions in the Soviet Union in the 1930's. Mao and Pol Pot unleashed their own terror campaigns against religion. You can't make blanket assumptions.

No, I speak solely from knowing what you said and addressing only what you said. Your actions here, on the internet. And if you think being "good" outside justifies you from acting how ever you please here, you're wrong. This is very much real, as you are a real person behind that screen, are you not? And please do not educate me about what unconditional love is when I have done nothing to you but speak about your inappropriate behavior. If I am childish and low, I ask you to explain how.

Why would you say that? Are you saying that it is ok to kill disbelievers? How is he showing intolerance or bigotry? Is he dangerous because he is actually advocating people use their brains instead of blind faith? What exactly is your objection? Remember, "The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers." - Denis Diderot.

He needs to turn his criticism toward this irrational notion of gov't we're so fixated on.

There certainly are many problems. But I think the question is irrelevant from that. On a more fundamental ground, why should people pursue such "meanings of life?" Why should that be enforced at all?

I made the point that Dennett has not solved one major problem. I fail to see how anyone could object to this comment. Has he disproved religion? Of course not. He makes it clear that he does not know much about it. He seems to think it is all about naïve theism, like so many of his fans. This an easy target.

Philosophical problems are what professional philosophers are paid to solve. Ie, scepticism, theism, freewill, consciousness, origins, space-time, first principles and so forth. I'm suggesting that this one is overpaid. As for God, an argument against God is not an argument against religion, just a certain form of it. (zab - apologies but I may not reply again. This is not really the place for such discussions. I just lapsed for a moment).

Christians don't think about how Muslims think. If they don't think Jesus is God, that's their choice. Christians offer a choice for people to make. If they don't agree, they leave them alone. Christians don't dwell on why they don't believe. They don't believe because they don't want to. Period.

Sure, but it seemed easier than trying to explain how "10 billion world population" and "living in huts" are not compatible. Or how the longevity of hundreds of species of dinosaurs is not very relevant in the discussion of the well-being and happiness of one specific species of primate. Or that concerning longevity, the exercise of intelligence is the only real hope a species has of escaping the fate of the dinosaurs.

"Blind faith" refers to belief in something with no evidence to back it up- AKA, the fallacy upon which what religious worldviews are based. To suggest that an atheist has "blind faith" is astoundingly juvenile. If someone tells me an invisible fairy lives in my apartment, I will disagree with the claim not on the basis of "blind faith" but rather on the basis of scientific logic- the notion that 'x' is false until it is proven true.

CARE AS destructive to a person's life as religion is!!!

Being an intolerant, under-educated hypocrite doesn't mean you are in the light. It means you are in the shadows, in a "mental prison" that you called yourself. And your blind faith is just a bandage over an open wound which you are afraid to face and heal. If you believe in something, fine, but don't insult different opinions. It makes you nothing but a hot headed idiot. And don't act like the victim when you are insulted if you let yourself insult someone else first.

From a Theist...yes, yes and yes!

Dennett is wrong in saying that those who argue atheism use faith as a trump card. He needs to do some serious research to find the intellectual Christians who can debate without using the faith card. For example, it takes more faith to believe that the complex design of the brain evolved from two molecules (which came from nothingness) than to believe in an intelligent design through a creator.

Agree 100%. Playing the faith card (or the "lucille" card) is not an argument. Its an attempt to cut off discussion and thinking and replace it with blind faith. Enough. Religious ethics do have a role to play in our society and in our govenments, but decisions cannot be made - or problems solved - simply by letting "faith" do the heavy lifting.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees (religious leaders), you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean." - The guy who hated religion more than an atheist. Look it up..Im not gonna tell you who said that.

Nope. I make my living in the city these days, but I grew up a good ol' farm boy. I'm also one who would've died before the age of 5, if not for modern medical technology. I'm not saying there aren't plenty of things that could be better about the times we live in, but if you're going to complain about the industrial revolution, science, and development, at least have the integrity to do it in hieroglyphics in a cave somewhere, instead of on the Internet.

@BlameRepublicans I didn't mean theism, I meant survival of consciousness after death, which is not necessarily related. More research needs to be done in this area, which CAN be researched, unlike whether there is a God or not.

That's why I am no longer religious and a Christian. I literally can't stand the arguments my friends and family say about their God...I mean ...that's why many people with political power and influence can manipulate naive "religious"people, because of their fear of God...it's really sad huawa....and how these political people can use the church for their shady things.

Faith is the little voice in your head that says you should believe the little voice in your head.

im going with the man and the sailor beard !!!!!

Atheism can also be quite comforting in that it posits a finite life where you go out like a lightbulb and no more worries, a final rest. But entertain the notion that perhaps the light doesn't go out, and you may find yourself in places unknown after death, and a great deal of fear can come up. It has for me.

@TheGuinnessboys Atheists don't necessarily have to have anything against religion, it is merely the absence of theism, in fact, there's some atheists that see benefit in such doctrines, which is the case of those in atheism 3.0. I'm an agnostic atheist, and even though I consider some religions to be a tool of mind enclosement and control through ignorance and magical and illogical thinking, I wouldn't say I actually hate them, I only hate those who manipulate people through them.

@BlameRepublicans You are the first person on one of these videos who has acknowledged that the survival of consciousness is a phenomenon that can be studied. Everyone else has replied with a knee-jerk ''consciousness dies with the brain'' backlash. I say let research be done in this field and let it speak for itself.

There's no such thing as a philosophical problem? How come nobody else knows this?

I have faith because I am thinking. I have been given freewill and intellect and I chose freely to have faith in Jesus because I understood why He had to be here and why God made Him come here. As far as I know, understanding and then finally making a choice requires a lot of thinking, especially choosing to Keep My Faith. Hence, for me, not only am I thinking, I am continuously thinking.

Fear is provoked by plenty of things outside the system of the mind. That feels like a little superiority talking -- do you fear nothing? Will you let me throw you into a cage with a hungry predator? We may also fear things constructed by the system we have created as humans -- you can have extreme and justifiable fear of losing your job, if it means you will starve and die without it. Nothing mortal goes fear-free -- it's part of the system for keeping us alive, among other things.

Even Bill is deceived by religion. Unbelievable!

Faith in Unicorns,whats the point

But you didn't specify that. Of course humans are capable of creating and maintaining a representation in the mind that is far more complex and enduring than any other animal can. And we can imagine and project objects of fear that may not exist -- and have the projection itself become a fear object. I'm not just quibbling. Fear is not under the sway of conscious control the way it seems you think it is. (And you know I agree about dumping the unnecessary burden of deity as a chronic object.)

Guess you never heard of critical thinking. I think when one starts to use their conscious awareness to deal with whatever life throws at them, they are in a much better position then useless religion fanatics that can't figure things out for themselves. I have enough self-esteem to speak my mind and unlike you, You didn't make one single point that has any validity. Dan Denett is brilliant!

He's right

And by the way, that is not a metaphor, because Jesus' genealogy in Luke lists Adam's closest ancestor to be God.

If you have never been pushed or damaged past the breaking point, I am glad to hear it and I surely hope you never are. However, I would ask you to consider even the empirical standards we like to hold firm to, when you say "Living in the present moment is not an easy task, I will admit, but the fact is that we can ALWAYS do something about it." The evidence to the contrary is very large and wide-ranging. I'm all for mindfulness techniques -- they are powerful. But they are not all-powerful.

@FellOnSoundGarden Those who offered sacrifices to gods did so because of their critical thinking..If we give something to the gods, they will give something back. Moral progress came from hard work done by people trying to create change. Many of those people were doing it out of religious motivations. Most religions teach helping others. Many wars are fought over religions and all their weapons come from scientists and engineers. They are in it together.

Contrary to other religions Islam encourages questions and thinking freely. God himself in the Qur'an constantly questions us to think, reflect, and rationalize. Qur'an 4:82, 23:68, 38:29, 47:24....etc In Islam we don't have blind faith. As for the apostate getting a death penalty you are taking it out of context. This was implemented during the early years of Islam when Muslims were tortured, murdered, persecuted, and pagan tribes tried to wipe them out. During this time the Muslims had a small community and was constantly under threat of attack. During that time non-Muslims would come into Islam just to get inside information so enemies would know where to attack the Muslims. In order to protect the small community this law was implemented. Basically these hypocrites would claim to be Muslims just to spy on them and then go back to the enemies of the Muslims to give them sensitive information basically committing treason. In Islam their is no compulsion in religion. People have the freedom to worship whomever they wish especially Christians and Jews because just as we have the old testament, the new testament, the Qur'an is the final testament to all of humanity. We worship the God of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad peace be upon them all. The one and only God in the Arabic Bible Allah which simply means the one and only God not god with a lower-case g but a capital G.

Laws are still just hypotheses forwarded to model empirical data and may actually be less supported than things that are not called laws. For example, the process of evolution is an algorithm that can be proven mathematically to be a generic optimization algorithm(Look up genetic algorithms) we can literally know a lot of its properties with as much certainty as that of the laws of logic.

Ask an atheist to explain how the first person to think about the way he or she thinks thought about it when he or she had never thought about it.

@unclexbob Irrational arguments are not the sole province of religious people. Atheists arguing against the 'ground zero mosque' weren't able to recognize that it isn't a mosque and isn't going to be situated at ground zero. Their arguments were not rational and shouldn't have been part of a serious conversation. Irrationalism is all around. It would be a mistake to a priori equate irrationalism with faith.