How to Dodge the Consequences of Belief

Posted on March 13, 2014 by brianblais

How to Dodge the Consequences of Belief: http://ift.tt/1nUGK1Z

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About brianblais

I am a professor of Science and Technology at Bryant University in Smithfield, RI, and a research professor in the Institute for Brain and Neural Systems, Brown University. My research is in computational neuroscience and statistics. I teach physics, meteorology, astonomy, theoretical neuroscience, systems dynamics, artificial intelligence and robotics. My book, "Theory of Cortical Plasticity" (World Scientific, 2004), details a theory of learning and memory in the cortex, and presents the consequences and predictions of the theory. I am an avid python enthusiast, and a Bayesian (a la E. T. Jaynes), and love music.

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2 Responses to How to Dodge the Consequences of Belief

Steven Winsor says:

March 13, 2014 at 18:34

“One final thought {by Dawkins}”

“McGrath stresses again and again the usefulness of religion, without once demonstrating that it is true.”

Brian, if something can be demonstrated to be ‘useful’, does that mean it must also be ‘true’? Isn’t useful unrelated to ‘true’? Just because something can’t be proved to exist…or be ‘true’, which is the meaning he’s attaching to ‘true’ here…doesn’t mean it can’t be useful. And really…isn’t the usefulness of religion the real focal point of such discussion?..and for discussion going forward?

No one on this planet can ‘prove’ that God exists…nor, I guess, can they prove he doesn’t. But ‘usefulness’…there can be both qualitative and quantitative measures to be studied there. And who knows…maybe religion ultimately is a negative (though I posit it as a positive).

I guess guys like Dawkins are so anxious to discredit religion that they focus on the ‘proof’ aspect…which one could term as somewhat analogous to that famous ‘red herring’ often offered in debates…or perhaps…’moot point’.

Just one agnostic’s opinion (mine). Wake me up when Dawkins focuses on the ‘usefulness’ part of this…because the ‘proof’ part is virtually irrelevant as a debate.

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brianblais says:

March 13, 2014 at 19:11

Steve – I responded to you over at the website, where my blog lives now: http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/how-to-dodge-the-consequences-of-belief.html

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