![Out of Our Minds: What We Think and How We Came to Think It by [Fernández-Armesto, Felipe]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41UwZZ8mAvL.jpg)
Concluding a review of Felipe Fernández-Armesto’s Out of Our Minds: What We Think and How We Came to Think It,
philosopher John Gray writes,
Most puzzling in this fascinating compendium of ideas is Fernández-Armesto’s own idea that human imagination is an immaterial faculty. “Human intelligence,” he avers, “is probably fundamentally unmechanical: there is a ghost in the human machine.” Again, he is not the first to suggest that the human mind may not be wholly explicable in mechanical terms. Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-discoverer with Darwin of modern evolutionary theory, believed the human animal emerged via natural selection but at some point acquired higher mental powers from a non-natural source. Having studied animal minds and emotions, Darwin was horrified by Russel Wallace’s suggestion. What was at stake for Darwin was not just his own theory, which was meant to include the human mind. It was the idea of science itself, which – though he never unequivocally rejected theism – he thought meant explaining events in the world by reference to natural processes within it. Whether Fernández-Armesto rejects this idea of science is unclear.
The puzzle is deepened by his observation that most ideas are bad or wrong or both. If what makes humans unique is the power of seeing what is not there, what makes them so destructive is that they believe what they have seen to be real. Untold millions have killed and died for the sake of dreams – gods, utopias, visions of the past or future – conjured up in the imagination. The ancient Gnostics, discussed by Fernández-Armesto when he considers the origins of Christianity, believed a malignant deity or “demiurge” had consigned human beings to a lower world of ghosts and phantasms. It’s an entertaining metaphysical speculation. But perhaps we should consider the more mundane possibility that in the course of its evolution something went badly wrong with the human brain. The destructive power of ideas may have a natural explanation. There may be no ghost in the human machine, simply some crossed wires we cannot untangle.
John Gray, “The perils of the human imagination” at New Statesman
Well, it’s important to know whether there is a “ghost in the human machine” vs. “crossed wires we cannot entangle” because the ghost may be acting badly. But evolution caan’t go “badly wrong.” Ain’t no such animal.
It is good to see that John (“human life has no more meaning than that of slime mould”) Gray,,,
It is good to see that John (“human life has no more meaning than that of slime mould”) Gray has finally realized how destructive unrestrained imagination can be,,
Too bad that John Gray has not yet realized that Darwinian evolution itself is based, not on empirical science, but on unrestrained imagination.
And indeed, as John Gray pointed out, untold millions have died and suffered untold misery because of the unrestrained imagination of the pseudo-science of Darwinian evolution,,,
By George, she’s got it!
When the dinosaurs became the dominants clade of animals on Earth for billions of years, that was neither right nor wrong, it’s just what happened. If you think it was right or wrong then you need to explain by what measure you are deciding that.
Unfortunately, for those with the hubris to believe that humans are in some way special, the same is true of us. There’s no reason to think it’s somehow “right” that we have become the dominant species of life on Earth, at least for a short time. More likely, we just got lucky and that means we could just as easily get unlucky if we aren’t careful.
Bornagain77 @ 1
Not one of those are directly and solely attributable to Darwin’s theory. If he had never published, it’s highly likely that all of them would have happened because they were driven by political and religious beliefs that had no basis in evolutionary theory even if it was occasionally used as a justification.
As for Weikart’s anti-evolutionary BS, before taking him at his word, thy looking at the anti-Semitic atrocities committed by the so-called Christian states of Europe for centuries before Darwin published.
Or if, you want some Biblical stats:
Seversky, you claimed that “Not one of those (Democides) are directly and solely attributable to Darwin’s theory.”
and yet,,, Richard Weikart has thoroughly documented how Darwinian ideology was foundational to the Nazis’ racism:
As Adolph Hitler himself stated,
The claim from atheists that Hitler was a Christian should be the very definition of the word ludicrous,,
Besides directly undermining Hitler’s, (and the overall German society’s), innate sense of objective morality, Darwinism also directly undermined Stalin and Mao’s innate sense of objective morality,
Karl Marx was deeply influenced by Darwin:
In fact, Lenin even kept a little statue of an ape staring at a human skull on his desk. The ape was sitting on a pile of books which included Darwin’s book, “Origin”.
Here is a picture of what the little statue on Lenin’s desk looked like:
Stalin likewise, while at ecclesiastical school of all places, was also heavily influenced by Darwinism,
Even Chairman Mao was deeply influenced by Darwinian ‘morality’:
Even today in America, with its strong Christian heritage, and even though America overcame the Nazi and Communist scourges in Europe, has not escaped unscathed from the devastating effects of “Darwinian morality”.
Verse:
In order to try to counterbalance the unmitigated horror committed by the atheistic/Darwinian regimes of the Nazis and Communists over the last century, Seversky reaches over the entire span of Christianity’s 2000 years of existence and cherry picks atrocities to try to claim that Christianity is as murderous as the atheistic/Darwinian regimes have been over the last century.
In rebuttal to that preposterous claim let me first point out that Christ himself, rather than call down 12 legions of angels to slay his enemies submitted himself instead to death on a Cross by the hands of his enemies:
Moreover, Christ himself commanded his followers to not return evil for evil but to return good for evil:
In fact, Jesus instead of commanding his followers to kill those who did not believe, (as Mohammad told his followers to do), instead told his followers to endure persecution.
In fact, all the disciples, save for John, suffered martyrs deaths.
Martyrdom, especially where Christians were a minority, has been a staple of Christian life throughout Christian history:
Modern day Atheists, starting with the French revolution, to Communist Russia to present day China and North Korea have been particularly brutal and murderous of professing Christians. The murderous brutality of present day Muslims against Christians in the middle east hardly needs to be mentioned since they often behead their Christian victims on TV.
In fact, Christianity easily qualifies for the most persecuted religion in the world today:
That hardly sounds like Christianity is the murderous religion that Seversky is falsely trying to portray Christianity as being.
And even if you add up all the murderous atrocities that were listed by Seversky (that were committed by those who falsely claimed to be Christians even though they were killing people in direct contradiction to the commandments of Christ), the number of murders is still only a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of millions of murders committed by those who followed the morality enshrined in Darwin’s maxim ‘survival of the fittest’, (as well as those hundreds of millions of murders committed by Muslims following the murderous teachings of Mohammad):
Seversky, you claimed that “Not one of those (Democides) are directly and solely attributable to Darwin’s theory.”
and yet,,, Richard Weikart has thoroughly documented how Darwinian ideology was foundational to the Nazis’ racism:
As Adolph Hitler himself stated,
The claim from atheists that Hitler was a Christian should be the very definition of the word ludicrous,,
Besides directly undermining Hitler’s, (and the overall German society’s), innate sense of objective morality, Darwinism also directly undermined Stalin and Mao’s innate sense of objective morality,
Karl Marx himself was deeply influenced by Darwin:
In fact, Lenin even kept a little statue of an ape staring at a human skull on his desk. The ape was sitting on a pile of books which included Darwin’s book, “Origin”.
Here is a picture of what the little statue on Lenin’s desk looked like:
Stalin likewise, while at ecclesiastical school of all places, was also heavily influenced by Darwinism,
Even Chairman Mao was deeply influenced by Darwinian ‘morality’:
Even today in America, with its strong Christian heritage, and even though America overcame the Nazi and Communist scourges in Europe, has not escaped unscathed from the devastating effects of “Darwinian morality”.
Verse:
Seversky
Can you see a contradiction in those two ideas? In one case, evolution cannot be right or wrong. It is just what happens. In the next case, you bemoan certain “atrocities” and blame them on Christians. I think you have to pick one or the other. Christian morality or evolution which “can’t be wrong about anything”.
It is correct that human beings can be extremely evil–all kinds of human beings. But when it comes to concerning myself with genocide, evil empires and so forth, it just makes sense to put more weight on the recent past rather than the distant past. I’m not living in the 1200s. I’d spend my time worrying about totalitarianism, Communism,…
Bornagain77 @ 4
Slaughtering the women and children of a defeated enemy is an atrocity whether it’s 200 or 200,000 victims. The numbers are irrelevant. You don’t get Christianity off the hook by trying to argue they killed fewer. If they were true to their beliefs, they shouldn’t have been killing any at all.
So what? This is the same Jesus that said in Matthew 10:34-36
Autocratic regimes are brutal in their treatment of any group, whether political or religious, that they perceive as a threat to their supremacy. Besides, no true Christian should be playing the victim card. They should be concerned with the suffering of others, not their own.
Bornagain77 @ 5
I haven’t read Weikart’s book. Have you? What I have read is that there are equally competent historians who strongly disagree with his interpretation of those events. I would also think it is possible to make a far stronger case that Nazi racism was much more firmly rooted in the anti-Semitism that had been endemic throughout Christian Europe for centuries before Darwin published. For Weikart to try and lay the blame squarely on Darwin sounds much more like anti-evolution advocacy than history. If that’s what he’s actually doing, then it is also little more than an extended argumentum ad consequentiam
Perhaps Bullock was right but this was the same Hitler who said in a speech in Munich on April 12 1922:
That sounds much more like the Christian anti-Semitism of Martin Luther.
Silver Asiatic @ 6
That’s not the way I see it.
Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection was an attempt to provide a naturalistic explanation of how the diversity of life on Earth came to be. It says nothing about whether or not it should be that way. It’s just the way it is.
Christian morality, like other moralities, prescribes how people should behave, mostly towards one another but also in respect of their religious beliefs and their relationship to the natural world.
There is no obvious contradiction because they are addressing different issues.
LOL Seversky, you state,,,
That’s exactly what I said. Thanks for admitting I was right!
Moreover, besides you agreeing with me that those who killed in the name of Christianity were not being true to the teachings of Christ, when a Darwinist murders he is staying true to the (a)morality inherent within the teaching of Darwin, i.e. ‘survival of the fittest’. As Hitler stated:
Compared that to what Jesus said about taking care of ‘the least of these’,,
The difference between Darwin and Christianity could not be greater.
I also noticed that you quoted Matthew 10:34-36 to try to insinuate that Christianity is a murderous religion.
But, if you would have taken the time to try to actually understand the verse that you yourself cited you would have understood that the ‘sword’ that Jesus is speaking of in that passage is certainly not a physical sword as you are trying to insinuate but is a spiritual sword. ,,, As the concluding line in the following article states, “In any case, Jesus says a spiritual sword, not a physical one, may sever family ties, so his disciples must be ready for that.
Moreover Seversky, you really should honestly answer Silver Asiatic’s question to you in 6. You cannot bemoan moral injustice when your Darwinian worldview, as you yourself admitted, does not even recognize moral injustice. i.e. “that was neither right nor wrong, it’s just what happened.”
Seversky at 9, You really have gone off the deep end. Trying to insinuate that Hitler was a true Christian in any way, shape, or form, is insane. I suppose you are next going to try and say that his concentration camps were really just soup kitchens in disguise.
The truth of the matter is that Hitler was a keen politician and used Christianity in public merely as a means to gain power. But in private, away from the public eye, his true feelings about Christianity came out:
Seversky
Humans have different moral systems. Supposedly, these all emerged from biological processes. But the fact that humans attempt to create moral norms to regulate behavior, is an argument against evolutionary-origins, since there is no need for moral systems in the animal kingdom, for example.
> Hitler who said in a speech in Munich on April 12 1922,…
Just to add one small point to what BA77 has pointed out above: Hitler could not legitimately claim to be a Christian because when push came to shove, he acknowledged no power higher than himself. His actions made that clear, regardless of what his public-facing words were.
EDTA @ 7
If these atrocities are not attributable to any one ideology or faith but are symptomatic of absolutist beliefs of any kind then the problem is in us. Since there is nothing to indicate we are significantly different in the way we behave from people of 2,000 or 10,000 years ago, we should learn from the lessons of the past lest we repeat them.
EDTA @ 14
What is apparent is that Hitler and the Nazis were ideological opportunists. They would quote whatever suited their purpose at any given time. Hitler would espouse Christian beliefs if he thought it would appeal to his audience of the moment and would then argue for survival of the fittest in another context. Probably, the only things he really believed in were himself and his version of a pagan German nationalism. The point, however, is that references to survival of the fittest are no more a legitimate criticism of the biological theory than his references to Christian belief are a legitimate criticism of the faith.
Seversky:
FAILed attempt. Natural selection has shown to be impotent with respect to the diversity of life.
Sev
And even if they were, it would have no bearing on the validity of evolutionary theory.
But what I do find amusing in these discussions of atrocities and religious beliefs (or lack there-of) is that Christians always claim that Christians never commit atrocities because if they did, they would not be true Christians.
Brother Brian:
LoL! There isn’t any validity to any evolutionary theory. Evos are still struggling to try to find a way to test their claims.
Bb
But what I do find amusing in these discussions of atrocities and religious beliefs (or lack there-of) is that Christians always claim that Christians never commit atrocities because if they did, they would not be true Christians.
BB
That’s simply not true, Correct me if I’m wrong but no one here says that Christians didn’t commit any atrocities every human being group has committed to atrocities, And I don’t know of anybody who has directly denied that not even BA77
What has happened is I have had to sit there and correct seversky on a lot of his claims towards Christians being the most awful people and most terrible people ever to exist
Implying that the atrocities that he’s pulling up apparently far worse than what Joseph Stalin, the nazis, and Mao have done. Which I can’t see how because if you combine all the religious wars in history it doesn’t equal the number of people that were murdered between those three groups
The biggest problem here is the finger-pointing
Which to be honest gets kind of annoying
AaronS1978
I apologize if I implied that this is the case for all Christians. My wording should have been clearer.
However, I have seen the claim I made from more than one commenter here. Here are a few examples from another thread.
My point is just that many Christians use the argument that Christians don’t commit atrocities because someone who truly followed Christ’s teachings would not do so. Or something like, ‘atrocities may be committed in the name of Christianity but these decisions were made by people who were not following the teachings of Christ’.
BB
“Or something like, ‘atrocities may be committed in the name of Christianity but these decisions were made by people who were not following the teachings of Christ’.”
To commit atrocities is antithetical to the teachings of Christ and anyone who does so is not following the teachings of Christ.
Vivid
V
AaronS1978, I rest my case.
BB re 23
I would be very surprised if Aaron disagrees with what I wrote.
Vivid
V
My point was just to demonstrate to AaronS1978 that there actually are commenters here who claim that Christians don’t commit atrocities because, as their argument goes, a “true Christian” wouldn’t do that. Thank you for proving my point. 🙂
BB
“My point was just to demonstrate to AaronS1978 that there actually are commenters here who claim that Christians don’t commit atrocities because, as their argument goes, a “true Christian” wouldn’t do that. Thank you for proving my point. ????“
LOL you have serious reading comprehension problems.
Vivid
From the Darwinian view, there are no atrocities. There are just evolutionary outcomes which are neither good nor bad. Through competition, new features and species emerge. The dying off or internal conflict within populations, for whatever reasons, are not ‘atrocities’.
Evolutionists only rarely accept and act upon that key point.
SA
This is correct. It’s a good thing that humans have decided to establish a set of rules that everybody is expected to follow, and punish those who don’t. The benefit of being animals that can reason, think abstractly and predict outcomes is that we can do this.
BB
Your post in 28 should be addressed to SA , he wrote it. Really you really need to work on actually reading what people write.
Vivid
V@29, thank you for pointing this out. I really should stop drinking at lunch. 🙂
There is one thing I want to clear up about the comment “those that commit atrocities and say they’re Christians aren’t following the teachings of Christ”
This is not a denial that Christians don’t commit atrocities
This is a statement of fact that they are being hypocritical if they’re claiming to be Christian and then turning around and doing something horrible
In other words practice what you preach and if you can’t do that stop preaching
And to a degree I do see why you think that it is a denial that Christians commit atrocities. But at least from how I was raised in the family that I was in in the culture that I’ve dealt with this is not the case it is considered a shameful mistake that was committed by people that follow our belief that were being incredibly hypocritical and we should learn not to do what they’re doing
I know that’s a really long picky explanation
And I know there are tons of hypocrites on both sides of this coin. But I agree, a person that says they’re Christian and says they’re doing something in the name of Christ and what they’re doing is horribly wrong is being a hypocrite they could still be Christian they’re just really bad Christians
And if that is the case we can hate them together.
By the way I never claimed that I am perfect nor can I follow the teachings of Christ perfectly I suck at doing that I am not the best and I admit very clearly when I am wrong
Comically my last statement about saying we could hate them together is also wrong as that does not follow with the teachings of Christ and I need to love them as I need to love everybody else “love the enemy”
As I said I’m not the best and I admit that I suck
BB
In Darwinian belief, there are no atrocities. But you’re saying that humans have a set of rules (reference?) which conflict with evolutionary outcomes. I see that as a conflict between human reason and evolutionary processes, and therefore, one cannot be the outcome of the other. In any case, evolution always has a problem explaining why products of evolution (humans) create rules that frustrate evolutionary processes.
Silver Asiatic @ 13
Human beings are social animals. Individually, they are weak and vulnerable to many predator species but the chances of individual survival are improved if that individual is a member of a co-operative group. If the strength and resilience of a group in the face environmental stresses and crises are enhanced by a moral code under which group members feel protected and valued then that is advantageous for all in terms of survival.
Silver Asiatic @ 33
Evolution is a theory in biology not ethics. It is concerned with describing and explaining how life is, not how it should be. Categorizing an act as an atrocity is a moral judgment made by humans about human behavior which, as far as we can tell, only we as humans are capable of here on Earth.
If a society has developed rules of behavior which protect the majority from the depredations of the few that would ignore the rights and well-being of their fellows then the bonds which hold that society together are strengthened by that amount.
Seversky
Ethics comes from somewhere other than biology? Perhaps from some immaterial cause or source?
Evolution is not merely a theory, it is supposedly the process that created human life. Evolution does not “explain” how things are or should be, instead it Created how they are and how they “should be” is how evolution made them to be.
The fact that we make such judgements argues against an evolutionary origin.
It is assuming that evolution occurs in order to hold society together. You’re supplying some purpose and direction to evolution, which the process does not have. Populations compete with each other and even have competition within their own ranks. The most fit might survive, or not. Evolution does not care. The existence of morals and ethics, for reasons you’ve given (which conflict with evolutionary patterns) are arguments against evolutionary origins of human beings.
Seversky
That’s a reasonable explanation but I do not see that a goal of evolution is the survival of a group but rather, there are no goals and that mutations and selection pressures merely allow the fittest to dominate. The fact that a group survives or not is not a goal for evolution.
I also do not see that human moral systems are oriented to the survival of a group. Again, evolution is not about survival alone but also reproductive success, and moral norms (against rape, polygamy) often limit that aspect of what evolution would obtain. Animals, for example, do not appear to need any moral norms in order to compete and survive and reproduce. They will either continue as a group or become extinct. Evolution does care either way and the animals don’t either.
Seversky as quoted by SA at 38
At least that is the ‘just-so story’ that Seversky would rather believe in than believe in God, but the real world empirical evidence of the situation is a far cry from the bed-time story Seversky wants to believe in.
In fact, not only is Seversky’s materialistic worldview completely amoral, i.e. blind pitiless indifference,,,
,,,not only that, but when coupled with Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ principle,,,
,,,when coupled with Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ principle, Seversky’s materialistic Darwinian worldview is not only amoral but becomes downright anti-moral, and even actually provides yet another empirical falsification of Darwin’s theory.
Darwin himself offered this following ‘anti-altruism’ standard as a falsification criteria for his theory, “Natural selection cannot possibly produce any modification in any one species exclusively for the good of another species”… and even stated that “If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.”
And yet, directly contrary to Darwin’s claim, it is now known that ” “in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as the modern versions of it.”
Moreover, the falsification of ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking goes even deeper than that. If evolution by natural selection were actually the truth about how all life came to be on Earth then the only life that should be around should be extremely small organisms with the highest replication rate, and with the most ‘mutational firepower’, since only they, (since they greatly outclass multi-cellular organism in terms of ‘reproductive success’ and ‘mutational firepower’), would be fittest to survive in the dog eat dog world where blind pitiless evolution ruled and only the fittest are allowed to survive. The logic of this is nicely summed up here in this following Richard Dawkins’ video:
In other words, since successful reproduction is all that really matters on a neo-Darwinian view of things, how can anything but successful, and highly efficient reproduction, be realistically ‘selected’ for? Darwin himself stated, “every single organic being around us may be said to be striving to the utmost to increase in numbers;”
The logic of natural selection is nicely and simply illustrated on the following graph:
As you can see, any other function besides successful reproduction, such as much slower sexual reproduction, sight, hearing, abstract thinking, and especially morally noble altruistic behavior of any sort, would be highly superfluous and even detrimental to the primary criteria of successful reproduction, and should, on a ‘survival of the fittest’ Darwinian view, be discarded, and/or ‘eaten’, by bacteria, as so much excess baggage since it obviously would slow down successful reproduction.
Yet, contrary to this central ‘survival of the fittest’ assumption of Darwinian evolution, instead of eating us, time after time we find micro-organisms helping each other, and us, in ways that have nothing to with their own ‘survival of the fittest’’ concerns.
The following researchers said they were ‘banging our heads against the wall’ by the contradictory findings to Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking that they had found. And they even stated that “,,, Maybe Darwin’s presumption that the world may be dominated by competition is wrong.”
And again, directly contrary to the central ‘survival of the fittest’ assumption of Darwinian evolution, we find that bacteria are also directly helping us in essential ways that have nothing to do with their own survival of the fittest concerns:
Moreover, it is now known that “Microbial life can easily live without us; we, however, cannot survive without the global catalysis and environmental transformations it provides.”
Darwin’s theory simply has no explanation for such altruistic behavior from microorganisms, (much less for altruistic behavior in humans), and in fact such behavior is completely contrary to the central assumption of ‘survival of the fittest’ that lays at the heart of Darwin’s theoretical framework. And according to a falsification criteria that was laid down by Darwin himself, these findings, (and several other findings like these), falsifies Darwin’s theory as a viable scientific theory.
Thus, Seversky can tell himself as many bedtime stories as he wants as to how man’s innate moral sense came about, but as far as the science itself is concerned, Seversky’s bed-time stories do not even get out of the starting gate in regards to being scientifically credible.