CMNS 304W Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Daniel Kahneman, Maimonides, Ninian Smart
8 May 2018
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Religion and Discourse Dichotomies
Religious discourse(s)
⢠Popular critiques of religion are mainly a reaction to Christian-dominant social, political, and
economic discourses of Post-Enlightenment Europe
⢠Religious discourse in an increasingly secular society misrepresents or confuses different
religious beliefs and practices
⢠Religious communities are socially and culturally complex
⢠Religious and secular cultures interact via popular culture, high culture, and mass media
Question: How old is the universe?
⢠Possible approaches to answer this:
o A known or given number
o A method for determining an answer
o A method for finding a source
o A logical or philosophical argument
How long is a day?
⢠According to the Book of Genesis, day and night were created on the Day 1 of creation, and the
sun and moon were created on the Day 4.
Q: if there was no sun or moon in the first three periods of time called days, then what was
the length of time that made up a day?
o According to Maimonides (12th century Spanish philosopher and physician) ancient
interpreters of Genesis understood metaphors used to describe the sequence of
creation and time. He concludes from the grammar in the Book of Genesis [in the
original Hebrew]:
⪠Time is a construct â it did not exist until matter, as we know it, came into
existence in an act of creation;
⪠Language can give us only a metaphorical and incomplete interpretation of the
design and construction of the universe;
⪠The designer-creator of the universe thus exists outside of space-time as we
know it.
o Medieval philosophers like Maimonides believed that anything that did not agree with
both science and religion was false.
Gerald Schroeder (American physicist and religious scholar)
When a scientist states that our universe is 14 billion years old, there is a second half of that
sentence rarely articulated but known very well. The universe is 14 billion years old as measured
from the time-space coordinates of the earth; that is, as measured from our view, our location,
within the universe. But there is an aspect o the universe that changes the perception of the timing of
eîeî
¶ts îheî
¶ those eîeî
¶ts aîe îieîedâŠfîoî
µ afaî, acîoss a gîeat galactic distaî
¶ce. That is the
stretching of space.
A well-known, scientifically accepted concept:
You and your twin have identical clocks. You travel at 80% of the light speed to a nearby star and
back. At high speeds, time and space stretch. Standing still on Earth, time appears to go slower than
it does on the spaceship.
⢠After the trip, your clock will show that 10 years elapsed.
⢠Baîk oî
¶ earth, îour tîiî
¶îs îloîk îill shoî that î±0 îears elapsed.
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2
At the speed of light, this effect is extreme.
⢠Sîhroederîs thought eîperiî
µeî
¶t: Iî
µagiî
¶e tîiî
¶s îith îloîks siî
¶îe the Big Baî
¶g.
o One is now on Earth â stopped moving away from the Big Bang 4.6 billion years ago.
o The other is still travelling at the speed of light with the light at the edge of the universe.
⢠The twin on Earth â standing still â would measure 13.7 billion years since the Big Bang, while
the twin at the edge of the universe â still moving at the speed of light â would measure only
5777 years.
Critical Theories of Religion
⢠According to Sigmund Freud (from the field of psychiatry, a discipline of medicine, which is a
discipline of science):
o Religion as a collective expression of individual desires, and
o The projection of those desires onto nature and into the supernatural.
⢠According to Karl Marx (from the fields of economics and political science):
o Religion is the îthe opiuî
µ of the people⊠The aîolitioî
¶ of religioî
¶ as the illusorî
happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness.î (A Contribution to the
Cîitiîue of Hegelîs Philosophy of âight, 1843)
o Religion is a broad mechanism, using fear to control society and hegemony to keep
people complacent about the status quo.
⢠According to Friedrich Nietzsche (from the fields of language and the philosophy of morality):
o îG-d is dead. G-d remains dead. And we have killed him.î (The Science of Joy, 1882)
o Religion and religious institutions result in a îmaster moralityî (based on good or bad
consequences) and îslave moralityî (based on good or bad intentions). (On the
Genealogy of Morality 1887)
Bad science takes on religion:
[July 2011 Vancouver Sun article îImagine: Man created G-d: huî
µaî
¶sî î
¶eed for attaîhî
µeî
¶t aî
¶d
authority figures is behind religion, some scientists argue.î]
Scientists have so far identified about 20 hardwired, evolved îadaptationsî as the building
blocks of religion. Like attachment, they are mechanisms that underlie human interactions:
Brain-imaging studies at the National Institutes of Health showed that when test subjects
were read statements about religion and asked to agree or disagree, the same brain
networks that process human social behavior â our ability to negotiate relationships with
others â were engaged.
⢠Other studies reported in the media argue that all detectable losses of bodily energy and matter
at the moment of death can be attributed to known principles of anatomy, therefore, humans
do not have souls.
The Secular (non-theological) Study of Religion
⢠According to Ninian Smart (Scottish writer and professor of religious studies 1927 â 2001) the
common aspects of religions are the following:
o Experiential â îReligious experience,î
o Social â More than one person claiming the experience,
o Narrative â A story of experience passed to later participants,
o Dogmatic â Beliefs, must be rational and logical within the entire system,
o Ethical â Behaviours that correspond to beliefs,
o Ritual â Repeated access to experiences, and
o Material â Material manifestation for participants.
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Document Summary
Question: how old is the universe: possible approaches to answer this, a known or given number, a method for determining an answer, a method for finding a source, a logical or philosophical argument. How long is a day: according to the book of genesis, day and night were created on the day 1 of creation, and the sun and moon were created on the day 4. He concludes from the grammar in the book of genesis [in the original hebrew]: time is a construct it did not exist until matter, as we know it, came into existence in an act of creation; When a scientist states that our universe is 14 billion years old, there is a second half of that sentence rarely articulated but known very well. The universe is 14 billion years old as measured from the time-space coordinates of the earth; that is, as measured from our view, our location, within the universe.
