Dawkins blasts Plato in "Greatist Show On Earth"
Offline At first I was perplexed at this bold statement in his book condemning Plato. I loved his Allegory Of The Cave in that the story spoke of questioning what you saw to find real answers. UNFORTUNATELY when I read that in college I didn't get the final point Plato was trying to make, not just in that story, but in his philosophies.
Bob Spence rightfully smacked me in the face with the truth of Plato's intent. That if you sought real answers you could find a "perfection" of what is. THAT was the part I missed. So while I valued the questioning part of the story, I missed the final intent of Plato's philosophy which was dead wrong. There is no such thing as "perfect" or "ultimate".
Dawkins asserts that this misguided judgment went on to influence all cultures in seeking utopias.
In adding to this rightful criticism, this could also be why concepts and motifs that water down through future generations never get seen as the mere stories they are.
"Jesus" as a motif is a very universal concept without the magic. Here is a laymen without an official title or official education challenging the social structure and "wise men" of the time. It is no different a motif than rooting for the underdog in a sport. Like the unexpected win of the Saints winning the Super Bowl considering their prior history of always losing. This emotional appeal never takes into account that power shifts change over time in reality and going from bottom to top is not an act of divine magic, but a natural occurrence in nature.
Long before the alleged Jesus character questioned authority, Plato wrote "Apology: in which Socrates questioned the authorities, oracles(equal to modern priests, rabbis, Imams), teachers and senators. He questioned all these so called "wise men" and was murdered for his blasphemy.
So while one could argue that there might not be a direct connection between Plato's writings and the bible, the motifs certainly could have spread as IDEAS to other cultures without detection.
It can simply be explained through our evolution as being a false assumption that we can find a "perfect" answer to life to protect us.
We mistake are rightful desire to question and seek answers and "beat the odds" as being something handed down to us by a divine being. For every idea that gets successfully marketed by a culture, there are far more that never become famous or popular. Which reflects the reality of nature that most attempts of going from the bottom to the top "surviving" FAIL.
The "abundance" in life, or in claims for that matter, are only the tip of the iceburg. Just like iceburgs, most of it is something we never notice and only see the tip.
There are two main events that I think lead to the successful marketing of Christianity. When Rome burnt down, the Empire at the time was overspending and Nero used the minority cult Christians as a scapegoat. I think the wise population, just like more and more people today are getting wise to our congress being bought off by the corporate class, wasn't buying his scapegoat excuse, and took sympathy, on the victims he chose to blame.
I think Nero had picked another minority to blame, things might have turned out differently.
But the biggest reason Christianity is successful was a political adaptation by Constantine. It wasn't a god who tapped him on the shoulder, but a political opportunity to sustain his support. Much like today that both parties in America invoke the Christian god to gain votes.
I have to say that Dawkins is absolutely right in condemning Plato. Not him as a person, but as an example of the flaws evolution produce. It is exactly because evolution does not seek perfection, just getting to the next generation, that Plato was able to popularize a the bad conclusion that "perfection" exists.
It is has had a domino affect that still plagues our species today. You can only seek to find better, more accurate answers, but you will never find a universal "perfect" answer. What Plato did in his good intent of "questioning" was flawed in that it had nothing to test the data and presumed a "perfect" outcome.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
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And when I say the "motifs" could filter down through generations without detection, what I mean by that is that there wont always be a record of direct contact. Think of all the people you met on a bus, or airplane or vacation, at a counter or bar, that you say something to, that you never see again. You could tell them a joke, and that joke spreads, and some decades later you hear the same MOTIF with different details and different names and different punchline. There isn't always a written or recorded copy of these events.
The joke works, not because of the details, it works because of the MOTIF and delivery(marketing).
That is why, to debunk all myths, you have to look at human nature and our universal desires, combined with our flawed evolution in pattern seeking that causes us to fill in the gaps with placebos. Dawkins describes this best as the moth mistaking the light bulb as the natural moonlight it evolved to follow.
When given the choice between blindly swallowing a god, be it Thor or Isis or Vishnu or Jesus, whom constitute having powers beyond the natural world. Vs the overwhelming evidence of the capability of our species throughout history believing false things, the answer should be clear which is a much more rational and realistic explanation as to why humans believe in god/s.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Thanks for that.
If you knew what I did for a living you might ask yourself, "Did that really come from him".?
It is funny how our society bitches about lack of education, AND I AGREE, but forget even if everyone were as educated as most of us here, you would still have a three class system. Think about how much better our society could be if even the poorest, who stayed poor, were as educated as those at the top.
Bob says it best, "If you are so smart, how come your not rich?" Maybe it's because money isn't everyone's idea of happiness.
I don't mean to turn this thread into an argument about how a good economy should work. But every aspect of human existence is fucked up by the idea of "life is a script" which is a utopia that does not exist. Life is a RANGE, not a script. Which is part of the flaw that leads all 7 billion people in all our world's nations to default to divisions instead of seeing life as a RANGE.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Now here is where some might accuse me of wanting a one world government or Marxism. If there is no such thing as a utopia, which there isn't, then suggesting a one world government as an absolute solution is absurd.
Marx was well intended in thinking about the average person and the poor, but he suggested a utopia, that in reality could not be implemented because of REAL human nature in the greed that h allowed Stalin to fill the gap and bastardize the good intent of Marx.
So when you speak of utopias in any form, especially that of labels of political or religious nature as absolute solutions, you are setting up a long term problem of fostering needless divisions.
It is the false dichotomy of either/or.
Instead of dreaming up utopias and defending labels, we can only reach better answers, not perfect answers.
Since life is not perfect a better solution, at least in my estimation, is not to beat dissent into submission because something might seem to work for us, as individuals. Labels and borders will always exist because we are social creatures.
I would suggest a better, NOT PERFECT, but better way is to set what we have in common as the goal and not make our labels the priority. We CAN and should always take into account that differences will always occur, but they should not be set as a priority.
There WILL always be people who want to be rich and rich people ARE needed. But there will at the same time be people we should not always blame because someone else doesn't see life in the same light.
MARX was WRONG in thinking you could set up "To the best of your ability, according to your means", not in the idea, but in thinking that it would work for everyone.
Just as it is always wrong to assume that status and title always equate to morality. That too is a false utopia which can lead to the other extreme where you have a royal class or political class having all the wealth where the few benefit and the most suffer.
I think the closest humanity has gotten to striking a balance without resorting to either extreme is the idea of being weary of absolute power EITHER WAY. The concept of checks and balances and the ability to keep the door open with changing conditions, and the priority of seeking common ground, helps long term, foster cooperation without destroying individuality.
This is NOT communism or socialism as a utopia. It is merely the concept of scrapping any and all labels for the purpose of marketing utopias. Our species can only seek better answers, not perfect answers. And what may work for one person may not work for another.
We cannot get rid of our social nature and make blanket statements about "what should be" for all 7 billion people on the planet. But we do have REAL basic concepts and needs that we all do share.
Just expanding on Plato's false assumption that we can find "perfect" and that all aspects of life can get really fucked up EITHER WAY when we falsely try to force our individual ideas of "perfect" on the world around us.
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"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog