You're so wrong, Yabby.
Education and health-care should be the same for all citizens in a "democratic society" based on cooperation. If there were only one of each (education and health) the rich would make sure both were world's best practice--though there shouldn't be any rich, it's anti-social. Even as things stand, don't you realise the rich leech off the public purse and the common weal? Medical innovations for instance are driven by consumerism; the medical marvels we have would not be available to those who can afford it if R&D wasn't driven by mass consumerism. It could never be funded by the selfish rich and they'd still, otherwise, be making their dentures out of ivory. If it was only the wealthy in the market place we'd still be in the veritable stone-age.
That aside, our society claims to be democratic but it's founded on and maintained by double standards, within, and rapaciousness, without. You just don't see it, can't see it, won't see it; you're not programmed to, anymore than Dawkins is.
In your last paragraph you're just acknowledging that you're intellectually (as well as ethically) retired, like Solomon; there's nothing new under the sun. Philosophy and religion are just a crock of sh!t that you've grown out of? Funny how this conveniently affirms lazy consumerism, and the status quo, and your position in life? God must surely have had a hand in that? Yes, except that your God is science.
As for the brain, the poststructural scenario I've sketched above agrees with neuro-science; all of consciousness is an elaborate self-deception. You should be saying "alleluia brother!", philosophy has arrived at similar conclusions.
You are ahead of me Yabby, for sure, but I'm not in any hurry.

Actually Squeers, what I really dread is a society as one that you are
implying, where Govt rules everything. What people earn, what people
do, how they spend it, why they spend it. Democracy can also involve
tyranny by the majority and I don't believe in that.

Anyone can take out health insurance if they wish. But people make
choices and should live with them. Some spend it on the pokeys, some
go on that overseas trip, some buy health insurance. Each to their
own. I have no problem with rich people. They pay lots of tax, it
benefits us all. Its those going down unground mines and those
driving trucks for 100 hours a week that keep the economy ticking,
why should I begrudge them their earnings? If some rip off the state
to get rich, it just shows how useless the state is at handling our
money. The most democratic thing in the world is the market economy.
Some are innovative enough to create things which people might want
or need, people vote with their wallets about the outcome.

*Philosophy and religion are just a crock of sh!t that you've grown out of?*

I see them a bit like golf or knitting. Great for those who are
inclined to invest their time in them, but personally I have other
preferances. For undestanding the world, I'll prefer to stick to
evidence, not pontificating. Its been far more enlightening in terms
of understanding the world and us humans

Squeers, after reading your diatribe over several recent posts it's hardly surprising barriers of indignation are quickly thrown up against you.

If you go back over my posts you will see I try to respond to your questions, particularly, and in some part to your obscure and esoteric dissertations. What you get from me is my own personal stand-point on some aspects of your writings as I interpret them.

I refute your claim I represent "New Atheism" because it incorporates, at you insistence, post-modernistic adherence. Nothing in post-modernism convinces me truth is relative or that it is a convention. Truth and beauty await our discovery, not construction. Regarding my atheism, conclusions drawn from discursive metaphysical forays in search of truth don't wash with me the way they obviously do with you. I find myself confused at just what is at the basis of your supposed atheism, Squeers.

You suggest a kind of honor in relaxing into the humility of one's ignorance as opposed to clinging to confidence in rationality, which I do not because it's easy but because it's hard. Really, who is the lazy one (!?).

Just how do you propose Dawkins should conduct the atheistic attack? Must he humour believers of things that can't possibly be true or those claiming to know the mind of god. He announces the limitations of his position, which is not usually reciprocated by his opponents without applying a blow-torch. It's a tough gig taking on entrenched beliefs and interests.

You claim Dawkins is not objective, motivated unconsciously by "ideological devotions". Interestingly, You didn't expand on that but as you claim to mind-read let me try too. Sure, you see the tax breaks, influence and funding for the church as issues for fair-minded persons, agreeing with Yabby about the inappropriateness of the religious hand in publicly funded hospitals, etc, but that's where your atheism ends. You're just not sure whether god is or isn't, that's all. It's time for you to release your inner theist, Squeers. Fly and be happy

Luciferase,
<“diatribe”, “obscure and esoteric dissertations”, “discursive metaphysical forays”, “you claim to mind-read”, “You're just not sure whether god is or isn't, that's all. It's time for you to release your inner theist, Squeers. Fly and be happy”>
This is what you get from what I’ve tried to communicate? Clearly you don’t get any of it.
But I like this: “Truth and beauty await our discovery, not construction”, which confirms what I accused the New Atheism of directly above: “belief in their rationalism as something pure and worthy”, that is as something untainted by or admixed with ideology. I tend toward the coherence theory of truth myself, and in that I’m a maverick! Though I temper coherence theory with acknowledgement—and one can hardly deny it—of the depth of constructivism that appoints our truths and aesthetics. Free thinking thus consists for me largely in deconstruction.
Marx said, “religion is a register of the theoretical struggles of mankind”. Science has always been a practical side to that struggle. And while it’s debatable as to whether it makes mere constructions on reality still (the history of science is replete with misguided and prejudiced constructions), you surely acknowledge scientific method and endeavour are directed and somewhat befuddled by prevailing ideologies? To whatever extend method and innovation are objective, science’s practitioners most certainly are not. It’s one thing, too, to despise the relativism of postmodern philosophy (usually those who don’t understand it), but that’s no justification to dismiss it out of hand—which is just as bad as creationists ignorantly dismissing evolution! All this cuts to the heart of what I’ve been complaining about. All I’m really asking for is reflexivity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexivity_(social_theory) for Ditchkins and co to critique their “political/ideological allegiances” before they set-forth to make an institution of their manifestation in the world.
But I won’t task you anymore as it appears I’m wasting my breath (figuratively speaking), again.
Fascinating that those ostensibly devoted to reason can't be reasoned with!

Squeers,
Have you ever read a book written by a creationist? If so, could you point out how it is that creationists are ignorant of evolution, or what facts they are ignoring. Or is that you just engage in name calling for the fun of it?

Tony,
Are you sure Aquinas said anything like that? Why would you now advocate Aquinas when, as an atheist, you hardly ascribe to anything he says anyway?

Squeers,

I really am trying to understand you, labeling you somehow as belonging to this or that philosophical school:

>>Free thinking thus consists for me largely in deconstruction. <<
Deconstruction, that is Derrida, hence postmodernist. Would you call yourself a postmodernist? I few years ago you did not, Would you call yourself at least a deconstructionist?

>>And while it’s debatable as to whether (science) makes mere constructions on reality still (the history of science is replete with misguided and prejudiced constructions) … scientific method and endeavour are directed and somewhat befuddled by prevailing ideologies<<

Indeed, it is debatable whether science makes MERE constructs. However, this sounds more like social constructivism of (natural) science, a favourite of litetrary critics whom C. P. Snow saw as the opponents (rather than partners) of scientists. I remember also that you called yourself a social constructivist, Are you still one? Would you see yourself as being on the literary critics’ side of the C.P. Snow barricade?

Social constructivists’ meddling with the philosophy of science - perhaps instigated by Thomas Kuhn - led to the Science Wars at the end of last century that we already had a dispute about here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3445#82274 and the sequel.

You also wrote (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9564#154625):

>>Humans have an addiction for models ... Pure fantasy. I just don't believe it. <<

As you might remember, representations (scientific theories), models (notably mathematical) are a core concept in my understanding of how (epistemology of) science works. Recently Stephen Hawking, in his The Grand Design also used extensively the model approach to “knowing” material reality.

Is that approach still so much unacceptable to you?

[Only for theists: I like to extend this to beyond science, where the role of mathematical models is taken by narrative, mythological, but also purely speculatively rational (Aquinas?) models of those aspects of reality that cannot be described by mathematical models entering scientific, notably physical, theories.These myths or mythological models - in distinction to scientific models - cannot be supported or falsified through experimentation based on a strict separation of the subject from the object.]