Yabby,

I'm wondering if we'd never experienced the idea of "the spiritual", if we'd have constructed all the monuments to that side of our perception - art, architecture, prose and poetry which moves us, often in ways we find difficult to fathom.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_architecture
I'm mindful of the fact that utilitarian architecture in these days of "rationality" is becoming increasingly brutal and featureless in its aesthetic communication - as if it mirrors man's lost spiritual source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutalist_architecture

What a deprived and barren cultural world we would have inhabited if we'd forever been accorded only a rational mind.

But Poirot, we don't just have a rational mind. We think and we feel.
They can often conflict and contradict each other. Just different
parts of the brain in competition with one another as it were.

I can appreciate beauty, as a matter of fact, I love playing around
with sounds, its about rythms and patterns and associations of one
sound to the other. Call it whatever you will call it, but it does
not need to have anything to do with religion.

Why does any kind of supernatural phenomena have to be involved,
for me to appreciate beauty? The emotional centres of the mind
are quite complex, the rational is only one part of what the brain
does.

Large cathedrals were commonly built to impress the punters of the
amazing powers of the church, as it took peoples money and sold
indulgences to the rich.

Squeers talks his way further into a wet paper bag.

Whatever, to his objections/spurious assertions (a)-(f) regarding New Atheists (posted Monday, 16 April 2012 3:46:19 PM), if my responses are not already obvious or predictable:-

a) to reductionist notions of culture—as though these were nothing more than boneheaded theism—which they’ve never read;

The philosophical/theological dialectic approach to truth-seeking has its sphere of applicability while the rational scientific approach has its own. The problem comes when their conclusions clash or people try to blend them (creation science, intelligent design). That's when the insults fly, from both sides.


b) to their apoliticism, which is neoliberalism by default since, as I’ve argued, “empiricism will always confirm the status quo”;

Empiricism provides the only observation set admissible in support or falsification of scientific hypotheses. Rationalism, by comparison, permits people to "see" what they "want" to see, which may be socially conditioned, so rationalist "observations" are non-admissible. Science comes to conclusions free of such bias, notwithstanding Squeer's all encompassing post-modernist critique. Hence the status-quo is always under challenge and the remainder of (b), including the labels, has no validity in relation to those who come to atheism via empiricism (New Atheists).

c) to their uncritical stance apropos the “macro” and destructive irrationalities the capitalist order is founded on. Simultaneously, they summarily condemn “micro-ideologies” (symptoms rather than the disease) they don’t understand;

As long as democracy exists, expect political parties, comprising both theists and atheists, to pick up on such matters. These are not tied specifically to belief or non-belief (I do not see fundamentalist churches trying to tear down republican capitalism

d) their refusal to consider their own ideological biases;

I'm a scientific realist and Squeeres is a post-modernist critic. I have said enough on that in several posts. See also (b) above.



e) the general problematic of making rationalism an institution, without having theorised an existential ethics, and without having considered that humans are inherently irrational/creative/idealistic creatures who are, nevertheless, to be converted and made rational;

Atheism brings with it no more or less responsibility towards forming civil-societal norms than theism. Enough has been written here about atheism, morals and ethics supporting this view.

Rationality can only be appealed to. Irrational people cannot be converted by rational appeal to become rational. Creativity and idealism are not diminished by atheism and Squeers has not demonstrated, nor can he, otherwise as these are subjectively measured.


f) the overall dearth of thinking that’s gone into the crusade.

"Crusade" (?!!), there must be a more appropriate word :) The objective is to counter, criticize and expose religion by rational argument. Without a worldwide organizational structure or benefit of the pulpit society affords churches, The Four Horsemen (now three) have establishing a strong beachhead, judging from the reaction. Whether more ground is gained remains to be seen.

Squeers,
>>“but because it (modern science) takes its evidence (and cue) from the prevailing order of things, it’s prone to accept as realities things that are merely evidence of underlying biases and ideological pressures, thus empiricism will always confirm the status quo” I wonder if anyone’s bothered to think about this? <<

What do you mean by “prevailing order of things” when e.g. a theoretical physicist tries to find “evidence” for this or that theory? It is a complicated matter of how and in what sense are such abstract theories or representations (of an a priori assumed physical reality or just of phenomena) found adequate, and many factors enter this process. However, empiricism or “underlying biases” (except you call knowledge acquired through centuries bias) and “ideological pressures” do not enter here. They might be influencing the physicist’s a priori world-view (e.g. theist or atheist, or some more subtle distinction) and thus enter his/her interpretation of these findings.

That is an important distinction. I do not know if Marx or Lancaster made this distinction but from what I know Marx was not an expert on philosophy of science; he used Engels to do that for him. Maybe you wanted to refer to Thomas Kuhn, his paradigm shifts, however his original formulations are much more restrained.

>>Religion is either, as Marx has it, “a register of the theoretical struggles of mankind”, or it’s “the projection of genuine human needs onto the fabric of the universe”, as Hegel had it; or perhaps it’s a dialectical synthesis. <<

There are hundreds of definitions of religion, and they usually reveal something not only about the complicated concept, but also - perhaps mainly - about the author of the definition. Unlike definitions in mathematics, which are usually subject only to mutual agreement.

Yabby,
>>I think it can be quite logically explained, why religions exist in the first place, by understanding how brains function. <<

You can also “logically explain” why this exchange of opinions exists by understanding how computers and internet function. Would it say anything about the contents of this or that post?

Yabby,

So, in your estimation, purpose, meaning and inspiration have little to do with religious architecture? If these buildings were only erected to "impress the punters" why was so much care taken to incorporate ancient symbols and religious narrative within the geometric form? Surely, the punters would have been duped by any old nonsense as long as the building looked impressive.

(from the book "Harmony")using Chartres Cathedral as an example:

"...the geometry of the entire building is derived from a circle. Its floor plan is contained within the proportions of a vesica....the centre point of the vesica sits at the very centre of the building...The great Belle Verriere window which depicts the Madonna and child sits perfectly within a vesica and thus perfectly within the floor plan of the cathedral, with every significant point in the design of the window corresponding to key positions in the geometry of the rest of the building. Christ's head sits over the Madonna's heart...the infant Christ's throat, from which the entire Christian tradition was eventually spoken, falls at the very centre of the vesica and therefore at the very heart of the building....the eight stars that circle the Madonna's head fall precisely on the eight pillars that surround the altar....this unifying process is even built into the way the pilgrim was expected to journey around the cathedral...They would enter the building....passing from the world of time to the timeless, and then progress along the left wall, reading the story of Christianity in the windows of the North side of the cathedral. There are in fact three great rose windows in the body of the cathedral and they were also intended to be read in sequence, along with all the other layers of symbolism built into the fabric of the architecture.
Quite clearly not an inch of this entire building is left to chance. Every angle and position conveys symbolic meaning. The medieval Christian architects who designed such a breathtaking structure were following the teachings of the mystics of their age and created what seems to amount to a profound prayer to all of creation."