Must Listen

Must Read

What Art Thinks

Pre-Millennialism

Today's Headlines

  • Sorry... Not Available
Man blowing a shofar

Administrative Area





Locally Contributed...

Audio

Video

Special Interest

Home » Site Index » Daily News
Daily News
19086
“Can Science ‘cure’ Religious Fundamentalism?”
by c/net   
June 3rd, 2013
W

This is an era in which science is finally imposing its supremacy on the lily-livered species that is man.

We’ve tried our emotion-based way of life for a little too long. We talk of love and God as if they are tangibles.

But if a scientist can’t see it, touch it, analyze it, and alter it, then it isn’t real.

Thankfully, we will soon all be wearing Google Glass and behaving like automatons. Life will become rational and predictable. Safe, even. We need no happily-ever-afters because we will simply keep on living in a timeless space. Until the food runs out and the planet melts.

There is still a little work to be done before we reach Nirvana, so how can we begin to adjust some of the extremities of human behavior that plague our daily lives?

Oxford University researcher Kathleen Taylor believes that neuroscience can begin to affect — with a view to, perhaps, curing — human beings of their most extreme beliefs.

She gave a presentation this week at the U.K.’s Hay Festival — the same festival in which Google’s Eric Schmidt warned that teenagers’ mistakes would live forever, thanks, in part, to Google.

As the Huffington Post reports, Taylor thinks that there are certain beliefs that might soon be treated as illnesses.

She said: “Someone who has for example become radicalized to a cult ideology — we might stop seeing that as a personal choice that they have chosen as a result of pure free will and may start treating it as some kind of mental disturbance.”

In her view, certain beliefs cause "a heck of a lot of damage."

She referenced not only religious fundamentalism -- specifically that of Islam -- but also behavioral mores such as spanking children.

On hearing her words, some might venture that so many other seemingly irrational (to some) beliefs -- such as Apple fanboyism or the idea that wearing socks with sandals is somehow acceptable -- can be altered through neuroscientific manipulation.

This is where the moral gradient becomes treacherous.

Who decides which beliefs are really doing "a heck of a lot of damage"? What if those in power decide that everyone should now believe something entirely different from their previous beliefs?

Taylor has been studying the ramifications of brainwashing for some time. She refers to the brain as "that lump of blood-infused blancmange" that is every day impacted by elements of persuasion.

go back button