Good Reasons for Believing in God

In 2007, Dan Dennett spoke at the AAI conference about the difference of believing in God and declaring the belief.

He starts his talk with the following:

Long, long ago most people really did believe in God. Some people still do. I talk about the basic, primitive phenomenon of belief, like the belief that Mount Everest exists.

Just straight, ordinary, everyday, uncomplicated, belief in a proposition. Now, you can believe that Mount Everest exists and not know a lot about Mount Everest.

However, when presented with four pictures of mountains, I doubt that you’ll recognize the right picture.

But that doesn’t disqualify you from believing the proposition that Mount Everest exists in the first place.

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Daniel Clift
garden variety liberal. Claims knowledge of biology, but has not studied biology. Claims multiculturalism-without speaking another language. Claims expertise on psychology, without ever having studied psychology or the subject. Sets up a straw man argument to demonize the opposition, while, never discussing with anyone other than those who already agree with his narrow views. Reminds me of early Nazi propoganda, where lay people used their limited knowledge of science and evolution to form a pseudo-scientific nationalist ideology. not to suggest he is in anyway possessed of violent aspirations, but….. how will he feel when his views fail to convert?
Celidus Firebrand
Atheism is simply another false religion, nothing more.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Farking-Spamhell/608791907 Farking Spamhell
the title is misleading… he lists the perceived “good reasons” why people believe in g-d…
he superficially touches on some good points but then totally misses on anything more insightful… just more “literal” interpretations…
the final part of his speech where he reads from an evolutionary biologist is the only things thats interesting… that part is worth hearing…
Listening to the whole speech I came away sensing that he is driven by a little anger…
wald0
He is talking about why many people fake a belief in God. He is making the point that they have good reasons to do this in a society that tends to demonize and ostracize atheist. Of course being Dan Dennet he also gets off on several tangents about different aspects of philosphy and cultural evolution but, it all ties into the before mentioned points. Really this was an acceptance speech for the Richard Dawkins award and not a lecture, but Dan seems to always have something to teach us if we are ready to listen. Its really worth your time, you should check it out.
http://profiles.google.com/jonathonwisnoski jonathon wisnoski
OK, but the summery does not does not talk about any reason to believe in god. So either the summery or the title is flawed, if I had an idea what he was going to talk about I would be more willing to try this.