My original point is that the Internet - ubiquitous information and communication - will inevitably haul us up out of superstition - you can’t control people with dogma - not for long, any way - if they are exposed to it. I see us as still lurching out of the dark ages, and every few hundred years we take a big step forward. It took many years to pry us from the fiercest grip of organized religion in the middle of the last century, but we did it. Shame about Galileo, though. Still, the Church is sorry, so there’s that.

On your other point, perhaps it depends on one’s world view. I’m sure there’s no question that some people can be happy in ignorance of the world around them. But the Gene Roddenberry in me is inclined to think that one of our most powerful instincts is a deep and relentless curiousity about our world, and that the most compelling question we face - about everything - is “why”? Mysticism, superstition and xenophobia represent, to my mind, an inchoate state of being because they involve an acceptance of less than truth - curiousity unfulfilled, essentially.

What do you mean by “And if there is a better way of arresting our descent into tribalism, mysticism and superstition, I haven’t heard it.” If I was to guess, I suspect you are saying that if more people read about the ‘God Delusion,’ there might be less in the way of tribal and religious warfare around the world.

It’s interesting to consider that statement next to the ideas about increasing globalization that are common in many of your threads … on the one hand, we are becoming more and more connected, aware of others, flatter. On the other, we are becoming more and more regional, self-interested, rounder (?). How do you reconcile those two extremes? (Do you actually think the tribal, mystical, and the superstitious among us are going to debate Dawkins on the internet?)

The tone of this line also suggests that tribalism, mysticism, and superstition are problematic, at least in some cases. Why? In my experience, people are quite able to live locally and globally at the same time. In fact, people tend to interpret global trends and ideas in local ways. (That’s Marshall Sahlins’s idea, anyway. As an anthropologist working in a small aboriginal community in northern Canada, I tend to agree.)

By the way, have you ever looked at Steven Jay Gould’s short essay called Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA)? He argues that science and religion do not have to be in conflict … what would really help is if scientists stuck to doing science and theologians stuck to doing theology. It is a really useful piece to have in mind during debates like the one Dawkins raises. Here’s the text:

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html