regarding n.2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity defines formally the concept of minimal encoding of a message
This goes both ways, you see?
Religion ended slavery. (Yes, some religions advocated and supported slavery - they lost to the ones that didn't.)
What has philosophy done in that domain. (Is it poor form to point out that philosophy pretty much went Nazi during the 30s.)
Yes, philosophers produced logic et al.
Philosophy went nazi? No, nazism went philosophy, and poorly too. They raped Nietzsche's philosophy until it fit their needs, with the help of his decadent Missgeburt of a sister. Heidegger is perhaps a much more problematic case, but also not a matter of black-and-white.
Philosophers _produced_ logic? Wittgenstein is lolling at you in his grave right now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_slavery#Chri...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_slavery#Oppo...
I wonder if that's why I wrote: "Yes, some religions advocated and supported slavery"
The existence of religious slavery supporters does not refute the claim was that religious people ended slavery.
As I put it the first time: "[the religious supporters of slavery] lost to [religious opponents]."
My comment was about what caused the change, and the losers didn't do that.
Why do you think that these losers deserve as much attention as these winners? Or, is this a general rule?
In other news, the folks pushing 3/5 person (or less) rule were the anti-slavery folks while the slave states wanted slaves counted just like everyone else. (That rule was part of how congressional representation was determined. The "not slave" states were trying to minimize the representation of the slave states and the slave states were trying to maximize their representation.) So, anyone who brings it up as evidence of "not valuing them as people" is either dishonest or ignorant....
The fact that religion so permeated debates in those times makes it easy for us to cherry-pick people and places to support our positions (this applies to me as much as you).
I didn't claim otherwise.
My comment was solely about the winners.
FWIW, I think that the winners are more important than the losers.
I'm not sure what anamax meant, but the abolitionist movements were highly religious. It's not just that they happened to be religious; their religion drove their activism. Wilberforce and Rankin are good examples.
Yes, the Nazis looked for "intellectual" support, but you're ignoring that they got it. If you want to argue causality....
> They raped Nietzsche's philosophy until it fit their needs, with the help of his decadent Missgeburt of a sister.
Ah yes, the "Nazis were unpopular in Germany" defense.....
>Heidegger is perhaps a much more problematic case, but also not a matter of black-and-white.
Heidegger is "problematic" only if you choose to ignore his actual positions at the time in favor of post WWII revisionism. (In other news, early 1900s progressives were eugenicists and segregationists.)
We can argue about whether that alone make Nazism popular with philosophers of that era or they came to that support on their own, but to deny that there was widespread agreement is simply absurd.
To be fair, Nazism was very popular across all social classes in the 30s, so the intellectual support wasn't way outside the mainstream. My point is that isn't an example where the intellectual class got it right. Do you want to blame that on the influence of the rest of society? (They didn't at the time, but surely we shouldn't believe what philosophers say about their reasons.)
To this day, religion continues to be a powerful driver of racism, classism, and slavery. In case you need examples, may I point you to the Hindu caste system and the Muslim doctrine of Dhimmitude.
Noah is the retconning of Gilgamesh, Jesus the retconning of Ra, etc.
Every religious explanation should be taken with a ton of salt.
I was about to tack on "questions on the other hand..." to my comment but was already in bed when I thought of it.