I am bit confused now. Do you expect people to literally mean what they are saying, all the time? Obviously it is somethign you would not have said openly in former times, however, you could tacitly know it and act in this knowledge. Similarly, said statements are essential to the public image such churches project, but do you need to take it any more seriously than the corporate “mission statement” pages where everybody knows they are just PR and in practice their sole mission is to make money?
Reading LW sometimes I get the impression that being very interested in truth comes with the bias that maybe other people too are very interested in truth and really mean what they are saying. But of course it is not so. Most of what ever said publicly is PR and signalling. Related: a friend of mine has a theory that if you ever get the point you are elected Pope it is almost certain you are an atheist by then.
Here is an example. I am reading Edmund Burke’s 1792 “Sketch of a Negro Code” which is an argument for the gradual abolition of slavery by first educating slaves and making them more fit for free life. It has actually sensible sounding ideas like letting everybody have a little hobby farm helps teaching self-sufficency values, that schooling is useful, that as long as people are not very educated perhaps controlling alcohol is good, and so on. And it also includes religious services and preaching as part of that education. Burke does not give half a damn what sect a church belongs to, which alone suggests he may have been at least partially agnostic: people who really think theism is literally true usually care about its “flavor”. Burke basically considers churches something similar to schools. You got schools to learn facts and to churches to learn values, seems to be the idea there. And this is 1792. Already, a politician, who was considered kinda conservative and his nickname was “The Jesuit” did not give a damn about whether the “facts” the churches teach about Jesus are true or not. He was interested in the moral values and moral habits they teach.
So why are we still interested in the whole religion-as-truth-or-untruth? Because some almost illiterate people in the Bible Belt really seem to believe it? Just ignore them and focus on their politics, that is what matters for you. Because some very educated and smart people in the Vatican use it as a PR message? Ignore the message just like you would ignore Nike’s corporate mission statement bullshit. Focus on what matters: churches as agents, institutions playing a role in society.
Educated people in the Vatican wouldn’t use factual claims about religion as a PR message unless the general populace believed that factual claims about religion are important, just like companies wouldn’t have PR statements about responsibility if there weren’t people reading those statements who actually thought it was important for the company to have responsibility.
Furthermore, I think you’re committing typical mind fallacy. You’re not realizing that some people can have thought processes that are alien to you. They can’t possibly mean it, because you can’t imagine yourself saying it and meaning it.
Obviously it is somethign you would not have said openly in former times, however, you could tacitly know it and act in this knowledge. Similarly, said statements are essential to the public image such churches project, but do you need to take it any more seriously than the corporate “mission statement” pages where everybody knows they are just PR and in practice their sole mission is to make money?
A fake can only exist if there is a reality for it to be a fake of. Gold exists and is valued, and so there is also fake gold. But mithril is a fictional metal, so there is no fake mithril, only pretend mithril. “God” only works as persuasion when people generally believe in God. “Let’s pretend” may work for some groups of neopaganists, but I can’t see society running on it.
Burke repudiated atheism and its close companion deism, which were well underway by 1792. He was not attached to Christianity in particular, but only because he believed some other religions to also have possession of divinely revealed truth. (I’m cribbing all this from here, btw.) Is his consistency in expressing these views to be taken as evidence that he believed the opposite?
I am bit confused now. Do you expect people to literally mean what they are saying, all the time? Obviously it is somethign you would not have said openly in former times, however, you could tacitly know it and act in this knowledge. Similarly, said statements are essential to the public image such churches project, but do you need to take it any more seriously than the corporate “mission statement” pages where everybody knows they are just PR and in practice their sole mission is to make money?
Reading LW sometimes I get the impression that being very interested in truth comes with the bias that maybe other people too are very interested in truth and really mean what they are saying. But of course it is not so. Most of what ever said publicly is PR and signalling. Related: a friend of mine has a theory that if you ever get the point you are elected Pope it is almost certain you are an atheist by then.
Here is an example. I am reading Edmund Burke’s 1792 “Sketch of a Negro Code” which is an argument for the gradual abolition of slavery by first educating slaves and making them more fit for free life. It has actually sensible sounding ideas like letting everybody have a little hobby farm helps teaching self-sufficency values, that schooling is useful, that as long as people are not very educated perhaps controlling alcohol is good, and so on. And it also includes religious services and preaching as part of that education. Burke does not give half a damn what sect a church belongs to, which alone suggests he may have been at least partially agnostic: people who really think theism is literally true usually care about its “flavor”. Burke basically considers churches something similar to schools. You got schools to learn facts and to churches to learn values, seems to be the idea there. And this is 1792. Already, a politician, who was considered kinda conservative and his nickname was “The Jesuit” did not give a damn about whether the “facts” the churches teach about Jesus are true or not. He was interested in the moral values and moral habits they teach.
So why are we still interested in the whole religion-as-truth-or-untruth? Because some almost illiterate people in the Bible Belt really seem to believe it? Just ignore them and focus on their politics, that is what matters for you. Because some very educated and smart people in the Vatican use it as a PR message? Ignore the message just like you would ignore Nike’s corporate mission statement bullshit. Focus on what matters: churches as agents, institutions playing a role in society.
Educated people in the Vatican wouldn’t use factual claims about religion as a PR message unless the general populace believed that factual claims about religion are important, just like companies wouldn’t have PR statements about responsibility if there weren’t people reading those statements who actually thought it was important for the company to have responsibility.
Furthermore, I think you’re committing typical mind fallacy. You’re not realizing that some people can have thought processes that are alien to you. They can’t possibly mean it, because you can’t imagine yourself saying it and meaning it.
A fake can only exist if there is a reality for it to be a fake of. Gold exists and is valued, and so there is also fake gold. But mithril is a fictional metal, so there is no fake mithril, only pretend mithril. “God” only works as persuasion when people generally believe in God. “Let’s pretend” may work for some groups of neopaganists, but I can’t see society running on it.
Burke repudiated atheism and its close companion deism, which were well underway by 1792. He was not attached to Christianity in particular, but only because he believed some other religions to also have possession of divinely revealed truth. (I’m cribbing all this from here, btw.) Is his consistency in expressing these views to be taken as evidence that he believed the opposite?
And what Jiro said about typical mind fallacy.