Worth elaborating: If all religious people were non-hypocritical and do exactly what the religion they claim to follow commands, there would probably be an enormous initial drop in violence, followed by any religions that follow commandments like “thou shalt not kill” without exception being wiped out, with religions advocating holy war and the persecution of heretics getting the eventual upper hand (although imperfectly adapted religions might potentially be able to hold off the better-adapted ones through strength of numbers- for instance, if a large area was controlled by a religion with the burning of heretics and defensive, cooperative religious wars, they could hold off smaller nations with religions advocating offensive wars).
One good thing about hypocrisy is that it makes a massive buffer against certain types of virulent memes.
On the other hand, a world where everyone took a burn-the-heretics interpretation of Christianity or Islam 100% seriously would certainly have some advantages over ours, and especially over our middle ages- things like no un-sanctioned killing, most notably, no wars against others of the same religion, etc. Probably lots of things that would be decent ideas if you could get everyone to follow them, at the cost of an occasional burnt heretic (and possibly constant holy wars, until one religion gains the upper hand and overwhelms the others).
On the other hand, a world where everyone took a burn-the-heretics interpretation of Christianity or Islam 100% seriously would certainly have some advantages over ours, and especially over our middle ages- things like no un-sanctioned killing, most notably, no wars against others of the same religion, etc. Probably lots of things that would be decent ideas if you could get everyone to follow them, at the cost of an occasional burnt heretic (and possibly constant holy wars, until one religion gains the upper hand and overwhelms the others).
Sounds like the history of Europe and the Islamic world. Except that no-one ever did get the upper hand, neither for Christianity vs. Islam, nor the splits within those faiths.
Anyone want to go back to the time of the Crusades?
Probably lots of things that would be decent ideas if you could get everyone to follow them
If the only thing in favour of an idea is how wonderful the world would be if everyone followed it, it’s a bad idea.
If the only thing in favour of an idea is how wonderful the world would be if everyone followed it, it’s a bad idea.
Almost entirely agreed. The one class of exceptions are cases where a single standard avoids some severe problem with a mix. “Elbonia will switch from driving on the left to driving on the right. The change will be made gradually.”
Is it correct to say that he who is not coherent is hypocritical?
I’m used to think of hypocrisy as someone who does not apply to himself the criteria he wants to apply to others.
I can think of some reasons why it is not plausible that there can be found people completely coherent:
people are not aware of all their ideas at the same time;
people change their minds;
people can hold inconsistent ideas, at least when they are not aware of it;
Another thought: human minds are the environment where memes develop, but one should notice that memes are also the environment in which humans act.
That means that even firmly believing something to be wrong someone can still decide to do it, and vice-versa.
Worth elaborating: If all religious people were non-hypocritical and do exactly what the religion they claim to follow commands, there would probably be an enormous initial drop in violence, followed by any religions that follow commandments like “thou shalt not kill” without exception being wiped out, with religions advocating holy war and the persecution of heretics getting the eventual upper hand (although imperfectly adapted religions might potentially be able to hold off the better-adapted ones through strength of numbers- for instance, if a large area was controlled by a religion with the burning of heretics and defensive, cooperative religious wars, they could hold off smaller nations with religions advocating offensive wars).
One good thing about hypocrisy is that it makes a massive buffer against certain types of virulent memes. On the other hand, a world where everyone took a burn-the-heretics interpretation of Christianity or Islam 100% seriously would certainly have some advantages over ours, and especially over our middle ages- things like no un-sanctioned killing, most notably, no wars against others of the same religion, etc. Probably lots of things that would be decent ideas if you could get everyone to follow them, at the cost of an occasional burnt heretic (and possibly constant holy wars, until one religion gains the upper hand and overwhelms the others).
Sounds like the history of Europe and the Islamic world. Except that no-one ever did get the upper hand, neither for Christianity vs. Islam, nor the splits within those faiths.
Anyone want to go back to the time of the Crusades?
If the only thing in favour of an idea is how wonderful the world would be if everyone followed it, it’s a bad idea.
Almost entirely agreed. The one class of exceptions are cases where a single standard avoids some severe problem with a mix. “Elbonia will switch from driving on the left to driving on the right. The change will be made gradually.”
In a bit more general case, you would like to standardise things with a huge network effect. Like TCP/IP, for example.
Is it correct to say that he who is not coherent is hypocritical? I’m used to think of hypocrisy as someone who does not apply to himself the criteria he wants to apply to others. I can think of some reasons why it is not plausible that there can be found people completely coherent:
people are not aware of all their ideas at the same time;
people change their minds;
people can hold inconsistent ideas, at least when they are not aware of it;
Another thought: human minds are the environment where memes develop, but one should notice that memes are also the environment in which humans act. That means that even firmly believing something to be wrong someone can still decide to do it, and vice-versa.