ok... friday night... i have about an hour and a half... lessee if i can get a response out.
let me first make a distinction between 'religion" and "faith".
"faith" as is said earlier, it the acceptance as true of premises that cannot be shown to be true, either logically or empirically. another way of saying it is that faith (especially as faith in something particular, such as a faith in god) is a formalized expression of nonrational intellectual processes, which are innate.
religion (as a general term) is a formal ordering of a body of beliefs which may or may not be based on faith. A religion (as a specific practice) is essentially a political organizaion of people (ostensibly) based on beliefs.
that said, i do not think that either faith or religion is "based on wishful thinking", though either or both may include it. i think nonrational process are essential to our success. even logic relies on "leaps" which requires an acceptance without confirmation in order to understood - einstein had to accept the premise that the pull of gravity was essentially the same as the pull of an elevator or he could never have investigated the possibility of its factuality (not really a word... but useful anyway) - he had to accept the premise without evidence in order to pursue the evidence.
faith bridges the gap in understanding providing a sense of understanding and it seems to me that the sense of understanding has proven to of greater value in our success than understanding itself.
somewhere in this thread, i believe i tried to make the point that in debating, reason is the better tool, so of course, there i agree with you. as much as 'passion' may fuel our arguments (and indeed, i suspect, that without the passion we would not bother), policy that does not extend from reason is likely bad policy.
If I lose my car keys and I can't find them. . .
recalls the old vaudeville gag about the fella looking for his keys half a block away from where he lost them because "the light is better here". a perverse sorta reason in that. probably not as much as he would need to find them, though.
Virtually no one has an emotional investment in claims of leprechauns to be true.
you would be surprised... many people really do believe in "the wee people"... the Daoine Sidhe, an ancient people of ireland.
That didn't make the claims about them any more reasonable then than they are now, nor does it make claims about gods reasonable today, just because they are widespread
again, the claim that something is not based on reason does not mean that believing it is not reasonable. if believing in pie in the sky allays your fears of dying and simply NOT being anymore, the content of the belief may not be rational, but holding the belief may be entirely so.
It doesn't matter how it makes someone feel, it doesn't matter how emotionally invested they are in the idea
certainly it does. why would how a person feel NOT matter? how your wife, child, neighbor feels about you... how you feel about them? does that NOT matter? no, that does not determine the facts, but what is factual only matters to the degree that the issue itself matters. i think we are getting close to belaboring this point.
sometimes the certainty of facts matter, sometimes they do not. i would not teach a child of mine that Santa Claus would bring her presents, but if, as would almost certainly happen, she acquired the notion elsewhere, i would not attempt to dissuade her belief, either. Telling my daughter a lie... is a bad idea. But allowing her to maintain fantasies is not. The facility of 'magical thinking' has both purpose and benefit, which is hwy we have it.
When it comes to managing our common good, then that benefit diminishes. i take it as a personal mission, for instance, to do what i can to refute the myth of the "invisible hand"... not much luck so far.
it is not understandable why anyone would continue to do such a thing when we know better
that may depend on your willingness to understand. tradition is important to people and is perfectly understandable. you identify as 'conservative'. the entire merit of 'conservatism' in its most literal sense is to retain what we are already comfortable with. a desire to not be uncomfortable is not difficult to understand.
There's no such thing as value neutral so long as the belief goes beyond the believer and invariably, it always does.
triple proviso! sure there is 'value neutral', but no, not when it affects others in meaningful ways and no, it does not always, at least not in ways that others have any legitimate right to attempt to regulate. how someone votes... is and is supposed to be entirely a personal matter. tea leaves, ouija ...
dunno... i fail to see how slaughtering pigs so that they will not be eaten is any different than slaughtering pigs so that they can be eaten. Slaughter MY pigs? yeah... yer right... that is NOT value neutral.
nah... you can have 'em (joke). it is not the belief that is harmful, it is the imposition of the belief. again, it is not belief, as such, but imposition that is wrong... it is JUST AS WRONG to impose rational and fact based practices on others.... it is the IMPOSITION that is wrong, not the reason.
When you have a church which demonstrably protects . . ,And you think it's irrational to criticize that?
as i said.., "Criticizing a Roman Catholic adherent for attempting to impose his nonreasoned religious conclusions as policy for others is perfectly rational". but allow me to rephrase that a bit.
Condemning a Republican (democrat, communist, existentialist, botanist....) for attempting to impose his conclusions as policy for others is perfectly rational.
(the statement should have been 'condemning' from the start. 'criticism' in its most literal sense is always justified. condemnation is not)
whew.... 75 mins... time to refill coffee before going home. i will likely be away all weekend... lots of studying to do. of course, i usually manage to cheat, so...
geo.