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I tried to test this hypothesis but quickly encountered the problem that what I believe to be a good life is based on facts and knowledge about the world. I pr

I tried to test this hypothesis but quickly encountered the problem that what I believe to be a good life is based on facts and knowledge about the world. I propose an alternative: any arrant nonsense that people insist on believing despite facts and knowledge is likely to be willful ignorance, which people may seek to protect by calling it religion. The arrant nonsense no one believes anymore is called "mythology".

mantap 6y ago
Every culture has certain principles that are taken as axiomatic. The prioritisation of those principles is also axiomatic. For example, where I live, nearly all people wear clothes, and they generally think that wearing clothes is important - even if the weather is mild enough that you won't get cold or sunburn if you dispensed with them. Moreover, they will get upset if other people dispense with theirs. What I find funny is that people will ridicule organised religions for prescribing certain clothing (such as Mormonism, Sikhism, Islam), blissfully unaware of their own quasi-religious attitudes towards clothing. And sometimes these attitudes can be quite extreme. There is a man in the UK who has been in prison for years for indecent exposure. Every time he is released from prison, he strips off outside, and they call the police to re-arrest him.
- heresie-dabord 6y ago
  > Every culture has certain principles that are taken as axiomatic. The prioritisation of those principles is also axiomatic. I agree that this is true about human communities. However, what each community chooses to affirm is important. Do they believe themselves to be the Master Race? Do they believe narcissistic creation fantasies? Do they assert an understanding of electricity, physics, evolution? Only some of the above "principles" are true, regardless of what the community prioritises.

mantap 6y ago

Every culture has certain principles that are taken as axiomatic. The prioritisation of those principles is also axiomatic. For example, where I live, nearly all people wear clothes, and they generally think that wearing clothes is important - even if the weather is mild enough that you won't get cold or sunburn if you dispensed with them. Moreover, they will get upset if other people dispense with theirs. What I find funny is that people will ridicule organised religions for prescribing certain clothing (such as Mormonism, Sikhism, Islam), blissfully unaware of their own quasi-religious attitudes towards clothing. And sometimes these attitudes can be quite extreme. There is a man in the UK who has been in prison for years for indecent exposure. Every time he is released from prison, he strips off outside, and they call the police to re-arrest him.

heresie-dabord 6y ago
> Every culture has certain principles that are taken as axiomatic. The prioritisation of those principles is also axiomatic. I agree that this is true about human communities. However, what each community chooses to affirm is important. Do they believe themselves to be the Master Race? Do they believe narcissistic creation fantasies? Do they assert an understanding of electricity, physics, evolution? Only some of the above "principles" are true, regardless of what the community prioritises.