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I'm not really sure this particular bit of culture war is a good fit for HN, is it? I have a hard time imagining that dismissing people's deepest heartfelt beli

I'm not really sure this particular bit of culture war is a good fit for HN, is it? I have a hard time imagining that dismissing people's deepest heartfelt beliefs as "a belief in magic" can be anything other than flame bait. Surely there's an article talking about Harvard's new chaplain (assuming that itself is even in topic...) that doesn't engage in IRC-15-years-ago type invective?

chownie 5y ago
Fortunately there's a lot more to it, the linked article discusses the difference between believing in something and thinking it's true, juxtaposing that with questions of what offers us most comfort in the face of existential dread. I've just read the entirety of the article looking for the culture war flamebait invective you've described and I'm not really finding it, what in particular is an issue? Conflation of belief in the supernatural with belief in magic?
- torstenvl 5y ago
  You can't bring me existentiality on a plate or show me its molecular structure under an electron microscope. It is just as supernatural as anything else. Which means that the "magic" talk is not about drawing a line between things that are subject to the natural laws and things that are beyond natural laws, it is solely about looking down on another group of people. I happen to be of the opinion that looking down on people shouldn't set the tone around here. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
mcswell 5y ago
Seems like one of the typical arguments of the form "change the denotation, but retain the connotation." I had an on-line discussion with a pro-abortion person a few months ago, in which the central point turned into a debate over the meaning of "parasite." The other person's claim was that a fetus/ unborn baby was a parasite, by (her) definition. My reply was that defining a connotation-laden term like "parasite" so as to include fetuses was evading the real question. And in this example, it's defining a term that more or less all of us agree is fakery ("magic") to include belief in a higher power. (And without any reference to Clarke's third law.) So yes, flame bait.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bobthechef 5y ago
  > "change the denotation, but retain the connotation" This would also probably be the most pithy characterization of the heresy of modernism I have come across.
1123581321 5y ago
It's not really a culture war topic. The article is asking what a humanist/atheist can do to extract meaning given this study finding: "participants only had to moderately agree that a religious explanation was true to find it as emotionally, morally, and personally good as a scientific explanation that was strongly agreed to be true."
raffraffraff 5y ago
I agree that the specific sentence you highlight ("a belief in magic") was badly chosen, but that aside, I didn't think the rest of the article was condescending on insulting to people who have those beliefs. As to "is it a good fit for HN?", I'm not sure it is. But it's it engaging in 15-years-ago inversive? I don't think so. Rather than insult those with beliefs, it's simply saying that those without religion can be as happy and philosophically wholesome as those with.

chownie 5y ago

Fortunately there's a lot more to it, the linked article discusses the difference between believing in something and thinking it's true, juxtaposing that with questions of what offers us most comfort in the face of existential dread. I've just read the entirety of the article looking for the culture war flamebait invective you've described and I'm not really finding it, what in particular is an issue? Conflation of belief in the supernatural with belief in magic?

torstenvl 5y ago
You can't bring me existentiality on a plate or show me its molecular structure under an electron microscope. It is just as supernatural as anything else. Which means that the "magic" talk is not about drawing a line between things that are subject to the natural laws and things that are beyond natural laws, it is solely about looking down on another group of people. I happen to be of the opinion that looking down on people shouldn't set the tone around here. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

mcswell 5y ago

Seems like one of the typical arguments of the form "change the denotation, but retain the connotation." I had an on-line discussion with a pro-abortion person a few months ago, in which the central point turned into a debate over the meaning of "parasite." The other person's claim was that a fetus/ unborn baby was a parasite, by (her) definition. My reply was that defining a connotation-laden term like "parasite" so as to include fetuses was evading the real question. And in this example, it's defining a term that more or less all of us agree is fakery ("magic") to include belief in a higher power. (And without any reference to Clarke's third law.) So yes, flame bait.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bobthechef 5y ago
> "change the denotation, but retain the connotation" This would also probably be the most pithy characterization of the heresy of modernism I have come across.

1123581321 5y ago

It's not really a culture war topic. The article is asking what a humanist/atheist can do to extract meaning given this study finding: "participants only had to moderately agree that a religious explanation was true to find it as emotionally, morally, and personally good as a scientific explanation that was strongly agreed to be true."

raffraffraff 5y ago

I agree that the specific sentence you highlight ("a belief in magic") was badly chosen, but that aside, I didn't think the rest of the article was condescending on insulting to people who have those beliefs. As to "is it a good fit for HN?", I'm not sure it is. But it's it engaging in 15-years-ago inversive? I don't think so. Rather than insult those with beliefs, it's simply saying that those without religion can be as happy and philosophically wholesome as those with.