8 ms·

> Seems reasonable to assume there was enough mysticism Is there a reason to believe ancient people had no skepticism and popularly took mysticism seriously?

carbotaniuman 3y ago
Even today there are people who have little skepticism and take mysticism seriously, it is likely that any evidence against this person did not survive the times.
- qwerty456127 3y ago
  Indeed. Even today "there are people...". What I am curious about is how much does the average degree of seriousness differ between our and their times. We seemingly tend to assume people of the distant past predominantly were extremely naïve and sincerely believed whatever we find written by them. But what if they were almost as rational as modern people are and that's we who are naïve when reasoning about their beliefs?
  - Loughla 3y ago
    I think it's less about being naive and more about the base of information. I believe I need antibiotics when I have an appropriate infection, because modern medicine has built an entire catalogue of reasons. If we don't have that information, and we do have "experts" saying it's because our autumn sacrifice wasn't good enough, then my guess is that's what most people will believe. Make the best choice you can with the available information, sort of thing.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    Modern people are driven by cognitive biases and emotion. They then attempt to justify these decisions after the fact with logical fallacies.
skinner927 3y ago
When a bad harvest, a pack of hungry wolves, violent neighbors, or a small cut that becomes infected, are all life threatening possibilities, I think mysticism overrules skepticism.
AlotOfReading 3y ago
People were skeptical then as well. What you're missing is that religion in the premodern world had political and cultural dimensions that are largely non-existent in modern Western society. Rejecting someone's divinity when the current political leader legitimizes their rule by descent from that person is also rejecting the current political leaders. That's could be quite a dangerous statement to make, so it's one you'll be relatively quiet about compared to the people writing mythical stories into official histories that survived to the present day.
- qwerty456127 3y ago
  I'm not missing this. Quite contrary - this is exactly what I mean. Even today I would run around and yell our president is a superhero, maybe even pretend I mean that literally, if I somehow believed this could do real good and no harm and the president was doing a good job. Needless to say I would hardly believe he can see through walls and will fly to save me in case of an emergency.

carbotaniuman 3y ago

Even today there are people who have little skepticism and take mysticism seriously, it is likely that any evidence against this person did not survive the times.

qwerty456127 3y ago
Indeed. Even today "there are people...". What I am curious about is how much does the average degree of seriousness differ between our and their times. We seemingly tend to assume people of the distant past predominantly were extremely naïve and sincerely believed whatever we find written by them. But what if they were almost as rational as modern people are and that's we who are naïve when reasoning about their beliefs?
- Loughla 3y ago
  I think it's less about being naive and more about the base of information. I believe I need antibiotics when I have an appropriate infection, because modern medicine has built an entire catalogue of reasons. If we don't have that information, and we do have "experts" saying it's because our autumn sacrifice wasn't good enough, then my guess is that's what most people will believe. Make the best choice you can with the available information, sort of thing.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  Modern people are driven by cognitive biases and emotion. They then attempt to justify these decisions after the fact with logical fallacies.

skinner927 3y ago

When a bad harvest, a pack of hungry wolves, violent neighbors, or a small cut that becomes infected, are all life threatening possibilities, I think mysticism overrules skepticism.

AlotOfReading 3y ago

People were skeptical then as well. What you're missing is that religion in the premodern world had political and cultural dimensions that are largely non-existent in modern Western society. Rejecting someone's divinity when the current political leader legitimizes their rule by descent from that person is also rejecting the current political leaders. That's could be quite a dangerous statement to make, so it's one you'll be relatively quiet about compared to the people writing mythical stories into official histories that survived to the present day.

qwerty456127 3y ago
I'm not missing this. Quite contrary - this is exactly what I mean. Even today I would run around and yell our president is a superhero, maybe even pretend I mean that literally, if I somehow believed this could do real good and no harm and the president was doing a good job. Needless to say I would hardly believe he can see through walls and will fly to save me in case of an emergency.