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For the same reason nation states and sports franchises still exist; The human need to identify with something larger than one's self. Embrace it, because that

by jimfl 18y ago

For the same reason nation states and sports franchises still exist; The human need to identify with something larger than one's self. Embrace it, because that's why people flock to your Yet Another Social Network startup.

sho 18y ago
We don't need to "embrace" fairytales of omnipotent sky gods to be able to identify with groups larger than ourselves. There are teams and groups of all shapes and sizes and all conceivable missions, with no need of ridiculous 2,000-year-old shepherd diaries. I'm not going to condone "faith" in imaginary entities just because people "want to be part of a group". They can choose a different group. Just like I'm not going to condone rape because people like sex. I know they like sex. It's still wrong.
- DanielBMarkham 18y ago
  Looks like somebody didn't get a visit from the Easter Bunny this morning. If you want to believe in something -- even if that something is "I don't believe in anything unless it can be proved empirically" then you should know the limits of that belief system. Because all belief systems have limits. There are things that are true that are unprovable, and there are things that are proved that are not true. Science models reality as an abstraction -- and all abstractions are leaky. The power of belief is separate from the thing believed, and the propensity to clan and tell stories is not going to be wished or rationalized away. Besides, there's always hope for next year, right? (wink)
  - sho 18y ago
    "There are things that are true that are unprovable, and there are things that are proved that are not true." Not in my reasoning there aren't. An example, please, of something that has been proved, yet remains paradoxically untrue? Anyway, I wasn't really talking about beliefs, I was just pointing out that the natural human tendency of "wanting to be part of a group" doesn't excuse or require magical thinking as the price of entry.
    - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
      An example, please, of something that has been proved, and remains paradoxically untrue??? Science is built of models, paradigms. These paradigms are validated and true only to the ability of experimenters to empirically verify them. That's the way science works. That's what faith in empiricism entails. So, for instance, Newton was "right" in his law of gravity. But then again, he was wrong because once relativity came along our understanding of gravity changed. It's likely to change again. Science is built on a really interesting idea called induction[1]. It says if you go outside and drop a rock and the next day it rains, and you repeat that experiment a few times, and each time it rains, then you can assume that dropping a rock is a cause of rain. That, of course, is the worst-case scenario -- an experiment that looks good simply because it only fails when ran a (relatively) large number of times. It's easy to prove things that aren't true. We've done it time and time again. And we'll continue to do it. That's the way science works. 1. I'm oversimplifying here to a great degree for brevity's sake
      - sho 18y ago
        I'm sorry, I must have misunderstood you, I didn't realise you were talking about the scientific process. Of course you are right. The confusion arose from your use of the word "true", which to me means "indisputable objective fact", not the current ascendency of a particular theory. For example, water is composed of 2 Hydrogen and 1 Oxygen atoms. Gravity exerts a downward acceleration of ~9.8ms2. Etc. These kind of things are "true" for me. Theories are things which cannot be "true", really, merely the best current explanation of something. But perhaps I confused the terms and misread your arguments, so actually it seems we're in happy agreement. And yes, I also suspect General Relativity is not the final word.
        DanielBMarkham 18y ago
        The point being, when you say something like "religion is false" then you have to have this other discussion about what true and false are. People who say religion is false usually pose science as being true, which really doesn't hold up that well either.

by jimfl 18y ago

sho 18y ago

We don't need to "embrace" fairytales of omnipotent sky gods to be able to identify with groups larger than ourselves. There are teams and groups of all shapes and sizes and all conceivable missions, with no need of ridiculous 2,000-year-old shepherd diaries. I'm not going to condone "faith" in imaginary entities just because people "want to be part of a group". They can choose a different group. Just like I'm not going to condone rape because people like sex. I know they like sex. It's still wrong.

DanielBMarkham 18y ago
Looks like somebody didn't get a visit from the Easter Bunny this morning. If you want to believe in something -- even if that something is "I don't believe in anything unless it can be proved empirically" then you should know the limits of that belief system. Because all belief systems have limits. There are things that are true that are unprovable, and there are things that are proved that are not true. Science models reality as an abstraction -- and all abstractions are leaky. The power of belief is separate from the thing believed, and the propensity to clan and tell stories is not going to be wished or rationalized away. Besides, there's always hope for next year, right? (wink)
- sho 18y ago
  "There are things that are true that are unprovable, and there are things that are proved that are not true." Not in my reasoning there aren't. An example, please, of something that has been proved, yet remains paradoxically untrue? Anyway, I wasn't really talking about beliefs, I was just pointing out that the natural human tendency of "wanting to be part of a group" doesn't excuse or require magical thinking as the price of entry.
  - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
    An example, please, of something that has been proved, and remains paradoxically untrue??? Science is built of models, paradigms. These paradigms are validated and true only to the ability of experimenters to empirically verify them. That's the way science works. That's what faith in empiricism entails. So, for instance, Newton was "right" in his law of gravity. But then again, he was wrong because once relativity came along our understanding of gravity changed. It's likely to change again. Science is built on a really interesting idea called induction[1]. It says if you go outside and drop a rock and the next day it rains, and you repeat that experiment a few times, and each time it rains, then you can assume that dropping a rock is a cause of rain. That, of course, is the worst-case scenario -- an experiment that looks good simply because it only fails when ran a (relatively) large number of times. It's easy to prove things that aren't true. We've done it time and time again. And we'll continue to do it. That's the way science works. 1. I'm oversimplifying here to a great degree for brevity's sake
    - sho 18y ago
      I'm sorry, I must have misunderstood you, I didn't realise you were talking about the scientific process. Of course you are right. The confusion arose from your use of the word "true", which to me means "indisputable objective fact", not the current ascendency of a particular theory. For example, water is composed of 2 Hydrogen and 1 Oxygen atoms. Gravity exerts a downward acceleration of ~9.8ms2. Etc. These kind of things are "true" for me. Theories are things which cannot be "true", really, merely the best current explanation of something. But perhaps I confused the terms and misread your arguments, so actually it seems we're in happy agreement. And yes, I also suspect General Relativity is not the final word.
      - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
        The point being, when you say something like "religion is false" then you have to have this other discussion about what true and false are. People who say religion is false usually pose science as being true, which really doesn't hold up that well either.