DiscussMormonism.com

Analytics wrote: ↑

Thu May 12, 2022 3:29 pm

I'd suggest that George E. P. Box's maxim is applicable here. All models are wrong, but some are useful. Different myths and philosophies can be thought of as models for making sense of the world.

I don't need to know what "objective truth" actually means in order to confidently say when somebody claims that their mythology is objectively "true," they are wrong.

Yes, so the real questions are whether and to what extent a model is applicable to the case in question. Anyone who claims that their mythology is objectively true probably doesn't even know where to begin to ask the right questions and apply their model correctly (except perhaps in terms of internal community discourse, where parroting the correct words is a kind of beneficial transaction in itself). Anyone who dismisses myth on the grounds that it is not objectively true is barking up the wrong tree too.

Science itself tries in its way to be nuanced about objective truth. We still teach Newtonian mechanics, and not as history. It’s not perfectly accurate. And the basic picture it gives you becomes radically wrong if you take it too seriously beyond its original context. Just as Euclidean geometry fails on the globe when the distances get up to thousands of miles, Newtonian physics fails when speeds get to appreciable fractions of the speed of light, or action scales get to be not too many times Planck’s constant.

Rightly understood, though, Newton identified some important principles that still seem to be true. The laws of nature are second-order differential equations.

Kishkumen wrote: ↑

Thu May 12, 2022 3:15 pm

sock puppet wrote: ↑

Wed May 11, 2022 6:48 pm

Obviously, but I answer questions when you pose them rather than skirt around them.

And? Are you saying that I am skirting around your questions?

Yep. You didn't answer my questions.

sock puppet wrote: ↑

Thu May 12, 2022 11:50 pm

Yep. You didn't answer my questions.

I am not a big believer in the idea of stupid questions, but I do believe there are poorly framed questions. Then there are questions that make sense if you are dealing with things from a particular point of view, but that make little sense when viewed from another vantage point. I know your questions make sense to you, but as a person who has read quite a bit of anthropology, sociology, and theory of religion, your questions don’t really work for me. From my perspective, they border on being loaded questions such as “how badly did you beat your wife?”

On the other hand, I wholeheartedly agree with PG’s statement about the problem with stupid religion lying mainly in the stupid part.

I can respect someone saying that they identify something as religion and find that thing does not work for them. Fair enough. You do you, as they say. But I question the value of such a pronouncement beyond personal applicability. I am happy to know more about the person who says it, more about what they feel and where they are coming from, but it has as much value in my mind as someone gushing to me about their encounter with an elf. Beyond the subjective experience, I just don’t see the big deal.

I guess what I am saying is that I respect the utility of myths about religion, but I don’t accept them as being objectively true.

Kishkumen wrote: ↑

Thu May 12, 2022 4:20 pm

Analytics wrote: ↑

Thu May 12, 2022 3:29 pm

I'd suggest that George E. P. Box's maxim is applicable here. All models are wrong, but some are useful. Different myths and philosophies can be thought of as models for making sense of the world.

I don't need to know what "objective truth" actually means in order to confidently say when somebody claims that their mythology is objectively "true," they are wrong.

Yes, so the real questions are whether and to what extent a model is applicable to the case in question. Anyone who claims that their mythology is objectively true probably doesn't even know where to begin to ask the right questions and apply their model correctly (except perhaps in terms of internal community discourse, where parroting the correct words is a kind of beneficial transaction in itself). Anyone who dismisses myth on the grounds that it is not objectively true is barking up the wrong tree too.

This is quite profoundly true. Myth has nothing about objective about it, if it did it would decidedly be false...

Kishkumen wrote: ↑

Thu May 12, 2022 4:20 pm

Analytics wrote: ↑

Thu May 12, 2022 3:29 pm

I'd suggest that George E. P. Box's maxim is applicable here. All models are wrong, but some are useful. Different myths and philosophies can be thought of as models for making sense of the world.

I don't need to know what "objective truth" actually means in order to confidently say when somebody claims that their mythology is objectively "true," they are wrong.

Yes, so the real questions are whether and to what extent a model is applicable to the case in question. Anyone who claims that their mythology is objectively true probably doesn't even know where to begin to ask the right questions and apply their model correctly (except perhaps in terms of internal community discourse, where parroting the correct words is a kind of beneficial transaction in itself). Anyone who dismisses myth on the grounds that it is not objectively true is barking up the wrong tree too.

Whose barking up the right tree? Dismissing religion because it treats myth as objectively true hardly seems like either of the two you mention. But dismissing religion doesn't seem to me to be anything near dismissing that it has anything good to offer, or that it's bereft of any meaning or purpose. And ultimately calling myth, myth is not dismissing myth. It's imply saying the events found in the myth didn't happen. Jesus didn't rise from the dead. That may dismiss the religion, I suppose. But it also leaves the myth that Jesus rose from the dead exactly where it should be--as myth.

dastardly stem wrote: ↑

Mon May 16, 2022 4:33 pm

Whose barking up the right tree? Dismissing religion because it treats myth as objectively true hardly seems like either of the two you mention. But dismissing religion doesn't seem to me to be anything near dismissing that it has anything good to offer, or that it's bereft of any meaning or purpose. And ultimately calling myth, myth is not dismissing myth. It's imply saying the events found in the myth didn't happen. Jesus didn't rise from the dead. That may dismiss the religion, I suppose. But it also leaves the myth that Jesus rose from the dead exactly where it should be--as myth.

Yeah, I am not sure exactly what you are saying here. I think of treating myth as objectively true as being a huge problem in intellectual history that is probably beyond either of us to unravel and explicate intelligently. The logos is a hugely impactful and multi-faceted thing. I would treat the mythos as very much part of it. When you say myth didn't happen, I shrug my shoulders. In what sense was it meant to happen? Why did you think it should have happened? In what sense did it not happen? Is that the only sense worth taking account of?

So many big questions that we will not really get to the bottom of here. I am satisfied that the thing that seems to be very much in tune with our times is to dismiss myth as irrational and religion along with it to act in line with what is objectively, factually true. I get it. Yeah, that is what a lot of us do. I am not trying to diss anyone for doing what is clearly the thing to do right now. Either you do the seemingly stupid thing of accepting myth as objectively true or you reject that because it does not make sense.

I think there are other options, but I don't think they will ever gain wide currency.

I suspect the problem we have hit upon in our age is that we (society - more or less) has concretized the metaphor to what myths are pointing to. We look at the pointing finger because it is physically there right in front of us instead of realizing the vastness it is pointing to (again a metaphor - I realize it is pointing to space which is physical - or is it?), and therefore part of the metaphor is limiting ourselves to just what is in front of our eyes. I'm just thinking out loud is all.

Kishkumen
I am satisfied that the thing that seems to be very much in tune with our times is to dismiss myth as irrational

Yes we have a diachronic approach and vet what we leave unexplored is the supra-rational imagining there are only two options, when in fact, there may very well be three... It's fun to explore.

Philo Sofee wrote: ↑

Mon May 16, 2022 11:38 pm

I suspect the problem we have hit upon in our age is that we (society - more or less) has concretized the metaphor to what myths are pointing to. We look at the pointing finger because it is physically there right in front of us instead of realizing the vastness it is pointing to (again a metaphor - I realize it is pointing to space which is physical - or is it?), and therefore part of the metaphor is limiting ourselves to just what is in front of our eyes. I'm just thinking out loud is all.

You are right on target here, Philo. You put it much better than I did. In response, I read about how the LDS Church is saying the finger is the thing and so religion is bad. I could repeat myself about the finger and the moon, but I am afraid I would just keep seeing the same responses. People are understandably here to talk about the LDS Church doing things wrong and then concluding that religion is inferior. I think I can agree that a lot of views of religion and manifestations of religion are subpar, but I don’t even know what it means to say the religion is inferior.