Religion as Make-Believe

The Fake Fake-News Problem and the Truth About Misinformation | The New Yorker

...Sperber concluded that there are two kinds of beliefs. The first he has called "factual" beliefs. Factual beliefs—such as the belief that chairs exist and that leopards are dangerous—guide behavior and tolerate little inconsistency; you can't believe that leopards do and do not eat livestock. The second category he has called "symbolic" beliefs. These beliefs might feel genuine, but they're cordoned off from action and expectation. We are, in turn, much more accepting of inconsistency when it comes to symbolic beliefs; we can believe, say, that God is all-powerful and good while allowing for the existence of evil and suffering.

In a masterly new book, "Religion as Make-Believe" (Harvard), Neil Van Leeuwen, a philosopher at Georgia State University, returns to Sperber's ideas with notable rigor. He analyzes beliefs with a taxonomist's care, classifying different types and identifying the properties that distinguish them. He proposes that humans represent and use factual beliefs differently from symbolic beliefs, which he terms "credences." Factual beliefs are for modelling reality and behaving optimally within it. Because of their function in guiding action, they exhibit features like "involuntariness" (you can't decide to adopt them) and "evidential vulnerability" (they respond to evidence). Symbolic beliefs, meanwhile, largely serve social ends, not epistemic ones, so we can hold them even in the face of contradictory evidence...

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/22/dont-believe-what-theyre-telling-you-about-misinformation?_gl=1*5wkxo5*_up*MQ..&gclid=05dc19316ca81fce994f7f12f1af4029&gclsrc=3p.ds

faith in reason

"To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true."

— Bertrand Russell, The Prospects of Industrial Civilization

May 4

Every May 4, nontheists recognize the importance of reason, critical thought, and free inquiry to solve social problems and promote humankind's welfare. Read AHA Staff recommendations for how you can show your support for a national or local Day of Reason. https://bit.ly/443IFvP

If God Is Dead, Your Time Is Everything

Martin Hagglund…
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/20/if-god-is-dead-your-time-is-everything

Daniel Dennett (1942-2024)

Remembering speaking with Dennet in Chicago at the APA February 2020, Told him I appreciated his email correspondence back in the 90s (and then later when I asked if he could arrange a meeting with Dawkins). Sat across the aisle from him listening to Philip Kitcher and Martha Nussbaum at that meeting. 

"...I saw with greater clarity than ever before in my life that when I say "Thank goodness!" this is not merely a euphemism for "Thank God!" (We atheists don't believe that there is any God to thank.) I really do mean thank goodness! There is a lot of goodness in this world, and more goodness every day, and this fantastic human-made fabric of excellence  is genuinely responsible for the fact that I am alive today. It is a worthy recipient of the gratitude I feel today, and I want to celebrate that fact here and now…" https://www.edge.org/conversation/daniel_c_dennett-thank-goodness

Spirituality from a humanist perspective

Spent a delightful afternoon yesterday at Hattie B's and Bobby's Dairy Dip with Younger Daughter. Might even call it spiritual.

The question of humanist spirituality came up. To me, it means being gratefully aware that I'm alive,  breathing, thinking, enjoying, loving… as Marc reminds us to remind ourselves every morning.

And it means what Andrew Copson said:

A vast literature both popular and academic has investigated and promoted the concept of a materialist and non-theistic spirituality. Five aspects emerge from those various works that also accord with what I personally would describe as a spiritual experience. So, for this humanist at least, spiritual experiences, in no particular order:

1. are positive experiences – and at the more powerful end of experiences in general, causing a surge of feeling; 
2. are fleeting – and we become conscious of them only when they are underway or are over; 
3. are personal and individual experiences – they're subjectively experienced even when they're shared;
4. are not not intellectual or rational experiences – although they occur within ourselves and minds, they're not experiences to which you can ascribe any meaningful analysis (neither are they irrational experiences!). 
5. take you (metaphorically or imaginatively) outside of yourself – you feel as if you are connected to something bigger or more than yourself in some way.

All of that applies, accompanied by deep gratitude for the joy of an ongoing relationship with someone I've known, admired, and will continue to love her whole life. As WJ said, this beloved incarnation too was among "matter's possibilities." It "lends itself to all life's purposes" and delights.  Pragmatism III

And don't underestimate the spirit of ice cream following hot chicken on a perfect spring afternoon.

With a twist

https://www.threads.net/@secularstudents/post/C4ldY7RpyuK/?xmt=AQGzS4EPsZQrPIeTnFjkg65_dfbvAoTPAeUoISINPLSjvQ