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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   28723 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023

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For God, like everything else, the devil is in the definitions. If you want to believe in god, change definitions until you have one that works for you. In one sense, there is no god. In another, everyone has their own god. In a third, god is created by the belief and institutions of the religion.

OP said they wished they could believe in God. But this, while attempting to give advice, is basically presuming God is dead, which defeats the purpose.

If a person came to you and said "I really wanted to believe in quantum mechanics" after a particularly devastating article debunking it, it'd be very strange to tell them "well, quantum mechanics is whatever you want so long as you define it thus" (although this is true if you're a comic writer). Presumably they want to believe in something actually real that quantum mechanics points to and it does them little good to redefine quantum entanglement to mean the unseen connections that bind all people.

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The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

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