Smollett And the Presumption of Innocence

No, typo. Posting after working all night leads me to do strange things from time to time.
 
What's the counterfactual being imagined, a secular and liberal ideal? Or is there some other ethno-cultural system that people hope dominates?
 
What's the counterfactual being imagined, a secular and liberal ideal? Or is there some other ethno-cultural system that people hope dominates?

A more secular world would go a LOOOOOOOOOOONG way toward taming the superiority complex which is shared by all the Abrahamic religions. They are pretense for almost all the geopolitical strife world wide.
 
A more secular world would go a LOOOOOOOOOOONG way toward taming the superiority complex which is shared by all the Abrahamic religions. They are pretense for almost all the geopolitical strife world wide.

Problem is how you actually get there without people replacing religion with some other faith-belief nonsense.

Actually, from what I've observed even the idea of breaking from absolute morality/faith in principle is too much for a lot of people. It's like a major emotional stress, plus an unwillingness to self-actualize when it comes to moral code.

Though is it really unwillingness, or is it incapability? It seems like even for some folks who reject religion entirely, they want to replace its role in their thinking rather than leave the absence as-is. This is a more daunting problem than it seems at first glance.
 
Problem is how you actually get there without people replacing religion with some other faith-belief nonsense.

Actually, from what I've observed even the idea of breaking from absolute morality/faith in principle is too much for a lot of people. It's like a major emotional stress, plus an unwillingness to self-actualize when it comes to moral code.

Though is it really unwillingness, or is it incapability? It seems like even for some folks who reject religion entirely, they want to replace its role in their thinking rather than leave the absence as-is. This is a more daunting problem than it seems at first glance.

You can't strip adults of it; it's far too late by then. You'd have to ban the teaching of religion to children. It's obviously a pipe dream.
 
You can't strip adults of it; it's far too late by then. You'd have to ban the teaching of religion to children. It's obviously a pipe dream.

A fun experiment would be to work simplified rationality into curriculum of young children and teach it throughout K-12. It would obviously contradict religious teachings, plus many other things...but kids would have to reconcile that + what they trust for themselves.

I bet it would still get tremendous pushback, but it would not be credible pushback. Also a pipe dream of course.
 
If they didn't teach you early, who would the priests prey on.
 
What's the counterfactual being imagined, a secular and liberal ideal? Or is there some other ethno-cultural system that people hope dominates?

Not an or situation and you know it.
 
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each other...

or the nuns
Obviously you didn't attend the catholic schools that I did. I thing the youngest nun that was teaching was at least 50. In all fairness we were young kids and anybody over 30 would have appeared that way, AND considering that was still the days of wearing full habits, who could tell anyway?
 
A fun experiment would be to work simplified rationality into curriculum of young children and teach it throughout K-12. It would obviously contradict religious teachings, plus many other things...but kids would have to reconcile that + what they trust for themselves.

I bet it would still get tremendous pushback, but it would not be credible pushback. Also a pipe dream of course.

Many sects of many religions are fiercely rational. I don't think there would be any push-back to teaching rationality to young children. Many adults would benefit from it to. For example, there are grown adults who actually think religion and rationality are in opposition to each other.

You would get push back if you banned teaching religion to children, as that would be a terrible idea. Plus, it would ban the teaching of your religion of scientism!
 
Many sects of many religions are fiercely rational. I don't think there would be any push-back to teaching rationality to young children. Many adults would benefit from it to. For example, there are grown adults who actually think religion and rationality are in opposition to each other.

You would get push back if you banned teaching religion to children, as that would be a terrible idea. Plus, it would ban the teaching of your religion of scientism!

Which religions? Most indicate that people should believe in something without evidence, which is in direct, mutually-exclusive conflict with rationality. I don't know every religion out there well though, so maybe some don't do this.

Scientists are not consistently rational (those that want every newly detected thing to be aliens immediately come to mind), though I'd wager they're a little better than the global average.
 
Obviously you didn't attend the catholic schools that I did. I thing the youngest nun that was teaching was at least 50. In all fairness we were young kids and anybody over 30 would have appeared that way, AND considering that was still the days of wearing full habits, who could tell anyway?
As I've mentioned before my Catholic School gave me a sweet, kind, pretty, young nun named Sister Lorraine as my Kindergarten teacher. The rest of the nuns at the school were as you describe... but I mean when your options are 50+ y/o women... or men... I don't think age is going to be the deciding factor.
 
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For example, there are grown adults who actually think religion and rationality are in opposition to each other.

Gotta expect it though. As open secularism gains in cultural appeal, it will contain, describe, and rationalize an increasing percentage of the unfortunate parts of humanity.

All ought is belief unless is is ought and then might is right. Which is certainly simple enough.
 
All ought is belief unless is is ought and then might is right. Which is certainly simple enough.

The real test is how one determines the basis for their beliefs.

This is legit hard enough that I doubt you could do something like vote on a utility function to apply society-wide and then set policy/laws to optimize for it in practice...the complexity would likely be too much.
 
Test is an interesting word there.
 
Which religions? Most indicate that people should believe in something without evidence, which is in direct, mutually-exclusive conflict with rationality. I don't know every religion out there well though, so maybe some don't do this.

Scientists are not consistently rational (those that want every newly detected thing to be aliens immediately come to mind), though I'd wager they're a little better than the global average.

All reasoning starts with belief. You start with axioms, propositions, and show what logically follows from them. That is how rationality works. As you question each proposition, you will invariably end up hitting a belief that cannot, in principle, be justified. Whether this be your faith that inductive reasoning works, your assumption that the laws of the universe are constant, or simply your trust in logic as a tool for truth. This isn't to say all starting points are equal, but we do all hold unjustified beliefs.
 
All reasoning starts with belief. You start with axioms, propositions, and show what logically follows from them. That is how rationality works. As you question each proposition, you will invariably end up hitting a belief that cannot, in principle, be justified. Whether this be your faith that inductive reasoning works, your assumption that the laws of the universe are constant, or simply your trust in logic as a tool for truth. This isn't to say all starting points are equal, but we do all hold unjustified beliefs.

It's okay to say "I don't know the answer to that one yet". That doesn't disrupt any of the logical flow leading up to it.
 
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