Defining “Scientism”

No worries, this is not yet another post on the term.

Instead I found this 2014 article by John Shook (philosopher) who lists 26 possible “definitions” (read: uses) for the “Scientism” while laying out how this abstraction is (like others) inevitably packed with polemics, rhetoric and agenda.  I am just adding it to the list of abstractions we need to be aware of.  Don’t let abstract words trick you: the ones you use on your own agendas (where you persuade yourself) or those used to persuade you.

— See my other posts on The Limits of Abstractions here.

Religion as Moral Signalling

As I illustrate above, what people call “religion” contains much more than doctrines and beliefs.  “Morality Signaling” is one of those many components.

People use religion to signal to others that “I am safe”, “I am moral”, “I am an upright citizen” and more.  They use the jargon, they mis-report about attendance, and more.  Not only do they use religion to signal to others that they are moral, but they also use it to comfort themselves, to signal their other selves. (see my Many Selves posts).

Tom Rees reviews an article that shows that students underestimate their drinking after simply being asked about their religion first.  In other words, once the religion switch is toyed with, people are view themselves as more “moral” than they really are.  Not that drinking alcohol is immoral!

As I illustrate above, what people call “religion” contains much more than doctrines and beliefs. “Morality Signaling” is one of those many components.

People use religion to signal to others that “I am safe”, “I am moral”, “I am an upright citizen” and more. They use the jargon, they mis-report about attendance, and more. Not only do they use religion to signal to others that they are moral, but they also use it to comfort themselves, to signal their other selves. (see my Many Selves posts).

Tom Rees reviews this research that shows that students underestimate their drinking after simply being asked about their religion first. In other words, once their religion switch is flickered, people view themselves (or present themselves) as more “moral” than they really are — with “moral” meaning
“being consistent with their religious values.”, and not that drinking alcohol is immoral!

Religion as Entertainment

As I illustrate above, what people call “religion” contains much more than doctrines and beliefs.  Entertainment is one of those many components.

I recently visited my brother and his wife. On Sunday, they offered to take my daughter to their church, but in deciding, they reasoned that the later service would be far more entertaining with guitar music, moderns songs and multi-media.  Given that our kids are raised on dazzling media, the competition churches now face is daunting.

Mega-churches and smart quickly greying churches have realized the entertainment value of religion.  Religion can be an activity for the family with entertainment taking the form of music, rituals, storytelling, and socializing. In its regularity and familiarity it can be comforting and family building, and supportive of a tribe or a nation.  Religion is a powerful tool without even talking about all the doctrines, magic and more, and entertainment is part of that.

By the way, my daughter liked the media stuff well enough, but she told me she saw through the anti-homosexual stuff in the sermon that was given that day.

“Yes” in Japanese

As shown to the right, languages are classified into “Language Families“.  Languages in the same family share much in common.  If, for instance, a person speaks French, Spanish and English, they speak languages all in the same Indo-European language family. So if that person were to ask me “How do you say ‘yes’ in German” (another Indo-European language), they would rightly expect a rather simple answer. That is because word usage overlaps a great deal in related languages.

However, Japanese is a completely different language family (“Japonic”) and thus the way of saying things in Japanese is often hugely different from the way of saying things in Indo-European languages. Thus, as my diagram above shows, asking “How do you say ‘yes’ in Japanese?” would involve a complicated answer.

In my coming post, I will relate this phenomena to ideolects, abstractions, definitions and obstacles in communication.

Raccoons & Humans Can’t Be Tamed

I read Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies” (1997) when it first came out.  Like other of Diamonds books, his theories seem painted too broad.  But his books still made me think. In discussing human civilizations, he mentions that having domesticable animals is a big boon to a civilization. But postulates that that many factors must be just perfect to have a domesticable animal: flexible diet, fast growth rate, breed in captivity, pleasant disposition, does not panic, modifiable social hierarchy. (see details here)

Though sharing qualities with dogs and cats, raccoons are not considered tamable animals.  Mainly because they bite — they inevitably bite; especially when are looking for mates.

I raised several raccoons in my childhood.  I had a huge walk in pen with a house up on a tree stump for my coons.  I could walk them around the neighborhood, and feed them.  But I was the only one who could do it — and only when they were young.

One Spring, when my parents were gone for their annual pilgrimage to the Kentucky Derby leaving us the mean old Mrs. Reinhold (the hired sitter), I decided to play a trick on my younger brothers.  I told them they could feed my raccoons, but as soon as they walked in the cage, I looked the door and told them I would not let them out.

My youngest brother was scared and the raccoons picked up on his panic and started hissing at him. Our middle brother protectively jumped between  the angry/scared raccoon and our baby brother, but began to be bit.  I panicked at the look trying to remember the combination to let my brothers out.  My trick had turned disastrous.

Finally, the raccoon stopped biting, I remembered the combo and my brothers came out — one still crying and the other with a bloody hand.

Mrs. Reinhold was angry at us (of course) and refused to drive my bother to the hospital — so we walked.  I begged my brothers not to tell my parents, promising to do anything they asked for the remainder of the week — which I did.  But of course they told my parents, immediately on their return and I got punished twice.

All to say that raccoons can’t be tamed forever, and human are not trustworthy either.

Notes:

• This has been another of my many autobiographical posts — see more here.
• See my other raccoon post here

Korean Christians Learn Judaism

About 30% of Koreans are Christian and one of those Christians, Park Hyunjun, decided that since Jews have prospered over the last thousands of years, the Korean Christians could learn much from Jewish culture.  Read this article in the New Yorker about the school he set up to teach Judaism to Koreans for pragmatic reasons and about popular Korean Talmud retellings used as a source of wisdom to help Korean readers “overachieve in the world arena.”

To some Jews it is forbidden to teach the Talmud to non-Jews, and others worry of distortion.  But the market ignores their concerns and religion finds consumers of all sorts.

This illustrates that for most people the package called “religion” captures far more than just doctrine and salvation.

This 2011 article in The Jewish Chronicle On-Line (and pic source) speaks of the same phenomena back then:

But although average Koreans can boast that their bookshelves hold at least one or two copies of the Talmud, to think of Korea as a hotbed of latent Judaism would be wrong. The motivation is less to do with religion and more to do with aspiration. Korean parents value schooling above all else. Parents send their children to after-school crammers until midnight and will spend their last penny on tutors and extra lessons. And, shy of good role models on the quest to securing academic success for their offspring, mothers almost unerringly turn to the Jews for inspiration.

Existentialism does not Exist

To the right are just some of the philosophers who are often labeled as “Existentialists”. But many of them were labeled this after they died and they never called themselves an “Existentialist”.

So it is no surprise that when we try to discover what Existentialism is, we run into more exceptions and differences than we’d imagine. That is because “Existentialism” is not something to be discovered, but instead, it is just human-created category with lots of disagreement.

“Existentialism” is an abstraction like “Religion” and like the more deceptively concrete-like word “Mammal” — both of which have exceptions that reveal their blurred borders and arbitrary definitions.

One of my son’s favorite YouTube personalities has said, “Existentialism is dangerous — just get busy and work.” This self-made philosopher presumably meant “Thinking too much about the meaning of life can be crippling and unnecessarily painful, for which real work is the perfect cure.” — and we all know there is lots of truth there.

But is that what “Existentialism” really mean?

Well, again, definitions of “Existentialism” vary hugely (see this wiki article). In philosophical circles, something about “existence precedes essence” or “we make our own meaning, otherwise there is not eternal meaning” or some such thing, is common. So we can see that that YouTube philosopher and professional philosophers use the word differently. But when a word is used differently long-enough, it becomes an accepted meaning too. And again, we see that definition are created thing, not something eternal thing or essence waiting to be discovered — hmmm, that is sort of an existential view, isn’t it?

Stop reading now and get back to work!

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Note: See my other posts of “The Limitations of Abstractions“