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"Gods are everywhere because it's hard to bargain with them"

Started by Sandra Craft, January 18, 2019, 04:08:39 AM

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Sandra Craft

I think that's actually a poor title for this article as there's a great deal more to it than that, but I expect the author was in a rush and needed something catchy.

Anyway, I found it an interesting perspective on one of the questions we were recently given: Gods are everywhere because it's hard to bargain with them

QuoteJohn and I argue, then, that religious beliefs have more in common with institutional facts than with gut-level intuitions or inferences. That is, they take work to create and sustain. That's why religions have liturgies, creeds, and rituals. For example, many Christian churches recite the Nicene or Apostle's Creeds each Sunday. Creeds and rituals are how we turn beliefs "on," how we activate them despite the lack of external evidence. But nobody ever wrote a creed about gravity. That's because gravity is obviously on, all the time. We don't have to exercise our imaginations to produce a mental representation of coffee mugs sitting fixed to the surface of our desk. They just stand there, motionless and needing cleaning. Why? Because gravity is a thing.
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

Recusant

I like the way it compliments and works with the other hypotheses. Thanks for posting that article, Sandra Craft:)
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken