"I used to wonder how anyone could take the obviously wrong physics of Aristotle seriously, until I learned enough about history that it dawned on me that for the Scholastic thinkers of the middle ages, how physics really worked was far less important than maintaining social order. If maintaining social order is the problem that trumps all others in your life and in your society, then evidence must necessarily carry little weight compared to authority. You will give up a lot of science, of course, but you will give it up gladly.
Obviously, we aren't in that situation. But I worry when I see, for instance, rational arguments for the existence of God that assume the very thing they purport to prove. And your argument (hopefully I've misunderstood it) seems a lot like those."
Well, reading Sam Harris' account of speaking to prominent atheists backing a moralistic relativism "on behalf of" the world's religions would led me to suspect that we are just as, maybe more influenced by the idea of maintaining social order. I think that the tyrrany of choice (50 kinds of ketchup anyone?) makes it seem like we've got more 'apparent choices' many of which aren't fundamentally different from each other as far as what social cliques to participate in.
If you look closely, each of these apparently different groups has a uniform and a rallying cry, but on the whole say much the same thing, even where the 'authority' in each case seems quite different.
"I used to wonder how anyone could take the obviously wrong physics of Aristotle seriously, until I learned enough about history that it dawned on me that for the Scholastic thinkers of the middle ages, how physics really worked was far less important than maintaining social order. If maintaining social order is the problem that trumps all others in your life and in your society, then evidence must necessarily carry little weight compared to authority. You will give up a lot of science, of course, but you will give it up gladly.
Obviously, we aren't in that situation. But I worry when I see, for instance, rational arguments for the existence of God that assume the very thing they purport to prove. And your argument (hopefully I've misunderstood it) seems a lot like those."
Well, reading Sam Harris' account of speaking to prominent atheists backing a moralistic relativism "on behalf of" the world's religions would led me to suspect that we are just as, maybe more influenced by the idea of maintaining social order. I think that the tyrrany of choice (50 kinds of ketchup anyone?) makes it seem like we've got more 'apparent choices' many of which aren't fundamentally different from each other as far as what social cliques to participate in.
If you look closely, each of these apparently different groups has a uniform and a rallying cry, but on the whole say much the same thing, even where the 'authority' in each case seems quite different.