Religion is for stupid people

[ambush80]

Fast forward to 51:30.



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[welderguy]

Fast forward to 51:30.



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Can a simple person have wisdom?

 

[ambush80]

Here's them getting into it more deeply two nights later. Fast forward to 30:56.

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[ambush80]

Can a simple person have wisdom?

Did you watch it?

 

[welderguy]

Did you watch it?

From 51.30-54.00
Condense it for me...or not.

 

[ambush80]

From 51.30-54.00
Condense it for me...or not.

I can't. Their conversation is incredibly dense with ideas as it is (go ahead I tee'd that one up). Peterson claims that stupid people are better off believing the things of their ancestors because those ideas survived so long that it must indicate that they're supremely useful. In the second video Peterson says that most people are stupid and the type of rational analysis that Harris engages in may be unavailable to most people. Harris disagrees. He thinks people are capable of separating the good parts of "Traditional Wisdoms" from the bad ones.

 

[ambush80]

Can a simple person have wisdom?

Yes. A simple person can have wisdom. That's what Sam argues. Wisdom might be something like recognizing the moral of a fable but knowing that it's a fable. Jordan seems to think that we're incapable of truly comprehending the depth of fables because they're meaning is so deeply rooted in our psyches that we may as well call them "inspired by God". Strangely, he seems to more fervently apply that idea, religiously, to the Bible but not to a work by Marilyn Manson.

 

[welderguy]

I've run across many people in my line of work that are incredibly intelligent (engineers), but seemed to be so lacking in common sense. What I would call working knowledge. They have plenty of book sense but no hands on knowledge.

 

[ambush80]

I've run across many people in my line of work that are incredibly intelligent (engineers), but seemed to be so lacking in common sense. What I would call working knowledge. They have plenty of book sense but no hands on knowledge.

I love this meme of the "book smart guy without a lick of sense" because it's true a little bit but mostly false. It's really a way for less intelligent people to feel superior or at least equal. I've run across blueprints that call for 13 ft. lumber. As a builder it seems like the architect is one of those kinds of people that you mention. But I went to art school and I understand proportion and aesthetics. I can recognize that the architect simply had a different concern than a builder would. There's nothing wrong with recognizing that some people are smarter than others. That's just how the world shakes out and intelligence takes very different forms.

You could say that someone has allot of "spiritual intelligence or acumen" but maybe lacks in cognitive ability. They seem very sensitive to or finely tuned to issues of the spiritual realm. Those people, true contemplatives, seem to be few and far between; as rare as theoretical physicists. The mediocre majority bumble along with a rudimentary but "good enough" understanding. Sam and Jordan are a rare breed. It's easy to see when you recognize the hard work and great thought that they've put into their arguments. It makes what we do here seem bush league.

 

[ambush80]

From 51.30-54.00
Condense it for me...or not.

What do you think of Peterson's analysis That stupid people are better served following traditional wisdom?

 

[Artfuldodger]

I enclosed my carport and removed the brick veneer to make the room as big as possible. All I accomplished was making the room 12' 6" wide.

What that meant was a 6" strip of sheet rock for the ceiling and buying a piece of 15' wide carpet.

That was a good example of bad common sense.

 

[Artfuldodger]

I haven't watched the video parts. Do they ask why some smart people are religious?
Is it somewhat related to superstitious people and not being very smart? I don't want to say stupid but just not educated. Generations earlier than us were very superstitious. Not so many today.

I'm thinking of the Gullah and Geechee and all of their superstitions. They weren't stupid, just not educated.

I would think though that even today there are people that are superstitious and educated.

 

[ambush80]

I enclosed my carport and removed the brick veneer to make the room as big as possible. All I accomplished was making the room 12' 6" wide.

What that meant was a 6" strip of sheet rock for the ceiling and buying a piece of 15' wide carpet.

That was a good example of bad common sense.

Honest mistake.

 

[ambush80]

I haven't watched the video parts. Do they ask why some smart people are religious?
Is it somewhat related to superstitious people and not being very smart? I don't want to say stupid but just not educated. Generations earlier than us were very superstitious. Not so many today.

I'm thinking of the Gullah and Geechee and all of their superstitions. They weren't stupid, just not educated.

I would think though that even today there are people that are superstitious and educated.

They touch some on that subject in the second video at the 20:00 mark. You should watch the parts that I highlighted. I found the entirety of both the videos very interesting, same with the Vancouver videos.

When they met in Vancouver Sam talked about the way that he treats a handgun "superstitiously". He says that the axiom of treat all guns as loaded is metaphorically true even though it might be actually false.

Jump forward to 15:00.

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[ambush80]

I haven't watched the video parts. Do they ask why some smart people are religious?[/COLOR]
Is it somewhat related to superstitious people and not being very smart? I don't want to say stupid but just not educated. Generations earlier than us were very superstitious. Not so many today.

I'm thinking of the Gullah and Geechee and all of their superstitions. They weren't stupid, just not educated.

I would think though that even today there are people that are superstitious and educated.

Sam observes that for some people are willing to suspend reason when it comes to religious doctrine. He says they may be fiercely committed to rationality in all other parts of their lives but for some reason they give their religious beliefs a pass. He also said once that religious people will sometimes defend other religious beliefs to a fault. It's like when you asked if Christians think it's worse to believe in another god or be an atheist.

 

[Miguel Cervantes]

There was once a man that thought of himself to be of superior intellect over most of common man. He's dead now.

 

[ambush80]

There was once a man that thought of himself to be of superior intellect over most of common man. He's dead now.

Didn't watch any, did you? Peterson is on your side. Listen to his analysis.

 

[welderguy]

What do you think of Peterson's analysis That stupid people are better served following traditional wisdom?

First of all, I believe wisdom and knowledge to be two different things. It sorta erks me when people use them interchangeably.
But, aside from that, I really gotta ask you. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe some that you label "religious" actually do know something that you have not been made privy to? (at least not yet)
Do you even think that could be a possibility? Or do you not let your mind even entertain that thought?

 

[Israel]

I've enjoyed watching JBP struggle as "an intellect" in matters of the faith. (Though I am sure I have not watched more than maybe 1% of his offerings)

Not as one might enjoy an ant trying to escape the magnifying glass's beam...but as one in whom I see a pressing to reconciliation of the observable and conceivable (even the measurable) into what he also sees undeniable in unknowns.

I've kinda rooted for him in his straddling. The form this rooting takes is for his rest in place.

His confidence that there is a pragmatism, a sure utility to be discovered remains for him a dire endeavor...seeing a utility in some things that he is not prepared to either dismiss nor accept to himself as immutable truth, yet still seeking their reconciliation.
Like men, he wants this to take place observable...outside of himself. There...they can be handled, quantified...and shown as provable. He's as equally near and equally far from a man like CS Lewis who understood "looking at" and "looking along" are both necessary.

Truth "out there" is of no utility to the self...even if (one may imagine) all utility in the "out there" is seen. It becomes "I can see why men believe such and such, and even see their ascribing the usefulness of it..." but until it is received into oneself to understand its true utility, the exposing of such surmisings "for others" are not shown as the fiction they are to the embracing of the exalted self. That self which imagines itself sufficient to judging what could be best for others, yet never drinking from the same cup.

He calls the church in one vid the repository of such "useful fictions". (More or less) Which only serves to show he is still laboring in the miasma of religious sight. That which "must be hypocritical" (not his words...but the implication is not unfounded) in its delivery...for to him...no one could really believe what they expound. He cannot yet see, nor will he till a repentance of self is found, a cup waiting. (Till then he can only move among what speaks with a wink wink, nod nod)

I have a hope for him in his seeming undeterred hold to the truth of the utility...of truth. His grasp in some measure of the effects of truth, emanating as it were to effect from the individual into what he has described as the network of communicants, he recognizes can be profound.

He has simply not yet seen settled (to my seeing to this moment, only) that Jesus Christ is that centrality...but that does not disqualify him anymore than the saying so qualifies me. He at least recognizes (and O! what hope is there!) that truth spoken is not such as will garner a popular reception. In fact, he seems to understand by his statements...its work may be very much opposite in result for the speaker.

I think he just sees this presently as mere consequence in a sea of lying...not yet recognizing the very necessity, and benefit of it, the real utility of it.

 

[bullethead]

First of all, I believe wisdom and knowledge to be two different things. It sorta erks me when people use them interchangeably.
But, aside from that, I really gotta ask you. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe some that you label "religious" actually do know something that you have not been made privy to? (at least not yet)
Do you even think that could be a possibility? Or do you not let your mind even entertain that thought?

If in fact the religious do know something beyond what non religious know, what differentiates all the different religious? There must be so many gods that.......