Glen -
Great "wordsmithery" as usual!
My first instinct was to hairsplit argumentatively and ask for more
fine-structure in the definition of "god or gods"... to start, we are
all progressive feminists here I am sure, so "god or gods" should be
taken as gender neutral such that the goddess or goddesses is entirely
implied here. Then we might question if said god(ess)(es) need be fully
anthropomorphised (gendered humanoids) or if merely ascribing sentient
beingness is enough?
So I would contend that what is needed is NOT an "athiest detector" but
rather a religious belief classifier system designed around these other
finer structures. Even more interesting would be a type of learning
classifier that could maybe be applied to individuals first by asking
their self-reporting on these matters, then perhaps based on various
behaviours (frequency and nature of prayer, attendance to other rituals,
adherence to golden and other rules or commandments, etc.), and finally
to the physiometric (brain only, or should the entire body be
included... on the off chance that belief in god(ess(es)) occurs in the
pancreas or in lymphatic system?
I don't know how valuable it is to hairsplit to another level... but
the question of belief.
As far as physiometrics go, I suppose we could start as the Nazis did
and maybe the most fundamentalist Islamists do and check one's (male in
the first place, female in the second) circumcision status. And for
Catholics, maybe the salivary response when presented with a communion
wafer? Perhaps something equally obvious could be offered up for
members of the LDS church, or the Zoroastrians...
hmmm... interesting questions to contemplate on the first day of the
rest of the solar year!
Merry Solstice everyone!
Dogma, however, becomes very important. Atheists tend to be more
dogmatic, particularly about the structure and interpretation of
evidence, whereas agnostics tend to be more willing to let the data
lay around without curating or interpreting it.
So, whether you consider the standard definitions "working" or not
depends on the actionable differences between a) "knowledge" vs.
"belief" and b) the tendency (or not) to triage data into evidence.
Re (a) I find it useful to ask questions like "Can you know something
you don't believe?" And "Can you believe something you don't know?"
Re (b) it can be interesting to see how badly the social network
mangles scientific research results. For whatever reason, despite
most research being published with lots of caveats and hedges, most
people read it as "scientific knowledge" or "proof". The same can be
said about the "gossip game", where a statement at one end gets
modified as it's whispered from one person to the next. There is a
biological limit to iterative depth. You can't just wrap a statement
inside he-said(she-said(he-said(she-said(...)))) forever. At some
point you have to put in a hard stop, a triage.
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