I think there is a danger in offering a totally rationalist, God-free, big-foot-free, alien-free, mystery-free, magic-free view of the world as the ONLY alternative to falling deep into superstition & conspiracy, not believing in evolution & IDK antibiotics or something.
I suspect that most people (not all) have a deep need for mysteries. The rationalist perspective can seem empty, and depressing.
But having people putting faith in pure nonsense is dangerous. How to square this circled?🧵
My first thought has always been that if you sincerely try to understand the world it's full of mysteries. There is enough mystery and magic in an ant colony to keep me going for lifetimes. (I wish I had multiple lifetimes to keep going too.)
But, this is a disingenuous response to the need: it doesn't account for culture or for nostalgia.
So, what might be better is to teach about different kinds of "belief" to distinguish between science and myth while finding some honor for both. 2/
Because of the rise of anti-science thinking and conspiracy theories I have been dreading a day when, if you want to tell a ghost story while camping you must first soberly explain that ghosts aren't real.
But ghosts ARE real. They are real while you are telling the story, that's the whole point to let them be real for a little bit and then... to let it go.
It's real in the way that myths are real. Are we too deep into the age of nonsense for wonder and fun to survive?
@futurebird I don't think we are, but the Christian fundamentalist tendency to collapse the mythic into the prosaic has gotten deep into our society's thinking, and it's gonna take a lot of work to counteract that.
How we go about rebuilding the ideas of mythic truth as distinct from explicitly quantifiable fact is a question I don't feel qualified to propose answers for, alas.
@SocJusticeBLM @futurebird I can't answer that particular question either, however I have been trying to learn about the forces at work in this topic, and I have figured out a couple of things. One of the reasons that rationality has a harder time attracting converts seems to be that it offers no replacement for what it takes away. For example, suppose a Catholic looses their faith. It's easy for them to fall into, say, crystal healing and astrology, because it fills the empty spot where the religion used to be. It takes a whole lot more work to fill that hole with Science or Logic. This is why Qanon has been so contagious and virulent. It can be anything and fill any hole. It can even make it's own holes and then fill them. Compared to our side, it's an unfair advantage.
@ambulocetus @futurebird I personally like Tarot as a tool in my practice because it works perfectly well as a contemplative tool while having room for the numinous to take a hand (yay stochasticity!)
I think we need to be cultivating paths for mystic experiences in frameworks made with combatting spiritual abuse in mind, because I feel like history shows they're an important part of the human experience. We shouldn't leave that to the hucksters and cult makers.
@ambulocetus @futurebird As someone who considers herself a practicing witch, I feel the problem with things like crystal healing and astrology arise when the mythic/prosaic distinction is collapsed.
I don't vibe with astrology myself, but I know people who use it as a tool to aid their self-knowledge. When I wear or carry a particular stone, it's more like a prayer than a medical solution. Actions that invoke the numinous cannot and should not replace actions to deal with the prosaic.