Posted by
glen ropella on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Fwd-America-and-the-Middle-East-Murder-in-Libya-The-Economist-tp7580497p7580624.html
Thanks for the clarity on "praxis". That word has too much baggage for
me to be comfortable with it. Using it would beg people to talk about
stuff unrelated to Nick's assertion.
Sarbajit Roy wrote at 09/19/2012 10:46 AM:
>> We need a sequence of actions that might actually cause a person to "have faith".
>
> 2 examples. a) way cults work, and b) ways a magnet works.
>
> In a (religious) cult, the newbies are first encouraged to join in on
> simple actions like clapping. This is a psychological device to get
> them to participate and show that nobody objects to their "actions".
> Then they are encouraged to "sing a little bit" .. moving onto
> dancing, chanting, praise be the lording or whatever ....
>
> Pick a magnet, any magnet. Pick a piece of unmagnetic iron. Gently
> stroke said magnet in the same direction repeatedly over said piece of
> iron. Note those little (Brainwashed) magnetic dipoles lining up just
> so ... That's how the faith model and Al-Qaeda works.
Excellent! Both of these approach what is necessary for Nick to be able
to reconcile the 2 assertions that faith underlies all justification and
belief is action. They are incomplete in different ways:
In (a), there is still a missing piece between the social comfort
brought by the increasing participation in various activities versus
some belief ascribed to the cult members. I would posit that a
mole/infiltrator could participate in a cult quite a long time, dancing,
changing, murdering starlets in their homes, etc. _without_ actually
believing the doctrines of the cult (much like most Catholics I've met).
So, what we need is an idea of how we get to belief from these actions.
How do we distinguish "lip service" or facetious dancing and chanting
from the chanting and dancing of the true believers?
(b) is inadequate for a different reason, I think. The brainwashing of
the molecules is a type of memory, which gets at the previous
conversations. Is memory required for belief? I'd tentatively say
"yes". But I have yet to hear an answer from those who believe that
belief is (reducible to) action. If their answer is "no", then we'd
have to begin discussing whether there is any temporal quality to belief
at all. E.g. can one only believe what they're doing at any given
instant and the concept of belief is incoherent for discussions of
future and past? If their answer is "yes", then we have to decide
whether memory (of some type) is sufficient for belief. E.g. are there
types of memory that do not amount to belief? Like if I know that some
person thinks 1+1=3, I can remember that, "suspend disbelief", and play
along with that equation for awhile without believing it.
--
glen
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