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Taboo Your Words (2008)

lesswrong.com

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Re: Taboo Your Words (2008)

#31

Post by jamesgeck0 »

emhs wrote: post #20
jarrett wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is very true, and I can't believe some religions that people think are the same. They happen to use the same words, like "God", "heaven", etc, but the concepts are completely different and incredibly incompatible. What's more, the definitions of the religions themselves are so slippery, we can barely begin to compare religions. For example, suppose we take the author's advice and try to dereference the term "a…

Well, one could call "Christianity" a superset of individual religions that fit within a certain range, and do the comparison off of individual denominations. That has the further advantage of demonstrating how individual denominations within Christianity often themselves have incompatible beliefs.

One would also need to weight the beliefs. Various denominations disagree about topics like predestination, but don't ultimately place a lot of value on those topics. There are often many people in the same denomination who don't necessarily agree with every official bit of low weighted doctrine.

Theology about the nature of Christ has significantly higher weight. Heresy, etc. This is where you see little diversion between denominations and more diversion between, say, Protestants and the LDS Church.

Re: Taboo Your Words (2008)

#32

Post by erichocean »

cgore wrote: post #24
jarrett wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is very true, and I can't believe some religions that people think are the same. They happen to use the same words, like "God", "heaven", etc, but the concepts are completely different and incredibly incompatible. What's more, the definitions of the religions themselves are so slippery, we can barely begin to compare religions. For example, suppose we take the author's advice and try to dereference the term "a…

It isn't intractable but it can be quite complicated. This is true of theology in specific and philosophy in general. It isn't ever going to be an easy top-down hierarchy. As for "defining Christianity", this is a problem that is actually addressed in most churches, and their answer can range from as restricted to "just their church" to as open as "anything vaguely resembling trinitarianism". As a specific example, I…

"anything vaguely resembling trinitarianism"

Heresy! This conflict isn't over yet… True Christians would never believe in your phony, incestuous three-God-in-one theory. :)

/Sarc, sort of, as this was actually a people-were-killed-over-it "big" problem back before Constantine, and probably a bit afterwards, too. It just goes to show that these definitions are harder than they look.

Re: Taboo Your Words (2008)

#33

Post by simondedalus »

This article is RAGE-fuel for anyone with > 101 experience with analytic philosophy of language. It's the theory of reference equivalent of

"Your epistemology is bad because an evil demon might be fooling you." "Whoa."

Re: Taboo Your Words (2008)

#34

Post by dinkumthinkum »

cm2012 wrote: post #19
npsimons wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very true, and I can't believe some religions that people think are the same. As an atheist, superstitions have no relevance to me. That is to say, as an outsider, I don't care what it's called - and that goes for all religions/superstitions. Because they all are based on belief without evidence, they all look the same to me (ie, irrational). That being said, I'd appreciate if people didn't use weasel words t…

Believe me, I have no skin in the game, but that's not exactly true. Creationism, as it is most often used, is the belief that the Earth was created 6,000 years ago according to Genesis. Intelligent Design most often refers to God being the one who guided/created evolution, gravity, etc. which had the purpose of leading to humanity.

I think you should look more into the origins of this "Intelligent Design" movement or whatever you want to call it. But please don't read anything on the website of the OP.

Re: Taboo Your Words (2008)

#36

Post by denom »

TylerJay wrote: post #26
scythe wrote: post #16

The very rigid picture of language described here and used in this and many other lesswrong essays might be compared to early Wittgenstein ( Tractatus ), to be contrasted with later Wittgenstein ( Philosophical Investigations ), alongside Derrida and a litany of less famous philosophers. Of course, the reason Wittgenstein ultimately rejected this picture, as in rejected describing the meaning of words by formal defin…

> Of course, the reason Wittgenstein ultimately rejected this picture, as in rejected describing the meaning of words by formal definition, is that it doesn't accurately describe the way language is used in practice, and leads us to misunderstand situations. I don't think the author is really trying to give a "formal definition" of the meaning of words. The point he is trying to make is that while people may claim to…

How are arguments structured? Which words are meaningless? Who is in a position of authority to determine which words need tabooing?

The author's unfortunate choice of the word "Taboo" to describe this procedure of clarifying meaning reflects an implied ideological stance. He takes the role of a curator, the vanguard of the "rationalist virtue of empiricism". It's much like Richard Dawkins and others who adopt positions as the only sane ones in the room, the only ones who can isolate the _real_ parts of scientific rationality.

Re: Taboo Your Words (2008)

#37

Post by derleth »

cgore wrote: post #24
jarrett wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is very true, and I can't believe some religions that people think are the same. They happen to use the same words, like "God", "heaven", etc, but the concepts are completely different and incredibly incompatible. What's more, the definitions of the religions themselves are so slippery, we can barely begin to compare religions. For example, suppose we take the author's advice and try to dereference the term "a…

It isn't intractable but it can be quite complicated. This is true of theology in specific and philosophy in general. It isn't ever going to be an easy top-down hierarchy. As for "defining Christianity", this is a problem that is actually addressed in most churches, and their answer can range from as restricted to "just their church" to as open as "anything vaguely resembling trinitarianism". As a specific example, I…

> "anything vaguely resembling trinitarianism".

So they exclude Jehovah's Witnesses, then. Not really all-inclusive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses

Re: Taboo Your Words (2008)

#38

Post by vinceguidry »

eruditely wrote: post #29
JackFr wrote: post #6

Very similar to if-by-whiskey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If-by-whiskey If when you say whiskey you mean the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous,…

Honestly even if this manipulative speak I still love reading this every time. Disclaimer: obviously manipulative speak is generally bad if not always

That wasn't a manipulative or fallacious speech at all. It was in fact deeply insightful, calling attention to the war of characterization being played out in the public sphere. Do people think the speaker honestly intended to pull the wool over people's eyes by agreeing with both sides of the issue?

The first if-by-whiskey is an over-the-top satire of whiskey-haters. The second was a rousing call for reason. It's brilliant wordplay whose intentions would have been clear to the audience.

Re: Taboo Your Words (2008)

#39

Post by [deleted] »

eruditely wrote: post #29
JackFr wrote: post #6

Very similar to if-by-whiskey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If-by-whiskey If when you say whiskey you mean the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous,…

Honestly even if this manipulative speak I still love reading this every time. Disclaimer: obviously manipulative speak is generally bad if not always

[deleted]

Re: Taboo Your Words (2008)

#40

Post by cgore »

derleth wrote: post #37
cgore wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't intractable but it can be quite complicated. This is true of theology in specific and philosophy in general. It isn't ever going to be an easy top-down hierarchy. As for "defining Christianity", this is a problem that is actually addressed in most churches, and their answer can range from as restricted to "just their church" to as open as "anything vaguely resembling trinitarianism". As a specific example, I…

> "anything vaguely resembling trinitarianism". So they exclude Jehovah's Witnesses, then. Not really all-inclusive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Oneness Pentacostals, various others. Being all-inclusive isn't the point, nor should it be.

If you want my personal definition of "Christian", it's this:

1. There is a god.

2. I'm not it, and neither are you.

3. Jesus is.

4. Therefore, Jesus is the boss.

After that, all the rest just sort of flows out of it. It is amazing how many doctrinal issues either instantly disappear or don't even matter anymore. You don't end up with all sorts or absurd "how many angels can fit on the head of a pin?" questions to argue about endlessly, with one camp saying 144,000 and another saying 144,000,000. Instead you get real questions, like "what does God want of me?"

It would be like having a major disagreement within a company over if the shoe size of the CEO is 12 or 13. The CEO doesn't care if you know his shoe size, he cares if you do your job or not.

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