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Thursday = Thor's day

sivers.org

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Re: Thursday = Thor's day

#41

Post by rue »

CitizenKane wrote: post #9
drats wrote: post #2

Hacker News?

FWIW, I submitted it because I found it intellecually engaging. I think there is a lesson here that's pertinent for hackers, being able to take a situation and look at in a unique way. Then taking that unique perspective and using it to your advantage. But what I love about Derek's writing is that there always seems to be a lot of interesting nuggets of wisdom that they contain. I think there is a lot of interesting…

I did not find it in any way engaging. Embarrassing, rather. The "discussion" is not original, as was pointed out earlier, and rather poorly presented (granted the possible real protagonist may have been more charismatic.)

On the other hand, if someone does find it useful or educational, I suppose the only fault can be found in myself for not having pointed to the same insight.

Re: Thursday = Thor's day

#42

Post by ErrantX »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #28

This just makes me sad to be honest with you. The idea that “we believe in 519 out of 520 Gods” means anything shows a fundamental misunderstanding of religion. You may not like the beliefs of some religious people but the point of religion is the beliefs. It’s not that a God created the world it’s that a benevolent God created the world and left teachings which lead to benevolence. On that note I’d point out that he…

I think the point is very simple and very elegant. It's not about God, it's about the fact that humanity (and our history) is a lot more subtle than most people really compute (I came to that realisation myself not very long ago).

The beauty of it is that the religious conversation didn't matter too much - it was just that the clever rhetoric device (the Norse gods) was the avenue to a wealth of information. It is there for the taking but never actively taught.

So, the point is that you can pick up any passing point of interest and satisfy your craving for it like never before. Then half an hour later move on to something else.

And you will still have those Norse gods/weekdays lined up as a party trick...

Re: Thursday = Thor's day

#43

Post by roc »

Alex3917 wrote: post #19

"You and I are almost identical in our beliefs! If history has named, say, 520 gods, you don't believe in 519 of them, I don't believe in 520 of them." This argument comes from Dawkins book The God Delusion. It's clever, but also kind of dumb. Trying to discredit contemporary religion based on what people believed 2,500 years ago is like trying to discredit science based on alchemy.

Are you suggesting there's a difference in the procedural, moral and/or intellectual rigor of religion 2500 years ago, as compared to today, on a scale similar to the differences between alchemy and science? or astronomy and astrology?

I can't say I see differences of that magnitude. In fact, I don't see many significant differences at all.

(E.g. whereas most modern religions are far less bloodthirsty than some historical religions, so were many religious contemporaries of those bloodthirsty belief structures.)

Re: Thursday = Thor's day

#44

Post by hugh3 »

aero142 wrote: post #38

This argument is fun but not much more. "Why don't you have any children?. This seems strange to me." "Well, there are billions of children in the world that are not yours, I just have one less than you. We're basically the same." The difference between having no children and one child is big. So is the difference between believing in no gods, and one God. I think the original argument is useful to point out that the…

A better analogy would be as follows:

"Why don't you believe the sun is composed primarily of hydrogen and helium?" "Well, there have been hundreds of theories of what the sun might be composed of; giant birds, fire, holes in the sky... I just believe one less than you do"

That analogy still only works if there's some particularly good reason for believing that one God is significantly more likely to exist than any other.

Re: Thursday = Thor's day

#45

Post by albertcardona »

huherto wrote: post #7

Interesting. Knowing a little bit of English/Spanish you can guess the origin of most of the days of the week. * Sunday/Domingo - Sun/? * Monday/Lunes - Moon/Luna * Tuesday/Martes - ?/Mars * Wednesday/Miercoles - ?/Mercurio * Thursday/Jueves - Thor/Jupiter * Friday/Viernes - ?/Venus * Saturday/Sabado - Saturn/?

Domingo is from "domini/us", lord or sir, or head of the house (from "doma", home).

Re: Thursday = Thor's day

#46

Post by ErrantX »

rue wrote: post #41
CitizenKane wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I submitted it because I found it intellecually engaging. I think there is a lesson here that's pertinent for hackers, being able to take a situation and look at in a unique way. Then taking that unique perspective and using it to your advantage. But what I love about Derek's writing is that there always seems to be a lot of interesting nuggets of wisdom that they contain. I think there is a lot of interesting…

I did not find it in any way engaging. Embarrassing, rather. The "discussion" is not original, as was pointed out earlier, and rather poorly presented (granted the possible real protagonist may have been more charismatic.) On the other hand, if someone does find it useful or educational, I suppose the only fault can be found in myself for not having pointed to the same insight.

With the greatest respect; i'm not sure that everythign posted here has to be educational or useful.

Sivers' writing is generally "inspirational" (I love his writing style), light hearted and informative. I actually think there is a very deep and important point to be learned from this particular post.

Re: Thursday = Thor's day

#47

Post by zokier »

There is one "error" in that discussion imho. Even if Thursday is named after Thor, it doesn't mean that Thursday was dedicated in celebration of Thor. And on the other side, Easter isn't named after Jesus. So I'm not following how Thursday and Easter are even remotely related.

edit: of course this is just nit picking, and is not really relevant on the big picture.

Re: Thursday = Thor's day

#48

Post by ErrantX »

aero142 wrote: post #38

This argument is fun but not much more. "Why don't you have any children?. This seems strange to me." "Well, there are billions of children in the world that are not yours, I just have one less than you. We're basically the same." The difference between having no children and one child is big. So is the difference between believing in no gods, and one God. I think the original argument is useful to point out that the…

> So is the difference between believing in no gods, and one God.

Im not sure that takes into account the fact that belief in one particular God (or set of gods) usually precludes belief in all the others.

In that respect belief/non-belief is not very different.

Re: Thursday = Thor's day

#49

Post by yan »

martythemaniak wrote: post #22
huherto wrote: post #7

Interesting. Knowing a little bit of English/Spanish you can guess the origin of most of the days of the week. * Sunday/Domingo - Sun/? * Monday/Lunes - Moon/Luna * Tuesday/Martes - ?/Mars * Wednesday/Miercoles - ?/Mercurio * Thursday/Jueves - Thor/Jupiter * Friday/Viernes - ?/Venus * Saturday/Sabado - Saturn/?

Interestingly, Bulgarian (and by extension probably all Slavic languages) don't follow this model. (translations based on word roots) Monday - ponedelnik - "after no work" Tuesday - vtornik - "second" Wednesday - sryada - "middle" Thursday - chetvurtuk - "fourth" Friday - petuk - "fifth" Saturday - subota - from Sabath Sunday - Nedelia - "no work"

Russian is very very similar save for Sunday, which is "voskresenya", which roughly translates to (i think) "the resurrection." "Nedelia" translates to "week," but I've never thought about it as meaning "no work" which it almost also does in Russian.

Re: Thursday = Thor's day

#50

Post by Alex3917 »

roqetman wrote: post #35
Alex3917 wrote: post #19

"You and I are almost identical in our beliefs! If history has named, say, 520 gods, you don't believe in 519 of them, I don't believe in 520 of them." This argument comes from Dawkins book The God Delusion. It's clever, but also kind of dumb. Trying to discredit contemporary religion based on what people believed 2,500 years ago is like trying to discredit science based on alchemy.

That would imply that the current view of god(s) is more advanced (in a provable way) that the old view of them. To an atheist, this is nitpicking.

That's like saying that because we've already debunked alchemy and astrology, being asked to debunk evolution as well is just nitpicking. If you asked someone at the Harvard divinity school what the most compelling arguments in favor of religion were today, they'd probably talk about Thor to the same extent that your bio101 professor talked about star alignments-- not at all.

Whereas oftentimes they're actually using the same methodology, techniques, and textbooks that you'd find in the neuroscience/physics/philosophy departments, and publishing in the same academic journals. C.f. http://csp.org/psilocybin/

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