RE: What makes people irrational thinkers?
December 12, 2021 at 1:04 am
(This post was last modified: December 12, 2021 at 1:06 am by Oldandeasilyconfused.)
I agree that people need to be taught the Socratic and scientific methods of thinking.
However, I think human beings have an innate sense of reason, no matter how flawed.
EG A great deal if not all religious reasoning seems to be based on the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. ---medicine man is dancing around the fire begging the gods for rain. Within a short time, it begins to rain. Medicine man reasons/concludes that it's raining because his dance around the fire and begging the gods. This is the beginning of ritual, the belief that we can influence the gods in some way by prayer/ritual behaviour/sacrifice.
Perhaps a more succinct way of expressing this view is ; "Religion; Man's attempt to communicate with the weather" (Graffito, Cambridge 2000)
For a specific example . The Azande people of North Central Africa believe all misfortune is the result of witchcraft. From Evans-Pritchard's book*** comes this anecdote: E-P is hanging around in this village, which is what anthropologists do. He notices a bloke having a nap under the village water tower, as he does most days. Wooden supports of the tower collapse, killing the napper. E-P notices that the wood is rotten with termite activity, so the tower could have collapsed at any time. He mentions this to the village elders. The response is something like, "Oh absolutely! The tower could have collapsed at any time. But it didn't. It collapsed when X was asleep underneath. That it collapsed at that time is clearly due to witchcraft"
The wiki article linked below is worth a glance.
***1937 Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande. Oxford University Press. 1976 abridged edition: ISBN 0-19-874029-8
Sir Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard, Kt FBA FRAI (21 September 1902 – 11 September 1973) was an English anthropologist who was instrumental in the development of social anthropology. He was Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford from 1946 to 1970.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._E._Evans-Pritchard
However, I think human beings have an innate sense of reason, no matter how flawed.
EG A great deal if not all religious reasoning seems to be based on the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. ---medicine man is dancing around the fire begging the gods for rain. Within a short time, it begins to rain. Medicine man reasons/concludes that it's raining because his dance around the fire and begging the gods. This is the beginning of ritual, the belief that we can influence the gods in some way by prayer/ritual behaviour/sacrifice.
Perhaps a more succinct way of expressing this view is ; "Religion; Man's attempt to communicate with the weather" (Graffito, Cambridge 2000)
For a specific example . The Azande people of North Central Africa believe all misfortune is the result of witchcraft. From Evans-Pritchard's book*** comes this anecdote: E-P is hanging around in this village, which is what anthropologists do. He notices a bloke having a nap under the village water tower, as he does most days. Wooden supports of the tower collapse, killing the napper. E-P notices that the wood is rotten with termite activity, so the tower could have collapsed at any time. He mentions this to the village elders. The response is something like, "Oh absolutely! The tower could have collapsed at any time. But it didn't. It collapsed when X was asleep underneath. That it collapsed at that time is clearly due to witchcraft"
The wiki article linked below is worth a glance.
***1937 Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande. Oxford University Press. 1976 abridged edition: ISBN 0-19-874029-8
Sir Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard, Kt FBA FRAI (21 September 1902 – 11 September 1973) was an English anthropologist who was instrumental in the development of social anthropology. He was Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford from 1946 to 1970.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._E._Evans-Pritchard
