RE: Why Creationists don't realize the biblical Creation is just jewish mythology?
July 22, 2019 at 10:46 am
(This post was last modified: July 22, 2019 at 11:13 am by Anomalocaris.)
“Don’t generalize” has often become an aegis behind which real problems can be denied and ignored, or more importantly opportunistic alliance of convenience with real miscreants can be sustained.
Generalizations may be unfair to various degrees to various constituencies it tars. But that does not make all generalizations equal in their degrees of applicability, or even insight.
“You too” may be not untrue, but is often true to a smaller degree than the reciprocal.
If the third Reich didn’t collapse so soon in the pyre of its own crimes it would also likely bequeath to posterity awe inspiring monumental edifices and prodigious quantities of public art.
Most human endeavors that entrain large number of people and demand devotion will inevitable enlist some people of ability and creativity that can make lemonade out of lemons so that things will be created in its name that, when the endeavor itself has run its course, will remain and be considered of lasting value.
But the subtle point here is the lasting value is only there because the opportunity cost it incurred is sunk and can’t be unpaid. If the opportunity cost is considered in the assessment whether any value would remain is a totally different question.
If humans can make things of lasting value out of material so unpromising as domineering wish-thinking and crude superstition, one shudder to think what could have been made but were not made because those with creativity were constrained to make do with lemons because of the self-importance and ambitions of the purveyors of rotten lemons.
Generalizations may be unfair to various degrees to various constituencies it tars. But that does not make all generalizations equal in their degrees of applicability, or even insight.
“You too” may be not untrue, but is often true to a smaller degree than the reciprocal.
(July 22, 2019 at 5:09 am)Belaqua Wrote:(July 22, 2019 at 5:03 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: Believing in the great god Sobek, the Mandate of Heaven or the Bible enabled people to build Lake Fayum, the Great Wall of China and Chartres Cathedral.
I think so too.
Strict and sincere believers created a great deal of lasting value.
Naturally, they should have done other things as well.
If the third Reich didn’t collapse so soon in the pyre of its own crimes it would also likely bequeath to posterity awe inspiring monumental edifices and prodigious quantities of public art.
Most human endeavors that entrain large number of people and demand devotion will inevitable enlist some people of ability and creativity that can make lemonade out of lemons so that things will be created in its name that, when the endeavor itself has run its course, will remain and be considered of lasting value.
But the subtle point here is the lasting value is only there because the opportunity cost it incurred is sunk and can’t be unpaid. If the opportunity cost is considered in the assessment whether any value would remain is a totally different question.
If humans can make things of lasting value out of material so unpromising as domineering wish-thinking and crude superstition, one shudder to think what could have been made but were not made because those with creativity were constrained to make do with lemons because of the self-importance and ambitions of the purveyors of rotten lemons.
