Eric has a nice post today at Choice in Dying on the question, “Is religion just a matter of ‘deepities’ or something more?”. He opts for the first answer, but he also enlightens us about how fragmented modern theology really is.
Eric MacDonald on religion as a deepity
June 12, 2012 • 7:21 am
Ironic that Dennett is standing behind a Marriott podium. J Willard Marriott, who impressively started his business empire in the Depression from a root beer stand, is also the reason why a Book of Mormon and a Gideon Bible is apparently in every Marriott motel room.
I have begun to view most religion as elaborate cosplay. It has a lot of meaning for people and it is not to say that at some point it has deep meaning and is comforting. I mean if you have ever dressed up in a room full of jedis and captured Princess Leias when at 15 years old that .. that is a powerful experience life changing – you can feel the force like a million tiny voices crying out – then you know it is time for underwear change..
As the trope about religion being mysterious in the same way quantum physics is mysterious has been now raised again, I have two additional comments.
Nicholas Beale’s website StarCourse is superficially quite impressive, but he talks about how !*traditional Christians*! don’t agree about the exact nature of Jesus’ atonement, but says !*nothing*! about how different religions disagree or more traditional theologians disagree with more radical ones. He dismisses liberal Christian John Shelby Spong as “tosh”. What happened to the mystery there?
Several posters here have noticed that quantum physics is verifiable while theology is not. It should be added that all the competing models of quantum physics have the exact same practical consequences! The laser wouldn’t be designed any differently whether you believed in the “Copenhagen” interpretation or an alternative. However, competing theologies actually have very different practical and moral consquences, so the analogy is flawed there as well!!!
i’m already tired of the word “deepity.”
Sorry to hear that, because I think it is just about to take off. Try the Dennett video where he defines it quite concisely.
”
It is not a bare-faced lie.
You have to be able to say it with a straight face.
It has to relieve scepticism without arousing curiosity.
It should seem profound.
So a deepity is a proposition that seems to be profound because it is actually logically ill-formed.
It has at least two readings and balances precariously between them.
On one reading it is true, but trivial.
On another reading it is false, but would be earth-shattering if true.”
Maybe it helps to have lived through the 70s. Surely the “Desiderata” is (or are) the greated concatenation of deepities ever concocted.