I checked, and yes, the map I looked at showed quite a bit of Yorkshire and probably other counties between Sheffield and Scotland. So, accepting the authority of the map and taking its accuracy on faith, I'd be inclined to call that a fact. The map is of course a human-generated document, and I've never been there myself to check, so I don't actually know. But my feeling that it is a fact...I would call it a belief rather than an opinion. :)
Last night I dipped into a FB thread in which various liberal Americans were still fighting last year's election, still calling Hillary "Killary" and saying Bernie shoulda been a contenduh. All this while Trump and his crew are busily dismantling America around them and carting it away in plain white vans...no, sorry, in huge gold-plated semis with "TRUMP" stencilled on the side and encrusted with rhinestones. "Progressives will never work with moderates," and vice versa. But at least probably none of them are religious, so that's all right. :) I don't know what made me think of that.
When I said that "may or may not be" is just politeness, I should have specified that this was strictly in matters of religion as discussed by hardline secularists. In other areas, I'm sure it's genuinely meant...but with religion, they know the other person is wrong, whether they say so or not. How they know, when as you say the most you can say about any theory of deity is that it's "not provably false," is a mystery to me, but then so are lots of things.
I certainly agree with you that acting on beliefs that are provably (for certain values of that word) harmful should not be allowed, and that some beliefs peripheral to religion fall into this category, like the "curing homosexuality" one and those religions that forbid the practice of medicine altogether (i forget which). To me that's obvious. To someone in one of those religions, it's going to take either a personal experience, a road-to-Damascus moment, or else a change from within the power structure of the religion itself to alter those beliefs. Attacking the religion itself from outside, as has been amply demonstrated, has no effect except to intensify the strength of belief, on the old "if they're shooting at you then you must be doing something right" principle.
Spreading claims that things happened that "demonstrably did not happen," or as it's less formally known, lying...I don't think we're going to get rid of that any time soon. It's built into language. As soon as you can say "sky blue," you can say "sky green." And people will believe lies, for a whole host of reasons including but not limited to personal faith in the speaker, confirmation bias, plausible but misleading evidence, emotional investment, sheer exhaustion or possibly just bloody-mindedness; see those American progressives and moderates above. The late D West, a fan whom I admired while disagreeing with on almost everything, once said "fandom is full of people who get their rocks off being bloody-minded." I think that's true of the human race in general.
But I also think that there are ways in which truth can prevail. I think that trying to understand is the golden key that can unlock all the doors, if we are willing to turn it...that understanding that everyone has their own facts, whether you think they're entitled to or not, is the first step...and that the goal we all share is to try to gather together a set of facts that match--as far as possible--not only everyone else's but the evidence we all believe we perceive in the world around us. Once we all understand that, I think being human might become a whole lot easier.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2017-03-06 08:33 am (UTC)Last night I dipped into a FB thread in which various liberal Americans were still fighting last year's election, still calling Hillary "Killary" and saying Bernie shoulda been a contenduh. All this while Trump and his crew are busily dismantling America around them and carting it away in plain white vans...no, sorry, in huge gold-plated semis with "TRUMP" stencilled on the side and encrusted with rhinestones. "Progressives will never work with moderates," and vice versa. But at least probably none of them are religious, so that's all right. :) I don't know what made me think of that.
When I said that "may or may not be" is just politeness, I should have specified that this was strictly in matters of religion as discussed by hardline secularists. In other areas, I'm sure it's genuinely meant...but with religion, they know the other person is wrong, whether they say so or not. How they know, when as you say the most you can say about any theory of deity is that it's "not provably false," is a mystery to me, but then so are lots of things.
I certainly agree with you that acting on beliefs that are provably (for certain values of that word) harmful should not be allowed, and that some beliefs peripheral to religion fall into this category, like the "curing homosexuality" one and those religions that forbid the practice of medicine altogether (i forget which). To me that's obvious. To someone in one of those religions, it's going to take either a personal experience, a road-to-Damascus moment, or else a change from within the power structure of the religion itself to alter those beliefs. Attacking the religion itself from outside, as has been amply demonstrated, has no effect except to intensify the strength of belief, on the old "if they're shooting at you then you must be doing something right" principle.
Spreading claims that things happened that "demonstrably did not happen," or as it's less formally known, lying...I don't think we're going to get rid of that any time soon. It's built into language. As soon as you can say "sky blue," you can say "sky green." And people will believe lies, for a whole host of reasons including but not limited to personal faith in the speaker, confirmation bias, plausible but misleading evidence, emotional investment, sheer exhaustion or possibly just bloody-mindedness; see those American progressives and moderates above. The late D West, a fan whom I admired while disagreeing with on almost everything, once said "fandom is full of people who get their rocks off being bloody-minded." I think that's true of the human race in general.
But I also think that there are ways in which truth can prevail. I think that trying to understand is the golden key that can unlock all the doors, if we are willing to turn it...that understanding that everyone has their own facts, whether you think they're entitled to or not, is the first step...and that the goal we all share is to try to gather together a set of facts that match--as far as possible--not only everyone else's but the evidence we all believe we perceive in the world around us. Once we all understand that, I think being human might become a whole lot easier.