Referencing Pen-l 23220 The tooth Fairy

[Doyle Saylor <djsaylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings Economists,
PEN-L:23220

....necessity of god, goddess,...
25 February 2002 21:40 UTC

Charles: I don't know if this is an interesting response (replying to Robert
Scott Gassler and not to Doyle's remark that was the subject of Robert's
reaction), but what popped into my head when I read your comment was that
the logical arguments for the non-existence of God are similar to the
logical arguments for the non-existence of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

Doyle
There is a lot to be said for how Charles replies above compared to how my
reply reads.  I think for most people Charles' statement sounds simple and
understandable given the convoluted thinking my comment often exhibits.  I
take the position though that Charles' logical arguments while useful in the
context of clarity fails to take into account how religious people might
feel about the 'logic' of the argument.  My reaction to what I perceive as
implied weaknesses in taking Charles tack toward god, reflects an historical
conflict between rational methods of argument and what others like myself
observe about how the common person 'feels' about the logic of god.

Don't we all know that most people who use religion aren't amendable to the
logic of arguments.  What they want from religion reflects their social
needs for a place to go that takes on the implied content of god as a
projection of a mind.

I think it important to not just argue about the parallel to the tooth
fairy, which most Christians would feel offended by, but to understand the
process that people use to a religious end.  Capitalism will as time goes by
make available new tools of expression for the religious to further their
activities.  One has to feel as people are drawn into using a computer in
every activity of life, that how we understand what a mind is will be
transformed.  Hence the comparison Charles makes doesn't give us much
insight in what it means a mind/god projected upon the world would endure as
the technology transform the expression of a projected mind.

JD remarked,

Jim,
I have been influence by Marx, a lot. It's also Freud's view -- and
Feuerbach's -- that God is a human projection of our own inner images.

Jim Devine

Doyle

Jim's comment has a visual evocation, but for Christians, and more so for
Judaic believers and of course the Taliban, an image does not convey god.
For all these flavors of religion their god primarily is the 'literal' word
of god.  So there is in Christianity a sensitivity to how the mind is as
words not image, which is at root their shared beginnings with the Greek
culture they had come to live in after Christ was crucified. The 'word' more
closely summarizes what their religious concept of the projected mind means.
Hardly able to compete with movies, but why?

When we construct an image (perhaps a slide projected in a church) which is
religious like, an image that serves the purpose of suggesting a mind/god we
need to take into account the depth that religions invest in the content of
god/mind.  The tooth fairy implies something obviously false only a child
would believe.   So we miss the difficulty that goes with religious belief
by making the simple logical comparison and neglecting the feelings that
hold the belief in place.  The elaboration of morality for example that goes
into the heart of many human behaviors, rather than the stealthy parental
grab for a tooth.

The properties of a mind, such as memory, are important to creating a
mind-like avatar essential tasks to construct a god or religion.  How can we
express the complexity that an atheist faces in the religious persons
concept of a god?

Christian churches are local groups of people attempting in gathering
together on holy days, to build the larger social networks that the
projected mind historically served Christian sects.  Morality regulates
those local social networks for the sake of stability of the reproduction of
the working class.  Church members are constrained by direct contact in the
church to build their communities primarily through that physical contact as
opposed to standing in an empty field and wondering how they could find
human company.  The working class through the physical site of their
churches has certain kinds of options for understanding what a mind might
be.  That physical contact implies what a mind would be like.  And that mind
would substantially change as the method of depicting a mind projects upon
the landscape with out direct physical contact like a church.

The common person might want to say to their child that your loose tooth
under your pillow will be taken by the tooth fairy and paid for in cash.
That mythic figure meant by a parent to comfort a child cannot match for a
child the impact of a teletubby.  A religious person or any body is drawn to
the greater power of the media to express what a mind might be communicated
as.  A mind that might be anywhere or anytime (rather than tied to a
church).  Such projections of the brain/mind require an updated tooth fairy.
A digital memory stored elsewhere in some video tape cartoon to explain to a
child the mind projection of the tooth fairy.

A serious religious image would project a 'devil' that is commiserate with
the complex understanding of how the mind works which television and movies
lead us to expect. The movies give us pretty graphic concepts of such
thoughts of what an avatar (computer games!) of mind might be, and one
wonders how the faithful cope with the onslaught of realism about a devil?
This process dissolves the local system of contact churches rely upon to
construct a realistic seeming devil and of evil, casting the faithful
further and further into a technological depiction of the mind ever more
real seeming.  The religious image has to accommodate to or recede into
mythology just as a child soon grasps that the tooth fairy is not very
believable when other children point out their own lack of belief.  Etc.
Fertile ground for Marxist to advance the case of materialism.
thanks,
Doyle Saylor