Practical

[Hairnet]

I have been coming across this idea, in my own reactions to certain other ideas, and in the thoughts of other quite often.

The idea is that a lot of the seemingly irrational practices and ideas in the ancient world or in other cultures once had a legitimat function in their original context.

Examples

Circumcission - It may seem like a crazy ritual, but it is actually a medical practice to keep you clean.

Sacred Cows - Not eating cows actually feeds more via milk than if the cows were slaughtered for meat ( I have heard this argued, I don't know if it is true).

A bunch of the things in the old testament are supposedly for health reasons not "God hates shellfish and pork".

I definately understand why people would believe these explanations. I often read about a practice and just go "No way are people that crazy, there has to be a reason behind this!".

Any thoughts on this notion?

[John Link]

I think you might be interested in Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture, by Marvin Harris. http://www.amazon.com/Cows-Pigs-Wars-Witch...1643&sr=8-1

John Link

[0096 2251 2110 8105]

I really don't see where you are trying to get here. Would you mind at least posing a question?

Edited May 3, 2010 by 0096 2251 2110 8105

[Jake_Ellison]

I really don't see where you are trying to get here. Would you mind at least posing a question?

He did. Your answer should be no. No thoughts whatsoever. Just a pointless post.

And yes, religion is the precursor to philosophy. People were trying to figure out things about nature long before a metaphysics based on observation of reality and a proper epistemology were formulated, and began being applied consistently.

I'm sure many of the people who first came up with various religious edicts and commandments were well intentioned, and their work was often beneficial. Only after actual philosophy came about can we dismiss religion as lunacy and its proponents as power hungry and/or delusional, and generally counter productive, because now they are preaching their errors while fully exposed to the correct alternative.

[John Link]

For those who missed it, here is the point of the original post:

The idea is that a lot of the seemingly irrational practices and ideas in the ancient world or in other cultures once had a legitimat function in their original context.

That's also the point of the book I cited above.

John Link

[JayR]

He did. Your answer should be no. No thoughts whatsoever. Just a pointless post.

Ive seen worse. It could lead to a dicussion on knowledge as being contextual, even for savages, and crazies.

maybe.

j..

[Jake_Ellison]

Ive seen worse. It could lead to a dicussion on knowledge as being contextual, even for savages, and crazies.

maybe.

j..

Sorry for not being clear, I did not mean to suggest the OP had a bad post, in any way. It's a legitimate topic, and I'm curious about what others think about it as well: so much so that I'll look into the book John Link suggested.

I was referring to the post I answered.

[JayR]

Ahh yes, I understand.

j..

[Hairnet]

I think you might be interested in Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture, by Marvin Harris. http://www.amazon.com/Cows-Pigs-Wars-Witch...1643&sr=8-1

John Link

Thanks! Witches was another example.

"The witch trials weren't about witches, but about people killing each other for actual political reasons".

[TheEgoist]

As a basic rule for these arguments, which I usually encounter with Jews/Christians and Old Testament food laws, I say that the laws set at the time were set as a matter of faith. They weren't worried about not eating pigs because it might lead to disease, but because it was commanded. To be rational is to act in accordance with reality. There is no commandment of reality. There are facts. Did these ancient mystics recognize these facts, or have access to them? Highly doubtful.

[Eiuol]

There are facts. Did these ancient mystics recognize these facts, or have access to them? Highly doubtful.

It agree that it is highly doubtful these ancient mystics even realized their moral rules could have a rational justification. The fact that the justification in these cases is related to religion is reason enough to suggest that the rules were set on nothing more than faith. In other words, whoever decided to obey these rules simply got lucky that there is some real benefit.

Even still, I am fairly certain that some modern philosophers would suggest the examples Hairnet gave illustrate the idea that morality is a result of evolution, not of reason. Morality is viewed as nothing more than a survival mechanism in the sense that certain rules simply happen to help one survive. By extension, I know that some who support this sort of viewpoint would say that morality is nothing more than a story you tell yourself. Not eating shellfish is an example. Someone somewhere probably just thought shellfish was plain icky, and explained that feeling as god being present within them indicating that shellfish is infused with some sort of immorality. Various other people probably felt this way too. This icky feeling is argued to be an inborn intuition which is strong enough to make one feel utterly compelled to act in a particular manner. This moral rule is then perpetuated throughout generations because of how it happened to serve a survival role. I would agree with these philosophers only as far as saying that many people do operate on emotion and the results are exactly what can be observed regarding morality of all sorts, but the major difference is my agreement with the Objectivist view that emotions are the result of conscious evaluation. Some people hold such a vast array of misintegrations that it would seem humans are a mess of emotion and reason. The truth of the matter is that poor use of reason only puts one closer to the level of animal thought than conceptual thought.

Edited May 4, 2010 by Eiuol

[DavidOdden]

Most of those stories are proof of man's inventiveness in making stuff up. Find a crazy man-made fact, and you can invent some functional explanation. If you want to understand "sacred cows" which is a later development in Hinduism, study ancient religious texts and understand the influence of Vaishnavism (and Krishna's life as a cow-herder). If you want to understand the rational basis for not killing cows, compare the behavior of pastoralists elsewhere in the world. The practice of not frequently killing cows is what is semi-universal for economic reasons though in an affluent society with lots of flat land such as the US, there isn't a particularly compelling economic reason. That does not explain why there is only one religious sect with a prohibition against eating cows.

Since kosher / halal dietary rules are geographically so restricted in origin, compared to where one finds the forbidden foods, it's not rational to claim that this is explained by "health reasons". If you compare halal and kosher rules (they are different), it's even more obvious that this is just arbitrary silliness. There's no imaginable health reason for camels, hyraxes, horses and rabbits to be forbidden and yet goats, sheeps, deer and cows are okay; eagles are forbidden and chickens are allowed -- why? Sharks, seals and whales are forbidden simply because they don't have scales. Cheeseburgers are forbidden. Virtually none of the kosher prohibitions could have anything to do with health reason.

[VcatoV]

I have been coming across this idea, in my own reactions to certain other ideas, and in the thoughts of other quite often.

The idea is that a lot of the seemingly irrational practices and ideas in the ancient world or in other cultures once had a legitimat function in their original context.

Well-intentioned or not, beneficial or not, right or wrong, all of these were legitimate. I would challenge you to show me one law that did not have a legitimate use within the system in place. Many of the Kosher laws were indeed originally intended to increase the health of the population (that, wouldn't you say, is well intentioned?-but you also know what the road to hell is paved with). If they were not, they were legitimate in strengthening the ethical system in place, whether by meditation or ritual. Rules forbidding alcohol for Muslims are intended to prevent humans from falling into excess, ie. getting too drunk, which indeed is something bad.

The extent an ethical system works is the extent to which it corroborates with the facts of reality. Thus many of the original Israelites found the Kosher laws beneficial, and general health was improved. For a time. Yet times change, and man's mind has the ability not only to grasp the concretes of nature (such as: shellfish might make one sick), but to invent ways to change nature. Ethical systems which try to proscribe minute actions for individuals thus fall short of a dynamic world. Meaning that now, for the most part, eating pork is entirely healthy, just as is shellfish. Thus the ethical system does not hold up to reality, and faith must be further reinforced to sustain the ever-widening gap.