Emperor of Mankind

[Silvestru]

I have read about many religions and many great representatives of said religions.

Funny enough the most inspirational religious figure I read about is a fictional(aren't they all?) character from a tabletop game called Warhammer 40.000.  

The Emperor of Mankind brought "a rationalist, atheistic faith in science and technological progress that rejected all the vestiges of human irrationality and superstition, including all forms of religious faith."

(The Emperor Himself declared that Mankind would never be free to progress and advance to its destined position as the pre-eminent intelligent species in the Milky Way Galaxy until "the last stone from the last church was cast down onto the last priest." He had already purged ancient Terra of all its ancient religions and superstitious beliefs by the time the Great Crusade began, even going so far as to personally witness the destruction of the final church on Terra's ancient soil after engaging its resident holy man, Uriah Olathaire, in a battle of ideas, wit and dogma.                                                             The worship of the Emperor as a God was strictly forbidden under the doctrine of the Imperial Truthand and was considered a serious crime.)

What is your opinion on this subject. Should belief in the irrational be encouraged or purged through education?

 

[EdEarl]

I think you've asked the wrong question. Irrational people need psychiatric help. Most people think emotionally and some people think rationally only some of the time. Education can teach rational thought, and should. But, you cannot remove emotions or emotional thoughts. 

 

[DrKrettin]

2 hours ago, EdEarl said:

Irrational people need psychiatric help. Most people think emotionally and some people think rationally only some of the time. 

 

Could you define for me the difference between irrational and emotional? I'm not disputing anything here (yet), I just need some clarification.

[DrP]

4 hours ago, Silvestru said:

I have read about many religions and many great representatives of said religions.

Funny enough the most inspirational religious figure I read about is a fictional(aren't they all?) character from a tabletop game called Warhammer 40.000.  

The Emperor of Mankind brought "a rationalist, atheistic faith in science and technological progress that rejected all the vestiges of human irrationality and superstition, including all forms of religious faith."

What is your opinion on this subject. Should belief in the irrational be encouraged or purged through education?

 

 

I know the character well from the 'Horus Heresy' series and the background in the codexes for the game I play. He is supposed to be amazing, but in some of the books he comes across as a total dick. He basically lies to all mankind and his mistake leaves him close to death...  he sits on the golden throne near death and the 'priests' of the administratum sacrifice 1000 human souls per day to keep him alive.  He is mankind's only defence against the giant warp portal he is sitting on and blocking..  eternally protecting the humans from the perils of the warp whilst sitting in his torpor. If he had listened to his 'son' Magnus instead of allowing himself to be deceived by the chaos minions then the world (in the 40K universe) would be a much greater place. ...  so, although he is actually real in their universe (unlike our mythical gods), he is a bit of a dick and has no power in the physical world anymore.

It is a pretty good storey though...  I am well behind on the books.

 

PS - I think you are right  - education, education, education... shine the emperor's light on the darkness of ignorance.

 

Edited September 7, 2017 by DrP

[Area54]

I was uncomfortable with the word "purged" in the OP.  We should be telling people how to think, not what to think.

[Silvestru]

You are right Area 54. It was a bit too strong. How would you teach someone how to think? Can you describe this in a realistic way that could be implemented?

[Area54]

1 minute ago, Silvestru said:

You are right Area 54. It was a bit too strong. How would you teach someone how to think? Can you describe this in a realistic way that could be implemented?

If I could answer that succinctly and accurately I would be a multi-millionaire.

That said, one technique I have found works is to ask questions. When we talk of rational thinking, we mean, I believe, critical thinking and at the heart of critical thinking is the asking of questions. By asking the right questions when considering anything (who to marry, what marmalade to put on your toast, ect.) we demonstrate the process. Repeat this often enough, consistently and the tehcnique is absorbed, consciously or unconsciously.

[DrKrettin]

12 minutes ago, Silvestru said:

How would you teach someone how to think? 

Teaching Latin and Greek is a surprisingly good way of teaching someone how to think. Unfortunately very few people these days can appreciate classics because the fashion is for something "useful", policies made by people who don't actually think much, because they haven't learned how to.  *sigh*

[Silvestru]

I think there is a lack of motivation to learn here, on Earth.

As a dumb example, after the movie Top Gun, there was a huge influx of Americans trying to become fighter pilots.

Or a better one after Sputnik, the Science and Science fiction sectors received a great increase in attention and motivated people to learn/read/  

[Area54]

11 minutes ago, DrKrettin said:

Teaching Latin and Greek is a surprisingly good way of teaching someone how to think.

Interesting. I learned some Latin, but I've never found it contributed to my thought processes. (It's main benefit was the feelking of smugness over those who haven't studied it.) Perhaps I was not sufficiently advanced in it to reap the benefits. How do you see it working?

[DrP]

46 minutes ago, Area54 said:

I was uncomfortable with the word "purged" in the OP.  We should be telling people how to think, not what to think.

Being fair to the OP 54 the books do use that language very much so... it is part of the storey -    "purge the unclean, suffer not the alien to live"   and all of that. The eclesiasticy in the books totally skew what the Emperor has commanded them to do and they allow him to be (rather insist he is) worshiped as a god.  They are all very xenophobic when it comes to alien and mutation and will not even allow further advances in science as it might deviate from the Emperor's designed path for mankind...   of course, he would go nuts and encourage such advancement but he is torpored on his golden throne in an eternal battle defending the earth against the daemons in the warp.

[DrKrettin]

4 minutes ago, Area54 said:

Interesting. I learned some Latin, but I've never found it contributed to my thought processes. (It's main benefit was the feelking of smugness over those who haven't studied it.) Perhaps I was not sufficiently advanced in it to reap the benefits. How do you see it working?

The foundations don't do much and can be quite tedious, but when able to read texts in the original, it opens up all kinds of thought processes and you start to become aware of all kinds of assumptions in your thought processes of which you were previously unaware. You gain an insight into cultures which are in some ways remote, and this makes you  conscious of the fact that your own culture is not the only way of seeing the world.  It also provides an insight into how language operates, but I can't answer your question satisfactorily in a forum post.

[Area54]

7 minutes ago, DrKrettin said:

The foundations don't do much and can be quite tedious, but when able to read texts in the original, it opens up all kinds of thought processes and you start to become aware of all kinds of assumptions in your thought processes of which you were previously unaware. You gain an insight into cultures which are in some ways remote, and this makes you  conscious of the fact that your own culture is not the only way of seeing the world.  It also provides an insight into how language operates, but I can't answer your question satisfactorily in a forum post.

I wondered if that might have been the direction you were heading. My own grasp of Latin never got me further than making it through some chapters of Caeser's War Commentaries. In (weak) support of your thesis I subsequently developed a keen interest in military history.

[Strange]

58 minutes ago, DrKrettin said:

The foundations don't do much and can be quite tedious, but when able to read texts in the original, it opens up all kinds of thought processes and you start to become aware of all kinds of assumptions in your thought processes of which you were previously unaware. You gain an insight into cultures which are in some ways remote, and this makes you  conscious of the fact that your own culture is not the only way of seeing the world.  It also provides an insight into how language operates, but I can't answer your question satisfactorily in a forum post.

That is not unique to Latin, of course. It is true of any second language.

Edited September 7, 2017 by Strange

[DrKrettin]

1 minute ago, Strange said:

That is not unique to Latin, of course. It is true of any second language.

To some extent maybe, but for reasons I am not clear about the classics are different. I think it must be connected with the fact that these are the basis of European culture, but divorced from modern culture, so provides a different perspective. I have studied German to degree level, and found various aspects of it fascinating, but it didn't really encourage me to think about how I think. A degree course in Greek  was different because it challenged my thinking in ways which the German never did, and it did far more to teach me how to think. Perhaps the difference is purely subjective and another might have the opposite reaction.

[EdEarl]

5 hours ago, DrKrettin said:

Could you define for me the difference between irrational and emotional? I'm not disputing anything here (yet), I just need some clarification.

The fight or flight response is one example of emotional thinking. In addition, people's decisions can be affected by love, hate, envy, fear, hunger, thirst, etc. and combinations thereof. Pretty much all people make both rational and emotional decisions. People are overloaded with information, some of dubious value. So people make bad decisions. Also, people with valid data make bad choices sometimes; it doesn't mean they are irrational all the time. Philosophy and logic classes probably increase the number of rational decisions people make, at least some people. I haven't seen a study, so don't know. Perhaps they should be taught in lower grades.

[DrKrettin]

1 minute ago, EdEarl said:

The fight or flight response is one example of emotional thinking. In addition, people's decisions can be affected by love, hate, envy, fear, hunger, thirst, etc. and combinations thereof. Pretty much all people make both rational and emotional decisions. People are overloaded with information, some of dubious value. So people make bad decisions. Also, people with valid data make bad choices sometimes; it doesn't mean they are irrational all the time. Philosophy and logic classes probably increase the number of rational decisions people make, at least some people. I haven't seen a study, so don't know. Perhaps they should be taught in lower grades.

That's fine as far as it goes, but examples of emotional response do not make the difference between emotional and irrational very clear.

[Area54]

1 minute ago, DrKrettin said:

That's fine as far as it goes, but examples of emotional response do not make the difference between emotional and irrational very clear.

I am also left unclear as to the intended distinction. Some irrational decisions can turn out to be good ones. Some rational decisions can be bad.

[EdEarl]

5 minutes ago, DrKrettin said:

That's fine as far as it goes, but examples of emotional response do not make the difference between emotional and irrational very clear.

There are several definitions of irrational, and at least some of them would include emotional decisions. Previously, my impression of irrational was someone out of their head, as with a illness, drugs, neurosis or psychosis. The reason it matters is one remedy doesn't fit all. A class in rational thinking will not much help those who are irrational from illness, drugs, neurosis or psychosis.

[DrKrettin]

12 hours ago, EdEarl said:

There are several definitions of irrational, and at least some of them would include emotional decisions. 

True, but you did say in an earlier post that the irrational needed psychiatric help. I think I see irrational behaviour all round me all the time, often by people who can be extremely rational at times. Behaviour which I would not recognise as emotional, just stupid, and I do not exclude myself.  You sound as if you are saying that most, if not all, of our species needs psychiatric help. Hmmmm

[Area54]

2 hours ago, DrKrettin said:

You sound as if you are saying that most, if not all, of our species needs psychiatric help.

I think that may not be far from the truth.  Much of the world seems to exist in a miasma of cognitive dissonance, where the Dunning-Kruger effect can get you elected to high office. If I were a rational person I would be a pessimist. It's only my irrationality that keeps me optimistic.

[DrKrettin]

3 minutes ago, Area54 said:

It's only my irrationality that keeps me optimistic.

Obviously you need psychiatric help to bring you back to rational pessimism. 

[EdEarl]

4 hours ago, DrKrettin said:

True, but you did say in an earlier post that the irrational needed psychiatric help. I think I see irrational behaviour all round me all the time, often by people who can be extremely rational at times. Behaviour which I would not recognise as emotional, just stupid, and I do not exclude myself.  You sound as if you are saying that most, if not all, of our species needs psychiatric help. Hmmmm

Thanks. That's not my intent. After a dictionary education about the word irrational, my concern is that irrational describes too many people with a variety of conditions. Some will respond to education, some will not, and some cannot. Moreover, reason is not very effective against emotional thinking. An acquaintance's mother was murdered in a drive by; he wants revenge but doesn't know who did it. His desire for revenge has become generalized to endorse police actions unconditionally, likes Trump's wall, wants to stop immigration, etc. 

[DrKrettin]

32 minutes ago, EdEarl said:

 Moreover, reason is not very effective against emotional thinking. 

That's very true - as anybody who has said "calm down and stop being emotional" to an angry woman will testify.