Soldier:
The government told me to. They’ve been elected by us, so they must be right, yeah?
Everyone else is doing it—think how my friends would look down on me if I said no!
I’m going to be a hero! Heroes get all the girls.
Bomber:
My God told me to… can’t argue with God, right?
My friends are doing it—I don’t want to look like a coward!
Mmm, virgins. (Or other heavenly reward of choice).
Hmmm… that was originally going to be a list of differences in their viewpoints, but the more I think about it, the more similar they appear. Now I’m not sure what I think any more!
Well, one salient difference might have to do with comparing the available mechanisms for calibrating my confidence in the judgment of a government with those for calibrating my confidence in the judgment of a god.
Given that people who believe in god tend to really believe in god, and people who trust governments do so usually with a number of reservations, does that mean that the bomber has more justification than the soldier?
That’s a hard question to answer without defining the terms better.
I grew up among a lot of self-identified religious people. Using as my test for the left-side “believe in God” the willingness to arrange at least some superficial aspects of one’s life around those beliefs (e.g., where one lives, sends children to school, eats, etc.), and using as my test for the right-side “believe in God” the willingness to die rather than violate what they understood to be God’s law, I’d say I’m .95 confident that fewer than five percent of the folks with LH beliefs had RH beliefs, and .75 confident that fewer than 1one percent did.
Judaism has certain specific instances where it is accepted that it would be better for one to die than commit a sin.
Also, martyrdom would not be such a large aspect in Christianity (or, at least, in early Christianity) if dying for God wasn’t considered a good thing.
Justification for an act is not something that emerges full-blown out of nothing. My act cannot be justified by of my faith in X if that faith is itself unjustified.
And if I have faith in X within certain constraints and with certain reservations (as I do with governments, for example), that doesn’t somehow make that faith less justified than if I “_really believe in” X without constraints or reservations.
And all of that is true whether X is my government, my god, or my grandmother.
From the point of view of the bomber, faith in God is not itself unjustified. It is in fact a vital part of his psychology.
The original point was the difference in the psychologies of bombers and soldiers. They are both doing it because they were told to, but their confidence in the judgement of the one telling them to is different. So the one with the higher confidence feels more “justified”. That’s what I thought you meant, anyway. If it’s not, could you please clarify?
Perhaps I should have said “the bomber thinks he has more justification than the soldier”.
If “justification” refers to a feeling, then sure: the person who is really convinced that X is reliable and wants them to do something has more justification for doing that thing than the person who isn’t quite sure that X is reliable, or isn’t quite sure that X wants them to do it. (Again, whether X is a government, a god, or a grandmother.)
I was thrown off because “justification” in other contexts is often used to mean something different.
Which is fine; I don’t mean to turn this into a discussion about the meaning of a word.
Soldier: The government told me to. They’ve been elected by us, so they must be right, yeah? Everyone else is doing it—think how my friends would look down on me if I said no! I’m going to be a hero! Heroes get all the girls.
Bomber: My God told me to… can’t argue with God, right? My friends are doing it—I don’t want to look like a coward! Mmm, virgins. (Or other heavenly reward of choice).
Hmmm… that was originally going to be a list of differences in their viewpoints, but the more I think about it, the more similar they appear. Now I’m not sure what I think any more!
Well, one salient difference might have to do with comparing the available mechanisms for calibrating my confidence in the judgment of a government with those for calibrating my confidence in the judgment of a god.
Given that people who believe in god tend to really believe in god, and people who trust governments do so usually with a number of reservations, does that mean that the bomber has more justification than the soldier?
Do people who believe in God tend to really believe in God?
That’s a hard question to answer without defining the terms better.
I grew up among a lot of self-identified religious people. Using as my test for the left-side “believe in God” the willingness to arrange at least some superficial aspects of one’s life around those beliefs (e.g., where one lives, sends children to school, eats, etc.), and using as my test for the right-side “believe in God” the willingness to die rather than violate what they understood to be God’s law, I’d say I’m .95 confident that fewer than five percent of the folks with LH beliefs had RH beliefs, and .75 confident that fewer than 1one percent did.
Yes, but dying is against God’s law… so they’ve cleverly got around that problem.
Not true for every religion.
Judaism has certain specific instances where it is accepted that it would be better for one to die than commit a sin.
Also, martyrdom would not be such a large aspect in Christianity (or, at least, in early Christianity) if dying for God wasn’t considered a good thing.
Yes, precisely this.
No. Why would it?
Justification for an act is not something that emerges full-blown out of nothing. My act cannot be justified by of my faith in X if that faith is itself unjustified.
And if I have faith in X within certain constraints and with certain reservations (as I do with governments, for example), that doesn’t somehow make that faith less justified than if I “_really believe in” X without constraints or reservations.
And all of that is true whether X is my government, my god, or my grandmother.
From the point of view of the bomber, faith in God is not itself unjustified. It is in fact a vital part of his psychology.
The original point was the difference in the psychologies of bombers and soldiers. They are both doing it because they were told to, but their confidence in the judgement of the one telling them to is different. So the one with the higher confidence feels more “justified”. That’s what I thought you meant, anyway. If it’s not, could you please clarify?
Perhaps I should have said “the bomber thinks he has more justification than the soldier”.
Ah, I see.
If “justification” refers to a feeling, then sure: the person who is really convinced that X is reliable and wants them to do something has more justification for doing that thing than the person who isn’t quite sure that X is reliable, or isn’t quite sure that X wants them to do it. (Again, whether X is a government, a god, or a grandmother.)
I was thrown off because “justification” in other contexts is often used to mean something different.
Which is fine; I don’t mean to turn this into a discussion about the meaning of a word.
Sorry to cause confusion; thanks for clarifying.