- Joined
- Jan 2, 2012
- Messages
- 11,202
- Reaction score
- 3,256
- Location
- Walking the Underworld
- Website
- www.richardgarfinkle.com
A little background first. In the midst of a complex and interesting P&CE discussion (not a flame war at all, I deny that completely), the phrase "put your faith in..." was employed.
It's a common English usage and a pointed rhetorical device, but it troubled me. As far as I can tell, I don't have faith to put in anything.
The phrase implies that the strongest and deepest of mental processes is the depositing of faith.
To me the strongest and deepest mental process is the mistrustful application of tools to reality, the observation of the effects and the changing of the tools based on those effects.
It struck me that the phrase itself carries a heavy weight of assumptions about the way people think and that that weight is biased in favor of a particular kind of religious thinking (since not all religions are faith based).
This leads me to wonder:
a) whether I'm talking through my fedora.
b) if not, in what other ways does this bias appear encoded in modern English.
c) what if anything to do about it.
It's a common English usage and a pointed rhetorical device, but it troubled me. As far as I can tell, I don't have faith to put in anything.
The phrase implies that the strongest and deepest of mental processes is the depositing of faith.
To me the strongest and deepest mental process is the mistrustful application of tools to reality, the observation of the effects and the changing of the tools based on those effects.
It struck me that the phrase itself carries a heavy weight of assumptions about the way people think and that that weight is biased in favor of a particular kind of religious thinking (since not all religions are faith based).
This leads me to wonder:
a) whether I'm talking through my fedora.
b) if not, in what other ways does this bias appear encoded in modern English.
c) what if anything to do about it.