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[–]Three_oneFourWanted for thought crimes in countless ideologies 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Faith plus ritual equals result... that sounds more like a cult than just magical thinking. Magical thinking is, "If I put out milk and cookies, Santa will bring me presents" the ideology of, "If I undergo and encourage others to also undergo expensive, irreversable, life changing surgeries, then I'll be happier because I will be the opposite sex" is more of a cult

[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Faith plus ritual equals result... that sounds more like a cult than just magical thinking.

Actually, by the academic definition, that IS what "magical thinking" is. There's a book called The Golden Bough by James George Frazer, the founder of modern anthropology, that talks about this kind of magical thinking and how this type of belief were the foundational for many pantheistic belief systems.

But, yes, it is really culty as well.

edit: grammar

[–]Three_oneFourWanted for thought crimes in countless ideologies 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Oh. Damn. I didn't think that was a legit term. Thanks for the info!

[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

No problem! I do think people often use that phrase casually in the way that you did as well, so it can be easy to mistake which meaning was meant.

[–]Three_oneFourWanted for thought crimes in countless ideologies 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That also shows why it's important to make sure terms and symbols meant to convey a specific meaning or definition should not be easily confused or made up on the spot. Like the biohazard symbol, iirc, underwent a ton of testing to see if people would think it meant something and remember it. It had to be meaningless to avoid confusion but memorable. They had a bunch of potential symbols, and the one we see on every needle is the one that was the most memorable and meaningless, and probably won't end up as a random doodle due to being compex enough