Some ideas are useful even if they aren’t true. That’s how some atheists are reconciling how religion gets people to do the right thing for the wrong (or no) reason. Frankly, they had me at the word “metaphor” since I’ve been intrigued by the idea of metaphors as fundamental units of thought popularized by George Lakoff. I’ve been thinking about metaphorical truth in a more personal context because of something I learned from my high school chemistry teacher, Mrs. Schipe.
A secular metaphorical truth from chemistry class is treating any beaker full of a clear liquid as if it contains highly concentrated acid. It’s a useful short-term solution until empirical truth can be determined, and it’s useful even if you know it may not be empirically true–like some kind of logic placebo.
Metaphorical truth cannot be used as a foundation to discover new truths because the benefit is a coincidence or a contrivance, not a consequence. Eventually you need to know what’s actually in the beaker (empirical truth) to do something useful with it rather than just avoid harm from it.
That’s a pretty good analogy for how I feel about the less hateful aspects of religion. I think my religious friends would be good people without religion, and I keep hoping that some day they’ll find out what’s really in the beaker too.
… And Unintended Consequences
My dad taught social studies in a New Jersey high school, and he’d bring home all kinds of things: encyclopedias, microscopes, an adding machine, and the school science supply catalogs. He also bought me some pretty dangerous chemistry sets for pre-teen Christmas. Ah, the good old vials-of-arsenic days! I’d eagerly page through those science catalogs dreaming of creating larger, MUCH larger chemical reactions some day.
We should all be thankful that I discovered computers before realizing those dreams. Sometimes I’ve also daydreamed about using beakers for drinking glasses, but now I wonder if that age-old metaphorical truth would come back to haunt me. Would every abandoned half-full beaker of water make me flinch?
Fortunately, I discovered mason jars.