Why we should never let truth get in the way of a good story

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A few years ago, I went with my friend out to Montana to see his mom. It's out in the mountains, the far west of the state, and about two hours in any direction from civilization. She lives in a trailer out there, with her friend, a cranky old fighter that we'll call Jeanne.

One night, I was out on the porch smoking a cigarette, and marveling at the view. See, those of you who haven't been far away from the city may not realize this, but the further you get from the city, the more of the night sky you can see. Out there, it's amazing. An organic planetarium. Light pollution's gone, so the clarity is amazing. Well, Jeanne comes out, and while we split a bowl of medicinal, she started telling this story about how the stars are the souls of dead indians. I can't remember the details, I was high. What I do remember is that my buddy comes out, and proceeds to give a lecture about how much horse %$&* that was, and gives a scientific explanation as to what stars are.

Jeanne told him off for trying to ruin a good story when we all knew what the stars really are.

I remember when I was a kid, I was camping with the scouts (Most of the time our troop did this in a stand of trees on church property, as we were in the suburbs). Some of the parents were there. The scoutmaster starts telling the story of Pecos Bill. The kids, of course, were riveted. One of the parents complains that he's lying to the kids, that whirlwinds didn't work that way, and that it might put stupid ideas into our heads if we ever saw a tornado.

I see a lot of good things coming from a purely rationalist point of view. Scientific advancement requires one. One thing that irks the hell out of me is that so many who subscribe to "skepticism" feel the need to attack "woo" (Which is by far the most obnoxious derogatory comment I've ever heard) wherever they find it. I've had people come at me over telling a tall tale, or even just loudly talk about how much hokum it was, just because it wasn't rational.

We don't tell stories and legends like Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyan, or the indian stars because we think they're true. We tell stories like those because we want them to be. We want to believe, if only for the duration of the telling that we live in a world of magic and wonder, where a many can lay track faster than a steam engine or harness and ride a whirlwind. In a world where everything has a perfectly rational explanation, we want to believe there's some wonder left.

I can understand fighting when religion tries to change laws to favor itself, or when it tries to replace rationalism in schools. Why do some skeptics feel the need to attack something no one believes is true? Why are they so opposed to a bit of innocent storytelling around a campfire?

Yeah, I don't want to enjoy a bit of fiction and have someone point out to me that in real life, Daleks don't exist, you can't kill someone by saying magic words, or some such.

I think there's a fine line between pointing out that homeopathy is a load of rubbish and pointing out that stars are actually balls of nuclear fusion.

Sounds like your buddy is an idiot.

Niether you nor jeanne were taking the story literally- so you two didnt need his missionary work.

Does he rant like that to people standing in line for Harry Potter movies too?

Once upon a time, I was reading a thread and someone started telling a story about the stars at night far away from cities. Then he said the words "An organic planetarium." Immediately, I thought "No way! Planetariums aren't organic. Organic means made of living matter, so if you were going to make one with current technology, you'd have to do something weird with bioluminescent bacteria that probably wouldn't look half as good as a regular planetarium, and would cost many times more. If you tried to do it far in the future, you might be able to with quite a bit of genetic engineering, but it still probably wouldn't look as good as a regular planetarium. I have to post right now, and tell this guy how wrong he is." Then I saw that his main point was that you shouldn't try to debunk unrealistic things in stories, so I decided not to.

The end.

P.S. I'm not a Skeptic, just pedantic.

P.P.S. If you like stories about stars and planetariums, and you've never read Isaac Asimov's short story 'Nightfall', go do that now.

No, he doesn't. Harry Potter is a book, of course. He doesn't consider it to be woo like folklore. He just calls them idiots and leaves it at that. However, he did rant one time when a few of us were out camping and someone started telling the story of the Hessian Barracks (It's kind of a Maryland thing. Google it.) Ghosts aren't real, and all that.

That's the thing, though. I wasn't just complaining about his behavior. It's also a trend I've been seeing on forums, where any religion/superstition/folklore comes under attack whether or not it's trying to make a political move. On Wrongplanet alone, I've seen some people in threads that are solely theological discussions among like minded individuals that only go in to attack Christians, even though they are simply trying to discuss their religion among themselves, not trying to convert anyone.

There's a certain kind of skeptic that is so intolerant of anything that smacks even slightly of religion that they'll go off at virtually no provocation. I'm simply trying to understand them. How can anyone think that attacking folklore and people who are minding their own will do anything but piss people off?



Will do. And I suppose that the word choice was faulty. Natural would have been better than organic. And I wasn't saying that planetariums are natural constructs, I was saying that the sky out there is so clear that it's as detailed as a planetarium but natural.

It can just be fascinating in terms of understanding a culture or a way of thinking. In animism and monism for instance everything has a spirit. Similarly if you ever read up on ancient Greek or Alexandrian thought you find out that there was a firm belief that all things manifest on the earth come as ideas from the aethers from God, are dressed/tuned further by angels, bounce down through the celestial spheres taking on star/planet qualities and then down to the earth (which they believed to be an incarnate being Gaia) and then bounced back up to be clothed in matter - a lot of such is not only basis for a fair amount of new age/theosophic speculate but for occult magick in general.

At a minimum you're learning about a human reality, and with a belief system you get to understand how a culture thought or why it behaved as it did. Stories like the one you mentioned, from that perspective, have a whole other type of value therein.

I did get what you were saying. I have seen the night sky away from city lights on a cloudless night, and it really is beautiful.