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'Capable of believing things they wouldn't believe in Salt Lake City'?

 
 
Reply Sat 26 Dec, 2015 12:35 pm
Failed to get the meaning of 'Capable of believing things they wouldn't believe in Salt Lake City.'
If the author said 'Capable of believing things they wouldn't believe in New York City/Washington District", does it share the same meaning?

Context:

Believing is not something you can decide to do as a matter of
policy. At least, it is not something I can decide to do as an act
of will. I can decide to go to church and I can decide to recite the
Nicene Creed, and I can decide to swear on a stack of bibles that I
believe every word inside them. But none of that can make me
actually believe it if I don't. Pascal's wager could only ever be
an argument for feigning belief in God. And the God that you claim
to believe in had better not be of the omniscient kind or he'd
see through the deception. The ludicrous idea that believing is
something you can decide to do is deliciously mocked by Douglas
Adams in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, where we
meet the robotic Electric Monk, a labour-saving device that you
buy 'to do your believing for you'. The de luxe model is advertised
as 'Capable of believing things they wouldn't believe in Salt
Lake City'.


-Richard Dawkins
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Tes yeux noirs
 
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Reply Sat 26 Dec, 2015 01:02 pm
@oristarA,
Quote:
If the author said 'Capable of believing things they wouldn't believe in New York City/Washington District", does it share the same meaning?

It would not have the same meaning. Salt Lake City is the home city of the Mormon Church, which has some very strange beliefs. The marketing slogan for the imagined Electric Monk implies that its beliefs can be selected from a very wide range. It can believe things that even Mormons would not.

oristarA
 
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Reply Sat 26 Dec, 2015 09:40 pm
@Tes yeux noirs,
Cool.
Thanks.
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