[HN Gopher] As religious faith has declined, ideological intensi...
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As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen
Author : ali92hm
Score : 562 points
Date : 2021-06-11 13:40 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| sammalloy wrote:
| After thinking about it for a very long time, I've come to
| believe that "religious faith" is ultimately a form of
| intellectual laziness, and every religious adherent of every
| faith that I've cornered after a nice meal and a few drinks has
| all but admitted as such.
| dijit wrote:
| I'm inclined to agree, though that does not preclude them being
| otherwise smart, kind, open etc.
|
| I think also that we as humans have "religions" that are also
| intellectual cop-outs in other areas. Left vs Right, Capitalism
| vs <<other>>, Nationalism/Patriotism vs Globalism.
|
| I find a lot of people don't have nuance to their thinking they
| just blindly believe what ever they've settled in on, which
| leads to those funny "curb your capitalism/communism" YouTube
| videos, where people can't defend closely held convictions.
| j_wtf_all_taken wrote:
| Faith is fine (in god, democracy, veganism, open source or a
| political party - whatever). Blind faith (= ideology) is a
| problem.
| wturner wrote:
| I wish we had a world where the discernment between science,
| axiom and ideology was a real thing ironed into the public muscle
| memory as much as ideology itself. Idealism.
| rogerkirkness wrote:
| Teleological thinking centers in our brain atrophy but remain
| active even if you denounce religion.
| eli_gottlieb wrote:
| There is no specific center in the brain for teleological
| thinking.
| drak0n1c wrote:
| Teleological thinking persists regardless of whether you're
| secular. The "ideological intensity" in the article is partly
| a result of teleological drive judging every facet of modern
| life, even the trivial. On the left it is how X contributes
| to equity vs oppression, and on the right it is how X
| contributes to orderliness vs dysfunction.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| Teleological thinking does not have to be supernatural, as
| long as you replace the idea of a "will" driving things
| towards a final state, with the idea of attractors and stable
| versus unstable states. You can't really deny telos and also
| believe in evolution as a system that fits species to their
| environments.
| bobthechef wrote:
| Right, telos is not purely a matter of will, which is a
| special case. Telos is about the ordering of a thing toward
| an end. You can't explain efficiently causality without
| recourse to telos. The fact that the same causes
| consistently lead to the same effects is a testament to the
| telos of the things involved.
|
| Unfortunately, most opponents of telos don't really
| understand what it really means. They seem to hold to a
| mechanistic/Paleyian view of the world and assume the telos
| can therefore only be something in some mind external to
| the universe that directs things according to its purposes
| but that things themselves lack any intrinsic teleological
| character. But this is not correct.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| It seems to be the materialist/reductionist perspective,
| which is based on 19th century science (despite being
| totally outmoded since the early 20th century and the
| discovery of emergent properties in physics and biology
| alike).
|
| I sincerely think that it's the thing holding us back the
| most in the 21st century.
| lisper wrote:
| Evolution fits species to their environments in exactly the
| same sense (though not quite by the same mechanism) that
| gravity fits puddles to theirs.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| That's also a teleological approach (looking at the final
| state of the interaction of rain, terrain and gravity) -
| I used evolution as an example because its the first
| thing that came to mind.
|
| Evolution is also a good touchpoint because everybody who
| considers themselves "rational" accepts it, and yet it is
| taught, and reasoned about, teleologically - compared to
| most pop-science topics which are analytical in nature.
| lisper wrote:
| I don't think most people would think of puddles as
| having telos. Telos goes beyond what is and looks at
| purpose and meaning in terms of what ought to be. Puddles
| don't really have a purpose in that sense, and neither
| does evolution. Puddles fill voids, not because that's
| their purpose, but simply because that's what happens
| when you have water, gravity, and the right kind of void.
| Likewise for evolution. I know some people like to
| ascribe telos to evolution, but they're simply wrong, at
| least as adjudicated by the evidence.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| My understanding is that telos is about the final
| configuration of something, the outcome of it, as well as
| its goals in the human sense, and that these two ideas
| are covered by the concepts of intrinsic and extrinsic
| telos. Extrinsic telos, as in human purposive use, isn't
| what I was talking about - I meant intrinsic telos, the
| settled state that a system will reach if left to its own
| devices.
|
| If you leave rain to its own devices, it will form
| puddles through gravity and the depressions in the
| environment. If you don't change the environment
| (practically impossible given species are part of the
| environment themselves, but hey-ho), evolution will
| (loosely) match the species to said environment, or kill
| them off, if allowed to run to infinite time.
|
| Those examples both spell out the idea of intrinsic telos
| to me.
| lisper wrote:
| I refer you to:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telos
|
| "Telos [refers] to the full potential or inherent purpose
| or objective of a person or thing,[2] similar to the
| notion of an 'end goal' or 'raison d'etre'. Telos is the
| root of the modern term teleology, the study of
| purposiveness or of objects with a view to their aims,
| purposes, or intentions."
|
| Puddles don't have aims, purposes, or intentions.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| From the teleological viewpoint, the purpose of rain is
| to become a puddle - or soak into the soil, or rejoin the
| oceans, etc etc.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology
|
| > (from telos, telos, 'end', 'aim', or 'goal,' and logos,
| logos, 'explanation' or 'reason')[1] or finality[2][3] is
| a reason or explanation for something as a function of
| its end, purpose, or goal, as opposed to as a function
| of, say, its cause.
|
| > Natural teleology, common in classical philosophy,
| though controversial today,[5] contends that natural
| entities also have intrinsic purposes, irrespective of
| human use or opinion. For instance, Aristotle claimed
| that an acorn's intrinsic telos is to become a fully
| grown oak tree.
|
| That's the angle I'm coming from. Especially this part,
| given my introduction to teleology was through learning
| about systems theory:
|
| > An example of the reintroduction of teleology into
| modern language is the notion of an attractor.
| wyager wrote:
| The "science" most people believe (more accurately called
| scientism) is an aspect of the state secular religion.
| remarkEon wrote:
| It's interesting seeing this point, which has been around the
| internet for at least a decade now, start to get printed in
| what are otherwise mainstream publications these days. I
| don't know that I buy it, but I certainly understand and see
| the merit of the argument.
| zxzax wrote:
| I don't really buy it, it seems to suggest that scientific
| discoveries are not questioned and changed constantly, when
| they absolutely are. It's not accurate to always refer to
| them as "beliefs."
| beaconstudios wrote:
| scientism isn't typically practiced by scientists
| themselves, but atheist types who love pop-science and
| "science communicators" and the like. There's a ton of
| tropes associated with this belief system that have
| nothing to do with the actual process of scientific
| discovery. The Big Bang Theory as a show panders to this
| type, with physics techno-babble and guest appearances by
| Stephen Hawking (RIP) and Neil deGrasse Tyson.
| zxzax wrote:
| You seem to be describing a stereotype and not an actual
| person, and also that seems to be conflating it with an
| actual view on religious beliefs (atheism). So I can't
| say I know what you mean.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| There's no conflating. Scientism-types being atheist (or
| anti-theist) seems to be a pretty universal pattern in my
| experience. If I called someone a bible-basher, it
| wouldn't be conflating to say they're a Christian - it's
| a prerequisite. It's also a stereotype, but if I were to
| call somebody a bible-basher you'd (presumably) know the
| kinds of character traits I was implying (sanctimonious,
| primarily).
|
| But this feels like describing the colour blue - if you
| don't already know what it is, being on Hacker News, I
| don't think I can help you. Familiarising yourself with
| the philosophy of science (like Karl Popper's ideas for a
| start) and then looking at the way that many redditors
| and HNers talk about science (especially pop-science in
| astronomy and physics) or treat whitepapers, "new study
| finds" journalism etc would make you notice the
| difference.
| zxzax wrote:
| I'm still not really sure what that's supposed to mean or
| why it's not conflation, many Christians that I've met
| have wildly varying views on the bible. I also don't see
| what the difference here is supposed to be -- in general,
| there is not a lot of fact checking happening on public
| social media, and if there is, it also has a lot of its
| own bias. I don't see that as being specific to comments
| on scientific articles or evidence of any kind of
| "scientism," it's just the usual confirmation bias.
| remarkEon wrote:
| I mean, I agree with you, it's not accurate to refer to
| "science" as "[a set of] beliefs" but that's sort of
| besides the point. The point others are making is that
| "believe the science" is not the mantra of a society that
| actually "does science" but one that "Practices The
| Science^(tm)".
| varjag wrote:
| I think it expresses doubt in ability of a layperson to
| make a rational judgement on merits of a particular
| scientific research or process rather than on science
| itself.
| zxzax wrote:
| I don't understand what this is supposed to mean. There
| is nothing in the context of "science itself" besides
| that particular scientific research or process. That's
| what it's defined as. Did you mean something like: a
| layperson might be inclined to place higher value on
| scientific research performed by a personal friend or
| colleague? That's probably true in some cases, but it's
| not "scientism."
| betwixthewires wrote:
| You sure are doing a lot of not understanding in here.
| Let me break it down for you: the vast majority of people
| who say things like "trust the science" don't have the
| first clue about what the science actually says. It's a
| dogmatically held belief to them.
|
| That isn't to say that the problem does not occur in
| other types, or that they're wrong about what they
| believe just because they don't understand it.
| zxzax wrote:
| >You sure are doing a lot of not understanding in here.
|
| I mean, yes? I don't pretend to know everything about
| everyone.
|
| >the vast majority of people who say things like "trust
| the science" don't have the first clue about what the
| science actually says. It's a dogmatically held belief to
| them.
|
| I can't agree with this, if they would change their mind
| about it, it's not a dogmatic belief. You seem to be
| generalizing about a large number of people, have you
| asked all of them if they would be open to changing their
| mind, given new evidence?
| betwixthewires wrote:
| Every christian that turned atheist held a dogmatic
| belief, changing your mind later doesn't change that it
| is dogmatic. And in my experience, most people need more
| than rational opposing viewpoint to change their minds
| about most things.
| [deleted]
| icelancer wrote:
| "Believe science."
|
| Vox and others stealth-editing articles, people yelling at
| you if you don't blindly believe the CDC/WHO, etc.
|
| Science by its very nature is heretical, questioning,
| skeptical. "Belief" in science is exactly what we should
| not be doing, yet is pushed by the academic elites.
| [deleted]
| gandalfgreybeer wrote:
| I'm slightly surprised to see this line of thinking in
| HN. The so-called "Belief" in science is not driven by
| blind faith that what people are saying are true. It's
| that you understand that before something is believed it
| goes through a rigorous system of fact checking /
| experimental confirmation. So if something is considered
| by people from different fields as true, then it likely
| is. But as you said, it's questioning and skeptical so if
| new data is put forward then it can adjust. Science isn't
| just about being right, it's a system of truth finding
| and understanding.
| icelancer wrote:
| >> The so-called "Belief" in science is not driven by
| blind faith that what people are saying are true. It's
| that you understand that before something is believed it
| goes through a rigorous system of fact checking /
| experimental confirmation.
|
| Right. None of which happened with the proclamations by
| the CDC/WHO who also had potential perverse incentives.
| Globally appointed scientists are not the arbiters of
| science. That is my biggest issue with the "believe
| science" movement.
| gandalfgreybeer wrote:
| This statement clarified things; I see your point more
| clearly now.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| > So if something is considered by people from different
| fields as true, then it likely is.
|
| This is actually _very_ unscientific, a good chunk of
| what we currently hold to be true within science
| disproved previous science. A good example of really
| strong, good and useful science that was later replaced
| is Newtonian mechanics.
|
| In reality, science is never finished, but the prevailing
| view throughout time is "we have most of it figured out"
| and time and time again this is proven false. Hopefully
| it continues to be.
|
| And it might not be comforting to confront, but yes, the
| vast majority of people's belief in science is not
| analytical or rational, it is dogmatic. It doesn't mean
| the particular scientific things people believe are
| wrong, but most people, even scientists themselves, hold
| a lot of beliefs dogmatically and the idea that it is
| rational is protection of the ego and comparable to
| belief in divine wisdom.
| gandalfgreybeer wrote:
| You only highlighted one sentence of what I said but left
| out the part where I said:
|
| > if new data is put forward then it can adjust.
|
| Which is essentially the same as the ideas you put
| forward.
|
| Also, coming from a Physics background, I would argue
| that to say that Newtonian mechanics has been completely
| replaced is false. There are more accurate models of the
| universe especially as we go to a quantum level or levels
| approaching the speed of light, but for most models it
| still works. As the saying goes, "all models are wrong,
| but some models are more useful than others". Newtonian
| mechanics still works, but it doesn't work all the time.
|
| But main thing is, we are in agreement that Science is
| not finished; there is a balance between being open to
| knowing that there might be a better model compared to
| what we know now, but until it disproves what we know now
| (or explains things out current models can't and can be
| verified experimentally), there is no reason to not trust
| our currently accepted and verified ones.
| wyager wrote:
| > It's that you understand that before something is
| believed it goes through a rigorous system of fact
| checking / experimental confirmation
|
| To be honest, the way you've phrased this makes it sound
| like you've totally bought in to state secular
| scientismic dogma.
|
| The entire concept of "fact checking" (outsourcing your
| rational facilities to journalists and e-celebs) is
| diametrically opposed to actual scientific thought.
|
| It's also completely false that before "something is
| believed" (by which I think you mean is ensconced as
| scientismic dogma by the cathedral) it is subject to
| actual "experimental confirmation" (under any reasonable
| interpretation of that term). How many times has the FDA
| changed the official "nutrition science" dietary
| recommendations over the last 50 years? The entire time,
| they've claimed their approach has been evidence-based,
| which may be true in some narrow sense, but the
| predictive confidence of their claims are so bad and
| noisy that they keep changing the official "scientific"
| beliefs.
|
| This is not unique to nutrition. Many politically
| relevant fields have very strong-sounding dogmatic claims
| made from on high with what is actually extremely weak
| evidence.
| astrange wrote:
| > Vox and others stealth-editing articles, people yelling
| at you if you don't blindly believe the CDC/WHO
|
| These two things are the opposite of each other. Would
| you prefer Vox not edit articles?
| icelancer wrote:
| "stealth-editing"
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| There's a difference between speculation and practicing
| belief, and what I see non-religous Americans practice is
| secular belief--that is--scientism. "Belief" in science.
| It's not speculation, because if it was, you might see
| people saying "I don't know, we'll wait and see" more
| often. Instead, I watch and read about people in America
| who are _convinced_ of certain outcomes without any thought
| as to whether or not what they posit is true.
| bitL wrote:
| Yeah, scientism used to be a huge problem at the end of the
| 19th/beginning of the 20th century, and we seem to be there
| again.
| wturner wrote:
| I don't know who "most people" are but if you are conflating
| science with values (I did a quick look up of the definition
| of "scientism") you are doing it wrong - and it isn't
| science. This reminds me of a video I watched once. An author
| named Sam Harris wrote an entire book titled The Moral
| Landscape that supposedly (I haven't read the book) makes the
| argument that science can precisely inform our value
| judgments . A physics professor named Sean Carol confronted
| him publicly on his views and explained the demarcation
| between values and science. Each time Sean would pin him down
| Sam would squirm around and change the topic or miss the
| point. I don't think most people agree with Sam Harris's view
| (which from what I've read embody what you are talking about)
| , but at the same time I don't think most people care about
| any of this stuff either way. :)
| betwixthewires wrote:
| As someone who does agree with Sam Harris' view, I do
| notice that he does this thing where over explains his
| point to fog it up and then when confronted accuses his
| opponent of misattributing what he said. It is a clever but
| dishonest debate tactic.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| '"Believe" in the science.'
| paulpauper wrote:
| This is a commonly held view among the punditry. But the author
| ignores the obvious counterexample: all the division in the 50s,
| 60s, and 70s such as over desegregation, civil rights, abortion,
| and the Vietnam war, despite higher rates of religiosity. You
| cango farther back: the civil war. America has always been deeply
| divided.
| godelski wrote:
| I think the obvious counter example is the fact that there's a
| lot of political extremism in the bible belt. The extremism
| seems to be more homogeneously distributed where lack of
| religion isn't.
| mrwnmonm wrote:
| I don't think religion is declining at all.
| mrwnmonm wrote:
| I remember one time there were two articles on the front page
| of HN. One says "If you want to be more productive, be more
| happy", then you scroll down and you find "If you want to be
| more productive, be more depressed".
|
| Take a look at this article for example
| https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/27/religion-why-is...
|
| Determining if religion is declining or rising is more complex
| than just making a poll.
| simplify wrote:
| There are religions, there are ideologies, and there are
| tribalisms. Tribalism is the underlying cause of most of
| humanity's bad behavior. And unfortunately, it creeps into
| religions and ideologies more often than not.
|
| In other words, as the article states, rationality is not going
| to increase as religion decreases. Tribalism is a fundamental
| human tendency, and few religions / ideologies address it
| correctly - if at all.
| mistermann wrote:
| > There are religions, there are ideologies, and there are
| tribalisms. Tribalism is the underlying cause of most of
| humanity's bad behavior. And unfortunately, it creeps into
| religions and ideologies more often than not.
|
| I think one needs to go a bit deeper. Tribalism is ~~the~~ _an_
| underlying cause, but I believe an even deeper cause lies at
| the root (or _a deeper root_ at least), one that enables
| tribalism and all other things higher in the stack: the nature
| of human consciousness. Consciousness presents us with an
| illusion (estimation, simulation, perspective, opinion, etc) of
| reality, and we mistake this for reality itself. What 's even
| stranger about the situation is that _we already know this_.
| And yet despite this, we continue on living our lives (our
| _real time behavior_ ) as if this is not actually true.
|
| Worse, I believe that this illusion has been encoded/embedded
| within portions of the ~fabric of reality. As just one example,
| look at our language (very simplistic compared to the reality
| we use it to describe), but more so _how we use it_ (on a real
| time, day to day basis). Take the word "is", which means "to
| be". "1 + 1 _is_ 2 " is (almost certainly) an objectively and
| comprehensively true statement. But then take "Tribalism is the
| underlying cause of most of humanity's bad behavior"...is this
| almost certainly an _objectively and comprehensively true
| statement_? I suspect not. And yet, we use the very same word.
| _And this is an extremely simple, fairly innocuous statement_
| compared to many other examples (say, journalism) where we use
| this word in a way that _implies_ (is perceived as) being of
| the "1+1=2" variety, but is actually of the estimation/opinion
| type (in turn, increasing the magnitude of illusion further,
| creating an _even more powerful_ coordinated /synchronized
| illusion).
|
| Now, I'm quite confident that you were speaking casually and
| can understand the complex nuance in play if you put your mind
| to it...but what of third parties who ingest information in
| threads like this, adding portions of it to their model of
| reality, perhaps even repeating the "truths" they have learned
| to others? While it's true that many people _are able to_
| switch their mind into extreme pedantry mode (for short periods
| of time with some degree of skill) and pick nits along with me,
| what is actually happening (in the real world as it is) when
| they are not in this mode, and are interacting in a complex
| system with billions of other people who are also not in this
| mode the vast majority of the time, if ever?
|
| Imagine you have a giant computing cluster with 7 billion
| nodes, and the software running on every single node _is
| utterly riddled with bugs, a complete mess of continuous errors
| in computation_ - might the output of this cluster be
| suboptimal relative to one that has less bugs?
| simplify wrote:
| I don't think it's useful to blame consciousness in the
| context of this thread. Why not keep going and blame the big
| bang for the mass shooting in Austin yesterday morning?
| Technically true, but not useful to point out.
|
| Additionally, you're assuming there _is_ such a thing as
| objective reality. Your 1+1=2 example is based on manmade
| axioms. It 's not an objectively true statement, it's a
| conclusion based on an approximated system of logic that
| humans have invented for convenience. How much is "one"
| apple, for example? If "1" in your equation represents an
| apple, can you swap one apple for another and have an
| equivalent result?
| mistermann wrote:
| I think of it much as you might when debugging a systems
| problem: it seems to me that the nature of consciousness is
| likely the least distant and most impactful entity that we
| are able to exert influence upon.
|
| I do indeed assume there is an objective reality, as it
| seems you do (or did) as well. Something I find very
| interesting about this theory is that it regularly invokes
| a solipsism response when someone is exposed to it, even
| though it is a very simple idea that is fairly consistent
| with mainstream psychology and neuroscience.
| simplify wrote:
| The reason I point out the problem of objective reality
| is your comment of "is this almost certainly an
| objectively and comprehensively true statement? I suspect
| not". Perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying. In
| fact I don't think I understood the point you were trying
| to make at all. Not being snarky, I'm just now confused.
| mistermann wrote:
| I was being extremely precise (because I believe the
| problem is extremely important).
|
| So, my interpretation of "Tribalism is the underlying
| cause of most of humanity's bad behavior", focuses on the
| words "the" and "most", as well as the general idea of
| what ails humanity. I would say that this aspect is
| extremely truthy and extremely important, but I believe
| it is even more true that the particulars of
| consciousness itself is THE root cause of all the world's
| problems...and not just in a "well duh, no shit" sense,
| but in a _this is where humanity should be focusing its
| very best minds_ sense. I believe the problem is
| blatantly obvious and well known, but for some reason we
| seem unable to take it seriously.
| K0nserv wrote:
| I have a theory that tribalism is simultaneously the most
| important condition for civilisations and also often their
| undoing. The great filter[0] argues that it's unlikely for a
| civilisation to reach the stage where it can visit other star
| systems and this is why earth hasn't been visited by aliens.
|
| Tribalism is a fundamental component in starting on the road to
| a modern civilisation, without it there is not capacity to
| innovate as all individuals are occupied with gathering food
| and finding shelter. Only when humans settled down in groups
| did we have the ability for some individuals to be freed from
| the toil of daily life to invent things.
|
| In any case, if you assume this tribalism is crucial for
| civilisations to get started, then all alien civilisations
| would have had the same component. However, while tribalism is
| crucial in the earliest life of a civilisation I think it's
| detrimental later. In particular, it makes tackling global
| challenges like climate change difficult and in the presence of
| word ending weapons it makes total destruction likely.
|
| We've already seen examples of this e.g. inaction on climate
| change because China won't do their part and with the mutually
| assured destruction of nuclear weapons.
|
| So in essence I agree with you and because tribalism is an
| evolutionary trait I expect it will also be our undoing long
| term.
|
| 0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter
| krmboya wrote:
| I know at least in Christianity tribalism is addressed.
|
| One instance where Jesus says love your neighbour, then the
| listeners ask him who should be considered a neighbour. He
| responds with a story about a Samaritan who goes out of his way
| to help a Jew robbed and left for dead, as an example of a good
| neighbour.
|
| Jews and Samaritans at the time despised each other.
| [deleted]
| dragonwriter wrote:
| It's interesting that basically no evidence is presented for the
| focal narrative of the piece, just generalizations and subjective
| impressions. I think the author is one of the many people who
| mistook the partisan civility that resulted from, and whose
| fading remnants lasted a while past, the long period of
| realignment covering most of the mid-to-late 20th Century in
| which the two major parties were not well-aligned with the main
| ideological divides, so that neither could too-openly invoke them
| without risking internal schism, with an absence of intense
| ideological division.
| seaorg wrote:
| Religious faith hasn't declined. It's just re-branded.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The title of the article when I visit is "America without God"
| and it's subtitle is one of many sweeping statements about
| humanity that I've seen debated by Americans that seem a bit
| parochial when considering the global context.
| nikolay wrote:
| Yeah, people need to believe in something - faith is part of our
| human nature, and that's why it's a phenomenon across the globe.
| As an Eastern Orthodox, I don't need any ideology other than
| Orthodoxy, which defines my value system and which pretty much
| gives me an answer for all the good and bad happening; it's
| unifying, not dividing. That's why I have a hard time associating
| myself with any secular ideology, as they all conflict with
| Orthodoxy in one or many ways. I always found it funny that
| Republicans in the States often present themselves as Christians.
| Still, they don't act as such - in fact, their values predate
| Christ and are based on the Old Testament ("An eye for an eye,"
| etc.) and ignore the existence of the New Testament and the
| teachings of Christ.
| baby wrote:
| Interesting. I always found religion divisive. If I don't
| believe in God then I can't really take part in all these cool
| religious community stuff like church, boy scouts, etc.
| tomohawk wrote:
| As predicted by Nietzsche.
|
| For a great modern explainer, check out Beyond Reason, by Jordan
| Peterson. Rule VI, abandon ideology covers this.
| deadite wrote:
| Not at all ironic that you're being downvoted in this thread.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| I don't know why you were downvoted for this. It's something he
| explicitly described. You see it in the form of "corporate
| values." Corporations don't have values, people have values,
| and the subcontext of corporate values is that leadership at
| those companies make their own values.[1][2]
|
| When you hear about a corporation espousing "values," they're
| practicing corporate Nietzscheism. Most of the time, they're
| not doing it because they knowingly follow Friedrich
| Nietzsche's philosophy, but rather that they parrot the
| philosophy from other corporate examples... as predicted by
| Nietzsche.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transvaluation_of_values
|
| [2]: https://philosophynow.org/issues/29/Nietzsche_and_Values
| opportune wrote:
| What's interesting about stated/explicit corporate values is
| they are almost always based on what you'd call "slave
| morality", like being good, traditionally moral participants.
| That's because those values are for underlings and PR for the
| general public, though set by the top.
|
| But of course, they are actually run under the master
| morality of doing what is expedient to achieve the goal
| (usually money).
|
| > Most of the time, they're not doing it because they
| knowingly follow Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy, but rather
| that they parrot the philosophy from other corporate
| examples... as predicted by Nietzsche.
|
| It could also be that in the modern world, most powerful
| institutions don't associate themselves with religion
| directly (like pre-modern power structures, kingdoms and
| empires, etc) so they have no default values to fall back on.
| Large corporations transcend nations and cultures, so cannot
| even fall back on those specific cultural values. Thus they
| must make their own, not necessarily to mimick others, but
| because having a large organization with no publicly stated
| values is simply confusing to us hairless apes.
| Proven wrote:
| In my experience, while American conservatives have become more
| moderate over years, socialists have gotten worse and more
| extreme in every which way.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| The article says that people need not just political engagement
| but contemplation, standing outside the present moment and
| communing with something beyond. But is that a view that
| Americans now necessarily share? One concept that maybe has
| become quietly mainstream is materialism. (By that, however, I am
| not claiming that supporters of whatever American political camp
| are literally Marxists.) That is, any kind of moment away from
| present-day political struggles might be viewed as capitulation
| or as callously ignoring the plight of the oppressed.
|
| As a non-American, I get the impression that this is a growing
| trend from it appearing even on e.g. internet literature forums
| in the last few years: poets writing abstract work at a distance
| from the political concerns of the present and seeking a certain
| timelessness and glimpse of eternity (think T.S. Eliot in "Burnt
| Norton") sometimes get called, by the Americans present, socially
| irresponsible and doing nothing for POC.
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| Surely Marxism _is_ an abstraction from present-day political
| struggles? Capitalism didn 't appear yesterday.
| dnndev wrote:
| My observation shows it has less to do with religion and more
| with the large influence of the media (not just the news)
|
| TV, radio, news, internet, personal voice - comments posts such
| as hacker news.
|
| People would have never connected before social media, tv, radio
| to align in mass.
|
| Religion has been more about social that faith for decades. Now
| people have another option - internet and social media.
| phekunde wrote:
| Just curious to know, isn't religion also an ideology? Every
| ideology at some point turns into religion!
| vmception wrote:
| I think this correlation is related to causation. I think there
| are registers in people's minds that are simply occupied.
|
| Addicts occupy their predisposition to addiction with a single or
| ever changing way of neglecting their responsibilities and
| relationships and health, based on simple earliest exposure.
|
| Susceptible people occupy their predisposition to susceptibility
| with religion or fervent ideology, the "choice" being simply the
| earliest exposure.
|
| Whichever one shows up first occupies that part of their mind. No
| different than a simpler organism impressing who its mother and
| caretaker is.
| vitiral wrote:
| Reducing the actions of people to objects or "simpler
| organisms" is rarely a helpful concept. Often people are much
| more complicated than our reductions of them.
| vmception wrote:
| I should wrote "analogous" instead of "no different", as
| analogies compare dissimilar things with common attributes,
| and could provide the same introspective capabilities without
| the easy ego based rebuttals
|
| There aren't enough differences for me to entertain the idea
| of backtracking though
| Growling_owl wrote:
| > I think there are registers in people's minds that are simply
| occupied.
|
| I think this is the case, anecdotally I noticed that if you are
| a sports fan, then the "us versus them" rhetoric works much
| less, or at least less than you'd expect in such people.
|
| At least for domestic politics, that's because you already get
| your dose of "us versus them" from some other domain in your
| life.
|
| Same for religion which is the main topic covered in the
| article:
|
| People who are religious are less likely to fall prey of cults.
|
| Religious people are less likely to elevate "false prophets"
| such as actors, musicians, rockstars and also the new
| phenomenon represented by technoutopian cult leaders such as
| Elon Musk or Elizabeth Holmes.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| What a condescending and misanthropic view of people. So we're
| just paramecia with "registers" waiting for occupation.
|
| As with anything, I think the real answer is much more nuanced.
|
| 1) This article is making the case that this behavior is
| universal, when there is no evidence of that. As always has
| been, there are subsects of any ideology that are ravenous in
| their dogma. They are always the loudest and get the most
| attention, because their actions are so extreme. It's selection
| bias by the media, who (wouldn't you know it) are the same
| folks making the assertion that political religiosity has
| supplanted deified religiosity.
|
| 2) If there's something resembling a "trend" happening around
| peoples' emotional investment in politics, it's likely around
| the fact that politics is increasingly prodding itself into
| peoples' lives. At the very least, if I travel abroad, and we
| have a president like Trump, I look like a fucking idiot. That
| sucks. At the worst, I'm a woman or minority whose livelihood
| is negatively affected constantly by political footballing.
|
| This has nothing to do with an absence of god, but everything
| to do with a real, quantifiable affect on peoples' lives. How
| can you expect people, secular or not, to put up with the state
| of social and political conversation as it exists today? If
| they're staunch conservatives, how can they put up with a clear
| wind blowing in the direction of socialism? If they're
| democrats, how can they put up with a clearly obstructionist
| and crooked counter party?
|
| Reducing all of that to computer parlance and the most basic
| biologies undermines the real problems that people are dealing
| with.
| mrfusion wrote:
| I don't think anyone judges you because of who the president
| is.
| vmception wrote:
| Because they're "staunch conservatives" or "democrats", as
| you wrote, because thats what they were exposed to first, not
| because they had an array of choices set in front of them
| with no external influence and said "that makes more sense"
|
| The same goes with religion
|
| The same goes with addicts
| bdv5 wrote:
| Starting conditions matter but all kinds of forces (and they
| are ever changing) exist and act upon the chimp mind as it
| moves through the jungle that is life. Where it ends up is
| highly unpredictable.
|
| So we get a chimp troupe like China were all the chimps appear
| to have the same programming or like US where chimps magically
| get polarized into exactly 2 camps on any issue or an Israel
| which due to the unique challenges it faces ends up with a
| knesset with more ideologies than anyone can keep track off.
|
| Starting conditions are only one variable in a very complex
| equation.
| [deleted]
| 908087 wrote:
| Most have just replaced or combined prior religion with a
| combination of QAnon/MAGA, conspiracism, anti-vax nuttery,
| nationalism, cryptocurrency / MLM schemes / Ponzi schemes /
| reddit pump and dump operations, various other purported get-
| rich-quick schemes, etc.
| gogopuppygogo wrote:
| Blaming the trend of declining religious faith in the American
| people is as easy as blaming replacement migration.
|
| How about we talk about declining standard of living, wealth
| inequality, and rules that apply only to the working class while
| the political/wealthy classes live their best lives.
|
| The existing system is broken.
| osrec wrote:
| I think most belief systems, religious or otherwise, sort of boil
| down to: "believe what you need to believe in order to get
| through life with some sort of meaning". Otherwise things can get
| a little too bleak in our heads...
| sunstone wrote:
| All humans have a belief system, it's part of what kept small
| tribes of humans together for tens of thousands of years. If you
| don't inherit one then you'll make one up for yourself.
| alkonaut wrote:
| I want to point out that this is incorrect:
|
| > It's rare to hear someone accused of being un-Swedish or un-
| British--but un-American is a common slur, slung by both left and
| right against the other. Being called un-American is like being
| called "un-Christian" or "un-Islamic," a charge akin to heresy.
|
| In fact to _be unswedish_ is not just a common idiom it's a
| positive one. It's when you don't show the typical negative
| Swedishness. You aren't "accused" of it, you are congratulated.
|
| "-I went to say hello to all the neighbors in my building. -What
| a nice and unswedish thing to do!"
| jeofken wrote:
| To clarify the point, when other Swedes act a little
| "unswedish" it may be cosmopolitan cool, but it is limited to
| the national/ethnic in group. When Arabs, Somalians, or
| Nigerians, or other foreign peoples act unswedish its expected,
| and if loud, an annoyance
| gradschoolfail wrote:
| Ditto for "unamerican". To call a Russian immigrant
| unamerican would get one mystified looks at best, probably.
| grecy wrote:
| One political party in Australia tried to adopt this and
| starting calling people "un-Australian".
|
| The leader of the other party stood up and tore him to shreds,
| saying that the magic of Australia is that it's a country of
| immigrants and that by very definition, everyone there _is
| Australian_. It 's perfectly fine to disagree about stuff and
| have discussions, but we're all still Australian. Anyone who
| says otherwise is trying to tear the country apart and should
| never be given a microphone again.
|
| The other guy has never tried that childish divisive tactic
| again.
| 8note wrote:
| That's very unfortunate for the indigenous folks, being left
| out if the country's definition
| grecy wrote:
| Well, yeah, the way Australia treats it's indigenous people
| is absolutely disgraceful.
| IncRnd wrote:
| > It's rare to hear someone accused of being un-Swedish or un-
| British--but un-American is a common slur, slung by both left
| and right against the other. Being called un-American is like
| being called "un-Christian" or "un-Islamic," a charge akin to
| heresy.
|
| People may be called un-American as a political weapon, but
| that's about all it is. People in politics use all sorts of
| childish phrases as weapons. In reality I've never been called
| un-American or seen another person called un-American, unless
| it was for humor.
| [deleted]
| mmsimanga wrote:
| As a black man I have been called unblack plenty times when my
| views differed. It's a pretty effective slur that leads to one
| keeping their opinion to themselves.
| stubish wrote:
| Unaustralian is reasonably common, used as a slur by both sides
| of politics, the same as described in the article. Tends to be
| called out with accusations of jingoism in the mud flinging
| though, which might make it different.
| bluthru wrote:
| >In fact to be unswedish is not just a common idiom it's a
| positive one. It's when you don't show the typical negative
| Swedishness. You aren't "accused" of it, you are congratulated.
|
| One wonders how a people reaches this level of demoralization.
| [deleted]
| 627467 wrote:
| In my anecdotal experience, calling out "un-Nationality" seems
| way more common in the New World than the Old World and I
| wonder if this is still remnants of nation-building side
| effects.
| FpUser wrote:
| Long time ago I was accused of being "un-Canadian(TM)" by
| neighbor because I do not watch hockey. Actually I do not watch
| sports at all but it did not matter to him. God knows what
| would've happened had I admitted not pouring maple syrup on my
| morning eggs and bacon.
| geodel wrote:
| Could you just get away by telling you are contributing your
| share to strategic reserve[1] to stabilize price for all
| Canadians. That would be very patriotic thing to do :-)
|
| 1. https://www.vpr.org/post/inside-global-strategic-maple-
| syrup...
| 8note wrote:
| As long as you try to starve your neighbor, get him sick,
| then take his land, you'll be properly Canadian
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > had I admitted not pouring maple syrup on my morning eggs
| and bacon.
|
| That sounds tasty. Can I be an honorary Canadian?
| FpUser wrote:
| Ewww ;) I hate mixing salt and sweets.
| Igelau wrote:
| Heads up: that's probably peameal back bacon and not the
| pork belly bacon you're expecting.
| FpUser wrote:
| Sorry to disappoint. Just your regular pork belly bacon.
| Old style thick slices.
|
| Anyways being way older I am now more into BBQ and
| veggies.
| ryanbrunner wrote:
| Belly bacon strips are far more popular than peameal in
| Canada. Peameal for sure exists (unlike American
| "Canadian Bacon"), but 90% of people still have bacon
| that would be normal bacon to an American. If you go to a
| Canadian diner and order "bacon" unqualified, you'll get
| strips of belly bacon.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The mandatory for immigration "life in the UK" test is
| basically a Buzzfeed "how British are you" test made legally
| binding.
|
| Unbritishness definitely gets thrown around, especially these
| days.
| Brakenshire wrote:
| That test is basically just memorising a leaflet of facts and
| figures. It's not to be taken seriously one way or the other.
| dstroot wrote:
| As an American I find being accused of being unAmerican is
| usually something I find humorous: 1) If you don't blow stuff
| up on 4th of of July you are unAmerican! 2) If you can't eat
| Hotdogs like Joey Chestnut you are unAmerican! 3) If you don't
| own gun you are...
| hilbertseries wrote:
| Seems that British nationalism runs pretty deep too, no? How
| else would you explain brexit?
| skissane wrote:
| Many would argue that Brexit was more about _English
| nationalism_ than British nationalism.
|
| What makes the UK very complex is the coexistence of two
| layers of national identity - British layered over English,
| Scottish, Welsh, (Northern) Irish. Which layer a person
| identifies with is very often determined by their politics,
| and sometimes also by religious/cultural background. (British
| vs Irish identity in Northern Ireland tends to correspond
| with Protestant vs Catholic religious background, albeit
| there are exceptions to that generalisation.) At the same
| time, given England is 85% of the population, the boundary
| between "British nationalism" and "English nationalism" is
| often quite vague. Its boundaries with Scottish nationalism,
| Welsh nationalism, Irish nationalism, tend to be more clearly
| cut.
| Nursie wrote:
| Over half of the Welsh population votes for Brexit. A third
| of Scots did. Without those votes the UK would not have
| left the EU.
|
| The idea it is purely an English phenomenon is divisive and
| pernicious.
| skissane wrote:
| > Over half of the Welsh population votes for Brexit
|
| Many of the residents of Wales who voted for Brexit are
| English: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-
| news/2019/sep/22/english-peop...
|
| The areas of Wales which identify the most strongly as
| Welsh had the some of the lowest votes for Brexit.
| Nursie wrote:
| So we can cut it along perceived ethnic lines too?
|
| This is just more pernicious divisiveness. Those areas
| that are most Welsh also voted in significant numbers for
| Brexit.
|
| The people of the UK, in various proportions in various
| places, voted to leave the EU. It may suck, but
| pretending it's purely an English problem is delusion.
|
| If you want someone to blame, blame the people that voted
| for Brexit everywhere. This exoneration of particular
| regions is bizarre. How can it be all about English
| Nationalism when a third of Scots voted that way too?
| skissane wrote:
| > How can it be all about English Nationalism when a
| third of Scots voted that way too?
|
| When did I ever say it was _all about_ English
| nationalism? I think I only said that in your head.
| tzs wrote:
| Would it have better fit in with those layers if instead of
| voting on the UK leaving the EU they had instead voted on
| England leaving the UK?
| ytwySXpMbS wrote:
| I don't think England would ever leave the UK, as English
| people view England as the main UK country. Also, the EU
| has been blamed for decades as a scapegoat, whereas the
| UK definitely hasn't.
| dijit wrote:
| British nationalism is built on building things up as British
| not tearing things down as unBritish.
|
| "'Cor tea and digestives on a rainy day, what could be more
| british"
|
| National identity precludes other nationalities, which is
| largely the impetus for Brexit. Brits are not ever blamed for
| being unBritish, even if they don't like football.
| mattmanser wrote:
| That's not true, we regularly judge people not doing things
| the 'right' way, but we just don't use the term 'un-
| British'. It's hard to explain, but there are code-phrases
| that some use like 'its not the done thing', or 'they're
| not our sort of people'.
|
| Supporting football's not really 'British', and a fairly
| modern phenomenon. In the 80s it was deemed uncouth and
| heavily associated with hooliganism, but rehabilitated in
| the 90s, and is already falling out of fashion again.
|
| Football support is heavily wrapped up in the complicated
| British classes, in the 90s/00s it was cool to pretend to
| be working class when you were middle class, and supporting
| football was a visible way of doing that.
| [deleted]
| contradict wrote:
| They did it to avoid being replaced by immigrants which isn't
| specific to Britain - it's more like European nationalism.
| andrepd wrote:
| > How else would you explain brexit?
|
| The economy. I'm sure there's an undercurrent of xenophobia
| and "little England"-ism which explains it, but it's not the
| full picture. Probably the biggest factor is that
| neoliberalism has been fucking working class people over
| since Thatcher. It's (sadly) empirically demonstrated that
| economic hardship pushes people to right-wing populism (see
| the 1930s, and the 2010s).
|
| Marx was right, history is moved by the material conditions
| of people (not fully, but in large part).
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| >Immigrants to America tend to become American; emigrants to
| other countries from America tend to stay American.
|
| Is that true, or just the authors' speculation? Although it is
| easily explained. Everyone wants to be American because the USA,
| of all the countries in the world offers the greatest
| opportunities to the greatest number of people. They are the top
| of the food chain, in less nationalistic terms. (i'm not American
| btw but i can see the truth).
| underwater wrote:
| The "truth" you see is the designed outcome of soft diplomacy
| through the export of US culture via movies, television and the
| internet.
|
| I know lots of non-US folk who love the values and
| opportunities they experience in America. But I also know lots
| of others who don't.
|
| I see my own country adopting more and more aspects from
| America: individualism over community, the excessive
| consumerism, the Starbuck-ification of every facet of our
| lives, that I think are more harmful than beneficial.
| FpUser wrote:
| I am curious how being "individualists" had them end up with
| something like Homeowners Associations. I am an individualist
| myself to a relatively high degree and I do not understand
| how something like that can be tolerated at all.
| underwater wrote:
| A HOA certainly doesn't seem to be about community.
| Community would be about embracing differences and
| respecting each person's right to live as they wish.
|
| HOAs seems to be more about using bureaucracy to control
| others and force them to do what the person with power
| wants. There is a classic quote "There must be in-groups
| whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-
| groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
|
| I think the dark side of individualism is that it can
| create the mindset that other's success comes at your
| expense, which pitches people and groups against each
| other, and makes differences a threat and not a strength.
| It also also discourages people from acknowledging their
| own limitations, because if someone is smarter or better
| than you then they will be more successful, and that means
| you lose.
| bjcy wrote:
| My first inclination is that the individualism has turned
| from (admittedly, rosy nostalgia follows here) a propensity
| towards creative expression and unique identity amongst the
| whole, into an assertion of control that serves my needs at
| the expense of others. In my experience, while HOAs can be
| well-intentioned, they provide easy opportunity for people
| to build small kingdoms, and for most, being a king is
| quite tempting.
| jltsiren wrote:
| Things may look a bit different from a (West) European
| perspective. I know enough people who used to live in the US
| but left, partly because they did not want to inflict US
| citizenship upon their children. Among all wealthy countries,
| US citizenship is probably the least desirable one if you don't
| plan to live there permanently.
|
| In any case, the expat/immigrant situation is familiar to many
| Europeans as well. The real difference is that most European
| countries are nation states, while the US is a land of
| immigrants and their descendants. "American" is an adopted
| identity. You become American if you have lived in the US long
| enough and consider yourself American. In contrast, "German" is
| an assigned identity. You are German if other Germans generally
| see you as German. You cannot become fully integrated into a
| nation state as long as other people pay attention to your
| origins.
| jeofken wrote:
| Some Americans I know make a big difference between being a
| settler nation, like those who came to where there was no
| civilisation but hunters/gatherers, vs immigrants who move
| into the blooming civilisation
| whatshisface wrote:
| That's like, the difference between one ship full of
| Pilgrims and every subsequent ship, or between one wagon
| train and every subsequent wagon train, or between the
| people on the Mayflower and their kids (who showed up in a
| society that already existed).
| jeofken wrote:
| You are correct in that this difference between settler
| and immigrant is a gradient, but outside of programming
| few things are simply yes/no
| whatshisface wrote:
| It's more than a gradient, it's like counting up ones to
| make 1,000,000. Which one is showing up to a small number
| and making it big, and which ones are showing up to a big
| number and hanging around?
| themolecularman wrote:
| The people who draw the distinction generally don't like
| the pilgrims settlers because of what they did when they
| got here. In contrast to immigrants, who did not "settle"
| anyone or any land. You can see a lot of this in today's
| politics as well.
| 8note wrote:
| The land is still being settled today; eg. Trump allowing
| previously unsettled land to be destroyed for oil and gas
| extraction
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| Ah, yes, the "Daughters of the American Revolution" types.
| 8note wrote:
| somewhere that you claim is hunters/gatherers*
|
| Just because the farming and ranching looks different,
| doesn't make it not farming or ranching
| kazen44 wrote:
| this is a major factor to consider.
|
| Also, the 20th century saw massive changes in where people
| lived compared to "their country".
|
| prior to world war 1, this was a far more mixed affair (see,
| the austrian-hungarian empire and the greeks in anatolia).
| antihipocrat wrote:
| Does the USA really offer the greatest opportunities to the
| greatest number of poor people as a share of the total
| population, of all countries in the world? Why do so many
| people from the USA believe this tripe without question?
|
| It feels like the 'shining city on the hill' was extremely
| effective propaganda, for the domestic population.
| FpUser wrote:
| I can see how during the last 30 years opportunities become
| fewer and fewer in Canada. I assume it is probably the same
| in the US. Well we have to feed ever increasing appetites of
| 3-percenters or whatever the number is. On top of that there
| are generally more and more people and less resources.
| IncRnd wrote:
| I am an American, and I have known a number of immigrants
| over the years, one who won the lottery in order to come to
| the US. They have mostly but not all been from Eastern bloc
| countries.
|
| Every single one of those people is grateful to have come
| here, is amazed that the people born here do not take
| advantage of their birthright of opportunities, and
| absolutely does not think that talk about the greatest
| opportunities is tripe or propaganda. They are also
| dumbfounded at the problems that we create for ourselves as a
| country. Yet, to a one, they all wish they could bring their
| parents and families here.
| antihipocrat wrote:
| I have had similar sentiments expressed to me from
| immigrants who have come to the country where I'm from
| (Australia).
|
| It's possible that the opportunities given to migrants
| relocating to any highly developed nation are equivalent.
| That is, not a phenomenon unique to the USA.
| IncRnd wrote:
| > It's possible that the opportunities given to migrants
| relocating to any highly developed nation are equivalent.
|
| That's an excellent point, and one I doubt even needs to
| be answered to any degree of certainty. Everyone wants a
| better life, and that can be had in many ways and places.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Anecdotally, it feels true. I, like many Americans, know an
| enormous number of immigrants and poor people that moved into
| the middle and upper-middle class through hard work and
| discipline. There is still plenty of opportunity to do that
| US if you apply yourself. Economic mobility is very high in
| the US (which is distinct from social mobility).
|
| When I've worked in Europe, it has always been evident that
| this is much harder to achieve there for poor people and
| immigrants. The entire social system is setup to limit the
| ability of ambitious people to rise above whatever station
| they were born into in a way that isn't really a thing in the
| US. This contributes to why engineering wages are relatively
| low in Europe.
| zokula wrote:
| > Economic mobility is very high in the US
|
| Not so much. The U.S. is not even in the top 10 of
| countries for Economic mobility.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| The US ranks very high in terms of absolute mobility.
| Measures of _relative_ mobility are only comparable
| between countries if they have similar wage compression
| curves, which is also partially a function of country
| size. US wages are much less compressed than in Europe --
| see also: engineering wages -- so they aren 't
| meaningfully comparable in relative terms.
|
| Given two countries with the same median wage (PPP), a
| 20k increase in income in one country may be relatively
| "economically mobile" and a 40k increase in income in the
| other is not, even though the income increase is much
| larger in real terms. When average people talk about
| economic mobility, they mean the second case; using
| relative mobility is misleading.
| [deleted]
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| "Cutting down the tall poppy"
| spdy wrote:
| One reason they dont give up citizenship is that you are
| "declared" death and the IRS will come an collect there share.
| It can become quite expensiv for expats.
| bwb wrote:
| That isn't true if you mean in terms of achieving the classic
| American dream... Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and others
| are moving more people out of lower/middle class to
| middle/upper class as a percentage. I do not know in terms of
| raw numbers but via % we are behind.
| 13415 wrote:
| I believe people who move to the US also like the comparably
| low bureaucracy, as well as opportunities in some sectors.
| Personally, I've lost my interest in moving to the US (or
| even visiting it) a long time ago, around the time of Bush
| Jr. for various reasons, but I'm still convinced that
| founding a successful company with low starting capital is
| easier in the US than almost anywhere else. The same is true
| for acting, music, show business and all the support like
| film cutting, audio engineering, special effects, etc.
| Despite the increased competition, your career prospects in
| these areas will probably be much higher if you move to L.A.
| or NY than if you stay somewhere else in the world.
| version_five wrote:
| The "classic american dream" I believe involves being able to
| move up through hard work. At least in Canada, if we are
| moving people up class-wise it's by the government
| subsidizing them more than it is by rewarding hard work. So I
| believe the GPs point still stands.
| bwb wrote:
| That is not true based on the data.
|
| Everyone in the world tries to move up through hard work,
| connections, and whatever advantages they are able to
| press.
|
| "Recent studies suggest that there is less economic
| mobility in the United States than has long been presumed.
| The last thirty years has seen a considerable drop-off in
| median household income growth compared to earlier
| generations. And, by some measurements, we are actually a
| less mobile society than many other nations, including
| Canada, France, Germany and most Scandinavian countries.
| This challenges the notion of America as the land of
| opportunity"
|
| https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/wwwp
| e...
| fatsdomino001 wrote:
| Canada is about to revert to the mean in a very hard way
| though, so I wouldn't count on that statistic too much.
| willhslade wrote:
| Care to elaborate?
| version_five wrote:
| I'm also curious to have more details. I'm Canadian and
| historically have been a big proponent of our country, to
| the point of smugness. But I'm currently very bearish on
| our future and curious to hear what others are thinking.
| swiley wrote:
| The continued closure of our shared land border doesn't
| indicate to me that you guys are headed in the direction
| of reason.
| BlueTankEngine wrote:
| I would be very interested in hearing more about what
| changed your outlook.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| If you move to the USA from the developing world or even
| Eastern Europe, regardless of what job you do your salary
| immediately soars above whatever you made in your country of
| origin. Taxation on many consumer goods is also likely to be
| lower. (For example, electronics can be expensive elsewhere
| due to high import duties or VAT.) Of course, cost of living
| in the USA is also much higher, but nevertheless lots of
| immigrants feel that they have moved up in life just because
| of the higher wages and consumeristic lifestyle now available
| to them.
| RGamma wrote:
| At this point I think the EU should just set aside a nice
| space somewhere and make it a raw capitalist, no taxes, no
| regulations, no safety net zone.
|
| "Talent" seems to like that environment.
| bwb wrote:
| That would be terrible for anyone living there, as would
| the environment, and the environment of every country
| around that country, etc.
|
| Regulation = Civilization, Taxes = Civilization, Safety
| Net = Civilization
|
| Now that doesn't mean you want a regulatory nightmare,
| the USA has real problems with license monopolies and
| city regs in some areas, but you also don't want
| unrestricted capitalism like the USA has that destroys
| people, society, and the common environment. Europe has a
| lot of work to do as well but at least they grasp this
| fundamental concept. The middle ground between these two
| is always hard to nail perfectly.
| [deleted]
| akarma wrote:
| America is certainly the country with the most opportunity
| for the most people.
|
| A shift that _has_ occurred from the 1950s to present is that
| there is less of a guarantee of an upper-middle-class
| lifestyle through a moderate [1] amount of effort.
|
| That easier opportunity, however, was unique to the era.
| Prior to 1930, immigrants knew that America was a place for
| exceptionally hard work and tons of opportunity and freedom -
| that was the American dream. Not high taxation and
| government-funded class movement from lower-middle to upper-
| middle.
|
| [1] 40 hours a week, one full-time job for an established
| corporate company supporting a family
| nielsbot wrote:
| Wasn't taxation very high during the period describe, and
| declining gradually since then?
|
| I also thought home ownership was one of the main
| generators of wealth for families, and wasn't that
| government assisted in some way?
|
| (Not a historian)
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| No, taxation was not very high. Some tax _rates_ were
| very high but they had an extensive range of deductions
| that don 't exist today. The _effective_ tax rates, what
| people actually paid as a percentage of gross income,
| were similar to today.
|
| They lowered tax rates simultaneous with eliminating
| deductions, making the changes over time roughly neutral
| in terms of taxes paid.
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| You all work so hard for almost nothing (apart from
| 'stuff', that is now mostly made in China).
|
| In Europe people have a much more relaxed attitude to work,
| yet somehow pretty much everyone has a very high quality of
| life - judged by quality of food, things working properly
| (e.g. washing machines and public restroom doors!), freedom
| from fear (e.g. of losing their job, getting ill, or
| interactions with the 'police'), and time to spend with
| people important to you.
| bluejellybean wrote:
| Having grown up in (very) poor rural America (~3k
| population), gone to work/live in an urban area (close to
| 3 million metro population), and now live in an
| extraordinarily affluent but smallish (100k) midwest
| city, I really don't agree with your view of the US in
| the slightest.
|
| [edit] I originally wanted to make the point that one of
| the things we buy is increased quality of life. Wrote the
| comment up and completely forgot to throw that in.
|
| >You all work so hard for almost nothing (apart from
| 'stuff', that is now mostly made in China).
|
| The hours of output from an individual varies greatly,
| from almost none to 120 hour work weeks (literally, I
| have seen the pay stubs). In addition, not all work is
| the same, and there are a _lot_ of cushy office jobs in
| which people may claim 40 hour weeks, have probably half
| of that is what one would call 'work.' You also imply
| that having a lot of things is somehow negative and that
| it's just 'stuff'. We buy plenty of stuff for plenty of
| reasons, which includes recreation and entertainment.
|
| To further iterate on the point that it's not just
| 'stuff', there are a plethora of festivals, museums,
| theaters, outdoor spaces, theme parks, malls, and
| community gatherings. There is far more stuff to do than
| there is time in the day to do it here. I should also
| note, a lot of which is either completely free or at
| least pretty inexpensive.
|
| To push the point home, it's also almost trivial to fly
| over to Europe. It's relatively normal among the middle
| class to take trips overseas. Airline tickets are not
| _that_ expensive after all.
|
| >In Europe people have a much more relaxed attitude to
| work, yet somehow pretty much everyone has a very high
| quality of life
|
| This is very true for many in America as well; a great
| deal many of the people I grew up with are still in
| poverty or working menial jobs... but they also are out
| boating every weekend in the summers, skiing in the
| winters, watching sports on huge flat screens. They may
| be cash-poor but are still reasonably rich in
| experiences. This is a tricky thing to measure from the
| economic lens alone.
|
| > judged by quality of food
|
| The food I've had in the US has ranged from Michelin star
| to Mac Donald's, both are fabulous, though one is more
| snobby. Perhaps in deeply rural areas with low
| populations, the food is more of the fast-food variety.
| Still, in most mid to large cities, the food has been
| consistently excellent across both price and quality
| offered.
|
| > judged by things working properly (e.g. washing
| machines and public restroom doors!)
|
| I don't think you could back this up by any data, and if
| I were to guess, this is based on some poor luck you had
| while visiting. Across the various places I've been, it's
| pretty unheard of not to have access to washers or dryers
| due to malfunction. Most areas have at least a couple of
| competing laundromats, and it costs no more than a couple
| of dollars to access them. Breakdowns happen to all
| equipment over time, and thankfully quality can be
| purchased if desired. If many still choose the initial
| price tag over that, so be it. Servicing a machine is
| cheap and easy, as is replacing one outright.
|
| As for public restroom doors, I don't understand this at
| all as it hasn't been my experience in the slightest.
| Even in poor urban areas, doors work fine. I can assure
| you, the VAST majority of doors here work just fine!
|
| > freedom from fear (e.g. of losing their job, getting
| ill, or interactions with the 'police'),
|
| This entirely an individual thing; losing one's job isn't
| exactly the end of the world here either. Opportunity is
| all over the place. Maybe aside from suicidal people,
| everyone on earth fears getting ill. And maybe aside from
| high health care costs, assuming I didn't choose to pay
| for extra insurance, I'd still rather be 'poor' and
| uninsured here than most places in the world. It's not
| 'free' like many other countries, but if you're poor,
| you're typically not paying for procedures either. As for
| the police, is there a country where someone doesn't fear
| the police on some level? Is there any country that
| doesn't give them the right to put you in a jail cell?
| The statistics of unjustified police violence point to it
| being exceedingly rare, so much that when there is a case
| that it does happen, the people and media take to the
| streets, and every detail of the matter is covered
| nationally.
|
| > and time to spend with people important to you.
|
| All choices people make, nothing prevents someone in this
| country from spending more time with family. People who
| work insane hours wanting to provide more for themselves
| are making the decision to do so.
|
| The United States is a _massive_ country, and I caution
| against painting it with such a broad brush. I'm not
| saying there are no issues, there are, but the ones you
| point out seem wrong to me. There are massive lifestyle
| differences here, and I don't see that as a particularly
| bad thing. If the people back in my hometown, for
| example, want to spend their days boating instead of
| working some stressful job, all the more power to them.
| If someone wants to burn the candle at both ends to
| acquire a boatload of money instead, that's great too. I
| suspect there is a far more significant amount of
| opportunity to both here than in Europe based on the data
| I've researched in the past.
| rejectedandsad wrote:
| Yet people in most of Western Europe (discounting Switzerland
| and Luxembourg and maybe Norway) are objectively poorer than
| even the poorest American states.
| bwb wrote:
| "Yet people in most of Western Europe (discounting
| Switzerland and Luxembourg and maybe Norway) are
| objectively poorer than even the poorest American states. "
|
| This is utter nonsense, how are you getting that?
|
| Imagine that I offered you two deals:
|
| 1. You make $45k a year, but all your costs are 50% of the
| base rate. Plus health care is included that covers
| everything with no expenses, childcare is included, and
| college education is included.
|
| 2. You make $60k a year, but all your costs are 200% of the
| base rate. Health care isn't covered and covers nothing
| when you really get sick, childcare is $1500 a month per
| kid, and college is going to cost you half a million
| dollars.
|
| Holistically Western Europe as a whole is doing way better
| for it's people.
|
| "Recent studies suggest that there is less economic
| mobility in the United States than has long been presumed.
| The last thirty years has seen a considerable drop-off in
| median household income growth compared to earlier
| generations. And, by some measurements, we are actually a
| less mobile society than many other nations, including
| Canada, France, Germany and most Scandinavian countries.
| This challenges the notion of America as the land of
| opportunity"
|
| https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/wwwp
| e...
| rsj_hn wrote:
| GDP per capita is lower, but household wealth is higher and
| when you add in all the benefits received (e.g. healthcare,
| pensions) you would get a pretty big difference between
| median household wealth in most of Western Europe and
| median HH wealth in the U.S., with western europe holding
| the advantage.
|
| Comparing Europe and the U.S. is a complex business, and I
| find myself offending cheerleaders on both sides.
| RGamma wrote:
| Why is quality of life measured on consumption crap so
| heavily? Personally idgaf about useless doodads that waste
| resources and space in my home (or mind).
| throw0101a wrote:
| There are perhaps other metrics to go for, other than
| 'just' monetary:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report#2020
| _re...
|
| Some other countries may have chosen to trade some personal
| income/wealth for other things.
|
| Further, while there may be more money in general in the
| US, using averages skews things a bit due to inequality;
| social mobility is lower in the US than many other
| countries:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gatsby_curve
|
| If you're not already at/near the top in the US, good luck
| getting there.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Yeah, but that's because USA basically swims in cash
| because since world uses dollar as core currency for the
| global economy USA has to print more dollars to match the
| growth of global economy to avoid deflation. And once it
| prints dollars it does with them what it pleases. Mainly
| buys ton of stuff from the world, but still keeps enough to
| maintain status of wealthy country.
|
| It's no wonder people can get more cash it the country that
| basically prints it for the whole world.
|
| Once the global economy start shrinking or the world moves
| to yuan or euro USA will descend to level of Eastern
| European country in a generation or two tops.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| If there is a global switch to the euro or the yuan,
| American imports could become more competitive, leading
| to increased economic activity in the US. Dollar or not,
| the United States still has substantial industrial
| capability.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Didn't US economy mostly switch to services?
| joshuaissac wrote:
| Services account for more than three quarters of the US
| economy, but its manufacturing sector, which still
| accounts for more than a tenth of its economy, is second
| only to that of China.
|
| https://www.statista.com/chart/20858/top-10-countries-by-
| sha...
| ardit33 wrote:
| Yes. when I lived in Sweden, I noticed that Swedes in
| general have less stuff. Smaller housing, fewer cars, less
| ability to buy stuff, and even go out. The average engineer
| salary was almost half (about 60%) of those in NYC and SF,
| while prices coffee/going out in Stockholm were almost the
| same as in NYC. Rent prices were lower though.
|
| But, their quality of life seemed higher overall. Less
| stressful in general, more vacations and time off, more
| thoughtful planing of their cities, etc.
|
| So, it seems like a tradeoff. If you are a blue collar or
| unskilled worker, Sweden would have been better, while
| you'd struggle in the US. But if you are a skilled worker
| (even blue collar, like plumber or electrician), you'd do
| better in the US.
|
| I'd rather be a barista in Sweden than in the US, but I'd
| rather be an engineer in the US than in Sweden.
| kazen44 wrote:
| Also, social control is quite a bit stricter in a lot of
| (especially northern) european countries compared to the
| US.
|
| Showing one's wealth is in bad taste, and bragging about
| status is considering being an outlier. This is slowly
| changing (since about the 80's) but prior to that,
| showing off your middle class wealth as a status
| indicator was frowned upon in certain circles. especially
| considering the hardship most people endured during and
| after ww2.
| bwb wrote:
| That gets down to culture.
|
| I was raised in the USA and I was raised that showing
| one's wealth is in bad taste. In fact I think most of the
| midwest feels similar. I still do. The point of money
| isn't to show it off, it is to put it to good use.
| sometimesshit wrote:
| Ardit,
|
| You need to measure purchasing power using PPP rate, but
| even still NY and SF known to be expensive areas with
| high tax rates.
|
| SF engineer could earn 200k year but this money could be
| much low as 80k in another state if you compare
| purchasing power.
|
| It's complex. The Americans can always buy a car but
| never foods. This become a meme in my home country.
|
| There are always trade offs.
| SubuSS wrote:
| But are the trade offs equivalent?
|
| There is a reason folks flock more to SF rather than to
| nowhere state. If you save 10%, it is still 20k saved
| compared to 8k. If you lose your job, there are 10
| choices compared to one (or none), access to cutting edge
| of tech rather than reading about it on hacker news and
| so on.
| sometimesshit wrote:
| > access to cutting edge of tech
|
| Any examples?
|
| I have not seen any cutting edge tech for while.
| kec wrote:
| The swing from most to least expensive state is about
| 25%, not 75%. There's a disparity between say California
| and Arkansas but it's not _that_ high.
| 13415 wrote:
| I think there are two major factors to life quality that
| many American cities somehow missed or never really cared
| about enough, being able to stroll through cities by foot
| and decent work conditions (mostly reasonable work and
| commute times & holidays).
|
| A friend of mine moved to L.A. in the early 2000s, he's
| still there, married to an American, but he burned out in
| his job there very quickly. No wonder, they were living
| in a small apartment with a baby in downtown L.A. and he
| had to commute for 3 hours daily. He got back at 10 to 11
| PM and got up at 6 AM to get to work again - every
| workday, with almost no holiday. That's insane by
| European standards.
| SubuSS wrote:
| The other catch I see is how 'life changing' your job as
| an engineer can be in us vs rest of the world. US
| definitely is the better bet for the young and risk
| taking.
|
| You can always go back and settled wherever you want
| after making a ton of cash in the US (assuming it works
| out), reverse isn't true as much.
| bwb wrote:
| It is easy to confuse a large splashy salary with what a
| real "life changing" job is for the majority of people. A
| salary that pays for a good life, real health care that
| actually covers you when you get sick, a real safety net
| that gets you back on your feet if something goes wrong,
| an environment run by the rule of law, an environment
| that isn't polluted, and a country that is building a
| real future for ALL the people and not just engineers.
|
| Would you want your kids to grow up in the USA?
|
| That is usually a good question to ask, as it shows if we
| are succeeding as a country. I think the USA is great if
| you are in the ~10% of the population who want to make
| loads of money, work 80 hours, and are in
| tech/lawyer/doctor. Everyone else is stuck in the same
| cultural mentality IMO, it's like living in a persistent
| guerilla war that you don't want to be fighting in.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| > If you are a blue collar or unskilled worker, Sweden
| would have been better,
|
| The problem here is that for the Swedes to enjoy their
| social benefits, they cannot afford to have too many low
| skilled workers. The swedish economy is a high skilled
| economy, perhaps the highest skilled in the world. There
| are very few low-skill jobs, _unlike_ the US which has an
| army of low skilled workers filling low skilled jobs.
| This is why the U.S. is able to absorb so many low
| skilled migrants whereas Sweden is having enormous
| problems finding jobs for their low skilled migrants. So
| while sure, you are better off being a low skilled worker
| in Sweden just as you are better off being a high skilled
| worker in the U.S., but that 's because these two
| economies are structured very differently.
| OJFord wrote:
| > The swedish economy is a high skilled economy, perhaps
| the highest skilled in the world. There are very few low-
| skill jobs, unlike the US which has an army of low
| skilled workers filling low skilled jobs. This is why the
| U.S. is able to absorb so many low skilled migrants
| whereas Sweden is having enormous problems finding jobs
| for their low skilled migrants.
|
| How is that not backwards?
|
| If you have 'an army of low skilled workers' then there's
| no room 'to absorb so many low skilled migrants', surely?
|
| If you have 'a high-skilled economy' then surely you are
| 'having enormous problems' _filling_ your low-skilled
| jobs, and welcome migrants?
|
| Indeed, isn't Sweden famously highly accepting of
| migrants and in particular refugees? Presumably skewed
| low-skilled if at all?
|
| (Neither Swedish nor American, so not pushing an agenda,
| just commenting. :))
| rsj_hn wrote:
| > If you have 'an army of low skilled workers' then
| there's no room 'to absorb so many low skilled migrants',
| surely?
|
| Why? The world doesn't work by laws of semantic symmetry.
| The Swedish economy is structured on automation, on lack
| of personal service roles, and on skilled industry.
| Swedish furniture manufacturers use robots and those on
| the shop floor that remain are required to have skills to
| operate those robots. Neither will you will find a huge
| pool of labor cutting people's lawns or being nannies or
| replacing roofs because there aren't many lawns to cut,
| roofs are made to last longer and be less labor
| intensive, and personal service is stygmatized. It's like
| Holland, which is the breadbasket of Europe but is a
| pioneer in agricultural automation and does not rely on
| large amounts of cheap migrant labor, whereas the US
| agricultural sector does. Even for something like
| restaurants, Swedish culture makes much less use of them
| -- e.g. San Francisco has 500 restaurants per 100K, But
| once you transition to a high skilled economy it becomes
| much harder to absorb low skilled workers.
|
| Here, things like labor policies play a role. A high
| minimum wage, generous benefits and travel may pencil out
| for a high skilled worker that is willing to be paid 1/2
| what they could get in the U.S., but they don't pencil
| out for a low skilled worker unless the low skilled
| worker's wages are high enough so that the various costs
| pencil out, which means there can't be too many of them
| as the services they provide will be more expensive means
| and thus have smaller utilization. That is why people
| complain about things like taxis, restaurant meals, bus
| trips, etc., costing a lot in Sweden, which is why
| Stockholm has 1/10 as many restaurants per 100K compared
| to Tokyo and 1/5 as many compared to San Francisco. Those
| high wages basically require a more capital intensive
| production processes and don't leave a lot of room for
| low skilled jobs.
|
| Btw, that is one of the arguments _for_ high minimum
| wages and generous benefits. The idea is that it will
| force firms to invest in more capital so that labor
| becomes more productive. That 's the phenomena of
| McDonald's creating robot tellers and getting rid of
| workers. That's the process by which the revenue
| generated per worker is high enough to justify generous
| benefits. And the question with that approach is always
| can the economy transition to a high skilled economy or
| will there be a permanent underclass of unemployable low
| skilled workers. And Sweden has done a decent job of
| making this transition, although there is always a
| problem with high unemployment, it hasn't been the fiasco
| predicted, as most of the labor force has transitioned to
| high skilled work. But then that creates a problem when
| you dump a lot of low skilled workers on the economy --
| they find themselves in the permanent unemployed class.
|
| The U.S., on the other hand, has lower costs of employing
| labor and thus is able to absorb low skilled labor but
| the flip side is you do not have the same pressures
| towards automation and capital investment, so the US
| economy overall is much more mixed. It's not a high tech
| economy, it has a lot of low skilled jobs as well, and
| those low skilled jobs don't enjoy the same level of
| benefits.
|
| It's a tough call which approach is "better". Culturally,
| the US will never become Sweden, but there are pros and
| cons of each approach.
| kazen44 wrote:
| dutch farming (especially kasbouw/greenhouses) are
| absolutely crazy. in 2019, they exported roughly 95
| billion euro's. And they are the second exporter
| globally. Mind you the country is absolutely tiny in
| comparison to the number one exporter (the USA).
|
| [0]
| https://www.government.nl/latest/news/2020/01/17/dutch-
| agric...
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Yes, it's really a miracle of what you can accomplish
| with intelligence and capital investment. Very high wages
| even for agricultural workers, a small labor pool, and
| massive yields.
| kharak wrote:
| Thanks! That lead me down the rabbit hole.
|
| Here is an interesting article with some pictures,
| demonstrating what Dutch high-tech farming looks like: ht
| tps://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/holland
| -...
| kortilla wrote:
| It's harder to move to Canada though.
| yongjik wrote:
| While the sentiment may be true for Americans living in
| America, if an American decides to emigrate to a different
| country then they obviously think living in this new country is
| better for them - unless they move back later, I don't think
| emigrating Americans remain "American" for long, certainly not
| after a generation or two.
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| From the 1880s to 2000 this may have been the case, but I don't
| think it is anymore. Any country with public health insurance
| that is decent is more attractive than the US. People are not
| blind, they see Americans dying of diabetes because they can't
| afford insulin that they attempted to crowdfund. [1]
|
| The US has evolved into a modern dystopia under the first-past-
| the-post system and cloture in the senate. I think the election
| of Donald Trump was the signal to the rest of the world that
| America's democracy may not even be a democracy. Republicans
| are currently digging themselves in to remove as much democracy
| from the American political system as possible. [2] I'm not
| sure where the country will end up.
|
| [1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/shane-patrick-boyle-
| died-a...
|
| [2]
| https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2021/06/the-...
| newfriend wrote:
| > The US has evolved into a modern dystopia
|
| > America's democracy may not even be a democracy
|
| > Republicans are currently digging themselves in to remove
| as much democracy
|
| Here's the ideological intensity that the article mentioned.
| This is delusional.
|
| The smartest, most driven people still come to the US to
| start businesses and seek fortune, because it's the best
| place in the world to do so.
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| I'm not from the US, so I suppose I don't know. One of my
| uncles immigrated there and works in a VA hospital. The
| stories he tells me, of people dying of ailments that are
| common in the third world, seems to suggest otherwise.
| krapp wrote:
| Everything f38zf5vdt said and that you've quoted here can
| be true (at least subjectively) while your own reply is
| also true. You're not actually addressing or contradicting
| their arguments, such as they are, just declaring them
| categorically invalid because "capitalism."
| bdv5 wrote:
| In other words the opportunists come to the US. The most
| selfish and greedy. The results speak for themselves.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _The smartest, most driven people still come to the US to
| start businesses and seek fortune, because it 's the best
| place in the world to do so._
|
| Rates of entrepreneurship are higher in Scandinavian
| countries[1].
|
| It's also easier to start your own business in such
| countries because you don't already have to be wealthy
| enough to afford spending $36k in premiums alone each year
| for your family's health insurance on the individual
| market.
|
| [1] https://www.oecd.org/sdd/business-
| stats/EAG-2018-Highlights....
| zokula wrote:
| > The smartest, most driven people still come to the US to
| start businesses and seek fortune, because it's the best
| place in the world to do so.
|
| Keep believing that myth.
| BlueTankEngine wrote:
| If a highly-skilled individual wants to amass the most
| monetary wealth possible, which geographies do you think
| would be better than the USA and why?
| icelancer wrote:
| >> Any country with public health insurance that is decent is
| more attractive than the US.
|
| Depending on what you want to do with your life, this is
| mostly true. But immigration laws to countries with these
| kinds of welfare structures tend to be much tighter than ones
| without for reasons that are obvious.
| fallingfrog wrote:
| We never had a true working class party or the same kind of
| safety net as they have in Europe, because all the class
| divisions could be papered over with free stuff and money-
| first, a whole continents worth of free land, and then when
| all Europe was destroyed, a 60 year burst of huge profits. So
| you know, it's material conditions in the end. Matt Christman
| and Sean KB did an excellent podcast on this called History
| is a Weapon: Q is You.
| skissane wrote:
| > emigrants to other countries from America tend to stay
| American
|
| I don't think that's true of Australia. American Australians
| tend to assimilate pretty well, and after a while people tend
| to mostly forget they were Americans originally, even if they
| still have a bit of an accent. The Australian politician
| Kristina Keneally is an example. She was born in Nevada, grew
| up in Ohio, didn't move to Australia until her 20s. But I don't
| think anyone really thinks of her as "an American". She's an
| Australian politician. You might like her politics or you might
| dislike them, but nobody really cares about where she was born
| and grew up. She's one of us now.
|
| The Australian media has even taken to (at times) calling
| Virginia Roberts Giuffre (the most notable public victim of
| Jeffrey Epstein) "an Australian", without qualification. (She
| married an Australian man, had kids with him, now they live
| here.) Whereas the American media just calls her an American.
|
| The Australian media always wanted to view Mel Gibson as an
| Australian, even when he said that he himself identified as an
| American rather than as an Australian. (I think they are less
| keen on that now that he has made himself a bit of a _persona
| non grata_ through his behaviour. America, you can have him.)
| randompwd wrote:
| Just googled Kristina Keneally. You're living out very
| relevant info.
|
| Born to and raised by Australian mother. Then married
| Australian man before moving to Australia.
|
| I think the blood and subsequent marriage connection helped
| immensely in how she is viewed. I think that would be the
| same for most other Euro nations. At least one parent of the
| land along with partner from the land and residing in the
| land for 30+ years.
| skissane wrote:
| > Born to and raised by Australian mother
|
| I really don't think most people care about the fact she
| has an Australian mother. In fact, I myself had forgotten
| that fact. If she hadn't, I don't think it would really
| make a difference to how she is viewed in Australia. (My
| mother was born in Scotland but calling myself "Scottish"
| feels weird, like the real Scots are going to call me out
| for being a fake one.)
|
| Virginia Roberts Giuffre has been called an "Australian" by
| the Australian media (e.g. [0]) even though as far as I am
| aware she has no Australian ancestry. She is also married
| to an Australian man but I think you are putting more
| emphasis on that fact than what counts. Most Australians,
| if they think of her as an Australian, it is because she
| has adopted this country as her homeland through
| immigration, not because she married an Australian. If she
| married an Australian but stayed in the US, nobody would
| think of her as Australian. If she had moved here as a
| single person, or with a non-Australian husband, people
| probably still would.
|
| In somewhat of the reverse, the British politician Patricia
| Hewitt was born in Australia and grew up here, but I'd
| probably think of her as British first and Australian very
| much second. The country in which she has lived the bulk of
| her adult life, and in which she has had her political
| career, is more significant in identifying her than where
| she was born and raised.
|
| [0] https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-
| australia/virgin...
| Clewza313 wrote:
| Australia, like the US, is an immigrant nation, you can move
| there from anywhere and be considered an Australian within a
| generation.
| skissane wrote:
| In which case the real difference here is not where one is
| immigrating from (America or elsewhere), but rather where
| one is immigrating to: an immigrant-dominated society like
| Australia, Canada, New Zealand, US, maybe Argentina too; or
| one dominated by people whose ancestors have lived there
| for countless centuries, such as most European, Middle
| Eastern, African or Asian countries.
|
| The original quote we were discussing, "Immigrants to
| America tend to become American; emigrants to other
| countries from America tend to stay American" is mistaken
| because it is viewing it primarily in terms of
| Americanness, instead of the nature of the society
| receiving the immigrant
| Clewza313 wrote:
| There aren't all that many immigrant nations like the US
| though. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, that's pretty
| much it? Maybe Singapore or the UK at a stretch.
| skissane wrote:
| I agree there aren't many. It still is myopic to view
| this as something specific to America, as opposed to a
| generic quality possessed by all immigrant-dominated
| societies, and the fact that there are only a few such
| societies doesn't change that. Many (obviously not all)
| American authors do tend to view it in that myopic US-
| centric way. America is never as exceptional as some
| Americans think.
| scythe wrote:
| Most of the Caribbean (save Cuba/DR?), Taiwan, Mauritius,
| Seychelles, Maldives, Argentina, Chile, maybe
| Uruguay/Costa Rica/Panama. Singapore doesn't seem like a
| stretch. The UK doesn't really count. Granted, most of
| these are pretty small.
| vitiral wrote:
| I feel that many issues are not only a confusion of values, but a
| confusion of what values even _are_. There is some cookie cutter
| bullshit about what is "good" or "bad" and this is used to paint
| a broad and incoherent picture which breaks down the structures
| it is painted on. Like confusing ageism with public policy of how
| to handle disease. Or being idealistic to avoide concern over
| secondary consequences. You can be called a lot of names by
| trying to point out secondary consequences which harm certain
| woke policy choices. When did someone decide there were clear
| answers to challenging issues and cut off further debate?
| yoshamano wrote:
| The Christian Science Monitor also ran a similar article last
| month that I feel is worth a read.
|
| https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2021/0512/Is-politics...
|
| Rather than try to drive any particular point this is more of a
| discussion piece about this moment in time.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| We may be on the cusp of a great religious revival, due to the
| increased acceptance and eventual mainstreaming of psychedelics.
|
| People often interpret their psychedelic experiences in religious
| terms, and psychedelic use has often created new religions and
| helped to engender an authentic reconnection to existing
| religions.
|
| Mainstream religions rarely offer much more than platitudes or a
| place to socialize for the majority of their adherents, of whom
| many are part of the religion simply because their parents were,
| or because the church is the social center of their town.
|
| They don't have an authentic connection to the teachings, many
| don't even read their sacred scriptures, rely on priests to tell
| them what to believe, and usually neither they nor their priests
| ever had a mystical experience.
|
| Then psychedelics come in to the picture, and suddenly they may
| have a renewed sense of the sacred, religious texts and spaces
| come alive, and they may even come face to face with what they
| experience as the genuine heart of their tradition, including
| meeting, talking to or even being god.
|
| This is not an uncommon occurrence, even for atheists and
| agnostics.
|
| I don't think the mainstream culture has fully appreciated either
| how enormously powerful such experiences can be, nor their
| repercussions.
|
| Historically, mainstream religions have been very against drug
| use, but it'll be interesting to see what happens when their
| churches, mosques, and synagogues start filling up with people
| who were drawn there through mystical experiences they had on
| psychedelics.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| spiritually yes .. however, for me it took many, small and far
| apart, ventures into Bible study to find that in the Old
| Testament, it is literally a guiding principle to refrain from
| drugs that induce ecstatic experience.. The Old Testament g*d
| is a sober one.. (oh wait, wine) Fast-forward 2+ thousand
| years, and the structures of capital R Religion focus on
| tangible outcomes with built, physical infrastructure .. family
| structures and committments..
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Walk into a mainstream religious setting. None of them are
| there because they got high. If that were the case, the 70s
| would have looked a lot different.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| This is false.
|
| A lot of people found religion in the 60's and 70's due to
| psychedelics, and have continued to do so ever since. As an
| example, many people were first drawn to Eastern religions
| through psychedelic experiences.
|
| Also, arguments have been made that even the mainstream
| religions were originally founded (and in their early years
| sustained) due to psychedelic use. For an example see
| Allegro's _" The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross"_.
|
| That's not to mention many smaller religions such as the
| Native American Church, Santo Daime, Uniao Do Vegetal, etc.
|
| Something else to consider is that drug use has been so
| stigmatized (not to mention illegal) for so long that many
| users have been afraid to come forward and admit their
| psychedelic use. That's been changing due to the Psychedelic
| Renaissance and its positive reception in the press, but
| there are likely to be many more people who haven't come out
| of the closet yet (not to mention users who died before this
| more permissive era started). So the number of people who
| were drawn to religion through psychedelic use is probably
| much larger than we know.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| I'm sure plenty of them did. But it's interesting I don't
| see Christians, Jews, or Muslims talk about how they get
| high all the time. They'd be put off by you suggesting it.
| It's even a central practice to not do so.
| mistermann wrote:
| One thing I learned from psychedelic usage is the
| powerful of the minds ability to imagine things about
| reality and present them as reality itself. I think the
| realization of _this sort of thing_ might contribute to
| many psychedelic users to adopt a more ~spiritual outlook
| on life, which I believe is more aligned with how things
| really are.
| perfmode wrote:
| it's worth also introducing another word into the vocabulary of
| the discussion: spirituality
| creamynebula wrote:
| I used to be an atheist, then after experimenting with
| psychedelics I became agnostic, then after some major struggle
| in life now God is central to my life and I enjoy reading the
| Bible and the Bhagavad Gita. I had never touched anything
| similar before psychedelics, I was prejudiced against
| religions, religious people, spirituality and anything that
| wasn't materialistic.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| This is such a belittling and reductionist take on religiosity
| that all I can do, as a religious person myself, who is well
| educated (because that's the other assumed trope common in
| places like these: people must be religious because they are
| otherwise ignorant or uneducated), is laugh.
|
| Not only has American theological ignorance increased (people
| like Richard Dawkins for example, popular in atheist cultures,
| has just downright comically terrible theology and
| understanding of the Bible), but as well as ignorance of the
| human psyche.
|
| I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
| [deleted]
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I think the real issue is laid out at the end
|
| _> "If matters of good and evil are not to be resolved by an
| omniscient God in the future, then Americans will judge and
| render punishment now. We are a nation of believers. If only
| Americans could begin believing in politics less fervently,
| realizing instead that life is elsewhere. But this would come at
| a cost--because to believe in politics also means believing we
| can, and probably should, be better"_
|
| I think the author is part of a group of largely public
| intellectuals in the US who have subscribed to the theory of
| "religion is the opium of the people, but that's a good thing".
|
| Yes, the loss of religion does away with a glue that in some
| sense kept a sort of false peace intact. Injustices can no longer
| be explained away with metaphysical explanations, superficial
| alliances under the banner of faith cannot be maintained. The
| people who stand to lose from this are the kind of people who
| write these op-eds. People who benefit from delaying conflict.
| The people who stand to benefit from the loss of religion are the
| people who need some justice in this world, not in the next one.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| The question for me is: Is a mutually shared narrative required
| for a society to maintain cohesion and engagement at scale?
|
| If the assumption is "yes" then the challenge becomes whether
| the narrative is actually epistemologically solid enough to
| bear scrutiny from all angles - something I don't actually
| believe exists.
|
| I think in the US the narrative since the Colonies formed, has
| been something like "Land of Opportunity" which a healthy
| proportion of the US and world doesn't believe in, and
| realistically only some segment of the world population did
| believe in for a short period after WWII.
| snypox wrote:
| I don't know if you saw it, but Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson and
| Douglas Murray had a debate about this topic a few years ago:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aALsFhZKg-Q
|
| TLDW: we don't know if Peterson is religious or not but he
| thinks that Christianity must stay. Harris (obviously) is an
| atheist and thinks religions must go. Now, Douglas is
| interesting. He's an atheist but thinks that Christianity must
| stay because much-much worse ideologies would take its place.
| Peterson and Douglas like to prove their point by pointing to
| existing ideologies that are already very dangerous.
|
| Personally, I don't have any argument to offer. Since seeing
| this debate, I thought about this topic a lot but I still
| didn't come to a conclusion.
| ukj wrote:
| Well...yeah!
|
| Religion serves a function. Even if that function is
| psychological.
|
| When you take religion away, something else will fill the
| utility-gap.
|
| Silly humans failing to grasp the purpose of stories/narratives.
|
| Edit for the downvoters (who clearly don't understand): the
| question "Why do science and philosophy matter?" has only
| religious/ideological answers.
| didibus wrote:
| > "Why do science and philosophy matter?" has only
| religious/ideological answers
|
| The question needs not be asked. But most people are not
| areligious, they have been raised within a context of religion
| where the question was asked to them. Religion begets religion
| because it teaches people that there are higher meanings and
| pushes people to seek their answers.
|
| A true areligious person does not ponder about the meaning of
| life, why we are here, and what it is we need to do with
| ourselves. An areligious person can simply exist in peace,
| guided simply by ones natural desires for fun, pleasure,
| comfort, safety, growth and love.
| ukj wrote:
| > The question needs not be asked.
|
| That is a religious belief in denial of my factual needs.
|
| > A true areligious person does not ponder about the meaning
| of life, why we are here
|
| Great! So why does science matter to a true areligious
| person?
| redisman wrote:
| It's spiritual, not psychological. I guess there are some
| connections between those two though
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Religion is about culture, belief and community. The fading of
| the mainstream religions is making room for the more
| fundamentalist, marketing driven religious practices that are
| often about money and politics.
| ukj wrote:
| We are social animals. A religion is what scientists call a
| "paradigm".
|
| The socially acceptable ideas/paradigms of today are the
| religions of next century.
|
| Hegel was right.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| There are parts of Europe that have far more community and
| where people are far more social but far less religious
| than the US.
|
| Religion is just a long surviving irrational belief system.
| It may serve a more social purpose or a less social
| purpose. Oppositely, the purpose of unifying a community
| can be served by a number of things, religion isn't
| necessary for that. As other mention, extreme religiosity
| is rising in the US even as average religion is declining
| but that's naturally ideological.
| bobthechef wrote:
| This is an extremely ignorant position that trivializes
| "religion". First of all, as I have written elsewhere,
| everyone is religious. The question is: how good and true
| is your religion? To call it merely irrational is to show
| a total lack of understanding of the subject. And because
| religions are many, it makes little sense to speak of
| "religion" categorically in this way because they often
| have little or nothing in common. You have to address and
| criticize particular religions for particular reasons.
|
| Furthermore, those who defect from the religious faith on
| which their society or civilization was built often ride
| the coat tails of that religious faith without working
| out the logical consequences of their rejection. That is,
| it is better to describe the rejector as a heretic or an
| apostate than someone who has somehow freed himself from
| the faith in question and all its trappings. Many of
| these ideologies we're seeing are profound distortions or
| perversions of some selected element of Christianity or
| previous heretical position. That's one reason heresy was
| always regarded as dangerous. It comes from the Greek
| _hairesis_ meaning "a taking or choosing for oneself, a
| choice"[0] meaning taking a cafeteria approach toward the
| dogmas of the faith which exist as a coherent whole. Any
| distortion or selectivity produces severe downstream
| consequences like ideology. Secularism and liberalism are
| examples. They are Christian heresies and cannot be
| comprehended apart from the Christian context within
| which they emerged.
|
| Nietzsche, who was an atheist, was smart enough to see
| this. The "Twilight of the Idols" is all about how silly
| this secular triumphalism, or even just contentment, is
| because it fails to see that the consequences of having
| "killed God" are not yet fully made manifest, but
| eventually will be made manifest because this state of
| affairs is unsustainable, and that this will result
| ultimately in total disorientation and chaos (I disagree
| with Nietzsche that God was merely an instrumental idea,
| but he did at least grasp the parochial and myopic nature
| of so many atheists and secular people; for him, atheism
| was a terrible thing). Intellectually serious atheists
| are all in agreement about how terrible atheism is (i.e.,
| not the provincial variety like Dawkins). This state
| produces a fertile ground for ideology, i.e., irrational
| half-assed false religions.
|
| [0] https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=heresy
| joe_the_user wrote:
| _This is an extremely ignorant position that trivializes
| "religion". First of all, as I have written elsewhere,
| everyone is religious._
|
| -- I can't see how that statement doesn't trivialize
| religion at least as much. IE, if everyone is
| "religious", you've set a very low bar for what qualifies
| as religious
|
| I think made it clear you have religious beliefs, which
| involve ... clearly false views of the cosmos (with the
| possible exception of Buddhism) and you have religious
| institutions, which serve a variety of social, economic
| and psychological purposes. A church can be club with a
| few nods to God or it can be something like a political
| party hell bent on power or it can be other things. Many
| American Unitarians maintain the form of religion while
| dropping all the God part and that's as fine as anything
| as far as I'm concerned.
| ukj wrote:
| > if everyone is "religious", you've set a very low bar
| for what qualifies as religious
|
| And if everyone has "beliefs" then you have set a very
| low bar for what qualifies as belief which makes everyone
| a believer.
|
| You are playing a silly power game where you dismiss
| other people's conceptual schemes so you can peddle your
| own.
|
| My view of the cosmos is that it is a computer
| simulation.
|
| It isn't clearly false. But it is clearly a religion.
| Even though it is backed up by the fact that all
| asymmetrical/equational reasoning (all of the Mathematics
| supporting Physics/Cosmology) is computational.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| _And if everyone has "beliefs" then you have set a very
| low bad for what qualifies as belief._
|
| Sure, if you look at what qualifies as a belief, it's
| pretty random.
|
| _My view of the cosmos is that it is a computer
| simulation._
|
| It seems like the main thing this shares with religion is
| that it's wholly unverifiable. If you develop it in
| common with others and perhaps add rituals, you could
| qualify it along with Pastafarians [1]. But Pastafarian
| know it's a joke.
|
| I might have some wholly unverifiable beliefs but I don't
| have a commitment to maintain such beliefs. That's where
| I'd locate the difference.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
| ukj wrote:
| It is 100% verifiable AND falsifiable.
|
| You can verify that Physics is captured in Mathematics.
|
| Mathematics is a Turing-recognisable language. If the
| universe is Physical then it is computable. This is a
| trivially true belief (see Church-Turing-Deutsch
| principle).
|
| You can falsify my belief by producing Physics in
| language other than Mathematics.
|
| Of course, as an instrumentalist/physicist, I don't care
| if my beliefs are "actually true" as long as they work.
| ukj wrote:
| I have no idea what you conceptualise as a "religion"; or
| how you measure "religiosity".
|
| I have a very broad definition - to me any belief system
| (collection of concepts used for understanding the world)
| is a religion.
|
| Rationalism is one religion. Irrationalism is another
| religion.
|
| Any preference you have for one or the other is just your
| opinion. The bias that you can't justify.
|
| The long-surviving is statistically unlikely to be
| irrational. It survived the test of time - Entropy.
|
| What is far more likely is that you don't (yet)
| understand what religion is.
| bobthechef wrote:
| I agree with you that in the absence of what we conventionally
| call "religion" doesn't mean the essential character of
| religion is erased. Abandoning one religion means adopting
| another. Abandoning a religious faith with thousands of years
| of refinement for some quackery invented yesterday, especially
| without proportional reason, is not exactly the move of a sound
| mind.
|
| I also think religion serves a real need, but all real needs
| have real objects. And so I do not use the word "utility" here
| as if the content of the faith didn't matter, that religion is
| just some instrument that gets us this "other stuff" and has no
| intrinsic truth or meaning itself. A true religious faith is
| practiced because it is about the ultimate meaning of one's
| life and thus the meaning of everything else in life. Thus
| everything is always subordinate to one's faith. It is
| important for the faith to be true in order to be able to live
| one's life in the light of true ends, not mythical
| counterfeits. This does not contradict the essence of your main
| point, namely, the the eviction of one religion does not
| abolish religion. It typically just replaces it with something
| inferior.
|
| > "Why do science and philosophy matter?"
|
| I would say philosophical and religious answers. Recall that
| philosophy is also reflexive.
|
| But indeed, scientism is indefensible. It is a philosophical
| position and thus cannot be defended scientifically. You cannot
| simply assert it without justification.
| ukj wrote:
| What is the utility of truth?
|
| If it has none then I don't need it.
|
| Reflexivity is precisely where meaning/religion comes from.
| From the self.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| so -
|
| You saw sagacious Solomon | You know what came of him | To
| him, complexities seemed plain | He cursed the hour that
| gave birth to him | And saw that everything was vain | How
| great and wise was Solomon | The world, however, did not
| wait | But soon observed what followed on | It's wisdom
| that had brought him to this state | How fortunate the man
| with none
|
| You saw courageous Caesar next | You know what he became |
| They deified him in his life | Then had him murdered just
| the same | And as they raised the fatal knife | How loud he
| cried "you too my son!" | The world, however, did not wait
| | But soon observed what followed on | It's courage that
| had brought him to that state | How fortunate the man with
| none
|
| You heard of honest Socrates | The man who never lied |
| They weren't so grateful as you'd think | Instead the
| rulers fixed to have him tried | And handed him the
| poisoned drink | How honest was the people's noble son |
| The world, however, did not wait | But soon observed what
| followed on | It's honesty that brought him to that state |
| How fortunate the man with none
|
| Here you can see respectable folk | Keeping to God's own
| laws | So far he hasn't taken heed | You who sit safe and
| warm indoors | Help to relieve out bitter need | How
| virtuously we had begun | The world, however, did not wait
| | But soon observed what followed on | It's fear of God
| that brought us to that state | How fortunate the man with
| none
|
| Source: LyricFind
|
| Songwriters: Brendan Michael Perry / Bertolt Brecht / John
| Willett
|
| How Fortunate the Man With None lyrics (c) Universal Music
| Publishing Group, BMG Rights Management
| bobthechef wrote:
| > What is the utility of truth?
|
| I don't understand the question. Truth is the
| correspondence of the mind with the real. The value of some
| truths is mostly instrumental. The value of others is that
| it is good for us to know them for themselves. If you are
| using "utility" to mean "value", then maybe you accept
| this, but utility is typically something like a species of
| value, as I understand it. Pure practicality is incoherent.
| They needs to be a terminus.
|
| What is "need" here? Toward what end? Need is always about
| ends.
|
| > Reflexivity is precisely where meaning/religion comes
| from. From the self.
|
| Meaning doesn't come from ourselves. We cannot invent
| meaning. Either something means something, or it doesn't.
| What you describe is mental illness and delusion. I also
| don't see what this has to do with truth/utility.
| ukj wrote:
| > Either something means something, or it doesn't.
|
| This is a peculiar idea.
|
| What does my cat mean?
| ukj wrote:
| > I don't understand the question. Truth is the
| correspondence of the mind with the real.
|
| That is only the correspondence theory of truth.
|
| There are many other truth-theories.
|
| There is the coherence theory, pragmatic theory,
| constructivist theory, consensus theory. Why have you
| chosen that particular truth-theory?
|
| I use utility in the same sense of "teleos" - end
| purpose.
|
| What is the purpose of truth? What is the purpose of
| having a mind correspond with the real?
|
| For your particular conception - it is impossible for any
| mind to correspond to the real because any given mind is
| only a subset of the real.
| [deleted]
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| So I figure there should be a possible version of Emo Phillips'
| best God joke ever
| https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religio...
| available for American politics.
| dilawar wrote:
| Really? How about growth and decline of Marxism vis-a-vis
| religion?
| grouphugs wrote:
| this doesn't make any sense at all. have you not heard of the
| inquisitions and crusades? hn is seriously a bunch of pompous
| clowns with inflated egos, this is gonna get so funny soon, way
| funnier than its been
| [deleted]
| briefcomment wrote:
| People feel the urge to label some one, group, or idea, as bad. I
| get around this by accepting that I am bad. It helps me see the
| best in everyone else, and makes me hold myself to really high
| standards. It is sometimes unpleasant though.
|
| It's probably some sort of natural calibration process.
| rogerkirkness wrote:
| I've come to terms with this by denouncing morals and focusing
| on ethics.
| fighterpilot wrote:
| I don't go so far as denouncing morals, I'm glad they exist,
| but I'm very skeptical of them.
|
| Morality works well for its evolved purpose, which is to bind
| together small tribes and push someone into action in
| response to visual and audio cues that someone is suffering.
|
| Beyond that, it's highly flawed.
|
| It doesn't get switched on for out-groups. Arguably it
| contributes to tribal conflict.
|
| It can be co-opted so easily by nefarious charismatic
| leaders, motivating morally outraged people towards atrocity.
|
| It can be co-opted easily by a victim-playing psychopath in
| an interpersonal setting for personal gain.
|
| It's used as a mask for policies and ideologies that are
| really a byproduct of jealousy, envy, self-interest, among
| other motivations.
|
| It's not rational, we become less altruistic as the scale of
| the problem grows, and we respond more to emotional stimuli
| than actual information about what's going on.
| briefcomment wrote:
| I agree about morals. They're always relative, and can
| sometimes be fluid. Holding someone to a set of morals is
| usually pretty shortsighted.
|
| What do you mean by ethics here?
|
| The one thing I try to hold myself to is to maximize
| individual choice, even if I don't currently agree with some
| of the choices.
| skissane wrote:
| The problem with talking about "morals"-vs-"ethics" is that
| it isn't very clear what is the actual difference between
| them.
|
| One point of view-to which I subscribe-is that the terms are
| synonyms. One comes from Latin, the other comes from Greek.
| English does that sometimes.
|
| Others insist they differ in meaning. But there doesn't seem
| to be any consensus on what the actual difference is. I've
| heard many proposals, and the only thing I've found they have
| in common is that they disagree with each other.
|
| Some people say "morals" is about principles and "ethics" is
| about their application. Others say "morals" are religious
| and "ethics" are secular. Yet others say "morals" are
| personal and "ethics" are professional and/or political. I'll
| just stick with using the two words as interchangeable
| synonyms myself.
| Swizec wrote:
| Isn't this what Catholicism is all about? We are all sinners
| and terrible people. Therefore we should see the best in fellow
| human and give money to the church so it can offset our tab
| with god
|
| I realize most people stick to the "everyone is bad" part and
| forget that they too are an everyone and gloss over the whole
| forgiveness and acceptance part.
| baby wrote:
| Is it though, don't religious people think everyone else not
| part of their religion is going to hell?
| snypox wrote:
| I asked this from a Christian friend of mine. He said that
| the "uninitiated", like indigenous people will be judged by
| their conscience.
|
| I told him that people in Iraq are 99% muslims and they
| definitely know about the existence of Christianity so they
| aren't really uninitiated. If I remember correctly, he said
| that if a culture poisons your mind to not believe in the
| Christian God, then you're still considered "uninitiated".
| briefcomment wrote:
| > "culture poisons your mind"
|
| That seems like quite the cop out lol. Pretty sure any
| decision to not practice Christianity would meet this
| criteria.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| "As _______ has declined, ______ intensity has risen."
|
| That is a natural cycle for more than religion.
|
| Look at the mainstream media. As the internet has cut into their
| sweet spot, they've reacted with reporting that's more binay,
| more sensationalized. Similar can be said of politics. Again, the
| internet, it enables the people to self organize, etc. And the
| result to politics? A louder and more extreme mindset professing
| how important gov is.
|
| As "movements" contract those who remain are naturally more
| devoted. Devotes what to believe they are relevant. Less voices
| triggers those who remain to be louder.
| [deleted]
| rubyn00bie wrote:
| Uhhh... this article is really out of touch with the world and
| I'm pretty sure they totally didn't understand at a minimum half
| of what they're talking about.
|
| I'd really like to point out something that's just a fact, that
| was told to me, while I was abroad, by non-US citizens:
|
| The USA is the only country where you can move to and say you're
| from. I can't ever move to France and call myself French. I can't
| move to Germany and be German, no more than I can ever move to
| Japan and call myself Japanese. One can however, move to the
| United States, and call themselves American.
|
| There is something binding to America, much greater than
| religion, and it's the idea of freedom. Not even real freedom,
| just the god damn idea of it.
|
| > As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has
| risen
|
| ROFLCOPTR. Next you're going to try and sell me a tool to predict
| stock prices based on the weather (and I did read more after
| laughing my ass off at the sub heading).
|
| To assume that religion is what held together America is itself
| fucking stupid. I could accept greed, war mongering, or pretty
| much anything except the bullshit veil of religion. This was
| obviously written by someone who has no lens without religion and
| so applies it everywhere they can. It'd be more accurate to title
| this article "let's blame the problems of the world on the
| decline of religion, because I'm to stupid and willfully ignorant
| to accept the complex dynamics of modern society."
| skissane wrote:
| > The USA is the only country where you can move to and say
| you're from. I can't ever move to France and call myself
| French. I can't move to Germany and be German, no more than I
| can ever move to Japan and call myself Japanese. One can
| however, move to the United States, and call themselves
| American.
|
| Not the only country, the same is true of Australia. I
| mentioned in another comment the Australian politician Kristina
| Keneally, who was born in Nevada, grew up in Ohio, didn't move
| to Australia until her 20s. To me, she's an Australian. I think
| most Australians would probably say the same thing.
| gspr wrote:
| Huh? Maybe France is a bit special, but I'd wager you could
| move to Germany, the Netherlands or Scandinavia and call
| yourself [insert local identity] just as quickly as you could
| in the US. At least in the cities (but then again, try being a
| Syrian refugee in rural Alabama).
|
| Sure, it doesn't happen on day one, but it doesn't in the US
| either.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| The United States has the world's largest Christian population,
| and its founding was directly influenced by religion; the
| Church of England and the Puritans.[1][2][3][4]
|
| To suggest otherwise is to completely ignore not only history,
| but the present.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Colony
|
| [2]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_of_New_England#Establ...
|
| [3]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_Massachusetts_Bay
|
| [4]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_Massachusetts_Bay#...
| andrewjl wrote:
| This isn't really the whole story. Many of the founders were
| Deist and/or practically irreligious.
|
| The other important distinction is that the Church of England
| is essentially a state church. In many ways the U.S.
| Constitution, on which Nonconformists had far more influence,
| is its _antithesis_. [1] Puritanism /Nonconformism views
| religion as a personal or at most a local matter.
|
| One of the references you shared has an interesting quote to
| this effect stating that when England tried to impose it's
| unelected colonial official rule, Puritan officials "were of
| opinion that God would never suffer me to land again in this
| country, and thereupon began in a most arbitrary manner to
| assert their power higher than at any time before." [2]
|
| A much more accurate picture of what the U.S. started out as
| and has become today would be a mosaic or a patchwork of
| various religions and/or philosophies where one always has a
| choice whether to participate (or abstain).
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonconformist_(Protestantism)
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_of_New_England#Dud
| ley...
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| That's so far from the truth, that it's a fraudulent
| historical claim. They were almost _all_ religious, and the
| early population of both the proto-United States, and the
| then-declared independent states were predominantly
| Protestant.
| rmellow wrote:
| > The USA is the only country where you can move to and say
| you're from.
|
| North of the border there's a vast, mythical place called
| Canada - about 20% of Canadians were not born there [1].
|
| Yes, this feeling of "acquired origin" is not true of every
| country, but the US and Canada are seldom the only place.
|
| In my experience, the same would happen in many South American
| countries if one is successful in integration - there's no
| snobbery about not being born there.
|
| [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-s-foreign-born-
| populat...
| rbrbr wrote:
| Every time I read about grown up men and women believing in a
| fairytale it makes me realize how far humanity is away from being
| a grown up self reflected intelligent species. And I have my
| doubts it will change anytime soon.
| antattack wrote:
| "Join me in our crusade to reap the rewards of our global
| victory'
|
| Said President Bush in 2005. Once politics and faith intermingle
| the result is higher intensity.
| Lammy wrote:
| > Once politics and faith intermingle the result is higher
| intensity.
|
| America has been into that since the very beginning
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apotheosis_of_Washington
| anoncow wrote:
| This thread has derailed.
| ymgch wrote:
| Can't say what's worse.
| freshhawk wrote:
| Uh ... is it news to people that american nationalism is a very
| religious belief system?
|
| It isn't to outsiders, I definitely heard this comparison made
| when I was in school ... which was the 90's.
|
| This also feels more like americans adjusting to having explicit
| ideological beliefs in the first place, since the decades-long
| political monoculture is breaking up. There is an interesting
| religious feel to party affiliation in the US, but nothing
| particularly exceptional compared to other places. Maybe that's
| an outsider missing some nuance though.
| remarkEon wrote:
| >Uh ... is it news to people that american nationalism is a
| very religious belief system?
|
| I think the "news" here, such as there actually is any, is that
| modern secular progressivism has adopted (transplanted?) many
| religious notions from e.g. Catholicism, and the comparison
| bothers people because the left prides itself on being anti-
| religious. American Nationalism has pretty much always been
| tied to Christianity given the history of the country, so yeah
| it's not surprising at all to point that out.
| sidlls wrote:
| In America, religion has always had an outsized influence in
| everything, including leftist movements. It's no surprise
| that its influence has extended to other movements in ways
| both subtle and (perhaps) surprising.
| godelski wrote:
| It isn't. Politics being the new religion and growing amounts
| of atheism and agnosticism has commonly been the scapegoat. But
| it is easy to disprove. The South is extremely religious and
| just as radical (if not more) than the areas of the country
| that aren't as religious. If it was the lack of religion we'd
| see the political fervor be less homogeneously distributed (and
| similarly if religion caused this division).
|
| Neither is this news to people nor is it a good claim. But it
| is a believable claim so that's why we're talking about it.
| [deleted]
| tonymet wrote:
| Becoming more religious has helped me identify religious
| tendencies in the secular world. Ideology doesn't imply
| supernatural deities, and some worldly phenomenon can be elevated
| to a supernatural level. Secular belief contains rituals, origin
| stories, deities, saints, priesthood, blasphemy, vice & virtue
| just as religion does.
|
| One aspect of religion I appreciate is that these aspects are
| well codified and debated - i.e. much more explicit.
|
| In the secular world these aspects exist but they are implicit,
| making them difficult to debate and attack.
|
| Few people understand that most religions e.g. Judaism and
| Christianity have an apologetic discipline - a deliberate arm
| open to debate.
|
| The secular world would benefit from adopting more formal
| definitions of their belief system. I think that would reduce the
| conflict and neurosis that comes from engaging a nebulous system.
|
| If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular ideology
| that you have adopted.
| Jedd wrote:
| > Becoming more religious has helped me identify religious
| tendencies in the secular world.
|
| Do you believe that becoming religious made you smarter / more
| aware, or that it made you more eager to seek reassuring
| comparisons outside your religion?
|
| > The secular world would benefit from adopting more formal
| definitions of their belief system.
|
| Benefit whom? The 'secular world' is perhaps not as centrally
| organised as you may believe or wish for. ( _We meet at the Fox
| & Hound every second Wednesday_.) Whether this is inconvenient
| for members of the secular world, members of various fantasy
| clubs, or both - is hard to say.
|
| Personally I don't feel that a codification of my understanding
| of the universe (I struggle to think of it as a belief system,
| as that has connotations of faith and rigidity in the absence
| of evidence) is necessary. I _do_ undeniably like the idea that
| my understanding of the universe (roughly) aligns, AFAICT, with
| that of other intelligent people I know, or whose works I see
| or read - but I 'm not sure that's the same thing.
|
| > If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular
| ideology that you have adopted.
|
| Do you accept that perhaps intentionally non-religious people
| may not be as dumb as that assertion demands?
| tonymet wrote:
| > Do you believe that becoming religious made you smarter /
| more aware
|
| As in it's equipped me with mental models to understand which
| components of secular life are acts of faith & ritual vs
| reason.
|
| > 'secular world' is perhaps not as centrally organised as
| you may believe or wish for
|
| Nor is it uniform. But there are some overt and some covert
| aspects. the covert forces benefit from being nebulous.
|
| One reason religions are so open to attack is that they have
| a clear identity and value system (not necessarily good, but
| at least clearly stated). If you think about it, you can have
| a healthier relationship with a religious opponent- as long
| as you have equal power, you can oppose each other in a
| healthy way.
|
| The secular world is applying all sorts of demands & social
| pressures on you, and there's no way to oppose them, because
| secular ideology doesn't have an identity, an institution or
| value system open to attack. It's like fighting smoke or a
| swarm of bees.
| kwinten wrote:
| > The secular world is applying all sorts of demands &
| social pressures on you, and there's no way to oppose them,
| because secular ideology doesn't have an identity, an
| institution or value system open to attack. It's like
| fighting smoke or a swarm of bees.
|
| That's because there is no such thing as "secular
| ideology". It's a meaningless phrase.
| foolinaround wrote:
| > That's because there is no such thing as "secular
| ideology". It's a meaningless phrase.
|
| Yes, there is no such thing, but it does not become
| meaningless, and so such be called 'something'
|
| It is the opposite, the repudiation of 'religious
| ideology'
|
| just like there is no such thing as 'cold' - it is the
| opposite of 'heat' which is measured, but 'cold' as such,
| holds some value in dialogue, so it is for 'secular
| ideology'
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| There is such a thing if one delves into definition of
| ideology. Depending on the definition, there either is or
| is not such a thing.
| savingsPossible wrote:
| Correct.
|
| There is no such thing as "secular ideology". There are
| many. Just as there are many religions.
|
| There is materialism+work ethic, there is materialism
| without work ethic, there is "wokeism" (to pin a
| definition, the belief that oppression is a fundamental
| societal force and clearly directional based on some
| enumerated characteristics), there is nationalism.
| There's even "startups" :P
|
| But perhaps you have a grain of truth in that rarely is a
| "secular ideologist" a "monotheistic" (monoidealistic?)
| one. Usually one's identity holds a plurality of those
| identifications.
|
| Also, people can have a strong identification to ideas
| without a community to back it up (another grain of
| truth, and the saddest part)
| tonymet wrote:
| This is academically true but not practically true. sure
| there are various secular ideologies in the wild, but due
| to globalized media & culture, you will generally find
| major and minor dominant ideologies ruling over you
| personally.
|
| Overall the point isn't to say that all secular belief is
| the same. The point is that any secular ideology you
| follow will have the same characteristics of religious
| belief despite lacking definition.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I think there's a big difference between belief and dogma.
| While I agree there is lots of secular dogma, not all secular
| belief systems are dogmatic. If your belief system is
| constructed in a fundamentally evidence-based and emotionally-
| detached manner, then even your core beliefs should be open to
| challenge and question. I don't think most members of large
| institutionalized religions are willing to seriously entertain
| that their core tenets are wildly mistaken, otherwise they are
| in serious danger of becoming atheists.
| civilized wrote:
| > Few people understand that most religions e.g. Judaism and
| Christianity have an apologetic discipline - a deliberate arm
| open to debate.
|
| They have arguments that they make to nonbelievers. That's not
| the same as being genuinely open to debate.
| baby wrote:
| I don't know. That sounds like a lot of overthinking.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I have been thinking a lot about region and ideology and what
| i've come up with is that the tendency to form these strong
| ideological behaviors is a feature of humanity and organized
| religion is a sort of evolved (perhaps in a meme more than a
| gene way) response to this tendency.
|
| Essentially groups and ideas survived better when there was an
| organization and social rules built up around this human
| tendency. Left unchecked reckless nonsense ideologies spring up
| too easily, an organized religion gives this human trait an
| outlet (and often becomes an unchecked wreckless ideology
| itself, but... less often).
|
| Or in another sense, the big organized religions are the
| winners in a centuries long evolutionary race of ideas. The
| nonsense ones destroy themselves eventually, the less nonsense
| ones survive and spread (seriously, judaism is thousands of
| years old and has a health code, much of which in context is
| decent advice).
| 7952 wrote:
| Imagine you could go back to 0AD. And you ask the people why
| droughts happen, or why people get sick, or why volcanoes
| explode. Ask them why they are a slave, or a master.
|
| There were religious answers to all these questions. God's
| were just the best explanation going for why things happened.
| And over the next 2000 years science slowly chipped away at
| that. And then the origin of species was published. To the
| point where in 2021 most people will have answers based on
| science. Even religious people.
|
| Science has won the battle of ideas again and again. Religion
| has retreated into faith and existential fear. And slowly but
| surely science will shine a light on that fear.
| dgb23 wrote:
| The same cognitive defense mechanism that prevents me from
| being religious (which I wanted, tried but couldn't) also
| prevents me from adopting ideology.
| andrewclunn wrote:
| I very much doubt this. 99 times out of 100 someone who says
| they are a-political, ascribe to some form of moral
| relativism, or don't have an ideology, very much are, aren't,
| and do. They either:
|
| 1) Lack the introspection to see it and are unaware of what
| they take on faith. 2) Are knowingly lying in order to appear
| more open minded than they are. 3) Are actively undergoing a
| crisis of faith period in their life where they are looking
| for a new foundation to replace one that has recently failed
| them.
|
| Put some skin in the game. Own your assumptions.
| keithnz wrote:
| the secular world is simply the things that are not connected
| with religion, to talk about it as a "thing" that needs anymore
| definition than that doesn't really make sense. It doesn't make
| sense for "secular" to define itself anymore than that. There
| may be groups of secular people who develop the kinds of traits
| you are interested in, for instance secular humanism. But the
| "secular world" is just those things that are not connected
| with religion and secular things don't really anymore traits
| other than that.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I agree with this. It seems like OP taking the position that
| everyone is in fact religious, even when they say they are
| not. This is a position I see many religious people take, and
| I completely disagree with the premise.
|
| I also don't _really_ consider myself an atheist, either.
| Ignostic is accurate. Maybe that 's worse ;-)
| tonymet wrote:
| I'm trying to convince secular people, especially atheists,
| that they are in every way religious. That most of their
| beliefs are taken on faith. They have a value system of
| virtue and vice (usually implied), and they have deities (
| forces, persona & phenomena that affect their life in a
| supernatural way).
| Tainnor wrote:
| Well, you're wrong.
|
| A value system is not a set of beliefs. I think it's
| important to treat people fairly. But I don't believe
| that the "universe" or whatever cares about fair
| treatment of people. What matters to me personally or
| what I find ethical has nothing to do with any sort of
| deep truth about the world. I like ice cream, that
| doesn't mean that I ascribe any metaphysical importance
| to the taste and texture of ice cream.
|
| I also don't have "deities" or anything that affects my
| life in a supernatural way, and I'm not sure what gave
| you the idea that secular people (in general) do - maybe
| you talked to a bunch of esoteric-minded people, or to
| the kind of environmentalist that turns nature into some
| sort of mystical deity, but that's not every secularist
| (nor every environmentalist).
|
| Maybe you should try talking to actual atheists instead
| of strawmanning them.
| Shorel wrote:
| > Few people understand that most religions e.g. Judaism and
| Christianity have an apologetic discipline - a deliberate arm
| open to debate.
|
| That's just a trick religious evangelizers use as bait to
| unleash their barrel of canned answers.
|
| And boy, you really have a lot of ammunition to use.
|
| But, and this is an important but: In the end, it is all just
| rhetoric to justify what you already believe and are unwilling
| to change.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| > That's just a trick religious evangelizers use as bait to
| unleash their barrel of canned answer
|
| How is that different from what the atheist side offers?
|
| The fact is, the big questions in life tend to be complicated
| to figure out, so canned answers are a practical way to not
| devote your entire lifetime to redeveloping the conclusions
| from scratch. Ideally, you'd also do some due diligence and
| try to figure out whether they agree with reality as you
| understand it.
|
| There's a reason why we use caching in computer science.
| Cached answers should of course be invalidated in cases where
| they are found to be incorrect, so one should remain open to
| the possibility of being wrong about their beliefs (though
| just how open, is a subject of individual opinion).
| Shorel wrote:
| > How is that different from what the atheist side offers?
|
| That one is easy: we don't pretend we have the answer to
| everything. In fact, that's the first thing we say.
|
| Is the sun going to appear in the sky tomorrow? Probably
| yes, as far as I know, with 99.99999 certainty, but it is
| never 100%.
|
| Pure theological questions are answered by me with: is that
| even a useful question? I don't even care if a god exists,
| because so far they have been unable to interact with the
| world in any meaningful way. And you people worry so much
| about your next life, you are forgetting to live this one.
| eezing wrote:
| You're arguing semantics. For many Americans, religion implies
| the existence of god. Your definition of religion is too vague
| for debate.
| cconcepts wrote:
| This is a good summary of what I think Douglas Murray was
| explaining in this discussion with Sam Harris:
| https://youtu.be/yTtuCNPebDE
|
| Namely; "we may be in the midst of the discovery that the only
| thing worse than religion is it's absence"
| kazoomonger wrote:
| I think the issue you're facing in thinking that these aspects
| exist but are implicit is that you're looking at the world
| through religion-colored glasses, which distort the way you're
| viewing things.
|
| I'll admit that in the absence of religion, some people pick up
| ideological causes and treat them as a religion. However, I'm
| interested in knowing what "rituals, origin stories, deities,
| saints, priesthood, blasphemy, vice & virtue" you think I have.
| brodo wrote:
| Yuval Harari makes a very similar argument in "Sapiens". I
| really recommend reading it. It's an eye opener.
| shsbdncudx wrote:
| One of successes of religious text like the bible is how
| skilfully it leverages our ancient psychological needs.
|
| I don't think it's purely a semantic argument though, religion
| is predicated on the supernatural whereas ideology isn't.
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _Few people understand that most religions e.g. Judaism and
| Christianity have an apologetic discipline - a deliberate arm
| open to debate._
|
| Open to talking about it, sure, but the crucial element that
| separates apologetics from real debate is that one side is
| forbidden from changing their mind. In religion there is a rule
| overshadowing the exchange of ideas that says, "no matter how
| convinced you are, or how weak your own case is, you should
| stick with it, because it's virtuous to stick with this belief
| no matter what."
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| This might not be true. Most religious people change their
| beliefs.
|
| A religion is a set of assertions or axioms that, like any
| mathematical or logical system, cannot ever be proven or
| disproven (by their very definition).
|
| When one goes about living one's life, they require life
| experiences that guide them one way or the other.
| kazoomonger wrote:
| That's not a good definition of religion. It allows one to
| sneak in a history-laden term with a relatively innocuous
| definition, have someone accept the given definition, and
| the introduce the rest of the history without having to
| prove it.
|
| For prior art see arguments that "something must be the
| first mover, and that thing we call God". Curiously, the
| sudden leap to "therefore the Judeo-Christian deity is
| proven to exist" keeps getting snuck in there without any
| extra proof.
|
| In other words, you're attempting to define a term of art
| using an existing word, and this just obscures the argument
| because most people will use its common definition, and not
| the meaning you're defining for it.
| Tainnor wrote:
| Mathematics is distinguished by at least two
| characteristics from religion:
|
| 1. Precise definitions
|
| 2. Not proven inconsistent
|
| (As for 2, we know we can't prove the bulk of mainstream
| maths consistent. However, since the crisis triggered after
| Russell's paradox was discovered and set theory was
| formalised in a better way, nobody has been able to poke a
| fundamental hole into current mathematics. Moreover, there
| are certain subsets of mathematics - say, Presburger
| Arithmetic - that _are_ provably consistent.)
|
| I have never seen a definition of "God" that is both
| precise and not self-contradictory.
|
| Conflating mathematics and religion is just disingenuous.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Sorry if it seemed like I was conflating the two, I was
| just trying to compare one facet of each. My use of the
| word 'like' was supposed to be an allegorical one.
|
| (Assuming, by conflate, it is the combining two into one,
| per definition).
|
| 'God is Love' doesn't seem contradictory.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| Individuals, including religious people, frequently change
| their mind. Have you never met a person who used to be
| religious, and I am not just talking about raised religiously
| but actually believing, lose their faith? The idea that
| religious people are religious just because they don't want
| to change their views is ridiculous.
| 8note wrote:
| Apostasy is a death penalty offence for some religions, and
| the cause of a fair number of wars in other religions.
|
| Its certainly frowned upon in general
| _-david-_ wrote:
| I am talking about religion in general in the West (since
| that is what the article is about). People frequently
| stop being Christian for example.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Yes they do it, but that's clearly against the rules of
| their religion. You can only decide that a religion is
| not true while not practicing that religion, because
| curiously they all have the same virtue-associated
| principle of never reaching that conclusion.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I would be curious if you could find a rule book that
| says you must believe this rule book.
| mistermann wrote:
| Do you believe this applies to Taoism? At least by my
| interpretation, it lacks many of the shortcomings of other
| religions.
| teddyh wrote:
| "Taoism", _the religion_ , has, as I am given to
| understand, many of the normal trappings of religion,
| including formal dresses for priests, and, IIRC, quite a
| lot of alchemy.
|
| This is probably not the "Taoism" which you read about in
| western pop-culture paperbacks or hippie-age TV.
| mistermann wrote:
| Perhaps they have priests with costumes, and I am not
| aware of any alchemy, but are these "shortcomings" in any
| sort of fundamental, materially important way?
| dorchadas wrote:
| It's 'internal alchemy' [0]
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neidan
| mistermann wrote:
| Ah, thanks for that. These seem fairly harmless to me but
| I'm not so knowledgeable, what do you think?
| teddyh wrote:
| I mean, alchemy is not a really an advantage for a
| religion to include these days. Most religions have
| dropped their medical claims long ago.
| mistermann wrote:
| Sure, but I am more interested in this idea of whether
| alchemy is a fundamental and substantial part of Taoism,
| and then also the question of whatever negatives may come
| with that (if it is actually true), is Taoism _in the
| aggregate_ net beneficial to humanity, or not. I 'm
| curious if you have any thoughts on the matter.
| dorchadas wrote:
| It's worth noting that modern Daoist alchemy is
| _internal_ alchemy [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neidan
| Torwald wrote:
| The major religions and also secular ideologies each have
| their strengths, otherwise they wouldn't have millions of
| followers.
| kitd wrote:
| Swap "religion" for "secular ideology" and you've pretty much
| arrived at the conclusion of the article.
| mssundaram wrote:
| I am biased as a Hindu but I find that Hinduism stands apart
| here as a religion in that the emphasis is on one's own and
| the truths discovered therefrom rather than blindly accepting
| beliefs.
| chakkepolja wrote:
| Hinduism is not a religion in western sense. We don't have
| a set list of doctrine and rules to follow.
|
| When I say I am allowed to be atheist or agnostic according
| to Vedas, your typical dumb Purohit also screams and tries
| to justify it's not that.
|
| It's almost like Vedas or Upanishads or the values they
| emphasize have no place in preist centered medieval /
| modern "Hinduism".
| FlyingSnake wrote:
| Your typical dumb purohit is not needed to follow Dharma.
| No one's going to issue a Fatwa if you do your own
| research and find your own way. You are free to choose
| between the Astika or Sramana or any of the heterodox
| schools. The doctrine is there but not in form of DIY
| commandments.
| chakkepolja wrote:
| This is true but doesn't apply to those of us who have to
| follow certain traditions for the satisfaction of
| parents. Given a choice I am an atheist / agnostic.
|
| Edit: And 'Dharma' in texts is used to refer to qualities
| such as 'dhriti' (courage) and r'ta (truthfulness), much
| more than its being used to refer to rituals. So I don't
| necessarily even need to read any of these to follow
| "dharma".
| Animats wrote:
| We see religious tendencies in the secular world because we
| really don't know what we're doing running the secular world.
| Nobody really knows how to organize an economy to work well.
| All the plausible systems have failed at some point, often in
| unexpected ways.
|
| "Free markets" are just turning loose an optimizer that
| optimizes for - something. Central planning just pushes the
| problem back to the planning level. Combining the two for
| political ends tends to produce strange results because
| economics has very poor predictive power.
|
| This uncertainty tends to drive people to faith-based
| positions. That doesn't work either, but it satisfies some
| basic human need.
| ud_0 wrote:
| _> If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular
| ideology that you have adopted._
|
| The label "not religious" doesn't mean anything. People use it
| to refer to atheists, in which case you are alleging that
| atheists by definition don't have the tools to understand their
| own position - which is absurd. Others use the term to refer to
| minimally-practicing members of a faith who basically only show
| up to places of worship when there is an official event, in
| which case you argue that these people don't understand the
| reasons why they avoid their own religion until they become
| active practitioners.
|
| _> The secular world would benefit from adopting more formal
| definitions of their belief system._
|
| First of all, a secular world doesn't preclude the population
| from being religious. Having a secular world that is explicitly
| separate from religion only means that society itself is not
| regulated by religion.
|
| If by secular world you mean the percentage of the population
| who is atheist or agnostic, then you're not talking about a
| specific belief system. You're talking about a diverse group
| who have chosen to not believe in deities, and that often
| extends to not believing in the supernatural altogether. The
| allegation that this absence of belief happens without
| reflection is simply untrue. On the contrary, being an atheist
| is still a thorny path to take, even today. It doesn't happen
| passively.
|
| _> In the secular world these aspects exist but they are
| implicit, making them difficult to debate and attack._
|
| When you say that these aspects are well codified in religion,
| what you really mean is that specific religions have behavioral
| codices that members must adhere to. The consequences of non-
| adherence depend on the religion and the society. But when you
| look at different religions, these codices are all quite
| different.
|
| As soon as a population contains more than one religion, what
| you are touting as a benefit quickly becomes just as impossible
| as if you were dealing with an atheistic society.
|
| What you find difficult to debate and attack is non-uniformity
| in general. I consider that a plus.
|
| You are of course completely correct that a diverse society can
| appear more nebulous, and in some ways individuals can have a
| much harder time finding a path in life if they, well, have to
| actually go and _find a path_. This is a consequence of the
| freedom to choose. Systems that don 't give you those freedoms
| are assigning a path to you from on high, or at least they
| heavily constrain your choices. No doubt some people would
| prefer that.
|
| But the benefit of living in an open society is that you have
| the option of choosing to be religious, and you are free to
| choose any religion and any flavor. A secular society doesn't
| take that away in any form, it just means that your religion
| doesn't get to make the rules for people living outside of it.
| blackearl wrote:
| > If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular
| ideology that you have adopted.
|
| Hubris is a sin. I'm sure someone with your _sharp cognitive
| tools_ can recognize that.
| tonymet wrote:
| I literally mean a toolkit of mental models, like quantum
| physics vs classical. Believing one or the other doesn't make
| anyone better - they both have applications.
| andrepd wrote:
| Christians, Muslims, etc, cannot even agree among themselves
| what their "belief system" is! I think you're overestimating
| how well-defined people's religious beliefs are, especially the
| average person's.
| mrone wrote:
| Muslims agree on who God is and who are his prophets.
| aloisdg wrote:
| > and who are his prophets.
|
| Well this one may differ if you ask a Sunni or a Shi'ite.
| erklik wrote:
| > Well this one may differ if you ask a Sunni or a
| Shi'ite.
|
| Prophets are the same in both denominations. I am not
| sure why you think otherwise.
| andrepd wrote:
| They routinely kill each other over religious differences,
| so goes to show how much they agree.
| mannykannot wrote:
| > If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular
| ideology that you have adopted.
|
| An alternative view, and one that, IMHO, is favored by Occam's
| razor (to name just one cognitive tool), is that both religious
| and secular ideologies are consequences of a more general human
| nature.
| manmal wrote:
| You obviously can find a lot of topics which people don't have
| time thinking about, so they copy rituals and belief systems
| from their parents, other attachment figures, or even the
| media.
|
| The sources of those beliefs are decentralized though, and the
| individual person can pick beliefs which suit their
| whereabouts, environment, and sub culture best.
|
| Religion however is a centralized source of belief systems,
| which comes with problems:
|
| - One size fits all solution leads to problems like this: Oh
| your best friend is gay? Too bad, our 2k year old manifest says
| they are bad people/subhuman/sick. (This makes me SO angry)
|
| - Central authorities can and will exploit their power if
| possible: Witch hunts, crusades etc
|
| - Self-actualization is constrained by a fixed set of rules:
| Tolerable in times where basic needs are often not met and are
| more urgent, but becomes an issue when 95% live better than a
| Pharao.
| snypox wrote:
| I resonate with your comment very much. I always felt like
| some religions could be less poisonous if they were willing
| to change, or at least somewhat follow the actual morality of
| certain eras. For instance, in 2021 most people already
| realized that being gay is not evil. Most religious people I
| know tend to think otherwise.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular
| ideology that you have adopted._
|
| Not all secular beliefs are ideologies. I think there are two
| key common factors between religious beliefs and ideologies
| that call themselves "secular":
|
| First, people don't acquire the beliefs by considering and
| weighing evidence; they acquire them by being told them,
| usually at a young age, by people they trust, and making them
| part of their identity. That's why people are so resistant to
| changing such beliefs.
|
| Second, the set of beliefs acquired in this way is not just a
| few isolated ones, but a whole network of beliefs that cover
| every aspect of life and are all asserted as justification for
| each other in what amounts to a logical circle. That's why it's
| so hard to penetrate such a belief system and get people to
| doubt it, even if it flies in the face of easily obtainable
| evidence.
| simonh wrote:
| >First, people don't acquire the beliefs by considering and
| weighing evidence; they acquire them by being told them,
| usually at a young age, by people they trust, and making them
| part of their identity. That's why people are so resistant to
| changing such beliefs.
|
| I've come across countless counter-examples to this in my
| life. A lot of the socialists/Marxists I've known come from
| relatively well of conservative families for example.
|
| I've no real evidence for this except personal anecdotes, but
| I suspect gravitating towards an ideology is often as much
| motivated by what you are against as it is motivated by what
| you are for. If there's a hierarchy in power, political,
| religious, whatever, that you think is corrupt you're going
| to naturally gravitate towards an ideology that provides a
| narrative as to why it is corrupt and what can be done about
| it.
|
| People fed up with corruption in catholicism gravitated to
| protestantism. People fed up with feudal or capitalist
| hierarchies gravitate towards Marxism. People in the Muslim
| world fed up with the economic and military domination of the
| West gravitate towards islamic fundamentalism. People fed up
| with Communist totalitarianism gravitate towards democracy.
| These counter-narratives provide a framework for opposition
| and an agenda that opposition can rally around and unify on.
| trashtester wrote:
| I think all ideologies you list support your thesis. These
| are all examples of counter-ideologies. All of them have
| also led to ideological wars, including some of the most
| bloody conflicts in history.
|
| But there are counterexamples. The Scientific Revolution
| grew out of Christianity more gradually, and with somewhat
| less friction. Although the Church did try to fight back,
| the output of the scientists was simply too valuable to
| local populations and leaders to be suppressed.
|
| Likewise, many countries saw royalty and nobility gradually
| be replaced by the burgeoisie in a non-violoent manner. The
| main exception, France, was a lot less successful in this.
|
| Later on, while Marxism led to revolution in the Russian
| Empire, the labor movement in northern Europe decided to
| distance themselves from Marx, and instead work for the
| proletariat by reform rather than revolution. Not by
| attacking the burgeoisie, but rather by collaborating with
| it, and by leveraging capitalism to fund a welfare state.
|
| But then again, neither the burgeoisie or the labor
| movement represented a fundamentally new ideology. Rather,
| they both adopted and adapted the ideology already in
| place, which was carredi by some combination of religion,
| scientism and patriotism/nationalism. The ideologies DID
| evolve, but in these cases, not in an abrupt manner,
| dictated by a few "intellectual" ideologes. And most
| importantly, they did not treat the pre-existing system as
| a mortal enemy.
|
| History will show where the new ideologies will lead. At
| the momement, they seem to be very concerned with
| identifying enemies and not very interested in compromise.
| There seems to be more appetetite for conflict than the
| world has seen since the 1930's, and it may be wise to
| prepare for some kind of rupture within the next 5-30
| years.
| prossercj wrote:
| How did you acquire the belief that it is better to consider
| and weigh evidence? And on what scale are you weighing the
| evidence? And where did you acquire that scale?
| tonymet wrote:
| Let's be honest, most people don't have the time to weigh the
| evidence of say 90% of their beliefs. They go to school &
| watch television, and generally adopt the beliefs of their
| surroundings.
|
| And believing that religious believers accept 100% of
| religious belief without reasoning about them is a
| misunderstanding.
| arp242 wrote:
| The difference is that there is usually at least the
| presumption or expectation of evidence, even though many
| don't know all the details. Don't expect me to be able to
| explain all of cosmology or evolutionary history either,
| but I do know enough to know that it's based on the best
| available evidence available today. Mistakes do happen, and
| are corrected.
|
| With religion, there is no such presumption or expectation.
|
| These are vastly different situations.
| chakkepolja wrote:
| > And believing that religious believers accept 100% of
| religious belief without reasoning about them is a
| misunderstanding.
|
| Had they reasoned about them, most 2000 year old customs
| would have hardly survived.
| Retric wrote:
| They reason within the framework of those ideas. If you
| accept a religious text is accurate and find an obvious
| contradiction then rather than rejecting the religious
| text you're going to try and justify both statements as
| true.
|
| So if Osiris was said to have red hair in one passage and
| was blond in another then they may have been referring to
| different people, one statement was a metaphor, he has
| hair of both colors at the same time, he had each at
| different ages, he dyes his hair at some point, etc. And
| of course people feel such ideas are worth fighting over.
| [deleted]
| jjk166 wrote:
| I've been told bad things would happen to me if I stick my
| head in a hungry lion's mouth. I've never tried it to
| verify. Is not-sticking-my-head-into-the-mouth-of-a-hungry-
| lionism a religion?
|
| There is a difference between belief and faith.
| colordrops wrote:
| People have plenty of time, they just don't have the
| motivation.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> most people don't have the time to weigh the evidence of
| say 90% of their beliefs._
|
| Most of the "beliefs" you refer to actually don't _have_ to
| be beliefs at all. They have no practical consequences;
| they don 't change anything about what the person who
| claims to have them actually _does_. Such beliefs don 't
| have to have their evidence weighed because they make no
| practical difference. When people say they "believe" them,
| they don't mean they're actually using them to decide their
| actions; they are just signaling.
|
| For most beliefs that _do_ have practical consequences,
| people _do_ weigh evidence for them. However, this does
| suggest a clarification to the characteristics I gave for
| religions and ideologies: that they start from beliefs that
| are in the "don't have practical consequences, so saying
| you believe them is just signaling" category, but then use
| them to justify beliefs that are in the "do have practical
| consequences, so should be judged by weighing evidence"
| category.
| tonymet wrote:
| This 90% figure includes core beliefs of the world, right
| and wrong, history, epistemology and so on.
| savingsPossible wrote:
| This was interesting, but also somewhat paradoxical.
|
| A belief that does not affect your actions, but implies
| or causes a belief that does affect your actions. Well,
| that does affect your actions. :)
|
| But serioulsly, joke aside, that was an interesting
| concept
| pdonis wrote:
| _> believing that religious believers accept 100% of
| religious belief without reasoning about them is a
| misunderstanding._
|
| I didn't say anything about religions and ideologies not
| using reasoning. Anyone who has read, say, Thomas Aquinas
| is perfectly aware that religious people can use all kinds
| of complicated reasoning to justify their beliefs.
|
| What I _did_ say is that the set of beliefs in question are
| "all asserted as justification for each other in what
| amounts to a logical circle". For example, Thomas Aquinas
| spent a lot of time building up a huge edifice of
| interlocking propositions about God, all logically related
| to each other--but they don't connect to anything else.
| They're just a free-standing, self-consistent logical
| structure that can't be justified in any way except by
| claiming that it justifies itself. It's not that Aquinas
| didn't use reasoning; as noted above, he did--lots of it.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| The munchausen trilemma undermines the concept of
| "weighing the evidence". Everything anybody believes to
| be true is either founded upon circular reasoning, a
| reasoning of infinite regression, or an arbitrary set of
| unprovable axioms. The consequence is that any level of
| belief in any truth can only be based upon faith. People
| who believe that their world view is based entirely upon
| facts and universal truths tend to have a very hard time
| accepting this. They will often say that scrutinizing
| something to that level is a pointless waste of time for
| things that are so obviously true, which is perhaps
| ironically the exact behaviour also exhibited by the most
| closed minded of the true believers that they often find
| themselves so frustrated by.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| " They're just a free-standing, self-consistent logical
| structure that can't be justified in any way except by
| claiming that it justifies itself. It's not that Aquinas
| didn't use reasoning; as noted above, he did--lots of
| it."
|
| Interestingly, this also describes all of math, logic,
| and philosophy.
|
| One of the more interesting axioms or assertions is
| whether there exists free will, which is, by any
| interesting definition, a supernatural entity.
| guntars wrote:
| > Interestingly, this also describes all of math, logic,
| and philosophy.
|
| Which is totally fine, as long as people accept that God
| exists the same way math exists.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Yes, and ancient Christians asserted that God is love.
|
| Many do accept that love exists in the same way math
| exists.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> free will, which is, by any interesting definition, a
| supernatural entity_
|
| How so? I can think of at least one interesting
| definition by which free will is a perfectly good
| physical process going on in human brains, not
| supernatural at all.
| orestarod wrote:
| Free will implies non determinism, that is the important
| part.
| BackBlast wrote:
| I see the example you related, and by using it as a
| proxy... It seems that you are saying that religious
| beliefs aren't really valid because they aren't based in
| reality.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> It seems that you are saying that religious beliefs
| aren 't really valid because they aren't based in
| reality._
|
| For the specific example I gave (Thomas Aquinas), it's
| not really a question of the beliefs being "valid" or
| not; it's just that they have no practical impact at all,
| which means it doesn't really matter whether you believe
| them or not, at least not if the beliefs are taken in
| isolation.
|
| However, it _is_ a problem if people then try to use such
| beliefs to justify actions that _do_ have practical
| impact. For example, consider the split between different
| branches of Christianity after the Council of Chalcedon
| over "homoousios" vs. "homoiousios", which caused
| several wars over the next few centuries.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| > it's just that they have no practical impact at all,
|
| That's funny because a system that kept a civilization
| together for 1000 years is being claimed to have "no
| value" by someone who has no idea how to keep any society
| together and is mimicking the conventional wisdom of
| those overseeing a disintegrating society as a result of
| this ignorance.
|
| Not only does the work of Aquinas have value, it has more
| value over the long run than anything being produced
| today, as no ethical system that we hold dear has a
| chance of keeping anything going for even three
| generations, let alone 100. Modern society is suffering
| from collapsing birthrates and social disintegration at
| an alarming rate, and we are pretending to be smarter
| than those who set the rules of a civilization that was
| far more stable and productive than our own, with far
| more profound accomplishments.
| bserge wrote:
| Good old "the world is going to shit".
|
| The simple reality is that it's always been this way and
| will likely be this way for a long time.
| mdiesel wrote:
| I've been fascinated listening to a podcast on the
| History of Rome (highly recommend). Rome wasn't built in
| a day, but also the fall of the empire was a period of
| about 300 years during which Rome itself was still called
| the "eternal city".
|
| Not saying this as proof that the world is definitely
| going to shit, the point is that it I don't think we've
| achieved some new level of eternal civilisation that
| couldn't possibly fail. Every civilisation believed that
| right up until the point it stopped being true, so we
| should be on the look out for threats and not assume it
| will all end up OK.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > That's funny because a system that kept a civilization
| together for 1000 years is being claimed to have "no
| value" by someone who has no idea how to keep any society
| together and is mimicking the conventional wisdom of
| those overseeing a disintegrating society as a result of
| this ignorance.
|
| Value changes with time. Horse whips had a lot of value
| at one time. Now, not so much.
|
| Religion is prevalent in many societies, and it isn't the
| same religion. This talk of the value of aquinas ignores
| the fact that all his reasoning only really applied to
| christian religions. Yet other religions without deities
| or with many of them provided the same social structures
| christianity has.
|
| Consider, for example, China. Just as old and grand as
| European civilization with a religion mostly focused on
| the mandate of heaven given to their leaders.
|
| Now consider modern China, which is an atheist state
| that's been thriving. Certainly, not without problems,
| but it's hard to argue their civilization hasn't become a
| major world power.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> a system that kept a civilization together for 1000
| years_
|
| The fact that most people in a given civilization were
| Christians does not mean that the particular religious
| beliefs I was talking about were the ones that kept the
| civilization together. In fact, as the example I gave of
| religious wars over "homoousios" vs. "homoiousios"
| illustrates, those particular beliefs often caused
| problems that created huge rifts in the civilization.
|
| _> someone who has no idea how to keep any society
| together_
|
| If you are referring to me, I have no idea what you are
| talking about.
|
| _> Not only does the work of Aquinas have value_
|
| I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about that,
| at least as far as the particular beliefs I was referring
| to are concerned, since that's the particular work of
| Aquinas that I was discussing.
|
| _> no ethical system that we hold dear has a chance of
| keeping anything going for even three generations, let
| alone 100_
|
| Ethical systems are not the same as the kinds of
| religious beliefs I was talking about. Ethical systems
| have practical consequences that can be tested. I agree
| with you that many people today appear to have ethical
| systems that don't work well; we know that because they
| have bad practical consequences.
|
| However, when you talk about keeping things going for 100
| generations, we don't have any single ethical system that
| has done that. Ethical systems have changed many times
| over the course of human history.
| ithkuil wrote:
| Indeed ethical systems have changed throughout the
| lifespan of a religion. Religions are not set in stone
| and change more than what most religious people are
| willing to admit.
| snypox wrote:
| For example, people used to believe the Book of Genesis
| literally, and now (I believe) most denominations take it
| allegorically. I wonder how many similar stories like
| that will we have in the future.
|
| For me, it always felt like the interpretation of the
| Holy Books are changing through time as we understand
| science more and more. And it feels ironic to me.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Jewish Old Testament scholars haven't taken Genesis
| literally for more than 2 millennia.
| ithkuil wrote:
| That's true. But even leaving science aside, and focusing
| only on non-falsifiable aspects of human ethics, there
| are many examples such as slavery where Christianity for
| example has changed over time quite radically (and not
| even linearly)
| snypox wrote:
| I asked about slavery in Reddit's DebateAChristian forum.
| Most Christians say that those part of the Bible needs to
| be understood in the context of those times where debt
| slavery was quite common and not considered evil. So we
| can't apply today's morality there. Well, at least these
| were the most common answers I got. There were also a
| person who told me that what "moral"/"good" means is
| _completely_ subjective (which is true to some extent),
| so I should not judge Exodus 21.
| orestarod wrote:
| Religious people asking others to judge the Word Of God
| by whatever standards humans happened to have at the time
| the books were written is an implicit acceptance that
| their religion is completely made up. What happened, God
| Changed their mind in the meantime?
| ithkuil wrote:
| FWIW, slavery in antiquity was rarely purely a "racial"
| thing. You became slave because of losing a war, which
| often was waged in response to some a refusal to just pay
| some reason indecent amount of taxes or whatever one side
| insisted was "due".
|
| Surely all christians today believe that tricking
| somebody with dubious pretexts into debt-based slavery
| (as often happens with human trafficking of sex workers,
| where women have to formally pay up their debts and
| incurring the costs that they captors incur in hosting
| them in sub-human conditions).
| splithalf wrote:
| Indeed they change more than their zealous detractors,
| whose rigid mindsets cannot update priors despite
| abundant evidence contradicting their sacred beliefs,
| namely that the pious and meek are to be looked down
| upon, either pitied or scorned.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| >The fact that most people in a given civilization were
| Christians //
|
| It's somewhat orthogonal to your argument, but I'd doubt
| that most people in "Christian countries" (which is a
| heterodox notion) are/were Christians. Mostly people in
| the past seem to have followed a societal model, largely
| imposed as a firm of control.
|
| Where I grew up in the UK the village vicar was not a
| Christian according to most definitions (they didn't
| believe in central tenets of the faith as espoused in all
| the main creeds).
|
| Catholicism has a lot of things that are contradictory to
| biblical Christianity from basic things like having
| "special" people, to indulgences which are so
| contradictory to biblical teachings the only possibly way
| they were accepted is because most people were ignorant
| to Scripture. And of course those in power keenly
| maintained that ignorance.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| https://www.catholic.com/tract/primer-on-indulgences
|
| The powerful hoping to keep people ignorant seems like
| conspiracy/folklore.
| gattilorenz wrote:
| > Catholicism has a lot of things that are contradictory
| to biblical Christianity
|
| That's only true if you consider the Bible as the only
| source of revelation, which is not the case for
| Catholics, where Tradition is equally important.
| nzmsv wrote:
| > Ethical systems are not the same as the kinds of
| religious beliefs I was talking about. Ethical systems
| have practical consequences that can be tested.
|
| Good luck testing one of the currently accepted "ethical
| system"-type religious beliefs.
|
| The only kind of outcome of such a test that is "allowed"
| is full agreement with the ethical system. A lot of these
| systems are just as self-reinforcing and barely based in
| reality as Christian apologetics of Aquinas or
| Chesterton. The people holding these beliefs know this on
| some subconscious level and will viciously attack anyone
| who disagrees. It is only over time with many such
| "attacks" that a mass belief will die and be replaced by
| another one.
|
| In fact, every one of these "ethical" religious beliefs
| came about the same way: it defeated another commonly
| agreed upon dogma.
|
| This mechanism by the way is what runs civilization. One
| meme fighting another.
| u8mybrownies wrote:
| In my experience having been near many church splits I
| still feel this simply isn't true. Churches operate like
| git forks and merges of ideas.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _First, people don 't acquire the beliefs by considering
| and weighing evidence; they acquire them by being told them,
| usually at a young age, by people they trust, and making them
| part of their identity. That's why people are so resistant to
| changing such beliefs.
|
| Second, the set of beliefs acquired in this way is not just a
| few isolated ones, but a whole network of beliefs that cover
| every aspect of life and are all asserted as justification
| for each other in what amounts to a logical circle._
|
| Those two hold for, say roughly, 90% of what most people
| believe, secular or not.
|
| Even most scientific theories people believe, they haven't
| examined and are incapable of following their theories and
| experiements personally - they were just being told they are
| truth and they trust it to be so.
|
| (Heck, most people are even incapable of deriving the math
| answers somebody like Archimedes or Pythagoras arrived at 2.5
| milenia ago, and all they know of a work as basic as Newton's
| is that there was some falling apple involved, or, if they
| really paid attention at school, that f=ma).
| j4yav wrote:
| This idea that science and technology is just another
| random religion is so frustrating, but I encounter it
| online way more often than I would expect. I don't need to
| personally review and understand the details of why
| electricity and the internet work, because I am literally
| typing this message on an electronic device and sending it
| via the internet. No faith needed, and anyway.. I can go
| build a simple computer and prove it all out myself. The
| nature of the trinity, or sorting out whether hell exists
| or not and which religions are going there for which
| behaviors, is just a totally different endeavor.
|
| Which is not to say that philosophy or religion are
| pursuits that should be banned or are worthless. I am just
| tired of the overused rhetorical trick of muddying the
| waters between them to confuse people and win arguments on
| the internet.
| everdrive wrote:
| I think there's an important distinction to be made here,
| as I've had a lot of the same frustrations as you.
| Science itself is genuinely NOT religious, and can truly
| be used to understand the nature of the world, and make
| practical use of that understanding.
|
| But, if it's true that man is a religious animal, it's
| going to mean that people will always take a religious
| bent on any major topic in their lives. And so the way
| that many people experience and understand science may in
| fact have religious qualities, but this is actually going
| to be true of any major topic in people's lives.
| watwut wrote:
| The argument is not that the science is same as religion.
|
| The argument is that individuals dont rationally
| objectively verify or figure out every experiment and
| scientific claim. I stead, we all rely on trust to
| institutions and processes to tell us how it is.
|
| Which is how it is. Most people dont even know how
| science actually work beyond elementary school level of
| simplification. And even if you actually do science as a
| job, you know only small part of it relying on trust
| everywhere else.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Trust develops over time. We can trust scientific
| institutions because of past successes and how their
| construction promotes future successes. Scientific
| institutions are also constrained in their function. It
| is not the case that all forms of trusting institutions
| are intellectually equal.
| j4yav wrote:
| Yes, and my response is that the average person doesn't
| rationally need to intellectually revalidate every
| scientific and technological fact from first principles
| because we are surrounded by overwhelming evidence, and
| that highlighting that not everyone has done that is not
| actually all that clever or relevant if you think about
| it. No faith in shadowy institutions is required to see
| the facts of technological and scientific progress all
| around me.
| foolinaround wrote:
| the person of faith would also counter you with
| 'overwhelming evidence' of what God is doing for him...
|
| sometimes, this evidence is just subjective, at other
| times, it is clear and can be measured.
|
| Another analogy that I have heard is that 'magic' is when
| one is just wowed by what they see without being able to
| understand how it happens. Apple products bring that
| 'magic' though it can all be explained away in technical
| terms if one tried.
| j4yav wrote:
| What is the (sometimes) clear and measurable evidence of
| what god has done for someone?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| For some, it is clear that this brief moment of
| consciousness is an amazing gift.
|
| Soon our bodies will go back to the dust that we began
| as:)
| j4yav wrote:
| I agree, but how do you measure that though? Or prove
| that it isn't an incredible thing regardless of if it was
| given to you by god?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Well, things I think about:
|
| -this 'Universe' (seems to me) is so incredibly
| intelligible and information rich (information theory
| rise, e.g. entropy timeline of the observable universe).
|
| -there seems to be something rather than nothing
|
| -there doesn't seem to be anything that happens without a
| cause (except, it seems to me, our will).
|
| These seem to be important data points... :)
| greycol wrote:
| The problem is your clear and measurable points don't
| actually point to a god. If you see some meaning in them
| that enriches your life that's great but they don't
| really count as evidence to those outside your religion
| (except perhaps when they also claim it as 'evidence' of
| their flavour of goddess).
|
| 1. Your brain/body evolved to interpret this richness in
| a universe that is unintelligible to us a conscious brain
| that evolved in that universe would almost certainly view
| those unintelligible to us rules as intelligible lest
| there be no purpose to that consciousness. Our brains
| also quite demonstrably processes unintelligible (to us)
| things as intelligible when they are not.
|
| 2. This is true in any universe where someone is around
| to point out that something exists and is a priori with
| or without creator beings.
|
| 3. Our will is either deterministic (happens with a
| cause) or it is not. In the case that it is deterministic
| we can ignore this example (which personally is my view).
| In the case it is not then the non deterministic part is
| reduced to the result of quantum coin flips altering the
| result in the larger scale world. Assuming so there are
| two possibilities either everything else is also
| happening at that level without a cause (which is counter
| to your point that it is only will that behaves this way)
| or the quantum coin flips are in some way deterministic
| which means so is will.
| zosima wrote:
| And then you have done validation of some of the
| proposition of modern science and technology.
|
| But quite a lot "science" can not verified in the same
| manner as some physics, math, chemistry and biology can.
|
| And to go from the fact that some science is verifiable
| and then conclude that everything which tries to take on
| the label science or follow similar rituals to the
| verifiable sciences, also deserves the same respect is
| quite a long jump.
|
| In fact "science" or scientism seems to be one of the
| more dangerous religions nowadays, as the rituals of
| peer-review, papers and conferences, holy institutions
| like universities and sacraments of tenure and ph.d are
| very easy to adopt without being even remotely verifiable
| (or even slightly rational).
| j4yav wrote:
| Some (most even that is relevant day to day?) is quite
| easy to validate and yet we still have flat-Earthers.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Note that a lot of the flat earth stuff is a large troll
| to make people mad, crazy stuff comes out of 4chan...
| ttt0 wrote:
| > This idea that science and technology is just another
| random religion is so frustrating
|
| That's not my idea, take it to people who are treating
| science as such. You know, "believe the science" crowd,
| that will just take at face value whatever media happens
| to say at the time.
|
| Electricity and the internet are out of scope for
| religion. Religion is closer to humanist subjects,
| sociology, psychology, ethics etc.
| RichardCA wrote:
| When Ben Franklin invented the lightning rod, he had to
| be persuasive enough to get people to believe that
| electricity wasn't just a parlor trick you do with a
| glass rod and a silk scarf. It's also how clouds create
| lightning, and the fundamental forces are the same.
|
| You have to remember in the 18th century, lightning
| killed a lot of people. The fact that lightning rods did,
| in fact, do what Franklin said they would do was
| persuasive evidence.
|
| I'm not an expert on the history of Ben Franklin, so I
| don't know if he ever had to explain that lightning
| doesn't exist to provide divine retribution. But he did
| have to get each local church to allow a lightning rod on
| the steeple with a proper connection to grounding, so I'm
| sure there were some interesting conversations.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _This idea that science and technology is just another
| random religion is so frustrating, but I encounter it
| online way more often than I would expect._
|
| Well, "frustrating" is not a scientific argument itself,
| it's a subjective feeling. More like what a faithful
| would feel against blasphemy. Isn't it at least a little
| ironic?
|
| > _I don't need to personally review and understand the
| details of why electricity and the internet work, because
| I am literally typing this message on an electronic
| device and sending it via the internet._
|
| Which is neither here, nor there. You still need to trust
| tons of abstractions you can't evaluate and don't
| control, the claims of experts and snake-oil salesmen,
| the policy of goverments, the products and initiatives of
| corporations, advertising, statistical data, etc. all of
| which are telling you they're "based on science" but
| nonetheless contain loads of p-hacking, cherry-picking,
| bad methodology, non-reproducable BS, and downright
| snake-oil selling, to the point of often doing the
| opposite of what actual concrete science would advise.
|
| The fact that you have some artifacts you can use just
| tells you that science can produce concrete things.
| Doesn't tell you evaluate different courses of action,
| evaluate science results and scientists, understand
| science-drive policy decisions, and so on.
|
| > _I can go build a simple computer and prove it all out
| myself._
|
| 99.999% of the people can't and never will (practically,
| not merely potentially). So for them it's more like the
| junkie saying "I can quit heroin anytime I want, I'm not
| addicted".
| j4yav wrote:
| Science and technology would not be able to produce
| concrete things if understanding it was practically
| beyond 99.999% of people or if it was remotely nearly as
| fundamentally corrupt as you are describing.
| thu2111 wrote:
| "Science and technology" are a vague abstraction. What
| people mean when they describe science as becoming a
| religion is more specific - they're using "science" as a
| shorthand for academic institutions specifically and the
| various maladies that go along with that, maladies like:
|
| - The reproducibility crisis in social sciences
|
| - The floods of BS coming out of public health research,
| a crisis for which we don't even have a name yet
|
| - The journals who only care about impact and not about
| scientific integrity
|
| - Politicians who appear to be completely controlled by
| modellers who never validate their models and whose
| predictions are always wrong
|
| - People who are instinctively loyal to that whole set of
| power structures and rituals, such that they dismiss any
| claim of scientific misconduct as conspiracy theories, as
| ignorance, etc.
|
| and so on. The fact that certain fields of study and
| other parts of society have been able to use the
| scientific method to produce concrete things doesn't
| automatically imply that _all_ (so-called) scientists do
| so, and given the proliferation of scientific fields that
| produce nothing concrete, doesn 't even imply the
| majority do.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| The scientific method is just a tool of thought that
| encompasses one subset of human interests.
|
| For example, the scientific method has little to no
| utility about whether your grandma loves you, or what
| love is even.
|
| Much of a life is built around areas of thought like
| this. Politics, for example, is mostly preference.
| kian wrote:
| I would highly recommend "A General Theory of Love" as
| the antidote to belief in the last example you gave. A
| poetically beautiful book.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It might be an antidote, if one asserts that humans are
| just chemicals.
|
| Many people believe in the assertion that there is free
| will though, which is a supernatural belief.
|
| If we are just chemicals, than those that believe there
| exists free will believe that out of no volition of their
| own.
|
| E.g. the laws of physics happened to be tuned for the
| eventual existence of a cloud of atoms seeming to
| contemplate this on a HN forum ;)
|
| In either case, both seem amazing.
| hellotomyrars wrote:
| A layperson doesn't need to be able to reproduce
| mathematical proofs to understand something that is obvious
| and material in front of them that is explained by the
| proof.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Those two hold for, say roughly, 90% of what most people
| believe, secular or not_
|
| See my response to tonymet upthread.
|
| _> Even most scientific theories people believe, they
| haven 't examined and are incapable of following their
| theories and experiements personally - they were just being
| told they are truth and they trust it to be so._
|
| For some theories that are called "scientific", yes, this
| is true--but that's because the scientists themselves don't
| have a track record of correct experimental predictions to
| begin with. (String theory, for example.)
|
| But for theories like, say, General Relativity, there is a
| huge track record of correct experimental predictions, and
| those predictions include things in our everyday experience
| now, like GPS. It's true that most people cannot verify for
| themselves the entire chain of reasoning that leads from
| the Einstein Field Equation to how their GPS device works,
| but they know that GPS works from their personal
| experience, so they know that whatever theory scientists
| are using to make GPS work, works. They don't have to take
| that on trust.
|
| In other words, for scientific theories that actually have
| practical impacts, you don't have to just accept what
| scientists say on trust; you can look at their track record
| of correct predictions.
| amatic wrote:
| > for scientific theories that actually have practical
| impacts, you don't have to just accept what scientists
| say on trust; you can look at their track record of
| correct predictions
|
| What do you think of economic theories or theories behind
| psychotherapy? Lot's of real world impact, low confidence
| in experiments, imo
| raverbashing wrote:
| Yep, you are correct. At some point "scientific theories"
| become practical stuff.
|
| One thing that's missing in a lot of books is: how sure
| are we about the various statements? How much of it is
| well tested (Newton, Einstein - though we still had a lot
| of recent confirmation), how much is still out there
| (example: BCS theory), how much of it is a "feel good
| explanation" (hybridization theory) or how much is "the
| math works out wonderfully if we ignore the skeletons in
| the closet and the theory sounds a bit crazy" (QFT/QED)
| flyingchipmann wrote:
| It's so funny when people intentionally define anything as kind
| of religion in order to fit their worldview. Take it this way,
| scientific thinking/method is about a system to analyze. It can
| be used analyze anything(yourself, math, religion). It's like a
| function, where you put input data and try your best analyze
| critically to get an reasonable output. And it can even be used
| to analyze itself!(like higher order function). And sometimes u
| produce solid results(maths, physics), sometimes u don't
| (whether god exists). You start to learn what's scientifically
| provable, what's not provable. There is a difference between
| the process of analysis and analyzed results.
|
| And that's where so called 'atheism is just a religion' got it
| wrong. No, it's not about getting a result. Scientific method
| is a way of processing information. It's about the process, not
| the result. It's not about believe the god exist or not(the
| result). It's about find out a way to prove (process). And it's
| perfectly fine if u can't produce a solid proof(provability).
| 'I don't know' is perfectly fine. You don't even have to
| believe, use the scientific method to analyze, do you best to
| deduce, and move on to the next topic. 'Religion' is just a
| topic to study. If people can't really grasp how scientific
| method and critical thinking works, they would never move past
| 'to believe' or 'not to believe'.
| BackBlast wrote:
| You seem to believe that the scientific method and religion
| are mutually exclusive.
|
| I'm going to split out some terms here. Scientific Method,
| Academic Science, and Secularism. The latter two are
| connected to atheism, at least in this era, and are more in
| line with ideologies and I do not desire to further address
| or describe them in this post except to say that they do not
| have a monopoly on the merits of the scientific method.
|
| To speak of the method itself, which is religion agnostic
| and, as you say, it is a function to provide information as
| well as the ability to duplicate results. I would append that
| applying the scientific method to religion works, and that
| you can, indeed, learn as well as duplicate results through
| it - as well as reject results that do not work.
|
| A major challenge is that the resultant artifacts aren't
| readily transferable or inspectable. Many secularists get
| hung up on this and say it's an invalid application.
| Essentially that only what the eye can see or the hand can
| measure is real. I can't really show you my happiness, or
| peace, or share with you the the depth of experience or
| knowledge that heals and transforms. I can tell you about it,
| about how Christ can lead you to peace. I can describe the
| inputs and results, the complete formula, and then you can
| walk it and experience the fruits first hand.
|
| Another part of the challenge is that lack of transferability
| also applies to the instrumentation. I can't provide you a
| properly calibrated conscience, or the concept of true
| humility before God like I could a measure of mass or
| distance. It's all internal to you. Experimentation on that
| is time consuming and difficult. Some people run experiments
| with improperly calibrated instrumentation and then fail to
| get the expected results.
| flyingchipmann wrote:
| You are putting words in my mouth. What I am saying is that
| scientific method is way of thinking. If you have to
| compare to religion. They are orthogonal. You can apply
| scientific method and claims that you believe god exist.
| Because you can't scientific prove otherwise. But at the
| same time, you can apply scientific method and claims the
| reverse, that you don't believe god exist. That's fine,
| because you also can't prove otherwise. And surprise, you
| can claim you don't know, which is also perfectly fine. The
| most important part is you don't always arrive at some
| certain conclusion, and that's fine.
|
| Because it was not about result. Or rather, it's never
| about the result. It's about the process, in same vain of
| procedural justice. It's about finding the provability.
|
| The thing is if you can't move past that you have to make a
| result. Or the extreme, result is ignoble. That the process
| of proving the utmost important part. You will never get
| what scientific method is about. Just like your last
| paragraph. Sure, there are so many theories. Maybe even
| someone claimed that that harry porter is real! But why do
| you have to believe or not to believe if you only care
| about the process of proving and provability.
|
| It's not about proving that the religious people are
| wrong(or proving irreligious people are wrong). It's about
| the fact that, for some people , they truly don't care
| about the result or take the result itself so far as
| undetermined (still care about the proving process though)
| and moved past it.
| DaedPsyker wrote:
| I'm not an 'atheism is just a religion', I don't believe in
| Gods, but I do think there secular ideologies. In the US
| context, the civil religion, the notions of the constitution,
| the military, and other institutions have take on a quasi-
| religious nature. Founding myths that become a spirit
| regardless of truthfulness.
|
| In general, cult of personalities are clearly examples of
| secular religion although one that can become supernatural in
| the case of the Kim dynasty in North Korea.
|
| Ceremonies and traditions that we continue because 'that is
| just how it has always been done'. There isn't some binary
| notion of you are religious or your rationalist, non
| religious people can hold non-rationalist thought.
|
| Personally I don't really understand what you're on about
| with the scientific method, the parent didn't mention
| anything on it.
| flyingchipmann wrote:
| I am trying to explain the difference between 'not relying
| on belief' and 'believe the god doesn't exists' or 'believe
| ** therefore it's also a religion'. Because what op does
| seems to lump people to the latter. And that is what's
| missing critically.
|
| Because there is a clean distinction between athism(not
| relying on belief) and antithesim. Scientific method is a
| lens of analysis tool and it's beyond the framing of belief
| as how religious people claims, or even how antithesim
| people claims. Just like how I would explain the same to
| the some antithesim group that science doesn't prove the
| god don't exist. That's still a misuse of the tool of
| scientific method. To believe the opposite is still a
| belief, and missing the mark of the scientific method where
| the most important part is the process not the result.
| Haiatu wrote:
| "One aspect of religion I appreciate is that these aspects are
| well codified and debated - i.e. much more explicit."
|
| They are not well debated in a sense that it would be called
| reasonable in a normal and educated world. Thats why we call it
| believe. Its much easier to say 'whats written in a book from
| some people from some 2000 years ago is true' and start to
| philosoph around it than actually not stoping questioning until
| there is a real truth to it. My discussion with a very religios
| person stoped after i realizied they are convinced that stuff
| in that book is relevant and true and moving the debate of it
| to 'our old people studied it and gave those learnings to
| future people'.
|
| Interesting to read that for you, becoming more religiuos made
| you aware of other religious tendencies. For me it actually
| started in school with discovering group dynamic and then after
| that, questioning religion which lead me to being non religious
| and i'm very very aware of how other cognitive biases and media
| and co are forming us.
|
| The biggest problem you might not understand in your world of
| codified: 'the other believe system' is universal and doesn't
| need to be codified its just that you might need to discover it
| for yourself or accept the truth yourself.
|
| Ah it sounds much more spirital than i wanted it to be.
| Effectively my family/friends are normal good people. We don't
| identify us through religion and we don't hurt each other. We
| basically are all on the same planet, we know who birthed us
| but we don't know why. Single wall of truth: the big bang.
| Single simplest rule: Don't harm others / don't do things you
| don't want others to do to you.
|
| And actually, certain states have very well defined law books
| which answers a ton of questions. Even slightly weirder ones
| that if someone had an accident with a car, to a degree both
| parties can be in fault. Its basically us wo build our believe
| system through living together.
| 7952 wrote:
| An interesting thing to consider is that most religious
| people do not really believe with much conviction. They can
| clearly see that scripture is not literal truth and that
| there is no scientific evidence. So religion becomes about
| faith and faith becomes virtuous.
|
| But a Roman citizen 2000 years ago didn't have _faith_. They
| just _knew_ that God(s) exist. It was obvious, self-evident
| and compelling. The greatest thinkers of the time really
| believed.
|
| Most Christians talk about faith and belief because that is
| the only thing left that science hasn't overturned. Our
| understanding of the world is dominated by science not
| religion. We won (mostly).
| hackyhacky wrote:
| > If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular
| ideology that you have adopted.
|
| This is a poisonous reversal of reality, to the extent that I
| wonder if you're just trolling.
|
| Fact is, more religious people, especially the evangelical
| Christian sect that is most vocal and influential in America,
| is not about examining implicit beliefs, nor is it open to
| debate. It's about falling into line, and adopting a strict set
| of ideological beliefs that are not negotiable. In fact,
| religion is often explained in terms of faith as an opposition
| to analysis: after all, if your first principle is that you
| believe in something, why question further?
|
| In contrast, modern secular culture, although not immune to
| tribalism and ideological blindness, is much more open to
| building belief through analysis and understanding, i.e. the
| scientific method.
| remarkEon wrote:
| >In contrast, modern secular culture, although not immune to
| tribalism and ideological blindness, is much more open to
| building belief through analysis and understanding, i.e. the
| scientific method.
|
| I think this was true, at a certain point in or for a window
| of time, but it certainly isn't true today. There are well
| known axioms that are not-to-be-challenged, and doing so
| risks expulsion (i.e. Excommunication). So maybe what's
| happening is Secularism is going through its own phase of
| Fundamentalist Revival.
| hackyhacky wrote:
| That's certainly the way Fox News tries to portray
| secularism. In my experience, it has no basis in reality.
| remarkEon wrote:
| There has to be a name for the rhetorical strategy that
| goes something like "your opinions or observations are
| sufficiently similar to media_influencer_I_dont_like
| regardless of their actual origin, and thus I'm able to
| discount what you are saying outright". Every time this
| topic comes up, even when it's in a more interesting and
| philosophical thread like this one, the Fox News bogyman
| always gets trotted out. TFA is from ... _The Atlantic_ ,
| if you haven't noticed.
| hackyhacky wrote:
| You are misinterpreting my comment. I am discounting
| their comment because it does not correspond to my
| experience at all, not because it comes from Fox News. I
| am, instead, using Fox News to possibly explain the
| origin of that opinion, since it certainly cannot come
| from observation of reality.
| tonymet wrote:
| Did not intend to troll. The "cognitive tools" are the
| ability to discern which beliefs are religious in nature:
| taken on faith, ritualistic, ethical , etc.
|
| Again I'm not saying that religion is better or worse.
| Actually this is a defense of religion as a framework for
| defining belief.
|
| I'm arguing that secularism when taken on face value lacks
| the tools to recognize it's own belief system.
| conformist wrote:
| It decidedly does not generally lack these tools. A main
| point of many popular secular(ist) believe systems, e.g.
| such represented by humanist societies, is to question
| implicit assumptions and understand what fundamental
| philosophical believes one has, and they are built around
| how to do this.
|
| People are often not secularist because they don't reflect,
| usually they have specific reasons that they are aware of
| and that they might question in the future.
| samhain wrote:
| I agree with the parent, you're argument almost appears
| disingenuous to the point of looking like a troll or bait.
| This perspective is substituting any belief with a
| religious belief which is a false equivalency. It's
| unfortunate that the grandparent is the top comment right
| now.
| tonymet wrote:
| Can you share profound beliefs that you don't believe are
| religious in nature?
|
| I know trivial beliefs e.g. today was 85o - we can agree
| that calling those religious would not be useful.
| morelisp wrote:
| The Church-Turing thesis? That ZFC is consistent? That
| the driving force of history is primarily material
| relations between groups?
| samhain wrote:
| Check your original comment. You did not qualify that
| only "profound secular beliefs" are religious in nature.
| Rather, you speak in general saying "secular beliefs are
| religious." So now you're moving the goal posts.
|
| Using your original logic, -any- belief can be religious
| in nature. "Today was 85" -is- religious from your
| original position because perhaps people ritualistically
| check the weather every morning like a prayer. The
| weathermen are like priests disseminating knowledge, and
| small talk is used to find other weather checker
| cultists.
|
| It does not matter what belief Id offer up, because it
| will match your original definition because your original
| definition is so broad as to be meaningless. Other
| comments have already said this in fewer words. If you
| are unable to identify what it would look like if you
| were mistaken, then you shouldn't be confident that you
| are correct. So how could someone identify the difference
| between a secular belief and a religious belief?
| vincent-toups wrote:
| "I'm arguing that secularism when taken on face value lacks
| the tools to recognize it's own belief system."
|
| Truly a bonkers assertion when secularism includes enormous
| institutions to fund and perform tasks as various as the
| hard sciences to the most abstract philosophical
| investigations and the entire gamut of cultural production
| around and between.
|
| The average person doesn't much participate in these
| institutions but the average Catholic hasn't read Humanea
| Vitae either.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular
| ideology that you have adopted.
|
| I don't think that's necessarily true though. Religion is
| synthetic: it's practice, it's discipline and existence is
| rooted in how easily it can be synthesized in different
| communities. Man can exist without knowledge of God: that's the
| very premise that fueled colonialism and, to an extent,
| feudalism.
| DrBazza wrote:
| > If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular
| ideology that you have adopted.
|
| Are you saying science method is a secular ideology then?
| Nothing else is required to analyse, understand and explain the
| world around us. Nothing.
| tonymet wrote:
| Just wanted to say thanks for everyone who participated it was
| a really interesting discussion and example of "apologetics"
| bordering between religious and secular belief. I learned a lot
| from people.
|
| I saw a few comments interpreting the last line as snarky or
| condescending. I just meant that my experience helped equip me
| with tools to understand the world better, like learning a new
| language or programming language does. There are other paths
| e.g. through philosophy that many seculars pursue as well.
| Tainnor wrote:
| > The secular world would benefit from adopting more formal
| definitions of their belief system.
|
| It's called (analytic) philosophy.
| amcoastal wrote:
| While your points are good your last paragraph projects a lot
| of weaknesses onto your readers. Do you believe you're the
| first person to come up with these points and realize them? Or
| perhaps that someone could have taken an opposite approach of
| yours -- moving from very religious to non-religious and can
| see the same behaviors? And then you continue to assume the
| only way forward is to perpetrate that behavior.
|
| All while claiming other people don't have the cognitive tools
| you do. I'm amazed this comment didn't get downvoted.
| hitekker wrote:
| I don't think the GP's intent was to project his own
| superiority. Rather, if we're unable to use mythologies as a
| metaphor for the human experience, that is, for our self-
| expression, we are not as smart nor as strong as we fashion
| ourselves to be.
| u8mybrownies wrote:
| I read the last paragraph analytically, as in the Sapir Whorf
| hypothesis. It can be difficult to identify that one is in a
| religion if one assumes that it will call itself one. In this
| case, missing the "cognitive tools" could be a precise way of
| describing the shortcoming.
| roenxi wrote:
| Being religious isn't a weakness, it is an inevitability. A
| human mind is very limited and not up to the challenge of
| understanding everything - people have to accept most of
| their knowledge through social proof. Once social proof is
| involved religious-looking structures evolve rapidly. It
| isn't a matter of having or not having cognitive tools, it is
| that the tools necessary to avoid faith and community can't
| exist. At least without a level of change that shatters what
| it means to be human.
| kazoomonger wrote:
| That is a bad definition of religion. I will accept a field
| of study's conclusions in the absence of time myself to
| investigate. However, if it turns out that field is
| incorrect (say with the reproducibility crisis), then I
| won't "have faith" and believe anyways. In other words,
| belief != faith, and I'm willing to update my beliefs based
| on new evidence.
| chii wrote:
| > while claiming other people don't have the cognitive tools
| you do. I'm amazed this comment didn't get downvoted.
|
| it's the HN psuedo-intellectualism. Most HN readers tend to
| believe in their above-average intelligence, and that their
| view point comes from a place of rationalism and superior
| intellectual capability to analyse the world.
|
| I myself, also fall into this category.
| tonymet wrote:
| What bonafides are needed to think ?
| dqpb wrote:
| > If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular
| ideology that you have adopted.
|
| Religion has one fundamental cognitive device - faith. It's not
| a tool, it's malware.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| >If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular
| ideology that you have adopted.
|
| That is Marxist false consciousness and should not be brought
| up in a debate.
|
| As for the difference between the two, for me a religious
| belief is one that is without evidence, a non religious belief
| is one that has some evidence for it, even if it is still wrong
| (e.g if you believe in the misama theory and so avoid stinking
| food you are less likely to catch a food born illness).
|
| I do agree without you that it would be better if we adopted
| some better understanding of the secular beliefs, but that
| would also cause a lot of infighting because not everybody who
| hates the current system wants to replace it with the same and
| they may hate each other more than they hate the current
| system.
|
| As an example: Malcom X and MLK. They didn't want to be under
| the boot of Jim Crow. They disagreed about what they wanted and
| how to get there.
| guerrilla wrote:
| > The secular world would benefit from adopting more formal
| definitions of their belief system. I think that would reduce
| the conflict and neurosis that comes from engaging a nebulous
| system.
|
| If it did that, it wouldn't be able to use it a source of
| social control. What we have is a society of true believers,
| that's why they can't see it as a religion, it's just reality
| to them. I really don't think you can be a true believer and
| call your religion anything but "reality," especially a
| "religion."
|
| Anyway, there have been some attempts at documenting American
| religion:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion
|
| > If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular
| ideology that you have adopted.
|
| I think there are still a few people who aren't religious and I
| don't really think your criterion here is the most useful. It
| just begs the question.
| TomSwirly wrote:
| > If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular
| ideology that you have adopted.
|
| Such an ego!
|
| "I alone know the truth about the universe! The rest of you are
| lacking in cognitive tools, i.e, stupid."
| simondw wrote:
| > If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular
| ideology that you have adopted
|
| Or maybe you have a different definition of "religious" than I
| do? But no, it must be that I lack the right cognitive tools.
| Sheesh.
| colechristensen wrote:
| There is a different and better way to put this: most people
| are completely unaware of the foundation of irrational
| nonsense that their worldview is based on. (yes, even, or
| especially so if they base their worldview on rationality)
|
| If you are a member of a religion, the things you have
| "faith" in are right there in front of your awareness. If you
| don't have religion, the metaphysics/mythos/philosophy your
| reality is based on is often never acknowledged. The "super
| rational" can be the worst at denying this and best at
| handwaving away anything that doesn't fit into their sense of
| reason.
| p_j_w wrote:
| >most people are completely unaware of the foundation of
| irrational nonsense that their worldview is based on
|
| Maybe I live in some kind of intellectual bubble, but me
| and the vast majority of my atheist friends are all too
| aware of the fact that the rationality ends at some point,
| so I've gotta disagree with this pretty hard. In fact, I'd
| be hard pressed to find anyone I know personally who thinks
| it's rational all the way down.
| tonymet wrote:
| can you elaborate on this? This is the kind of
| philosophical analysis that I think most secular thinkers
| lack. I know there are rigorous atheists who are capable
| of understanding their ideology, but they are few
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| brightball wrote:
| When I finally sat down and read the entire Bible, one thing
| that jumped out at me again and again is how often it warns
| against idolatry.
|
| When you start to see the level of obsession people have over
| certain topics, it's hard to call it anything else.
| wolfretcrap wrote:
| From my person experience, religious people have scammed/hurt
| me to the most in life and business.
| meowster wrote:
| I don't know what happened, but did religion make them do it,
| or did bad people use religion as an excuse?
| chakkepolja wrote:
| Religious people often think they are righteous as long as
| they follow set rules of their religion. They are not often
| very smart either.
|
| Just to note that preistocracy tends to be corrupt in
| almost all religions.
| d0100 wrote:
| Considering the sheer amount of religious people, this would
| hold true for most people
|
| This also makes it a less important
| Angostura wrote:
| > If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular
| ideology that you have adopted.
|
| That sounds like twaddle. It could just be that the person
| recognises their secular ideology - and knows that it doesn't
| constitute a religion.
| betterunix2 wrote:
| "Few people understand that most religions e.g. Judaism and
| Christianity have an apologetic discipline - a deliberate arm
| open to debate."
|
| Just want to point out that Jewish apologetics is not the same
| as Christian apologetics. Christian apologists are working in
| furtherance of the Christian goal of converting everyone to
| Christianity. Jewish apologists are working only to prevent
| other Jews from being swayed by the arguments made by other
| religions (primarily those from Christian missionaries, who
| often target Jews specifically).
|
| That aside, what makes you think apologetics represents an
| openness to debate? I cannot speak for Christians, but Jewish
| apologetics only exists because other groups are trying to lead
| Jews to conversion to another faith, and apologetics holds
| little value within the framework of Judaism itself. What non-
| Jews think of Judaism is irrelevant because proselytizing is
| not a requirement (it is not forbidden, but it is also not
| encouraged and conversion is a deliberately difficult process).
| Judaism certainly has an openness to debate, but the debate is
| within Judaism itself -- what is the right way to practice the
| Jewish religion? What is the right way to interpret and
| understand Jewish holy books? Judaism is not open to debates
| about the need for Jews to practice Judaism; the covenant
| between Jews and God is an axiom.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| > Jewish apologists are working only to prevent other Jews
| from being swayed by the arguments made by other religions
| (primarily those from Christian missionaries, who often
| target Jews specifically).
|
| The Judaism when the Talmud was written was a fanatically
| proselytizing sect, as is clear if you read the talmud. They
| created seed outposts all over the Roman empire of new
| converts, as they sought (and obtained) special dispensation
| to be the only religion allowed to proselytize in ancient
| Rome and they had an active missionary service travelling all
| over the world seeking converts. These missionary efforts
| were quite successful, spreading judaism to the far reaches
| of the Roman Empire, creating enclaves of newly converted
| Jews in the major cities of the Western world. It is these
| enclaves that were most receptive to Christianity during its
| initial expansion, and in that period when Christianty was
| considered another sect of Judaism, the Christians also used
| the special dispensation given to Jews to gain converts. This
| created tension, where some of the Jews complained to the
| Roman authorities that these Christian Jews were not real
| jews and thus should not be allowed to proselytize under the
| dispensation alloted to jews. This information also forms the
| backdrop that helps understand early Christian history. For
| example, in the first apostolic council recorded in acts,
| what was meant by saying "Moses is preached in all the
| synagogues" when referring to new converts in Corinth, Rome,
| and Ephesus. It is because those new converts were either
| fully converted jews, themselves converted a few generations
| previously by Pharisee missionaries, or they were in some
| other stage of the conversion process, and so they, too, met
| in Synagogues, even in places like Ephesus, and thus the
| early Christian missionaries just went from Synagogue to
| Synagogue all over the Roman Empire, winning over the
| descendents of converts in communities that were previously
| won over to judaism.
|
| The Pharisee missionary work is also mentioned in the New
| Testament, when Christ accuses the Pharisees, saying "You
| travel over land and sea to make one convert and when you do,
| he is twice the son of hell that you are."
|
| This missionary program was so successful that much of the
| Talmud was written by the children of new converts, in new
| communities all over the Roman Empire. Rabbi Hillel's famous
| retort to a man demanding to know the meaning of the Talmud
| while standing on one leg was in a debate that was attempting
| to convert his (gentile) questionner to judaism. In fact the
| background to many of the famous passages in the talmud were
| attempts at conversion and evangelization. Knowing that is an
| important part of understanding these passages. These jewish
| communities also provided sancturary to fleeing Jews after
| the Romans expelled them from Palestine in the wake of the
| third revolt - they were taken in by the descendents of new
| converts created by Pharisees, and these cities became the
| seed communities of jews in Europe and North Africa.
|
| But it is true that modern Judaism does not try to convert
| others and has become a racial identity as much or moreso
| than a religious identity, however this was not the case for
| those rabbis when the mishna was compiled or when the oldest
| portions of the Gemara were first written.
| sharikone wrote:
| I am curious to know what part in the Talmud refer to
| proselytizing.
|
| The passage you cite refers to a gentile that wants to
| convert , not a tentative at active pproselytizing
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| Not only that, he was previously rejected by another
| Rabbi.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| >This missionary program was so successful that much of the
| Talmud was written by the children of new converts, in new
| communities all over the Roman Empire
|
| Demonstrably nonsense. They were clearly written in Israel
| and Persia (latterly). Little is mentioned of communities
| elsewhere.
| vxNsr wrote:
| As a jew who has studied the talmud extensively I would
| love to know where the sources for this whole comment are.
| I've never seen anything even close to this anywhere in the
| talmud or any history book on the roman empire or jewish
| history.
|
| > _Palestine in the wake of the third revolt_
|
| Oh... now I see you're gaslighting and re-writing history.
| Your sources will be the same ones Mahmoud Abbas used for
| his "thesis"
| betterunix2 wrote:
| Proselytizing is not forbidden. It is also not required,
| and for all that proselytizing activity of the ancient
| rabbis there is very little in the Talmud that actually
| discusses seeking out converts and Jews are not actually
| required to do so. The New Testament makes proselytizing a
| requirement for every Christian (the Great Commission).
| Likewise, Christians are called on by the New Testament to
| engage in apologetics; the Talmud only suggests that Jews
| should know how to answer a "heretic" (which, as I said,
| means the debate is only meant to be between Jews) and only
| (to my knowledge) in Pirkei Avot which does not even have a
| Gemara.
|
| In any case, what difference does it make if Jews in the
| first and second centuries were proselytizing? The religion
| changed since then and everyone knows it. Traditions we
| take for granted today like the Passover Seder had only
| just started to develop in the second century. There was no
| Jewish Calendar at that time and there was no canon of
| scripture (there was a collection of holy writings that
| overlapped with the Tanakh, but what was actually in that
| collection depended on who you asked).
|
| In this century, and for at least the ten centuries prior
| (likely longer), Jewish apologetics has only been in
| response to efforts by non-Jews to convert Jews to other
| religions, and that is very different from Christian
| apologetics.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| > Proselytizing is not forbidden. It is also not
| required,
|
| Very few religions _require_ proselytizing. I think
| Mormons are expected to go on missionary trips, but that
| 's all I'm familiar with. In most religions, missionaries
| are selected from the group and sent out, so the job of
| proselytizing is a corporate, not personal job, and the
| role of "missionary" can mean anything from establishing
| universities and hospitals in Africa to preaching on a
| street corner in Atlanta. But no churches I'm aware of
| require some type of missionary effort from all of their
| members - maybe I missed one.
|
| > In any case, what difference does it make if Jews in
| the first and second centuries were proselytizing?
|
| It continued up through the middle ages, so this is over
| 1000 years. Pope Gregory famously complained about jews
| proselytizing, but perhaps he was making it all up. See
| https://www.jstor.org/stable/24659643 and also https://re
| pository.yu.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.12202/6076...
|
| In terms of what difference does it make, it's up to you
| to decide how much you care, I was only pointing out that
| rabbinical judaism, at least in the past, had similar
| missionary efforts to Christianity today. You can take
| that for whatever you want - I don't want to get into a
| debate as to whether judaism in the 20th Century is the
| "true" judaism versus judaism in the 10th Century or 5th
| Century. There are different sects with different beliefs
| as to what is authentic and what is not.
|
| > The New Testament makes proselytizing a requirement for
| every Christian (the Great Commission).
|
| Woah. Even in evangelical churches, the commission
| applies to corporate bodies and the verb "go" is passive,
| not active. "Make disciples" is active, e.g. . E.g. "
| _make disciples_ as you go into the world ". Now there
| are many passages where Paul asks for help to be bold and
| open his mouth, so it depends on how you define
| missionary efforts or proselytization. In the early
| church, would be converts were turned away three times
| before being admitted in some places, even as there was
| public preaching and mass baptisms in other places. But
| there was no general requirement that everyone do these
| things, rather there were special roles of evangelists
| who do them, again modelled on the Pharisees and their
| system. The notion of being "born again" and water
| baptism - john the baptist for example, these all came
| from jewish practices.
|
| Now today, some evangelical churches have come to
| interpret a casual relationship in the great commission,
| in the sense that once there are Christians in every
| tribe, the end will come, and so to hasten that end they
| are trying to convert some from every tribe, but I don't
| think this is a mainstream view or a view that was part
| of historical Christianity.
|
| But I agree there is certainly a practical difference in
| that there are evangelical churches that actively
| proselytize and send missionaries out which are funded by
| church members, but for example Orthodox churches don't
| do this and they don't interpret the Matthew in the same
| way as evangelical churches.
|
| > There was no Jewish Calendar at that time and there was
| no canon of scripture
|
| There was absolutely a jewish calendar that predates the
| Babylonian captivity. Most of the content of the book of
| leviticus is concerned with special feast days and
| observances, and these must occur at certain times of the
| year. That requires a calendar. Now regardless of whether
| you believe the law dates to Jeremiah or Moses, at
| whatever point in time the law was observed a calendar
| needed to exist before then.
| betterunix2 wrote:
| Maybe I misunderstood the great commission, or maybe I am
| only familiar with the kind of Christianity practiced by
| the Christians I have known in my lifetime. Perhaps
| saying that the great commission calls on _every_
| Christian to proselytize is not universally accepted
| among Christians. As I said, I cannot really comment on
| Christian perspectives because I am not a Christian. I do
| not think there is much doubt that Christianity is a
| religion that actively seeks converts, and Eastern
| Orthodox churches are not an exception (they have
| missionaries too). It may not be the central motivation
| of every church, and it may not be required of every
| individual Christian, but proselytizing of some kind is a
| requirement of Christianity.
|
| It is doubtful that Jewish proselytizing occurred to any
| significant degree under Christian or Muslim rule, which
| would have been the majority of the lands where Jews
| lived during the medieval period. It was made illegal by
| various emperors, kings, and councils. Jews were already
| suffering the persecution of Christian rule toward the
| end of the classical period -- among other things, the
| Sanhedrin was abolished (its last act was the creation of
| a fixed Jewish calendar; the biblical system you
| mentioned was based on observing the moon and having
| religious authorities make announcements of those
| observations, which could not continue without the
| Sanhedrin). Judaism remains open to conversion by people
| who want to convert, but there have be no active efforts
| to find or win converts for at least 1000 years, and I
| suspect even longer than that.
| euph0ria wrote:
| I do think that Jehova's Witnesses requires it of their
| members. At least previously I believe they were required
| to do X hours every Y period.
| bildung wrote:
| You are confusing different concepts: ideology and religion.
|
| Ideologies are a set of _ethical_ / _moral_ assumptions about
| what is right and just, i.e. they are about human _practice_ ,
| about what humans _ought to do_.
|
| Religions are ideologies, but they are _also_ a set of beliefs
| about the world itself, about the physical and metaphysical
| reality - which are thought as true a priori. This part is
| almost universally wrong, as we could learn by a competing
| concept: science.
|
| Ideologies can only be falsified insofar as they base their
| arguments on statements about human nature - these can be
| questioned empirically.
| trashtester wrote:
| That is what I used to believe, too.
|
| More recently though, it seems to me that ideologies DO have
| a pretty strong impact on what people believe about the world
| itself, especially by people who have a tight coupling
| between their identiy and the ideology.
|
| At the very least, this seems to apply to both sides of the
| current right/left divide in the west. For instance, if I ask
| you to predict how climate change will affect the world over
| the next 300 years, and your response lies in what is
| predicted by the 5% most optimistic climate scientists, you
| are very likely to be on the right. On the other hand, if
| your response corresponds to the 5% most pessimistic, you are
| very likely to be on the left.
|
| As ideological polarization, an increasingly large part of
| the population will fall into one of theose extreme groups,
| which I interpret as a way that the ideology promotes beliefs
| that are not supported by science.
|
| It seems to me that the underlying motivation is that people
| who believe axiomatically that a free market is good, see
| global warming as a threat to that belief. The leftists may
| believe the opposite because they see the free market as
| evil, or just to oppose the right.
|
| There are plenty of other cases where ideologies cause
| beliefs that are not well founded in "real" science, even
| though there may be plenty of ideologes that promote them.
| Some beliefs are so sacret that any challenge to them will be
| punished as evil/heresy, which itself is a clear indication
| that the ideology does not value open inquiry.
|
| I would even go so far as to see some of the principles and
| ideas involved as somewhat metaphysical. Capitalists can see
| the "invisible hand" in such a light, while leftists seem to
| imagine some sort of oppression to determine every social
| interaction (not very diffrent from how Christians in Europe
| believing that demons were virtually everywhere).
|
| In the end, I think it is about the people following a given
| ideology. It used to be that atheist were a relatively small
| minority composed of mostly people with an above-average
| level of scepticisim to ways of thinking not supported by
| hard evidence.
|
| But as the percentage of non-religious people increase, more
| and more poeple that have a religious inclination become
| "atheists", and those (I think) may be much more likely to
| accept incredible (literally) statements as fact, with little
| or no evidence.
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| > If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular
| ideology that you have adopted.
|
| There is no mechanism by which the ABSENCE of a belief in your
| parent's invisible sky wizards becomes just evidence of an
| alternative belief system.
|
| Not believing in the tooth fairy does not make my understanding
| and endorsement of say, the periodic table, an equivalent,
| dogmatic, religious, ineherited-from-parents belief.
|
| The two are not the same. One is better.
| everdrive wrote:
| I think the original statement was just too strong.
| Generally, people are religious even if they claim to be
| otherwise. I do however believe that truly non religious
| exist, but that most people are religious or spiritual in
| their thinking.
| ehvatum wrote:
| The issue is seen when it comes to the question of what
| intolerance a secular person will not tolerate.
| simondotau wrote:
| You are alluding to the _Paradox of Tolerance._
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
| Igelau wrote:
| > If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular
| ideology that you have adopted.
|
| You had something interesting to say, why'd you have to go and
| close it out with flamebait?
| tonymet wrote:
| Fair enough what's a better wording. I'm trying to convey the
| mental models that are more natural in the religious world
| and lacking in the secular world (outside of philosophy )
| d0100 wrote:
| > it just means that you don't have the cognitive tools to
| recognize the secular ideology that you have adopted.
|
| Maybe: "it just means that you haven't recognized the
| secular ideology that you have adopted"?
| 7952 wrote:
| A better explanation is that those mental models are in
| fact universal. Things like bias, magical thinking, and
| dogma exist in all fields of humans life. Science included.
| But why stop there? Why not question the biological basis
| for those phenomena? Why not try and understand why we do
| those things. Light the candle and shine a light on the
| darkness.
| yibg wrote:
| I care less about codifying beliefs than about if those beliefs
| are true or not. I may not have the cognitive tools to
| recognize all the secular ideologies that I have adopted, but
| at least there are mechanisms in place to examine if aspects of
| them hold up to reality or not.
| meroes wrote:
| Religion is more easily codified because it does not change as
| quickly as the secular world. I do not think codification is
| realistic or desirable tbqh.
| opportune wrote:
| Your recognition of explicit vs. implicit ideology is addressed
| by Slavoj Zizek in some of his work. He generalizes ideology to
| be mostly a set of assumed or unstated beliefs and ideas which
| are so internalized they are not even consciously recognized.
| Could be good further reading for those further interested in
| the subject:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavoj_%C5%BDi%C5%BEek_bibliog...
|
| One of the main points of Zizek regarding ideology, relevant to
| what you said, is that as religious ideology has waned in
| importance, other ideologies have taken their place, yet
| because they do not come from religions we do not recognize
| them as ideologies, though they are. But ideology has always
| existed in this form, in the background. It is just without
| religion taking a forefront in life that the importance of
| other ideologies has grown.
|
| Anyway, I bring it up because I do not think it is possible for
| us to explicitly address all ideology. Ideology is part of the
| human condition, not in a metaphysical sense, but because we
| have only limited abilities to perceive and understand the
| world - finite lifetimes, limited senses, limited cognitive
| abilities. We must make assumptions and generalizations, take
| things for granted, and trust people and ideas so that we can
| spend our time thinking about other things.
|
| Why? Because it's exhausting to explicitly address all
| ideology. I'll give you some examples: Country, Culture,
| Government, Justice, Love, Fairness, Ownership, Work. In
| discourse we take on only limited slices of what these concepts
| mean, yet we take their existence and high level concepts for
| granted (though one person's concept of fairness may not match
| another's). These are heavy, complicated topics in themselves.
|
| > If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular
| ideology that you have adopted.
|
| Depends on how you define religion. In my opinion what
| separates religion from philosophy or just ideology, is claims
| regarding the supernatural and divine. You can absolutely
| appreciate religions for their wonderful philosophy and
| theology while rejecting what I would consider very core parts
| of what makes one a believer in a religion, like belief in
| supernatural events or divine beings.
| tonymet wrote:
| I agree with you , and have been influenced by Zizek. We
| assume religions are primitive , but it's likely that they
| are advanced stages of earlier ideologies. I'm expecting
| contemporary / secular ideology to evolve into a formal
| religion with canon , priesthood etc
| opportune wrote:
| Arguably that already exists in the form of
| politics/government, corporations, the military.
|
| Based on my opinion that religion requires a belief in
| supernatural events, I would not call those religion per
| se. Definitely dogmatic. I think the parallels come from
| the tendency for human organizations to all take
| essentially the same structure, if you squint.
| posix_me_less wrote:
| > politics/government, corporations, the military.
|
| +political factions +institutionalized science +media
|
| They all tell us what to think, "trust us we did and will
| do the hard thinking for you".
| 8note wrote:
| A lot of the secular world is just neoliberalism, which is
| pretty clear about what it is and how you criticise it.
|
| Other branches are definitionally critical of various binary
| systems(all of the LGBTQ things), describing them instead as
| continuous systems, or even complex planes.
|
| I don't think such definitions are very useful. They're very
| limiting since the world is full of edge cases, and your
| ideology is unlikely to handle all of them well, but is also
| likely to require you to handle some of them poorly
| mynameisash wrote:
| > most religions ... have an apologetic discipline - a
| deliberate arm open to debate.
|
| Is it generally seen as an arm open to debate? I have a very
| religious friend who has gotten into apologetics in the last
| 6mo or so, and he explicitly describes it as "defending the
| faith." That seems much less drawing conclusions from evidence
| and much more drawing evidence from conclusions.
|
| Maybe he's an exception to apologetics, though, as I know he
| has some admittedly extreme views in some ways.
| nvahalik wrote:
| What's even more interesting is that most ideologies also
| adhere to a standard religious framework as well:
|
| - anthropology
|
| - problem of evil/sin
|
| - redemption
|
| - eschatology
|
| If your system he answers to these, you basically have a
| religion.
| Retric wrote:
| That's a very western take on religion. Some have no belief
| in an end time with a static or cyclical world.
|
| Sin/evil isn't really a thing in many religions. Polytheistic
| religions for example can have multiple contradictory ideas
| for what the correct actions are.
| lolinder wrote:
| Eschatology doesn't just have to do with the end times. It
| is "concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny
| of the soul". Hinduism and Buddhism clearly address this.
| Confucianism and Shinto may be exceptions, and of course
| there are plenty others that I'm not familiar with, but
| eschatology is far from being only a preoccupation of
| Western religions.
| Retric wrote:
| Dropping the end of that quote completely changes the
| meaning it's. "the part of theology concerned with death,
| judgment, and the final destiny of the soul _and of
| humankind "_ It's a separate idea from simple questions
| of the afterlife.
|
| Buddhism is really interesting here because there was
| such a wide range of different beliefs involved some of
| which fit that idea and others don't.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_eschatology
| lolinder wrote:
| It doesn't completely change the meaning, it drops a
| subset of the meaning. Eschatology encompasses both types
| of ends. The OP seemed under the impression it only
| involved the end of the universe/world.
| Retric wrote:
| AND is not OR, but I understand your confusion.
| brailsafe wrote:
| I think religion does imply the organized belief in a
| supernatural deity vs in a secular ideology it's unorganized
| belief in a somewhat connected set of ideas which are debated
| more discretely between people who want to. Seems silly to say
| that engaging with a secular ideology is the same as being in a
| religion.
| presentation wrote:
| I think OP's point is exactly that a lot of secular ideology
| in practice doesn't get debated discretely; most people don't
| want to and have already ossified their opinions,
| even/especially if they don't really understand why they
| believe what they believe.
| tonymet wrote:
| Which person is more committed to a religion: someone who
| goes to a sermon 1 hr / week, or someone who watches the news
| for 3 hours / day? The news content will contain the same
| ideological elements of the sermon: where you come from, what
| you should believe, what you should do with your life, what
| is right / wrong.
| brailsafe wrote:
| The first person, because religion isn't simply a matter of
| content ingestion. If it was, this wouldn't be an issue.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| News is made up of things that literally happened and often
| have video proof.
|
| Religion is made up of things that did not happen and have
| no evidence. If something does have evidence of being true,
| it is called history.
|
| You are confusing obsession and focus with religion.
| cloverich wrote:
| Many are interpretations of what happened. take the covid
| - pericarditis link. is it that the fda is investigating
| reports of slightly elevated rare side effect? or is it
| that the vaccine may be more harmful to kids than the
| virus but the government is forcing you to take it
| anyways. both are actual headlines. One is ideological
| reinforcement masquerading as news -- that's what op was
| getting at. Watch enough of that stuff and the real world
| will become ever more difficult to see.
| fufmaya wrote:
| News is literally a story we tell each other to reinforce
| beliefs about the world.
|
| Truth has no relation to news and news is not about
| observation of fact.
|
| Even if you witness events yourself, your understanding
| of what occurred is a narrative you tell, not truth.
|
| All truths and history are interpretations within
| religious (or ideological) frameworks. Truth as we use
| the word is not attainable.
|
| There are no exceptions to this!
| AareyBaba wrote:
| "A lie is a truth that you just don't believe in" - Conan
| O'Brien
| memling wrote:
| > All truths and history are interpretations within
| religious (or ideological) frameworks. Truth as we use
| the word is not attainable.
|
| Is this statement in the set of "all truths ... within
| religious (or ideological) frameworks" or is it an
| exception, as it were, to the rule?
| _-david-_ wrote:
| >News is made up of things that literally happened and
| often have video proof.
|
| In an ideal situation maybe, but very frequently it is
| manipulation. Videos are taken out of context or outright
| modified to fit a narrative. When you watch the complete
| video it is very often different than the 10 second clip
| shown on the so called news.
|
| > Religion is made up of things that did not happen and
| have no evidence
|
| Do you believe everything in the Bible is false or just
| certain parts? If you believe certain parts are accurate
| then I don't see how it is any different than news in
| your view.
| amelius wrote:
| > If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular
| ideology that you have adopted.
|
| How would that statement apply to your god? And would they be
| religious?
| antiterra wrote:
| I don't see it as a fault that we can retarget our believer
| minds to reinforce a secular worldview. Nature itself can
| foster a sense of humility and wonder. We can have faith in the
| fundamental laws of physics. We can recognize that our remote
| existence suggests we should take care of each other. We can
| recognize that we cannot fully remove bias or error in our
| observation and conclusions in the same way someone religious
| might believe we all are imperfect and sin.
|
| Even so I am far less dogmatic in my worldview and conclusions
| than I ever was a religious person. To imply that my lack of
| religion is somehow a religion itself just hilariously misses
| the point.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| I understand what you're trying to say and I appreciate it, but
| religion and ideology are two very different things despite
| influencing each other.
| __s wrote:
| I don't see how being an atheist means someone lacks the
| ability to recognize ideology. Religion may help because it
| gives practice putting boundaries on ideas which are obviously
| ridiculous. You can't go around pushing everyone to follow
| Deuteronomy for very long
|
| Overall these pitfalls can be avoided by following some
| principles: reject taboos, seek more information, avoid
| metaphor, accept that some things you can't know
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Atheism also doesn't guarantee that one does recognise
| ideology.
|
| OP is correct. Religion is a subset of ideology, and not
| being religious does not in any sense guarantee that one
| isn't trapped inside an ideological frame.
|
| But OP is wrong to suggest religion is a cure for this, or
| even a workable substitute.
|
| Ideological thinking is a template - a kind of psychological
| design pattern. It may well be innate, and can only be
| sidestepped by learning a different set of philosophical
| habits.
|
| Collectively, we don't have that. Neither critical thinking
| nor science do the job. They do other useful jobs, but
| teaching how to avoid tribal identification among followers
| and competitive authoritarian individualism among leaders -
| the real core of all ideologies - isn't something they're
| designed for.
| __s wrote:
| Agreed, I was specifically responding to their last line
| which casts a blanket assertion
| Jare wrote:
| That's some serious mental gymnastics you're doing there!
|
| Al lot of what you call "religious tendencies" are just
| cognitive and organizational tools. Religions use and codify
| (some of) them in their own ways, and other aspects and
| approaches to human life use and / or codify in their own ways
| too.
|
| Whatever leads you to wish for more structure and codification
| in your life and the world that surrounds, and you find them in
| religion, that's fine. Other people find them in military life,
| others in self-discipline, others in ascetism, others in their
| professional career, etc. But trying to impregnate your
| religious beliefs and choices onto everyone else is, I think,
| just trying to justify and shut down your own doubts. If you
| don't see this then, if I may put it this way, you may lack
| certain cognitive tools to recognize it.
| the-smug-one wrote:
| To me, it sounds like they really hit you on a sore spot :).
|
| What OP talked about regarding ideology reminds me of the
| stuff that Zizek talks about. I'm no philosopher, but the
| thought that ideology has subsumed religion doesn't seem too
| far fetched. We, as a species, do seem to have a tendency to
| form religions and hold different biases.
| dudeman13 wrote:
| Eye rolling on a claim that "X is religious" when it can be
| just a simple "X is a cognitive and organizational tool"
| seems fair to me.
|
| Specially when religious people are so fond of calling
| something religious when that something has nothing to do
| with religion
| furgooswft13 wrote:
| Many secular people are very fond of pinning all the
| worlds problems on religion, so I think it's fair to use
| the term back at them when they constantly act in the
| same exact ways they decry.
|
| It clearly hits a nerve too.
| efitz wrote:
| I grew up in a Protestant home (southern baptist church, 3x/week
| + youth activities). I have nothing against religion and I like
| religious people, I just don't have strong faith anymore; the
| older I get the more skeptical I get of everything.
|
| It always makes me grin how much secular political issue
| adherents act like religious people. You can just listen to the
| language ("climate deniers" etc., "the end is near in 12 years",
| etc.) to tell that they are in the throes of religious fervor. I
| truly believe there's something by wired into our brains to
| support this mode of belief, and that rationality is the
| exception in humans.
|
| The problem is that religious people (including the secular ones)
| are not open to rational discussion critical of their beliefs.
| They may be polite enough to hear you out but they're just
| waiting for you to take a breath so they can butt in and correct
| your apostasy. They already KNOW the one TRUTH and if you don't
| agree on all points, you're a heretic and nonbeliever.
|
| You see articles from time to time how "climate deniers" should
| be shunned and shamed and punished for their heresy[1] (just
| search for "climate deniers list" or "should climate deniers be
| punished" or pick your issue). Same thing for lots of other
| issues like abortion rights[2], or gun control[3].
|
| Christianity has had 2000 years and reformations to knock off the
| rough, anti-social edges. Religious doctrine has been tempered
| with social controls and moral codes that largely (though not
| completely) prevent demonizing your enemies.
|
| Far left ideologies have a century of murdering tens of millions
| of people that didn't agree with them or in some cases just
| didn't cheer loudly enough.
|
| When it comes to not murdering me or putting me in re-education
| camps, I trust devout Christians _way_ more than I trust climate
| activists or gun control advocates or (insert advocate for
| secular left position here).
|
| [1] https://www.newsweek.com/should-climate-change-deniers-be-
| pr... [2] https://www.liveaction.org/news/slate-hopes-watching-
| jessica... [3] https://thefederalist.com/2021/06/09/la-times-
| writer-real-es...
| kwinten wrote:
| Insane take.
|
| > Christianity has had 2000 years and reformations to knock off
| the rough, anti-social edges. Religious doctrine has been
| tempered with social controls and moral codes that largely
| (though not completely) prevent demonizing your enemies.
|
| Funny that you then effortlessly go on to demonize your
| "enemies":
|
| > Far left ideologies have a century of murdering tens of
| millions of people that didn't agree with them or in some cases
| just didn't cheer loudly enough.
|
| Ah yes, because climate activists, reproductive rights
| activists, and hell, let's throw in feminists as well, are all
| authoritarian Stalinists, right?
|
| > When it comes to not murdering me or putting me in re-
| education camps, I trust devout Christians way more than I
| trust climate activists or gun control advocates or (insert
| advocate for secular left position here).
|
| This is incomprehensibly insane. I don't even know how to
| formulate a response to this.
| swebs wrote:
| >Far left ideologies have a century of murdering tens of
| millions of people that didn't agree with them or in some cases
| just didn't cheer loudly enough.
|
| There was a big debate in 2019 of communism vs capitalism among
| two famous professors. When one of them mentioned the communist
| revolution being a call for "bloody violent revolution" the
| audience cheered with approval. It was chilling.
|
| https://youtu.be/qsHJ3LvUWTs?t=1295
| matchbok wrote:
| What a bigoted and narrow-minded view of the world you have.
| This has no place on HN.
|
| The fact that you take issue with abortion rights activists and
| not the right-wing protestors who have _murdered_ doctors,
| shows your true, bigoted colors. Shameful.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| I also think that religiosity is a neurological phenomenon and
| is as much a part of being a human as language, music, money or
| tool use. Nobody, including myself, can escape it.
|
| I see a lot of talk in this thread about making the definition
| of "religion" meaningless by broadening it too much, but I
| think the definition that gets narrowed in is "the phenomenon
| of humans engaging in dogmatic belief." A good example of this
| is transhumanism, specifically, the idea that you can upload
| your mind to a computer. It is all but given based on our
| current scientific understanding that the mind is inseparable
| from the body, yet somehow particularly atheist people behave
| as if they are separate things. This is a dogmatic belief.
|
| Other closely related behaviors are ideological movements. I
| believe that religion is largely social in nature and driven
| more by social pressure and community/family and less by actual
| rational analysis or any other method of coming to conclusions
| about the world. I think it shows in the decline of traditional
| religion and also in the rise of what are often being termed
| "religions" these days by detractors (correctly in many cases,
| for example the Gaia worship end of times cult). When that is
| taken into account, the irrational behavior of swathes of
| people who hold as a core identity characteristic their
| perceived strict adherence to rationality makes a lot of sense.
|
| I know I have a religion, I don't know what it is exactly, but
| I'm a human so I have one. But I try to be open to _any_ idea I
| hold being challenged, I 'd like my belief system to be as
| close to the truth as I can get it, and that means ignoring
| social proof and being prepared to find out that anything and
| everything I believe is wrong. Of course, until I find out I'm
| wrong, I think I'm right.
| meowface wrote:
| >A good example of this is transhumanism, specifically, the
| idea that you can upload your mind to a computer. It is all
| but given based on our current scientific understanding that
| the mind is inseparable from the body, yet somehow
| particularly atheist people behave as if they are separate
| things. This is a dogmatic belief.
|
| It's unknown if such a technology will be possible one day,
| but I don't find transhumanism or that idea dogmatic. The
| human mind is of course part of the human body, but there's
| nothing that prescribes any particular mind must be part of a
| biological body. This is known as "substrate independence".
| If substrate independence is true, it would suggest creation
| of conscious machines and simulation of conscious beings is
| feasible.
|
| There are additional difficulties when it comes to the
| possibility of actually "uploading" one's mind, but it seems
| incorrect to say "atheists who trust science believe the mind
| and body are inseparable, yet here they act like they can be
| separated". The atheist/physicalist/scientific claim is that
| the mind emerges from the brain, and that the brain is made
| of ordinary matter - not that they're "inseparable" in the
| sense that there can't be such a thing as a mind without a
| fleshy body.
|
| It's orthogonal to "bodiness" or an idea of anything like a
| soul. If substrate independence is true, then a mind is a
| thing which must exist on some physical substrate composed of
| matter. It's fine if you believe substrate independence isn't
| true, but I don't see any dogma. Perhaps a dogma would be
| "substrate independence is true" without demonstrating any
| evidence of it, but I haven't seen that claim. This'll
| probably only ever be known for sure if some group actually
| manages to instantiate a seemingly-conscious mind on a non-
| biological substrate, and if it seems to pass every possible
| test for consciousness we can devise.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| Belief that _your mind_ can be moved is a dogmatic belief,
| if you hold it, seeing as our current scientific
| understanding of the brain precludes it. That isn 't to say
| a machine cannot be conscious, or that a different type of
| consciousness cannot exist.
| meowface wrote:
| I'd say _certainty_ in such a belief would be dogmatic.
| But I don 't think it's at all dogmatic (or wrong) to say
| that in the distant future it could _maybe_ become
| possible.
|
| If one merely says "I believe there's a chance we may one
| day be able to upload our minds to a machine", I don't
| think that's dogma. Even if one says "I believe there's a
| chance we may one day be able to upload our minds to a
| machine and retain continuous consciousness in the
| process" (as opposed to basically just creating a mental
| copy of oneself), I'd say that also isn't dogma, even if
| the odds are lower.
|
| I would actually say "our current scientific
| understanding of the brain precludes it" is dogmatic.
| Unless you mean "we don't yet know how we could go about
| it given our current limited understanding", then sure;
| but asserting that something (especially something that
| doesn't violate any laws of physics) will _never_ be
| possible is a positive, definitive statement, and one I
| also don 't think is true.
|
| We just know it would be enormously difficult and complex
| and that it's extremely unlikely it would be possible
| within the next few centuries, and may never be possible.
| There's nothing we know about right now that would
| fundamentally make it impossible. It's all just matter
| and information.
|
| The definition of dogma, according to Google, is "a
| principle or set of principles laid down by an authority
| as incontrovertibly true". Claims of incontrovertible
| truth are dangerous, whichever direction they're in. If
| some transhumanist wholeheartedly expects they're going
| to be inside of a computer by the time they're 80, then
| that would be dogmatic, but I've personally not seen
| anyone with such an attitude.
| fighterpilot wrote:
| Why does current scientific knowledge preclude it? Is a
| simulation of the entire human body impossible in
| principle, or alternatively is it known that such a
| simulation won't be conscious?
| betwixthewires wrote:
| Because from our current understanding, the mind is an
| emergent property of the brain, not some ethereal thing
| contained by the brain. It might be possible to create
| artificial consciousness, to find consciousness that
| occurs in different ways, but to _move_ a human mind out
| of a brain, as far as we can tell, is impossible.
| meowface wrote:
| I don't understand how these are mutually exclusive. Why
| should it being emergent mean it's absolutely impossible
| to move it out of the brain?
|
| Of course it _could_ turn out to be impossible in
| practice for some reason or another, or it may not happen
| for thousands of years, but I don 't see any theoretical
| reason that makes it impossible a priori.
| fighterpilot wrote:
| There's a lot of unresolved debate in the philosophy of
| mind about how the mind might come about from the brain.
|
| Not all hypotheses assert substrate-dependant
| epiphenomenalism, which is what you seem to be
| suggesting.
|
| So our current understanding is merely that we have
| little clue whether it's possible. I lean towards the
| idea that it's possible and view the burden of proof as
| being on your shoulders to show why wetware as a
| substrate is necessary.
| parineum wrote:
| Current scientific understanding is inconclusive. You
| can't prove a negative so it definitely doesn't preclude
| it.
| evoo5Rlyea2D wrote:
| > A good example of this is transhumanism, specifically, the
| idea that you can upload your mind to a computer.
|
| Better examples might be what you can find in certain strands
| of rationalism: the simulation argument, that God (friendly
| AI) doesn't exist but ought to be created, that if the AI
| isn't summoned (programmed) in a very particular way it will
| be maximally dangerous, the Judgment day when the AI is
| brought online, and even intangible possible Hells through
| TDT and basilisk arguments.
|
| I can't help getting the impression there's a weirdly
| distorted version of Christianity in there somewhere, and the
| reason it can survive is because its adherents don't
| recognize that that's what it is.
| [deleted]
| ifemide06 wrote:
| We need a shared culture or believe system that will continue to
| shape our understanding of how we relate and treat one another.
|
| One of the primary reason we setup FaithCircle -
| https://thefaithcircle.com - to connect Christians locally and
| globally.
| Causality1 wrote:
| This is mirrored in the precipitously dropping support for
| freedom of speech in the US, especially among youth. As ideology
| becomes more intense heresy becomes less acceptable, and it seems
| if people can't quell heretical speech with threats of fire and
| brimstone they'll do it with legislation and police.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Freedom of speech isn't a "non-ideological" ideal, and there's
| not one single definition. For example, most liberals (in the
| classical sense) support free speech but are not absolutists; a
| libertarian might see that as repressive, while a progressive
| might see it as dangerous.
| textgel wrote:
| No it basically is. Nor does it have multiple definitions.
| The only people who claim it does are those trying to smuggle
| censorship in while calling it "freedom of speech".
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| So you think sexual harassment at work, child porn, libel
| and death threats should be legal? You think platforms
| should take no action against spam, doxxing or revenge
| porn? Those are all examples of censorship.
| Causality1 wrote:
| Not that I disagree with you, but you're improperly
| combining the censorship actions of private individuals
| and of governments. Freedom of speech has never limited
| what actions private platform holders can take against
| users.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| I agree with that, but rarely do I see the nominally
| "free speech" crowd on HN make that distinction.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| chriselles wrote:
| If only the article included the shift from religious to
| environmental extremism.
| amriksohata wrote:
| Kaliyuga
| oblak wrote:
| isn't ideological intensity an euphemism for religious faith? or
| is that the joke
| bencollier49 wrote:
| religio = piety
|
| ideo = images / ideas
|
| I think religious devotion is a subset of ideological
| intensity.
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| A lot of people need their tribal cults ego-boosters because they
| can't stand on their own two feet and need the safety of a herd.
|
| Flat Earthers, Trumpism, Bernie-ism, Tim Ferrissism, antivaxx,
| neoliberalism, neoconservatism, QAnon, radical political
| terrorism (under various religious banners), raw veganism, juice
| cleanse, miracle mineral solution, no maskers, forever maskers,
| and so on.
| chrisgd wrote:
| Religious faith has declined. Social media has increased.
| loopz wrote:
| Define _religion_ as a societal organization, _beliefs_ as mental
| convictions without proofs, and _faith_ as determination and grit
| towards hope and higher goals.
|
| Then by the very process of dismantling organized religion,
| whatever core is left, will not be average: The remaining core
| will be the more fundamentalist, more extreme and the annoyingly
| louder part. Its position in society will take time to shift
| though, all the while new technology platforms make such voices
| heard louder and wider than before.
|
| When people lose beliefs, the addicted will need something else
| to hold on to. In this case, the quest for riches, fame and
| money. So for those already rich, it only makes sense to buy up
| all sources of knowledge and information, such as media,
| education and civic spaces. Making the snake eat its tail,
| prevents it from nibbling your own coffers. Beliefs are governed
| by being infallible, which is the false core itself.
|
| Whatever direction people take, will be powered by faith. The
| hope for something better, wether it be in printing more
| currency, or less. And it makes sense for all involved not to get
| people engaged in anything that really matters.
|
| So it is not from the outside or from another person true faith
| will blossom, as faith is ever so much more than mere beliefs.
| sebringj wrote:
| Is it bad to point out the obvious? The way people process and
| vet information seems to be fundamentally in opposition and tied
| to their political party, reinforced by machine learning silos,
| diametrically opposed tv networks and further fueled by hostile
| nations tinkering with narratives. Let's not forget, without "he
| who shall not be named", this wouldn't have been possible.
| adaisadais wrote:
| As religious faith has declined, comment intensity on HN has
| risen.
|
| All joking aside this is a pretty well-known phenomenon that
| folks like Hegel and Nietzsche have discussed. The Enlightenment
| has had its tentacles on formalized religion for over 300 years
| in the Western World.
|
| Nietzsche's mad man who runs about the town telling people that
| "God is Dead" is not meant to be taken as a positive or light
| statement. Nietzsche posited that many of the key elements of
| modern society would cease to have meaning. Why then, if man is
| not created in the image of God, should man treat fellow man in
| any which way? What justification does one have for not harming
| fellow man if his fellow man is but ape?
|
| Books I loved with perspectives on this are "Enlightenment Now"
| by Steven Pinker and "The Rise of the Modern Self" by Carl
| Trueman.
|
| "You gotta serve somebody." -Bob Dylan
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| You're correct that this isn't really new territory in
| philosophy - but "lay" people are actually starting to see it
| play out at scale in society which is making them perk their
| ears up.
|
| I doubt we'll see Beyond Good and Evil become a NYT bestseller
| unfortunately.
| eruci wrote:
| That's good news! Ideology is more malleable than religion.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| The good old correlation is not causation clearly applies here.
|
| IMHO, religions is at the same time archaic and something deeply
| rooted in human nature, but like many primitive instincts it can
| be mastered.
| papito wrote:
| Religion is going away and political affiliation resembles more
| of a cult. You know, very healthy.
| bobthechef wrote:
| Religion isn't going away. Ideology is religion. Very bad
| religion, but it is religion (or a "cult" to use your language,
| though that term is overloaded). And no one is without
| religion. Everyone worships something. The question is: are you
| worshiping the _right_ thing?
|
| In terms of the "traditional" churches in the US, yes, mainline
| Protestantism is dying because it is a spent force (it has more
| or less fully acquiesced to the culture, become a consumer and
| servant of that culture, which means it no longer has any
| purpose). Muslims who move her tend to become moderates and
| likely shed Islam entirely eventually. You do see some growth
| among Evangelicals, but in any case, globally (Africa, Asia),
| you do see Catholicism and Islam growing. The West is in this
| sense a decadent freak.
| keithnz wrote:
| what definition of religion are you using? this is the
| dictionaries... religion
| /rI'lIdZ(@)n/ noun the belief in and worship of
| a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal
| God or gods.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| under that definition, Buddhism isn't a religion - so it's
| clearly not a very good definition.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| The total number of people identifying as religious in the US
| is declining. The number of people identifying as
| evangelical/"born again" is rising.
|
| Of course, it's about the same thing as the religious and non-
| religious cult-dynamics are somewhat similar.
|
| Of course, it's a product of any "local community" fading away
| - the moderating influence of random people living near one is
| fading.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| This is not true. Religion is in fact growing every where but
| the west and perhaps a few other places.
|
| If you only meant the west then that is accurate, but due to
| the various birth rates it could very easily change with
| immigration.
| oblib wrote:
| Wow... that was not what I expected. The author shares a very
| interesting and insightful perspective that is well worth taking
| in.
| hnct wrote:
| We are all tribal by nature and need a sense of belonging and
| gravity. Something to hold on to. As the author suggests,
| religion was this anchor until recent times.
| tasogare wrote:
| > Secular belief contains rituals,
|
| Wearing a mask, new weird handshaking, lockdowns.
|
| > origin stories,
|
| Not a leak lab, I repeat NOT a leak lab.
|
| > deities, saints,
|
| Pr Raoult.
|
| > priesthood,
|
| Doctors, CDC members.
|
| > blasphemy,
|
| This post.
|
| > vice & virtue just as religion does.
|
| (Not) taking the vaccine, (not) wearing a mask.
|
| It's crazy how fast a new religion can globally emerge nowadays.
| 8note wrote:
| Is it still a religious belief if you can conclusive tell that
| the god exists?
|
| Otherwise, example gods and religions include sitting on chairs
|
| I'd agree that things like the stock market, cryptocurrency,
| JavaScript, hating "cancel culture", having rugs on your
| floors, basic arithmetic, fossil fuels, laughing at jokes,
| having an Instagram, having teeth, not having teeth, and so on
| are all religions, but religion stops being a useful definition
| Ambix wrote:
| For me it was Harari who first stated that all modern ideologies
| like communism or liberalism are in fact just religions.
| someotherblah wrote:
| America does have a god. It's called "the product". Just because
| it's falling short of the vaccum religion used to fill doesn't
| mean we won't pivot to something else. Enjoy the ride folks.
| kortilla wrote:
| For a good chunk of the of the country the god is actually
| anti-capitalist ideals now,
| sigstoat wrote:
| now consider this in terms of eschatology, and end-of-the-world
| cults.
| throwaway34241 wrote:
| The themes here remind me of another politics-is-the-new-religion
| article by David French, "America Is in the Grips of a
| Fundamentalist Revival". [1]
|
| In it he draws a distinction between religion and fundamentalist
| religion (which the author has a background with), with a key
| quality of the latter being a lack of a sort of humility, a
| certainty that they're right. Which in turn leads them to be less
| tolerant of opposing viewpoints - because (in their view) they
| can see right and wrong so clearly, it pulls them to the position
| that "error has no rights".
|
| That being said, I think it is easy to pay too much attention to
| the extremes.
|
| An analysis of the US's political problems is out of scope of a
| HN comment, but one thing I did recently was read books by two
| prolific authors on the US left and right [2] (who each have
| historically been aligned with one of our two political parties).
| They both contained opposing narratives covering the last 100
| years or so, but what was _very interesting_ was how they both
| overlapped around certain key historical /political events.
|
| I think reading these books was quite helpful for my
| understanding of US politics in a way that isn't really covered
| by the news cycle (in the future, I'd like to spend more time
| reading these sorts of books and less time on news).
|
| [1] https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/america-is-in-the-
| grip...
|
| [2] Paul Krugman's "The Conscience of a Liberal" and Charles
| Murray's "By the People"
| keiferski wrote:
| Phyllis Tickle wrote a book on this about a decade ago. Her
| argument is that every ~500 years there is a major shakeup in
| the Christian world, and we're in the midst of one right now.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Great-Emergence-How-Christianity-Chan...
|
| This post explains it well:
|
| https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/are-we-in-a-500-year-reli...
| fighterpilot wrote:
| What's the proposed mechanism behind the 500-year
| periodicity? Without a plausible mechanism it's hard to take
| seriously.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| tomjen3 wrote:
| The Christian world is only ~2000 years old. What evidence is
| there for a 500 year cycle?
| keiferski wrote:
| It's covered in the post linked to in my comment.
| sudosteph wrote:
| > In his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, Martin Luther King Jr.
| wished that "one day this nation will rise up and live out the
| true meaning of its creed." The very idea that a nation might
| have a creed--a word associated primarily with religion--
| illustrates the uniqueness of American identity as well as its
| predicament.
|
| That was a quote from the _Reverend_ Martin Luther King Jr, no
| less, so it's fair to say he knew the connotations and chose that
| term deliberately. Honestly, it still bothers me when I notice
| how often leftists will quote King, while never acknowledging the
| role that Christianity played in his work. He was an extremely
| well-trained Baptist Minister, with a doctorate in systematic
| theology. For whatever reason, I don't really see the modern
| Social Justice types taking many cues from Baptist Theology these
| days.
| angrais wrote:
| You've confused me. Are you saying that "leftists" cannot quote
| king because he was Christian? Why's that matter? Also, quotes
| can be used for many purposes outside of their origin, e.g.,
| love thy neighbour, etc.
| sudosteph wrote:
| No, I'm saying that I know actual leftists (not sure what
| your quotes are for) who will only post King quotes when the
| topic is "White liberals are unhelpful" and "anti-
| capitalism", typically only posting quotes which don't
| include religious terms. Then, they will unironically claim
| that his legacy is being erased by the folks who only ever
| quote him from "I have a dream".
|
| To which I say: yes - his legacy is being erased when you
| intentionally ignore important parts of his character and
| works. But erasing his Christianity is especially egregious,
| given how fundamental that aspect is to his entire philosophy
| and life. His theology is inseparable from his philosophy,
| and a massive influence for both his anti-capitalism/pro-poor
| people campaigns and for his racial reconciliation work.
| angrais wrote:
| My quotes are because it can mean something very different
| from where I am from; for me it's quite an American term.
| Unsurprising given the forum we're on of course.
|
| It's always left me a bit uneasy when people speak of
| "legacy being erased" as it's often untrue. In this way, I
| disagree with both yourself and those individuals you
| quoted. For me, leaving out details is commonplace in all
| aspects of life. That doesn't entail erasure. I doubt that
| people consider the complete background of authors when
| sharing inspirational quotes. The "I had a dream" speech
| and quote is powerful and meaningful to the individual
| because of what it reads, not necessarily who wrote it.
| That's why you'll see people quote people who are arguably
| did good ... but also a lot of bad, e.g., Winston
| Churchill.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/MzBm5
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| False correlation. People realizing that belief in imaginary
| beings somewhere out there is false is a good thing. Any
| correlation at the same time of a rise in people becoming
| political or ideological zealots has nothing to do with the
| failure of religion in modern science based societies.
| plaidfuji wrote:
| Agreed that weakening religious ideology is good, but disagree
| that it's uncorrelated with changing politics. A large part of
| evangelical political backlash is explicitly rooted in the
| disappearance of religious symbolism and language from American
| public life. Exhibit A would be the absurd furor over Starbucks
| cups not saying "Merry Christmas". The current intensifying
| political divide has a lot to do with devout Christians feeling
| insecure about their diminishing societal influence and the
| author manages to completely ignore that glaringly obvious
| fact.
|
| The interesting argument IMO is that current secular ideology
| seems to trend toward "ignore all religious holidays" or
| "remove all religious symbolism from society" when a perfectly
| rational and arguably more populist alternative would be to
| include and celebrate them all.
| grasshopperpurp wrote:
| Any pattern of thoughts that has been grouped into a discipline,
| whether religious or secular, can - imo - be viewed as a best
| effort by a group or individual that was then adopted by the
| group. That doesn't mean they're equal, but I think it's helpful
| framing.
|
| Setting aside fundamentalists, people are using combinations of
| these disciplines to make sense of life. Epiphanies which are
| liberating to me may be terrifying or unimportant to you and vice
| versa. The need to conform can be helpful on a societal level
| (particularly from a bird's-eye view) and harmful on an
| individual level. At some point, the individual harm affects
| enough individuals that there is a noticeable backlash, and we
| see some form of reorganization of beliefs.
|
| Most people aren't built for serious thought. Maybe someone has a
| better idea than I do how it breaks down on the nature/nature
| scale, but the average person will always be more concerned with
| the signaling aspects of a given belief than the belief itself.
| As a human trying to survive or thrive, you increase your margin
| for error by squeezing into a group. How you choose the group or
| if it's chosen for you will again depend on some combination of
| internal and external factors.
|
| Whether we like it or not, we're building this thing together,
| and it's to our benefit to be curious and compassionate about the
| beliefs of others. It doesn't mean converting or losing your
| religion, but if I understand what motivates you, I can propose
| comprises that work for both parties. Of cours, there will always
| be assholes who must have everything their way, but don't be
| cynical. Most people are capable of compromise, just as most
| people are capable of love and hope.
| version_five wrote:
| I'm not religious, not an atheist either. When I was a kid we
| went to church. I'm curious what (if anything) other parents
| substitute for organized religion with their kids. Or do you
| choose to participate anyway even if not devout? To be clear, I'm
| a big fan of questioning everything, but I definitely see
| benefits to being part of something like organized religion and
| wonder how I will fill that void with my son.
| baby wrote:
| Honestly I don't know. My parents were not religious and so I'm
| not baptized and never went to church. It's like when people
| ask me: didn't you miss not having a brother or a sister? Well
| how can I miss it if I never had it? Instead they had friends
| and we did camping trips, and dinners, and bbqs, and we went to
| the movies, and to the acquarium, and stuff...
| betwixthewires wrote:
| Let them be religious. If their mother is religious and wants
| them in a church let it happen.
|
| My only rule is when they ask me what I believe I will not lie
| to them. But they can be religious if they want.
| sudosteph wrote:
| What gap did you feel that church filled in your own childhood?
|
| I went to church as a kid too, but the only positive thing I
| remember about it has a secular alternatives (youth choir).
|
| Otherwise I just remember: Wearing uncomfortable clothes and
| trying to sit still while bored out of mind for an hour, trying
| to intentionally make us late so we wouldn't have to go, my dad
| getting angry at me for intentionally making us late, spending
| forever sitting in traffic and finding a parking spot.
| sidlls wrote:
| > Few people understand that most religions e.g. Judaism and
| Christianity have an apologetic discipline - a deliberate arm
| open to debate.
|
| The range of permissible debate is quite narrow in reality, and
| usually start from an assumption that the core tenets are more or
| less true.
|
| > If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular ideology
| that you have adopted.
|
| You're basically defining all belief as religious belief. You're
| welcome to it, but it's not particularly useful or constructive.
| And suggesting those that don't have the belief haven't actually
| thought about it, or lack the tools to do so, is a bit
| antagonistic, really.
| Cyberthal wrote:
| > The range of permissible debate is quite narrow in reality
|
| What? Christian apologetics meets atheists, Satanists,
| Darwinists, whoever. I don't even know how restricting
| apologetics to a very narrow permissible debate would work,
| unless like the MSM one can control which opponent gets on the
| mic.
|
| Christians enforce a narrow range of theological divergence
| acceptable as orthodox, but that is not apologetics.
|
| > You're basically defining all belief as religious belief
|
| No he isn't. He's defining humans as religious, and observing
| that the absence of affiliation with a major organized religion
| doesn't change this.
|
| I live in a Communist country in which the Party sometimes
| explicitly substitutes for a church. In the USA, congress shall
| make no law respecting an establishment of religion, which
| means that naturally a state church will evolve that denies
| being a state church -- both the "state" and "church" parts.
| Humans being both religious and hierarchical, it's often tricky
| to determine whether state is running church or vice versa. The
| ball is always under the other cup.
|
| If you dare, I'm sure you can think of a few recently-invented
| blasphemies which if violated would result in censure of a
| progressively more official nature. Whoever can hunt witches,
| holds the pulpit, even if it comes with a press badge rather
| than a funny hat.
|
| Remember to recycle.
| manmal wrote:
| I had an otherwise enjoyable conversation with a just recently-
| turned-religious person. As soon as core tenets, as you nicely
| put it, where up for discussion, conversation came to a
| screeching halt. People who think the ten amendments must be
| strictly followed have a lot of cognitive dissonance to
| resolve, and reasoning is not welcome.
|
| The same person asked me into great detail why vaccinations
| should be a good idea, and expected me to provide all the
| answers.
|
| We both remained at our positions - she's now contemplating
| homeschooling her kid because of mask requirements, and I still
| don't believe in a religion that says my gay friends need to
| become straight.
| friedman23 wrote:
| You can't think of anything you believe in that if someone
| came to you to "discuss" you wouldn't react instantly
| negative and start calling the other person insults?
| sidlls wrote:
| Why bother? I don't hold any belief strongly enough to
| merit such a reaction, though I might react negatively for
| other reasons. For example, past experience showing the
| insincerity of their own debate tactics and a lack of
| patience for rehashing it all yet again.
| friedman23 wrote:
| I don't know you and can't speak for you. But my point
| that all the people on here criticizing people on their
| moral systems are baseless stands. These same people
| would've been in the mob in salem executing so called
| witches a couple hundred years ago and would have been
| just as certain in their beliefs then.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It is funny seeing this:
|
| > These same people would've been in the mob in salem
| executing so called witches a couple hundred years ago
| and would have been just as certain in their beliefs
| then.
|
| after this:
|
| > I don't know you and can't speak for you.
| Haiatu wrote:
| Religion is dividing our society. Its reasonable to wish
| for an independent believe system for our whole society.
|
| Nonetheless arguing on hn is not a mob.
|
| But yes discriminiation of woman is a bigger problem than
| religion. Forced marriages, hanging gay people, raping
| children, religious conflicts are a huge issue still
| today.
|
| Unfortunate for us, sciencse or a global believe system
| doesn't need to have a church. It happens trhough
| alignment, communication etc.
|
| We are already more aligned through knowledge but we just
| don't promote that. My friend and i are not going to our
| science church on sunday because we don't need to. We
| don't need to discuss 1+1=2 because its proven. And while
| social norms are not that explicit, we see big progress
| here as well: In germany for example, we don't hang
| people on carcranes because they are gay.
|
| Its just harder to keep track of this and doing the right
| thing if you don't get it pushed in every sunday. And
| indepenedent of this, in bavaria you had one hour every
| week christian religion in school. I grew up with plenty
| of assholes. Clearly religioun did not brought us as
| humans together.
| manmal wrote:
| AFAIK witch hunts were often driven by political reasons
| and the church lent their credibility for it. Sometimes
| the church initiated them. Claiming atheists would have
| been a part of this is a bit far fetched, to put it
| mildly.
| manmal wrote:
| Nothing comes to mind, really. I call people names when
| they threaten my life in traffic, but that's about it.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| What led her to change to the religion?
| manmal wrote:
| Hard to tell for me what triggered this. She completely
| changed careers at that point it seems, maybe it was
| burnout.
| Thorrez wrote:
| >the ten amendments
|
| That's hilarious. I'm not sure if that's a typo or joke. It
| also makes me think of the US Bill of Rights, which are the
| first ten amendments to the US Constitution.
| Thorrez wrote:
| >The range of permissible debate is quite narrow in reality,
| and usually start from an assumption that the core tenets are
| more or less true.
|
| The purpose of apologetics is to defend the faith debates with
| people of other religions or atheists. If there are rules about
| not allowing certain things to be debated that's not going to
| work at all.
| [deleted]
| tonymet wrote:
| You raised a good point about all belief vs religious belief.
|
| Which beliefs do you take on faith? Which would have you
| outcast if you didn't believe them? Which lead you to a
| personal sacrifice? Which beliefs cause great anxiety or
| pleasure with no tangible evidence?
|
| Not comprehensive but those are categories of beliefs elevated
| to religious in nature.
|
| For example, believing that the Lakers are the best basketball
| team probably is not religious, but believing that your life
| got substantially better or worse following an election would
| be a religious belief.
| kemayo wrote:
| Religion has a meaning, and it specifically relates to the
| supernatural. If something makes no supernatural claims, it's
| not a religion.
|
| To whit, "believing that your life got substantially better
| or worse following an election" would _not_ be a religious
| belief. This is because it can be tested, and would have a
| simple cause /effect based in physical reality. It might be
| an intangible "I feel better about things because I know
| people agree with me, and think that people in positions of
| political power will support my interests" -- but there's
| nothing _supernatural_ about that.
|
| As was said, if you want to redefine the word "religion" to
| mean "any sort of belief system", then sure, go for it. It's
| a great way to troll and provoke arguments.
| __s wrote:
| So I think I came across an article which touches on what
| you're getting at:
| https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/people-
| wit...
|
| For me atheism & nihilism go a bit hand in hand, but there
| are atheists who aren't nihilists, which then have to still
| level their disbelief in god with faith in meaningfulness
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27488136.
| friedman23 wrote:
| > usually start from an assumption that the core tenets are
| more or less true.
|
| You use this as a criticism of religion but I find it's true of
| secular people as well who have baseless beliefs that are just
| as deeply ingrained.
|
| Telling someone on hackernews you are religious you will
| probably get a ton of criticism and downvotes. You know what
| will get the same reaction? Telling someone you are a moral
| nihilist.
|
| Why is murder evil? Why is stealing evil? Why is anything evil
| or good for that matter? At least religious people have answers
| to these questions. (Although I don't think they are
| necessarily good answers, why is something good because some
| omnipotent being said so? what if that omnipotent being was
| evil?)
|
| I feel like I'm screaming at windmills but _everything_ people
| get hysterical over in our modern world is baseless. _All_
| values do not stand up to scrutiny and can be argued against
| using the one word question "why?"
|
| edit: I was predictably downvoted, please don't take this as me
| complaining and trying to claim victimhood because it truly
| doesn't affect me. I just find it funny how uncomfortable my
| comment makes people that are supposedly open minded and
| critical of their beliefs but surprisingly share the same
| beliefs as their entire social group.
| TimPC wrote:
| There is an entire branch of Philosophy called Ethics that
| gives us better answers to these questions and a better
| framework for grappling with them then religion ever has. It
| is quite arrogant to assume that atheists have no answers at
| all to these questions.
| friedman23 wrote:
| Ah yeah, good argument, a field of study exists. Given you
| are a well educated atheist you can explain the
| underpinnings of your morality right?
| andrepd wrote:
| Yes. A set of _ab initio_ values and the golden rule as a
| base, and societal consensus to work out the finer
| details.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| People have spent millenia thinking about rational answers to
| those questions. It's easy enough to find answers, but much
| like with religion there is no consensus. The answers follow
| a much more rigorous logic then "god said so" though. I'm not
| a moral nihillist because that's not a thing, but I am a
| moral anti-realist because it's clear that there are no
| intrinsic moral laws. It's all preference based.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| It is not all preference based, as very few moral systems
| lead to thriving societies that are stable and able to
| self-reproduce rather than collapsing back into chaos. In
| fact, almost none do.
|
| Take a look at the ten commandments. "Honor thy father and
| mother so that it may be well with you and you may live
| long in the land". What happens when generation n+1 thinks
| they are morally superior to generation n? The same also
| holds for n+2, and so you do not have a stable society, you
| have a disintegrating society. Or half the commandments
| banning envy. Why ban envy and wanting what your neighbor
| has? Because envy-based moral systems lead to less
| successful societies than charity based moral systems,
| where the rich are told they should be generous to the poor
| versus telling the poor that they have a right to something
| possessed by the rich. It is not arbitrary -- some ethical
| codes lead to stable, successful societies and others do
| not.
|
| One of the problems with modernism is that we have thrown
| away this notion of reverence and replaced it with a belief
| in moral progress, which has only led to an ocean of
| murders and social disintegration. In 10 generations, there
| will be no modernism left, it will be re-absorbed into more
| traditional societies, because modernist societies aren't
| able to reproduce themselves. Not biologically, not
| ethically, not economically. Yes, there are a few Gene
| Roddenberry holdouts that believe in generic liberalism as
| a system on which a society can be based. But the voice of
| LaFayette is always drowned out by the voice of
| Robespierre. Lafayette was a fool, thinking that whatever
| seemed right to him could be the basis of a society.
|
| So it's not so much that I believe I can win an argument
| with someone who believes moral systems are preference
| based, but that those who do believe that will simply be
| outcompeted. Societies in which large numbers hold to such
| views will be unable to reproduce themselves and they will
| be eclipsed by societies that adopt ethical codes that form
| specific templates. A painter can paint a picture of any
| creature, but actual living, successful organisms are under
| strict constraints. A philosopher can imagine any moral
| code, but living, successful societies have to stick to
| what actually works.
| kemayo wrote:
| I think you're arguing against something the grandparent
| didn't claim? They didn't say that various moral systems
| wouldn't have different outcomes, just that none of them
| would be intrinsically correct.
|
| We can note, for instance, that "produces a thriving
| society" is a thing for which you're imposing a
| preference. There's no inherent reason why that's _the
| true system_ , just that we think it'd be nifty if that
| was an outcome.
| andrepd wrote:
| The ten commandments have things to say about working on
| Saturdays or fucking people whom you have not married,
| but don't have a word on the topic of slavery (in fact it
| is amply condoned in the Bible, incl. by Jesus, together
| with myriad other atrocities).
|
| This is trash morality which you should have zero respect
| for. It's only understandable if you take it for what it
| really is: Bronze age Middle-Eastern mythology.
|
| > where the rich are told they should be generous to the
| poor versus telling the poor that they have a right to
| something possessed by the rich.
|
| _But of facking course._ Indeed, one of the major
| purposes of organized religion is keeping the masses in
| check.
|
| "Why peasant, perhaps you are starting to question why
| you toil in back breaking work and neither you nor your
| family will ever have any rights or anything to your
| name, while the lord of the manor feasts on the food that
| you have produced without ever so much as grabbing a plow
| in his life? Perhaps you even start to think that you're
| not so much different, you and him, that you are both
| human?
|
| Perhaps, god forbid, you are starting to believe that a
| more just way to distribute labour and rewards could be
| yours? That you should struggle and take what should be
| yours?
|
| Can't have that no! Here:
|
| - Honour your """natural""" superiors
|
| - Obey god (i.e. the priests and clergy)
|
| - Do not covet what's not yours
|
| That should do it. Obey these commandments or you'll go
| to hell for eternity!"
|
| How convenient.
| vxNsr wrote:
| > _fucking people whom you have not married,_
|
| This is false, it says don't covet your neighbors wife.
|
| > _working on Saturdays_
|
| This has been shown time and again to boost productivity
| immensely to say nothing for mental health.
|
| You seem to have a bone to pick but don't understand the
| thing you're arguing against.
| andrepd wrote:
| Oh, I understand alright, it's you that are already set
| on a conclusion and then pretend to be discussing it.
|
| > false, it says don't covet your neighbors wife.
|
| It says "don't commit adultery" too. Like I say, god
| almighty creator of heavan and earth and the whole
| universe has things to say about me and my gf fucking
| before we're married. I call bullshit :)
|
| And the "dont't covet" verse is also great: don't covet
| your neighbour's property (already this is problematic
| but okay), which includes: cattle, his donkey, _his wife,
| or his servants_.
|
| I don't want to worship a set of commandments that puts
| people on the same footing as oxen. In repeat: disgusting
| morals which ought to be worth zero to a civilized
| person.
| vxNsr wrote:
| There's some major projection going on here.
|
| You're wrong again, both with your interpretations and
| what it means to worship something.
|
| Let's unpack: adultery in this context doesn't mean
| premarital sex, it means sex with someone who is already
| married. And in the context of the bible, you are likely
| married to your gf so actually you're already keeping
| this one, good job!
|
| > _And the "dont't covet" verse is also great: don't
| covet your neighbour's property (already this is
| problematic but okay), which includes: cattle, his
| donkey, his wife, or his servants._
|
| This is just false. commandment 9 is don't covet
| neighbor's wife and commandment 10 is don't covet
| neighbor's property.
|
| > _I don 't want to worship a set of commandments_
|
| This isn't about choice my friend: You don't get to
| choose to obey the "laws" of gravity. They just are,
| whether you agree with them or not they are the laws of
| the universe. god's commandments are the same. whether
| your small mind is able to comprehend what they mean or
| not the laws will make you a better and happier person
| (which just based on this thread you clearly are still in
| search of). Truthfully though, the 10 commandments don't
| even apply to you as a gentile. you only need to worry
| about the 7 noahide laws, and those are honestly a lot
| easier, because they all just boil down to: don't be a
| dick. [Admittedly, you might still have trouble with the
| first 2 because they also deal with accepting a higher
| power, and you seem bent on believing despite all
| evidence to the contrary that you alone control the
| universe. If you've ever been part of AA you'd know that
| accepting there is a power other than you in control is
| essential to happiness and satisfaction in life]
| andrepd wrote:
| Your complete lack of self awareness makes me understand
| this conversation will go nowhere, so perhaps we'd better
| stop here.
|
| You don't get to cherry pick what you like and what you
| don't like. Your funny book says this, verbatim (NRSV):
| "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not
| covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or
| ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your
| neighbor.". Therefore putting oxen, donkey, slaves, and
| wives on the same category: your property. So regarding
| this:
|
| > This is just false. commandment 9 is don't covet
| neighbor's wife and commandment 10 is don't covet
| neighbor's property.
|
| I suggest you learn more about your own religion and
| realise there's no numbering in the bible, it's only a
| matter of tradition, and some traditions divide it one
| way and other another (summary table: https://en.wikipedi
| a.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments#Numbering).
|
| Regarding adultery: opinions are divided about what it
| means (already a sign that perhaps such a vague, easily
| misinterpreted passage might not be the eternal perfect
| word of god...). Influent people such as St Paul or
| Calvin say it refers to relations outside a formally
| declared marriage. And citing Corinthians 6:
|
| "Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor
| idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice
| homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor
| drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the
| kingdom of God."
|
| therefore putting thieves and fraudsters in the same
| category as me as a homosexual "adulterer".
|
| > you seem bent on believing despite all evidence to the
| contrary that you alone control the universe
|
| Aaaaaaaaaaaa! The lack of self-awareness is out of this
| world! Precisely _it 's you_ who claim that the universe,
| the stars, all laws of nature, and our own tiny tiny rock
| floating through space, were made for _YOU_ and that YOU
| are the centre of the universe! You can 't get any more
| megalomaniacal than that :)
|
| Here's a suggestion: contemplate this https://upload.wiki
| media.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Pale_Blu...
|
| while listening to this
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F2NeH_-f34
|
| PS:
|
| > If you've ever been part of AA you'd know that
| accepting there is a power other than you in control is
| essential to happiness and satisfaction in life
|
| I had happiness and satisfaction in life when I embraced
| Humanism in detriment of religion. I like the person
| which I am today! So I'm happy for you that you're happy
| with your religion, so long as it doesn't motivate you to
| evil. But please kindly refrain from insulting other
| people who don't share your views.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them
| have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put
| to death; their blood is upon them."
|
| You can't tell me the bibles moral framework is
| reasonable when it says to kill gay people.
| vxNsr wrote:
| Hello red herring, how are you today, no I don't think
| I'll have any, thank you
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Please look deeper into what version of slavery is
| described by the Bible. It's very, very different to
| Southern USA style slavery, and much less cruel. You can
| criticize it all you want, but please don't tar both with
| the same brush.
| andrepd wrote:
| The bible includes god commanding genocidal rape, how the
| poor go into debt bondage or sell their daughters as sex
| slaves, and how beating a slave to death is only allowed
| if he takes more than a day to expire. Thoroughly
| disgusting that you try to wash this.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| There is such a wide gulf between what religious folk
| (well, American religious folk at least) think they
| represent, and how they actually act. E.g. my brother-in-
| law is a devout Christian and is extremely fond of saying
| 'What would Jesus do' and then proceeding to do the
| opposite.
|
| What is tearing apart America right now? Politics? No.
| Evangelical politics. It does not bring stability.
| friedman23 wrote:
| We have countries today that treat women as second class
| citizens and still practice slavery and they can be
| considered "thriving" societies which are completely
| different from the Western world which can also be
| considered to be made up of "thriving" societies.
|
| So if the requirement for a moral system to be "true" is
| for it to result in a thriving society we have a problem
| because we still have competing moral systems.
|
| And even if we somehow whittled down to one global
| system, just because people believe in it doesn't make it
| true (do you need me to provide examples of nearly
| universal beliefs that were proven untrue later?)
| jart wrote:
| When I think of religion in the context of Hacker News I
| think of things like Michael O. Church evangelizing
| functional programming or the people who challenged the
| epistemological paradigm of the cladistics journal which must
| be parsimony. So I feel confused when I see the other kind of
| religion here. One way you could make us feel even more
| uncomfortable is by sharing information we haven't
| considered, like a weakness in a computer system or a
| contradiction in a generally accepted practice.
| kazoomonger wrote:
| It's actually very simple. There is no such thing as
| objective morality. However, social norms are explained by
| people acting in their own rational self-interest. For
| example, I want to live in a society where I don't get
| murdered. Therefore, I want to live in a society that
| criminalizes murder. That's all there is to it. That is your
| "Why?" answered.
|
| To go one step further, the why of questions like "Why don't
| you want to get murdered?" are because I come from a long
| line of organisms that didn't get murdered because of a high
| drive to not get murdered. The ones without that drive got
| weeded out. There's still no morality involved, I just
| axiomatically don't want to get murdered.
| mEATsack wrote:
| > Why is murder evil? Why is stealing evil? Why is anything
| evil or good for that matter?
|
| These are covered by the Universal Declaration of Human
| Rights, Evil in this context is any violation of rights as
| defined by the UDHR
|
| https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-
| huma...
|
| Why resort to a religion when you can have empathy for your
| fellow human, seems like a waste of time :)
| jturpin wrote:
| The UN does not decide what is _evil_ or not, and empathy
| is not some self-evident trait from which all objective
| morality comes from. You could possibly argue that empathy
| is evolutionary and aids society and in that way has some
| objective merit, but the GP is right, we have to accept
| that our moral systems are rooted in some assumptions.
| mLuby wrote:
| > Why is murder evil? Why is stealing evil? Why is anything
| evil or good for that matter? At least religious people have
| answers to these questions.
|
| Hard to answer without first defining evil (ideally avoiding
| Godwin's law).
| hilbertseries wrote:
| It's interesting how you've written so much here and not given
| what concrete example. Makes it very difficult to examine your
| argument, when you simply state that secular ideology is
| religious. I think it's worth noting the definition of secular
| is:
|
| > denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no
| religious or spiritual basis.
| klipt wrote:
| One example I've noticed of a non-religious group acting
| similarly to a religious group is certain very online feminist
| communities.
|
| Instead of original sin, they believe that society hates women,
| and this is the root of all society's problems.
|
| Instead of regular repentance, they advise regularly checking
| your privilege / fighting your internalized misogyny.
|
| Anyone who questions their beliefs must be a heretic who hates
| women and must be cancelled. Etc.
| hpoe wrote:
| Now you're getting it most people need and want something to
| believe in. But because traditional religion isn't
| fashionable they've found their new religion in the church of
| Social Justice.
| pengstrom wrote:
| With the exception of being based on analysis and generally
| welcoming genuine inquiry.
| klipt wrote:
| Any community based on analysis doesn't fall under the set
| I'm talking about.
|
| I'm talking about the kind of people who would look at an
| abused man and assume, a priori, that he did something to
| deserve it, because their worldview precluded the idea that
| anyone other than women can be abused.
| fufmaya wrote:
| Secular beliefs are invariably religious positions.
|
| It comes down to what you believe is axiomatic about the world.
|
| For example, asserting that life is soulless and meaningless is
| to take a stand on something that you cannot know. It's a
| religious position.
|
| All secular beliefs stem from similarly foundationless
| religious positions.
|
| Or maybe not foundationless, but without acknowledgement of the
| religious roots (that is, positions that require faith), which
| is probably worse than acknowledging that the beliefs you hold
| cannot be proven.
|
| It's worse because it leads people to believe they have a leg
| up on those religious clods with their backwards ways. When you
| don't recognize the things you assume about the world require
| faith, there is no corrective mechanism capable of opening your
| mind to other possibilities. Secular people and secular beliefs
| are ironically very close minded.
|
| Take all the things that you believe to be true and work
| backwards to first principles. What are the assumptions that
| those principles require to be true?
| 8note wrote:
| Your soul example is not axiomatic.
|
| The actual axiom is that real things are observable/that
| empiricism is true. That's not even a required secular thing;
| secular folks can believe in souls as well, or be
| rationalists, where what's real does not depend on what you
| can observe.
|
| But for some subset of us, the soul is not measurable, nor
| can youcreate a test to determine whether something has a
| soul or not, so souls do not exist, by comparison to
| something like the electrical charge.
| tonymet wrote:
| Money, medicine, "tolerance", "racism", politically incorrect
| language, natural selection, "the self," public figures (CEOs,
| scientists, figureheads), celebrities, recycling, wearing
| masks, the super bowl, the oscars, the multiverse, the big
| bang, psychotherapy, anti-depressants, over-eating & dieting,
| conspicuous traveling, visiting nature, architecture.
|
| You can throw those into the religious categories e.g. virtue,
| vice, deities, origin story etc.
|
| I should also mention "original sin" - you can guess examples
| of those - in america that would be "racism".
|
| I'm not taking good / bad position just applying religious lens
| to secular lifestyle.
| tonymet wrote:
| and I forgot two qualities that are both states of being &
| virtues: love & happiness.
| Tade0 wrote:
| > I'm not taking good / bad position just applying religious
| lens to secular lifestyle.
|
| I think your way of speaking about this doesn't do them any
| justice.
|
| Frankly, reading those descriptions, I would assume you're an
| atheist.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| These things typically fall under the umbrella of "culture,"
| of which religion is one defining aspect, to greater or
| lesser extents.
| pjc50 wrote:
| ... cheese, machine screws, steering wheel covers, arriving
| on time for appointments, the CIA, and Thursday. Have we left
| anything out?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| kortilla wrote:
| Horses and paper too
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| indymike wrote:
| Many of the things in the secular world must be taken on faith
| (belief absent inassailable truth). Truth is difficult and
| unclear.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Can you give me an example or two to clarify? Many things
| might not be well known to someone, but _could_ be if they
| wanted to track down that information. That 's a little
| different than something which has to be taken on faith by
| _everyone_.
| deertick1 wrote:
| Well the scientific method is fundamentally faith based in
| that we assume that there are immutable properties of
| thebuniverse that can be discovered and that our perception
| allows us to interrogate these properties.
|
| Yes this is a very well corroborated claim, but
| fundamentally faith based nonetheless.
| hooande wrote:
| The difference is that science, by nature, must produce
| testable hypotheses. I don't assume on faith that F=ma. I
| can make a prediction of what the force will be based on
| ma, and then conduct an experiment to see if that's true
|
| I cannot test whether or not I will go to heaven after I
| die. This belief requires faith
| eightysixfour wrote:
| > Yes, this is a very well corroborated claim, but
| fundamentally faith based nonetheless.
|
| This is a really weird statement to me - what is the
| definition of faith that you are working from?
|
| As someone who grew up in an evangelical environment,
| "faith" was the belief in God and his plans ("Have faith
| this will work out, God would only give you what you can
| handle." type of thing). Outside of that context I've
| generally understand it to mean "believing without
| evidence."
|
| A well corroborated claim is the opposite of lacking in
| evidence and does not require belief in God. This sounds
| like you are conflating "belief" and "faith," which are
| not the same. I believe the sun is coming up tomorrow
| because the preponderance of evidence says it will, that
| does not require faith.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Assuming that something is true for constructive
| reasoning purposes is not "faith-based", it is
| probabilistic. I don't have "faith" that the sun will
| rise tomorrow but I assign it a high probability based on
| priors for the purposes of practical reasoning. We
| provisionally accept certain axioms because of their high
| utility but the axioms may be discarded at any time if
| the utility or correctness is in doubt. Non-axiomatic
| reasoning systems are a real thing, we use them in
| computer science.
|
| This entire discussion is predicated on a minimalist set
| of mathematical axioms being valid, but there isn't even
| agreement on what that set of axioms is (though it may
| seem so to a layman). We still manage to get on in the
| world because we can do highly effective utilitarian
| reasoning without that being resolved.
| analog31 wrote:
| I look at it in a different way, like a game. Science is
| not a _belief_ about the properties of the universe.
|
| Rather, science is an _inquiry_ into what can be learned
| about the universe under certain limiting assumptions.
| Like a game, it has certain rules, at least on a
| tentative basis.
|
| To make an analogy, chess seeks to find out what kinds of
| tactics can defeat the enemy's King under assumptions
| about how the Queen can move, but does not imply a belief
| or faith about Queens.
|
| Science doesn't preclude parallel games or fields of
| inquiry being played under different rules, such as the
| theologies of religions, perhaps political ideologies,
| literature, music, and so forth. Some people play
| multiple games at once. My parents were educated in
| theology, but became good scientists. I'm a scientist but
| also a musician.
|
| In my view, the thing that makes science stick out is not
| its relationship to religion, but its success. I think
| that in the 17th century, scholars mostly assumed that
| science would peter out -- it would run into a brick
| wall, or merge with theology. That it has done neither of
| those things could not have been predicted at the time,
| and inspires a certain amount of awe today, as well as an
| attraction to curious minds.
| pengstrom wrote:
| It's a little more insidious than that. The great
| majority of people will never personally replicate a
| finding. They will depend entirely on the honesty
| of/faith in the entire chain between scientist and
| messanger. it just turns out it mostly works.
| hellotomyrars wrote:
| Don't let perfect be the enemy of good?
|
| Also the subject matter is in many cases very different,
| and even if someone doesn't understand the science behind
| something they can observe and see a tangible result.
| parineum wrote:
| The scientific method does not make that assumption. The
| scientific method only assumes/requires that doing the
| same thing exactly the same twice will produce the same
| results. Everything is built on top of that.
|
| > that our perception allows us to interrogate these
| properties.
|
| That's not about science, that's about logic. Anything
| that can interact with people can be detected and
| interrogated. It does not exclude the possibility that
| other things may exist but there is both no way for us to
| interact with those things and, as such, they have no
| relevance to our lives.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| > something which has to be taken on faith by everyone
|
| - corona absolutely can't be a lab leak, and will be banned
| by social media as a conspiracy theory
|
| - flimsy masks and t-shirts prevent the spread of corona
| according to govt. officials
|
| Oh wait ...
| reddog wrote:
| The best example I can think of would be the Chinese cultural
| revolution. Millions killed and hundreds of millions had their
| lives destroyed because they were perceived by the "faithful"
| (by mostly highschool and college age Chinese, not police or
| military) as as not being true to Maos teaching.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| That's pretty easy to understand in terms of power and
| secular belief, I don't see why religion is needed or
| particularly helpful.
| reddog wrote:
| The 30 years war, the 7 years war, the crusades, the
| inquisition, the witch hunts can also be understood in
| terms of power and secular belief. That does not mean they
| were not also powered by religous fervor.
|
| Or the break it down: Mao is the godhead, the little black
| book the scripture, the gang of four the disciples, the 4
| olds the devil, the red guard the clergy and inquisitors,
| communism the religion and promised socialist utopia the
| heaven. Watch some youtube videos of red guard rallies and
| tell me you are not watching a religious service akin to a
| evangelical tent revival.
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27488136.
| pessimizer wrote:
| As religious faith has declined, computers have also gotten a lot
| faster, and there are far fewer three-camera sitcoms being shot.
| Also, the religiously faithful have become a lot more
| ideologically intense. I guess the Civil War and the Cold War
| were a relative time of peace compared to now, when pundits get
| yelled at on twitter.
|
| Liberals (social and economic) continue to fall for the
| moderation fallacy and to cite the law of averages. I guess it's
| just six of one and half a dozen of the other, it'll all come out
| in the wash, and the more things change, the more things stay the
| same.
| TeeMassive wrote:
| It is not the first time that certain ideologies were seen having
| characteristics often associated with religious faith. There this
| French intellectual named Raymond Aron who wrote a book called
| "The Opium of the Intellectuals"
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Opium_of_the_Intellectuals).
| He also used to be a schoolmate of Sarte.
|
| He goes in very great details (although this is hard to read even
| for me as a native French speaker) about how his intellectual
| contemporaries (most of them Marxists) used to believe in the
| same kind of myths that are usually associated with religion. The
| proletariat as a messiah, the Left being the road towards
| Progress and the inevitable fate of Humanity pass to the next
| stage, that in all societies History is unavoidably leaning
| towards the same finality, the State has replaced Providence and
| is seen as a guide that shepherds the people.
| sethc2 wrote:
| This seems counterintuitive to me if we assume a causal
| relationship. I'd imagine lessening religious faith would lessen
| ideological intensity. Then again when it was assumed most people
| were "religious", it meant there was some higher thing than
| ourselves that we shared we could unify on. God however you take
| him, is at least a symbol of something above us, bigger than
| individuals, of an immaterial nature.
|
| With the annihilation of God in the public discourse, we have to
| find something else bigger than ourselves that we can unify
| around on, and the ideological intensity maybe stems from arguing
| what that higher thing is. Is it science, love, security,
| pleasure, freedom? Different people will take on an ideology of
| some sort, and the intensity will because one groups higher thing
| they think is higher than another's. God was the trump card for
| highest before, but now, I'm not sure.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| >The secular world would benefit from adopting more formal
| definitions of their belief system.
|
| Just as the religious world contains Christians, Jews,
| Scientologists, Muslims, Hindus, et cetc" with sometimes
| radically different ideas, the secular world too has a great many
| different people with different belief systems.
|
| >If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you
| don't have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular ideology
| that you have adopted
|
| This is just a sort of tautological argument, wherein you adopt
| that "to be religious" is the same as "to have a belief system".
| Given that axiom, you are right! I'm a fairly militant atheist
| but I have no problem accepting that I have a belief system, an
| imperfect one too. I just don't think there is a god.
| tonymet wrote:
| Atheism is actually polytheistic.
|
| The Gods can be identified by answering these questions: "why
| am I here?", "who am i?", "what should I do?", "what is true?",
| "why should I suffer & die?", "what will happen tomorrow?",
| "who matters more: myself or others?".
|
| The deities of the secular religion would be "the self", your
| parents, "the government/state and its figureheads" , money
| (and the institutions controlling it), the earth / ecology/ the
| environment , "science"
|
| These are deities because they are the object of irrational
| fear, worship, rituals & sacrifice.
|
| To be clear, these gods are also worshiped by formally
| religious people (christians, muslims etc).
| markvdb wrote:
| This could be useful as a metaphor, as an aid for some
| religious people to help them understand atheists and
| agnostics.
|
| Imposing that metaphor as a truth when interacting with an
| atheist is not useful though. If anything, insisting on
| defining an atheist as religious shows an elementary lack of
| respect.
| testplzignore wrote:
| Just because I bathe myself in sheep's blood every time the
| Federal Reserve changes interest rates doesn't mean I think
| they are a god.
| andrepd wrote:
| Infidel! Everyone knows you're supposed to perform ritual
| sacrifice at the next full moon, not bathe in sheep's
| blood.
| Boxxed wrote:
| I'm not entirely sure what you're saying, but it's a little
| bit odd to me that a non-religious person would necessarily
| have an irrational fear of anything you mentioned. Where, in
| your world view, is there room for someone who can think
| critically and make rational decisions? Why must all of these
| totally reasonable things that make up our world be feared?
| tonymet wrote:
| They can also be worshipped / loved.
|
| There could be rational worship & love e.g. loving your
| parents because they care for you and they have direct
| impact over your wellbeing.
|
| Irrational worship/ love is loving and icon or demagogue :
| extreme example being Kim Jong Il - when he is hurt or sad,
| everyone is heart broken.
|
| Even in the free world we worship these demagogues. When
| trump is president many panic, some are elated. When the
| next president comes, the roles reverse some are relieved
| and some are sad.
| foolinaround wrote:
| i found this insightful - that there are also the same set of
| 'gods' for both the religious and the athiest
| mslm wrote:
| You're likely going to get poured with downvotes from the
| large number of atheists that browse this forum, but I
| commend you for the brave comment. Now let me join you.
|
| Effectively, yes, the primary atheist deity is material and
| worldly pleasure. How that's particularly expressed is of
| course different per person, but the core is that the atheist
| follows the deity of their whims.
| 8note wrote:
| Atheism does not imply specific belief in any of those, only
| a lack of belief in God's with specific characteristics.
| trainsplanes wrote:
| A lot of those questions would be answered by "I don't know",
| and I don't know how that could be considered a god or
| similar to religious thinking. "I don't know" is a concept
| religions seek to avoid.
|
| You seem to have some motivation to bring non-religious
| people away from their thinking, or looking down on them in
| some way, and making strange and spurious arguments in order
| to do so.
| mustafa_pasi wrote:
| This is a standard argument most Christians make. It is not
| really true. You do not have to believe anything. You do not
| have to have answers.
|
| Let me give you an analogy. Imagine growing up in a
| militaristic society, and the expectation is that you join
| the military and fight in whatever wars your imperialistic
| country engages in. Now suppose you do not feel like doing
| that. Then your community starts asking you, "but then, if
| you don't fight with us, then who will you fight for?". Do
| you feel in your life that you have to fight for one
| particular empire?
| User23 wrote:
| Atheism is actually a species of the gnostic heresy.
| Absolute certainty of the nonexistence of God is gnosis.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Absolute certainty of the nonexistence of God is
| gnosis.
|
| Absolute certainty of any spiritual truth is gnosis, but
| that of the nonexistence God is not one of the Gnostic
| heresies (which are specific heresies associated with the
| specific Gnostics, not a anything which happens to fit
| the definition of gnosiss.)
| tonymet wrote:
| I think in order to convince yourself to give your life for
| something, you have to have a religious belief in what you
| are making the sacrifice for (greater good, community,
| progeny, greatness of your leader, virtue of your country -
| or for money if you are a mercenary). That would identify
| the god of your religion
| tonymet wrote:
| I think dying for your own children might be the only
| exception
| Thorrez wrote:
| >You do not have to believe anything.
|
| I think part of the confusion is there are multiple
| definitions of "atheist". One definition is someone who
| believes there is no god. That itself is a belief, so in
| that case your description doesn't match atheist. But
| another definition of atheist is someone who lacks a belief
| in god. So then your description would match atheist.
|
| Also there are multiple definition of "agnostic" making the
| situation even more confusing.
| vxNsr wrote:
| In your analogy, by not fighting for the empire you _are_
| making choice, and arguably it's to support the enemy.
|
| But you're missing the larger point he's making and the
| point the article is making, many ppl who claim to be
| atheist do have a belief system, it's simply ill-defined.
| Most atheists arguing in this thread will give answers and
| do think they know the truth (it's that there is no god and
| life is a hedonistic pursuit). And those beliefs build on
| others and are built on by other beliefs/ideas as well.
|
| You're making the same argument many make when trying to
| build on wedge issues: take a tiny portion of a group that
| is in no way representative of the larger group and then
| make generalizations to prove your point.
|
| Aside from you (I'm taking you at your word), I've yet to
| meet an atheist who really had no beliefs.
| xelxebar wrote:
| > This is just a sort of tautological argument, wherein you
| adopt that "to be religious" is the same as "to have a belief
| system".
|
| Not OP, but I think this is a pretty narrow reading of their
| statement. Personally, I read it to be more about value and
| community dynamics.
|
| Institutionalized religions often are very explicit about their
| (supposed) terminal values and arrange social situations to
| explicitly work toward or reinforce those values. I believe OP
| is pointing out that secular groups (at least those within view
| of OP's demographics) mostly fail to have explicitly defined
| value systems.
|
| There is a difference between why we perform and action and the
| reasons we give for performing the same action [citation
| needed]. I think OP suggests that religions have structures
| useful for cognating about the former more sharply than
| secularism does.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| > I believe OP is pointing out that secular groups (at least
| those within view of OP's demographics) mostly fail to have
| explicitly defined value systems.
|
| And there are good reasons for that. The currently dominating
| set of progressive views is inherently dynamic and based on
| the Overton moving in one direction. This is in direct
| opposition to religion where the basic set of values is
| normally fixex, often by a sacred book containing the words
| believed to be spoken by the founder or a deity.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| _I believe OP is pointing out that secular groups (at least
| those within view of OP 's demographics) mostly fail to have
| explicitly defined value systems._
|
| You could say that secular groups may have implicit value
| systems, may even implicitly enforce but because they haven't
| made these values explicit, they allow to explicate, question
| and change them - whereas religion is about maintain an
| explicit and unchanging set of values.
|
| So there's more to the not-explicitness of a secular process
| than "a religion that doesn't say it's a religion".
| lhorie wrote:
| > I believe OP is pointing out that secular groups (at least
| those within view of OP's demographics) mostly fail to have
| explicitly defined value systems.
|
| I read it like that as well. I've seen this idea illustrated
| this way: a kid raised in a religious community gets drilled
| from an early age about morals as an umbrella abstraction (in
| the form of allegories from religious texts), so they don't
| need to be micromanaged about the moral implications of every
| individual scenario under the sun ("don't run in the
| supermarket!", "don't push your sister!", "don't yell in the
| hallway!", etc etc) because they are explicitly exposed to an
| underlying set of values to govern every scenario.
|
| That's is an obviously religious leaning take (I heard it
| from a jewish person, though I'm not jewish myself), but I
| think there's a certain grain of truth in the sense that non-
| religious people don't have a standardized way of talking to
| kids about morals as an umbrella abstraction on a weekly
| basis, in a way that church goers do.
| Haiatu wrote:
| Plenty of people prove this not to be working at all.
|
| Plenty of priests have fucked kids.
|
| Religoius people are often enough the same amount of
| assholes or more. I have not fought over a city for ages
| due to some believe.
| lhorie wrote:
| Religious types often say the same of the non-religious.
| Here's other analogies to illustrate the reductio ad
| absurdum: plenty of people prove school not to be working
| (by getting failing grades, passing by cheating, etc),
| plenty of people prove entrepreneurship not to be working
| (by going bankrupt), etc. All this line of observation
| shows us is that variability exists everywhere.
|
| Something to keep in mind is that religious societies
| have existed for millennia, whereas societies that are
| openly non-religious are a relatively recent development,
| so comparing the two ought to account for a potential
| lack of historical hindsight on one of the sides.
| tonymet wrote:
| > the secular world has many different people
|
| agreed and the world would be more navigable if they adopted
| distinct names, garb & beliefs the way the other religions did.
|
| If you think about it, every thanksgiving debate was really a
| religious debate among people who didn't clarify their
| membership.
| franklampard wrote:
| No?
| kevstermcgee wrote:
| > agreed and the world would be more navigable if they
| adopted distinct names, garb & beliefs the way the other
| religions did.
|
| Athiesm is to religion what not collecting stamps is to a
| hobby. We aren't the ones creating an imagined reality. We're
| just saying until there's substantive evidence to support the
| existence of a deity we probably shouldn't assume one exists.
| mslm wrote:
| That's not the atheism position, inasmuch as religion isn't
| just about belief in a God. It's also about all that's
| implied by that core position, in regards to follow-up
| beliefs and actions.
| syshum wrote:
| The problem with that text book definition of Atheism, or
| Anti-Theist is that the the label of Atheist has taken an a
| life of its own, and the majority of people publicly
| proclaiming themselves to be an "Atheist" do not simply
| seek "evidence to support the existence of a deity", no
| instead they adopt the so called Atheism+ movement that
| incorporates loads of other philosophical and political
| positions into the label of "Atheist". It has become
| decidedly Authoritarian Left in its political positioning,
| so much so that many libertarians that used to proudly use
| the Atheist Label has stopped referring to themselves as
| Atheist
| unishark wrote:
| > Athiesm is to religion what not collecting stamps is to a
| hobby.
|
| I believe the point of the article and discussion is the
| particular atheists "collecting stamps" with more
| ideological ferver than the hobbyists.
| throwamon wrote:
| You imply from your comparison that atheism is [not
| belonging to a group with a shared belief] and then say
| "we" [belong to a group with a shared belief], which is
| clearly self-contradictory. I strongly agree with the first
| part, but not with the second. There are certainly atheists
| who wouldn't agree with what "we" (you) are "just saying".
| pessimizer wrote:
| We, the people who aren't interested in unicorns, are
| rarely mentioned on lists of fantasy fandom although we
| do share the same feelings about a particular element of
| the fantasy genre.
| throwamon wrote:
| I don't see why some see the need to clump people
| together by what they _don 't_ believe in. Atheism isn't
| about "interest" or "feelings", so your comparison
| doesn't hold either. Different people arrive at the same
| conclusions via completely different paths, many not even
| rationally. It's really arrogant to assume atheists are
| superior in this regard (and I'm not saying you said that
| but it's not too hard to infer), and I say that as an
| atheist myself.
| tonymet wrote:
| Atheism believes in many gods
| lhorie wrote:
| > We aren't the ones creating an imagined reality.
|
| One problem I see with this line of thinking is that it's
| often faux intellectualism, in the sense of not even
| attempting to define what a deity is in the first place,
| instead taking the lazy approach of "whatever you think god
| is doesn't exist". What exactly is a deity in the first
| place anyways? Bearded guy in the clouds? A lot of
| christians don't believe in that either. Jesus (i.e. a
| human)? A certain north korean leader that had similar
| godlike fame among followers most definitely existed
| (godhood claims notwithstanding). The holy spirit? Read
| "spirit" as you read "spirit of the law". Some flavors of
| pantheism actually argue that the concept of "an omnipotent
| omnipresent entity that nevertheless grants us free will"
| can be perfectly explained if said entity is the laws of
| physics.
|
| As we can see, there's a pretty big spectrum ranging
| anywhere from strawmen to things that do exist. IMHO,
| proper atheism needs to be able to argue against the entire
| body of theism, not just narrow set of christian beliefs,
| and as such it's a belief system that doesn't fit many
| people. There's agnosticism (basically, "I don't know if
| god exists because the evidence doesn't convince me"),
| which is a much easier belief system to actually defend,
| and which I think describes more accurately the belief
| system that a lot of self-proclaimed atheists actually
| subscribe to.
| trophycase wrote:
| A religious person making a tautological argument!? I'm
| shocked!
| deertick1 wrote:
| An atheist denigrating the intellect of a religious person?!
| I'm shocked.
|
| It is a tautological argument in that it is true absolutely.
| Thats not a bad thing. Any system of belief is fundamentally
| predicated on faith based axioms. E.g. basically everything
| one thinks is "religious" to some degree.
| halfnormalform wrote:
| No intellect was degraded. It was the behavior. Also your
| response is merely an insult followed by 5 unsupported
| statements. Can you try again?
| trophycase wrote:
| You're right about that but I prefer axioms with actual
| explanatory power.
| idiotfinder wrote:
| found one!
| irrational wrote:
| >I just don't think there is a god.
|
| This would be agnostic (militant agnostic?), wouldn't it? I
| think a true atheist would say "I know that there is not a
| god."
| slim wrote:
| Agnostics actually don't think the question of "is there a
| god?" is interesting or can have an answer
| KozmoNau7 wrote:
| Not really.
|
| There are "I know that there is not a god" atheists, those
| are the insufferable unholier-than-thou types like Richard
| Dawkins, who seem mostly interested in provoking religious
| people.
|
| And there are "there is no falsifiable proof at all to
| support the existence of a god" atheists, which are the
| ordinary sensible ones, who don't hate religious people, they
| just don't share their beliefs.
| fighterpilot wrote:
| Dawkins is actually a weak atheist (agnostic atheist), not
| a strong atheist. He thinks an interpersonal God is highly
| improbable, but it's not possible to prove a negative and
| so he doesn't assert that it doesn't exist.
| slibhb wrote:
| Regardless of whether "everyone is religious," everyone
| certainly has revelatory beliefs, i.e. beliefs that were not
| reasoned to.
|
| Christian thinkers have spilled a lot of ink attempting to
| clarify the boundary between reason and revelation whereas, in
| the secular world, many people do not seem to understand that
| many of their beliefs (particularly the foundational ones) are
| revealed.
| Haiatu wrote:
| Non religious people call this 'science'.
|
| 'We' think about the big bang 'we' wrote the book on it.
|
| Religion writes books about 'gods' and repeat stories from
| the past.
|
| Math unites people across the globe. Everyone agrees globally
| on the scientific truth.
|
| I understand that there are plenty of countries which you
| would prefer not to life in but i do believe in my country
| but my country is a good one. We don't kill people anymore
| because they are different than the norm.
| tolbish wrote:
| You are confusing secularism with naturalism.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| As a non-religious person, certainly I understand many of my
| beliefs come from convention or intuition or whatever non-
| rational source, sure.
|
| But I don't have any meta-belief telling me to hold onto
| given beliefs-that-seem-implausible-or-unverifiable because
| I'll be rewarded in the end or because it's a test or
| whatever. I don't continually change whatever belief I know
| is arbitrary but that's because consistency has some utility
| so point remains.
|
| Basically, I have no trouble with non-rational beliefs and
| behaviors. But religious specifically espouses irrationalist
| beliefs - irrationalism being the exhortation to keep,
| cultivate and fixate beliefs beyond the rational.
| Institutions other than religion, various flavors of
| Stalinism say, promote faith, fixating one's beliefs and so-
| forth. I'm against those too. But a wide variety of secular
| belief systems are against the irrationalist approach - some
| versions of liberal religion try to escape it too but as
| people observe, these folks are kind of becoming non-
| religious.
|
| Edit: Just generally, "everything not-wholly-rational is a
| religion" is a slippery argument that's being way-abused in
| this thread.
| simonklitj wrote:
| What is rational? Is not rationality subjective? What you
| might deem irrational others might deem perfectly rational,
| and vice-versa, what you might deem rational others might
| deem quite obviously irrational.
|
| Are we to see experiences as rational explanation of a
| phenomena? Sure, I see and feel a rock, and I verify its
| existence rationally. I smell food and verify its existence
| rationally. What about people experiencing a divine being
| communicating to them, then?
|
| No, we must disregard this as hallucination or a
| psychological problem. Only what we (and by we I mean the
| "educated western world") in our pre-determined frame of
| rationality deem rational can ever be rational, and all
| that falls outside must naturally be considered irrational
| irrespective of its potential rationality in relation to
| other experiences we might call rational.
|
| Really (I think), something being rational is a state of
| mind, a common understanding with our peers. In a church
| most would agree that their belief is rational, not out of
| ignorance (though here you might disagree), but out of
| shared acceptance of a different frame of rationality,
| essentially accepting other experiences as being able to
| feed to rationality than those you might accept.
|
| I guess the point I'm trying to make (and I might be way
| off) is that when you say that religiosity espouses
| irrationalist beliefs, they're irrational to you, within
| your frame of rationalism. To someone else you're the
| ignorant one who's fighting tooth and nail.
|
| Edit: To those down voting I would love to engage further
| in conversation about this!
| jart wrote:
| Rational means you'll make choices that benefit yourself.
| It's one of the core assumptions of game theory,
| economics, and policymaking. All the math breaks as soon
| as that's not the case because irrational is
| unpredictable. What's nice about rational agency is that
| it makes cooperation without hierarchy possible so it's
| been known to rustle the jimmies of the first estate.
| tarsinge wrote:
| > What's nice about rational agency is that it makes
| cooperation without hierarchy possible
|
| And economic liberalism is the belief system that it
| works for the greater good.
| Ieghaehia9 wrote:
| > And economic liberalism is the belief system that it
| works for the greater good.
|
| Perhaps also anarchism, due to its focus on having the
| minimum amount of hierarchy possible.
| irrational wrote:
| Do we want people to make choices that benefit
| themselves? That seems to be the root of so many problems
| in the world. Shouldn't we encourage people to make
| choices that benefit others, benefit the wider community,
| etc.?
| fighterpilot wrote:
| No, we should encourage choices that maximize the benefit
| over all individuals including the person who is making
| the choice. The person making the choice is in no way
| morally less important than others.
|
| We should also avoid thinking in terms of a false
| dichotomy. Most voluntary exchanges and relationships in
| the world are win-win-win, in that both counterparties
| are gaining and the externality is positive. In such a
| context, self-maximizing through profit seeking _is_ the
| choice that maximizes the benefit to others.
|
| What we want to discourage is a much more narrow cone of
| behavior. Corruption. Negative externalities. Things that
| aren't win-win-win.
| jart wrote:
| Of course and one way to do that is by ensuring everyone
| gains. Startups for example create wealth by building
| products that provide a service to their communities.
| Paul Graham talks about this sort of thing on his blog. I
| think that's great even though it's not the case for
| folks in rent-seeking economies with zero-sum games where
| people can only win by making the other guy lose. Would
| you encourage someone in that situation to act against
| their self-interest?
| skissane wrote:
| There are at least two forms of rationality - epistemic
| rationality (aka theoretical rationality), and
| instrumental rationality. Your comment doesn't clearly
| draw the distinction between them.
|
| In the context of discussions about the rationality of
| religious belief, we are primarily talking about
| epistemic/theoretical rationality, although non-epistemic
| rationality does sometimes come up (for example, Pascal's
| wager).
|
| Some people think epistemic rationality can be reduced to
| instrumental rationality, but the philosopher Thomas
| Kelly wrote what is (to me at least) a pretty convincing
| refutation of that viewpoint: https://www.princeton.edu/~
| tkelly/papers/epistemicasinstrume...
| jart wrote:
| I'm familiar with the rationalist movement and all the
| rationalists I've met have been wonderful people with few
| exceptions. I hadn't heard of epistemic rationality, but
| I find it interesting how the LessWrong definition (top
| search result) makes it sound like self-criticism and
| atonement.
| skissane wrote:
| One concern I have is how closely many people associate
| "rationality" with the "rationalist movement" (LessWrong,
| etc). Rationality has been discussed by philosophers for
| well over 2000 years. Aristotle famously declared that
| rationality was the feature that distinguished human
| beings from lesser animals. Most of those philosophers
| had radically different views from those of the
| contemporary "rationalist movement". Even today, many
| thinkers who radically disagree with the "rationalist
| movement" still believe in the importance of rationality,
| they just disagree with the "rationalist movement" on
| what actually counts as "rational".
| jart wrote:
| Well now they get to be a footnote in Plato's Republic.
| I'm not concerned about what people believe. If they want
| to get excited about Bayes theorem then that's great. I'm
| not concerned if people disagree on what it's called or
| how it's defined. Do you think the people who get paid to
| be rational understand rationality? I've seen things like
| software that earned billions in additional revenue get
| rolled back because we couldn't explain how it made
| decisions. The answer is that I don't have the answers
| and no one else does too. What's remarkable is how
| philosophers like Charles Babbage helped us make
| thousands of years of philosophy executable and we've
| unleashed it unto the world. How do we begin to
| understand that let alone explain it to the world?
| Haiatu wrote:
| We actually don't know that:
|
| "What about people experiencing a divine being
| communicating to them, then?"
|
| But we have studied this and the answers tell us what the
| most realistic thing actually is and thats why we see
| 'divine being communicating to them' as a mental illness.
|
| You can expierence this challanging thought yourself by
| taking LSD. Realizing that you are actually know
| everything for a few hours and than getting back to your
| 'normal reality' is exhausting.
|
| But i still don't believe we are all caught on the earth
| and we need LSD to shackle those bounds. I know how many
| people are on the planet, how many people i have seen die
| and leave our planet in the normal rational way. I have
| never ever seen anything which makes me believe otherwise
| and LSD showed me even more how fragile my own reality
| is.
|
| You might want to look in a medical book on different
| topics you refered to to see what you believe.
| Nonetheless its just more realistic that human a had a
| similiar brain issue than all other similiar independend
| cases before than that this person is now talking
| directly to god and we areound us are all dumb shits not
| being able to recognise it.
|
| My default sentence for this is simple: I'm a good
| person, and i don't like the idea very much that there is
| a god who allows cancer in kids and rape from religious
| people and murder etc. and either this god is a massive
| asshole, clearly not relevant enought to woreshop or
| doesn't exist anyway.
| simonklitj wrote:
| I don't know much of the field of rationality, yet I
| can't help but think that you confirm my idea that
| rationality is subjective. You determine rationality
| based on probability, so essentially when you're saying
| something is irrational, you mean it is improbable (or in
| your words realistic).
|
| Taken further, is it not then irrational to think that
| the earth arose out of absolute nothingness, to become
| the perfectly aligned world we know? Is this realistic?
| Is this probable? (Not saying the alternative is
| necessarily more probable, just asking)
|
| As to your default sentence you might want to look into
| the discipline of Harmatiology (the doctrine of sin), for
| you do not understand the commonly held view of
| Christians on this point.
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| Religion, spiritual beliefs, ghosts, lottery ticket
| "investing," superstitions, luck, horoscopes, phobias,
| ritual sacrifices, Capgras delusions/changelings, and faith
| healing are examples of what I categorize as magical
| thinking.
|
| These are the ways of animals who cannot control their
| emotions long-enough to think clearly and honestly between
| banging on bones in front of a monolith.
|
| If the average member of society is ever to progress beyond
| being a bunch of easily-misled rubes herded into tribal
| cult ideological pens, something needs to change where
| decent, intelligent people are lionized over minimally-
| useful celebrities and charlatans.
|
| (The United States was founded by primarily anti-
| intellectual merchants and landowners who scoffed at the
| Old World's stodginess and intellectual pursuits.)
| onion2k wrote:
| _phobias_
|
| That's an odd thing to put in your list. Phobias aren't
| something people choose to believe in. They're
| specifically an irrational, _subconscious_ pattern of
| behaviour. That isn 't a belief.
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| It's only odd for people with external locus-of-control
| magical beliefs that things "just happen" to them.
| Phobias are irrational fears most people choose _not_ to
| overcome. This is in contrast to people who aren 't ruled
| by fear, and confront and overcome their fears.
| Therefore, a lack of agency argument would be moot. And,
| phobias aren't behaviors, they're dysfunctional,
| intrusive, reflex feelings related to particular
| triggers.
| tharkun__ wrote:
| Picking up on the "is there a god" and who believes in it?
|
| I have always wondered how many of the high priests or whatever
| their titles might be in any religion over the millenia (this
| includes Aztecs and Vikings etc) really just saw religion as
| another way of holding power (vs. kings or what have you). I.e.
| "just pretending" to believe and in reality just using it to to
| wield power and influence over people.
|
| Please don't mistake this for saying there aren't very pious
| people in that group. I do not doubt there are. I just wonder.
| Just like there are politicians that truly try and improve
| things and help their constituents and then there are also the
| ones that really just enjoy having the power and that really
| couldn't care less until election time rolls around.
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27488136.
| sethc2 wrote:
| This seems counterintuitive to me if we assume a causal
| relationship. I'd imagine lessening religious faith would lessen
| ideological intensity. Then again when it was assumed most people
| were "religious", it meant there was some higher thing than
| ourselves that we shared we could unify on. God however you take
| him, is at least a symbol of something above us, bigger than
| individuals, of an immaterial nature.
|
| With the annihilation of God in the public discourse, we have to
| find something else bigger than ourselves that we can unify
| around on, and the ideological intensity maybe stems from arguing
| what that higher thing is. Is it science, love, security,
| pleasure, freedom? Different people will take on an ideology of
| some sort, and the intensity will because one groups higher thing
| they think is higher than another's. God was the trump card for
| highest before, but now, I'm not sure what is for most people.
| keiferski wrote:
| If you are interested in this topic, I really cannot recommend
| reading _A Secular Age_ by the philosopher Charles Taylor enough.
|
| It's a huge book but the basic takeaway is this: the modern
| secular world is a thing that was _created_ over the course of
| many centuries and cultural developments. It is not merely the
| _subtraction_ of so-called primitive beliefs. The "subtraction
| thesis" is the predominant model of how most people (and until
| recently, religious scholars) interpreted the secularizarion
| process.
|
| This means that the same basic historical and psychological
| forces are at play, but they've just been morphed and combined in
| different ways. What is truly _new_ about the modern secular
| world is its _immanence_ , which basically just means it is not
| concerned with a "world beyond" this one, and its "cross
| pressures", or the state of being aware of other viable
| alternatives to one's belief system.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Secular_Age
| tonymet wrote:
| I'm concerned of both aspects. For one, thinking that secular
| belief is essential or natural - as if it's defined only by the
| material world and observations on it. Secular belief also
| assumes its universal (why wouldn't it be since we all live on
| the same earth). This leads to totalitarianism (with a small t)
| tolbish wrote:
| That's like saying math leads to totalitarianism (with a
| small t because that sounds more scary) because _some people_
| assume its universal and will therefore kill in its name.
| tonymet wrote:
| But math isn't comprehensive in belief . It's universally
| true but only applied narrowly
| slim wrote:
| It is not concerned about the world beyond, but is concerned
| about the future. That's why it has beliefs too
| kyle_martin1 wrote:
| Wokeism
| [deleted]
| m1sta_ wrote:
| Atheists have faith that there is no supernatural diety.
| gbronner wrote:
| The issue isn't so much that Americans have become less
| religious, it is that many fewer of them were raised in homes
| that had at least one religious parent. the experience of
| practicing a religion, even if you don't believe it, tends to
| protect you from the single minded politics as religion thought
| process
| Ieghaehia9 wrote:
| That theory would suggest that the less religious a country,
| the more religious its politics. But plenty of countries in
| Europe are at least as irreligious as the US[1][2], yet the
| same effect doesn't seem to hold there.
|
| [1] https://www.pewforum.org/2018/05/29/being-christian-in-
| weste... [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-
| tank/2019/12/06/10-facts-ab...
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