As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen • Hacker News Board

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

#121

Post by kazen44 » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 11:12 PM UTC

jltsiren wrote: post #64

FridayoLeary wrote: post #9

>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 Ame…

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 rea…

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).

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

#122

Post by brailsafe » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 11:12 PM UTC

tonymet wrote: post #93

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 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.

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

#123

Post by gameswithgo » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 11:13 PM UTC

>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.

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

#124

Post by skissane » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 11:13 PM UTC

FridayoLeary wrote: post #9

>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 Ame…

> 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.)

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

#125

Post by 13415 » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 11:13 PM UTC

ardit33 wrote: post #40

rejectedandsad wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet people in most of Western Europe (discounting Switzerland and Luxembourg and maybe Norway) are objectively poorer than even the poorest American states.

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…

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.

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

#126

Post by hilbertseries » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 11:14 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #71

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 Swe…

Seems that British nationalism runs pretty deep too, no? How else would you explain brexit?

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

#127

Post by bobthechef » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 11:14 PM UTC

ukj wrote: post #13

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.

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.

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

#128

Post by jandrewrogers » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 11:14 PM UTC

antihipocrat wrote: post #73

FridayoLeary wrote: post #9

>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 Ame…

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.

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.

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

#129

Post by version_five » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 11:15 PM UTC

fatsdomino001 wrote: post #97

bwb wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Canada is about to revert to the mean in a very hard way though, so I wouldn't count on that statistic too much.

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.

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

#130

Post by SubuSS » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 11:15 PM UTC

ardit33 wrote: post #40

rejectedandsad wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet people in most of Western Europe (discounting Switzerland and Luxembourg and maybe Norway) are objectively poorer than even the poorest American states.

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…

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.