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As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

theatlantic.com

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

#161

Post by franklampard »

tonymet wrote: post #156
gameswithgo wrote: post #123

>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 rec…

> 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.

No?

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

#162

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

__s wrote: post #131
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 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…

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.

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

#163

Post by trophycase »

gameswithgo wrote: post #123

>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 rec…

A religious person making a tautological argument!? I'm shocked!

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

#164

Post by jeofken »

whatshisface wrote: post #153
jeofken wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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).

You are correct in that this difference between settler and immigrant is a gradient, but outside of programming few things are simply yes/no

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

#165

Post by redisman »

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.

It’s spiritual, not psychological. I guess there are some connections between those two though

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

#166

Post by smoldesu »

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 –…

> 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.

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

#167

Post by tonymet »

brailsafe wrote: post #122
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.

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.

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

#168

Post by whatshisface »

jeofken wrote: post #164
whatshisface wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

You are correct in that this difference between settler and immigrant is a gradient, but outside of programming few things are simply yes/no

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?

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

#169

Post by zxzax »

beaconstudios wrote: post #158
zxzax wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

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 T…

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.

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

#170

Post by tonymet »

pdonis wrote: post #160
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 –…

> 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,…

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.

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