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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

#191

Post by pdonis »

tonymet wrote: post #170
pdonis wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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.

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

#192

Post by IggleSniggle »

jeofken wrote: post #145
jltsiren wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

Ah, yes, the “Daughters of the American Revolution” types.

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

#193

Post by FpUser »

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…

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.

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

#194

Post by sudosteph »

> 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.

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

#195

Post by pjc50 »

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…

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.

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

#196

Post by rootusrootus »

indymike wrote: post #157
hilbertseries wrote: post #120

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.

Many of the things in the secular world must be taken on faith (belief absent inassailable truth). Truth is difficult and unclear.

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.

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

#197

Post by skissane »

Clewza313 wrote: post #188
skissane wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Australia, like the US, is an immigrant nation, you can move there from anywhere and be considered an Australian within a generation.

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

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

#198

Post by pdonis »

tonymet wrote: post #170
pdonis wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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.

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

#199

Post by sidlls »

> 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.

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

#200

Post by Clewza313 »

skissane wrote: post #197
Clewza313 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia, like the US, is an immigrant nation, you can move there from anywhere and be considered an Australian within a generation.

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 discussi…

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.
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