Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 823 posts

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

#211

Post by tonymet »

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…

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).

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

#212

Post by Brakenshire »

pjc50 wrote: post #195
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.

That test is basically just memorising a leaflet of facts and figures. It’s not to be taken seriously one way or the other.

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

#213

Post by thegrimmest »

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 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.

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

#214

Post by FpUser »

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.

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.

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

#216

Post by fighterpilot »

rogerkirkness wrote: post #23
briefcomment wrote: post #17

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.

I've come to terms with this by denouncing morals and focusing on ethics.

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.

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

#217

Post by klipt »

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.

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.

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

#218

Post by randompwd »

skissane wrote: post #124
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…

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.

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

#219

Post by deertick1 »

trophycase wrote: post #163
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!

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.

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

#220

Post by Shorel »

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 –…

> 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.

Post reply on HN