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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

#271

Post by memling »

fufmaya wrote: post #253
CyberDildonics wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 exception…

> 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?

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

#272

Post by wturner »

wyager wrote: post #32
wturner wrote: post #3

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.

The “science” most people believe (more accurately called scientism) is an aspect of the state secular religion.

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. :)

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

#273

Post by wolfretcrap »

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 –…

From my person experience, religious people have scammed/hurt me to the most in life and business.

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

#275

Post by mrwnmonm »

mrwnmonm wrote: post #215

I don't think religion is declining at all.

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.

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

#276

Post by Boxxed »

tonymet wrote: post #211
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),…

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?

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

#277

Post by foolinaround »

tonymet wrote: post #211
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),…

i found this insightful - that there are also the same set of 'gods' for both the religious and the athiest

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

#278

Post by tonymet »

sidlls wrote: post #199

> 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 hav…

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.

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

#279

Post by [deleted] »

freshhawk wrote: post #25

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 affiliati…

[deleted]

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

#280

Post by tasogare »

> 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.

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