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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

#341

Post by brightball »

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 –…

When I finally sat down and read the entire Bible, one thing that jumped out at me again and again is how often it warns against idolatry.

When you start to see the level of obsession people have over certain topics, it’s hard to call it anything else.

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

#342

Post by pengstrom »

klipt wrote: post #217
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 ha…

With the exception of being based on analysis and generally welcoming genuine inquiry.

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

#343

Post by lisper »

beaconstudios wrote: post #307
lisper wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think most people would think of puddles as having telos. Telos goes beyond what is and looks at purpose and meaning in terms of what ought to be. Puddles don't really have a purpose in that sense, and neither does evolution. Puddles fill voids, not because that's their purpose, but simply because that's what happens when you have water, gravity, and the right kind of void. Likewise for evolution. I know some…

My understanding is that telos is about the final configuration of something, the outcome of it, as well as its goals in the human sense, and that these two ideas are covered by the concepts of intrinsic and extrinsic telos. Extrinsic telos, as in human purposive use, isn't what I was talking about - I meant intrinsic telos, the settled state that a system will reach if left to its own devices. If you leave rain to i…

I refer you to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telos

"Telos [refers] to the full potential or inherent purpose or objective of a person or thing,[2] similar to the notion of an 'end goal' or 'raison d'être'. Telos is the root of the modern term teleology, the study of purposiveness or of objects with a view to their aims, purposes, or intentions."

Puddles don't have aims, purposes, or intentions.

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

#344

Post by 8note »

FpUser wrote: post #193
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.

As long as you try to starve your neighbor, get him sick, then take his land, you'll be properly Canadian

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

#345

Post by friedman23 »

rsj_hn wrote: post #333
colinmhayes wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have spent millenia thinking about rational answers to those questions. It's easy enough to find answers, but much like with religion there is no consensus. The answers follow a much more rigorous logic then "god said so" though. I'm not a moral nihillist because that's not a thing, but I am a moral anti-realist because it's clear that there are no intrinsic moral laws. It's all preference based.

It is not all preference based, as very few moral systems lead to thriving societies that are stable and able to self-reproduce rather than collapsing back into chaos. In fact, almost none do. Take a look at the ten commandments. "Honor thy father and mother so that it may be well with you and you may live long in the land". What happens when generation n+1 thinks they are morally superior to generation n? The same a…

We have countries today that treat women as second class citizens and still practice slavery and they can be considered "thriving" societies which are completely different from the Western world which can also be considered to be made up of "thriving" societies.

So if the requirement for a moral system to be "true" is for it to result in a thriving society we have a problem because we still have competing moral systems.

And even if we somehow whittled down to one global system, just because people believe in it doesn't make it true (do you need me to provide examples of nearly universal beliefs that were proven untrue later?)

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

#346

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#347

Post by ytwySXpMbS »

tzs wrote: post #175
skissane wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many would argue that Brexit was more about English nationalism than British nationalism. What makes the UK very complex is the coexistence of two layers of national identity – British layered over English, Scottish, Welsh, (Northern) Irish. Which layer a person identifies with is very often determined by their politics, and sometimes also by religious/cultural background. (British vs Irish identity in Northern Irela…

Would it have better fit in with those layers if instead of voting on the UK leaving the EU they had instead voted on England leaving the UK?

I don’t think England would ever leave the UK, as English people view England as the main UK country. Also, the EU has been blamed for decades as a scapegoat, whereas the UK definitely hasn’t.

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

#349

Post by _-david-_ »

8note wrote: post #297
_-david-_ wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individuals, including religious people, frequently change their mind. Have you never met a person who used to be religious, and I am not just talking about raised religiously but actually believing, lose their faith? The idea that religious people are religious just because they don't want to change their views is ridiculous.

Apostasy is a death penalty offence for some religions, and the cause of a fair number of wars in other religions. Its certainly frowned upon in general

I am talking about religion in general in the West (since that is what the article is about). People frequently stop being Christian for example.

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

#350

Post by 8note »

grecy wrote: post #308
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…

One political party in Australia tried to adopt this and starting calling people "un-Australian". The leader of the other party stood up and tore him to shreds, saying that the magic of Australia is that it's a country of immigrants and that by very definition, everyone there is Australian . It's perfectly fine to disagree about stuff and have discussions, but we're all still Australian. Anyone who says otherwise is…

That's very unfortunate for the indigenous folks, being left out if the country's definition
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