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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

#561

Post by posix_me_less »

opportune wrote: post #382
tonymet wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you , and have been influenced by Zizek. We assume religions are primitive , but it’s likely that they are advanced stages of earlier ideologies. I’m expecting contemporary / secular ideology to evolve into a formal religion with canon , priesthood etc

Arguably that already exists in the form of politics/government, corporations, the military. Based on my opinion that religion requires a belief in supernatural events, I would not call those religion per se. Definitely dogmatic. I think the parallels come from the tendency for human organizations to all take essentially the same structure, if you squint.

> politics/government, corporations, the military.

+political factions +institutionalized science +media

They all tell us what to think, "trust us we did and will do the hard thinking for you".

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

#562

Post by watwut »

_teyd wrote: post #539
coldtea wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, people don't acquire the beliefs by considering and weighing evidence; they acquire them by being told them, usually at a young age, by people they trust, and making them part of their identity. That's why people are so resistant to changing such beliefs. Second, the set of beliefs acquired in this way is not just a few isolated ones, but a whole network of beliefs that cover every aspect of life and are all…

This idea that science and technology is just another random religion is so frustrating, but I encounter it online way more often than I would expect. I don’t need to personally review and understand the details of why electricity and the internet work, because I am literally typing this message on an electronic device and sending it via the internet. No faith needed, and anyway.. I can go build a simple computer and…

The argument is not that the science is same as religion.

The argument is that individuals dont rationally objectively verify or figure out every experiment and scientific claim. I stead, we all rely on trust to institutions and processes to tell us how it is.

Which is how it is. Most people dont even know how science actually work beyond elementary school level of simplification. And even if you actually do science as a job, you know only small part of it relying on trust everywhere else.

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

#563

Post by amatic »

pdonis wrote: post #470
coldtea wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, people don't acquire the beliefs by considering and weighing evidence; they acquire them by being told them, usually at a young age, by people they trust, and making them part of their identity. That's why people are so resistant to changing such beliefs. Second, the set of beliefs acquired in this way is not just a few isolated ones, but a whole network of beliefs that cover every aspect of life and are all…

> Those two hold for, say roughly, 90% of what most people believe, secular or not See my response to tonymet upthread. > Even most scientific theories people believe, they haven't examined and are incapable of following their theories and experiements personally - they were just being told they are truth and they trust it to be so. For some theories that are called "scientific", yes, this is true--but that's because…

> for scientific theories that actually have practical impacts, you don't have to just accept what scientists say on trust; you can look at their track record of correct predictions

What do you think of economic theories or theories behind psychotherapy? Lot's of real world impact, low confidence in experiments, imo

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

#564

Post by dgb23 »

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 –…

The same cognitive defense mechanism that prevents me from being religious (which I wanted, tried but couldn’t) also prevents me from adopting ideology.

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

#565

Post by fighterpilot »

keiferski wrote: post #455
throwaway34241 wrote: post #116

The themes here remind me of another politics-is-the-new-religion article by David French, "America Is in the Grips of a Fundamentalist Revival". [1] In it he draws a distinction between religion and fundamentalist religion (which the author has a background with), with a key quality of the latter being a lack of a sort of humility, a certainty that they're right. Which in turn leads them to be less tolerant of oppos…

Phyllis Tickle wrote a book on this about a decade ago. Her argument is that every ~500 years there is a major shakeup in the Christian world, and we’re in the midst of one right now. https://www.amazon.com/Great-Emergence-How-Christianity-Chan... This post explains it well: https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/are-we-in-a-500-year-reli...

What's the proposed mechanism behind the 500-year periodicity? Without a plausible mechanism it's hard to take seriously.

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

#566

Post by andrepd »

vxNsr wrote: post #423
andrepd wrote: post #383

The ten commandments have things to say about working on Saturdays or fucking people whom you have not married, but don't have a word on the topic of slavery (in fact it is amply condoned in the Bible, incl. by Jesus, together with myriad other atrocities). This is trash morality which you should have zero respect for. It's only understandable if you take it for what it really is: Bronze age Middle-Eastern mythology.…

> fucking people whom you have not married, This is false, it says don't covet your neighbors wife. > working on Saturdays This has been shown time and again to boost productivity immensely to say nothing for mental health. You seem to have a bone to pick but don't understand the thing you're arguing against.

Oh, I understand alright, it's you that are already set on a conclusion and then pretend to be discussing it.

> false, it says don't covet your neighbors wife.

It says "don't commit adultery" too. Like I say, god almighty creator of heavan and earth and the whole universe has things to say about me and my gf fucking before we're married. I call bullshit :)

And the "dont't covet" verse is also great: don't covet your neighbour's property (already this is problematic but okay), which includes: cattle, his donkey, his wife, or his servants.

I don't want to worship a set of commandments that puts people on the same footing as oxen. In repeat: disgusting morals which ought to be worth zero to a civilized person.

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

#567

Post by andrewclunn »

dgb23 wrote: post #564
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 –…

The same cognitive defense mechanism that prevents me from being religious (which I wanted, tried but couldn’t) also prevents me from adopting ideology.

I very much doubt this. 99 times out of 100 someone who says they are a-political, ascribe to some form of moral relativism, or don't have an ideology, very much are, aren't, and do. They either:

1) Lack the introspection to see it and are unaware of what they take on faith. 2) Are knowingly lying in order to appear more open minded than they are. 3) Are actively undergoing a crisis of faith period in their life where they are looking for a new foundation to replace one that has recently failed them.

Put some skin in the game. Own your assumptions.

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

#568

Post by Barrin92 »

I think the real issue is laid out at the end

>"If matters of good and evil are not to be resolved by an omniscient God in the future, then Americans will judge and render punishment now. We are a nation of believers. If only Americans could begin believing in politics less fervently, realizing instead that life is elsewhere. But this would come at a cost—because to believe in politics also means believing we can, and probably should, be better"

I think the author is part of a group of largely public intellectuals in the US who have subscribed to the theory of "religion is the opium of the people, but that's a good thing".

Yes, the loss of religion does away with a glue that in some sense kept a sort of false peace intact. Injustices can no longer be explained away with metaphysical explanations, superficial alliances under the banner of faith cannot be maintained. The people who stand to lose from this are the kind of people who write these op-eds. People who benefit from delaying conflict. The people who stand to benefit from the loss of religion are the people who need some justice in this world, not in the next one.

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

#569

Post by euph0ria »

rsj_hn wrote: post #451
betterunix2 wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proselytizing is not forbidden. It is also not required, and for all that proselytizing activity of the ancient rabbis there is very little in the Talmud that actually discusses seeking out converts and Jews are not actually required to do so. The New Testament makes proselytizing a requirement for every Christian (the Great Commission). Likewise, Christians are called on by the New Testament to engage in apologetics…

> Proselytizing is not forbidden. It is also not required, Very few religions require proselytizing. I think Mormons are expected to go on missionary trips, but that's all I'm familiar with. In most religions, missionaries are selected from the group and sent out, so the job of proselytizing is a corporate, not personal job, and the role of "missionary" can mean anything from establishing universities and hospitals i…

I do think that Jehova's Witnesses requires it of their members. At least previously I believe they were required to do X hours every Y period.

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

#570

Post by Retric »

lolinder wrote: post #371
Retric wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropping the end of that quote completely changes the meaning it’s. "the part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind" It’s a separate idea from simple questions of the afterlife. Buddhism is really interesting here because there was such a wide range of different beliefs involved some of which fit that idea and others don’t. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhis…

It doesn't completely change the meaning, it drops a subset of the meaning. Eschatology encompasses both types of ends. The OP seemed under the impression it only involved the end of the universe/world.

AND is not OR, but I understand your confusion.
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