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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

#671

Post by mensetmanusman »

_teyd wrote: post #619
foolinaround wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the person of faith would also counter you with 'overwhelming evidence' of what God is doing for him... sometimes, this evidence is just subjective, at other times, it is clear and can be measured. Another analogy that I have heard is that 'magic' is when one is just wowed by what they see without being able to understand how it happens. Apple products bring that 'magic' though it can all be explained away in technic…

What is the (sometimes) clear and measurable evidence of what god has done for someone?

For some, it is clear that this brief moment of consciousness is an amazing gift.

Soon our bodies will go back to the dust that we began as:)

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

#672

Post by mensetmanusman »

whatshisface wrote: post #149
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. Open to talking about it, sure, but the crucial element that separates apologetics from real debate is that one side is forbidden from changing their mind. In religion there is a rule overshadowing the exchange of ideas that says, "no matter how convinced you are, or how weak your…

This might not be true. Most religious people change their beliefs.

A religion is a set of assertions or axioms that, like any mathematical or logical system, cannot ever be proven or disproven (by their very definition).

When one goes about living one’s life, they require life experiences that guide them one way or the other.

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

#673

Post by mensetmanusman »

whatshisface wrote: post #491
_-david-_ wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes they do it, but that's clearly against the rules of their religion. You can only decide that a religion is not true while not practicing that religion, because curiously they all have the same virtue-associated principle of never reaching that conclusion.

I would be curious if you could find a rule book that says you must believe this rule book.

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

#674

Post by jjk166 »

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.

I've been told bad things would happen to me if I stick my head in a hungry lion's mouth. I've never tried it to verify. Is not-sticking-my-head-into-the-mouth-of-a-hungry-lionism a religion?

There is a difference between belief and faith.

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

#675

Post by colinmhayes »

vxNsr wrote: post #650
andrepd wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's some major projection going on here. You're wrong again, both with your interpretations and what it means to worship something. Let's unpack: adultery in this context doesn't mean premarital sex, it means sex with someone who is already married. And in the context of the bible, you are likely married to your gf so actually you're already keeping this one, good job! > And the "dont't covet" verse is also great…

"If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them."

You can't tell me the bibles moral framework is reasonable when it says to kill gay people.

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

#676

Post by guntars »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #662
pdonis wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

“ 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.” Interestingly, this also describes all of math, logic, and philosophy. One of the more interesting axioms or assertions is whether there exists free will, which is, by any interesting definitio…

> Interestingly, this also describes all of math, logic, and philosophy.

Which is totally fine, as long as people accept that God exists the same way math exists.

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

#677

Post by kazoomonger »

friedman23 wrote: post #293
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…

> usually start from an assumption that the core tenets are more or less true. You use this as a criticism of religion but I find it's true of secular people as well who have baseless beliefs that are just as deeply ingrained. Telling someone on hackernews you are religious you will probably get a ton of criticism and downvotes. You know what will get the same reaction? Telling someone you are a moral nihilist. Why i…

It's actually very simple. There is no such thing as objective morality. However, social norms are explained by people acting in their own rational self-interest. For example, I want to live in a society where I don't get murdered. Therefore, I want to live in a society that criminalizes murder. That's all there is to it. That is your "Why?" answered.

To go one step further, the why of questions like "Why don't you want to get murdered?" are because I come from a long line of organisms that didn't get murdered because of a high drive to not get murdered. The ones without that drive got weeded out. There's still no morality involved, I just axiomatically don't want to get murdered.

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

#678

Post by antiterra »

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 don’t see it as a fault that we can retarget our believer minds to reinforce a secular worldview. Nature itself can foster a sense of humility and wonder. We can have faith in the fundamental laws of physics. We can recognize that our remote existence suggests we should take care of each other. We can recognize that we cannot fully remove bias or error in our observation and conclusions in the same way someone religious might believe we all are imperfect and sin.

Even so I am far less dogmatic in my worldview and conclusions than I ever was a religious person. To imply that my lack of religion is somehow a religion itself just hilariously misses the point.

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

#679

Post by hackyhacky »

remarkEon wrote: post #667
hackyhacky wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's certainly the way Fox News tries to portray secularism. In my experience, it has no basis in reality.

There has to be a name for the rhetorical strategy that goes something like "your opinions or observations are sufficiently similar to media_influencer_I_dont_like regardless of their actual origin, and thus I'm able to discount what you are saying outright". Every time this topic comes up, even when it's in a more interesting and philosophical thread like this one, the Fox News bogyman always gets trotted out. TFA i…

You are misinterpreting my comment. I am discounting their comment because it does not correspond to my experience at all, not because it comes from Fox News. I am, instead, using Fox News to possibly explain the origin of that opinion, since it certainly cannot come from observation of reality.

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

#680

Post by _teyd »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #671
_teyd wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the (sometimes) clear and measurable evidence of what god has done for someone?

For some, it is clear that this brief moment of consciousness is an amazing gift. Soon our bodies will go back to the dust that we began as:)

I agree, but how do you measure that though? Or prove that it isn’t an incredible thing regardless of if it was given to you by god?
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