As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen • Hacker News Board

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

#691

Post by kazoomonger » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #672

whatshisface wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That's not a good definition of religion. It allows one to sneak in a history-laden term with a relatively innocuous definition, have someone accept the given definition, and the introduce the rest of the history without having to prove it.

For prior art see arguments that "something must be the first mover, and that thing we call God". Curiously, the sudden leap to "therefore the Judeo-Christian deity is proven to exist" keeps getting snuck in there without any extra proof.

In other words, you're attempting to define a term of art using an existing word, and this just obscures the argument because most people will use its common definition, and not the meaning you're defining for it.

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

#692

Post by jakelazaroff » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

Causality1 wrote: post #690

jakelazaroff wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you think sexual harassment at work, child porn, libel and death threats should be legal? You think platforms should take no action against spam, doxxing or revenge porn? Those are all examples of censorship.

Not that I disagree with you, but you're improperly combining the censorship actions of private individuals and of governments. Freedom of speech has never limited what actions private platform holders can take against users.

I agree with that, but rarely do I see the nominally “free speech” crowd on HN make that distinction.

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

#693

Post by Tainnor » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #672

whatshisface wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Mathematics is distinguished by at least two characteristics from religion:

1. Precise definitions

2. Not proven inconsistent

(As for 2, we know we can't prove the bulk of mainstream maths consistent. However, since the crisis triggered after Russell's paradox was discovered and set theory was formalised in a better way, nobody has been able to poke a fundamental hole into current mathematics. Moreover, there are certain subsets of mathematics - say, Presburger Arithmetic - that are provably consistent.)

I have never seen a definition of "God" that is both precise and not self-contradictory.

Conflating mathematics and religion is just disingenuous.

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

#694

Post by vxNsr » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

colinmhayes wrote: post #675

vxNsr wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hello red herring, how are you today, no I don’t think I’ll have any, thank you

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

#695

Post by kian » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 4:58 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #668

_teyd wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 scientific method is just a tool of thought that encompasses one subset of human interests. For example, the scientific method has little to no utility about whether your grandma loves you, or what love is even. Much of a life is built around areas of thought like this. Politics, for example, is mostly preference.

I would highly recommend "A General Theory of Love" as the antidote to belief in the last example you gave. A poetically beautiful book.

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

#696

Post by ithkuil » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

snypox wrote: post #634

ithkuil wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true. But even leaving science aside, and focusing only on non-falsifiable aspects of human ethics, there are many examples such as slavery where Christianity for example has changed over time quite radically (and not even linearly)

I asked about slavery in Reddit's DebateAChristian forum. Most Christians say that those part of the Bible needs to be understood in the context of those times where debt slavery was quite common and not considered evil. So we can't apply today's morality there. Well, at least these were the most common answers I got. There were also a person who told me that what "moral"/"good" means is _completely_ subjective (whic…

FWIW, slavery in antiquity was rarely purely a "racial" thing. You became slave because of losing a war, which often was waged in response to some a refusal to just pay some reason indecent amount of taxes or whatever one side insisted was "due".

Surely all christians today believe that tricking somebody with dubious pretexts into debt-based slavery (as often happens with human trafficking of sex workers, where women have to formally pay up their debts and incurring the costs that they captors incur in hosting them in sub-human conditions).

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

#697

Post by prossercj » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #160

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 –…

> 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,…

How did you acquire the belief that it is better to consider and weigh evidence? And on what scale are you weighing the evidence? And where did you acquire that scale?

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

#698

Post by simonklitj » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

Haiatu wrote: post #508

simonklitj wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is rational? Is not rationality subjective? What you might deem irrational others might deem perfectly rational, and vice-versa, what you might deem rational others might deem quite obviously irrational. Are we to see experiences as rational explanation of a phenomena? Sure, I see and feel a rock, and I verify its existence rationally. I smell food and verify its existence rationally. What about people experienc…

We actually don't know that: "What about people experiencing a divine being communicating to them, then?" But we have studied this and the answers tell us what the most realistic thing actually is and thats why we see 'divine being communicating to them' as a mental illness. You can expierence this challanging thought yourself by taking LSD. Realizing that you are actually know everything for a few hours and than get…

I don’t know much of the field of rationality, yet I can’t help but think that you confirm my idea that rationality is subjective. You determine rationality based on probability, so essentially when you’re saying something is irrational, you mean it is improbable (or in your words realistic).

Taken further, is it not then irrational to think that the earth arose out of absolute nothingness, to become the perfectly aligned world we know? Is this realistic? Is this probable? (Not saying the alternative is necessarily more probable, just asking)

As to your default sentence you might want to look into the discipline of Harmatiology (the doctrine of sin), for you do not understand the commonly held view of Christians on this point.

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

#699

Post by Tainnor » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

tonymet wrote: post #442

rootusrootus wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this. It seems like OP taking the position that everyone is in fact religious, even when they say they are not. This is a position I see many religious people take, and I completely disagree with the premise. I also don't really consider myself an atheist, either. Ignostic is accurate. Maybe that's worse ;-)

I'm trying to convince secular people, especially atheists, that they are in every way religious. That most of their beliefs are taken on faith. They have a value system of virtue and vice (usually implied), and they have deities ( forces, persona & phenomena that affect their life in a supernatural way).

Well, you're wrong.

A value system is not a set of beliefs. I think it's important to treat people fairly. But I don't believe that the "universe" or whatever cares about fair treatment of people. What matters to me personally or what I find ethical has nothing to do with any sort of deep truth about the world. I like ice cream, that doesn't mean that I ascribe any metaphysical importance to the taste and texture of ice cream.

I also don't have "deities" or anything that affects my life in a supernatural way, and I'm not sure what gave you the idea that secular people (in general) do - maybe you talked to a bunch of esoteric-minded people, or to the kind of environmentalist that turns nature into some sort of mystical deity, but that's not every secularist (nor every environmentalist).

Maybe you should try talking to actual atheists instead of strawmanning them.

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

#700

Post by mensetmanusman » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

kwinten wrote: post #516

tonymet wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you believe that becoming religious made you smarter / more aware As in it's equipped me with mental models to understand which components of secular life are acts of faith & ritual vs reason. > 'secular world' is perhaps not as centrally organised as you may believe or wish for Nor is it uniform. But there are some overt and some covert aspects. the covert forces benefit from being nebulous. One reason religion…

> The secular world is applying all sorts of demands & social pressures on you, and there's no way to oppose them, because secular ideology doesn't have an identity, an institution or value system open to attack. It's like fighting smoke or a swarm of bees. That's because there is no such thing as "secular ideology". It's a meaningless phrase.

There is such a thing if one delves into definition of ideology. Depending on the definition, there either is or is not such a thing.