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

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

#731

Post by greycol » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 10:20 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #701

_teyd wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Well, things I think about: -this ‘Universe’ (seems to me) is so incredibly intelligible and information rich (information theory rise, e.g. entropy timeline of the observable universe). -there seems to be something rather than nothing -there doesn’t seem to be anything that happens without a cause (except, it seems to me, our will). These seem to be important data points… :)

The problem is your clear and measurable points don't actually point to a god. If you see some meaning in them that enriches your life that's great but they don't really count as evidence to those outside your religion (except perhaps when they also claim it as 'evidence' of their flavour of goddess).

1. Your brain/body evolved to interpret this richness in a universe that is unintelligible to us a conscious brain that evolved in that universe would almost certainly view those unintelligible to us rules as intelligible lest there be no purpose to that consciousness. Our brains also quite demonstrably processes unintelligible (to us) things as intelligible when they are not.

2. This is true in any universe where someone is around to point out that something exists and is a priori with or without creator beings.

3. Our will is either deterministic (happens with a cause) or it is not. In the case that it is deterministic we can ignore this example (which personally is my view). In the case it is not then the non deterministic part is reduced to the result of quantum coin flips altering the result in the larger scale world. Assuming so there are two possibilities either everything else is also happening at that level without a cause (which is counter to your point that it is only will that behaves this way) or the quantum coin flips are in some way deterministic which means so is will.

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

#732

Post by FridayoLeary » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 10:21 PM UTC

rsj_hn wrote: post #406

betterunix2 wrote: post #390

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." Just want to point out that Jewish apologetics is not the same as Christian apologetics. Christian apologists are working in furtherance of the Christian goal of converting everyone to Christianity. Jewish apologists are working only to prevent other Jews from being swayed by the…

> Jewish apologists are working only to prevent other Jews from being swayed by the arguments made by other religions (primarily those from Christian missionaries, who often target Jews specifically). The Judaism when the Talmud was written was a fanatically proselytizing sect, as is clear if you read the talmud. They created seed outposts all over the Roman empire of new converts, as they sought (and obtained) speci…

>This missionary program was so successful that much of the Talmud was written by the children of new converts, in new communities all over the Roman Empire

Demonstrably nonsense. They were clearly written in Israel and Persia (latterly). Little is mentioned of communities elsewhere.

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

#733

Post by FridayoLeary » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 10:23 PM UTC

sharikone wrote: post #518

rsj_hn wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Jewish apologists are working only to prevent other Jews from being swayed by the arguments made by other religions (primarily those from Christian missionaries, who often target Jews specifically). The Judaism when the Talmud was written was a fanatically proselytizing sect, as is clear if you read the talmud. They created seed outposts all over the Roman empire of new converts, as they sought (and obtained) speci…

I am curious to know what part in the Talmud refer to proselytizing. The passage you cite refers to a gentile that wants to convert , not a tentative at active pproselytizing

Not only that, he was previously rejected by another Rabbi.

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

#734

Post by simplify » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 10:29 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #730

simplify wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's useful to blame consciousness in the context of this thread. Why not keep going and blame the big bang for the mass shooting in Austin yesterday morning? Technically true, but not useful to point out. Additionally, you're assuming there is such a thing as objective reality. Your 1+1=2 example is based on manmade axioms. It's not an objectively true statement, it's a conclusion based on an approxima…

I think of it much as you might when debugging a systems problem: it seems to me that the nature of consciousness is likely the least distant and most impactful entity that we are able to exert influence upon. I do indeed assume there is an objective reality, as it seems you do (or did) as well. Something I find very interesting about this theory is that it regularly invokes a solipsism response when someone is expos…

The reason I point out the problem of objective reality is your comment of "is this almost certainly an objectively and comprehensively true statement? I suspect not". Perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying. In fact I don't think I understood the point you were trying to make at all. Not being snarky, I'm just now confused.

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

#735

Post by orestarod » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 10:37 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #727

mensetmanusman wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ 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…

> free will, which is, by any interesting definition, a supernatural entity How so? I can think of at least one interesting definition by which free will is a perfectly good physical process going on in human brains, not supernatural at all.

Free will implies non determinism, that is the important part.

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

#736

Post by orestarod » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 10:44 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…

Religious people asking others to judge the Word Of God by whatever standards humans happened to have at the time the books were written is an implicit acceptance that their religion is completely made up. What happened, God Changed their mind in the meantime?

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

#737

Post by mistermann » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 10:54 PM UTC

simplify wrote: post #734

mistermann wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think of it much as you might when debugging a systems problem: it seems to me that the nature of consciousness is likely the least distant and most impactful entity that we are able to exert influence upon. I do indeed assume there is an objective reality, as it seems you do (or did) as well. Something I find very interesting about this theory is that it regularly invokes a solipsism response when someone is expos…

The reason I point out the problem of objective reality is your comment of "is this almost certainly an objectively and comprehensively true statement? I suspect not". Perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying. In fact I don't think I understood the point you were trying to make at all. Not being snarky, I'm just now confused.

I was being extremely precise (because I believe the problem is extremely important).

So, my interpretation of "Tribalism is the underlying cause of most of humanity's bad behavior", focuses on the words "the" and "most", as well as the general idea of what ails humanity. I would say that this aspect is extremely truthy and extremely important, but I believe it is even more true that the particulars of consciousness itself is THE root cause of all the world's problems...and not just in a "well duh, no shit" sense, but in a this is where humanity should be focusing its very best minds sense. I believe the problem is blatantly obvious and well known, but for some reason we seem unable to take it seriously.

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

#738

Post by xinniethepooh » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 11:03 PM UTC

throwaway210222 wrote: post #603

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. There is no mechanism by which the ABSENCE of a belief in your parent's invisible sky wizards becomes just evidence of an alternative belief system. Not believing in the tooth fairy does not make my understanding and endorsement of say, the periodic table, an equivalen…

I'm always amazed when people bring up things like "the tooth fairy", "magical sky wizard", "flying spaghetti monster" as some sort of intellectual taunt to show the ridiculousness of somebody's belief.

It's the Dunning-Kröger in action; people like you believe that somehow our universe, reality, the nature of humans, are perfectly definable. What you're not realizing is that the concept of God goes beyond any attempt to rationalize; I don't use rationalize in the context you're thinking, but in the mathematical concept of rationality. Language, how we code information into words, is based upon rational polynomials whose coefficients and values take on the alphabet; binary systems being something you may be familiar with. As soon as you codify 'God' as something rational ('sky wizard?') you imply a limit and impose boundaries on a limitless and indescribable entity.

But if you're trying to just mock people for believing something you don't understand, that's fine too, I've always found the most insecure and least intellectual to be the ones that try to show others how "smart" they are.

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

#739

Post by mensetmanusman » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 11:35 PM UTC

greycol wrote: post #731

mensetmanusman wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, things I think about: -this ‘Universe’ (seems to me) is so incredibly intelligible and information rich (information theory rise, e.g. entropy timeline of the observable universe). -there seems to be something rather than nothing -there doesn’t seem to be anything that happens without a cause (except, it seems to me, our will). These seem to be important data points… :)

The problem is your clear and measurable points don't actually point to a god. If you see some meaning in them that enriches your life that's great but they don't really count as evidence to those outside your religion (except perhaps when they also claim it as 'evidence' of their flavour of goddess). 1. Your brain/body evolved to interpret this richness in a universe that is unintelligible to us a conscious brain th…

Your third point on will is interesting.

There is a lot of work in the social sciences showing that whether one asserts there is free will or not (as you allude to) is correlated heavily towards belief in God.

If there is no free will, it is interesting that the universal laws of Physics would create clouds of atoms that assert there is a God :)

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

#740

Post by Tainnor » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 11:39 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #725

Tainnor wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cer…

Sorry if it seemed like I was conflating the two, I was just trying to compare one facet of each. My use of the word ‘like’ was supposed to be an allegorical one. (Assuming, by conflate, it is the combining two into one, per definition). ‘God is Love’ doesn’t seem contradictory.

> ‘God is Love’ doesn’t seem contradictory

That's because it doesn't mean anything.