Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

781–790 of 823 posts

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

#781

Post by pdonis »

simonh wrote: post #593
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,…

>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. I've come across countless counter-examples to this in my life. A lot of the socialists/Marxists I've known come from relatively well of conservative famili…

> A lot of the socialists/Marxists I've known come from relatively well of conservative families for example.

That just means they got told about socialism/Marxism by some other authority figure besides their parents. I never said that parents were the only ones that could tell people such beliefs and have them accepted and made part of the person's identity.

> I suspect gravitating towards an ideology is often as much motivated by what you are against as it is motivated by what you are for.

This can quite often explain why people accept beliefs by being told them and making them part of their identity, instead of considering and weighing evidence, yes.

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

#782

Post by pdonis »

ttfkam wrote: post #777
watwut wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Which is why the blanket "lying media" and "fake news" rhetoric is so dangerous. It removes that trust—often unjustifiably and usually in total—without specifying what other institutions or processes can be trusted instead for reliable information besides a known orange-tinted salesman with an affection for Mein Kampf. GANs and other deep fakes are going to be weaponized and absolutely obliterate the foundations of t…

> Which is why the blanket "lying media" and "fake news" rhetoric is so dangerous. It removes that trust—often unjustifiably

No, often justifiably. If the media didn't lie so often and so consistently, they wouldn't have a problem rebutting accusations of lying.

> without specifying what other institutions or processes can be trusted instead for reliable information

That's the problem: there aren't any. Our society has no institutions that can be trusted for reliable information.

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

#783

Post by pbhjpbhj »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #665
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The fact that most people in a given civilization were Christians // It's somewhat orthogonal to your argument, but I'd doubt that most people in "Christian countries" (which is a heterodox notion) are/were Christians. Mostly people in the past seem to have followed a societal model, largely imposed as a firm of control. Where I grew up in the UK the village vicar was not a Christian according to most definitions (t…

https://www.catholic.com/tract/primer-on-indulgences The powerful hoping to keep people ignorant seems like conspiracy/folklore.

Protest-ant publication of non-Latin Bible seems to disagree?

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

#784

Post by pbhjpbhj »

gattilorenz wrote: post #586
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The fact that most people in a given civilization were Christians // It's somewhat orthogonal to your argument, but I'd doubt that most people in "Christian countries" (which is a heterodox notion) are/were Christians. Mostly people in the past seem to have followed a societal model, largely imposed as a firm of control. Where I grew up in the UK the village vicar was not a Christian according to most definitions (t…

> Catholicism has a lot of things that are contradictory to biblical Christianity That's only true if you consider the Bible as the only source of revelation, which is not the case for Catholics, where Tradition is equally important.

Not only is it true for sola scriptura but also under prima scriptura (followed by Anglicans and Methodists amongst others) -- so under an "Anglican triad" this position is still valid.

Catholicism still has things that are contradictory to biblical Christianity, such as priesthood of all believers, even if you accept other sources of revelation those sources would still be contradictory.

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

#785

Post by friedman23 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #779
friedman23 wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain how this is funny at all?

Not being able to speak for someone implies you do not know their thoughts or motivations. So in the second sentence, you acknowledge that you do not know the thoughts or motivations of the person you are responding to, but the preceding sentence implies that you do know the thoughts and motivations of some other people, and what they would or would not have done a couple hundred years ago. I.e. a very strong claim a…

I don't know the thoughts and motivations of individuals but I can make generalizations about groups. The contradiction you imagined doesn't exist.

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

#786

Post by nikolay »

rsj_hn wrote: post #756
nikolay wrote: post #755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orthodox people don't try to convert others, although we're genuinely happy when others discover Orthodoxy, and priests never claim that it is the exclusive religion for salvation. Indeed, often they will tell you that when you get baptized, you get only responsibilities, and no privileges, so, it's like a coop of people helping each other thru the guidance of clergy. For example, liturgies start with the priest bowi…

Back in grad school I had an orthodox roomate who showed me some of their faith, and I discovered Orthodox churches have beautiful liturgies. Here is a recording of Rachmaninoff's liturgy of St. John Chrysostomus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K94ePzs14Nc Also a lot of the orthodox church fathers are pretty amazing and I enjoy reading their writings. Here is Symeon the New Theologian, one of the three Great Hierarc…

I am mesmerized by the Byzantine chanting and the Byzantine musical notation, which many, including music professionals, are unaware of. I haven't felt more human than being among Orthodox brothers and sisters, who are our extended family. I feel a lot more at home at the Church than at my temporary earthly residence. I can always call my priest and share all things that trouble me, ask for a blessing for something that I'm planning to do, and a prayer when we're in trouble. There's no pressure to tithe, bring more people to Church, and other things, turning the Church of God into a cult, an exclusive club, or an MLM scheme. When I look for a Church management system, I found only Protestant versions, which focus on attendance and tithe tracking with weird add-ons such as facial recognition, contacting people who haven't donated recently, and many other things you can never see in an Orthodox Church.

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

#787

Post by dang »

efitz wrote: post #418

I grew up in a Protestant home (southern baptist church, 3x/week + youth activities). I have nothing against religion and I like religious people, I just don’t have strong faith anymore; the older I get the more skeptical I get of everything. It always makes me grin how much secular political issue adherents act like religious people. You can just listen to the language (“climate deniers” etc., “the end is near in 12…

Please don't take HN threads further into religious or ideological flamewar. This comment did both, god help us.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#788

Post by ttfkam »

pdonis wrote: post #782
ttfkam wrote: post #777

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why the blanket "lying media" and "fake news" rhetoric is so dangerous. It removes that trust—often unjustifiably and usually in total—without specifying what other institutions or processes can be trusted instead for reliable information besides a known orange-tinted salesman with an affection for Mein Kampf. GANs and other deep fakes are going to be weaponized and absolutely obliterate the foundations of t…

> Which is why the blanket "lying media" and "fake news" rhetoric is so dangerous. It removes that trust—often unjustifiably No, often justifiably . If the media didn't lie so often and so consistently, they wouldn't have a problem rebutting accusations of lying. > without specifying what other institutions or processes can be trusted instead for reliable information That's the problem: there aren't any . Our society…

Okay, you've made the claim they all lie. It's up to you to provide the evidence since I can't prove a negative. I can't point to a news story that lacks lies and claim they're all true. It's up to you to put up specific examples and demonstrate a pattern of deception.

PBS News Hour Frontline Reuters BBC News NPR's morning and evening news Associated Press

Then papers of record (excluding editorial column or op-ed):

Washington Post Chicago Tribune Miami Herald etc.

Please provide specific examples of their lies. I'll even take honest errors that never received a retraction.

Move on to more opinion-based outlets like:

The Hill The Atlantic Pro Publica Mother Jones

In these, provide examples where what's written goes beyond bias or persuasion into "lie" territory.

While we're here, show where dedicated fact checkers like FactCheck.org have lied or omitted their sources so as to prevent outside verification.

Even Fox News rarely if ever lies. Biased as all hell, but no outright lies at the main news desk. Their opinion shows on the channel on the other hand, it's hard to find an honest hour among them.

And local NBC, CBS, and ABC affiliates? Yeah, I'm gonna need some specific examples where they regularly lie to the American public beyond, "They were mean to Trump."

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

#789

Post by kian »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #702
kian wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It might be an antidote, if one asserts that humans are just chemicals. Many people believe in the assertion that there is free will though, which is a supernatural belief. If we are just chemicals, than those that believe there exists free will believe that out of no volition of their own. E.g. the laws of physics happened to be tuned for the eventual existence of a cloud of atoms seeming to contemplate this on a HN…

At the risk of mis-stating the hypothesis, the book is more about the active coupling or entrainment of bio-rhythms between individuals as what 'love' is. That we are able to regulate the bio-rhythms of others with our own, and we do so when we feel 'close' to those people in some way or other.

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

#790

Post by krapp »

me_me_me wrote: post #778
GreekPete wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you saw it, but Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson and Douglas Murray had a debate about this topic a few years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aALsFhZKg-Q TLDW: we don't know if Peterson is religious or not but he thinks that Christianity must stay. Harris (obviously) is an atheist and thinks religions must go. Now, Douglas is interesting. He's an atheist but thinks that Christianity must stay because…

> Christianity must stay because much-much worse ideologies would take its place That is one terrifying statement. And I think I changed my mind about christianity being gone would make for a better world. if qanon is anything but a sample taste of possible future I sure hope christianity stays.

>if qanon is anything but a sample taste of possible future I sure hope christianity stays.

Ah... QAnon is mostly an amalgamation of beliefs already commonly held by the extremist fringe of Evangelical Christianity and other right-wing Christian sects, and is based on a Christian apocalyptic worldview. It exists to play on Christian fears of the temporal, secular world being run by vast Satanic conspiracies arrayed against them.

It couldn't exist in a world without Christianity.

Post reply on HN