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As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

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

#801

Post by me_me_me »

krapp wrote: post #790
me_me_me wrote: post #778

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

If anything its a proof that people will believe in anything that suits their narrative. Especially if its random gibberish that can be interpreted anyway you want.

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

#802

Post by cconcepts »

tonymet wrote: post #794
cconcepts wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good summary of what I think Douglas Murray was explaining in this discussion with Sam Harris: https://youtu.be/yTtuCNPebDE Namely; "we may be in the midst of the discovery that the only thing worse than religion is it's absence"

Shame you got downvoted. Although it's not conclusive that absence of religion is worse than religion itself, there's tons of evidence for it (e.g. communist & fascist atrocities, medical experiments) – I'd wish that secular believers were more self-critical and introspective. My biggest concern of modern culture is the sense of inevitability. That progressiveness by definition is beneficial, without any sort of refl…

Progressiveness for its own sake is weird attitude western culture is buying into. I have posted this quote before on HN but you might find it relevant:

"In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it." G.K. Chesterton - The Drift from Domesticity

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

#803

Post by Haiatu »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #771
Haiatu wrote: post #762

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats not true for math / science. Math is based on fundamental global laws which exist and can be checked from everyone and they can come up all with the same math. We could isolate a baby and it could create the same math while it couldn't create the same religion.

Math is based on human chosen axioms. Actually, there are a lot of different sub fields of math that have different subsets of axioms to solve different types of problems. The axioms can never be proven though, they are just grounding. Isolating a human is analogous to removing oxygen. Few would argue that someone brain dead could create anything.

I'm really not sure how you can missread my example to come up with 'isoalting a human is analogous to removing oxygen'.

My comparison is based on sciencse vs. fiction. 1+1 = 2 is a reality which works in german, africa, usa and everywhere else. There might be a difference on how those symbols (1, 2...) look like but the axiom is true and valid and is discoverable.

In religion its not.

Concept of god exists but it looks different depending on your believe. Multiply gods, one god, good god, bad god...

Even the stuff written down is based on someone who wrote it down and still people interpretate it totally different.

Never seen someone implying they are right that 1+1=3 if the interpretation of 3 is not 'next after one'.

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

#804

Post by Haiatu »

stevofolife wrote: post #772
Haiatu wrote: post #762

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats not true for math / science. Math is based on fundamental global laws which exist and can be checked from everyone and they can come up all with the same math. We could isolate a baby and it could create the same math while it couldn't create the same religion.

That's a very shallow statement. An isolated baby could derive simple math but also similarly deduce there is a greater entity out there.

Funny enough we discuss in such religious discussions often being religious vs. not being and ignoring the huge difference of existing religons.

I had a discussion about this topic with a more hard core christian: I said 'look if it is a good god, it doesn't even matter if i worship her right?' and he said 'nope, its written that you have to worshop'.

So one believe doesn't equal to another believe.

Your underlying base changes based on your believe.

"An axiom, postulate or assumption is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments." this is not true for two religions being created independently from each other while this is very well true for science.

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

#805

Post by Haiatu »

lhorie wrote: post #774
Haiatu wrote: post #765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats not my point i was making. The parent mentioned specifically religious believes as a tool for good child upbringing. My counter argument shows, that religious upbringing doesn't necessarily mean a good moral & ethics.

> The parent mentioned specifically religious believes as a tool for good child upbringing. No, I merely pointed out that religious upbringing is explicit about some topics in ways that non-religious one usually aren't. Your counter argument can be flipped around into "religious upbringing doesn't necessarily mean bad morals & ethics", so in effect it's not really saying anything meaningful.

You mention it though to bring it up as an argument or a point for religion otherwise you wouldn't do it.

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

#806

Post by mensetmanusman »

ttfkam wrote: post #776
mensetmanusman wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and ancient Christians asserted that God is love. Many do accept that love exists in the same way math exists.

Omnipotent. Omniscient. Omnibenevolent. Like the CAP theorem, you can only have two without substantial compromise.

Compromise depends on the understanding of the hierarchy.

When ancient texts list God as Love, they note that Love is an act of (free) will (free will being considered a supernatural entity, even today).

Free will is placed high on the hierarchy, which has interesting consequences. E.g. humans are free to do horrible things, and are free to choose not to love. If humans had no free will and were all instinct, there would be no love.

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

#807

Post by mahogany »

Haiatu wrote: post #803
mensetmanusman wrote: post #771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Math is based on human chosen axioms. Actually, there are a lot of different sub fields of math that have different subsets of axioms to solve different types of problems. The axioms can never be proven though, they are just grounding. Isolating a human is analogous to removing oxygen. Few would argue that someone brain dead could create anything.

I'm really not sure how you can missread my example to come up with 'isoalting a human is analogous to removing oxygen'. My comparison is based on sciencse vs. fiction. 1+1 = 2 is a reality which works in german, africa, usa and everywhere else. There might be a difference on how those symbols (1, 2...) look like but the axiom is true and valid and is discoverable. In religion its not. Concept of god exists but it lo…

1+1=2 is not really an axiom. There's a set of axioms that lead to that. They are even more primordial statements like "1 is a number" and "x=x" and "all numbers n have a successor number S(n) such that m=n if and only if S(m)=S(n)". Even if it seems clear (to most of us, at least) that these axioms represent some part of reality, they are still human-chosen -- and they have to be agreed upon. At some point, nearly everyone would have agreed that Euclid's 5th postulate was obviously true, and anyone alive could verify this for themself. Well, sometimes it's "true" and sometimes it isn't.

That said, the Peano axioms seem less nebulous that the varying axioms relating to the existence of god, as that concept can change so much from person to person.

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

#808

Post by lhorie »

Haiatu wrote: post #805
lhorie wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The parent mentioned specifically religious believes as a tool for good child upbringing. No, I merely pointed out that religious upbringing is explicit about some topics in ways that non-religious one usually aren't. Your counter argument can be flipped around into "religious upbringing doesn't necessarily mean bad morals & ethics", so in effect it's not really saying anything meaningful.

You mention it though to bring it up as an argument or a point for religion otherwise you wouldn't do it.

Not everything must necessarily be a religion-vs-atheism competition (in fact it's tiresome that some people insist on putting every religion-related discussion in that light). I believe I was clear enough when I indicated that I'm open minded to ideas from religious groups, but I don't subscribe to their faith, so I don't understand the insinuation that I'd get brownie points or something for "shilling".

If you're seeing a factual argument exclusively as some sort of attack on your belief system, then you're missing the point that self-improvements efforts shouldn't be discriminating against an idea solely due to the source of insight.

In other words, if a statement is "you don't talk to your kids about morals as much as [insert religion] people do", it's petty to respond by saying "well the religious group you belong to has people that do poopy pants stuff" (even more so if some atheists also do said poopy pants stuff); it's more productive to instead say "huh, how then could I talk to my kids about morals more often?"

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

#809

Post by andrewjl »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #713
andrewjl wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't really the whole story. Many of the founders were Deist and/or practically irreligious. The other important distinction is that the Church of England is essentially a state church. In many ways the U.S. Constitution, on which Nonconformists had far more influence, is its antithesis . [1] Puritanism/Nonconformism views religion as a personal or at most a local matter. One of the references you shared has an…

That's so far from the truth, that it's a fraudulent historical claim. They were almost all religious, and the early population of both the proto-United States, and the then-declared independent states were predominantly Protestant.

I think it's a contestable claim, sure, but fraudulent is a bit doth protest too much in this case. Out of curiosity, what does being religious actually mean in the way that you used the term above?

Besides the purely superficial, "I believe in such and such" (and not backed up by any inner conviction) sort. Because a purely nominal religiosity is hardly evidence of any substantive cultural or political influence. It takes more than that to count as influence IMO.

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

#810

Post by dorchadas »

mistermann wrote: post #726
dorchadas wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 'internal alchemy' [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neidan

Ah, thanks for that. These seem fairly harmless to me but I'm not so knowledgeable, what do you think?

I think they're things best practiced with a guide, and not something to go attempt yourself. Whether there's any actual effect from it or not, who knows. But it's always better safe than sorry.
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