The Science of the Benefits of Religion
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Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion
#2Mass rape of little kids?
Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion
#3The title of the book is "How God Works" yet the the author explicitly states he is ignoring theology and instead is focusing on spiritual practices can have beneficial effects on a practitioner's mental state (happiness, kindness, acceptance, etc). The subtitle of the book, which is the title of the HN submission, seems to better convey the research presented in the book.
Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion
#4Religion clearly has mental health benefits, especially in terms of robustness.
The interesting question is whether it is a transcendent ‘supra-rational’ belief system, e.g. a cheat code at life, because even assuming nothing matters, it makes sense to believe if you want to ‘be statistically more joyful’ (of course, some don’t want joy in their lives, so maybe it wouldn’t make sense for them?).
Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion
#5I believe humans need rituals and for that religion mainly fills that gap for now (weddings etc..)
I also believe we need stories and religion used to fill that gap well, but with the advent of the modern era religion is losing out
personally as a mainly athiest and with a slight agnostic streak (btw I'm from the uk with a CoE upbringing) , I feel that most/ if not all religious people - from my personal experience - pick and mixes their relgion which kinda feels that it makes the whole thing hypocritical
I also see that almost all people really really really want to do the right thing and 'generally' believe in the golden rule of do not do upon to others, things/ stuff, that you do want to be done to yourself.
My grandma was deeply relgious and it it brought her extreme happiness towards the end of her life, so I understand it's significance, but still, she picked and mixed her believe to make her happy
Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion
#6There seems to be little doubt that religion, faith, spirituality or rite can have benefits. The question is how to get the good side of all these (community, meaning, satisfaction and fulfilment) without the nasty side (exclusion and intolerance, resistance to or denial of reality, imposition of impossible standards, the denial of one's own preferences and wants).
Religion has been a major source of soothing and a major source of suffering for all of humanity's past. I think we need to overcome religion and move to a world where each can have their own spirituality - but as long as people follow religions that preach their own unique truthfulness (believe the pope, the Bible, the Quran, the priests, the sutras, ...) we will never get there.
Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion
#7What benefits could possibly outweigh abuse of children by forcing them to not commit imaginary thoughtcrimes?
Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion
#8"I’ll admit that we’re unlikely to learn much about the nature of the universe or the biology of disease from religion" just moments after admitting to hubris. I thought some physicists had noticed parallels between physics and Buddhist thought
Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion
#9It's interesting to think of religion as a societal tool that has co-evolved along with humanity.
Societies with more beneficial religions would prosper and societies with less beneficial religious would die out.
It's thus no surprise that the religions that survived until the present day promote human survival. For example, it's no accident that most major religions heavily encourage their followers to have a lot of kids.
Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion
#10There seems to be little doubt that religion, faith, spirituality or rite can have benefits. The question is how to get the good side of all these (community, meaning, satisfaction and fulfilment) without the nasty side (exclusion and intolerance, resistance to or denial of reality, imposition of impossible standards, the denial of one's own preferences and wants). Religion has been a major source of soothing and a m…
Think for yourself?