The Science of the Benefits of Religion • Hacker News Board

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#251

Post by michaelmrose » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 6:17 AM UTC

ekam wrote: post #238

michaelmrose wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used to believe that diseases were the result of bad smells and physicians used to go from cutting up corpses to delivering babies without substantial sanitary measures. The difference isn't lack of irrationality. To err is human after all. The difference is how science and religion move forward in response to new data.

I’m skeptical of this last sentence; I’m not sure that science is so responsive to new data either. After the myriad papers published on the replicability crisis, citation rings and the like, academic institutions have failed to change substantially with regards to either structure or process.

Religions hold that their positions are that of the immortal and infallible creator of the universe and hold them sometimes on pain of executing nonbelievers thousands of years later. These lies created from nothing are so resilient because its difficult to amend what you held to be divine truth.

Scientific theories carry with them the premise that they are merely the best theory so far and are subject to revision as new data comes to light. Some may jealously guard the fruits of their labor against newer better understanding and people both lie and fail to do the proper due diligence but the process though flawed because it is carried out by flawed humans is fundamentally different and better.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#252

Post by xyzzyz » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 6:24 AM UTC

apatry wrote: post #225

xyzzyz wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are hunter gatherer bands roaming around the Amazon right now. They seem to exhibit at least as much "upstanding behavior" as the evangelicals sloshing around the US. Considering how violent are cultures of hunter-gatherers, I’d say that they are much less morally upstanding. But, they provide a good data point here: the hunter gatherers are typically highly religious. It’s just their religions are pretty bad…

> If you look at the reality instead of aggregated statistics and packaged narratives, you will find that gun deaths in US very much are not of the charts in places where religiosity is off the chart. If anything, these two things are negatively correlated: the more religious a place is, the fewer gun deaths (despite no scarcity of firearms among the religious). We can debate what off-the-chart means, but when we cro…

Okay, and in those states, where do those gun deaths happen? The religious parts? The believers are doing the killings?

Look, I’ll make this straight, because there is a lot of willful ignorance here. Overwhelming majority of gun homicides happen in large cities, where the religiosity is low, and very few in suburbs and rural areas, where religiosity is high. Moreover, people committing those gun homicides are very rarely practicing religious people, and neither are most of their victims.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#253

Post by xyzzyz » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 6:25 AM UTC

smackeyacky wrote: post #194

xyzzyz wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think we need to return to a time where women and children are effectively chattel. This is very much factually wrong description of the position of women in America before no-fault divorce. In fact, I consider the suggestion that women in America completely lacked agency before 70s to be rather reprehensible. > Yet you should also see lower levels of violence against women in Bangladesh from all these happ…

I don't quite understand this argument. Are you saying this is all women's fault for wanting to participate in the workforce and leave bad relationships?

Thank you for proving my point.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#254

Post by klipt » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 6:34 AM UTC

lalaland1125 wrote: post #9

It'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…

> For example, it's no accident that most major religions heavily encourage their followers to have a lot of kids.

I noticed looking at my family tree, that basically all the secular branches have below replacement fertility, while the more religious branches have above replacement.

Ironically it seems secularism is the ultimate proselytizing ideology, it seems it can't grow its own base through reproduction, it can only tempt the religious to abandon their religion and enjoy secular freedoms with fewer responsibilities (like fewer kids) - but it has to repeat this process at every generation to survive.

Also ironic that secular society holds up the theory of evolution as a reason we no longer need religion, yet it seems evolution itself favors the religious with more descendents!

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#255

Post by paisawalla » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 6:36 AM UTC

mybrid wrote: post #246

Every culture has some version of the golden rule yet religions claim to originate it. Most of what was studied in this article is common across all religions. Calling such practices "religion" is like calling smiling "religion". Religion co-opts nature and then, for a fee, hands it back to you. Human nature is not religion, religion puts an artificial price on that which should be enjoyed sans grift.

If you think human nature (i.e. the free and ordinary expression of a person unperverted by social conditioning) comprises something like "do unto others and you would have them do unto you," I have several billion pieces of bad news for you. There is no evidence for this, and the only rebuttal you could have to all the counterexamples will be some form of No True Scotsman -- "yes, those people acted badly, bad that's their conditioning, not their True Human Nature..."

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#256

Post by sali0 » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 6:39 AM UTC

lalaland1125 wrote: post #9

It'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…

I used to be a very hard headed atheist until I read the book "The Secrets of our Success" by Joseph Heinlein. That book speaks of how culture evolved along with genetics, and it made me realize how important tradition and religion really are to society. I am still atheist, but now very much encourage religious people to stay with their faith and continue their worship. There are definitely downsides to religion, but ultimately they encourage strong communal and familial values, which I think are very lacking in my generation.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#257

Post by roenxi » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 6:44 AM UTC

sali0 wrote: post #256

lalaland1125 wrote: post #9

It'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…

I used to be a very hard headed atheist until I read the book "The Secrets of our Success" by Joseph Heinlein. That book speaks of how culture evolved along with genetics, and it made me realize how important tradition and religion really are to society. I am still atheist, but now very much encourage religious people to stay with their faith and continue their worship. There are definitely downsides to religion, but…

Same boat.

> There are definitely downsides to religion...

Pretty minor ones. The basic concepts are well battle tested good ideas. Saying religion is bad is like saying democratic politics is bad - no, it is great because even when horrible people are in charge the fundamental positive influence of the institution persists.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#258

Post by smackeyacky » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 6:48 AM UTC

xyzzyz wrote: post #253

smackeyacky wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't quite understand this argument. Are you saying this is all women's fault for wanting to participate in the workforce and leave bad relationships?

Thank you for proving my point.

You're welcome!

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#259

Post by Jensson » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 6:50 AM UTC

xyzzyz wrote: post #252

apatry wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you look at the reality instead of aggregated statistics and packaged narratives, you will find that gun deaths in US very much are not of the charts in places where religiosity is off the chart. If anything, these two things are negatively correlated: the more religious a place is, the fewer gun deaths (despite no scarcity of firearms among the religious). We can debate what off-the-chart means, but when we cro…

Okay, and in those states, where do those gun deaths happen? The religious parts? The believers are doing the killings? Look, I’ll make this straight, because there is a lot of willful ignorance here. Overwhelming majority of gun homicides happen in large cities, where the religiosity is low, and very few in suburbs and rural areas, where religiosity is high. Moreover, people committing those gun homicides are very r…

Not sure if that is true, did you know that Black people are significantly more religious than White people?

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/26/black-men-a...

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#260

Post by klipt » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 6:54 AM UTC

mbfg wrote: post #236

mensetmanusman wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ society needs to accept that free-will is an illusion “ The funny thing about pushing the ‘free will is an illusion’ argument is that it sounds exactly like a faith argument. How is one going to ever prove that free will does not exist when most of us are running real time experiments during most of our waking hours. For some reason, the universe gained consciousness even though it could have outputted zombies that…

>> How is one going to ever prove that free will does not exist if i can perfectly predict what you are going to do before you realize what you are going to do, that would be at the least an indicator. Can we do that? not at present. Is there research results that pushes that idea somewhat? Yes. Is it conclusive enough, no way. But i don't think you can rule it out either.

If free will doesn't exist, what's the point in arguing with someone predetermined to believe in free will? They have no free will to change their mind!