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The Science of the Benefits of Religion

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Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#281

Post by dartharva »

rpmisms wrote: post #128
mensetmanusman wrote: post #4

Religion 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?).

I grew up strongly religious, and I still believe strongly, but left the organization due to the people in it. I did have an atheist phase, but that depressed me so severely that I almost had no choice but to reconsider my belief. Without a religious structure, life has no set purpose. Sure, you can make a purpose for yourself, but it feels empty compared to a created, beautiful universe by a benevolent being who got…

> Without a religious structure, life has no set purpose. Sure, you can make a purpose for yourself, but it feels empty compared to a created, beautiful universe by a benevolent being who got lonely.

Sounds like you have simply convinced yourself about that being true, my guy

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#282

Post by dartharva »

BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #209
alfiedotwtf wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is your example specific to secular values? I'm sure there are many doctors who are religious. > there’s this pervasive notion that you can’t assert anything without some citation or study to prove your point Yes. That's to prevent people from making false assertions. I can't believe you're arguing that people shouldn't need facts to back up their statements.

>” I can't believe you're arguing that people shouldn't need facts to back up their statements.” I never said people shouldn’t need facts to back up their statements. I am trying to say that there are other ways to make assertions without having to cite peer reviewed studies. And, that when people get stuck in a mindset of dismissing any idea that doesn’t have a citation to justify it, when subjects come up that aren…

Yet again, your complaint about people asking for citations for doubtful claims doesn't seem to have any relation to secularism or its lack thereof. You might want to reconsider whether you are forcefully bringing religion into things where it doesn't belong just to make an argument against secularism for the sake of it.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#283

Post by dartharva »

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.

I'm interested in knowing, how exactly would you suggest institutions go about fixing the replicability crisis? With how things are as of now, I can't think of any way the scientific community can easily fix this problem.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#284

Post by PartiallyTyped »

klipt wrote: post #278
PartiallyTyped wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumption lies in ignorance of how our brains work. The gist is that we have some world model that arises out of the structure of the brain and the chemical state of it. Your mind doesn’t change because you have free will. Your mind changes because you have collected a sufficient amount of experiences that alter the state and structure of the brain. You don’t learn stuff because you “decided” I will learn this…

Let's try another question. How does not believing in free will give you an advantage in life? Studies seem to show that a "growth mindset" is superior to a "fixed mindset", and I would guess a belief in free will tends to correlate more with a "growth mindset".

A strong belief in free-will correlates with an internal locus of control, which enables a "growth mindset", an external locus of control does not enable a growth mindset because the human believes they react to things.

I do have to admit that for a good while, accepting absence was not good for both my mental well-being, or my actions, simply because I could not find meaning or reason to do anything when no choice is ever my own.

Absence of free will however, implies that there is no locus of control at all. Things happen as they will, regardless of what any human believes, and accepting that things just happen and going with the flow is something that many eastern religions advocate for.

The consequence of accepting the absence of free will is that the person can stop dwelling about the past, because they were never in control and could have never done otherwise. The person understands that any action they "take" is conditioned on their brain's current state (ie structural and chemical).

This means that nothing is fixed, the person itself is not fixed in place because the person is a manifestation of the brain's state, which is constantly modified and revised.

This assumption then, even if wrong, enables a much stronger growth mindset, one that doesn't dwell on the past, and doesn't get stuck on misfortunes, or on a false sense of optimism.

By accepting that we lack free will, we "can" then probe our world model to see what makes us happy, ie what utility functions our brain has, which then gives us a compulsion to do things that make us happy or reach goals. This is because we understand that what needs to be done is change our brain's structure such that when the time comes, it will be in the correct state to achieve whatever it wants to achieve, and understands that achieving goals and pushing forward makes the brain happy - even if only momentarily - due to dopamine.

On a larger scale, suddenly inmates are not the evils society makes them to be, but people who have a screwed up brain and that need help, rehabilitation and normalization of their brain and structures so that they too can experience a decent life, and the events that got them imprisoned can not unfold again. Obviously this does not mean that the inmates get thrown back in with the general population (pun not intended), and that is because they are still in a space of states that cause them to be dangerous to other humans.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#285

Post by michaeltlewis »

eitland wrote: post #276
Jensson wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was in the name of communism though, not in the name of atheism. They viewed religion as just another corporation used to oppress workers. If the argument is that communism is just as bad as religions then sure I'll buy it.

Ok, fine but then I ask you to do the same for for example Christianity: Do see the difference between Catholicism as abused by various Spanish and English kings and Christianity. Do see the difference between abusive cults that do things that the rest of us disapprove of and the rest of us. Otherwise be prepared to defend Stalin, because he was an atheist just as much as the mad guys during the dark ages were Christ…

That's a straw man and missing the point. Sure, not all harms committed by the religious are because of their religion. But the assertion was that there has been much greater harm done by the religious _because of their religion_ than harm done by athiets _because of their atheism_. History clearly supports that. It even stands up taking into account the different population sizes.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#286

Post by meheleventyone »

paisawalla wrote: post #255
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…

But by your own definition none of those billion can be expressing their human nature since all of them have been subject to social conditioning.

What I think the OP is getting at is the concept of universal human traits. There’s a big old list of them compiled by an anthropologist here: https://condor.depaul.edu/~mfiddler/hyphen/humunivers.htm

The thing to note is that the golden rule could be a universal as much as murder is. Which is to say the golden rule is continuously reinvented by humans but not necessarily followed by them all. What factors in this are innate versus conditioned are opaque.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#287

Post by fit2rule »

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #163
api wrote: post #55

One of the more profound statements I once heard on the problem with modern secular philosophy was this throwaway comment I read online years ago: "Creationism is true if it will keep my kids off oxycontin." (I'm guessing the poster was from the rural Midwestern US.) I'm not saying I agree with that statement, but I can see where they are coming from. I found it to be one of the more profoundly honest and deep statem…

> One can find examples of both religion and secular philosophy promoting irrational thinking. Can you please give one example of secular philosophy promoting irrational thinking?

Washed your hands lately? There was once a time when secular thinking doctors would have you committed to an asylum if you did that before, say, helping a pregnant woman give birth.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#288

Post by smackeyacky »

klipt wrote: post #280
smackeyacky wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, the no fault divorce system has to be absolutely perfect to be acceptable? To be honest, I don't see anything wrong in your scenario. People fall out of love for lots of reasons, making them miserable by making it harder to split up doesn't seem like a particularly good solution to me. The scenario you've raised would have to involve a very emotionally shallow individual whom the other partner would be better off…

> whom the other partner would be better off without anyway So you think half your future earnings is a reasonable price to pay to rid yourself of a shallow partner?

The scenario isn't fleshed out enough to make any judgment on that.

Is Shallow Hal doing the majority of the childcare? Do they need to find somewhere to live to perform that function?

In the general sense that a house husband should be treated like a stay at home mom in a divorce settlement, there is nothing at all wrong here.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#289

Post by meheleventyone »

api wrote: post #55

One of the more profound statements I once heard on the problem with modern secular philosophy was this throwaway comment I read online years ago: "Creationism is true if it will keep my kids off oxycontin." (I'm guessing the poster was from the rural Midwestern US.) I'm not saying I agree with that statement, but I can see where they are coming from. I found it to be one of the more profoundly honest and deep statem…

Given what we now know about the structure of the oxycontin problem in the US that’s profoundly depressing. It’s little to do with religious versus secular philosophy and everything to do with the political structure of society and a lack of action. Most often in the US by professed religious people at every level of the oxy trade and government.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#290

Post by vmception »

klipt wrote: post #254
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…

How does secular society hold up the theory of evolution as a reason we no longer need religion?

I don’t really see the relation. Some major religions have a creation story that relies on spontaneous creation and found it really important to not consider anything else. But what is secular society proposing exactly?

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