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The U.S. Is Retreating from Religion

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: The U.S. Is Retreating from Religion

#111

Post by lambdaphagy »

24gttghh wrote: post #27
sremani wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point he is making is Religion is replaced by Ideology. lets not reduce ourselves to "word-play".

No the point GP is making is that atheism is a religion (it's not), which is in itself wordplay. To try to stay on the subject of the article, I find it interesting that it's Protestants who are abandoning their faith which is most of the downward trend in the graphs presented. I find that makes sense as Protestants are generally less dogmatic and more questioning (at least historically they were from my understandin…

Catholicism is a culturally "thicker" religion, which I suspect is responsible for the trend of lapsed Catholics continuing to describe themselves as Catholic in opinion polls even when effectively Nones. If you operationalized the definition, say by asking "have you been to church in the past week?" you'd probably see more similar trends.

Re: The U.S. Is Retreating from Religion

#112

Post by baumandm »

forkandwait wrote: post #47

While the premises may have been superstitious craziness, the Christian Church in the West developed an astonishingly successful and huge range of social institutions. I believe this infrastructure has been a huge driver of our political and economic dominance in the last 500 years. Even the science that is overthrowing religious superstition would not have been possible without Church supported universities and gene…

Various religious groups have been the dominant social and political organizations for large swaths of the world, across large time periods. This is true of Christianity but also Islam and other religions. As a result, many achievements are credited to religious individuals or religious cultures.

But is this anything more than a coincidence? It seems obvious to me that culture dominated by religion will produce religiously-motivated social institutions, and that historically-notable men and women will themselves be religious.

Re: The U.S. Is Retreating from Religion

#113

Post by root_axis »

fourfaces wrote: post #94
Tenobrus wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're using the fact that all are ideologies to attempt to smuggle in the connotations we have with "religion" and apply those to atheism and materialism. Examine those connotations directly and you'll see they don't sensically apply. For example: religion requires faith without evidence, materialism and atheism do not. Almost all religions make demands on the actions of their adherents, atheism almost by definition…

" religion requires faith without evidence, materialism and atheism do not." This is dogma preached by materialists, of course. The fact is that opposites are of the same nature. Theism and its opposite, atheism, are both belief systems. Neither of them is scientific. Vociferous denials notwithstanding.

Atheism is not a belief system (and neither is theism for that matter) it is simply a description.

Re: The U.S. Is Retreating from Religion

#114

Post by Zaak »

r00fus wrote: post #108
Zaak wrote: post #53

Does religion cause the evils of human nature, or is religion merely a means of expression for the evils of human nature? I see people glad that religion is decreasing, but is there evidence that the evils of human nature are decreasing, or are they merely taking different forms?

Monotheistic religion is a rootkit to the brain, and allows formation of organizations that are a) impervious to reason and b) allows concentration of power. Religions aren't the only social construct that has this weakness but a hierarchy that resists accountability can result in some pretty bad outcomes.

How does monotheistic religion differ from other cultural elements/social constructs that allow the formation of organizations that resist accountability?

I would say that all organizations allow concentration of power, so that is beside the point.

Given that other social constructs have this weakness also, wouldn't that mean that the decline of religion would have no effect on the expression of the evils of human nature?

Re: The U.S. Is Retreating from Religion

#115

Post by Xoros »

tener wrote: post #101
dukoid wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can do good without attached irrationality. In particular, I think no kid should be forced to take part in any of this. I found it greatly disturbing as a kid that adult people / school teachers who should know better and / or should serve as role models would present irrational activities like praying as if they were perfectly normal. Do what you want, but please keep people like me out of it until they are o…

Your argument is based on an opinion - "praying is irrational (because it clearly cannot work)" - that religious people do not hold! If they were to share your opinion I guess most would abandon the practice. In this context one can see why they choose to raise their children in such a way. It would be irrational not to teach them how to pray if this is such an important part of their lives. Would you wait for your k…

You can die of bad hygiene.

Ok, you can die because of religion too, in many, many countries.

But I guess it's not a good thing, no ?

Re: The U.S. Is Retreating from Religion

#116

Post by dang »

dukoid wrote: post #95
rwcarlsen wrote: post #25

I just wanted to come here and show some respect for religious communities that work very hard to help people and the world become a better place. On hacker news, I would hope we can be rational and respectful about beliefs that are important to (many real and good) people. There are many religious people/beliefs that I agree with - and many I disagree with - we can discuss that like adults. But sarcastic, unkind rem…

People can do good without attached irrationality. In particular, I think no kid should be forced to take part in any of this. I found it greatly disturbing as a kid that adult people / school teachers who should know better and / or should serve as role models would present irrational activities like praying as if they were perfectly normal. Do what you want, but please keep people like me out of it until they are o…

This crosses into religious flamewar, which is not allowed on HN, including in threads about religion. Please don't post like this again.

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

Re: The U.S. Is Retreating from Religion

#117

Post by dang »

baldfat wrote: post #56
Old_Thrashbarg wrote: post #48

How come this story seems to have suddenly dropped off the first 3 pages of HN?

Buried because it is off topic for Hacker News and causes drama.

It's not off topic; it's intellectually interesting.

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

Your 'causes drama' point is closer to the mark. For whatever reason, the community here is less able to discuss religion substantively than almost anything else. This shows up not only as toxic flamewar-style comments but also as an upsurge in bad jokes and shallow quips.

Re: The U.S. Is Retreating from Religion

#118

Post by dragonwriter »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #50

I feel conflicted about this. On one hand, religion is a large source of conflict around the world. Its restrictive norms make life uncomfortable for those who don't align to them. On the other hand, religion codifies how to live a good life, and people with the same religion often share the same values and beliefs, making inter-community cooperation much easier. I don't think it's a coincidence that at the same time…

> On one hand, religion is a large source of conflict around the world

It's associated with it, but that can be misleading; incompatibility of identity and ideology fuel conflict, and religion is often an important element of both. But identities and ideologies that are none or anti-religious also can drive conflict.

Re: The U.S. Is Retreating from Religion

#119

Post by dragonwriter »

rainbowmverse wrote: post #66
mwerd wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems a bit convenient to his point of view. Western democracy is much more strongly associated with Greek city-states like Athens and the ancient Greek leagues than Judeo-Christian theology.

It does seem like most religions are a derivative of what came before. Less self-aware Christians will sometimes get into a fuss over how Islam "stole" all its ideas from Christianity (the direction is a matter of debate among theologians), but so much of their religion seems to come from those that preceded it.

> Less self-aware Christians will sometimes get into a fuss over how Islam "stole" all its ideas from Christianity (the direction is a matter of debate among theologians)

That the flow is in all directions between all three Abrahamic faiths (and not just those) is fairly firmly historically established.

Re: The U.S. Is Retreating from Religion

#120

Post by rwcarlsen »

jordanpg wrote: post #75
rwcarlsen wrote: post #25

I just wanted to come here and show some respect for religious communities that work very hard to help people and the world become a better place. On hacker news, I would hope we can be rational and respectful about beliefs that are important to (many real and good) people. There are many religious people/beliefs that I agree with - and many I disagree with - we can discuss that like adults. But sarcastic, unkind rem…

I'll acknowledge the hard work and kindness of (some) religious people if you'll acknowledge that we are talking about beliefs that are very obviously not true. This isn't mean to be sarcastic, it's a statement about the special treatment that religion gets. Some of us simply do not agree that the best approach to this is to hold hands and discuss it like adults -- for all of the hard work and kindness you mention, t…

> ...that are very obviously not true

This is a sweeping generalization both about what religious beliefs are (for hundreds of religions) and also about how countless individuals uniquely interpret/feel about/understand those beliefs. I think that is very reductionist and incorrect position to hold. Is the bad stuff because of religion - or is it because humans? Humans have built up religion to what it is after all.

> It's far from obvious that the good outweighs the bad

It is also far from obvious that the bad outweighs the good. I never suggested anything about hand-holding.

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