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As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

theatlantic.com

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

#231

Post by zokula »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #128
antihipocrat wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the USA really offer the greatest opportunities to the greatest number of poor people as a share of the total population, of all countries in the world? Why do so many people from the USA believe this tripe without question? It feels like the 'shining city on the hill' was extremely effective propaganda, for the domestic population.

Anecdotally, it feels true. I, like many Americans, know an enormous number of immigrants and poor people that moved into the middle and upper-middle class through hard work and discipline. There is still plenty of opportunity to do that US if you apply yourself. Economic mobility is very high in the US (which is distinct from social mobility). When I've worked in Europe, it has always been evident that this is much…

> Economic mobility is very high in the US

Not so much. The U.S. is not even in the top 10 of countries for Economic mobility.

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

#232

Post by Lammy »

antattack wrote: post #90

"Join me in our crusade to reap the rewards of our global victory' Said President Bush in 2005. Once politics and faith intermingle the result is higher intensity.

> Once politics and faith intermingle the result is higher intensity.

America has been into that since the very beginning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apotheosis_of_Washington

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

#234

Post by xelxebar »

gameswithgo wrote: post #123

>The secular world would benefit from adopting more formal definitions of their belief system. Just as the religious world contains Christians, Jews, Scientologists, Muslims, Hindus, et cetc" with sometimes radically different ideas, the secular world too has a great many different people with different belief systems. >If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you don’t have the cognitive tools to rec…

> This is just a sort of tautological argument, wherein you adopt that "to be religious" is the same as "to have a belief system".

Not OP, but I think this is a pretty narrow reading of their statement. Personally, I read it to be more about value and community dynamics.

Institutionalized religions often are very explicit about their (supposed) terminal values and arrange social situations to explicitly work toward or reinforce those values. I believe OP is pointing out that secular groups (at least those within view of OP's demographics) mostly fail to have explicitly defined value systems.

There is a difference between why we perform and action and the reasons we give for performing the same action [citation needed]. I think OP suggests that religions have structures useful for cognating about the former more sharply than secularism does.

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

#235

Post by manmal »

tonymet wrote: post #93

Becoming more religious has helped me identify religious tendencies in the secular world. Ideology doesn’t imply supernatural deities, and some worldly phenomenon can be elevated to a supernatural level. Secular belief contains rituals, origin stories, deities, saints, priesthood, blasphemy, vice & virtue just as religion does. One aspect of religion I appreciate is that these aspects are well codified and debated –…

You obviously can find a lot of topics which people don’t have time thinking about, so they copy rituals and belief systems from their parents, other attachment figures, or even the media.

The sources of those beliefs are decentralized though, and the individual person can pick beliefs which suit their whereabouts, environment, and sub culture best.

Religion however is a centralized source of belief systems, which comes with problems:

- One size fits all solution leads to problems like this: Oh your best friend is gay? Too bad, our 2k year old manifest says they are bad people/subhuman/sick. (This makes me SO angry)

- Central authorities can and will exploit their power if possible: Witch hunts, crusades etc

- Self-actualization is constrained by a fixed set of rules: Tolerable in times where basic needs are often not met and are more urgent, but becomes an issue when 95% live better than a Pharao.

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

#236

Post by zxzax »

beaconstudios wrote: post #189
zxzax wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be describing a stereotype and not an actual person, and also that seems to be conflating it with an actual view on religious beliefs (atheism). So I can't say I know what you mean.

There's no conflating. Scientism-types being atheist (or anti-theist) seems to be a pretty universal pattern in my experience. If I called someone a bible-basher, it wouldn't be conflating to say they're a Christian - it's a prerequisite. It's also a stereotype, but if I were to call somebody a bible-basher you'd (presumably) know the kinds of character traits I was implying (sanctimonious, primarily). But this feels…

I'm still not really sure what that's supposed to mean or why it's not conflation, many Christians that I've met have wildly varying views on the bible. I also don't see what the difference here is supposed to be -- in general, there is not a lot of fact checking happening on public social media, and if there is, it also has a lot of its own bias. I don't see that as being specific to comments on scientific articles or evidence of any kind of "scientism," it's just the usual confirmation bias.

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

#237

Post by joshuaissac »

scotty79 wrote: post #74
rejectedandsad wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet people in most of Western Europe (discounting Switzerland and Luxembourg and maybe Norway) are objectively poorer than even the poorest American states.

Yeah, but that's because USA basically swims in cash because since world uses dollar as core currency for the global economy USA has to print more dollars to match the growth of global economy to avoid deflation. And once it prints dollars it does with them what it pleases. Mainly buys ton of stuff from the world, but still keeps enough to maintain status of wealthy country. It's no wonder people can get more cash it…

If there is a global switch to the euro or the yuan, American imports could become more competitive, leading to increased economic activity in the US. Dollar or not, the United States still has substantial industrial capability.

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

#238

Post by sidlls »

remarkEon wrote: post #65
freshhawk wrote: post #25

Uh ... is it news to people that american nationalism is a very religious belief system? It isn't to outsiders, I definitely heard this comparison made when I was in school ... which was the 90's. This also feels more like americans adjusting to having explicit ideological beliefs in the first place, since the decades-long political monoculture is breaking up. There is an interesting religious feel to party affiliati…

>Uh ... is it news to people that american nationalism is a very religious belief system? I think the "news" here, such as there actually is any, is that modern secular progressivism has adopted (transplanted?) many religious notions from e.g. Catholicism, and the comparison bothers people because the left prides itself on being anti-religious. American Nationalism has pretty much always been tied to Christianity giv…

In America, religion has always had an outsized influence in everything, including leftist movements. It's no surprise that its influence has extended to other movements in ways both subtle and (perhaps) surprising.

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

#239

Post by zokula »

newfriend wrote: post #50
f38zf5vdt wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the 1880s to 2000 this may have been the case, but I don't think it is anymore. Any country with public health insurance that is decent is more attractive than the US. People are not blind, they see Americans dying of diabetes because they can't afford insulin that they attempted to crowdfund. [1] The US has evolved into a modern dystopia under the first-past-the-post system and cloture in the senate. I think th…

> The US has evolved into a modern dystopia > America's democracy may not even be a democracy > Republicans are currently digging themselves in to remove as much democracy Here's the ideological intensity that the article mentioned. This is delusional. The smartest, most driven people still come to the US to start businesses and seek fortune, because it's the best place in the world to do so.

> The smartest, most driven people still come to the US to start businesses and seek fortune, because it's the best place in the world to do so.

Keep believing that myth.

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

#240

Post by ukj »

didibus wrote: post #230
ukj wrote: post #13

Well…yeah! Religion serves a function. Even if that function is psychological. When you take religion away, something else will fill the utility-gap. Silly humans failing to grasp the purpose of stories/narratives. Edit for the downvoters (who clearly don’t understand): the question “Why do science and philosophy matter?” has only religious/ideological answers.

> “Why do science and philosophy matter?” has only religious/ideological answers The question needs not be asked. But most people are not areligious, they have been raised within a context of religion where the question was asked to them. Religion begets religion because it teaches people that there are higher meanings and pushes people to seek their answers. A true areligious person does not ponder about the meaning…

> The question needs not be asked.

That is a religious belief in denial of my factual needs.

> A true areligious person does not ponder about the meaning of life, why we are here

Great! So why does science matter to a true areligious person?

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