The Science of the Benefits of Religion • Hacker News Board

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#311

Post by qazpot » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 12:28 PM UTC

arisAlexis wrote: post #307

sali0 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Would you encourage radical muslims to stay with their faith and continue their worship? What about even more marginal religions? If not they which exactly religions are you going to encourage? What's the "good list"?

Not all religions are same and abrahmic religions are regressive religions.

Christianity has largely reformed.

Judaism is too exclusionary to affect the whole world.

Unfortunately islam is still being practiced like it was 1000 years ago.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#312

Post by qazpot » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 12:42 PM UTC

vmception wrote: post #290

klipt wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

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

The so called "secular society" will not be able to digest a moral system based on theory of evolution.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#313

Post by mbfg » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 12:51 PM UTC

klipt wrote: post #260

mbfg wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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!

because your mental state is a culmination of some mix of your genes and external influences, both in history and through the world now. If you are around people who consistently present ideas to you, there is a more likelyhood that your brain will accept those beliefs as facts. This is why indoctrination works so well. So just because you don't have free will doesn't mean your position won't change, in fact, it's evidence that it will change.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#314

Post by mbfg » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 12:53 PM UTC

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".

I'm not sure that question matters. The question of whether or not we have free will is independent of what would be better.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#315

Post by api » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 12:54 PM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #161

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…

Secular philosophy has failed to produce enough value for ordinary people living ordinary lives embedded in the ordinary matrix of threats and opportunities presented by every day life. I don't there's much, if any, evidence for this claim. Religion is in a steep decline in Europe but there's little evidence for more anti-social behavior. The American mid-west, where your quote comes from, in contrast is especially r…

I think you misunderstood me a bit. I was not agreeing with that quote, or disagreeing for that matter. I was commenting on the phenomenon.

On religion and social health I do have to ask which way the arrow of causation goes. Is Europe healthier in many ways because people are less religious, or are people less religious because they experience less crises and dysfunctions that drive them toward religion?

When someone's father just died of an overdose or their marriage is failing and their family is breaking apart, which secular philosopher would you recommend that they read?

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#316

Post by native_samples » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 1:15 PM UTC

smackeyacky wrote: post #178

BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be a second or third order effect. It stands to reason that someone who is a part of a strong religious community would have a much better social life, support structure, and network. All of these things reduce the likelihood of getting addicted to hard drugs. You could also take it a step further and say that having such things makes breaking an addiction/rehab more likely to be successful, too.

Drug use and abuse levels do differ between religious and irreligious folk, but one explanation for that might be regional availability rather than religion. https://drugabuse.com/featured/drugs-and-devotion/

Surely that is circular - if religion did cause less drug addiction (and/or dealing) then you'd expect less distribution and thus availability in religious areas because there's less demand.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

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Post by [deleted] » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 1:18 PM UTC

exporectomy wrote: post #231

dwaltrip wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what do we do if the core factual claims turn out to be false? Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, nothing happens after you die, there is no anthropomorphic super-entity like the biblical god or Allah from Islam, and so on. If it this turns out to be the case, we can’t just pretend otherwise. Can we make a better religion that doesn’t depend on false myths?

Most Christians have already shed a lot of now-disproven beliefs. Angels aren't literally flying in the sky over our heads. Literal stories get re-interpreted as metaphors or the definitions of words changed. Contradictions get solved by picking whichever one agrees with the culture at the time. And there are a lot of contradictions, so if logic was enough to un-believe a Christian, they would all have become atheist…

[deleted]

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#318

Post by slibhb » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 1:19 PM UTC

dwaltrip wrote: post #218

rayiner wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s time to recognize that many of the things you list as bad have a purpose as well and benefits. Remember, organized religion developed in harsh societies were people were always struggling to survive. If you think about a village in Bangladesh, where there is no government with unlimited resources to come save you, imposition of strict rules, suppression of individual preferences, etc., makes sense. What’…

But what do we do if the core factual claims turn out to be false? Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, nothing happens after you die, there is no anthropomorphic super-entity like the biblical god or Allah from Islam, and so on. If it this turns out to be the case, we can’t just pretend otherwise. Can we make a better religion that doesn’t depend on false myths?

I think this is a core question.

I don't believe that religion works if it is sold as a series of fables containing practical advice encouraging pro-social behavior (even if that's how it functions). Religion works as myths that are true and make your hair stand up when you read them.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#319

Post by drran » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 1:23 PM UTC

ghostDancer wrote: post #303

drran wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communists (atheists) done a lot more harm than any religion, and they hate gay marriage too. Anything powerful can be used to do a good thing and a bad thing. Any institution can be used to do an evil thing, neglect, or be corrupt, e.g. police (police can be abused to protect corrupt regimes), courts or event justice as whole (slaves were legal in many countries), church, etc.

Communists is not equal to atheists , in fact most of the atheists I know are not communists. Blaming to atheists the crimes committed in name of communism is like saying that as Hitler admired christianism all his crimes should be blamed on christians . And right the ones trying to impose their beliefs, and deny rights to others, in Europe and USA are the followers of some of the Abrahamic religions.

Atheists are not communists, but communists are atheists: they're believing that God does not exist, so they can take his role.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

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Post by paisawalla » Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 1:31 PM UTC

meheleventyone wrote: post #286

paisawalla wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The thing to note is that the golden rule could be a universal as much as murder is.

Which is not a helpful understanding of human nature at all, which is my point. What I am trying to argue against -- and maybe this is not the intent of the original commenter -- is the idea that the Golden Rule is an innate and inevitable expression of our nature, but say, the horrors of Communism are not.