As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen • Hacker News Board

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

#591

Post by foolinaround » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 12:07 PM UTC

_teyd wrote: post #579

watwut wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument is not that the science is same as religion. The argument is that individuals dont rationally objectively verify or figure out every experiment and scientific claim. I stead, we all rely on trust to institutions and processes to tell us how it is. Which is how it is. Most people dont even know how science actually work beyond elementary school level of simplification. And even if you actually do science…

Yes, and my response is that the average person doesn’t rationally need to intellectually revalidate every scientific and technological fact from first principles because we are surrounded by overwhelming evidence, and that highlighting that not everyone has done that is not actually all that clever or relevant if you think about it. No faith in shadowy institutions is required to see the facts of technological and s…

the person of faith would also counter you with 'overwhelming evidence' of what God is doing for him...

sometimes, this evidence is just subjective, at other times, it is clear and can be measured.

Another analogy that I have heard is that 'magic' is when one is just wowed by what they see without being able to understand how it happens. Apple products bring that 'magic' though it can all be explained away in technical terms if one tried.

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

#592

Post by foolinaround » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 12:12 PM UTC

kwinten wrote: post #516

tonymet wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you believe that becoming religious made you smarter / more aware As in it's equipped me with mental models to understand which components of secular life are acts of faith & ritual vs reason. > 'secular world' is perhaps not as centrally organised as you may believe or wish for Nor is it uniform. But there are some overt and some covert aspects. the covert forces benefit from being nebulous. One reason religion…

> The secular world is applying all sorts of demands & social pressures on you, and there's no way to oppose them, because secular ideology doesn't have an identity, an institution or value system open to attack. It's like fighting smoke or a swarm of bees. That's because there is no such thing as "secular ideology". It's a meaningless phrase.

> That's because there is no such thing as "secular ideology". It's a meaningless phrase.

Yes, there is no such thing, but it does not become meaningless, and so such be called 'something'

It is the opposite, the repudiation of 'religious ideology'

just like there is no such thing as 'cold' - it is the opposite of 'heat' which is measured, but 'cold' as such, holds some value in dialogue, so it is for 'secular ideology'

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

#593

Post by simonh » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 12:13 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #160

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 –…

> If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you don’t have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular ideology that you have adopted. Not all secular beliefs are ideologies. I think there are two key common factors between religious beliefs and ideologies that call themselves "secular": First, people don't acquire the beliefs by considering and weighing evidence; they acquire them by being told them,…

>First, people don't acquire the beliefs by considering and weighing evidence; they acquire them by being told them, usually at a young age, by people they trust, and making them part of their identity. That's why people are so resistant to changing such beliefs.

I've come across countless counter-examples to this in my life. A lot of the socialists/Marxists I've known come from relatively well of conservative families for example.

I've no real evidence for this except personal anecdotes, but I suspect gravitating towards an ideology is often as much motivated by what you are against as it is motivated by what you are for. If there's a hierarchy in power, political, religious, whatever, that you think is corrupt you're going to naturally gravitate towards an ideology that provides a narrative as to why it is corrupt and what can be done about it.

People fed up with corruption in catholicism gravitated to protestantism. People fed up with feudal or capitalist hierarchies gravitate towards Marxism. People in the Muslim world fed up with the economic and military domination of the West gravitate towards islamic fundamentalism. People fed up with Communist totalitarianism gravitate towards democracy. These counter-narratives provide a framework for opposition and an agenda that opposition can rally around and unify on.

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

#594

Post by Nursie » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 12:13 PM UTC

skissane wrote: post #402

Nursie wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over half of the Welsh population votes for Brexit. A third of Scots did. Without those votes the UK would not have left the EU. The idea it is purely an English phenomenon is divisive and pernicious.

> Over half of the Welsh population votes for Brexit Many of the residents of Wales who voted for Brexit are English: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/22/english-peop... The areas of Wales which identify the most strongly as Welsh had the some of the lowest votes for Brexit.

So we can cut it along perceived ethnic lines too?

This is just more pernicious divisiveness. Those areas that are most Welsh also voted in significant numbers for Brexit.

The people of the UK, in various proportions in various places, voted to leave the EU. It may suck, but pretending it’s purely an English problem is delusion.

If you want someone to blame, blame the people that voted for Brexit everywhere. This exoneration of particular regions is bizarre. How can it be all about English Nationalism when a third of Scots voted that way too?

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

#595

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 12:15 PM UTC

fighterpilot wrote: post #565

keiferski wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phyllis Tickle wrote a book on this about a decade ago. Her argument is that every ~500 years there is a major shakeup in the Christian world, and we’re in the midst of one right now. https://www.amazon.com/Great-Emergence-How-Christianity-Chan... This post explains it well: https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/are-we-in-a-500-year-reli...

What's the proposed mechanism behind the 500-year periodicity? Without a plausible mechanism it's hard to take seriously.

[deleted]

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

#596

Post by teddyh » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 12:18 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #385

whatshisface wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Few people understand that most religions e.g. Judaism and Christianity have an apologetic discipline – a deliberate arm open to debate. Open to talking about it, sure, but the crucial element that separates apologetics from real debate is that one side is forbidden from changing their mind. In religion there is a rule overshadowing the exchange of ideas that says, "no matter how convinced you are, or how weak your…

Do you believe this applies to Taoism? At least by my interpretation, it lacks many of the shortcomings of other religions.

“Taoism”, the religion, has, as I am given to understand, many of the normal trappings of religion, including formal dresses for priests, and, IIRC, quite a lot of alchemy.

This is probably not the “Taoism” which you read about in western pop-culture paperbacks or hippie-age TV.

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

#597

Post by zosima » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 12:19 PM UTC

_teyd wrote: post #579

watwut wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument is not that the science is same as religion. The argument is that individuals dont rationally objectively verify or figure out every experiment and scientific claim. I stead, we all rely on trust to institutions and processes to tell us how it is. Which is how it is. Most people dont even know how science actually work beyond elementary school level of simplification. And even if you actually do science…

Yes, and my response is that the average person doesn’t rationally need to intellectually revalidate every scientific and technological fact from first principles because we are surrounded by overwhelming evidence, and that highlighting that not everyone has done that is not actually all that clever or relevant if you think about it. No faith in shadowy institutions is required to see the facts of technological and s…

And then you have done validation of some of the proposition of modern science and technology.

But quite a lot "science" can not verified in the same manner as some physics, math, chemistry and biology can.

And to go from the fact that some science is verifiable and then conclude that everything which tries to take on the label science or follow similar rituals to the verifiable sciences, also deserves the same respect is quite a long jump.

In fact "science" or scientism seems to be one of the more dangerous religions nowadays, as the rituals of peer-review, papers and conferences, holy institutions like universities and sacraments of tenure and ph.d are very easy to adopt without being even remotely verifiable (or even slightly rational).

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

#598

Post by ithkuil » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 12:20 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #488

rsj_hn wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's just that they have no practical impact at all, That's funny because a system that kept a civilization together for 1000 years is being claimed to have "no value" by someone who has no idea how to keep any society together and is mimicking the conventional wisdom of those overseeing a disintegrating society as a result of this ignorance. Not only does the work of Aquinas have value, it has more value over the…

> a system that kept a civilization together for 1000 years The fact that most people in a given civilization were Christians does not mean that the particular religious beliefs I was talking about were the ones that kept the civilization together. In fact, as the example I gave of religious wars over "homoousios" vs. "homoiousios" illustrates, those particular beliefs often caused problems that created huge rifts in…

Indeed ethical systems have changed throughout the lifespan of a religion. Religions are not set in stone and change more than what most religious people are willing to admit.

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

#599

Post by coldtea » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 12:23 PM UTC

_teyd wrote: post #539

coldtea wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, people don't acquire the beliefs by considering and weighing evidence; they acquire them by being told them, usually at a young age, by people they trust, and making them part of their identity. That's why people are so resistant to changing such beliefs. Second, the set of beliefs acquired in this way is not just a few isolated ones, but a whole network of beliefs that cover every aspect of life and are all…

This idea that science and technology is just another random religion is so frustrating, but I encounter it online way more often than I would expect. I don’t need to personally review and understand the details of why electricity and the internet work, because I am literally typing this message on an electronic device and sending it via the internet. No faith needed, and anyway.. I can go build a simple computer and…

>This idea that science and technology is just another random religion is so frustrating, but I encounter it online way more often than I would expect.

Well, "frustrating" is not a scientific argument itself, it's a subjective feeling. More like what a faithful would feel against blasphemy. Isn't it at least a little ironic?

>I don’t need to personally review and understand the details of why electricity and the internet work, because I am literally typing this message on an electronic device and sending it via the internet.

Which is neither here, nor there. You still need to trust tons of abstractions you can't evaluate and don't control, the claims of experts and snake-oil salesmen, the policy of goverments, the products and initiatives of corporations, advertising, statistical data, etc. all of which are telling you they're "based on science" but nonetheless contain loads of p-hacking, cherry-picking, bad methodology, non-reproducable BS, and downright snake-oil selling, to the point of often doing the opposite of what actual concrete science would advise.

The fact that you have some artifacts you can use just tells you that science can produce concrete things. Doesn't tell you evaluate different courses of action, evaluate science results and scientists, understand science-drive policy decisions, and so on.

>I can go build a simple computer and prove it all out myself.

99.999% of the people can't and never will (practically, not merely potentially). So for them it's more like the junkie saying "I can quit heroin anytime I want, I'm not addicted".

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

#600

Post by GreekPete » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 12:27 PM UTC

ithkuil wrote: post #598

pdonis wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a system that kept a civilization together for 1000 years The fact that most people in a given civilization were Christians does not mean that the particular religious beliefs I was talking about were the ones that kept the civilization together. In fact, as the example I gave of religious wars over "homoousios" vs. "homoiousios" illustrates, those particular beliefs often caused problems that created huge rifts in…

Indeed ethical systems have changed throughout the lifespan of a religion. Religions are not set in stone and change more than what most religious people are willing to admit.

For example, people used to believe the Book of Genesis literally, and now (I believe) most denominations take it allegorically. I wonder how many similar stories like that will we have in the future.

For me, it always felt like the interpretation of the Holy Books are changing through time as we understand science more and more. And it feels ironic to me.