Spirituality is a base instinct, and most people -need- to believe something. What ever fills that need, whether it’s God, Allah, Buddha, Science or Spaghetti… They are all god if they fill that need for people.
I can appreciate spirituality.
People believing that they are the “true” believers is where the problem comes in, and unfortunately, most religions have that as a feature and not a bug.
To be so conceited… An omnipotent being would at least be smart enough to understand how regional culture works, and would present itself to everyone in ways that were culturally relevant. And a lot of religion started out very, very cool, but got changed and corrupted by whoever was ruling that part of the world.
We all believe in the same shit, just in different ways.
Also: There are far too many people in this world that are comfortable exploiting something so basic to being human.
/soapbox
This is pretty fluffy, and I guess that’s nice, but religion is actually harmful. And as much as religion and science may both satisfy a similar desire to belong to something greater, I think it is dangerously misleading to suggest that the two are equivalent - even in this limited context.
People believing that they are the “true” believers is where the problem comes in
This is incredibly divisive, you’re right, but … you might be due to rewatch the film if you think there aren’t foundational problems long before we get to sectarianism.
We all believe in the same shit, just in different ways.
You might have misunderstood me… I’m saying religion as an institution is harmful. I think we agree on that.
I’m not trying to say that religion is equivalent to science. I’m saying the believer of God and the believer of science are both drawing from the same place in their respective phyches. Its where we build our idea of what the world is, and our place in it.
What Wanda sees as a tornado sent by God, Debbie sees as the result of observable weather patterns. You can worry about who’s right, or you can realize that they are both right from their own respective world views.
How is it divisive to say “people who’s belief system specifically invalidates the beliefs of others kinda suck?” That idea is divisive by design, which is where we have the problem in religion.
The “same shit” I was referring to was the core need for belief. The comment was a plea for understanding, not a literal statement of fact…
Religion as a concept isn’t harmful. It’s a completely natural pairing of our need for spirituality and need for community. But it’s as suceptiple to manipulation just as any other system in society. It takes a human willing to exploit it to make it harmful.
What Wanda sees as a tornado sent by God, Debbie sees as the result of observable weather patterns. You can worry about who’s right, or you can realize that they are both right from their own respective world views.
Tornadoes are not sent by god, and no amount of belief makes it “right”. Even worse, it becomes harmful when people think a tornado is divine punishment against things that offend their faith.
So no, science and faith are not the same.
I’m not saying religion is right. I’m trying to say we’re all wrong. Nobody is right, and when no one’s right, everyone’s right.
We have the scientific method now, which is great. It’s still just a framework we use to understand the physical world around us. Just as religion is a framework to understand the spiritual world around us.
Based on the sub, I assume you’re an atheist and believe in the scientific method. (correct me if I’m wrong) Assuming that’s the case, I would imagine that you understand that even our most rigorously tested facts would become fiction the moment someone was able to prove them wrong.
If you lived and died before we found out the world was round… In the reality you occupied, the world was flat. It does not matter what the “real” reality of the situation was. You lived and died with that fact contributing to your world view.
You and I have more than a few facts in our heads right now that will one day be fiction.
If you’re still reading…
From you and the other guy’s reply I get the sense that your issue is with people. People who abuse faith to try to get the world to match their view instead of the other way around.
The only sources of good or evil in this world come from intelligent life. We invented it as far as we know. Everything else is just part of the machinery of the universe existing without moral motivation.
I specifically wrote “you’re right” so you wouldn’t do this.
So you offered an empty gesture that contradicted almost everything else you said as a means to end a conversation (that you voluntarily entered) before it started?
Cool. Cool cool cool.
Good talk.
No. I wanted to make sure you understood that when I said it was “incredibly divisive”, I was agreeing and reinforcing your point, “people believing that they are the ‘true’ believers…”; I was NOT arguing that you expressing this was divisive.
As for my participation here, we are both free to enter or exit conversations as we please, but since you called me out, I will clarify: I am not responding to the rest of what you wrote because you are alternating so quickly between nonsense and ostensible lucidity that I don’t even know where to begin. Also, you’re kind of being an idiot.
I see the misunderstanding now. I apologize for being defensive.
This conversation didn’t go the way I wanted it to, but at least I learned something.
The last thing I’ll say… I think what you see as flip flopping is just me trying to convey the idea that if there is one underlying truth to the universe, no one knows it. We all live in reality bubbles of our own making, philosophically speaking. I think understanding that concept is a crucial component in thinking of ideas that are bigger than ourselves.
Thank you. That makes sense, and I agree.
Epistemology is one of my favourite topics - I suspect if we had the conversation again without religion, everything would go smoothly. :)
Good to know that all of recorded human history has just been a phase. I mean, shit show that it has been.
I mean recorded history is like, what? 10,000 years? Meanwhile modern humans are about 160,000 years old.
A phase doesn’t have to be a small thing, just something we eventually move past
Pound sign deep
Octothorpe amazing.
Ampersand inciteful
So… This is based on all the species we know, who practice religion right?
Right.
Sadly, the only way I can imagine to obtain experimental confirmation of this hypothesis would be unworkable.
It would be necessary to take a population of infants, raise them in strict isolation and teach them nothing of religion, carefully excluding anything that even hints at the concept, while giving them the scientific method and lots of understanding of reality otherwise. Then allow them to develop their own civilization and monitor them for several centuries to see if the concept ever emerges.
What other guy said, there could be biological predisposition to religion. Many experts believe that it is a natural anti-depressant.
This is pure conjecture, but to me religion has always felt like an extension of parentage and hierarchy. You start off with your parents as your “ultimate superiors” (they decide for you, teach you etc.). At some point you learn that they are also part of a similar framework, with society and the state as their “ultimate superiors”. Gods and so on would then be the next step, the superior to all superiors.
This would explain the “natural anti-depressant” - an intact family gives us feelings of safety, protection, and other positive things. An intact society does the same. It seems logical that religion would do the same on an even larger level.
Does anyone know of counter-examples? E.g. religions with gods viewed as below the individual, or religions that don’t claim to be the framework in which everything else lives?
Religion doesn’t just provide social safety net which elicits comfort; on the personal level, the act of praying and meditating provides some comfort to the individual.
I wasn’t talking about social safety nets. My point is that, for example, children usually feel better when their parents are around than when they are not. If religion is an extension of this hierarchy and “parentage” in a broader sense, praying is essentially the same - seeking closeness to the “parent” role, i.e. gods.
Yes, that’s what I mean by social safety net. You have someone to rely on when things aren’t going well for you. Be it parents, partner, community, or someone imaginary like a god.
I always figured that religion arose from the natural inclination of the human brain to look for order in chaos (and it’s then exploited by those with power as a means of controlling people). Since there will always be circumstances outside our control, I would expect people to at the very least have superstitions, if not full-blown religion, no matter how much scientific knowledge they have. Until the fundamental nature of the human brain changes, at least.
It wouldn’t rule out biological predisposition to religion.
When your idea is so good you gotta bring in the big ghost to sell it
I like to think that, in a world before law enforcement, religion is a way clever people trick strong people into not killing them and taking all their stuff.
What is law enforcement and when has it ever not been a threat to have someone come knock your teeth in if you piss off enough or the wrong person?
I think the more likely answer is indeed in the picture: baby’s first philosophy. There is a lot of wisdom and behavior grooming in it, but I’d argue the reason is the other way around: It was to try and tell leaders and fathers (in patriarchy, anyways) how to not get their teeth kicked in and how to teach and deal with bad people.
It’s an instruction set that has been combined with simple history telling, and then corrupted by thousands of years of dogma and constant revision from the selfish and rich.
It’s silly to anchor your moral axioms in systems that require obedience to authority or belief without evidence, and that is the only true difference between philosophy and religion.
I’m talking more than just getting your teeth knocked in. I’m talking getting murdered, your wife getting raped, and your property getting stolen. With no state protection, what is to prevent that from happening?
In the same way that the threat of future punishment by getting thrown in jail stops people from doing those things now, the threat of punishment by God or Gods would serve the same purpose.
“With no state protection-”
Basic human decency.
That works fine in small groups, but not so well with those outside that group.
It was actually the other way, religion was the ideological superstructure for the first class societies and states forming. Originally, as observed in the ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia religion gain power as communities were formed around common labour and consumption. The first organised cults were the fertility and agriculture gods, first temples were granaries and the priestly class started as granary managers, and that position allowed them to gather and increase their power. Especially visible in case of Mesopotamia where those origins stayed visible way into the written history period.
That is, religion was justification for the strong to become stronger and rule over weaker, and a way for rich to trick poor into not killing them and not taking stuff that was stolen back. Note that even thousands years later even nominally secular state power still had supernatural justification, divine right, mandate of heavens and so on.
You are thinking wrong tho. Religion started out as a benign thing that has been twisted by authorities later on to justify their actions.
Don’t be an edgelord giving us a bad name
I’m not saying it wasn’t benign. It was a way to protect the average person from raiders.
There is no proof that humanity will ever transition out of that phase. Just because science advances doesn’t mean that religious people will stop existing. There is a sucker born every minute. Unless we start enforcing eugenics in the future and breed out stupidity, people will keep searching for answers trough religion.
Unless we start enforcing eugenics
cool cool let’s start with you
I’m not for eugenics, I just worded it wrongly
Smart people aren’t immune to stupid ideas. Eugenics is always a bad idea.
Can you tell us what the religion gene is and why it so often doesn’t pass from parent to child?
Religion is the best way to propagate ideas over a long span of time. It’s not a great way, but nothing beats it yet.
Ah yes, this man has EVOLVED beyond the intelligence of past species. He is not just educated, evolution has gained him superior intelligence!
Praise evolution! Glory to the Homo Atheismus! They might look the same as every religious human but they are actually a different species!
Does this sub come with bandages?
this man has EVOLVED beyond the intelligence of past species. He is not just educated, evolution has gained him superior intelligence!
Yes, exactly. This is exactly what’s happened. Humans are far more intelligent than any other species on earth.
They might look the same as every religious human but they are actually a different species!
You’ve missed the entire point of the post. Religion is a symptom of not being intelligent enough as a species to get past simple answers to hard questions. Atheists aren’t more enlightened like you’re implying, just that atheism is the next step in human intelligence that not everyone has made or will make for a thousand years. As a whole, humans are still an incredibly young species.
This post implies that to move past religion into atheism a species must evolve to gain so much intelligence that they can now answer all the unknown questions.
Thus directly saying that atheists are a different more intelligent human species than religious people.
You’re right that “evolves intelligence” is poorly worded, as humans have not appreciably changed in intelligence in the last 40,000 years or so. “Acquires knowledge” would be a more accurate way to put it.
What if the intelligent species have gone extinct because they were so socially good and giving, that they sacrificed themselves when they reached the epitome of religious intelligence… ?
And whatever’s leftover from those that are still surviving are the ones that are yet to go over that phase, and they are all but sheeps at the moment (ones that pray to false idols, or follow other religious figures to guide them, without much critical thinking)?
Those are the ones that were leftover, are the ones that hunted the mammoths to extinction, and have driven other animals and plants species to extinction due selfishness.
What if good, intelligent, and sensible people are becoming more and more scarce due to their new profound knowledge that they have acquired.
Maybe I’m biased because I liked certain people so much (Mr. Rogers, RIP) 😅
