Hostility toward spiritual traditions may be hampering empirical inquiry
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
https://uktech.wordpress.com/2006/09/25/dawkins-on-theology/
To paraphrase, he's arguing that very little beyond the obvious has come from religious teachings, and much of the rest can be proved false with science.
The article posted suggests that science may have more to learn from religion, given that science has shown there is some benefit to practices like meditation and ritual. This reads a little bit like a justification for all of religion after science was able to pick some of the interesting parts out and show they have use beyond a religious context. I'm not sure I buy the argument. A seized engine doesn't become workable simply by showing the bolts are still in good condition.
Almost any historical practice with social or psychological meaning would have been understood at least partially within the context of a "spiritual tradition". If you write off anything that smells of religion you throw away an awful lot.
The other concept was using sound interaction with brainwave monitoring - monaural and binaural beats. There are also light based variants.
Yet other used magnetic fields and another is called tDCS.
There is also hypnosis, pretty old.
These have nothing in common with religion yet are similar to meditation when measured... not exactly identical of course.
I'm quite sure someone would figure out a link between specific thought patterns and physiology in a specialized field like neuroscience...
Not that I entirely agree - science lets you pull on threads to see where they lead, and sometimes they're tangled up with other threads, and you pull those, and you end up with a great massive ball - but it's also nice to have a fresh end to pull, and that can come from anywhere.
To flip that question on its head however, perhaps we should ask "could religion discover gravitational waves independently of a scientific context?". I would be very hard pressed to answer anything other than an emphatic "no". Indeed only a few hundred years ago you were probably likely to be imprisoned or killed for suggesting much less.
In terms of how long it took science to find meditation worthwhile - not long at all. Science is new. It wasn't until recently that we had the tools to be able to study the brain and study meditation. Any delay in attention toward meditation from then on may well be due to a bias against religion among scientists - but then so much of religion can be explained away leaving the signal to noise ratio so low it's unlikely to be of any interest to many scientists anyway. You don't go shopping for motorcycles in the grocery store. No doubt western religion itself would have contributed to delays though anti-eastern religious bias as well.
Of the people that are interested in religion - psychologists, neuroscientists, social scientists, historians - I have no doubt that they are already interested in it for all the reasons mentioned in the article. It's not as if religion is such a small part of our lives and we need to go digging to uncover it's secrets.
I very much doubt that there is any scientist out there whose area of expertise abuts religion that is inclined to disregard the entirety of religion as irrelevant. Richard Dawkins himself - quoted in the article - recommends that everybody should read the King James version of the Bible as a piece of literature and an important text culturally [1]. There just happens to be very little reason to bring along the hocus pocus with it.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/may/19/richard-dawk...
When it becomes an instrument of social control, whether that means using religion to excuse bigotry or merely using religion as an excuse for manipulation or control in your own household, then I can no longer agree and feel it is an intrinsic civic duty of all people to actively discontinue that portion of religious practice.
Somewhere there is also a gray area related to what I would call “faith-based reasoning.” In some circumstances it’s fine to make decisions by consulting some form of faith. But in others, say denying a child’s medical care, it is clearly indefensible.
On this side of things I subscribe to the idea that was described on LessWrong in terms of “making beliefs pay rent in the form of anticipated experiences.” Along the same lines I admire a quote from Robin Hanson: “I wish there was less of a feeling of entitlement to believe whatever you want, and more of a sense of social responsibility to believe accurately.”
Religion also as a different domain of study.. human life. Hard science was concerned with ideals and material. Few for what your soul~ needs.
This oneness is, also, fully commensurate with science. The notion of "oneness" sounds like monotheism, but is so dramatically different. It was, in fact, the reason Christians got so worked up about the Trinity -- and killed off the Arian heresy (who believed that Jesus was born after god, as an emanation of the one) -- because otherwise, you fall back into this competing pagan philosophy that begins with One, and then builds the universe through "logos".
Few know this, but early christianity was out of the Essenes Jewish sect, which was described as Pythagorean by the historians of the time, Philo of Alexandria and Josephus. This creates a possible future for the Catholic Church to use textual sources to integrate with science and not throw away everything. Won't be easy, but wtf else will be done with all those churches and billions of dollars?? Jesus was the voice of the logos, according to early church father Origen.
In the meantime, atheists/pantheists like myself can read Plato, Plotinus and Pythagorean texts for inspiration on how a quantitative world gains qualia -- and how harmony serves as a secular (yet spiritual) source of value. Did we did all come from "the one"? The big bang claims that the universe was fit into a sphere smaller than a proton-- that's about as close as it gets.
Happy to provide references, but the terms are searchable.
It doesn’t mean the phenomenon is so longer relevant to religion, or that religions can’t offer some insights into how the phenomenon might effect humans, but it certainly obviated the need for religion to invoke the supernatural to explain the mechanics of the phenomenon. Which is, after all, what the “God of the gaps” perspective pertains to.
Which is sure is true, just like you can learn a lot watching a used car salesmen with the tools he or she uses. Robert Cialdini wrote some great books about that topic.
The author is how ever mixing up things here on purpose, best seen with the title.
>What Science Can Learn from Religion
It should read what Psychology can learn by studying religious groups. Those two are very different things.
Sciencey people think religions are wrong, so they are prone to acting like all ideas to come out of religion are bunk. They shouldn't, so the hostility of sciencey people toward religion hurts science.
It's funny how hardly anyone in this comment thread seems to have taken away this message. I do however see a whole lot of rather defensive comments about how religion is useless and bad for this reason or that reason, or attacking the article (which I thought was very reasonably written) for religious apology. I think that offers a visible example of the phenomenon under discussion - any suggestion of positive things flowing from religion is met with a kind of allergic reaction.
To do so is considered heresy or worse. More so if done with required irreverence of science where anything can be shown wrong.
The problems start when religion attempts to "fix" others against their will.
The hostility is not towards the tradition, it's towards the selected individuals who take it upon themselves to aggressively attack all secular issue, and then shied themselves under the "religious haters" shield when one defends their invaded territory.
"Science" (ultimately the scientific method) concerns itself with empiricism, and exploration of outcomes without regard to their inherent meanings and purposes. This is GOOD.
Religion / Ideology (whether with a deity or not) is teleological and imparts purpose and meaning to empirical observations as well as things that are beyond empiricism. This is also GOOD.
Both should probably work together. But they should probably remain separate concepts.
[0] "Religion" in my mind includes all teleological ideologies; things like 'capitalism', 'Marxism', 'Nazism', 'Baathism', 'emacism', etc.
I wonder which faiths they are talking about here.
When it comes to Christianity, well, we love science. We look at it like this - science answers "what and how" while religion answers "who and why". So there's no competition between the two.
For more on the topic: https://soundcloud.com/bulldogcatholic/122518-but-why (around 4:00 mark)
Christian attitudes toward science vary quite strongly. The Catholic Church has an attitude generally similar to what you describe (but still gets uncomfortable with scientific inquiry on some questions clearly within the domain that is empirically explorable), other groups (particularly within, say, parts of the evangelical and fundamentalist parts of Protestantism, and the quote you respond to addressed “fundamentalist faiths” specifically) have different general attitudes (or wider or more intense areas where they are resistant to or oppose scientific examination.)
"Why" questions are either nonsense (like, questions about some made-up "ultimate purpose") or "how" questions in disguise, "who" questions are presupposing an answer to what are actually "how" questions, in order to pretend that it's not a scientific question.
In addition to religion, you're outright dismissing entire fields of study, philosophy, ethics, law etc... that are extremely relevant to all of our lives. Whether you believe the "why" questions can every be answered is one thing, but dismissing them as nonsense without even trying to support your argument is extremely arrogant.
So if you want a particular answer then you are asking "How can I make it so that people care?"
That's an acceptable answer. My next question is: "Why don't you believe it's wrong not to care about another's suffering?"
And you say: "There is no inherent right or wrong--self interest is the only arbiter of morality."
And we go back and forth until you get to a level where you've basically made an arbitrary assumption.
That assumption is an axiom that you base your world view on. The why that came before that discovery wasn't nonsense
First, that's a straw man. It's a straw man because they didn't say they didn't care about another's suffering, they said there might be no reason to care in that particular highly unrealistic scenario that you presented that was intentionally crafted so as to not have a reason to care.
Then, in so far as you refer only to your hypothetical scenario, the answer has already been given: Because there is no reason, or at least there is no reason that they are aware of. If you were asking them for justification as to why they aren't aware of any reasons, that's obviously a nonsensical question if you don't provide a reason for which they might be able to investigate how it came that they weren't aware of that reason.
> And we go back and forth until you get to a level where you've basically made an arbitrary assumption.
No, that's bullshit, and probably a whole load of equivocation to make the unreasonable seem equivalent to the reasonable.
It's not a strawman, it doesn't matter what the reason the person gave was. I'm not trying to make my hypothetical person supply the easiest answer to attack, I'm not even trying to attack their answer.
>No, that's bullshit, and probably a whole load of equivocation to make the unreasonable seem equivalent to the reasonable.
It's not possible to have beliefs that aren't based on assumptions. I guess you can think that's bullshit, but your belief doesn't make it so.
Well, maybe, that depends on which path of the equivocation we follow.
> It's not possible to have beliefs that aren't based on assumptions. I guess you can think that's bullshit, but your belief doesn't make it so.
Yeah, that's the equivocation I am talking about. You didn't say "you've made an assumption", you said "you've basically made an arbitrary assumption".
Let me guess what you are really trying to say:
"It is just an assumption that reality is real, therefore, if you think that that assumption is acceptable, you should also not have any objection to the assumption that god exists/gave us morals/some other unjustified supernatural claim."
Right?
It's not that there isn't an interpretation of what you wrote that is indeed true (kindof), it's just that that interpretation is irrelevant to the argument that you are trying to make, which relies on a different interpretation, which unfortunately is not true.
Arbitrary isn't the right word. Not self-evident is better.
>Right?
No, I'm not trying to prove to you that God exists.
>the argument that you are trying to make, which relies on a different interpretation, which unfortunately is not true.
You are having that argument with yourself, not me.
>unfortunately
I don't think I could write a more condescending, disingenuous statement if I tried.
I'm asking why should one person's suffering or one person's life be intrinsically important to another---not why it often is.
To get to the point another way. To decide how to act you need some kind of ethical system. Let's say you pick utilitarianism.
Utilitarianism says that the suffering and happiness of each individual counts equally.
The obvious question is: "Why is that so?"
A possible answer is that, this is the premise that leads to the optimal outcome of maximum total happiness.
Which leads to the next question: "Why is maximum total happiness the optimal outcome?"
It's never ending. There is always another why question. Going deeper and deeper into that rabbit hole can be maddening and it's not always useful, but sometime it is. Ands it's almost always useful to ask a few whys.
Without asking the whys, you have no justification for any of your beliefs, and thus no way of knowing which beliefs to hold on to.
I suspect that you are ... or you are indeed asking a nonsense question. But let's see ...
> I'm asking why should one person's suffering or one person's life be intrinsically important to another---not why it often is.
OK. I'm still not sure what exactly you mean by that question, though.
> To get to the point another way. To decide how to act you need some kind of ethical system.
Sure, that seems sensible to me.
> Let's say you pick utilitarianism.
OK.
> Utilitarianism says that the suffering and happiness of each individual counts equally.
I am not sure it necessarily does, but I guess that doesn't matter for the point that you are trying to make, so let's assume it does ...
> The obvious question is: "Why is that so?"
Which is a "how" question in disguise, isn't it? "How did it come that philosophers chose to define utilitarianism this way?" That certainly sounds like a very much empirical question to me!?
> A possible answer is that, this is the premise that leads to the optimal outcome of maximum total happiness.
That might well be a justification given by some philosopher, sure!?
> Which leads to the next question: "Why is maximum total happiness the optimal outcome?"
Which is another "how" question in disguise, isn't it? It's again asking for how it came to be that this was considered the optimal outcome, isn't it?
> It's never ending. There is always another why question. Going deeper and deeper into that rabbit hole can be maddening and it's not always useful, but sometime it is. Ands it's almost always useful to ask a few whys.
Well, if they are "how" questions in disguise, yeah, sure ... but you might as well directly ask the "how" questions in order to avoid the confusion? If you really don't mean a "how" question by those (be it exactly the ones I suggested above, or possibly slightly different ones), though, I don't really understand what your question is here either.
> Without asking the whys, you have no justification for any of your beliefs, and thus no way of knowing which beliefs to hold on to.
Well, yes, again, if you actually mean disguised "how" questions. I mean, just asking the question doesn't give you a justification, right? Rather, it's the first step towards potentially finding an answer, which then can serve as a justification. It's just that "why" questions that are not "how" questions in disguise don't have answers, which is why they are useless for the purpose, or if they have "answers", then that's only because the answer is assumed in the question, which obviously doesn't make for a good justification for anything.
I am still curious though what exactly it is that you mean by "I'm asking why should one person's suffering or one person's life be intrinsically important to another"!
If you reject that belief and don't believe it is justifiable, why is that the case. Either way it doesn't really matter to my point.
If you arbitrarily decide that all why questions are how questions, then you can't really ask a why question can you?
>if they have "answers", then that's only because the answer is assumed in the question,
Many ethical systems make the assumption that human happiness has intrinsic value--that it is an inherently good thing.
They work backwards from that because what is "good" can't be discovered from observation and experimentation.
>I am not sure it necessarily does
It's definitely one of the basic tenets of Utilitarianism.
OK--and that's rather obviously a nonsensical question, because "intrinsic value" is a vacuous phrase. Value is by definition a subjective property assigned by a "valuer", while "intrinsic" is by definition a property that is independent of other entities. So, you are asking for a justification for the belief that a person has a value assigned to it by a valuer, absent any valuer. Obviously, such a thing doesn't exist due to logical self-contradiction, and thus no justification for it can exist either.
> If you reject that belief and don't believe it is justifiable, why is that the case.
Because it is a logical impossibility.
> If you arbitrarily decide that all why questions are how questions, then you can't really ask a why question can you?
I didn't do that? There are "genuine" "why" questions, they just are nonsensical (when not asking about a demonstrated conscious entity). "Why" has two distinct meanings, one of which is asking for an underlying mechanism, which maps to what I am calling "how" questions (because questions using "why" in that sense can be rephrased using "how"), the other is asking for an underlying intention, those are the "genuine" "why" questions.
So, "Why does the sun rise in the east" is ambiguous. That question might be asking for the mechanism that makes the sun rise in the east, in which case it's a "how" question in disguise that is obviously one that can be examined empirically. Or it might be asking for the intention behind making the sun rise in the east--in which case it makes the unjustified assumption that there is some sort of consciousness behind it that had an intention when making the sun rise in the east, which is why it is a nonsensical question.
Obviously, it is perfectly sensible to ask genuine "why" questions about entities that are known to have intentions, like "Why did you leave the light on?".
> Many ethical systems make the assumption that human happiness has intrinsic value--that it is an inherently good thing.
Arguably, they don't. Obviously, it's difficult to say anything specific about some unspecified ethical systems, but are you sure that you are not confusing the assumption that human happiness has value with the assumption that human happiness has intrinsic value? The assumption that human happiness has value seems common, the assumption that that value is intrinsic, not so much, very much to the contrary: It would seem rather obvious that that assumption is based on the valuation by the philosopher who is making the assumption. Really, it is questionable whether it is even an assumption, given that there is pretty overwhelming and ubiquitous evidence that humans almost universally value their own happiness. While that might not always be discussed explicitly, that often seems more like a technicality to me than like an actual lack of justification.
> They work backwards from that because what is "good" can't be discovered from observation and experimentation.
How else would it possibly be discovered? Or maybe I should ask first: What do you mean by "good"?
> It's definitely one of the basic tenets of Utilitarianism.
Well, I don't necessarily agree, but I also don't think it matters for this discussion, as it's probably a good enough approximation for the purpose.
Also, if you are interested in a longer explanation of why the concept of "intrinsic value" doesn't make much sense, you might be interested in this video: https://youtu.be/2ASKV7Wg2jE
If you accept that why questions are only applicable in the context of a "demonstrated conscious entity", and you are a believer in strict determinism, then there are no genuine why questions.
>Also, if you are interested in a longer explanation of why the concept of "intrinsic value" doesn't make much sense, you might be interested in this video: https://youtu.be/2ASKV7Wg2jE
If you want to learn more about the concept of "intrinsic value" I suggest you start here for a history of the concept and a summary of current work on the subject-- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/value-intrinsic-extrinsic..., and not on a popular speaker's YouTube channel.
Rejecting the concept of intrinsic value raises many problems for ethical frameworks--none of which have been adequately solved. Don't pretend that it's a settled topic because you said it is.
It's only during the last century or so that philosophers have even entertained the idea that it might be possible to have an ethical system without the concept of intrinsic value.
Your point being?
> If you want to learn more about the concept of "intrinsic value" I suggest you start here for a history of the concept and a summary of current work on the subject-- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/value-intrinsic-extrinsic..., and not on a popular speaker's YouTube channel.
Haha, seriously? You think that reading all those pages would help me understand that there is such a thing as a valuer absent the valuer? Like, reading will help with accepting a logical contradiction as truth?
> Rejecting the concept of intrinsic value raises many problems for ethical frameworks--none of which have been adequately solved. Don't pretend that it's a settled topic because you said it is.
So? I am not pretending anything, it's just an obvious fact that "intrinsic value" is nonsense, and it doesn't become less nonsensical because rejecting the nonsense maybe raises problems for ethical frameworks.
Really, this not the difficult question that you make it out to be. You might as well argue that there is intrinsic taste and that it's an unsolved problem for culinary frameworks if we think that whether something tastes good or bad is not intrinsic in the thing we taste. Because, how do we know something really tastes good if it isn't intrinsic in the thing? You may be asking questions back and forth, but ultimately, you will end up with a non-self-evident assumption that a certain taste is a good taste. An axiom of taste that defines your way of eating. Yeah, that's all kinda, sorta true, but also completely missing the point.
All of that, both for taste and for ethics, simply comes down to consensus and individual preferences, which themselves are broadly based in evolution (as is the interest in consensus for a social species), which is based on natural selection according to the environment our ancestors lived in, which behaves according to some natural laws. It's "how" questions all the way down, some of them answered, many not, with no indication that "why" questions are anything but baseless speculation.
> It's only during the last century or so that philosophers have even entertained the idea that it might be possible to have an ethical system without the concept of intrinsic value.
So? It's only during the last century or so that scientists have entertained the idea that light is quantized and that there is an absolute speed limit to the universe, and marginally more than that that there are things like bacteria causing disease or that phlogiston is not a thing, or that biodiversity can be explained by mutation of DNA and natural selection. Yeah, people were ignorant in the past--fortunately, that's no reason to stay ignorant?
>fortunately, that's no reason to stay ignorant?
Do you see the irony?
You really need to read more about intrinsic value before you dismiss it. Your arguments have been made and debated in academia, some of them have been refuted, and some of them are still being argued.
Most of what you're saying is exactly as convincing as someone who argues that God must exist because nothing can exist without a cause.
Also given how grayed out most of your responses are, maybe consensus isn't self evidently preferable.
Nope, there isn't any.
> You really need to read more about intrinsic value before you dismiss it.
Nope, I don't think I do. But feel free to make a concise argument as to how I am wrong.
> Your arguments have been made and debated in academia, some of them have been refuted, and some of them are still being argued.
By anyone serious, or just theologians? The fact that something is "debated in academia" does not really mean anything, unfortunately.
> Most of what you're saying is exactly as convincing as someone who argues that God must exist because nothing can exist without a cause.
Well, except that the gap in that argument can trivially be shown in one sentence.
> Also given how grayed out most of your responses are, maybe consensus isn't self evidently preferable.
More importantly, it shows that consensus is all that ultimately matters, whether that is good or not, which was exactly my point.
Your entire argument is just a half formed version of metaethical moral relativism, which is a minority view among philosophers. Your views are demonstrably not self-evident.
Yes, obviously one can use scientific methodology to study religion, and given that religiosity is a very common human behavior, it is hardly surprising that you can learn something about human psychology this way, thus contributing to the scientific body of knowledge.
But that does not in any way suggest that the methodology (that is, the epistemological practice of science) has anything to learn from religion, which is obviously the claim that Dawkins and Pinker are rejecting, because that is the claim that religions make when they make assertions about how the world works, as all religions do.
So, the article at best substantiates the obvious and completely uncontroversial interpretation of the title that you can make empirical observations of religious behaviour, while failing to provide any arguments in favor of the interpretation that at least some people will be prone to read into the title, that religion somehow has to offer any useful methods for distintuishing fact from fiction that should be adopted by science.
Religion is a methodology of belief. I can't tell you the number of people I've met in my life who would curl up and shut out the world if they didn't believe in something more than they could measure or extrapolate form existing models. This is human nature, for better or for worse. Belief is necessary for most people -- even scientists (though, as I said, quite a few of them choose to believe their own models).
Like some people, I have a problem with many organised religions. Historically, religions have been very adept at using people's belief in order to liberate them from their money or their freedom (or even their lives!). However, I don't think religion, per se, is the problem. Like I said, people need to believe something and religions offer that service. It's just that having inserted themselves into that picture, people have a tendency to abuse their position (often with a considerable amount of internal justification, but I think it is abuse none-the-less). On the other hand, I've seen religious organisations do a world of good as well. This rallying force of belief is extremely strong. Even when countries have made religion illegal, they simply insert the state as the object of belief. This is because (IMHO) belief is necessary to the normal operation of human communities (and sometimes also because they want to abuse their populations ;-) ).
WRT the idea that traditional ideas may have useful applications for science, this is undeniable. But many traditional ideas are also just snake oil. The best methodology for telling the difference that I know of is science. Starting with the assumption that traditional ideas are likely to be beneficial, I think is a poor idea. However, so is starting with the assumption that traditional ideas are necessarily snake oil. If you have a question, make observations, build a model, make predictions, test those predictions with new observations. You might be wasting your time, but you might not. That's science. If you want to believe something and it makes you feel happy, then go for it. That's religion.
“Religious methodology” varies by religion and, in some cases, varies by individuals within a religion. In a number of those religious variations, scientific methodology is an acceptable (or even the preferred) methodology for some (or even all) of the scope to which it can apply on its own terms.
Other major religions like Christianity, Islam were forced upon people.
That I would disagree with. The defining characteristic of religion is faith, or the acceptance of unsubstantiated claims as factual truth. Faith is the most dishonest and irresponsible epistemology there is and has an obvious potential to be used for justifying unlimited badness, as has been demonstrated over and over. Ideas that have such massive risks I would say are pretty obviously a problem.
> Like I said, people need to believe something and religions offer that service.
That sounds very much like an unsubstantiated claim. The mere fact that it is common does not imply an innate need, but would be explained just as well by indoctrination--and the fact that lots of people who once felt just that need do overcome it using rational thought also suggests that it's at least not as inherent to humans as you make it out to be.
> Even when countries have made religion illegal, they simply insert the state as the object of belief.
I don't think that's a contradiction. Countries that aren't autoritarian just don't care about (lack of) religiosity of their citizens, but authoritarian states always demand submission to their doctrine and thus ban all other belief systems--in the case of theocratic states, they ban all other religions and sects, in the case of non-theocratic states, they ban all "traditional religions". None of that is about religion vs. lack of religion, it is only about banning competition.
> This is because (IMHO) belief is necessary to the normal operation of human communities (and sometimes also because they want to abuse their populations ;-) ).
I don't see why that should be.
That's actually not true. One clue here is that many religions do not ask for faith, which is to say one does not actually observe a demand of faith universally in religions. Faith per se is not observable, so it would not do as a defining characteristic of religion.
Frequently, religions only ask for ritual observance. This is the defining characteristic of religion -- ritual observance that affirms a person's commitment to a community and its values. Whether people "really believe" or not has no simple effect on whether the ritual serves to reinforce shared values or not. Many people feel bonded to a community and its values even when engaging with a mythology that is obviously fictitious, as for example when people go to the desert to burn the man every year; or dress up like aliens and head to Star Trek Vegas.
Seriously? You are including hobby clubs of sorts into the definition of religions in order to support your claim that many religions do not ask for faith?
So, atheist associations with regular meetings are religions, too, then, I suppose?
Just having regular meetings is not enough to be "performative" or "ritualistic". What if the atheist association always began every meeting with a hymn to Richard Dawkins, and then a ceremonial swim of a little model HMS Beagle around a miniature island, always widdershins (opposite to the sun)? This would be the beginnings of religion.
Mind you, I didn't claim that you can de-indoctrinate all humans on the planet today. Chances are that some people are beyond that. But that's not even all that special for faith or indoctrination, some people just have extreme problems with rationally controlling their behaviour in some regards, and be it that they have OCD or some eating disorder. But just because some people have eating disorders that they have trouble overcoming, we don't say that "eating disorders are required for human communities".
So, let's ignore that some minority might always exhibit some sort of religious behaviour. Then you will notice that religiosity is shrinking massively, despite being almost universal not so long ago, both due to people overcoming their religion and due to children not being indoctrinated and thus never getting the idea in the first place. That suggests that it's not all that hard-wired, doesn't it?
Now, will there be a barrier where religion will stop shrinking? Who knows, but I don't see any reason why it unavoidably should.
I think the point I'm trying to make is that, especially those of us who have a hard time with religion fall just as easily into our own religions. That's an embarrassing and difficult thing to look at. I literally moved from my native Canada to Japan, partly because I was frustrated with the implied Christianity of Canadian society -- almost as if it's a matter of common sense that you will be Christian if you aren't already spoken for by a different religion. I really enjoyed the fact that Christmas in Japan meant going out with your girlfriend to Kentucky Fried Chicken (seriously, you have to book 3 months in advance!)
This is a pretty personal thing to post on a public forum, but I think it should be fine to say these kinds of things (or at least I wish to live in a world where it is), so hopefully nobody will take offense. But, (again my personal opinion, which I hope you will take as just an old guy being friendly) my wife really enjoys her religion. It brings many good things for her and, to be completely honest, while her religion has doctrine (which, incidentally, not all religions have) I haven't actually met anybody in her church that demands that doctrine.
I was going to say that I have not met a single person who really had any interest in exploring the world beyond their doctrine in a church, but this is actually not true. One of my wife's friends is a priest who got a double major in astronomy and computer science (and had a pile of scholarships and studied in a whole bunch of famous universities). Then he became a priest. I asked him why, with the education he had that he decided to become a priest. He just said that he enjoyed being a priest. He believes in his religion and has no way to reconcile his education and his beliefs, but he is completely OK with that.
I really miss him to be honest. He got posted to Malaysia (being a priest is a super hard job). He's one of the few people I've met in a church who ever accepted me for who I am and what I believe. He frequently stood up for me and explained to other people that not everybody believes what they believe. I was very grateful for that.
These days, even though I don't believe what other people believe, I feel it is important to respect that belief. In human life there are a lot of contradictions. There are many things that don't match up (like my wife's friend, the priest). However, we all have biases and we all have points beyond which we regretfully don't look. We look past our own bigotry and somehow think that only our view must be right. Ironically, we tend to all be united in our discrimination.
It's just my idea and it may be horribly flawed, but I think we need to first accept other people as they are before we invite them into our own field of vision. Sometimes that's hard to do.
Anyway, again, I apologise if this meets you at a time when you aren't really in the mood to read it. I hope you take it in the spirit in which it is offered -- just an old guy rambling on about stuff that probably doesn't matter ;-) Even if I don't agree with you, I've really enjoyed thinking about what you have had to say. Thank you!
In other words: The problem was your religion of sorts, which was rather obviously not science (because of lack of falsifiability), and not science?
> I think the point I'm trying to make is that, especially those of us who have a hard time with religion fall just as easily into our own religions. That's an embarrassing and difficult thing to look at.
Well ... all the more reason to consider religion a problem per se, then? I mean, not acknowledging that it is a problem won't help with avoiding it, will it?
> But, (again my personal opinion, which I hope you will take as just an old guy being friendly) my wife really enjoys her religion.
Well, and some drug addicts really enjoy their drugs ... your point being? I mean, yes, there is essentially nothing where you can't find some subjective positive aspect to it for someone, but that's hardly much of an argument in favor of the thing?!
> It brings many good things for her
But does it? Or is that merely religion taking credit? Like, would she be any worse off if you took her life and removed only precisely the religious aspects? Mind you, that does not mean removing church from her life, for example, as in the social organization, but only those aspects that involve faith/doctrine/supernatural claims. Just because the institution that she belongs to happens to have religion as a declared goal, doesn't mean the religion aspect of it actually provides her any benefit.
> and, to be completely honest, while her religion has doctrine (which, incidentally, not all religions have) I haven't actually met anybody in her church that demands that doctrine.
Well, or do they? How would they react if she started questioning things in her church? Would they willingly engage, give her a podium? Also, do they still indoctrinate children? Will they stand with her when she protests indoctrination? Doesn't the faith aspect of her religion impair her epistemology and that of the other people in her church? Bad ideas are still bad ideas when they are used in small doses.
> He believes in his religion and has no way to reconcile his education and his beliefs, but he is completely OK with that.
Which is just obvious nonsense? I mean, how aren't you saying that he is simultaneously accepting as true multiple propositions that contradict each other, which would be an obvious impossibility?
> I really miss him to be honest. He got posted to Malaysia (being a priest is a super hard job). He's one of the few people I've met in a church who ever accepted me for who I am and what I believe. He frequently stood up for me and explained to other people that not everybody believes what they believe. I was very grateful for that.
Well, that's great--but the problem that he is helping you with there wouldn't exist in the first place if there weren't people like him teaching all those falsehoods that create the division in the first place, so I am not sure I can see more than a net zero contribution to your well-being in this? First teaching people that there are (completely fabricated) reasons to reject people like you, and then standing up for you when those people act on what he taught them is not exactly a contribution to society.
> These days, even though I don't believe what other people believe, I feel it is important to respect that belief.
Why? I understand it that you are not talking about respecting the person, but about respecting the belief, right? How could that possibly be a good idea? And how do you decide where that applies? I believe that white people are inferior to black people. Do you respect that? If not, why not?
To the contrary, I think that respect for the person trumps respect for a belief. If someone is a member of scientology and they believe that Xenu fought the aliens (or whatever their theology was, I don't remember), how would respecting that belief rather than challenging it be anything but a sign of lack of respect for the person that is stuck in that belief system? They don't have the means to defend themselves against the abuse, and you leave them to their fate out of respect?!
> It's just my idea and it may be horribly flawed, but I think we need to first accept other people as they are before we invite them into our own field of vision. Sometimes that's hard to do.
Well, maybe? But then that's respect for the person, not for the belief, isn't it?
How to use people’s fear of the unknown for tax free profit?
How to dress up bigotry so it sounds like something less obviously horrible?
Did I miss anything?
This might make more sense if you review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html about the intended spirit of this site. These other links might also be helpful:
https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html