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Comment by Ghexor | Hacker News Reader

I think your impression has merit and labeling people as 'sick' or 'broken' or any of the diagnoses in psychology literature, that imply just about the same, can keep people stuck identifying with their afflictions. And that there's some great value in religion that we've not found a good replacement for.

I also believe that one can go without facing deeply traumatic events for an entire life and seem to many on the outside to be doing much better than one who goes the difficult path of deconstructing oneself and their family history.

And I think our unhappiness and that of our children is well explained by our late-stage-capitalist, individualistic cultures and the rise of technology that profits from (ill-)serving our social needs.

'It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.' - Jiddu Krishnamurti

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“some great value in religion” takes a long time of filtering through stories and metaphors to find the actual point.

I get it, some lessons are hard to teach and it’s easier to present the framework of the lesson in a story, then people make connections as they grow.

But you also have to consider all of the harmful misinterpretations that come with it.

If most people come away from religion less ethical than nonreligious people, let’s see if we can take the good parts of the texts and throw the rest away.

E.g. learning about mystical buddhism versus just going to therapy and breathing for a while.

> If most people come away from religion less ethical than nonreligious people

How do you test that? You cannot do a double blind test because you cannot induce religion in people to order.

> let’s see if we can take the good parts of the texts and throw the rest away.

I do not think you can do that. Each religion is largely shaped by a few key ideas. Remove one of those and you change it radically (losing the good) remove anything else and you will not change anything significant.

You can reform and improve religions, but I think history shows that is not easy nor are the results predictable.

I think you over-emphasise the importance of texts to religions in general. Texts are the foundation of American evangelical Christianity and (to an extent I am worse equipped to judge) Islam, but much of Christianity and at least some schools of Buddhism are really based in a very small core of ideas.

I take it as a fair enough assumption for my judgements that all people have the same average personality potential at birth.

I’ve been around a lot of very Catholic people. I’d say half are well intentioned, whereas half are belligerent antivax etc.

The ones with good intentions prop up and obey the bad actors.

The ones with good intentions end up feeling trapped by the community and the religious trauma. Sometimes the good ones end up taking it out on their spouses/kids, perceived as units of the oppressive structure (though they are victims alike).

The difficulty of reform is all the more reason I’m happy for the slow decline in religiosity.

I agree with you in that the stories of religion are pretty dangerous in their 'dogmatic' potential.

I think another big value of religion is the community that comes with it. Its really easy to get along with people who tell the same stories.

And maybe there's something else I'm less aware of, idk. My point is there seems to be something we've not figured out well enough to apply it.

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