Why would you not instead use your skills to "get people into" reading books that have actual verifiable truth, that advance their knowledge about the world, that educate them about history, mathematics, philosophy, logic, reason, etc?
Do you know what tomorrow holds, as an actual verifiable truth? I suppose no, but why do you act like you know something about it. Like you plan for the next day, and you plan for an uncertain future.
Point is, hope is important. And things that bring hope, even if it is not "actual verifiable truth", is valuable. Sure a lot of exploitation happen in the name of religion. But I would say that exploitation happen in the name of science as well.
It might be time to stop shaming people for following religion and god. Because humanity have seemed to have throw out the baby with the bath water in the name of rationality. It might be time to correct that mistake.
Sure, I agree with this as a general statement.
> Sure a lot of exploitation happen in the name of religion. But I would say that exploitation happen in the name of science as well.
Mass sexual abuse of children, mass murder, genocide, and terrorism are all things that have happened and continue to happen in the name of religion. I am not aware of any of these things happening in the name of science. Sure, there might be some examples of unethical experiments or other bad stuff, but it seems the scale of the atrocities is way larger on one side than the other.
> Because humanity have seemed to have throw out the baby with the bath water in the name of rationality. It might be time to correct that mistake.
I don't understand what you mean. I believe things that have evidence to support them. The Christian religion specifically, which is what the parent's app was about, is not supported by any empirical evidence that I'm aware of. Its holy book contains quite a few logical impossibilities and straight up false information, and the god of the book condones atrocities such as slavery and genocide. It doesn't seem to be true, so I don't think it's worth "hoping" it's true. And if I’m wrong on this, and the Christian god someday makes himself known, then I’ll believe he exists, but I certainly still wouldn’t worship him.
Maybe other religions are worth believing in (if you have examples with evidence suggesting they're true, I'd consider them!), but Christianity in particular seems to be clearly riddled with falsehoods and immoral behavior.
"science" is the new religion. You just need to give it time to live upto its potential. It is not too far fetched to imagine mass killings based on science when one side is seen as "risking lives" (because "science" says so) of the other.
>I believe things that have evidence to support them.
You believe that because you think that will lead to a better outcome for you. But sometimes when every individual does that, it will hurt the group/society, and thus ultimately result in bad outcome for you. Corruption is a good example. Human beings generally does not have the ability to see the big, long term picture and act on it. Which is where religion come. To provide reason and incentive to act in a way that is beneficial long term...
This is a wild take which makes me think that you don’t know what science is.
> It is not too far fetched to imagine mass killings based on science
No, that is actually quite far fetched.
> You believe that because you think that will lead to a better outcome for you.
No, I believe things that have evidence to support them because I think it’s important to believe as many true things as possible and as few false things as possible.
> Human beings generally does not have the ability to see the big, long term picture and act on it. Which is where religion come. To provide reason and incentive to act in a way that is beneficial long term...
You seem to be implying here that it’s hard or impossible to act in the long term or best interest of society without religion. I think that a having secular humanist philosophy which aims for well-being as its main goal is perfectly capable of providing for the long-term benefit of yourself and others.
>No, I believe things that have evidence to support them because I think it’s important to believe as many true things as possible and as few false things as possible.
"important" just mean that you hope that it will, implicitly lead to a better outcome. But you don't identify that equivalence in your own reasoning.
This is true for your other points as well, but it is very explicit in this particular one.
I have thought about this for literally decades, so I have to disagree.
> “important" just mean that you hope that it will, implicitly lead to a better outcome.
No, as I said, this is not true, at least not always. Here’s a counter-example: I have known many people who derive great peace and comfort from believing in some religious belief that doesn’t appear to me to be true. This is especially true when they experience hardship, such as the death of someone close to them. I think it’s quite likely that having a religious belief would be beneficial for me mentally in situations like this and lead to a better outcome than not having those beliefs, yet I still don’t adopt any such beliefs.
That is because it will hurt your ego and lead to internal conflict, which would be a worse outcome.
On top of that, is things like that something that can be turned on and off as one wish? I very much doubt it..
I guess not, therefore it was a comment from personal resentment and ignorance, aka “dumb”.
Are you sure you’re replying in the right thread?
Your question contains an insulting implication. Accurate quoting of scriptires is obviously aiding research, either personal spiritual or academic and everything in between (why else would you care about accuracy?).
And you showed obvious disrespect to this work, now trying to reframe yourself as if you didn’t mean anything.
Have at least some decency to own and stay your ground.
What is the insulting implication? I do apologize if you're insulted by the fact that there doesn't appear to exist any way to verify the non-mundane or supernatural claims in ancient religious texts, but that is a fact. In the case of the Bible specifically, it is evidenced by the fact that no one in ~2000 years has done it. And in the case of certain Biblical claims, e.g. that there was a global flood, that everything in existence was created in seven days and in a specific (nonsensical) order, and that it's possible for someone to be resurrected from the dead, there is overwhelming scientific evidence against them. If you think I'm wrong, I would welcome published and peer-reviewed citations. I'm completely open to changing my view.
> Accurate quoting of scriptires is obviously aiding research, either personal spiritual or academic and everything in between
Your previous reply implied that I was claiming that "help researching civilizations shaping scriptures is worthless." I took this to mean something specific: anthropological research regarding human civilizations that were involved in shaping religious texts. Now you appear to be widening your claim to any research of any sort (including "personal spiritual," which is definitely not research in the academic sense of the term). I apologize if I misunderstood your original point, but if I didn't, it's dishonest to change it mid-argument.
> And you showed obvious disrespect to this work, now trying to reframe yourself as if you didn’t mean anything.
First, let me apologize for being unclear on one thing in my reply: I said "I made no claims or insults." When I said "claims", I meant "claims regarding researching civilizations shaping scriptures" (the thing you accused me of making claims about).
Second, I'll be crystal clear: if you're referring to the Bible, I don't believe it's a text worthy of respect. As an undoubtedly influential text, of course it's worthy of study, and it's worthy of analysis, but I believe study and analysis show that it's a book full of vile things like how to own human beings as property, how to commit genocide, how to physically and sexually abuse others, etc. I am happy to provide citations of specific bible verses that support those claims, including citations in the original Hebrew/Greek for words that might have gotten changed in different translations (e.g. עבד being translated as "servant" vs "slave"). But I'm not sure HN is the place for such detail.
> Have at least some decency to own and stay your ground.
I would gently advise you to do the same, or at least be clearer about what you mean.
I applogize for not being perfectly clear with my words.
No, I don't think I am. What, specifically, do you think I am strawmanning?
> These days only ignorant and lazy people stick to purely literal and surface level interpretations of the bible.
I think it is clear from my previous response that I have done more than "literal and surface level interpretations" of the bible. But if you believe I haven't done enough, then it's on you to somehow show that, for example, Exodus 21 isn't actually telling the story of how God himself gave specific instructions for the proper way to do chattel slavery, and that it means something other than what countless scholars who have come before us agree that it says.
Also, in the future, please be specific about which of my statements are wrong and why, and stop throwing around baseless insults.
> But you are here to assert your “dawkins” grade of atheism
I have no idea what you mean by this.
> Just don’t pretend being objective when imposing your belief system and doubting someone’s hard work.
I genuinely believe I am being objective. Please don't assert that you know things about my mental state when you don't.
I don't have a "belief system" other than that I believe things that can be empirically shown to be true with a level of evidence commensurate to the claim. If you think that is something that can be "imposed" on others via an internet comment, I can only say in response that I support your right to believe whatever you want to believe, but you also need to suck it up if people call out those beliefs as illogical or unfounded.
I was not doubting anyone's hard work.
Or prove that objective laws of math and logic exist?
“Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you”
1 Peter 3:15
Just showing that your main belief is at least as irrational and arbitrary as your implied cartoon version of the bible based belief system (because you can't possibly prove or justify it by your own "evidence" standards).
And your comments do impose (even if unintentionally and subtly) this belief system as something more worthy of someone's time.
Which is a) not rational => not objective as I just showed b) therefore it looks very arrogant and ignorant (if you don't like word "dumb", I apologize).
Case closed.
Then don’t reply to my comment.
> Just showing that your main belief is at least as irrational and arbitrary as your implied cartoon version of the bible based belief system
What is my “main belief,” and what does it have to do with consciousness and whatever other unrelated topics you raised?
I did not imply any “cartoon version of the bible based belief system.” If you disagree, please show where I did, and specifically what I implied that is a “cartoon version.”
Case closed.
couple comments before:
> I don't have a "belief system" other than that I believe things that can be empirically shown to be true with a level of evidence commensurate to the claim.
> and what does it have to do with consciousness and whatever other unrelated topics you raised?
You've been incredibly dishonest and haven't answered most of the questions I've asked (and none of the important ones), so I'll just assume you just replied only to lob unfounded insults at me and that we're done here.