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While it has become fashionable and easy to cease believing in God, humans are wont to continue believing in Authority. Why, for example, that despite professi

by sridca 11y ago

While it has become fashionable and easy to cease believing in God, humans are wont to continue believing in Authority. Why, for example, that despite professing to uphold the gene-centric evolutionary understanding humans, who are otherwise flesh and blood bodies, can't help but think inside the restrictive box of self/ identities .... while granting authority to select set of identities - not just clergy men, but authorities in various forms. Modern social justice movements are another example of this authority-complex, wherein victim-disciples "pray" to the Government-God to "bless" them with advantages and "fight" against the privileged-evils. Does not anyone recognize a familiar pattern? Belief in a supernatural being (God) is but a symptom of something much more sinister about humanity. It is one thing to question a belief, but entirely another thing to question the need to believe itself. Refer to the Milgram experiment for the classic study done on Authority: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

dominotw 11y ago
Religion != God.
- sridca 11y ago
  I renamed the one mention of "Religion" in my post to "Belief in a supernatural being". This is such a trivial edit anyway ... do you have anything substantial to contribute towards the key point I've made in my comment above?
  - orionblastar 11y ago
    There exists religions that do not believe in a God like Buddhism. Buddha was just a human being who reached enlightenment and taught how to reach it. He was not a God or super natural.
    - sridca 11y ago
      Be that as it may ... as existence of religions without Gods is a tangential point, do you have anything substantial to contribute towards the key point I've made in my (mysteriously downvoted) original comment further above?
      - orionblastar 11y ago
        You got downvoted because you attacked religion and authority. Let me try and make a point. When Steve Jobs founded Apple he also had founded a religion that worshiped technology. Apple had a certain cult following of Apple users wanting to belong to Apple's culture and way of life. Steve Jobs wanted a different company than IBM and other corporations, he wanted Apple to be different from Microsoft. Steve Jobs was an authority on how computers should work and function. He tried to make easier to use computers with the Lisa and original Macintosh but both failed because they cost a lot and didn't have a lot of apps available for them. After being fired in 1985 or resigning whatever you want to believe, Steve Jobs founded a new company named Next that used Unix instead of starting over from scratch. Steve Jobs tried to create a new religion with a new company. Apple struggled without Steve Jobs, it seemed as if the CEO chair at Apple had an ejector seat. When Steve Jobs was brought back at Apple he turned around the company and got people interested in the new projects they worked on. Apple has this user experience factor that just attracts people to their religion. The iPhones and iPads basically sell themselves and the Macintosh sells itself because it doesn't have the flaws of a Windows PC. Even after Steve Jobs died, Apple still has a religious following to it. Sure there is a religious experience wired into our genes to worship something and obey some sort of authority. Which is why people follow politicians as authority figures even if they pass laws taking away rights and freedoms and doing domestic spying. It is why some people worship sports stars or musicians or movie makers or even the rich elite. Atheists for some reason don't seem to have this gene to worship something. Their brains are wired for skepticism and they question authority instead of blindly follow them. The more math and science one learns, the more likely one is to become an atheist. This is a problem Islam faced when they had their golden age of science and math discoveries. It is what had stopped the golden age out of fear that people would abandon Islam and worship science and math instead. The Catholic Church also faced this and it lead to the dark ages. In fact India, China, and other nations, once they stopped researching math and science, their empires declined. During the golden age in Europe, people wanted to worship science. The more science, math, and technology advances the more likely people will abandon religion because they don't need it anymore. Sure you got Dawkins criticizing religion in many areas, he used to be a Catholic but lost his faith. People see him as an authority and want to follow him as well. He has written great books on biology and is very smart. People want to follow some authority figure and be like them, they want leaders to tell them how to live their lives and what the meaning of life is to them. Be it a God, a politician, a business person, a sports figure, a musician, a singer, an atheist, whatever people want to follow someone they think has it all figured out. I think this is some part of evolution and in our genes but not everyone has this in their genes. It goes back a long way when people formed tribes for survival. Perhaps before religion was developed. Every tribe has a leader who is an authority figure. For religions that leader happened to be a God or in the case of Buddhism a human being who discovered enlightenment and the end to suffering. Even if there was no belief in a God or Gods, there still would be a religion worshiping something else. The rich elite worship money and power for example, and most have stopped practicing their religions in order to spend more time to manage their businesses. The poor who can't find a good paying job, turn to religion for hope and help. There exists a fellowship of people they can get support and advice from. I don't know if any of this makes sense to you. But religion plays a role in humanity and has played a role in evolution as well. Over time people have followed a religion because of some basic need for hope and understanding. As technology and medical science advances people leave religion because they feel they don't need it anymore as problems are solved by technology and medical science. The human race goes through a social evolution as well, changes to society that don't always agree with religious views.
qb45 11y ago
I think people have the capability to think for themselves and behave intelligently, since otherwise we probably wouldn't have survived to the point of creating abstract language, complex cultures and civilization, when mass brainwashing became possible. However, speaking of brainwashing, this capability seems to cease functioning when people are regularly pushed to follow arbitrary standards they don't really understand with the use of carrot-and-stick methods. Possibly something related to the "unused muscle" effect. And such carrot-and-stick training happens a lot in the West. I have no clue if a large society of more independent people would be stable and able to remain a society of independent people indefinitely. It seems that US was an experiment in creating such state, but then it ended up flooded with Christian immigrants and by the beginning of the 20th century they have already outlawed anything even remotely connected to freedom of choice and fun which at the same time isn't strictly required for survival, from alcohol and weed through prostitution and oral/anal sex ("sodomy laws" are still a thing in US) up to owning real weapons (who cares about assault rifles when the gov can bomb a whole city from drones). I don't know if the big monotheistic religions with their insistence on beating everyone into submission are the original reason for such state of affairs, or if they are just an external sign of something deeper and unavoidable. Maybe there are free societies somewhere in other parts of the world, but I don't know them. My experience is limited to WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) and here Milgram Effect is indeed the king.

by sridca 11y ago

dominotw 11y ago

Religion != God.

sridca 11y ago
I renamed the one mention of "Religion" in my post to "Belief in a supernatural being". This is such a trivial edit anyway ... do you have anything substantial to contribute towards the key point I've made in my comment above?
- orionblastar 11y ago
  There exists religions that do not believe in a God like Buddhism. Buddha was just a human being who reached enlightenment and taught how to reach it. He was not a God or super natural.
  - sridca 11y ago
    Be that as it may ... as existence of religions without Gods is a tangential point, do you have anything substantial to contribute towards the key point I've made in my (mysteriously downvoted) original comment further above?
    - orionblastar 11y ago
      You got downvoted because you attacked religion and authority. Let me try and make a point. When Steve Jobs founded Apple he also had founded a religion that worshiped technology. Apple had a certain cult following of Apple users wanting to belong to Apple's culture and way of life. Steve Jobs wanted a different company than IBM and other corporations, he wanted Apple to be different from Microsoft. Steve Jobs was an authority on how computers should work and function. He tried to make easier to use computers with the Lisa and original Macintosh but both failed because they cost a lot and didn't have a lot of apps available for them. After being fired in 1985 or resigning whatever you want to believe, Steve Jobs founded a new company named Next that used Unix instead of starting over from scratch. Steve Jobs tried to create a new religion with a new company. Apple struggled without Steve Jobs, it seemed as if the CEO chair at Apple had an ejector seat. When Steve Jobs was brought back at Apple he turned around the company and got people interested in the new projects they worked on. Apple has this user experience factor that just attracts people to their religion. The iPhones and iPads basically sell themselves and the Macintosh sells itself because it doesn't have the flaws of a Windows PC. Even after Steve Jobs died, Apple still has a religious following to it. Sure there is a religious experience wired into our genes to worship something and obey some sort of authority. Which is why people follow politicians as authority figures even if they pass laws taking away rights and freedoms and doing domestic spying. It is why some people worship sports stars or musicians or movie makers or even the rich elite. Atheists for some reason don't seem to have this gene to worship something. Their brains are wired for skepticism and they question authority instead of blindly follow them. The more math and science one learns, the more likely one is to become an atheist. This is a problem Islam faced when they had their golden age of science and math discoveries. It is what had stopped the golden age out of fear that people would abandon Islam and worship science and math instead. The Catholic Church also faced this and it lead to the dark ages. In fact India, China, and other nations, once they stopped researching math and science, their empires declined. During the golden age in Europe, people wanted to worship science. The more science, math, and technology advances the more likely people will abandon religion because they don't need it anymore. Sure you got Dawkins criticizing religion in many areas, he used to be a Catholic but lost his faith. People see him as an authority and want to follow him as well. He has written great books on biology and is very smart. People want to follow some authority figure and be like them, they want leaders to tell them how to live their lives and what the meaning of life is to them. Be it a God, a politician, a business person, a sports figure, a musician, a singer, an atheist, whatever people want to follow someone they think has it all figured out. I think this is some part of evolution and in our genes but not everyone has this in their genes. It goes back a long way when people formed tribes for survival. Perhaps before religion was developed. Every tribe has a leader who is an authority figure. For religions that leader happened to be a God or in the case of Buddhism a human being who discovered enlightenment and the end to suffering. Even if there was no belief in a God or Gods, there still would be a religion worshiping something else. The rich elite worship money and power for example, and most have stopped practicing their religions in order to spend more time to manage their businesses. The poor who can't find a good paying job, turn to religion for hope and help. There exists a fellowship of people they can get support and advice from. I don't know if any of this makes sense to you. But religion plays a role in humanity and has played a role in evolution as well. Over time people have followed a religion because of some basic need for hope and understanding. As technology and medical science advances people leave religion because they feel they don't need it anymore as problems are solved by technology and medical science. The human race goes through a social evolution as well, changes to society that don't always agree with religious views.

qb45 11y ago

I think people have the capability to think for themselves and behave intelligently, since otherwise we probably wouldn't have survived to the point of creating abstract language, complex cultures and civilization, when mass brainwashing became possible. However, speaking of brainwashing, this capability seems to cease functioning when people are regularly pushed to follow arbitrary standards they don't really understand with the use of carrot-and-stick methods. Possibly something related to the "unused muscle" effect. And such carrot-and-stick training happens a lot in the West. I have no clue if a large society of more independent people would be stable and able to remain a society of independent people indefinitely. It seems that US was an experiment in creating such state, but then it ended up flooded with Christian immigrants and by the beginning of the 20th century they have already outlawed anything even remotely connected to freedom of choice and fun which at the same time isn't strictly required for survival, from alcohol and weed through prostitution and oral/anal sex ("sodomy laws" are still a thing in US) up to owning real weapons (who cares about assault rifles when the gov can bomb a whole city from drones). I don't know if the big monotheistic religions with their insistence on beating everyone into submission are the original reason for such state of affairs, or if they are just an external sign of something deeper and unavoidable. Maybe there are free societies somewhere in other parts of the world, but I don't know them. My experience is limited to WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) and here Milgram Effect is indeed the king.