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I am an atheist but I believe pursuing religious thought can be a laudable thing for individuals who do it as a spiritual and self-reflective exercise. When it
by mlthoughts2018 8y ago
I am an atheist but I believe pursuing religious thought can be a laudable thing for individuals who do it as a spiritual and self-reflective exercise.
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.”
- agumonkey 8y agoI just Ramanujan wikipedia page, his mathematical insights were often inspired by his faith (as he said, even though it's hard to understand what this means). It was in complete opposition of his fellows in UK when he went there. Funny contrast. Religion also as a different domain of study.. human life. Hard science was concerned with ideals and material. Few for what your soul~ needs.
- amrx431 8y agoI am an atheist and I meditate and practice Yama and Niyamas like hell, because the practice of meditation has helped me in enumerable ways.
- fdsak 8y agoI often see this word "social control", I wonder what would be your strategy to escape from technological developments and use of such tools by states to control masses. I don't see there is any escape and these are getting more powerful and effective with the time. So science and technology has same effects and I see there is no escape for humanity except to find shelter in religious camp to find reason and morality etc ...