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It’s interesting how you’ve written so much here and not given what concrete example. Makes it very difficult to examine your argument, when you simply state th
by hilbertseries 5y ago
It’s interesting how you’ve written so much here and not given what concrete example. Makes it very difficult to examine your argument, when you simply state that secular ideology is religious. I think it’s worth noting the definition of secular is:
> denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis.
- tonymet 5y agoMoney, medicine, “tolerance”, “racism”, politically incorrect language, natural selection, “the self,” public figures (CEOs, scientists, figureheads), celebrities, recycling, wearing masks, the super bowl, the oscars, the multiverse, the big bang, psychotherapy, anti-depressants, over-eating & dieting, conspicuous traveling, visiting nature, architecture. You can throw those into the religious categories e.g. virtue, vice, deities, origin story etc. I should also mention “original sin” – you can guess examples of those – in america that would be “racism”. I’m not taking good / bad position just applying religious lens to secular lifestyle.
- tonymet 5y agoand I forgot two qualities that are both states of being & virtues: love & happiness.
- IggleSniggle 5y agoThese things typically fall under the umbrella of “culture,” of which religion is one defining aspect, to greater or lesser extents.
- pjc50 5y ago... cheese, machine screws, steering wheel covers, arriving on time for appointments, the CIA, and Thursday. Have we left anything out?
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- kortilla 5y agoHorses and paper too
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- Tade0 5y ago> I’m not taking good / bad position just applying religious lens to secular lifestyle. I think your way of speaking about this doesn't do them any justice. Frankly, reading those descriptions, I would assume you're an atheist.
- indymike 5y agoMany of the things in the secular world must be taken on faith (belief absent inassailable truth). Truth is difficult and unclear.
- rootusrootus 5y agoCan you give me an example or two to clarify? Many things might not be well known to someone, but could be if they wanted to track down that information. That's a little different than something which has to be taken on faith by everyone.
- deertick1 5y agoWell the scientific method is fundamentally faith based in that we assume that there are immutable properties of thebuniverse that can be discovered and that our perception allows us to interrogate these properties. Yes this is a very well corroborated claim, but fundamentally faith based nonetheless.
- parineum 5y agoThe scientific method does not make that assumption. The scientific method only assumes/requires that doing the same thing exactly the same twice will produce the same results. Everything is built on top of that. > that our perception allows us to interrogate these properties. That's not about science, that's about logic. Anything that can interact with people can be detected and interrogated. It does not exclude the possibility that other things may exist but there is both no way for us to interact with those things and, as such, they have no relevance to our lives.
- jandrewrogers 5y agoAssuming that something is true for constructive reasoning purposes is not "faith-based", it is probabilistic. I don't have "faith" that the sun will rise tomorrow but I assign it a high probability based on priors for the purposes of practical reasoning. We provisionally accept certain axioms because of their high utility but the axioms may be discarded at any time if the utility or correctness is in doubt. Non-axiomatic reasoning systems are a real thing, we use them in computer science. This entire discussion is predicated on a minimalist set of mathematical axioms being valid, but there isn't even agreement on what that set of axioms is (though it may seem so to a layman). We still manage to get on in the world because we can do highly effective utilitarian reasoning without that being resolved.
- klipt 5y agoOne example I've noticed of a non-religious group acting similarly to a religious group is certain very online feminist communities. Instead of original sin, they believe that society hates women, and this is the root of all society's problems. Instead of regular repentance, they advise regularly checking your privilege / fighting your internalized misogyny. Anyone who questions their beliefs must be a heretic who hates women and must be cancelled. Etc.
- hpoe 5y agoNow you're getting it most people need and want something to believe in. But because traditional religion isn't fashionable they've found their new religion in the church of Social Justice.
- pengstrom 5y agoWith the exception of being based on analysis and generally welcoming genuine inquiry.
- klipt 5y agoAny community based on analysis doesn't fall under the set I'm talking about. I'm talking about the kind of people who would look at an abused man and assume, a priori, that he did something to deserve it, because their worldview precluded the idea that anyone other than women can be abused.
- fufmaya 5y agoSecular beliefs are invariably religious positions. It comes down to what you believe is axiomatic about the world. For example, asserting that life is soulless and meaningless is to take a stand on something that you cannot know. It's a religious position. All secular beliefs stem from similarly foundationless religious positions. Or maybe not foundationless, but without acknowledgement of the religious roots (that is, positions that require faith), which is probably worse than acknowledging that the beliefs you hold cannot be proven. It's worse because it leads people to believe they have a leg up on those religious clods with their backwards ways. When you don't recognize the things you assume about the world require faith, there is no corrective mechanism capable of opening your mind to other possibilities. Secular people and secular beliefs are ironically very close minded. Take all the things that you believe to be true and work backwards to first principles. What are the assumptions that those principles require to be true?
- 8note 5y agoYour soul example is not axiomatic. The actual axiom is that real things are observable/that empiricism is true. That's not even a required secular thing; secular folks can believe in souls as well, or be rationalists, where what's real does not depend on what you can observe. But for some subset of us, the soul is not measurable, nor can youcreate a test to determine whether something has a soul or not, so souls do not exist, by comparison to something like the electrical charge.
- reddog 5y agoThe best example I can think of would be the Chinese cultural revolution. Millions killed and hundreds of millions had their lives destroyed because they were perceived by the "faithful" (by mostly highschool and college age Chinese, not police or military) as as not being true to Maos teaching.
- sudosysgen 5y agoThat's pretty easy to understand in terms of power and secular belief, I don't see why religion is needed or particularly helpful.
- reddog 5y agoThe 30 years war, the 7 years war, the crusades, the inquisition, the witch hunts can also be understood in terms of power and secular belief. That does not mean they were not also powered by religous fervor. Or the break it down: Mao is the godhead, the little black book the scripture, the gang of four the disciples, the 4 olds the devil, the red guard the clergy and inquisitors, communism the religion and promised socialist utopia the heaven. Watch some youtube videos of red guard rallies and tell me you are not watching a religious service akin to a evangelical tent revival.
- dang 5y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27488136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27488136.