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This is an extremely ignorant position that trivializes "religion". First of all, as I have written elsewhere, everyone is religious. -- I can't see how that s

This is an extremely ignorant position that trivializes "religion". First of all, as I have written elsewhere, everyone is religious. -- I can't see how that statement doesn't trivialize religion at least as much. IE, if everyone is "religious", you've set a very low bar for what qualifies as religious I think made it clear you have religious beliefs, which involve ... clearly false views of the cosmos (with the possible exception of Buddhism) and you have religious institutions, which serve a variety of social, economic and psychological purposes. A church can be club with a few nods to God or it can be something like a political party hell bent on power or it can be other things. Many American Unitarians maintain the form of religion while dropping all the God part and that's as fine as anything as far as I'm concerned.

ukj 5y ago
> if everyone is "religious", you've set a very low bar for what qualifies as religious And if everyone has “beliefs” then you have set a very low bar for what qualifies as belief which makes everyone a believer. You are playing a silly power game where you dismiss other people’s conceptual schemes so you can peddle your own. My view of the cosmos is that it is a computer simulation. It isn’t clearly false. But it is clearly a religion. Even though it is backed up by the fact that all asymmetrical/equational reasoning (all of the Mathematics supporting Physics/Cosmology) is computational.
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  And if everyone has “beliefs” then you have set a very low bad for what qualifies as belief. Sure, if you look at what qualifies as a belief, it's pretty random. My view of the cosmos is that it is a computer simulation. It seems like the main thing this shares with religion is that it's wholly unverifiable. If you develop it in common with others and perhaps add rituals, you could qualify it along with Pastafarians [1]. But Pastafarian know it's a joke. I might have some wholly unverifiable beliefs but I don't have a commitment to maintain such beliefs. That's where I'd locate the difference. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
  - ukj 5y ago
    It is 100% verifiable AND falsifiable. You can verify that Physics is captured in Mathematics. Mathematics is a Turing-recognisable language. If the universe is Physical then it is computable. This is a trivially true belief (see Church-Turing-Deutsch principle). You can falsify my belief by producing Physics in language other than Mathematics. Of course, as an instrumentalist/physicist, I don’t care if my beliefs are “actually true” as long as they work.

ukj 5y ago

> if everyone is "religious", you've set a very low bar for what qualifies as religious And if everyone has “beliefs” then you have set a very low bar for what qualifies as belief which makes everyone a believer. You are playing a silly power game where you dismiss other people’s conceptual schemes so you can peddle your own. My view of the cosmos is that it is a computer simulation. It isn’t clearly false. But it is clearly a religion. Even though it is backed up by the fact that all asymmetrical/equational reasoning (all of the Mathematics supporting Physics/Cosmology) is computational.

joe_the_user 5y ago
And if everyone has “beliefs” then you have set a very low bad for what qualifies as belief. Sure, if you look at what qualifies as a belief, it's pretty random. My view of the cosmos is that it is a computer simulation. It seems like the main thing this shares with religion is that it's wholly unverifiable. If you develop it in common with others and perhaps add rituals, you could qualify it along with Pastafarians [1]. But Pastafarian know it's a joke. I might have some wholly unverifiable beliefs but I don't have a commitment to maintain such beliefs. That's where I'd locate the difference. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
- ukj 5y ago
  It is 100% verifiable AND falsifiable. You can verify that Physics is captured in Mathematics. Mathematics is a Turing-recognisable language. If the universe is Physical then it is computable. This is a trivially true belief (see Church-Turing-Deutsch principle). You can falsify my belief by producing Physics in language other than Mathematics. Of course, as an instrumentalist/physicist, I don’t care if my beliefs are “actually true” as long as they work.