4 ms·

True faith is quite common among humanity. Removing existential dread is one of the core benefits that led to the adoption of this "religion" technology all ove

• nonameiguess 4y ago
  Maybe, maybe not, but I'd question some blanket assertion being made without evidence that deeply religious people experience less existential dread. It's going to depend on plenty of other cultural specifics, of course, but not all religions involve an afterlife and some involve the possibility of an afterlife that is much worse than simply running out of time. There is also the issue that common western manifestations of existential dread, i.e. the Nietzshe eternal return, Sartre's dilemma of having no choice but to make a choice but all of them are bad, even up to the contemporary worries about near-infinite compounding of sub-optimal ethics in far-future focused EA circles and AI-risk circles, are not in any way mitigated by the possibility of an afterlife. All the trillions of future people you cause suffering to will still suffer even if you end up in heaven.
  • chitowneats 4y ago
    > All the trillions of future people you cause suffering to will still suffer even if you end up in heaven. Yes, of course. God will forgive you though if you are penitent. Existential dread resolved. At least that's the Christian answer. Another wildly successful social technology.
• jonfw 4y ago
  > for many people it's as real as gravity That would speak to those people's lack of understanding of gravity more than anything else in my view