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Talking to a religious believer today will dispel this kind of thinking quickly. People really do believe in gods! Literally! And they'll die for those beliefs.

Talking to a religious believer today will dispel this kind of thinking quickly. People really do believe in gods! Literally! And they'll die for those beliefs. It was even more true back when we didn't understand what the sun was or why it rose every morning and set every night.

Leo_Germond 4y ago
Yes sure, putting all believers in a single bag really shows how complex and informed your point on the matter is.
- kiba 4y ago
  It is difficult for me to have any faith or belief in any of the Gods or God they worship. That's pretty much only my beef with it.
  - Leo_Germond 4y ago
    It is hard to put yourself in other's people state of mind, and to reason that it's because they must be idiots is not really the proper way to go. I don't have any advice to give on religion, if it's not your thing fine, but painting people with too broad a brush may lead to misuderstandings, conflicting exchanges, and ultimately animosity for no good reason. So my only point is: you probably have something that you hold dear to your heart and you would not liked to be judged or criticized for that, in some ways it's not even anyone's business but yours. Religion, spirituality, or weird new age practices are the same for a lot of people, and it doesn't presuppose that any of this is good or bad, it just is, and mounting a file against all of that at once is bound to be fruitless, and hurtful for the people involved.
    - TomSwirly 4y ago
      > in some ways it's not even anyone's business but yours If religionists ever, ever, ever behaved that way then there would be no problem, but the fact is that for thousands of years they have imposed their beliefs on the rest of us with violence.
    - kiba 4y ago
      It is hard to put yourself in other's people state of mind, and to reason that it's because they must be idiots is not really the proper way to go. I don't have any advice to give on religion, if it's not your thing fine, but painting people with too broad a brush may lead to misuderstandings, conflicting exchanges, and ultimately animosity for no good reason I can't believe something that isn't true. It's not about them being idiots, it's about the sheer lack of evidence.
  - Cthulhu_ 4y ago
    And that's fair, nobody's telling you you should. I think. I don't believe myself, but I can recognize the comfort that people get from faith, either faith in a higher power or a belief in what happens after death. My GF is pagan, she says she can see spirits leaving the body; for her, it makes dealing with death a lot easier. Like when our dog died, she just got on with dealing with the body because it was just an empty meatsack to her. Likewise, she said she doesn't care what happens with her body after death, because empty meatsack. If that gives her comfort, who am I to tell her she's wrong? I don't know either. Personally I'm more of a nihilist and think there's nothing after death, so there's no reason to fear it or care much about it, I won't be around. I've always theorised that life-after-death religions are at least in part based on fear - fear of nothingness, or fear of being judged and punished for things done (or not done) in life. I don't want to live in fear like that myself, but if others are more fearful and find comfort in faith that's good for them.
    - TomSwirly 4y ago
      I get that, but just because a belief makes you happier, doesn't make it true. I know a lot of people who chose to believe that COVID was a hoax, and that vaccination was a conspiracy, because these beliefs made them happier. But the consequences of these false beliefs was an incredibly large amount of death and suffering, all avoidable. > she says she can see spirits leaving the body But we both know this is a false belief. If she tested this scientifically, you know she would be unable to do better than chance.
- JellyBeanThief 4y ago
  Can we please stop putting up with useless sarcasm on this site? Someone's point on a matter is simplistic and uninformed. Fine. But a fancy "you're stupid" as a response is even more devoid of content. Like, I could've just said "Wow, that really deepened the discussion there, good job". But how about this instead: Try actually specifying some of the complexities that have been missed. Try plainly demanding evidence and reasoning. Choose some goal posts and plant them firmly where they can be hit. Because if I wanted to read useless sniping I'd be on reddit.
  - Leo_Germond 4y ago
    I did not use ad hominem, I clearly and unequivocaly reflected on the post's brievity and unearned assertivity as being of little value in the context of a discussion. Maybe I'm doing a bit of sniping, but so are you, and I have the same feeling that if I wanted to read "religious is bad end of discussion" post I'd go on reddit.
    - orwin 4y ago
      I know plenty of those religious people who don't care if people have sex outside of marriage or practice sodomy, wore mismatched textiles and probably offend their god in multiple ways. You can be religious and not a believer, and the original comment only talk about believers.
  - Cthulhu_ 4y ago
    We're not "putting up" with it, we're downvoting it and ignoring it. That's how you get it to stop or at least be filtered out. It's better to shun and ignore an unwanted post than to try to berate, punish and ban or delete it, IMO. Let people shout into the void if they choose to. You gave them the validation - there is no such thing as bad attention.
blowski 4y ago
There’s quite a variety of views when you’re talking about 5 billion people. Though I’m sure it’s true for a lot of them, there are also vast numbers of people who find that style or religion rather distasteful.
ulizzle 4y ago
Ppl believe in silly stuff like gender ideology today, even tho we have an almost complete understanding of human biology, so let’s not throw stones at history
- stouset 4y ago
  > we have an almost complete understanding of human biology Frankly I can’t believe someone would state such a thing with a straight face. Also, gender is a psychological construct more than a biological one. Are you confusing gender and sex?
  - ulizzle 4y ago
    We do have an almost complete understanding, and I actually think I was being too generous; but at least for the purpose of this convo, we certainly do know about X & Y chromosomes. I don’t believe that gender is a psychological construct. I believe that gender & sex are synonymous & it’s a politically correct construct to differentiate them in any way.
    - stouset 4y ago
      Sure, why have two words to describe two separate but related concepts when we could just decide to pretend that one of those concepts doesn’t even exist? “Someone’s physical reproductive bits” and “someone’s own internal perception of their sexual identity” are two separate concepts even if you believe they ought to be in sync with one another. And then when you acknowledge that there do exist people who seem quite certain that those values differ for themselves—even if you think they oughtn’t—isn’t it nice to have a word that allows us to describe this exact scenario? Also, I’d encourage you to ask more or less any biologist whether or not they think we’re just about done wrapping up their field of expertise.
    - adrianN 4y ago
      Some people of the same sex feel differently about their bodies and their sexuality. It seems useful to me to have words to describe that difference. I don't really see an "ideology" in that any more than I see "ideology" in other cultural phenomena, e.g. "surfer dudes", "skaters", or "weed aficionados". It's only made into an ideology by people who seek divisional talking points for political discourse.
hoseja 4y ago
That's because gods evolved to more comprehensively capture their hosts, early gods might not have been so efficient.
m_mueller 4y ago
I'd roughly put individual 'religion' of a person into one of two bags: cultural and faith (what you're talking about). The faith part by far not every member of a religion actually shares if they can talk openly (and the differences between the religion on this matter is quite vast). Some examples: East Asian state religions are almost entirely a cultural thing outside of monk communities. Judaism I'd also expect to be majority cultural only. Christianity in Europe, again, mostly cultural. I think the US has a bit of a different viewpoint since the boundaries between Christians that have faith with those that don't, are much more extreme and seem to regularly cause interpersonal conflict.
- reissbaker 4y ago
  Sure -- that's why I specified religious believer (i.e. someone with faith in their deity/religion, not a religiously-cultural agnostic/atheist). I myself am culturally Jewish, but don't believe in the religion or in any particular deity. But I grew up Orthodox, and for the most part they nearly all actually do believe in a God. It's not fake! And they're not stupid; plenty of them are extremely smart, hold advanced degrees, etc. The OP's belief that since ancient people were smart, they must not have actually believed in gods, just doesn't hold. It's a myopic viewpoint that can be dispelled simply by talking to people today who believe in gods and are perfectly smart too.
  - m_mueller 4y ago
    I suspect again that it comes from this religious-vs-atheist trench warfare that has developed along mostly political boundaries in the US. On the other side of the Atlantic, I'd claim religion is mostly just a private thing that people don't bother each other about much.
    - Jensson 4y ago
      When a large part of the population vote based on their religion then separation of church and state doesn't really work. For example if a part of the population votes that all stores needs to be closed on Sundays because Sundays are holy days then it affects non-believers. That isn't a joke, that is what some countries in Europe looks like, how do you argue against that without arguing that their beliefs are nonsense?
fsckboy 4y ago
why would understanding the sun's energy or orbits change your ideas about the Creator? The foundations of science come from studying nature to learn more about the truth of creation.
- reissbaker 4y ago
  If you previously believed that the sun rose every morning because it was attached to Helios's chariot and he flew it across the sky, and then you discovered that actually the sun didn't rise at all and it only seemed to "rise" and "set" because the Earth was rotating on its axis, and also the sun was a giant perpetually-exploding hydrogen bomb that the Earth orbits and definitely can't be attached to someone's chariot and dragged around the Earth, you might stop believing that the people who told you it was because of Helios and his flying chariot had any idea what they were talking about.
  - generalizations 4y ago
    I don't think the Greeks of Socrates/Plato/Aristotle's time were atheists, though they had some decently mechanistic views of astronomy, IIRC. Not totally sure your example holds up.
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      Actually, in Ancient Greeks some people took that knowledge and actually became atheists. Some of the 'cool' young intellectual would walk into temples and say 'stick me down if you exist' and then were smug when it didn't happen. It also became a common believe that all gods are just historical figures and stories. However the norm for most of history is to find some way to ratify the two believes even if they contradict. Ancient Jewish writers like Philo simply wrote a whole bunch of stuff about how every part of the bible is to be interpreted as some Platonic way. He was very influential on Christianity. Ironically he had basically no influence on what became modern Judaism and his interpretation were all rejected. And this is not just between science and religion. Even within religion this is a problem, because they are simply contradictory. Its literally possible to believe in all of the bible, because it contradicts itself. And trying to reason your way around all that nonsense requires tons of scholars coming up with elaborate explanations on why everything is actually not nonsense. Usually you have some elite set of priests who guard the interpretation. Today, there are whole field of Christian fundamentalists apologists who have whole universities field with smart people who do nothing then trying to 'read' the bible in ways that is not contradicting even if it very clearly is. The simply fact is, unless you view the bible purely allegorically and massively change the interpretation totally from what anybody who actually wrote the bible might have believed you can't have a modern scientific worldview and be a Christian. But at that point you can just base your worldview on Lord of the Rings or whatever you want because its your morals driving the interpretation, not the other way around. So its easy and reasonably consistent to believe in a Prime Originator who started the universe and then just let laws of physics work, but that is very different basically all religion.
sammalloy 4y ago
I think there was likely always a small percentage of the ruling class or philosopher kings who knew it was bogus but needed a "noble lie" to make their society work. Not much has changed.
- Tostino 4y ago
  I think hierarchy of needs comes into play here. You may not spend all that much time thinking about philosophy if you're foraging or farming, and busy with physical labor. Also, messages get lost, and misinterpreted. Quickly. I do believe that most [non explicit cult] religious texts shouldn't be interpreted literally, but instead take them the lessons they teach, or are interpreted to be.
  - sammalloy 4y ago
    It’s an interesting discussion, really. A lot of wisdom literature outside of academic discourse emphasizes the philosophy of the common man. This gets lost at higher levels of study. Zen Buddhism emphasizes the mundane ("chop wood, carry water"), while some Christian sects embody their philosophy through work and service to others. I agree with what you say about not interpreting texts literally, but we have a real problem in the US with angry, vocal, and frankly violent religious people who defend inerrant scriptural readings of the text. Outside of the US, I think it would be difficult to have a discussion in, let’s say, a predominantly Muslim county, where I held a debate about how the Quran should not be interpreted literally. So while I agree completely with the spirit of what you say, the practical reality is very different.

Leo_Germond 4y ago

Yes sure, putting all believers in a single bag really shows how complex and informed your point on the matter is.

kiba 4y ago
It is difficult for me to have any faith or belief in any of the Gods or God they worship. That's pretty much only my beef with it.
- Leo_Germond 4y ago
  It is hard to put yourself in other's people state of mind, and to reason that it's because they must be idiots is not really the proper way to go. I don't have any advice to give on religion, if it's not your thing fine, but painting people with too broad a brush may lead to misuderstandings, conflicting exchanges, and ultimately animosity for no good reason. So my only point is: you probably have something that you hold dear to your heart and you would not liked to be judged or criticized for that, in some ways it's not even anyone's business but yours. Religion, spirituality, or weird new age practices are the same for a lot of people, and it doesn't presuppose that any of this is good or bad, it just is, and mounting a file against all of that at once is bound to be fruitless, and hurtful for the people involved.
  - TomSwirly 4y ago
    > in some ways it's not even anyone's business but yours If religionists ever, ever, ever behaved that way then there would be no problem, but the fact is that for thousands of years they have imposed their beliefs on the rest of us with violence.
  - kiba 4y ago
    It is hard to put yourself in other's people state of mind, and to reason that it's because they must be idiots is not really the proper way to go. I don't have any advice to give on religion, if it's not your thing fine, but painting people with too broad a brush may lead to misuderstandings, conflicting exchanges, and ultimately animosity for no good reason I can't believe something that isn't true. It's not about them being idiots, it's about the sheer lack of evidence.
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  And that's fair, nobody's telling you you should. I think. I don't believe myself, but I can recognize the comfort that people get from faith, either faith in a higher power or a belief in what happens after death. My GF is pagan, she says she can see spirits leaving the body; for her, it makes dealing with death a lot easier. Like when our dog died, she just got on with dealing with the body because it was just an empty meatsack to her. Likewise, she said she doesn't care what happens with her body after death, because empty meatsack. If that gives her comfort, who am I to tell her she's wrong? I don't know either. Personally I'm more of a nihilist and think there's nothing after death, so there's no reason to fear it or care much about it, I won't be around. I've always theorised that life-after-death religions are at least in part based on fear - fear of nothingness, or fear of being judged and punished for things done (or not done) in life. I don't want to live in fear like that myself, but if others are more fearful and find comfort in faith that's good for them.
  - TomSwirly 4y ago
    I get that, but just because a belief makes you happier, doesn't make it true. I know a lot of people who chose to believe that COVID was a hoax, and that vaccination was a conspiracy, because these beliefs made them happier. But the consequences of these false beliefs was an incredibly large amount of death and suffering, all avoidable. > she says she can see spirits leaving the body But we both know this is a false belief. If she tested this scientifically, you know she would be unable to do better than chance.
JellyBeanThief 4y ago
Can we please stop putting up with useless sarcasm on this site? Someone's point on a matter is simplistic and uninformed. Fine. But a fancy "you're stupid" as a response is even more devoid of content. Like, I could've just said "Wow, that really deepened the discussion there, good job". But how about this instead: Try actually specifying some of the complexities that have been missed. Try plainly demanding evidence and reasoning. Choose some goal posts and plant them firmly where they can be hit. Because if I wanted to read useless sniping I'd be on reddit.
- Leo_Germond 4y ago
  I did not use ad hominem, I clearly and unequivocaly reflected on the post's brievity and unearned assertivity as being of little value in the context of a discussion. Maybe I'm doing a bit of sniping, but so are you, and I have the same feeling that if I wanted to read "religious is bad end of discussion" post I'd go on reddit.
  - orwin 4y ago
    I know plenty of those religious people who don't care if people have sex outside of marriage or practice sodomy, wore mismatched textiles and probably offend their god in multiple ways. You can be religious and not a believer, and the original comment only talk about believers.
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  We're not "putting up" with it, we're downvoting it and ignoring it. That's how you get it to stop or at least be filtered out. It's better to shun and ignore an unwanted post than to try to berate, punish and ban or delete it, IMO. Let people shout into the void if they choose to. You gave them the validation - there is no such thing as bad attention.

blowski 4y ago

There’s quite a variety of views when you’re talking about 5 billion people. Though I’m sure it’s true for a lot of them, there are also vast numbers of people who find that style or religion rather distasteful.

ulizzle 4y ago

Ppl believe in silly stuff like gender ideology today, even tho we have an almost complete understanding of human biology, so let’s not throw stones at history

stouset 4y ago
> we have an almost complete understanding of human biology Frankly I can’t believe someone would state such a thing with a straight face. Also, gender is a psychological construct more than a biological one. Are you confusing gender and sex?
- ulizzle 4y ago
  We do have an almost complete understanding, and I actually think I was being too generous; but at least for the purpose of this convo, we certainly do know about X & Y chromosomes. I don’t believe that gender is a psychological construct. I believe that gender & sex are synonymous & it’s a politically correct construct to differentiate them in any way.
  - stouset 4y ago
    Sure, why have two words to describe two separate but related concepts when we could just decide to pretend that one of those concepts doesn’t even exist? “Someone’s physical reproductive bits” and “someone’s own internal perception of their sexual identity” are two separate concepts even if you believe they ought to be in sync with one another. And then when you acknowledge that there do exist people who seem quite certain that those values differ for themselves—even if you think they oughtn’t—isn’t it nice to have a word that allows us to describe this exact scenario? Also, I’d encourage you to ask more or less any biologist whether or not they think we’re just about done wrapping up their field of expertise.
  - adrianN 4y ago
    Some people of the same sex feel differently about their bodies and their sexuality. It seems useful to me to have words to describe that difference. I don't really see an "ideology" in that any more than I see "ideology" in other cultural phenomena, e.g. "surfer dudes", "skaters", or "weed aficionados". It's only made into an ideology by people who seek divisional talking points for political discourse.

hoseja 4y ago

That's because gods evolved to more comprehensively capture their hosts, early gods might not have been so efficient.

m_mueller 4y ago

I'd roughly put individual 'religion' of a person into one of two bags: cultural and faith (what you're talking about). The faith part by far not every member of a religion actually shares if they can talk openly (and the differences between the religion on this matter is quite vast). Some examples: East Asian state religions are almost entirely a cultural thing outside of monk communities. Judaism I'd also expect to be majority cultural only. Christianity in Europe, again, mostly cultural. I think the US has a bit of a different viewpoint since the boundaries between Christians that have faith with those that don't, are much more extreme and seem to regularly cause interpersonal conflict.

reissbaker 4y ago
Sure -- that's why I specified religious believer (i.e. someone with faith in their deity/religion, not a religiously-cultural agnostic/atheist). I myself am culturally Jewish, but don't believe in the religion or in any particular deity. But I grew up Orthodox, and for the most part they nearly all actually do believe in a God. It's not fake! And they're not stupid; plenty of them are extremely smart, hold advanced degrees, etc. The OP's belief that since ancient people were smart, they must not have actually believed in gods, just doesn't hold. It's a myopic viewpoint that can be dispelled simply by talking to people today who believe in gods and are perfectly smart too.
- m_mueller 4y ago
  I suspect again that it comes from this religious-vs-atheist trench warfare that has developed along mostly political boundaries in the US. On the other side of the Atlantic, I'd claim religion is mostly just a private thing that people don't bother each other about much.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    When a large part of the population vote based on their religion then separation of church and state doesn't really work. For example if a part of the population votes that all stores needs to be closed on Sundays because Sundays are holy days then it affects non-believers. That isn't a joke, that is what some countries in Europe looks like, how do you argue against that without arguing that their beliefs are nonsense?

fsckboy 4y ago

why would understanding the sun's energy or orbits change your ideas about the Creator? The foundations of science come from studying nature to learn more about the truth of creation.

reissbaker 4y ago
If you previously believed that the sun rose every morning because it was attached to Helios's chariot and he flew it across the sky, and then you discovered that actually the sun didn't rise at all and it only seemed to "rise" and "set" because the Earth was rotating on its axis, and also the sun was a giant perpetually-exploding hydrogen bomb that the Earth orbits and definitely can't be attached to someone's chariot and dragged around the Earth, you might stop believing that the people who told you it was because of Helios and his flying chariot had any idea what they were talking about.
- generalizations 4y ago
  I don't think the Greeks of Socrates/Plato/Aristotle's time were atheists, though they had some decently mechanistic views of astronomy, IIRC. Not totally sure your example holds up.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Actually, in Ancient Greeks some people took that knowledge and actually became atheists. Some of the 'cool' young intellectual would walk into temples and say 'stick me down if you exist' and then were smug when it didn't happen. It also became a common believe that all gods are just historical figures and stories. However the norm for most of history is to find some way to ratify the two believes even if they contradict. Ancient Jewish writers like Philo simply wrote a whole bunch of stuff about how every part of the bible is to be interpreted as some Platonic way. He was very influential on Christianity. Ironically he had basically no influence on what became modern Judaism and his interpretation were all rejected. And this is not just between science and religion. Even within religion this is a problem, because they are simply contradictory. Its literally possible to believe in all of the bible, because it contradicts itself. And trying to reason your way around all that nonsense requires tons of scholars coming up with elaborate explanations on why everything is actually not nonsense. Usually you have some elite set of priests who guard the interpretation. Today, there are whole field of Christian fundamentalists apologists who have whole universities field with smart people who do nothing then trying to 'read' the bible in ways that is not contradicting even if it very clearly is. The simply fact is, unless you view the bible purely allegorically and massively change the interpretation totally from what anybody who actually wrote the bible might have believed you can't have a modern scientific worldview and be a Christian. But at that point you can just base your worldview on Lord of the Rings or whatever you want because its your morals driving the interpretation, not the other way around. So its easy and reasonably consistent to believe in a Prime Originator who started the universe and then just let laws of physics work, but that is very different basically all religion.

sammalloy 4y ago

I think there was likely always a small percentage of the ruling class or philosopher kings who knew it was bogus but needed a "noble lie" to make their society work. Not much has changed.

Tostino 4y ago
I think hierarchy of needs comes into play here. You may not spend all that much time thinking about philosophy if you're foraging or farming, and busy with physical labor. Also, messages get lost, and misinterpreted. Quickly. I do believe that most [non explicit cult] religious texts shouldn't be interpreted literally, but instead take them the lessons they teach, or are interpreted to be.
- sammalloy 4y ago
  It’s an interesting discussion, really. A lot of wisdom literature outside of academic discourse emphasizes the philosophy of the common man. This gets lost at higher levels of study. Zen Buddhism emphasizes the mundane ("chop wood, carry water"), while some Christian sects embody their philosophy through work and service to others. I agree with what you say about not interpreting texts literally, but we have a real problem in the US with angry, vocal, and frankly violent religious people who defend inerrant scriptural readings of the text. Outside of the US, I think it would be difficult to have a discussion in, let’s say, a predominantly Muslim county, where I held a debate about how the Quran should not be interpreted literally. So while I agree completely with the spirit of what you say, the practical reality is very different.