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"But I do believe that a large percent of the populations also needs some form of "socialized spirituality", and this is what traditional religions offer." I t

"But I do believe that a large percent of the populations also needs some form of "socialized spirituality", and this is what traditional religions offer." I think you're right, and that for most people (but not me), science and rationality doesn't offer this. The important question is, why do people need this? Fear of death? Need to belong to a tribe? Whats important: "social" or "spiritual"? Until we we know this there won't be successful "science based philosophy" (as nnq termed it) that avoids the pathological aspects of religion.

jiggy2011 14y ago
Since scientific understanding (including the understanding of understanding) changes relatively frequently (at least compared to religion) I strongly suspect that any "science based philosophy" will eventually devolve into a cult.
- nnq 14y ago
  If you base it on scientific facts, yes. But actually science is not about facts but about a method of understanding that produces "factual knowledge". Yeah, as you say, even the understanding of understanding evolves, but we just need to learn to "design things that evolve"... and I think it's orders of magnitudes easier to do this "in the world of pure memes" with something like a philosophy, than in the physical world with something like a self-replicating mutating robot. Yeah, just as with such a robot you'd have to give up things like "control over it", with such a philosophy-religion you may have to give up things like "moral values", but that's ok imho, since you can have those separately... The only thing that makes a "cult" "bad" is lack of freedom and flexibility, and this is "by design" for most cults.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    This sounds a lot like what we currently call "philosophy"
nnq 14y ago
People need a "common ground" of "spirituality". Even if you say "but not for me", I'm sure that (unless you're either an aspie or a psychopath :) ) you also get some sort of "mystical/spiritual understanding", probably from science and technology itself (like I do, and it took me years to understand that part of the "hard drug" that drives me to technology was actually a very "mystical" thing)... you can replace "mystical/spiritual" with "imagination/intuition of something more than self" if it's more atuned to the vocabulary of your mind. But this sort of thing satisfies a psychological need in a way that doesn't bring people together, while classical social religions, in their retarded and distorting way, actually bring people together. That's why I think there's an "untapped religious market" in the middle of these things :)
dataduck 14y ago
Relevant, although it takes a while to get there: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/03/05/honesty-and-the-human-body/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/03/05/honesty-and-the-human-b...

jiggy2011 14y ago

Since scientific understanding (including the understanding of understanding) changes relatively frequently (at least compared to religion) I strongly suspect that any "science based philosophy" will eventually devolve into a cult.

nnq 14y ago
If you base it on scientific facts, yes. But actually science is not about facts but about a method of understanding that produces "factual knowledge". Yeah, as you say, even the understanding of understanding evolves, but we just need to learn to "design things that evolve"... and I think it's orders of magnitudes easier to do this "in the world of pure memes" with something like a philosophy, than in the physical world with something like a self-replicating mutating robot. Yeah, just as with such a robot you'd have to give up things like "control over it", with such a philosophy-religion you may have to give up things like "moral values", but that's ok imho, since you can have those separately... The only thing that makes a "cult" "bad" is lack of freedom and flexibility, and this is "by design" for most cults.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  This sounds a lot like what we currently call "philosophy"

nnq 14y ago

People need a "common ground" of "spirituality". Even if you say "but not for me", I'm sure that (unless you're either an aspie or a psychopath :) ) you also get some sort of "mystical/spiritual understanding", probably from science and technology itself (like I do, and it took me years to understand that part of the "hard drug" that drives me to technology was actually a very "mystical" thing)... you can replace "mystical/spiritual" with "imagination/intuition of something more than self" if it's more atuned to the vocabulary of your mind. But this sort of thing satisfies a psychological need in a way that doesn't bring people together, while classical social religions, in their retarded and distorting way, actually bring people together. That's why I think there's an "untapped religious market" in the middle of these things :)

dataduck 14y ago

Relevant, although it takes a while to get there: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/03/05/honesty-and-the-human-body/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/03/05/honesty-and-the-human-b...