Quote: (09-25-2016 04:43 AM)MMX2010 Wrote:
Quote: (09-22-2016 09:34 AM)AboveAverageJoe Wrote:
I got kicked out of Sunday school as an 8 year old for asking too many logical questions and flustering the teacher. Never looked back.
Let's divide people who study religion into theologians (people who go to accredited religious colleges), religious psychologists and sociologists (like Jonathan Haidt, who have degrees in a either a social science or psychology AND are paid to do academic research on religion), and neither of these (normal dudes who study religion personally, without academic rigor nor religious training, like Scorpion, me, and probably everyone else).
I choose to exclude the testimony of both the theologians and the normal dudes, elevating the scientific conclusions and non-scientific speculations of the religious psychologists. Many people find this technique objectionable, which I understand. But I won't change my mind. And I'm glad I reveal this up front; you should, too.
Religious psychologists agree, both scientifically and speculatively, that the purpose of religion is to create a highly bonded community. This is a bedrock agreement that cannot be dissuaded by considerations of whether God is real OR whether specific Biblical stories have literally happened. Read again: CANNOT be dissuaded by... Many people, particularly normal dude atheists, find this annoying.
Many religious psychologists, (but not all, since some object vigorously), have speculated (but NOT scientifically proven, nor supported) that believing in non-reality is MORE effective than believing in reality. In other words, a religion that contains obvious bullshit elements (literally, elements that are scientifically and/or logically proven to be bullshit) is MORE effective at creating a highly bonded community than any religion which contains no bullshit at all.
It goes like this. Everyone, especially as a child, encounters obvious religious bullshit. This invites every child to question the obvious religious bullshit. If this questioning is done respectfully, with more of a focus on putting emotional bonding first, this questioning is acceptable. And the child is kept within the religious community, with either little or much punishment. But if this question is done disrespectfully, with either snark or too much "fierceness" of inquiry, with less of a focus on putting emotional bonding first, this questioning is unacceptable. And the child is either booted out of the religious community or self-deports as an adult, leaving behind a more highly bonded religious community.
The logic is simple (if even Very Fucking Annoying): a religion which only contains non-bullshit elements CANNOT administer this subtle test, and therefore cannot know how committed its believers are. Whereas ANY religion with ANY form of bullshit can always know that everyone in the church has put the emotional well-being of the church above himself.
My experience is that religious people can respectfully consider this proposition and either love it, hate it, or dismiss it, without hating on me. Whereas a much smaller percentage of atheists can do so; they always try to steer the conversation back to whether Good exists, or to assertion that objective truth is more important than community bonding.
-----
Edited to add, if you read the entire thread, you can see my post's thesis working in real time.
The majority of us have accepted religious bullshit with an eye for social bonding. These are Scorpion, debeguiled, Kid Twist, myself, and some others. (To be fair, Scorpion would say his perspective IS NOT religious bullshit, and he would support this argument with far more religious knowledge than I possess.)
Meanwhile, there are two posters who simply cannot accept religious bullshit. These are Mage and AboveAverageJoe.
Without getting into a deep theological discussion of whether all religious beliefs are true, ask yourself where we would sit if we were discussing religion in a bar. Obviously, Mage and AboveAverageJoe would be sitting next to each other, challenging our religious beliefs.
Now ask yourself, if a non-English speaker witnessed our behavior, what would he see? He would see that Mage and AboveAverageJoe are upset at us for some reason, but that we accept their upset mood - without being upset ourselves. They would also see that Scorpion is our de facto leader, and that we more or less agree with him.
In Trumpian terms, Mage and AboveAverageJoe have built an emotional wall, and they have gotten themselves to pay for it.
This is good analysis but we are not in a bar. We are discussing ideas anonymously on internet.
You also somewhat underestimate my stance on this.
I have been aware of this social dynamic you describe here for a long time. I am myself tolerating Christian bullshit for greater purposes. Some of my friends are Christians with whom I share common traditional values. Obviously I don't challange their faith everyday. My wife is a Christian. I am ok with her being a Christian because the church does the job of keeping her moral character high for me. She is teaching my two children to pray Christian prayers. I don't mind. I know this will install in them some basic ability to think im metaphysical terms, but they will not grow to be zealots, because that is not characteristic to those born in a religion. better they see the bullshit trough children eyes. I know when they will grow up I will show them the Godfather movie and explain that men and children can be careless and believe in fairy tales but men are expected to perform even by saintly priests and women and sometimes it means knowing when to break the rules. When I need support of like minded traditionalist men with sane moral values and family values I myself pretend to be more Christian than I am. I know there are many men who do the same. I know Trump is such a man too.
But the thing is I don't feel the need to play this game in this forum. Anonymous Internet is where we should discuss our ideas boldly.
Anonymous Internet has enabled men to compare their experiences with women and has helped us to unveil their true nature. We don't need to pay the woman respect tax on the internet unlike in real life
Similarly we should't pay our bullshit tax to religion here. We should discuss how to keep traditional moral values with less catering to bullshit. if we are to accept Christian half truths that means we are stuck not only with the good things that are suggested by Christianity like charity, sexual modesty, honesty, respect for elders, family values, sanctity of life but also with bad ones like softness, meekness pathological altruism and others.
If a man acknowledges that Christianity contains some bullish but he plays along with it for greater purpose of keeping the good values Christianity teaches I can respect that. But if a man cannot confess even in an anonymous freethinker forum that he holds some fairy tales as bullshit he is a fanatical man whom I wouldn't trust much in real life too.