Rather than a question of adulthood vs childhood, the reality is that humans evolved certain traits and abilities that mean superstition and religion are in our nature, for better or worse, like it or no.
Humans had to become adept at determining the intent of other humans and of animals to the point where we tend to anthropomorphize animals, inanimate objects, even concepts like justice and luck and fate.
We evolved mechanisms to avoid harm by remembering past experiences and predicting future ones. Though flawed from the standpoint of rationality, these adaptations were enough to prevent extinction of humanity at large, while leaving us saddled with numerous cognitive biases that leave us more likely to believe unfounded claims of a spiritual nature.
The antidotes to irrational, superstitious thinking are knowledge and critical thinking skills. It takes time, effort, and dedication to gain the upper hand against our nature.
It may be impossible to completely overcome our nature. Still I do hope we are able to set aside the most harmful manifestations of our nature: dogmatic thinking and religious zealotry.
Logically and morally, this is an obvious conclusion, but most people are fucking idiots or apathetic towards what they perceive as ‘lesser injustices.’ Religious people are now existentially threatened because people are openly non-believers and since most of them lack self-reflection capabilities they get angry and aggravated and do what they can to fight for what is right in their eyes. One of the worst aspects of religion is that it makes people feel justified in doing things they otherwise never would have.
Really original that notion. I’m sure no one has ever considered it.
I also notice it was carefully considered and worded in order to avoid being considered as intolerant as the detractor to humanity it proposes to have dismantled.
Marx’s vision as expressed in his opiate of the people quote is for a world in which the truth is comforting and hopeful, and the people of the community don’t have to turn to myths and legends for positivity.
Religion is a symptom that emerges from misery and trauma, and should be regarded by the state like an epidemic of an infectious pathogen.
I don’t think calling religion a symptom is fair. I think it is it’s own kind of virus that infects people who don’t have the tools to withstand it… And misery/trauma provides the blow that weakens people and makes them susceptible.
Staph doesn’t kill healthy people, but it sure as shit fucks up people who have other ailments.
Vulnerability is the symptom of trauma and pain. Religion exploits that.
Religious conviction and adherence to organized ministries is more prevalent in regions where the quality of life suffers, such as throughout the Americas. Here in the US, precarity (housing precarity, food precarity, job precarity, etc.) feeds into the kind of magical thinking that fuels adherence to faith and authoritarian ideology (that a charismatic figure will use their power to fix our personal woes).
So religion is not a personal symptom like a fever or cough, it’s a community problem, like elevated hate crime or recurring rampage killings.
Again though, religion isn’t necessarily the symptom of these things. Those things can exist without religion. Religion definitely thrives in these environments…
I hope that a world in which the truth is comforting and hopeful is eventually achieved however I kinda doubt that any kind of economic/political formation will ever change the fact that being alive kinda sucks, people will always experience hardship and sadness and insurmountable problems and faith in something intangible helps a lot of people get through that.
Throughout the history of post-agricultural humanity, we’ve had elites that yoked the work of an underclass and only recently (in the last few centuries) have we been able to recognize this is not a good thing and will ultimately lead to the downfall of human civilization on a short time frame (say, the next few centuries as an upper limit).
This may be the fate of the human ape, and while I’d rather we worked out how to organize well enough to go to space and colonize other worlds (what I think would require an egalitarian system), I acknowledge that we just may not be socially developed enough. It’s telling that billionaires don’t invest their gains into massive humanitarian projects that could put their statue in every state park worldwide. Many of them could become the god of Haiti if they wanted and yet none of them do. They invest in charities that are fit to market how much good they’re doing, rather than actually doing major good, and when they think of massive works, they automatically consider profit motives. That’s telling to me.
But not all hope is lost. We’ve psychological tricks to run against our less-than-social instincts before, and as we develop more collective self-awareness (such as our more general awareness of mental health language) we might be able to rise above our tribalist tendencies towards a collective system. Perhaps in the looming population correction we’ll be able to see that the capitalist, transactional society we made lead us to the climate crisis and a cascade failure of the state, and instead of choosing to cling to tradition we’ll decide to try something else.
It’s a far reach, but the only other option is to get comfortable with the risk of human extinction.
You can derive it from yourself and not a greater ‘supernatural’ purpose. For example, I have accepted I will die and that there is no meaning to life, I might even be an anti-natalist, but that doesn’t mean I just give up and live in despair. I’m alive and so with that life I act in my own self-interest to make the world better because it’s what makes my existence have a meaning.
In our society, one that teems with parasitic behavior between its individual members, yes, it raises a question why we might want to live without higher meaning. Sartre didn’t address it until late in life, but Camus recognize that most people at least commit philosophical suicide (that is, take a leap of faith) if the choice is between that or committing literal suicide. It’s why he offers embracing the absurd, imagining Sisyphus happy, and finding a way to get there, yourself.
To be fair, I’m not even there yet, finding that my society has willfully betrayed me from my childhood (as it does for all kids in the US) trying to create an obedient and disposable laborer / soldier to build vanity projects for billionaires, rather than prepare us to shape society the way we want it as we grow into it. Ours is now a gerontocracy as well as a plutocracy, while the kids have their own ideas and are looking to defy the natural social order.
So my story and yours is in how we break free from the fetters and find our own way. Or not, as the case may be.
You won’t ever be able to overcome the ills of society alone, by yourself you’ll never be able to “break free from the fetters and find your own way” Making a better society requires coordinated collective effort. Religion bonds people together in a very rare way. You can’t get people to work together in a coordinated way without some ideal in their minds, they have to believe that their effort might not help themselves directly but might help make future civilization a better place. That takes faith of one kind or another.
Here’s the context of that sentence that you are quoting: “You can’t get people to work together in a coordinated way without some ideal in their minds, they have to believe that their effort might not help themselves directly but might help make future civilization a better place. That takes faith of one kind or another.”
I was talking about getting people to work together for a better world, not an individual choice"
You’re right that changing society requires a movement, but I was talking about the individual process.
And yes, few of us find a real opportunity to find a way to create for ourselves some wiggle-room such as Winston and his nook-journal hidden away outside the surveillance of Big Brother. (Our world teems with infant perishing from famine or infectious disease, so just by getting literate and on the internet, you’ve gotten far.)
I think of the chaos of complexity that allowed cloned dinosaurs to breed, to migrate off Isla Nublar and to survive despite a lysine dependency. Our oppressive system is rife with such opportunities even if it’s to pirate movies for diabled folk who couldn’t otherwise afford to otherwise see them. Or for that matter, our own kids.
Steps to escape the cages might be tiny in the moment, but they can sometimes add up.
If the metric used is the number of figures in the pantheon, it will be very interesting to do the math for hinduism, budism, dao and shinto.
Like it or not,
religiositybelief isn’t going anywhere. Science can not provide meaning for life or the universe where we exist.What we can and should fight for is a society where belief is solely personal matter, with no room or weight on the broad public forum.
Rather than a question of adulthood vs childhood, the reality is that humans evolved certain traits and abilities that mean superstition and religion are in our nature, for better or worse, like it or no.
Humans had to become adept at determining the intent of other humans and of animals to the point where we tend to anthropomorphize animals, inanimate objects, even concepts like justice and luck and fate.
We evolved mechanisms to avoid harm by remembering past experiences and predicting future ones. Though flawed from the standpoint of rationality, these adaptations were enough to prevent extinction of humanity at large, while leaving us saddled with numerous cognitive biases that leave us more likely to believe unfounded claims of a spiritual nature.
The antidotes to irrational, superstitious thinking are knowledge and critical thinking skills. It takes time, effort, and dedication to gain the upper hand against our nature.
It may be impossible to completely overcome our nature. Still I do hope we are able to set aside the most harmful manifestations of our nature: dogmatic thinking and religious zealotry.
Logically and morally, this is an obvious conclusion, but most people are fucking idiots or apathetic towards what they perceive as ‘lesser injustices.’ Religious people are now existentially threatened because people are openly non-believers and since most of them lack self-reflection capabilities they get angry and aggravated and do what they can to fight for what is right in their eyes. One of the worst aspects of religion is that it makes people feel justified in doing things they otherwise never would have.
Really original that notion. I’m sure no one has ever considered it.
I also notice it was carefully considered and worded in order to avoid being considered as intolerant as the detractor to humanity it proposes to have dismantled.
People need comfort and hope
Marx’s vision as expressed in his opiate of the people quote is for a world in which the truth is comforting and hopeful, and the people of the community don’t have to turn to myths and legends for positivity.
Religion is a symptom that emerges from misery and trauma, and should be regarded by the state like an epidemic of an infectious pathogen.
I don’t think calling religion a symptom is fair. I think it is it’s own kind of virus that infects people who don’t have the tools to withstand it… And misery/trauma provides the blow that weakens people and makes them susceptible.
Staph doesn’t kill healthy people, but it sure as shit fucks up people who have other ailments.
Vulnerability is the symptom of trauma and pain. Religion exploits that.
Religious conviction and adherence to organized ministries is more prevalent in regions where the quality of life suffers, such as throughout the Americas. Here in the US, precarity (housing precarity, food precarity, job precarity, etc.) feeds into the kind of magical thinking that fuels adherence to faith and authoritarian ideology (that a charismatic figure will use their power to fix our personal woes).
So religion is not a personal symptom like a fever or cough, it’s a community problem, like elevated hate crime or recurring rampage killings.
Again though, religion isn’t necessarily the symptom of these things. Those things can exist without religion. Religion definitely thrives in these environments…
The same way staph/mrsa thrives in hospitals.
I hope that a world in which the truth is comforting and hopeful is eventually achieved however I kinda doubt that any kind of economic/political formation will ever change the fact that being alive kinda sucks, people will always experience hardship and sadness and insurmountable problems and faith in something intangible helps a lot of people get through that.
It also causes those people to become the hardship and sadness and insurmountable problems other people have to experience.
Throughout the history of post-agricultural humanity, we’ve had elites that yoked the work of an underclass and only recently (in the last few centuries) have we been able to recognize this is not a good thing and will ultimately lead to the downfall of human civilization on a short time frame (say, the next few centuries as an upper limit).
This may be the fate of the human ape, and while I’d rather we worked out how to organize well enough to go to space and colonize other worlds (what I think would require an egalitarian system), I acknowledge that we just may not be socially developed enough. It’s telling that billionaires don’t invest their gains into massive humanitarian projects that could put their statue in every state park worldwide. Many of them could become the god of Haiti if they wanted and yet none of them do. They invest in charities that are fit to market how much good they’re doing, rather than actually doing major good, and when they think of massive works, they automatically consider profit motives. That’s telling to me.
But not all hope is lost. We’ve psychological tricks to run against our less-than-social instincts before, and as we develop more collective self-awareness (such as our more general awareness of mental health language) we might be able to rise above our tribalist tendencies towards a collective system. Perhaps in the looming population correction we’ll be able to see that the capitalist, transactional society we made lead us to the climate crisis and a cascade failure of the state, and instead of choosing to cling to tradition we’ll decide to try something else.
It’s a far reach, but the only other option is to get comfortable with the risk of human extinction.
You can derive it from yourself and not a greater ‘supernatural’ purpose. For example, I have accepted I will die and that there is no meaning to life, I might even be an anti-natalist, but that doesn’t mean I just give up and live in despair. I’m alive and so with that life I act in my own self-interest to make the world better because it’s what makes my existence have a meaning.
“making the world better” is an intangible idea that you are choosing to believe in. If you get comfort from that faith then I’m happy for you
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That makes me feel so great about life. Why would I ever turn to faith.
In our society, one that teems with parasitic behavior between its individual members, yes, it raises a question why we might want to live without higher meaning. Sartre didn’t address it until late in life, but Camus recognize that most people at least commit philosophical suicide (that is, take a leap of faith) if the choice is between that or committing literal suicide. It’s why he offers embracing the absurd, imagining Sisyphus happy, and finding a way to get there, yourself.
To be fair, I’m not even there yet, finding that my society has willfully betrayed me from my childhood (as it does for all kids in the US) trying to create an obedient and disposable laborer / soldier to build vanity projects for billionaires, rather than prepare us to shape society the way we want it as we grow into it. Ours is now a gerontocracy as well as a plutocracy, while the kids have their own ideas and are looking to defy the natural social order.
So my story and yours is in how we break free from the fetters and find our own way. Or not, as the case may be.
Fuck Camus.
Yes. We all start here and it sucks.
Strangely, it’s why I’m ruthlessly sympathetic of everyone no matter how crabby they are.
I don’t really know anyone who lives life for some higher meaning. The people I see are just trying to get through the week.
You won’t ever be able to overcome the ills of society alone, by yourself you’ll never be able to “break free from the fetters and find your own way” Making a better society requires coordinated collective effort. Religion bonds people together in a very rare way. You can’t get people to work together in a coordinated way without some ideal in their minds, they have to believe that their effort might not help themselves directly but might help make future civilization a better place. That takes faith of one kind or another.
Bullshit. You can choose any number of career or volunteer paths that demonstrably help people or society without needing any “faith”.
Here’s the context of that sentence that you are quoting: “You can’t get people to work together in a coordinated way without some ideal in their minds, they have to believe that their effort might not help themselves directly but might help make future civilization a better place. That takes faith of one kind or another.”
I was talking about getting people to work together for a better world, not an individual choice"
Loads of people work together for the betterment of mankind without any sort of faith.
“the betterment of mankind” is an intangible idea that you are choosing to believe in. That’s faith.
You’re right that changing society requires a movement, but I was talking about the individual process.
And yes, few of us find a real opportunity to find a way to create for ourselves some wiggle-room such as Winston and his nook-journal hidden away outside the surveillance of Big Brother. (Our world teems with infant perishing from famine or infectious disease, so just by getting literate and on the internet, you’ve gotten far.)
I think of the chaos of complexity that allowed cloned dinosaurs to breed, to migrate off Isla Nublar and to survive despite a lysine dependency. Our oppressive system is rife with such opportunities even if it’s to pirate movies for diabled folk who couldn’t otherwise afford to otherwise see them. Or for that matter, our own kids.
Steps to escape the cages might be tiny in the moment, but they can sometimes add up.
It’s called brainwashing.
Weak minded lol
Life is what it is. Grow a spine and face reality.
I agree. Life is what it is. Reality sucks. That’s why faith is so alluring. People aren’t robots, emotions are core to the human experience.
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Determination and grit are emotions
Good ones, too