Humans are not rational creatures, and despite all the knowledge we have gained, people will still find what they want to be true the most believable of all
Besides, you can talk about all of the science we have discovered, but the overwhelming majority of people don’t really see it. We see the technology and all that, but we don’t truly understand it, so you ultimately are just taking someone else’s word for it. To me, the word of the scientific community is credible, but to some it is not
Some people are flat-earthers. People aren’t swayed by reason. We’re dumb animals, and the conceit of us as “rational” is hubris
Why not? It makes sense to me, it carried me through some very difficult times and is a good way to think about how I interact with the world and my moral framework.
I find the prevalence of faith makes more sense if you think of it like a living organism. It only exists because it’s built to exist. If it didn’t, it would die.
That’s why faiths often have rules around birth control and sex out of wedlock. Kids often take the beliefs of their parents, so the religion has to keep ‘traditional’ families together to keep itself alive. It’s also why they threaten eternal damnation if you drop the faith or don’t try to force it on the people around you. A lot of this often isn’t the conscious effort of the members, it just kinda slowly crops up, like evolutionary mutations. Key word there being ‘often’, as I’m sure members of these religions have also figured this out but have used it to their own advantage.
This is such a complicated question because it gets into the origins of religion and belief systems in general, but also power and class struggles, economics, social psychology and propaganda, and more.
Lots of people haven’t been properly educated Lots of people have been indoctrinated Lots of people have a reason to exploit the beliefs of others Lots of people value comfort and community above scientific accuracy or consistency
I have to imagine you’re not an American, because yeah, millions of Americans legitimately want to ignore science completely. They’re pretty loud about it too.
Adding to this comment: Science is fundamentally agnostic. You can even go so far as to say that the existence of God or a higher power is the one question which is forever doomed to be unanswerable by science and logic, almost by definition of God.
Of course, specific parts of the mythos of specific religions can and have been contradicted by science. But the main question of whether or not a higher power exists remains and will forever remain unanswerable.
It’s funny how it works one way and not the other. If we had even a hint of positive evidence for God you would never stop hearing about it. But since we don’t we are told that we have to pretend this is outside our knowledge. Heads I win, tails you lose.
They are irreconcilable. People who try to merge the two are using double-think also known as cognitive dissonance. I know, I did it for years.
Religions make claims and the evidence more often than not doesnt support the claims being true. You are free to try to square the circle, but you will fail. And the extent of your failure will be the effort you put in.
Just to poke at Buddhism. Sidrattha made claims about the geography of the world, those are not true and we have lots of good data backing up a round world. He made claims about rebirth and the soul which logically contradict each other.
Good idea, maybe using some sort of widely-available service in a section where “ask” is part of the name. Might not reach every demographic equally but it’s easier and less expensive than hiring an army to conduct door-to-door surveys.
People want to belong to something bigger than them. This includes a magical cloudy sky kingdom where you must wear white shrouds, and your whole family is there and not talking about embarrassingly antiquated political views
I think part of it has to do with how we cope with death. Almost all religions are centered around what happens when we die. Whether it’s reincarnation or an afterlife, most believe that there’s something beyond. I think that to a certain extent we’re predisposed to have this mindset.
This makes it a bit more difficult since I designed most of the architecture at my work. It would take a lot of work to be taken seriously again and not have my opinion being discarded because I’m the newcomer.
I would have to prove myself all over again though, not something I’d look forward to.
Hmmm… I’m quite happy with my work and the benefits I get. I guess if I got to restart I would make some more friends in the right places from the beginning. It’s something I learned only later on that it helps to be on good terms with those higher up, in case you need some support with budgets or priorities.
And vice versa, I would also be more careful with not pissing people off. Early on in my job I ruined a few relationships by being a prissy bitch about how things were supposed to be done, instead of being a bit more open minded. Looking back on it I inwardly cringe at how I acted back then. That’s definitely something I would not repeat, I like to think I’ve grown a bit emotionally since :)
Existence is meaningless and we just wobble around here for a little while and then we die. There's nothing to it. Everything that happens is just a logical consequence; beauty is nothing but a tiny chemical reaction in your brain. Once you rot it's all worthless.
Science is great at giving explanations, but not so good at providing meaning. For a lot of people, meaning is probably more helpful in order to facilitate a happy life.
Nietzsche writes at length about this stuff, most famously in the anecdote about the madman coming down from the mountain to inform the villagers that God is dead and that we have killed him. Everybody knows the three words "God is dead", but I think it's worth reading at length:
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
Nietzsche, whose father was a priest, recognizes that "God has become unbelievable", but he does not celebrate it as the progress of science. Rather, we lost something that was fundamentally important to humans, and which science cannot easily replace.
Here one could start talking about the Free Masons, who attempted learning from religious rituals without the added layer of religion. Or one could dig deeper into the works of Nietzsche, and the contrast between Apollonian and Dionysian. It's all fascinating stuff.
In short though, spirituality used to offer people a sense of meaning that is not so easily replaced by science alone. How do we bury our dead now that we know our rituals are pointless?
Very well written, and insightful. Thanks for sharing this perspective in the discussion as I personally found it very valuable. You articulated my own perspective on this much better than I could have, and gave some great philosophical background to boot. 10/10 👍
Bathroom mirrors that don’t steam up after taking a shower.
Vending machines that are competent at accepting cash. Everywhere else that I’ve been to, you have to smoothen the bill and make sure it has no wrinkles or bended corners, and even then the machine would sometimes give you a hard time. In Japan, you just insert a stack (!) of bills, and the machine will count them within seconds, and also give you change in bills, and not a gazillion of coins.
Gates at the train stations are also better than everywhere else. You don’t have to wait for the person in front of you to pass the gate, you just insert your ticket and go. You also don’t need to look for arrows or notches or whatever on the ticket to insert it correctly.
Electric kettles that are very quiet and keep the water hot for a very long time.
Trains where all seats face the front, so you don’t have to sit against the direction of travel.
That reminds me. All of the change machines I had the pleasure of using were very gentle when taking your money. Felt kinda jarring coming back to the US where they fucking jank the money our of your hand the second you insert it.
Trains where all seats face the front, so you have to sit against the direction of travel.
I recently took a ride on a historic restored railroad where they run sightseeing tours on period accurate trains with period engines and coaches from the turn of the century. The trip was an out-and-back, and there is nowhere for the train to turn around before the return journey. Everyone was immensely surprised, then, when the conductor came down the aisle and demonstrated to everyone that the seats in those old coaches are reversible, and you can flip the backrest to the other side so you’re facing the right way regardless of which way the train is going. They’re otherwise 100% symmetrical.
Apparently this arcane technology of the reversible seat has been lost somewhere in the intervening 100 years, never to be discovered again. (In America, anyhow.)
Reversible seats sound marginally more expensive to install and maintain. The benefit is to make the customer’s experience better while adding no revenue.
Sounds like some anti-American euro-commie bullshit to me!
I don’t remember it, but my dad and I were going down a slide together when I was a toddler and he accidentally rolled over me and broke my leg, lol. I was only one at the time, apparently. I suppose I would’ve died then without any healing.
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