When visiting Shrewd'm with a laptop, it can be pleasant to hold Command (or Ctrl with Windows) and '+' a few times. The site scales to allow any font size, and the larger font can be pleasant to read even for Shrewds with perfect sight! For luxury Shrewdness, you can combine that with setting the browser to full screen. You'll then find yourself Shrewding a lot.
- Manlobbi
Outskirts of Shrewd'm / Travel Wanderer
No. of Recommendations: 2
the lifelong effort spent on debating details built upon impossible superstitions seems time wasted.
(unless it lets you dodge taxes and military service...how can other religions compete with that !)
No. of Recommendations: 6
the lifelong effort spent on debating details built upon impossible superstitions seems time wasted.
Yes, but no.
I have often wondered about “dead religions.” I mean, at one point Egypt had a thriving economy, building world class monuments, providing sustenance for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, with a vibrant religion reflected in many ways: temples, sacrifice altars, religious texts, priesthood, etc.
And then suddenly (or perhaps not so suddenly, I have ‘not really researched it) it’s gone. No “Ra” any more. No Egyptian Priesthood. All gone, every trace (except historical.)
Likewise with the Greek and Roman pantheon of gods. All belief vaporized, like it never existed (except in history.) Ancient Chinese and Japanese religions had thousands of gods and spirits who would do your bidding (or not) depending on their mood, and now those too are pretty much over.
In the case of Egypt and Rome and Greece (et al) it’s that one religion moved in and replaced the old order. I have to wonder “why”? Was there an economic collapse that made it happen, or some other event(s), or was it just “time” or what? I don’t know enough about modern Japan or China to opine on what’s going on there, religiously speaking, but at some point religions die. All of them. The Native American gods, the tribal voo-doo spirits of the Caribbean islands, those in Africa, all of them.
Are they always replaced with “just another flavor” or do any of them simply die, and good riddance to them? Inquiring minds, and all that.
No. of Recommendations: 1
that is more of a meta question on why 'religion' existed in the first place.
and has many good answers.
most of civilization emerged due to STEM, minus the basis for the science.
religion offered psychological completion for things weakly understood. usually in the form of something humanly familiar, an all-knowing and protective but disciplinary father figure(s).
so why do religions persist so deeply, when we have the greatest number of educated people in history?
that is more wiggly.
- still many undereducated and disinterested people
- disproportionate power and influence by the entrenched
...
near the bottom of the list, science's deepest understanding of reality is quite unsatisfying to those few interested. it is non-intuitive to humanity's collective experience.
if one cannot live with that, options such as 'christian science' emerge.
sidenote: another advantage of (current) AI, is that it can easily accept deep science that is very non-intuitive to us. but i am skeptical whether it can meaningfully improve\displace new human concepts of such.
but if\when AI can, should we be excited and afraid? maybe start a new religion despite a truly indifferent figurehead, as sci-fi has much anticipated ?
No. of Recommendations: 0
so why do religions persist so deeply, when we have the greatest number of educated people in history?
that is more wiggly.
- still many undereducated and disinterested people
- disproportionate power and influence by the entrenched
...
near the bottom of the list...
You've at least just partially answered your original question.
Pete
No. of Recommendations: 0
my original question was regarding time wasted arguing over trivial details of each\any religion, given its foundation.
why is chatting about a 13th apostle conspiracy (or such) exciting on an atheist board?
No. of Recommendations: 10
why is chatting about a 13th apostle conspiracy (or such) exciting on an atheist board?
That’s easy, at least for me.
Religion is so all consuming in this society (and any others I have a passing acquaintance with), with a church on every corner, proselytizers going door to door, full time cable TV channels, and so on; pictures of Jesus over the mantle (or mezuzahs on doorways), knowing that “the Bible is the best selling book in the world!” and much more -
And yet atheists have managed to wriggle out from under that blanket of belief, and to stand “athwart the gods”, if you will, to declare “it’s a bunch of hokum.” I think there is a natural curiosity, once you have deconverted - to try to understand why the rest of the world doesn’t see it the same way. I mean, once you have lost the faith, the idiocy of it becomes all too much to bear.
One meme I see in the Facebook feed a lot is:
“You mean Mormons believe Jesus came to America, that wearing magic underwear will ward off demonic attacks, and that when they die they will be transported off to a distant planet where they will become gods in their own right? That’s ridiculous!
“Now excuse me while I eat some magic bread which transforms into the actual flesh of a 2000 year old dead Jewish zombie so I can be forgiven a sin I was born with because a rib woman was tricked into eating a piece of fruit by a talking snake.”
So we scratch our heads and say “Yeah. Dumb.” And that leads to more investigation of the truly stupid, of which there is much - and not just in those religions, but in all of them. I suppose “quiet” atheists don’t question much about 13th century saints, but some of us question everything, and delight in finding ever more contradictions and inanities about the thing - the thing which has enveloped humanity since the beginning, and is only now just starting to show the faintest cracks thanks to the advent of science some centuries ago.
Yeah, I’m genuinely curious about it. Why not?
No. of Recommendations: 8
I don't have access to the poster who wrote this, "why is chatting about a 13th apostle conspiracy (or such) exciting on an atheist board?" but I get the point of their question, which is only logical from their "believer" point of view, since their "view" or "belief" was, at one time, the default belief, so being a "believer," they think it still is.
As a person who was brought up in the 50's, in a small town at the foot of the San Gabriel mountains where I lived for 15 years, is a statue of Jesus that stands 85 feet high, called the Tower of Redemption. His arms are stretched 65 feet "from finger tip to finger tip," according to Gemini. This is just one example of many of the symbols of this religion which dotted and still dot the hillsides along the many main roads and freeways of Los Angeles. Or the entrances to cities, like Santa Monica, named for the mother of Saint Augustine. So, why wouldn't a person be interested in these symbols of belief that has shaped so much of art and culture for so long???
For me, the most important reason to understand these beliefs and where they came from is to defend against the terrible persecution of those who do not believe the way they do. Humans can be violent and murderous and tend to justify their behavior according to their beliefs in their own righteousness and right to do so. Whatever religion, in whatever part of the world, religion is the stuff that binds groups together and justifies, in their minds, their existence and their rights, above politics and even family. It's a way to enforce compliance and justify punishment.
Going into a Catholic church one time, after many years of staying away from any church, I heard this: "We are the one true church." I can't remember what else they said, but the congregation, droned on in unison, cementing their beliefs into each other and themselves, that they were the one and only ture church.
What rational stranger wouldn't be alert to the danger of that?! And these phrases, or some very similar, are repeated at church services of all kinds, across American and in other ceremonies and prayers in other countries, all over the world. Asserting their one true religion and their righteousness.
To think outside those boxes can be dangerous business; it is a brave person who dares to question the default authority. Anyone afraid of going against social norms will not be able to think thoughts that could cause them ostracism from friends and families, even if their thoughts are sane and valid, they will shrink from them. Better not to think too deeply. Better to stay safe. Stay witht he crowd. History has shown what happens to those who think outside of boxes, not for ill or evil but for truth. They were killed. Simply killed or banished.
Fortunately, human kind can make no progress if they don't question and explore. That reality is even greater than social proof. Social proof is only human based, by nature, particular. And reality encompasses all. So outside our human beliefs lies reality, beckoning us onward, lttle by little, as we are able to comprehend what lies beyond those beliefs, we grow in wisdom -- and humility.
