I mean, these "self-introspection, consciousness-obsessed cultures like Hindu and Buddhism" are a source of hatred and violence. The Hindu majority is India is on this brutal trend. And in Burma-Birmania-Myanmar, the Buddhist population was almost unanimous in supporting the discrimination against muslims and the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya. People feel they belong to a religion and that those who do not are unenlightened strangers. The phenomena is well known and studied: religion leads to intolerance.
Astrology is stupid, but at least it does not create that feeling of community, so it won't spread intolerance and xenophobia.
It would be amusing though, to stumble upon a, say, Pisces forum where members try to figure out their behavior.
That is why it is important to fill these void with fluff. But that fluff requires some mythos otherwise it wouldn't hold the fluff together. There's a subset of these 2 religions that doesn't require you to believe in anything aside from the fact that "consciousness exist". However, this concept is quite hard for common folk to grasp. This is why I think that it is important to create a layer on top of this that the masses can feed unto.
The problem with using astrology as the basis for religion is that it doesn't correspond to reality at all. Simple statistical analysis would yield weird results that doesn't match with reality. How do you reconcile being bad at something X despite being born at month Y that supposedly makes you better at X. Or why does X today when my horoscope is Y?
Why not? I just read it like any other book. When the Bhagavad Ghita says that there's nothing before and after my existence, that is true as far as I am concerned. I don't read the whole thing like a gospel nor do I think Buddha was correct on everything. He was just another person trying to make sense of things like the rest of us. When the Dhammphada says that I shouldn't dwell on emotions and that I am not my emotions; I can easily get the intuition by using the simulation hypothesis which is something that the people of old didn't have the luxury of.
That's just sociology playing out.
It’s a team to bat for and even comes with its own dogma for you to blindly believe in.
Usually lead by charismatic leaders providing/promising simple and easy to understand explanations/solutions to complex problems.
To quote H L Mencken,
“Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.”
Most of the people who go to Organised Religion don't really believe in God, they're just in it for the tea and biscuits, ie it's a social club.
If you really believed in God and Heaven you'd become a monk or nun, logically you'd spend your finite life maximising your chance of infinite reward
Without Organised Religion you get antivax people, way more dangerous than people who spend 500 years building a cool building
>If you really believed in God and Heaven you'd become a monk or nun, logically you'd spend your finite life maximising your chance of infinite reward
I think the story is not as simple as that. The problem is that people actually _do_ believe in Heaven/Hell and they _wish_ that they have the devotion to match their faith. That is to say that people wish they can become a nun or a monk. Which is why when people do become nun/monk/suicide bombers, they don't condemn them but wish they are brave enough to do it themselves (why not every religious person is suicidal) or even admit to wanting to do it (why it doesn't show up as much in polls).
You only want really old religions that have been around long enough they're not doing anything mad, but most people aren't going around doing mad things if they have a comfortable life, they just need someone to tell them they're on the right path, people crave leaders
Usually about colonisation, control, who has political power, who's getting the best land.
You can trick the true believers into fighting for you of course, but what's the difference between Nazis and Christians invading the Middle East?
Antivax people have been around since 1798 when the first vaccine was invented (arguably even _before_ that; some of the same arguments were made about variolation).
Current day catholicism is pretty nice, because we've had a good 300+ years of post-englightenment/rationalism in society to balance out the violent intolerance religion zealots can dish out.
agree that religious/spiritual groups can be good for social ties.
To be fair, playing badmington every tuesday night is also good for social ties, and less likely to make you feel justified in violently disembowelling someone for heresy. Or flying planes into tall building in the name of God.
You know, given the choice between ISIS and antivaxxers, I think I'll take the anitvaxxers.
Say Christian nationalism rose to it's post-reconstruction prominence. Where would you put it?
> agree that religious/spiritual groups can be good for social ties.
Further: Religious humanitarian projects aren't insignificant and it's not like they're competing with non-religious aid. If aiding religions disappeared, nothing would fill the vacuum - because the vacuum is far from filled now.
I had to look up what this meant, so if I'm mis-interpreting it, please correct me.
But from what I understand it's just ISIS but swap the Quran for the Bible? Not a huge fan of that idea. Really any fundamentalist religion ramming it's morality down my throat grinds my gears. Still prefer the anti-vaxxers. At least they're not going to tell me how to live my life. They're more like drunk drivers - I have to deal with their stupidity endangering my life, but with religious freaks I have to deal with their stupidity endangering my life (because the Pope declared that vaccines weren't kosher, or that the new cancer treatment is heresy, or stem cell research displeases the Prophet, and you can't argue with that because it's religion, it is by definition arbitrary, disagree and the Pope sends you off to get burned at the stake for heresy), and them controlling every minute detail of my life (prayer mandated, dress code mandated, etc).
> If aiding religions disappeared, nothing would fill the vacuum - because the vacuum is far from filled now.
that's a strong claim and and I don't think your reasoning adequately supports it.
Still, I suppose it's possible that if all religious groups disappeared tomorrow secular sources of aid would not move to compensate. shrug
Nevethless, I don't think "there isn't enough aid now, ergo if religions disappear there will be even less" is a logically sound argument, perhaps there are some intermediate steps to your reasoning that I'm missing, if so please explain them :)
The problem with Anti Vax is it's fine until a threshold is reached and then everyone gets diseases
>that's a strong claim and and I don't think your reasoning adequately supports it.
This puzzles me. My claim is self-evident. The vacuum of human need exists; only a tiny portion is filled.
Anyone who wants to supplant a religious outreach effort can form up now and achieve the good they seek. In other words, if you want to compete and put religions out of the service game, please do.
Christian nationalism grew and pervaded America in the decades during and after reconstruction. The Klan was probably the most visible facet of that and but it was everywhere, organized and not.
I do a fair amount of genealogy and in my perception, there are many parallels between now and the early 20th century.
So it is much better to fill in the void with something dull like "do good, because mother Gaia watches over you" than to let some random beliefs to fill it. I personally belief that the self-introspection, consciousness-obsessed cultures like Hindu and Buddhism actually have one. Consciousness is the one thing in this world that is actually mysterious. So let's start mysticism from there.