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When will atheism replace religion?

When?

  • It already has in spirit if not in numbers

    Votes: 5 15.6%
  • In the next 100 years

    Votes: 4 12.5%
  • In the next 1,000 years

    Votes: 2 6.3%
  • In the next 10,000 years

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • In the next 100,000 years

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • In the next 1,000,000+ years

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Never

    Votes: 21 65.6%
  • whenever the singularity occurs

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    32
S

Society

Guest
I'd like to believe what you are saying is true but I've never found it to be true in practice.

Diversity of opinion is no substitute for knowledge, it all sounds very good as a straight forward opinion piece or discussion point but try it out in practice, in a team meeting or any other forum at which decisions are needed, leadership provided etc.

that's just the other side of the same coin. within each entity there's a need for leadership and unified decision making. but within the ecosystem in which those entities are capable of benefiting a larger entity that they are components of, you need a lot of smaller agents experimenting with different solutions.

to take the company example, the board needs to have strong leadership, but then towards the top the market in which the companies resides benefits from different companies trying different approaches, and towards the bottom, as a corporation, the board will have the ability to make the best choices if they have a larger diversity of underlining teams offering them different solutions to work with. each team needs to be unified and cohesive, but each team member is more likely to come up with the solution that would bring his team on top if he interacts with a larger diversity of people who inspire him different approaches that might be applicable to his problem.

this exchange between divergence and unification goes on layer after layer throughout most social phenomena.

science is also a testament for this very phenomena: people who are merely fans of science will often consider it a faithless institution, and truly the larger ecosystem is one of divergence and experimentation, but this in turn depends that each scientist will have exceptional faith in his specific line of work, sometimes working lifetimes of far fetched theories on a desperate hope to find something when a thousand other scientists are working to disprove the very same theory.

it's being suggested in the MBTI that Ne and Ni tend to have the same interplay. the same old interaction between pattern divergence and pattern unification. as individuals we might be playing one role or the other, but the social ecosystem demands both.
 

Coriolis

Si vis pacem, para bellum
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[MENTION=15315]UniqueMixture[/MENTION] - look, i've seen this mentality before, whenever there's a "born again atheist", someone who rebelled against a religious background, then there's commonly a deep seeded disdain towards religion, but that doesn't continue on: the kids who are raised without religion, me and plenty of others, will rarely be able to relate, sympathize with your disdain but not able to emphasize.
Are you confusing atheism with agnosticism? Children raised in a non-religious family are more likely just not to value or pay attention to the idea of God rather than to reject it out of hand.

why? because when you don't grow up with it, you don't have much of relationship with religion to rebel against. for me, i view people practicing religion the same way i view people going to yoga classes, "awesome for them". i even flirt with it - on average i'd say i'm agnostic most of the week, atheist on Mondays, and Gnostic a few times a year.
I would, too, except for the fact that yoga devotees don't feel the same need to evangelize as members of some religious groups, and don't pass judgment in the same way on those who do not share their devotion.

I dont share that positive outlook, I see the development as just another aspect of the deterioration of all that was really good and bequeathed to the present by the past.
I, in contrast, look with relief on the deterioration of much that was ignorant, oppressive, and irrational in our legacies from the past. I suppose taking the bad with the good has as its corollary the need to discard some of the good with the bad.

Diversity of opinion is no substitute for knowledge, it all sounds very good as a straight forward opinion piece or discussion point but try it out in practice, in a team meeting or any other forum at which decisions are needed, leadership provided etc.

I think there's value in all the world religions but I think that Judahism, Christianity (particularly Roman Catholicism and some of the better criticisms of the same, internal and external) are traditions I identify with the most and which are the most valuable as a part of the overall cultural backdrop which I think matters.
Homogeneity of opinion is an even less adequate substitute for knowledge. This is at best groupthink, at worst willful ignorance or bigotry. Mane addressed this in more detail. It is fair to say that Christianity and Judaism are the traditions with which you most identify. To claim by extension that they are the most valuable part of our culture is however unsupportable.

I think in general intjs seclude themselves from certain experiences and so there is less pressure on them to find a way of thought that is accepting of diametrically opposed views. Not always the case, but introverts in general do this (ie when something feels overwhelming they back off and take time to integrate the experience for themselves, but what if they were forced to keep interacting? What would happen then?)
What would happen if you forced a bird to walk somewhere? He would get there in the end, but it would take much longer and leave him far more fatigued than were he allowed to go by his natural mode of flight.

How I react to opposing viewpoints depends on the circumstances, and the viewpoint. If I disagree with someone on a matter subject to objective analysis, I will make my case, and challenge the other person to make his. I will accept his view as correct if he can show me that it is, using evidence and reasoning. If the matter is subjective, I will leave him to his view as long as he does not push it on me. In this sense, I do not need to accept the view, just his right to have it. Perhaps this clarifies what I mean by the ability to distinguish rational explanations from beliefs. I will argue with you if you claim the sun revolves around the earth, but not if you claim tea is better than coffee (unless you try then to deny me coffee).
 
S

Society

Guest
Are you confusing atheism with agnosticism? Children raised in a non-religious family are more likely just not to value or pay attention to the idea of God rather than to reject it out of hand.

maybe if it was larger socially, but as of this point in history, you will encounter the idea of god around you often enough, hard to not play around with it and consider it. whether that results in atheism, agnosticism or even in theism is an altogether different matter.

conceptually i prefer the non-theist tag, verbally it doesn't ring well in english.

I would, too, except for the fact that yoga devotees don't feel the same need to evangelize as members of some religious groups, and don't pass judgment in the same way on those who do not share their devotion.
you clearly haven't met the right yoga devotees ;)
 

Coriolis

Si vis pacem, para bellum
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conceptually i prefer the non-theist tag, verbally it doesn't ring well in english.

you clearly haven't met the right yoga devotees ;)
Perhaps not. I have certainly met a few rabid fundamentalists who want to convert everyone they meet, or at least view them as morally lacking and on the road to hell. Some of them seemed to be losing sleep over the idea of all the little non-Christian children in the world, and how to keep them from eternal damnation.

As for terminology, "atheist" to me means someone who asserts that God does not exist. Someone who isn't sure, or doesn't care, or never bothered to think about it would be agnostic.
 

Lark

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Joined
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Messages
29,569
Are you confusing atheism with agnosticism? Children raised in a non-religious family are more likely just not to value or pay attention to the idea of God rather than to reject it out of hand.


I would, too, except for the fact that yoga devotees don't feel the same need to evangelize as members of some religious groups, and don't pass judgment in the same way on those who do not share their devotion.


I, in contrast, look with relief on the deterioration of much that was ignorant, oppressive, and irrational in our legacies from the past. I suppose taking the bad with the good has as its corollary the need to discard some of the good with the bad.


Homogeneity of opinion is an even less adequate substitute for knowledge. This is at best groupthink, at worst willful ignorance or bigotry. Mane addressed this in more detail. It is fair to say that Christianity and Judaism are the traditions with which you most identify. To claim by extension that they are the most valuable part of our culture is however unsupportable.


What would happen if you forced a bird to walk somewhere? He would get there in the end, but it would take much longer and leave him far more fatigued than were he allowed to go by his natural mode of flight.

How I react to opposing viewpoints depends on the circumstances, and the viewpoint. If I disagree with someone on a matter subject to objective analysis, I will make my case, and challenge the other person to make his. I will accept his view as correct if he can show me that it is, using evidence and reasoning. If the matter is subjective, I will leave him to his view as long as he does not push it on me. In this sense, I do not need to accept the view, just his right to have it. Perhaps this clarifies what I mean by the ability to distinguish rational explanations from beliefs. I will argue with you if you claim the sun revolves around the earth, but not if you claim tea is better than coffee (unless you try then to deny me coffee).

I've encountered opinion like your own before and I could say that perhaps a younger version of myself would have shared that outlook, all I can do is to encourage you to consider more carefully what you are talking about and do your own research. You're not liable to be persuaded by anything anyone has to say on an internet forum for a variety of reasons but not least of which is the impression I have that you see yourself as a standard bearer and want to defend that standard.

I do not believe it is irrationality, ignorance and oppression which are legacies but which are threatened by much supposed "enlightenment", "forgetting" and repression, there are many historical examples to examine of the wake or aftermath of every "shock treatment" delivered by modernism and often only delivering dividends to particular ascendent elites, perhaps the best quote to that effect is one from Marx in which he suggested that the people of France had fought for liberty, equality, fraternity and had got infantry, calvary and artillary.

The sorts of attitudes which you share towards history and social change would be totally absurd if transposed upon an individual, it is impossible to function, thrive and exist without memory but liberals, athiests and modernists of every stripe (neo-cons or cultural liberals) seem to think none of that matters. The jury isnt out on that any longer. The evidence and verdict of history is in. Its not favourable to anyone who wants to abandon and disown and reinvent constantly.

To suggest that objectivity is synoymous with homogenuity of a negative kind, of groupthink, is alarmist and emotive in the extreme and perhaps a good indication of how weak your argument is. Think about and why you hold that opinion. I suspect its for some personal reason and less to do with a fair and balanced examination of the facts.
 

UniqueMixture

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How I react to opposing viewpoints depends on the circumstances, and the viewpoint. If I disagree with someone on a matter subject to objective analysis, I will make my case, and challenge the other person to make his. I will accept his view as correct if he can show me that it is, using evidence and reasoning. If the matter is subjective, I will leave him to his view as long as he does not push it on me. In this sense, I do not need to accept the view, just his right to have it. Perhaps this clarifies what I mean by the ability to distinguish rational explanations from beliefs. I will argue with you if you claim the sun revolves around the earth, but not if you claim tea is better than coffee (unless you try then to deny me coffee).

Well, I would argue with you then that a human can be objective. Affect precedes cognition, so our rationalizations are always colored by emotion (ie whether you care to admit it or not your baseline levels of neurotransmitters, whether or not you have had enough sleep, your social relationships [or lack thereof], the actions you take, whether or not you have proper nutrition, your activity level, etc all have an effect on your cognition) even in things that would seemingly be unrelated. For example, humans tend to assign gender to every object including abstract concepts. There is no rational reason to do this, but we do and our interactions with each gender probably have an effect on how we interact with our environment because of this and that is just one very small example. It has to do with a much bigger problem of sorting of experience. We create meaning by organizing experiences, but the same information can be organized in a myriad of ways without necessarily leading to contradiction, which is why humans argue so much about what "truth" is.

What I was trying to get at with my original comment about intjs was that they tend to compartmentalize their experiences and create categories or dichotomies in which they are free to play. Imo this often is due to increased levels of testosterone in utero (part of why intj is 6 times more frequent among males [however, I must admit this is just a guess]) which leads to greater hemispheric cleavages. Combine that with intjs largely being left brain dominant and the brain is not as integrated and doesn't "talk" to itself as much unless they also have higher levels of dopamine 1 and is not as prone to "look at the whole" in the same way that P types tend to. This is why intjs can have a whole breadth of knowledge in a range of fields, but they tend to see them as separate well defined spaces (ime) and while they recognize it is part of a larger integrative whole and may even try to conceptually find ways to translate between systems, they are more comfortable than other types with just allowing them to be two separate systems in two non-overlapping domains.
 

Lark

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29,569
Instead of asking when perhaps the question is what will happen, what will be different from today or yesterday?

I can see a lot of enthusiasm for this change but there is no specific or precise citation of what trends are good about such a change, what are bad about it and could be rethought or adjusted in accordance with and a lot of gross but vague exaggerations of what is wrong with religion, this has been a pretty myopic and blinkered view of religion, denying any positive legacies, often because there's complete ignorance of what they are, they have been forgotten. For instance not a lot of people link the existence of hospitals to the hospitaleers and religious obligations to hospitality, nope, hospitals and medicine sprang fully formed into existence and often automatically into antagonism with religion. That's seriously eschewed and cares little for hard facts.

I know how some conservatives have tried to exploit census results to suggest that the amount of people definitely identifying as subscribing to religious communities who provide residual welfare, social and health services as reason to cut spending upon secular, public equivocal services.

However what would census results indicating more and more non-believers mean?
 

Il Morto Che Parla

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[MENTION=15315]UniqueMixture[/MENTION] - look, i've seen this mentality before, whenever there's a "born again atheist", someone who rebelled against a religious background, then there's commonly a deep seeded disdain towards religion, but that doesn't continue on: the kids who are raised without religion, me and plenty of others, will rarely be able to relate, sympathize with your disdain but not able to emphasize.

do i dislike religious intervention in politics? sure, just like any other ideology i disagree with.
do i dislike religious wars? of course, but i also dislike wars for oil & natural resources.
if anything, religions tend to be exotic interesting things for me, something i experimented with in my youth.

why? because when you don't grow up with it, you don't have much of relationship with religion to rebel against. for me, i view people practicing religion the same way i view people going to yoga classes, "awesome for them". i even flirt with it - on average i'd say i'm agnostic most of the week, atheist on Mondays, and Gnostic a few times a year.

my point is: your disdain comes from your own past relationship with religion, it's not inherited in being a non-theist. so for you to project that disdain on the whole non-theist "movement" is simply incorrect.

Without realizing it, you are probably showing more disdain for religion by feeling/speaking this way, than do the people who debate against it.

I am not attacking you at all man, I hear what you are saying in your post and I respect it. :)

I am just saying I find it interesting.

Kind of like the worst thing you can do to Che Guevara is put his face on a t-shirt, the worst disdain you can show for religion, is to see it as a curiosity, "awesome for them", like yoga.

In both cases, something with an aim to represent a universal truth for all humanity, is treated as 0 threat.

It's like if you hit on a girl, and her boyfriend laughs and buys you a beer. You'd feel much worse than if he punched you.

If everyone thought like you, then [MENTION=15315]UniqueMixture[/MENTION] prediction would have come true already. In fact in much of Northern Europe this is already the case.

Again, I'm not saying it's bad of you, I just found it interesting to comment on. :)
 

Coriolis

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I've encountered opinion like your own before and I could say that perhaps a younger version of myself would have shared that outlook, all I can do is to encourage you to consider more carefully what you are talking about and do your own research. You're not liable to be persuaded by anything anyone has to say on an internet forum for a variety of reasons but not least of which is the impression I have that you see yourself as a standard bearer and want to defend that standard.
Just this paragraph alone contains a number of assumptions and misconceptions. You assume first that I have not considered my views with care or done my own research. Without commandeering this thread to report my results, I can assure you I have done both. My views have evolved over many years of study and contemplation, and I am sure will continue to evolve as I learn and experience more. Perhaps that is responsible for the level of confidence in my remarks. The only standard I will carry is that of critical analysis.

I do not believe it is irrationality, ignorance and oppression which are legacies but which are threatened by much supposed "enlightenment", "forgetting" and repression, there are many historical examples to examine of the wake or aftermath of every "shock treatment" delivered by modernism and often only delivering dividends to particular ascendent elites, perhaps the best quote to that effect is one from Marx in which he suggested that the people of France had fought for liberty, equality, fraternity and had got infantry, calvary and artillary.

The sorts of attitudes which you share towards history and social change would be totally absurd if transposed upon an individual, it is impossible to function, thrive and exist without memory but liberals, athiests and modernists of every stripe (neo-cons or cultural liberals) seem to think none of that matters. The jury isnt out on that any longer. The evidence and verdict of history is in. Its not favourable to anyone who wants to abandon and disown and reinvent constantly.

To suggest that objectivity is synoymous with homogenuity of a negative kind, of groupthink, is alarmist and emotive in the extreme and perhaps a good indication of how weak your argument is. Think about and why you hold that opinion. I suspect its for some personal reason and less to do with a fair and balanced examination of the facts.
My post made several points, which you have somehow convoluted. I know you too little even to speculate on what is driving your substantial misconceptions. To deconvolve: I am contrasting diversity of opinion with homogeneity of opinion; and in a separate comparison, objective and subjective matters. I am making no connection between objectivity and homogeneity of thought, or between subjectivity and diversity. I also said nothing about forgetting the past, only discarding what is counterproductive or outright harmful. This is beneficial and even necessary for growth, whether for an individual or a society. To do this effectively we must indeed remember the past, lest we return to those patterns and forget the hard lessons learned. Remembering, however, does not require repeating. (As people often say about the Holocaust: never again.)

Well, I would argue with you then that a human can be objective. Affect precedes cognition, so our rationalizations are always colored by emotion (ie whether you care to admit it or not your baseline levels of neurotransmitters, whether or not you have had enough sleep, your social relationships [or lack thereof], the actions you take, whether or not you have proper nutrition, your activity level, etc all have an effect on your cognition) even in things that would seemingly be unrelated. For example, humans tend to assign gender to every object including abstract concepts. There is no rational reason to do this, but we do and our interactions with each gender probably have an effect on how we interact with our environment because of this and that is just one very small example. It has to do with a much bigger problem of sorting of experience. We create meaning by organizing experiences, but the same information can be organized in a myriad of ways without necessarily leading to contradiction, which is why humans argue so much about what "truth" is.
I am not sure where even to start with this. It is an unusual combination of assumptions and tautologies. To begin, of course all humans experience emotions, which affect our perceptions. We (some of us, at least) recognize this, and learn to calibrate our perceptions, and especially our reactions accordingly. We can't remove all error, but we can maintain enough distance from these effects to make reasonable observations and sound decisions. Second, I am not sure where you get the idea of humans automatically assigning gender to things, especially those of us whose native language (like English) reserves grammatical gender for things with actual gender. Humans so often argue over "truth" not because of this, but because so many are unable to accept that subjective truth is just that - subjective, and will be different for different people.

What I was trying to get at with my original comment about intjs was that they tend to compartmentalize their experiences and create categories or dichotomies in which they are free to play. Imo this often is due to increased levels of testosterone in utero (part of why intj is 6 times more frequent among males [however, I must admit this is just a guess]) which leads to greater hemispheric cleavages. Combine that with intjs largely being left brain dominant and the brain is not as integrated and doesn't "talk" to itself as much unless they also have higher levels of dopamine 1 and is not as prone to "look at the whole" in the same way that P types tend to. This is why intjs can have a whole breadth of knowledge in a range of fields, but they tend to see them as separate well defined spaces (ime) and while they recognize it is part of a larger integrative whole and may even try to conceptually find ways to translate between systems, they are more comfortable than other types with just allowing them to be two separate systems in two non-overlapping domains.
I don't know how you formed your impression of INTJs, but this has not been my experience, either for myself, or for other INTJs I have known. We (I) do tend to compartmentalize social experiences, but not other types of experience. In fact, I am constantly struck by how the different areas in which I engage reinforce and overlap each other. Not only do I view myself as an integrated whole, but human knowledge and ability, through the perspective of my various fields of interest. The type of brain compartmentalization you mention may relate to how we separate rational and emotional, or objective and subjective information, but I know too little about this topic to do more than speculate. In any case, this would reinforce my initial comment about INTJs being able (and willing) to separate beliefs from objective explanations, thereby maintaining both without conflict.
 
S

Society

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Without realizing it, you are probably showing more disdain for religion by feeling/speaking this way, than do the people who debate against it.

nope:
an expression of disdain is a suggestion of what i'd feel in regards to a subject, so not feeling of anything for something doesn't actually express more disdain.

what i am guessing you mean to say is that it is in someway more disrespectful to religions, because rather then viewing them particularly negatively or positively, it shows that i'm not taking them seriously in the first place.

i've had this debate in the past when i considered making online games out of religions :unsure:
 

SpankyMcFly

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Short answer yes. I would change the wording to "displace". As one of The Four Horsemen put it: When religion takes on the relevance of other outdated bronze age era belief systems, like astrology, humanity will benefit.



Part II


From left to right: Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennet, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris.
 
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