this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2024
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My understanding comes from many years of direct study and experience. As such, you'll find that I don't apply what I say to all people, or "every person." I stand by what I said and painting it as absolutes is arguing in bad faith.
When it comes to beliefs which are very important to people, we aren't usually going out of our way to believe things that aren't true. What's different with the religious is that they tend not to be rigorous in adjusting their beliefs when there is little to no evidence to support them.
While this is common with humans over all sorts of things, it's particularly common with deeply held beliefs. There's many reasons for this, but religion is a very refined method of influencing human belief. Much of it is designed to steer away from questioning it, and also to reinforce it.
With this in mind, it's easy to see why it's not so much a choice, but for those few we are discussing, we could say that it's just something that happened.
As for the benefits, psychological or social, etc. I don't discount them at all. What I do say, however, is that none of them require religion. Any and all benefits attributed to religion can be achieved without it, and very often they are.
When humans are born, they only acquire a religious identity if it is impressed on them. If they acquire it after childhood, it's usually due to the reasons I've outlined.
This I agree with. Looking back, you were more careful than I thought you were to specify you were not talking in absolutes.
I will however double down that you are still making a fundamental assumption that your option is the correct one, and you make it more clear by arguing that all benefits of religion are possible without religion. If all benefits of religion can be attained without risking the detriment, then religion is the worse option by far.
However, thinking of this made me realize I'm just making the opposite assumption. Just like you, I've constructed a strongly held belief about religion based on my life experiences, which are entirely anecdotal and effectively meaningless.
How would you even get evidence that most people are manipulated into becoming religious? How would you get evidence that most people don't? How would you get evidence that religion does or doesn't benefit people? How would you even define benefit in the first place?
This argument is meaningless.
Well, thank you for that.
However, I'm not making an assumption. I'm merely pointing out that if religion isn't necessary for the implied benefits, then why use that method? The fact is that no one uses blind faith as the basis for anything else important to them.
I don't have a strongly held belief regarding the existence of any gods. When presented with the assertion that they do exist, the lack of good evidence means that I remain unconvinced. I'm open to good evidence.
In the case of manipulation, as you call it, religious indoctrination from birth by family, community and peers is well documented. I'm surprised you're not aware of this.
As for the assessment of benefits, there's a great deal of research into what people do with their lives and why. We know a lot about these motivations and there are clear lines to known conclusions. It's largely psychology.
There is nothing to suggest we need religion for any of the benefits that religious people say they obtain from it, or that they demonstrate through their actions.
I hope this makes things clear but feel free to ask if not.
The strongly held belief I'm referring to isn't a belief in a god or lack thereof, its a belief that religion is a net negative for society.
To say I'm not aware of this is again to argue in bad faith. I have mentioned myself that religious indoctrination of course still exists, and is a problem.
Yes there is research into how religion affects society, but it isn't very useful for this purpose for multiple reasons. There is no instance of a society without religion, so the difference between a religious and non-religious society can't be studied. There can be no consensus on what is beneficial and what isn't, as morality itself isn't objective.
There is not and there never will be definitive evidence as to whether or not religion is beneficial for society.
There is also nothing to suggest the opposite, because this can't really be determined. You would have to so create a set of all the benefits religious people claim to get, which in and of itself would be a monumental task. Then, you would have to demonstrate that nonreligious people can achieve all of the exact same benefits.
This is why I've come to the conclusion that this argument is pointless, and neither of us know anything beyond our personal experience.
Ok but you are ascribing this to my making of an assumption, which I am not.
And yet you asked for evidence and method, for which there is an awful lot. Which leads me to -
We aren't talking about whole societies, just individuals. This can be studied very effectively.
We aren't talking about consensus, again it's only individuals, which can be effectively studied.
These benefits are those claimed by the religious themselves, not whole societies.
As I've said, we've been doing this for a long time and have vast data from many people. Social activity and personal motivation are well studied and include the religious.
Again, this is well studied with mountains of good evidence. It's what I meant when I said I'm surprised you're not aware of it.
You're welcome to your view, but I disagree. Don't feel you need to continue, but I'm happy to if you want.