What philosophy/religion do you follow?

cool ! Then you know it's way better than all this conventional crap. The only person you have to worship is youself. And the only convictions you need to have is self pleasure. Joy !

Peace

 

The discussion point by itself, in context, is not arrogant, but I think the way in which it is used often is, namely without context.
A religious person can expect to hear lots of variations of it, quite often, usually preceded by the phrase "religion is just..."

I didn't mean to imply you specifically were behaving arrogantly, just that the argument, whilst internally consistent, does not "explain" the diverse phenomena of beliefs, but is often presented as though it does.

No offense was caused, it's just mildly tiring to have such a wide variaty of different things so often lumped into one homogenous category, I appreciate this probably wasn't your intention at all

More a knee-jerk reaction from me than arrogance from you

I just think the issue of belief is vastly more complex, and can't be explained-away so trivially,

Take the old testament, books like Job or Ecclesiastes, the message of the books isn't one of man being safe or in control, quite the opposite, the message is that the universe is beyond comprehension, terrible, powerful and beyond man's abilities to master, that ultimately we can only hope to make peace with that fact.

The message isn't one of projection, but of reconciliation and acceptance of the world as it is.

Or with my own faith, Buddhism, where overcoming the human tendency to project psychology actually goes to the very heart of our teachings

Whereas the rationalist thought of the Enlightenment tends to take a highly optimistic, comforting, view of the universe, it tells us that everything can be understood eventually, that man can master his physical surroundings, that we are in control etc.

But despite this, I wouldn't dismiss rationalism as being left-over psychological debris, people adopt it for a variety of reasons, not least because it is rational.

Hope that sort of explains where I'm coming from

 

Oh I am going to hunt you down.

LIKE A DOG

 

I KNEW what that link was and I still clicked it

 

You're talking about a lot of different things here, and as PP pointed out, the 'psychological projection' understanding of belief does not attempt to explain the whole range of phenomena associated with religious traditions. It does well explain the seemingly universal human trait of supernatural belief in invisible agency, something common to all human cultures and underpinning most religious traditions, with the possible exception of Buddhism. This is not the only, and to some not the most important aspect of their belief/philosophy, but it is something so common and so often very important to the origin or core of religious traditions that it's not unreasonable to refer metonymically to this one aspect of religious traditions as simply "religion", or "spirituality".

But yes, there are many aspects of religious and spiritual beliefs which we can explain away in other ways Parts of the ancient religious texts for instance sometimes have little to do with the supernatural belief in invisible agents but can be seen as ancient philosophy and poetry, enriching and valuable in their own right.

I'm really tired so I hope this made sense.:cheers2:

 

lol it makes sense, I get what you mean, though I might hazard an alternate explanation for supernatural belief, to me it seems quite often an extention of the human ability to use inductive, rather than deductive reason.
If we approached the world from the position of pure-logic, we wouldn't be able to approach it at all. A great deal of everything we do or assume is extropolation and guesswork.

We take things we do know, and then fill in the gaps.

The ability to believe in things we cannot see or measure, is hardwired into our very systems of logic and reason, and can offer direct evolutionary advantages, rather than just psychological comfort.

 

The trouble with the god in the gaps idea, which many Christians I know adhere to, is that over time and with scientific progress, those gaps get a whole lot smaller. At one point rainbows were a peace treaty from the almighty, now they're refracted photons. At some point religious belief can only be sustained by faith, irrespective of logic, scientific understanding or knowledge....

 

I agree entirely, I think supernatural belief comes directly from our evolved instinct for detecting agency and personhood. These beliefs bear striking similarity to the kinds of thought-mechanisms pivotal to human survival, such as the detection of threats, the understanding of other minds, seeing the intentions of other agents, and the social import of certain behaviours. These things had a direct impact on the survival of our ancestors and as such provided an evolutionary pressure for our brains to develop in a certain way. As has been well demonstrated by experimental psychology, the existence of these inductive perceptual mechanisms by default results in certain kinds of cognitive errors, such as the over-detection of threats where none exist - that instinct we have to prick up our hackles at the slightest sounds. Those creatures with an over-active threat detection mechanism would tend to out-survive those with an under-active one, resulting in the evolution of cognitive biases towards making these kinds of perceptual mistakes. The same mechanism applies to personhood- and agency-detection and it is these which result in the cognitive error of supernatural belief.

And that's religion explained in one paragraph:tongue:

 

lol true, but I wasn't advocating god-of-the-gaps.

That is more specifically when people use gaps in knowledge to justify the existence of god.

Such as "We don't know who created the world, therefore god did"

My biggest complaint about god-of-the-gaps thinking is that people tend to overfill those gaps.

Ultimately though, I think people tend to downplay the importance of faith in functioning human thought and existence. We need to take things on faith all the time, from our free-will to the truthfulness of our senses.
Even in ethics, one can never see all ends of an action, and must ultimately leap into the dark.

 

I never understood why study of biology, ecology, chemistry etc could ever prove certain spiritual beliefs to be incorrect or invalid. Could the rainbow not be both refracted photons AND something more? Something more porjected by means of refracted photons (ok so your example was pretty farfetched, but you know what I mean) The science explains the HOW...it does not always explain the why. Thats spiritual and philosophical domain
I remember asking why the sky was blue as a kid, like Im sure lots of people did. I was given a basic analysis of that the air is made up of scientifically and all that stuff. I said but I said WHY, not HOW...
I also never undertood the whole "science has proven it is JUST..." kind of thinking...Just!? People who say things like that are blind to how incredible the world is, as proven by science! I know you dont think like that yourself, just saying

 

I agree, scientific explanations of phenomena previously not known or not understood are often awe inspiring and mind-opening, exciting and wonderful

"In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed"? Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way." "
- Carl Sagan

 

Heh nice quote, never read that before

I think ultimately a lot of peoples philosophies with more spiritual beliefs and those of scientists or logical thinkers actually compliment eachother and give a much more wholesome answer when analysed together. And I agree with you. I personally can get far more excited over the biology of something supposedly simple like a leaf than I can over some fusty old books and rules. To me thats the whole point. THERES the awe, the miracle, the...well, God. But yeah, weve had the talk about that word. So lets just say its pretty damn awesome

 

Its like astronomy making people of certain religions feel small and frightened. The vastness of the universe, all these incredible discoveries...Im probably weird but that makes me SECURE. That adds to the whole experience. How amazing that out there floating in space is not just us, but millions of stars and planets, all making up something inconceivably huge. How that can put doubt about how great life is into peoples minds Im not sure

 

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

- Douglas Adams

 

The beauty of a garden can open the mind, if youre feeling it right, like the beauty of all nature

Fairies is Im afraid where it stops for me

 

Ooh we used that quote in philosophy!

I'm probably most famed for quoting Robert M. Pirsig in an essay:
'When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity, when many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion'.

Very, very true.

 

Both "sides" have too much to learn from eachother yet mostly have cotton wool in their ears, that seems to be the problem to me. Obviously doesnt apply to aspects of religion or spirituality which are plainly ridiculous, so its not always 2 way, but mostly

 

Isn't it enough to just appreciate the fairies, without labelling them Homo Breve first?

 

I thought fairies were labeled Homo Sexuals....

 

I think you're thinking of Homo Homo Sapiens