Rationalizing faith.

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The illusion of a stable coordinated whole. A functioning large scale system like the USA depends on a common st of belifs or myths. Like justice for all and equal opportunity. When the faith in the beliefs fails the sysem breaks down, witness reality today.

The traditional foundations which are just a set of beliefs are being dismantled. The founders no longer did so,ething remarkable in there day, they are now evil racists. America is an idea that people bought into. Christianity was part of the beif.

The belief is America can never fail and will always prevail over anything. The post WWII can do optimism was part of it. Now it is all going negative.

as always been an illusion in that it is just an idea with large scale buy in. Most people live in te illusion, for lack of a better word, without realizing it. A Matrix metaphor.

In Buddhism I think the term is maya or samsara, popular reality as a facade.

I did not read the book. Before WWII someobe wrote a book on propaganda arguing a modern system can not function with propaganda, or cultural myths. Something for peope to have faith in.Before the Nazis the word propaganda did not have a negative connotation.

Religions can be abusive and negative, but religious faith also provides a social glue and stability. It is much more than just unfounded beliefs.

You described yourself elsewhere as stoic, unless I'm mistaken. But you appear more cynical than stoic. If I had such a negative view of my own fate and the fate of this planet I wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. What would be the reason if everything is broken, dire, desperate and hopeless. I get that way sometimes, but it doesn't rule my thinking.

It appears that this hyper negative worldview you possess is your faith, that the world doesn't implode for some reason and to you this is just incredible. Don't get me wrong, I'm informed enough to know that planetary catastrophes do indeed occur, but what's the point of preaching that to a five year old?

 

[steve_bank]

The illusion of a stable coordinated whole. A functioning large scale system like the USA depends on a common st of belifs or myths. Like justice for all and equal opportunity. When the faith in the beliefs fails the sysem breaks down, witness reality today.

The traditional foundations which are just a set of beliefs are being dismantled. The founders no longer did so,ething remarkable in there day, they are now evil racists. America is an idea that people bought into. Christianity was part of the beif.

The belief is America can never fail and will always prevail over anything. The post WWII can do optimism was part of it. Now it is all going negative.

as always been an illusion in that it is just an idea with large scale buy in. Most people live in te illusion, for lack of a better word, without realizing it. A Matrix metaphor.

In Buddhism I think the term is maya or samsara, popular reality as a facade.

I did not read the book. Before WWII someobe wrote a book on propaganda arguing a modern system can not function with propaganda, or cultural myths. Something for peope to have faith in.Before the Nazis the word propaganda did not have a negative connotation.

Religions can be abusive and negative, but religious faith also provides a social glue and stability. It is much more than just unfounded beliefs.

You described yourself elsewhere as stoic, unless I'm mistaken. But you appear more cynical than stoic. If I had such a negative view of my own fate and the fate of this planet I wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. What would be the reason if everything is broken, dire, desperate and hopeless. I get that way sometimes, but it doesn't rule my thinking.

It appears that this hyper negative worldview you possess is your faith, that the world doesn't implode for some reason and to you this is just incredible. Don't get me wrong, I'm informed enough to know that planetary catastrophes do indeed occur, but what's the point of preaching that to a five year old?

HeeHee. Just an off the cuff remark.

If anything I ascribe to Freethought. As much as possible look at issues without regards to -isms and -ologies.

Hyper negative? Just a pragmatic look at the reality of human behavior. Rationalizing in different ways to escape confronting reality is the norm and always has been.

From that perspective, putting aside the historical abuses of organized religion, religious faith makes a lot of sense.

Buddhist technique experts are able to withdraw from realty. One of sayings is 'to take refuge in the dharma', dharma meaning the way or path. Rituals.

The question comes down to what does it mean to be a good person in human reality and what is quality of life. Confucius talked about 'the superior man'.

Religion is about personal quality of life.

Bhohda was to me a 'self help guru'. After going walk about for years, one of the anecdotal stories, he concluded suffering is part of human existence. Some of it your own doing, sme due to forces outside your control.

Seems obvious today. How you grapple with it is a personal choice in our liberal democracy.
Some immerse themselves in pop culture. Some drink and smoke pot. Scientology.

Our civil society is breaking down. The pandemic reporting shows us modern Americans are unable to cope with chnges and downturns. There are now mental health apps.

We have technology and a decadent overabundance of trinkets, we have replaced a lot of superstition with science, but we are still the same basic humans of old.


Personally Jeopardy is a daily escape from reality. May the mighty Alex rest in peace.

 

[DBT]

Faith, I guess, is used as a way to modify, ameliorate or escape the inevitable suffering in life, insecurity, loss, aging, death....

 

[steve_bank]

Faith, I guess, is used as a way to modify, ameliorate or escape the inevitable suffering in life, insecurity, loss, aging, death....

From my experience that is true. My point on demonizing religious forms is that most of pop culture is an escape. Perpeyual youth through supplements. Plastic surgery. All about deflecting the reality of a finite end and decay.

When the comedienne Joan Rivers died it was joked her grave should be declared a toxic waste site.


How do you ratioalize a comfortable middle cleas life when you see te pain and sufferng at te bottom?

The classic conservative rationalization is I worked for what I have, maybe they( the poor) are just lazy.

To me the issues of religious faith for us atheists s at the bottom of the list. What really scares me is the new progressive political correcness. It is getting to the point of being accused of thought crimes based on how you are ihe stake, but it is getting just as oppressivelof speech and thought, IMO.

Acceptance requires a rising PC test. Conform or be pushed out and attacked.

 

[Angry Floof]

Faith, I guess, is used as a way to modify, ameliorate or escape the inevitable suffering in life, insecurity, loss, aging, death....

From my experience that is true. My point on demonizing religious forms is that most of pop culture is an escape. Perpeyual youth through supplements. Plastic surgery. All about deflecting the reality of a finite end and decay.

When the comedienne Joan Rivers died it was joked her grave should be declared a toxic waste site.


How do you ratioalize a comfortable middle cleas life when you see te pain and sufferng at te bottom?

The classic conservative rationalization is I worked for what I have, maybe they( the poor) are just lazy.

To me the issues of religious faith for us atheists s at the bottom of the list. What really scares me is the new progressive political correcness. It is getting to the point of being accused of thought crimes based on how you are ihe stake, but it is getting just as oppressivelof speech and thought, IMO.

Acceptance requires a rising PC test. Conform or be pushed out and attacked.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The illusion of a stable coordinated whole. A functioning large scale system like the USA depends on a common st of belifs or myths. Like justice for all and equal opportunity. When the faith in the beliefs fails the sysem breaks down, witness reality today.

The traditional foundations which are just a set of beliefs are being dismantled. The founders no longer did so,ething remarkable in there day, they are now evil racists. America is an idea that people bought into. Christianity was part of the beif.

The belief is America can never fail and will always prevail over anything. The post WWII can do optimism was part of it. Now it is all going negative.

as always been an illusion in that it is just an idea with large scale buy in. Most people live in te illusion, for lack of a better word, without realizing it. A Matrix metaphor.

In Buddhism I think the term is maya or samsara, popular reality as a facade.

I did not read the book. Before WWII someobe wrote a book on propaganda arguing a modern system can not function with propaganda, or cultural myths. Something for peope to have faith in.Before the Nazis the word propaganda did not have a negative connotation.

Religions can be abusive and negative, but religious faith also provides a social glue and stability. It is much more than just unfounded beliefs.

You described yourself elsewhere as stoic, unless I'm mistaken. But you appear more cynical than stoic. If I had such a negative view of my own fate and the fate of this planet I wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. What would be the reason if everything is broken, dire, desperate and hopeless. I get that way sometimes, but it doesn't rule my thinking.

It appears that this hyper negative worldview you possess is your faith, that the world doesn't implode for some reason and to you this is just incredible. Don't get me wrong, I'm informed enough to know that planetary catastrophes do indeed occur, but what's the point of preaching that to a five year old?

HeeHee. Just an off the cuff remark.

If anything I ascribe to Freethought. As much as possible look at issues without regards to -isms and -ologies.

Hyper negative? Just a pragmatic look at the reality of human behavior. Rationalizing in different ways to escape confronting reality is the norm and always has been.

From that perspective, putting aside the historical abuses of organized religion, religious faith makes a lot of sense.

Buddhist technique experts are able to withdraw from realty. One of sayings is 'to take refuge in the dharma', dharma meaning the way or path. Rituals.

The question comes down to what does it mean to be a good person in human reality and what is quality of life. Confucius talked about 'the superior man'.

Religion is about personal quality of life.

Bhohda was to me a 'self help guru'. After going walk about for years, one of the anecdotal stories, he concluded suffering is part of human existence. Some of it your own doing, sme due to forces outside your control.

Seems obvious today. How you grapple with it is a personal choice in our liberal democracy.
Some immerse themselves in pop culture. Some drink and smoke pot. Scientology.

Our civil society is breaking down. The pandemic reporting shows us modern Americans are unable to cope with chnges and downturns. There are now mental health apps.

We have technology and a decadent overabundance of trinkets, we have replaced a lot of superstition with science, but we are still the same basic humans of old.


Personally Jeopardy is a daily escape from reality. May the mighty Alex rest in peace.

Our realities are identical. Pretending and fantasizing is part of that reality. Some people are unaware that they pretend, unable to reflect on their own pretentious behavior. I think that's a major difference among people, and that's probably just a function of differences in the prefontal cortex.

I do think that if humanity saw itself as a single organism it would help us all.

 

[steve_bank]

If you handle awareness without cuitches then good for you. Most of us have something to divert our thoughts, especialy in the age of 24/7 tragedy and sufferings on TV.

Whatever floats your boat.

It could be argued that relgious faith is a reasoned choice. From the pandemic reporting the interruptiono f daily work rituals has impacted mental health of many. Peope are at a loss when derived of daily rituals.

To me religion is just another ritual. Pro sports in pop culture is a ritual. The Superbowl

What would most people do if suddenly the net an TV went dark for an extended period? The sports hiatus due to COVID ws a serious loss for many fans. The net has become a daily ritual.


Not everyone is able to deal with all of it, faith helps people keep it together.

If you are old enough to remember the early days of Monday Night Football it quickly became a national ritual. People talked about it during the week.

RIP Howard Cosell. The man people loved to focus their hostility on.



As an atheist I have issues with extremes of Christianity in the USA, but in general people are welcome to their beliefs. Native Americans on reservations live in a fantasy of traditional beliefs and imagined past of peace and tranquility. It is all the same to me, myths and rituals. Wicans.

That is all I have to say, I will just be repeating myself.

 

[Angry Floof]

Steve, those extremes cannot exist without the mainstream. You and others like you provide the substrate for extremism. Extremist violence can't happen without so many people like you providing the comfortable, nurturing environment for extremism to thrive. You personally would not engage in extremism and you think that absolves you for looking away.

As for not needing crutches, it's not a matter of being so aware or strong or whatever like superpowers. It's more like not having any of that power and still not wanting crutches to stand between you and your human experience, but more importantly in my mind, standing in the way of the kind of progress that can actually bring about the kind of world that religion claims to offer if only we heathens would stop questioning it.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

People are at a loss when derived of daily rituals.

Religion fulfills this need in a lot of people. Too bad that need could not be fulfilled by more productive ritual.

 

[DBT]

Work can become a ritual. The work ethic, the daily grind....perhaps complained about, resented, yet many feel lost without its structure and sense of identity and purpose.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Work can become a ritual. The work ethic, the daily grind....perhaps complained about, resented, yet many feel lost without its structure and sense of identity and purpose.

Can believing something be considered a mental ritual? I think so. As you say, rituals give comfort and proclaim identity. In the end, we are what we do, and because none of us can read minds we're required to identify and judge persons based on behavior alone. We're also naturally drawn to people who enjoy the same rituals, and enjoy detesting rituals, as detesting certain rituals is a bit of a ritual in itself. We all do that.

 

[steve_bank]

Work can become a ritual. The work ethic, the daily grind....perhaps complained about, resented, yet many feel lost without its structure and sense of identity and purpose.

Can believing something be considered a mental ritual? I think so. As you say, rituals give comfort and proclaim identity. In the end, we are what we do, and because none of us can read minds we're required to identify and judge persons based on behavior alone. We're also naturally drawn to people who enjoy the same rituals, and enjoy detesting rituals, as detesting certain rituals is a bit of a ritual in itself. We all do that.

Nicely put.

 

[Angry Floof]

People are at a loss when derived of daily rituals.

Religion fulfills this need in a lot of people. Too bad that need could not be fulfilled by more productive ritual.

There is nothing stopping anyone from creating and practicing rituals that are meaningful to them, and most of us do that in some way with varying levels of conscious effort. But it's definitely worth noting that mainstream Christianity (and Islam in other parts of the world) will demonize those whose rituals don't look like the mainstream religion. At best, those "foreign" rituals will be ridiculed and considered stupid and weird and inauthentic, and the people practicing those rituals are believed to be shallow, two dimensional beings. At worst, well, we've seen for millennia what might happen to those people when the mainstream religion is allowed to become extremist.

 

[steve_bank]

This would be a thread for social scince.

Modern productive pursuits and rituals such as:

Getting high and getting zombied out listening to music. Brain dead head banger fans at heavy metal concerts bobbing heads up and down.

Focusing on pets for which Americas spending billions of dollars.

Political polarization.

Pop culture that is getting absurdly decadent. The rise in diseases usually associated with the 'idle rich'. Maas glutonous consumption fueled by 24/7 marketing. Christianity on a personal level used to be about moderation and self restraint.

Kids identifying with gang-gangster identities. Fueled by white and black 'gangster music'.

Movies with extreme violence and guns for entertainment.


So, where are those positive pursuits, of course compared to religious faith? We rationalize destructive behavior under a broad interpterion of free speech. Free speech is a form of a faith carried to an illogical irrational extreme.

 

[abaddon]

So, where are those positive pursuits, of course compared to religious faith?

Why don't you offer an answer this? If "getting high and getting zombied out listening to music" is a bad thing, then what good things should those people be doing instead? Can you give an example or two?

 

[Angry Floof]

This would be a thread for social scince.

Modern productive pursuits and rituals such as:

Getting high and getting zombied out listening to music. Brain dead head banger fans at heavy metal concerts bobbing heads up and down.

Focusing on pets for which Americas spending billions of dollars.

Political polarization.

Pop culture that is getting absurdly decadent. The rise in diseases usually associated with the 'idle rich'. Maas glutonous consumption fueled by 24/7 marketing. Christianity on a personal level used to be about moderation and self restraint.

Kids identifying with gang-gangster identities. Fueled by white and black 'gangster music'.

Movies with extreme violence and guns for entertainment.


So, where are those positive pursuits, of course compared to religious faith? We rationalize destructive behavior under a broad interpterion of free speech. Free speech is a form of a faith carried to an illogical irrational extreme.

Why don't you challenge yourself to actively seek out positive ritual behaviors in society that are not religious? You found a few things that in your mind support your religious apologia and Other regard of society and that's it, and those are questionable. Nothing wrong with getting high with or without music. No one does that 24/7 and if someone does it's considered extreme.

There are innumerable examples of positive secular ritual in Western society. We celebrate birthdays and holidays, and every family has their own way of celebrating the society wide holidays and apply their own meaning to tradition. We celebrate life itself, and relationships, and having made it to a five year cancer-free diagnosis. We throw ashes of the dead in meaningful places.

Have you ever seen a balloon release? That is a secular ritual. It doesn't have to be rigidly performed or practiced on a schedule or have metaphysical meaning. A lot of people practice personal rituals that often begin with cognitive behavioral techniques maybe acquired for a specific problem but settling in our mental habits offering comfort and a means of raising our consciousness of the world around us.

Here's how some in my family have modified existing ritual for Easter. We gave the egg dying a more important and relevant meaning in addition to just the fun of it. I'll paste it here from another thread instead of typing it out again.

Eight year old niece is spending Ishtar weekend with me. After today, she knows all about elections, Bernie Sanders, and mythology. We saved out these six eggs for our myth making. We decided that these six eggs represent all that is important to us.

• Blue egg is the color of the sky, and also resembles a fat rocket or a blue planet, so that one represents the cosmos and also our love of space exploration and science.
• Green egg looks like a lush forest or the Earth, so that represents home, Earth, sustenance, mammal fellowship, and kinship with all life on the planet (especially the cats, for us).
• Yellow egg = the sun, life's power source.
• Orange egg looks like a dragon's egg, so that represents imagination, wonder, and technology.
• Pink egg is striped and looks like some kind of sweet fruit, so that one represents joy, pleasure, and gratitude.
• Violet egg didn't get a designation before niece had to leave to go home, so it can represent the possibilities that exist in the form of a wave waiting to be collapsed into particles (sparkly ones, of course) and also represents the non-linear nature of the universe through its ability to serve as a direct connection between the blue cosmos egg and the pink egg of joy, meaning there's no beginning or end to creation.

Happy Easter!

View attachment 30305

Photo:six eggs in rainbow colors.

Why would you not want to see the world with better eyes (having nothing to do with your physical vision impairment, which I'm aware of and would not mock)? Why would anyone not seek out what's beautiful and wonderful in the world around us? Even the mundane, when looked at closely and without regard to whatever thoughts arise about it, can be tremendous sources of comfort and clarity. A cup of coffee can do this. Anything not totally scary or threatening or depraved can serve as the counterbalance to the scary, threatening, or depraved. At the same time, what we consider profane is often not a negative at all but a remnant of religious indoctrination.

Some of us have to work at practicing seeing the good in the world because of negativity bias as well as our personalities and ideologies reinforcing our negative judgments of the world. It's work, but it doesn't harm or hurt. Look for the helpers, Steve!

Here's someone who was morally far superior to his claimed religion, which was Presbyterian. He's one of those rare humans who had the very human wherewithal to use only the positive and kind aspects of his religion. Unfortunately, he was only one man and could not inspire his wider denomination to reject the exclusivity, punishment, us. vs. them, authoritarian, life-denying, self loathing, violent and depraved aspects of their theology. They have the capacity to do it, but not the will or knowledge because their religious/political community won't permit questioning or change.

Quote from Mr. Rogers. “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news,” Rogers said to his television neighbors, “my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

People are at a loss when derived of daily rituals.

Religion fulfills this need in a lot of people. Too bad that need could not be fulfilled by more productive ritual.

There is nothing stopping anyone from creating and practicing rituals that are meaningful to them, and most of us do that in some way with varying levels of conscious effort. But it's definitely worth noting that mainstream Christianity (and Islam in other parts of the world) will demonize those whose rituals don't look like the mainstream religion. At best, those "foreign" rituals will be ridiculed and considered stupid and weird and inauthentic, and the people practicing those rituals are believed to be shallow, two dimensional beings. At worst, well, we've seen for millennia what might happen to those people when the mainstream religion is allowed to become extremist.

Ignorance leads to fear, fear leads to violence. Repeat.

 

[DBT]

Fear itself may lead to ignorance, knee jerk reactions, cognitive bias, failing to consider consequences....

 

[Politesse]

Ignorance leads to fear, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate...

leads to suffering.

 

[DBT]

Life and suffering appear inseparable, but if you are fortunate it comes in small dollops spread thinly.....