06-09-2006, 03:45 AM
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#1
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Guest
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I would like to see a study of "Why does religion persist in the modern world in face of so much (many would say, conclusive) evidence that it (like that of the Greeks, Romans, and all ancient peoples) is based on mythologies?"
It's easy to come up with explanations, such as Cal's schizophrenia theory, but none that I've seen seem to be inclusive of ALL religions or all aspects of any one religion.
Being of a philosophical bent, I have a penchant for completeness.
I think, in order to begin, adherence to the religious mindset can be studied in 4 different categories of motivation.
1. Ignorance of the Evidence.
2. Denial of the Evidence.
3. Pragmatic Religion--in which the benefits of religion are thought to justify adherence to the myths.
4. It's all true. Scientists and Philosophers are only deluded (by Satanic forces) about what has been discovered about our world.
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06-09-2006, 04:40 AM
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#2
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A caricature
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: England
Posts: 693
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I just co-incidentally (or maybe it was fate?) came across this website on the Psychology of Spiritual Sects, not sure if it's exactly what you're after but it has a lot of interesting points.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~wichm/psymove.html#members
"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day" - Douglas Adams
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06-09-2006, 05:10 AM
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#3
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Obsessed Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 2,330
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Memes! Put simply, the memetic hypothesis for this is that most religions have built in instructions to replicate, which give them a head start in the Darwinian competition of ideas.
Religions generally have very efficient mechanisms for memetic spreading. The ones that don't tend to die out.
One of the most effective is the common religious injunction to have lots of kids and bring them up in your religion. Extreme examples are Catholic prohibitions on effective birth control, and Mormon polygamy, but in general most Abrahamic religions have this kind of injunction in some form ("go forth, increase, and multiply"). The Cathars didn't (regarding the material world as the creation of the devil, and bringing new souls into it as therefore sinful), and they aren't here any more. Atheists, I get the impression, often don't have kids or limit them to two or so. You can draw your own conclusions. Maybe the supposed persuasiveness of atheism is the only thing that allows us still to exist in the face of an enormous disadvantage in population replacement.
Commands built in to the structure of religions (as in Christianity) to go out and convert the heathen in order to save their souls or whatever can be effective too. Commands to convert by the sword can in some circumstances be effective, but are often self defeating.
You can believe in memes or not - there is some suggestive evidence that pop music hits, addictions to specific drugs, some religions and popular fads spread according to epidemiology models, which would tend to back the hypothesis, but I don't think it can be regarded as "proved". In the meantime this is a good primer
"You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat-catching, and will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family"
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06-09-2006, 05:45 AM
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#4
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Obsessed Member
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 4,260
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It's the "if you don't believe this you will suffer" clause. Even with evidence to the contrary, they simply modify their religion slightly. God used to have the physical form of man, and literally live in the clouds above our heads. Now we soar above the clouds, and having not found him, have changed him to be some formless entity which "lives in our hearts". When a concept lives in our hearts, it's been effectively defeated.
"When science was in its infancy, religion tried to strangle it in its cradle." - Robert G. Ingersoll
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06-09-2006, 07:06 AM
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#5
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Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Texas
Posts: 644
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I would not underestimate the socializing factor of religion. Participating in a religion is a way for a person give outward signs to the community that will assist in that person's food, clothing, shelter and child-rearing that the person is willing to live by the guidelines of the community. Being an atheist, I prefer golf instead.
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06-09-2006, 09:19 AM
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#6
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Obsessed Member
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 2,813
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From http://www.churchofvirus.com/lexicon_6.html
VACCIME: (pron. vak-seem) Any meta-meme which confers resistance or immunity to one or more memes, allowing that person to be exposed without acquiring an active infection. Also called an `immuno-meme.' Common immune-conferring memes are "Faith", "Loyalty", "Skepticism", and "tolerance". (See: meme-allergy.) (GMG.)
Every scheme includes a vaccime to protect against rival memes. For instance:
Conservatism: automatically resist all new memes.
Orthodoxy: automatically reject all new memes.
Science: test new memes for theoretical consistency and(where applicable) empirical repeatability; continually re-assess old memes; accept schemes only conditionally, pending future re:-assessment.
Radicalism: embrace one new scheme, reject all others.
Nihilism: reject all schemes, new and old.
New Age: accept all esthetically-appealing memes, new and old, regardless of empirical (or even internal) consistency; reject others. (Note that this one doesn't provide much protection.)
Japanese: adapt (parts of) new schemes to the old ones.
"It's puzzling that Eden is synonymous with paradise when, if you think about it at all, it's more like a maximum-security prison with twenty-four hour surveillance." -Ann Druyan
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06-09-2006, 09:21 AM
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#7
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I Live Here
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Chandler- Arizona
Posts: 14,227
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Hmm..I would have called this thread " Persistence of Religious Psychosis"....after all, upon what do world religion based their dogma, but delusions of Invisible Friends and absurd beliefs, caused by the disorder?..Alas, don't the schizophrenia sufferer based their ( neurological infirmity causing ) delusional thoughts of Invisible friends belief system also on a neurological disorder?
Schizophrenic thinking is not much different than religious thinking....:)
Christians and other folks infected with delusional beliefs think and reason like schizophrenics or temporal lobe epileptics. Their morality is dictated by an invisible friend called Jesus.
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