Realistically, how likely is religion to still exist in any influential or even recognizable capacity in far-future settings?
>>92616174As long as man is still mortal, religion will persist.
>>92616174Quite likely, especially if the modern, pro-science, liberal progressive paradigm crumbles. Like, the Muslims and Hindus are likely to outbreed everyone, so why won't they bring their religions with them?
>>92616295Even if THE MESSAGE Doesn't crumble, it almost certainly qualifies as a religion in it's own right.Religosity is an aspect of man not a deterrent to him.
>>92616174It probably would, it'll be very different from what it was originally, but it'd exist in some way. But I doubt any religion humanity comes up with will survive into the far future, seeing as well most likely die before we get off this mudball, but I'm sure some sort of ai spirituality can spring up.
about 35%
>>92616174Very likely. Human beans are just irrational apes who can problem-solve a little bit better on average than other apes. We still jump at shadows, and we still believe that some things are true when they are not simply because some older apes transmitted their own silly memes to us before they finally went and croaked.We are nothing special, and we deserve all the stupid delusions we perpetuate and will keep on perpetuating under brand new forms in the millenia to come.Thanks for listening to my TEDx talk. Don't forget to tip your fedora on your way out
>>92616274Immortality wouldn't even make a dent in religion.Christianity might have a crisis since our faith is so concerned with death and afterlife, but Buddhism or Hinduism where everyone already assumes a sort of immortality via rebirth would barely notice.
>>92616174If humans still exist then religion will. There is a slim chance they will start calling it something else, but it will not be fundamentally that different.
>le conflict thesis memePeople will never "progress" past religion because religion isn't a consequence of a lack of scientific understanding.
>>92616174As long as record keeping is imperfect, people will always have to view the past with some level of faith in that what they're seeing isn't some manner of elaborate fiction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwQqQkdn_5Q
>>92616174So long as religion offers a special kind of friendship and tyrannical power mankind will always be Praying Apes
>>92616251>one of the very few sources of cross-ethnic dialogue and political cooperationThe holiest lands on Earth are on track to be Ground Zero for WW3, anon. You're talking out your ass.
Religion has existed since humanity gained sapience, and it will exist until we go extinct. The objects of that faith will change, new ones will pop up, certain groups will splinter off, some will be fucking crazy.>>92616274Immortality will change nothing. No matter how long you spend upon this mortal plane, the eternal afterlife will be longer. One day the stars will all go dark, black holes will collapse, and the universe will grow cold. That will be nothing in the eye of eternity, and people will still flock to various faiths to explain what happens when the lights go out.>>92618670Nothing new there.
>>92616174Probably. Genetic engineering is our only hope against religion, so if your far future is more of a cyborg place, I doubt magical thinking will have disappeared.
>>92616174There will be a system of belief, but it will be increasingly difficult to call it a "religion." It will not have god, or worship. If it does have a higher power, it will not be a trancendental power, but an earlthly/material power.
>>92618750>One day the stars will all go dark, black holes will collapse, and the universe will grow cold. That will be nothing in the eye of eternity, and people will still flock to various faiths to explain what happens when the lights go out.These faiths don't have to be religious though. The hope for a machine to allow eternal existence for example escape into another universe, isontropic computing, vaccum energy may persist for trillion of years until it is realized or proven to be impossible. Then despair will either harden these last minds to cannabalize each other for the last light and heat or they so escape into religion. But if such technology is realised, then what meaning has religion and divinity for beings that truly can persist forever?
>>92616174Depends on how humanity itself will change. If humanity stays unmodified then religion will persist, but the more posthuman humanity becomes, religion becomes lesser and lesser. What need does a immortal superintelligence have for tales, itself can perform greater yet?
>>92616174>Realistically, how likely is religion to still exist in any influential or even recognizable capacity in far-future settings?Extremely likely, but mileage may vary depending on how the nature of man changes. Religious thinking is essential to how our brains work as an organism (and the brains of our Ancestors, our Chimp cousins, and seemingly even Elephants), but that might change if we become aggressively transhumanist with chips in our brains or we turn into energy or something. >>92618670>The holiest lands on Earth are on track to be Ground Zero for WW3, anon. You're talking out your ass.A lot of Evangelical Christians, and some Orthadoxy Jews, believe Israel being at the center of global conflict will bring about the second coming of Christ and/or the Dark Souls-style Jewish end of times.
Noone cares, you're a fag/thread
>>92616174far future also includes post apocalyptic settingseven in high tech settings, science is a liar sometimes
>>92619225The inaccuracies of science and the need to separate religion from rote historic recounts does indeed have the same root of incomplete information.
>>92616174dogma manifests in every aspect of society, its not a huge step for it to take towards the religious
>>92616174Depends on how you define it.Do you consider ideology and religion to be the same?
>>92616174Future is horrible and people retreat mentally.Or the future is paradise and they can afford to play make believe.
>>92616174You could make a case for both yes and no, honestly:>NoReligion is on a clear way out in basically every developed countries with low immigration.It seems that every country follows roughly the same general trends when developing.Ergo: if the whole world keeps developing in the future, religion as we know it may become completely extinct.>YesNon-religious countries also have unsustainable birth rates.Regardless of good or bad, Darwin always wins in the end.You also have a third way:Religion as we know it goes extinct: first Protestantism, then Catholicism and Islam.But deep religious thinking endures and mankind's drive to faith turns towards charismatic but blindly stupid AIs.
>>92619805And, I forgot to add:>Ted (RIP) spins in his grave so hard it is used as a source of clean energy
>>92619805>Religion is on a clear way out in basically every developed countries with low immigration.Factually incorrect. Religion is on a clear way out in Protestant countries.Look at any developed Islamic country and you see nothing of the sort.Look at China and post-soviets. They're bringing religion back.>if the whole world keeps developing in the future, religion as we know it may become completely extinct.There is nothing to suggest that. Civilizations and nations develop, prosper, stagnate, fall and develop again.Most countries in existence today were 'developed' at some point of history and at that time might have experienced lower religiosity.>Non-religious countries also have unsustainable birth rates.Soviet Union and pre-colonial Africa would like a word with you.>Religion as we know it goes extinctReligions dying is unheard of without severe and persistent persecution and historical rewriting. Even faiths that were annihilated with extreme care and effort over centuries popped right back when West stopoed burning them at the stake.
>>92620430>Religions dying is unheard ofSure are a lot of cults of Ares and Zeus running around. Just yesterday there was an Osiris parade down town.
>>92616174We just don't know.It seems that humans are addicted to cult like behaviour. It's unlikely that this will simply go away when more and more average people are exposed to the scale of space. It could just sublimated and expressed in other activities, but humans at scale seem to obsessively form in to groups exhibiting religious behaviours.
>>92618329Quite the beautiful blurry illegible jpg you've bestowed upon us.
>>92620430China is persecuting religious organizations in the belief that they might pose a threat to the communist party.The Russians like to the aethetics of religion for larp reasons but in reality they have the same level of church attendance as fucking Sweden.
>>92616174Very certain. We like to scoff that we've moved past religion, but continue to exhibit behavior that shows we need that sort of facet in our lives. Even if there's no religion, people will fill that space with celebrity worship, tech worship, ideology worship, or even culture worship. So the question isn't really will there be religion, the question is more which form, and will it tend more towards a theology, or superstition.
>>92616295You realize the fastest growing religion is 'no religion's right? Hinduism and islam are used as ethnic identifiers, and that trend will go away as those nations become more developed.
>>92618550Yeah, but historical review means we're pretty certain napoleon is real, while the only source that moses parted the red sea is the bible. It's a very different kind of faith than religion. Like you can always write a paper saying napoleon was fictional so long as you have good sources. Then you need to deal with a bunch of historians saying your paper is stupid.>>92618664I think social media has been a big part of religious decline- churches served a socialization mechanic in society for people who aren't even religious, now we have a lot of venues to socialize instead, and church doesn't have as much to offer on that front.
>>92616174100%The vast majority of people *need* some form of religion.The only variation is if it will some sky daddy(ies), a nebulous concept like patriotism or (social) justice, or something that require less thinking like political party, sports team or e-celebs.It's the same mechanism beyond all of those. Man need dreams. Man need enthusiasm. Man need to be part of a group he can relate to. Man need to be able to feel justified in his anger against those not following the rules of the group.This will be a religion. They might not recognize it as such, but it's still people pouring their faith in something crafted by others.So will people in the 875th millenia worship Jesus? Probably not.A good chunk of them will live and die by the words of some random celebrity, be willing to commit great violence and give up all their money for the cause of some association, or consider that they have the correct opinion on everything because of some holobook they only read the synopsis of.Faith is eternal.Religion is eternal, just everchanging.
>>92621260Its not a hundred percent of people who need religion. There is a percentage that do, but not that high. I think the thing is everyone needs something to put faith in. But that thing can be secular, the government, an ideology, the words of a philosopher. One can even accept the arbitrary nature of the universe but devote their energy in creating just and fair human systems to compensate.I think the difference is how much mental legwork people are willing to put in. I think a lot of people care less about reacting to objective reality, than wanting a system that will justify their own beliefs and biases. See priests getting called leftist cucks for preaching that you should turn the other cheek.
>>92619805>Religion is on a clear way out in basically every developed countries with low immigration.organized religion is in it's way out, most people still retain spiritual beliefs of some form and personal rituals
>>92616174I’d say very likely. We’re living during times that there is hyper focus on individual productivity, and things like psychedelic drugs are illegal. In the future with further automation of labor, humans will be left searching for the meaning of it all. If you legalized psychedelic drugs, the interest in spiritualism and religion would skyrocket fast. We live in kind of a mental prison culture.
>>92616251>Most science fiction that portrays the end of religion do so strictly as an anti-religious talking point rather than actually justify itTa kinda sad to be honest, one of the most important pillars of humanity is it's relationship with the divine from a cultural standpoint, to see so many great jobs of fiction push it to the sides instead of exploring it just seems petty
>>92616174Highly realistic.
>>92623131I think it's not even a matter of religion being organized or not, so much as organized religion being out-dated and inflexible. Like- christianity doesn't have much to say about how we should deal with AI, or the Internet, or navigating democratic politics, it's 2000 years old. But those are the big issues of our era that affect our lives that people look for meaning about. I think the rise of 'christian nationalism' has come about as the result of people essentially going around shopping for religions as the old churches aren't really providing answers and context for modern society that people are looking for. It's just a lot easier to call yourself christian though than try to present it as a brand new religion- similar to how the Chinese still call themselves communist despite having completely abandoned the ideology.>>92623157I think it just comes out of the naive assumption that the progress of society and advance of religion would go hand-in-hand with irreligiosity. I don't think that's necessarily an untrue assumption either- but it is one that viewed progress as being a one-way road with zero backtracking. I identify it with the same weird in sci-fi stories where fascist autocracies of the future are never racist- at least to human minorities. Think like WH40K- an openly fascist and genocidal empire, but there's zero elements of white-supremacy while at the same time they are taking design cues from the Nazis. It was just assumed 30-40 years ago that while racism might exist it would eventually whither away.
>>92619805>Religion is on a clear way out in basically every developed countries with low immigration.Yeah no, it's just replaced by other religions.Holocaustianism has been a major cult since the 60s (might be on its way out now, although I wouldn't bet too much on that)Capitalism vs Communism was a cult during the Cold War, with some still clinging to it.Ecologism has turned into a cult around the 90s.Social justice is one of the most prominent cult since the 10s.Vaccination of all things turned into an inquisition-tier cult for 3 years and then everyone pretended it didn't happen.etcThe only thing on it's way out are well organized, upfront and lasting religions. They got bullied hard by even more manipulative groups who rapid-fire fully prepared belief systems depending on whatever they need the masses to go hysterical about on that particular day. It's not even an atheism victory or anything, just a straight downgrade in what exactly people believe in and how hard they get exploited in the process.
>>92623941So we get to just ignore the definitions of words now? Is 'rampant contrarianism' a religion now?
>>92616174Religion as a social power structuring the whole society seems to disappears as state replaced its role with social security and the like.Religion as a cultural marker is still really present. So does the need to fill spiritual need.>>92620430Birthrate are diminishing globally anon, even in religious country.
>>92619031Lol
>>92624134>Birthrate are diminishing globally anon, even in religious countryYes, but importantly, they aren't decreasing among significantly religious people. The irreligious are breeding themselves out of the population.
>>92623066Holy boomer
>>92624750God the moment people open their mouths to complain about the birth-rate it shows they have no fucking clue what they're talking about. Low-birthrates are a sign of economic success. Poor rural people have a lot of kids becuase it's free labor on the farms. Middle-to-upper class people have fewer kids because they have better access to contraceptives and expect to put their kids through college which is expensive. Rich first world countries aren't 'cucking themselves to death'. They're having less kids than they used to, and after a period of population decline this will stabilize as society adjusts to families having five kids on average to having two kids on average. Likewise third world countries (who are coincidentally have worse education and higher religiosity) will experience the exact same phenomena when their countries achieve parity to first-world countries in wealth and education. This exact phenomena happened to China in real time as they went from a primarily poor rural country to a primarily rich urban country, and are now experiencing declining birth-rates similar to Japan and Korea. China is just freaking out about it less because they (being a historical empire with a large number of minorities) are less freaked out by the idea of enticing immigration to make up the difference like normal countries. This also of course pretends that the irreligious population only grows from reproduction- and not, you know. Conversion. Most irreligious people were raised religious. I myself was raised nominally catholic, got baptized in the name of St. Andrew and everything. The fact that a religious person can wake up and decide to stop being religious never factors into these discussions about breeding for some odd reason.
>>92616274Not mortal necessarily but Pleistocene human. We could change our innate tendency to religiosity same as we might Dunbar's number or any number of cognitive quirks which are too deeply ingrained to appear obvious but that's the "trans" in transhumanism, you're becoming something else. Hopefully something humane and with the consent of all involved but still; not human as we know it today.>>92617568Sorta like Jungian archetypes in a way. We have an innate "negative space" in our instinctual worldview which some meme is bound to fill. If our religious traditions were somehow poofed away different ones meeting similar needs would emerge to take their place.>>92617639That habit's tangled up with so many of our special sauce tricks that if it's the "stupidity" we deserve it's hard to imagine the brilliance without it. Don't necessarily buy >>92616251 but there's no arguing with the fact that religious communities which make harsh demands of their members are among the most cohesive social units in the long term. A janky approach to harmony perhaps but that's the name of the game where evolution (genetic or memetic) is concerned.>>92616174Anyone have preferred settings where religion continues to play a role in the future? Personally I'm working on a thing that's the Bene Gesserit's "failsafe messianic programming" writ large across all of human space. Probably gonna use ideology-religions and syncrectism to cover up my ignorance and push things into weirder territory though...
>>92616174Atheism is a midwit trap so unless people are all engineered to be midwits there will always be religion.
>>92624873Only one I can think of is Dead Space and Unitology. Which honestly is how I envision religion evolving into the future. Some charismatic con-man is gonna string together a bunch of anti-government conspiracy theories into a giant ponzi-scheme. Honestly I think the real question is where the dividing line between cult and religion is. See- religions are forced to moderate in order to maximize butts in pews. For instance- Divorce still sends you to hell in Catholicism. But they don't talk about that because divorce is INCREDIBLY popular and if they kept telling people that a whole bunch of divorcee's would stop going to church (my grandma probably doesn't want the priest telling her my dad is burning in hell right now for getting a divorce). Or how the Pope is largely chill about the gay thing cause he'd rather have Gay's be catholic if he can help it. Cults meanwhile trade off the mass appeal for intense control over their audience- see scientology. Scientology can't have mass appeal because if they have a big societal discussion about their tenents everyone in it would start hearing arguments about how the whole thing is a scam and then might leave the church (cause it is a scam, and the church isolates outside voices on the subject).
>>92616174Where did this notion that people in the future will be these enlightened atheist who have cast off the shackles of religious belief and superstition?If anything, people will find new things to worship or reinvent old religions when paganism goes into wide-spread popularity again somehow
>>92619048I quite like the game ECHO offhandedly mentioning that superhuman AI tend to be religious to a 'bot with the irreligious helper NPC seething at the implicit to their intelligence. The Last Question can be a fun way to go about it too.>>92624933Unfortunately I think "charismatic yet blindly idiotic AI" is closer to the mark if only as a prop for your con-man to use (isn't "longtermism" effectively a primitive eversion of that?). As to cults I could see there being a fringe of hipsters if the barrier between cult and religion were to become more porous, hopping from madmen to madmen ahead of them mellowing out would make for cool character backstory.>>92624939I mean far future enough and people might build their own gods intentionally or otherwise. >>92624873 features what may be an uplink to the panpsychic kernel of all consciousness. It is corrosively insane.
>>92624939People in the mid-20th century noticed the trendline that as time was going on and society was 'advancing' socially and technologically that the role of religion in society was diminishing. Scientific discoveries like evolution were showing that at least large parts of religion are completely wrong, and the assumption is that scientific discoveries will continue to disprove sections of religiosity. I don't think the identification of this trend-line is inaccurate- I think what they got wrong was the notion that this trend would be fixed and straight- instead I think we've seen a reactionary backlash against this trend characterized by fundamentalism and anti-intellectualism.The way I see it I think a certain part of the population has a religious impulse to them, or even a fundamentalist impulse (though I think those aren't necessarily the same slices of the population). Likewise there's always been an irreligious slice of society- it's just these people didn't have much of a means to express this in medieval times back when people had no alternative answers to stuff like 'where did the universe come from'. They just went about their day not thinking much about God and that wasn't controversial. As time went on and we started having alternate avenues to express that irreligiosity open up, that slice of the population began to do so, but rather than being representative of the whole of society they're representative of just a slice of society (how big I don't know, I think probably 60-70% but that's solely guesswork on my part), and essentially there's a cap on how much of the population is willing to view the world outside a religious framework.
>>92624989A lot of cultists end up jumping from cult-to-cult. Cause if you're dumb enough to join a cult once, then you're probably dumb enough to join a cult twice. Which informs me it's not so much about the doctrine itself. It's about I think the sense of religious hysteria one can enter (they say religious fervor activates the same part of the brain as cocaine- and if there's adrenaline junkies I have zero issue believing there are religion junkies). Hence I think it wouldn't be too hard to have a modern-day prophet come up telling people he's got the keys to heaven and people will just blindly go along with it. I think the issue is more about sustaining both longevity and a mass audience.
>>92616174>Realistically, how likely is religion to still exist in any influential or even recognizable capacity in far-future settings?It's an absolute certainty.Only a fedora-tipper would even ask a question like this.
>>92616251>one of the very few sources of cross-ethnic dialogueNo niggers in my church, lmao. Where do you fucks on Sundays, the corner KFC?>>92618670Ukraine will prevail.
>>92625039>medieval times back when people had no alternative answers to stuff like where did the universe come fromWorms in the cheese my boy, worms in the cheese!
>>92625126You realize that most black people are actually very religious right? Most of them live in the rural south, you know bible-belt territory.
religion will always exist as long as people will need to explain what they really dont know.people often use religion to understand their traumas. so as long as people will be traumatized, we will always have religion. its a coping mechanism to protect our evolving rational brains.
You can't even form a sentence without transcendental presuppositions.
>>92621100But can you say the same for Jesus, or even someone like Ragnar? As information rots, fact fades to legend fades to myth, and the idea some random artilleryman could bring together millions of people under his rule becomes as incredulous as a man living a life without sin, perhaps warping into something with fantastical embellishments to better explain the incongruity. Maybe the reason the Sphinx has no nose is because Napoleon shot it off with a cannon. Maybe Napoleon conquered Egypt by shooting cannons at the pyramids...
>>92621100>>92625681Or take for the matter, the lineage of the imperial Japanese family. Emperor Kenzō was a rather unextraordinary ruler whose actions have little of the supernatural incongruity of his more mythical-seeming forebears, but the lack of surviving cross-referenceable sources means he's lumped in the same category by scholars as gods like Ninigi-no-Mikoto, rather than someone like Emperor Kinmei who has multiple sources attesting to his rule, among them declaring the succession of Emperor Bidatsu who otherwise has little more information preserved on him than the so-called legendary emperors of before, yet he is accepted as historical because Kinmei is historical.
>>92616174Highly likely. As long as death exists so too will religion.
>>92616174Religion is guaranteed to exist in far-future settings. The presence of religion is one of the constants of human civilization, and secular/atheistic societies typically suffer from severe social decline.
>>92616295Don't forget that conservative Christians in the west are also outbreeding liberal progressives.
>>92618670>The holiest lands on Earth are on track to be Ground Zero for WW3, anonLet's not pretend this is the first time.
>>92618269Christian eschatology predicts the resurrection of the faithful in immortal "glorified" bodies. The invention of actual immortality would just be integrated with that belief structure.
>>92619031>what meaning has religion and divinity for beings that truly can persist forever?No being will have more need to find meaning in life than an immortal being.
>>92620527>Just yesterday there was an Osiris parade down town.Well yeah, Easter is kind of a big deal.
>>92625681No you misunderstand the historical profession. See- historians are reasonably certain A Jesus exists. Beyond that though is where we get the whole historical review thing. Because there's a lack of documentation about Jesus during his life, but we can be reasonably certain there was a man that people claimed was the Messiah as Judea was undergoing Messiah fever at the time (think about how many people nowadays are itching for the Rapture to happen). We can also be reasonably certain one of these Messiah's was crucified as it was a pretty common punishment by Romans, for which we have tons of evidence for (Muslims for some reason attest that Jesus was never crucified, which is odd given again that it was very common). That's the stuff we have evidence for. Everything else though we lack enough documentation to make the case on. Though there are certainly things we can outright rule out. For instance- the idea that Joseph and Mary had to go to Bethlehem for the Roman Census. You've been in a census before in your country I'm sure. Can you imagine having to go back to the town of your birth every ten years? That specifically at least was clearly a retcon done to have Jesus fulfill a prophecy. Which is very different than say a figure like Napoleon, or even Alexander the Great, who we can physically document their travels as battles were fought and borders moved. >>92626248>secular/atheistic societies typically suffer from severe social decline.I feel that's a very small sample size you're working on that's going to be inflated with self-serving examples. >>92626264See->>92624866Don't know about the Catholics or Mormons, but the younger generation is fleeing Evangelical churches in droves leading to a net and stark decline in population.
>>92624866>God the moment people open their mouths to complain about the birth-rate it shows they have no fucking clue what they're talking about. >-t. midwitAbloobloobloo. Yes thanks for all that. Now that you've typed out stuff everyone else knows to emotionally center yourself for facing a potentially sensitive topic and make standard disclaimers so nobody accuses you of being a magic sky man simp: after you control for SES, region, culture, race, nation, societal changes, prevailing economics and all the rest; so that you're contrasting religious and irreligious only...the significantly religious have more kids and the irreligious have ever-less.
>>92618670>Religion won't be around in the future, look at all these religious people fighting over their ancestral religions.
>>92626370>I feel that's a very small sample size you're working on that's going to be inflated with self-serving examples.In addition to the contemporary issues of the secular west there are also historic societies declining into cynicism and irreligion, concurrent with decline in their political stability and military power. One can argue whether irreligion is a symptom of decline or a driver, but while correlation does not prove causation it does imply the hell out of it. At a minimum we must acknowledge that the similar correlation between religiosity and positive reported well-being in individuals indicates that this phenomenon does not just occur at the social level and is more than an artifact of cherry picked historical examples.
>>92626430English motherfucker do you speak it.
>>92626459These are assertions not examples. People keep claiming the west is about to implode and it keeps not happening. And saying 'it'll happen eventually' isn't evidence, it's what you want to happen because it'd reaffirm your misanthropy.
>>92620589Get off mobile, zoomer. Or, alternatively, get some glasses, grandpa.
>>92626370And it's in these folds of speculation that faith substitutes for concrete fact; the debate on whether or not Jesus was actually crucified might feel like one beyond reason, yet that we don't have concrete evidence the crucifixion happened forces us to accept that there will always be a grain of uncertainty on its veracity, even if circumstantial evidence dictates it to had been more likely than not. To believe to be true regardless is faith, and the cornerstone of religion.That grain can happen to anyone or anything if the records on a historical figure are lost or otherwise compromised; whole mythologies can be sprung either accidentally or deliberately by interrupting this flow of records and information. Thus, you can have individuals believe ahistorical events their whole lives like the Iğdır Genocide merely because they never had access to verifiable records that would prove the contrary, or you can insert fiction within the folds of fact like the Roman Census to make it appear legitimate to the cursory eye, or do the converse to make a factual document appear less-than-so.And so my argument is that there is no fundamental difference between those errs in history and religion, or even the ever-beating norms of contemporary, second-to-second society; the Catholics pray to their Lord with elaborate, regimented ritual for fundamentally the same reason the peoples of the United States listened to President James Monroe's word and not Joshua Abraham Norton's, and that reason is faith in the face of uncertainty.
>>92620589Clean your glasses.
>>92616251>one of the very few sources of cross-ethnic dialogue and political cooperation.
>>92626576Disagree- I think we're both illustrating the differences in this discussion. There is no room for doubt in religion essentially. It is a FAITH. A Christan says that there can be no scenario in which Jesus was not crucified. A Muslim says that there can be no scenario in which he was crucified. It's not a matter of the evidence or the arguments, it is a matter of faith- one has to be true for the religion to function. But to a historian, either scenario depends on the argument and evidence. A historian has the freedom to say 'either jesus was crucified or he was not'. The bible or quran being wrong has no larger significance to a historian. New information, new perspectives, and new arguments are uncovered and made pretty frequently, and it's not uncommon for historical record to be flipped on it's head. But that's the fun of being a historian- the ability to constantly be arguing and refining, and that's not how religion works.
>>92626675Perhaps in a vacuum that would be the case, but the ironclad-dogmatic who believes one plus one is three and the historian-agnostic who speaks in probabilities that his works are correct are both extremes that are seldom encountered in reality (for all the bluster the former creates.) If faith in religion did not change with the access of new information and loss of the old, there would be no reformations, no schisms - there would be no Muslims branching off from the Christians to argue the crucifixion's veracity to begin with. Often times, as >>92623459 puts it, this is in response to societal discontent with the results of the religious practice in question and what it does and doesn't address. Like Mussolini after, Jupiter's will was overthrown for not aligning with that of the Rome.On the other hand, you have the superficially irreligious, politically-charged historian who acts on preconceived notions that either due to personal motive or societal pressure they are not allowed to contest, most commonly found in Eastern-Bloc countries under the employment of organizations as the CCP and FSB. Often for the some reason the religious will contest their faith in the face of societal instability, the politically-historical will not contest the facts in the name of the converse. You will find many NATO-aligned countries hesitant to touch the Armenian Genocide out of respect for the politics of Turkey, even those majority irreligious such as Estonia.In between these two fathoms is a granular class of philosophers and historians whom feel a strong personal need to believe something to be true while willingly waffling with other ideas and facts beyond this foundation. Most historians won't tell you Napoleon "probably existed"; though they cannot interact with him any longer, they believe him as real as the ground beneath their feet. Few willingly float around the pillar of history ever eroding and being added to from base to stern, without making a stand.
>>92618670Now consider: Would such a conflict increase or decrease religious fervor?
You can all blather on and on about how religion reflects our mortality, provides a social anchor, or whatever else but at the end of the day, religion will persist because the supernatural is real. God is real. The spirit is real.>inb4 but I've never experienced it so you're wrongSticking your head in the sand, which is what modern society has collectively done, doesn't make the sky go away.
>>92627108I don't see how the sky existing implies magic real. Really what I'm getting is "I believe in something really stupid, and that makes me unique and special and better than everyone else." Like being a vegan, but without the effort.
>>92627169>latches onto the metaphor rather than the actual gist of the argument>says "magic" in an attempt to infantilize the entire post>invokes vegans, a disliked group on most of the internet, in an attempt to gain the support of other anonsYou are the archetypal example of the terminally online atheist. It's almost impressive.
>>92616174We'll the world today has AI, nuclear fusion, and cloning yet there's a sizable increase in people who think we love on a 6000 year old pizza covered by a glass dome so I think Luddite dogmatism will never go away even if mainstream religion does (not saying they're interchangeable).I'm sure in the far future there'll be people saying quasar generators and Dyson spheres are fabrications of Satan to rallying cries of "based" on SpaceChan
>>92620430>Look at China and post-soviets. They're bringing religion back.I've lived in China. An overwhelming majority of people are atheists. Mayyybe more people admit to a religious belief now compared to when it was highly frowned upon, but otherwise religion is a non-factor in most people's lives.There was indeed a revival of religion in ex-east block countries, especially Poland, but mostly in the older generations. Everywhere, younger people are on average, drastically more indifferent to religion than their parents.The only exception to that I can think of are MENA countries, with the big increase in religion fundamentalism that started in the 80-90s.
>>92616174With absolute certainty. Religion doesn't have to be an established, organised religion. People will always form groups around ideas and ideals and those groups will grow. The USSR abolished religion, and as soon as they backed off a bit the Orthodox Church and Islam immediately sprang back: even during the height of the KGB's power people were practicing in secret, on such a scale that the percentage of religious adherence in the population was almost identical to what it was before the ban 50 years prior. Anybody who thinks we need to, or can ban religion, or remove it from public or private conversation, or the rule of law, is utterly delusional and ignorant. Those who worship science are perhaps the most ignorant. Don't get me wrong, the rigorous application of the scientific method (which is omnipresently lacking in modern academia and research) is the best way of learning how reality works, but universally across cultures and time the most learned people in their fields have invariably turned towards religion.Dawkins derides this as "the God of the gaps":>I understand 99% of my field, so that remaining 1% must be GodBut in actuality the more you study your field, the more that you don't know grows. We can study reality down to the sub-atomic particles, we can realise laws that explain their function and behaviour, but we will never have a rationale to explain why that is the case. Is it a divine Creator? Is it the Matrix? Is it an evil AI from the far future creating a simulacrum of creation to torment us? Or perhaps it's all random happenstance and we're a fragment of the universe itself inexplicably driven to understand its own creation?Either way, it's a belief structure. It's a religion.
>>92627275Explain to me how what you're talking about isn't magic, or how you aren't acting like a vegan rubbing everyone elses nose in your lifestyle. >>92627769It's notable that Polish catholicism played a big role in Polish Nationalism in opposition to Russian Orthodoxy, and then later Sovet Athiesm. China having both not been occupied by a foreign power, or having changed governments obviously lacks an analogue.
>>92627769If China is irreligious, than why does the government go to great lengths to stamp out historical truths like Tiananmen Square? Why does the CCP base its right to rule on the Mandate of Heaven?
>>92627909Propaganda? You can't just redefine the word religion to win the argument anon.
>>92627854>Religion will exist in the futureYes.>Religion can be based on scienceYes, that's the religion that will exist in the future. >the most learned people in their fields have invariably turned towards religionlol, they invariably turn towards the best religion available. Non-science-based religions can't compete with science-based-religions in the long term. Even in the short/medium term their appeal is mostly as an alternative to unpalatable science-based conclusions. In the future there will be science-based stories offering alternatives to unpalatable science-based conclusions, the appeal of bronze age authority-cults is going to dry up in the next few centuries.
>>92626576>>92627052What you're implying is that the Separation of Church and State is a myth.
>>92627953What is the fundamental difference between an unfalsifiable fact peddled as truth and a falsifiable fact peddled the same? The Chinese giving faith in their livelihoods to the CCP to the extreme of willingly giving up their personal information and praying to him is mechanically identical to the worship of a religious idol.
>>92628059The golden calf probably didn't have the ability to rein bombs upon your home for defying it.Stripped away of the propaganda, the CCP does not offer any higher understanding or answers to the mysteries of existence like religion does, it is merely a military junta who maintains its grip on the populace by brute force.
>>92627052>If faith in religion did not change with the access of new information and loss of the oldYeah, I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but it sort of shows the point doesn't it? Religion can't really take in new information, it ends up creating a schism, because there will be some people who insist that the previous version MUST be true. It's not a hundred-percent rule sure- there are plenty of religious people who believe in evolution, but then there are plenty of people who double down on creationism. Yet BOTH are religious. Which informs me that Religion is NOT about incorporating new information, it is about arriving to a predetermined conclusion- that the religion is real and infallible (or at least if not infallible, then then still 90% infallible). I should also point out that the topic of the Armenian Genocide doesn't work for your example. That's a matter of politics, not evidence. The evidence is striking and clear and all serious historians will say the Armenian Genocide happened, even in Turkey. The rub is that politicians side-step the issue out of real-politik because they don't want to piss off the Turks, while in Turkey those historians face a lot of pressure by both society and the government who don't want to hear a conclusion that reflects badly on their society. That has nothing to do with matters of faith, as it does politics.
>>92628141On the contrary, the denial of the Armenian Genocide has everything to do with faith, and the denial's legitimacy rooted in the fact that history is never a certainty. A faith in Turkish society; admit the lie is a lie, and you open the floodgate toward scrutinizing it down to its foundations which can lead to political instability and revolution, as the truth is that all the irrational part of politics and all of the irrational parts of religion are based on the same need for short-term stability and personal betterment. >>92618329 references the discovery of Mean Speed Theorem being falsely attributed to Galileo, a myth that began out of political motivation and is now perpetuated to this day from a combination of global ignorance (information rot) or less charitably, parties who continue to have something to gain by condensing centuries of scientific discovery into a single figure.If history is never concrete, the argument of falsification remains in perpetuity, forcing one to take a stand to fight against probable misinformation, even accepting that possibility they may be later disproved themselves (which is something that may become a greater concern in the future given the propagation of technologically-accelerated information disorder allowing for increasing elaborate falsification.) That too is an expression of faith, one based on the rationale that the information you currently have on hand is the most likely to be correct, but even that requires a commitment to stand by your decisions. Saying "it may be correct" in the face of overwhelming evidence versus a man waving a tablet saying he is certain he is correct merely gives the appearance to the public of a scholar who had wasted a forest of dead trees to come upon nothing - few humans are of a disposition to defend a fuzzy nothing.
>>92628033The term is a secular religion; going back to my Turkey example, the reasons the Armenian Genocide is denied is for the "quasi"-religious reasons of state cohesion, that its whole dogma might not become open to scrutiny lest it opens the floodgates for life-changing revolution or reform. If this sounds similar to the conduct of the Holy See during its heyday of desperately attempting to avoid ecumenical gatherings following the Council of Trent, you now understand the inherent difficulty in attempting to decouple politics from unfalsifiable, faith-based rhetoric.
>>92624023Considering this is about the far future, how fast meanings evolve, and how English is on the decline, yeah: you can bend what "religion" mean a bit.
>>92623131>most people still retain spiritual beliefs>>92623941>replaced by other religionsSo, that's the thing:What do we mean by "religion"?If religion is the belief that there's something after death and perhaps a higher purpose for the origin of the universe, then yeah, that stuff is probably here to stay.If religion is giving a sacred significance to a set of values, then , yeah, the Human Rights, the belief in democracy and in the equality of human beings is, in a sense, a modern religion. Certainly, in a far future, similar sacred beliefs in other common values will appear.If religion is a set of rituals (burial ceremonies, Christmas celebrations...), then yeah, certainly in the far future people will have specific habits for key moments of their lives and the year.If religion is the belief in a divine presence that should guide your actions, or even having all of this fitting together, though, like Christianity and Islam used to do?Eh... Seems unlikely, assuming mankind keeps going on its industrial modern path.But even *that* is pretty uncertain.
>>92629069PS: There are other examples of the forms religion can take, though.In Asia, you go to Buddhist, or Shinto temples for specific rituals (say... burial), or to buy amulets or give offerings, for good luck.But for most people it's not something which has much bearing on their lives or their values.For example: in some countries it's perfectly acceptable to go perform a ritual in a temple of one religion, then another in a temple of a different one.It's imaginable to have a future religion that's all about rituals, but no deep belief.
>>92629069>What do we mean by "religion"?Other modern example in another direction would be Iceland.Technically Christian, but what has actual weight on some decision is superstition in Fae, which a bunch of construction projects being altered/cancelled because it would impact the local Fae.
>>92620527>willfully ignores how the biggest parts of those faiths were intentionally coopted by Christianity, the official organized religion of the Empire for the areas where they formerly existedWhy would my kid keep calling it Saturnalia when all his friends are calling it Christmas? Why would I care so long as I can still celebrate it?
>>92616174Current day religions may be dissapear, but the religious impulse will always be there so long as we're human. I suppose if everyone in your setting is a 160 iq autiste then it could be pure rationality and positivism, but the worship of rationality just taps into those same impulses.
All governments attempt to be religions, but not every religion attempts to be a government.In addition, even when religion forms its own hierarchy and plays at being a branch of government (i.e. "organized religion"), this branch often remains separate from and/or competes with the "secular" government. There are multiple right ways to use the word "government" or "religion", but you can't just change your definition halfway through.>>92620430>>92627769>>92627909>China is becoming religious again>Actually it isn't>No, it IS, because communism is a religion!This keeps happening.
>>92623157>great jobs of fictionlolExploring religion in fiction is irrefutably cool and I apologize on behalf of anyone who has ever implied otherwise, but the reason why so many great works of fiction seem to disregard religion is because they are trying to recreate it, they are trying to start from level 0 and build a whole mythos-of-meaning from the ground up.
>>92629923The funny thing is that works just as well with anti-vaxxers.
Religion or spiritualism is like the special icing of any setting. It is never the total focus, but it adds a layer of flavor to differentiate the setting. Like the force in starwars, the emperor in 40k, etc. These settings would just be another big scifantasy opera without this spirtualism. Its also a big part of what made them more popular than other settings. Trek is on the other side. Humanist in the extreme, but even so, there exists such unexplainable things that question spirituality.
Religion will exist as long as someone with power has an interest in making peasants believe something and never question it.Sci-fi (or modern) just change the means and decorum, people and ends don't.Same with superstitions.So go ham with it in your far-future setting.
>>92630589Personally I wanna see how crazy Scientology can get once we're an actual interstellar empire.
>>92630609Aren't those in free fall, popularity-wise?And it won't change shit, they will just claim the aliens are further away or something. Same as current classic religion being completely unfazed by modern science having no need for God in their models, nor even by aerial technology having reached the sky long ago without finding heaven."Beliefs" are by definition resistant to "see, you were wrong" stuff.
>>92616174extremely highunless you mean Christianity specifically or anything similar to it, in that case it depends entirely on the level of tech the far future has for colonisation, communication and education
>>92630620Maybe not Scientology per se, but I can imagine cults getting pretty wacky if they end up colonizing a small asteroid for themselves.
>>92630663I'm pretty sure a thing called Christianity will exist in the far flung future but won't look anything like what "Christianity" looks like today.
>>92630718Tbqh even today and especially in the past there has been many sects most wouldn't count as "true" christians.
>>92625039>I think what they got wrong was the notion that this trend would be fixed and straight-And also fauling to recognise their own secular belief systems which usurp the vacuum religion left behind. In place of whatever deity, they instated government/love/equality, what have you, but failed to recognise that they had only transformed one god into another.
>>92630902That is a pretty silly narrative. Warhammer 40k?
>>92630892How many branches and off-shoots have been killed off or just queitly done away with when whatever the dominate branch found them threathening or inconvenient? Currently, it's just not popular to go firebomb the church of a group you don't like (for now).
>>92630892>>92631083Not even "killed off", loads are gone that just went extinct over time or became less popular, there are multiple bottlenecks in many religions where it goes something like "There are four or five major sects early in the life -> most of them die out, one dominates for a century or two -> then that one surviving sect branches out again due to some major event".If you go back far enough to the beginning of christianity there are schisms and sects everywhere, not to mention that rabbinic judaism is the outgrowth of only one of the sects of judaism of the time, the essenes and zealots and pharisees are all gone.
>>92628337>admit the lie is a lie, and you open the floodgate toward scrutinizing it down to its foundations which can lead to political instability and revolution,I think saying it'd cause a revolution is hyperbolic- but I agree that the historical revision is similar in that it is based on reaching a conclusion rather than coming to a conclusion based on the facts. Of course what I think is funny is how in the US we fully acknowledge tragedies like slavery, what happened to the Native Americans, and Japanese internment and our government gets along just fine. Native Americans gets some subsidies sure, but it's pennies in the grand scheme of things. Anyway I still feel it's faulty to think bad history = history. The Turks are pointedly NOT engaging in the historical process. They are knowingly playing politics because they don't like the implications of the Armenian Genocide being true. The evidence is STARKLY their, but that's inconvenient to the conclusion they want to reach.>>92628507Look you could make arguments that the soviets attempts to replace religion with communism and their attempt to turn figures like Lenin into 'secular saints' were a secular religion, but falsification of the armenian genocde is not.
>>92630718>>92630892I feel like a lot of people are in essence 'shopping' for a religion that'll tell them what they want to hear, because being told 'turn the other cheek, give all your money to charity' isn't really cutting it for them in the culture war. But it's easer to just call your new religion christianity and flagrantly lie about what Jesus says than make a new religion from whole cloth.
>>92631144Don't forget the other benes you are shopping for such as the socio-political status of said religion and how it gets you access to that.
>>92630932Do you not think that modern secular people have simply switched their object of worship? Rather than a god, they now have celebrities, ideologies, their own pleasure, what have you.
>>92620589>Quite the beautiful blurry illegible jpg you've bestowed upon us.Dumb phoneposter
>>92631158That sounds like a pure projection and cope, sorry. There are certain axioms, or "beliefs", any person must take for granted to lie their lives, such that the past exists and your memories of it are accurate for the most part, but nobody worships them like a religion. The closest "secular" acts get to religion are spectator sports, but 1. Not all secular people participate in those and 2. Spectator sports have only some of the aspects of a religion, not all of them. The fact many of the said sports fan participate in another supposedly exclusive religion alone is enough to discredit them as a religion.
>>92631157Yeah- I think that's in part why traditional Christianity is being rejected. Christianity is about being very humble and being happy with your lot in life, ideally you're meant to live as a poor monk. But I think modern society is much more obsessed with class advancement (and why it's not as easy as it used to be). They don't want to be told 'Hey Jesus loves poor people, and you'll be rewarded when you die', they want to hear 'actually Jesus hates the GODDAMN government that's keeping you down, but don't worry he's gonna give you a mansion any day now'.
>>92631314>Yeah- I think that's in part why traditional Christianity is being rejectedAnd the "traditional" christians from back in the day were any better or different?
>>92631221>The fact many of the said sports fan participate in another supposedly exclusive religion alone is enough to discredit them as a religion.Eh, I dunno. Christianity was very permissive in certain cases about new converts still practicing older traditions alongside it. As long as you showed up to church, many priests didn't care if you also did some light paganism or left out milk for the elves when you got home after. >>92630902>equality is a religion>>92627909propaganda is a religion>>92631158>celebrities are a religionSometimes it feels like certain faithful have a need to reject the existence of atheism, and I don't really get where it's coming from. It feels uncharitable to assume their faith is shaky and requires universality to overcome that insecurity, but admittedly my experience of religion is too narrow to come up with a more charitable interpretation. Maybe some ex-Christian can offer some insight.
There hasn't been a single traditional game mentioned in this thread.
>>92631574Fuck off. Seriously. Your one man crusade ro kill all discussion not centered around *product* even when it's board applicable is fucking retarded and your wannabe-janny faggotry only leads to shitposting. And you are also wrong, specific games have been mentioned, so double fuck off.
>>92627909>why does the government go to great lengths to stamp out historical truths like Tiananmen Square?What's religious about that?>Why does the CCP base its right to rule on the Mandate of Heaven?They don't.
>>92631654>someone namedropped Traveller so the rest of the thread with off-topic shit is a-ok!>also anyone who doesn't like this bullshit is one personNo one in this thread is discussing religion in relation to any games and you know it.
>>92616295That is a religion tho.Man cannot live without having faith in something without being utterly miserable (like me). It is just a natural consequence of sapience.
>>92631545I'm a guy with a very dim view of religion, but I'm of the mind that if it's gonna exist, I'd rather it be organized, and I'd rather it be centered around stuff like charity than conspiracy theories and partisan cheerleading. >>92631573I think it's christians in a way sort of unconsciously adopting athiest rhetoric against atheism. Like- athiests tend to dismiss the value of religion as being superstitious and based upon irrational faith. And there's an impetus to go 'I know you are but what am I' and say that atheism instead is the one that is superstitious and based upon irrational faith, and instead athiests just worship science or the government. What I think they miss of course is the tacit admission that superstition and irrational faith are bad things, but that they've failed to explain why THEY aren't being superstitious or clinging to irrational faith. I think because of a critical lack of self-awareness that tends to stem not just from the religious community, but like you know that conservative cross-section of the culture.I agree it's weird, but like I said I think it stems from a lack of self-awareness. By claiming athiests are bad for blindly following what you claim is a religion under another name, you are conceding that religion in itself is still bad.
>>92631691No, it's just you. Your janny application was not accepted. Fuck off.
>>92631691Religion in my games follows religion as I understand it, which is a combination of sincerely held guiding principles and strategic institutions that operate much like any other political body. One of my players' character changed over time from a faithful operative to a rather zealous religious leader. >>92631811I'd say that lack of self awareness is a generally human trait in most sections of the population, and try as I might I'm not excluding myself, either. But you raise an interesting point. There's a lot of "well you're just as silly as us," as if the goal is to bring everyone to the same level rather than actually defending one's beliefs. Maybe it does stem from insecurity. Who knows. >>92631710Respectfully, just because you can't (or haven't figured out how yet) doesn't mean it's impossible. There's hope for you yet.
>>92631710Counterpoint: You can be religious and even more miserable.
In a sort of lovecraftian way, anyone that gazes upon the cruel reality that life is truly meaningless will go insane.The biggest curse of sapience is that you are conscious enough to reflect on WHY we do things, and if you can't make things up then you are doomed. That is why it is almost impossible for anyone not to be "religious" (having enough faith in something to the point you can exist normally). And "religion" can mean anything. My mother in law has a bunch of saints all over her house and goes to church every week, my sister-in-law has a bunch of rainbow flags, homo love phrases and poor african photos all over her house, and she goes to protests and whatever, but it is exactly the same thing in both cases. The point is that you need to really believe in some made up bullshit or you are fucked and you won't be able to get out of your bed.
>>92632016>my solution is to define "religion" so broadly that it loses all meaning and practical use in a discussion
>>92626475>misanthropyCould not necessarily be misanthropy, there are people paid by China, Russia, Iran etc to spread demoralization online.
>>92632016>That is why it is almost impossible for anyone not to be "religious" (having enough faith in something to the point you can exist normally). This seems like projection. Plenty of atheists around. > it is exactly the same thing in both cases. No it fucking isn't, read the thread. Your mom is engaging in a practice that calms her about death. Your sister is (regardless of validity) attempting to improve people's conditions in life.
>>92632015>>92632045t. believes in some made up fairy tales to give his life meaning and isn't even smart enough to realize it
>>92632146Really not refuting >>92631811 here.
>>92632146Name them, then. What made up fairytale do I believe?>You just do.Not good enough. What?
>>92631995>I'd say that lack of self awareness is a generally human trait in most sections of the populationYeah, but I feel it's more pronounced in that section of society. I think cause like academia embraces critical thought and that engenders more of a sense of self-awareness, while even in moderate branches of religion you can't really adopt a deconstructionist viewset and keep the religion together- in short you gotta accept a lot on faith, and doing so tends not to engender critical thinking. >>92632062Fair enough, there are a lot of guys working for the FSB on this site. >>92632077These people think that athiesm is a contradiction. You know 'no such thing as an athiest in a foxhole' and that they are deluding themselves into thinking they are not religious when they in fact are.
>>92632077>>92632206I'm an agnostic atheist myself you fucking retard, and way more of a leftist than a chud too. And you are completely missing my point, the object of your faith is meaningless, what matters is that you NEED to have faith in something to give some point and structure to your life. You need to have some sort of morality compass and notion of what is right and wrong, of what you should and should not do, some backdrop to set life goals in, and the list goes on and on.I honestly think you are not smart enough to even engage in this type of discussion, but just to not type in "bad faith" here, let's do this exercise: You are a sack of organic tissue made to eat, shit, sleep and fuck, why the hell are you doing anything else? Why AREN'T you doing a bunch of stuff you probably feel like doing? Why are you wasting your time here having this pointless discussion with me? Now try to answer these questions and really dig deep. If you aren't as dumb as I think you are you will inevitably reach a point where you'll have no answers to why you do or don't do things other than subjective belief anchored on blind faith.
>>92632372We understood you the first time, we just think you are wrong.
>>92632372Where your wrong is there's a distinction between 'blind faith' and 'informed faith'. As an example- faith in democracy. That's very different than faith in god. One can argue that democracy is imaginary as it's a system that is invented by humans, but it's also governed by clear human-made rules, and it has clear ways in which it does function and it does not. One has faith in god with a lack of evidence that he will answer your prayers. But you vote because you have plenty of evidence that doing so will influence the world around you. If you want to boil it down to philosphies of morality, there's plenty of philosophers (Kant, Hume, Decartes) who line out their philosophies with logical arguments for them and against alternative systems. Not infallible ones sure, they are philosophers and not scientists, but it still isn't a blind faith, it is an informed faith.
>>92632372>if you REALLY think about things, you agree with me!lmao this is simply too good. This post reeks of babby's first existential crisis. We all got that at some point. Don't worry, you'll get over it after a while.
>>92632387You are just a midwit coward afraid to explore any deeper. It's cozy where you are at I'm sure.>>92632411Nope. If you dig deeper everything always comes down to blind faith, and it never takes more than two or three steps. You might prefer X because of Y reason you can explain, but then you have to explain Y with a Z and so on till pretty quickly it becomes belief back by blind faith. >>92632413Newsflash, you were right the first time you thought about this. Your brain tricked you into inventing some elaborate coping later.
>>92632411Funny you should mention Descartes, the philosopher famous for trying to argue logically for the existence of God and accidentally creating the most blatant case of circular reasoning in recorded history. I do generally agree with you, though.
>>92632505>Nope. If you dig deeper everything always comes down to blind faith, and it never takes more than two or three steps. You might prefer X because of Y reason you can explain, but then you have to explain Y with a Z and so on till pretty quickly it becomes belief back by blind faith.That's an assertion not an argument. >>92632509Yeah fair enough.
>>92632505>If you dig deeper everything always comes down to blind faithIt's not "blind" faith because the process I choose to put my faith in is the process that led to the creation of the device I'm currently typing this on. Religion, demonstrably, doesn't include processes with results; whereas the people I choose to trust are the ones with a very solid track record. No, I don't personally know that the sun is made of hydrogen gas being fused into helium. But the people assuring me they have reasons to think that have much more convincing arguments than "because God told me so," and their assertions have historically led to various feats of engineering I can physically touch and take apart. To take it back to traditional gaming, 40k makes this same point. Most of the time period from 30k to 40k has almost no technological developments, because the engineers have become priests instead of scientists.
>>92631963I'll fuck off when you faggots stop spamming the board with off-topic shit.
>>92632411>>92632647NTA but you are only proving his point, you are only scratching the surface and considering it done
>>92632957Can you genuinely not tell the difference between "science man explained the principles he uses to make a light bulb work" and "priest said 'trust me bro'?"
>>92620589Click "view original" dumb phoneposter.
>>92632957His point being you can use shitty definitions and vagueness to win any argument. No, arrogance doens't help. Go have your "I just turned 20 and my life is fucking over" crisis somewhere else.
>>92632411>>92632647>>92632995Dude...Let's see if we can this across your big brick head. Using your democracy example: Why is it a good thing that you should see as an ideal? Because X. Ok. Now why is X a good thing? Because Y. Ok. Why is Y a good thing? And so on. Please please please try to do this exercise in good faith and write it down here.
>>92633015Yeah, I know the reductionist example you're making. What you're trying to get to is 'well my decisions are based on happiness, or free will, or self-interested' and go 'well you can't logically say that's what's good, what's good is a value judgement' but that's STILL different from having blind faith. That's STILL informed faith. Saying 'well I guess I have it on faith that spreading happiness is good' =/= 'God forbids you from eating bacon.' You have an argument that everyone has to rely on faith, but you're making an extreme argument that everyone relies on blind faith.
>>92633015Jfc, you really argue like a toddler and then demand others take you seriously.
>>92633015>Can you explain the functions of the subatomic fluctuations that compose our material universe?>No? Heh, guess you're religious now kid...
>>92630589I wish witch burning were common. Reliably, historians can only count 3000 deaths under inquisitorial rule of 300 years, which is equal to one month of French Revolution.The Revolution was quite literally 600 times more deadly than the ontologically good Inquisition.
>>92630892This is historically accurate after the Council of Nicaea. Before that Christendom was a tightly run ship in which everybody knew everything. How do you even design historically accurate cults in a game with no real monotheism?
>>92633052It is not extreme at all, it is the most important part of any question. It doesn't matter if on one side you have this pyramid that is beautifully supported by many levels of firm masonry and in the other you have just this flimsy tip if both are flutuating in the air. It is actually my entire point, we have been developing increasingly complex make belief systems to distance ourselves from the void that we are in.
>>92633230Also, one obvious common thing on the evolution of our fantasies is that as they develop further the next generation always see themselves as beings of enlightened reason swimming in a sea filled with brutish retards, just like you guys.
>>92629134>It's imaginable to have a future religion that's all about rituals, but no deep belief.The quiet thing Christians and Muslims don't want you to know is that this is actually the norm. Christians invented Orthodoxy, before Christianity almost all the focus of religion was on the correct actions irrespective of belief. Even the Jews focus on "good works" over internal ideological coherence.>>92632995Science man isn't talking about ethics and you can verify the theory yourself, whereas the priest is concerned mostly with ethics and the causation has giant holes in observation.>>92633230"You cannot escape infinite regress" does not logically entail "your meaning is bullshit". Axioms are not bad reasoning, they're a prerequisite for ANY reasoning.
>>92633848>the priest is concerned mostly with ethics and the causation has giant holes in observation. If only. The exact problem is that the priest is trying to tell people how the world physically works and dismiss science man's claims to the contrary. >>92633230Science vs science deniers goes like this:>x seems to be true, which we know because it's useful in predictions. >but you need to also assume y!>well, we can, because we've also used y to make accurate predictions. >w-well you still haven't explained z!>actually, z has been demonstrated years ago, when it was used to make an accurate prediction. At some point, the reasonable thing to do is accept the framework. It may be fundamentally based on axioms that break down in exotic conditions (e.g. Newtonian Physics) but that doesn't really matter as long as they keep working. When they stop working, we can do more science. By contrast, religion vs religion deniers goes like this:>x seems to be true, because I said so. >here is a counterexample where x isn't true. >ah, but that still works because y.>how do we know y is true?>y seems to be true, because I said so.At best, religion will come up with yet another unsupported rationalization for why x is actually still true, but it still won't be based on any observation and will be completely useless for making predictions. And that's the difference. Science, as a framework, accepts nothing that hasn't been tested. When you believe science man, you know science man has the receipts, because if he didn't, your smartphone would be a puddle of oil covered in sand.
>>92633230Except it does matter.>>92633848I think what happened is for most of history there was a marriage between the irreligious and fundamentalists. But since the enlightenment the irreligious increasingly dont see the point in old religious rituals and abstain- giving more and more influence to fundamentalists who in turn push the irreligious out for not being as fervent in belief as they are.>>92634483But the scientists has evidence.
>>92634483You are completely off topic, no one is talking shit about le science, sit down.>>92634521Again, you guys are confused and I'm not even sure who you are arguing with those science vs cristianity or whatever bullshit.Mankind being able to build a spaceship does not mean that your life has any more or less sense than before. How many times will I have to repeat that you are lost in the sauce, running in circles inside a complex maze? Your life is as meaningless and devoid of logic as the life of any bible thumper. Maybe even less because at least they more or less tried to solve the problem of giving the world some ground to stand on.
>>92634699The bible asserts answers without logic evidence. Scientists and philosophers use logic and evidence to assert their answers.An ethical hedonist might have to assert on faith that it is good to maximize happiness, but at least the rest of their arguments flow logically from their and the present several scenarios to examine why it is good to maximize happiness.A priest says you're not allowed to fuck up the butt because the bible says so. The two are clearly not of the same kind.
>>92634951>nooooooooooooooooo my fanfic is better written than yoursTime for you to post on your phone and your notebook too since you always post three times under three different personas at the same time.
>>92635021meds
>>92634699>Your life is as meaningless and devoid of logic as the life of any bible thumper.Again, axioms are a prerequisite for ANY reasoning. Not being able to give an all-encompassing non-self-referential logical construction without any priors does not entail that the meaning is bullshit.Epistemological skepticism is utterly fucking useless, science is rooted in the Empirical school of epistemological thought, and you are an obnoxious retard for trying to shoehorn the former into a discussion of the latter.
>>92635021Not a counterargument.
>>92616174It will likely still exist but it will most likely be very different to modern religion, sometimes even in ways that most wouldn't recognize as religion.
>>92631573>Sometimes it feels like certain faithful have a need to reject the existence of atheism, and I don't really get where it's coming from.To be clear, I don't deny that atheism exists. What I'm saying is that many people have embraced other objects in the secular world and elevated it to an object of worship, ie, the dedication and 'obsession' of their lives. I'm not claiming that the celebrities are carrying with them all sorts of supernatural claims or belief structures. But the celebrities are being the focal point of their energies, being pursued with the same religious fervour that zealots would their god. People who orient themselves around particular labels, whether in terms of sexuality or political alignment or sports clubs.I'm not claiming that these constitute metaphysical beliefs. I'm referring to their function in people's lives.
>>92637865I understand, and I disagree. Plenty of religious people are into the same stuff -- sports, politics, celebrities, what have you. The "same" is just not there.
People want to believe there is a meaning to life.Otherwise why even put up with all the pain and disappointment and not just kill yourself?Logically speaking it would make sense for there to be a purpose than there not to be a purpose since there are too many things that cannot be explained without religion like why humans feel the need to create art or in a meta sense, create settings to entertain us. The fact that humans aren't just bugmen with intelligence and that we often go out of our way to do illogical things because of senses like a gut feeling, morality, etc. means that humanity will forever be attracted to the idea of a grand purpose or meaning.And even if in far future settings scientists have "disproved religion" it doesn't matter since to be blunt, science has it's limits. Science cannot predict things like luck, coincidence, fate, etc which people will always naturally be drawn to and interpret as divine.
>>92638385Retarded.
bump
>>92631811>By claiming athiests are bad for blindly following what you claim is a religion under another name, you are conceding that religion in itself is still badNot him but there is a difference in being a zealot with obvious biases toward something versus claiming to be above bias but being just as fanatical as a zealot toward something. Everyone has their sacred cow or obsession, atheists just don't want to admit they have one which dominates their lives just as much as religion does for bible thumpers, muzzies, or kikes. That or they devalue the spiritual peace/sense of community that religion gives to most people when supplemented with other factors like having the same language, being from the same race, class, neighborhood etc.And speaking from a pragmatic viewpoint, it is better for a community to be fanatical toward an abstract sense of good/righteousness (even if that can be manipulated) than a megacorp or product (which can also be manipulated but are much more hollow and less gratifying at their highest form than normal religion can be)
>>92645455>Everyone has their sacred cow or obsession, atheists just don't want to admit they have one which dominates their lives just as much as religion doesAccording to who? I've seen no evidence that blind obsession is an intrinsic trait. Rather, this seems like some utter projection in the same school as "If I don't steal this, someone else will". Or footfags thinking they're normal.
>>92616174Just acting under the belief that the universe really existed before your consciousness and will continue after it ends is religious
>>92645507>According to who?Human nature. For example, tons of atheists have a kneejerk reaction when you say you don't believe in the holocaust, you think their favorite franchise is shit, you think racism is based, etc (the same many christcucks have a reaction when you tell them to their face that you don't believe in god and their religion in a sham).To put it another way, anything that an atheist would have a passionate argument in or massive interest in, whether positive or negative, can be construed as a deep belief on par with religion, but with none of the spiritual substance of religion since there is zero philosophical musing on the human condition.Every successful human society came up with their own religion for a reason, it is human nature to be obsessed with one thing or another.Or perhaps you think it is mere coincidence that cultures without religion become hugely consumerist and materialistic? Something needs to fill that hole.
>>92618269Perhaps, perhaps not, but your statement about immortality represents a fundamental misunderstanding of dharmic religions. They posit that moksha or nirvana only occur with physical death. The historical Buddha himself said that he awakened during life but only as the first step of an at least two step process, the second of which occurs at death and only at death. You'd potentially end up with a number of boddhisattvas or buddhas who had attained the first nirvana but while they exist in samsara they have not achieved the true awakening. Unless there was true egalitarianism you'd also end up with a stratified society in which people were more or less permanently at the bottom of the barrel permanently suffering implying more or less infinite karmic debts to be repaid.One would hope that with the compassion of a buddha egalitarianism would be the result however this supposes that Buddhism truly and accurately exists in the setting. If Buddhism's claims are not true in the setting then you end up with the problem described.None of the dharmic religions are concerned with immortality. Buddhism teaches that samara is the a realm of suffering caused by attachments and its object is not to achieve immortality but to extinguish the connection to the mortal realm. Buddhist scholars as a rule tend to respect science and a closed universe ending a big crunch or an open universe with a heat death would be recognised and as it would inevitably lead to the death of all beings they would recognise functional biological immortality as itself ultimately temporary only delaying the final nirvana for those who had awakened and delaying the inevitable cycle of birth and rebirth for any who hadn't in this universe's lifetime.
>>92645455>Not him but there is a difference in being a zealot with obvious biases toward something versus claiming to be above bias but being just as fanatical as a zealot toward something.Bullshit. Zealots don't think they're biased, they think they're right. You're just mad because atheists have better reasons for what they believe (and are still less zealous about it).
>>92645580lolYou people are so far gone.
>>92645709>Zealots don't think they're biased, they think they're rightJust like you right now, which is my point. You think you are different because you tip a fedora instead of holding scripture but you are ultimately the same type of person, the zealot may think he is right which makes him more honest. You think you are being """unbiased""" when really you are just as staunchly stubborn in your religion as he is, but he admits this stubbornness as a virtue instead of claiming he doesn't have it as you do.Just like a zealot there is nothing to say to convince you to even see the other perspective (even if you don't agree with it) so really this entire argument is pointless, only reason I said anything is for the sake of lurkers.
>>92618933Saying that religion will have no worship is like saying water won't be wet. It's an intrinsic part of religion.
>>92616174We're pretty far in the future from when religion was supposed to be relevant so I feel pretty safe in saying that as long as superstition exists, including personal superstitions ( ex: calling something that happens to you more than once as "just my luck"), religion will persist. People are for whatever reason built to believe that there is 'more' to something, so religious thoughts in some form or another are inescapable.
>>92616174realistically humanity is going to go extinct in the 21st century so you tell me.
>>92645580It's a shame because I have some interesting arguments, in my opinion, in response to these points. But at least you're trolling properly, and not just posting a frog and calling the mods fags or whatever.
>>92634483Yeah, one way to put it is crystal ball theory. Say you have a crystal ball, and it accurately predicts the future. Even if it appears to only operate according to magic, so long as its predictions remain accurate there is no logical reason to not treat it as accurate until you are given evidence that it's unreliable- ie one of it's predictions fail. Cause so long as it keeps working, what becomes the reason to dismiss it? >>92645455You mean *some Athiests. Some athiests sure aren't philosopher kings who understand the underlying mechanics of all their beliefs, and will react badly to criticism or deconstruction of them. But others are completely open to them- cause you know, they actually believe what they believe and are willing to put in the brainpower to defend it.
>>92647552I mean most. Over 50% will be that way. Possibly over 90%. I don't think most religious people are philosopher kings either, simply that they don't lie about their sacred cow or about having one.
>>92645752You're full of crap, zealots never describe themselves as biased or think of themselves as biased, they all have reasons for their beliefs and they all think that their zeal is proportionate to their reasons. The difference between atheists and theists is that atheists have better reasons, you're twisting yourself into knots trying to frame that as some kind of meta-hypocrisy.
>>92645760Plenty of people have a strong religious identity, but only attend formal worship very rarely. They see their service to God as coming from good works, and acting in a virtuous way.
>>92616174Religion isn't a spook because atheists don't have kids. Being autistic and posting on reddit about how you're smart doesn't matter if Mike the Mormon and his 3 wives have 30 kids between them while you and your female life partner are 40 and planning to adopt another dog.
>>92648349>>92648349A lot of Mike Mormon's kids will be atheist. A lot will also be Mormon, because mormons have done a much better job of policing themselves, religious families that have regular contact with people outside their religion are even more likely to produce atheists. Mormonism will last longer than other kinds of American Christianity, and Islam will last longer than Mormonism, but it's all on the way out. The future will still have religions but they will be a different kind of religion.
>>92648259>atheists have better reasons
>>92648415This is such a tiresome cope, but entirely understandable that you're too dumb to realize your atheism is genetic and the gene for atheism is dying with you. Humans are not interchangeable, and you are a dead end.
>>92648464lol
>>92648464nta but your view of people is cartoonishly simplistic; maybe your experiences give you good reason to think that's how it works, but you're doing a terrible job conveying it, you sound dumb. there are plenty of atheists who align well with religious and communal ways of life, for starters, and plenty of religious people who are antisocial. also I feel you're misusing spook horribly though lol
>>92648464>atheism is geneticThanks for the laughs.
>>92648493He probably thinks the same thing about gays. This is what I mean about science-based religions, even today a specious science-based argument that confirms your biases is preferable to a specious mythological argument that confirms your bias. Traditional religion is just the specious science of the past, it's outdated, it would have died out sooner except that our society is changing way too fast and this causes people to (understandably) fetishize tradition as some kind of alternative.
>>92648434The fedoras were right all along.
>>92616174Religion will always exist in some form as it brings meaning and purpose to the lifes of the people. It does not always have to be the big guy in the sky as the center of the religion as we have seen in the last years that even Atheism will turn into a religion with tenants like "systematic racism" as an example
>>92616174Very likely. It's probably going to reinvent itself to better fit with whatever psychological or societal need the people at the time have but it's still going to exist. >>92616295Trying to fortune tell the future through extrapolations on demographics is a shit idea.
>>92647564They super do, because religious people like pretending their beliefs are entirely rational and not based on superstition. They also tend to completely misunderstand the object of their own religious worship- how many christians give literally ALL their property to charity for instance? Everyone ignores the parts of the bible they don't like (good people ignore the bad parts, and bad people ignore the good parts) but confront them with this fact they get super offended because they don't want their actual beliefs confronted or examined. They want religion as essentially a moral blank check to do everything they were already doing.
>>92652213>They super do, because religious people like pretending their beliefs are entirely rational and not based on superstitionNot true. Some people are simply religious because of pragmatic reasons (they see benefits to their community/culture/history or maliciously use it to benefit themselves at the cost of others, it can go either way), some think they are wholly rational (these are usually schizos who worship the bible as 100% accurate and think that the nephilim built the pyramids and shit, these are particular kind of people you describe), some think it is mostly rational/pragmatic but still needs a little push of faith, and some just believe in fate and that they were born in an area that worships a certain religion for a reason.I do think it is funny that fedora tippers love making generalizations about the religious but hate it when it can apply to them too.And frankly, atheists use science as a moral blank check just as often. I don't know why it doesn't occur to most people that we don't have to take every schizophrenic passage in ancient texts as relevant all the time and 100% true while also being opposed to shit like lab grown cannibal meat or enabling self harm troons, but I guess being a moderate is just not allowed nowadays.
>>92618269>Hinduism where everyone already assumes a sort of immortality via rebirthMost or all branches of Hinduism claim the atman is already immortal, that the body only temporarily houses the atman, and that the goal is to merge with paramatman or otherwise realise knowledge of the supreme including in advaita realising that the atman is non-different to the paramatman. Physical immortality has been sought by asuras and the devas drink amrita that doesn't confer permanent immortality but while the most of laypeople are going to be just as scared, or maybe more scared, of death as real people today and see immortality as desirable regardless of what the scriptures and doctrines say.Pandits and priests are going to be teach that physical immortality is denying progress to ultimate union. How many of them are going to practice what they preach and reject physical immortality at some stage is up for debate, especially if in the setting the teachings aren't true, and even if they are true liberation is probably a rare thing. People will have to take it more or less on faith that other beings do become liberated and that the teachings are true, which is much the same as today. But anyway while the laypeople might not see any difference, because they practice their own very imperfect version of what is effectively a folk religion, immortality via rebirth is contrary to the goal of Hinduism.
>>92616174Religion would have been recognizable as religion over 10000 years ago so it will probably exist in some recognizable capacity in another 10000.
>>92655759>doesn't know that Romans criticized Christians as atheists
>>92654200That wasn't a generalization, though I understand it could be read as such, it was refuting the idea that religious people have sacred cows that they wouldn't acknowledge as such. As you say it obviously varies per individual. >And frankly, atheists use science as a moral blank check just as often.Now see that's a spurious claim because Science makes no ethical proscriptions, you're making that shit up. 'Moral Science' is philosophy, and it's philosophy because it's pointedly NOT a science. >I don't know why it doesn't occur to most people that we don't have to take every schizophrenic passage in ancient texts as relevant all the time and 100% true while also being opposed to shit like lab grown cannibal meat or enabling self harm troons, but I guess being a moderate is just not allowed nowadays.I don't know how that entered the conversation. Like at all. Maybe you should figure out what kind of athiest you're talking about before you start making broad-sweeping generalizations?
Religion is simply man looking at the edge of existence and making up theories about it. Its pretty much always going to happen. However, the idea that our world was made by a single benevelont entity becomes less and less likely as existence reveals itself to be needlessly cruel
>>92655826Atheist just meant "doesn't follow my god(s)", so heathens.
>>92655911Religion is not "theories", tho. More like guesses.
>>92655875> Now see that's a spurious claim because Science makes no ethical proscriptions, you're making that shit up. 'Moral Science' is philosophy, and it's philosophy because it's pointedly NOT a science.Something something “don’t want their actual beliefs confronted or examined.” Huh. Save me, Atheismo!
>>92655986Defend your assertion. Showcase an example where an athiest uses science as a moral blank check. Give me a challenge, because you're not doing that now.
>>92655875>science makes no ethical proscriptionsModern """science""" does, though whether that is a sham or not is a debate in and of itself. It even tries to justify harmful and hedonistic things because "tolerance" and "diversity" is somehow a strength even though in practice it isn't unless in a very limited capacity.>I don't know how that entered the conversation. Like at all.Turbo fedora tippers are extremist in one way and bible thumpers are in another, and both use their respective viewpoints to get a morality high.
>>92616174it's a practical guarantee
>>92616174This depends if the human genome is permitted to continuously adapt or if you intend to somehow fix it in a 'non-mutating' representation of humanity while maybe some human types could disolve the necessity of that chemical reaction and physiological responses to stimuli relating to religion.Such as the feeling of fluid dynamics in a crowd, it is very stimulating The act raising your head up as high as it goes, breathing in and opening your arms is in many cases a spiritual gestureThat same action opens your airways and allows you to breathe deeply, in some cases you can induce euphoria from increased oxygen to the brain, and if you are in some churches and whatnot you will find they increase the circulation of oxygen to combat stagnant air in full pits. Religion weighs on naturally occurring patterns of behavior and asks you to do that instead of other things. No man in the sky can hate you more than your own ego can hate itself, your god is the belief you hold in the ability of man, the genuine trust in yourself and your aspirations for what you can be>FGFG820Not actually, I mean the band
>>92657296FGFC820, I'm of course quite amazingly high.In short, if you have evolved or cast off your meat to access tracedental planes then I don't see why you need religion at all, but humans are social creatures, as they are they will always crave and hate the people around them, that is the axiom of their existence, that whom I do not hate is whom I love, that which inspires such deep posession of hate may inspire one to love. Amours centuries over are all the same, for as long as we've been homo sapiens sapiens we've needed the guidance of religion to sway the common people of all classes, that there are instructions they can follow to appear fully human, even if it's all just programming.Some folks don't need it, they don't act in a way that conflicts with the reality of life and that works to. It's a sliding scale
>>92616174Even if you jumped ahead 10000 years, I'd say some form of the abrahamic religions would survive. They're just too big to go extinct without destroying every trace of culture from the past 2000 years. The post apocalyptic tribals might be worshiping the prophet Moses Muhammad Smith the Christ, the only son of Yehawwah, but at its heart their religion will still be a bastardization of Judaism.
Did someone post this thread on reddit or something? Looks like someone kicked an angry bee hive of fedora tippers.These zealots sure go mad when someone disses their religion.
>>92616174100% Can you name a scifi media that doesn't have a religion poke it's head into? It is almost a trope that there is a religion someplace in the universe that plays an integral part of the story.
>>92616174Humans thousands of years ago would think we with our technologies to day are in far future, yet religion is still everywhere.I'd take >>92616274 's post one step further. As long as man exists, religion will persist.
>>92632016>That is why it is almost impossible for anyone not to be "religious" (having enough faith in something to the point you can exist normally).This is just... I want to say "pretentious" bullshit, but it's not the right word. Defeatist? Short-sighted? Whatever, that's bullshit.I don't believe in gods or other supernatural stuff, don't worship celebrities, don't idolize the government or media or whatever corporation, don't go to parades or otherwise push whatever ideologies, don't treat science as something undeniable or infallible, don't give books, movies, games, music and other entertainment any greater meaning than "entertainment, food for thought and something to bond over with others", and don't sign up to conspiracy theories beyond "some of this sounds interesting, some of this might potentially be true, but what the fuck do I know." At the same time I do recognize that ultimately our lives don't have any point and there isn't really any inherent meaning to life, and my opinion on whether free will exists or not is "does it actually fucking matter?". And yet this doesn't make me depressed or nihilistic or suicidal or whatever the fuck, because I do think that we are free to find our own meaning of life even if there's no blanket answer to why we need to exist. I still have goals and dreams and shit I care about and shit I things that I think would be neat if they existed even if I think it's extremely unlikely (like idk aliens or other universes or whatnot). And despite not having any "faith" in anything I'm not insane either (to my knowledge).And there are thousands and millions of other people who have similar outlooks to me. "Almost impossible" is wrong, it's entirely possible, feasible and widespread.>And "religion" can mean anythingNo. No it can't. The term has a specific definition and performing mental gymnastics to pigeonhole all kinds of beliefs, ideologies, styles of life and opinions into that term is just that - mental gymnastics.
>>92631811>Like- athiests tend to dismiss the value of religion as being superstitious and based upon irrational faith. And there's an impetus to go 'I know you are but what am I' and say that atheism instead is the one that is superstitious and based upon irrational faith, and instead athiests just worship science or the government.>What I think they miss of course is the tacit admission that superstition and irrational faith are bad things, but that they've failed to explain why THEY aren't being superstitious or clinging to irrational faith. I think because of a critical lack of self-awareness that tends to stem not just from the religious community, but like you know that conservative cross-section of the culture.>I agree it's weird, but like I said I think it stems from a lack of self-awareness. By claiming athiests are bad for blindly following what you claim is a religion under another name, you are conceding that religion in itself is still bad.Amazing how prophetic this post was
>>92616174It will always be around in some form or another. There's simply too many people grifting off it to be otherwise. Not to mention stupid people only seem to be increasing and not decreasing. So they'll need to be kept in line morally so telling them if they fuck the goat the Magic fire demon is going to get them helps everyone.
>>92616174As long mentally ill is born, there always delusions, therefore there always religions.Unless humanity will edit the genome to erradicate all brain related illnesses, religions will persist.
>>92616174HIGHLY likely. At least for humanity. Humans have to have a system of worship, and God. Every single human civilization has it, and those that say they dont end up making gods out of something else and or worshiping something else. Example being modern "Athiests" just worship science as their god, with various authors and "Scientests" being their patron saints, they have their own beliefs, sins, and holy acts just by a different name. Religion is like death and taxes, its always going to be there.
>>92662482Projection: The Post
>>92662563Meds.
>>92662495People will aways beliefe in something.and science is the next best thing religion always claimed to be.It explains the world, it brings people together and is even able to change the world.Meanwhile religion will die out if the money from tourism stopes or the last member dies of old age.
>>92662482Belief is not the determinant of religion. Take that orthodoxy brainbug behind the shed, blow its brains out, and bury this terminal Christcuckery. It's in ritual actions and community events, things much of the "I Love Science" crowd will never partake in in their cold, bitter lives.There is a REASON the "God in the Gaps" defense continues to this day. Because it was less about exacting adherence to detailed claims of what is, far more about what you OUGHT to do. Actively disproving biblical literalism over and over again shatters orthodoxy, but doesn't matter for orthopraxy.
>>92616174Is religion not just a cargocult in a trench coat?If someone fires lightning out of there fingers and claim to be a messenger from god would you not buy into his explanation?Assuming we don't deal with warhammer 40k clarketech that ARE often powered by unholy space magic, this "explanation" of said stranger will stay true until you see him swapping batteries. aka until reason tear it apart.
>>92662916>People will aways beliefe in something.>just so
>>92616174It'll still exist to some extent. Ignorance and ill-informed people will continue to exist no matter what. But the world will move away from it. It will be viewed as something for poor people and minorities. You can see that already happening in the first world, for the last century or so.
>>92663200people will beliefe in many thingstold by their parents, upholded by their peers,demanded by their governments.The question is WHY people beliefe.
>>92663317Nah. Not true.Why do you believe that?
>>92663240>*posts like a schizo*>wtf, why are my posts deleted?
>>92663276nice strawman,people like you want science to be this one big monolith to be blamed for all ill.But science is just the way of discovery and explaining our world, not a group of people in robes dictating to be worshiped.If you have a better idea how the world works the "science" will listen to your words and adapt.But most the time your kind just wants power and respect without a reason.
>>92616174i mean, that depends on the nature of the future, doesn't it?
>>92663341"Sluggish Schizophrenia" was a diagnosis used in the Soviet Union to discredit and gulag dissenters, and you haven't learned any new tactics since, faggot.
>>92663363Nobody said that, retard, you're the one strawmanning and using our local reddit janny's butthurt rampage as cover to do it. Science good, Scientism (science as a religion) bad. Most of the original scientists were ultra-religious Christians because Christianity as a religion encourages truth and thought, unlike Pisslam.
>>92663330do you ask me how i beliefe in things i know or want to know how i reach the thing i beliefe in?I can share the know: I never saw anyone without any kind of beliefe. Justice, god, rule of the stonges. You name it.But i cant realy explain the think i beliefe... becouse i dont know for shure.If i would know for shure i would not say "beliefe" but "know".To not dereail this poor thread even more lets go into OPs posts again.In a far-future setting we have two options.We beliefe the historical records be true and therefor asume to be "in the know" of thinks or we dont beliefe the historical records and have from now on no clue what happen in the past unless we find an diverent source of records.
>>92663519come down manmaybe your post are keep getting downed becouse of the way you type.But let me play along for a moment:Islam never recoverd from the burning of bagdad in the 1258. After that they are to this day stuck in civil wars mixed with a bit of dark age.And dont boost yourself being a christan to much. Christans had there fair share of dark moments and "seeking the truth" often let people to into the pyre. The "thuthseeking" askpect of christianity is a new thing that quickly got replaced by the secular renaissance.My suggestion by the way: if you truely wanting to know how the world works being a christian is the wrong way to do so. Nothing poison the christian mind more then reading the bible with a straight face and some historic questioning.but pardon i go off topic
>>92663507Soviet Union was a christian nation, tho
>>92663819Other anons' posts making fun of your absurd and ahistorical claims that stop being deep when your balls drop are being deleted because they go against the leftist atheist orthodoxy the janny believes in. >>92664019I know you're joking but commies love their historical revisionism enough to unironically claim that.
Reminder: Don't feed the trolls
>>92664077Yeah, in truth it was about half christian, half muslim.
Considering how the modern atheistic societies of the west are already failing it would be reasonable to assume that anything stable enough to make it that far into the future would involve religion.
>>92664799You must think that China is falling too, right? So South America and the Middle East are the only durable bastions of civilization.Christianity is optimized to manipulate blame. God has all the power and none of the responsibility, you were a sinner before you were born, moral absolution is magical and complete regardless of the gravity of the sin but is also entirely predicated on subservience, it's all a convoluted way of saying that the badguys are whoever you say they are.The west isn't falling. Christians say "the west is falling" but what they really mean is "the west is becoming less Christian".
>>92665012The entire world is in decline because globalism has ensured that no nation is self sufficient and instead has to rely on others. Your take is retarded.The west is certainly in decline and less religion is certainly a symptom of it, partially because even the faithful more and more see the churches as corrupt. That being said I don't think less religion is a cause of that decline on it's own, it is both a small cause and a great effect.
>>92665051The entire nation is in decline because nationalism has ensured that no city is self sufficient and instead has to rely on others. Your take is retarded.
>>92665087Yes that happens to corrupt empires that over extend historically.
>>92616174The sort of ideological certitude it takes to even think this would be possible is the sort of certitude that allows religion to exist in the first place. Religious credulity follows a cyclical pattern because of this, and you can basically tell how effective religions are by how well they survive the gulf between peaks of credulity waves. What people call modern/postmodern nihilism etc etc are all really just phase changes in the wave. They do not signify anything meaningful in and of themselves, only of how psychologically starved of meaning the brain is.Because of this religions must either be ultra decentralized and died to some deep motive force that recurs constantly, or else some highly rugged and survivable structure, or a deep land or blood based ethnic thing like Hinduism. Over time, when the wave hits, these ones will survive, reconstituting the remains of the others into themselves. Ergo, the religions of today that have been around for a long time are not only not likely to go away any time soon, but they are the MOST likely to endure into the distant future, because they have already survived many extreme shifts in the past.I.E., in 200 years, people will remember today's atheists as members of the Christian clergy who were critical of it, not enemies of it, because in truth they are part of the transformative process of religion. Richard Dawkins is an opinionated Anglican Cleric in all but name. He even pretended not to be gay and got a wife, just so that he could sneer at the Catholics.
>>92664077none of my post got deleted so you seen to talk to someone else.Also what does this have to do with the topic of this thread?
>>92665358That is completely and utterly fucking retarded. Noone remembers d'Holbach as a Christian.
>>92664590Religion is banned under Marxism retard, you're thinking of modern Russia. Daft cunt.>>92665012China is absolutely falling and Islam is taking over the West, checked only by Catholichuds from South America, so...yes? Try to be less stupid in the future.
>>92665512Learn to read retard.
I wouldn't care about my posts being deleted for being off topic if not for the fact these faggot jannies should have done that days ago for this entire thread. No justification for ruining discussion this late in the thread when reddit fedora posts like this are still up >>92631811Shame on you, hypocrite jannies.
>>92665763Kek, based censorship refuser.
>>92665763Anyone who isn't a retard knows how to do this, /tg/ is just a terrible board nowadays where you really have to struggle for any good discussion since jannies/mods love to smother it in the crib. /co/ is the same way, both boards are in decline because of the same combination of little quality in major releases and hyper political mods/jannies who can't stand people discussing the meta reasons why the hobby is in the toilet nowadays and there is so much divide in the communities.Lack of any interesting discussion is why I barely even bother coming here anymore, even /v/ is better since on the occasion there is good discussion mods don't ALWAYS delete it - only sometimes. Also quality games still come out once in a while from semi big studios
>>>92665763>Jannies and mods here don't deserve anyone's respect. Ban evade. The reddit commies already do and so does /pol/.Or you could take the moral path and fuck off to /b/ or /pol/ or /trash/.
>>92665358>I.E., in 200 years, people will remember today's atheists as members of the Christian clergy who were critical of it, not enemies of it, because in truth they are part of the transformative process of religion. Richard Dawkins is an opinionated Anglican Cleric in all but name.I can see how it might help you to look at it that way, but of course this isn't literally true, the truth is that Dawkins lives in a time and place that has freedom of religion and you're comparing him to a time and place that didn't. "History" tends to remember this sort of thing, even if they don't put it in our terms (for instance, "Freedom of religion" is me putting it into my own 21st-century terms. In the future, this concept may be conflated with other concepts from our era, or more accurately it will be conflated in the terms which 23rd-century people use to describe 21st-century people).Broadly, yea, the moral conversation that Christianity is based on used to be mostly self-contained within Christianity and is now spilling out beyond Christianity. Over the course of millennia you can make the case that there's just one branching conversation and that religions are just phases that it goes through.
>>92659566Most of that technological advancement has occurred in the last few hundred years during which time religiosity has taken a marked decrease with people not generally believing literally in miracles and supernatural to the same degree. The steady state of the past few thousands years has been disrupted so I wouldn't call it good evidence to predict future behaviour.
>>92667545>>92659566"Religion" is not "everywhere" to the extent that it used to be, unless you take a much broader perspective on the definition of "religion", in which case you have your eye on the ball and you have my respect.t;dr Christianity and Islam and Buddhism are just the science of the past, future religions will be increasingly based on things that future people personally believe in, "scientific" truths rather than magical ones.
>>92662482>Example being modern "Athiests" just worship science as their godWhy do religious people think this? Can they not comprehend that someone doesn't think the way they do, or that they can't because they don't want to lend atheism that veneer of legitimacy?
>>92664590Actually I just did a paper on Soviet Central Asia. Initially they tried to completely ban islam, purging all the clerics and confiscating all church land. This in turn sent thousands of people into the arms of bandits/revolutionaries. After they got the civil-war dealt with and could send resources to central-asia they chose a much more pragmatic strategy to allow Islam to be legal, even returning some church land and reopening religious schools (they were big on education and had very few schools in the region and opted to run religious and communist schools side-by-side just to increase the number of schools in the region) but on the terms that the clergy support the Soviet Union. It's quite funny to read the documents of the era that try to blend communist and religious doctrine to convince the people in the region to support the USSR. Of course it's still a WAY smarter strategy than uprooting it wholesale, but point of fact they re-legalized Islam before the re-legalized christian orthodoxy around WW2. >>92665051>The entire world is in decline because globalism has ensured that no nation is self sufficient and instead has to rely on others.That's a weird metric to assume success or failure. Autarky died in WW2. >>92665728Make better arguments.
>>92665358With that logic, Stalin was in the same category as George Washington as 'guys who love democracy'.
>>92671494they conflate scientism and atheism for some reason, probably because the scientism cultists are the only people who are annoying about their atheism
>>92665697Under marxism maybe, but not in SU in practice. Over half of the population was religious. Read a book.
