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I am religious and believe in free will

70 (27.6%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

113 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (24%)

Total Members Voted: 249

[Bohandas]

Well, what do you do if you can't know if something is true or not?

-Occam's razor
-Mediocrity principle

[Bohandas]

Though, for those of you who don't believe in God; have you heard of Roko's basilisk?

The Singularity is this decade's UFO cults

[Bohandas]

Eh, that’s probably true in a lot of areas, but much of religious belief doesn’t seem to intersect too much with daily life and scientific progress. Yeah, you’ve got America’s religious that fuck up a few facets of progress, so I’m not going to say you’re definitely wrong, but it’s not obvious to me that religion is a net impediment to progress. It seems to be fairly adaptable and willing to retcon (which is part of what makes it so pernicious).

Don't single America out. The middle east and many parts of Africa are even worse in that regard.


EDIT:
Apologies. Just realized i triple posted there.

[Rolepgeek]

...For the record, Islam was a bastion of scientific progress during the middle ages, and with today's stuff, while I can't speak much for the middle east with all the warfare and tension that's been going on there since the Ottomans fell, but Africa's held back by a bit more than just 'people are too religious', if that's even a factor.

[Graknorke]

Funny how religions tend to be much nicer the less power they have.

[Bohandas]

...For the record, Islam was a bastion of scientific progress during the middle ages, and with today's stuff, while I can't speak much for the middle east with all the warfare and tension that's been going on there since the Ottomans fell, but Africa's held back by a bit more than just 'people are too religious', if that's even a factor.

They're holding back social progress

[Rolepgeek]

...the post you quoted was saying daily life and scientific progress.

Religious states are different from religious people. Religious states are what's holding back social progress. Not the religion itself.

[Bohandas]

In general though, I consider it evil for an untruth to be allowed to spread.  It's dishonest, even if people are happier being wrong.  Pragmatically it can set back scientific and cultural development, which in turn hold back productivity and the pursuit of happiness.  In the long run, following the truth seems like the best strategy for human happiness.

I agree.

In the interest of fairness it's worth pointing out that religion is not the only culprit of this. Alternative medicine, and psychics/mediums are rather vile examples of this as well.

They need to be stamped out.

Religious states are what's holding back social progress. Not the religion itself.

Unless you consider the holy writ or ancient tradition to be part of the religion

[Frumple]

Religious states are different from religious people. Religious states are what's holding back social progress. Not the religion itself.

N... no, that's fairly untrue. The influence of christian people in non-religious states in africa (and south america, for what it's worth, not that anyone ever cares about SA) have definitely been contributing to the difficulties on that front in those regions, just as an example (one of many, really). Catholicism in particular has kinda been doing a number on africa, due to several things, but particularly its issues regarding sexual practices. There's a non-negligible amount of the aids epidemic pretty firmly on its shoulders, among other things.

That said, a lot of things are causing problems in those regions, not just religions or religion related activities, and by and large it's not even primarily religions (barring, of course, the occasional exceptions) causing the problem (though they're often contributory... and sometimes not, for what it's worth). As is fairly obvious, other areas have managed alright even under the burden of counterproductive religious influences. It's more than a little questionable whether it's really worth trying to fight things on that front in the areas in question -- just fix all the other stuff first, y'know? S'probably more tractable.

Just... maybe throw the fuckers that send money to have gays killed and whatnot in the name of their religion in jail or somethin'. That's probably pretty tractable.

[Rolepgeek]

Well, yeah. People doing shitty things in the name of religion is bad.

But I get annoyed when people bring up people doing shitty things in the name of religion and say it's the religion's fault, but when people do good things in the name of religion, it's because they were good people anyway. And vice versa, sometimes, for people supporting religion. Some people will do shitty things regardless of religion, some people will do shitty things because of it. Some people will do good things regardless of religion, some people will do good things because of it.

The same could be said of Bureaucracy and politics, Bohandas. Stamping it out isn't really a viable option.

[penguinofhonor]

I've talked to a Franciscan monk who spent a lot of time working in India. He said that minority Christians in India and minority Hindus in America act more like each other than they act like Christian and Hindu majorities. I've always found that pretty interesting.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Fun fact, a very large portion of the world's Baptists are in India, where they're the majority in one province.

[Fenrir]

Well, yeah. People doing shitty things in the name of religion is bad.

But I get annoyed when people bring up people doing shitty things in the name of religion and say it's the religion's fault, but when people do good things in the name of religion, it's because they were good people anyway. And vice versa, sometimes, for people supporting religion. Some people will do shitty things regardless of religion, some people will do shitty things because of it. Some people will do good things regardless of religion, some people will do good things because of it.

It’s kind of like the argument in defense of guns. Okay, yeah, some people will murder each other anyway, but having a pistol or divine mandate make it much easier. Of course, the analogy breaks down a bit after that since I don’t think guns make charitable acts easier in the majority of cases, but you still can’t say religion doesn’t motivate violence. It does. A lot. I’m not going to say that it motivates violence more than it motivates charity, but it does motivate violence and it needs to be blamed for that when it’s at fault.

[Rolepgeek]

I agree, but when people use that to attack people who aren't going to do that? And what's more; you can choose to have a gun, or not to have a gun. Sure, you have to buy one, but it's not the same level of difficulty as 'disregarding my entire faith because it could lead to violence'.

Yeah, it is a lot like guns, in the sense that 'why can't I just not kill people in the name of my faith' is similar to 'why can't I just not shoot people with my gun'.

But also, I feel like in the broader sense of the word, Fenrir, it motivates violence about as much as sports does, in civilized countries. Verbal violence? Oh, way more. Status games galore. In-groups and out-groups and schnozzberry-groups. But in the developing countries we're seeing it in, I feel like it serves more as a rallying cry. That's what causes do in general. Religion happens to be a very good cause. And like anything else, rallying cries are tools; they can be used to help or hurt.

[Frumple]

What we were referencing only partially has anything to do with violence, though. Some of the worst problems with abrahamic religions* in general is the other parts of the belief system, that mandate very counterproductive (in regards to the whole progressive worldview thing, in particular if not exclusively) or damaging behaviors. Much of their muckery regarding gender roles and relationships, parts regarding health (faith healing and reliance on god instead of, y'know, medicine, and all the mess involved in related subjects, is something that kills quite a few people yearly and causes a great deal of suffering beside) and safety, sustainability, sexual practices, there's just sort of this sundry list of stuff that has little to nothing to do directly with violence (for all that bits of them definitely inculcate it as a side effect) and yet still causes great heaping piles of generally fairly overt harm. There's charities and positive teachings and whatnot to offset some of that, but it's hard to tell where exactly the balance falls overall, for all it's really easy to tell what the net effect is in specific areas.**

Still, as I said, for all that they're a yoke around the neck in a lot of situations, religious beliefs are still only occasionally the primary cause of the various problems they contribute to, are at times a mitigating instead of exacerbating factor, and, as per various examples throughout history, can probably be worked around fairly capably. They slow a lot of what we've found to be good things down, but it's not an entirely one-way thing, nor is their abolition even remotely a necessary thing for moving forward with the proverbial good shit. Roughest part is probably that religious influence is generally a pretty strong one, regardless as to if it's positive or negative -- very volatile, basically, which is something to contributes to an argument to be leery of it.

*Not necessarily saying similar stuff doesn't exist in other ones, it's just the A-bros are kinda' the big elephants in the room, considering they have a fairly notably chunk of the human population under their umbrella.

**The area I'm personally in being pretty strongly on the net negative side of things is something I've had to spend quite a few years trying to get a handle on vis a vis religion in general, heh, and still prooobably have a ways to go.