Ideologies and Religion
Offline Since Hamby did some "soul searching" I figured I might as well too, and since I no longer have a blog might as well post it here so that I can get feedback and determine whether these are rational and empirical.
So the following is a list of things I just can't get over with and agree with most atheists in terms of ideologies and religion.
1] Humans will tend to take ideologies, whether rational or not, and elevate them to the realm of absurdaity and violence independent of the ideology itself.
Treating women as humans is rational, but some feminists will elevate that to all men are immoral pigs.
Taking care of animals is rational, but PETA will take that to burning down science labs that test on animals.
I could go on and on.
Even black and white issues get butchered. Pro-government or anti-government it doesn't matter. Both have said and done stupid and nasty things, and both blame the other.
2] I can't shake that this may be Ultimate Attribution Error.
That is thinking that the failures of an outgroup are due to intrinsic traits of the outgroup. [A form of Fundamental Attribution Error to avoid confusion], and that successes of the outgroup are due to external circumstances, not intristric traits.
That is it's their core ideology that caused them to do the evil thing, not groupthink or other external factors. But their core ideology didn't have anything to do with their success.
"It was Stalin's rejection of God that made him kill 34 million people! If he believed in a kind, loving God he wouldn't have done it!"
"That Christian donated to cancer charity because his mother must have died from cancer or something, not because he believes that in doing so is God's work."
Of course some people do nasty things because of internal character, and good things due to external circumstances. But I have seen propogation of the idea that it's because of their internal character without consideration of external circumstances and vice versa.
Of course not all Christian are immoral and not all are moral. Not all atheists are immoral, and not all are moral. etc... etc.....
3] The bad things from religion had to come from somewhere.
Seeing as the majority of people here are atheists, I think that we can reject the "God told them to" hypothesis. Which means these had to come from somewhere. Which means all the nasty things in religion had to come from cognitive mechanisms and could pop up in secular ideologies.
There are more of course, which may come up later, but those are the three main ones.
And contrary to popular belief, while I think human are inhertly irrational, I do think we can change. It's in our nature to stock up on sugar, but we can still follow a healthy diet with limited sugar. It's our nature to rationalize away mistake and nasty things we do, but we can still be snapped back to reality.
If a Christian is doing something evil due to groupthink or other factors, rather than Christianity, we won't get anywhere by addressing the Christianity. Of course if he is doing it because of Christianity not because of groupthink or other factors, then addressing the groupthink or other factors won't get us anywhere either.
That's why I think actually studying these things and not just dismissing why we do evil things as "this" or "that" without evidence is what is going to help, not playing the blame game at the closest convient target.
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Sounds reasonable, except I would modify #2: That is thinking that the failures of an outgroup are due to intrinsic traits of the outgroup. [A form of Fundamental Attribution Error to avoid confusion], and that successes of the outgroup are often due to external circumstances, not intristric traits.
Just because, obviously, ideologies do impact success.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
Ah, but that's the error! A person falling for UAE, will say the success of the outgroup is due to external circumstances whether it actually is or not.
Yeah, changing your mind can and does determine whether your succeed or fail.
PETA does a great deal more than burn down science labs testing on animals... ooohhhhhhh yeesssssss.......
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
What's the new avatar?
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
Please clarify what you meant by quoting this.
Christians would claim that it was his rejection of God. I would say his success was due to the same manipulation of the disadvantaged combined with appeal to emotion that allowed him to lead people to the same "appeal to authority" that theocracies use to control the masses.
Stalin was successful for the same reason Christianity and Islam were successful, marketing. But all the oppression was centered on appeal to authority without question.
Stalin was a a theologian before he was a tyrant. The gods of Abraham are not elected, but self appointed tyrants who demand submission, just like Stalin. So I don't know how religion vs ideology changes that common ground they both have.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
The Naughty Librarian look?
that's being very generous. stalin was a seminary student, as were countless other georgian boys who couldn't afford to go to the cities and the tsar's gymnazia. he was a poor one at that, who was a troublemaker and never finished.
entirely too much emphasis is put on stalin's "religious training." it was a standard, entry-level georgian education (the only education available was religious education, recall) and we have no evidence he was a pious boy (quite the opposite, actually) nor that his compulsory courses in religion had any special influence on him. we certainly have no evidence that he excelled in them in any way. the very few remarks he made about god once he came to power display, in my opinion, a typically superstitious georgian peasant outlook (or at least a parody of it).
it's far more likely that stalin honed his machinations as a member of georgian gangland.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
I was with you until this. I think you're falling victim to all or nothing thinking. You're suggesting that "groupthink" and "Christianity" are discreet and fundamental properties acting in a vacuum. But they're not. There are groupthink properties of Christianity. The doctrine of many churches encourages and reinforces adherence to groupthink with the belief in "good" and "evil" as real properties, and groupthink as "good." So in calling a Christian to task on the logical feasibility of Christianity, we are also encouraging them to examine all of their individual Christian beliefs, including the "goodness" of adherence to groupthink. (Of course they don't use the word "groupthink," but that's what it is.)
The point is that "Christianity" is a conglomerate of ideas, behaviors, group dynamics, cultural memes, and social mechanisms. When you say, "attack Christianity," I imagine you mean "attack the logic of the dogma," but even that isn't discreet enough. The dogma includes memes about all of the aspects of Christianity, and there are many ways to attack it. Some of them target the underlying psychological mechanisms affecting a particular behavior, and some don't. To say, "Attacking Christianity won't work" is just too broad a statement when there are so many ways to attack it.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
The point was to illustrate what UAE sounds like. I used an example of a Christian using it to show what it was and that it's still bad logic even if atheists do it.
What I meant by that comment is that I've seen far too often, the tendacy for some atheists will take a nasty thing a Christian has done, say they wouldn't have done it if they were atheist, and then close off any and all discussion that it could of possibly of happened due to factors outside Christianity.
I mean take any conflict and some atheist's response will be "Get rid of the religion" regardless of whether or not doing so will actually calm the conflict [and they seem rather resitant to even consider alternate causes].
I mean if a Christian robs a bank because of poverty, then getting rid of his Christianty and doing nothing to address his poverty, then what you'll get is an atheist bank robber.
As for your comment, you seem to be falling into the thought process that I said that I didn't want atheists to fall into. I mean the churches that fall to groupthink will try to re-enforce that groupthink, because by golly-gee whiz that's what groupthink does!
What I think you're falling for is, as I mentioned on your blog, the thought process that religious groupthink is somehow different from non-religious groupthink. It's not, I have yet to see any evidence that it is.
We are not a separate species from those we disagree with or even hate. All humans are capable of the same range of human emotions and actions.
But that doesn't mean that religion shouldn't be attacked. I think humanity is better off without believing the sun is a thinking being, and I think it will survive without believing in magical births or zombie gods or harems in the after life.
No label deserves a pedestal, not even that of atheists. But our world HAS improved because old memes once protected by believers have been debunked and left in the myth of the past. We now know the earth is a globe and rotates around the sun. I am glad the scientists of the past insisted on attacking the absurd claim that the earth was flat.
Credulity deserves the assault of the sunlight of scrutiny.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
i've been thinking about this notion very seriously for about three months now, and kicking myself for leaving all my hannah arendt books back in the US because i have a hunch she could shed some light on this.
i'd like to ask you, how far do you think this line of reasoning extends? you talk a lot about the notion of groupthink and most of what you say i would tend to agree with, at first glance anyhow. i absolutely believe the average healthy individual has a capacity to move closer and closer toward "pure rationality" (a provisional concept, not one i've developed) which is limited only by his or her lifespan, but does this automatically translate over to the group?
let's say, hypothetically, that we have a solid group of rational humans who are able, through some remarkable talent, to efficiently inspire most people around them to embrace rationality. if this phenomenon spreads quickly and widely enough, can it in some way change the irrational nature of groupthink? is the irrationality of groupthink only a certain amount of inertia that must be overcome? or is it something above and beyond the thinking of its components? is groupthink some ineffable evolutionary mechanism that, if it can be altered at all, can only be altered through processes that do not correspond to the processes of our individual psyches? in other words, is the whole greater than the sum of its parts? or is the whole phenomenon of groupthink, irrational or otherwise, a sort of collective disease that can and must be irradicated, something that is not irrevocably hardwired?
are you into history? if so, do you think you could point to a long-term pattern in the behavior of humanity that suggests our species is becoming more "rational," or even that such progress is possible? and i mean "rational" in a behavioral sense, not in terms of how much scientific knowledge we've gained. i can't see it myself, but perhaps i haven't found the proper perspective.
could we really change the course of our species even if we gained absolute knowledge of the universe? or are we all, like lemmings, hopelessly stuck in a migratory pattern that leads to suicide?
it seems to me you always argue that what's bad in the religions is already there, in us. i actually agree with you. the torah begins with chaos and ends, not with promises of heavenly reward, but with a blunt choice between either "doing the right thing" and being blessed or fucking it all up and dying broken and accursed. but even the blessings promised for doing the right thing are couched in blood: "Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, the shield of your help, and the sword of your triumph! Your enemies shall come fawning to you, and you shall tread on their backs." this cannot be anything but the reflection of humanity's common hopes and fears, utterly schizophrenic and counterproductive to the survival and, indeed, the overall happiness of our species. it wouldn't ring so many bells, including my own, if it wasn't. if there is an immutable human condition, surely this sums it up nicely.
is there an immutable human condition?
(wow, i actually hadn't intended to type all that. i guess now i'm the one "soul-searching." )
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
I'm pulling this out of my butt, so don't ask for anything but my opinion to back this up
I think no, or at least, no for practical short and medium term purposes. The problem is humans rely too much on our core psychological assumptions...people simply don't have time to rationally think about everything we do, say or think so we use our mental shortcuts. Unless someone can think of a simple, easy, cheap method to indoctrinate children with a set of core beliefs that are fully able to create a rational being I don't see it happening. Being rational seems like too much work for every human on the planet. Really, if I had to guess I would say most of us are were we are, mentally, because we've spent a lot of time thinking, reading or studying to even approach rational thought and even then we all know we only leverage our capability to think rationally on a limited basis.
To me, rational thought seems like the ideal, the utopia. What I think is realistic is figuring out what ideas encourage healthy rationality and push those, and try to limit ideas that discourage rationality with the understanding that the best we'll ever accomplish is a flawed version of that ideal.
But that certainly doesn't mean we shouldn't try. A world where 80% of the people use rational thought on 80% of the 'big' social, political and moral issues would be pretty darn close to utopia. But there are so many obstacles in the way...
If we ever have a world where poverty is limited, people think of themselves as human first before culture/nation/race and there is an economic solution that allows everyone enough downtime to make it to the top of their hierarchy of needs? Sure, we could do it, or get very close.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
i see what you're saying and i always used to hold this opinion myself, but lately there's something unsettling in my thinking. i wonder if even the rational ones cannot help but get caught up in the groupthought--indeed, if in the end our rationality isn't as much of a sand castle as theism, only it will be washed away not by the reality of the universe but by the reality of what we irrevocably are. we talk a lot about the god of the gaps, but isn't the historical-progressivistic optimism (or at least cautious optimism) of some atheists about the capacity of the human species for increasing rationality also steadily retreating in the face of discoveries about our own hardwired psychology (e.g., the fact that humans inevitably fall back on religion and/or tribalism, regardless of the scientific progress we've made at any given time)? can the rationality of combined individuals, even in impossibly great numbers, ever be able to trump the cyclical dynamics of the herd mentality? can it have any effect at all? or is it that we're just "trying hard enough"? these are all genuine questions, btw, not rhetorical.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
I believe so. I'm not a humanist, and I think a lot of atheists who identify with humanism are just as deluded about what humans "ought to be able to do" as theists in some senses. While we're on the subject, it's not so different from radical feminists who believe we can actually end sex differences in society if we only want to badly enough.
However, in the spirit of cautious optimism, a lot of what psychology is telling us about our hardwiring does suggest that as our environment changes, our responses -- and most notably our beliefs -- change as well. This gives us the hope that if enough people mobilize in an effort to genuinely change the environment in ways that have been proven to improve humans' behavior towards each other, we can use science and rationality to improve the human condition in ways that it has perhaps not been improved before.
How far can we make these improvements? I don't really know, but we already know some things. For instance, if we took all the money we've spent in Iraq and spent it on universal healthcare -- and more importantly, universal wellness and prevention -- we would greatly reduce poverty (since most bankruptcies in the U.S. are due to medical bills), increase the general well being of the population, etc. And we know that healthy societies are more happy than unhealthy ones.
This isn't really a political argument. I'm not proposing how we go about achieving universal healthcare. I dunno. What I do know is that the scientific evidence is incontrovertible. Healthy people are happier than unhealthy people, and if you eliminate the stress of being uninsured from everyone in a society, you absolutely will make a better, happier society in tangible, scientifically verifiable ways.
Then again, maybe we're proving right now that rationality has no place in America, since even some very well educated people are against the idea of making everyone as healthy as possible.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Well, I think you are right. I would not label my opinion as optimistic, indeed I don't see any kind of human wave of rationality on the horizon because there is this pesky thing called reality in the way.
I do think that people can be taught, from a young age, to utilize rationality more often than people tend to do now, but I don't think it is possible to make everyone rational all the time.
Group think is fine on most issues, really...like I said, it would be too much work to be rational about every decision.
Now on the flip side, I can see a future where we understand the human mind so well we can really make anyone think any way we want to. Not to be too nerdy, but I imagine if a species understood itself well enough, biologically and psychologically, I don't see why you couldn't 'Vulcanize' the thought process with the correct upbringing/drugs/whatever.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
iwbiek, I think you would like to read Mistakes were made.....But not by ME!
It's about how even intelligent rational empirically driven people make stupid decisions and become stubborn mules about them.
So I don't think we can completly eradicate groupthink or herd mentality, or cognitive biases, but we can still improve.
I agree with this
Personally, and in relation to a recent converstation with Hamby on his blog, I think what we need to do is this:
We should realize that people will make mistakes and hold irrational beliefs. This doesn't make them evil or immoral, it just makes them human and it does happen to you and me and everyone else.
The reason I think this is simple. Go to an American classroom, have them try to solve a complex math problem. What will the other kids do if he makes mistakes? Yeah, 'haha dumbass", "what a retard"
What impression will this send? Don't make mistakes because they make you stupid. The result? Kids will refuse to admit their mistakes and hence more likely to make them because they won't correct them if they don't admit they made them.
In contrast in Japan, a kid making a mistake and then correcting it is seen as a honourable trait, hence they are more likely to admit mistakes and hence fix them.
Which brings me to another point I wanted to point out with this topic.
Take the tension in political discussions. I mean since it's their ideology that makes them evil [either Conservative or Liberal] then what will a Conservative do if they hold a Liberal view and what would a Liberal do if they hold a Conservative view? They won't discuss it, won't bring it up in their next meeting [if they did then they're evil and hold an evil ideology!] they will discard it whether it's rational or not, because they don't want to seem evil.
But if these groups realize that being wrong is just what humans do and they don't label the other group as evil for being wrong, then I think we could open the floor to more fruitful political and ideological discussions rather than shouting matches over who is the evil ones corroding our society.
I mean neither Conservatism or Liberalism is 100% right or moral. It's ok to be Conservative on some issues and Liberal on others. But with these griping about ideologies, creates a mindset, "These people are evil because of their ideology, so if we hold that ideology, we'd be evil too!". Of course both Liberals and Conservatives can be evil.
As for reducing group think and herd mentality, try to catch yourself if you're falling into it, which is of course easier said than done.
Christ almighty... I am a little grossed out, but I think we've found a subject on which we agree without caveat. This is twice in one thread that I've had nothing to quibble with you on.
You're exactly right about the cultural differences regarding being wrong. And you're also exactly right about suggesting bipartisan approaches to a problem. In fairness, I understand the Democrat's point of view, and I don't think it's entirely wrong. They believe -- with good past evidence to back up the belief -- that the Republicans will not give one inch towards a bipartisan compromise. They feel like if they extend the olive branch and try to work together, they'll end up giving up part of their agenda and getting nothing in return. (This, by the way, is one of the hallmarks of Christian dogma. Jesus is the only way to heaven. Compromise is unacceptable. I wonder if having a populace raised in this faith-based belief system increases the Republican's ability to sell hard line politics to Christians...)
But it is irrational and counter-productive to avoid any discussion of "alternate ideology" because of the perceived "evil nature" of that ideology. These days there aren't many things I agree with the Republicans on, but there have been times in the past where I thought the local Republican candidate was better qualified and a more decent man. I've voted Republican a couple of times in my life. But no more. I can't, because Republican is synonymous with lock step party adherence, not constructive problem solving.
The democrats have tried to counter this kind of party loyalty by being somewhat more open to discussion, but the problem they've run into is that with the numbers they have, and the Republican's willingness to vote 100% against any democratic measure, they need 100% lock step to get anything done.
And the whole thing is a nasty downward spiral of hatred and bull headedness.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
And now I'm depressed again.
I should move to Canada.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
People are only capable of doing what feels right. You take this political view because this makes you feel compassionate, it feels like the right thing to do. Whether it really works to alleviate net suffering or not is secondary. You go with your intuition.
Conservatives feel wrong spending money on strangers instead of themselves and their offspring and giving their money to politicians they don't trust. There is nothing irrational or rational about either view. If you want people to take a particular point of view that is 'rational', there must be a good feeling associated with do that.
Bottom line is feelings trump rationality.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
Well, no. I go with the mountains of scientific evidence concerning stress, health, and well being. You know... science? That thing you ignore when it disagrees with your ideology?
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I agree.
I've found that the more I'm aware of my "irrationalities" and the better I am at identifying them, the more able I am to prevent them misleading me.
I wish school had taught me more about reason and psychology.
False understandings about truth and about myself have been damaging.
I find it ironic when you do this.
You make claims about how people think, based on your worldview, without offering proper psychological evidence to support your claims.