A thing about religious (and other) people and the illusion of free will

[The Grand Nudger]

Discrimination is packaged in all religious ideation. If there is a way the world should be, or people should be - then there is a way that the world should not be, and people should not be. Babies aren't done baking yet. We get good at projection and goal seeking behaviors really quick, though. By the time we're a few years old we're already primed to accept the idea of an eye in the sky. We already want things, we're already forming strategies to get them.

Teaching religion is the act and effort of normalizing those innate characteristics with the vision of the community to which we belong. It's also the main avenue for religious revision or reformation. We never get full compliance, so every new adherent in the tent brings a collection of non standard ideas with them and those ideas compete internally for popularity within the in-crowd.

[The Grand Nudger]

If by religious standard, you mean simple belief, yeah, that makes since. Still, religion is synonymous with belief, and that does not have to be about a supreme being at birth, right?

Neither beliefs nor religions have to be about supreme beings.  If we were going to do a deep dive, we could confront how religions that have gods are still not based on those gods.  The gods are superstitions.  They're juicers - a shortcut to authority.  Authority for what?  Now we're talking religion.  The god isn't the religion, it's the stuff the god allegedly cosigns.  Once we're there we begin to see why religion doesn't have to be taught.  There's no belief about how the world should be that can't come to an individual genuinely...and, if we're really following through, we have to accept that every bit of all of the contents of all of the worlds religions -did- come to at least one person, once, genuinely.

This is what sociologists and anthropologists mean when they talk about religion being natural to human beings. It's actually a defining characteristic of our species. We don't consider ourselves fully modern until we start displaying religious thinking.

[Ahriman]

Religion isn't taught. People are either naturally religious or not.

People are not born religious. Plus, discrimination is a thing that is taught, so if that can be taught, so can religion. I am sure it is not a natural thing.

Plus, how can people be religious as babies when they are born? They are not developed to think about things like even religion at that stage of life.

They are born with an innate religious impulse and that impulse develops as they get older. That impulse (to be religious) is not something that is taught to them.

[arewethereyet]

People are not born religious. Plus, discrimination is a thing that is taught, so if that can be taught, so can religion. I am sure it is not a natural thing.

Plus, how can people be religious as babies when they are born? They are not developed to think about things like even religion at that stage of life.

They are born with an innate religious impulse and that impulse develops as they get older. That impulse (to be religious) is not something that is taught to them.

Pulled this little bit of info out of your ass, I see.

[ShinyCrystals]

If by religious standard, you mean simple belief, yeah, that makes since. Still, religion is synonymous with belief, and that does not have to be about a supreme being at birth, right?

Neither beliefs nor religions have to be about supreme beings.  If we were going to do a deep dive, we could confront how religions that have gods are still not based on those gods.  The gods are superstitions.  They're juicers - a shortcut to authority.  Authority for what?  Now we're talking religion.  The god isn't the religion, it's the stuff the god allegedly cosigns.  Once we're there we begin to see why religion doesn't have to be taught.  There's no belief about how the world should be that can't come to an individual genuinely...and, if we're really following through, we have to accept that every bit of all of the contents of all of the worlds religions -did- come to at least one person, once, genuinely.

This is what sociologists and anthropologists mean when they talk about religion being natural to human beings. It's actually a defining characteristic of our species. We don't consider ourselves fully modern until we start displaying religious thinking.

Oh, that is interesting. That said, I have to correct myself on something; if religion was no natural inclination, as you may have said it was one in humans, we probably would not be the humans we are today, right? Or no?

But I still think religion, as religion about supreme beings, that is; do interfere with independent thought as I described and was trying to say, especially the minds of the more hardcore and dedicated believers in a supreme being who do things in the name of such a being.

[arewethereyet]

I have to ask if Ahri thinks that a baby with Christian parents will exhibit an 'innate religious impulse' to be a Muslim. What happens then?

[Ahriman]

I have to ask if Ahri thinks that a baby with Christian parents will exhibit an 'innate religious impulse' to be a Muslim.  What happens then?

They're just religious. Not like a specific religion.

[ShinyCrystals]

I have to ask if Ahri thinks that a baby with Christian parents will exhibit an 'innate religious impulse' to be a Muslim. What happens then?

If you are asking me…

Honestly, there are so many different religions in the world that we can’t be born with all of them, and we are not born with even one religion, just like how we are not born to speak, write or read languages, which there are so many of.

I don’t know what would happen, but I don’t think people are just born with any religion, so they can’t be born a religious person such as a Muslim.

[The Grand Nudger]

For better and for worse, yeah - if things had been different, things would be different. Cattle would find themselves in a much different situation in india, for example, outside of religious ideation. OFC, from the standpoint of evolutionary development, we might not have been capable of being any other way. We're primed to accept eyes in the sky and project human motivations out into the world because we're a hyper social species and those two things are meaningfully true even if theyre not factually accurate. There really are states and outcomes that disadvantage us and we instinctively or intuitively believe that things should be NOT THAT.

Supreme beings are deontological tools. Ways to quickly and cheaply organize normative labor. The alternative would be educating every single member on the finer points of an academic argument to normativity - and even though we can assume that some good argument for a religious belief could be made (an...remember, we've set a distinction between superstition and religion) and that a person could hear it and genuinely agree of their own accord - well...we just don't have to. Part and parcel of hyper social behavior is that it's easier and quicker to just say the cheiftan says so. Or the government says so. Or my dad says so. Or god says so. These are all the same entity, functionally, lol.

[The Grand Nudger]

IDK, could be fun, and as a demonstration. Think of some normative statement from a religion you don't believe in, that you actually agree with. You don't have to tell me what it is. Just consider why you agree with it. Do you think you only agree with it because you were taught to? Think of some normative statement you've accepted from a single authoritative individual in your life ( a parent, a close friend, a hero). Do you think you accept it on the basis of their having said it, or because you think they got it right?