(August 5, 2017 at 2:29 pm)ComradeMeow Wrote: When I see atheists leaving religion only to leave such things to the theistically inclined I cannot help but wonder how idiotic of a move it is. Religion came about for a reason and not because some crackpot smoked a bad joint and saw some spooky shit.I understand the whole Atheism 2.0 / Alain de Botton thing is trying to distill the benefits of community / refuge / ritual that religion historically has provided, with all the god-content exorcized. I think there's some merit in that. I am rather more a concrete thinker and introvert than most, and probably don't benefit from these things as much as most. But I don't disparage the potential value to many.
(August 5, 2017 at 2:29 pm)ComradeMeow Wrote: We have beliefs and we have faith in things but as long as we can not evaluate why we hold them we cannot assess what we need to do to improve our lives.I assume you accidentally left the word "not" out of that statement which I added above?? Otherwise I can't understand your statement.
I think we can evaluate the basis of any belief and also why certain beliefs are more attractive than others, and why often that attractiveness varies independently of the soundness of its basis.
In my experience (coming out of fundamentalist Christianity), religious faith is generally based on a desire for certitude that doesn't exist, fed by confirmation bias and agency inference, and reinforced by people's natural need for social reciprocity and belonging. Clearly that belief system would have few adherents if it didn't provide more perceived benefits than perceived harms -- at least for the people it does in fact appeal to. In my case the cost / benefit ratio ran aground on the shoals of reality. A lot of what it promised was just that: abstract promises, largely fulfilled not in this life, but in an alleged life to come. But even the promises that were supposed to accrue in this life were not fulfilled, resulting in much frustration, consternation, suffering and disappointment. Life being too short for much of that sort of thing, I moved on from it.
Personally (and this is just me) I don't miss the community and I don't pine for it or seek to recreate it elsewhere. I did for a short time, simply because it takes time to adjust to a new normal, but I was in it for the alleged theological perks, not the pot lucks and camaraderie. Other's mileage can, and will, vary. There are as many unique mixes of reasons to adhere to a faith as there are individuals.
