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Pope says 'backward' US conservatives replaced faith with ideology
(www.euronews.com)
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this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
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I mean there's a lot of things I don't understand, and don't think I can possibly understand, that are way smaller than how Christians describe god.
They understand it more like a consequence of physics, as a logically necessary property. Like a fat man jumping on a trampoline full of kids, sure they're still going to bounce but it won't be their bouncing, any more.
Which is my point, their god if they exist clearly isn't omnipotent, otherwise the dude could do anything from turning the frequency down to something us wittle itty bitty silly hoomens could understand or vice versa increase our mental aptitude and make us 'smarter'.
I mean he did by sending a less fat guy down (the one who got nailed to the cross). But jumping on a trampoline with Jesus doesn't constitute proof of the whole trinity shebang.
And yes the whole omnipotence thing breaks down as soon as you try to break logic with it. The Stoic take on that stuff makes a lot more sense: The gods are benevolent and the hardness we suffer is a product of their non-omnipotence, however they gave us that divine spark -- reason and wisdom -- to be able to get on top of things. They furnished the world to be as perfect as they could, the rest is up to us. Of course for the Stoics philosophy comes first, religion is simply some mythology to tack on afterwards.
I mean yes that idea has been in many religions since we were shitting on the grass living in huts. Greek mythology, Aztec mythology, Chinese mythology, Japanese mythology all follow similar lines of thought where you try to gain the attention of what ever god you're seeking favor from by doing X thing(s)(sacrifice of some sort, leave food/drink as offering, slaughtering other gods followers). But even that doesn't prove anything especially if they were truly benevolent why wouldn't they reveal themselves? And not just through a human but ACTUALLY reveal themselves.
Pagan gods do? I mean it's all biology/psychology but with plurality still intact instincts can self-portrait as archetypes, thereby more strongly influencing adaptation, seen either in dreams, visions, or projected out onto the world, also other people. The difference to ancestral cults (correctly understood) is merely sorting genetic knowledge (or better put expectations of the world) into categories so it's easier to spot. Read Freud for the basal instincts, Adler for the social ones, Jung for the actualising ones. Also, Panksepp.
Also, Thor exists. Proof: Christian churches have lightning rods.
Oh, thinking of it, that stuff is the one big truth contained in Christianity: The personal god / the priesthood of all believers. The rest is just fucking confused. Meister Eckhart definitely had something but it's kinda like Buddha trying to teach while avoiding getting burned at the stake so the conceptual framework is rather impenetrable as everything had to be cast into pre-existing doctrine.
Symbolic allotting of resources to an instinct, nourishing it, and, erm, pathos. Don't do the last one that's mania and gods are perfectly content with you sacrificing some time and mental space, the ritual is for you, not them. In any case if it loses its magic just because you wrap it in a materialist explanation it's not the real deal, yet you can repeat "I'm doing psychology" as mantra as much as you want when connecting up at that level but it's still going to feel religious -- because that's the quality of the qualia you see in that area: Magic happens because you didn't expect things. Otherwise it wouldn't feel that way, it's the sound of your mind getting a good knead-through.
They don't reveal themselves, no one ever saw the gods it's always stories conveying that they saw them or as you say "visions in their head". Guess what, I have a vision in my head of being a billionaire surrounded by a Haram of hot models all wanting to fulfill my every desire. Oh...gee...it's just a vision and not reality.
And you should read up on your gods, there are gods that absolutely want tributes, trinkets, and sacrifices in exchange for favors, hell Satan wants your soul for eternity in exchange for what ever you'll agree too according to the Christian texts. But whether you get peace or what ever reaction from performing said ritual means nothing to the actual intent of said ritual which is giving tribute to that specific god. Even in Christianity the prevailing belief is by worshipping god you will gain their favor and be granted a place in the magical eternal kingdom of heaven. That in and of itself is paying tribute in a ritual.
...to the gods that's exactly what I said. I get the distinct feeling that you didn't even read 10% of what I wrote.
"Don’t do the last one that’s mania and gods are perfectly content with you sacrificing some time and mental space, the ritual is for you, not them"
These are your literal words.
Yes. The ritual is for you (the ego) not for them (the instincts). To bring yourself into a mindstate where you aren't so pre-occupied with everyday stuff and the external world that you're ignoring messages from deeper inside yourself.
If you can switch channels without ritual then all the more power to you. Buddhists rightly caution against attachment to ritual, however, that doesn't mean that you can't use them -- only that you shouldn't get attached, lest things become performative. But attachment to "I will never sprinkle rice" (or what have you) is the same trap, easily itself an (internal) ritual.
And that's what I'm arguing it isn't for you. It's for them, the entire ritual(s) were made to show your submission and how much you are a good "follower" so they will show you favor. Look at the story of job, God burned all his shit, killed his family, all on a bet with the devil job won't still love God afterwards. And what does job do? Pray for forgiveness for what ever sin he's committed that supposedly pissed god off when the entire thing is a pissing contest between the devil and god.
Any inner peace or heightened senses you get are just a placebo from that ritual. Similar to the sports ritual like not washing your socks or having lucky underwear.
And that's why monotheism is a bad idea: You need to attribute everything to one single source. Now, if OTOH you understand it in the sense of "I paid too much attention to that one god while ignoring the advise of another, thus got inattentive" asking the latter god for forgiveness and calling up on a higher one with help to get those two to agree makes a lot more sense.
It's more about the acknowledgement, as an ego, that you're not the only one at the wheel. Gotta come to terms with your GPS and automatic shifter and respect the check engine light or things won't end well. You may think that those are passive signals but there's an intelligence behind lots of them, and some are perfectly capable of judging you to be the problematic car part. The crucial part is to stop fighting and dismissing and put round pegs in round holes, square ones in square holes. Use your faculties according to their nature, as the Stoics say.
And placebo effects are bad because...? I'd rather be happy because I'm well-aligned with myself than due to antidepressants. Also, peace isn't really the goal it's a side-effect. The mind of a sage is still not because they consider stillness to be good and therefore are still, but because the ten thousand things are insufficient to disturb them. (That's Zhuangzi, same book as the butterfly story).
That's not what the story of job is about even if you are entitled to your own interpretation(which goes back to my original point about why it's all left to interpretation.) Job wasn't punished because he didn't pay attention to Satan. Satan was the little imp on his shoulder telling him all these things about how God isn't righteous and he has forsaken him. It all started simply because God bragged about how devout and awesome Job was for following his teachings to Satan and Satan said "yeah well you got it all wrong, he only is so devout because you've rewarded him. Take away his rewards and he shall hate you." And Job did for a while before the age old bull shit about having 'faith' came into play at the end where he just basically accepts he's a Stoopid wittle hoomen who can't understand God's grand plan....which as we know as the person granted insight into God's thinking, was a literal pissing contest between the devil.
As for placebo effects, I never commented on the effects being good or bad on their own, all I commented on is that just because they are a by product of participating in the ritual, they aren't the goal of the ritual.
Yeah I'm not a fan of Christianity, the sensible interpretations are buried below layers and layers of apologetics, it's never straight forward and the obvious interpretations are often right-out dangerous. But other religions would describe the crisis of faith motive more in the way that I described.
According to whom. The purpose of a system is what it does. If an ancient Roman had relationship trouble and went to temple and underwent some rituals and then regularly gave offerings in private to the respective gods and it helped their marriage then it doesn't matter what they believed in, their reproductive success still increased. Darwin doesn't care what you believe, what matters is fitness. Heck I wouldn't be surprised if those temple rituals were overall more effective than modern-day marriage counselling.
According to the people who made the rituals, it's clearly laid out in several different religious books what the entire purpose of the rituals within said book are for. Just because you experience a side effects doesn't make the side effect the purpose.
The books describe how those people conceptualise things, not what the rituals are for, systemically speaking. As said: The purpose of a system is what it does. Try as hard as you might you won't get me to blaspheme cybernetics.
Are you really comfortable claiming that those conceptual frameworks aren't post-hoc rationalisation? "Oh I found myself doing XYZ which doesn't have discernible physical utility, but I also connect it to things working out well recently, it must be because there's some greater power I can reach in those ways, and this is how I imagine those powers to be". To me that sounds like an excellent null hypothesis.
I actually think we agree this far. The point of contention is whether we should throw out the baby with the bathwater.