NationStates Jolt Archive

Sorry guys, I made a mistake in the poll title. Please post your responses to this topic in the "Religion in Society (Improved Poll)" thread.

Thank you. :)

I was just reading an article about a preacher-turned-christian-popstar the other day and noticed something. The singer was recalling her childhood when she told her parents that she wasn't into religion.

Then one day she encountered a personal crisis. Her Christian friends gathered around her and helped a lot. From then, she attended church, and met her husband, who was a preacher. One thing led to another and she is now the star the she is.

I think many non-religious folks underestimate the human need for personal support and empowerment. I emphasize personal because I believe this is one reason why this social phenomena has such longevity and expansion potential. A highlight of the supermeme.

Do I think people convert into organized religion because of their first-principle doctrines, or holy books or whatever? To an outsider, this must appear absurd - many of those religious ideas are not merely obscure, they are so blatantly wrong and nonsensical that it boggles the mind. In fact, I'm beginning to suspect that most of these folks never actually read or understood any of that stuff.

Yet people are willing part with their money, their time, their lives or take other people's lives for their religious principles? Why? WHY? WHY?

Is it because the belief system provides actual support for believer through extensive social networks optimized over a few thousand years of cultural evolution?

Is it because the belief system organizes people into large factions of real accumulated wealth and military power that can further expand their interests in a "us vs them" game of false diametric opposites?

Is it because the belief system discourages critical thought and incessant doubt, encouraging a false "good-evil" dicotomy, thus removing obstacles that restricts its growth and propagation? Even if you don't understand what makes you good (and you can't since everything is mystical, mind you) how can you not rally to fight evil together (who is conveniently always your opponent)?

Perhaps religion and society is inextricable. When organized religion was displaced during state-enforced atheism in the Soviet Union and China, people turned to personality cult worship instead, elevating Stalin and Mao into Gods. Many of the old guard still worship these dictators to this day.

I find this a discouraging thought. What do you think?
People need something to find comfort in, a security blanket, in other words. It is a flaw in the human mental state. Even those of us who are athiests, such as myself, often end up worshipping, or at least coming decently close--tucking the blanket around our bodies, to use the metaphor--to having the same kind of reverence for science that religious people have for their beliefs. It takes a self-realized person to completely avoid all of that. I am not such a person...yet. Thing is, most people never bother trying to rid themselves of this flaw. I wish more people did. We might have a lot more reasonable people in society.

I'm thinking you may have the yes and the no confused in your poll.
*frown*

In my opinion science is indeed getting dangerously close to becoming a new religion for many. People (masses) indeed need a thing to fall back on. But my hope is that -it may take veryvery long:( - once societies, or one bright example, will transcend this state of mind and live freely out of their own honest well-thought-trough convinctions (is it spelled that way:rolleyes: ?).
So, still praying:p

I'm thinking you may have the yes and the no confused in your poll.
*frown*
Indeed:

inextricable (adj.): So intricate or entangled as to make escape impossible

Indeed:

inextricable (adj.): So intricate or entangled as to make escape impossible

Yes, I know what inextrication is.

*whispers*
Start over, new poll, same topic. Just a bit of copy and paste.

I'm thinking you may have the yes and the no confused in your poll.
*frown*

Yes my mistake. I meant Extricable. How do you edit a poll?

Yes my mistake. I meant Extricable. How do you edit a poll?

New thread, mate.
*stops chattering*

EVERYBODY LEAVE THIS THREAD ALONE -
new one coming up.
( For it is a good topic. )

Religion actually fulfills two basic human needs. It provides them with a large stable belief set that has the effect of generating and helping to maintain psychological stability and a sense of security in a chaotic environment that can be too stressful to cope with sans a solid belief system, and it also provides them with a social support network that fulfills their need for affection and validation.