# What's with the entrenched anti-religion groupthink around here? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 22, 2008, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365 "2008-12-22T21:01:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/221 "2008-12-24T19:00:02Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Then you’ll have to forgive me because I don’t know how to make it any clearer. If a whole other religion sprouted up from my revised copy of Genesis, made up of people who felt pretty much the same as established JudeoChristians, but who firmly believed in resting on the eighth day, doesn’t this call into question the validity of _both_ viewpoints? They contradict each other so they can’t both be true. Neither can be shown to be more likely than the other. Doesn’t that invite speculation that both are false? They prolly are both false in my opinion, but there may be some truth to one of them. What I’m trying to say is you’re choosing to place all your importance on falsifiability and testability. Some people choose faith in one thing or another. It’s the premise. You’re choosing a premise that anything worthwhile is testable and building out from that, other people are choosing a different premise. However there may be worth while things that aren’t testable. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/222 "2008-12-24T19:00:31Z")
> [@coffeecat](#): > > You make important decisions based on these subjective social constructs. To read some posters here, doing that based on religion is like taking advice from my wife’s imaginary talking penis. Except the difference between people agreeing on social constructs and the idea that those constructs came from a god substance are nowhere near the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/223 "2008-12-24T19:05:46Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > What about more ambiguous concepts like morality? Do you disagree that morality is a social construct? ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/224 "2008-12-24T19:17:28Z")
The other thing that gets sticky is that even if god does exist, he doesn’t exist in a way that’s great or worshippable, which makes mere existence no more important to mankind than the existence of an “Ernest goes to…” film festival. It ain’t enough to exist. It has to be universally understood and beneficial. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/225 "2008-12-24T19:26:17Z")
> [@Pochacco](#): > > Do you disagree that morality is a social construct? I know you’re not asking me, but I don’t disagree with that. Do you disagree that things like love, joy, hate, sadness, hope, fear, mercy, kindness, and anger are purely internal subjective states, and cannot be measured in any truly objective fashion but only from within their own internal (and hence subjective) framework? I don’t disagree with that either. But I still believe those things are real. ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/226 "2008-12-24T19:30:07Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > Except the difference between people agreeing on social constructs and the idea that those constructs came from a god substance are nowhere near the same thing. Huh? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/227 "2008-12-24T19:52:33Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > What I’m trying to say is you’re choosing to place all your importance on falsifiability and testability. Some people choose faith in one thing or another. It’s the premise. You’re choosing a premise that anything worthwhile is testable and building out from that, other people are choosing a different premise. They choose insanity; to believe in something without, and in spite of it’s evidence or it’s internal logic. That’s faith. Believers aren’t quite like fans debating over _Star Wars_ as was said earlier; they are like hypothetical fans who do so while insisting that Darth Vader and the rest are REAL. And demanding that everyone else go along with their fantasy. > [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Do you disagree that things like love, joy, hate, sadness, hope, fear, mercy, kindness, and anger are purely internal subjective states, and cannot be measured in any truly objective fashion but only from within their own internal (and hence subjective) framework? I disagree. That’s a technological limitation, not a fundamental one. With enough understanding of the brain and good enough brain scanners, I see no reason why love, hate and so on can’t be as measurable as temperature. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/228 "2008-12-24T20:24:14Z")
> [@Pochacco](#): > > Do you disagree that morality is a social construct? I agree it’s a social construct, but it’s a more complex concept than marriage or money. However you slice it, marriage is two people together. Money is worth what the culture agrees it’s worth. Morality is a different kind of interaction within a culture. That doesn’t make it more real, but it makes it harder to write off as a culturally-accepted delusion. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/229 "2008-12-24T20:56:48Z")
> [@Q.E.D](#): > > Huh? That’s practically the very _definition_ of “arbitrary.” Understandings? Interpretation? They may as well have thrown darts. Your knee-jerk reaction equates “understanding” and “interpretation” with vague feelings and random guessing. No wonder you dismiss their thinking as arbitrary! That’s not how theologians and Bible scholars arrive at their conclusions, though. With regard to the Papacy, for example, they argue based on the historical usage of the original Greek words, as well as corroborating passages from other Biblical books. There are any number of articles on the web regarding the Papacy conflict; suffice to say that these combatants do not simply say, “Well, I feel that this is what Matthew 16 meant.” Your answer further illustrates the problem that I’m lamenting. I emphasize that they have different interpretations of the text and you quickly say, “Aha! So their beliefs ARE arbitrary!” Having different interpretations does not automatically make the beliefs arbitrary – no more so than different viewpoins on the US Constitution make these different legal interpretations arbitrary. Some of you people are obviously deeply committed to the preconceived notion that religious beliefs are completely arbitrary – the theological equivalent of a coin flip. It is apparently inconceivable to you that anyone would might have some reasons for his or her beliefs, whether you agree with those reasons or not. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the\_deuce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/71e660/32.png) [@What\_the\_deuce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the_deuce)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2008, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/230 "2008-12-25T00:53:47Z")
I can see this thread has degenerated into a typical Great Debates-style “is religion correct?” argument. I think I wasted my time even creating it. I suspect that convincing people that not all the world’s problems are caused by religion and that believers should still be given the same level of respect as anyone else is likely to bear as much fruit as convincing a certain family relative of mine that the same is true of “n_gg_rs” and “sp\*cs”. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2008, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/231 "2008-12-25T00:59:17Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > Your knee-jerk reaction equates “understanding” and “interpretation” with vague feelings and random guessing. No wonder you dismiss their thinking as arbitrary! But, it is. Scholars of other religions have access to the same materials, yet they arrive at different conclusions. If their thinking was purely based on logic, they would, of necessity, arrive at the same conclusions; yet they do not. The only possible conclusion one can draw from this is that their conclusions are colored by their own biases, and therefore fundamentally arbitrary. ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2008, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/232 "2008-12-25T00:59:59Z")
> [@](#): > > **What the deuce** said: > I suspect that convincing people that not all the world’s problems are caused by religion and that believers should still be given the same level of respect as anyone else is likely to bear as much fruit as convincing a certain family relative of mine that the same is true of “n_gg_rs” and “sp\*cs”. Depending on what kind of people they are aside from their illogical need to cling to myth and superstition, I have either got respect for them or not. What I can’t respect are the myths and superstitions, and their unwavering belief in them. I don’t see how it’s a bad thing to say it’s silly for an adult human being in a first world country in contemporary society to actually believe that a woman once got pregnant without ever having sex and had the son of an omnipotent sky being who later had that son killed so that his followers could ritually cannibalize him in order to make up for the bad shit they’ve done with their lives. Yet you ask a Christian if they actually, literally believe that Mary was a virgin when she got pregnant with Jesus, and they act like the question is the absurd thing! ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2008, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/233 "2008-12-25T01:51:30Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > If I printed my own copy of Genesis but it was slightly altered from the commonly-accepted version so that God rested on the _eighth_ day, how could anyone prove that my version was inaccurate? I still have that missing page from the new testament that nobody wants to believe is real. All it says is: "This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. This book was printed for not-for-sale, not-for-profit purposes, and as such, does not intend to infringe on any legally-held rights, including, but not limited to, those held by Fox Television." Wouldn’t that one page clear up many many misunderstandings in the world. ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2008, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/234 "2008-12-25T02:50:30Z")
> [@What\_the\_deuce](#): > > I can see this thread has degenerated into a typical Great Debates-style “is religion correct?” argument. I think I wasted my time even creating it. > > I suspect that convincing people that not all the world’s problems are caused by religion and that believers should still be given the same level of respect as anyone else is likely to bear as much fruit as convincing a certain family relative of mine that the same is true of “n_gg_rs” and “sp\*cs”. :rolleyes: Have a correct December 25, everyone. The universe likes you and wants to bump your ankles? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2008, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/235 "2008-12-25T03:04:15Z")
> [@What\_the\_deuce](#): > > I can see this thread has degenerated into a typical Great Debates-style “is religion correct?” argument. You asked why so many people here bash religion; “because it’s stupid” is the inevitable answer. Because it IS stupid, and you are allowed to point that out here. > [@What\_the\_deuce](#): > > I suspect that convincing people that not all the world’s problems are caused by religion and that believers should still be given the same level of respect as anyone else is likely to bear as much fruit as convincing a certain family relative of mine that the same is true of “n_gg_rs” and “sp\*cs”. :rolleyes: No one has said that “all the world’s problems are caused by religion”, although I note that believers typically use that phrase when the innate goodness of religion is questioned. And fools don’t **deserve** the same level of respect as non-fools, and anyone who buys into religion is a fool. And not respecting people who believe foolish things isn’t the same as racism. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2008, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/236 "2008-12-25T03:21:29Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > What about more ambiguous concepts like morality? Okay, I see a problem when the artificial construct of religion is imposed over innate personal morality, especially when that grafted construct is weaker in preventing bad action than the one it’s supplanting. Anecdote substituting as data, but the underlying construct is sound as anyone who’s familiar with Jehovah’s Witnesses will attest–my former mother-in-law is a JW, used to claim to be one of the anointed before they made her stop professing. Anyway, long and short is that her youngest son was a bit of a wild child, ran around a bit, got his girlfriend knocked up, which led to kid and girlfriend being disfellowshipped. Now, per JW canon and morality, it’s up to the individual conscience of each JW as to just how much shunning they do of family members who get DF’d. Most refrain from “spiritual fellowship” while maintaining a more or less normal family relationship while exhorting the straying sheep to return to the fold. MIL interpreted this as license to hound and harass that young man and his girlfriend with diatribes and harassment and guilt trips and threats against other family members (some of whom she had a lot of financial and other control of) to enforce her version of how to treat the DF’d couple and other basically insane behavior that I don’t want to get into but the upshot is that her nineteen year old son, finally pushed past his limit and stripped of his whole support system wrote a cryptic note and turned his bedroom wall into a Rorschach with a shotgun, to the consternation of his pregnant girlfriend, who discovered him. Now one could argue that MIL is just an evil bitch who’d find a way to be evil regardless of what set of imposed morals she follows, and that her own innate set is cataclysmically flawed and you’d probably be right. However, the framework and morality of the JW creed allowed her a justification she wouldn’t have in a religion that doesn’t practice shunning, and which also is less rigorous about separating members from outside influence and support. When she was a hippie chick she was still a manipulative, controlling cunt but it was controlled by the arbitrary social construct of the hippie community which looks askance at outright uncoolness and meanness. Shopping around a bit got her a lovely set of justifications that allowed her much more license to exercise her inner preferences–it wasn’t a coincidence that she ended up as a JW instead of a Unitarian Universalist, y’know? She donned that armor of righteousness, just the way the JW’s reward members most for doing and then she used that license to bend and twist her children to her will, with the most awesome of consequences available to hold over their heads–disapproval of a god is pretty fucking scary to a kid when it’s mom throwing it at you, y’know? The rest of her kids are pretty fucked up too, in different ways but the gist is similar. So that’s my objection to religion in general–that it provides in general a faultier, more generic, less comprehensive moral code than the one we innately make for ourselves. Then once people convince themselves that any feeling of conflict between their innate morality and the grafted one is just their own imperfection and wickedness rebelling against what’s right–they never think that maybe the rules they’ve embraced might be actually just be totally fucking wrong. Religion says it’s always YOUR fault for any and all conflict–not god’s fault, not the religion’s fault, YOUR fault that you need to fix. You buy that and you’ll do anything the religion brings you to believe–only to the extent that you buy into the religion, believe in your own imperfection and sin and to the extent you don’t trust yourself. A strong person with a good moral sense and a good support system will balk and rebel at bad attitudes and actions commanded by a religion but a scared or weak person or a person who really wants the excuse can use that justification and rationalization to wholeheartedly carry out wrong actions called for by their religion–sure, it’s what they really wanted to do anyway, but might not have done without this really great excuse. The fact that the religious morality is distanced from the psyche, that it didn’t arise from within but is imposed from without makes it harder to test the axioms–you don’t get that gut feeling that something’s wrong, and if something smells wrong all you can do is just scratch your head and go check out the rulebook to see if you’re in the clear, or ask the priest–if he says you’re golden you can stop worrying, 'cuz your gut is WRONG, y’see. So it’s not this religion or that religion, it’s just any religion that creates the dichotomy between internal and external morality–Buddhism tells you to look inside and see if you’re okay, whereas most Christian religions just give you a playbook and tell you that as long as you’re toeing the line like a good sheep no further thought is necessary–no matter what they tell you. Islam shares a similar problem. The Bible and Q’uran might be fine by themselves but the priests, pastors, elders and imams can be freaking scary… ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2008, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/237 "2008-12-25T04:56:35Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > It’s not so much that I want you to prove god exists as I want to understand why you’d pin your very core being on something that YOU have no evidence of its being real. > > Now, you can say that the basic teachings of your religion work for you in your everyday life, but those teachings aren’t “owned” by religion. Non-believers frequently try to live by the Ten Suggestions, too. I simply can’t understand why you would conclude an existence that you know you can’t prove, when you can live your life exactly the same way without it. Why is the unprovable _good enough_ for you? That seems like a pretty fair question. Good one too. One thing to keep on mind is that for many believers it’s not no evidence. It’s a subjective experience[s] that is their personnel evidence. Secondly, IMHO all people operate with a certain degree of faith and things that are unprovable. Those things are evidently good enough for all of us. There may not be as big a gulf as you think between belief in the intangibles like love, justice, compassion, and belief in God. Thirdly, we can’t say what the right path or life vehicle is for anyone but ourselves. We can share experiences and offer opinions and insights, and that’s all. So perhaps, for others , they sincerely couldn’t live their life exactly the same way without it. We just can’t say. Last but not least, there’s the possibility that beyond the realm of our human knowledge and understanding there is something we are striving toward and God belief is helping us get there. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2008, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/238 "2008-12-25T05:12:13Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > And so? The fact that they believe differently does not make these beliefs arbitrary. > > Therein lies the problem. In this thread, people are dismissing any difference in doctrinal belief as “arbitrary.” And why? Because “one group believes something different than other group believes.” Using that logic, ALL doctrinal differences are conveniently defined to be arbitrary, thereby precluding the possibility of anyone holding non-arbitrary beliefs. > > And you wonder why we complain about the use of broad brushes in painting religion. And you’ve been asked to explain how and why they are not arbitrary and have yet to do so. Instead of whining you can explain why it’s an incorrect conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2008, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/239 "2008-12-25T05:24:41Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Perhaps gunpowder instead of dynamite? I’m pretty sure that no Catholic priests have been burned at the stake in Britain since 1866. You don’t recall the 1877 religious revival among the Nobelity? It was prophesied in the tNT. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2008, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365/240 "2008-12-25T06:05:17Z")
> [@What\_the\_deuce](#): > > I can see this thread has degenerated into a typical Great Debates-style “is religion correct?” argument. I think I wasted my time even creating it. Seems to me it boiled down to the atheists pointing something out that the believers will go to torturous lengths not to admit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-entrenched-anti-religion-groupthink-around-here/478365.md?page=13)