Zanti misfits:
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Religion is unnatural
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Zanti misfits:
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I always thought that everything is found in nature including religion, unless of course we are pretending not to be animals ourselves.
Religion relies heavily on the concept that we are special, seems like we truly believe that we are. (09-09-2024, 08:13 PM)Edible crust Wrote: I always thought that everything is found in nature including religion, unless of course we are pretending not to be animals ourselves. You're right it's all nature, the meme is just using it as casual shorthand for something like "in the wild" or "in the wilderness." "Evolution" works the same, I think some people think we're operating outside its forces but it's evolution all the way down. (09-09-2024, 08:13 PM)Edible crust Wrote: I always thought that everything is found in nature including religion, unless of course we are pretending not to be animals ourselves. The natural world, other than us humans, has no concept of religion, deities, or afterlife. Some other animals do seem to understand death though,
38 years ago here, I could see The Milky Way. Then only the stars and planets. And now I can barely see the brightest planets sometimes.
(09-09-2024, 09:36 PM)Cavebear Wrote:(09-09-2024, 08:13 PM)Edible crust Wrote: I always thought that everything is found in nature including religion, unless of course we are pretending not to be animals ourselves. How can we ever truly know what goes on in the brains of other animals? I often wonder what's happening between my dog's ears. (09-09-2024, 08:13 PM)Edible crust Wrote: I always thought that everything is found in nature including religion, unless of course we are pretending not to be animals ourselves.
Being told you're delusional does not necessarily mean you're mental.
09-09-2024, 10:24 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-09-2024, 10:25 PM by brewerb.)
Religion is unnatural (09-09-2024, 09:53 PM)Edible crust Wrote:(09-09-2024, 09:36 PM)Cavebear Wrote: The natural world, other than us humans, has no concept of religion, deities, or afterlife. Some other animals do seem to understand death though, ![]()
Being told you're delusional does not necessarily mean you're mental.
My dog's idea of heaven is mounting the mobile hairdresser.
^ She must be a real dog.
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If you get to thinking you’re a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else’s dog around.
(09-09-2024, 09:36 PM)Cavebear Wrote: The natural world, other than us humans, has no concept of religion, deities, or afterlife. How would we know? I'll grant you that we don't find organized religion in any other animal, but what would we even look for if we were trying to pick up on more basic religious behaviors? If we go by the way religion evolved in our peculiar little species, we might want to look for something pretty basic, personal, and shamanistic/animistic. We know that we can induce superstition in something no sparkier than a pigeon with little effort, so it isn't a big stretch to get religion. And if we are the only species with religion then what does that say about us? Other than we have Daddy Issues?
09-10-2024, 02:10 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-10-2024, 02:11 AM by mordant.)
Religion is unnatural
In my view, what produces religion is the awareness of mortality. Someone or other said that when humanity achieved self-awareness, it was a burden most of us could barely endure. Religion explains the unknown, including the afterlife. It invents systems to ensure one is protected both before and after death. It provides an emotional framework for carrying on in the face of mortality and the fact that we find ourselves, unasked for, alone, in a vast indifferent universe.
It wasn't until science provided a better explanatory framework that we started to rely less on religion. We know that thunder isn't Thor's hammer. We know how not to get hit by lightning and we have gotten pretty good at being relatively free of hunger and disease (emphasis on "relatively"). But the fact remains that none of us get out of this alive. And so religion endures. That's why we don't see it in animals. They live in the moment. They don't think about dying. Just eating and fucking. Yes, they have feelings, and I think the beginning glimmers of abstract thinking in a few species; they can experience love to a certain amplitude, and therefore mourn loss. I swear one of our dogs has existential issues of a sort; he's the only dog my vet has on Prozac. But it's more a floating anxiety than anything coherent. He's old now, but doesn't know he's going to die soon. He doesn't have to get right with some deity. (09-07-2024, 11:49 PM)mordant Wrote: You never see animals inventing gods. What a waste it is of human mental capacity to waste it on such things. Or calculus, or semiconductors, or Wi-Fi routers, or pencil sharpeners, or.... Kudos to to you sir! This is one of the finest windups I've seen in a long while.
Ironic how the most intelligent animals have managed to come up with the stupidest of ideas.
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