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UpTickInDowngrade wrote (edited )

In many cases religion is a form of resistance. Religions were the perfect answer to bondage. Religions have been the antidote to oppressive measures for thousands of years. Before religion became the jailer it was in the hearts of the jailed and enslaved. Many of the religious leaders and martyrs and prophetic types of the past preached and taught a lesson of revolting. The ideals of a lot of religious teaching is to have compassion... even when it is in diametric opposition of the leaders and so on. Religion was the world's first codification of morals. Before there was written laws, humans were organizing morality into folklore and mythology and spirituality, and this in it self was the first resistance to hierarchy. Before that happened tribalism and hierarchy were the norm. It is a strange idea to consider a point where mythology and "spirits" and "gods" of the wind, sun, air, water etc were all just notions of explaining nature and then through out time those notions evolved into morality, polytheism then monotheism and finally ending up full circle.... a tool to control and excuse plundering and exploitation. The feeling people get from religion (literally the dopamine buzz as it triggers the reward center) coupled with the other instrumental aspects it offers a believer surely has to be a powerful experience if it allows the believer to withstand the cognitive dissonance as they see all the contradictory effects destroying the world around them.

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raindropq wrote

it is difficult trying to understand nature and communicate in the face of oppressive measures

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UpTickInDowngrade wrote

When reality is too complex the mind can see a pattern that is not really there. People use myths to digest the unexplainable. Thats why there are so many different cultures that arrived at the idea of gods existing. Superstitions have helped humans cope with complexity for a very long time.

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raindropq wrote

is reality ever simple enough to be objectively seen? if the mind can see a patterning, who's to say whether it's really not happening? how does reality come to exist and how is It sustained? how does perceiving a pattern among the natural complexity help (humans) to adapt and make-out ? is this metaphysical-mystic sense of environmental awareness and personal integrity necessarily superstitious if said liquid is observed as comprising of relations between all the things ?

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UpTickInDowngrade wrote

Reality doesn't "come to exist." Matter exists. Our understanding of the physical world is built on layers of investigation, observation, and experimentation and testing. Your ability to conceive the facts of matter depend on your intelligence levels and learned understanding of the subject. A lot of animals can recognize patterns - any animal that can be trained can, to some degree, "recognize" a pattern. Having the ability to recognize patterns allows the animal to detect threats and survive. For a human to see a pattern that is an illusion is not that useful, because it makes the person doing so operate based off a reaction to a fear that is so strong that it has over ridden their ability to investigate the truth and facts of reality. So far there is zero proof of any of the mythologies that people put faith into. Faith is the opposite of logic because rather than arrange the information and arrive at a fact based conclusion people with faith reach an illogical conclusion before they begin to investigate information in the pursuit of truth. These people with faith are told by a religion that they must never question the conclusion lest they be in danger of angering the god they are supposed to have faith in. Religions are dominated by patriarchy and hierarchy. Look into the great chain of being. This was a concept first fleshed out by Aristotle and Plato, but peaked in medieval times among Xtians. The concept codifies the hierarchy of all things from God to angels to humans all the way down to precious stones and dirt. Its been stated that racism is modeled off The Great Chain of Being in some ways, or perhaps the fundamentals of racism borrow from it. Genocide is easier to swallow when you can compartmentalize the victims as less than human savages unfit to live due to their savage ways of life. Native Americans went through genocide because they were supposedly filthy savages. People should not accept these dangerous tools of death - religion, racism, hierarchy, empiricism, etc just because other people don't want to learn and investigate and observe. If you think you can muddy the waters on what religion does to the world by bringing up subjective and objective reality then you are mistaken. This line of apologetic reasoning is stale.

"Oh those people didn't have a better idea, so umm, you sorta gotta give em a pass... which by extension means you have to allow people that believe in god today a pass... cause they just don't know any better, and their hearts mean well!"

Thats the general argument I see from you. The idea that because some people are ignorant they should be allowed into the conversation with those that are not - simply because they "mean well." You nor anyone else is given a pass to participate free of ridicule simply because you aren't "hurting anyone." If you have a point then make it, dont flounder asking obtuse and vague philosophical questions as if that is a debate or argument. I get why you would do such a thing, its a lot like a rebel flag supporter. You know the true meaning, but you have to obfuscate such and offer an alternate meaning as to excuse the truth.

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raindropq wrote

i appreciate the opportunity to dialogue and like to respond. in the meanwhile i'm curious What is the story behind your username ?

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sand wrote

^^^yo this is a really good series of questions, raddlers^^^

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