Religion is a very old and powerful memeplex. It has successfully established itself as a special case in epistemology, ethics, legal and social systems. Religion uses its exceptional status to spreads literally wrong beliefs, anti-epistemical thought patterns, bad cultural norms and outdated philosophical ideas. You can threat it as a cognitive fallacy if you want: your mind is more likely to accept terrible ideas if they are part of a religion, so be extra careful when dealing with religions. In this way a sense of aversion towards everything religious can be viewed as a protective mechanism, created in order to counter-balance this fallacy.
It doesn’t mean that you should restrict you from ever hearing religious perspectives as some kind of info-hazard. Personally I think, that a better mechanism is to ensure that you treat religious ideas just as any others. Consider your arguments about the advantages of religion. Let’s reframe them as a general argument in favour of conservatism instead.
People have been practising some cultural norms for a long time. They are accustomed to them and whatever disadvantages there are, they are well understood. Is it, therefore, a good idea to keep practising them indefinetely? Obviously it depends on the merits of these norms and how our society change. Maybe some norms made sense then, but do not now. Maybe some norms have a reasonable part, which can be separated from a useless and/or harmful ones. Maybe some norms were terrible to begin with and we can get rid of them without any disadvantages. We wouldn’t find it out, unless we investigate. And while it’s wise to be carefull with addopting new approaches, we still should try new things if we want to progress as a species.
Do you notice that reframing an argument in favour of religious cultural norms as generic concervative argument makes it less persuasive? No more we intuitively assume that we are dealing with something inherently meaningful and necessary for our own spiritual health. At least we are more open to the possibilities that changes can be beneficial. We are less susceptible to the halo effect of the religion.
Religion is a very old and powerful memeplex. It has successfully established itself as a special case in epistemology, ethics, legal and social systems. Religion uses its exceptional status to spreads literally wrong beliefs, anti-epistemical thought patterns, bad cultural norms and outdated philosophical ideas. You can threat it as a cognitive fallacy if you want: your mind is more likely to accept terrible ideas if they are part of a religion, so be extra careful when dealing with religions. In this way a sense of aversion towards everything religious can be viewed as a protective mechanism, created in order to counter-balance this fallacy.
It doesn’t mean that you should restrict you from ever hearing religious perspectives as some kind of info-hazard. Personally I think, that a better mechanism is to ensure that you treat religious ideas just as any others. Consider your arguments about the advantages of religion. Let’s reframe them as a general argument in favour of conservatism instead.
People have been practising some cultural norms for a long time. They are accustomed to them and whatever disadvantages there are, they are well understood. Is it, therefore, a good idea to keep practising them indefinetely? Obviously it depends on the merits of these norms and how our society change. Maybe some norms made sense then, but do not now. Maybe some norms have a reasonable part, which can be separated from a useless and/or harmful ones. Maybe some norms were terrible to begin with and we can get rid of them without any disadvantages. We wouldn’t find it out, unless we investigate. And while it’s wise to be carefull with addopting new approaches, we still should try new things if we want to progress as a species.
Do you notice that reframing an argument in favour of religious cultural norms as generic concervative argument makes it less persuasive? No more we intuitively assume that we are dealing with something inherently meaningful and necessary for our own spiritual health. At least we are more open to the possibilities that changes can be beneficial. We are less susceptible to the halo effect of the religion.