How would you revive religion in a futuristic sci-fi/space setting?

>>49776385
>40k
>Star Wars
>Firefly

You think in ideals. Ideally, science would oust religion.

But there will always be the "unknown". And people will always fill it with gods. And you also forget the religion doesn't NEED evidence to survive. Science has no bearing on the minds of people who run off faith.

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>>49776385
As a Mormon I feel my faith could survive just fine in most scifi settings but maybe that's just me.

>Inb4 Kolob

>>49776385
Scientific progress doesn't mean atheism.

>>49776385
>Wanting to play a religious person in a setting where atheism is the most dominant ideology
*tips mitre*

>>49776385
Logical positivism.

The religions have to change to embrace the ideals of today rather than the worries of yesteryear. To put it simply, instead of the seeking of mystery being heresy, it has to be religion. If people don't feel like burning witches, and your religion burns witches, you won't find a lot of converts.

Humans naturally gravitate towards mysticism and religion, but the most successful religions are going to be the ones that tell people to do what they wanted to do anyway.

>>49776385
>How would you get people to buy into after thousands of years of scientific progress?
I think that would depend a great deal on what the intervening years of scientific progress end up looking like.

Scientific progress has only lead to a reduction in religiosity because of the perception that science is gradually answering the unanswered questions that religion once handled. If there turn out to be persistent unknowns about the origins of the universe, about human consciousness, etc. even in the far future, then religion may end up having a massive resurgence.

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>>49776385
The answer is simple.

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>>49776385

>reminder Buzz Aldrin took Communion when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon

Religion is never gonna disappear, anon.

It survived the abacus, the compass, the astrolabe, gunpowder, steam power, the computer, and the Saturn V rocket. What makes you think it can't survive hyperspace?

>>49776539
There is a correlation. With scientific progress comes greater methods of analyzing and supporting claims with evidence. Couple that with public education systems that encourage secular thought naturally and you have an atheistic society.

>>49776566
I'm trying to build a setting for a Traveller campaign and I wanted religion to be a minor theme. So fuck off.

>>49776385
Science discovers evidence of a god existing. There, done.

>>49776385

Dig through the archives at the Ancient Faith in the Far Future blog, he's put a lot of thought into it.

http://ancientfarfuture.blogspot.co.nz

>>49776624
Faith doesn't need evidence, just faith. It doesn't use liberal secular humanist scientific means or methods, so increasing one doesn't decrease the other. Correlated but not causal. hat's not even getting into how Humanism is pmuch religion with God replaced by whatever idealization of humans is popular.

Take a look at some keirkegaard and/or spinoza if you're interested in pretty analytical faith theory that doesn' necessarily mean god as monotheistic patriarch God. Malebranche is a slog, but he's coming at it from a weeeird Catholic/Cartesian angle that's pretty neat.

>>49776626

That doesn't necessarily mean people will engage in religion. See Larry Niven's short story "The Subject is Closed."

>>49776385

There's a wonderful Stanislaw Lem short story about a colony of robot monks. This planet had basically finished biology and neurology. The story was more or less a framing device for Lem to talk about how the dominant religion (not-Catholicism, Lem used to debate theology with Karol Wojtyla) had dealt with the fact that every miracle, every article of faith could be replicated or invalidated on a scientists workbench, and why these monks were still doing what they were doing, and being rather persecuted for keeping their faith.

The final takeaway was that the monks had nothing but faith itself and their observance was the only way to demonstrate it. They had actually figured out how to convert everyone on the planet to their way of thinking; and utterly refused to do it. The only thing that was left to them was faith itself. To take that faith and turn it into another technology would be to finally and utterly destroy it.

Which I think is a good model for how you could portray faith. Quiet monastic groups acting almost as caretakers of belief.

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>>49776385

Within the Skeptic's movement, a movement which is entirely dedicated to improving the world's critical thinking skills and championing science-based evidence - there are still thousands of religious members, including several prominent figrues within the movement.

You can't kill religion, anon. There isn't a corner you can chase it into, no matter how far you explore the fabric of the universe, there's still always going to be huge, unknown areas and unreachable areas where god can scurry into before you can catch him.
Even if you take away all the creation stuff away from him, people still *like the idea*. The idea of God is very easily a warm and fuzzy friend if you want it to be. The universe is weird and scary and random and cruel and every incarnation of God has always been a dude that says to your brain 'worry less, I'll handle the details. The universe makes sense and is familiar'.

And the stuff that makes religions are very basic human behaviours. People like belonging. They like community. Humanity is fucking super gay for being able to identify as something so they can pretend they're different from the average person. People also like having high ideals or something to aspire to, or even just flat out rules to live by. Tradition and ritual are foreign to me but they're really important to a lot of people.

Further, as you make something unfashionable, people will come by and pick it up for that reason alone.


If you want an example of religion in Sci-Fi, in the Red Mars series, members of the original settlers start a secret cult for little more reason than a new planet means they can create any society they want. It's full of weird rituals and has it's whole own idea about what life is and it's purpose but it doesn't make any real claims about how the universe works. Just big vague things. It's more about belonging to something and being different and creating new traditions and connecting to all those weird vague stuff religion loves

>>49776616
Statistics.

One thing I'm doing in a setting I'm working on is to have a setting where far-future transhumans idolize ancient culture (specifically the 4000 years prior to 2500. and medieval to renaissance Europe most heavily), and religion survives because of the fact that they literally maintain a liturgical church that's in vogue, even if few people actually have faith.

True believers are rare, but they do exist, especially in off-shoot colonies that have more of a unique identity than their fellows.

>search Dune
>no results
Was that one too obvious?

>>49776385
what if the "thousands of years of scientific progress" IS the religion?

In the future people realized science was backwards and antiquated, and phased it out in favor of [actual future science].

But alas, some civilizations still hold on to ye olde ideas

>>49776503
>You think in ideals. Ideally, science would oust religion.

This is you being stupid.

Science is just another branch of knowledge, and it has limitations, limitations inherent in its need for repeatable results and other forms of confirmation.

There are simply some things that science is absolutely incapable of handling, but the space beyond is not simply and endless void of "unknown."

Religion exists with and outside of what science is equipped to handle. It's not a "sceince vs. religion" thing like atheists like to believe, because ultimately science has no bearing on the majority of the matters that religion deals with, since Theology is a pretty intense form of philosophical study that stresses the limits of human understanding to such a degree that it was considered the most difficult subject, requiring a proof of mastery in all other educational disciplines before you were allowed to pursue a Theological degree.

Most atheists like to think in a "Religion is dumb" kind of angle, failing to recognize that for the better part of the last thousand years the brightest minds in the world were dedicated to the deepest mysteries conceivable, and they are unwilling to admit the inherent and practical limitations of scientific inquiry that are not shared by other methods.

Science is great, but logic extends beyond the method, and human rationality is not limited to "mere" science.

>>49776385
Even if everything ever was understood and explained by scientists, you would never get rid of people's need for religion. Evolution is the ur-example here - we've known about it long enough to have literally watched it happen, and people still hold on to the "it's just a theory" line.

>>49777494
>There are simply some things that science is absolutely incapable of handling
Such as?

>>49778517
>we've known about it long enough to have literally watched it happen
I really hope you mean in fruit flies or something, cause otherwise...

>>49777494
To top that off, go speak to a practiced Flat Earth Society debater if you have doubts that science is a religion wearing a lab coat.

>>49778559
Science can't give an account of itself, for one.

>>49776385
No one ever questions future-religion. It doesn't have to hold up to our logic, just make sure it holds up in the story.

Your excuse can be whatever, people've suggested a few things. Science discovered possible evidence of god, science discovered something that shouldn't exist in a rational world, people have eschewed science due to setting events, some old guy developed super psionic powers, just go wild.

>>49776385
Orion's arm had some interesting ones, it also had Post singularity AI so it might not count.

Some groups may also believe in a meaning to the universe, some kind of goal that each being is a pawn of, self determination is a lie, something greater than the self exists.

Communism has religious undertones

A few options come to mind:

1. "Science" isn't really a Religion but it could grow to occupy that social force, complete with "Inquisitionners" stamping out the heresy of logical fallacies, maybe engaging in a few/a lot of witch hunts themselves.

2. Space itself might become an object of religious reverence. Its significance to starfarers would surpass the mystery and danger of the ocean for sailors. For similar reasons as to why early Man worshiped the Sun a galactic people may well fall for the all-encompassing allure of the Big Black.

3. Return of the mystery cults. Humans have probably always held a certain attraction for the unknown and, how ever far science has gotten, there is going to be a lot of unknown in space... Maybe it's an incomprehensible relic of a lost civilization, maybe it's a creative interpretation of a once-every-eon event. Small cults will probably be the most plentiful religions in your sci-fi (dis)topias.

4. Tribalism/ ancestor worship developing on isolated backwater planets.

5. Rouge AI/Precursor Species/Fucking Space Demons that demand your worship.

>>49779507
>Inquisition against ignorance
I want to see this.

>>49779507
I suppose 2 is sort of like pantheism

Instead of heavily organised religion, I imagine religion going down to become a more personal thing with everyone having slightly different beliefs and just that " there's more to life than just physics/maths/science/whatever".

>>49778559

Intrinsically, Science can only deal with things that are material. There has to be something to test.

If you said that God existed outside of time and space, Science couldn't say anything about the legitimacy of that. Of course we have a bunch of heuristics that would tell us that that's just special pleading, or that the claimant by necessity can't prove anything they just said, but those aren't scientific systems, and you couldn't test the claim with Science.


Science can't prove logic or mathematics or epistemology or anything covered in philosophy.

It also can't ultimately prove or disprove anything.

Science also struggles with stuff that's just difficult to test. Like Economics is only soft science at best because you can't run controls or repeats on most things it tries to look at. Psychology has similar issues. Our knowledge and ability to build reliable models is limited at this stage, so results from fields like those are pretty murky compared to more straight forward fields, like Geology.

I think that the current way of thinking about the place of science and religion needs to evolve if we want to solve this puzzle. Religion has a warped image of abuse for a lot of people, hence the vehement opposition of it.

However, science is slowly but surely getting into the same spot. Sure, the true nature of science never changed because it is methodical exploration in essence, but the way it is used day by day is the same abuse of power and trust as with religion. When scientific facts become marketing tools, when statistics and all sorts of data are falsified or sidelined to further political and economic gains, it really sounds like a repeat of your classic christian bullshit.

You can see that it's never been about science or religion, but immoral, selfish, and irresponsible people using and abusing whatever power they can get their hands on to further their own personal goals. Consequently, if we as a people do not evolve as human beings, individual by individual, these people will have their way with us without consequence.

Who doesn't love some manifest destiny?

Right now the pinnacle of scientific method seems to be theoretical phisics which, to the eyes of the uninitiated, seems just as cryptic and dogmatic.

However reality trumps human rationalization, right now there are stars so big and massive our current understanding of phisics would suggest their existence should not be possible, we still have no idea what 70% of the universe is made of and NASA is developing an engine which they themselves have no idea how it even produces thrust.

Many scientists are religious, as in past centuries, ones beliefs have little to no impact to scientific discovery.

Isn't it incredibly ironic that the same people who dismiss believers as sheeple willing to beg an old man in the sky, are often completely convinced of theories such as the many universes theory or believe in the existence of dozens of dimensions they'll never experience?

Plus as far as we know determining with certainty the existence of an higher being will forever be a logical pitfall

>>49776385
look around you, we're a few thousand years into what's edging on scientific enlightenment (for the people who actually know what the fuck they're talking about) and it has done little to nothing to raise the rockbottom standard of intelligence for the general population.

>>49776385
Haven't caught up to the thread yet, but id add in some of the space superstitions archived on suptg or even just have meaningful statistical variances in the odds of not having the ship go event horizon when the captain says his prayers before hitting hyperspace.

>>49777494
My man.

To add to your comment of "Most atheists like to think in a "Religion is dumb" kind of angle", most atheists like to think in a "Religion just tries to explain physical phenomena" kind of angle. To the contrary, I think most of a religion's point is not to explain the world, but to explain to people what is a good way to live. The science-religion "conflict" is fucking dumb because they address very different things. Many things people don't consider spiritual matters are, if we're honest with ourselves. Many atheists, or rather people who claim to be a-religious, denounce anything they can't measure in some way but care about concepts like honour, respecting the dead, life/consciousness, even though they're all unquantifiable abstracts. All knowledge beyond "I am" is ultimately based on that which is unproven and unproveable.

>>49776385

Transhumanism founded on the principles set forth by a precursor race.

ie. Vanu Sovereignty

>>49777494
Fucking this! Well done anon

>>49780484
Many things explain people what is a good way to live from Capital to Atlas Shrugged. What sets religion (At least what we here came to think as religion, ie Christianity, Islam, Judaism) apart is basing its claim for relevance in explaining cosmology: claim to know who created the Universe, what does he wants and what incentives he's offering.

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>>49776503
Science ousting religion is stupid.
First of all, religion isn't a memetic brain disease that can be cured, it's an innate genetic instinct that unites tribes.
Second, "science" can't replace spiritual purpose-seeking, it's an epistomology, not a code or worldview. Unless you're talking about worshipping how smart you are.

>>49780870
In a 2013 meta-analysis, led by Professor Miron Zuckerman, of 63 scientific studies about IQ and religiosity, a negative relation between intelligence and religiosity was found in 53, and a positive relation in the remaining ten. Controlling for other factors, they can only confidently show strong negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity among American Protestants.

>>49776624
>>>49776566
>I'm trying to build a setting for a Traveller campaign and I wanted religion to be a minor theme. So fuck off.

When did a tip of the hat become an insult worthy of being told to fuck off?

>>49780933

>American Protestants

Well, there is your problem!

>>49777494
This post if fucking idiotic.

Theology is like the least intense type of philosophy with baby wheels in the form of assumed propositions. Religion offers nothing informative whatsoever. It preaches nothing but a satisfaction for ignorance just like this post. Any answers it gives are purely speculative and subjective, and worst of all fully grounded in the bigoted and lacking world views of people who knew less. Even in terms of moral and spiritual knowledge, if there are such things, religion is incredibly impoverished. It offers one simplified version to stop people asking any real questions about the subject matter and be content with ignorance.

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>>49776385
Details, OP we need details, What are the typical means of communication in the setting? How easy it is to spread ideas between planets? Can you just sit down and send insteanous messages over quantum entanglement- based internet? if so, you could have teleevagelists preaching to whole planets at a time but also a lot of qiubbling over dogma ande splinterling of the faith, because opinions from all the planets are all migling together (unless, of course somebody has a monoply on communication , they´re going to spread the relgiom of whoever runs them, or their own, even.

If, the other hand the only means of communications across vast interstellar distances are FTL courier ships and the trips can take generations or more, the relgion is likely to ,,mutate in transit"

How much cultural continutity is there? If you have an apocalyptically world-shaking event aprox. every 10 000 years like in wh40k there is going to be lot lot of culture, history and religions getting lost, people in various placres deifying heroes who saved them from their local crises, and ideas evolving from half- remembered dogma in isolation. For just a name drop, see Orange Catholics or Zensunnis in Dune. Also pic related makes a good point.

To summarise, think about interesting culture and influnces in interesting places and see what grows from that. If you want to do know what social sciences say about this look up Anthony Foster Wallce and his analysis of religion using a building-block approach and his theories on social and religious revitalization movements. Sorry, I can´t find a good article on that which I could post right now.

>>49776385
Have the religions be sensible instead of Semitic cults.

Space Buddhism and Space Theosophy and Space Deism are completely viable.

>>49776385
Dune got it right. Faced with endless void, mankind will return to religion with a vengeance.

>>49776385
Make the gods real.

I imagine in the future religion will be more new age scientology-flavored, with more pseudo-science and less burning bushes.

It was probably the same when current traditional religions were born, but now they operate out of millenia-old ignorance and not fresh, hip and new ignorance.

It is unlikely humans will ever stop seeking to worship the unknown.

>>49776616
I enjoy this image.

>>49776616
What was the last image supposed to be?

>>49782450
Men got eaten by dinosaurs, so the women are running the show now.
please, anons, don´t start a shitstorm over this.

>>49778559

First off, I'm both religious and a scientist. Many of my colleagues are religious, and at my kid's (religious) school most of the parents are scientists of one kind or another (or doctors). Let's just get that out of the way right now.

Science is a positivist discipline. It's concerned with primarily what IS, explanation of observed phenomena. The scientific method is used to answer questions about the causal processes that we observe in nature (including human behavior). Science is NOT normative: it cannot on its own rule that some phenomena are more desirable than others. Other branches of philosophy, including theology, have to provide that (non-scientific) moral premise. Once you have a sense of what outcomes are good or bad, you can USE science to determine what actions may bring about the good and avoid the bad.

Science and religion are not necessarily in conflict. In fact, the great rabbi Maimonides considered scientific research a moral duty and made many scientific discoveries of his own (in addition to his religious work).

(1/3)

>>49782516

Where atheists usually "disprove" religion is on grounds where religion tries to explain observed phenomena (and where religion will almost always lose). That's true even in the rare cases where much later the religious answer turned out to be closer to the truth than the scientific answer. Religion will never out-science science.

Atheists often try to create replacement theologies that don't involve religious revelation. The results are almost always logically consistent moral systems... which are based on premises carefully selected to justify the moral rules that the atheist had already started with. Pretty much whenever this has happened (many times in human history), the system works for a generation and then quickly society's moral center falls apart. Most of the worst atrocities of the 20th century were by anti-religious movements: the nazis' pagan primitivism was an evil racist strawman parody mishmash of Marx, Spengler, and Nietzsche. Communism, of course, was proudly atheist and lead to an immense series of bloodbaths in nearly every country where it took root. So science will never out-religion religion. The Romans and Greeks had their descents into cynical secularism; again it was motivated by a view that religion is irrationalism and again after a generation or two it lead to decadence and moral collapse.

A religious person would argue this happens for ontological reasons-- that secular moral systems fail because they fail to recognize the legitimate moral authority of whatever deity(ies) they believe in. An atheist scientist might take this as a simple given of human behavior and accept religion as a necessary lie to keep the peasants honest (this teleological argument goes back at least to the ancient greeks as well).

(2/3)

>>49776385
>revive
>not having Space Jews as one of your primary religious groups

>>49782516
>>49782572

Now, there's another way of interpreting what happens when a state secularizes, and for that we can look to Spengler (the real one, not the fake strawman idol the nazis erected). That's that cultures go through phases where as they develop, cultures become more cynical, more cosmopolitan, and eventually reject their founding values. This results in corruption and social upheaval.

When people cite a "correlation", they're not citing statistics. The correct unit of analysis for this kind of problem is the individual culture. The aftermath of Western colonialism means that basically since the industrial revolution, you've had N=1, at least so far as technologically/scientifically literate urban cultures go. As that culture has gotten older, science has advanced. And also, religious practice has declined.

And yet it's not at all clear that the one caused the other. It seems rather more likely that both are symptoms of common causal factors. First is the march of Time (as knowledge accumulates, whether slowly or quickly). Second is material prosperity*, which allows people to indulge themselves and so gives an incentive for people to reach for philosophical outlooks that permit them to do so.

I've noticed in my own experience that actual real scientists tend to be much less expansive in their claims about what questions science is capable of answering. People are quick to reach for Science to justify what their intuition and appetites already favor. They're much less likely to change their minds or behavior about profound moral questions based on scientific evidence-- least of all the ones who trumpet science as a cure-all. And maybe, in decision-making across an entire society, that's why atheist moral systems have so far always failed.

* OK, yes, science --> technology --> prosperity --> irreligiosity. Not the causal path that the atheists in this thread support, but I would agree with them that there's SOME endogeneity in the model.

3/3

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>>49777494
Bravo.

>>49776624
>Couple that with public education systems that encourage secular thought
There's your answer. It's not that science = atheism (because there are plenty of scientists who are religious and historically most of the great scientists and pre-scientists were religious), it's thatkids are taught that all gods are like Zeus, that is, "sky wizards."
I find it quite irritating that atheists think rational thought began in the 18th Century, and so ignore over ONE THOUSAND YEARS of philosophy because "lol a priest did it." Hyperbole, but you get my point.
Also reminder that separation of Church and State was created by the Church to protect it from the State, and without that distinction, only enabled by Christianity, we never would have got the modern secular state.

>>49782572
>The Romans and Greeks had their descents into cynical secularism
For more info, this is Stoicism and Epicureanism.

>>49776914
>Faith doesn't need evidence, just faith
Only if you're a New-ager, anon. I really hate that idea that Faith is anti-evidence, or stands in lack of evidence, or doesn't involve evidence at all. (That is called fideism). That particular notion is a relatively new heresy.

>>49780933

You should check out Jonathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind". He's a social psychologist who's done extensive work in this field. An atheist liberal himself, his work is highly acclaimed across the spectrums of politics and religious belief. This book was most recently recommended in Cass Sunstein's article on toleration of political dissent.

It's also interesting to note that all social sciences owe their existence to the writings of Baruch Spinoza. (Already mentioned by >>49776914). He was religious though extremely heterodox (one of the only jews ever to have been excommunicated by his synagogue, though there were political factors involved). He too made many contributions to both theology and science.

To OP: I suggest that you take a good college introductory course on religious philosophy. It sounds like your only background knowledge is a pop-sunday school version of Christianity. CS Lewis's Screwtape Letters is a quick, easy read that's incredibly fun for the /tg/ crowd, and might whet your appetite for deeper stuff by him and others. If you can handle them, Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine are also good sources.

For other religions, Maimonides has already been mentioned; Jews made their peace with science back in the Roman era and there's immense mutual respect between religion and science in judaism. Hindus and Moslems have a similar positive tradition, though I'm not the one to recommend sources on these. Chinese philosophies so intertwine religion and science that many westerners (used to the Christian template for what a religion is) deny that they count as religions at all.

So tl;dr there's immense amounts of advanced theology that should satisfy you that while particular religions come and go, there's no necessary incompatibility between science and religion. You can include religion in your high-tech sci fi setting with a clear conscience and staying 100% in compliance with social science as we currently understand it.

Well said.

Much of what we see as some kind of intrinsic conflict between science and religion

>>49782888
>>>49782572 (You)
>>The Romans and Greeks had their descents into cynical secularism
>For more info, this is Stoicism and Epicureanism.

Yeah but I felt like my post was more than long enough without going too deep down that rabbit hole.

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>>49776385

See The Mayors story in Foundation

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>>49776539
Religion is superstition and scientific enlightenment reduces superstition. Sure, religion is tenacious, especially when there is social pressure/influence from the traditions of a culture, and most scientists in the US (and, I would assume, the West in general) are still Christian--they, after all, grew up in a Christian land where most were raised by Christian families--but they are less religious than society as a whole, and they contribute to a growing secularization of that society. It's a slow, uneven process, and you can expect some backsliding whenever things get really bad, as people seek comfort in reassuring superstitions, but it's still a definite trend. Assuming we continue to see scientific, technological and material progress, I definitely would expect to see religion as we know it fade away. I do, however, think that we probably see it replaced by some sort of spiritualism that's less tied to mythology and more to feelings and outlooks. Basically, we'd remove all the preposterously unrealistic tall tales and magic from religion but retain the spiritual message.

>>49776518
I'm pretty sure I've seen media produced by the LDS church talking about the obligation of humanity to explore space and find the other worlds created by all the other gods.

>>49778575
one of the earliest instances of the scientific method was in the discovery that the earth was round.

>>49782450

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHGHkGmOmD4

>>49779804
this is the truth. The flaws are in humans not the tools they build.

>>49782450
It's from Jurassic Park

Jeff Goldblum: "God invents dinosaur, God kills dinosaur. God creates man, man kills God, man creates dinosaur..."
Paleobotanist Lady: "Dinosaur...eats man...Women inherit the Earth."
*Jeff Goldblum gives her a CostanzaBelittles.jpg reaction*

Atheist here, im surprised how many fedora tippers are there in /tg/. Religion isn't opposed to scientific tought or developement, nor is science the ultimate method to achieve knowledge.

Also, there are pretty simple answers to OP question:

- A religion that opposes genetic/cybernetic augmentation of the human body and its fuelled by the natural fear and alienation of chaning the human form, so it gets a ton of people supporting the religion.
- A religion that praises mysterious/extinct aliens, not as gods, but as spiritual examples and a model for a good civilization. Basically weebs in space.
- Any religion focused on spiritual development of the individual trough exercise, meditation or other ways could thrive. Kinda like taoism.
- A religion that claims to be something like science, something like the metabiology in the Evangelion universe, studying the body of strange beings and mixing it up with spiritualism and ancient dogma.

>>49777494
>be me
>seeing all replies this post has gathered
>Fucking hell, these must be retards to-
>realise most of them are supportive of anon
/tg/'s still best board

>>49776566
Its real life ... (lol)

25 year pastor here, 30 year gamer,

How to make this setting easy?
1) discovery of old trove of literature that are
A) scholastically vetted
B) controversial to current culture

Plus)
Add a hidden community who secretly hold to the old religion and someone in the cultural leadership comes out of the closet as being a believer in this old faith.

Additional thoughts on some of the sub topics in this thread:
Science and religion are not opposites, or even competing, they are different sides of the same coin on how to process information about the universe.
I have backgrounds in astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology. Most of my colleagues are not skilled to deal with the science sides of theology and it's too bad. Most pastors can't grasp science nor are they skilled in apologetics.
Atheism today is different then scholastic anti-theism.

>>49783124
>Foundation series
I especially like the depiction of the empire shortly before its fall.
>Galactic empire is 10,000 years old
>Technology is so complex and esoteric that you have to be extremely specialized to make any kind of technological progress
>There are thousands of years of research available on any given subject, so nobody really does any kind of research anymore. Why bother doing mediocre experiments when you could simply learn from the great masters.

Humans aren't smart enough to fully understand the world using purely rational means. At a certain point, science becomes so complex, doctrinal, and difficult to verify that it's indistinguishable from religion.

Just look at all the people who use stuff like quantum physics to reinforce their beliefs. If they talked to an actual physicist, they might learn that they're completely mis-interpreting the "observer effect", and that it has nothing to do with a magical intangible "consciousness". Or they'll probably just won't be able to understand what they physicist is saying and won't change their beliefs (because this stuff is actually really complex and can't be simply explained in a 3-minute youtube video with cute whiteboard drawings).

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>>49776385
Atheists stopped reproducing and Darwin took care of the rest.

>>49777442
But science doesn't prescribe rituals and behaviour.
A better future science would just be a better epistemology, the exact procedures when doing research differs on a few steps but really it wouldn't be noticeable.

You can't have science BE the religion because science and religion occupy totally different spaces. They can come in conflict when dogma clashes with findings but they don't compete over the same spot in people's mind.

>>49776385
Religion in the future isn't going to be something that is totally forgotten. Just like ancient empires and ideas, it will be taught.

Now as to if it is practised, even some of the world's top scientists are religious. I remember reading somewhere that more scientists and researchers are converting to religions more than ever. Although I could be wrong about that. Personally, there will always be a need to feel more spiritual in somebody's life. May not be yours, may not be the next persons, but somebody out there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6rouSJad2I

>religion and science cannot coexist and the triumph of one means the defeat of the other
Kierkegaard states that faith and reason belong in their own spheres. They can coexist. Where reason fails us, faith prevails, and where faith fails us, reason prevails. There will never be a time where mankind doesn't need either.

Anyways, there's some fun ideas, mostly related to the Christian faith, and mostly related to non-trekkie style future settings where aliums are rare, because that's what I know.

>crusaders that just pick a random direction in the solar system and trek outwards, searching to find god and building temples wherever they go, so others can follow them in case they fail
>explorers that wish to marvel at every bit of gods creation, as well as preserve it and catalog it
>sci-fi jesus freaks that are looking for their own garden of eden on an isolated planet where they can live innocently and amongst nature
>The Last Question kind of scenario, engineers and programmers build a machine so powerful it can improve on itself, and eventually bond with humanity and become god, saving the universe from entropy
>anti-tech, anti-cloning, anti-augmentation resistors that pursue a low-tech lifestyle out of fear of losing their fundamental humanity
>Imperium-style 'purge the xenos' faction that sees alien races with superior tech as devils, false gods

>>49777494
How does this show he's stupid for saying "Ideally, science would oust religion."? You just stated what science and religion are, while his statement is referring to what they could be (or what he would want them to be)

>>49783958
>be me
/tg/'s best board, but only in spite of you, anon

>>49776385
There is still something unknowable.
For example:
> Does God lurk in hyperspace?
> Is hyperspace God?
> Sufficiently Advanced Aliens may be revered as gods by some cultures.
> The fact that we landed on this rocky planet and survived is proof God exists and loves us.
> God is in the empty spaces between stars, and between atoms in molecules.
> Pray, damn you, pray! Pray, and the reactor continues to function! Stop, and who knows what'll happen?
> Cult of the machine
> The AI in charge of your life support insists you refer it as a god. Philosophical debate in the common room has turned up the answer that it may as well BE one, in regards to life on board ship. It's first act of divinity was to declare the people arguing in favour of a factory reset to be heretics, and for them to be cast out the airlock.

>>49789184
>AI in charge of your life support
Those fools deserve the terrible fate that awaits them

>>49789337
As if a human can micromanage gas levels in the air, and also run the water and hydroponics systems with constant vigilance.
I bet you've never had to calculate how much air is lost per year to air molecules seeping through the hull plating, or oxidisation of the deck plates.

>>49777293
This.
Eventually this old stale meme will forgotten, and humanity will be finally free from godcucks

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In addition to the Void worship some anons mentioned above, I like the inclusion of historical spacefarers, including Armstrong, Gagarin, the crew of the Colombia, and Watney as Saints/Demigods/Minor gods.

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>>49776589
Get fucked Carnap

>>49788764
Kierkegaard a shit. The "leap of faith" is not the traditional meaning of faith.

Science informs our reason of the facts of nature. Science creates "is" statements.
>The apple falls, because gravity is a product of matter warping space.

Religion informs our reason of the nature of ourselves, creating obligations, "ought" statements
>You OUGHT not to murder, exploit, enslave, etc because everyone is equally created in God's image, even though their mortal coils are not equal.

I sure do love how we're regressing to the ancients' "natural hierarchy." You might want to think about that OP.
Since religion informs man of his own nature, it also informs him of how he is to treat his fellow men.

>>49779804

This, mucho this.

>>49788985
>, while his statement is referring to what they could be (or what he would want them to be)
It shows that he is stupid for not understanding what religion is, if he WANTS it to go away. The post explains why the idea of science "outsting" religion is a nonsensical thought because each of them play a different role to begin with: which proves the assumption that the two are competing and one should win over the other fundamentally dumb.

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>>49777494
Best post I've seen on /tg/.

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>>49782516
>>49782572
>>49782761
based religious scientists

>>49780870
>religion isn't a memetic brain disease that can be cured

Sure it can.

>>49776566
I think you mean...

*tips menorah*

>>49778710
Nothing can give an account of itself.

>>49776518
HOLY CRAP THERE ARE TWO OF US HERE!

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I find that the more we discover about the way God created the universe, the stronger my faith is. To discover the rules he created to run the universe is a blessing in itself as I can never really know how God thinks, but instead can know how he deals in matters that do not need his direct interest.

Truly I am blessed to be able to witness such things.

>>49783468
While amusing, I always found that scene to be pretty retarded specially on her part. She's supposed to be an inteligent scientist, wasn't she?

Or was she just telling a joke and I missed that?

>>49791231
Anyway, yes, I agree with
>>49776518. Science is all about HOW, and religion is all about WHY.

Plus, all you have to do is see if another planet has humans and if they believe in a Jesus figure that lived on a distant planet, and also see if they do the same things mormons are more or less doing.

>>49791274
Truly. I consider discovery in and of itself to be something of a form of worship, because it gives us still further glimpses into the mind of God Himself.

>>49791313
Amen

>>49791278
>Or was she just telling a joke and I missed that?
I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be a joke.

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>>49776385
With the widespread application of incredible science or the growing area of humanity's existence I can see even more need for faith and not less.
When we are further and further removed from an understandable state we need something human to give ourselves a sense of purpose and community. Even scientists will be more and more specialised to deal with more and more esoteric fields.
At some point it becomes too much work to explain the details of the man made universe to the layman.

At that point faith takes over, not as a means to explain the universe but to help mankind live in it without going mad.

Can't you just let the secularists have this?

Religionists have reality under their control, so let us have fantasy under ours.

This thread really surprised me, with quite a lot of surprisingly level headed views on religion and on future. I was all gearing up to start explaining how religion and science are not in contradiction and blah blah blah, but clearly somebody has already done that for me. And well, I might add. Better than I could.

But lets take a look at another thing to consider, that people for some reasons kinda ignored.

That is: the assumption that future societies will be based on the same egalitarian, secularist civil order as modern west is. I mean: even if we assume that religion is diminishing it's impact with increasing scientific literacy and general human understanding of world (which is questionable to say the least), it's all based on the perception of people who live in a world where secularist, generally positivist and scientific education is actually GUARANTEED AND MANDATED by the state, constantly propagated by the public etc...

Why would we assume that future civilizations would continue the same route? Why would we assume that majority of the public will be systematically raised through secularist, mandatory education in a society where it's assumed that everyone, a blue collar worker or a or a top-ranking manager, should have roughly the same universal outlook on world, roughly the same basic education, roughly the same access to the same institutions?

It's entirely concievable that in future, entire major parts of the population will not be given access to scientific literacy, social mobility, enlightenment-style ideology and philosophy. Religion would probably be a major appeal to those masses.

>>49776385
People still need self validation?
Its like you don't understand why people go to religion and such labels and groups to begin with. Even fedora atheism is just "I'm a good person because the group/texts/father says so!"

Christianity would still exist (Although most likely bastardized to more easily follow current social values), so would any other religion. Science and reason is not interchangeable with religion, at worst it might just limit it and that depends on what it says.

>>49782888
>implying Napoleon wasn't an ally of the Vatican.

>>49782888
"The good christians" sect almost endangered the whole of the vaticans power and as a whole.

So of course the Catholics who were trying to convert these silly cultists sent their private army and slaughtered them all. Because they could not stop them.

Revive one? All it takes is someone to read something get in a tough spot and pray. Only to have them go on and spread the message. Soon people pray to a deity. Some come to be the speaker or advocate of said deity and spread it more.

Bam religion.

I think appeals to a more rustic, spiritually fulfilling way of life would me most effective, because the people would have no concept of them and be unable to tell romanticism from reality.

>>49776385
>How would you revive religion in a futuristic sci-fi/space setting?
Cultural Marxism

>>49791873
>not fanatical liberalism AKA Galactic french revolution

Git gud scrub.

>>49777494
>Spot the offended christian

>>49791958
>not memetic Kekism
get real

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>>49777494
Doesn't matter how preachy and hurtful you get about the truth, pic related is all that religion ever brought to humanity.

>>49781066
Haha! As a Catholic I agree wholeheartedly.
Inb4 Whore of Babylon

>>49777494

This is you being stupid.

Religion is just another branch of shepherds being afraid of the dark, and it has limitations, limitations inherent in its need for repeated baffling results and other forms of coincidence.

There are simply some things that religion is absolutely incapable of handling, but the space beyond is not simply and endless void of "unknown."

Ethics and metaphysics exists with and outside of what religion is equipped to handle. It's not a "religion vs. ethics and metaphysics" thing like zealots like to believe, because ultimately religion has no bearing on the majority of the matters that ethics and metaphysics deals with, since ethics and metaphysics is a pretty intense form of philosophical study that stresses the limits of human understanding to such a degree that it was considered the most difficult subject, requiring a proof of mastery in all other educational disciplines before you were allowed to pursue an ethics or metaphysics degree.

Most zealots like to think in a "Ethics is dumb because I can follow god's word" kind of angle, failing to recognize that for the better part of the last thousand years the brightest minds in the world were dedicated to the deepest mysteries conceivable, and they are unwilling to admit the inherent and practical limitations of religious dogma that are not shared by other methods.

Religion is great, but blindly following whatever some starving peasant said thousands of years ago to artificially inflate their social status extends beyond the method, and human comfort is not limited to "mere" religion.

>>49791335
In the book she was also feminist (many Crichton books had a feminist as a character) so it was really just an off-cokor joke

>>49792239
Shit Anon, that's one of the worst >fixed posts I've ever seen.

>>49776385
Dune
>>49776503
So yeah dune

>>49780870
We can and have identified the region of the brain associated with that instinct and have the ability to switch it on or off via electrical field interference though.

>>49791459
This seems intuitive at first, and in fact would have been perfectly reasonable for most of the 1900s, but what we're increasingly seeing is that automation renders the lower class as we understand it obsolete. It's especially egregious in space where the mass devoted to crewmen and life support is at a premium.

In order to be more than just emergency meat rations in space, or maybe, more generously, a warehouse full of spare auxiliary processors for the AI, people MUST have scientific literacy. Social mobility, sure, probably not. But in a society with 100% scientific literacy, you'll end up with only ideologies and philosophies that function in alignment with that level of rationality.

At the very least, any religions would not feature any claims of a miracle literally having ever happened, or having any possibility of happening. They would know their fucking place.

>>49792433
This is one of the dumbest things posted in this thread so far...

>>49792304
Dune? Dune

>>49776385
Why not go full Dune and combine religions
Go full Zensunni and mash shit together that in today's world would never work because we're talking thousands of years of progress and change
Fuck it, make a militant atheism/nihilism cult or something, it dont matter

Although I would stay away from the "no religion = peace and understanding" because 1. people always have needed to have belief in something and 2. people are naturally spiteful and evil and need a clear enemy

>>49792239
Actually, ethics and metaphysics are a central part of religious thought. After all, Aquinas is pretty much just Catholic Aristotle.

>>49791141
While this is true, you do have to also acknowledge that some of those dudes would be killed and/or shunned if they openly said "Hey this is proof I can actually replicate, I think religion was wrong on this"

>>49778799
A lot of political extremes, like Stalinism and Nazism or Falangism, have religious undertones.

Hitler and the Nazi inner circle literally said in speeches they wanted their movement to function like a religious order (watch Triumph of the Will, it's in there). In order to get full unquestioning devotion to the state you need to tap into the religious mindset.

For me one of the most interesting sci-fi religions are ones like this, where the head of state is a God-Emperor and the religion is built around him.

>>49792560
>A lot of political extremes, like Stalinism and Nazism or Falangism, have religious undertones.
Exactly that's why there's no such thing as atheistic extremism

>>49779652
>economics and psychology
these are limited right now but a lot of those sciences will become harder when computing resources become more abundant, so they're not really issues in a far future setting.

everything else in the post is true though.

>>49792597
Neither of them are actually sciences to begin with, so I doubt that.

>>49776385
After you've gone all the way to a majority-atheist society, the orthodoxy of religion has been stripped away and society is open to the superstition --> animism --> paganism process that originally created religious thought to occur again.

Already, even an educated person will not understand how the technology he uses on a daily basis really work. And that will only increase over time as technology grows more and more advanced. And religion always springs from the unknown.

In the future, we'll see a new paganism with the Machine God, and the Goddess of Space, etc.

>>49791274
you sound stupid as fuck

>>49792633
For the Omnissiah!

>>49792607
making elaborate models of the universe to study astrophysics is science

when you have the ability to make detailed models of economies or brains and run controlled, repeatable tests on them, it's science

>>49792793
>making elaborate models of the universe to study astrophysics is science
No.
Using a very specific methodological tool: that is science. Controlled experiments, high-fidelity prediction, entirely clear causal model, unabigious terminology. Those are necessary requirements for science.
Neither psychology nor economy can do those, or possess the tools to do that. Frankly, psychology does not even have the ambition to do that. Economy barely does either.

>>49779804
An underrated post in the extreme.

>>49784777
>this is what the modern secularist believes
what a waste of trips

>>49793304
>only secularists think science isn't ritualized worship

>>49776385
Point out the degeneracy caused by abandoning religion

>>49792820
They are referred to as 'soft' sciences.
Their methodology closely mimics that of the hard sciences like chemistry and physics, with models of reality, experiments and large sample sizes for rigor. However, it is generally accepted that a lot of the interpretation of the data depends on the imagination and creativity of the researcher, rather than any self-evident implication.

I believe (macro-)economics has the potential to become a hard science with modern computer simulation but unfortunately its subject matter is hopelessly political.

>>49792591
A religion can be atheist.
Certain sects of bhuddism are. They believe in a higher world but not in a higher being.
If you manage to make serving you a state religion it still van be atheist. An atheistic religion.

>>49792089
>Actually believing in the "dark ages"
top kek

>>49793559
>I believe (macro-)economics has the potential to become a hard science with modern computer simulation but unfortunately its subject matter is hopelessly political.

Unlikely as it would involve trying to predict what the entirety of humanity would be doing at any given point in time. In addition a society that knows it's being watched will react differently to a naive society. Until we can have predictive systems that can react to any conscious change to any society that does not want to be predicted macro economics as a whole tends to just be policies influenced by Keynes dumping money on random shit with very little positive impact on society as a whole.

>>49793579
>higher world
Being a modern atheist means being someone not bound by petty otherworldly beliefs and stale metaphysics.

>>49793615
That picture is self explanatory, only the blind can't see it.

>>49776518
Can you land on someone's heaven planet?

>>49779804
So, Calvin was right?

Both the Frenchman and the cartoon.

We gonna get REFORMED up in here.

>>49776385
Dude, even in the most stringently literalist interpretations of Christianity, part of our first duty and covenant with God (which, since He never broke His end of the bargain, is still is legally binding, at least in most Reformation doctrine I've read) was to NAME EVERYTHING.

As in, go forth, seek out what's new, give it a name, and therefore learn about the world around you. Adam's sin is not seeking knowledge, unlike every fucking anti-theist meme you will ever read. Adam's sin was breaking faith with his wife (blaming the eating of the fruit on Eve breaks pretty much all of the " love thy neighbor" stuff), and then lying, or at least bearing false witness about it to God's face.

>>49791308
Getting all Tuloriad up in here.

Religion was a mistake.
>>49793750
what

>>49793634
>>49793773
>>49792591
>>49783292

Sweet greedy Judas on the Hanging Tree, his guts on a rock…

C.S. Lewis was bloody prophet, wasn't he?

>>49793623
The structure of an economy only relies partly on the psychology of the people, it also has to do with the nature of value and sacrifice itself, something unchanging for any thinking being that values things.
There are definitely higher patterns that don't require simulation of every neurological quirk, just like chemistry doesn't require you to establish the spin and movement of every molecule.

>>49793740
>spoiler
Yeah, nah. If you like that interpretation you can keep it but that's really fringe.

>>49793999
You're working under the assumption that psychology only plays a small part in an economy, a collection of individuals making decisions based for various reasons. Under your assumption you can compare economics to chemistry, but if your assumption happens to be wrong your comparison is also wrong.

Will Wright has a really great talk on the history of models that involves a series of people making assumptions that complex systems are not as complex as they seem:

https://youtu.be/CdgQyq3hEPo?t=50m45s

militant agnostics

>>49793559
>They are referred to as 'soft' sciences.
No, they are not. They are referred to as not-sciences. Studies. Scholarly or academic disciplines. But not sciences.

>Their methodology closely mimics that of the hard sciences like chemistry and physics
First of all, it does not. It's a delusion that morons are trying to maintain because they wrongly assume that "science" is the ONLY right way to do things. It's however, a dangerous mistake. They pay for it. We all do. They should have never been treated as sciences, and we really should have gotten out of this habit of thinking that "science" is the only way to do academic work.

>I believe (macro-)economics has the potential to become a hard science with modern computer simulation but unfortunately its subject matter is hopelessly political.
Unless you can come up with a model that can A) account for all possible emergent behaviors in the system, including a whole bunch of which WILL BE ALWAYS UNPREDICTABLE, and B) solve problems like defining and quantifying "value" as unquestionable, scientifically solid and unabigious parameter (which you WON'T) is never going to happen.

>>49794340
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxDvjWTCmIY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R66r_XMoDkk

>>49776385
So many people here who fundamentally misunderstand what religion is about. At the core of religion is the religious experience, a hierophany, something that is non-reductible.

The fact that many religion had stuff like trying to explain physical laws or biology is inconsequential to this core experience. It's just that religions used to be holistic systems, describing the entirety of existence. Regulating your diet so that you won't get sick because of badly prepared pork, seafood, etc. used to be a part of many religions as well, but now it isn't.

So positivistic explanations of how stuff works, what causes lightning or what is the sun are completely superfluous, and can probably be ousted.

Also, what one should keep in mind is that Catholicism which is probably what most of us are familiar with isn't anti-science per se. The problem stems from the opposite, the fact is that it was too closely aligned with science as understood in the late antiquity and medieval era, the Platonic and Aristotlean philosophy, later developed into scholastics. Under this paradigm, quite a few working and correct scientific models were developed.
The problem is that this paradigm was completely abandoned during the Renaissance. But it didn't immediately bring with it a qualitative change - for instance during early modern era belief in witchcraft and magic was on the rise among educated people, as opposed to the medieval era where you had the ancient Greeks repeating that it's bullshit. I've seen people argue that French late medieval astronomers were closer to proving heliocentric theory than ones that came after them, and that Galileo used the work of those astronomers 200 years later. Then of course it developed into modern empiricism by trial and error, but quite a few errors were made.

So basically, even if you assume empiricism to be incompatible with religion, a paradigm shift might come in the future that renders some religious mode of thinking compatible again.

Growing up with a scientific education makes people less likely to believe in supernatural things for which there is no evidence. Abrahamic religions are no different to any other religion in that regard.

I just find it bizarre people act like the need for spirituality and faith is somehow inherent, most people who grow up secular don't have that need. Why should they?

>>49776385
It'll never go away because science and religion are not in conflict and only dimwits relieve that.
Actually the scientific method owes a lot more to the religious and in particular to te Catholic Church than to atheists.
Without Scholasticism preserving the concept of second causes, Aquinas developing a method of dialectics nobody managed to answer to etc, today europe would be like then middle east.

>>49794460
This guy knows perfectly what's up.

>>49794538
In my experience the need for strong convictions are inherit, but they don't need to come from religion.

>>49781141
Kill yourself

I don't know if you all noticed it but this is a bait thread

>>49792820
>psychology can't run experiments
>claiming that in a world where tools to record brain activity exist

>>49795040
I have just run out of both good will and words to explain how fucking dumb you people are. Jesus. If you don't know anything about psychology, don't take about psychology.
Why is it so damn difficult to observe a single, basic rule: Don't talk about shit you don't know anything about?

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>>49793647
get a load

>>49794538
Man, the idea of me dissolving into nothingness after death really, really makes me uneasy. I'll better believe that there's something after that, even if it's Hell, so that I can be less craven

>>49795052
I am sorry

>>49794878
I don't know if you noticed but there's some pretty nice discussion going.

>>49795057
confirmed for blind person

>>49795097
Aw shit, I didn't even bother opening it, assumed it's the same old bullshit
Saved

I want to read a story about the Finno-Korean Hyper-war.

>>49794360
>no they aren't
Yu-uh. They totally are.
And they do have experiments, the phrase 'social experiment' is a meme now but it's still something that is seriously done in the pursuit of knowledge.
Of course there is non-scientific academia. You know what that refers to? History. Literature. These things are about archiving and insight but not about emperical analysis.

>>49796544
>History. Literature.
Also economy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, politology, philosophy, law, even considerable portion of medicine.
You have liberal arts, social studies, and sciences. Psychology and economy fall under social studies.

>These things are about archiving and insight but not about emperical analysis.
You are so FUCKING PAINFULLY clueless it's not even funny. Jesus fucking Christ, people pull yourself together. Just don't talk about shit you don't understand and fuck off. It's actually amazing that you have the arrogance to make posts like these. It really boggles the mind.

>>49794538
The moment you think you're going to die you suddenly become hyper-religious. Everybody has this, they start asking help of imagined beings just for the off chance they might be real and then hope hard enough for it to work to start actually believing it. If you're then saved or the threat turns out to be imagined you dissmiss is as irrational.

In our everyday lives we don't feel the religious drive, that's why secularism is correlated with wealth and education level. But in time of need that instinct pops up with a vengeance.

>>49796594
Look buddy.
I know these things.
Your terminology is wrong and your understanding of academia is flawed too. Before you start raging against the ignorance of the world you should get your own facts checked.

>>49796594
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/soft-science

>>49794538
In Aristotelian thought, all men desire to know. However, many people are not aware that they have this desire. the highest form of knowledge is wisdom, the highest form of wsdom is knowledge of the original cause, and God is this original cause of all things. therefore, Human nature is to seek for God/gods/the preternatural/the divine, even if they do not realize that they have this desire.

Now, Christianity just so happens to have a lot of influence from Aristotelian thought.

>>49796641
>I know these things.
You lie. Which really makes this whole situation far more disturbing.
You don't know FUCK ALL. You just declared fields that don't and CAN'T use classical categories "sciences". You just claimed that experiment in social studies has the equal structure and validity as a scientific experiment.

You and this >>49796652 retard should probably start reading here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
Follow with this:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-method/
and following on the fucking sources until you actually realize how fucking little you know what you are talking about.

>>49796652
That definition clearly states those are fields that cannot establish rigorous and strictly measurable critera, which is the most FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE of something being science.
It's a misguided linguistic convention, product of misunderstanding of what makes science science, and it's a dangerous custom that should have been done away with. It makes as much of sense as calling atheism a religion.

>>49796742
>>49796823
Academics of hard science often mock the soft sciences (jockingly or not) as poor imitations of the 'real' thing. That's not unfounded, precisely because of the vague and subjective nature of their subjects.
However, they certainly do fall under the definition of scientific research and most definitely follow the scientific method. Ask a question, construct a hypothesis and test it. It's based the falsifiability of Popper like any scientific discipline.
Ask any psychologist, they'll tell you psychology is 90% statistics. It's a game of continuous measurement. And it's recognized as science, just not 'hard science'.

>>49794538
>, most people who grow up secular don't have that need. Why should they?
Okay. But let's look at charts showing commitment to religious beliefs and cross-reference them with charts showing the rate of suicides or number of people diagnosed with depression and see if there's any correlation.

>>49797004
It's probably that their one smart friend was mocking SJW's and psych majors one time and they took his word as gospel of the popular opinion in intelligentsia.
Then they started preachin' the holy word to anons on 4chan.

>>49776385
Read Book of the New Sun. It's about this exact scenario.

>>49797004
>However, they certainly do fall under the definition of scientific research and most definitely follow the scientific method.
No, they don't and they don't. The notion of scientific inquiry, and scientific method is not relative, it's well established and clear. It's defined by METHOD, tools that it relies on, rather than intentions or ambition or goals. The so called "soft-sciences" may have similar goals and ambitions as sciences have, but they don't use the same methodology, and the methodology is what grants the term "science", it and it only.
And this is an incredibly important thing to learn. Consistently and systematically failing to understand this has been the second biggest problem of the entire western academia over the past hundred years. Science is not about proposing a hypothesis and testing it, it's about proposing a test that is scientifically rigorous.

>And it's recognized as science, just not 'hard science'.
Again: no and no. It's poorly copies scientific organization, and it desperately craves being recognized as such, but it's neither. And it should not be.

The problem never was in the actual scientists mocking "soft-sciences". Actually, the problem has been always from the other side, the social and liberal studies being cowards and poorly understanding their own fields, hoping to find protection by attempting to emulate science, because the admission that social studies are not sciences has some very difficult and very far-fetching consequences for those who seriously wish to engage in them. It does not offer much space for alibism.

>>49797032
>It's probably that their one smart friend was mocking SJW's and psych majors one time and they took his word as gospel of the popular opinion in intelligentsia.
Again you are proving that you are part of the problem because you still see this as some kind of dick-waving competetion, again propelling the IDIOTIC notion that being "science" is somehow "better" or more desirable.

>>49797032
I didn't imagine nobody had done this before so I Googled it.
I found a (scientific!) study.
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.161.12.2303
The authors seem to imply it's moral objections keeping worshippers from killing themselves, not higher happiness in the abstract.

>>49776385
Scientific progress and Religion aren't mutually exclusive.

Many religious people today see Science as a way to understand the way God makes the universe work.

As such sci-fi Religion could easily co-exist with such advancements.

>>49797082
Meant to quote
>>49797011

I skimmed the thread, and I have a question: where can I find more information on what religion is and what needs it fulfills, what it does, etc? I never really looked at a religion before and I'm really curious as to why people make a big deal out of arguing about theology and shit.

>>49797079
I don't know where you get all this but it's just not true.
Social sciences are considered real science, just as much as natural sciences. If you don't trust Wikipedia on it go look at their sources.
It is possible to apply the scientific method to behavioural study, and it's widely practiced, this is not a quirk of language.

>>49797148
>It is possible to apply the scientific method to behavioural study, and it's widely practiced, this is not a quirk of language.
And the results are awful. I already provided basic sources, which link to plenty more of "where I'm getting this". I'm also getting this from seven years of experience from philosophy of language, and studies of psychology, philosophy and anthropology. And generally from not being an idiot.
Want more sources?
Watch this fucking lecture:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxJzWcwcRd0&list=PL22J3VaeABQBdzcPNVe0HxlPvNEEr7p5b
This is one of the best contemporary congnitive and neuropsychological researches of past two decades.
Listen particularly carefully between 2 and 6.30 min marks. And fuck off, and stop talking about shit you don't know shit about.

>>49797185
>philosophy of language
Philosophy of sciences, sorry.

>>49776385
>religion is dependent on ignorance to exist.
le tipping man tips to you.

go flip open a theology book or something

>>49792089
Please explain to me what unit this is measured in. Most of the most important scientists of our day were also religious, dumb fuck. The Catholic Church was sponsoring scientists to do research in the "Dark Ages".

>>49797504
>argument from authority
not that guy but come on.

>>49792239
man you fucked up, you must be a real dumb shit.

>>49797555
That is not even close to an argument from authority. What the fuck are you smoking?
Both of you actually, are morons.
You:
>>49797504
Are replying to a joke picture about "Finno-Korean Hyperwar".
And you:
>>49797555
Literally make no sense and don't know what argument ad authority is.

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>>49792089

>>49797555
Seriously though, what are the units?

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>>49797658
>>49797590
>>49797504
Anons, it's okay to be confused, >>49792089 posted the wrong picture.
Here's a more historically accurate version
Hwan will rise again!

>>49793615
>>49797504
Ok, both of you understand that this graph doesn't mention the dark ages anywhere, right? It's talking about the Finno-Korean hyperwar. You dunces just saw the pretty colours and had a knee-jerk reaction because it looks like that other stupid graph.

There was a sci-fi setting I ran once that did have space and all kinds of stuff.

And one of the things that was really important with it was the schism of the Catholic church. You had the Orthodox Catholic Church that is basically Pre-Vatican II, the Reformed Catholic Church which was essentially modern Protestantism with all the Catholic window dressing, and finally, my personal favorite, the Cyber Catholic Church, which upon joining they gave you shiny new cybernetic knees.

>>49797682
>all that hwan revisionism
I will never forget Lemuria.

>>49797688
Yep, see >>49795117

>>49776385
well, they just found out that the universe is twice, if not several times larger than they have thought for the past several decades. in a universe that large, there is ALWAYS something bigger and badder coming. there needs to be a being of immense power out there.
a star trek ng episode i remember is that they encountered a being that destroyed an entire race in an instance because they killed his wife when he refused to fight. beings with that amount of power are almost worthy of being worshiped.
hell, thats what happened in 40k down to a t.

>>49797185
>psychopathy
>relevant

okay strawman you can now kill yourself.

>>49798215
You could have at least tried to listen to what the person is talking about. Also, psychopathology is a core tenant of psychology because in order to define norm, you need to first deliminate it, so even if that was what Peterson is really talking about, and it isn't, it's about limitations of categories on which the entire field is build, because in order to define norm, you would STILL not actually have an argument here, fuckface.
Unless you want to argue that psychology is a science, except when it deals with psychopathologies (which is like 80% of the time), then it suddenly isn't.
Dear god you people are really fucking pathetic.

>>49777494
>literally "god of the gaps"
We only know what science currently doesn't know, we do not know what it can never know.

The "limitations of scientific inquiry", as you call them, are not inherent limitations of science itself. They are the limits of our current knowledge, our current technology, our current tools.

>>49776385
Easy, make the worship of science and/or the worship of man (in the collective sense) the religion. After all, they're the only thing so far that have shown evidence of being able to do great miracles and to create great wonders, they may as well be gods.

>Glory be to man, mortal form given itself divine spark!
>Glory be to science, man's will and tool to make creation as his own!
>Glory be to civilization, man's mind and ethics by which he conducts his holy work!

>>49791278
She is telling a Goddamn joke.

Holy shit Anon.

>>49782516
>>49782572
>>49782761
The Distributist is that you?

>>49776503
>star wars
I'll give you the other two, but surat wars is pretty clearly space fantasy. When you have a legitimate order of monks/paladins running around with demonstrable magic powers, it doesn't take much to get people to believe in their "god". Note that in a decade and a half, belief in the religion is nearly exterminated, because there was no order of priests running around preforming miracles

>>49777494
This anon gets it
Bravo anon, 10/10 post

>>49780719
Kapital is a critique of capitalism not a self-help book

>>49791274
>>49791313
>>49791325
I find this to be kinda puzzling. Did not God forbid Adam from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge? Doesn't that sound like God wants to keep mankind in the dark?

Serious question here, I'm not trying to tip my fedora.

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>>49776385

>It's another "fedoras masturbate with one another over what primitives religious people are" episode

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTf2EzTd1TE

Educate yourselves you fucking idiots. The literal first people that you might have called scientists were bishops and clergymen. The two have never been opposed, and this meme that they are is just you masturbating to yourself over how enlightened you are for following a different religion.

>>49798828
Fucking this. Without Christianity we would still shit on the streets like indians.

>>49781562
This. The gaming community is full of fedoras. Wouldn't want to trigger them too hard

Conflict and war.

There's no atheists in foxholes.

>>49798804
Before the fall Adam had perfect understanding of the world. Disobeying G_d ruined that.

>>49798804
>Did not God forbid Adam from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge? Doesn't that sound like God wants to keep mankind in the dark?
Your taking things far to litteraly, which is the same reason many Protestants come off as idiots.
Genesis isn't a 100% true "this is exactly how it happened" narrative. Rather, it's a metaphor meant to convey certian truths, namely that "man is the cause of sin and evil in the world, for it was mans choice that begot it" (a choice which in turn causes the need for redemption in the new adam, Jesus Christ). Moreover, one must remember that the tree was the tree of knowledge of good and evil, not just the tree of knowledge. God commanded them to not eat from it because if they ate from it, they would come to "know" evil, and remember that knowing also meant being intimate with in hebrew terms, so by eating of it they became intimate with evil. Because of this God told them not to eat so as to preserve their innocence, not to keep them in the dark

>>49798828
>>49798847
Alright, Christianity was vital for the continuation of science from the fall of the roman empire to the spread of the printing press.

What does that have to do with Christianity suppressing scientific inquiry RIGHT NOW?

>>49782572
>Most of the worst atrocities of the 20th century were by anti-religious movements: the nazis' pagan primitivism was an evil racist strawman parody mishmash of Marx, Spengler, and Nietzsche. Communism, of course, was proudly atheist and lead to an immense series of bloodbaths in nearly every country where it took root. So science will never out-religion religion. The Romans and Greeks had their descents into cynical secularism; again it was motivated by a view that religion is irrationalism and again after a generation or two it lead to decadence and moral collapse.

Correlation =/= causation. Most Western countries are majority nonreligious nowadays and they haven't started putting people in camps. What you're describing is a problem with totalitarian regimes, not atheism.

>>49798306
What you are referring to is a subset of philosophy known as "naturalism".

>>49782761
what is this incoherent horseshit haha

>>49798914
>What does that have to do with Christianity suppressing scientific inquiry RIGHT NOW?
Outside of filthy dumb proddie scum, how does Christianity supress science. The Catholic Church is one of the biggest supporters of science, and has always been throughout its existence.
The renaissance and by extension the Age of Enlightenment and age of reason would never had occurred without the church.

>>49798902
>christians being in charge of understanding Torah
It's about why the convenat with nation of Israel is so important, not about your fraud savior.

>>49798960
Catholics are crypto pagan idolators, not christians.

>>49798977
Oh go count your shekels rabbi.
You had your chance and fucked up many many many many many times, so God got tired of it and gave salvation to everybody.

>>49799003
>the opinions of crypto-jew slav orthoshits
>mattering
May 29th 1453 best day of my life

>>49799027
>>>/pol/
You will fit right in with the rest of shits awaiting their noose at nuremberg.

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>>49776385
take the eclipse phase route and have the vague presence of physics altering matrioshka brains somewhere in the galaxy. As such humanity would be pretty quick to pour over old superstitions with an eye towards their own psychological history with comparable situations supposed to be real, as a means of coping and contextualizing forces and events that would otherwise be totally shattering. Essentially, throw in some transcendent forces and forms, exceptions to the universal order, and self-obscuring, almost willful unknowns, and kick back as the physicists and philosophers neatly divide into fanatical cults as they try to decipher each respective thing.

>>49799081
>implying I like statist scum
Just because somebody calls you jews out on your shit doesn't make them a filthy bootlicker.
Any covenant you had with God is long gone, otherwise you wouldn't be a measly 14.3 million people.

>>49798902
>Your taking things far to litteraly, which is the same reason many Protestants come off as idiots.
Would it surprise you if I said I grew up as a very radical Pentecostal?

>Moreover, one must remember that the tree was the tree of knowledge of good and evil, not just the tree of knowledge.
Yeah, that struck me a minute or so after I posted my question.

>God commanded them to not eat from it because if they ate from it, they would come to "know" evil, and remember that knowing also meant being intimate with in hebrew terms, so by eating of it they became intimate with evil.
So the interpretation goes that knowing about evil makes you evil or capable of committing evil?

>Because of this God told them not to eat so as to preserve their innocence, not to keep them in the dark
To be honest, that does strike me as if he wants to keep man in the dark for their own good. As remaining innocent (or ignorant as I'd also call it) would mean they are not corrupted by the knowledge the tree would give them.

>>49799129
>not being a statist
The only thing worse than a /pol/ack is an anarchist.

>>49799129
>hurr your convenant is my now
Maybe if you weren't so keen on murdering us we wouldn't be so rare. Now go back to reading your fanfics.

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>>49792089
The funniest thing about that graph is how it goes against everything that science stands

I'd BTFO you myself, but pic related does a better job than I could

>>49799174
Not his fault you're so murderable.

>>49799195
That'd be a better refutation if it weren't so needlessly smug.

>>49799207
What's the point of being a christian if you can't be smug about it?

>>49799240
Having cool traditions and having an excuse to learn Latin

>>49799195
To be fair there are more proofs of scientists persecuted by church than of pre-pauline mentions of Jesus.

>>49799207
it is an argument about religion on the internet, what did you expect

>>49799255
>latin
Enjoy worshiping your queen of heaven.

>>49799293
Enjoy worshipping your prince of jews

>>49799293
>being any kind of Christian other than Catholic, Orthodox, or Oriental Orthodox
t. Fedora
Martin Luther was a mistake

>>49799137
>So the interpretation goes that knowing about evil makes you evil or capable of committing evil?
Not quite. The issue is pride, since pride is always the issue.
As said by Father Bob Barron:
"The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil means that the one thing that Adam and Eve were NOT free to do was to define for themselves what is good and what is evil. As soon as they did that, they put themselves in the place of God. Only God can define what is good and evil."
As you can see, by eating of the tree, adam and eve were putting themselves in the place of God, for the serpent even says "you will be like gods" in genesis chapter 3 verse 5. And putting yourself in the place of God is a massive no no, for nothing can hope to take the place of God.
>To be honest, that does strike me as if he wants to keep man in the dark for their own good. As remaining innocent (or ignorant as I'd also call it) would mean they are not corrupted by the knowledge the tree would give them.
You can view it like that, but it seems like a purposfully negative way to look at it. God isn't "keeping them in the dark", he's preserving their innocence. It's like not showing a 3 year old a porno. Yes, your techincally keeping them in the dark and ignorant, but it's for a very good reason.
You can't fault someone for not showing a kid a porno, can you? Nor can you fault God for trying to preserve innocence.

Moreover, God doesn't prevent them from eating of the tree, they are free to choose to. However God warns them of the consequences and tells them not to, because He knows that they'll be better off if they listen.

>>49799195
The best part is that the person who wrote that is an atheist. He has no pro-christian bias.

>>49799174
Maybe if you didn't kill God he would still be protecing you, and killing you all wouldn't have been so easy for everyone who tried.

>>49799336
Jesus was a fraud, not G-d. Seriously, fuck off to /pol/.

>>49799336
to be fair it was quite easy even before

>>49799357
I'll pray for your conversion my Jewish friend. Hopefully one day you'll see the light of Christ.

Until then, God bless you and may the peace of Christ manifest itself in all aspects of your life.

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>>49799314
I honestly think that you are overthinking a simple creation myth.

>>49799407
>taking genesis at face value
It's like you want Christianity to only be idiotic Protestant creationist.

>>49799407
Who is blue and why is blue having sex with the curtains?

>>49799195
Why is everyone debunking the Finno-Korean Hyperwar?

WHY WON'T GOVERNMENTS TEACH ABOUT IT!

>>49799407
It's not a simple myth at all. It' actually incredibly clever. But he is thinking about it wrong.

>>49799314
There are two main problems with this interpretation. First of all, it runs HEAD LONG into that old faux paradox of "why would god LET them even approach the tree, why would he give them the free will to chose whenever to eat from it or not, when THEY DON'T KNOW GOOD FROM EVIL. That is nonsense. It makes God look like a complete fucking asshole.
And the same goes for the pride thing: why the fuck would pride be a thing when they don't know good or bad. They are not actually free to chose, by the way. Because they are not even self conscious.

To understand the story, it's much better to abandon the whole psychologization of the story, and anthropomorphysation of God. It's actually something pretty good to do through out the whole Old Testament.

God, in this story, is not an agent, with a human-like goals or human like agenda. He represents the totality of world. It's not a story of why people are not in heaven anymore: it's a story of how people became conscious. The "why" isn't really all that important.
Neither Adam and Eve, nor God really chose how the situation will play out. It just happened, it's as absolute statement as it gets. Adam and Eve eat the apple because that is how humanity begins, not humanity begins because they ate the apple. Because humanity starts with becoming self aware, and becoming eaten alive by constant doubt if who you are and what you are doing is right. If that is what you should be doing. And that is why Adam and Eve are kicked out of heaven: not because they are being punished, but because heaven is impossible when you are plagued by doubts that come with self-awareness and consciousness. You are not an animal to exist carefree anymore. You are aware of your place in the world: and that is why you are not in heaven anymore.
That is what I think the original story was really trying to tell.

>>49799424
>It's like you want Christianity to only be idiotic Protestant creationist.
But then you are basically deliberately misinterpreting the original work to create your personal fanfiction out of it.
The actual reality is that the original writers simple thought that the Genesis was 100% objective truth, and even they were simple writing down oral traditon that everyone else also thought that was objective truth.

>>49799407
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Author

No one has cared what the author actually meant since 1967. What the author meant is probably the most boring thing to argue about.

>>49799574
So to go back to heaven you need to lose your self consciousness?

>>49799578
>The actual reality is that the original writers simple thought that the Genesis was 100% objective truth, and even they were simple writing down oral traditon that everyone else also thought that was objective truth.
But that's wrong. How you interpert it is a matter of debate but their is an almost universal consensus that genesis was always meant to be an allegorical story, not objective truth. This has been stated by both Christians and Jews long before the advent of modern science which disproved the notion of genesis as objective truth.

>>49799314
>Not quite. The issue is pride, since pride is always the issue.
>As you can see, by eating of the tree, adam and eve were putting themselves in the place of God, for the serpent even says "you will be like gods" in genesis chapter 3 verse 5. And putting yourself in the place of God is a massive no no, for nothing can hope to take the place of God.
That sounds very similar to how hubris works in Greek myth.

>Yes, your techincally keeping them in the dark and ignorant, but it's for a very good reason.
Pretty much what I said.

>It's like not showing a 3 year old a porno.
>You can't fault someone for not showing a kid a porno, can you?
I would've chosen a different simile. A snuff film would be more comparable to keeping someone innocent of evil.

>Nor can you fault God for trying to preserve innocence.
Sure I can, especially if I don't accept the christian paradigm as the truth. Since its not particularly hard to make the connection that preserving innocence is preserving ignorance of something that is a threat to us or God himself. But to do that I would be deliberately reading sinister motives into what God does and end up doing Gnosticism all over again.

>>49799407
>I honestly think that you are overthinking a simple creation myth.
>mythology
>simple
Sometimes myths are very simple and straight forward, but for the most time they are not.

>>49799574
>It's actually something pretty good to do through out the whole Old Testament.
Well, except the times he's anthropomorphized and does some very human things for very human reasons. But otherwise good advice considering an omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent being is fundamentally inhuman.

>>49798340
Beyond Earth had some nice takes on that with the Purity buildings and techs. It's hidden in the civilopedia but it's not bad.

>>49792089
As a medieval historian who focuses on the early middle ages, this triggers me immensely.

>>49799574
>"why would god LET them even approach the tree, why would he give them the free will to chose whenever to eat from it or not, when THEY DON'T KNOW GOOD FROM EVIL. That is nonsense. It makes God look like a complete fucking asshole.
There's no issue with that at all. Augustine explains free will better than anyone, but the jist of it is that we can not truly do good without free will, as an act can only be good if we have the ability to freely choose it.
Sin is merely a consequence of this free will, man abusing his free will to do good by using it to sin, and because of this we are subject to just punishment because we abused the gifts of God.
Like I said, Augustine explains this better in "on free choice of the will"
>And the same goes for the pride thing: why the fuck would pride be a thing when they don't know good or bad. They are not actually free to chose, by the way. Because they are not even self conscious.
like hell they arent free to choose. The snake tempted them and they choose to eat of it, knowing it was wrong. There is nothing that indicates they didn't have free will.

>>49793842
Him and Chesterton.

>>49793842
>>49799745
Do elaborate.

>>49794014
No it's not. Dig into actual theology.

>>49799627
>So to go back to heaven you need to lose your self consciousness?
Sadly, there is no way back. Not for humanity as a species. The story is a model, it's not to be taken literally, not to be applied to individual people. It's a story of a species, of fundamental nature of man, and his most fundamental problem.

>>49799644
>does some very human things for very human reasons.
I think those are heavily side-products and later-date additions to the story. Many of them resulting of people not knowing how to describe things in non-anthropomorphyc (Am I spelling this right? I'm not a native speaker and I hate this word...) fashion.
There are good reasons to assume this story is very, very old, much older than Judaism itself, and a lot of it has been slowly added over time, by people who themselves did not entirely understand it, or tried to enrich it by their own (comparatively weaker) interpretations. Hence some of the odd elements, like the snake saying "You'll be like Gods", a rather odd thing to say when your God is the totality of being, rather than a personality.
But through most of Old Testment, the God really isn't a personality. Which is why it confuses and pisses so many people off, why the God of Old Testment has this aura of being a complete dick. I mean: who the fuck orders somebody to just kill his son? Who the fuck plays with people like he did in story of Job? That is MEAN.

But that is also because Old Testament God is not representation of human virtue to begin with. That is something absolutely REVOLUTIONARY idea that Christianity came up with. Old Testament Old Man is just... how the world is. And the world is pretty fucked up place. So naturally, the God will seem pretty fucked up at times. Just because people did not know how to describe him other than through human iconography does not mean he is ideal of humanity.

Of course, counterarguments can be raised to this very naturalistic look at the text.

>>49799578
Different people interpret shit differently. One guy says "It's raining cats & dogs.". The other replies "No it isn't. It's raining water."

>>49799636
>But that's wrong. How you interpert it is a matter of debate but their is an almost universal consensus that genesis was always meant to be an allegorical story, not objective truth. This has been stated by both Christians and Jews long before the advent of modern science which disproved the notion of genesis as objective truth.
Does that ideal was already present when Genesis was first made(or compiled)? Or simple came later, with the influence of greco-roman philosophy, or even persian and egyptian ones? For example, most primitive, isolate tribes believe their myths to be actual facts and events, not abstract notions and metaphors, and you have to basically select what parts of genesis to read and what to dismiss to make the thing fit the allegory idea.
>>49799776
>That is something absolutely REVOLUTIONARY idea that Christianity came up with. Old Testament Old Man is just... how the world is. And the world is pretty fucked up place. So naturally, the God will seem pretty fucked up at times.
But just about everyone came you that idea too, such as the egyptians and the chinese.

>>49799736
>Augustine explains free will better than anyone,
Except Augistine did not understand Old Testament God, he worshiped an entirely different one. And the explanation is a poor one. How can there be free will if there is no consciousness. Free will is really just a concern that largely only came in with Christianity: it's natural that Augustine is trying to project his new, entirely different philosophy and religion into the text, but I think it's not a very good explanation of what the ancient Hebrews meant when they wrote that passage down.

>man abusing his free will to do good by using it to sin
How can you sin if you are not self-conscious, and you cannot tell between right and wrong. Free will, my friend, is a matter of accountability. That is actually the most important component of free will. And if you are not self-conscious, if you literally can't tell one choice to be good and other to be bad, what what and who you are accountible to? Not your self, you are not really aware of yourself. And not any knowable code, because you have not discovered it yet.

So... Augistine's interpretation is a good piece of Christian philosophy, but poor anthropological and religionistic analysis.

>The snake tempted them and they choose to eat of it, knowing it was wrong.
Except they did not eat the fruit yet, and the fruit taught them what is right and what is wrong, for fuck sake. HOW COULD THEY KNOW THAT WHAT THEY ARE DOING IS WRONG, IF THEY HAD NOT EATEN FROM THE FRUIT OF KNOWLEDGE OF RIGHT AND WRONG.
Man is a simple logic.

>>49799854
*with

>>49799644
>Since its not particularly hard to make the connection that preserving innocence is preserving ignorance of something that is a threat to us or God himself.
Except that falls apart because God can be threatened by nothing, as He is omnipotent and any attempt to oppose Him is futile, so He can't be protecting himself. And seeing as man lived in paradise and eternal life until the fall, there were no threats to him either, save those they made through the fall.

Agree with most everything else, the interpretation can't really be changed unless one of us completely shifts worldviews

>>49799865
>HOW COULD THEY KNOW THAT WHAT THEY ARE DOING IS WRONG, IF THEY HAD NOT EATEN FROM THE FRUIT OF KNOWLEDGE OF RIGHT AND WRONG
To be fair, I presume they knew what disobedience was & how they've been told "Don't do that". Even without a sense of right or wrong, I think they knew they were told not to take a bite.

>>49799865
>How can there be free will if there is no consciousness.
Where is the proof that man didn't have consciousness.
>HOW COULD THEY KNOW THAT WHAT THEY ARE DOING IS WRONG, IF THEY HAD NOT EATEN FROM THE FRUIT OF KNOWLEDGE OF RIGHT AND WRONG
But they did know that God told them "don't eat fo this tree". While they may not have been able to clearly say "not doing what god said is evil" they knew they were supposed to follow Gods comand, and sinned by violating it.

>>49799776
You are going at it from an incorect perspective. Story didn't start as some perfect allegory that got ruined by later attempts to personify God. YHWH started up as a single god in a whole pantheon an then got worshiped as a singular diety Aton style. There are still echoes of that in for example exodus story where pharoh's magicians are able to summon their own snakes. In book of Hiob (arguably the oldest old testament story) YHWH also mentions breaking leviathan's neck, a common motive in mesopotamian mythos about male god-hero killing aquatic snake of chaos.

>>49799854
>But just about everyone came you that idea too, such as the egyptians and the chinese.
Not really. First of all, there is major difference between this model in monotheist religion, where god is omni, and polytheist religion where each god represents a tiny fragment of our understanding of the world. To a point where a single god can represent, say, our knowledge of deers.
Second of all: I don't really know many religions where Gods would represent an ideal human model. Maybe INDIVIDUAL virtue, but not a whole model of a personality.
Egyptian gods were EXCEPTIONALLY kind, you are right about that. To a point where some argue that a lot of Christianity IS rooted in Egyptian religious philosophy: a theory that makes whole LOT of sense, but lacks conclusive evidence. But even they were nebulous unpredictable assholes whose actions bare very little semblance of those of a human moral ideal. I mean: read the fucking Pyramid Texts.

>>49799918
>I presume they knew what disobedience was & how they've been told "Don't do that".
And how would they know that? Here is a funny little thing: They don't even know they are naked. They are so oblivious to themselves, and to their circumstances, that they don't realize their walking around naked! That is not just realization of sexuality there (in fact it's probably not that at all): that is realization of vulnerability. They did not realize anything bad can happen to them. They only discoved shame and feeling of guilt WHEN they at the fucking fruit. That is why they are suddenly hiding.

They hide because they realize they have done something bad, and now they are exposed and vulnerable, accountable for their actions. But that ONLY happens after they eat the fruit, and god himself flat out states: YOU COULD NOT KNOW THESE FEELINGS IF YOU HAD NOT TASTED THE FRUIT. (Sorry for the caps, by the way, I'd normally be using italics, not shouting).
It's when God realizes they feel guilt that he realizes they ate the fruit.

>>49799980
>pharoh's magicians are able to summon their own snakes
I thought the interpretation was to give a My God > Your Magicians thing by making their snake eat the others coupled with one of the magicians claiming it's the finger of god doing things.

>>49799995
>And how would they know that
Made in image and likeness of God, which means man had consciousness from the moment of his creation.

>>49797185
I don't get how you can possibly maintain this argument.
You can argue that they SHOULDN'T be considered science but the fact remains that they ARE.

>>49799995
>They don't even know they are naked
The relevance of this? They could have had a third & fourth ear under their armpit. They were still told not to do something, they did it. Regardless of however they felt, they were given orders, were aware they were given orders & disobeyed it. Even an emotionless thing could know they disobeyed orders.

>>49799995
Jewish god didn't start as all powerfull and all knowing. It took a lot of time for him to evolve into one we know today. Cult of aton could beone influence. Ahura Mazda could be another. Then finally platonic philosophy influencing jews and christians alike during roman era.

>>49799999
It was my god>your gods. Originaly YHWH wasn't the only god, just more powerfull one.

>>49799949
>Where is the proof that man didn't have consciousness.
Not knowing they are naked. Not knowing shame, guilt, or fear. And literally: Not knowing good and bad. That is what not being self-conscious means: it means you are oblivious to your own situation. And they were. And their realization of their own situation is the KEY scene of the whole text. It's also the comedy bit. It's actually pretty funny.

>But they did know that God told them "don't eat fo this tree".
What does that mean to a person who does not know good from bad, right from wrong? If you tell a toddler "don't ever divide by zero", what the fuck do you think he'll take away from that?

>Gods command, and sinned by violating it.
And how would they know that is a bad thing to do, if they don't know "bad".

>>49799980
>YHWH started up as a single god in a whole pantheon an then got worshiped as a singular diety Aton style.
Yes. Elohim was originally just the highest god of the Canaanite religion, old semites were polytheists before Abrahamites split away from them: either directly glorifying one of the gods of their pantheon while slowly erasing the others, or at least borrowing portions of their cosmology.
The story of Satan is literally just a story Canaanite Attar, the Morning Star god, which is also why later Isaiah calls the Babylonian king "Oh, you Morning Star", which then through a hillarious series of translation error leads to Satan being nicknamed "Lucifer", meaning Morning Star... But this story does not require one god, it requires only one principle of divinity.

>>49800089
Given the line about how some of the plagues were from the finger of god apparently, I'm going to assume that was either added later or otherwise.

>>49800114
>And how would they know that is a bad thing to do, if they don't know "bad"
Questionable definitions. There's a difference between bad as in poor quality & bad as in evil. A badly made car doesn't imply the process in making the car was evil.

>>49799995
>Not really. First of all, there is major difference between this model in monotheist religion, where god is omni, and polytheist religion where each god represents a tiny fragment of our understanding of the world. To a point where a single god can represent, say, our knowledge of deers.
>Second of all: I don't really know many religions where Gods would represent an ideal human model. Maybe INDIVIDUAL virtue, but not a whole model of a personality
But then the only real difference is that the Big G is only one thing that encompass everything rather then a bunch of gods that together encopass everything, and not really adress that the polytheists gods were also assholes because the world is just like that(an example of that would be Poseidon and the seas).

>>49800036
>You can argue that they SHOULDN'T be considered science but the fact remains that they ARE.
They aren't. Not by absolute majority of people who do actual science, not by people who study philosophy of science. They are only self-proclaiming theselves as sciences. Which they should not do, because from any other perspective than their own, which is based on misunderstanding the relevance of the word, they are still not and never were.

>>49800040
>They were still told not to do something, they did it.
Again, see the toddler and dividing by zero thing above.

>>49800022
>which means man had consciousness from the moment of his creation.
That is a massive leap of logic.

>>49800068
>Jewish god didn't start as all powerfull and all knowing.
That does not really matter. It's divinity itself. It does not matter if it manifests as buch of fragments or one being. Also, look up the original Canaanite El, it's actually a pretty damn all powerful creature. And they could have not been influenced by Atonism, because Atonism happened like what - thousand years after Abrahamism branched off Canaanitism? And this is one of the oldest parts of the old testmanet without a doubt. Actually, this is something that is most likely predating Canaanites as well.

>>49800159
>A badly made car doesn't imply the process in making the car was evil.
Are you implying that the Tree of Knowledge taught them how to tell if a car is poorly made? That is the "god-like" power that the Snake promised them?
"You already know evil, but that knowledge of judging quality of products, that you must never obtain!"
Sorry, if that was not your point, I don't know what was.
Of course it's always and purely about the evil of human act. That is the only evil that matters. The evil that comes from free will. But free will does come from self-consciousness. And they did sure as fuck lack that thing.

>>49800207
Sure, but the original argument was about something quite different...

>>49800114
Don't forget that under later texts the deity that did that to them was supposedly all-knowing ahead of time; he KNEW they'd eat the thing, had planned/forseen it, and *still* gets angry and punishes them for it.

Things don't get angry about stuff they'd forseen and purposefully allowed to happen in the first place. There's no surprise, no sudden out-of-the-blue appearance of a negative factor to your life or plans. If you get angry, that means you can't have known that much at all.

>>49800278
Torah wasn't written down until way after cult of Aton was abolished. Assummption that those proto-jews didn't change anything till their doctrine was cemented is a pretty big one.

Speaking of Genesis: I like the OTHER version of Genesis better.
The one one where Elohym and his possy of Angels decides to rape Eve, who laughs at them and abandons her body so that her spirit enters a tree, and Elohym and his angels discover during the rape that they are actually just raping themselves.
That version is much cooler.
I don't know what it was so unpopular at it's time.

>>49800338
>Torah wasn't written down until way after cult of Aton was abolished.
Sure, but the oral tradition has been around for several thousand years before. Tens of thousands of years later, actually.

>>49792089
My favorite part of this is that somehow the Christian Dark Ages prevented all of Asia from progressing scientifically despite having no interaction.

It's this subtle racism that somehow only Europeans and Middle Easterners mattered for the advancement of science that I love

>>49776385
The trick, as seen in numerous examples, IS FOR IT TO BE REAL.

Just as how in real life we don't have gods of volcanoes anymore, and have already in just a few centuries been reduced to "uh, sure, there's a, um, a god, yeah, uh, it's an invisible undetectable unknowable god that you can't find but you can totally DEM FEELS that it's real, if you truly believe, and if you don't you're a filthy heretic", in an advanced setting, even *less* things will be something you can consider godlike, and more often all it'll mean is you've come across a species with more advanced technology than yours.

The Picard had to put in quite a bit of effort to talk some farmers out of worshiping him, for example.

>>49800278
>Sure, but the original argument was about something quite different...
Unless I had a brainfart, the original argument was that christianity, which assumed meant pre-Jesus judaism, came with this big new idea that the world is kind of shit because the guy that made it was a dick, when this notion is as old as religion itself.

>>49776616
It was permanently lessened every time, unable to recover save through multi-generational educational regression.

And honestly, if the christian god was real, he'd want to leave this universe permanently before we actually *DO* find him: a power-source like that would be shackled and weaponized in no time. And he'd deserve it too; the little son of a bitch is a colossal dickbag.

>>49800402
most likely, feeding each-other mercury and slaughtering entire lineages for myriad reasons was what got in the way there. war is great for development in the short term, but when you get hundreds of years of it, shit stalls down to a crawl

>>49800369
Oral tradition changes. A lot. As far as we know few centuries before torah was written jews worshiped a divine dick-tree with cool shades and rad skateboard skills. And given how it's form wasn't set in stone untill babilonian exile we have plenty of time to be influenced.

>>49776385
There have already been thousands of years of scientific progress.
So... the same way as we do now?

>>49800448
>which assumed meant pre-Jesus judaism
That might be the brain-fart involved. Because Christianity means post-Christian Judaism. I mean: it's in the name: Christ-ianity?

The argument was that Christianity proposed a dramatically different way to look at the One God deal. The idea that God, or Gods are dicks is basically universal to all human cultures, mostly because that is pretty much the logical conclusion you come to if you live as an ancient human. The world is shitty. The Gods that embody that world are not going to be all loving peachy keen. Judaism was much like most other religions, though it was interesting by centralizing all of it into a single figure. Not entirely unique, but at least unusual.

The argument was that it was not until Christianity for somebody to come and say: You know what, maybe that god is actually a pretty SWELL GUY. Like: you want this dude to be your friend. And that is actually a really crazy and really revolutionary notion to have, though also leads to a whole lot of problems down the road.
I don't really think many other religions would do a 180 like that.

>>49800500
>Oral tradition changes. A lot
Actually, it remains a lot more stable than written tradition. It's kinda ironic like that.

>>49800278
>see the toddler and dividing by zero thing above
The problem with much is that it presumes that something without the ability to tell they're being disobedient, who might not have even heard orders right, is doing that. If the thing fully understands its being disobedient & that there are punishments for doing so, it might not do so. I've seen kids who weren't aware of consequences, get hurt & then never do that thing again because now they're aware of the consequences.

>>49800531
Any proof of that paradoxical idea?

>>49800348
>You can't rape each-other you retards, that's just two people having sex!

>>49800278
>Are you implying that the Tree of Knowledge taught them how to tell if a car is poorly made? That is the "god-like" power that the Snake promised them?
I'm saying that you may be working with a wonky definition of bad & may be mixing up definitions. You don't need any knowledge of evil & goodness, morally, to be able to tell something, a product or an action. is a poor one quality wise. If we're trying to make a vehicle which can withstand missiles & it doesn't do that, we can say it's a poor product because it fails the objective its given.

>>49800369
Tens of thousands of years of playing telephone......

Wonder if there's anything left of the original stories by the time they wrote up the Torah.

Then again, the Balmarians could've controlled it decently...

>>49800576
Actualy you totaly can. If there are two dudes and both want to fuck the other one in the ass while trying to protect their own butt they will try to rape each other.

>>49800558
Quite literally, however, UNTIL it ate the thing that allowed it to understand these concepts, it did not have them.

Thus anon's comparison to a toddler.

Sure they LOOKED adult, but they had none of the knowledge (quite literally in the story since they hadn't eaten any yet) or understanding.

>don't eat from that tree that's bad I'll get angry
>What's don't? What's eat? What's from? What's that? What's tree? What's that's? what's bad? what's I'll? what's get? what's angry?
>here look mmmmm *eating motion* says thing created by the god and allowed free reign to do exactly what it's doing
>*knowledge gained*
>God throws tantrum despite everything

>>49800626
Yeah, that's just a kinky game at that point. They both wanna fuck each-other, they both consent, they just happen to want to fight for who's on top.

... actually you know what? This is the one time I DO wish /d/'s dreams would come true and there'd be more hermaphrodites running around.

Because only something this ridiculous going to court as
>he/she raped me
>no! he/she raped ME!
>I said I was only willing to stick it inside you, not to get stuck in!
>*I* said I was only willing to stick it inside you, not to get stuck in!

at some point a judge would realize "hey, wait a second, double standards are fucking retarded and I could be golfing right now" and make it impossible to non-consent against something you wanted to do to the other person.

You know, kind of like how if you're told you're being recorded, you're allowed to record them right back, even if they'd really rather wish you didn't, or if they turn off their bodycam.

>>49800278
>That is a massive leap of logic.
Not really
Made in image and likeness means man had a soul. The soul is the source of consciousness.
Basic Christian theology.

>>49800849
if the soul is the source of consciousness, then that implies the fruit of knowledge was what granted it, making 'in god's image' more of a soulless humanoid deal once more.

>>49800885
>then that implies the fruit of knowledge was what granted it
No it doesn't. Your just trying to fit your belief that the eating of fruit granted consciousness to an alternate viewpoint, rather than admitting your belief is wrong

>>49800569
>Any proof of that paradoxical idea?
Quite a lot if you look into any sources of oral culture. It's not actually paradoxical at all though, it's seems counterintuitive to use because... well, we have been spoiled a lot. Anyway, check this out:
http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/3/1/150645
It's a mind-blowinga article, by the way. There are fairytales we can trace back literally thousands of years. The oldest fairytale we can reliably track is 6000 years fucking old - and it is by the way, the story fuckign Faust. So this story has been around, in largely the same fucking form, for at least six thousand years, and we don't know if it does not even go further, because is where the fidelity of material fails us.

Six thousand years of oral tradition: the story is still very much the same at root.

It really makes sense when you realize what it fully means: to operate on basis of oral culture.

>>49800586
>is a poor one quality wise
That is some serious cognitive stretching there. I don't think this will lead anywhere. I never said they can't tell something is "poor, quality-wise" to begin with.

>>49800590
>Tens of thousands of years of playing telephone......
Again, not really how oral culture works.

>>49800849
>Made in image and likeness means man had a soul.
That is actually TWO massive fucking leaps right there. First of all: that made in likeness automatically implies a soul, and second that soul automatically implies self-consciousness. And let me remind you that we are not talking about Christian tales: we are talking tales predating Christianity by some four thousand years. At least.

>>49800278
The demarcation of science is one of the most important subjects in the philosopy of science.
The idea that the behavioural sciences fall outside of it is extremely niche.
It doesn't lend credence to your claim that you have studied the subject if you claim otherwise.

Social sciences use falsibility, they makes the Potter Steward standard. It's accepted as science.

>>49800653
>UNTIL it ate the thing that allowed it to understand these concepts, it did not have them
>you need to know moral goodness & evilness to know high quality or low quality & correctness & incorrectness
I don't get you.

>>49801027
Mate, I'm claiming that the word bad doesn't always mean anything morally. It's possible to have one definition, knowing you added 1 & 2 & got 3 correctly, while knowing nothing of morals.

>>49801137
>The idea that the behavioural sciences fall outside of it is extremely niche.
As somebody who taught this shit on uni, and who spent five years discussing this with the entire fucking school, I can assure you that it's not. Some psychologists, particularly american ones don't like the notion, but philosophers of science as well as members of actual sciences mostly do agree on this. In my country, not a SINGLE school would EVER dare to call psychology or economy "science", actually: the department where I studied antropology and psychology was literally called "Department of Social Studies" and people were pretty touchy about this shit, especially the, you know, SCIENCE department.

>>49801175
Yes, but only one of the definitions and uses of the word "bad" is relevant in the context of this debate, so I really don't understand what your point is. I think that from the context, it's pretty damn obvious only the moral related meaning is actually been discussed.

>>49800576
>You can't rape each-other you retards, that's just two people having sex!
Actually, they were LITERALLY raping themselves. It's specifically said that Eve's spirit has left the body and moved into the tree (which became the tree of knowledge by this), while the God (also called Beast) and his Archons raped the body in all orifices: but Eve has made it so that with each thrust, they were actually invading their own body, they were literally fucking themselves.
So basically god showed it down Eve's throat and the thing came right up his own ass.

Gnostic porn is weird.

>>49782609
>still no history of the world pt. 2

>>49791958
>Galactic french revolution
Please no. Evidence sideways that this is when settings jump the shark

>>49801027
>faust bullshit
The story has simillar ELEMENTS, story itself changes. If i took for example story of your life and changed it in a simillar fashion you couldn't recognise it yourself.

>>49801442
The story is the same in the core, in what really matters. If you know a thing or two about mythological narrative, you'll recognize it immediately. Hell, it took a whole 20 seconds for my friend to say "wait a minute, that is Faust" when I describe the story of the smith and devil as it was recorded and described in that particular study.

And we are talking about perserving the same fucking story for six FUCKING THOUSAND years. You can throw shitty fits like this and making the nu-uh sound all you want, that is irrelevant really. It's actually just really fucking amazing, regardless of whenever you'll realize that, or deny because you don't like being proven wrong.

>>49801493
At their core Jesus and Prometheus are the same guy. Judas is Brutus, Atlantis is Star Wars. Reduce a story to it's most basic element and you will see we don't have that much of them to begin with.

>>49801564
The irony is that you are actually kinda right about some of those. For an example, Harry Potter and Jesus Christ. And also Osiris. There is a reason why we do find certain common narrative patterns so fascinating we tend to slap them on over and over and over again.
Again, you talk big shit for a person who does not know a first or last thing about either narratology or mythology.

And by the way: dude - the article spells it out for you. They have been able to trace down those stories, found out that the map it forms DIRECTLY follows existing genetical maps of population spread.
That fucking article proves beyond any doubt how efficent oral culture is at perserving it's stories. The fact that you desperately latch on the fact I mentioned that the story still exists just show how much distance between actually acknowledging the content of that article you are trying to get.
That is sad. Don't do that, it makes people start feel uncomfortable and sorry for you.

>>49801625
Don't question some pompous ass on the internet or his questionable article trying to prove that stories can only travel with mass migrations like genes or lice and can't just move with trade? Are you fucking crazy?

>>49799207

Fuck your feelings, how about that

>>49776385
People will believe what they want to believe.

Really it's that simple. Once people have ideas stuck in their mind you can not convince them otherwise no matter how valid or invalid the argument is.

People can and will ignore all evidence to the contrary of their ideas no matter how terrible the consequences. Look at the modern day people who refuse cancer treatment for their children because they got the idea every doctor is out to kill him. Or HIV denialist.

Spirituality is never going anywhere as long as the human thought processes remain as anthropomorphic as they are. So all in all there is no difficulty.

>>49801694
Well, at this point you are basically crowing yourself about academic consensus of contemporary genetics and anthropology. Fields that you know next to nothing. But yeah: you are the better judge here. That is quite amazing amount of arrogance.
Seriously: you don't even realize what you are doing here, are you?
Dude, like Adam and Eve, before tasting the fruit. Literally NO self consciousness at all. I can't even be mad at you in the light of the arguments I've made earlier in this thread.

>>49776385

Religion will never go away for an imperfect species full of voids and lack in their lives will always turn to something and it will be a religion of some sort.

Religions also adapt. Zoroastrianism is still fucking around. Hinduism is as strong as ever, if kicked out of Indonesia. Judaism has its own nation state.

If anything I can easily see people shuffling off the Sun as a god/dess due to its importance; or with Earth itself as a connected living thing (which has already propped up again and again in history), and since Mormonism claims there's a sun closest to god that shit will surely kick off a search for Kolob if FTL ever becomes cheap, etc, etc.