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The Law of Conservation of Worship

Started by Sandra Craft, June 03, 2016, 04:36:21 PM

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Sandra Craft

Thought this article interesting -- I'm sure we all have a name for this phenomenon (I just called it projection) but I like the name this blogger came up with for it:  Christians and the Law of Conservation of Worship.

You know the one I mean, the one that leads many Xtians (esp. fundies and evangelicals) to assume that just because they worship something/wish for immortality/believe in the supernatural/etc that everyone else must do some version of that as well. 

This is a problem more people than atheists have with hard-core Xtians -- for instance, Buddhists:

QuoteOne can see similar sales failures worldwide, such as in the continued failure of missionaries to convert people in East Asia. Part of the problem is that the entire worldview of Buddhists in those countries tends to be so different from that of American Christians that they don't have anything close to a common experience from which to issue a sales pitch. The people in those countries don't see why they should adopt Christianity–and so they do not.

The blog "A Life Overseas" talked about this exact problem. The missionary in this case discovered that the people she encountered abroad had "such a vastly different framework than the one I was used to that I was at a loss as to how to even begin to communicate the gospel effectively." In order to successfully "witness" to such people, Christian salespeople first have to bring those targets around to their own way of seeing the world. If they can't, then their targets will not see any reason to purchase their product.

I admit that this blind spot on believers' part always annoyed me, but after reading this article I feel more sympathetic.  After all . . .
QuoteWhat they're really trying to do is make their own beliefs sound a little less wacky and foolish–and more believable and relatable.
. . . can't be an easy position to be in.
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

xSilverPhinx

Very interesting post, thanks for sharing. :smilenod:

That post touched on something that really annoys me about the religious. Many (perhaps most) seek to take the moral high ground compared to other nonreligious groups or even people of other faiths, basically dismissing views that do not align with theirs as a bastardized and inferior version of their own, as the blogger put it. It's not just the religious that do this, for instance, many vegans I've encountered do the same, though usually they aren't as creepy about it (you're going to hell if you don't believe in my beliefs etc.).

Some people seem to have real trouble accepting that others think differently and haven't been put on this planet to validate one's weird beliefs. It seems like their measure of objective acceptance is whether another person accepts that belief as true, so when they do find others that validate what becomes their group's beliefs then things can get very odd indeed. When one person has a delusion then they are psychotic, when two or more share a delusion then you possibly have the grounds for a new cult.   
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


Waski_the_Squirrel

I read this article too. It brings up a much larger idea. It's hard to imagine a mind or a life outside our own pattern. Thus, the religious believe that we replace one religion with another. Gay couples get asked, "Which one of you is the man?". And the like. It's hard to break out of our own pattern.

xSilverPhinx

Quote from: Waski_the_Squirrel on June 03, 2016, 11:11:24 PM
I read this article too. It brings up a much larger idea. It's hard to imagine a mind or a life outside our own pattern. Thus, the religious believe that we replace one religion with another. Gay couples get asked, "Which one of you is the man?". And the like. It's hard to break out of our own pattern.

Is it really so difficult?  :thoughtful: I understand that you measure the world based on what you know, and if you don't have much "baggage" your world can be quite limited, but it shouldn't be so difficult to intellectually grasp that people have their own minds and their own views on things.   
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


Icarus

Law of conservation of worship: Feckless plagiarizing of the laws of thermodynamics.

Waski_the_Squirrel

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 03, 2016, 11:22:27 PM
Quote from: Waski_the_Squirrel on June 03, 2016, 11:11:24 PM
I read this article too. It brings up a much larger idea. It's hard to imagine a mind or a life outside our own pattern. Thus, the religious believe that we replace one religion with another. Gay couples get asked, "Which one of you is the man?". And the like. It's hard to break out of our own pattern.

Is it really so difficult?  :thoughtful: I understand that you measure the world based on what you know, and if you don't have much "baggage" your world can be quite limited, but it shouldn't be so difficult to intellectually grasp that people have their own minds and their own views on things.

I used to think so. But this goes beyond different views. It goes to an entirely different template for reality.

Recusant

Thanks for the link, BooksCatsEtc. The piece was very good, and I agree with much of what she's saying. I had some very minor quibbles along the way, but right at the end she lost me a bit.

QuoteChristianity makes a lot of promises to adherents, and when we examine those promises by the cold light of reality we discover that all of them are false.

I think that the cold light of reality shows that the promises of Christianity cannot be supported from a realistic point of view. All of them may indeed be false, but I think that to state with certainty that they are is to engage in polemics rather than a purely rational approach.

For instance, I think that it is impossible to prove conclusively that there is no such thing as an eternal soul. We have no reproducible evidence for the existence of such a thing, and therefore any statement positing the existence of souls has no solid evidentiary basis. However, to say categorically that souls do not exist is just as unfounded, since there is no reproducible evidence that that is the case, either. In the cold light of reality we discover that souls seem to be extremely improbable, and that is about as far as we can go. I'd say that the likelihood of their existing is so small as to eliminate them from serious consideration and so I don't believe they exist, but I can't say that I know it for a fact that they don't exist. If I did, wouldn't I be moving into the territory of unfounded certainty that the Christians occupy?
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


Sandra Craft

Quote from: Recusant on June 04, 2016, 11:05:42 AM
Thanks for the link, BooksCatsEtc. The piece was very good, and I agree with much of what she's saying. I had some very minor quibbles along the way, but right at the end she lost me a bit.

QuoteChristianity makes a lot of promises to adherents, and when we examine those promises by the cold light of reality we discover that all of them are false.

I think that the cold light of reality shows that the promises of Christianity cannot be supported from a realistic point of view. All of them may indeed be false, but I think that to state with certainty that they are is to engage in polemics rather than a purely rational approach.


I've read a few of her other posts and she does tend to take a rather sweeping approach at times.  It's nicely balanced by the Xtian blogger she mentions at the beginning -- they've had some very amicable blogging debates.
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

xSilverPhinx

Quote from: Waski_the_Squirrel on June 04, 2016, 02:35:06 AM
Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 03, 2016, 11:22:27 PM
Quote from: Waski_the_Squirrel on June 03, 2016, 11:11:24 PM
I read this article too. It brings up a much larger idea. It's hard to imagine a mind or a life outside our own pattern. Thus, the religious believe that we replace one religion with another. Gay couples get asked, "Which one of you is the man?". And the like. It's hard to break out of our own pattern.

Is it really so difficult?  :thoughtful: I understand that you measure the world based on what you know, and if you don't have much "baggage" your world can be quite limited, but it shouldn't be so difficult to intellectually grasp that people have their own minds and their own views on things.

I used to think so. But this goes beyond different views. It goes to an entirely different template for reality.

Even so...

It still seems like atheists in general are better at it than theists.
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


Bad Penny II

by the cold light of reality
errrk, Is that a thing now?
Git'll say it's language now
May as well surrender to OLD
Light of reason is, was a thing,
I'm sensitive, prescribed lenses.
Fucking Light of fucking reality
It's here now, there's no hiding
I was hoping it was simulation
Reboot or upgrade coming soon
Take my advice, don't listen to me.

Recusant

Quote from: Bad Penny II on June 05, 2016, 01:04:49 PM
by the cold light of reality
errrk, Is that a thing now?
Git'll say it's language now
May as well surrender to OLD
Light of reason is, was a thing,
I'm sensitive, prescribed lenses.
Fucking Light of fucking reality
It's here now, there's no hiding
I was hoping it was simulation
Reboot or upgrade coming soon

:bravo:  I hope you don't mind my saying so, but I generally enjoy your poetic posts very much.

* * *

"Cold light of reality" is a hackneyed phrase, indeed. My repeated use of it was a riff off of the fact that she used it in her piece.
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken