27 Mar '21 09:19>
What part do intuition and instinct play in the presence and absence of theist faith?
@ragwort saidAs in, have religions served their purpose or do societies still need them?
The question is then whether humanity can now be done with them altogether or if they are so necessary to successful human societies that a more "suitable" one will be along shortly.
@ragwort saidSome people can; some people can't. In terms of my own moral compass, I cannot separate it from my own religious socialization, despite gradually realizing I was an agnostic atheist in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Can we live in a blind aimless universe without imposing some form of religious narrative on it?
@ragwort saidDo you me transacted, rather than “exchanged”?
@FMF
I think when you become sceptical of the religion of your birth, you begin to see how the various social and psychological factors (manipulations?) play out in real time and have a sense of how ritual and religious experiences are exchanged for one's fealty.
@fmf saidThis is interesting; are you saying you would rather live under religious rule that secular, in general terms, or only under specific measures, specific levels of control, laws etc?
Furthermore, perhaps I should be grateful for my safety [among other things] which is arguably enhanced and guarded by the fact that the culture here where I live has had the Islamic religious narrative "imposed" on it and all the beneficial aspects of social order that come with it.
@divegeester saidAll I am saying is that I live in a well-ordered society. Here, neighborliness and community and certain aspects of decorum seem to me to be rooted in and shaped by religion. If it had not been the case, living here might have been more precarious. I also lived in Japan for a long time and there was order and decorum - and a lack of precariousness - there too, but it was a form of social order that was not so overtly rooted in religious belief, at least not in recent generations, as it is, by Indonesian standards, a "Godless" culture.
This is interesting; are you saying you would rather live under religious rule that secular, in general terms, or only under specific measures, specific levels of control, laws etc?
@divegeester saidI guess I'm happy with either.
Do you me transacted, rather than “exchanged”?
@ragwort saidWell, one of the reasons that Christianity is so successful is that much of the moral code it promotes is effective and commonsensical, even without buying into the narratives that make claims regarding supernatural phenomena and beings. This would explain the permanent impact of my own "overtly religious upbringing" regardless of my loss of faith.
It's the psychological and social mechanisms at play here which interest me the most - if only to understand my own overtly religious upbringing in a non supernatural context - and perhaps some of my reactions since.
@divegeester saidI think, assuming Ragwort's history of belief is comparable to mine, that "intuition and instinct" played a role in whatever faith we had in the past and "intuition and instinct" also play a role in our agnosticism and/or atheism now.
The three contributors to the this thread this far each had a strongly religious upbringing so perhaps we are not the best examples of a having an intuitive or instinctive faith.