Religion is stupid

[spidergoat]

All that is very good in theory. But in practice, there has never been a society that has come into being without religion and once religion breaks down, so does the society.

This is evidence for the importance of religion as a basis for all societies.

False, you may remember I pointed out that the Piraha people of the Amazon do not have a religion or mythology. They do not believe anything they haven't seen or that someone still alive (that they trust) has witnessed.

 

[S.A.M.]

Yeah. I remember.

/gets out of the way of the rush of atheists beating a path to Piraha society

 

[spidergoat]

So your premise is disproven, they have been around at least a thousand years or so.

 

[S.A.M.]

And you know that this has been their belief all along how?

 

[Liebling]

Come on S.A.M., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirahã_people

 

[S.A.M.]

These are the same people who are unable to count. How do they measure anything including the number of years they've been around?

 

[rjr6]

Why? Think about how it calms the ignorant masses, gives people a sense of community.....

Religion seems to be that one crutch for people who can't seem to deal with reality very well.

Sadly...
Religion is a trap not for the less intelligent, but for the weak willed. For those unwilling to spend the time to be better people just to make a better world. It becomes an addiction that is introduced and fed at a very young age to the masses in hopes that it will make people abide and feel loved.

The problem being that all the stupid people are breeding and all the smart people who see society's bigger picture are not having kids at all, thusly causing evolution to be going in reverse on the rational intelligence vs religion scale.

Does culture derive from religion or vice-versa?

 

[S.A.M.]

They have interesting personal experiences as well:

One morning in 1980, during a nine-month stay among the Pirah�, I awoke to yelling, crying, and whooping near the river's edge, about fifty feet from where I was trying vainly to sleep. I went to the crowd, which included nearly every man, woman, and child in the village. They were all pointing across the river and some were crying, some were yelling, and all were acting as though what they were seeing was very frightening. I looked across the river, but I could see nothing. I asked them what they were fussing about. One man answered increduously, 'Can't you see him there?' 'I see nothing. What are you talking about?' was my response. 'There, on the other bank, on that small strip of beach, is 'igaga� a mean not-blood-one. There was nothing on the other side. But the people insisted that he was there in full view. This experience has haunted me ever since. It underscored how spirits are not merely fictional characters to the Pirah�, but concrete experiences.

"Piraha culture constrains communication to non-abstract subjects which fall within the immediate experience of [the speaker]." What can be discussed, in other words, is what has been seen. When it can no longer be perceived, it ceases, in this realm at least, to exist. After struggling with one grammatical curiosity, he realised that the Piraha were "talking about liminality - situations in which an item goes in and out of the boundaries of their experience. [Their] excitement at seeing a canoe go around a river bend is hard to describe; they see this almost as travelling into another dimension".

So they see spirits and have no concept of absract thought.


http://www.wunderkabinett.co.uk/damndata/index.php?/archives/272-What-the-Pirah-saw.html

 

[spidergoat]

Yes, they see spirits. But it hasn't degenerated into a religion yet.

 

[Liebling]

Does culture derive from religion or vice-versa?

Some cultures have a religious base, because religion has become so pervasive. But that's a chicken and egg thing really. We could not know about culture without religion simply because we lack the physical record. But it seems that the Piraha have their own culture without religion, so it's possible to have a culture without religion.

 

[S.A.M.]

Yes, they see spirits. But it hasn't degenerated into a religion yet.

No, which is why they have different notions of laws of nature. Quite interesting really, if you cannot conceive of physical laws, do they really exist?

If you perceive things that others cannot, what defines perception? Or even reality?

Is reality defined by abstract thought? Is an areligious society independent of abstract concepts and has instead a realm of spirits?

 

[Liebling]

They have interesting personal experiences as well:

So they see spirits and have no concept of absract thought.


http://www.wunderkabinett.co.uk/damndata/index.php?/archives/272-What-the-Pirah-saw.html

That's subjective to a Christian missionaries understanding of what they were talking about at that time. His view point wasn't the Piraha view point and it may have been something entirely different.

As for "needing" numbers, what for? Do we need to know how old we are, or do we need to just understand that in our social hierarchy, she came before I did. She was here before me, and is therefor my elder? If we trade, only the value of the item is important not the number or weight. I can see how a society can live without numbers if you look at it objectively, just as I can see a live without religious influence if I look at it objectively. I don't come from an indoctrinated background so it's easier for me to not apply my beliefs when I don't have anything to believe either way.

 

[Liebling]

No, which is why they have different notions of laws of nature. Quite interesting really, if you cannot conceive of physical laws, do they really exist?

If you perceive things that others cannot, what defines perception? Or even reality?

Is reality defined by abstract thought? Is an areligious society independent of abstract concepts and has instead a realm of spirits?

Or could it be as simply as a hallucination based on something they ate collectively? Maybe it was someone's wash caught in the right light?

But maybe it was just the interpretation of one Christian missionary.

 

[S.A.M.]

That's subjective to a Christian missionaries understanding of what they were talking about at that time. His view point wasn't the Piraha view point and it may have been something entirely different.

As for "needing" numbers, what for? Do we need to know how old we are, or do we need to just understand that in our social hierarchy, she came before I did. She was here before me, and is therefor my elder? If we trade, only the value of the item is important not the number or weight. I can see how a society can live without numbers if you look at it objectively, just as I can see a live without religious influence if I look at it objectively. I don't come from an indoctrinated background so it's easier for me to not apply my beliefs when I don't have anything to believe either way.

You need numbers to use this computer, for one thing..

Or could it be as simply as a hallucination based on something they ate collectively? Maybe it was someone's wash caught in the right light?

But maybe it was just the interpretation of one Christian missionary.

Maybe. Or maybe thats just the kind of society that lack of belief gives you

The Piraha, Everett reveals, possess "the most complex verbal morphology I am aware of [and] are some of the brightest, pleasantest, most fun-loving people that I know". Yet they have no numbers of any kind, no terms for quantification (such as all, each, every, most and some), no colour terms and no perfect tense. They appear to have borrowed their pronouns from another language, having previously possessed none. They have no "individual or collective memory of more than two generations past", no drawing or other art, no fiction and "no creation stories or myths".

Perhaps ignorance truly is bliss?

 

[Liebling]

But they don't need computers, and they are "some of the brightest, pleasantest, most fun-loving people that I know.", as per Mr. Everett. And all that, without religion

Doesn't seem like a society on the verge of falling apart, does it to you?

 

[S.A.M.]

You're right. I suppose you'll be joining them soon? Taking your kids out of school and sending them there?

 

[spidergoat]

That's the book I read, by Everett. He visited as a missionary in order to learn their language and translate the Bible into Piraha. As a result of his experience, he became an atheist.

 

[mikenostic]

Does culture derive from religion or vice-versa?

You know, that question seems to parallel the question:
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Allow us to ponder it's infinity.

I'd have to say culture is derived from religion. IIRC, even the earliest, earliest form of man probably worshipped the sun, in a sense thanking it for giving them warmth that sustains all life.

 

[rjr6]

he probably thought that was easier than translating the Bible! atheism, that is.

Mr. everett got to Numbers and said "F*** that!"

 

[rjr6]

Some cultures have a religious base, because religion has become so pervasive. But that's a chicken and egg thing really. We could not know about culture without religion simply because we lack the physical record. But it seems that the Piraha have their own culture without religion, so it's possible to have a culture without religion.

You know, that question seems to parallel the question:
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Allow us to ponder it's infinity.

I'd have to say culture is derived from religion. IIRC, even the earliest, earliest form of man probably worshipped the sun, in a sense thanking it for giving them warmth that sustains all life.

Why would religion precede culture? From an atheists mindset, endemically. Are we at a dawn of a new age? !000's of years of societies and we are now breaking through-that is what I hear. Coincidentally we live (USA) in a society that allows for that thought. very interesting.