In conclusion, my answer to the question “Does religion perpetuate and promote a regressive worldview?” is “Yes.” — Art48
For a religion to survive and thrive among a largely regressive people, it would of necessity incorporate much of the prevailing regressive worldview. — Art48
The world’s major religions all have a primitive way of know: i.e., they use scripture and authority to decide what is and is not true. In Christianity, if the Bible says it, especially if Jesus says it, then it must be true. — Art48
The amygdala is the part of the brain which experiences emotions, in particular, fear and anger. It’s responsible for the “fight or flight” response. The cerebral cortex supports higher-level reasoning and intelligence. It has been speculated that the regressive has an overactive amygdala and an underdeveloped cerebral cortex, while the progressive has a better developed cerebral cortex. Relative to their overall size, humans have the largest cerebral cortex of all mammals. So, it might be argued that people with an overdeveloped amygdala and an underdeveloped cerebral cortex are people who are failing to realize their human potential. Thus, the label “regressive” is appropriate. — Art48
We humans have long believed that rationality makes us special in the animal kingdom. This origin myth reflects one of the most cherished narratives in Western thought, that the human mind is a battlefield where cognition and emotion struggle for control of behavior. Even the adjective we use to describe ourselves as insensitive or stupid in the heat of the moment —“thoughtless” —connotes a lack of cognitive control, of failing to channel our inner Mr. Spock. This origin myth is so strongly held that scientists even created a model of the brain based on it. The model begins with ancient subcortical circuits for basic survival, which we allegedly inherited from reptiles. Sitting atop those circuits is an alleged emotion system, known as the “limbic system,” that we supposedly inherited from early mammals. And wrapped around the socalled limbic system, like icing on an already-baked cake, is our allegedly rational and uniquely human cortex. This illusory arrangement of layers, which is sometimes called the “triune brain,” remains one of the most successful misconceptions in human biology. Carl Sagan popularized it in The Dragons of Eden, his bestselling (some would say largely fictional) account of how human intelligence evolved. Daniel Goleman employed it in his bestseller Emotional Intelligence. Nevertheless, humans don’t have an animal brain gift-wrapped in cognition, as any expert in brain evolution knows.
“Mapping emotion onto just the middle part of the brain, and reason and logic onto the cortex, is just plain silly,” says neuroscientist Barbara L. Finlay, editor of the journal Behavior and Brain Sciences. “All brain divisions are
present in all vertebrates.” So how do brains evolve? They reorganize as they expand, like companies do, to keep themselves efficient and nimble.
( Lisa Barrett, How Emotions are Made)
( Lisa Barrett, How Emotions are Made)
Josh, you seem to have some objection. Can you put it in your own words? — Art48
don’t do it on the basis of rationality vs emotion, because the science of emotion no longer justifies that dichotomy. — Joshs
Just say you prefer an atheistic value system. — Joshs
Does religion perpetuate and promote a regressive worldview? — Art48
don’t do it on the basis of rationality vs emotion, because the science of emotion no longer justifies that dichotomy.
— Joshs
Can you say some more on this and the role of emotion in reason — Tom Storm
’Prefer' something seems a curious or 'cold' word to choose, given the subject matter; it makes theism versus atheism sound like selecting a pair of pants.
I've often held (perhaps wrongly) that (along with socialisation and enculturation) belief in deities is often arrived at aesthetically or emotionally, perhaps along the line of one's sexual preference. In my case, I never felt a jones for theism and no amount of argument is able to make it exciting or meaningful. — Tom Storm
:100: :clap: Thanks for posting this. Quite an important point and distinction, with many ramifications/consequences.Nevertheless, humans don’t have an animal brain gift-wrapped in cognition, as any expert in brain evolution knows.
“Mapping emotion onto just the middle part of the brain, and reason and logic onto the cortex, is just plain silly,” says neuroscientist Barbara L. Finlay, editor of the journal Behavior and Brain Sciences. “All brain divisions are
present in all vertebrates.” So how do brains evolve? They reorganize as they expand, like companies do, to keep themselves efficient and nimble.
( Lisa Barrett, How Emotions are Made) — Joshs
If someone is a fundamentalist Christian then their religion MUST accept a worldwide flood. Etc.
Can you say some more on this and the role of emotion in reason? — Tom Storm
Does religion perpetuate and promote a regressive worldview? — Art48
Rationality asks ‘What is the case’?, bit underneath it emotion asks a more fundamentalset of questions: ’what is the valuative significance and meaning of what is the case’? ‘Why do we care about it?’ ‘What the sense of it’? ‘What pattern of thinking makes the rationality of what is the case intelligible? — Joshs
When you think about or study through a topic, you then summarize it, and this summary is then captured in a particular emotion. Later on, you don't revisit your thoughts or your study notes on the topic, you just have an emotion about it. — baker
Isnt the history of scientific progress akin to (and running parallel with) historical shifts in artistic movements? Isnt the historical progression of science, art and other cultural domains bound together via enculturation and socialization? — Joshs
Weekly religious attendance is a curb on criminal behavior, child abuse, — Count Timothy von Icarus
It seems obvious to me that for many believers, believing in witchcraft and demons, and denying evolution and geology (Young Earth Creationism) derive from Christian belief. Not for liberal Christians. But for Christians who take the Bible literally, i.e., fundamentalists. For example, Sarah Palin and Mike Johnson are fundamentalist Christian lunatics.it seems hard to justify the idea that religion makes people particularly more regressive — Count Timothy von Icarus
Quite a list but not to the point.Hegel, Cantor, Maimonides, Descartes, Dogen, Avicenna, Augustine, Eriugena, Proclus, Newton, Eckhart, Avarroese, Leibniz, Porphyry, Pascale, Maxwell, Berkeley, Ibn Sina, Bonaventure, Hildegard, Al-Ghazai, Cusa, Erasmus, Rumi, Merton, Plotinius, Anselm, Abelard, Al-Farabi, Ibn Kaldun, Plato, Schelling, Bacon, Magnus, Boyle, Kelvin, Eddington, Pierce, Godel, Faraday, Mendel, Pastier, Lister — Count Timothy von Icarus
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