Cognitive dissonance, humans can hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time. It doesn’t mean they don’t believe in one or the other, it means they are holding an irrational contradiction. Most of the time it’s because the person doesn’t see the contradiction.
That makes more sense to me than saying they don’t really believe it considering the kinds of things they do in the name of their beliefs. — DingoJones

No. They threaten with eternal damnation anyone who doesn't believe like they do. Because of this, they do not deserve the kind of lenience that you describe above and which would apply in other situations, for other beliefs (inlcuding flatearthing and antivaxxing).

I don’t see “belief” as binary like you do, — DingoJones

It's the religious who primarily see belief in such binary terms!

No. They threaten with eternal damnation anyone who doesn't believe like they do. Because of this, they do not deserve the kind of lenience that you describe above and which would apply in other situations, for other beliefs (inlcuding flatearthing and antivaxxing). — baker

It’s not lenience, it is just understanding what’s going on re cognitive dissonance. You asked for an alternative...though it appears your “what else?” was rhetorical in light of that response.

It's the religious who primarily see belief in such binary terms! — baker

Sure, I will concede binary terms is a common malady of the religious but the comment directed at you was very specific to your view of “belief”. I have no idea if you think in binary terms on anything else or in general the way a religious person might.
Maybe binary isn’t the right term...I meant to describe how on your view your belief is either backed up by action or it isn’t really a belief. That seems like a binary metric to me.
Anyway, not meant as derogatory, it’s not like I think anything binary is bad. You just define belief differently that I do on which lead to my misunderstanding but I got it now.

If it is assumed that ‘religion’ of any denomination or origin is conceived by man but has an external agency (message, vision, feeling) then we can look at the outcomes (whilst still debating the root cause) and like with a lot of ‘big ideas’ there is the good and the bad in everything that is a human construct or idea. This even applies to technology - but it is the application that creates the outcomes. Faith and morals and a compass if you like are positive outcomes of religion. Arguably love too but whilst an aspect of all religions it is more central I would argue in some e.g. Buddhism and many would argue Christianity (the love of Christ and love of god giving his only son etc).Sacrifice of self or others has also been a feature e.g. Abraham’s sacrifice. This can contain the idea of both a vengeful god (the Old Testament) but a loving one (the New Testament). There are of course ‘divisions’ too in major religions so again the human agency creates the interpretations. There is no real overall answer if the net benefit of religion is positive or negative in part because it can depend on the impact at the individual level. It is still arguably one facet of the rise of civilisation that as part of that it gave rise to religion and through history has shaped the modern world and continues today. I am not certain that religion was necessary to give us our morals and a way of living. Elders could have and probably did that as did education and upbringing. It’s a human thing and a result of our consciousness and ability to abstract.

I don’t see “belief” as binary like you do, I think as long as there are differences in how strongly people can believe things you have to accept that conviction and belief are distinct from each other. — DingoJones

This is a poor distinction. Rather, the pair should be belief -- relevance of said belief to a particular person's life.

For example, you probably believe that radium-226 has a half-life of 1600 years. But unless you work with radioactive elements or in some relation to them, said belief has little or no relevance for you. It's also inactionable for you. (It's relevant and actionable for those who plan to build nuclear waste storage facilities, for example.)

It's similar with religious beliefs: for the most part, they bear little relevance to a person's life and are inactionable. The belief in, say, the immaculate conception of Jesus is inactionable for the vast majority of Christians, except indirectly (!) for, say, translators of holy texts or inquisitors (given that wrong beliefs about Jesus are cause for accusations of heresy and according actions).

How would one act on the belief "God exist"?
How can one act confidently on the commandments supposedly given by this God?

Except for formal religious actions (such as praying, venerating), there is nothing to do as far as the belief "God exist" goes. Given this, the commandments supposedly given by this God also can't bear much weight to a person's life.

This approach has more explanatory power than the dichotomy belief -- conviction. The fact is that you can have all the conviction you want in a belief like, for instance, the immaculate conception of Jesus, but you still can't act on it.

It’s not lenience, it is just understanding what’s going on re cognitive dissonance. — DingoJones

It's not clear that in the case of the religious not living up to what they profess this is really due to cognitive dissonance. You'd need to rule out deliberate duplicity. Religion's bloody history warrants such scrutiny.

Maybe binary isn’t the right term...I meant to describe how on your view your belief is either backed up by action or it isn’t really a belief. That seems like a binary metric to me.

You asked:

That if you really believe something you obligate yourself to act in accordance with it? — DingoJones

To which I replied affirmatively. But see my above post: Some beliefs are inactionable, at least for some people. So one has to wonder why would anyone profess those beliefs? Because of their metavalue? (Ie. because professing such beliefs spares one from being prosecuted by other people?)

Compare: You and I believe that radium-226 has a half-life of 1600 years; I assume neither of us works in the nuclear industry, so we can't act on this belief. We also don't make a point of telling anyone that we believe that radium-226 has a half-life of 1600 years. So what gives?

It's not clear that in the case of the religious not living up to what they profess this is really due to cognitive dissonance. You'd need to rule out deliberate duplicity. Religion's bloody history warrants such scrutiny. — baker

I wouldn’t rule out either as an explanation. There are many reasons. Also Cognitive dissonance is observable, primarily through the contrast between a persons thought expression and their behaviour.
That’s a lot clearer than the basis of your view which is based on your own rigid definition of belief. You entitled to that rigid definition but I see no compelling reason to adopt it myself.

To which I replied affirmatively. But see my above post: Some beliefs are inactionable, at least for some people. So one has to wonder why would anyone profess those beliefs? Because of their metavalue? (Ie. because professing such beliefs spares one from being prosecuted by other people?)

Compare: You and I believe that radium-226 has a half-life of 1600 years; I assume neither of us works in the nuclear industry, so we can't act on this belief. We also don't make a point of telling anyone that we believe that radium-226 has a half-life of 1600 years. So what gives? — baker

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. Sometimes your beliefs are not relevant, your example of immaculate conception doesn’t show that they can’t be acted upon it’s an example of when a person wouldn’t act upon it because they have no reason, it’s irrelevant.
We would make a point to tell people about radium if we were talking about radium.
These things that you are talking about are not mutually exclusive with my own explanations. Both are reasons for the divide between thought and action.

Also Cognitive dissonance is observable, primarily through the contrast between a persons thought expression and their behaviour. — DingoJones

So you think that a conman "has" cognitive dissonance?

No, the religious conman is real. I’m not disagreeing that there are religious conmen, no question. I just don’t agree that the average religious person is a conman. Who are they conning, themselves?
The average religious person has a cognitive dissonance though, I might even go so far as to say that belief in a religion is impossible without one. After all if you follow any one edict in the bible and not follow some other edict then you aren’t really making sense and since the contradictions of the bible make it impossible to follow them all you can’t really religious without making one or more breaches of logic and rationality.

"We are made sick and yet commanded to be
well." — Hitchslap 101

The average religious person has a cognitive dissonance though, I might even go so far as to say that belief in a religion is impossible without one. After all if you follow any one edict in the bible and not follow some other edict then you aren’t really making sense and since the contradictions of the bible make it impossible to follow them all you can’t really religious without making one or more breaches of logic and rationality. — DingoJones

:100: :fire:

“ Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.”

-Hitchens.

One of my favourite quotes of his.

:cool:

I know the basic question has been asked many time and in different ways but what I would like to hear and discuss from others the why of religion or more exactly why do humans have the belief that there is some entity or entities outside of their own species that have influence and determination of their being something after the physical death of a human. — David S

In homo sapiens evolution has delegated part of the species survival functions to culture because we have the capability for language.... we need an education to become fully functional.

Before written language myth and stories were for the longest time the vehicles to transfer knowledge from generation to generation. Religion as a subset of myth, was the veneration of the highest values in a given society. Deification and personification of said values enabled turning them into narratives which could serve as mnemonic devices.

Also, one shouldn't confuse contemporary monotheistic religions with earlier religions, they are mere echoes of something that once served a vital function, pale and impoverished in comparison with the original.

I know the basic question has been asked many time and in different ways but what I would like to hear and discuss from others the why of religion or more exactly why do humans have the belief that there is some entity or entities outside of their own species that have influence and determination of their being something after the physical death of a human.
— David S

In homo sapiens evolution has delegated part of the species survival functions to culture because we have the capability for language.... we need an education to become fully functional.

Before written language myth and stories were for the longest time the vehicles to transfer knowledge from generation to generation. Religion as a subset of myth, was the veneration of the highest values in a given society. Deification and personification of said values enabled turning them into narratives which could serve as mnemonic devices.

Also, one shouldn't confuse contemporary monotheistic religions with earlier religions, they are mere echoes of something that once served a vital function, pale and impoverished in comparison with the original. — ChatteringMonkey

So the question is really, why do tend we to think in narratives? What is it about stories that makes us remember them easier? Because we evolved to be good at the social stuff, presumably because that was important for our survival...

I asked:

So you think that a conman "has" cognitive dissonance? — baker

This is a philosophy discussion forum. Read with precision.

I asked you about the conman, not about the religious conman, as the issue was the contrast between a person's thought expression and their behavior. I said nothing about the religious conman.

The average religious person has a cognitive dissonance though, I might even go so far as to say that belief in a religion is impossible without one. After all if you follow any one edict in the bible and not follow some other edict then you aren’t really making sense and since the contradictions of the bible make it impossible to follow them all you can’t really religious without making one or more breaches of logic and rationality.

This would apply only if religious people would typically be well familiar with the doctrine they profess to support.
They are generally not thusly familiar. Even by their own accounts and by the accounts of critics from their own groups. For example, you can read on Catholics blogs written by Catholics that Catholics generally have a poor knowledge of Catholic doctrine. Among cradle religionists, there are also folk versions of the religious doctrine that they profess to be part of; folk versions that are not in line with the actual doctrine (e.g. some Catholics have the folk belief that people who weren't baptized as babies are bound for hell and that baptism later on doesn't really count -- this contradicts actual RCC doctrine; or in Buddhism, there are folk beliefs about karma that have no grounding in the Buddhist holy texts).

Moreover, many religions don't even have a catechism-type of doctrinal text (the way the RCC does), so to begin with, it's not clear what said religion's doctrine actually is about. And if even that is not clear, how can we even begin to talk of cognitive dissonance? We can't.

Further, in religions, there tend to exist meta-level teachings that order the importance of teachings. To an outsider who doesn't know those meta-level teachings, all edicts in, for example, the Bible might seem as being on the same level, having the same importance (thus creating opportunities for contradictions). But to an insider, the biblical edicts are hierachically ordered, so that some are more important than others, some contextualize others, and so on. This order minimizes or annulls the possibility of contradiction, as contradiction proper can exist only between statements of the same order in the hierarchy or in the same context. For example, for Catholics, the New Testament supersedes the Old Testament, so the edicts between the two are not in conflict. For a Vajrayana Buddhist, the instructions of one's teacher supersede everything and everyone else. And so on.

This is a philosophy discussion forum. Read with precision.

I asked you about the conman, not about the religious conman, as the issue was the contrast between a person's thought expression and their behavior. I said nothing about the religious conman. — baker

Well we had been discussing this in a religious context. You were using it in examples and referencing. Then You said this:

“It's not clear that in the case of the religious not living up to what they profess this is really due to cognitive dissonance. You'd need to rule out deliberate duplicity. Religion's bloody history warrants such scrutiny.“

So then I posted a direct response:

I wouldn’t rule out either as an explanation. There are many reasons. Also Cognitive dissonance is observable, primarily through the contrast between a persons thought expression and their behaviour.
That’s a lot clearer than the basis of your view which is based on your own rigid definition of belief. You entitled to that rigid definition but I see no compelling reason to adopt it myself. — DingoJones

To which you responded with:

So you think that a conman "has" cognitive dissonance? — baker

Which is is either in the context of religion as the rest of our discussion or a non-sequitur.

Also, this response doesn’t address any point I raised. You ignored those and instead raised a new question of questionable relevance and then acted as though I was being imprecise in my reading. This has a stink of dishonesty to it, you don’t seem to be arguing in good faith here.
I’m not going to wander around aimlessly with you, answer my comments properly or we’re done here.

Religion filled in the gaps of our ignorance...

That's why.

End of story.

I like Nietzsche's short concise explanations:

"Misunderstanding of the dream. - The man of the ages of barbarous primordial culture believed that in the dream he was getting to know a second real world: here is the origin of all metaphysics. Without the dream one would have had no occasion to divide the world into two. The dissection into soul and body is also connected with the oldest idea of the dream, likewise the postulation of a life of the soul, thus the origin of all belief in spirits, and probably also of the belief in gods. 'The dead live on, for they appear to the living in dreams': that was the conclusion one formerly drew, throughout many millennia." (Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Human, All Too Human A Book for Free Spirits §5)

"On the origin of religion. – The metaphysical need is not the origin of religion, as Schopenhauer has it, but only a late offshoot of it. Under the rule of religious ideas, one has got used to the idea of ‘another world (behind, below, above)’ and feels an unpleasant emptiness and deprivation at the annihilation of religious delusions – and from this feeling grows now ‘another world’, but this time only a metaphysical and not a religious one. But what led to the belief in ‘another world’ in primordial times was not a drive or need, but an error in the interpretation of certain natural events, an embarrassing lapse of the intellect." (The Gay Science §151)

"On the origin of religions. – The true invention of the religion-founders is first to establish a certain way of life and everyday customs that work as a disciplina voluntatis while at the same time removing boredom; and then to give just this life an interpretation that makes it appear illuminated by the highest worth, so that henceforth it becomes a good for which one fights and under certain circumstances even gives one’s life. Actually, the second invention is the more important: the first, the way of life, was usually already in place, though alongside other ways of life and without any consciousness of its special worth. The significance, the originality of the religion-founder usually lies in his seeing and selecting this way of life, in his guessing for the first time what it can be used for and how it can be interpreted. Jesus (or Paul), for example, discovered the life of the small people in the Roman province, a humble, virtuous, depressed life: he explained it, he put the highest meaning and value into it – and thereby also the courage to despise every other way of life, the silent Moravian brotherhood fanaticism, the clandestine subterranean self-confidence that grows and grows and is finally ready to ‘overcome the world’ (i.e. Rome and the upper classes throughout the empire). Buddha likewise discovered, scattered indeed among all classes and social strata of his people, that type of person who is good and gracious (above all, inoffensive) out of laziness and who, also from laziness, lives abstinently and with nearly no needs at all: he understood how such a type of person would inevitably, with all of his vis inertiae, have to roll into a faith that promises to prevent the return of earthly toil (i.e. of work and action in general), – this ‘understanding’ was his genius. The religion-founder must be psychologically infallible in his knowledge of a certain average breed of souls who have not yet recognized one another as allies. He is the one who brings them together; and to that extent, the establishment of a religion always turns into a long festival of recognition. –" (The Gay Science §354)

So you think that a conman "has" cognitive dissonance?
— baker

Which is is either in the context of religion as the rest of our discussion or a non-sequitur.

Also, this response doesn’t address any point I raised. You ignored those and instead raised a new question of questionable relevance and then acted as though I was being imprecise in my reading. — DingoJones

I was trying to make the discussion shorter and more concise. My point has been to show that it is questionabale whether religious people indeed necessarily operate under cognitive dissonance. Hence I wanted to illustrate a point about cognitive dissonance with the example of the conman, and then take things from there.

This has a stink of dishonesty to it, you don’t seem to be arguing in good faith here.

That is your perception.


In short, a case can be made that religious people do not necessarily operate under cognitive dissonance, because:
1. they have a poor knowledge of the doctrine they profess to uphold;
2. outsiders do not understand religious doctrines in the hierarchical and contextualized way as insiders do, so outsiders perceive cognitive dissonance where for insiders there is none;
3. the bloody history of religion warrants skepticism and the possibility of religious people in fact being duplicitious.

Religion filled in the gaps of our ignorance...

That's why.

End of story. — creativesoul

This is not the end of the story. The question is: what does it fill it with?

In my opinion, religion is at its best when it leaves the gaps open. But most seek religion because they want answers. The answers they accept do not replace ignorance with knowledge but with ignorance of their ignorance. Faith is mistaken for knowledge.

Religion reminds me of an old movie in which the villain and the hero are having a verbal duel, a prelude to 5 minutes of no holds barred fighting

Villain (very proudly addressing the hero): Look around you, you piece of shit. All that you can see, as far as the eye can see, all of it is mine. [Human]

Hero (very calmly); Indeed but the thing is, what lies beyond, beyond all that you can see, all of that is mine! [God]

@Madfool Do you know the name of this movie?
A very astute quote from the hero.

Do you know the name of this movie?
A very astute quote from the hero. — Trinidad

Sorry, can't access those files. Corrupted sectors as per self-diagnostic reports. Will get back to you if I can recover those files. Until then, you'll have to live with not knowing, something everyone should be acquainted with. Adios amigo!

@TheMadFool Don't worry.
Knowledge is overrated anyway. Doing is king.

Don't worry.
Knowledge is overrated anyway. Doing is king. — Trinidad

Thanks for being so understanding! G'day.

Here's another theory to add to the pile...

Animals and primitive humans have/had a primal bond with reality. I literally live in a wildlife hospital, and spend about a billion hours a year in the woods, so this isn't just a theory to me.

As thought emerged and developed in human beings that primal bond with reality was diluted and broken. As thought developed, our attention was increasingly shifted from reality, to thoughts about reality. That is, from the real to the symbolic, from outward to inward. We can't have a primal bond with something we're not actually paying much attention to.

Religion is an attempt to restore this primal bond. This effort is referenced in phrases like "get back to God".

The primary problem with religion is that it typically (not always) attempts to restore the primal relationship with reality through the use of concepts and ideas, that is, thought, the very thing which distracts us from the primal bond.

Imagine that you experience this primal bond with reality, and you see the value in the experience and want to share it with others. What to do? You try to explain it in language, in thought, because what else can you use to communicate? And then, most people, given how mediocre and unserious most of us are, focus on the words instead of the experience they point to.

In my interpretation, one of about a billion available, Jesus was referring to this with the phrase "die to be reborn", and his various teachings about love. To the degree we can die to "me" (made of thought) our attention is liberated to focus on reality again, and for a time at least, the primal bond with nature is restored to some degree. In the East the same goal is often approached in a more direct manner, by various methods of turning down the volume of thought.

The cool thing is, nobody has to believe anything in this post or by any religion. Anyone who wants to can do the experiment for themselves and come to their own conclusions.

But, because philosophers tend to be as lazy and mediocre as anyone in any religion, we probably won't do the experiment, but will instead argue over the words. That's the way of the world, alway has been and always will be, little can be done about it.

I used to think this laziness was a problem, but now I'm not so sure. My current theory is that a certain degree of illusion is necessary for the continuation of life. If we were to achieve a true bonding with reality and thus lost the fear of death, well, why bother putting up with the burdens of the world?

@Foghorn I agree that most people "debate" with concepts rather than genuine experience.
Religion at its best is an experience. And refocusing on reality is prayer and meditation.
I'm sure many are living in a matrix of concepts purely out of fear.

I'm sure many are living in a matrix of concepts purely out of fear. — Trinidad

And, thought is pretty appealing. In the real world, I am small beyond measure. But in thought, in my own mind, I am the ruler of a kingdom of concepts. Ok, sure, it's a tiny tiny tiny kingdom. But it's MY kingdom.

@Foghorn I have always said the matrix Is language.
I do disagree on your point about us being small in the real world. I say sometimes it's the opposite. We are beyond measure,but overthinking constrains us by reducing us to a measure only.

I have always said the matrix Is language. — Trinidad

I like that, thanks. Never thought of it that way.

@Foghorn :up: