What IS the correlation between religiosity and irrationality in the human minds

1. 84

   gmwilliamsposted 9 years ago

   What IS the correlation between religiosity and irrationality in the human mindset?
   
   

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2. 77

   LillyGrillzitposted 9 years ago

   
   
   I really have no answer except from personal opinion, but I had to respond to this question and the photograph chosen. Thank you for the laugh this morning.
   
   Opinion: In order to be considered "religious" a person must succumb to many rules, rites and traditions. Many religious organizations teach that one must attain goals of perfection or acceptance by the ruling body. No one is perfect, and people who refuse to think for themselves are glad to leave their consciences at the door for full acceptance.
   
   Human beings are given a brain - a center of genius, and refusing to engage the brain causes madness, and turns people into something that they are not.
   
   No one's religious belief makes them superior to another. Thinking that others are lacking due to difference is a fantasy, lies do not last - the entire concept is irrational.

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      gmwilliamsposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      This is a well thought out synopsis of religiosity.

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      LillyGrillzitposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you.

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3. 87

   tsmogposted 9 years ago

   Tough question. Religiosity is diverse with usage. It is even used as a diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorder being a symptom. It could be construed as irrational, however irrational does not have to be concerned with religion. Irrational concerns logic, which logic too is diversified and not always a specific. π is an irrational number. Without oddity π is needed to make sense of a circle and the mathematics of curves and spheres. In essence an irrational number does not terminate going on for infinity such as 3.14159 . . . 
   
   Speculatively the correlation between religiosity and irrationality with the mindset would IMHO be dependent on the religion. I have known people who make value judgments based on how their favorite football team is doing, if a butterfly flies by, and for example some pick their favorite horse to bet on by the color of the Jockey's uniform. They do that with a religious conviction, even though it does not seem rational. They could be assigned having an irrational religiosity regarding how to pick a horse to bet on. I ponder if they bet on an exacta by color too :-)

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   adagio4639posted 9 years ago

   Wow. Great question. Here's my take on it.
   Religion...ALL religions are foundationalistic. They're based on something. And that something can never be falsified. It's all metaphysical. You can't demonstrate the truth of any religion. They're all beliefs. So, what are the beliefs based on?? They're based on themselves. They all rely on circular reasoning, which is a logical fallacy. For example: A fallacious type of circular reasoning is to create a circular chain of reasoning like this one: “God exists.” “How do you know that God exists?” “The Bible says so.” “Why should I believe the Bible?” “Because it’s the inspired word of God.”
   
   The so-called “final proof” relies on unproven evidence set forth initially as the subject of debate. Basically, the argument goes in an endless circle, with each step of the argument relying on a previous one, which in turn relies on the first argument yet to be proven. Surely, God deserves a more intelligible argument than the circular reasoning proposed in this example!
   
   Religions are all faced with the problem of infinite regress v their dogma. When pressed for some basis for using the Bible as an authority, the person may claim it’s the word of God. I ask how he knows that, and I’m told “the Bible says so.” He is caught in the dilemma of infinite regress vs. his own religious dogma. He can’t let go of the dogma of his religious beliefs, which are his theory of rationality, so he must resort to circular reasoning. If we claim a basis gives us truth, we then are making the implicit claim that truth requires basis. But then it is plainly obvious that our own basis lacks a basis, as it cannot be its own basis. You can't use a theory to prove itself. That's circular reasoning. But when you press a person to find the basis that justifies his belief, you hear one more basis relying on one more justification for yet another basis in an endless regress. As long as the person holds on to the dogma of the belief he finds himself in a spiral into an abyss of endless justification for still another basis. The only escape is to end the spiral by saying, "This is what I believe, because I believe it." That is a circular argument and a logical fallacy. A person that clings to a logical fallacy when he knows that it's a logical fallacy is irrational. He knows his thinking is seriously flawed, but he maintains it anyway.

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5. 69

   Rod Marsdenposted 9 years ago

   
   
   Not the easiest of questions to answer. I am more a science person than a religious person. Show me the proof and I am happy. Dealing with the main religions, holy books tends to reflect the times in which they were written. They cannot always deal with more modern times yet the religious not only want them to but NEED them to do so. Hence some religious people in the USA have to go along with the 7 day business for the creation of the world which doesn't allow for creatures to develop over thousands and thousands of years. Hence science and Darwin must be wrong. Creationism has to come to the fore to battle science with fake science. And yet there is fossil evidence that man didn't just magically appear on planet Earth or that animals, plants, fish and birds have always been what they are now.
   
   I have gotten into quite a few discussions/arguments over Evolution vs Creationism. You would have thought it was all resolved back in the 1920s with the monkey trial but it does come up time and again.
   
   Science and people who crunch numbers know that population-wise we are all headed for disaster. The religious still look upon 'be fruitful and multiply' as God's wishes and refuse to see starvation and war in the future if they do not have less children. Christians are bad but Muslims may be even worse in this.
   
   Back in 2005 in Australia some Muslim youth did act in a rather irrational way by picking on girls as young as eleven for wearing bikinis on an Australian beach in an Australian summer. For a long time the locals put up with this then the Cronulla riot broke out. The Muslim youth responsible have yet to come to terms with what they did. Why create violence where there is peace? Very strange.
   
   The Charlie business in France also smacks of the irrational. Why not take legal means such as suing a magazine if you do not like the cartoon and the words that go with it? Shooting artists and writers is totally wrong. Back in the 1990s a none too popular novelist wrote The Satanic Verses which did not make a certain powerful Muslim very happy. A death warrant against the artist was issued. Crazy? Again legal means were available...
   
   Once upon a time an Astronomer was put into house arrest for pointing out truths about our solar system. Nowadays the Vatican has its own telescope. Also apparently the Earth really does move around the sun and not the other way around. Above is a pic dealing with present day madness.

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      Lady Guinevereposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I can crunch numbers about populations, but I can also go out into the vast amounts of untouched lands and seas and oceans and see that we are only over populated in the cities.

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      Austinstarposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Lady, There are whole islands of trash in the oceans of the world. And even in remote mountains, one finds the ubiquitous plastic bag here and there. You may think pollution and overpopulation will not reach disaster levels, but u r wrong.

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   3. 69

      Rod Marsdenposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Lela. What you have said has been well documented and easily looked up if Debra Allen is interested.

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6. 51

   aharrisposted 9 years ago

   On the most simplistic level, religiosity can lead to irrationality, unless one is mentally ill to begin with and believes he is, say, Jesus, or that the voices in his head are direct orders from God or Satan. because it jacks free will and personal responsibility. 
   
   Although raised in the first ever protestant denomination of the Christian church (Henry the VIII's invention), I no longer practice nor believe, although it has been oh-so-tempting to give it over to God on those occasions when life seemed too hard to manage. But defaulting to God is like reaching for a Xanax.   There ain't no Big Daddy in the sky. Ain't no dinosaurs in the Bible.
   
   What if the Ten Commandments were some mortal person's attempt at crowd control in a time when people didn't have self-restraint?  Ten bad things about covers it and still apply. In order to get people's attention, he'd have delivered them in a dramatic fashion and the results probably would have seemed magical, as people internalized the message and saw how much better every one behaved, especially once consequences for bad behavior were imposed.  If you didn't get caught by the people who put themselves in charge, you would get punished in the afterlife, about which there is much fantasy in the absence of actual word form the other side. In other religions, you can blow up yourself with a bunch of other innocents and graduate not to Hell, but to a Bud Lite party.
   
   Young, impressionable, and naïve people are good candidates for gangs and cults, and conservative or extreme sects, and even mainstream religions.  These alternatives to reality and their relinquishing of personal responsibility (in favor of "God's Will") can become dangerous to the rest of us when people become insensibly certain their cause is righteous and that the hereafter is more important than the here-and-now. 
   
   Among my biggest fear lies in the growing disparity between the number of boy and girl babies born (or that are allowed to survive) in places where sons are saviors and girls are a burden.  What do you think these single guys will do when they reach their teens? They are probably less desirable because they have no financial prospects to begin with, and have nothing to lose.  They are likely to join radical groups that skillfully re-direct their frustration toward something else, like people who are different from themselves in heritage, nationality, or religion. What would almost any male who learns he will never have consensual sex (with either gender) do?

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7. 78

   Say Yes To Lifeposted 9 years ago

   If the religion declares itself as Absolute Truth, followers must check their rationality at the door to accept and follow it.  If the religion allows questioning, that is not necessary.

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