Do Religious Ideologies Encourage Timid, In-the-Box Thinking?

[ADigitalArtist]

I think it certainly can. But there are religions which are specifically antiproselytism and antitraditionalist thinking. And I don't think proselytism and traditionalist thinking is unique to religion but just an aspect of human psychology (looking at you Dawkins, with regressional views on women, LGBT and disabled while harping on religious teachings to that effect.)

 

[ADigitalArtist]

Since man was universally religious before the enlightenment, and even after that time, what say you about man's countless achievements?

Unable to be public with being non-religious or anti-religious without super dangerous social lashback =/= universally religious.

 

[Left Coast]

I think at 55 mph, a vehicle covers 150 to 160 feet per second, and that I should drive around curves at 5 mph under the posted speed limit because the posted speed limit is intended for cars, but that's only because I've been watching these freaking training videos most of the day.

Safety first!

 

[Bird123]

Do religious ideologies encourage timid, in-the-box thinking?

Are religious ideologies compatible with spiritual growth?

To be sure, you could ask the same two questions of any and all ideologies -- either religious or secular -- but I'll stick to religious ideologies here. For the purposes of this thread, an ideology is an intellectual frame or lens through which a person might see or interpret something. 'Spirituality' is however you want to define it. Please let us know what you mean by the term if you are using it in an unconventional manner.

Comments?

Very good question. Any time one controls the actions of another, they are placing restrictions on them. They are in a sense placing them in a box. If you convince a person to accept and follow, they are no longer on a free journey to Discover it all. They are limited by the view of who they are following.

God grants total freedom of choice. You will never see God come down and restrict a free choice.
God gave everyone a different view to guaranty mankind a larger view than any one person could have. Can one really Discover it all in a box? Aren't all the views needed to be seen?

Learning and Discovering is important. This can be done through the interaction with all around us. On the other hand, we are all meant to Think. A person is supposed to become so much more than the sum of all the teachings.

The first thing God pointed out to me is that mankind carries such a narrow view. One should not allow oneself nor anyone to restrict our choices or our freedom in our choices. I say listen to all but walk your own path. Life's lessons are best learned that way. We are all meant to stand on our own to feet rather than having crutches and depending on others to make our choices for us. Choosing is far too important for others to make for us.

That's what I see. It's very clear!!

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Do religious ideologies encourage timid, in-the-box thinking?

Are religious ideologies compatible with spiritual growth?

To be sure, you could ask the same two questions of any and all ideologies -- either religious or secular -- but I'll stick to religious ideologies here. For the purposes of this thread, an ideology is an intellectual frame or lens through which a person might see or interpret something. 'Spirituality' is however you want to define it. Please let us know what you mean by the term if you are using it in an unconventional manner.

Comments?

I can't quite bring myself to get past your ignoring of ideologies other than religious on this question. Any ideology, insofar as it is held (as it were) dogmatically, not only encourage in-the-box thinking but very specifically and actively discourage out-of-the-box, or skeptical, thinking.

I have known people who have bound themselves to conservative politics, for example, who in conversation with me have suddenly found that I led them, with their full agreement, to places where they suddenly felt uncomfortable and had to backtrack. You know the sort of thing: "well of course I think we should help that sort of person, and yes with government aid," only to have to suddenly bring themselves up short and remember that minimalist government is an ideological mantra. In other words, they were agreeing with what we were discussing, until they realized that their ideology forbade it, and they had to retract.

 

[Sunstone]

I can't quite bring myself to get past your ignoring of ideologies other than religious on this question.

What's the problem here? Are you under the impression that you are incapable of starting a thread of your own on that subject? Why are you looking for me to create for you the thread you want? My business is only with creating the thread I want.

 

[loverofhumanity]

Do religious ideologies encourage timid, in-the-box thinking?

Are religious ideologies compatible with spiritual growth?

To be sure, you could ask the same two questions of any and all ideologies -- either religious or secular -- but I'll stick to religious ideologies here. For the purposes of this thread, an ideology is an intellectual frame or lens through which a person might see or interpret something. 'Spirituality' is however you want to define it. Please let us know what you mean by the term if you are using it in an unconventional manner.

Comments?

Just my personal view.

My understanding is that the essence of spirituality and truth first emanated from the Manifestations of God. That we would have no spiritual knowledge at all if They did not appear. That we would have no knowledge of virtues - qualities like love, compassion, justice and forgiveness.

Later on, people formulated doctrines and such based on this first emanation. We wouldn’t know God existed if the Prophets never appeared, nor would we know worship. We would not know morals also as morals also emanated from These Beings first.

These Beings can be likened to the physical sun, which, if it did not exist, then neither could we . Beings such as Krishna, Buddha, Christ, Moses, Muhammad and Baha’u’llah civilised the world according to our capacity not Theirs.

Still today, we find we cannot live up to Their spiritual teachings, so advanced are they, even though thousands of years old.


Attempting to divorce spirituality from These Essences of Virtue is like trying to separate light from the sun. And it is my belief, that we will continue to live in darkness until we heed Their most spiritual counsels and teachings as we thought our own brand of ‘spirituality’ would work, but it hasn’t. Sooner or later, the penny must drop, that only Their spirituality works - and ours is a very watered down version which came from Them in the first place. Just my humble opinion.

 

[blü 2]

Do religious ideologies encourage timid, in-the-box thinking?

I'd have thought that in order to have an identity at all, a religious community must have a core set of beliefs, standards, and expectations; and that any thinking outside the box, just by being outside the box, would be a threat to that identity.

If you belong to a soccer club and you want everyone to play lacrosse, for instance ...

Are religious ideologies compatible with spiritual growth?

Assuming (since I don't actually know) that 'spiritual growth' means more mature ('wiser') and better informed emotional responses to reality, religious ideologies could be anything ─ supportive, destructive, deterrent, encouraging &c ─ depending on what they are.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Unable to be public with being non-religious or anti-religious without super dangerous social lashback =/= universally religious.

So everyone was born an atheist and suppressed their tendencies due to societal backlash.

But this goes against simple logic--the fact that there was societal backlash in all cultures for thousands of years meant that only elites and government members weren't born atheists.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

So everyone was born an atheist and suppressed their tendencies due to societal backlash.

But this goes against simple logic--the fact that there was societal backlash in all cultures for thousands of years meant that only elites and government members weren't born atheists.

...what? No seriously, this post doesn't make sense.

 

[blü 2]

So everyone was born an atheist and suppressed their tendencies due to societal backlash.

But this goes against simple logic--the fact that there was societal backlash in all cultures for thousands of years meant that only elites and government members weren't born atheists.

What the bible shows is that being in charge of religion is a position of wealth and power in tribal cultures, which the insiders will naturally declare to be God's / the gods' will, and encourage 'inside-the-box' thinking, while the outsiders will have a greater variety of views.

 

[BilliardsBall]

...what? No seriously, this post doesn't make sense.

You made the case that atheists were always there, in teeming numbers, but were societally repressed.

How does that explain how every culture since recorded history began was a widely religious culture? How did all of the children born as atheists come to lose their logic in adulthood to pursue religiosity, all through time?

 

[BilliardsBall]

What the bible shows is that being in charge of religion is a position of wealth and power in tribal cultures, which the insiders will naturally declare to be God's / the gods' will, and encourage 'inside-the-box' thinking, while the outsiders will have a greater variety of views.

"There is no God or there may be a God" is two views only, and hardly a diverse body of thought!

 

[ADigitalArtist]

You made the case that atheists were always there, in teeming numbers, but were societally repressed.

How does that explain how every culture since recorded history began was a widely religious culture? How did all of the children born as atheists come to lose their logic in adulthood to pursue religiosity, all through time?

Let me fix this for you:

"You made the case that atheists were always there, in teeming numbers, but were societally repressed.

How does that explain how every culture since recorded history began was a widely religious culture? How did all of the children born as atheists come to lose their logic in adulthood to pursue religiosity, all through time?"

The rest of the post is either not related to anything I said, or doesn't follow anything I said.
Firstly, atheism and religion are not mutually exclusive concepts. Plenty of non-theist religions from Janis to Taoism to the vast majority of Buddhism even to non-theist Hinduism exists. There are both religious atheists and non-religious theists, which is why I said 'irreligious and anti-religigious' not 'atheist.'

Secondly, the vast majority of theists in history have been polytheist, not monotheist. Does the much higher numbers of polytheists mean that people were born polytheist and have to be taught monotheism? I doubt you think so.
Small or high numbers of beliefs in something is only indicative of the culture that thing exists in, not its independent value.

As another example, almost universally women in pre-modern times weren't allowed to be in government or own land. Does that mean you think women were happy with this situation and never spoke up about it? Or did culture who didn't care about female voices simply not write down when they objected to their treatment?

 

[blü 2]

"There is no God or there may be a God" is two views only, and hardly a diverse body of thought!

Or, "There are no gods, or there may be gods", of course, as we find in the earlier parts of the Tanakh ─ Yahweh isn't the only god until after the Babylonian captivity, and even then [he]'s strictly the god of the Jews until Paul tears up the covenant of circumcision, an entirely specious argument very properly rejected by Jews, but perfect for selling Christianity to pagans.

However, since it's the festive season, I grab the chance to agree with you on something, in this case that atheism (in our modern sense) is only a peripheral problem in the Tanakh ─ "the fool hath said in his heart" &c ─ and that all those other tribes with all those other gods, whether in Canaan, or Egypt, or the overlapping deities of Greece and Rome, are (until Paul) where the trouble lies.

It was these ─ "I am a jealous god" ─ that (again before the Babylonian captivity) earn Yahweh [his] appalling reputation for murderous religious intolerance.

A merry Christmas to you, regardless ─ and the best 2021 ever!

 

[BilliardsBall]

Let me fix this for you:

"You made the case that atheists were always there, in teeming numbers, but were societally repressed.

How does that explain how every culture since recorded history began was a widely religious culture? How did all of the children born as atheists come to lose their logic in adulthood to pursue religiosity, all through time?"

The rest of the post is either not related to anything I said, or doesn't follow anything I said.
Firstly, atheism and religion are not mutually exclusive concepts. Plenty of non-theist religions from Janis to Taoism to the vast majority of Buddhism even to non-theist Hinduism exists. There are both religious atheists and non-religious theists, which is why I said 'irreligious and anti-religigious' not 'atheist.'

Secondly, the vast majority of theists in history have been polytheist, not monotheist. Does the much higher numbers of polytheists mean that people were born polytheist and have to be taught monotheism? I doubt you think so.
Small or high numbers of beliefs in something is only indicative of the culture that thing exists in, not its independent value.

As another example, almost universally women in pre-modern times weren't allowed to be in government or own land. Does that mean you think women were happy with this situation and never spoke up about it? Or did culture who didn't care about female voices simply not write down when they objected to their treatment?

Polytheism and non-theist religions are RELIGION. I wrote a widely religious culture.

I may have misunderstood your original post, for which I apologize. You claimed that the only reason all societies/cultures in history are/were religiously active is because the religious repressed the atheists. That is incredibly inconsistent with "everyone is born an atheist".

My main point is that religiosity in inherent in the human (sinful, needing redemption) condition.

I would then point to how the Bible says perfection, not religiosity, is required for Heaven, so trust Jesus to impart perfection, as the Bible puts it, TRUST JESUS.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Or, "There are no gods, or there may be gods", of course, as we find in the earlier parts of the Tanakh ─ Yahweh isn't the only god until after the Babylonian captivity, and even then [he]'s strictly the god of the Jews until Paul tears up the covenant of circumcision, an entirely specious argument very properly rejected by Jews, but perfect for selling Christianity to pagans.

However, since it's the festive season, I grab the chance to agree with you on something, in this case that atheism (in our modern sense) is only a peripheral problem in the Tanakh ─ "the fool hath said in his heart" &c ─ and that all those other tribes with all those other gods, whether in Canaan, or Egypt, or the overlapping deities of Greece and Rome, are (until Paul) where the trouble lies.

It was these ─ "I am a jealous god" ─ that (again before the Babylonian captivity) earn Yahweh [his] appalling reputation for murderous religious intolerance.

A merry Christmas to you, regardless ─ and the best 2021 ever!

Thank you, I wish you a great 2021, we both know it will be better than 2020!!

 

[ADigitalArtist]

Polytheism and non-theist religions are RELIGION.

Technically polytheism isn't a religion, for the same reason neither theism or non-theism are. There are religions under those umbrellas but you can also have polytheist, non-theist or theist beliefs without having a religion. But it's moot:

"Unable to be public with being non-religious or anti-religious without super dangerous social lashback =/= universally religious." Was my original post. Not anything about atheism or non-theism.

I may have misunderstood your original post, for which I apologize. You claimed that the only reason all societies/cultures in history are/were religiously active is because the religious repressed the atheists. That is incredibly inconsistent with "everyone is born an atheist".

Your apology is accepted, but I still never said that.
I said the only reason you think religions were universal is because they oppressed the non-religious. Being an atheist has nothing to do with being non-religious and I'm not sure why you keep bringing it up.
Sure, denying whatever flavor of god(s) is important to that culture as an atheist will get you lashback, but so would denying that/those god(s) as any other religious or irreligious person. That's why it's exceptionally hard to track the movements of most new or splinter groups of religions as historians. They will be culturally rejected until if/when they gain steam, and systematically oppressed by family, neighborhood and politically (if not a secular form of government). The same is true of irreligious populations.

My main point is that religiosity in inherent in the human (sinful, needing redemption) condition.

Even if I believed religiosity was inherent (I don't, any more than I believe flat earth is inherent just because it was the acceptable position to have for much of history), sin and redemption is not part of most religions. I rather think Christianity has a childish attachment to it.