Is Religiocity something to be worried about?

[Hobbes' Choice]

Some on the Forum spend much time pondering the issues of homosexuality, transgender and abortion, posing them as societal problems. I think there is a far more serious problem. And that is due to reality dysphoria due to religion. Many people have a gene mutation which causes an unreasonable obsession with the idea of a divine being. This disorder is responsible for many psychological problems.

God Gene Dysphoria Disorder.

1) Sufferers of GGDD are seldom aware of their disease, and consider themselves 'normal'. This is one of the key problems with GGDD.
2) They consider most of the rest of the world as wrong, misguided, or wicked for not following their moral rules.
3) They have a serious problem with allowing others to lead their lives in their own way. This not only negatively effects GGDD free people, but also most other sufferers of GGDD each of whom have key differences in their conceptions of this "divine presence" or "divine being".
4) This condition has led to wars of religion both inter-religious and intra-religious wars are directly attributable to those carrying the mutation, especially where those affected get into key areas of political power.
5) For many affected in a rationally organised world these tendencies are little more than an amusing oddity, but as the condition is characterised by an arrogant confidence, there is always a danger that the condition can be passed on to others by activating epigenetically others' GGDD gene.
6) Severe cases include Hitler and Donald Trump.


GGDD Treatment regimes.

Identification of the "god gene" or the GGDD, is relatively new and has been previously masked as simple cultural indoctrination.
Reason and Evidence can be a complete cure for those exhibiting the mild form of GGDD, and this has been ably demonstrated by the rise in Atheism and Secular politics ever the last 200 years following the Enlightenment.
More serious cases are now being looked into for possible lobotomies, and other surgical interventions.

[Hobbes' Choice]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_gene

[Reflex]

I generally ignore Hobbes due to the fact that his comments are crude and more obnoxious than even my own, but the OP does seem to be a serious commentary on his view of religion. I shall, therefore, try to refrain from laughing and treat it with all the respect due to a paranoid schizophrenic.

:::::Slowly backs away:::::

[Hobbes' Choice]

I generally ignore Hobbes due to the fact that his comments are crude and more obnoxious than even my own, but the OP does seem to be a serious commentary on his view of religion. I shall, therefore, try to refrain from laughing and treat it with all the respect due to a paranoid schizophrenic.

:::::Slowly backs away:::::

I'm guessing you are an American with a complete lack of a sense of irony?

Or a sufferer from the god complex and I've hit the nail on the head; or both?

[Greta]

Religions giveth and they taketh away, neither all good, nor bad, but seemingly outdated enough for their Iron Age ideas to be destructive in modern societies. Yet fear of an uncertain and seemingly dangerous future will make it ever more likely that threatened people will increasingly resort to the time-honoured salve for human suffering - retreat into optimistic religious fantasy to cheer ourselves up. When we is unhappy enough with our circumstances, the mind's fantasyland becomes preferable.

There is certainly a deep and seemingly enduring irony in people with primitive superstitious beliefs judging gays and transgenders as being supposedly out of touch with their reality. As you suggest, the pot and the kettle.

Then again, their judgement makes sense. No one even vaguely grounded in humanity's existential circumstances would presume to understand others' private lives in the way that Abrahamic theists claim to understand queer people's inner lives. Even if many of the loudest attackers of queer people are actually queer people in denial (a well known observation with bountiful evidence*), they cannot presume knowledge because they have (so far) avoided the stigma that self-accepting queer people have to face.

* http://www.advocate.com/politics/politi ... -gay-or-bi

[Hobbes' Choice]

Religions giveth and they taketh away, neither all good, nor bad, but seemingly outdated enough for their Iron Age ideas to be destructive in modern societies. Yet fear of an uncertain and seemingly dangerous future will make it ever more likely that threatened people will increasingly resort to the time-honoured salve for human suffering - retreat into optimistic religious fantasy to cheer ourselves up. When we is unhappy enough with our circumstances, the mind's fantasyland becomes preferable.

There is certainly a deep and seemingly enduring irony in people with primitive superstitious beliefs judging gays and transgenders as being supposedly out of touch with their reality. As you suggest, the pot and the kettle.

Then again, their judgement makes sense. No one even vaguely grounded in humanity's existential circumstances would presume to understand others' private lives in the way that Abrahamic theists claim to understand queer people's inner lives. Even if many of the loudest attackers of queer people are actually queer people in denial (a well known observation with bountiful evidence*), they cannot presume knowledge because they have (so far) avoided the stigma that self-accepting queer people have to face.

* http://www.advocate.com/politics/politi ... -gay-or-bi

I glad someone on the Forum has had to sense to see my little game for what it is.
I was merely trying to use the same method on the religious that Mr. Can seeks to impose on transgender people.

As for your link, what strange lives these people must lead. Forever in denial, yet utterly compelled to act to their nature. It must be a weird internal life if the mind that these people lead.

[Greta]

Religions giveth and they taketh away, neither all good, nor bad, but seemingly outdated enough for their Iron Age ideas to be destructive in modern societies. Yet fear of an uncertain and seemingly dangerous future will make it ever more likely that threatened people will increasingly resort to the time-honoured salve for human suffering - retreat into optimistic religious fantasy to cheer ourselves up. When we are unhappy enough with our circumstances, the mind's fantasyland becomes preferable.

There is certainly a deep and seemingly enduring irony in people with primitive superstitious beliefs judging gays and transgenders as being supposedly out of touch with their reality. As you suggest, the pot and the kettle.

Then again, their judgement makes sense. No one even vaguely grounded in humanity's existential circumstances would presume to understand others' private lives in the way that Abrahamic theists claim to understand queer people's inner lives. Even if many of the loudest attackers of queer people are actually queer people in denial (a well known observation with bountiful evidence*), they cannot presume knowledge because they have (so far) avoided the stigma that self-accepting queer people have to face.

* http://www.advocate.com/politics/politi ... -gay-or-bi

I glad someone on the Forum has had to sense to see my little game for what it is.
I was merely trying to use the same method on the religious that Mr. Can seeks to impose on transgender people.

As for your link, what strange lives these people must lead. Forever in denial, yet utterly compelled to act to their nature. It must be a weird internal life if the mind that these people lead.

It shows the depth of the internal schism within them, the extent of their homophobia. There would be a sense of panic, a desperation to throw people off the trail. So they overcompensate. That would be fine except that they try to save themselves at the expense of their peers, whom the gays-in-denial would especially detest for being so damn tempting and reminding them of their "shameful" secret.

I just wish we could blow away all the stigma and just let people be. There's seven billion of us. The job's been done. Enough gays have given or seeded birth to allow humanity to take over the globe. We can stop pushing them now. We can stop desperately trying to "save the lives" of protoplasm blobs of information. It's okay, we can let some of them go just as we let go the poor, the homeless, the unemployed, the disabled, junkies and, increasingly, the elderly.

It's harsh that we have to let all these lives go but it seems that the top 0.1% doesn't want to release enough funds to let us save them. I expect most of those billionaires believe that it's just a matter human natural selection, and if the weak can't save themselves, then c'est la vie.

Since we cannot save everyone, the very lowest priority in the above list of those who are being allowed to die by society must be non-conscious, non-sensate little blobs of the first trimester. Obviously.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Excellent work, but I'm disappointed it's satirical. It makes complete sense to me.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_gene

Then why do some people not have it? I suppose we must be the next step in evolution. We should pity those poor cave-dwellers.

[Reflex]

:::::steps back to a safe distance and watches the insanity with a bemused smile:::::

[attofishpi]

Does this->> to the clueless atheists.

[Hobbes' Choice]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_gene

Then why do some people not have it? I suppose we must be the next step in evolution. We should pity those poor cave-dwellers.

The tendency is supporter by at least two other common human traits:

For my money the trait is linked to the same urge to "belong", or at least stands in support of the god tendency. Allying yourself with a church is like being a football supporter of a team, or nation.
There is also a tendency to look up to a parent. So people never grow up in that respect.

There is also the domestication influence. Dawkins gave a children's lecture to the Royal Society at Xmas (before it was dumbed down), maybe 30 years ago. The argument is that we are brought up in a purposeful world of artefacts. "Don't touch the poker, it's for the fire."; " Don't piss on the sofa, it's there for people's comfort"; toys are for playing, chairs are for siting on pots and pans are for cooking etc... The unnatural environment which we experience tends to enforce a sense that the world was created, as it is in fact. When a child goes into the natural world, they ask what is a lower for, and the response is don't crush it, it's their to make the garden look good. As so the natural tendency for children to want to know what everything is for encourages the idea that the world must also have a purpose.
I think you could think of many other ways in which our way of life could encourage poor thinking.

Maybe we all have these traits in differing amounts, but in some reason is stronger. And for some the idea that the inductive process takes precedence over deduction, is not presented to some at a key age of cognition and development being too late for the religious.

I first challenged the idea of god around age 5-6. Maybe I was introduced to the idea of accepting nothing as a starting position, to built what is reasonable. In truth I found the claims made by religion were just so obviously untrue and life was unfair.

[Hobbes' Choice]

:::::steps back to a safe distance and watches the insanity with a bemused smile:::::

You already said that. No need to make a fool of yourself a second time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FPELc1wEvk

[Hobbes' Choice]

Excellent work, but I'm disappointed it's satirical. It makes complete sense to me.

Like all satire, it's only effective if it has some truth in it.


Sadly no one is yet proposing a surgical solution to this shocking disease

[Reflex]

Does this->> to the clueless atheists.

I think you're too optimistic. I really do believe the are exhibiting a kind of insanity. I'm bemused because I don't know how dangerous it is.