Irrational beliefs

I saw an article saying that Transgender ideology would be better placed under Article 9 of the Human Rights Act: Freedom of Belief

^Public authorities cannot interfere with your right to hold or change your beliefs, but there are some situations in which public authorities can interfere with your right to manifest or show your thoughts, belief and religion. This is only allowed where the authority can show that its action is lawful, necessary and proportionate in order to protect:

public safety
public order
health or morals, and
the rights and freedoms of other people^                     

EHRC website: www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/human-rights-act/article-9-freedom-thought-belief-and-religion

In other words, if you hold the belief that trans women are literally women - then that's fine. You have a right to that belief, no matter how irrational. You have a right to express that belief in the clothes you choose or the way that you behave. Other people may not subscribe to it and will reject it - and that is their right too.

Furthermore, society and government are not obliged to make law changes to accommodate or promote your beliefs. You can forget NHS treatments and counselling and special services - that is a matter for you and the followers of the ideology to build yourselves (just like any other religion or non-religious movement like pacificism/veganism/paganism).

It made sense when I read the article - but I can't lay my hands on it now, unfortunately.

Yes, they are. I believe there are angels myself. I think this is perhaps referring to the much less organized popularist version of angels, sort of more folk religion for some, the kind of general woo that is in those 'Spirit and Destiny' magazines. I'm not knocking it if it comforts, uplifts and helps people make good choices, and I understand it's attractions. But it's held on to by a lot of people who would be just likely to reject 'religion' as anyone. It's more generically 'spiritual', if that makes sense.

Angels feature heavily in religion, so whether it is acknowledged or not they are actually demonstrating a belief in religion, think Archangel Gabriel etc

That’s true and part of the problem, the normal people are too busy to get involved in politics.

The current cohort of Oxford student appalls me...

I'd lay odds most of the current cohort is busy about the usual mix of studying and socialising, with no time or inclination for student politicking.

Yes, it's certainly been my experience that some people are properly angry ranters who, for whatever reason, maybe justifiable, I don't know, come across as the atheist equivalent of a hard-line fire and brimstone preacher. Others are much more considered and either they just haven't been at all convinced by theist viewpoints or it just has never occurred to them to be engaged with religion and they are very rational and persuasive.

The massive variety of approach possible in the human being on almost anything is one of the things that keeps me trying very hard not to make too many assumptions about people.

What about the prioritisation of self over others? If you go too far down the road of the all Important self do you then automatically disregard any idea that isn’t your own or that you don’t understand? Does over inflated emphasis on self prevent learning?

Or the preponderance of “fake” news, which makes it easier to find a lot of material supporting your position, you see much less of any opinions that are different to your own?

From what I remember of being (peripherally) part of the online atheist community it was always obvious which people were atheists because they had reached that decision via skepticism and which had rejected religion for some other reason (often anger at some injustice) but who still had a religion-shaped hole that made them vulnerable to quasi-religious belief systems such as postmodernism.

The current cohort of Oxford student appalls me, considering they are meant to be super intelligent. They come across power hungry and entitled, more than anything.

They are not doing the reputation of Oxford much good, however, why is the management allowing it to happen? Absolute disgrace.

Well, you've only got to look at the appalling close minded behaviour of Oxford students recently to realize that what we used to consider a rigorous education to enable brilliant minds to engage with the world and progress humanity is a shadow of what it was.

Less of the PC woke Stasi career activists please.

Yes agree. Critical thinking, action oriented philosophers and jurisprudence people needed I think - if there is such a thing.

I just posted this: this would be a good thing I think. We need critical abs scientific thinkers in government.

Brian Cox considers becoming an mp www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3421695-brian-cox-considers-becoming-an-mp

Yes, I used to believe when I was young (brought up to it) but stopped at around 16. That's one reason I can see the appeal of it. So I can sort of see both sides.

I would so like to believe, I really would. I just can't.

Good analysis, yes. I'm the last person to deny the harm the religious impulse can do.

you'd have to be spectacularly insular to not see how strong the religious impulse in humans, broadly speaking. So how come so many secularists just stop at scorn and mockery

Firstly, lots of people make asumptions about "human nature" based mainly on introspection. They don't realise that not everyone thinks and feels like them. It takes serious education (and effort) to overcome this, and a lot of people haven't had this.

Secondly, many people who are against religion (I prefer to not use secularists for this meaning) have suffered from it personally, in one way or another. This makes them resentful, and hyper-aware of the damage religion can cause. So they feel it's important to campaign against it. This can also be true even of those who haven't suffered personally. Because it does tend to be true that religion is often beneficial to the people who believe in it, but seriously damaging, even sometimes life-threatening, to those who don't. So people don't see the religious impulse as harmless, and rightly or wrongly they don't want to compromise over it.

Third, a lot of people believe human nature is much more malleable than I personally believe it is. Fifty years ago the idea that humans were essentially "blank slates" psychologically was almost universally accepted among academics and most people on the left. So there are still a lot of people who think that socialisation could rid us of the religious impulse. And ridicule and condemnation can operate to shift social perceptions of what is acceptable, over time. So they may genuinely believe in those tactics.

We don't actually teach it, either, for the most part.

Quite.

It’s about time scientific thought and method got more space, and some philosophy and ethics wouldn’t go amiss.

I find some hope in those Buddhists who get their brains looked at in MRI machines etc. They seem happy to accept that it literally is 'all in the mind' and want to understand it better. Of course, Buddhism is unusual in being non-theistic, 'enlightenment' is not due to an external agency.

I studies social psychology but I got interested in neuroscience when I had my Asperger’s assessment.

One theory of religion that appeals to me is that it’s the opposite of my condition: an overactive ‘theory of mind’.

Whereas some of us have difficulty reading other people’s intentions, many others read intent into inanimate objects or phenomena such as the weather.

It makes sense in evolutionary terms. If the grass is rustling it’s sensible to have the instinctive feeling that there’s something sentient (such as a tiger) lurking there rather than just the wind blowing it.

Gods are just an extension of the feeling that something is watching.

The massive existential question isn't going to go away just because we have a better understanding of all questions except 'Why?'

For some of us it's a powerful baseline, as well as an organising principle. This is precisely what I don't really get - you'd have to be spectacularly insular to not see how strong the religious impulse in humans, broadly speaking. So how come so many secularists just stop at scorn and mockery and contribute to this strange adversarial relationship that means that so many feel they have to choose between science and some form of metaphysical belief, even if they do dress the metaphysical belief up in scienceish language?

• I guess that's why I'm suggesting looking at why modern secularism has failed to make any inroads about the strength of superstition.

Maybe some of it's because the scientific method can answer questions: 'how', 'what', 'when' - and increasingly 'who'. But many humans want a why. A plan or purpose to existence. Well, sorry folks, but 'we're here because we're here', humans evolved by natural selection on this rock, tiny in the vast expanses of the universe. It's up to us to make our own purpose.

Added to that ... understanding science takes both a certain level of mental ability and effort, even with good science education available.

Yup, I think genuine education is nearly always going to be the answer for most things. What seems to happen now, for various reasons, is a combination of randomly collected ideologies and bits and bobs of whatever political posturing has deemed is affirdable in schools, usually by a postcode lottery.

Sheesh, if I didn't have a faith, I could get quite despondent!

Floral I agree that superstitious thinking is deeply rooted, enough to suspect it's a natural part of human psychology. There's been quite a lot written about this and why it might be the case. Probably a mixture of innate cognitive biases, combined with the emotional rewards that come from it.

Scientific thinking and methods, on the other hand, tend to be highly counter-intuitive, and thus require effort and overcoming of more natural cognitive biases and predispositions. That's why it took us so long to invent it and elaborate it. It takes continual effort and practice to sustain, particularly for subjects where an individual's emotions are involved - so-called emotional "hot buttons".

We don't actually teach it, either, for the most part.

I don't disagree. I guess that's why I'm suggesting looking at why modern secularism has failed to make any inroads about the strength of superstition.

I see good attempts by people like Brian Cox to harness the sense of wonder that is part of the religious impulse, but mostly secularists just scorn that religious impulse and it leaves most people in a strange place where they adopt a Trumpian post-truth superstition, and maybe coat it with a few cod-science facts to help with the cognitive dissonance.