Religion has invisible purposes beyond what the literal-minded scientistic-scientifiers identify—one of which is to...

>Religion has invisible purposes beyond what the literal-minded scientistic-scientifiers identify—one of which is to protect us from scientism, that is, them.
Is he right?

you see the problem of the positivist, or even the rationalist in science,:
doubt is permitted only when the doubt is judged acceptable by the scientist [what is acceptable is what makes you have faith in what the scientist claims]:

-if you doubt too little from the statements of people talking to you, the scientist will call you a religious, a sheep, a guy spending his time on metaphysical theses which are disconnected form the reality [the reality that the scientist posits]
-if you doubt too much from the statements of the scientist, the scientist will wave then the card of nominalism, anti-realism, relativism/nihilism/solipsism and terrorize you, since the scientists have no other means, than terrorism, to validate their position

the fact that you have faith in mathematical models to tell you about ''the world'' (which is an inductive concept, like all concepts) is already a philosophical stance. but scientists cannot justify this stance and they become very upset as soon as they are recalled that they fail at justifying their claims that their inductions and deductions are more than conventions inside some formal language.
So they even say explicitly that they are not paid to justify their faith and that this justification does not matter anyway (because they choose to claim that ''science works, look it gives us computers and cars :DDDD'' which is nothing but feeding our hedonism and the statement itself remains very dubious)
religion is a coping mechanism once you face your failure of your life, just like other contrived fantasizes, your faith in the scientific method included.


Religions are meant to leave material-bodily hedonism, travels, concerts, foods, sex and so on, for a spiritual hedonism, through prayers for theists and mediation for atheists.
Plenty of material hedonist love to think of themselves as less hedonistic than they are, since it improves their hedonism in thinking that they are not animals...most people who claim to be religious are not all, it is just the way they are.
In buddhism, you even leave this spiritual hedonism, after you have gained it, which is called jhanas, since you understand that this bliss from prayers, which is just a great, but not perfect concentration-stilness, are not personal nor permanent and that you are still prone to avidity and aversion.

I'm convinced that most traditions evolved from psychological necessity, and often times the people who attempt to get rid of them in the name of progress just end up making things worse.

>Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a Greek Orthodox Christian from Lebanon; the Levant. In the course of his book Antifragile, he promotes skepticism, theism, tradition, the writings of the stoics and seeks to restrict the claims of theory and "naïve rationalism."

>I consider the difference between "believer" and "atheist" as mere verbiage unless someone shows difference in action.

>Taleb proposes to test whether someone is really skeptical or not by how he lives his life. David Hume, for instance, explicitly says that once he stops philosophizing he is happy to forget all about his supposed skeptical assertions and that he goes back to accepting reality much as he finds it. Such skepticism is thus phony and contrived.

Taleb’s skepticism does not extend to the fundamentals of our existence, nor to God. Taleb claims that the best historical skeptics have either believed in God or approved of doing so, hence he calls himself and them a skeptical fideist. Taleb claims that belief in God facilitates an appropriate skepticism about what we can know and could, to a degree, be replaced by notions of fate.

yes, status quo support dressed as skepticism and fake "common sense" is everywhere in the internet pro-science cult

>religion protects normies from the ugly truth

sounds about right

But Nietzsche said this far before Emeril Lagasse or whatever his name did.

>implying the human race itself is not a spook

"Hedonism" stops having much meaning if you equate it with material survival. Then you're just going down the nihilistic road in which nothing exists, and anyone who claims that something exists is labeled incorrigible.

he's right in that scientism is just as bad as religion, fraud is rampant in "scientific" research

but fraud in research has identifiable causes: incentives for funding and political motives that rely on shitty research

but i still think he's an idiot when he begins preach theism

das it mane

His point about scientism goes deeper than the institutional influences on research.

Many people accept scientific theory as fact. Sometimes they accept it based on a false understanding of probability (oh, p < .05, we're all set) and sometimes they accept it because they accept theory as truth, merely because theory fits the facts.

And that is fine, it makes sense. If a theory fits the facts and helps us know how something happens with a hint at why, that is good. The problem is when people forget that a theory is a model.

Theories model reality. They map concepts and help us make sense of things. But they are necessarily an approximation of reality.

The sun has risen every day and is expected to rise every day form now on until some period outside my range of consideration. Whether I frame this fact in a geocentric or heliocentric model, the fact remains unchanged.

Of course one model/theory performs much better than the other, but who is to say that the next model won't make the current one seem ridiculous?

The argument against naive scientism lies in putting complete faith in the framing of the facts over the facts themselves. This criticism obviously applies much less powerfully to physics than to other domains, but it was the best example I could pull off the top of my head.

>not knowing about the difference between mythos and logos

>more pathos than logos

Religion and positivism are both shitty memes

Taleb is based af

Yes, religion promotes gratitude, a respect for the sacred, moderation, living in the moment, and about a million other things that life hacker and reddit will try to sell you.

Even if the stories aren't true at all, reading into them and basing your life on the underlying message will let you lead a sustainable and balanced life

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents... some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new Dark Age.”

I'm already going mad and I don't really even know anything..

>picture of Mickey Mouse telling Donald Duck he's a dog for letting the chemicals in his brain them him they are chemicals

I haven't read the book but the Antifragile theory is dope. Thinking about that quote tho I think that he's got something there, it sure as hell feels nice just throwing yourself to a higher being and stop worrying about stuff.

Got cher back, my kin.

nah

Ah, how droll; another one of these poor schmucks; such lack of self-awareness they have. Presented to us in a manner most befitting this pseudo-intellectual dribble, an insult to the analytically minded. Please, indulge me, good sir, as I provide staunch refutation.

As is the most common problem with these attempts at argumentation, they deal in presupposition: too often relying on a world seeped in objectivism rather than subjectivism, which, in of itself, is fallacious to base an argument off.

As you see quite clearly, while mathematics is the subjective, human interpretation by data -- as so shown throughout history -- it is not so in the results it can produce; i.e testable, repeatable, etc. While 'faith' may be involved, in some intangible philosophical way, one must accept then the proposition of faith in degree: what is less faith based than another? Which can provide more evidence that is witnessable, which, of course, would bring us to an obvious conclusion.

But let us ignore for now this egregious misunderstanding of faith vs. science and the varying degrees they have. Instead, allow us to focus on the interpretation used as a measure of scientific reasoning: these 'reactions' as you so call them.

>-if you doubt too little from the statements of people talking to you, the scientist will call you a religious, a sheep, a guy spending his time on metaphysical theses which are disconnected form the reality [the reality that the scientist posits]

For a moment, let us forget the strawman: that would be quite low hanging fruit. Instead, this claim of 'bullying' almost: have you never heard of scientific refutation? If you truly believe that this is all scientists have to say in the matter -- little more than name calling -- I'd suggest you read some more scientific studies, or, perhaps even, refutations of the material. Occupying your own echo chamber will do you little good.

>if you doubt too much from the statements of the scientist, the scientist will wave then the card of nominalism, anti-realism, relativism/nihilism/solipsism and terrorize you, since the scientists have no other means, than terrorism, to validate their position

What is qualified as 'self-validation?" Is it the re-affirming of your own beliefs? Well, that simply wouldn't apply: data is the basis of these beliefs, checked and checked again by the dissenters until proven the best possible option, and therefore not a self-affirmation, but an outside one; testable, repeatable hypothesis. Would this be positivism? No, I think not: nihilism is the most widely agreed upon consensus, to my knowledge. The transcendentalists are few and far between, unless you count the average Google employees as being a 'scientist.'

>part II: electric boogaloo

>So they even say explicitly that they are not paid to justify their faith and that this justification does not matter anyway (because they choose to claim that ''science works, look it gives us computers and cars :DDDD'' which is nothing but feeding our hedonism and the statement itself remains very dubious)

Once more, these most egregious assumptions! Have you no shame? Hedonism, in of itself, has no negative connotation; only through the perspective of bias can one say the pursuit of material goals is inherently 'evil.' What qualifies evil? Are we presupposing the existence of objective morality? Another fallacy, then, another example of faulty reasoning. How sad.

Religion is a tool the weak use as a crutch to justify horrible actions in the name of the all-powerful sky daddy. But, then again, this interpretation is just as subjective as yours; little to do in the way of fact, it'd seem, but I can admit this. Subjectivism is the Father of Intellectualism.

Hedonism itself holds no inherent negative connotation; once again, a false premise. Once again, how low have we fallen as a species, should this be the best we can conjure! How detestable; how abhorred?

And yet, shall none listen? I think not. Tis' easier for those to cover their ears and believe in fariytales than face bleak reality head on.

>good sir
>sky daddy
>I think not
>'Tis
>fairytales

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Has anyone who Taleb ever read Nick Szabo? They seem very related but I've never seen any explicit interaction between them.

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