Design your new age religion

There are a few examples of "new age religions" based upon technology and even our capitalistic society.

The Nxvim cult is the one that comes to the top of my mind as it was started as a multi-level marketing operation based on the idea of self-improvement. It basically used sale seminars like the ones in Wolf of Wall Street and Glengarry Glen Ross. Those type of seminars used a similar fervor and style as Revivalists and Prosperity Gospel sermons pushing belief for material reward. Another modern factor that Nxvim and also the Scientology used was the appeal of celebrity and the leaders of those cults understood how in this society we hold celebrities with reverence and interests as previous societies held saints as.

 

Regarding the question of science and is science a religion.. There is debate in philosophy circles about how much science actually shows reality and how much science is really a pure rational system. These debates are complex and obscure (in that they deal with fine points of Epistemology "How do you know what you know?) and for most practical purposes science works.

One area of debate that is more easily understood is the idea of things like orthodoxy and popular opinion in science. The 20th Century philosopher Thomas Kuhn has argued that science isn't always a search for truth but is about paradigms. Those paradigms can take on the power of orthodoxy and are held and defended by the scientific community until enough evidence is found to overthrow them in a paradigm shift. For example Darwinian Evolution was considered a largely steady process that moved slowly. With discoveries though like the Cambrian Explosion showed that evolution can move quickly and that rather than slow steady process is in fits and starts now called "Punctuated Equilibrium". Before Punctuated Equilibrium was accepted widely there was a lot of debate and many scientists defended the steady state idea of Evolution based upon precedent.

Another area where science is whether logic and mathematics that underpin society actually mirrors reality. This is where things get very obscure as for nearly everything we do math does appear to work otherwise planes wouldn't fly and I wouldn't be able to type and share my thoughts on a computer. The problem though is on the quantum and universal scale where we see that math and logic as we understand it breaks down. Another problem with this is that acceptance of mathematical proofs and physics theories often are based on elegance. Even our own understand of logic relies upon elegance, or the simplest explanation is the most likely true. The problem is whether the universe really is elegant or can even be understandable in terms of a self consistent equation.

I will add that these are important epistemological debates but these issues have frequently been used by advocates of religion to attack science. Arguing that science and religion are basically the same thing. That science can't explain everything or that things like orthodoxy play a role in scientific debate doesn't mean they are the same. For example the uncertainty about "Dark Energy" and debates about what they are isn't a faith argument nor is the difficulty explaining it proof of God(s).

 

Saw that episodic documentary. It's pretty terrible and shocking.

Low key thing that irks me, If entities like that get a religion status; they don't pay taxes. There should be a grandfather clause on religion. Cut off for new ones.

 

Let's just assume the conversation between Mathloom and ThatBoyNick above had gone a little differently. Pretend ThatBoyNick dug in to his position when confronted with the fact that while his evidence of the health benefits of vegan over non-vegan diets followed the scientific method, there is also just as much evidence to the contrary.

He could have proclaimed "well I have all these scientific studies that back my view, so I'm just following science", ignoring the fact that other contradictory scientific studies exist, so there's no true consensus. This is exaclty the type of thing I see (props to ThatBoyNick for not actually falling into that trap).

 

How about all religions pay taxes like every other business?

 

You'll name it the 99, which people will assume is for the 99%.

 

Over the last 2 years I've had 2 colleagues quit good office jobs to become full time instructors at the same crossfit gym, and a few more that go regularly (almost everyday) for classes, it's taken over their lives. During lockdown they do online classes, and it costs a lot $.

 

Science is inherently expensive and thought intensive. It also requires it's parent-sibling mathematics to separate fact from fiction. That caveat is sometimes more art than...uhh something quantitative. Flubbing the numbers is how we're more easy to accept something like eugenics or whatever food science drivel that's been going on since advertisers realized the appearance of authority is a great way to sell product.

It's really a flaw of our monkey minds, the sophistication of our tools, and the calculations we're able to do by hand.

When any of the three improves, then our models could improve and be refined.

...Or we just get lucky but are too ****ing stupid to figure out why.

If science came easy, we would've had some lasting culture somewhere with it in the forefront in our 10,000 years of written history.

That actually leads into the OP since machine learning is currently a black box. When it starts pumping out equations of some new field of math, we'd naturally assume it can also print the "why" or how it got to that conclusion. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that because it doesn't think like a human. In the background it's raising up probabilities, then running through them with an endless stream of numbers. Here we are plugging "5" into X and solving for Y.

But to your point, religion is a very rich and complex social construct. Part myth, part culture, part reality...it's an entirely holistic view to not only confront living and derive meaning but also to open ground on paradoxes. The nature of paradox is something that might not be considered by people on the ground, but the manner of how its approached or resolved by its leaders generally indicate whether a religion will last for a hundred or thousands of years.

So yeah, people can treat science as a religion, but it's more likely they're conflating science as a proxy for culture. It could be that they're a victim to their country's culture where the thoughts and treatment of science and religion are two sides of the same coin.

Having more frequent and more tangible evidence of science (technology) doesn't necessarily mean it's believers are true practitioners of the Scientific Method. Hell, I'm not going to perform 10 to 100s of experiments to determine whether my hypotheses works. Leave that stuff to pharmaceuticals to see if their drug works (after billions and decades invested). Give that to the chemist who staked her career on some game changing nano chemical. Well..there's 1000s of them doing the same thing looking for the same application...for years.

But where does that trust in the more scientific facts come from? It seems like the network effect or wisdom of crowds plays a bigger role of that than my faith or skepticism.

Science sucks. I want my flying car nao.

 

LSD is the holy sacrament.

The rest will work itself out...

 

The Texans logo is already taken