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Comment by thriftwy | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that dominant religions need an ego check as well. No, you are not going to explain the universe or define the entirety of life habits of your practioners. Just stick to the matters on the inside, please.

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My own tastes might very well agree with yours, but if other people want their religion to dictate what food they can eat and what clothes they can wear etc, why should that bother me?

The problem comes when they try to impose those things on other people.

All law comes from belief in some underlying value to be pursued. For every issue, there is coupled with it the issue of individual choice on that issue. Some issues have higher value than individual choice on that issue.

What you’re annoyed with is how others prioritize which issues outweigh their coupled choice issue. But would you take away their choice to prioritize value in that way?

There are two modes of operation: for society to strive for objective truth together to reach a consensus congruent with reality, or to arbitrarily reach consensus and occasionally face the consequences of our idiosyncrasies.

The objective truth we must strive for is fundamental moral law. It is to that one must appeal, lest their opinion lead us to bear the consequences of their ineptitude.

We can give this fundamental moral law any name we want, but I’ll call it “God’s opinion” because it would take God to know all the ins and outs of it.

Now, are you expressing annoyance because others contradict your opinion or God’s? How would you or others know the right opinion to have, which aligns with fundamental moral law?

I would push back on the ideas that there exists an objective moral law at all. I also don’t necessarily believe all laws come from a desire to align society with some moral ideal. But assuming the above two things are true I don’t think it’s possible to know “God’s opinion” at all. Therefore the only thing we can really go on is the real tangible benefits a law will give to society. My problem comes in when people justify enshrining harmful acts in law with the justification that it will save an immortal soul of some kind.

morality is fundamentally based on opinion. from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem, Hume writes: "In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, it's necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this small attention would subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceived by reason."

Morality can also be based on game theory.

Yes, but that's a different thing to complain about than 'explain the universe or define the entirety of life habits of your practioners.'

It shouldn't bother you at first, but what they can eat and what they can wear quickly turns into what you're allowed to eat and wear in certain religions.

I can see a lot of that stuff recently, people just deny the obvious religious nature of such practices.

However, such religion can no longer be universal, since for most people habits are not defined through religion anymore.

>”No, you are not going to explain the universe or define the entirety of life habits of your practitioners.”

Counterintuitively, the religions/sects that do exactly what you’re describing happen to be the most successful. Not only do they seem to hold on to adherents at a much higher rate than their more lenient peers, their adherents tend to be far more fecund.

I suppose from a pseudo Darwinian standpoint, this strategy is more successful. I don’t recall what study this was from, but based on current trends in the year 2100, 50% of Christians in the United States with either be Amish or Mormon. Over 50% of Jews will be Orthodox/Ultra Orthodox rather than Reform. All because these religions/sects do precisely what we think they shouldn’t be doing.

We don't know how many people are going to defect from these movements as time goes by. Most likely it would be a secular society comprised of children or grandchildren of deeply religious folks, who themselses do not adhere that much.

Defections certainly happen, but not at a rate that would be significant enough to overcome the fertility inside of the group.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumspringa

Interestingly these communities have a mechanism for selecting out those who do not wish to comply or conform.

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