Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

Ritual killings helped form complex societies
https://cosmosmagazine.com/society/ritua...-societies

EXCERPT: Human sacrifice, or the ritual killing of people for religious or spiritual reasons, was widespread across early human society up until the 20th century. For years, researchers have theorised that this integral tradition may have functioned as a way to enforce and maintain strict class systems in society. In a new paper published this week in Nature, researchers at the University of Auckland in New Zealand believe they have quantified this theory. The finding, according to the research team, suggests that ritual sacrifice may have played a part in the emergence of the large, complex societies we see in today’s world. The paper describes human sacrifice as “the deliberate and ritualised killing of an individual in order to please or placate supernatural beings”...

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Science Is a Good Substitute for God
http://reason.com/archives/2016/03/25/sc...te-for-god

EXCERPT: Religious believers tend to be happier than non-religious folk, according to a long line of psychological research. Scientists have suggested several possible explanations for this phenomenon, including the ideas that religion offers a greater sense of control, provides a purpose for life, and reduces uncertainty. So if religious belief makes people more satisfied with their lives, why is secularism growing in many countries? A new study offers one possible answer: A belief in scientific and technological progress can also serve as a source of life satisfaction. Indeed, it may even offer more lifetime happiness than religion does....

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The End of Atheism?
http://jamesmaxey.blogspot.com/2016/03/t...heism.html

EXCERPT: A study put out by Duke University a few weeks ago caught my attention, with the revelation that only 45% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 30 say they have no doubt that God exists. 55% aren't sure that there is a God. The exact wording of this statement doesn't mean that a majority of young Americans are atheists, however. As near as I can tell from most surveys, only about 3% of Americans identify themselves as atheists. It would seem that, as an atheist myself, I would be cheered by the news that a majority of young people are uncertain if God exists. However, I confess that I think that the decline in belief in God has very little to do with the actual rejection of the idea of God, and much more to do with ignorance, apathy, economics, and spectacular marketing failure on the part of American Christianity...

Passive atheism will probably continue to increase as people see religious belief generally lacking relevance in their daily lives.

Quote:So why do people who believe in sci-tech progress tend to be happier than the religious faithful? Stavrova and her colleagues propose that "achieving control over the world and mastering the environment has always been one of the major goals of science. Believing that science is or will prospectively grant such mastery of nature imbues individuals with the belief that they are in control of their lives." This sense of personal control in turn contributes to a higher life satisfaction.

That would be true if the control of a bunch of anonymous scientists and corporate moguls equaled oneself being in control. But that's a faulty premise. In reality its placing alot of uncondtional trust in authority again, which was the same mistake religion made, such that we hand over the keys of our world to people we assume are moral and selfless and humanitarian. The whole agenda of controlling nature reeks of a sort misogynistic obsessive madness much as we see in the old trope of the mad scientist. "I will control the world!" That's a scary prospect for any human being. Controlled for what end? Controlled to maximize whose profits? Controlled to eliminate what opposing values and belief systems? To the extent that a value system is linked to a specific world view and a social hegemony that enforces it, you have the real threat of totalitarianism lurking close behind. A scientistic utopia might end up becoming a nightmarish dystopia for the blind and ignorant masses.