Are Religious People Idiots?

[gettoefl]

Religion is the halfway point between spiritualism and materialism. It's a start. Nothing to do with intelligence. You can be bright. You can be dumb. What religion says is maybe my ego is not so good after all. And I better follow something better.

[Ramanujan]

relegious people reached stage coral in 500 BC and upto present time

[Jodistrict]

I have never been that impressed by Neil deGrasse Tyson.   He is a media star and an evangelist of Scientism who preaches that science is the only path of true knowledge.   The true believers of the head demand correct epistemology.   As for scientists, the ground breaking scientists who developed quantum mechanics studied Hindu scriptures:  Erwin Schrodinger, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Robert Oppenheimer, David Bohm.  They are a magnitude above the elite scientist category.

[Rafael Thundercat]

From the book I am reading 

Inheritance - The evolutionary origins of the Modern World by Harvey Whitehouse

Page139 -Religiosity and the Rise of Supernatural Authority

" the main focus of this chapter is the part played by organized religion in the rise and spread of larger-scale,hierarchical and centralized societies. As we saw in Chapter 2, our relationship with supernatural typically takes a handfull of extremely widespread forms- for example, to imagine that supernatural agents and forces can help or harm us, to assume that we live on after we die, to attribute intelligent design to the natural world, or to remember and pass on concepts that contradict our intuitions in ways that captivate and enthral. 

As societies grew larger and more complex however there features of wild religion were tamed and explored in much the same way as traction animals were yoked together to pull a plough. Our religious biases were harnessed to control behavior. 

[Sugarcoat]

I think being religious from a place of having followed what you were brought up might be a sign of ranking low on the openness personality trait of the big five personality traits.

 

[trenton]

In my experience, if any psychological system serves your survival well enough in a given context, then the brain will create the neural pathways necessary to cause you to hold it as true. One does not necessarily have conscious control over these biological processes especially sense a child's bond with their parents is usually automatic whether they are harmful and stupid or caring and intelligent. Considering how a child's mind develops, it is easy for them to adopt all of these beliefs because they have a limited capacity for rationality as they treat their parents as simply the arbiters of truth. The outcome is that in adulthood, it would take a lot of conscious effort in order to start undoing these neural pathways that often operate beneath our conscious awareness.

From this point of view, I see religious people as largely the result of their circumstances. For example, If I were born in the middle east, then maybe Islam would serve my survival and it creates a strong incentive to make a self-deception convincing enough for me to believe in Islam. This self-deception process would likely happen automatically without a conscious choice. Once my sense of reality becomes tethered to any religion or ideology, it becomes psychologically threatening to undo it, therefore most people stay within the range of what they were taught as kids.

When people stay stuck in this kind of narrow worldview, it can indeed make them seem very stupid. In fact I have encountered multiple therapists who insisted that I prayed despite the practice not fitting with my spiritual views. Religion therefore corrupts other fields whether it is psychology, science, the educational system, the government, and so on. Making everybody think like you becomes the ego game in which the religious ideologue thinks they are saving people, but actually they are just bringing themselves deeper into self-deception.

[Basman]

Most people are religious as products of their environment. People might gradually secularize if they live in a secular society where they maintain certain traditions as part of their community. Much of the west's traditions and values are religious ideas that have been secularized to become devoid of their original Christian belief. 

I believe that religion is in large part a survival response, so as society evolves it tends to secularize as religion becomes outdated relatively speaking. 

[Jodistrict]

Believing in science is just as much a product of one’s environment (education) as religion.  A secularist has a sense of superiority over the superstitious Christian.  If you think about it a while, you will see that this is the exact equivalent of a Christian believing the secularist is lost because he doesn’t know Jesus.  Believing your system is the correct viewpoint is human nature.  

[UnbornTao]

People are isotopes.

edit: I meant idiots but this will suffice  

Edited July 17 by UnbornTao

[zazen]

Non-dualists act like discovering religious forms are constructed somehow invalidates them, as if pointing out that a cup is made by human hands means it can't hold water. That's what religions trying to do -  hold space, contain that which can't be contained - God. 

Individuals can seek without containers, individually. Advanced seekers can transcend the need for particular containers - but it's not a scalable solution to community. We need something we can gather around. We can't build a community around the concept that concepts or constructs don't matter.

The rituals of religion aren't the point - the ritual is the vehicle for the point. But obviously, people ordinarily get stuck on the mechanism rather than what the mechanism is trying to get them to. The issue isn't the container or construct (religion) - it's the consciousness that inhabits the container or construct.

A Buddhist monastery can become a place of spiritual awakening or a den of ego's tripping over who mediated longer or sat more still when the bugs bugged them.

A seeker can easily do without a container, but a civilization needs one. The point is, once you reach non-dualness, how to trasmit this with duality? You must use constructs even in informing people about that beyond construct and form itself. Even nothingness needs a container to be understood by something. Isn't consciousness exploring what it means to construct?

Spiritualist non-dual bros are still living in the same constructed world as everyone else. They're still using their constructed language to have constructed conversations about their constructed spiritual insights.

[hyruga]

So what ego boost did you get writing on this thread?

[zazen]

4 hours ago, hyruga said:

So what ego boost did you get writing on this thread?

None till you acknowledged it. Thank you for attending my Ted Talk.

Jokes aside - it’s one thing I see plenty of. A spiritual superiority complex against those that haven’t yet “outgrown” this relic of religion.

Like Jodistrict touched upon above and even Basmans point that today’s liberal ideas spread religion but were secularised and shed of their religious skin. Ideas like universal love and the dignity of the individual.

It’s just cringe to see new agers mock religion not knowing their own roots. They do yoga 3 times a week, eat vegan and re-arrange their crystals at night - but they mock religion lol ironically.

I too had my rebellious phase especially after studying Osho. But then I actually came to find more value in religion - understanding it deeper, largely thanks to studying non-duality, Osho, Alan Watts, Ram Dass and of course Leo’s body of work.

Edited July 17 by zazen

[Kensho]

On 16/07/2025 at 6:39 PM, Jodistrict said:

I have never been that impressed by Neil deGrasse Tyson.   He is a media star and an evangelist of Scientism who preaches that science is the only path of true knowledge.   The true believers of the head demand correct epistemology.   As for scientists, the ground breaking scientists who developed quantum mechanics studied Hindu scriptures:  Erwin Schrodinger, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Robert Oppenheimer, David Bohm.  They are a magnitude above the elite scientist category.

When Joe Rogan asked him if he has every done psychedelics, he said:  

"I have always valued objective reality. I don't want anything interfering with my understanding of what is actually happening in front of me"
 

Well Neil...  There is something inteferfering. It's 'Neil Degrass Tyson'. 

He has done more discussions on them. Everytime his stance is almost comical. It's like blind people discussing about how stupid are others who claim they see.

[Schizophonia]

On 16/07/2025 at 5:39 PM, Jodistrict said:

I have never been that impressed by Neil deGrasse Tyson.   He is a media star and an evangelist of Scientism who preaches that science is the only path of true knowledge.   The true believers of the head demand correct epistemology.   As for scientists, the ground breaking scientists who developed quantum mechanics studied Hindu scriptures:  Erwin Schrodinger, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Robert Oppenheimer, David Bohm.  They are a magnitude above the elite scientist category.

Spot on

[Leo Gura]

37 minutes ago, Kensho said:

he said:  

"I have always valued objective reality. I don't want anything interfering with my understanding of what is actually happening in front of me"

[Davino]

Let's be diplomatic and say there's much higher metaphysical and existential intelligence to be accessed and embodied. 

It all depends on the standpoint, for a chimpanzee a fundamentalist muslim is a genius. For an alien it's another ape. So it's not about the religious ecosystem but is where your development and Awakening stands regarding to that.

[Atb210201]

Haven't you got any wisdom from any religion?

[Davino]

7 hours ago, Atb210201 said:

Haven't you got any wisdom from any religion?

A lot in my way up. I've studied and practiced most religions on earth.

That's the difference between criticising from bellow and from above. I could write a book in the comparative religion field.

[hyruga]

Some of my religious Christian friends live in joy constantly. They have fun planning events, helping people and sharing woes and joy. They attribute everything to God.

One thing I notice is they don't seek or ask anything further.

If good things happen, they praise God. If bad things happen, this is due to God's lessons.

God wants you to be in joy.

If someone is always joyful, I don't see how you can classify him or her as a spiritual idiot.

 

Edited July 18 by hyruga

[PurpleTree]

I don’t know many religious people to be honest.