Are Religious People Idiots?

[gettoefl]

Is there good religion? Wait, can anyone even define religion? Am I too good for religion? Am I too bad for religion? Like Woody Allen says, I would never belong to any religion that takes people like me as members. Perhaps I am just an arrogant lazy selfish person who wants to feel smart and not get on my hands and knees and say sorry for being a life-long fuck-up.

[Nemra]

On 7/16/2025 at 6:24 PM, Salvijus said:

What is thought provoking is that there are many examples of enlightenment people being religious. Perhaps an epistemologically perfect person would still perceive religion as valid? I personally would argue that yes, that is indeed the case. 

It's really about how conscious you are.

Following a religion will make you less conscious because you surrender your authority over your most decision-making, independent thinking, and desire to gain understanding, especially about what reality is, to other humans.

There is little to no consciousness in conformity.

If by "perfect" you mean "truthful", then that person cannot ignore the unconsciousness of religion.

Edited July 18 by Nemra

[zazen]

1 hour ago, Nemra said:

It's really about how conscious you are.

Following a religion will make you less conscious because you sell your authority over most decision-making, especially about what reality is, to other humans.

There is no consciousness in conformity.

If by "perfect" you mean "truthful", then that person cannot ignore the unconsciousness of religion.

Think you got it correct in your first line - it is about how conscious someone is - the container / system is just neutral. The same way you said there is no consciousness to conformity, like wise there is none to systems and containers.

Blind conformity is an issue, but people can blindly conform to any system or container - democracy, autocracy, liberalism or conservatism, religion or atheism.

Structures/systems/containers are just the bones (container) - it’s the meat suit and brain soup (conciousness) that moves it and directs it towards better or worse outcomes.

The moment any container scales to the level of the collective, we’ll find unconsciousness there - as that’s the price of consensus reality. That’s the nature of the crowd.

Are Democratic people idiots? Are there idiots within Democracies? Does that mean Democracy is idiotic?

Edited July 18 by zazen

[Nemra]

@zazen, the constructs you mentioned aren't equal in terms of making people conscious.

Religion is such a low-intelligence construct, i.e., it's very limiting and conformist, that the epistemically blind cling to it and makes them believe that they are thinking for themselves and making decisions based on their own understanding, and if those people ever understood that, they would feel disillusioned and probably would get depressed because of how stupidly unconscious it has been for many years.

If you value truth and independent thinking, why would you want to follow a religion?

Yeah, you can understand religion, but that is not the same as following it. It is like understanding criminal behavior.

Understanding religion wouldn't make religions right by default, but following them requires you to believe that they are absolutely right without a doubt, and questioning them is not admired; otherwise, it makes no sense to follow them because they are constructed that way.

Following a religion is like using a shitty food delivery service that is always given five stars by the users.

Being a religious person requires your surrender of the things I mentioned in my above post, and you should also defend your religion because following multiple religions is essentially against being religious.

Religions completely ignore that they are surviving with a very conformist attitude, and with spiritual language, religious people try to justify its survival and make claims based on beliefs as they believe that beliefs should not be questioned and that they are seeking truth, which deceives them.

Edited July 18 by Nemra

[Atb210201]

9 hours ago, Davino said:

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.

That's great.

I do love the concept of criticising from below and above.

Keep it up man.

[Carl-Richard]

Stereotypically "religious" people are as stupid as stereotypically New Age spiritual/religious people. And this forum is New Age. That is not to say stereotypically New Age — that's of course reserved to the "nothing but" (which is a fallacy; they also tend to engage in "legitimate" spiritual practices) crystal healing, spirit channeling, Tarot reading, charka cleansing, feelgood, grounding, Burning Man, natural living people. But still, this forum is New Age. Also, separating spirituality from religion conceptually in a way that is not trivial is hard.

Chances are, if you find somebody you look up to who classifies themselves as religious, and even somebody who favors specific denominations (my favorite example is Rupert Sheldrake, but my bachelor advisor was the same), you will quickly not want to categorize all religious people under the stereotypically "religious" label. You will notice that the term is so wide that it could include almost anything, and that those you find "stupid" are stupid for other reasons, and often systematic ones: dogmatism, closemindedness, single-mindedness, lack of pluralism, lack of multi-perspectivalism, rigidity.

 

 

Edited July 18 by Carl-Richard

[zazen]

@Nemra That’s true too - that some constructs are more conducive for awakening than others. I just think there’s wide variability and religion isn’t a monolith either. There’s plenty of debate regarding metaphysics, theology and ethics within religious circles perhaps most aren’t exposed too.

The Islamic Golden Age was very open and full of debate - the people living within that container did so with a different conciousness say compared to ISIS today which is the other extreme. Both identify as the same religion (container) but live it at different levels. Leo uses the same container word for reality - God, but he’s coming at it with a different conciousness compared to the average believer.

Carls message above is on point and related. Everything you rightly critique about religion can also be applied to religions we don’t think are religion - such as the New Age. Many surrender authority to gurus like Sadhguru, Mooji and Osho. They surrender to practices like breathwork, energy healing and yoga poses. Or even entire yogic systems and plant medicines.

They can end up doing these practices mechanically and think enlightenment will come to them via law of attraction - just as robotically and naively as a religious person praying for their wish list from sky daddy. People seek out religion in different aesthetics.

Religion is bound to happen and be created because religion is simply a scalable way to orient society and groups of people towards something more meaningful and deeper than just the material world of duality. People always figure out a way to form around something at a social level - veganism, New Ageism, Aubrey Marcus cults 😂

That doesn’t mean we need to find ourselves belonging to anything at all individual level. But at a scalable level, it’s inevitable people will organise themselves around something. Religion is baked in that way, whether we call it that or not. And with that comes all the usual flaws of dogma, groupthink and plenty of unconscious people within that given religion.

Edited July 18 by zazen

[Nemra]

16 hours ago, zazen said:

@Nemra That’s true too - that some constructs are more conducive for awakening than others. I just think there’s wide variability and religion isn’t a monolith either. There’s plenty of debate regarding metaphysics, theology and ethics within religious circles perhaps most aren’t exposed too.

Debating stuff doesn't make people open-minded automatically.

It is not a good enough method for truth-seeking because people mostly debate to convince others why their beliefs are true.

There are few religious people that are intellectual; however, they still deceive themselves in more sophisticated ways to cling to their religion.

16 hours ago, zazen said:

The Islamic Golden Age was very open and full of debate - the people living within that container did so with a different consciousness say compared to ISIS today which is the other extreme. Both identify as the same religion (container) but live it at different levels. Leo uses the same container word for reality - God, but he’s coming at it with a different consciousness compared to the average believer.

I'm not specifically talking about extremists.

I'm being critical of the mindset that all religious people have.

Religion is supposed to be a method of delivery, albeit a very bad one, and not about realizing some truth, which is the fundamental confusion among religious people that makes them believe that their religion is absolute.

16 hours ago, zazen said:

Carls message above is on point and related. Everything you rightly critique about religion can also be applied to religions we don’t think are religion - such as the New Age. Many surrender authority to gurus like Sadhguru, Mooji and Osho. They surrender to practices like breathwork, energy healing and yoga poses. Or even entire yogic systems and plant medicines.

They can end up doing these practices mechanically and think enlightenment will come to them via law of attraction - just as robotically and naively as a religious person praying for their wish list from sky daddy. People seek out religion in different aesthetics.

Yes, New Age people are similar to religious people in some ways. However, there are structural differences in how they perceive reality.

E.g., New Age people don't cling to the mythology of one religion. They may cling to many because they're more open-minded.

16 hours ago, zazen said:

Religion is bound to happen and be created because religion is simply a scalable way to orient society and groups of people towards something more meaningful and deeper than just the material world of duality. People always figure out a way to form around something at a social level - veganism, New Ageism, Aubrey Marcus cults 😂

That doesn’t mean we need to find ourselves belonging to anything at all individual level. But at a scalable level, it’s inevitable people will organize themselves around something. Religion is baked in that way, whether we call it that or not. And with that comes all the usual flaws of dogma, groupthink and plenty of unconscious people within that given religion.

I'm for organizing people in such a way that it doesn't become a religion, and I would throw out the spiritual language as it's being used to effectively deceive oneself because of how spiritual words are interpreted.

Edited July 19 by Nemra

[Rafael Thundercat]

Spiritual or “conscious” people who think they’ve killed their egos have only built an egotistical paradigm where they view themselves as egoless. 

This very ironically makes them more prone to egotistical behaviour.
“La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu’il n’existe pas”

“The finest trick of the Devil is to persuade you that he does not exist”
– Charles Baudelaire

[Carl-Richard]

12 hours ago, Rafael Thundercat said:

Spiritual or “conscious” people who think they’ve killed their egos have only built an egotistical paradigm where they view themselves as egoless. 

This very ironically makes them more prone to egotistical behaviour.
“La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu’il n’existe pas”

“The finest trick of the Devil is to persuade you that he does not exist”
– Charles Baudelaire

Spirituality is the practice of adopting a spiritual ego and then deconstructing it. If you are aware of this process, you will save yourself a lot of self-deception. You will also be more accepting and less reactive (less egoic) about the spiritual process.

This also means that all tools, be it intellect or feeling, are accepted and not neglected, as they are seen as an inevitable part of the process and also that it must all be let go off in the end. To react strongly to these things is ego. Accepting them and eventually letting them go avoids excessive and self-referential/meta ego (which is the messy kind).

Edited July 19 by Carl-Richard

[Aaron p]

Religion is like a strong detergent. You can use it to clean your clothes, but if you don't wash it out again, it will slowly cause your clothes to disintegrate.

 

You can use it, but sparingly, and quickly remove it after.

[Rafael Thundercat]

Not all the religious people are idiots in the same level ,this one here at least understand that keeping church and state separted is even good for the church

 

[LordFall]

I haven't read all the responses but I would assume that Religiosity has more to do with trait openness and risk tolerance than intelligence. Most people don't have the innate curiosity to go too far outside of their belief system if it doesn't benefit them. So the same person straight vs being gay will have an incentive to go outside of their belief system but that has nothing to do with how smart that person is. And then traditional religions threaten you with eternal suffering for disagreeing with them so you gotta have some level of risk tolerance to go against that. 

[Carl-Richard]

On 16.7.2025 at 3:44 AM, Husseinisdoingfine said:

By the way, when I say “religious,” I’m particularly referring to those who adhere to Abrahamic religions. I’m mainly talking about normies who follow a traditional religion in a straightforward way—attending church, mosque, or synagogue, praying five times every day, and adhering to prescribed practices—and are totally unfamiliar with mysticism.

Think of it this way: do you think your own IQ would decrease if you went to church and sang songs every Sunday instead of raking your brain over the same TikTok brainrot you usually do? Fun fact: singing in a group is actually a powerful meditative tool (and meditation, believe it or not, is associated with higher IQ). See how I have to paint everything with a New Age brush for you to swallow it? It's almost like you're religious...

Edited July 20 by Carl-Richard

[Leo Gura]

On 7/18/2025 at 2:47 PM, Carl-Richard said:

And this forum is New Age.

The amount of New Age content here is quite low.

Don't overlook how bad New Age can get. Listen to some truly New Age women on Youtube to see how bad it gets. Demons, entities, astrology, numerology, Satan this, Satan that, 5D this, 4D that, frequencies, vibrations, past lives, aliens, conspiracies, etc. It will make you want to vomit.

Edited July 19 by Leo Gura

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

The amount of New Age content here is quite low.

Don't overlook how bad New Age can get. Listen to some truly New Age women on Youtube to see how bad it gets. Demons, entities, astrology, numerology, Satan this, Satan that, 5D this, 4D that, frequencies, vibrations, past lives, aliens, conspiracies, etc. It will make you want to vomit.

You just described stereotypical New Age. New Age in general is the individualistic "assemble your own spirituality" (which you in reality just got pre-packaged from some YouTube guru, hence how different from religion is it really?).

What I described as "stereotypical New Age" (presumably "false spirituality"; I didn't watch the video), seems to fall under the two first categories below, while the "true spirituality" New Age falls under the last category:

Quote

Hammer identified much of the New Age as corresponding to the concept of "folk religions" in that it seeks to deal with existential questions regarding subjects like death and disease in "an unsystematic fashion, often through a process of bricolage from already available narratives and rituals".[6] York also heuristically divides the New Age into three broad trends. The first, the social camp, represents groups that primarily seek to bring about social change, while the second, the occult camp, instead focuses on contact with spirit entities and channeling. York's third group, the spiritual camp, represents a middle ground between these two camps that focuses largely on individual development.[36]

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

Edited July 20 by Carl-Richard

[chess_king]

On 7/16/2025 at 4:44 AM, Husseinisdoingfine said:

I'm going to delete this question and repost it later due to its controversial nature, but it’s something that’s been on my mind for a while.

If someone personally identifies as a Jew, Christian, or Muslim, does that say anything about their intelligence? When I was much younger, I used to be highly critical of people who followed traditional religions, because I couldn’t understand how someone could adopt a belief system simply through osmosis from their parents and sincerely believe it to be true.

I put this question aside for some time—until recently, when I befriended a Pentecostal pastor from Ghana. He explained to me that, according to his understanding, God flooded the Earth in the Noah’s Ark story because human women were mating with 20-foot-tall cyclopses and producing genetic abominations.

I don’t want to come off as edgy or dismissive by labeling all Jews, Christians, or Muslims as unintelligent. There are clearly many intelligent people who believe in a personal God. If someone holds a PhD in a STEM field from a top university but still attends church regularly or performs ṣalāh (ٱلصَّلَاةُ) five times a day, does that make them stupid? I don’t think so.

Moreover, religion has given rise to rich mystical traditions—such as Sufism (Islamic mysticism), Hasidism (Jewish mysticism), and Hesychasm (Eastern Orthodox Christian mysticism) —and produced great spiritual thinkers and mystics like Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Joan of Arc, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Ibn Arabi, Al-Ghazali, and Rumi.

At the same time, there’s empirical evidence suggesting that people with higher levels of education tend to be less religious. Around 40% of scientists are religious, but only 7% of elite scientists are. Among philosophers, less than 1% identify as traditionally religious. (See the video below for a source on these statistics.)

By the way, when I say “religious,” I’m particularly referring to those who adhere to Abrahamic religions. I’m mainly talking about normies who follow a traditional religion in a straightforward way—attending church, mosque, or synagogue, praying five times every day, and adhering to prescribed practices—and are totally unfamiliar with mysticism.

 

 

 

The idiot in that YouTube video is not a scientist to hold his opinion as valuable 

[UnbornTao]

@Carl-Richard

Quote

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

It sounds like you assume that the only option available in this contemplative work is to believe in something - usually something handed down from the outside. But personally encountering whatever is true is possible. We understand this intellectually, but I feel like you might be holding it as not truly possible - in the background of your experience. Odd thing for me to say, but take it into account. I've personally encountered this 'sentiment' before, subtle as it might be. 

There's a difference between a follower and someone who questions by themselves.

Edited July 20 by UnbornTao

[zazen]

On 7/18/2025 at 10:47 PM, Carl-Richard said:

Chances are, if you find somebody you look up to who classifies themselves as religious, and even somebody who favors specific denominations (my favorite example is Rupert Sheldrake, but my bachelor advisor was the same), you will quickly not want to categorize all religious people under the stereotypically "religious" label. You will notice that the term is so wide that it could include almost anything, and that those you find "stupid" are stupid for other reasons, and often systematic ones: dogmatism, closemindedness, single-mindedness, lack of pluralism, lack of multi-perspectivalism, rigidity.

 

 

 First time being exposed to Rupert Sheldrake - that was a great first listen. Religion is much more than simply being a mechanism for awakening - it serves multiple needs and makes up a large part of cultural heritage and identity. Recognising it as a construct - seeing ''through it'' doesn't mean its redundant - awakening doesn't necessarily mean abandonment of forms. Recognising money or nationality as construct doesn't render them valueless - they are operational and instrumental, not the ultimate or the essential, but necessary in their own ways. Perhaps part of awakening and integration is seeing through constructs while remaining functional within them.

Humans are meaning making creatures who live in communities across time. In this sense religion in some format or another is inevitable. Humans also create culture around everything meaningful - food, music, art, love. Why would our deepest (spiritual) encounters with reality be any different. Why wouldn't people sing, pray, create temples to commune in, best practices and rituals to pass down the ages. That most people forget the source that gave inspiration to those practices and rituals doesn't negate them. The game is to participate in the form while seeing through it. Neither trapped by heritage or alienated from it. Because why not? What else would we do? Non-duality isn't no duality - and part of ''Truth'' is that it includes duality, which is very much as real as reality, as is a non-dual essence behind and beyond it.

Pure teaching is like pure water - it takes the shape of whatever container holds it. It seems humans need forms, structures, rituals, stories. Even celebrated non-dualists gather in circles, create practices, write books, revere teachers. They can't help but create what will eventually look like... religion.

If tomorrow all of humanity awakened to their true nature, what would happen next? They would ask ''What next with this New Age awakening?" And being human, they would create: guidelines for living this awakening, communities for mutual support, methods for teaching others, sacred spaces for gathering, texts to preserve the wisdom, teachers to guide seekers. It would become institutionalised and perhaps eventually ossified over time as most religions have become. Then another ''New Age'' religion would prop up critiquing the ''Old New Age'' religion of its dogmatic flaws and lack of purity. The cycles begins again.

Individuals who awaken directly by non-traditional means (non-dual teachings) don't need to reject the cultural inheritance of religion any more than a master chef rejects recipes. They might transcend religious rituals or frameworks, but they can still appreciate and even employ the forms that serve the various other needs of others - not for the purpose of awakening, but as a celebration of awakening.

[Aaron p]

Because religion is, by definition, a set or system of beliefs...you are pretty much guaranteed to run into endless epistemic problems.

 

 

Trying to use standard religion to get to god could be compared to trying to use a child's tricycle to travel across Europe.

Possible? yes.

Likely? No.