[danschumann]

Plenty of religious things are not superstitious, but based on real psychological needs.. people who dismiss them as pure fantasies are missing the point. New Testament is full of such things helpful for psychological maintenance and emotional well-being, if you can get the metaphors. It's why the stories and practice of them have survived so long (because the practicioners survived more frequently and/or saw the value in repeating/practicing them). Take as many grains of salt as you need; there is a great treasure there.

[jVinc]

Well of cause. People don't dismiss "religious things" like singing, gathering together or confiding in others. They dismiss the religious part of those things. And the assumption that wearing spaghetti strainers or turning off your phone on the weekends will somehow bring you closer to the giant spaghetti monster in the sky.

> It's why the stories and practice of them have survived so long (because the practitioners survived more frequently and/or saw the value in repeating/practicing them).

Yes. That's a hypothesis... another hypothesis that has a lot more backing in history is that the practitioners literally killed people who disagreed with them. Religions didn't survive because of minor health benefits or great mental advantages of regular praying. They survived because they where the mafia of yesterday who administered justice without regards for morals or popular opinion because they claimed to act in the name of gods.

[tzs]

Mathematically, it is actually rational for a religion to require wearing spaghetti strainers or turning off your phone on weekends. This was pointed out in an introductory game theory book I recently read.

There are benefits to being a member of a religious group, such as participating in the group's organized social events. People in groups will often favor others from the same groups, so for example if you are in the same church as the plumber you call to fix your broken toilet he might not try to run up the costs as much as he would if you were totally unfamiliar to him.

People who do not actually believe the religion might pretend in order to get those benefits. The book had a nice illustration showing a man eating a hamburger at a church picnic and his thought balloon said "I can pretend to love Jesus for a free burger!".

Religious rituals like wearing a ridiculous spaghetti strainer or not using a phone on weekends impose a cost on membership.

For the person who actually believes the religion and follows it they believe their reward for membership will be eternal life in heaven or avoidance of eternal damnation in hell or something big like that along with the earthly membership benefits like free burgers at church social events and only getting mildly ripped off when they need a toilet fixed. The benefits still greatly outweigh the cost of the silly, stupid, or annoying rituals.

For the non-believer who believes that membership benefits will only be a few more social events to attend with occasional free burgers and the milder toilet fixing rip off it not be worth wearing the stupid hat or foregoing using their phone.

[danschumann]

Words have definitions, but also words are like functions that run in the brain. `mentionSpagettiMonster() { feelSuperior(); if( opponent.unskilled ) winArgument(); }`

Religion hasn't been killing people in order to spread, or stay spread ( except in certain mid-east countries), for hundreds of years, it would only take a short time after stopping the killing for the religion to die, and why would anyone care enough to kill someone, if there wasn't something there?

You "worship" - "attributing great value"/"worth-ship" to a spagetti monster, because you see the value in winning the argument, and you think it helps you win. However, the value is only transferred from the person you're arguing with. My value comes from God, and you maybe are arguing because you want some value, but in a competive way, not a creative way. Through God, a person can infinitely feel value, and that feels good, and that spills into their life, and they're able to treat people better around them, and everyone wins. In your scenario, you have to be like a vampire, and you only feel value based on your proximity to someone you feel is dumber than you ( based on your knowledge of their beliefs, which is a straw man at best ).

Read the new testament, at least then you can win a steelman argument, rather than one without a heart.

(and if you want to reply again with more rage, first ask yourself, "am I taking this position, because it would be a lot of work to read the New Testament, and I'm lazy, but if I'm outraged, that can be my excuse?" -- because I warn you, it is more work than you can currently imagine, all the implications that will come up, and the work of real change [ transformation hurts like death on a cross, but every butterfly does it ] )

[fiter]

You can find something funny without feeling superior to it. Life is absurd!

[danschumann]

To find something funny, you "get it". The getter is superior to the got. If someone got you, they are superior.

Ask any kid who gets laughed at if he feels good about it. Some kids run out of insults and only need to laugh to torment.

Life is not absurd - "wildly unreasonable, illogical, or inappropriate." Life is such an appropriate choice that most people choose to keep living every day. It's logical, at least the kind of logic that arises out of chaos- civilization out of nature. In chaos lies death. Like the chaos of war. We spend our days organizing nature to promote a more just and productive society, to make life easier. Life is not unreasonable, it provides you much time for reason. Death is unreasonable, in that it can't be bargained with. People need a reason to truly live, a purpose, IE life and reason are very similar. So life is basically the opposite of absurd.

[briandear]

> to the giant spaghetti monster in the sky.

It seems like you could make your point without going out of your way to insult people. You don’t have to believe in anything, but wouldn’t it be considered “hate speech” to essentially besmirch those that believe in God? If we said something about an ethnicity’s cultural traditions, would that be acceptable on HN? Of course not. But somehow making fun of someone’s religion, provided it’s Judeo-Christian, seems to be acceptable.

[fiter]

I think we should be able to make fun of anything. I like that world better.

[jamesrcole]

> You don’t have to believe in anything, but wouldn’t it be considered “hate speech” to essentially besmirch those that believe in God?

Just because someone doesn't believe in the existence of a god doesn't mean they "believe in nothing".

I believe in all sorts of things. I believe in a naturalistic universe, that came about, and operates, in a naturalistic fashion. This is not the absence of belief.

[astura]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

[protomyth]

Some of the things in the Bible are also physical health items. Of course, modern technology and health practices have rendered much of the directives obsolete unless you get stuck in a really primitive part of the world.

[danschumann]

There are few if any specific directions about health in the new testament.. unless you count "don't worry" as a health directive. The new testament is said to be "a better contract", not contradicting, but replacing the old testament.

Again, though, the stories should be taken with salt. They thought the earth was flat, but human brains were largely the same. If situations were occurring then, and they still occur today, you can learn a bit about the inner workings of the mind, society, and such.

[protomyth]

I said Bible not New Testament. The Old Testament has most of the health directives.

You might want to look at the ‘they thought the earth was flat’ thing. There is quite a lot of data to show that a lot of people didn’t think that.