For a while I have been a crazy man screaming about freedom and individualism dying. I have made a fool of myself on many occasions and gotten on the wrong side of people on this forum. Yesterday though I had a vision.
About three times a month for a short amount of time I stop being so bitchy and bitter and kinda go a little Zen in the western since. I see things in a more chilled manner and get a little insight. Yesterday I was in a chill mode and thought how amazing it is that we all haven’t killed each other. How we can make things work. Incredible I say! Then it hit me. Freedom and individualism are not things man truly desires. Oh sure we want it for a little while maybe but in the end it goes against our nature. Hell we can’t even agree what freedom and individualism mean.
So while I will still throw knives at the parties of the USA I know for a fact now that the American Dream has always been smoke and mirrors and is not what the people of the US really want. We can’t even agree on the American Dream for fuck sakes.
People who research the topic have found that choice actually makes people unhappy.
Actually the research shows that “Too much” choice causes people to be unhappy as does “too little”. This is the reason that grocery stores do not carry EVERY brand of peanut butter, but also the reason they carry more than one.
That being said there is a huge difference between “Too many choices” in a grocery store and “Too many choices” for a career. When one is faced with a regular choice they want it to be a bit less complex, when one is making a major and a “Once or twice” in a lifetime choice they will want more options.
Of course all of the above illistrates a tiny portion of the complexity that goes into a “Free market” and why the market, like a grocery store limiting choices, is FAR FAR better at making these decisions than is the government.
OTOH I would agree there are HUGE discrepancies in desire for “Personal freedom”. There is a huge percentage of the population that is really quite comfortable being told what to do. No offense meant here but I’ve often thought this was the major draw of religion. It truly simplifies life when you are given a set of rules to follow rather than having to analyze and decide for yourself. In fact there is also some studies showing that “People of faith” actually have slightly different brain activity than those that lack faith. One could, or might, assume that the same people might lean toward less of a desire for choice.
Lead? You’ve been here long enough to know the real me. I ain’t leadin’ no one.
I don’t understand the world or people. It seems funny if you really look at it. Everything is so fluid that up is down and down is up. What few facts we do know are attacked by the state and religion because facts are a threat to our stupid way of life.
In the short time I have been in this area of ST, I have found your posts very good MJuric. This one I have some issues with though, particularly the religious part. The rules of religion have by no means made my life easier. At the heart of Chrisitianity (my personal religion), are rules which run completely contrary to my nature. Turning the other cheek, forgiving my neighbor, absconding wealth, and a host of others are not rules I would have chosen to live by. Nor are they easy rules to live by. It is a struggle to reconcile them with my own personal desires. This is one (of many) reasons I am convinced Christianity is not a creation of man. If man were to invent a religion it would not ask of us the things that Christianity does.
Also, in terms of differences in brain activity for people of faith. I would be careful putting the cart before the horse. Does a difference in brain activity lead one to faith or does faith cause differences in brain activity?
I wonder why the Greek and Roman religions that had so many gods to choose from went away in favor of the one’s we have now. When faced with the eternal afterlife, I can see why they worked up a whole slew of possibilities to satiate that need for a wide variety of choices.
@ OP, cheer up dood. Freedom doesn’t equal safety, the USA doesn’t equal the American Dream, and the wealth in this country comes from making people fat and complacent. We have two political parties that aren’t all that different from each other and are tools of big business anyway. Other countries shake their heads in disbelief at the shite that goes on here and are just waiting for our little experiment to fail and go away so they don’t have to listen to their students complain about civil rights and progress.
So according to this “things which have rules that are hard to live by implies rules are made by god” theory
WTC ironman events rules are made by god
UCI rules are made by god
the spanish inquisition, made by god.
I think your theory needs some work man.
Man invents hard to live by rules all the time, sometimes for good reasons, as many of the obviously man created rules in bible are, and sometimes out of ignorance, greed, random luck (again, as many rules in the bible are as well)
In the short time I have been in this area of ST, I have found your posts very good MJuric. This one I have some issues with though, particularly the religious part. The rules of religion have by no means made my life easier. At the heart of Chrisitianity (my personal religion), are rules which run completely contrary to my nature. Turning the other cheek, forgiving my neighbor, absconding wealth, and a host of others are not rules I would have chosen to live by. Nor are they easy rules to live by. It is a struggle to reconcile them with my own personal desires. This is one (of many) reasons I am convinced Christianity is not a creation of man. If man were to invent a religion it would not ask of us the things that Christianity does.
Also, in terms of differences in brain activity for people of faith. I would be careful putting the cart before the horse. Does a difference in brain activity lead one to faith or does faith cause differences in brain activity?
I never said things which have rules that are hard to live by implies rules are made by God. I said the rules of Christianity do not strike me as rules man would have created if he was inventing a religion.
I never said things which have rules that are hard to live by implies rules are made by God. I said the rules of Christianity do not strike me as rules man would have created if he was inventing a religion.
They are exactly the rules one would create if they wished to engineer a society in which human behavior was moderated and controlled. The 10 commandments are a pretty good foundation for creating a functional society.
You are thinking from an individual not societal standpoint.
The rules are equally bad from a societal standpoint. For instance, one hallmark of social creatures is the prevalence of free loaders. Significant numbers of studies show that social creatures have all evolved efficient mechanisms for dealing with freeloaders. Chimps will incur significant personal costs in order to punish a perceived free loader. Christianity on the other hand not only warns you against punishing free loaders, it also suggests abetting that sort of behavior. From a societal standpoint, this is a terrible idea.
The rules of religion have by no means made my life easier.
That was not my point. The rules of “Religion” serve to limit ones choices. One does not need to analyze the situation when faced with situations you describe, but merely do as one believes and or is taught.
In a sense we all do this religion or no religion often times acting upon “Pre programming” most often instilled in us by our parents. I simply believe “Religion” serves to add another layer to this even further reducing the “Stress” caused by having to make a decision.
Take for instance the “Turn the other cheek”. Two people get punched in the nose, one is a christian and simply follows the rule and “Turns the other cheek”. (Note yes I realize this is not a good example of the meaning of the phrase, but bear with me :-)). The other a “Non believer” get’s punched in the nose. He must first analyze the situation and then make a decision. This “Decision making” stress is the exact reason you have “Limited” choices in a grocery store. To many choices and you become “Stressed” and actually will buy less than with fewer choices.
Does a difference in brain activity lead one to faith or does faith cause differences in brain activity?
Actually the study, at least the ARTICLE based on the study I’m referring to asks the same question.
One explanation is that people with a genetic predisposition to reduced ACC activity gravitate toward religion. “It’s possible that if you’re born with a certain kind of brain, you’re predisposed to religion,” Inzlicht says. However, he suspects that religious belief is driving the association. In unpublished experiments, Inzlicht’s team asked religious volunteers to describe in writing either their faith or their favourite season. Those who wrote about their connection to God exhibited reduced ACC activation, compared with people who described the weather. Inzlicht says it would be interesting to test people as their religious devotion strengthens or weakens over time to see if ACC activation changes accordingly. This could help confirm the correct explanation for the lower ACC activity.
For the purpose of my point however it doesn’t matter. In either case the people that either have a lower propensity for “Second guessing” or because religion helps them not “Second guess” the association still stands in the sense that these people would be drawn to a “Set of rules” or “Simply live by them” and the level of stress is reduced either way.
A person genetically prone would go into the grocery store and simply pick what they have always picked without ever questioning whether or not one of the new 20 choices would be better. If religion causes the effect they would simply go into the store and pick what “They were supposed to”
A person “Prone” to this type of brain activity would be drawn to a more “Structured” environment such as a religion. A person in the religion would simply live by the rules of the religion.
“The rules of ‘Religion’ serve to limit ones choices. One does not need to analyze the situation when faced with situations you describe, but merely do as one believes and or is taught.”
I think I would amend this to say that one still has to analyze the situations you are faced with and then decide what to do based on a variety of factors, one of which is what you believe and what you are taught. Religion does not necessarily dictate your decisions (though yes, there are many for whom it does), it can instead serve as a factor to consider when making your decisions. I have the same choices you do, even if what I ultimately decide to do and why differ.