I’ve been seeing a lot of atheists online saying this lately and, sadly, they’re just wrong. Culture doesn’t matter. Just because you grow up in a particular culture, that doesn’t make that culture magically true, relevant, or anything else. Just because you’re emotionally comforted by your culture, that doesn’t matter, any more than being emotionally comforted by your religion does.
Rent a clue and join actual reality.
In fact, there was a video from the ACA recently, where a theist from the Philippines called in and started saying that, because his “culture” was highly religious, that makes relying on religious explanations for things superior… just because.
We debated a little in the comments of the video and he never got it. This is insanely common today. Your beliefs, your culture, your faith, your desires, none of that is actual reality. Only reality is reality. Time to rent a clue.
Unfortunately, a lot of people can’t quite get it through their heads. Yes, I understand, you’re attached to your culture, just like many people are attached to their religion. They’ve been indoctrinated from a very early age and have never known anything else, therefore they can’t open their minds to other possibilities.
In fact, just last night, we were watching a couple of episodes from the old 70s show “In Search Of” with Leonard Nimoy and it came up again. I think it’s from the 3rd season, the episode on witch doctors if you want to look it up, but there were legitimate medical doctors and psychologists who were having to resort to farcical witchcraft ceremonies because some people were so buried in their cultural nonsense that they couldn’t relate to reality in any other way.
Now I suppose that if it works, it works, but it shouldn’t be necessary for mentally-healthy people. Mentally-healthy people should understand that the world is not all one way. Mentally-healthy people should be able to adapt to changing situations. Unfortunately, there are a lot of mentally-unhealthy people out there. Those tend to be the people who cling to religion and who scream “but my culture!” all the time, as if that means anything. These are the people who can’t adapt and if you can’t adapt, you need professional help.
It’s why I think we need to stop treating all of these people like they’re children who need to have their hands held constantly and start understanding the need for change. “But I want to!” isn’t a credible statement in this regard. What you want out of life doesn’t matter. What’s realistic does. How about we do that for a while and see if things improve?
re: there was a video from the ACA recently, where a theist from the Philippines called in and started saying that, because his “culture” was highly religious, that makes relying on religious explanations for things superior… just because.💯✔
re: Your beliefs, your culture, your faith, your desires, none of that is actual reality. Only reality is reality.💯✔ Absolutely❗
re: people who cling to religion and who scream “but my culture!” all the time, as if that means anything.💯✔
. . .Of course it means absolutely nothing but they feel they lose BIG if they dump their culture/ religion. They feel they lose their place in time.
re: These are the people who can’t adapt and if you can’t adapt, you need professional help.💯✔
Professional help❓ You can’t change people who DO NOT want to change. No professional can do that. Most “professional” psychologists need help themselves. That’s why they go into (are interested in that profession) in the first place. Why is the world just full of total nutters if all these professionals can change them❓ . . . .and what about recidivism, that’s a bloody constant in Psychology and Psychotherapy.
Nietzsche would always say: A person’s worth is determined by how much truth they can tolerate.
That seems correct to me. That which you most need to find will be found where you least wish to look. The religious DO NOT want to look at things that deconstruct, demythologize, dehistoricize what they hold so dear.
We cannot be protected from the things that frighten and hurt us, but if we identify with the part of our being that is responsible for transformation, then maybe we are always the equal, or more than the equal of the things that frighten us ( -maybe Jesus was just mythological; -maybe there is no God; -maybe there’s no real meaning in the universe.)
How do we get that across to people concerned about their culture and their religion❓
Oh, I agree that a lot of “professionals” have problems and also that a lot of psychologists don’t want to address problems that might impact their bottom line. A lot of what’s in the DSM is a business decision, not a psychological one. They’re mostly concerned with putting food on the table.
Personally, I don’t give a damn about anyone’s feelings. The objective truth is all that matters. Figure out what’s true first, then you can decide how to deal with it. Hiding from reality shouldn’t be an option, but for so many people, that’s all that they do. There are theists out there that are utterly terrified of the real world. They’d rather pretend none of it is real than just live with the reality that surrounds them. I find that terribly sad.
re: The objective truth is all that matters.✔ Figure out what’s true first, then you can decide how to deal with it.✔ Hiding from reality shouldn’t be an option, but for so many people, that’s all that they do.✔
What’s amazing is how people have some reality that they can completely face, even brutal stuff, but yet other parts of reality they can’t face to save their lives. Maybe lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than even lying to others. You’d think you wouldn’t want to fool yourself but it turns out it’s the easiest thing of all. I had a work colleague that had a plaque in her office that said “Don’t let reality ruin your day.” I know it was partially tongue-in-cheek; however, I used to always think as I walked past that: Wow, failure to acknowledge reality has got to be the basis of loads of major screw ups.
I think humanity is just pathetic these days. Maybe a nice asteroid will come along and take out all of the dumb people. I know it’s not that selective, but wouldn’t it be nice?
re: mega killer cosmic rock
. . .ha, ha, ha, ha. It would be but I would probably be hit too, if it was that selective.
“On Friday the 13th of April 2029, an asteroid large enough to fill the Rose Bowl as though it were an egg cup, will fly so close to Earth, that it will dip below the altitude of our communication satellites. We did not name this asteroid Bambi. Instead, it’s named Apophis, after the Egyptian god of darkness and death. If the trajectory of Apophis at close approach passes within a narrow range of altitudes called the ‘keyhole,’ the precise influence of Earth’s gravity on its orbit will guarantee that seven years later in 2036, on its next time around, the asteroid will hit Earth directly, slamming in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii. The tsunami it creates will wipe out the entire west coast of North America, bury Hawaii, and devastate all the land masses of the Pacific Rim. If Apophis misses the keyhole in 2029, then, of course, we have nothing to worry about in 2036.” ― Neil deGrasse Tyson