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Well, shoot. All those hours going to church when I was younger without ever feeling much (except for extreme boredom). Apparently I should have taken LSD.

geo wrote:Well, shoot. All those hours going to church when I was younger without ever feeling much (except for extreme boredom). Apparently I should have taken LSD.

I haven't finished this chapter, so I haven't gotten to the LSD part. But it's interesting about your experience attending church as a young'un. What young person really could get anything from church? With apologies to the religious, I just don't think the church experience can appeal to children. The type of uplift that Haidt says religion gives is an adult thing, by and large.

I really think that the vertical axis leading people to something higher is the true "God gene," even though God doesn't have to be involved. It's universal that we experience this sense of moving to a higher plane, i.e., divinity, and that gives us a true common vocabulary with which to talk to each other, whether we're atheist or theist. This chapter brings things into focus and reconciles (potentially) the two opposing sides.

The critique of Enlightenment rationalism, with regard to a fuller view of morality, is trenchant. There is a tradeoff to be incorporated with every advancement in civilization.

"With apologies to the religious, I just don't think the church experience can appeal to children"

Tell that to Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Thats a bit presumptuous my friend. Some have heard their calling early

geo wrote: Apparently I should have taken LSD.

well it worked for Crick , (not to mention Hendrix, Floyd, and countless others throughout.)

faint heart ne'er won fair maiden

ant wrote:"With apologies to the religious, I just don't think the church experience can appeal to children"

Tell that to Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Thats a bit presumptuous my friend. Some have heard their calling early

Ah, I was too categorical.

But think about when as people we (generally) begin to be able to feel the elevation that Haidt talks about, and in what circumstances.

Just look at Jesus Camp

Well, the Catholics at least aren't that great at indoctrination. I've even heard Catholicism is an almost sure path to atheism.

I'll have more to say later. Not quite finshed the chapter yet either.

Okay, I was thinking more about when kids hang out in the regular church services with their parents, and how that's likely to bore them. On the other hand, there's nothing that bad about boredom. Boy is that video hard to watch.

DWill wrote:Boy is that video hard to watch.

My “theory” is some of us are oriented to belief in God and some of us aren't. That sounds a little too much like the woman in the beginning of that video who says there are two kinds of people in the world: those who love Jesus and those who don't.

But what Haidt seems to be saying and what I’ve always suspected is that all of us are capable of that feeling of “oneness” with the universe. It’s just that believers—those with an orientation towards God—will usually interpret that feeling as a connection to God, while an atheist will interpret it as something else entirely.

Haidt wrote:Even atheists have intimations of sacredness, particularly when in love or in nature. We just don’t infer that God caused those feelings.

I kind of bristle at the “even atheists” part even if I agree with his statement. A great word for this feeling is numinous - having a strong religious or spiritual quality; indicating or suggesting the presence of a divinity.

Not sure about Haidt’s “third dimension”— the Z axis—which he correlates as the opposite of disgust. To me he doesn’t quite connect the dots and moves quickly into more political territory. Or does Haidt's third dimension include political thought as well? I may need to reread this chapter.

Haidt wrote:My claim is that the human mind perceives a third dimension, a specifically moral dimension that I will call “divinity.” (See the Z axis, coming up out of the plane of the page in figure 9.1). In choosing the label “divinity,” I am not assuming that God exists and is there to be perceived. (I myself am a Jewish atheist.)

Back to Jesus Camp, I'd like to see some data on the long-term consequences of Jesus-camp style of indoctrination. How many of these kids actually became mindless devoticons (a word I just made up)? Does such indoctrination actually enable these kids to feel that sense of “oneness” in a church setting as opposed to a nature setting? I suspect it does. This is nature's way perhaps, giving us those bursts of dopamine, as the carrot to guide us into bonding with the group. And if that's true, it seems rather like a function of natural selection that is increasingly at odds with the modern environment. Haidt sees some good or at least empathizes with the conservative ethos of elevating our society with sacral elements:

Haidt wrote:I believe it is dangerous for the ethic of divinity to supersede the ethic of autonomy in the governance of a diverse modern democracy. However, I also believe that life in a society that entirely ignored the ethic of divinity would be ugly and unsatisfying.