Discussion
I was trying to understand EA and the person I was interacting with got very offended that I called it religion.
So I stopped doing that and let it go because I was trying to understand how this all works, what is the appeal?
The "not a religion" thing was really really really important to him. He explained that he grew up with fundamentalists and was proud of breaking free of constraining ideologies.
. . .
I didn't mean "religion" to be an insult.
@futurebird it's a real poser. how exactly do you tell someone they simply went from one sort of cult to another? all the words that seem to apply perfectly, like "cult" or "religion", they've schooled themselves to reject.
Philosophies don't have meetings, or people who tell you what to do... or secrets.
@futurebird or rituals, or sacred texts...but it's like they've reinvented all these things, all the while telling themselves they were totally original
When I call something a "religion" that just means that it's part of someone's culture and identity. These are things people believe and do because they are traditional and we can find revelation and comfort in traditions.
Obviously that can also be dangerous and worth questioning at times.
@futurebird Religion to me is a system of thought control, and that is a different thing from the culture of the people having that religion as a part of their life.
The spirituality of the people often have very little to do with the dogma of the priests and the stricture it imposes.
So to me the word "Religion" is perhaps not as much a insult, as much as a condemnation of abuse and fraud.
@futurebird "He explained that he grew up with fundamentalists and was proud of breaking free of constraining ideologies. "
Oh dear
yeah, the rationalists are like that too. They're doing some speculative calculus as to future possibilities, convince themselves of it, and then it's faith, but they think it is based on reason. :/
Gebru and Torres, 2024, is a must read on this:
Effective altruism
@futurebird @CarstenBoll it's a cult. In that, it's a high-control group with an ideology.
@futurebird They really do prey on this kind of person.
Also their biggest ongoing tactic for coercion, is that they like to redefine normal words and use that to put you, the outsider, on the back foot.
This guy you found was likely too hung up on the word "religion" because he wants to operate on some completely different definition of the word than most people would agree with.