To be happier, pray at the altar of progress and put your faith in technology

[rug]

November 02, 2016
WRITTEN BY Ephrat Livni

Faith in progress has overtaken religiosity as the answer to the question of how to be happier in secular societies.

It used to be traditional religious belief best bolstered well being, providing the faithful a sense of control in a wild world. Now, however, progress is the religion that makes its believers feel best. Science satisfies the secular deeply, say social psychologists from the University of Cologne, Germany. In fact, praying at the altar of technology provides more powerful benefits to devotees of progress than the traditional gods give the faithful.

The researchers surveyed 1,500 people in the Netherlands about their values, religiosity, personality traits, beliefs about progress (rating the resonance of statements like “science and technology are making our lives healthier, easier, and more comfortable”), sense of personal control, and life satisfaction. Based on the survey responses, the researchers concluded that both belief in scientific-technological progress and religiosity were associated with higher life satisfaction. Yet trust in progress made people feel significantly better than religion did, providing a far stronger sense of personal control.

After analyzing these results, the researchers also compared across cultures using data from the World Values Survey, which asks about satisfaction, religion, and belief in progress in 72 countries. (Religious belief was evaluated generally without distinguishing between the faiths.) They found a “correlation between a belief in scientific–technological progress and life satisfaction was positive and significant in 69 of the 72 countries.” Only in 28 countries did religiosity correlate positively with satisfaction at all.

http://qz.com/824736/faith-in-technology-and-progress-makes-you-happier-than-religion-and-belief-in-god/

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019188691630160X

[whatthehey]

1. When will these vapid commentators realize nothing has to replace religion in religious terms

There is no need to pray to anything, or have faith (in the context of acceptance without evidence) in anything. A vanishingly small number of nonbelievers feel the need to replace such baseless imaginary constructs. The religious overlay here is incongrously tacked on to a perfectly secular question with a perfectly secular response. There are neither supernatural entanglements nor universal philosophies nor ethical platforms nor any other trappings of religion involved in recognizing that life is healthier, easier and more comfortable with, say, modern vehicles as opposed to Model Ts, and that based on the last century or so of consistent progress and widely reported R&D that this trend is liikely to continue. There is no devotion or ritual or meditation required, merely objective information and the same inductive logic that tells us the sun will, figuaratively, rise tomorrow whether we sacrifice virgins or not. It's nothing religious at all that makes that realization satisfying. Who but a few wild-eyed primitivists isn't likely to be happier with a healthier, easier and more comfortable lifestyle?

[rug]

3. If you're tired of "vapid commentators", you should read this.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/think/article/the-optimism-delusion/1B6B8C89E078137663C15C4EE6AAD572

It's worth going through the pay wall.

[Jim__]

14. I read at least a part of the essay you cited.

I found that part here. An excerpt:

...

He speaks rapturously about the 'feeling of awed wonder that science can give us', saying that it 'is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable'. Yet this secular equivalent of religious awe is no guarantor of life's meaningfulness. It is no proof that a Godless world is a meaningful one. Just because the universe and human life lack the meaning that theists often say a God would bestow on them, does not mean that the void has to be filled by some secular alternative. It might simply be the case that our lives are pointless. To ward off this conclusion, Professor Dawkins makes the common suggestion that one's life is 'as meaningful, as full and as wonderful' as one chooses to make it. But that assumes that subjective meaning is the only meaning our lives require. However, if that were the case, then a religious life could have immense meaning even when it is founded on delusions - because such lives too are 'as meaningful, as full and as wonderful' as the people living them choose to make them. It is one kind of delusion to think that one's life has meaning because it fits in with God's plan when, in fact, there is no God. It is another kind of delusion to think that one's life has meaning because it fits in with one's own plan when, in fact, one is mistaken that one's own plan can endow (the right kind of) meaning.

These are complex matters and they obviously cannot be explored in full here. It is curious, though, that Professor Dawkins preaches his gospel of secular optimism without feeling the need to engage seriously with philosophical pessimism - the ultimate delusion buster.

…

How do I get to the full article through your link? Do I have to fill out the Get Access form?

[rug]

15. Yes, if you click the Get Access Button you'll get a registration form.

David Benatar is a modern nihilist who makes Richard Dawkins sound like Francis of Assissi.

[Jim__]

16. Thanks. I'll take a look at that.

[AtheistCrusader]

2. Some of us have 'faith' in technological progress because we know how it works.

And we understand shit like Mean Time Between Failures and shit that can be fixed or demonstrated to solve X problem and WHY it can solve it.

There's NO correlation between the religious use of 'faith' and 'faith' in progress in the sense advertised here.

Nice bait though.

[rug]

4. "awed wonder"

The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver. It is truly one of the things that make life worth living and it does so, if anything, more effectively if it convinces us that the time we have for living is quite finite.

Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins 1998.

[AtheistCrusader]

5. Well, that's one opinion.

Oh I'm sorry, are you still thinking of him as some kind of atheist pope?

[rug]

6. That lame comeback is getting pretty stale.

The OP holds up.

[AtheistCrusader]

7. Like fuck it does.

There is NO correlation between religious faith in god's existence, and my faith that a plane I get in is going to get me from one point to another intact and on time.

There MIGHT be a correlation in the 'awe' a religious person feels when contemplating 'god', and what I feel when contemplating some incredibly detailed and beautiful close-up photo of Martian bedrock from a distant probe man built, and sent to gather data. Maybe. I kind of doubt it's a perfect correlation though, since we can clearly prove Martian bedrock *exists*, but the feelings it evokes might be similar.

You will not, however, catch me 'praying' to said extra-terrestrial bedrock, nor the probe that brought me images of it.

[rug]

9. Maybe you should think about what you read instead of spluttering.

It describes similarity not correlation. Like it or not, it's there.

You can pray to bedrock or spend your day with equations. I really don't care. As I said, it's not all about you.

[AtheistCrusader]

11. Maybe you should read it.

“correlation between a belief in scientific–technological progress and life satisfaction was positive and significant in 69 of the 72 countries.”

See the word 'faith' used there? No. They used all kinds of squishy faithy bullshit in the headline and lede, but the quote uses 'belief'.

2. belief
(belief in)

trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something:

"a belief in democratic politics" ·
[more]

Belief can be based on fact, like studied, demonstrable MTBF scores on a device brought about by and furthering PROGRESS.

[stone space]

8. My lack of faith in technological progress does not stem from a lack of understanding.

Some of us have 'faith' in technological progress because we know how it works.

And we understand shit like Mean Time Between Failures and shit that can be fixed or demonstrated to solve X problem and WHY it can solve it.

I don't know how semi-automatic weapons technology works, that is true.

Although many here on DU would disagree, my ignorance of rounds and calibers and whatnot is most certainly not the reason why I lack faith in semi-automatic weapons technology for my salvation and for the salvation of all Iowans.

My lack of faith has more to do with the pain and suffering caused by that technological progress, progress that leaves us crying and hugging each other for consolation.

I lack faith in technology that leaves us in tears.

We may not understand the technology, but our lack of faith is not based on that lack of technological understanding.

It is based on an understanding gained through the tears while we cling to each other in pain.

It is based on a rational skepticism of technology that causes pain and suffering.

There are other ways of knowing, and a technological understanding of the technology is not a prerequisite to understanding the human impact of that technology.

Folks here on DU who have a strong faith in semi-automatic weapons technology to provide their salvation like to use their detailed knowledge of that technology to ridicule those of us who have other ways of knowing.

They like to pretend that we don't even have a right to participate in discussions of the destructive power and the evil of that technology, just because we can't cite weapons specs like they can.

They'll jump on folks and come down on them hard if they are mistaken on caliber, condescendingly informing us of just how teeny-weeny itsy-bitsy those bullets were that Adam Lanza pumped into the fragile bodies of those children with his AR-15, as a way of discrediting those of us who recoil in horror at the thought.

[AtheistCrusader]

10. You lost me at 'salvation' but you often miss the mark, so i'm not surprised.

[stone space]

12. I'm glad that you realize that semi-automatic weapons technology will not save you.

You lost me at 'salvation' but you often miss the mark, so i'm not surprised.

Instead of salvation, the technology offers tears, suffering and pain.

I wish more people realized that.

[AtheistCrusader]

13. The only semi-auto weapon I own that ever caused suffering and pain is the reason I don't have to

speak German or Japanese.

So... Like beauty, it's in the eye of the beholder.

[MisterP]

17. this is exactly the techno-utopianism that caused ecological, economic, and political devastation

in Turkey, Africa, China, the USSR, the US, and Mexico, and allowed a tremendous surge in fundamentalism that wasn't even on anybody's radar in 1975