When you read Allah Knows All and variations, you do not feel the scrutiny of the LORD looking upon your shoulders, policing all your thoughts, knowing your decisions before yourself.
You’d have to believe a little already. So, an affective death spiral. The more you believe, the more the Book terrorises you into believing.
Going off on a tangent though, that last phrase, “knowing your decisions before yourself” reminds me of Libet’sexperiments on detecting decisions before the person making them is aware of them. I started wondering what sort of Dark Arts-based religion could be constructed even out of rationalism.
That would mean officially classifying citizens according to religion, which can lead to discrimination. No secular state would ever dream of doing such a thing.
The UK isn’t very religious, but the 10-year censuses do ask people to declare a religion. I think most countries’ censuses do. It’s something practically useful to know, even for benign purposes.
That would mean officially classifying citizens according to religion, which can lead to discrimination. No secular state would ever dream of doing such a thing.
The UK isn’t very religious, but the 10-year censuses do ask people to declare a religion. I think most countries’ censuses do. It’s something practically useful to know, even for benign purposes.
You’d have to believe a little already. So, an affective death spiral. The more you believe, the more the Book terrorises you into believing.
Going off on a tangent though, that last phrase, “knowing your decisions before yourself” reminds me of Libet’s experiments on detecting decisions before the person making them is aware of them. I started wondering what sort of Dark Arts-based religion could be constructed even out of rationalism.
The UK isn’t very religious, but the 10-year censuses do ask people to declare a religion. I think most countries’ censuses do. It’s something practically useful to know, even for benign purposes.
One of the common reasons Muslims claim the Qran is miraculous, apart from “awesomely-written-get-the-sensation”, is this sort of stuff which happens a lot with the Qran. There comes a scientific study, and people see some verse that seems to say the same thing, and they say “Lo and behold! The Qran has anticipated science again with this criptical little sentence that always seemed out of left field! Now we know what it means! It is a hint placed there by the LORD, so that, throughout the centuries, the veridical nature of our Holy Book is confirmed once and again, unlike their Bible, that says the Earth is flat and grasshoppers have four feet, roflmao!”. Oh, I appear to have built a strawman that has built another strawman. That was in poor taste. Please forgive it.
The UK isn’t very religious, but the 10-year censuses do ask people to declare a religion. I think most countries’ censuses do. It’s something practically useful to know, even for benign purposes.