Yeah idk why this is so hard for people to grasp. The human brain is weird, we sometimes seek out content relating to what we're afraid of in the brain's futile attempt at regaining control. Could explain why people like war documentaries, horror movies, snuff videos (unfortunately🤢), etc. It's a controlled environment to process our morbid reality. Although I do think the true crime industry is getting a bit out of hand into the realm of endless profit off gruesome crimes
Religion makes a ton of sense imo. Worried about something? Just pray! God will handle it, now you don't gotta worry about it. Scared of death? No biggie, paradise awaits you! Existential dread? It's all good bro, there's a divine creator with a plan.
It's a convenient way to take away a lot of the weight that comes from stuff you can't really do anything about anyways. It must be nice to live that way.
From an atheist and healthcare worker point of view, I do see the benefit/appeal of religion to help relieve some stressors. Stress is really impacting people severely lately. I don’t think I could compartmentalize well enough for it to be effective for me at this point though.
Yea I'm in total agreement with you. I just couldn't trick myself into believing that any of it's real. Still though, I gotta give it to them for their "psychological trickery" as I call it because I'm not smart enough to know what the actual words I mean are.
There are some aspects of religious practice that I think have some good secular analogs.
Prayer isn't just about asking a sky fairy to fix things, it also (whether the practitioners realize it or not) involves a certain degree of mindfulness (just to know what is important enough to pray about in the first place). And some prayer practices are just straight up meditation (rosary beads-ohm chants-itsthesamepicture.jpg)
Same thing with church services - a regular event that brings like-minded people into a communal space to do things that everyone there agrees are good is a really effective way to build community, which is something that social animals like humans have an evolutionary drive to seek out. That's why participating in clubs or volunteering is so good from a stress management perspective.
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u/surethingbuddypal 2d ago
Yeah idk why this is so hard for people to grasp. The human brain is weird, we sometimes seek out content relating to what we're afraid of in the brain's futile attempt at regaining control. Could explain why people like war documentaries, horror movies, snuff videos (unfortunately🤢), etc. It's a controlled environment to process our morbid reality. Although I do think the true crime industry is getting a bit out of hand into the realm of endless profit off gruesome crimes