"Religion Is Just Claims Based on History and Psychology..." : Is That Scientifically Accurate?

just because religion is universal doesn't mean it represents something that actually exists or correspond to anything real There are many cognitive errors which are Universal. People have all sorts of cognitive mistakes and perceptual illusions But often times these are more beneficial for our survival and reproduction So religion and the common human tendency to personify Nature, 2 assign agency to the natural world. It clearly can give us survival and reproductive advantages and it also can clearly not be an accurate representation of reality Just like we don't naturally feel that the Earth is spinning, we don't naturally feel that the Earth is revolving around the sun, we don't naturally feel that space and time are relative, we don't naturally feel the effects of quantum mechanics, there's many things that we don't naturally perceive or experience that nevertheless we have found out to be a more accurate understanding of the world Religion is just a bunch of claims based on our history and psychology, and the overwhelming majority of those claims do not jive with science

You try to evaluate “religion” with an absolute and final invalidating judgment by associating it simplistically with “personification” a psychological term in fact, in a presumptuous and dismissive sense, and “jiving with science” that itself reveals your unexamined assumptions and projected fallacies. The meaning of “universal behaviors,” “(Universal) Cognitive mistakes,” “what we feel,” and “perceptual illusions” “agency” have similar baggage in psychology´s own subdisciplinary divisions, all of which operates as epistemological subdisciplines of Philosophy. That ultimately applies no less to your ultimately conformism to the presumption that the physical sciences establish the “most accurate” basis for evaluating claims.

Except that YOUR kind of claim that “science” is the “MOST ACCURATE BASIS” of evaluating “truth,” held by many as an “absolutely objective” basis, is nevertheless equally misguided despite your care with the nuance of “accuracy.” You aren´t aware of your slipping and sliding, but your foundational reliance on “science” is itself a foundational illusion, something you not only don´t feel and perceive, but don´t understand and neglect. I felt that problem personally as early as 10th grade. The History of Science illuminates the point well, as T Kuhn pointed out in his landmark work most famously known in terms of scientific paradigms and their shifts. Philosopher of Science M Pigliucci nails the point by noting that Darwin, like Newton and all their colleagues, were called “natural philosophers” in their time still. “Scientific Philosophy” also is plausibly accurate, while “Science” gets exposed as a term that has played a popularizing role, and was switched through its delusions of grandeur of “all truth” and judge of all else as mere “pseudoscience.” Sorry, Charlie. You´ve got big muscles in “scientific philosophy´s accomplishments, but you´re not quite able to secure some things as crucial as social and environmental sustainability from techhie and greedy biz influences, along with attacks on Social Science (also subdisciplines of phil), classical Philosophy, all in addition to Religion (especially its phil forms). Moreover, you´re not clear that it is sci phil´s larger empirical philosophical method that is discernible and transferible. Thus in Therapeutic Psychology, “feelings” weren´t a term the pioneer Freud used, but “instincts.” “Passions” was used by DesCartes et al. Those are “phenomena,” and “introspection” and “empathy” are part of the relevant empirical philosophy. Psychology´s emp phil demonstrated its religious insights early as W James did a comparative study, and Freud (of non-Christian roots) found himself retreating from his invalidating stance of absolute reductionism to allowing for “historical” reality. Jung superseded him and Transpersonal Psychology began to be articulated by Maslow and others.

The discussion of Religion, thus, is best put in the context of the multi- and inter-disciplinary Philosophy of Comparative Religion. In empirical terms, it involves meditative and prayerful states , often in relation to ritual and spiritual-religious materials and practices. While sci phil orients its practitioners to try to objectify the Universe´s phenomena, spiritual-religious activity in the phil of comp rel involves relating to the Universe´s Creator and sustaining aspect. Modern Christian Philosophy of Religion was developed, like scientific philosophy, by Christian monastic schools that led to modern University-based society. Simple reductio ad absurdum arguments reveal your fallacies. All mothers and fathers of all species, human (animal), tree-living primate monkey, and all non-human animal can also be termed “maternal and paternal units.” Your desire, a common one, NOT to call your mom and dad “maternal unit” despite its depersonalized “objectivity” raises questions about legitimate psychosocial processes, “What are legitimate?” “Mommy” is a term used by children. “Maternal unit” is a term used by, well, freaks, to put it in popular terms, or those harboring intense rationalized anger and resentment, as the psychologically literate might say. Just as you don´t take seriously the notion that “maternal unit” should be used for “mommies,” “moms,” or “mothers” except as young adult scientistic slang, subjects like environmental sustainability, stakeholders, and Human Rights have raised alerts about problems because of unsustainable profiteering objectification of natural resources and non-shareholder employees and citizens who are stakeholders with Human Rights. A kind of spectrum should be obvious already that involves epistemological Levels of Explanation and complexity, all part of philosophical disciplines.

Meanwhile, you say that “we don´t naturally feel the Earth spinning, … and quantum mechanics.” The Chinese Tao is associated with a non-objective spiritual philosophy and human activity systems like Tai Chi, Chi medicine, and Chi Gong that have demonstrable effects in context. Buddhism, as well. Both spiritual-religious systems are more systematized than traditional shamanic practices, although anthropologist M Harner, and perhaps others, have started Western systems. Western scientists are studying psychosomatic healing and stress, based on broader reported phenomena often based on direct spiritual-religious phenomena, and always indirectly. Harner, and the reporting and study of Chinese, Buddhist, shamanic, psychosomatic, and diverse spiritual-religious knowledge and phenomena also involve a modernization process in University philosophical and empirical scholarship. As for Christianity, the Jewish Jesus in the Abrahamic-Mosaic prophetic tradition reported consistently that God Commands “Love God first,” and “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Harry Harlow´s monkey mother-infant experiments showed that mother´s love matters, and any mechanical maternal unit provides a deficient relationship. Humanistic Psychology was developed because of the problem of dehumanizing objectification in therapy techniques. Thus, again, the spectrum from “maternal unit-mom” to environmental sustainability to shareholder-stakeholder-Human Rights leads to the effects on people of secular materialism in an objectified Universe. Fragmented, disconnected rationalists exploited by business profiteers supporting Fundamentalists. Identifying the Universe´s Creator and Sustainer based especially on the teachings that underlie modern University-based modern empirical forms of philosophy including the very prominent scientific philosophy, i.e. Jewish Jesus Christ´s Commandments about love and spiritual practice, isn´t simplistic “personification” and fantasized “agency.” That is recognition of the coherent and consistent spiritual and religious experience that underlies the Universe´s relationship to Western culture and the individuals that have been building it. Trying to invalidate religion is like trying to call your mom a “maternal unit” and the rest, and invalidate psychology because humans are evolved animals with classifiable survival characteristics and traits. Humans evolved sweat, too. Don´t invalidate human cognition just because of that, along with your anti-religious and anti-theist errors and epistemological fallacies. “Humans sweat, só of course they don´t need to think like their maternal units try to teach them.” That´s an analogy of your fallacy, só you know.