Why do intelligent People still believe in Religion? Part 24: The Rise of Knowledge | GinaConspiracy
Epistemology is the study of how we know what we know and how we can make assertions with a very high probability of being correct Today lets look at the history of knowledge and the steps it took
For many tens of thousands of years, people lived as isolated xenophobic tribes Territory was what mattered and us vs them was in full swing New ideas were very slow to develop because there were less people in one group to allow ideas to transmit to people with other experiences The majority of their knowledge was based on precedent and the opinion of the elders and wisdom passed down to them Since the majority of their knowledge and thought involved food gathering, this worked quite well, even with the incorrect information they passed on and so long as their tribe survived the knowledge survived
Genes were more important than information 8000 year ago, agriculture began to develop and suddenly a plot of land could support a lot more people Tribes began conquering their neighbors or trading with them, and integrating their way of life They now had many more people and Certain people could spend less time on food generation and be specialized in learning and integrating lore and precedent together and canonizing it into something that all the people and tribes in the area could believe in Many of these ideas were just plain brutal, many were flawed, and many gave unfair power to certain people especially to ones in charge of processing the lore, stories and rituals
These priests were given the same deference and respect as the elders of the tribes used to get, but now they power they held over so many people was addicting As trade and population continued to grow, beliefs from around the known world began to conflict with each other and make things extremely confusing which lead to wars, persecution and fear of angering any deity even if that god was a jealous god In this time period about 500 BCE a time called the axial age when cities and religions on their own merit reached their peek, great thinkers began to try to figure out methods to create reliable ways to distinguish fact from fiction and to determine how the universe actually worked Great thinkers like Socrates, Confucius, Plato and the Buddha began to develop logic and philosophy Logic began to generate new ideas some of them completely inaccurate but percentage wise, was more accurate than precedential beliefs
At first their was much resistance to philosophy especially since it upset the power structure, however over time Religion began to absorb logic and philosophy, especially to defend itself against the attacks of philosophers, called apologetics In the west with the church completely in control, the church believed logic to be the way to better understand god, and other than rejecting more accurate ideas because they went against their old precedent, they encouraged logic so long as it helped prove their old ideas Logic was moving them forward, precedent which is very slow to change was holding them back, but at least logic wasn't completely rejected and was allowed to drag humanity forward kicking and screaming In the 1400s trade was at a level it had never been before and many people for the first time were able to do a lot of traveling, and see beyond their city Books and paper became less expensive and more widely available
So many educated people lead to competing ideas all equally logical, many beautifully complex that tended to bash heads together getting each other no where Then people began to develop the idea of backing their ideas up with evidence, creating tests to prove or disprove their ideas and beliefs and see which equally logical idea was most likely true A very wise thinker said and I paraphrase “Even in I have an idea that is extremely beautiful and complex that I love, if it does not have the evidence to back it up, I must reject it” This became the beginning of the scientific method Religion encouraged science so long as it didn't go against old precedent or it undermined their power and authority, so our accuracy in understanding about the universe began to pick up speed even more even though religion had the its foot held tightly on the brake pedal of precedent
At a point in the early 1900s with infrastructure and communication more available than ever the idea of treating evidence like a court and setting controls and restrictions and standards on what ideas could be submitted and taken seriously began in terms of the peer review process With rise of psychology, and understanding confirmation bias among even the most learned and the limits of the human mind, controls like placebos and double blind testing became required to analyze evidence Communication, information and education are now highest they have ever been The common man has equal access to scientific knowledge, however precedent and logic without evidence still has its foot firmly on the brake pedal of progress If we rev progress up to full speed maybe we can continue to erode precedent until it no longer works
The more we can educated, and eliminate delusions and ignorance, the faster the engine of progress can move Progress has its own controls called ethics and philosophy, it does not need to be controlled by something that has held us back as a species and allowed brutal barbarism and damage to the planet we live on by denial of evidence Lets rev these engines of progress and take off full speed being only slowed by our ethics, empathy and commitment to our fellow beings and our planet With as many people as we have on the planet, the potential for progress is unfathomable, when we can educate everyone and free them from their delusions it will be full speed ahead for the human race
Source: Youtube
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