People are fleeing, in fact. An important thing to remember is that in these polls, when they say things like "No religion in particular" they don't actually mean that these people are Atheists. They mean they don't ascribe to a specific dogma, like Catholic, or Baptist. These people often may still think of themselves as "christian" but, for one reason or another, have rejected organized religion.
From 70% to 50% is such a large change in 20 years. For this to be caused by a change in _parenting only_ would mean that probably every child born 38 years ago until today never attended a church. (this data counts adults, so they would only start counting when they turned 18). That seems very unlikely.
Sounds like an interesting book. Not sure if I agree with the first point though. If the task is smaller than the creator no potential is being explored, no boundary being tested, no growth attained. It is going to feel like an unsatisfying chore.
>There were corrupt officials, plagues, bad people.
How is this rosy-eyed?
I think many people today use the idea that even though some things are miserable today it ok, because they've been miserable always. It's a sad, self-defeating coping mechanism, a lame justification for how things are.
It's possible for some things to have been better in the past, much like some other things may be better in the present. Progress like regress is unilateral.
But still I would argue, we keep forgetting:
- Food
- Health
- Shelter
- Freedom
- Family is safe, not killed or taken away by barbarians or the plague or a demon
are pretty much at the top of “things that really stress us when we don’t have them.
I mean, everything else is icing on the cake. Not too long ago, people didn’t know whether they would starve to death during the next winter, their wife would die from childbirth or some local bogeyman would just burn down your house and enslave your family.
Gensis is talking about farmers working the land for food. Modern work is an invention of man built on top of it, it's a degenerate replica in terms of satisifcation, necessity, meaning etc.
It's not the same story.
Edit: I'd like to see the downvoters argue against the notion that some work is more essential than other work. Hasn't the COVID-19 crisis opened your eyes to this reality?
The cool thing about language is that it applies to more than just farming. Working any job for a paycheck just so you can buy groceries is also honest, real work.
That particular priest of the priestly class seeking to justify their predation of their bronze-age neighbors is probably dead. So, unfortunately, we are only left with their hagiographal and/or mythical prose.
Is it expected that I compose a tangential lengthy rebuttal to what amounts to a wildly ignorant hypothesis on the emergence of the Abrahamic faith's idea of an eternal God as a civilizing power in world history? I'd rather be pithy and insinuate anti-social behavior, because a proper socializing actually leads to a more mature appreciation of the facilitation of history between generations than something baselessly contrived, i.e. an argument from silence. Also, I don't have the power to downvote vacuous comments yet.
No, but it's expected that you do better than "You must be fun at parties." We're trying to avoid the classic downward spiral of internet forums here, or at least stave it off a little longer.
I think Johann Hari has the gist right: in the vast majority of cases, depression is a signal from the body of some biological/social/emotional needs that aren't being met, rather than necessarily being an immutable medical condition.
For n=1, I've struggled with (manic) depression and anxiety most of my life. And while I've used a variety of strategies to cope (Seligman's "Learned Optimism" and a potpourri of Buddhist ideas were incredibly helpful), the secret sauce was getting off of sugar and junk food. When I'm staying on a whole-foods, keto-ish diet, mood swings and unwanted negative thoughts have their volume is turned down by 90%, making the remainder relatively easy to process.
Everybody's different, so YMMV; in some cases, medication are an appropriate tool. But there are some universals that basically benefit every human: drink more water, get more sleep, go for a walk in the sunshine, eat your vegetables, and the less sugar (probably) the better.
The phenomenological impact of poor diet and harsh glycemic index ASDR cannot be overstated. 'refined sugars negatively impact mood and emotional well-being' might be one of the most rock solid universals of human nature.
All medical interventions should include the no-brainer diet, vitamins, exercise, self-esteem interventions.
As the saying goes: have you tried self-conducted sleep deprivation, exercise, improved diet, vitamin d, sun lamps, having sex, talk therapy, or any of the clinically evaluated pharmchems yet? Why not?
