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Okay, as a thought experiment let's say we got blasted back into the stoneage by something that wiped out religion and scientific knowledge. The survivors find a fairly intact modern library (including all religious texts).

What religion would they choose or form or would they consider the previous humans God like?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Okay, as a thought experiment let's say we got blasted back into the stoneage by something that wiped out religion and scientific knowledge. The survivors find a fairly intact modern library (including all religious texts).

What religion would they choose or form or would they consider the previous humans God like?

Buddhism + Atheism.

They'd fabricate a new religion and call it Second Chancism.

Originally posted by Mindship
They'd fabricate a new religion and call it Second Chancism.

Second Chancism is evil.

Originally posted by Mindship
They'd fabricate a new religion and call it Second Chancism.

Or perhaps go the opposite route and create a maltheistic faith, more concerned with avoiding another calamity than celebrating survival.

How about no religion

Originally posted by The Dark Cloud
How about no religion

Improbable.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Improbable.

I agree.

It is a difficult question, I am inclined to think they would fabricate new religion based on all religions previously - then come up with some kind of story indicating that God killed everyone because they were arguing about petty religious differances.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Or perhaps go the opposite route and create a maltheistic faith, more concerned with avoiding another calamity than celebrating survival. Permit me to elaborate...

Surviving the Big Wipeout will be the most defining event of the survivors' new lives. It will effect virtually every aspect of their thinking, not just religious, but also political, economic, etc. What they do will also depend largely on the nature of the BW.

If the cause of the BW was natural (eg, a comet impact), then the survivors will be more inclined to rebuild the status quo, ie, they may well reason that what went on before was working fairly well, and it was just unfortunate that the BW happened.

If the BW was man-made (eg, nuclear war), then the survivors could well be more inclined not to rebuild things as they were, ie, to largely avoid the mindsets (political, religious, economic, etc) that led to the BW. I would think a "back to basics" mindset would rule...in which case the main tenets of Second Chancism could well be:
1. Be kind to each other.
2. Be kind to your world.
3. Take nothing for granted.
4. If someone chooses to believe in a deity, or not, it is secondary to #1.

So, I don't get it

they find a library containing all books? so like, there is a fiction section as well as a religion section, in addition to stacks and microfiche of periodical journals?

I think the only way they would come to see any significance to the religious books would be once they had read enough technical information about "religions" before their time to know that "God" and "Allah" are not the same as the fictional characters from the "Wheel of Time".

The simple way that a modern library is organized would speak volumes as to how they interpreted it. Modern libraries are largely in support of science and free thought, and are organized in that way. Even just the way that religious books are written as opposed to technical manuals. It might be more salient on an emotional level, but that people would look to ambiguous moral messages vs tables of well documented statistics when looking for "information" about the world seems to suppose that people are idiots.

The only advantage religious books might have is their accessibility, but then we might as well say that Tolkien would arise as a new Deity.

Scientology

Originally posted by inimalist
So, I don't get it

they find a library containing all books? so like, there is a fiction section as well as a religion section, in addition to stacks and microfiche of periodical journals?

Something like that.

Originally posted by inimalist
I think the only way they would come to see any significance to the religious books would be once they had read enough technical information about "religions" before their time to know that "God" and "Allah" are not the same as the fictional characters from the "Wheel of Time".

Exactly. The context that we live in has been stripped away.

Originally posted by inimalist
The simple way that a modern library is organized would speak volumes as to how they interpreted it. Modern libraries are largely in support of science and free thought, and are organized in that way. Even just the way that religious books are written as opposed to technical manuals. It might be more salient on an emotional level, but that people would look to ambiguous moral messages vs tables of well documented statistics when looking for "information" about the world seems to suppose that people are idiots.

What would the tables of statistics really mean to them?

More to the point, I think people in that sort of crisis would be looking for comfort not the population of nations they've never heard of or the Planck equations.

Of course this is all up to you. I'm just curiuos about how people think the surviors would react.

I have a friend who is generally apathetic toward organized religion (doesn't stop him from telling me I'll burn in hell, but it's all in fun haermm ). But he loves the Wheel of Time SOOOO much that he's formed his philosophy of life around "The Wheel." I've actually borrowed a couple ideas from mainstream philosophy like Nietzche's (sic?) eternal recurrence and eastern religion's reincarnation to back him up, which just makes it funnier when he tries to legitimately talk to people about it. They'e on board for a bit then like "Oh wait. It's a fantasy novel?" It makes him look like an absolute nerd.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
What would the tables of statistics really mean to them?

More to the point, I think people in that sort of crisis would be looking for comfort not the population of nations they've never heard of or the Planck equations.

Of course this is all up to you. I'm just curiuos about how people think the surviors would react.

I sort of thought about that at the end. Stats would only be relevant once the rudimentary maths were understood, etc. There is some evidence that very basic maths are innate, but thats probably too abstract for this.

It would totally depend on the type of crisis. Like, already in the scenario it is a world destroyed, presumably pockets of humanity remain, and all previous knowledge lost. So, we are talking about at least 200-300 years since the disaster.

Look at English from 200-300 years ago. It is readable, yet takes a lot to properly understand what it is saying. People, isolated for 200-300 years, would almost assuredly develop a new dialect of English, if not an entirely new "language". It is debatable if anything but the childrens section would be readable by anyone who didn't become a scholar in this ancient language.

Also, a crisis bad enough would see books used as fuel or in construction (some form of plaster).

lol, but to end the rant, my thoughts are that while all fiction might initially be more appealing, for the escapism, the accessibility, and more broadly appealing, over time, as the books were "translated" into what was understandable by the community, science would develop in some degree, as it would still have the advantage of practical application. Pray all you want, modern agriculture is going to own farming.

This thread reminds me of one of the most thoughtful endings ever to an overall excellent film: The Time Machine, with Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux, where it asks what 3 books would you have taken back.

Originally posted by inimalist
I sort of thought about that at the end. Stats would only be relevant once the rudimentary maths were understood, etc. There is some evidence that very basic maths are innate, but thats probably too abstract for this.

It would totally depend on the type of crisis. Like, already in the scenario it is a world destroyed, presumably pockets of humanity remain, and all previous knowledge lost. So, we are talking about at least 200-300 years since the disaster.

Look at English from 200-300 years ago. It is readable, yet takes a lot to properly understand what it is saying. People, isolated for 200-300 years, would almost assuredly develop a new dialect of English, if not an entirely new "language". It is debatable if anything but the childrens section would be readable by anyone who didn't become a scholar in this ancient language.

Also, a crisis bad enough would see books used as fuel or in construction (some form of plaster).


Didn't consider that. I sort of assumed people would be able to read what they found.

Originally posted by inimalist
lol, but to end the rant, my thoughts are that while all fiction might initially be more appealing, for the escapism, the accessibility, and more broadly appealing, over time, as the books were "translated" into what was understandable by the community, science would develop in some degree, as it would still have the advantage of practical application. Pray all you want, modern agriculture is going to own farming.

But hasn't that always been true? The invention of farming certainly didn't stop religion the first time around.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Didn't consider that. I sort of assumed people would be able to read what they found.

It didn't stop pissing me off in Fallout 3

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
But hasn't that always been true? The invention of farming certainly didn't stop religion the first time around.

Religion had a 50 000 year head start...

Superheroes and supervillians become the new gods

if they have comics/graphic novels

there's no need to make new religions. just get rid of religious gurus and teachers going around telling everyone what they should think. god's a very personal idea and i think we should let it remain personal. religious manupilation etc comes only when people refuse to keep god a personal idea and instead try to make it a social or nationalistic one.

I think it would depend on who actually survived the mega-disaster. What if the only survivors were an obscure hunting and gathering tribe from the Amazon region. They would believe such a disaster to be from the gods..and they would sacrifice more to keep them happy. They would really have no defined political structure outside the chief of the tribe. Their economic dependency depends on hunting and gathering...so, they would continue the same practices as they had before..and just repopulate.

If the survivors were only heads of state and certain other select people(such as scientists/doctors/engineers/scholars, etc.) who were hiding in the same bunkers in order to perpetuate mankind's knowledge into the future, then mankind would have scholars who could replenish man's knowlege in written form and pass it down to succeeding generations. With these types of survivors, you can be sure that some form of educational system would be established immediately for the generation to come.


In essence, I believe it would have to do to which pocket or pockets of humans actually survived..and what their political, philosophical, and religious mindsets were before the disaster. If Christians survived, they would write new material about their faith....the same way with any other organized religion.