This article seems to be saying that religions are tribal by nature because it's made up of humans, and humans are tribal by nature -- ok fair enough. But the subtext I'm getting is that people in religions are less self-aware of it than the author or the people they admire.
People being more interested in comfortable beliefs rather than true beliefs has always been a concern throughout Biblical history. But that doesn't mean it never went unchallenged.
For instance, regardless of what you think of the Bible, it's interesting that Isaiah has the following to say to Judah (emphasis mine) because it shows an ever-present problem with human nature.
For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord;
*who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions”*
And before someone responds with a de jure objection to say that "the instruction of the Lord" is not looking for truth, I just want to make it clear that that is out of the scope of my point. My point is that, de facto, in the context, a religious text is agreeing that it is bad to "tribe-up and truth-out."
Lastly, on a personal note, as a human Christian, I think I have the same biases to groupthink as any other person because I am human. But because Christianity has a reputation, I have found that throughout my life, I've had to work harder to really test (not validate) my beliefs because I am constantly being challenged and, ironically, often ended up more informed about both my beliefs and my interlocutors' beliefs.
Actually I think people in traditional organized religions like Christianity are on the whole more self-aware than secular people who fall into the same religious behavior in random topics, because they acknowledge the "faith" component.
Sort of summarized by the sentence here:
"If someone is self-aware enough to consciously acknowledge their choice to remain in the bubble, that’s totally fair. I respect it like I’d respect anyone who chooses to participate in a more traditional religion. My issue is when this view is falsely passed off as an intellectually-driven one."
Peter Williams has some well presented evidence on how the NT (or at least relevant parts) had to originally be in Greek. Namely how things like the alliteration in the beatitudes could not have ended up like they did going from Aramaic to Greek by coincidence.
It seems like there are a lot more paywall-type posts around here these days. It may just be my opinion but I started using Hacker News because the atmosphere felt less stifling than "traditional" outlets and sites. I wonder how they will keep up their underground persona if most of the posts end up pointing to regular news sites anyway.
