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Apple Causes Religious Reaction In Brains of Fans
satuon writes "In a recently screened BBC documentary called 'Secrets of the Superbrands', UK neuroscientists found that the brains of Apple fans are stimulated by images of Apple products in the same areas as those triggered by religious imagery in a person of faith. According to the scientists, this suggests that the big tech brands have harnessed, or exploit, the brain areas that have evolved to process religion."
Amen.
Not sure if I'm alone, but every time I walk past an Apple Store I'm terrified one of the staff is going to come out and offer me a free personality test.
Old news for anyone who's spent time around Apple users. Just saying. ;)
Agile Artisans
I guess maybe the inquisition could have produced selective pressure to evolve brain areas associated with religion. Right?
Steve Jobs, who art at Apple, awesome be thy name...
...are the evil baby eaters..?
I think it would be interesting to compare brain scans of different factions of computer programmers. Any number of programmer religious wars: vi vs emacs, Unix vs Windows, GUI vs CLI, indenting with blanks vs tabs, C vs Perl vs Ruby vs .Net vs Python vs JavaScript.
âoeThis suggests that the big tech brands have harnessed, or exploit, the brain areas that have evolved to process religionâ Interesting. Is there a good theory or evidence as to why processing religion is/was a selection pressure?
Hallelujah! All hail Jobs! A likeness of the Apple logo just miraculously appeared in my lunchbox!
Oh, wait - sorry, false alarm - its just an apple.
P.s. in this modern quantum phrenology, how close is the "religious" region to the "sex" region - and can you distinguish between a Slashdotter's reaction to a neat water-cooled quad SLI graphics rig and a picture of Natalie Portman?
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
So...do I have to pray towards Cupertino instead of Mecca now?
Amen brother! Speak the truth! For the land was filled with bad products, plagued on all sides by viruses and malware, but then Steve Jobs did speak, and he said, let there be an iPad with an intuitive user interface, and it was good!
www.awkwardengineer.com
Hah, they should try that test with us GNU/Linux users on Slashdot.
We probably qualify directly as saints.
42.
So if it works for Macs, we need a similar study done on Emacs users. ;^P
(We apologize in advance for any resulting emacs vs. vi flame war.)
The idea that "Apple causes religious reaction in brains of fans" is absolute nonsense. Those pointy-headed intellectuals have it all wrong(probably because they are trying to do visualizations on an emachine or something).
The truth is, a number of dusty little abrahamic "deities" have hijacked the portions of the brain that evolved to appreciate Apple products in a fair number of unfortunate individuals. Hence the confusion.
If somebody opened a "Linux Store" I guarantee you that it, too, would trigger the same parts of the brain for certain people. :)
I half expect people to now pray to Steve now.
"In the name of the Mac, iPod and Steve Jobs, Amen."
For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
Uh.. religion has been around a lot longer than that..
which is totally what she said
Yay, does that mean I have built up a Snow-Crashesque immunity to Apple, Organized Religion, and Politics? That rules! Now how can I infect others with my immunity? (consults The Diamond Age) Underground glitter orgy party it is! Everyone meet me on my minecraft server!
That's not a troll. If one does not have a 'real' religion, they will create one. Religion, government, corporation, any kind of mysticism that exploits ignorance, all the same thing to bolster authority.. There's nothing particularly unusual about that.. SOP.. SNAFU
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
When we were saying the same thing to apple fans here, we were getting bashed, modded down etc.
Im wondering what will they come up with against this article.
Read radical news here
They should be a tax free religious organization now.
and making fun of an apple user is now a hate crime
It will be the same for any "fanboy". The whole "fanboy" bit should give it away. Most humans will be guilty of this type of irrational thinking in some parts of their life. We're not purely logical beings.
which is totally what she said
I think you're trying to force a false dichotomy on the discussion. I know a number of people who believe that if you're not an Apple fanboy, you must be a PC fanboy. I would wager that a good number of posters here would agree that a computer is a tool and that we use the best ones available for the money that we have. I wouldn't even go so far as to say that Apple's hardware is "high quality", or at least of no higher quality than the exact same stuff you can get off the shelf at Fry's or on Newegg.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
I think it's simply human nature. An individual who doesn't have religion inevitably creates something to fill that space. So you get celebrity and idol worship and the adulation of lifestyle brands.
Having worked in design for well over a decade I've come across countless Apple fanatics. Although fervor has dampened a bit in recent years, the switch to Intel processors and Apple having becomes largely mainstream playing significant parts in that. Not to discount what Apple has been able to do, but routinely Apple gets all the credit for things others have been doing for years.
The way I've seen some people idolize Steve Jobs is downright embarrassing. I've seen people use his portrait as a desktop background. Every time a new product comes along the rumors start flying about how it works and how it's built. I've heard some outrageous claims over the years.
The thing that I never expected was that this level of fanaticism would infect the mainstream. The big irony is that for many people, particular college kids from what I've seen, continue to see Apple as representative of some kind of counter-culture. I wonder how these people would feel if they say who's on Apple's board of directors. It doesn't get more mainstream than Apple. I'm sure they'd find a way to rationalize it all.
I've always thought Apple has a great marketing machine. But really, their job is made unbelievably easy thanks to all the fanatics.
Nathan's blog
Then you believe there is no god?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
The reality seems to be that fandom lights up some of the same regions of the brain as religion. Note that they're not claiming this is a common trait of Apple users, but fans. It's not really surprising.
(And sure, they certainly had access to a large sample set.)
What do you think would light up in RMS's brain? Assuming he even let himself get hooked up to a medical scanner that wasn't 100% open software and hardware, that is.
This article sounds like it was written by some heathen.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
Apple can file to become tax exempt!
FRA: STFU GTFO
There have been evolutionary pressures towards religion for a long time. Religion lets you accept things without needing to understand them. For example, a religion can say 'don't eat pork' and the followers will avoid pork without questioning. Since pigs and humans are biologically similar, it's very easy for diseases to jump the species barrier, so a population that avoids eating pig is more likely to survive than one that eats pig (especially with the uneven cooking you get from primitive fire-based cooking). Another religion says 'don't eat green plants', but we don't hear about that one because all of its followers died. Similarly, the religion talks about the divine right of kings, and so the society becomes more cohesive and people are willing to die to protect it - this society is capable of exterminating societies based on self interest, so there is a survival benefit for genes that encourage people to join such a society.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
No, he likely just lacks a belief there is god. Most atheists are agnostic atheists, not gnostic atheists.
Oh, I'm sorry, did you think you were trolling?
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
The question is what kind of religion.
People have made much of the metaphore that Apple is like being a Catholic while using a PC is like being a Protestant.
I personally think being an Apple fan is more like being one of the Old Believers in Russia. It's not so much that you do it their way, it's that doing it another way is 'dire.'
1. That part of the brain is involved with irrational faith?
2. That part of the brain is involved with rationality? or
3 That part of the brain evolved over time to prefer sleek objects?
Hard to tell, IMHO.
Nate
Well, the simplest explanation I can think of is that religion helped keep societies together for a long time, which helped the members of those societies survive (and thus reproduce). Evolutionary processes can tend toward locally optimal solutions, and I suspect that is what happened with this "religious" section of the brain.
Palm trees and 8
I find it hard to believe that there should be a part of the brain evolved to process religion. Just how would nature select for that? I think it more reasonable to believe that religion hijacks that part of the brain, but that it evolved for some other—more mundane—purpose. Question: What, other than Apple products and religion, stimulates that part of the brain? The answer might give us a clue as to what its evolutionary purpose really is, and why it is stimulated by religion and Apple Products.
Why is it that atheists on the internet spend so much more time talking about god on the internet than people of faith and why do they spend so much time complaining about christians while they are trolling against christians themselves? Why is it that windows fanboys spend more time talking about Apple products and why do they spend so much time trolling Apple users with alleged stories about arrogant mac users?
The answer is simple, both of these anti-groups have members who have some gnawing feeling inside them that they are missing something and they try to cover it up by attacking what they fear is what they secretly want.
I don't know about you but I'm a little sick and tired of all of the anonymous "buttsecks" trolls on here. It seems to me that these PC using trolls seem obsessed with it. Do you see mac users talking incessantly about it? No, because mac users come from all walks of life and most of them are grown up people living on their own instead of little trolls living in their mother's basements obsessed with anal rape and apple users. Grow up already for crying out loud. I'm neither gay or a supporter of rights other than "human" rights for all but we should treat all people with respect regardless of how we feel about their way of life or political views.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
I think crediting our brains for evolving specifically to process religion is going a bit far. I believe it's more plausible that religion evolved to exploit this area of the brain rather than the other way around, especially since behavior is more plastic than anatomy.
That said, Apple does call their PR people "evangelists," and Objective C is as conflicting, superfluous, and self important as any religious text I've ever read, so it's hard to dispute these findings.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
agnostic athiests?
Do they fight for peace, and fuck for chastity?
Trolling?
Moi?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
When you want to continue believing your chosen investment (be it emotional, monetary, or time) in a brand is superior, even when evidence is mounting to the contrary, you have no choice but to abandon logic and attach to faith. That way you can keep believing your choice is right and present confident arguments to support it.
They all make use of Reality Distortion Fields.
Get off my launchpad!
Neuroscientists have found that religious fervour lights up the same parts of the brain as waiting in line for your devotions at the Apple Store.
The scientists were interviewed by a BBC programme exploring the fantastically lucrative and popular brands springing up around the supernatural. Religions such as "Christianity" parody the story of the semi-mythical Steve Jobs' virgin birth, adoption by a humble Silicon Valley family, founding of Apple, expulsion from the fold, decade in the wilderness and triumphant Second Coming, wherein devotees were led to enlightenment, glory and hipness.
"The scans of 'religion' appear remarkably similar," said one scientist whose name is being withheld for protection from outraged Apple devotees. "The adrenal glands are stimulated and the same areas of the visual regions light up. Somewhat in the shape of an apple. No, really! Shaped like an apple!"
Cupertino's response was frosty. "To have the sacred enlightenment of the products of our saviour Steve maligned by comparison to mere witchdoctor cultist mumbo-jumbo is no less than a calculated insult. One important difference is that our stuff works. ... If you hold it right." The spokesman then compared the neuroscientists' mothers to a PC.
"The comparison is ridiculous," said "religious" leader Joe "Happy Heil" Ratzinger. "We're just out to make an honest buck like anyone. Well, fairly honest."
Photo: His Stevianity ministering to a devoted soul..
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I don't think religion is an evolved trait. It's more likely to be a byproduct of group socialization. We are wired to form social hierarchies, and many leaders have exploited the human willingness to believe in a "higher purpose" to assert divine right over multiple tribes. As a self-aware animal, it's difficult for humans to understand that perhaps our only purpose on earth is to breed to avoid extinction. So instead we create meaningless social rungs -- serf, scribe, priest, investment banker -- and build pyramids, castles and skyscrapers to assert control over nature. Besides, it seems that many of us seem to be missing whatever gene causes the irrational belief in an omnipotent Santa Claus-like deity floating on a cloud. Perhaps that's also why I don't own a Mac and opt for cheaper generic machines.
Just like any other one, you have to pay to truly 'belong' and you must never, ever take the Jobs name in vain.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
For example, a religion can say 'don't eat pork' and the followers will avoid pork without questioning
Well, that depends on which religion you are referring to. There has been a lot of debate about the reasons for biblical mandates among Jewish rabbis, and the kosher laws are no exception.
What is interesting about the kosher laws (to me anyway) is that they are mixed in with civil and criminal laws. Just open a bible, and look at what the kosher laws are surrounded by: hygienic laws (read these in the historical context), laws about murderers and rapists, laws about sexual practices, laws concerning military actions, taxes (which we now read as "charity," but involuntary charity is best referred to as a tax), farm maintenance, etc. Mixed in, of course, are laws concerning religious practices: idolatry, animal sacrifices, and other assorted practices.
Palm trees and 8
Like Politics and religion, computing has degenerated into one of those dangerous topics that can damage carreers and friendships. You just dont want to bring it up in real life conversation.
Atheism is the lack of belief in a god or gods. It is not a belief in anything. Atheism does not impose, suggest, or even hint at any dogma, there is no book, there are no rules, there is no litany, there are no claims. There is simply no belief. Just as there is no belief in pink unicorns, or elfin princesses, or Darth Vader -- it's not a religious or belief based position, it's simply a position based on a complete lack of any kind of evidence.
When you try to assign "belief" to an atheist, it's as if you were trying to describe the color of the bald guy's hair. He has no hair. Your attempt is based on the very misguided presumption that everyone must have hair. Hence: "If atheism is a religion, then bald is a hair color." Get it now?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
new from apple the i-meter
Why are comments obviously from non-apple users "+5 Funny" (pointing to first +5 funny comment and the parent comment here), but the ones from apple users (the ones below said +5 funny ones) are "+5 Insightful"... Is this the mod's proving the validity of TFA?
I8-D
It will be the same for any "fanboy". The whole "fanboy" bit should give it away. Most humans will be guilty of this type of irrational thinking in some parts of their life. We're not purely logical beings.
Heretic! :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Sports brands, fast-food, clothing, news outlets, comic books, etc all likely use that type of brain activity. It all has to do with brand recognition and groupthink mentality. Basically, anything that has FANS will have a pseudo-religious reaction.
Has anyone else considered that perhaps this is not really a correlation between apple imagery and religion, but perhaps just an indiction that the studies the UK neuroscientists have been working on aren't yielding any significant results.
Who woulda thunk?
Funny, they didn't test Android fans. Or Sony, or Microsoft, or Google....
Bet you read the headline and immediately went to comment, right? I'm curious what your MRI would show.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Even a bald man has the hair follicles.. They're just resting..
I've always considered an atheist (maybe mistakenly) as one who states, 'There is no god'
And the agnostic says, 'I just know know', or 'Let's see the long form'
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
"...brain areas that have evolved to process religion."
Oh Puulleeezzee. It's religion that has evolved to process brain areas. If anything, religion would be a negative factor in evolution anyway, considering all the humans who have been exterminated in its name.
If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
1) religiots achive power
2) heretics are killed, expelled to the wilds to die of exposure, etc.
3) believers are, by definition, selected for by /2/
4) the devout and contributory receive better treatment
5) a milder additional form of selection at /4/
6) affinity for religion is selected as a survival trait over multiple generations
Even today, it's not really a great thing to be an atheist in most of the USA. It reduces the potential pool of mates, it causes you to be cast out of most social groupings, it prevents you from succeeding at running for office, and as President Bush put it, "I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic."
One hopes (well, if one is me) that the continuing closure of the scientific window will continue to squeeze the god of the gaps out of our persistent mythology until the religious belief systems are actually, for all intents and purposes, gone; but frankly, I doubt it. We still have citizens who believe in crystals, therapeutic touch, chiropractic, and a whole host of other mumbo jumbo, though science has weighed in rather heavily in favor of rousing debunkings.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
There's a reason that sports team loyalty is sometimes referred to as a religion. When anybody asks me if I like [team x], I just tell them that I'm an atheist.
"Pointless flamebait causes cynical reaction in brains of /.ers"
There is no brain center that "evolved to process religion". This same brain center lights up anytime anyone has a strong emotional reaction to anything. Studies that make claims like this either (a) dont have a good control condition, or (b) are massively over-interpreting their results. Usually both. These studies are picking up that some people, namely Apple product owners, have strong emotional reactions to the brand. This forum is the last place that should be a surprise. Even without data specific data to prove the point, this way of interpreting this kind of data isn't sound. Religion hasn't been around long enough to be a factor natural selection could use to act on the genome. Specific correlates of religion (like super strong emotional feelings, or suppressing contemplative reactions) may have been. Those are what you are seeing.
Oh please, I have friend who drools like pavlov's dog every time he sees the android robot. He is overlook any flaw, any shortcoming and lack of functionality and simply declare whatever the device is as perfect just like it is....its reached a point of absolute delusion. Many Sony fans are the same way, look at any PS3 fan forum and look at the excuses and apologies their fans make for the whole PSN fiasco. Even here there was at one time a rather overwhelming contingent that seemed to think the only reason Linux didn't rule the desktop was because everyone else was stupid...nothing else mattered. I think people get rabid passion for certain things because they fear "loosing" i.e. picking the wrong or least popular product, or fear of the perception their choice has on their peers. In reality there are far more people that buy things based on what they want to do and the products ability to do it, but the voice of logic and reason is usually low key because they are busy actually using their stuff rather than wasting time defending it.
I'm pretty sure you will find that anytime somone feels the need to defend their choices, their religious centers will get triggered. It could be Apple products, memory foam, latex, or sleep number beds. Emacs versus VI. Gun control. Abortion... Jiffy peanut butter versus Peter Pan. blah, blah, blah. These are all "religious" arguments for some people.
You know, it's a pretty sad day when dedicated slashdot trolls can't think up anything more entertaining than your standard born-again crap.
http://atheism.wikia.com/wiki/Atheist_vs_Agnostic#Combining_Terms
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Apple fanboys are as irrational as religious folks. Who woulda thunk?
No, they are not. At least they believe in something that actually exists unlike the billions of nutjobs who believe in an imaginary deity.
See; Braun t3 pocket radio, circa 1958.
That entirely depends on your social circles. If said woman or dude hangs around a bunch of similarly airheaded magpies, yeah sure, the more shiny you got, the more people ooh and aah over your materialistic supremacy. I don't think that sort of reaction necessarily applies to geeks, at least not to the same extent, because we tend to pride ourselves on our mental/professional accomplishments, rather than the amount and size of stuff we've bought.
I bought my first Mac a month ago, and had some serious buyer remorse for 2-3 weeks. Am I praising the holy Steve ? Er, no. I think he's a dick for pricing every laptop $1000 higher than similar PC hardware. Do I feel superior for owning said Mac ? No, just ask my business partners, I am constantly swearing at the thing for slowing me down and making my head hurt with its dumbed-down OS. Does it make me attractive and famous ? Maybe, but I don't enjoy the creeps and hipsters hovering over my shoulder, staring at my work tool like they wanna stick their junk up the Thunderbolt port.
I could see some people treating Apple gear as a status symbol, but those tend to be failed humans who have nothing better to brag about. If not Apple, then they'll buy some other overpriced gadget or fashion accessory like an ugly-ass L.V. purse or a Rolex.
Me, I just want to get paid. I am socially accepted because I kick ass at what I do. I was before buying the Mac, and I will continue to be, long after the Mac gets smashed in an unfortunate "drop the 80lb PC on the mac" accident.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I know it's a big, mean world out there, what with all the floods, wars, scandals, etc, but I think you ought to lighten up a bit
Peace!
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Whatever stimulates this area of your brain is your god, and it could be anything.
Relates to the Commandments: "You shall have no other gods before me." and "You shall not make for yourself an idol."
If you look at the words, 'agnostic' simply means "without knowledge". By itself, it doesn't specifically refer to religion at all.
'Atheism' on the other hand means "not theistic". This one is more subtle but realistically includes what you also think of when you think of agnostic. Anything that isn't a theistic belief falls under theism, including but not limited to "I know there is no god". An alien who never even heard of the concept of religion and therefore holds nothing you can call a "belief" on the subject would be an atheist.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Maybe this tells us more about that so-called test for religious experience than it tells us about Apple.
fMRI again - I want to know how dead salmon react to Apple imagery.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/fmrisalmon/
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
The story noted “The results suggested that Apple was actually stimulating the same parts of the brain as religious imagery does in people of faith.”
If it was generically said that "iconic products & services stimulate a certain section of the brain which is also stimulated by people of faith" the bias and imagery is gone as it does not imply fanaticism.
Journalists keep slanting things to suit their "fanaticism". How's that for an inditement by using just one word.
For people who say that Windows or Linux users are just as bad, I can give you an example of why this isn't true.
Back when I was single a few years back, I was on several dating sites. I saw MANY profiles of women* who specifically said you "must be a Mac lover" or "must not be a Windows user" to date them. I never saw one that said you must use Windows or Linux, or that you must not use a Mac.
So if you're trying to find a life partner based on the type of OS they use, yeah, you're a religious fanatic about it.
*not sure about the men, I was only looking for women.
Is it the same area of the brain that is triggered when apple (or MS or google or etc) hating trolls see an article about apple (or MS or google or etc), especially one that seems to correlate with their preconceived notions? I've always wondered what area of the brain triggers salivation...
Religion lets you accept things without needing to understand them.
It Just Works?
Okay, so being a fanboy is akin to being religious, regardless of whether you're a Catholic fanboy or a devoted Apple devotee, or whatever.
What I want to know is: Why do we have that instinct in the first place? I understand social instincts, parental instincts, even mob mentality.
But what good is religious fervour? Is it an instinct that's so new that only humans have it? Or is it not an instinct at all, but more of an overdeveloped pack instinct?
Any suggestions, anyone?
The things that can and often are components of people's personalities are varied and many. A person's sex, sexual orientation, age, street/school/district/city/state/country of origin, favorite sports team, political affiliation, religion, and yes "favorite brands and products" are among the many things that contribute to a person's sense of identity.
And why do I focus on identity? Because when an element of a person's identity is called into question, you are literally calling that person's identity into question. If you ever wondered why such violent reactions can occur when a discussion about any of those elements come about, you have to understand that you are essentially attacking that person without actually realizing it.
Many of us, who do not include politics, sports teams, religion or favorite brands and products as part of our own identities see these elements as a "choice" and often hope to change people's minds about a thing. But you aren't changing their minds as much as you are challenging beliefs and their very identities.
In truth and in fact, many of these elements are "choices" but once they become an element of identity, it will be pretty close to impossible for those people to see it that way.
Personally, the way I see it, when a person assumes any of these things as a part of their identity, they have just give up a part of their brain. And I don't care what we are talking about -- Apple fandom, Christianity, Republican/Democrat affiliation, whatever. They have donated a part of their brain to whatever it is and their thinking and their ability to think has been limited and even controlled from that point forward.
If the results are any different, I'll eat my hat. Just substitute your favorite open-source figurehead for Steve Jobs. I mean, how else can you explain people's willingness to slog through 15 years of crappy hardware support, half-implemented or abandoned software, and a community that, to put it mildly, had a bit of an attitude when it came to helping new people?
I'd venture to say linux users are MORE "religious" than Apple users. At least Apple presented working solutions to their customers. I know people that fought with ALSA/Jack and RTlinux desperately hoping that linux would allow them to record their own music on the PC. Their product of choice limited their ability to create. Who gives that kind of power away? Religious people.
If you look around you find that traditional religions are on the decline, particularly with the younger crowd. This doesn't surprise me at all. Much of the mainstay of religion (explaining the mysteries of the universe) has been taken away by modern science and so on. Plus modern media makes it much easier to find out that perhaps the church is NOT the repository of truth they wish to advertize themselves as.
However it does seem to me that most people have what you might call "religious receptors." Many humans seem to have a need for something like religion which would go a long way to explaining its persistence.
Well that seems to lead to them being religious about other things. Apple and Global Warming are two that I see a lot of. Now before people get worked up I don't mean just using Apple or believing Global Warming to be fact, I mean being, well, religious about it. Being completely zealous about it, refusing to listen to any reason, shouting down those who think differently, etc, etc.
It seems to have filled the "religion need" in their brains.
It was the company that basically invented evangelical marketing after all.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
The devout and the atheists are of the same cloth: knowing they're absolutely right about the definitvely unknowable. I'm an agnostic because organized religion (all of 'em) is the most ruthless killing machine man ever invented. Not to mention the only thing all religions can actually agree upon is misogyny.
Do you believe there are giant purple space bunnies who live in caves on the far side of the moon?
Sure, technically speaking there might be, but there is nothing in our experience of the real world that would give us any reason to give such an absurd proposition a moment's thought.
When most atheists assert a lack of belief in "God", this is what they mean -- that the probability of a "God" existing is infinitesimal, and it's best to go about life not worrying about "God" any more than one would worry about gigantic purple space bunnies.
So why do atheists spend so much time talking about something they don't believe in? Because the influence of religion in our society (particularly Christianity in the U.S.) is so pervasive that it seems normal. In spite of the alleged benefit of religions, they have caused a lot of evil in the world, so why should we accept the massive brainwashing of children to believe in these ancient myths as something "normal"? So atheists must be the ones who appear to make noise, but they're up against the deafening silence of a monolithic status quo which is horribly broken and must be fixed.
Here, listen to a real atheist, and find out what they're actually talking about, instead of just trying to imagine what they must think.
http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_dawkins_on_militant_atheism.html
-- Only unbalanced people can tip the scales.
So Microsoft IS the devil! It all makes sense now.
So, like religion, being an Apple Fanboi gives you a feeling of superiority? Where's the surprise?
You are an atheist only because you have yet to be touched by His noodly appendage, my son.
Have gnu, will travel.
What this is showing is that religious imagery triggers the same areas of the brain as tribal-based loyalty between otherwise highly similar versions of the same product, not the other way around. (In the case of religion, the 'brand' is the set of metaphors for the identical features of human nature.)
When are people who are a part of the faithful herd (regardless of the faithful herd) going to accept that not being a member of your religion is not a leap of faith?
(Answer: never)
IMHO you're getting this partly because you're misbranding yourself as an athiest when you appear to actually be a non-militant agnostic.
Non-god-belief comes in (at least) three forms:
- Athiesm: "I KNOW there is no God / are no dieties."
- Militant agnosticism: "I don't know if there is/are and I KNOW that YOU DON'T KNOW EITHER."
- Non-militant agnosticism: "I have no idea. (But non-belief doesn't seem to matter {except in interacting with militant believers} so Occam's razor argues that not assuming one exists is a more easily used working hypothesis)."
The first two are arguably religions.
Yes, some of them will STILL make the claim. Their memes run: ...
1) Blah
2) Blah blah
3) Blah blah blah
100) Anyone who doesn't believe this will rot in hell.
so they're trying to do you a big favor. B-b
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I hate to break this to you... But the device that "just works" doesn't exist. This is evident by all the sites which exist to support issues with this "just works" device.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Oh, I see - scientists have found the crApple fans actually have brains. Who would'a thunk?!
Coffee-driven development.
There has been a lot of debate about the reasons for biblical mandates among Jewish rabbis, and the kosher laws are no exception.
If you look at the kosher laws and compare them to the rituals practiced by the other religions in Egypt around the time of the exodus, you'll see an interesting relationship: Following the kosher laws means you can't participate in some important ritual of each of the other religions, and nearly all the kosher laws have at least one known religious ritual they block.
Example: One had a ritual feast with a main dish consisting of a young goat cooked in its mother's milk. Not kosher to eat a mix of meat and milk, so can't participate.
= = = =
Regarding pork: In addition to the issue of disease transmission due to similar biochemistry, pigs were also something of an ecological disaster for some of the enfironments in the area. Other religions than Judaism have (unexplained and apparently arbitrary) prohibitions on them.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Um, Macs are PCs...as PC stands for Personal Computer, as opposed to Mainframe Computers. I have always wondered about the logic of calling it PC vs Mac, when both are PCs...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
From the linked article
"the editor of World of Apple, Alex Brooks, an Apple worshipper who claims to think about Apple 24 hours a day"
That one person was their test subject..........
The truth is, a number of dusty little abrahamic "deities" have hijacked the portions of the brain that evolved to appreciate Apple products ...
It can be argued that religion and advertising have BOTH hijacked a portion of the brain that evolved to do something else (or possibly just showed up randomly, wasn't detrimental enough to get selected out, and hung around until random gene loss made it pervasive by eliminating the alternatives).
Religions can be quite detrimental to their adherents. So either the region's other hypothetical "proper function(s)" (like that of prion protein) is important or some religions convey enough survival benefits (like sickle cell trait vs. malaria) that the harm is more than offset by the benefit.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Apple as a religion! Please!
https://img.skitch.com/20091224-fsari6fkwrururpcsinf6r6mnd.jpg
St. Jobs, pray for me! Now and at the time of the Slashdotting!
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
Common sense is old news.
This explains the magic.
The bashing here is pretty much towards anything overrated and/or underdeveloped, I find it pretty evenly-spread.
The only thing that isn't bashed as much, are Linux-type OSs, yet they do inherit a lot of jokes, not from the faults, but the abstract anatomy of their users.
All glory to Arstotzka!
The summary says: "According to the scientists, this suggests that the big tech brands have harnessed, or exploit, the brain areas that have evolved to process religion."
Isn't it really that religion evolved to exploit some quirk in brain structure?
And another study shows that Apple haters' brains have a remarkable similarity to those of anti-semites, homophobes, Michael Moore and chimpanzees, in which the portions of the brain normally devoted to respecting others are shriveled, while tumor-like enlargements are found in the parts which control the flinging of poo, jealousy and the overwhelming urge to need someone else to insult before self-esteem can occur.
People who are so overwhelmingly stupid and arrogant as to judge others by the brand of computer or phone they buy do not deserve jobs in tech. About the only place they should have a job is in a dairy where they can use their natural tendency to shovel bullshit to the advantage of others.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
I know it's totally out of context, but allow me some creative license:
"primitive fire-based cooking"
Not like the laser based cooking we have now.
I do. If you can't handle critical comments about a specific computer and/or platform, then I don't want to know you anyway.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Isn't that just called advertising and/or marketing? Is this really anything new?
You know, how some guys might invoke Apple in order to draw more attention to their little documentary.
Love how the thread turned into a squabbling mass of loons about the definition of atheism. You people... honestly...
In Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series of books, the bad guys are the Goliath Corporation ( http://www.goliathcorp.com/index2.html ) a huge mega corp that effectively run the country (UK) behind the scenes. They decide at one stage set out to become a religion .. all makes sense now :)
Love it when fact and fiction line up like this :)
Think it was the 4th book " Something Rotten " if memory serves..
A Giants fan was beaten into a coma by a couple sacks of filth at a Dodger game earlier this year. He's in what seems to be a permanent vegetative state now.
Then again, ubergeeks can't attack people with Apple products because they'd get their sad little loser faces smacked around. :-D
Are there any guesses on how fanboyism correlates with atheism?
It would be interesting to learn if atheists were more likely to fill their religious gap with consumer products or if atheists were also less likely to become fanboys.
Disclaimer: I'm an atheist that avoids apple.
Disclaimer: correlation != causation
What distinguishes Religion, Apple and popular dictator obsessed with a cult of personality on one side, and the lose fanboy idealists who support Linux, intellectual art-form and the likes on the other side :
is the infrastructure.
- Religious movement have usually an Alpha.
We're social beings. With a hierarchical organisation of society (as opposite to cats who are only optionally social, and when together, aren't much structured, only a herd). So we're more or less programmed to follow a leader, trust our parents, and the like. Religious persons happen to be on the "more" rather on the "less" side. A monotheistic deity is the absolute over-alpha figure.
Most of the religions have a prominent figure to concentrate attention on him/her. There is an iconic personality. A high priest everybody follow.
Be it a Pope or whatever is head of your brand of monothesitic religion, Steve Jobs, the Dictator, etc. There's a personality on whom to concentrate attention. You whach him/her, follow him/her, attend to his/her speaches, wait with anxiety for his announcements, etc. His the point of focus of the ecstatic religious experience.
On the Linux side and FSF, well... hum. Linus Torvalds and RMS are much more quieter personality. Linus doesn't make a show out of himself, he just get his work done. And nobody really listens to RMS. Most people consider him as a rambling lunatic, although history tends to show that the guy indeed has a point. There is no worshipping of strong leaders as per se. Fanboys might defend there idea but they are much more losely based. It has much more to do with a sense of value and ideology and belonging to some kind of lose group (something akin to patriotism if we want to compare with known behaviour). No real alpha.
- Religious movement have rituals.
Religious people tend to group together and to mutually sustain the typical ecstatic state associated with religious experiences. The religious followers meet together in churches, attends specific big masses and religious ceremonies, etc.
Apple follower are excited when entering an Apple Store, they all massively follow Apple's conferences, not only attending them, but listening to webcasts even in the middle of the night if residing on a different timezone. There's much anticipation about what next great thing will be announced by Jobs himself. Etc. (It's not a coincidence if the iPhone is sometime ridiculed as a "Jesus Phone". And fans waiting for the latest iAnnouncement of the latest iProduct are compared to waiting for the second coming).
(And you can keep the comparison with Dictator's public speech, rallies, parades, etc. where the worshiping is stimulated).
Meanwhile, in Linux land, well.... okay maybe a few will be happy when a new version of their own specific favourite distro is release. When something or some project of certain notoriety hit some milestone, there might be a few beer parties thrown here and there, and a few people gathering together, but that would be more like a pretext to do some socializing with like minded people. Nothing like the huge "let's all get excited together" quasi-religious masses of Apple. There's no strong sense of anticipation.
So on one side we see more people banding together in quasi sheep-like following. On the other hand you have a bunch of raving individualists. Both can get equally annoying, but the underlying mechanisms are different, because these people are all different.
That's also why you'll always have Apple followers on one hand and Linux fanboys on the other. None can take over the other, they just function in completely different ways.
In fact I think that its too separate population. Extremist people who have brains tuned for religion will tend to go for Apple, because it fills the need for ecstatic shared experience that their specially wired brain needs. On the other hand extremists of the more individualistic persuation will cather more toward Linux or the like, because they like the ideology etc. (Not specially attracted by RMS, or because they love to attends Dawkins conferences).
And in the middle, you'll find a bunch of pragmatists which use whatever is the most suitable to their needs, without needing to pay much attention to the trolling of the other groups.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
On your first point, you'd have to prove that a god doesn't exist as much as the religious would have to prove a god exists. It's unprovable.
First, you can prove to me that the earth is the center of the universe and that the heavens move in relation to our center.
Second, you can prove to me that spontaneous human creation is possible.
Work on those and then we'll consider moving on to the bigger stuff.
I'll also throw in "the power of prayer". Show me a double blind study proving that prayer has a statistically significant impact on anything beyond a placebo effect.
Not quite: Atheism; (A) = a root meaning without, (Theism) = belief in a god or gods. Together, "Without belief in a god or gods."
Agnosticism deals with knowledge; issues of belief are not predicated on knowledge. Individuals are either atheist, that is, they don't hold any belief in a god or gods, or they are theist, and do hold a belief or beliefs in a god or gods.
Agnosticism is not, and never can be, a middle ground. It's simply an intellectual blind alley. By definition, for any proposition without any supporting evidence, there can be no knowledge on the side making the proposition, or on the side having the proposition made to them. IOW, both theists and atheists are completely without knowledge WRT any god or gods. Claims != knowledge. Knowledge is supported by facts, reproducibility, evidence... you know, data. The claim for a god or gods is exactly equivalent to the claim for the Easter bunny. You've never seen one/it; I've never seen one/it; if I claim there is an Easter bunny, and you fall back on the idea that this claim is extraordinary, so if you're going to accept this, you want evidence of an Easter bunny, we've just established a perfect analog for the theist / atheist polarization. I'm an Easter bunny theist, and you're an Easter bunny atheist. But you'll note that there is no third position: neither of us really knows if there is an Easter bunny or not, so in the case of the theist, the position requires discarding the need for actual evidence, and for the atheist, it requires fitting the claim into the working, established worldview.
However: What the atheist generally has going for them is the scientific method, and huge amounts of data that show that extraordinary claims tend not to be (ever) validated; this establishes the reason that one should, absent very convincing evidence, begin with and maintain the position that the claims are, in fact, exactly equivalent to claims for Easter Bunnies, Flying Pink Unicorns, and Little Grey Men.
On top of this we layer the fact that religion is demonstrably an incredibly effective tool for social control, consequently an almost endless source of power, treasure and social position, and we've both established a good reason why it exists and persists, and obviated the need for anything extraordinary at all. Follow money, position and the power, and you'll find the root of almost all of man's most ambitious undertakings, within which religion surely ranks quite highly.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
They didn't do it because they secretly believe. they did it to differentiate themselves from their enemy: the USA. the USA is mostly christian while the soviet communists wanted their population to serve the state first and atheism helped serve that goal. propaganda is typically served with a large dose of obsessiveness. it must also draw a sharp line to delineate 'us' vs' them.
should be applied to those on either side of the global warming debate. I would love to see those results (preferably in a shiny powerpoint presentation)
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
They don't. Try spending time with actual Christians, it's about all they discuss. You may not know it but there is a very large community of online nuns and priests that discuss primarily, matters of theology, at least in the Church of England.
As an atheist, I wish them well.
What you have here is bias, bias without fact being used to back up an ill thought out point.
Here we have the part that demonstrates you are well and truely detached from reality.
You attempt to vilify them using a negative connotation (anal intercourse) then you tie them to the object that you feel most threatened by (wintel based PC's).
In extreme irony, you are the very object you deride. You are using an irrational hate to justify your point, this is evident by the fact that you must use insults rather then logic to get your point across. You also use thought terminating cliche's to prevent readers from questioning your point. By doing so, you've helped prove the case against you, a neutral observer must accept that "PC's are bad" which is the exact tactic of certain evangelical preists "Sin is bad"
You need to do this.
So does the person who modded you up.
Believe me as an atheist who knows enough theists to have insights into their community. Oh, we are both also rational enough to respect each others positions on the subject of God.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
They can now claim they've gone beyond being fanboys...they are now Acolytes of the new religion. Of course those with moderate experience are Adepts... At the higher levels, Adepts. And of course, Apple Angels -- they can lay hands on a bricked iphone, purge it of unauthorized software and restore it to life.
Duh. Everyone knows Apple is a religion. This is like studying the effect of guys seeing beer or tits, and being surprised that they're stimulated in the way everyone else in the country knows as a given.
-Dave Haynie
Secular humanists are no less religious, so is it not a religion because it has no God? Does Gaea count?
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Heh. I was trying to come up with a non-ambiguous way of putting that, and failed to come up with something. My real point was that a modern oven is a lot better at heating food all the way through, but now I think about it, we do use microwaves for cooking as well as fire these days. Microwave ovens are generally pretty good at destroying bacteria.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I'd have to take issue with that; most Apple fanbois believe in the technological superiority of Apple products over everything else, which is questionable at best. Many of them also tend to proseletize quite strongly, and ignore the bad things that Apple does, much like catholics gloss over pederasty.
Nathan's blog
Food still gets cooked all the way through over open flame, it's really cook times to do that that have dropped in the modern era.
People who don't get any, focus on the "religion" part.
Fandroids hate facts.
Religion has learned to exploit the part of our brain that was meant for the appreciation of Apple products.
Get it right!
This sig is false.
I hate to break this to you... But the device that "just works" doesn't exist.
Huh? Which device? Apple is a company and it exists.
I'd have to take issue with that; most Apple fanbois believe in the technological superiority of Apple products over everything else, which is questionable at best. Many of them also tend to proseletize quite strongly, and ignore the bad things that Apple does, much like catholics gloss over pederasty.
Still: Apple exists. Their products exists.
They might feel different about the products than you do but that doesn't dispute the existence of Apple and the products.
Deities on the other hand do not exist. They are made-up explanations for natural events from pre-science times. Today it is actually known what causes thunder and rain and so on.
Even though the same brain chemistry might be triggered, fully equating passionate product users to religion is simply false. Not only is it false, it makes a point in favor of religion as in: "See, Apple exists and causes the brain chemistry as religion does. Conclusion: God must trigger the brain chemistry for religion or why would anybody have it?"
Naa, that's retarded.
Die hard Apple fans might be wacky but at least they are not completely delusional as religious people who hear voices, have visions, and similar bullshit one would go to the mental hospital if she/he wasn't protected by religious freedom.