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Actually, as the post I linked argued, it's likely the modern world has far less trauma than the ancient world. This could explain the relative lack of miracles over time under the traumatic transcendence argument. The Holocaust is a fair point, but then again there are all sorts of strange and occult forces and miraculous accounts from Holocaust times... maybe @SecureSignals would know more.
It doesn't seem to me that the dragons and demons and other monsters have been banished. It seems that they've moved into different realms in order to torment us, and we've gotten locked into a paradigm where we can't even discuss them seriously because to admit we still have monsters around is seen as 'pseudo-science'. Or we try to add a spiritual bandaid like therapy that barely works above placebo.
Prayer can be used every day, and in the smallest of ways. Christians pray and then build the church. You see we in the modern world, thanks to Descartes, have separated our physical bodies and our minds to the point where we almost can't see it. To many religious types, embodied action is a type of prayer. This is a much deeper topic that I still wade in the waters of, but suffice to say there's more here than meets the eye.
and yet I can act without prayer. I can build a church without praying about it. The question is does prayer add anything to the action. Is a church built by an atheist stone mason, paid for by the church in any way different than one where the mason is moved by prayer? What ACTUALLY changes? You still have a church one way or another, a church built under material principles, of engineering and physics. Will prayer put a roof in place absent material action? Because material action can put the roof in place absent prayer. And that is the issue that must be overcome if you want to go back to a less materialist world.
In reference to the dragons and monsters, I've never seen one, never met anyone who claims to have. I'd submit that even if they were forced to a different plane (and allowing their existence in the first place of course), the direct threat they pose is much less. If as you say they must now act in ways where they cannot be observed or proven, then that in and of itself has reduced their threat massively.
Indeed, that was the whole idea of the Imperial "Truth" in 40K. The Emperor knew that the warp gods existed, but his plan was to spread "Enlightenment" such that the warp would become what he told his followers it was. So that the threat posed was much reduced EVEN if it meant the odd threat would happen and not be understood, the amount of threats would be near zero. Now of course that plan failed, because half his "kids" got corrupted by said warp entities. But there is a timeline with no Erebus where it succeeds and the lie becomes the truth.
If instead of dragons eating people every day, but people know what they are, dragons only eat someone once a year, but people write it off as an accident or an unexplained event, then the risk posed is still much less than before.
In other words if monsters and demons are real and all the enlightenment did was force them to another realm where they had to act indirectly and with more effort, then that is arguably a huge improvement, even if no-one now understands the true nature of those demons. And reversing that course would be a disaster for humanity.
So if you really believe that reality is created by our beliefs then this is a massive Chesterton's Fence. Should you tear down the protections enacted, just because you are unhappy with the fact people now don't believe in angels and demons? Are you sure going back to where people will think into existence gods and demons and angels is better? Sure, maybe we are more spiritual, but is that actually a good thing?
Hmm very interesting points you’re raising here. I’ll have to think more about all of this.
My intuition is that we can move forward and take the best of post enlightenment rationalism but somehow remythologize it. I’ll admit that has tension with the belief in one dominant religious structure as you’ve pointed out elsewhere.
In terms of what prayer changes - it’s mysterious my dude that’s all I got for you at the moment. It also changes the way people feel and the way they see the church though, so internal experience at the least.
And I would certainly accept that. But my experience is that the claims made of prayer are much greater than internal experience. The strength of materialism then is that it isn't mysterious (Edit: Which isn't to say we would always understand the universe, but if everything is material, in theory we should be able to understand it at some point). If you want a house, you can replicate all the steps to build a house.
I think it's human nature as our understanding of that materialism increases, we will start to see the gaps in which God exists shrink. Which doesn't disprove God, but might make some claims about Him, seem more and more unlikely.
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