alt Hacker NewsTo be honest, I don't believe it is a any more crazy believe than all of the other religions. But practitioners there might have a bit more respect for existing things and not mindlessly crush because they can, so I actually like the concept a bit. But I assume it can also set foundation for some exhausting debates .. "can we really move that random rock to build a house with?" but as far as I understood the practical answer is "we ask the spirits, maybe make a offering and if we feel it is fine, we can" (which can be a quick thing, or .. not).
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> To be honest, I don't believe it is a any more crazy believe than all of the other religions.
The only way anyone can make a blanket statement like that and put "all religions" on equal epistemic footing is through ignorance of their deep differences. Even the word "religion" as commonly used today is relativistic by assumption, which is likely the source of how we commonly perceive "religion". A consequence of this relativistic stance is that you cannot distinguish effectively between what counts or doesn't count as "religion". Here, "worldview", "superstition", or "life's highest aspiration" can be said to count as "religion", in which case, everyone is religious. The question then isn't "whether" someone is religious, but "how" [0].
Compare this to how this Catholic encyclopedia defines the "virtue of religion" [1]. Note the specificity.
A further consequence of this assumed relativism is that once you put all religions on equal footing, it is natural to conclude that they must all be equally invalid. After all, if p and not-p are equally valid, then how can we grant them equal validity without discrediting both? At best, they remain in a state of aporia, two logical possibilities so utterly divorced from any knowledge, so utterly contrived, that we cannot even say whether knowledge leans in favor of one over the other. The result is that religion becomes something utilitarian; a person believes X, not because it is true, but because he perceives that believing X is useful to him in some way.
So, no, I wouldn't say animism is just as rational/irrational as any other religious belief.
[0] Of course, most people tend to form their ideas of what constitutes archetypal "religion" based on their personal experiences growing up and some combination of culturally mediated stereotypes. In the US, "religion" very often conjures up images of some kind of Evangelical Christianity.
> ...I don't believe it is a any more crazy believe than all of the other religions.
And it's certainly not any more crazy than walking around with these small, addictive devices in our pockets that we rely on for navigation, information, entertainment, social connection.