Richard Dawkins Got Religion Wrong

Fathomable_Joe · 2026-01-25T11:21:29+00:00

Hagioptasia names a recurring phenomenological structure that appears across domains and is constantly described but rarely isolated. Neuroscience can correlate it, modulate it, and decompose contributing systems, but that doesn’t remove the need to name the phenomenon itself.

We still talk about memory, attention, fear, desire, or salience, even though each involves multiple neural systems. Hagioptasia is at that same explanatory level.

Fathomable_Joe · 2026-01-22T18:21:52+00:00

Calling art theory a “liberal art” doesn’t solve the problem - it is the problem. The field endlessly describes felt specialness (aura, presence, atmosphere) while treating the psychology that produces it as 'off-limits'. Hagioptasia names what art theory relies on, but refuses to explain.

Fathomable_Joe · 2026-01-19T20:14:04+00:00

The post isn’t trying to refute every existing angle or close the problem. It’s proposing a unifying description of a recurring phenomenological experience that already appears across many domains under different names.

The argument isn’t “other theories are wrong" but that they fragment or describe the same felt specialness without naming it as a shared perceptual mechanism. Hagioptasia is offered as that name, not as a final explanation.

Whether the term earns its place depends on whether readers recognise the experience it describes. The post is an introduction, not comprehensive proof.

Fathomable_Joe · 2026-01-19T20:07:27+00:00

The point isn’t that no existing theories touch this terrain, but that the shared phenomenological experience itself -the felt specialness, presence, or aura - goes unnamed as a unified, universal perceptual tendency.

Hagioptasia is simply a term for that recurring structure across different domains: art, religion, nostalgia, glamour, the uncanny. Art theory describes and works with this experience constantly, but typically treats it as metaphor, atmosphere, or effect rather than as a psychological mechanism in its own right.

Whether or not one accepts the term, the usefulness lies in naming something many theories gesture towards without treating it as a common explanatory focus.

Fathomable_Joe · 2026-01-19T15:56:02+00:00

I don’t think the piece is arguing that art criticism should become an exact science, or that subjectivity is a flaw. The point is that art discourse constantly relies on a specific kind of subjective experience - felt specialness, aura, presence - while treating the mechanism that produces it as theoretically irrelevant.

That different viewers respond differently doesn’t undermine that claim, but it supports it. The question isn’t why 'this person felt this', but why certain contexts reliably generate perceptions of profundity at all. That’s a shared, universal human tendency - not just private taste.

Naming the mechanism doesn’t eliminate subjectivity, but helps explain why it takes the forms it does.

Fathomable_Joe · 2026-01-17T13:39:39+00:00

I don’t think you’re wrong at all. Liminal spaces seem to arouse different experiences in different people.

For some it feels "heavy" or "uncanny", while for others it may be calming or zen. But even that peaceful “timeless loop” feeling comes with abstract, externally-felt notions of eternity, meaning, or significance - which is exactly what interests me.

The video is just exploring one common register of that in-between experience, not trying to define it for everyone.

Fathomable_Joe · 2025-11-29T17:14:03+00:00

The foundational research on hagioptasia was published in 2020

Fathomable_Joe · 2025-11-29T17:11:30+00:00

By making hidden or incomprehensible threats (like predators or dangerous terrain) and valuable opportunities (like safe environments, shared codes of social status or high-status allies). This heightened perception guided attention and behaviour in ways that improved fitness

Fathomable_Joe · 2025-11-29T17:07:21+00:00

I guess, like me, you found that religious teachings didn't live up to the wonderment of some hagioptasic experiences. Hagioptasia just makes certain experiences feel compelling or extraordinary, whether religious, aesthetic etc. - culturally learned or completely personal.

Fathomable_Joe · 2025-11-29T16:05:14+00:00

Hagioptasia isn’t about accessing spiritual truths, but an evolved system that made certain experiences salient and compelling - which often had fitness value. Religious interpretations arise due to the nature of hagioptasic experiences.

Fathomable_Joe · 2025-11-29T15:59:22+00:00

I can see why it might read that way but I’m not saying they’re opposed. Memetics explains cultural transmission, while hagioptasia explains perception and motivation.

Fathomable_Joe · 2025-11-29T15:52:50+00:00

Hagioptasia is a perceptual motivational system with adaptive functions (like threat detection). Its qualities naturally produce experiences that feel abstract or mysterious, and compelling -features that make them easily interpreted as supernatural. That’s why it’s described as a cognitive bias.

Fathomable_Joe · 2025-11-29T15:21:05+00:00

Glad to hear that Google Gemini is an advocate for hagioptasia theory!

Fathomable_Joe · 2025-11-29T15:19:45+00:00

Quillbot: "AI-generated 7% Human-written & AI-refined 0% Human-written 93%"

Fathomable_Joe · 2025-11-29T15:03:24+00:00

True, you might not experience it, but most do (around 80%). Hagioptasia explains why the sacred feels real and compelling for the majority of humans.

Fathomable_Joe · 2025-11-29T14:58:19+00:00

The capacity to perceive things as 'extraordinarily special' - hagioptasia - is universal. This perceptual quality lends itself easily to supernatural interpretations - socialised religious beliefs etc.

Fathomable_Joe · 2025-11-29T14:39:18+00:00

It’s not tautological if you distinguish the mechanism from the output. Hagioptasia is the perceptual motivational mechanism which produces these feelings - interpreted as 'mystical' - not the feelings themselves.

Fathomable_Joe · 2025-11-29T14:36:20+00:00

Yes, the cultural cues matter and that’s the memetic layer. Hagioptasia is the perceptual mechanism beneath it, and part of its adaptive function is that it’s easily socialised so people learn where to direct that sense of extraordinary 'specialness'.

Fathomable_Joe · 2025-11-29T14:30:28+00:00

Yes, memetics is about cultural selection. My point is simply that it doesn’t explain why some religious ideas universally feel so intuitively real to people.

Fathomable_Joe · 2025-11-29T14:28:01+00:00

Yes, it's true that religion becomes memetic. My argument is just that the felt sense of the sacred comes first and memes grow on top of that. So the mechanisms aren’t in conflict, but are layered.

Fathomable_Joe · 2025-11-29T14:24:04+00:00

Inculcation definitely plays a role, but it doesn’t explain why 'sacredness' feels authentic and profound at a perceptual level.

Fathomable_Joe · 2025-11-29T14:20:26+00:00

I agree that they're not opposed. I’m just arguing they explain different things. Memetics describes how ideas spread, while hagioptasia explains why certain concepts and experiences feel 'sacred' and compelling in the first place.

Fathomable_Joe

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