Just look at the disruption smartphones and social media have caused. They had a gigantic impact to society and one definitely has to 'live with' that.
Just because something can impact a living system/organism, that doesn't mean that that thing is alive. An asteroid colliding with us on Earth could have tremendous consequences, but nobody would argue that an asteroid is alive.
It's essentially the same concept. Here are some examples:
> "The authors discuss two enduring lessons of the Internet revolution: The first is that new technologies do not replace the old. They live side by side."
> I don't live side by side with the possibility of an asteroid impact, nuclear war, etc.
No, but idiomatically, you already live side by side with AI, and will do so even more in future, whether you like the idiom or the actual experience, or not.
Does taking a skin cell, turning it into a stem cell, dividing it into specialized sperm and egg cells then making a living being provide some proof to Animism?
To 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).
> ...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.
Addictive? How can a computing device have addictive properties? It's not like it is something you swallow or digest. User error? Certainly. A hundred years ago alcoholic drinks were outlawed in certain parts of the world, yet today there is no grocery shop that doesn't openly sell them.
> It's not like it is something you swallow or digest.
Anything that interacts with the brain's rewards circuitry can be addictive. By your apparent definition, behavioral addictions, like gambling addiction, cannot exist. Because you don't swallow or inhale the slot machine.
> 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.
"The only way anyone can make a blanket statement like that and put "all religions" on equal epistemic footing "
All religion is based on superstitious believes, or do you have counter examples? But I am already quite familiar with the catholic church in particular and do not think they are a counter example in the slightest.
Begin with the existence of God as self-subsisting being. This can be be shown to be a metaphysical necessity with mathematical certainty [0]; its denial leads to incoherence. Following that, one can show what analogous properties this first cause must have, for instance. Such knowledge is a matter of unaided reason, not faith.
Once you establish such truths, matters of faith (like the divinity of Christ) become much easier to reason about and to accept. They become not only eminently reasonable, but the most probable (e.g., "Lord, liar, or lunatic" trilemma, or implausibility of hoax). This latter claim is a faith claim, because while reason and evidence may strongly suggest the claim, it does not possess the deductive certainty of the first.
To be honest, I advise to go to a basi philosophy course once. I did, but won't buy such books, I had that topic covered.
There is no proof that god exists. And there is even less proof that the holy spirit came down and impregnated Mary, or that Jesus ressurected from the dead or any of the other countles examples of superstition.
The claim that god exists has the same validy, that a rock has a soul.
But .. you ain't the first of course to ridicule other religious believe systems while thinking yours is solid.
Either way, could you then answer this simple question, the believe that a person resurrected from the dead or a human was conceived without sperm are not superstitious?
Declaring it is not, but logical with the axiom there is an allmighty god who made those things happen - has the same quality as declaring there is soul essence in every matter.
