centuries and the usefulness of religion, etc.
Sat, 2007-08-18 19:15
#1
centuries and the usefulness of religion, etc.
Sat, 2007-08-18 19:15
#2
Having let one fresh worm out of the can, i now feel obliged to attempt herding it; to compound what was probably a mistake.
What i said there in the last thread wasn't intended as an analysis; merely as a suggestion that you look at the reasons [i]why[/i] religion is so prevelant in human societies, and perhaps [i]how[/i] it came to prevail, rather than merely condemning or dismissing it.
I'm not making a value-judgement on either religion or opposition to religion. I'm just saying you can't effectively fight what you don't understand.
If anybody wants an analysis, and has a [i]lot[/i] of time to spend reading, i can do that. But it won't help, unless the reader is willing to examine a dozen assumptions, resist a couple of automatic reactions and suspend a few moral absolutes. That is, zoom wa-a-ay out and look at a bigger picture.
That's very difficult to do.
If i were to pose the same question a little differently, for example:
"To whom is religion/spirituality useful in the 12st century?"
the responses might be a little different.
Then, we might also ask:
"What human need does religion/spirituality serve?"
After that, we could possibly go on to:
"In what other way could this need be served?"
If all that happened, then those who oppose religion might begin to form the sketchy beginnings of a glimmer of an idea of how to counteract the negative effects of religion.
Sat, 2007-08-18 19:49
#3
babble, the place where the atheists discuss religion, for eternity. [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]
Sat, 2007-08-18 20:10
#4
Well, if you're interested in your society, in improving - or at least, somehow affecting - your society, you have to deal with whatever your society is doing.
One day, we [i]might[/i] meet the heffelump. In the meantime, we have this clump of bushes to go around and around and....
Sat, 2007-08-18 20:28
#5
Heh. Bill Maher is on Larry King, and he's making jokes about how Romney isn't electable because he's a Mormon. Then he goes on to say that this is ironic because the reason for that is because the majority of Americans, who believe one ridiculous set of beliefs, won't vote for him because he believes another ridiculous set of beliefs.
Then he joked about how Romney believes in "celestial marriage," which means that if you're really good to your wife during this life, then when you die, you and your wife stay married forever and you get your own planet to run. He compared it to one of those certificates where they'll name a star or an asteroid after you for a donation. And he said something like, with Mormons, you don't just get the certificate, you get the whole planet. [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
It was pretty funny.
So, is religion useful? Well, I guess it's useful to at least one comedian. [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]
[ 18 August 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]
Sat, 2007-08-18 21:42
#6
Isn't "celestial marriage" Mormon code for polygamy?
I watched that PBS special on the Mormons, and they mentioned celestial marriage in the context of Joe Smith's apparently insatiable predilection for the nubile young daughters of his male followers.
Sat, 2007-08-18 21:43
#7
People can believe in any amount of ridiculous stuff, all at the same time. Can you see the Juannie Carson monologue in 1661?
Sat, 2007-08-18 23:44
#8
quote:
Originally posted by mayakovsky:
[b]babble, the place where the atheists discuss religion, for eternity. [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img] [/b]
religion/faith and the nature/character of socialism seem to be the 2 all-time sure-fire debate starters here
but broadly, they are the same debate, I think: about the nature of the world and human possibility
hence the need to thrash them out eternally
[ 18 August 2007: Message edited by: Geneva ]
Sun, 2007-08-19 04:40
#9
quote:
What i said there in the last thread wasn't intended as an analysis; merely as a suggestion that you look at the reasons why religion is so prevelant in human societies, and perhaps how it came to prevail, rather than merely condemning or dismissing it.
I'm not making a value-judgement on either religion or opposition to religion. I'm just saying you can't effectively fight what you don't understand.
It is apparent that there is something inside us, something in our hard wiring that Carl Sagan called "the numenous". Humans have a capacity for wonder. We can label it spirituality, if we like. Spirituality isn't a product of religion, rather the reverse. Many of us atheists are very spiritual. Many of us spend more time talking about spirituality than true believers in religion.
I think if we take this hard wired capacity for spirituality, and combine it with the way we are socially hardwired-- that is, look to a leader, a paternal one for guidance and help, then religion is easily explained.
Where as children we looked to mommy and daddy for help and security, as adults we look to a sky god.
Another hard wired feature of humanity is that we are walking, breathing explaining machines. We have an overpowering need to explain everything. And where there are, and were, gaps in our knowledge, we shoved in a god or gods. The god of the gaps.
Now, as to why certain specific religions have persisted where others have faded, that has a lot to do with intolerance. In a kind of survival of the fittest race, religions that are ambivalent over what others believe have been eliminated by religions that care very much, until we are left with the dominant ones we have today.
Scary, ain't it?
[ 19 August 2007: Message edited by: Tommy_Paine ]
Sun, 2007-08-19 04:56
#10
Ok, nonsuch, now that I understand your aim better, let me give this a more simple-minded whirl.
INTERNAL FACTORS:
- Fear of death.
- Fear of the unknown.
- Fear of being alone.
- Fear of not knowing what to do from one minute to the next.
- Fear of not knowing how to live one's life.
- Fascination at neat objects, rituals, and really well-composed music.
NOTE: As human society progresses, I believe all the above can be, and are, increasingly satisfied in more rational, scientific, and ultimately satisfying ways than "faith" can ever accomplish. Thus, the scope of and "need" for religion is continuously diminished.
External factors include people making tonnes of money off religion and political/economic/military forces using it to rally support for their causes.
Just my own initial views here. I'm sure I'll correct these, add to, or subtract from them as discussion continues.
ETA: Here's some up-to-the-minute evidence for my analysis of the internal motivators for religious faith:
[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6953563.stm]Australian Labour Party leader apologizes for N.Y. strip club visit[/url]
quote:
The leader of Australia's opposition Labor Party has apologised for visiting a strip club in New York while representing his country at the UN. [...][b]A bookish intellectual with a strong Christian faith, Kevin Rudd has a slightly dull, even nerdy public persona.[/b]
[...]
In a statement released to reporters, the Labor leader has confirmed he visited the club but cannot recall precisely what happened on the night because he had too much to drink.
Emphasis added!
In other words, I believe some key motivators for faith could be assuaged, at least in the short term, by visits to strip joints and liberal libations.
[ 19 August 2007: Message edited by: unionist ]
Sun, 2007-08-19 06:51
#11
Personally, I don't really care about what a person believes in their heart of hearts.
In fact, it has occurred to this dyed in the wool skeptic that, in order for us to have a healthy society, we need "true believers."
Where it becomes harmful is when religion or other dogmas become "get out of jail free" cards, or used to gloss over what would otherwise be considered criminal behavior or mental illness.
Dawkins is right, we have to stop walking around on eggshells when it comes to religious belief.
In a free and democratic society, we should welcome input and debate from all, including those whose beliefs shed rationality and embrace magical thinking. But if, in the gloves off public forum (like a message board, or legislature) their ideas do not pass critical muster, then there is no "ally ally all in free". If religion based ideas do not carry the day, then the fault is not with their opponents, or the system, they have to be mature enough to understand the fault lies in their ideas.
And while we demand that of them, lets be sure we demand it of ourselves, too.
Sun, 2007-08-19 09:20
#12
quote:
Originally posted by nonsuch:
[b]Then, we might also ask:
"What human need does religion/spirituality serve?"[/b]
The need to feel special and chosen, and the only reason [i]that[/i] happens is because otherwise one has to come to terms with the fact that nobody is going to come along and save us from ourselves when we do stupid things.
Sun, 2007-08-19 10:39
#13
religion back in politics, in a big way:
[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/magazine/19Religion-t.html?_r=1&ref=ma... slogin[/url]
[i]we still maintain our implicit faith in a modernizing process and blame delays on extenuating circumstances like poverty or colonialism. This assumption shapes the way we see political theology, especially in its Islamic form — as an atavism requiring psychological or sociological analysis but not serious intellectual engagement.
Islamists, even if they are learned professionals, appear to us primarily as frustrated, irrational representatives of frustrated, irrational societies, nothing more. We live, so to speak, on the other shore. When we observe those on the opposite bank, we are puzzled, since we have only a distant memory of what it was like to think as they do. We all face the same questions of political existence, yet their way of answering them has become alien to us.
On one shore, political institutions are conceived in terms of divine authority and spiritual redemption; on the other they are not. And that, as Robert Frost might have put it, makes all the difference.[/i]
[ 19 August 2007: Message edited by: Geneva ]
Sun, 2007-08-19 14:41
#14
The article is interesting enough and I understand the topicality of all things Muslim, but why does an American author writing in a country ruled by a President put into power by a fundamentalist Christian bloc deploy metaphors reinforcing an us/them identity, with 'Islamists' being the them? What the fuck are your common or garden variety North American bible thumpers, with their Creationism and anti-abortionism and anti-intellectualism and anti-liberalism and anti-humanism...
Something fairly suspicious about picking on Muslims when the domestic barrel is so richly stocked with theocratic fish.
Sun, 2007-08-19 16:28
#15
quote:
Originally posted by DrConway:
[b]The need to feel special and chosen, and the only reason [i]that[/i] happens is because otherwise one has to come to terms with the fact that nobody is going to come along and save us from ourselves when we do stupid things.[/b]
Yes... sort of. When theists do stupid things they have not only God to turn to (not that that will help you) but a whole community - the church congregation - to pick you back up. Its not always that easy to find such tight-knit communities outside of a church, even today.
Sun, 2007-08-19 20:49
#16
unionist:
quote:
Thus, the scope of and "need" for religion is continuously diminished.
You would thinks so - indeed, so would i ... and yet, like the state in communist Russia, it fails to wither; in fact, it grows and mutates into new forms. Therefore, there must be some need that is not satisfied; that perhaps can't ever be satisfied by these means.
Possibly, we have not mapped all of the human psyche?
quote:
- Fear of death.
- Fear of the unknown.
- Fear of being alone.
- Fear of not knowing what to do from one minute to the next.
- Fear of not knowing how to live one's life.
- Fascination at neat objects, rituals, and really well-composed music.
Yes, and every one of those factors could use closer scrutiniy. We tend to say these things as if they were self-evident, self-explanatory, all finished. But are they? Are they even true?
To take just one, which i hear all the time: Fear of the unknown. Is that really a reason to do anything? Do we really fear the unknown? I don't, particularly. I haven't clue #1 about algebra, but it's not making me hide under the covers at night. I have only the vaguest idea how chrystals are formed, but that ignorance isn't driving me to make up fantastical stories about The Great Salt Monster. I mean, there is so much we don't know, and it hardly bothers us at all. It's what we do know that scares our pants off.
[ 19 August 2007: Message edited by: nonsuch ]
Mon, 2007-08-20 00:53
#17
good point about Russia, nonsuch
imagine the following social experiment, one regularly fantasized about by some atheists:
Imagine that a society could:
- suppress religion in all its public manifestations;
- stop all religious teaching, prosecute the teachers as liars, and propagandize against them as manipulators of the people;
- bulldoze and/or transform the main sites of worship, and denigrate to the greatest extent possible their symbolic value;
- make being religious a real economic minus, blocking careers and leading to marginalization;
- eliminate all texts and support media for religion;
- make all public education entirely secular, ridicule religion, and give the pursuit of science the highest cultural value;
- etc etc etc.
Now continue this process for, say, 3 full generations - over 70 years -, and what do you get??
The experience of the post-Soviet Union suggests that people are still broadly interested in religion, the physical buildings pop back up all over the place, and religion immediately re-enters the public sphere as a major player.
I was reminded of this recently on buying a second-hand copy of The Rebirth of a Nation: Return of Russia, written by a New Statesman correspondent there in the 1990s:
the front cover is a photo of the Church of Christ the Saviour in Moscow rising again under scaffolding (it is since re-opened), while the back cover has a photo of a giant statue of Lenin floating down a river on a barge for final disposal.
That juxtaposition says a lot about the relative staying power of formal religion and political ideologies.
.
[ 21 August 2007: Message edited by: Geneva ]
Mon, 2007-08-20 08:52
#18
I think there is a huge difference between "western" religions and other ones. First of all in western religions you are born a "sinner" and are supposed to spend the rest of your life repenting. My attitude to that as a pre teen was "fuck it, I'm going to hell anyway"
If you can take child rearing and expand to society. If a child grows up thinking he's bad, or a sinner, well he just confirms it. If a child grows up with positive parenting. He/she pass it on.
If we want to really change society, it needs to happen at home. AND (this one will piss people off) I think people should have to have a license to have children. So many people have children and when the novelty wears off, the kid is basically abandoned whether financially or time spent with parents.
I've always believed that those people who sway to religion are looking for answers but for most of them you will find that their parents told them what to think. Bring a child up to think for him/herself, teach them that they are their brother's/sister's keeper, that we are on this planet together and that we need to work together.
i am sure all the professor types will think this is too simple, but I think that is why it would work.
Mon, 2007-08-20 09:25
#19
remind
Licensing people to have children is much the same as enforced sterilization heh?!
Mon, 2007-08-20 09:34
#20
No it's not. There's too much child abuse. People think that they have the right to do whatever they want to children because those children are theirs and they have a right to treat them as they wish. The saying "it takes a village to raise a child" is true. You want to have children, you must show that you can be responsible and teach them to be good human beings. Maybe licensing is a bit strong, maybe you learn about children and having children before you have them.
[ 20 August 2007: Message edited by: 1234567 ]
Mon, 2007-08-20 10:56
#21
Polly B
I wonder if one day the whole god-thing will be like todays flat-earth thing. We will be saying.."You know, way back then, when they still believed there was a capital G -God and everyone ran around fighting over who knew the real version? Before science proved once and for all what a pile of hoakum that was"?
Mon, 2007-08-20 12:29
#22
quote:
Licensing people to have children is much the same as enforced sterilization heh?!
You know, eventually they will start sterilizing people because we as a society will finally get that just because you can give birth doesn't mean that you can parent.
And the world just keeps on having babies and I know for a fact that there are many women who do not want more children or even any children but being women in third world countries, they don't have any choice or say, they are just forced to.
And the saddness and despair they feel because they can't feed the ones they have is heartbreaking. And all you people talk and talk about feeding the world and buying clothes from second hand stores. You know nothing about the realities of what it's like, all you know are your opinions and god help the person who disagrees with you.
The world's population is growing and growing. Soon they will have quotas on the amount of people your country can have. Then people will cherish their ability to have children. More thought will go into how children ought to be treated so that they become responsible, caring individuals who will eventually grow up to the ones making the decisions.
One more thing, I do understand the precedent that gets set if people have to have a license, but from what I've seen, that is preferable to the horrible conditions I've seen children living in.
Mon, 2007-08-20 15:10
#23
quote:
Therefore, there must be some need that is not satisfied; that perhaps can't ever be satisfied by these means.
Possibly, we have not mapped all of the human psyche?
Well, control is a biggy, isn't it?
One reason people believe in grand conspiracy theories is that even if a plan is evil, at least it's a [i]plan[/i]. And if we can discern the [i]plan[/i], maybe we can stay out of it's way, or even manipulate it to our benefit.
Religion might be seen as a conspiracy theory.
If we can discern the plans of the God or Gods, and act accordingly, I will have control over death. (the afterlife) If I act the way my god or gods want me to act, maybe I will be rewarded with material goods in this life? Maybe if I don't leer at my neighbor's wife, god won't send a tornado to flatten my house?
It's pretty powerful stuff.
Myself, I find comfort in a universe that is ambivalent to my existence when compared to the mean spirited, pernicious gods we have invented for ourselves.
Mon, 2007-08-20 17:20
#24
I don't think there is anything so intrinsically human as religious belief, in one form or another. Even the short-lived Communist experiment hardly put a dent in the religious character of its hardy proletariat masses. I suspect that the end of religious belief will coincide directly with the end of the species.
Mon, 2007-08-20 19:26
#25
quote:
Well, control is a biggy, isn't it?
Yes; probably the biggest part of modern Western religion. It is not so everywhere and always.
If you look at older religions, say the belief-systems of nomadic and early agrarian peoples, there is certainly an element of control - a god or daemon or spirit might be open to bribery - but then again, it might be acting on a whim.
The function of religion is not to [i]explain[/i] the world, but to illustrate people's relationship to the world, to other species, to one another and to themselves. Early gods were personifications of aspects of both physical Nature and human nature. We have always had internal conflict, difficult emotions, problematic relationships. Externalizing human traits, drives and emotions was a means of putting them in perspective; a means of achieving balance between the individual's selfish impulses and the society's need for discipline and co-operation.
Post-civilized (city-centered) religion is a different thing: it is far more structured, more hierarchical, more authoritarian, more ... controlling. This is a direct reflection of the society itself. Here, religion serves a different function - the interest of the rulers. The emphasis shifts from balance to subservience. That's why so many rules and punishments.
The religion with which we are most familiar, and which we therefore tend to consider as representative of all religion (it isn't!) is the most recent manifestation of post-civilized organized religion. As city-centered people removed themselves farther and farther from Nature, they moved their gods farther and farther away from daily life. The logical end-point is that a little, regional god (who had served his tribe quite well up till then) was promoted to Lord of the Universe and shoved out into space. Bad idea. An even worse idea was imposing this jumped-up tribal god on peoples to whom he was irrelevant, because they already had home-grown deities that served them well enough.
What we object to when we're objecting to "religion" is really imperialism. Which is all right to object to - everyone always has. But we get very confused in our definitions, terminology and concepts.
Tue, 2007-08-21 00:18
#26
quote:
Originally posted by Polly Brandybuck:
[b]I wonder if one day the whole god-thing will be like todays flat-earth thing. We will be saying.."You know, way back then, when they still believed there was a capital G -God and everyone ran around fighting over who knew the real version? Before science proved once and for all what a pile of hoakum that was"?[/b]
the point of my post above, about the collapse of the dialectical materialist faith in Russia, is that the opposite of PB's vision above is also quite possible;
who knows, one day people may look back and say,
[i] Can you believe that God had such a small public back then in the 20th century??
... it sure has grown since the "eclipse of God" period ended in the 2040's!
-- and many people back then thought science and religion were in permanent conflict! crazy! [/i].... [img]eek.gif" border="0[/img]
-- you read it here first
.
[ 21 August 2007: Message edited by: Geneva ]
Tue, 2007-08-21 08:08
#27
There's all kinds of 'religion'.
There is the 'non-rational knowing'(not irrational) that some people believe they experience in the form of near-death experience, altered consciousness, awareness of soul or spirit. I don't call this 'religion', but some people do.
There's also organized systems in which a priviledged elite claim special knowledge or connection to 'God' so they can exploit confused, frightened, desperate people. Recently, an evangelist named Benny Hinn took his miracle show to Toronto where thousands of people put their brains on the shelf and handed over their money. His followers are pathetic and Hinn is a psychopathic monster. I'd like to see people like him in prison and stripped of their ill-gotten fortunes.
Tue, 2007-08-21 13:36
#28
quote:
Post-civilized (city-centered) religion is a different thing: it is far more structured, more hierarchical, more authoritarian, more ... controlling.
One day, when a room frees itself and I have all my books at my reach, I could dig you up a quote decrying religion as just a way to control people. Not a new, or shocking observation, except the quote was from some Roman guy circa 200 B.C.
I'm not sure we should want to eliminate, or hope for the rational elimination of the kind of
religion that Nonsuch mentioned, the kind that existed before we moved into the cities.
I am reminded of a Cree "superstition" detailed in "Skeptic" magazine some time ago. The article talked about times when caribou became scarce. According to the author, the Cree would take an old Caribou antler and put it in a fire. They would wait for it to crack, and then take off hunting in the direction the crack indicated.
The hunters [i]may have believed[/i] there was a magical relationship between the old antler and the living caribou, but that was beside the point.
What this technique did was to stop a leader with a one track mind from stubborning everyone to death. My own observations at work with problems solving in an industrial process has shown me that "tunnel vision" or fixation on a mistaken aspect or assumption around a problem is the leading delay in problem solving.
We could use some Caribou antlers at work sometimes. If it was a bad problem solving technique, we wouldn't know about it-- the Cree, or Mowat's "people of the deer" would not have lived to tell us of it.
As far as eliminating organized religion as we know it today, Stalin's totalitarian example shows just how not to do it, particularly with a religion that I]thrives[/I] on oppression and martyrdom.
In regard to Christianity, we often point to people like Paul ( a.k.a. Saul, of no fixed address) as the founder and most important promoter.
But it's Nero and Diocletian that really made Christianity the force it is today. Without them, Christianity would have faded away, and we would speak of it like we speak of Mithrism.
And that's no bull.
Organized religion has to be tolerated and educated into irrelevance.
Wed, 2007-08-22 13:03
#29
I think it is very similar to multi-level marketing.
Slick salesman promise riches galore and people (even some very smart people) fall for it. Religion promises things that people crave: purpose in life, community membership, rewarding afterlife. And they appear to deliver some of that. Wishful thinking blocks people from seeing the pitfalls.
Somebody asked why religion has failed to whither. I think it's for the same reason that Amway has failed to disappear.
Mon, 2007-10-01 02:18
#30
relation between liberal democracy and religion:
[url=http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/liberalism-and-secularism-one-a...
Thus the toleration of religion goes hand in hand with – is the same thing as – the diminishing of its role in the society. It is a quid pro quo. What the state gets by “excluding religion from any binding social consensus” (Starr) is a religion made safe for democracy. What religion gets is the state’s protection. The result, Starr concludes approvingly, is “a political order that does not threaten to extinguish any of the various theological doctrines” it contains.
That’s right. The liberal order does not extinguish religions; it just eviscerates them, unless they are the religions that display the same respect for the public-private distinction that liberalism depends on and enforces. A religion that accepts the partitioning of the secular and the sacred and puts at its center the private transaction between the individual and his God fits the liberal bill perfectly. John Locke and his followers, of whom Starr is one, would bar civic authorities from imposing religious beliefs and would also bar religious establishments from meddling in the civic sphere. Everyone stays in place; no one gets out of line.
[ 01 October 2007: Message edited by: Geneva ]