A World without Religion

@Dave Allen,

Dave Allen wrote:

If you found parents who were willing to sacrifice their child's social skills and imagination by supressing stories of ghosts and teaching the facts behind electical circuits you may well have a merely rationalist child.

I happen to think it's a hideous vision - but I still deny that a child is born a spiritualist. That they come to believe (to varying degrees) in the supernatural is just evidence of the pervasiveness of telling children stories of the supernatural.

There is no such thing as a rational child because even for adults reason does not answer all questions...Look at the great men of the nineteenth and twentieth centruies.. People like Baudelair and Poe, Nietzsche and Freud were great for the very reason that they discounted reason and saw clearly that we are people of emotion, illogic, and magic... As Napoleon used to ask his generals when giving them power: Are you lucky???If we should all be rational then notions of fate or fortune, or parayers or blessing would have no effect on us... Do you believe in miricles??? If not then you have never been in love... In fact, if you examined your mind you would find it filled with superstitian, and ritual...

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@Elmud,

You can name some celebrated individuals for whom reason does not answer all questions.

Well done - but it doesn't prove that the rule is universal.

There are a great many men who do believe that reason can answer all questions - I wouldn't say they could do so because it would take a lifetime of objective study just to develop a fraction of the required knowledge - but they would imagine that given enough time and capacity for knoweldge all things could be hypothesized and understood without recourse to stories or supernatural explanations.

So only a madman would think he knew everything, I reckon. But this does not mean that people are all spiritualist - some are genuinely comfortable to just not know. I am pretty ignorant of languages other than English. Does this mean I think there is something magical about them? No. I don't know calculus, does this mean I think there is a supernatural force behind it? No. In the same way I may be happy to just 'not know' what happens when I die, or what came before the Big Bang.

I think a child could also be taught to be happy with 'not knowing'. Can't prove it and I admit the evidence is overwhelmingly to the contrary. As I said this is because it would be so impoverishing to a child's experience to deny it stories of the supernatural. I beleive that a child so raised would probably suffer a stunted imagination.

I do not find the idea of a rational child admirable - just making an observation that they are empty vessels which are filled with supertitious stories from the outset.

Let me make it clear to you - I think this is good, I think it is desirable to introduce children to such tales in order to encourage them to use their imagination and capacity for wonder.

But it does not mean that they are 'born spiritual'.

By the way, and I hope I don't cause offence or step on your freedom of expression - but I find it much easier to respect people's arguments when they punctuate properly. Multiple ellipses and marks of interrogation do not a good post make, in my own opinion.

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@Elmud,

Do you expect me to prove that people are basically irrational??? Do I need to prove gravity to you no matter how obvious??? Do we need cops because people act rationally??? Do people need to be taught math because they are naturally rational...Look at how few philosophers we have after thousands of years... Do you think that is because they were extremely rational; -or what is more likely, the only ones who were primarily rational, -who even sacrificed normal human relationships to their rationality because they could not manage the give an take of irrationality that is most of romantic relationships...Look at our past through our literature... Do you guess that Cu chelain, or Achilles acting primarily out of injured honor were acting rationally??? Or how about Beowolf with his mighty worm???And yet, are these people not clearly human, and read about yet today because they were as humans, heroic??? The age of reason was a blip, and over sooner than it began... Look at the protestants who built the industrial revolution out of their rationallity... Have they not all devolved into a mindless faith in fate??? People are not at all naturally rational... Rather we rationalize what we do and what we desire, and long before we have the basis of rationality we are long trained in the sense of charm and magic that is accepted by all as human...

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@Elmud,

None of that proves that children are "born spiritual".

Spirituality is not the autonym of rationality, and many (most) people adopt a certain degree of the two.

Acceptance of fate is not spiritualism (in fact, I think it is the ultimate end of rational enquiry).

I don't believe Cuchullain, Achilles or Beowulf are anything more than important characters in fiction.

Do please note that I am not arguing in favour of cold rationality - I simply defy your assertion that children are born with any innate sense of spiritualism - it is something instilled in them (for good reasons I think).

Honestly, why use three punctuation marks where only one is required?

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@Elmud,

Okay, so they are not born rational, and yet they clearly show trust...Upon what basis are they trusting???Do you think they are purely ignorant, and only by degrees become rational???You must know better, that out of ignorance people believe if they think at all...

For my part, I am not arguing for cold rationality, but suggesting that spiritualism is rational at some point in our lives when the anticipation of others for our needs gives us a sense that our deisres, our wishes do make real, that we are powerful beyond our size... Spiritualism is not all that illogical... It is logical given a great want of knowledge... Look at how long it took humanity to begin to reject supernatural agency and the process is not complete...Government fails as in the case of 911, and Katrina and idiots point to our sin...Is physics more able to explain force at a distance??? It can measure it, and yet not explain it...The difference for them is not to presume a spiritual cause not in evidence...

I think you should look harder at liturature because it shows a sort of person and a set of beliefs that exist to this present moment... We live in a money economy... They were living in an honor economy that had a much more spiritual conception of people... So that when one took something from them, or injured them, they took their honor, and honor was part and parcel of the spiritual conception of self...You see that with Beowulf whith the talk of Grendal not taking wealth for peace... You see that with Kremhield throwing her son into the maw of vengeance... They then had to get their honor back, and that fact justified almost anything from blood money to blood, or an essential exchange of value...Fate or kismet was a moderating force for such people in that they could show mercy for an act that could not have happened with out it being fated...But fate for us is a vestige of a magical world... The fairies are fates, and death is the fairie king...

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@Fido,

Fido wrote:

Okay, so they are not born rational, and yet they clearly show trust...Upon what basis are they trusting???Do you think they are purely ignorant, and only by degrees become rational???

Yes.

Quote:

I think you should look harder at liturature

Literature, if we are to be literal.

Quote:

because it shows a sort of person and a set of beliefs that exist to this present moment... We live in a money economy... They living in an honor society had a much more spiritual conception of people...So that when took something from them, or injured them, they took their honor, and honor was part and parcel of the spiritual conception of self... They then had to get their honor back, and that fact justified almost anything from blood money to blood, or an essential exchange of value...Fate or kismet was a moderating force for such people in that they could show mercy for an act that could not have happened with out it being fated...But fate for us is a vestige of a magical world... The fairies are fates, and death is the fairie king...

Not for me, fate is simply all that we cannot control. Things people couldn't control in the past were stillbirths, post-natal depression, the effects of hallucinogenic mushrooms, congenital deformity. Such things weren't understood medically, so people called it fairies.

But so what? Are you saying we would be better of calling such things fairies rather than what they are?

One can enjoy a fairy tale without beleif in fairies. I rather like old english folk stories such as Yallery Brown or Jenny Greenteeth, I can see how children benefit from the moral lessons and enjoyable plots of such stories.

But none of this provides any evidence that children are born spiritual - it's just a continuing reiteration of the fact that it is nice to tell stories of the supernatural to kids. Greek ideas of hubris and the fates are handy moral lessons - but they aren't true in a technical sense. There is no need for me to anthropomorphise fate.

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@Khethil,

Khethil wrote:

... so not just "no religion", but no nations either?

I'm inclined to think that nation states - in some form even if absent of religious considerations (if such a thing were possible) would still likely form. There are many reasons for people to ally themselves cooperatively than god-ideals.

I think your question is valid and is good ponder-material; but as others have alluded, it's unlikely and hard to envision - given what we know of human nature.

The nation state did not exist as a concept up until around the 15th century, and it is no coincidence that belief in God began dieing out in the west directly after world war two, the biggest increase in the power of the state in history. The modern secular state, by cutting out the power of the state, and leaving only the state as law makers, put themselves in charge of a societies morality and makes itself their god. In the most totalitarian states, such as the Soviet Union, religion is not just banned, but faith is shifted to the state and its leaders- the cults of Lenin and Stalin for instance. Religion will survive this, as it survived even the communists- look no further than the resurgance of Russian Orthodoxy, but this cannot happen unless we recognise the threat represented by obscene growth in the beuracratic state. It is not just religion, but our freedom, our happiness and our very lives that are at stake. Look no further than my own nation, the UK, to see its terrible effects- 200 dead becauce of beuracractic mismanagement, teachers, doctors and social workers barely able to work, let alone have lives, because of the hideous leviathan.

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@Dave Allen,

Quote:

Dave Allen wrote:
Yes.

Then, you would be wrong; because we never become competely rational and never cease believing as though we know when we do not, but hold an irrational explanation of reality... Everyone wants to be certain...Few have the courage to adimit they do not know..It's irrational

Quote:
Literature, if we are to be literal.Not for me, fate is simply all that we cannot control. Things people couldn't control in the past were stillbirths, post-natal depression, the effects of hallucinogenic mushrooms, congenital deformity. Such things weren't understood medically, so people called it fairies.

Yes literature to be literal... So you say; and are you a child???If in the past; tyche and fortuana were the same, and both godesses, do you think luck isn't a lady for some, even today... We personify God; and so Jesus when the evidence is slight that Jesus thought himself God... We personify love, and justice and virtue... And I assure you that the fates were fairies, and some times it goes the other way, as when bokie pirates and Ogres who were real people became the stuff of legend..How many still accept the devil as a being who walks the land... Putting a face on our fears is normal and irrational... The primary fact to remember in regard to the universal conception of honor is the spiritual conception of self...We were not human until we did exacly that, but when we did so we conceived of everything spiritually, and we gave blind justice and blind fate a humanlike face at the same moment....

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But so what? Are you saying we would be better of calling such things fairies rather than what they are?

First of all; what are they that they should be conceived at all??? Dear are smart animals, so the Native conceived of them as intelligent animals with the ability like ourselves, of complex communication...Does it seem that fate can always find our weakness, and plumb our pain??? Is that some reason to give it many eyes and many characters???
One can enjoy a fairy tale without beleif in fairies. I rather like old english folk stories such as Yallery Brown or Jenny Greenteeth, I can see how children benefit from the moral lessons and enjoyable plots of such stories.

Quote:

But none of this provides any evidence that children are born spiritual - it's just a continuing reiteration of the fact that it is nice to tell stories of the supernatural to kids. Greek ideas of hubris and the fates are handy moral lessons - but they aren't true in a technical sense. There is no need for me to anthropomorphise fate.

Children can conceive of objects not in evidence... Remove something from their sight and they look for it, no matter how young... The image, conception remains in their minds... So if they want, and the object appears would you guess that leaves the feeling impotent... No; in the very object of caring for children, we give them a sense of power.. But there is a power within all, that great thing in itself called life, and will, and we see that babes of other animals and even insects act with a fear of death, and fear of the ultimate darkness... Do we deny that intelligence to our own???

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@Fido,

Zetherin wrote:

But if others may interpret him differently, then how can you make the claim that the term "atheist" has definitively changed as a whole? Wouldn't it be the case that others did not interpret him anything but a theist if the term atheist really has changed as much as you say?

It's completely unrelated to the change in the meaning of "atheist".

Part of this is translation: words which were used to mean "godless" with the implication that the individual is godless because he rejects a particular society's god are often translated in English to atheist, which now has certain technical meanings all of which are definitively non-theist. In the past, someone who was called godless (the original non-enligh word being translated to atheist) may have been a theist or polytheist, just one of a brand strikingly different from their society; often times these people were striking out with a variety of theism that rejected the theism of their native land.

In other words, the term atheist went from being a slanderous, non-technical term to being a technical term which can be both negative and positive depending on context.

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@Fido,

Fido wrote:

Children can conceive of objects not in evidence... Remove something from their sight and they look for it, no matter how young...

Pretty baseless isn't it - I've seen young kids who have had something taken from their vicinity and who haven't shown any interest. Also, my argument is about taking spiritualism away from kids - it's about what might happen if they were never introduced to the concept in the first place.

Quote:

The image, conception remains in their minds... So if they want, and the object appears would you guess that leaves the feeling impotent... No; in the very object of caring for children, we give them a sense of power..

Again, this assertation seems completely baseless to me.

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But there is a power within all, that great thing in itself called life, and will, and we see that babes of other animals and even insects act with a fear of death, and fear of the ultimate darkness...

All living things tend to have self-preservation instincts, but that does not equal a fear of death. To say that an insect larvae is afraid of death is to anthropomorphise. I beleive human fear of death is just a result of self-preservation instincts. I do not think death itself is an object of rational fear - it is nothing. What I fear is that I won't appreciate the things I might otherwise have done, the grief of my loved ones, the suffering that often precedes death. Death itself is nothing to fear - you won't even know it.

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@Elmud,

Unlike insects, humans know that death is real.

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@Dave Allen,

Quote:

Dave Allen wrote:
Pretty baseless isn't it - I've seen young kids who have had something taken from their vicinity and who haven't shown any interest. Also, my argument is about taking spiritualism away from kids - it's about what might happen if they were never introduced to the concept in the first place'

Some times the assertions of philosophers are baseless... The camera never lies; and sociologists are pretty creative in their experiments... I am saying, and will say again, that the spiritualism of children like that of primitives is not based upon socialization, but upon the spiritual conception of self which is universal... And this is the primary example of conceptualization on the part of children, because as they consider themselves abstractly as a certain essence so they learn to consider all of reality as so many certain essences...Science is based upon spritualism... What is lacking between older children and younger children is not idealization, but a quality of idealization which is essential to reasoning, called conservation....

Quote:
.Again, this assertation seems completely baseless to me.All living things tend to have self-preservation instincts, but that does not equal a fear of death. To say that an insect larvae is afraid of death is to anthropomorphise. I beleive human fear of death is just a result of self-preservation instincts.

My point again is that we all conceive of the self spiritually... When we think abstractly of some place we would like to go it is not the meat and bones transported, but our spiritual consciousness...We are the one creature I know that can rationalize approaching death, and face it without fear if not without apprehension, and even self induce death...Animals learn to trust, but from my experience the fear of being controlled is like that of death itself, that wild birds are frantic in a cage, as are wild mice.... To them, death seem all but certain to follow the loss of control... Can they abstract their lives... No, because their lives are all...Our lives can be abstracted because the long period of care we receive in youth is actually one of learning and luxury... It removes us from the sense of being animals and leaves us able to abstract life as an essence from life in reality...This actual madness and wrong turn is the beginning of knowledge..

Quote:
I do not think death itself is an object of rational fear - it is nothing. What I fear is that I won't appreciate the things I might otherwise have done, the grief of my loved ones, the suffering that often precedes death. Death itself is nothing to fear - you won't even know it.

You are rationalizing your fear, when a child will spiritualize their fear... Their behavior is natural and yours is learned... But perhaps you could admit that if life is everything then the loss of life is not nothing... I have dared death many times in my life...Now I am not so bold; but having the choice between poverty and death, I took my chances, which I treated as a calculated risk...Don't worry about what i will know... Death cannot be too hard... Even fools manage to do it...The fact that children learn to fear almost as soon as they learn to love says something of them...How do they conceive of danger and death??? They can conceive of it no better than we do... It is as you say, nothing and nothing cannot be conceived of even while represented...So children will readily try to accept that the body dies while the spirit lives... But this is impossible....Think of how we conceive of scents... We have no signs for scents because they cannot be conceived of apart from their cause, so that the most spiritual quality cannot be conceived of as a spirit alone, apart from its cause.... We cannot truly conceive of the spirit apart from the body... Conceptions fall without the reality...

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs wrote:

Unlike insects, humans know that death is real.

Quite the opposite...It is life that is real, and death which is a conception of nothing... We can conceive of life, and we cannot conceive of being without it because life is the source of all meaning and all reality... We cannot conceive of anything, including life, without the medium of life to carry the conception.....What is the scent without the flower??? What is the spirit without the body??? We have to throw a sheet over our Ghosts to give them substance, but we can, with life, consider the spirits of the dead as alive... We cannot consider our own spirits without life to support them, and so the whole issue is shrouded in unreality...

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@Elmud,

Nevertheless it is true that insects have no conception of death (or anything else, as far as we know)

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@Elmud,

Fido,

You state "Quite the opposite", but then everything that followed did not support this claim. You ramble on about our conception, which had nothing to do with what jeeprs was referring. Insects do not conjure concepts as far as we know. Thus, they do not contemplate death. That is all.

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@Elmud,

Correction: Insects do not have the capacity to evidence that they have a conception of death. It's not simply that they do not. Insects cannot have a conception of death. But this "cannot" is a decision, not a discovery. It is a decision about what it means to have a conception of death, what it means to understand the (bare) concept of death and to subsequently have a conception of it or "angle" on it. The only way that insects might be said to have a conception of death involves our broadening or thinning out the concept of "having a conception of". It is a decision, not a discovery.

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@Fido,

Fido wrote:

The religion of man is the childhood of mankind... You cannot begin to understand humanity without some thought given to it...People are not born like Athena out of the forehead of Zeus, fully grown; but come out of their childhoods and must be judged in the light of their experience...There is no point in saying we could be better if we were not chained to that tragic past... That tragic past, and that chain are who we are, and to know any freedom we must understand the situation we find ourselves in...Thanks K...

Just to be sure, are you implying that there is some sort of progression being made in a transition from religious to secular trends in humanity? If you are that is an awefully big leap. With the analogy from childhood to adulthood, an adult being one or a society that has freed itself from the chains of the tragic past, it also implies that there is a path of progression and a probable goal of progression. Does this not fly in the face of evolution? What is the next step along the path of progression? What could it possibly be? Since it seems that in most arguments about religion we have religion and its antithesis, are we going to have a synthesis as our next step? With the religion of non-religion be humanity's old age and death? The notion of human progress in this sense troubles me because it seems to me that what is being done as we reach "adulthood" in this progressive suggestion is simply replacing paradigms. Just like when one generation changes language structures, norms and vocabulary from the previous one, both generations think they are right and all it is, is the natural evolution of a language. I have the feeling that the great secular humanist future is going to turn out much like the great religious heritage, something demonized by whatever metaphysical paradigm that through the machinations of the universe comes after it.

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@GoshisDead,

GoshisDead wrote:

Just to be sure, are you implying that there is some sort of progression being made in a transition from religious to secular trends in humanity? If you are that is an awefully big leap. With the analogy from childhood to adulthood, an adult being one or a society that has freed itself from the chains of the tragic past, it also implies that there is a path of progression and a probable goal of progression. Does this not fly in the face of evolution? What is the next step along the path of progression? What could it possibly be? Since it seems that in most arguments about religion we have religion and its antithesis, are we going to have a synthesis as our next step? With the religion of non-religion be humanity's old age and death? The notion of human progress in this sense troubles me because it seems to me that what is being done as we reach "adulthood" in this progressive suggestion is simply replacing paradigms. Just like when one generation changes language structures, norms and vocabulary from the previous one, both generations think they are right and all it is, is the natural evolution of a language. I have the feeling that the great secular humanist future is going to turn out much like the great religious heritage, something demonized by whatever metaphysical paradigm that through the machinations of the universe comes after it.

No, I am saying that religion is the socialization of every personal spiritual experience; but also that the same metal qualities that make images and spiritual conception ultimately lead to science, because no science is possible without the form, and a form in the proper sense of the word, as a conserved identity, and a judgement... Without such forms science would be no more than religion., which depends only upon the image and the spiritual conception of objects and objective truth...What do you consider the antithesis of religion??? If it be magic you are wrong... Religion is only white magic... Hoccuspoccus after all does come from the Roman mass, where the priest holds up the host and says Hoc est corpus...I have so many books on magic and such..all by way of learning about anthropology... It is all around us like a security blanket we cannot leave behind no matter how ragged... For example, There is an Indian Casino in my old home town...Often enough you can see people making a sign of a cross on a bandit before losing their money... They never give up on it, and only change its form...Even the Indians were natural gamblers... The many I worked with in Ironwork were willing to bet their lives...And some lost; but when fate commands your existence you dry your tears pretty quick and get back to work.... Igottogettowork.

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@nerdfiles,

nerdfiles wrote:

Correction: Insects do not have the capacity to evidence that they have a conception of death. It's not simply that they do not. Insects cannot have a conception of death. But this "cannot" is a decision, not a discovery. It is a decision about what it means to have a conception of death, what it means to understand the (bare) concept of death and to subsequently have a conception of it or "angle" on it. The only way that insects might be said to have a conception of death involves our broadening or thinning out the concept of "having a conception of". It is a decision, not a discovery.

I don't understand the distinction.

Insects cannot rationalize on human level - they do not have the capacity to do so. What's the difference between "Insects do not have the capacity to evidence that they have a conception of death" and "Insects cannot have a conception of death". They of course cannot evidence a conception, because they cannot rationalize in this way (as far as we know). It seems you've added this *before* factor, which I'm not quite clear on.

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@Zetherin,

How interesting , insects considering their death.I always thought it might be just a defence mechanism of survival, i witnessed not the desire to overcome death.I have trouble coming to terms with the notion of death ,my insect friends are up there with me..:perplexed:

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