Would the world be better off without religion?

Religion started on earth when the first protohuman had sufficient whereforall to look at the stars and wonder. In a very real sense we can still share that sense of wonderment today.

Do I think we should give up that sense of wonderment? No.

Do I think it must be expressed through religion? No.

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littlek wrote:

So, religion started in the 20th century?

I don't follow you. Perhaps you should go to my original post at the top of the previous page.

Would the world also be better off wiithout nations and government?

If you answer YES to religion and NO to government, then please explain the distinction.

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spendius wrote:

echi-

Going on the evidence of your avvie there might be a body of opinion that holds that it is perfectly reasonable and logical to put you quietly to sleep.

That would be wonderful.

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As many folks here already know, I am a Buddhist. Buddhism believes that each human being is conected to every other human being. We are responsible for our own destinies. We beleive in cause and effect. Not you typical religion mind you.

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For those of us who see theistic religions as a recreational drug with potential sociopathic side effects*, the question of "better off" is as problematic as that regarding the prohibition of any other drug. I usually argue that that dangers at the macro-level outweigh the perceived benefits at the individual level, but I am conscious of the potential backlash if we attempt to deprive the addict of his fix.

* Theism implies obedience to a divine authority with the rewards of an afterlife

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georgeob1 wrote:

Well that was jacks or better.

Once again you have evaded and trivialized a fundamental idea - the heart of the matter - in favor of some pedantic and peripheral historical point.

I didn't deny or even minimize the defects of religion or the self-serving aspects of its ministers. Nothing in my argument is disputed, denied or altered by your exposition of "original" religion and the sectarian rivalries that soon followed.

Evidently you are unwilling to call such self-serving, hypocritical, sectarian behavior 'evil' -- or for that matter the analogous human behaviors that have infected authoritarian secular, governmental or political systems -- despite the human horrors they created. OK by me. Then come up with another word.

If alternatively, you object only to my last sentence - concerning what it was that spawned religion - then we don't have much of an argument. You are just making a big deal out of a secondary point.

I am unwilling to call anything "evil"--it is a term which derives from a subjective judgment, and does nothing to describe reality. It only describes the value judgment of he or she who utters it. By the way, you have erected a strawman, and very flimsy, feeble one it is. Your sneer is plain to be seen--but not an ounce of evidence from what i've written about my attitude toward the "evils" of which you speak.

Make as many snide remarks about pedantry as it will please you to do. Neither you, nor the Jesuit ghosts at your shoulder, have provided a shred of evidence to support a claim that, and i quote you: "This (i.e., 'evil'), of course is what historically spawned religion.

If you don't like my "historical pedantry," don't make unsupported claims about what "historically spawned religion." You're running around this thread with your pants down around your ankles.

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georgeob1 wrote:

littlek wrote:
So, religion started in the 20th century?

I don't follow you. Perhaps you should go to my original post at the top of the previous page.

Would the world also be better off wiithout nations and government?

If you answer YES to religion and NO to government, then please explain the distinction.

This contains some of your worst, most blatant sophistry. Government, when not monarchical or oligarchic, is the functional machinery of a social contract--and in fact even monarchy and oligarchy could be argued to be the product of a tacit contract.

Religion is imposed by a minority, who rely upon fear and superstition. The same could be argued about monarchy and oligarchy, with a good deal of justice--but very few true monarchies or oligarchies exist in the 20th century, and are generally dictatorships which are referred to as "failed states."

There are vast differences in the provenances, the methods and the objectives of governments as opposed to organized religions. It is simplistic and naive to suggest that they are the same, or that they functionally serve the same purpose.

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I doubt theists believe what they claim to believe. If they did, I think they would not have such a hard time adhering to the rules they have set out for themselves.

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I made no suggestion whatever that the objectives, interests or domains of religion and government are the same, and I think you know that.

I merely pointed out that an argument, based on a litany of the evils (or if you prefer, bad side effects) that have flowed from religion and religious strife & rivalry, used to demonstrate that the world would be better off withiout religion would also equally well suffice to demonstrate that the world would be better off without governments (or social contracts if you prefer) for exactly the same reasons.

Moreover the awful history of the 20th century strongly suggests that governments (or social contracts) unconstrained by accepted ideas or principles or religious concepts of transcendent values have rather amply demonstrated a proclivity to far worse evils (or bad side effects) than for other governments taken as a whole (though many of them were bad enough).

The pervasiveness of both religion and government (social contracts) in human history strongly suggests the existence of human needs (real or at least persistently illuasory) that are at least partially met by them.

Do you believe that humanity has come up with superior replacements for either?

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echi, I share your doubt. If fundamentalist theists actually believed what they profess to believe they would have constant anxiety. My hunch is that there may be a vague psychologically non-binding "acceptance" of the doctrines they profess to believe in, but they CLAIM belief ('faith') because of the social gains obtained thereby.

I know it's arrogant of me to proclaim what is in their minds, but there it is.

Chumly the "wonder" you refer to may very well have been present at the founding of religion, but I also think that illness and death were also present. Remember that anthropologists who examine the subject commonly posit that "curers" (curanderos, "witchDOCTORS", etc) were most likely the first religious leaders.
Mystics probably began their form of religion when individuals realized--intuitively--that we have a tacit ontology (a world of static beings/things apart from and surrounding ego-selves) that is all wrong. Their achievement is the intuitional perception of the World as a dynamic unity, one in which the (non-alienated) Self is intrinsically that very unitary world.

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Nicely said JLN,
I know I simplified my post to make a point, but it had a certain poetic-ness (especially in the context of some of the Golden Age SF stories).

Your post does address the "first religious leaders" line of reasoning but you have to ask if the first leaders would have gotten any spiritual foothold without wonderment (or what the cynical might call ignorance).

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echi wrote:

I doubt theists believe what they claim to believe. If they did, I think they would not have such a hard time adhering to the rules they have set out for themselves.

I'm not a theist, but I don't think that's it. I think it's simply from not understanding. Sure, it says they will burn in Hell if they don't follow the rules, and they believe that. Sure, Africa is also a starving country, and we believe that, so why don't we give most if not all of our free money to those Africans in need? It's not that we don't love them, it's that we don't truly understand them. If we were to go live with the conditions they do for a while, we would help more. The same could be said for theists. If they were to go stay in Hell for a week, they would make sure to follow the rules.

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JLNobody wrote:

Chumly the "wonder" you refer to may very well have been present at the founding of religion, but I also think that illness and death were also present. Remember that anthropologists who examine the subject commonly posit that "curers" (curanderos, "witchDOCTORS", etc) were most likely the first religious leaders.
Mystics probably began their form of religion when individuals realized--intuitively--that we have a tacit ontology (a world of static beings/things apart from and surrounding ego-selves) that is all wrong. Their achievement is the intuitional perception of the World as a dynamic unity, one in which the (non-alienated) Self is intrinsically that very unitary world.

Sorry for the double post, disregard the one prior, I could not edit it in time.

Nicely said JLN,
I know I simplified my post to make a point, but it had a certain poetic-ness (especially in the context of some of the Golden Age SF stories).

Your post does address the "first religious leaders" line of reasoning but you have to ask if the first leaders would have gotten any spiritual foothold without wonderment (or what cynics might call ignorance).

Without wonderment (or what cynics might call ignorance) you might have straight forward pragmatism and thus the drive for spiritual questions/answers might be lacking.

As to whether these first leaders would have followed a religious path to a (presumably) more correct integrated interpretation of reality (as you suggest) you need to first ask three questions (bearing in mind, what you believe to be the artifice of the separate self, may not have even been a part of the conceptualization of protoman):

1) Did protoman even see himself as separate and apart? I question that.

2) Did protoman even have the whereforall to develop the equivalent of religious leaders? I question that.

3) Without wonderment (and thus only straight forward pragmatism), could these leaders (assuming they could even have been in existence at the time of protoman) have derived your (presumably) more correct interpretation of reality through proto-philosophy without religion? I think so.

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Chumly, I assume by "protoman" you are referring to some kind of pre-homo-sapien being. I think if we go back far enough we are talking about beings that do not warrant the issues we are raising about human cognition (I don't know at what "stage" of development hominoids or proto-humans show signs of religion, e.g., graves--maybe Setanta can help us here). I agree with you that the purely utilitarian dimension of dealing with illness (way before germ theory) was little more than proto-medicine; and that its elevation to the status of religion rested on some sense of wonder.
Point taken.

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I note that none of you has answered my objection. Instead we see mere mutual stroking by the no god/no religion crowd. Not a particularly impressive approach to the basic question.

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JLNobody,
you're right I did mean pre Homo sapiens. Littlek brought up the question of when religion started and I speculated it coincides with the ability to achieve wonderment (or some related word).

From what little of protoman I know, I am not sure how quick I would be to dismiss his capabilities, given that brain case size alone is not a good indicator of mental capacity in modern man.

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georgeob1 wrote:

Do you believe that humanity has come up with superior replacements for either?

A rational social contract to which there is at least tacit consent is far superior to monarchy or oligarchy based upon specious claims of divine right--one of the few but crucial advantages which organized religion presents to the grasping and power hungry.

However, your question assumes that organized religion meets a human need which must be met in some other manner if organized religion does not exist. There are only a handful of people who materially benefit from organized religion, and if there were none, the great majority of the human race would suffer no loss, and know no deficit. Your question is meaningless because you have begged it--it assumes that organized religion meets a human need, but you have not demonstrated that this is so.

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George wrote-

Quote:

I note that none of you has answered my objection. Instead we see mere mutual stroking by the no god/no religion crowd. Not a particularly impressive approach to the basic question.

The atheist cannot answer the question George. Just as he recognises no religious authority he also recognises no social authority. He is a law unto himself as de Sade explained at such interminable length.

Law abiding is a section of fearing sanctions along with good manners. What else could they be. Strategies. The fear being the limiting factor and variable.

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Would the world be better off without the works of Raphael, Leonardo, and Michaelangelo and that is just touching on a few Renaissance artists inspired by Christianity?

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Do you suggest that these people would have had no talent, and no other source of inspiration absent religion? I can think of few more ludicrous allegations for your to have made.

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Would the world be better off without religion?

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