Benefits of Religion and Potential Replacements (souls, hell, America, myth)
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Reasoning behind the making of this thread is based on the assumption that the urge for religion will continue unless most benefits of religion are replaced.
Afterlife: What would be a good, non-theistic, survival-instinct supressing replacement for this? I can't think of many, other than deism, agnosticism, or some of the other belief systems which leave most decision making to the belief holder rather than the tenets of the belief system. This may be more important to some people than others.
Community: The church provides a sense of community. Regularly, it's a sense of community not based off value of the individual to the community, but that the individual is a member of the community. Lots of people want this. Being appreciated for skills is wonderful, but having a community to fall back on regardless of one's failures or successes is desired more. Replacements could be sports teams, national pride, clubs, or a love everyone, hippie-style, openness towards everyone in sight. Another replacement might be more local kinships and a greater societal willingness to bond with whoever's closest, neighbor's being our closest bonds, members of our towns being more closely bonded to us than members of other towns, etc.
Self Worth: Religion can make a person feel like there's an infinitely powerful being who sees everything, yet is deeply interested in him or her, specifically. This feels good at times. Replacements could be attained through a simple sense of individuality, resulting in a sense of self worth through uniqueness, or striving to achieve greatness through earthly works, such as earning worth in the eyes of others through great works. Self worth might also be gained through heritage or culture or nation or community.
Reason For Existing: There are many reasons for existing not related to religion.
A Paternal Character: The paternal characters who talk back are probably the better ones to talk to anyway.
Hope When There is No Hope: After my agnostic father recovered from cancer he referred to praying as useful "When you have nothing left, when you have no way out." Hopefully people will either accept their fate and go peacefully, or keep fighting till there is nothing left to do, but if there truly is no way out, I don't see this one as a negative thing, although it'd be better to push this off as long as possible, to make sure there truly is no hope.
Sense of Fate/Interconnectedness of Things: People like to believe everything relates to everything else. Dispelling the myth that religion is a necessary prerequesite for the interconnectedness of things would result in available replacements for this benefit, more accurately tied to the natural world.
Self Confidence: God's usually on your side...not the other person's side. If self confidence is truly a problem for someone, simply lying to oneself can help. "I'm the best skier!" "I'm the greatest potential employee this company will ever have the honor of employing." "Why yes, I am good looking," etc.
Culture: It can be stressful to seperate from one's culture. Culture doesn't necessarily need to change though. There are cultural Jews, and lots of cultural Christians, and some cultural Hindus...Are there cultural Muslims?
Just a quick overview/notes. I might try to go in depth later. Afterlife
Identity
Desires
Cognitive Dissonance Community
good balance Reasons for existing Degradation Paternal Character
self-development
no lecturing, actual involved teaching Hope
ignorance about how hope works Weak Fate
Comparing Religions class
its a small world... seriously Culture
Leadership
That's a good thread. What we have to replace the benefits or at least social influence of religion needs to be addressed before we even get near the stage where atheism dominates human thought rather than religion.
That's a good thread. What we have to replace the benefits or at least social influence of religion needs to be addressed before we even get near the stage where atheism dominates human thought rather than religion.
If we ever get to that stage.
Please Arequipa, Atheism is the religious stance of the dogs and pigs. If atheism requires contemplation of gods then contemplation of other/higher beings would become a necessary facet in an atheistic societies (a very ironic outcome as well as quite foolish and internally wasteful being as these things our children would be forced to think about would be completely fictional in the mind of the community). If atheism is just the absence of theist ideas, then its the religious stance of our unreasonable animal cousins. For reasonable creatures such as us, Agnosticism and careful contemplation has to dominate human thought. It's not that we must deny the existence of that which for all intents and purposes seems nonexistent. What we should do is use our reason to understand that if such beings would care for us to believe something then they should try to teach it. If they desire worship they should seek it. If they desire to help us they should do it. If they decide to keep secrets then they're petty and ignorant in my opinion. Are not all thinking-beings agnostic by deductive reasoning. Is doubt not an ability granted by thinking? Should not worship-seeking things be able to think? etc. "I tried" is not good enough for a powerful/capable being.
Last edited by LuminousTruth; 05-12-2012 at 11:44 PM..
Righteousness - the perception of being right, having a group of people back up your perception, and having the authority of an established organization affirming your point of view, when the reality is you may be wrong is a real boost to the ego. How can that benefit be replaced?
Oh, wait. That isn't only a religious advantage... think patriotism, nationalism, political affiliation, Yankee fandom (sorry Yankee fans), etc.
It seems that the benefit of religious righteousness can easily be replaced by a secular version.
Righteousness - the perception of being right, having a group of people back up your perception, and having the authority of an established organization affirming your point of view, when the reality is you may be wrong is a real boost to the ego. How can that benefit be replaced?
Oh, wait. That isn't only a religious advantage... think patriotism, nationalism, political affiliation, Yankee fandom (sorry Yankee fans), etc.
It seems that the benefit of religious righteousness can easily be replaced by a secular version.
How is righteousness a benefit? seems more like a deadly sin to me. Just like in Science. HUMILITY and working to change the ideas of an established organisation of authority should be the benefit. Were you being sarcastic?
THis is a good thread. And a lot of info to start. I would start with the first one only for now and try to answer more later.
AFTERLIFE
We have no proof of it, and we have scientific proof that it probably does not exist. years ago I had a Wiccan tell me that "Our bodies are energy and energy cannot be created or destroyed so there must be someplace our spirit, soul has to go" ...Well hang on, our bodies are physical POWERED by energy, energy generated by metabolism. The problem I have is taht our decisions, our conscious being, our memories all of our thoughts, which cause our actions, originate in our brains. When we die, so do those things. Proof of this is in the alzheimers client we had, who has lost most of his memory . He cannot remember from minute to minute what is happening, and he cannot remember what he had for lunch yesterdaqy either. This will prgress, sadly, until his brain cannot make enough energy even to power his centers of speech, and finally his boddy. Memory is already gone. So if our souls, our spirits did live on, we would have no brain to power that memory. So afterlife, being accountable for beliefs or actions, well, how could we be?
I think the first thing we need to do is to accept the fact that none of us really knows if and what would be in some afterlife, and since we do not know, nor can measure this reality, we need to arrive at a religious or spiritual or philosophical point that helps us to accept and deal with this. I think religions have often existed partially out of aa frea of death, and a desperation of sorts for humans to try to overcome or cheat death. This offers everything from Spiritism (Which probably originated first out of ancient man's dreams, since they could not understand the subconscious state of dreaming and they dreamt af dead friends and foes) They attributed this to being visited by spirits.
Reincarnation of course caught on, saying our spirits/souls, our ENERGY had to go somewhere so into a new body it went. Probelm is there arre more people on earth now than probably lived in the past 100000 years so where did those other "spirits" Originate?
I like this thread, CLINTONE Because this IS About religion and philosophy. And I think we have seen throughout human existance a number of philosphers who had a major impetus of thinking about the how and why of life and death and perhaps that is because life and death ARE our only certain realities.
I had a religious fundy ask me "Well if I am 60 to 90% right about heaven and hell then wouldn't you say my odds are good and I am right and you are wrong?" And my response is "Because I am 100% certain about THIS LIFE, that this life is real, tangible, measurable. This life is reality and there is 0 proof of anything else other than this reality. SO IF I offered zero proof, are your odds worth buying a lottery ticket for it?" (Still waiting for that response)
Philosophers have spent lifetimes thinking and pondering this issue and will continue to do so, out of the curiosity of human nature.
I think the first vehicle is to accept that we really cannot know for certain.
Reasoning behind the making of this thread is based on the assumption that the urge for religion will continue unless most benefits of religion are replaced.
Afterlife: What would be a good, non-theistic, survival-instinct supressing replacement for this? I can't think of many, other than deism, agnosticism, or some of the other belief systems which leave most decision making to the belief holder rather than the tenets of the belief system. This may be more important to some people than others.
Community: The church provides a sense of community. Regularly, it's a sense of community not based off value of the individual to the community, but that the individual is a member of the community. Lots of people want this. Being appreciated for skills is wonderful, but having a community to fall back on regardless of one's failures or successes is desired more. Replacements could be sports teams, national pride, clubs, or a love everyone, hippie-style, openness towards everyone in sight. Another replacement might be more local kinships and a greater societal willingness to bond with whoever's closest, neighbor's being our closest bonds, members of our towns being more closely bonded to us than members of other towns, etc.
Self Worth: Religion can make a person feel like there's an infinitely powerful being who sees everything, yet is deeply interested in him or her, specifically. This feels good at times. Replacements could be attained through a simple sense of individuality, resulting in a sense of self worth through uniqueness, or striving to achieve greatness through earthly works, such as earning worth in the eyes of others through great works. Self worth might also be gained through heritage or culture or nation or community.
Reason For Existing: There are many reasons for existing not related to religion.
A Paternal Character: The paternal characters who talk back are probably the better ones to talk to anyway.
Hope When There is No Hope: After my agnostic father recovered from cancer he referred to praying as useful "When you have nothing left, when you have no way out." Hopefully people will either accept their fate and go peacefully, or keep fighting till there is nothing left to do, but if there truly is no way out, I don't see this one as a negative thing, although it'd be better to push this off as long as possible, to make sure there truly is no hope.
Sense of Fate/Interconnectedness of Things: People like to believe everything relates to everything else. Dispelling the myth that religion is a necessary prerequesite for the interconnectedness of things would result in available replacements for this benefit, more accurately tied to the natural world.
Self Confidence: God's usually on your side...not the other person's side. If self confidence is truly a problem for someone, simply lying to oneself can help. "I'm the best skier!" "I'm the greatest potential employee this company will ever have the honor of employing." "Why yes, I am good looking," etc.
Culture: It can be stressful to seperate from one's culture. Culture doesn't necessarily need to change though. There are cultural Jews, and lots of cultural Christians, and some cultural Hindus...Are there cultural Muslims?
any others?
You know maybe you should take a look at the cultural and belief systems of the Native Americans. They were around for thousands of years before Christianity came to this land and they're still around today and doing just fine.
Please Arequipa, Atheism is the religious stance of the dogs and pigs. If atheism requires contemplation of gods then contemplation of other/higher beings would become a necessary facet in an atheistic societies (a very ironic outcome as well as quite foolish and internally wasteful being as these things our children would be forced to think about would be completely fictional in the mind of the community). If atheism is just the absence of theist ideas, then its the religious stance of our unreasonable animal cousins. For reasonable creatures such as us, Agnosticism and careful contemplation has to dominate human thought. It's not that we must deny the existence of that which for all intents and purposes seems nonexistent. What we should do is use our reason to understand that if such beings would care for us to believe something then they should try to teach it. If they desire worship they should seek it. If they desire to help us they should do it. If they decide to keep secrets then they're petty and ignorant in my opinion. Are not all thinking-beings agnostic by deductive reasoning. Is doubt not an ability granted by thinking? Should not worship-seeking things be able to think? etc. "I tried" is not good enough for a powerful/capable being.
But Lumino, dogs and pigs are also agnostics since they don't know whether a god exists or not. True, they haven't ever thought about it, but then they haven't thought about their atheism either.
Unless we take agnosticism to be allied to a conviction that the evidence for the probability of a god is so compelling that one cannot disbelieve, then atheism is merely the logical default. Of course, that acceptance of probability is so close to belief that agnosticism is almost a doubtful term to use.
But Lumino, dogs and pigs are also agnostics since they don't know whether a god exists or not. True, they haven't ever thought about it, but then they haven't thought about their atheism either.
Unless we take agnosticism to be allied to a conviction that the evidence for the probability of a god is so compelling that one cannot disbelieve, then atheism is merely the logical default. Of course, that acceptance of probability is so close to belief that agnosticism is almost a doubtful term to use.
I grant that. But an understanding of the agnostic condition of reasonable beings should be taught as a good scholarly stance. Of course, the agnostic position can be taken too far, so I grant that "evident defaults" can be taken in order to chose sides in an argument. Still, agnosticism should be thought of as an inherent truth (like math), and then one can look at the evidence more clearly. Atheism would not be a good replacement for religion is all I'm saying.
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