Vinnie

For comments on this thread:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=131936

Vinnie

Vinnie

Though I'd summarize the first few responses:

Religion in a word:

Imagination, Dependence, Fear, Worship, Revealed Knowledge, Superstition, Purpose, Transcendence, Mythology.

Religion in a sentence:

[1] Institutionalized beliefs that humans have developed over time in order to explain the unexplainable and provide psychological comfort to humans who live short, painful, ignorant lives. [2] Religion is a coping mechanism resulting from the fear of death which in turn results from an organism's necessary drive to survive. [3] An organizational fear of a nonexistent afterlife. [4] Religion is the worship of something or someone that is considered worthy of respect adoration and admiration. [5] An attempt by people ignorant about the world to explain things they saw but could not understand. [6] Religion is a set of social and mental constructs that help people choose a purpose for their life. [7] Religion is an attempt to understand and interpret that which is unknowable and unexplainable. [8] Guidelines for people to live their life by, regardless of rationality.

Beneficial or no?

Unsure//Unstated (Selsalral and SwordofTruth), Its Destructive (Minnesota Joe), Destructive: causes conflict (zachhanke), Destructive (Yahzi), Destructive today but beneficial in the past (Avatar), More detrimental today but in the past more beneficial--it encouraged thinking (Tuvar), appears to be more destructive today (southernhybrid), today the politics engineering religion is bad but historically religion was bad//destructive (Sigma).


Well the most common theme this far in this small sample is that religion causes conflict/destruction.

Vinnie

Spherical Time

The first question that comes to my mind is reading your synopsis and the actual thread, is there anything that has been proven unknowable? In fact, many of the ideas there have long since been questioned and studied and understood, and while we still have huge gaps, the realm of our knowledge seems only limited by the time that we can spend studying it. Why attempt to explain through religion something that can be explained through science instead?

My second question is, is it necessarily religion itself that is destructive? I would instead look at a component of religion, dogma and rigidity when making accusations of destructiveness. After all, it is the ability to change that prevents the sort of friction and conflict that leads to the negativity that seems inextrictably tied to religion.

JerryM

I think, in fairness, we should distinguish between individual religious faith and organized religion.

The single word description for personal faith is comfort. It provides individuals with a means of explaining and dealing with the vicissitudes of life.

The single word description for larger scale, organized religion is power. It's fundamentally about controlling people's thinking and behavior. Most of the tyrannical, tribalistic, and destructive things religion has done is due to religion's tendency to organize itself.

Vinnie

Spherical Time, I just offered my own response to my questions. I think my response agress significantly what you asked. I defined religion with a two-fold purpose: 1) explantion 2) and sociel cohesion and hope. The first part of religion as a mehnism for explanation has been triumphed by the rise of science.

I also don't find religion dstructive but instead find it beneficial to humans. For example, Yahzi writes, "Since revealed knowledge is invariable wrong, religion is invariably destructive." I don't wish to caricature or straw man Yahzi's actual view which I am sure is much more verbose but this statement of course is a total non sequitur.

Vinnie

Vinnie

Yes but all humans and groups and activists need to organize themselves. There is nothin inherently wrong with organization. Some organizations also are very sltruistic and charitable, they promote freedom and tolerance.

Sure Christianity is an organized religion with "gay haters" and intolerance but it does also promote altruism, the golden rule, love, not cheating, respect, courage, fidelity and so on...

I mean even "organized countries" such as the US go on war sprees. How do you have a country without organization?

Vinnie

Vinnie

Hello Minnesota Joe, I just wanted to offer some comments and counter-thoughts on a few things you wrote:

Religion is a mode of thinking. Many a religious person has believed the world is ordered and uniform and open to rational scientific evaluation. How many scientists in the world are there (all major fields)? How many are Yecs versus atheists versus non-Yec theists. What are the numbers? How about for other fields like say "healthcare", "Philosophy" and so on?

I do not, howevery, deny that blind faith in 2,000 year old morals is unbeneficial. It is. I just don't think its as simple since religion also has given people hope and encouragement to think and pursue their goals, to dedicate their lives to them and to even die for what they think it right.

Sure this sense is there a little but do you have religious family members? I do and some of them accept the rapture and they love me and care for me and will do anything for me. And ven outside my immediate circle most religious folk tend to not be nasty about their beliefs. They are honest, sincere people who will befriend you.I don't know, maybe I am lucky I live in New England or something. The religious folk here generally aren't nasty or spiteful or angry. They appear friendly and caring and are quite sociable at times.

True, they have this but since EVERYONE is equally guilty this can also foster an egalitarian and non-judgmental attitude in towards everyday relations. And yes we are all "infinitely evil" to Christians but they know how to distinguish. They don't shy away from non-Christians as they would a rapist or murderer or so on. Sure all humanity is guilty but they clearly have different levels of distinguishing between who is really dangerous and who isn't. In that sense they are normal.

Worship can be defined as simply acknowledging the worth of something. I can worship a wife as the queen of my universe or even revere a child. In the case of God it appears to be debasement only because as a statement of fact you note that God is better than you. Is this bad or just a fact? When an infinite being loves you infinitely noting that you are not as "good" as said being isn't really an issue. Plus worship is more in the form of "reverence for" in the context of a personal relationship. Its giving thanks and being appreciative for stuff (all inherently goiod qualities for advanced bipedal primates so dependent upon reciproical altruism). I think worship can be overdone but I don't see how its cut and dry evil human debasement.

Emnity for a certain group is evident in your post as well (whether its justified or not is irrelevant). I think we all have a "tribe mentality" of some form. Our ancestors need to cooperate and be competitive with one another (and this extended to their small social groups) so we have a tendency to stick together.

Hell is a problem for me as well. I don't like hell but it should be noted that many modify hell to be "separation from God", some think of it as just eternal non-existence, some just believe it but largely push the issue to the backburner and ignore it, some think "all good people go to heaven". I certainly think belief in hell is harmful and should be discarded but its not a necessary belief for religion and dspite all the "evils" of hell belief we also hav all the hope and joy and pain relieved by the hope of heaven. Its somewhat of a trade off.

Vinnie

JerryM

I'll clarify a bit and say that I don't think that every aspect of organized religion is bad. Organization has allowed religion to establish many worthwhile endeavors--schools, hospitals, social welfare groups, etc. But it is definitely a double edged sword. That same tendency of like-minded believers to organize, in many (not all) cases, has lead to tribalism. Religion fosters a group identity where those not in group are looked upon, not just as mistaken, but as inimical or adversarial. Religion, historically, has served to reinforce ethnic or cultural differences, rather than mitigate them. I'll grant that organization has had some positive effects, but I still maintain that it is a root cause of religion's dark side.

Vinnie

I don't think I would really disagree with much or any of that.

I am just noting that I don't think any social construct can do any lagescale damage or good without organization. So there is nothing inherently wrong with organized religion as opposed to private religion since that double edged sword is found in private religion as well. A single individual just can inflict less damage or good than a group but both are available.

Vinnie

Answerer

To be fair, why not let or wait for the theists to define "Religion"?