MrHambre

The meme's-eye view of religion in Daniel Dennett's Breaking The Spell focuses on the development of attributes that have ensured religion's survival throughout human history. One of the design features most important in this regard is the belief in belief, the concept that religious belief is commendable and positive, whether or nor it's true.

Dennett obviously doesn't think God exists, but he argues that neither do many believers. Who can say whether people really believe nonsense like John 3:16? The only thing that's certain is that people believe in the sanctity of these ideas. This allows the meme-apparatus of religion to coerce people into professing ideas to keep them in social currency, as well as committing acts that demonstrate their dedication to the ideas. The ideas themselves are not the point.

So are we atheists missing the point by simply asserting that God doesn't exist? In the grand self-perpetuating scheme of religion, isn't that actually an incidental issue?

Gawen

That depends on whether your local churches, senator, representative, school board member, boss, co-worker, city manager, mayor and a whole host of people try to legislate or otherwise coerce their morality and ways of living on anyone else, don't you think?

"God exists" is only part of the problem.

dlawbailey

Atheists have to stop getting into what are basically theological arguments.

What will a post-God society look like? How will people go about getting that feeling of faith and fellowship? What BIG stories will we all share so that we all have something to talk about?

Shakespeare?

Very good, but maybe not quite there.

It's audacious, but it's also relaxing to stop arguing a binary, looking for capitulation and try to come up with positively-reinforcing ways for people to approach atheism.

Atheism makes me feel good. I know that. It makes the world feel peaceful, sensible and not threatening. I don't care for stories about supernatural monsters.

I like ponds.

I like sitting drinking coffee or tea and looking at girls or watching older men play cards and argue.

I like reading about what people are doing in other parts of the world and why.

I like finding clever people who can make outrageous arguments.

I love the call to prayer of the muezzin

This is going to sound really strange, and it will probably get me banned or something, but when I was watching the Twin Towers burning and collapsing, wondering if somebody I knew might have had a meeting there that morning and was now burning to death, trying to telephone jammed circuits, and seeing all that nightmare, I wanted to hear that call to prayer, I felt it was the only thing that could soothe me.

I don't even know any Muslims, let alone have any experience of the practice of Islam.

I actually found some Muslim sacred music and put it on. It made me cry instantly, but somehow I did feel better.

I guess I just had to believe that we all were not so far apart.

I have no idea what that says about the OP's question.

wordy

I think the acts of believers are what is important. To express their faith in assertions could be one such act that supports their survival as a religion.

The act of expressing faith establish that faith in the public of that society.

aa5874

But, isn't it the theists that initiate these theological arguments? They are the ones who come knocking on your door, the ones who hand out leaflets, build massive temples and chuches, demand that their beliefs be taught in schools, claim to be representatives of some higher moral authority, and sometimes, defend their beliefs by violence and death.

Nobody, whether atheist or not, can avoid these theological arguments.

So, although a God's existence may be of no real signifance to the average person's everyday life, many institutons and self-proclaimed representatives of these Gods would come crashing to the ground when it is realized that for thousands of years they have been in error.

MrHambre

Baloney.

That's exactly the point Dennett is refuting in his analysis of the belief in belief. It's impossible to tell what people actually believe, and the future of religion depends on making that issue irrelevant. It's what people can be made to affirm, and the way they can be coerced to act, that is important to the meme survival of any given faith.

And this Darwinian analysis makes sense of the phenomenon of religious extremism in the twenty-first century. Whether or not these modern people actually believe the anachronistic nonsense in their Bible or Koran, their chosen religions are in a struggle for survival among competing faiths (or secular philosophies). The extremists act as the enforcers, demonstrating the extent of their belief with extravagant signals such as suicide or violent acts. This way the apparatus of their religion gains an advantage in the marketplace of ideas, showing the level of commitment that its followers attain.

The matter of God's existence, however, is totally beside the point.

adren@line

everything is irrelevant if you think about it.