It interests me why many people become so irate by the mere existence of religion. If you consider all the good that religion has done for mankind over the millennia, the fact that one can pick apart the particulars of the parables that tell religion's tale is so minor that you are truly throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Although I am not a religious person, I can certainly understand the profound role that it has had with the great majority of people who have taken comfort in knowing that there is something greater in the Universe than their self. If we have learned anything over time, it is that no man is comfortably capable of taking on the burden of confronting existence alone. Over and above the existential issues, it is the moral imperative that gives religion its legs as believing there is guidance from a higher authority provides the vast majority an avenue to manage the quandary of dealing simultaneously with the good and bad always ready to make their cases in our every day lives. Without a higher moral authority to guide one through this treacherous minefield, the Devil will have his way by shaming even the most highly skilled Madison Avenue charlatans by convincing us to do his bidding thereby sending us down the short road to Hell. I would ask those who are atheists [or agnostic and anti-religion] to look beyond the stories that were written centuries ago for people who were, on the whole, uneducated and concerned mostly with basic survival, as there is something for everybody written in the bibles of the great religions. And for those who wish to take it beyond the words themselves lies a destination that gives life an entirely different meaning. Religion is the most important thread running through our species' history for good reason. Look past the bad and the inadequate [present in all things] to find the comfort of knowing the joy [and relief] of realizing that we are a tiny but meaningful part of a whole much greater than we can ever know.
Religion was born of man's attempt to explain what was, at the time, unexplainable. Those who controlled the religion then used it to control the people. The basic moral rules that govern our interactions with each other are easily formulated without relying on a "power greater than ourselves". The problem is getting those who don't want to follow these rules to follow them. Religion solves this problem by creating punishment that is eternal that after this life. And the only cost for this concept of religion? Giving up our greatest asset, the ability of man to reason. There is a reason religion teaches faith over knowledge. Belief over education. Accepting what you are told over using your ability to reason.
I think the disconnect is often between religion and spirituality. 'Religion' suggests a belief in an authoritatively dictated doctrine, a belief system centered around rules made up by man with 'God' as the excuse. As a Christian I can sympathize with that perception because I see alot of churches and preachers and denominations that seem to be precisely that. But also I know that many Christians just kinda go along to get along and are mostly interested in just not rocking the boat. They put up with the facade because they enjoy the community, not because they believe all the trappings are holy or all the rules are God's. Plus there's no shortage of Christians who, like me, have no interest in being preached at once a week or mingling in a quasi-formal setting. Church attendence ison a decades-long slow decline, but belief is not. Its just the more and more Christians (and, I'd wager, followers of other beliefs) are just choosing a more personal, individual relationship withthe divine. What I would call spirituality.
I think on the whole religions are a good thing. Not believing them doesn't have to mean thinking they are bad. I think there is risk of it being abused to make people do bad things, so i think all of us have an interest in preventing that. Keeping religion healthy is in all of our interests. As a non believer, i think religions serve an important purpose to society, and until we come up with something better to fill that role, we should want them to continue to exist.
It could be argued religion does more harm than good. Just off the top of my head slaughtering "savages" in the new world in the name of the church and force converting them for one. And what about persecuting Galileo and Copernicus for their theories that the Earth rotates around the Sun and thus isn't the center of the universe? Most of the time religion does more harm than good in my view.
Disregarding the notion that [in absolute terms] there is an equal amount of good and bad in everything, I believe many people feel the way you do. And there are certainly enough examples of crazy stuff that's gone down in religion's name to justify such a posture, but the way our species is, you have to think that if it was not religion, it was going to be something. Religion just happened to be there at the time. Therefore, if we can ignore the institutional stuff for the moment and just concentrate on the personal, consider the following... ...before say 1900 or so, life was brutally difficult for most everybody. Work was hard and long, fatal disease was common, crime was rampant, and on top of all of the difficulties, most people died young and unpleasant deaths. In this atmosphere, one can see where having the comfort of not only a guiding force, but the hope of something better beyond a life that was difficult, at best, seems quite reasonable. What's interesting is that as life become considerably easier for many, the need for the same spiritual comforts did not abate in the least, and one can speculate that the need is even greater in a time of plenty. In a country such as our own where so many people have so much, the despair people are feeling is palpable. I believe religion is going to re-invent itself like many institutions must in light of the corruption which has caused so many to lose faith. And not a moment too soon.
I agree with you but believe it will change as religion finds its courage to stand up for what's just and go back to the fundementals just as governments need to go back to their fundementals, e.g., The U.S. Constitution. People are starved for community and purpose in their lives, something that churches used to supply in spades. Their day will come again [and sooner than we think] as AI, if anything, is going to hasten the alienation so many people feel with technology usurping and de-humanizing their lives.
Unfortunately I've not noticed that the decline of religion has been accompanied by the rise in "the ability to reason."
One could wish that western religions will decide to go their own way and leave atheists alone for a while. I prefer eastern religion where navel gazing is paramount and harms no whatsoever,
The debate over religion doing more good to societies or causing more harm to societies that can certainly be debated but the thing the bothers me about religion is the requirement to surrender critial thinking and believe in a supernatural god or gods, reincarnation, Thetans, or whatever mumbo jumbo the religion promotes without any empirical evidence. Do you value the truth at all? Or is just feeling good what is important, i.e., ignorance is bliss. Religion benefiting society.,
Whereas I agree that Eastern religions are certainly less aggressive, they can have their own hold on people just the same. Being a serious Zen student myself over the past 30+ years, I am quite familiar with the apogee of Zen influence in Tang Dynasty China [approx. 650-950AD] as it became de facto state religion. People in groups act very much the same no matter the purpose of the group.
Religion is just more obvious in its "eccentricities" but all things are the same. Religion is old so it's quite easy to see the fallacies, but imagine people a thousand years from now tearing apart our era. It's all the same. Religion is simply pointing towards where you need to explore on your own. The essence of religion, spirituality, is a non-intellectual pursuit and requires the type of commitment few are willing to make, and even fewer are willing to follow through on. Truth is what motivates almost everybody when they begin their search, but it's not something you find out, instead it's something you live. It's being ok with everything just the way it is.
It will be a watershed moment for humanity when people finally realize that you cannot think [reason] your way there.
I'm not so sure since people have generally thought that they can't reason there way to truth...until the current era.
Perhaps it was because not very much was known [but I suppose it's all relative]. If one might add up all there is to know, I wouldn't imagine that man could ever know more than an infinitely small percentage of what's out there. It's about accepting what you can perceive [with as much clarity as possible] and making the best decisions based on such. What else can one do?
po The way to where exactly? Reason and empirical evidence are the way one seeks the truth. Navel gazing in whatever form may provide psychological benefits. But feeling good is not a demonstration of any supernatural reality. This book is a good read on how religion infects the mind.
The purpose of [Zen] meditation is not in feeling good. It is in perceiving things as close to reality as is possible. With clarity comes wisdom. There is nothing wrong with feeling good, but like all things, it is temporary and will dissipate as the conditions that gave rise to the feelings do, as well.
You could infer the same thing about everything. Whether you take God literally or as symbolism for a greater power than self, it is the notion that you are now allowing something other than your self to be placed at the center of the Universe and giving up moral authority to an ideal that no human can muster.
Religion is one of the easiest ways to get otherwise good people to do bad things. And it is caused misery for a lot of people, including myself. And it tends to be inherently authoritarian. So of course people with bad experiences would want to speak up and those who have observed bad experiences would want to speak up.
In one post you said you practiced Zen, which a lot of people say is not a religion and now you are talking about the supernatural? So my response is -- I can make a window to discuss your 'Outside the box' moral authority alignment because my approach to religion supports regenerated transitional flexibility
There is this old dead white and presumably heterosexual dude named Carl Jung that says everybody has a god. He's right- if you use Jung's definition of "god" - Whatever ideals a person holds highest in their mind's eye, if that is not God it still functions as though it is a god. This is how come your mom gave you a superman or maybe a batman doll, unless you are a boy. Boys don't play with dolls, they play with action-figures instead.
Regenerated transitional flexibility? Is that like transnational recuperated recyclables? Zen is the essence of Buddhism, so technically it is not religion, but within formal Zen practice, there are some religious aspects. If you keep a meditative mind, it doesn't matter either way. As an example, there is a famous Zen saying, "Burn the Buddha," which alludes to the idea that you should never attach to any thing, not even the idea of the Buddha. Most of the teachings in Zen seem quite confusing and paradoxical because there is switching back and forth between the intellectual [teachings] and the practice [meditation, which is non-intellectual]. As an aside, there is only one lesson in Zen which is taught ten thousand different ways...meditation only. That's all it is.** **Zen means "meditation" in Japanese.
I have long taken into account the possible social, cultural and personal benefits of religious belief as well as its dangers.. I see it as the 'great magnifier' in human motivation for both ill and good. But we should never 'look past the bad'. We should instead look directly at it and study it! And then spend equal measure recognising the good. The final step is look deeper at all the credit and blame we are giving religion and cut it in half, because too much that masquerades as an affect of religious belief is actually the result of self serving pragmatism we are lying about.
