If all religious, spiritual, churches, etc all stopped tomorrow

viole · Sep 3, 2021

DNB said:
...you mean suppress it.

No, I simply see no need of it. In the same identical way I see no need to believe that my garden is taken care of by invisible fairies.

They are both totally superfluous beliefs.

Ciao

- viole

Mock Turtle · Sep 3, 2021

People_Lack_Integrity said:
It would not unfortunately. I used to think that religion was the biggest problem that faced human kind and that access to information would be a big part in solving this. The advent of the internet I thought would herald in a new age where people would learn, fact check and become smarter as well as hold others accountable. After years of participating in debates, seeing what goes on in the world, politics, the rise of different ideologies and movements, I realize the problem is much, much bigger. The problem is that we as a species still put more importance on our emotions, rather than what is actually true. We are far too arrogant, prideful and emotional to ever truly move beyond our petty differences. There are also people who actively want to misinform people for their own financial gain, which is why the media is so frightening. The sad part is that very few see that they are now an enemy of the people, driving conspiracies and division. Instead of religions now, what we have are pseudo intellectual movements such as Social Justice, BLM, Antifa, 3rd wave feminism, white privilege, toxic masculinity....the list goes on and on. All these movements are based emotional outcries from individual isolated events, that are then dishonestly represented as systemic problems. Examine any of them objectively and you'll find that the data doesn't support a case for any of them as systemic problems. But the people behind these movements and the people who follow them preach the ideologies dogmatically. So in this way, all of these movements are exactly like religions. They all have claims that aren't provable, but that the adherents believe in fervently and will when challenged, get defensive, angry, violent and yes even in rare cases deadly.

All of this proves that if religion were to go away today...people would just find another blind, dishonest, illogical, emotionally charged ideology to follow to replace it. Humanity has an inherent need to feel self-important. Religion was an attempt not to just control the masses, but to also elevate us higher than animals, to essentially make gods of ourselves. Same goes for all of these movements, it's a feeble attempt at raising yourself on a fake pedestal above the masses so you can feel superior to everyone else. Humanity in my opinion...is simply doomed to repeat our mistakes over and over, because we are far too stupid to learn from history, we are far too emotional, illogical and egotistical. I also believe that humanity will be its own downfall and for all our bravado and chest beating, we'll be but a blip on the radar and be wiped out due to our own failings as a species.

Well I might agree that it is possible that religions evolved because of a desire to separate our species from all others - as being superior - but not much else. But religions probably have a more natural origin in explaining agency, and our lack of such so often. And I don't necessarily share your pessimistic views regarding humans, apart from our head-in-the-sand attitudes we often have until we recognise a problem and then are forced to do something about it, but that has mainly come about due to our success as a species - in growing so large. We have just failed to come up with adequate organisations to cope with such.

RestlessSoul · Sep 3, 2021

viole said:
No, I simply see no need of it. In the same identical way I see no need to believe that my garden is taken care of by invisible fairies.

They are both totally superfluous beliefs.

Ciao

- viole

You consider your soul superfluous? Be careful you are not denying the most precious part of yourself.

Augustus · Sep 3, 2021

AlexanderG said:
If suddenly, all at once, people adopted reliable epistemological tools to discover and believe facts about reality....then yes, the world would change and much for the better. We could focus on solving actual human problems by facing true facts about reality, like our place in reality and the properties of reality that affect us for good or ill.

If humans stopped being humans, then they would be much better as solving actual human problems

Summed up best by John Maynard Keynes:

“Bertie [Bertrand Russell] held two ludicrously incompatible beliefs: on the one hand he believed that all the problems of the world stemmed from conducting human affairs in a most irrational way; on the other hand that the solution was simple, since all we had to do was to behave rationally.”

Augustus · Sep 3, 2021

9-10ths_Penguin said:
Steven Weinberg put it best:

With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion.

Arthur Koestler wrote a less naive version that recognised plenty of things can serve a similar function, not just religion: "Even a cursory glance at history should convince one that individual crimes committed for selfish motives play a quite insignificant part in the human tragedy, compared to the numbers massacred in unselfish loyalty to one’s tribe, nation, dynasty, church, or political ideology, ad majorem gloriam dei... homicide committed for selfish motives is a statistical rarity in all cultures. Homicide for unselfish motives is the dominant phenomenon of man's history. His tragedy is not an excess of aggression but an excess of devotion... it's loyalty and devotion which makes the fanatic."

9-10ths_Penguin said:
When you see death as finality instead of merely the transition to a nicer mode of living, and see suffering for what it is instead of pre-payment for "reward in Heaven," there's more reason to act to prevent death and suffering.

That can be true, but there is no reason why people should necessarily see things that way.

Marxists, for example, came to the exact opposite conclusion: there is no sanctity of human life so the ends justify the means.

9-10ths_Penguin said:
Without God, you also lose the diversion of a genuine desire to help others toward paths that are useless at best (e.g. proselytizing to get people to switch religious "brands") or harmful at worst (e.g. abortion clinic bombings). Imagine how much better the world would be if these people's desire to do good was just left to do its own thing instead of being channelled toward evil by their theistic religion.

Unless, of course, it is channeled towards evil by whatever ideology they adopt in place of their religion.

Religions are just man-made belief systems and the reason they can have a dark side is because humans have a dark side. Undoubtedly, some of the man-made belief systems that replace them will have a dark side too (Q-Anon, incels, etc.)

There is no reason to assume they must be an improvement.

Mock Turtle · Sep 3, 2021

Augustus said:
Arthur Koestler wrote a less naive version that recognised plenty of things can serve a similar function, not just religion: "Even a cursory glance at history should convince one that individual crimes committed for selfish motives play a quite insignificant part in the human tragedy, compared to the numbers massacred in unselfish loyalty to one’s tribe, nation, dynasty, church, or political ideology, ad majorem gloriam dei... homicide committed for selfish motives is a statistical rarity in all cultures. Homicide for unselfish motives is the dominant phenomenon of man's history. His tragedy is not an excess of aggression but an excess of devotion... it's loyalty and devotion which makes the fanatic."

So, reducing this by one wouldn't be an advance? Given that many are already trying to reduce allegiances to another two as being divisive factors.

viole · Sep 3, 2021

RestlessSoul said:
You consider your soul superfluous? Be careful you are not denying the most precious part of yourself.

There are no souls. That is just what religious people made up, because they do not have what it takes to accept that we are physical entities destined to oblivion, when the machine between our ears stops working. I am a naturalist, see?

So, what happen if I deny it? Something scary? You remind me of that guy in the Life of Bryan warning the condemned to not mention Jehovah, or else,.. lol.

Ciao

- viole

RestlessSoul · Sep 3, 2021

viole said:
There are no souls. That is just what religious people made up, because they do not have what it takes to accept that we are physical entities destined to oblivion, when the machine between our ears stops working. I am a naturalist, see?

So, what happen if I deny it? Something scary? You remind me of that guy in the Life of Bryan warning the condemned to not mention Jehovah, or else,.. lol.

Ciao

- viole

All that happens is that you may not break free of the "machine between your ears", with which you identify so closely.

Augustus · Sep 3, 2021

Mock Turtle said:
So, reducing this by one wouldn't be an advance?

It doesn't really work that way though.

If someone stops being religious, it just creates a vacuum that needs to be filled by other beliefs. There is no 'net loss'.

As the number of potential human belief systems is unlimited, getting rid of a few religious ideologies doesn't reduce the number of potential belief systems either.

In the long run, there is no difference.

Mock Turtle said:
Given that many are already trying to reduce allegiances to another two as being divisive factors.

There often seems to be an assumption that humans would be united if it wasn't for all of these 'divisive' religions and ideologies.

To me this seems exactly the wrong way round. Things that divide also unite, and the 'default state' for humans is atomistic division unless they have allegiances to belief systems, cultural groups, nations, etc. that unify them (to a limited extent).

Given the inherent diversity of humanity, the idea we can 'unite' simply by virtue of belonging to the same species seems somewhat far-fetched to say the least.

firedragon · Sep 3, 2021

Mock Turtle said:
Well I might agree that it is possible that religions evolved because of a desire to separate our species from all others - as being superior - but not much else. But religions probably have a more natural origin in explaining agency, and our lack of such so often. And I don't necessarily share your pessimistic views regarding humans, apart from our head-in-the-sand attitudes we often have until we recognise a problem and then are forced to do something about it, but that has mainly come about due to our success as a species - in growing so large. We have just failed to come up with adequate organisations to cope with such.

Any of that based on research?

Vee · Sep 3, 2021

We Never Know said:
Would the world be a better place?
Why or why not?

I doubt that. Whatever gap religion left would be quickly replaced by something else, just as bad if not worse. Religion is guilty of a lot of problems, but those problems wouldn't go away if you eliminated religion. I believe they would come from another source, maybe even well disguised so people would accept whatever brand of mind control and corruption would come their way, but the base issues we have in society today would still be there.

People_Lack_Integrity · Sep 3, 2021

Mock Turtle said:
Well I might agree that it is possible that religions evolved because of a desire to separate our species from all others - as being superior - but not much else. But religions probably have a more natural origin in explaining agency, and our lack of such so often. And I don't necessarily share your pessimistic views regarding humans, apart from our head-in-the-sand attitudes we often have until we recognise a problem and then are forced to do something about it, but that has mainly come about due to our success as a species - in growing so large. We have just failed to come up with adequate organisations to cope with such.

I do agree that religion mostly spawned out of trying to explain the natural world and ignorance, but also to elevate us and as a control mechanism by the powerful. The powerful all throughout history have recognized the power behind claiming that you "speak for god" or are representing "god's will" or commands, or divine edict, etc. Unfortunately I am very pessimistic about humanity, mostly because of what I see happening everyday and every year. All these new dogmatic movements that have led to violence, hate, crimes against innocents. I mean, look at what happened in Portland where the city had riots, fires, looting...all because of a false narrative. I don't want to get into the full politics of it, but the false narrative is that police kill blacks in higher rates than whites and are "systemically racist". Meanwhile the last election was one of the most violent of all time, all because again...false narratives. Look at what happened to Brett Kavanaugh or Nick Sandman, who's lives were put in jeopardy due to dishonest people driven by political dogmas. I see celebrities using their status to promote false narratives and drum up hate against certain groups of people. I see all the time "Left vs Right" or "liberal vs conservative" or Feminists vs Masculine Men....all these new groups that are not at all religious, but behave dogmatically. I've even seen atheists fall pray to this. For example, I listen to Matt Dillahunty a lot and when it comes to his criticisms of religion, they are almost always on point. But when it comes to politics...he loses all of his logic, reason and becomes hateful and illogical. So I see the problem as ideologies and emotion ruining the world. If climate change is real for example and we really are heating up the world due to our activities, then all of humanity should be fighting for our survival and united to stop this. Yet half believe it is a political ploy, or a scientific conspiracy to gain money...so if climate change is real...we're screwed and all because of human stupidity and ideology.

Mock Turtle · Sep 3, 2021

People_Lack_Integrity said:
I do agree that religion mostly spawned out of trying to explain the natural world and ignorance, but also to elevate us and as a control mechanism by the powerful. The powerful all throughout history have recognized the power behind claiming that you "speak for god" or are representing "god's will" or commands, or divine edict, etc. Unfortunately I am very pessimistic about humanity, mostly because of what I see happening everyday and every year. All these new dogmatic movements that have led to violence, hate, crimes against innocents. I mean, look at what happened in Portland where the city had riots, fires, looting...all because of a false narrative. I don't want to get into the full politics of it, but the false narrative is that police kill blacks in higher rates than whites and are "systemically racist". Meanwhile the last election was one of the most violent of all time, all because again...false narratives. Look at what happened to Brett Kavanaugh or Nick Sandman, who's lives were put in jeopardy due to dishonest people driven by political dogmas. I see celebrities using their status to promote false narratives and drum up hate against certain groups of people. I see all the time "Left vs Right" or "liberal vs conservative" or Feminists vs Masculine Men....all these new groups that are not at all religious, but behave dogmatically. I've even seen atheists fall pray to this. For example, I listen to Matt Dillahunty a lot and when it comes to his criticisms of religion, they are almost always on point. But when it comes to politics...he loses all of his logic, reason and becomes hateful and illogical. So I see the problem as ideologies and emotion ruining the world. If climate change is real for example and we really are heating up the world due to our activities, then all of humanity should be fighting for our survival and united to stop this. Yet half believe it is a political ploy, or a scientific conspiracy to gain money...so if climate change is real...we're screwed and all because of human stupidity and ideology.

I suppose there is a lot of friction between groups, especially those in the left/right areas, but there always has been, and we haven't had any major wars since WWII even if the few that have happened are not welcome and things don't seem to be improving in the areas where such conflicts are likely to break out. But for all the friction that we often see there are so many who just live their lives trying to avoid this. If one lives in the USA I suppose it might be difficult to assess how the rest of the world sees life, and the same could be said for so many in other countries too, but if one looks beneath the surface, people are much the same all around the world and mostly just want to live a decent life. What influences this for so many will depends upon many things, and often not under the control of the people there - as in countries with virtual dictatorships, essentially being theocracies, or whatever else. I suppose I'm neither optimistic or pessimistic about the future.

Mock Turtle · Sep 3, 2021

firedragon said:
Any of that based on research?

Not really, especially the first bit, but the agency and explaining as to natural events seems to crop up in discussions of religious origins.

Mock Turtle · Sep 3, 2021

Augustus said:
It doesn't really work that way though.

If someone stops being religious, it just creates a vacuum that needs to be filled by other beliefs. There is no 'net loss'.

As the number of potential human belief systems is unlimited, getting rid of a few religious ideologies doesn't reduce the number of potential belief systems either.

In the long run, there is no difference.

So I suppose all the atheists and agnostics had their lives enriched by what? Surely that is a possibility - that the religious just morph into these two types or just keep the name of the belief in name only. Which effectively would do much the same.

There often seems to be an assumption that humans would be united if it wasn't for all of these 'divisive' religions and ideologies.

To me this seems exactly the wrong way round. Things that divide also unite, and the 'default state' for humans is atomistic division unless they have allegiances to belief systems, cultural groups, nations, etc. that unify them (to a limited extent).

Given the inherent diversity of humanity, the idea we can 'unite' simply by virtue of belonging to the same species seems somewhat far-fetched to say the least.

I never said such, since we will likely always be divided by our natures - the various Bell curves and all, as to our personality types, and our different motivations - but since the trend has been towards ever larger groups from the earliest tribal ones to our current nation states, it is not beyond the realms of the possible that we will become more united. And things like the internet are probably doing such already, even if this also gives the means of dividing us all too often. And if we cannot unite as a species against any serious catastrophic threats what exactly would be the outcome?

Augustus · Sep 3, 2021

Mock Turtle said:
So I suppose all the atheists and agnostics had their lives enriched by what? Surely that is a possibility - that the religious just morph into these two types or just keep the name of the belief in name only. Which effectively would do much the same.

Irreligious people have their lives enriched by whatever ideology they choose.

Most Western agnostics/atheists are really just post-Christians, they keep much of the same worldview but recast in secular terms.

Mock Turtle said:
I never said such, since we will likely always be divided by our natures - the various Bell curves and all, as to our personality types, and our different motivations - but since the trend has been towards ever larger groups from the earliest tribal ones to our current nation states, it is not beyond the realms of the possible that we will become more united. And things like the internet are probably doing such already, even if this also gives the means of dividing us all too often. And if we cannot unite as a species against any serious catastrophic threats what exactly would be the outcome?

Imo the move will be towards smaller groups in the future, and this is a good thing.

We don't need to 'unite' we just need to live side by side as peacefully as possible. This is easier in smaller more cohesive groups where we don't fear being ruled by the 'other side'.

America is the textbook case where half the population fears being ruled by the other half. Everyone would be so much happier if they devolved most powers down to state or sub-state level and kept the federal government only for things like defence and foreign policy.

AlexanderG · Sep 3, 2021

Augustus said:
If humans stopped being humans, then they would be much better as solving actual human problems

Summed up best by John Maynard Keynes:

“Bertie [Bertrand Russell] held two ludicrously incompatible beliefs: on the one hand he believed that all the problems of the world stemmed from conducting human affairs in a most irrational way; on the other hand that the solution was simple, since all we had to do was to behave rationally.”

There is no contradiction here. Humans have collectively been getting more rational over time as we learn more, educate ourselves at higher rates, and consider the past experiences and lessons of those who came before us. Religion is one of the last pillars of irrationality that we still carry with us from our cognitively primitive roots. We can improve ourselves more by abandoning religion, and we are; discounting the birth rates of certain religious vs. non-religious people, humans are de-converting and secularizing at a steady pace.

metis · Sep 3, 2021

Augustus said:
Irreligious people have their lives enriched by whatever ideology they choose.

Most Western agnostics/atheists are really just post-Christians, they keep much of the same worldview but recast in secular terms.

Frankly, I tend to think that even many of the "religious" are in reality irreligious as they're marching to a different drummer than which the religion teaches.

For example, the main teaching of Jesus is love one another and God, and yet all so many really don't walk-the-walk on that as we've seen. Take a look at DeSantis in Florida and Abbott in Texas who say they're Catholic, and yet they're taking numerous positions counter to what the Church teaches and then pushing policies dealing with covid that are pro-death, not pro-life. Same with the death penalty, which goes against Church teaching.

Mind you, as Catholics we do have the right of personal discernment when it comes to interpretations and applications, but when one violates the basic "do no harm" approach that most denominations and religions teach, including the Catholic Church, then they seem to be creating their own "religion", probably that of Me-ism or Political-Party-ism or both.

Have a great weekend.

Augustus · Sep 3, 2021

AlexanderG said:
There is no contradiction here. Humans have collectively been getting more rational over time as we learn more, educate ourselves at higher rates, and consider the past experiences and lessons of those who came before us. Religion is one of the last pillars of irrationality that we still carry with us from our cognitively primitive roots. We can improve ourselves more by abandoning religion, and we are; discounting the birth rates of certain religious vs. non-religious people, humans are de-converting and secularizing at a steady pace.

Why should we discount birth rates though?

And religion is one of the last pillars of irrationality? There are as many as there ever have been. For example, you look at US politics and think "if it wasn't for religion, everything would be just fine"?

Also while knowledge may increase, human irrationality stays the same as we didn't evolve to be rational creatures and knowledge doesn't change this fact.

The contradiction is that humans behave irrationally precisely because humans are irrational, not because irrationality is some kind of 'error' that can be cured by removing things like religion from society.

I'd say the idea we can transcend our irrational nature is on a par with expecting salvation via the second coming of Christ.

AlexanderG · Sep 3, 2021

Augustus said:
Why should we discount birth rates though?

And religion is one of the last pillars of irrationality? There are as many as there ever have been. For example, you look at US politics and think "if it wasn't for religion, everything would be just fine"?

Also while knowledge may increase, human irrationality stays the same as we didn't evolve to be rational creatures and knowledge doesn't change this fact.

The contradiction is that humans behave irrationally precisely because humans are irrational, not because irrationality is some kind of 'error' that can be cured by removing things like religion from society.

I'd say the idea we can transcend our irrational nature is on a par with expecting salvation via the second coming of Christ.

Yes, I do. Admittedly, I'm politically progressive. If you look at many of the political issues facing us in the US, I believe they can be broken down as rational factual evidence for how to proceed versus a passage in the bible says otherwise. Gay marriage, abortion, birth control, women's rights, civil rights, middle eastern foreign policy, slavery, the authority of government, scientific research, the merits of long term environmental protection, etc. The US is much more religious than the other developed countries, and we are also an outlier in terms of our morally backward national policies. Where we have made progress, it has almost always been in the face of religious opposition. If it weren't for religion, Christian dominionism in particular, then the US would be in a much better place.

We didn't evolve to be entirely rational. However, as we learn more we can recognize the areas in which our reasoning often fails us, and we can safeguard against this phenomenon. That is what the scientific method is, for example, or the list of logical fallacies that we have built up, or the cataloguing of type 1 and type 2 errors, confirmation bias, etc. We can still improve on our underlying biology by recognizing its pitfalls and emphasizing methods for rational thought. Religion works directly against this, and teaches people to accept truth by fiat, by unquestionable authority, and by emotional feelings. It discourages people from doubting or questioning too much. It resides within a pit of fallacies and relies on them for continued belief.

I think your opinion of humanity and what we are capable of is too low. I'd expect that from a Christian, although I'm not sure what your personal beliefs are.

1213 · Sep 3, 2021

viole said:
You are confusing sufficient and necessary conditions. If the Bible says "love your enemy" (whose moral value is debatable, anyway), that does not entail that coming up with something similar requires a Bible.
...

But would it also then be considered a religion?

If all religious, spiritual, churches, etc all stopped tomorrow

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