faetal on 9/2/2015 at 20:19
I'm not sure we could remove religion. There's undeniably something in the human psyche which defaults to it.
froghawk on 10/2/2015 at 01:10
I'm not buying the argument that it would create an 'undeniable' improvement in the slightest. Remove all religions and some other form of religious thinking would take its place. Religion in itself is just an abstract concept. The problem isn't religion, it's what people do with it - and if that's the sort of thing people want to do, they'll find a different excuse (as there have been countless others throughout history).
faetal on 10/2/2015 at 09:05
It's sad, but I agree. Even in the less religious society of the UK (versus 50 years ago) we have a slavish devotion to celebrity and consumerism which seems just as blind. In some ways I even prefer religion since it fosters a bit of community whereas consumerism seems to promote egotism.
What we can do though is remove religion's status as a charity (exempting actual charitable organisations), keep religious influence away from the state, remove religion from schools and public places etc etc. If we tried to get rid of religion outright, there'd be social unrest, violence, wars if it got the a big enough scale and ultimately, religion would become more fetishist than it already is for being forbidden.
Thirith on 10/2/2015 at 09:40
Quick question, fetal: when you say "remove religion from schools and public places", how far would you take this? (I doubt you'd want Westminster Abbey razed.) Would you ban individuals' expression of their religion, e.g. banning people wearing religious symbols? Would you be okay with schools teaching the history and cultural significance of religions?
DDL on 10/2/2015 at 10:26
Quote Posted by froghawk
I'm not buying the argument that it would create an 'undeniable' improvement in the slightest. Remove all religions and some other form of religious thinking would take its place.
I disagree (well, obviously). You're essentially saying that religiosity of some kind is utterly hardwired into us and cannot be avoided. This doesn't really fit with the steady decline in religious belief (and religious relevance), unless you're arguing that atheists are just replacing god with something else (which does appear to be what you're saying, in which case...what is this 'something else')?
It's sort of analogous to saying "there's no point restricting guns, because everyone will just use knives/whips/katanas/whatevers instead". It assumes the problem is innate and all we'd be doing is changing the methods it uses to manifest. I don't think the evidence supports this conclusion.
I'm not saying "ban religions" (because obviously this wouldn't work -people love doing banned stuff) but I would be happy with restricting and reducing their influence on policy, education, healthcare, dress codes and so on. This is happening anyway, but I'd just like it to happen faster.
Ditching faith schools would be a huge boon, for instance. Rather than brainwashing our kids with our own belief structures, just teach them facts and then let them make their own decisions. This is arguably more honest anyway: if god exists then a faith should be sturdy enough to survive without constant indoctrination of those too young to make an honest judgements. If the faith isn't sturdy enough...well, that should tell you something.
faetal on 10/2/2015 at 10:39
No, I don't mean banning crosses or individuals' private religious practices. I'd even be OK with a quiet room allocated for people to go do their private worship. I'm just not down with schools which teach all students that [insert religion] is true. I'm also ok with religion being taught as a part of ongoing history. I'd even accept the emphasis being on the foremost religion of the country, so long as the tone was just learning about the religion and not promoting it. I.e. "People who follow Christianity believe that..." as opposed to "Jesus was...God is...earth was created..." etc...
The way human learning works is that kids' brains are packed with mirror neurons and are predisposed to absorb instruction from adults. Teaching kids that a religion is true is laying a foundation which is difficult to counteract. It's why there are regional variations on which religion is definitely the one indisputable true one to the exclusion of others. If you're born in e.g. Jordan, then Islam is definitely the true reality to the exclusion of all else etc. I think that proselytising kids is contrary to their needs and imposing on them something they are not equipped to properly question. I don't think atheism should be imposed on kids either. I'm forever grateful to my folks for not giving any push in any direction. I was Christian for a bit as a kid after my sister proselytised at me after attending a Christian camp at the behest of her best friend who was raised Christian. After time, my unanswered questions pile reached a critical mass and I decided that I didn't believe in it. If I had been taught from birth that Christianity was an incontrovertible truth, then I think the cognitive dissonance cost of rejecting the beliefs would have been significantly higher.
Just a few thoughts anyway. I'm not completely anti-religion, I just find it puzzling as it defies all logic and I find that the only people I know who accommodate that are those who were raised religious, or have some kind of personal investment in a belief. I meet few people who were not raised religious and just logically drifted towards the ideas of religion as being a rational explanation for anything.
I believe that if we removed the memetic implantation of religion into children, the natural amount of people following religion would be far lower than the number who currently do.
Thirith on 10/2/2015 at 10:55
I'm probably more positively disposed towards religion than you, faetal, but I'd subscribe to your suggestions 100%.
Le MAlin 76 on 10/2/2015 at 11:50
Quote Posted by faetal
I'm not sure we could remove religion. There's undeniably something in the human psyche which defaults to it.
The Religion is just a part of the identity. But the identity is more large and complex that a religion believing: there is social roots, geographical root, the name, the political ideology, the useing of our territory, the exploitation of the territory and his communication and transport axes using, the social vision of institutions.
Your vision is limitated by a positivism theory, but the all interactions are a complex sociologic identity. The identity is not only psychological, and the sociologist, geograph and historians use that subject because there are ideologic processus and not only personnal meanings. The identity of a man is not individual, is not collectif but it's like an interface between the ego (individual) and the city (the society).
So your believing or your opinion is not just you abritrary meaning, but it's conditionned by your education, your social actions, by the social pressure, by values of the society, by the political idelogies. Say that a man is totaly free is just an utopia because we are all conditionned by the education, the society vision and many other parameters. Like historian i think that we can produce a general schema of the Human: the History is like a curly: it's not alltime perfectly thesame, but i think that the history have a trend; this trend is not a invisible power who push the men to reproduc alltime same things, but unconsciously the man of today think like a man of Medieval period or Antiquity, there same models of actions, who are rationnalized so who is not perfectly same thing, but in political for example, whe can be amused by the fact that the current human concerns are the same than the concerns of men of the 15e century for example. The same questions back all time in several points of history in all societies.
A man you was educated in christian faith, then being atheist activist is too conditionned by his education as a man you continued to live in his faith because both used they education: one rejected, but it's alltime a using by his original education, other have not rejection or critticism of his education. The first is conditionned by his christian education because he knows what he rejects and he is like an inverted Mirror of the education of his parents. The second reproduct the identical cultural matrix incultated by his parents; the first use the same matrix but he develop this cultural matrix in a new goal. I have taken the chistians, but it can be other religion, and in fact it can be applied for political ideologies and others things.
Le MAlin 76 on 10/2/2015 at 11:53
Quote Posted by faetal
No, I don't mean banning crosses or individuals' private religious practices. I'd even be OK with a quiet room allocated for people to go do their private worship. I'm just not down with schools which teach all students that [insert religion] is true. I'm also ok with religion being taught as a part of ongoing history. I'd even accept the emphasis being on the foremost religion of the country, so long as the tone was just learning
about the religion and not promoting it. I.e. "People who follow Christianity believe that..." as opposed to "Jesus was...God is...earth was created..." etc...
The way human learning works is that kids' brains are packed with mirror neurons and are predisposed to absorb instruction from adults. Teaching kids that a religion is true is laying a foundation which is difficult to counteract. It's why there are regional variations on which religion is definitely the one indisputable true one to the exclusion of others. If you're born in e.g. Jordan, then Islam is definitely the true reality to the exclusion of all else etc. I think that proselytising kids is contrary to their needs and imposing on them something they are not equipped to properly question. I don't think atheism should be imposed on kids either. I'm forever grateful to my folks for not giving any push in any direction. I was Christian for a bit as a kid after my sister proselytised at me after attending a Christian camp at the behest of her best friend who was raised Christian. After time, my unanswered questions pile reached a critical mass and I decided that I didn't believe in it. If I had been taught from birth that Christianity was an incontrovertible truth, then I think the cognitive dissonance cost of rejecting the beliefs would have been significantly higher.
Just a few thoughts anyway. I'm not completely anti-religion, I just find it puzzling as it defies all logic and I find that the only people I know who accommodate that are those who were raised religious, or have some kind of personal investment in a belief. I meet few people who were not raised religious and just logically drifted towards the ideas of religion as being a rational explanation for anything.
I believe that if we removed the memetic implantation of religion into children, the natural amount of people following religion would be far lower than the number who currently do.
I didn't read that before my precedent post, so my example of man educated in christian faith and became atheist fortuitous, sorry ;)
faetal on 10/2/2015 at 11:56
Yes yes, but all of that ignores things like:
* Is there a god?
* Whose religion is correct, if any?
* Should other people care about your religion if there is no proof it exists to anyone other than believers? (think people protesting about other people getting abortions)
* Does the wish to appease a creator and a belief that doing so results in an eternity in a fantasy-esque afterlife allow for a mindset which can be turned to violence if a person can be convinced that it appeases the creator?
* Should religion be mandatory? (this is essentially what religious education of small children boils down to - indoctrination by traditional mandate rather than individual choice)
One question I'd pose to those of you who are religious:
What is your opinion on e.g. the gods of Hinduism?
If anything other than "I believe that they exist as described and are responsible for creating the universe", do you understand that an equivalent opinion probably exists in the mind of followers of Hindu towards your religion (potential historical aspects aside - just talking the supernatural stuff)? If so, how do you reconcile this with the idea that you are correct and they are not, given that both are equally as absent from empirical evidence?
