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Question for Athiests and church bashers
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Join Date:Posts: 30476
This again depends on your definition of religion, which is hard to define, and most people don't agree on definitions because the behaviors involved are so complex. A tribe turns a Christian into an atheist - that's Ok. Because they don't believe in God says nothing of whether they have any forms of religious expressionism, namely rituals which are a key feature of religion, more so than a belief in God - a typically Western association with religion. But I look forward to reading the story and seeing if the commonly held beliefs of biologists have changed since it's publication but I doubt it.
THis post would suggest your "definition" of religion is so broad that you could probably twist just about anything to fit into it.
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Join Date:Posts: 30476
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THis post would suggest your "definition" of religion is so broad that you could probably twist just about anything to fit into it.
Not answering for the quoted recipient. But I do find myself in a silly situation, I'm an atheists, but I do have religious leanings, I've a smiling Buddha in my garden and I tend to believe in aspects of religions as diverse as Janisism and Tom Cruise's thing to the unforgivable sin of a multi deity, as in Japan and more places where the Roman or western or Jewish religion did not penetrate.
Religion should not be taught to children, that's child abuse as criminal as the paedophile priests IMO.
Religion should be no harm, the community, the service of thanks, the offering of peace, all noble things, it just should not be attached to a 'God' and an enforced 'belief' in such. There is no harm in having fun with Santa Claus, as long as the children don't believe in it.
One can suspend reality, we do it all the time going to the cinema, religion, Santa, all the same, no problem as long as we do not believe it's real, we CAN pretend and have fun and all that.,0 -
This again depends on your definition of religion, which is hard to define, and most people don't agree on definitions because the behaviors involved are so complex. A tribe turns a Christian into an atheist - that's Ok. Because they don't believe in God says nothing of whether they have any forms of religious expressionism, namely rituals which are a key feature of religion, more so than a belief in God - a typically Western association with religion. But I look forward to reading the story and seeing if the commonly held beliefs of biologists have changed since it's publication but I doubt it.
THis post would suggest your "definition" of religion is so broad that you could probably twist just about anything to fit into it.
I said before I cannot define it. The three or four atheists here don't understand it at all seemingly, equating it with God, or the Catholic Church interchangeably.
Max Weber wrote a whole book about it, saying at the start that a definition could only be attempted at the end of his study, then failed to define it at the end.
Notice in my posts I used religion and religious behavior. I state a lot that religion is a social behavior. Someone responds to my post to say "religion is social". Then someone said is non organized religion a religion anyway. The group think seems to be to attack all religion no matter what without really understanding what religion is. The Falun Gong religion is mainly physical exercise and meditation. Is it a virus too?
To deny the benefits of religion in our primitive history for warfare, agriculture and so on, is quite ignorant. It's similar to fundamental Christians denying other parts of our history. In fact, the social cohesiveness of atheists bonding together to deny an argument, even an argument that was made by Charles Darwin, is quite something.0 -
If you believe the church is corrupt + power hungry and that god isn't real.
What does that say about your judgment on the intelligence of your parents, grandparents and other relatives who more than likely devoted so much of their lives to these causes? As a huge part of our society wouldn't it imply you believed they were gullible and naive people to live the way they did? Perhaps weak-willed to stand out from the crowd and question accepted truths?
(p.s. I am an athiest and pondering this question myself. Not looking to start some sort of shame parade or anything)
My parents were atheist
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I contend hallucinogen,Religious behavior. Sorry.Everett reported one incident where the Pirahã said that “Xigagaí, one of the beings that lives above the clouds, was standing on a beach yelling at us, telling us that he would kill us if we go into the jungle.” Everett and his daughter could see nothing and yet the Pirahã insisted that Xigagaí was still on the beach.
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In order to continue this dialogue, I need to stress again that the previous post of "Your argument is invalid" based on the tribe in the Amazon has to be conceded to be wrong, given that they do practice Animism. If my argument is not on the table, why would I bother continuing?
The major point I have to address with your view is your belief was just tacked on. This implies it is a bad invention of a priest or an organised church, which is wrong.
We are having trouble defining religion. But you accept that religion exists. Therefore it came from somewhere, and for some reason. The reason your propose seems to be the bad invention of a priest or church. I'll explain religion in the following way: all religions of the world are connected, so we can view religion as a tree. The major religions are all branches of that tree, and some grow directly from others, such as Mormonism from Christianity, and Christianity from Judaism. These are the organised religions. Paganism is not a church of magic by the way, it is a religion with a deity and rituals and a moral code. It's just another one that's misunderstood.
The trunk of this tree is the primitive religions of the hunter gatherer people. This gets us to the root of the argument, so to speak, that religion was tacked on. Organised churches and organised religions such as the ones mentioned previously may have been tacked on. But religion itself, in the broad term, was not tacked on. It was a natural growth. We know this because we can study the religions of the hunter gatherer people, our ancestors. Archaeologists and anthropologists devote a lot of time and energy to this, and not without reason. Archaeologists are limited by the amount of evidence they find, so instead anthropologists study the tribal and indigenous societies that we find, that survived without much outside influence for thousands of years.
In order to explain this further, I'll take Chuck Stone's example of the tribe in the Amazon, and I'd like to thank him for reference.
The religion you identify as bad has priests and an ecclesiastical hierarchy and has abused its power to guide and misguide and held back science at times. I don't need my friend Doctor Emmet Brown to explain how something that existed in the past has an effect on the present, it has already been illustrated by the effects of Old Gray's Almanac getting into the wrong hands in 1955, and resulted in Biff marrying Lorraine, who she stressed she would not marry "even if he had a million dollars." If there is an alternate reality where religion had never existed, I'm sure it's different, in good ways and bad ways. As you say, it's a thought experiment, but one that you are also doing with your assertion that we would have made huge advancements, like the Flux Capacitor, without religion. You need a more nuanced view. The "constant" warfare of science and religion is a myth that is circulated as historical fact, and ignores such things as the correlation of the rise of protestant religions and early experimental science, a view accepted by most scholars.
I return now to my example of religion as a tree, the bark being the primitive religions practiced by the hunter gatherer peoples. These religions don't have the typical features which you link as being "bad", such as the ecclesiastical hierarchy. This fact may have escaped the minds of other posters who delighted in Chuck Stone's example. In fact, one user highlighted that nobody was telling others what to do. This shows that what he might be opposed to is hierarchical religions. I already stated that these religions were extremely egalitarian - everyone was equal. There was no separate organisation such as a church.
The example of that tribe in the Amazon strengthens this claim. Anthropologists are used to seeing this trait in religions like this. It's is another example of the universality of religion. The fact that it was egalitarian, communal, is my first example of what all primitive religions had in common.
Second, most primitive religions have rituals. Dancing is a key feature. You might find examples of aboriginal tribes that dance for hours on end. This communal activity evokes intense emotion, and is important because it focuses on a common experience, not individual psychic satisfaction. This is a feature actually copied by armies in preparation for war - drills. When we see North Korean examples of phenomenal choreographed groups, we often react with horror, but what we are seeing is social cohesion. Obviously, this religious practice would benefit societies going into war - and hunter gatherer societies were at constant war. At constant war, in a constant struggle, religious behavior would have been wiped out because the time and energy devoted to it would, in effect, leave you for dead.
Third, most primitive religions have moral practices or practical lessons to the communities survival. In ancient societies, this was imputed to the gods. In modern religions, it's done through sacred texts.
Fourth, they aren't concerned with matters of theology. No wonder they didn't really care for the complex and at times brilliant theology of Christianity. They are concerned with practical things, such as survival, healing, hunting and the weather.
To claim that religion has had no benefit to humanity is a bold claim. The benefit is survival. You can stop looking for an example of a society that have no religion, because you won't find one. It's universal, anthropologists and archaeologists and scientists can see that. By invoking the argument of "I can't see a non-religious society, show me one", you are invoking the same argument of a deist against a non-believer. And the fact that it is universal shows that it has a genetic basis. Again, Dawkins: "Every universal feature must have a Darwinian explanation." I've given you the Darwinian explanation. Religion is an adaptive behavior. Science can plainly study the adaptation of religion into what it is today. It is an adaptive behavior because it has benefits. But if you start with the premise that it is bad, you will see it as a nonadaptive behavior. To truly study religion, you have to step outside of it, and leave you preconceptions aside, which I imagine is difficult for people mired in the mess that is Irish Catholicism. Philosophers say it is like studying love. You will only be interested in your own lover. A religious person starts with the notion that it's good, and has no fair interest in others. An atheist who believes religion is bad, is no better judge than the fundamental Christian.
Voltaire said "if God didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him". It was necessary. We did that through religion.
Lastly, it is interesting that you give the example of ants, the other evolutionary masters of social living. You gave an example of a single ant. It's important to see a bigger picture and see how they survive as a group. They are special for the high degree of cooperation between members of the same colony. Just as with people, sociality toward the in-group is combined with hostility toward the out-group, other colonies. Ants are territorial and will fight battles. Science shows that they will destroy other colonies and kill the queen. Their greatest enemies are other ants, just as our greatest enemies are other men. What we can learn from this is that evolution shows cooperation and warfare are two sides of the same coin. Social cohesion is critical to both species. Ants, however, can share chemical signals to regulate their behavior. This is not compatible with human physiology. That's why ants don't need religion. We did.
Nozzferrahhtoo I appreciate the dialogue, I hope my post is interesting to you. I have responded to your post in essay form because I think responding quote by quote leaves little room for forward thinking and results in word play and going around in circles. It is also a little strange to be presenting an argument alone against 3 or 4 other contributors, so I don't expect to get much thanks, but I hope you appreciate my views all the same, and I hope anyone else might find it interesting. 0 -
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Chuck Stone wrote: »Thanks but that wasn't my reference. It was one of the other lads I'm pretty sure.
Actually, you're not reading what I really wrote:In order to explain this further, I'll take someone's example of the tribe in the Amazon. I really like Chuck Stone.0 -
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cnuts. 
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