There are forms of religious people that dismiss all the 'crazy' things and just have some vague mysticism - which is probably the least harmful form, but is a little odd to me. People like to feel a part of something grand I suppose - but we already are. Existence is pretty amazing even without the human religious myths being true. Maybe one day the myths will be just a part of our collective history (as many older ones currently are).
This site for example is pooh-poohing religion now, but five minutes later will gush over LSD's power to give pseudo-spiritual epiphanies. It used to love stoicism, which was shopworn even in the Victorian age. Probably in a year from now some other retread of old belief system will be rediscovered, maybe EST or Theosophy, or something.
I don’t think that’s true at all, and possibly the opposite is true. Comparing Bangladesh, where I’m from, to America, people here are a lot less religious. But I wouldn’t say the net amount of “crazy” believes is different. People in Bangladesh are a lot more down to earth and less likely to believe in faddish ideas that tend to fill the vacuum in the absence of religion.
American culture around eating and fitness, and particularly the “clean food” stuff is a good example of this. It’s for the most part completely unscientific, but fervently believed.
How do you square this position with all the social media fueled mob lynchings/murders in Bangladesh?
One example: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49102074
I’m not claiming the US is any better, we have mass shootings and all kinds of violence, but generally not lynch mobs (at least in the 21st century)
Some examples I can think of are Pol Pot, Stalin and the North Korean Kim dynasty.
My point is there is much rhetoric about religion being a historical scourge of society, but the same people making those assertions conveniently forget that atheistic ideologies had very negative consequences as well.
I'm not arguing based on whataboutism here. I'm saying that blaming religion for the ills of society while exalting atheism is fallacious.
Throwing away bad doctrine doesn't instantly make you good, but it helps not to have problematic ideology at the start.
If you're going to build a world, one that updates based on evidence is a good place to start. Seek out evidence that violates your confirmation bias, steelman arguments, change your mind when warranted.
USSR anti-religious campaign of 1928–1941:
"The campaign began in 1929, with the drafting of new legislation that severely prohibited religious activities and called for an education process on religion in order to further disseminate atheism and materialist philosophy. "
"The main target of the anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and 1930s was the Russian Orthodox Church and Islam, which had the largest number of faithful. Nearly all of its clergy, and many of its believers, were shot or sent to labour camps. Theological schools were closed, and church publications were prohibited.[1] More than 85,000 Orthodox priests were shot in 1937 alone.[2] Only a twelfth of the Russian Orthodox Church's priests were left functioning in their parishes by 1941.[3]"
"Stalin called for an "atheist five year plan" from 1932–1937, led by the LMG, in order to completely eliminate all religious expression in the USSR.[43] It was declared that the concept of God would disappear from the Soviet Union.[43]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USSR_anti-religious_campaign_(...
Fundamentalism is usually just taking the source material seriously at what it says; liberal Christianity tends to try and reinterpret the source material to fit contemporary mores. It's impossible to justify homosexuality in the scriptures for example; most progressive arguments end up just setting fire to the inspiration of the bible to do so, by saying "they weren't really speaking about homosexuality" or "why should we trust what Paul says about it?"
Fundamentalists are disliked, but they are a lot more logically and internally consistent than the mainline. Mainline is just the halfway stop to atheism, honestly.
People mistake the American Evangelical Christianity that is a few hundred years old for the church established by the apostles nearly 2000 years ago. That church was it which considered the weak as equally valuable as the strong, that insisted on helping the poor, that believed men and women both to be of the utmost value. That established hospitals to care for the sick. All of these things were not the norm. The weak were considered less valuable. Women were not worth as much as men. Sick people should be avoided. The poor aren’t worth helping.
People are rightfully scornful of American evangelicalism, but they throw the baby out with the bath water and try to pretend that the orthodox (in sense of true and right) church has not done tremendous good in this world.
There's no "true and right" church. In fact the non-stop schism of the christian faith is evidence that the views espoused by christians are incredibly incoherent. One model to use is that the bible is a map and your interactions with actual people are the actual road. And you're trying to navigate your life with this map. You have a few options:
- Trust the map no matter what (fundamentalists)
- You end up also arguing about how the map *really* reads, because it's incoherent at its core! Denominations are started by people trying too hard to ascertain the "fundamentals."
- Trust the road no matter what
- Is your map even relevant then? What's the difference between this and being an atheist?
- Trust the road when you can see it and can't argue with it, trust the map otherwise
- This leads to shit like voting against progress because you are ignorant to the harm it does. Since the map is incoherent you still end up drawing incorrect conclusions in directions that are harmful.
By the way, that same old church taught wives to obey their husbands and to this day does not allow them to be clergy. The notion that women are not worth as much as men was not recently introduced.
I am a volunteer in the Boy Scouts of America. Its market-leading and pioneering youth-protection programs are still examples to this day, and the vast majority of claims in its current bankruptcy process are from before these programs started. Society has changed, and youth are much better off for it.
This again? The existence of others committing the same crimes does not indemnify the Church.
Love the "Society has changed" argument. Clearly, recognizing that pedophilia is wrong by the Church is a product of changing times...not like they moved clergy from parish to parish to avoid them being caught.
As for women being treated poorly that is not something the church introduced, but has practically been done by men since time began. If you read early church history you’d probably realize that your moral basis itself is founded upon the work church did.
If you’re someone who is open minded you should try to hear good arguments from another perspective. I’d recommend Dominion by Tom Holland perhaps - https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465093507/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm...
What I’ve found is people who actually don’t believe their opinions strongly avoid books challenging those opinions, while those who do are perfectly willing to be challenged, because they are confident their opinion is the right one.
For example a person who weakly believes in a free market will avoid reading Marx, a person who strongly believes it will. And vice versa for let’s say Ayn Rand.
On the topic of the treatment of women, you'll note the original assertion was that this was something the church was especially good at, and I pointed out a sexist practice core to the church as currently practiced, not in the dustbin of history.
It's just the 'no true scotsman' fallacy.
But even I accept your argument that they had, why is organized religion the only way to achieve that good? Why not provide societal benefit through secular and people focused governance, for instance? Why does the teachings of thousands of years old people have to do anything with it, even if we do cherry pick them and only listen to the parts that we as a modern society agree are good? When you draw your philosophy from a book that says at the end “don’t change this or you’re going to hell”, then it’s little surprise that extremists arise with what are actually fairly reasonable interpretations of the Bible.
The question really is did Jesus rise from the dead?
Was Plato actually on to something when he said there were more “real” things which made our reality look like shadows.
The reason the church will continue to be is because there is no higher symbol than that of Jesus. There is no getting beyond that idea. Once you see it, there is no going back. So I’d be very careful reading old books if I were you.
Even quantum mechanics is starting to make us realize we might not understand what really constitutes reality. That at the deepest levels there is two eternally existing relationships.
Do Hindus agree? Do Muslims? Do Buddhists? If not, are they wrong? Why?
The statement you made is an opinion of a group, stated as a fact. There is nothing wrong with groups having opinions, but they shouldn't be pushed to others as facts. That's the source of many past and present conflicts.
I’m just saying from what I’ve seen the symbol that Christ is it is very high and explains the world well. I’d love to have discussions over coffee with people with different cosmological explanations of the world.
The question why this isn’t something to be discarded is because a billion people share my opinion and we aren’t unreasonable for having it.
The idea that the most powerful king took up the side of the poor and needy, and aligned himself with them is an idea that I can’t see being defeated. The hero looking like he lost only to win once for all, to set the captives free is a story that is endlessly being recreated in books from people of all world views.
True though, to many, Christ is the symbol of what they’ve seen in American Evangelical Christianity and that symbol might just die out, but the one taught in the 1st century till now I can’t imagine ever dying out.
I actually just wish non christians would just at least take the story of Jesus as a myth or legend that they could still learn from like other enduring myths. That would at least give the idea behind it the respect it deserves given its huge influence. The story of Moses even if just fiction is still a powerful story. I mean have you never read a book like Les Mis or LOTR or something and not seen the power those stories have for good?
Many countries in Europe have >50% of young people who identify as non-religious [1]
Don't the declining numbers of religious people in Europe contradict that statement? Younger generations in these traditionally Christian countries are very aware of the symbol and idea - and many are in full agreement with many of the values you mention, except they just don't believe the mystical part (and refuse many of the conservative stances from the church).
If this happened in countries that have had Christianity as their foundational identity for hundreds of years, why can't it happen elsewhere?
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/21/christianity-n...
Because they weren't. That's the point. The culture at the time didn't care to support anyone but the most powerful.
Could a non-religious approach have fixed it? Maybe, but none emerged that did so. Not 2000 years ago, anyway.
So Christianity entered the scene at a time when no one was doing these good things, and gave people a reason to rally behind them.
Even today, statistically speaking, Muslims give far more of their income to charity than any other group, and if I'm not mistaken, Atheists ranked last. (Christians only marginally performed better, which says a lot about the state of modern Christianity.)
So why is that? I think it has to do with tribalism. You can't form a strong tribe around NOT believing stuff. Not believing in something isn't enough of a reason to form strong social bonds and take on major projects.
Does that mean you can't come up with a good secular belief that people can rally behind? Of course not. Liberalism was a secular idea that made massive changes. Same for democracy. But you need a flag to rally around.
"Disbelief" makes for a poor flag. It's not much of a rallying cry.
What's more, the rationalist/atheist community tends to be very strongly individualist. Individualism, almost by definition, isn't particularly interested in things like hospitals or caring for the poor.
Hell, people mistake American Evangelical Christianity with "true Christianity". Far too many allow themselves into being duped into thinking that the loudest, most odious, and most forceful are the most legitimate claimants to Christianity.
Barf.
That line would only hold if fundamentalists have correctly identified the fundamentals. I wage they have badly missed it, which is why their theology is so bad.
> being a good person or not is largely disconnected from religiousness
Being a good person is not the primary point of religion. It is rather a hoped for outcome. Religion is not therapy.