Odd concessions from old atheists

stevejazzx

Imagine a world without religion, what would we lose? How would we lose it exactly? I spend most of days now interacting with people who have no interest in religion. They are artists, scholars, IT engineers - all walks of life. I gotta tell you I haven't seen the fabric of society collapse in these particular people’s worlds, or mine! Yet when watching one of our hard-line atheist’s stalwarts such as Hitchens or Dawkins I am always surprised to hear somber acknowledgements that there still is some value to religious continuation and integration into society. Perhaps an alternative stance on the matter would mean having to endlessly defend the complicated idea of mass morality without a predefined social construct such as religion. Or maybe it's just that the notion that completely removing religion from society is too powerful and there is a disingenuous recognition from both parties that subject should not be entertained, the 'don't even go there' complex.
Some atheists tend to value religion as a valid functioning part of society in the following way:
It provides meaning and hope for people who will never have the courage or ability to attain any other form of hope or meaning anywhere else. Therefore it is of some value, even if that value is false. Essentially the argument boils down the idea that 'people are stupid' and removing religion from them might actually be dangerous, the general ignorance ineptitude of the masses to overcome their superstition is the main obstacle it seems in attaining a scholarly (from both sides) agreement about the removal religion from society.

A priest asked me the last week what I thought religion was actively contributing to society (apart from war, superstition, oppression and general backwardness? I thought) but I said 'nothing that we couldn't have without its existence'. He mentioned 3 inept arguments

1. Religous art
2. Morality
3. Meaning of life

I said that there would almost certainly have been equivalents to religious art had reliogn never existed and I quoted Dawkins' line that 'we will never know what Haydens evolution oratorio or Beethoven’s Mesozoic Symphony might have sounded like....he didn't get that. And in terms of morality I said that it was clear that there was an evolutionary advantage in having a morality that lengthened ones existence on earth and I finished with that old chestnut that life has no meaning (eek! he didnay like that) except what we make of it and that we should stop seeing ourselves as the center of something.

So what do you guys think? I'd be a bit more of a fundamentalist on this which ironically means that I would have more hope in humanity than most.

Galvasean

stevejazzx wrote: »

or Beethoven’s Mesozoic Symphony might have sounded like....

this

Mickeroo

Galvasean wrote: »

this

I'd forgotten what a damn fine piece of music that was, shivers down my spine and I'm 10 years old again

Zillah

We'd lose a bunch of stuff and gain a bunch of other stuff. We can never know if Beethoven's Humanism est Glorificus would have been the most beautiful piece of music that humanity has produced, nor can we know if anything akin to the cathedrals of Europe would have been built.

That said, talented people will always do amazing things, and artists are always looking for inspiration. Some find it in religion, but most I think find it in the natural world or within themselves.

I just remembered a song by Muse, called Glorious. I always find that line "We too could be glorious" to be quite a humanist notion (ignore the visuals, it's from some crappy computer game ^_^):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlwShQfSUcc

As for morality and meaning of life; feh, I'm not getting into that argument again.

Also without religion we'd have had no Dark Ages and I could be flying through space in my immortal nanite cloud body right now

gaynorvader

Religion is quite possibly the reason we have society today. Forget morality and go back to the collapse of the Roman empire. Assuming you're a noble, how were you going to get your peasents to put up with horrific working conditions, giving the produce of their labour to you and fighting/dying for you? Easy, cost-effective answer? Religion! Of course nowadays it seems largely pointless, but I don't believe humanity is quite ready to survive without it. If religion were to be suddenly cut off it could have terrible consequences. I think it'd be better for it to fade to obscurity before any proof on the God dilema is provided by science. Imagine what would happen, even if one religion were to be proven right!

Zillah

gaynorvader wrote: »

Religion is quite possibly the reason we have society today. Forget morality and go back to the collapse of the Roman empire. Assuming you're a noble, how were you going to get your peasents to put up with horrific working conditions, giving the produce of their labour to you and fighting/dying for you? Easy, cost-effective answer? Religion!

Well, first of all one can use armies, economics and social control to make the peasants do what one wants. Aside from that, even if we accept your argument that religion is necessary to control the peasants...surely that just means that without it the peasants would have rebelled and we'd have entered the democratic age, and it's technological and societal benefits, much sooner?

Mal-Adjusted

is there really any piont in obsesing over this? does anybody honestly think that once we've done away with all this religion malarkey that we'll all suddenly become intallectuals and physicists(sp.?), and discover new scientific breakthroughs and live in a utopia?:rolleyes:
it'll probably never happen, but if religion of all kinds was done away with, people would find another handy excuse to kill each other & impose their will on the populace. to think otherwise is dillusional.:D

Zillah

Mal-Adjusted wrote: »

is there really any piont in obsesing over this?

Welcome to boards.ie, here we like to discuss topics of interest. I'm sure you'll fit right in.

does anybody honestly think that once we've done away with all this religion malarkey that we'll all suddenly become intallectuals and physicists(sp.?), and discover new scientific breakthroughs and live in a utopia?:rolleyes:

No, of course not. I think if we did away with religion we'd have a great deal more (useful*) intellectuals and physicists and therefore have more wonderful scientific breakthroughs, like usable fusion, stem cell therapy and quantum computing.

it'll probably never happen, but if religion of all kinds was done away with, people would find another handy excuse to kill each other & impose their will on the populace. to think otherwise is dillusional.:D

People will always treat other people badly, but that's not to say we'll have as much killing and will-imposing.

*I don't consider an expert in, say, theology or biblical studies to be a useful intellectual

Rockshamrover

"No, of course not. I think if we did away with religion we'd have a great deal more (useful*) intellectuals and physicists and therefore have more wonderful scientific breakthroughs, like usable fusion, stem cell therapy and quantum computing."

I don't see the connection between scientific breakthroughs and wether or not the society you live in is religious. Take the USSR during 60 odd years of communism. What major scientific things happened? Compare that to what was happening in the west.

I think the biggest stimulus for scientific breakthrough is funding. Hence most of the major leaps forward are from the west.

Religion never really got in the way, if anything it probably helped in that scientists would have a starting point to work from. ie flat earth, earth as the centre of the universe. The age of the earth etc.

Zillah

Rockshamrover wrote: »

I don't see the connection between scientific breakthroughs and wether or not the society you live in is religious. Take the USSR during 60 odd years of communism. What major scientific things happened? Compare that to what was happening in the west.

Whatever benefits they may have had from a secular mentality were entirely countered by the fact that they were living in a nightmarish authoritarian communist state.

I think the biggest stimulus for scientific breakthrough is funding. Hence most of the major leaps forward are from the west.

Yes, funding is extremely important. A free market democracy encourages private enterprise, which is often a great source of scientific breakthroughs.

Religion never really got in the way, if anything it probably helped in that scientists would have a starting point to work from. ie flat earth, earth as the centre of the universe. The age of the earth etc.

Ahaha, sure. Not only did Christianity fail to salvage the knowledge of the classical era, they actively suppressed and destroyed that fine legacy. What eventually began the current age was the enlightenment when people began rejecting superstition and religious domination in favour of rationalism.

stevejazzx

Zillah wrote: »

We'd lose a bunch of stuff ......

What stuff would we lose that we couldn't replace or emulate?

gaynorvader wrote: »

Religion is quite possibly the reason we have society today. Forget morality and go back to the collapse of the Roman empire. Assuming you're a noble, how were you going to get your peasents to put up with horrific working conditions, giving the produce of their labour to you and fighting/dying for you? Easy, cost-effective answer? Religion! Of course nowadays it seems largely pointless, but I don't believe humanity is quite ready to survive without it. If religion were to be suddenly cut off it could have terrible consequences. I think it'd be better for it to fade to obscurity before any proof on the God dilema is provided by science. Imagine what would happen, even if one religion were to be proven right!

Yes but that (religion) is hardly the only way we could've arrived at modern society with, broadly speaking, good moral behaviour. Evolution has shown us that moral code has been hardwired into our genetic make up over millions of years, therefroe we would've arrived in more or less the same place morally despite our social constructs, look at the fall of communism for example.

Zillah wrote: »

Ahaha, sure. Not only did Christianity fail to salvage the knowledge of the classical era, they actively suppressed and destroyed that fine legacy. What eventually began the current age was the enlightenment when people began rejecting superstition and religious domination in favour of rationalism.

Yes exactly. Relgion has never done anything except stifle progress. All the benefits it has bestowed upon societies (which are questionable) could have easily been emulated by different social construcsts - ones wihtout the baggage that relgion carries.

Goduznt Xzst

without religion? well the proletariat would be in a constant state of discord and anarchy, being controlled only by draconian laws forced upon them.

Seriously though, it's kind of a moot point. The society we have now has been influenced largely by Religion. I don't think its easily possible to imagine what society would look like without it, how we might be better or how we might be worse.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think religion is the largest problem with this world, the capitalist social classes are, and with the coming death of a large portion of the middle classes thanks to this economic downturn things are only going to get a helluvalot worse for those at the bottom before it gets better. My problem with Religion is that it fools the people at the bottom into being happy to be there.

stevejazzx

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

without religion? well the proletariat would be in a constant state of discord and anarchy, being controlled only by draconian laws forced upon them.

The proposition is, in theory, to remove religion and replace with a more sensible social construct, one which emulates the good parts and throws out the lunacy. So this meltdown of social fabric does not happen.

Seriously though, it's kind of a moot point. The society we have now has been influenced largely by Religion. I don't think its easily possible to imagine what society would look like without it, how we might be better or how we might be worse.

Why? As I said religion plays less and less a part of my life and the lives of people around me. There is no meltdown.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think religion is the largest problem with this world, the capitalist social classes are, and with the coming death of a large portion of the middle classes thanks to this economic downturn things are only going to get a helluvalot worse for those at the bottom before it gets better. My problem with Religion is that it fools the people at the bottom into being happy to be there.

I'm sure you must have other problems with religion. And I more than agree with you about capitalism in principle even though there is no deadbolt dogma associated with it however religion is clearly, for me, the largest obstacle to social and moral progression and it is also a model that can replicated in part wihtout it's delusions.

Zillah

stevejazzx wrote: »

What stuff would we lose that we couldn't replace or emulate?

I didn't specify that we'd lose anything we couldn't replace. I said we'd lose a bunch of stuff and gain a bunch of stuff. I also said that we can never know if we'd gain more/better than we lost.

stevejazzx

Zillah wrote: »

I didn't specify that we'd lose anything we couldn't replace.

Good, for a minute there I thought you were stepping out of line..:)

Zillah

stevejazzx

Zillah wrote: »

Right I'm sending you to the boards' equivelant of the Gulag - the AH forum - you must post there forever on subjects like - 'your ma', and 'are gay polish peolpe really lizards'?

gaynorvader

Zillah wrote: »

Well, first of all one can use armies, economics and social control to make the peasants do what one wants. Aside from that, even if we accept your argument that religion is necessary to control the peasants...surely that just means that without it the peasants would have rebelled and we'd have entered the democratic age, and it's technological and societal benefits, much sooner?

Interesting point, but would we have had the agricultural base needed to begin our rapid technilogical advances? Again, I'm not saying that religion is still as useful as it was, but I believe it was a necessary step in our advancement as a race.

Zillah

I'm not quite sure I'm following your connection between religion and agriculture?

gaynorvader

Zillah wrote: »

I'm not quite sure I'm following your connection between religion and agriculture?

Convincing the peasants that they should focus on agriculture because resorting to being bandits or rebelling against your lord is not what God wants.

Galvasean

gaynorvader wrote: »

Convincing the peasants that they should focus on agriculture because resorting to being bandits or rebelling against your lord is not what God wants.

Wouldn't teh peasants stick with agriculture in order to feed themselves and y'know, not die?

Phototoxin

Right I'm sending you to the boards' equivelant of the Gulag - the AH forum - you must post there forever on subjects like - 'your ma', and 'are gay polish peolpe really lizards'?

Yes, yore ma is indeed a gay polish lizard person.

That is all.

gaynorvader

Galvasean wrote: »

Wouldn't teh peasants stick with agriculture in order to feed themselves and y'know, not die?

Good point, but they'd probably only grow enough to feed themselves instead of growing the huge amounts required by the lords for their armies, feasts and in case of a seige.

Zillah

I think you're being a little simplistic here. Any sort of social upheaval is going to be...well, an upheaval. Yeah there might be food shortages, burning towns and collapsing infrastructure. Look at the French Revolution as a sample study perhaps...

Tyler MacDurden

Zillah wrote: »

Also without religion we'd have had no Dark Ages and I could be flying through space in my immortal nanite cloud body right now

Reading this put me in mind of one of my favourite passages from Carl Sagan's Cosmos

(On the triumph of superstition over rationality)

If the Ionian spirit had won, I think we - a different 'we' of course - might now be venturing to the stars. Our first survey ships to Alpha Centauri and Barnard's Star, Sirius and Tau Ceti would have returned long ago. Great fleets of interstellar transports would be under construction in Earth orbit - unmanned survey ships, liners for immigrants, immense trading ships to plow the seas of space.

On all these ships there would be symbols and writing. If we looked closely, we might see that the language was Greek. And perhaps the symbol on the bow of one of the first starships would be a dodecahedron, with the inscription 'Starship Theodorus of the Planet Earth.'

Cosmos, p.237.

PDN

Tyler MacDurden wrote: »

Reading this put me in mind of one of my favourite passages from Carl Sagan's Cosmos

(On the triumph of superstition over rationality)

I think Sagan's imagination has slightly romanticised things. Considering the position of Aristotle and other Ionians on slavery, it is more likely that we poor sods that are non-Greeks would be the galley slaves on those interstellar ships if the Ionian spirit had won.

Tyler MacDurden

PDN wrote: »

I think Sagan's imagination has slightly romanticised things. Considering the position of Aristotle and other Ionians on slavery, it is more likely that we poor sods that are non-Greeks would be the galley slaves on those interstellar ships if the Ionian spirit had won.

Some commentators, including the man himself, concurred. The vast slave populations of the ancient world were a hindrance to an (otherwise rather likely) early Industrial Revolution. Of course, who's to say an emancipation wouldn't also have happened earlier in a rational world? The many examples of 'freedmen' rising to positions of influence could be seen as a nascent step in that direction.

Anyhow, are we off-topic yet?

Zillah

PDN wrote: »

I think Sagan's imagination has slightly romanticised things. Considering the position of Aristotle and other Ionians on slavery, it is more likely that we poor sods that are non-Greeks would be the galley slaves on those interstellar ships if the Ionian spirit had won.

Who's to say what might have changed in over two thousand years of societal development? Greeks already had the basics of democracy in place, and if we're where we are now after centuries of feudal society then I think it's a reasonable proposition that a neo-Greek culture could have made similar advances.

Rockshamrover

Zillah wrote: »

Who's to say what might have changed in over two thousand years of societal development? Greeks already had the basics of democracy in place, and if we're where we are now after centuries of feudal society then I think it's a reasonable proposition that a neo-Greek culture could have made similar advances.

Forgive my ignorance on this subject ( I know next to nothing about Greek history) but did the Greeks not have religion of some sort?

Zillah

I think the rather ambiguous alternative universe that we're discussing is one where religion rapidly vanished around 0AD, Jesus was never born and the Greeks continued their scientific advances...

Goduznt Xzst

stevejazzx wrote: »

Why? As I said religion plays less and less a part of my life and the lives of people around me. There is no meltdown.

I am not really postulating the slow loss of interest in organized religion. More the consequences on society of there having never been a large organized religion or any at all. It is fairly difficult to imagine because we exist in a culture that is largely derived from religious influences. Could we be better now? maybe, maybe we might be exploring the stars. Might we of killed ourselves off a long time ago? It's a possibility also.

I would agree that organized religion needs to be phased out of society, but in the vacuum what replaces it? I think it is better that we create a society first that no longer needs any dogmatic religions and let it die off naturally. The fact that so many people still cling to their beliefs so vehemently shows we have not got there yet.

As long as man lives to repress and live off the lives of the less fortunate, the less fortunate will have religion.

PDN wrote: »

we poor sods that are non-Greeks would be the galley slaves on those interstellar ships if the Ionian spirit had won.

Have you not watched Wall-E? duh, robot slaves? It would be a sight better than the 3rd world cotton mills, sweat shops, and rubbish dumps that we live off the products of now. I mean who really cares where their runners or T-Shirts come from as long as they are cheap right?

Galvasean

"Our first survey ships to Alpha Centauri "

That's where the Transformers live

pH

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

It is fairly difficult to imagine because we exist in a culture that is largely derived from religious influences. Could we be better now? maybe, maybe we might be exploring the stars. Might we of killed ourselves off a long time ago? It's a possibility also.

I would agree that organized religion needs to be phased out of society, but in the vacuum what replaces it? I think it is better that we create a society first that no longer needs any dogmatic religions and let it die off naturally. The fact that so many people still cling to their beliefs so vehemently shows we have not got there yet.

I think is a very narrow minded view of religion (and I find it strange as I normally agree with most of your posts). You're looking at religion as a citizen of a western first world country, viewing European history with rose tinted glasses.

Look, the Rwandan genocide happened in a very religious country (95% Christian), Hitler's beliefs aside, the majority of Germans at the time of the 2nd world war were religious, and for every Italian renaissance that people are so happy to attribute to religion there's a corresponding Taleban regime.

I fail to see this "vacuum" that religion leaves, in fact the "Emperor's new clothes" sums up this situation very well, religion doesn't change people's behaviour, it doesn't convert them from nihilistic misanthropes to model citizens, it's a thin veneer, a self-perpetuating con-job of epic proportions that exists solely to give power, status and wealth to those running it. However we're all conditioned to give your response above, "ahhh yes but where would we be without it?"

Now we can play games by redefining religion to mean just the "good" ones, but it we take what religion is at its core (a mass, organised systematic set of beliefs around worshipping a deity - and no I'm not particularly interested in whether Buddhism is or is not a religion), then that could be removed from society tomorrow and I doubt we'd even notice the difference - albeit some lazy and ignorant (mainly) men who find the idea of working for a living too much like hard work would have to find other ways to trick people into having power over them in their lives.

Goduznt Xzst

pH wrote: »

I think is a very narrow minded view of religion

Yes, imo, it's farcical, yes its deluded, yes it can be replaced but does it have any worth or value? Whether physical, mental or otherwise. You say it is only a thin-veneer, but it is a veneer that can fundamentally change the actions of an individual.

Like I said, the fact that religions still exist is tantamount to my point that humans still have a need for religion, whether culturally indoctrinated or otherwise. I think it is your view that might be slightly narrow minded in a western sense. You remove the hope of an afterlife or the reward of eternal bliss from everyone who believes and I think there would be widespread chaos and despair amongst a large percentage of the population. I cannot say that belief is not the only driving force for people in the third world or people with nothing of meaning to live for.

The first step in my opinion is working towards a society that has no need for religion, that is economically stable, that preserves the rights of the individual and is constantly moving towards the betterment of itself and of every citizen. If you can give humans this for at least 2 solid generations you would see the need for the religions that sell fear, guilt and their own brand of morality dying off rather quickly.

We are on the same page, we are just reading the paragraphs in a different order. You think religion needs to go first and then society will naturally adjust, I think society needs to be stabilized first and then the dogmatic religions will cease to exist. The end result is the same, a stable society with no religion.

pH

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

Yes, imo, it's farcical, yes its deluded, yes it can be replaced but does it have any worth or value? Whether physical, mental or otherwise. You say it is only a thin-veneer, but it is a veneer that can fundamentally change the actions of an individual.

No, I don't think so. It would seem obvious that this huge carrot and stick of heaven and hell for good and bad behaviour would make people behave better, but when you look at the evidence it seems to make no difference.

Like I said, the fact that religions still exist is tantamount to my point that humans still have a need for religion, whether culturally indoctrinated or otherwise.

Sorry but that makes absolutely no sense to me, it's like saying:

- Rapists still exists - humans still have a need for rape.
- Conmen still exist - humans still have a need for cons.
etc.

I think it is your view that might be slightly narrow minded in a western sense. You remove the hope of an afterlife or the reward of eternal bliss from everyone who believes and I think there would be widespread chaos and despair amongst a large percentage of the population.

Absolutely not, large percentages of many civilisations have now (and have had in the past) no belief in an eternal bliss afterlife, and I can't think of one instance it's brought widespread chaos and despair.

We are on the same page, we are just reading the paragraphs in a different order. You think religion needs to go first and then society will naturally adjust, I think society needs to be stabilized first and then the dogmatic religions will cease to exist. The end result is the same, a stable society with no religion.

No, I think that no adjustment is needed, religion is not now, nor has ever been a stabilising or positive force, and it could be removed tomorrow with no problems.

Naz_st

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

You say it is only a thin-veneer, but it is a veneer that can fundamentally change the actions of an individual.

pH wrote: »

No, I don't think so.

Edit: I think it can fundamentally change the actions of an individual, in a negative way:
e.g. Suicide Bombers.

If there is no afterlife and no reward, there's no rational justification for this action.

I agree with you generally as I believe religion has had a detrimental effect on society as a whole since it is fundamentally a divisive and polarising force, with extravagant and unprovable truth claims, and is generally intolerant of criticism, change or contradictory beliefs.

Goduznt Xzst

pH wrote: »

Absolutely not, large percentages of many civilisations have now (and have had in the past) no belief in an eternal bliss afterlife, and I can't think of one instance it's brought widespread chaos and despair.

Yes... by choice though. How, without giving people a tangible alternative to belief do you expect them to give it up? I understand your point, I just don't think it is tenable or realistic.

pH wrote: »

No, I think that no adjustment is needed, religion is not now, nor has ever been a stabilising or positive force, and it could be removed tomorrow with no problems.

How though?

I agree, hypothetically, if humans where to wake up tomorrow and forget they ever believed in God that society would not break down. But I'm asking how, realistically, you imagine this can be achieved. My point has been all along that religion is so deeply ingrained in our traditions, culture and society that you can't easily just uproot it.

pH

Naz_st wrote: »

Suicide Bombers.

If there is no afterlife and no reward, there's no rational justification for this action.

I agree with you generally though insofar as I believe religion has had a detrimental effect on society as a whole since it is fundamentally a divisive and polarising force, with extravagant and unprovable truth claims, and is generally intolerant of criticism, change or contradictory beliefs.

Sorry? You believe that Suicide bombers are a counter example to my claim that religion doesn't appear to make people behave better?

I'm not sure what point you're making, but even if you take suicide bombers an extreme end point on a scale, there are still other acts of bravery to consider, for instance in times of war soldiers doing things that mean pretty much certain death to protect their brethren or even to achieve a goal for the cause.

I guess what I'm saying is that it would be an outrageous claim that the only people who've laid their lives down in the course of a war or cause were religious folks who were doing so believing that they were on the way to heaven.

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

Yes... by choice though. How, without giving people a tangible alternative to belief do you expect them to give it up? I understand your point, I just don't think it is tenable or realistic.

One second, I agree with you it's certainly not realistic, religion is probably with us for a while yet.

How though?

I guess through more education, there seems to be a strong inverse correlation between education and religious belief - I wouldn't be certain to say it's causation but it would be where I would start.

I agree, hypothetically, if humans where to wake up tomorrow and forget they ever believed in God that society would not break down. But I'm asking how, realistically, you imagine this can be achieved. My point has been all along that religion is so deeply ingrained in our traditions, culture and society that you can't easily just uproot it.

I honestly don't know, nor (and this may surprise you) do I sit around of an evening planning religion's downfall.

I guess I'm just answering the OP's questions in his hypothetical world with no religion I personally am not convinced we'd miss any of it.

Naz_st

pH wrote: »

Sorry? You believe that Suicide bombers are a counter example to my claim that religion doesn't appear to make people behave better?

I'm not sure what point you're making, but even if you take suicide bombers an extreme end point on a scale, there are still other acts of bravery to consider, for instance in times of war soldiers doing things that mean pretty much certain death to protect their brethren or even to achieve a goal for the cause.

Sorry, my bad for being confusing:

Goduznt said that "it is a veener that can fundamentally change the actions of an individual" and you disagreed. I was pointing out that religious beliefs can change the actions of an individual, and usually in a negative way. So I agree with your original assertion. (Sorry for not making that clearer in the first place!)

gaynorvader

Zillah wrote: »

I think you're being a little simplistic here. Any sort of social upheaval is going to be...well, an upheaval. Yeah there might be food shortages, burning towns and collapsing infrastructure. Look at the French Revolution as a sample study perhaps...

The French Revolution happened well after the infastructure was in place, what I'm saying is not that the infastructure would've been destroyed, but that there would have been little need of it to begin with, people would probably still hunt in the forests, and farms would probably only be for vegetables.