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I think on net religion has been a positive for complex societies. That doesn't mean it always will be.
I'm curious, are you making the claim that religion is a net negative and that is evidence that illusions cannot be as useful as the truth?
I didn't make that judgement.
But would you say the conflict between Hinduism and Islam which tore apart India with the partition and creation of Pakistan, resulting in the displacement of 10 - 20 million people along religious lines, large-scale violence, and the deaths of at least several hundred thousand people (and perhaps as many as 2 million) was a net positive?
And if you tell me that wasn't really about religion, I'll help you find psychiatric help.
But if you'd like...what about the religious strife currently taking place in Burma between Buddhists and Muslims?
What about the religious strife that boils over in Thailand every once in a while between the Buddhist majority and the Muslim minority?
Northern Ireland.
The Holy Land.
Nigeria.
Sudan.
Kashmir.
Yemen.
Ethiopia.
All of those places and many more were not only about religion, but it was heavily in the mix.
Who was our last Jewish president? Muslim president? Atheist president?
Antisemitism in the US?
9/11
Jim Jones
Are these all examples of "a positive for complex societies"? I didn't look up your profile. But let me guess, you're non-white and not a member of a Judeo-Christian religion. Ahem.
But would you say the conflict between Hinduism and Islam which tore apart India with the partition and creation of Pakistan, resulting in the displacement of 10 - 20 million people along religious lines, large-scale violence, and the deaths of at least several hundred thousand people (and perhaps as many as 2 million) was a net positive?
And if you tell me that wasn't really about religion, I'll help you find psychiatric help.
But if you'd like...what about the religious strife currently taking place in Burma between Buddhists and Muslims?
What about the religious strife that boils over in Thailand every once in a while between the Buddhist majority and the Muslim minority?
Northern Ireland.
The Holy Land.
Nigeria.
Sudan.
Kashmir.
Yemen.
Ethiopia.
All of those places and many more were not only about religion, but it was heavily in the mix.
Who was our last Jewish president? Muslim president? Atheist president?
Antisemitism in the US?
9/11
Jim Jones
Are these all examples of "a positive for complex societies"? I didn't look up your profile. But let me guess, you're non-white and not a member of a Judeo-Christian religion. Ahem.
Yup...just like differing political, social, and cultural views can cause negative disparities...Theological differences can also. Just not as much as those other things.
In fact...Religion is one of the least reasons. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2013/...ct-prevention/
I think on net religion has been a positive for complex societies. That doesn't mean it always will be.
I'm curious, are you making the claim that religion is a net negative and that is evidence that illusions cannot be as useful as the truth?
I think it's important to qualify, "useful to whom, and for what?"
Illusions can be useful as a coping mechanism in the short term for a specific person ... but even if, as occasionally happens, it's effective for their whole life, the question remains whether it was the best or most functional adaptation they could have chosen. Often, clinging to illusions in the face of either evidence against it or total lack of evidence for it, protects the person from growing / maturing / improving / increasing their empathy, tolerance, maturity, and instead preserving snap judgments.
I can't judge the relative efficacy of illusions vs reality in specific instances but I think it's fair to say that you always come out ahead over time when dealing in reality. If the objective is to avoid all painful contemplation or difficult change, then maybe illusions are "better" for some given value of better. If the objective is to be a more healthily interdependent and empathetic functioning member of society as a whole, maybe not.
Of course something doesn't have to be "True" to be useful.
Atheism isn't true...but many find it useful as a basis to waste thousands of hours of their precious life to bust on, or interrogate, and/or mock the vast majority (85% of all people) of the truth holding Theists...so....
I think it's important to qualify, "useful to whom, and for what?"
Illusions can be useful as a coping mechanism in the short term for a specific person ... but even if, as occasionally happens, it's effective for their whole life, the question remains whether it was the best or most functional adaptation they could have chosen. Often, clinging to illusions in the face of either evidence against it or total lack of evidence for it, protects the person from growing / maturing / improving / increasing their empathy, tolerance, maturity, and instead preserving snap judgments.
I can't judge the relative efficacy of illusions vs reality in specific instances but I think it's fair to say that you always come out ahead over time when dealing in reality. If the objective is to avoid all painful contemplation or difficult change, then maybe illusions are "better" for some given value of better. If the objective is to be a more healthily interdependent and empathetic functioning member of society as a whole, maybe not.
To the extent that religion focuses on God and obeying a capricious God as interpreted by fallible men your conclusion that it may be counterproductive to society is reasonable. The simple truth is that we have no ACCURATE OR INFALLIBLE way of determining what God would actually have us obey or why!
But if the religion focuses on the agape love of God and each other, as Christ demonstrated and instructed, then it does play a constructive role in society. Sadly most religions focus on the former and NOT the latter using their differing preferred beliefs about what God cares about. It is a travesty of human perversity.
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to mordant again.
I have to agree. I came to this understanding that Theism, specifically religions as a lifestyle simply does not work for me.
Sadly, I know way too many people who are still in it, and it does not work for them either, but they do not see it. And the Prime Directive prohibits my interference until they are ready.
Star Trek? Fiction? really? The Prime Directive, a foundational idea? Yes....
YODA? A fictional character? His teachings at the core of enlightening philosophy? YES!!!!!
Theism has no monopoly on good ideas. Other Fictions are just as good.
Keats once said "Beauty is truth, truth beauty That is all you know on earth, and all you need to know" (ode on a Grecian Urn 1819) Harkening back to Plato we see a lasting foundation of that which is true...being the inner beauty of Truth, which though it may be relative and purely subjective at time, the universal object of truth lies in what each person can realize and appreciate.
Baptist's truth is not the same as my truth. He may maintain that his beliefs are true, I say they are not.
The fact that so many of us see that something is not true, not provable, demonstrable, testable pretty much assures the reality of something NOT being true.
Not what we like or dislike. But what functions and works, what is useful.
The Bible for example, is not a useful book. it is not a healthy book. It is not a true book. But many people read it and profess to live by it, some to the letter. (Slavery included)
Some find one or two useful ideas in it, and pretty much little other than that. While not "true" in the logical or scientific sense, it has a few good useful ideas.
Same thing with Aesop's Fables. Not true stories, but useful, and by that point, teaching of what one may consider "true" in the beauty of the philosophy.
What are your thoughts on life or consciousness (if any) after death? Or you think the event of death is be all and end all?
I am just curious to know your thoughts.
What are your thoughts on life or consciousness (if any) after death? Or you think the event of death is be all and end all?
I am just curious to know your thoughts.
Don't know what LKC's thoughts are, but death = oblivion is for me the most likely explanation. And I find it comforting, too.
Of course, no one empirically knows for sure. Those who claim they do, are just spouting dogma. Near death experiences <> death, etc.
I do think that the notion of no afterlife is upsetting to a lot of people, for various reasons. A lot of it is directly or indirectly connected to a lifetime of indoctrination around the learned helplessness that an actual end to one's consciousness is somehow too horrible to contemplate.
My philosophical take is that one must first distinguish between the process of dying, and death itself.
I am somewhat apprehensive about the potential suffering that might occur in the process of dying. I am completely sanguine about death itself. The usual chestnut is "I'm not perturbed about the time before I was born, and so don't expect to be perturbed about the time after I die".
The next component is that to exist in most alleged afterlife environments, god would have to remake us into something we currently are not. He'd have to do away with hedonic tone, or eventually, we would run out of sufficiently novel experiences to motivate us or cause enjoyment (eternity, you must remember is a LONG time; no matter how long you managed to find interest, when that ran out, you would STILL have an eternity ahead of you). So it isn't as comforting as most people seem to imagine that you'd live forever, even under ideal circumstances, because they suppose they would just be exactly as they are, only without temptations or pain of any kind. Well ... we are creatures of time. We are also, psychologically, story-tellers, and stories have beginnings, middles, AND ends. I just do not think we are suited as-is for eternity.
There is also the simple fact that apart from asserted dogma there is no basis to think that an afterlife WOULD be paradisiacal. It might just be more of the same, for all we know. It might be more limited; the Buddhist concept of nirvana for example is basically that consciousness as a separate being ultimately is subsumed into some oceanic universal consciousness. Of course to a Christian, that's just the incorrect concept, but from my perspective, the Buddhists are no more likely to be wrong about it than the Christians.
I much prefer to do my bit, then pass the baton to someone else. With a finite life, sure, my triumphs and joys and accomplishments come to an end, but they do so while I am still able to enjoy and appreciate them. And my sorrows and sufferings are ALSO guaranteed to end, which helps me bear up under them in the meantime. I have always preferred to go out at the top of my game, and while a somewhat longer life might be nice if there were sufficient quality to it ... an eternity, though, is another thing altogether.
I think it's important to qualify, "useful to whom, and for what?"
I would say for the vast majority of humans who have existed, who have spent their lives in some degree of bonded labor, and for whom there was no real hope of material improvement, religion was a helpful therapeutic.
The idea that a change in perspective can lead to a change in outcomes is a very WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) take. For most the choice was only between suffering or suffering with a palliative.
I can understand the idea that effecting a mass change in beliefs could spur social change, but I don't think it's that simple. Could the French Revolution have succeeded without the invention of the inexpensive firearm? I'm sure thousands of revolutionaries dreamed of mass conciousness-raising before then, but knew that the power of the elites was unbeatable.
There is a Street Epistemology video on you tube that poses the question
Does something have to be true to be useful?
That's a great question. A few years back I decided that my religion was probably untrue. I went through a lot of soul searching. During that time it did occur to me: what's the difference? If you believe you're going to Heaven, and it turns out there isn't one, well you'll never know that you were wrong and you can die happy.
So I definitely think that religion has done a lot of good (ie, useful). Once you realize it's false, the genie is out of the bottle, and you can't make yourself believe. But I don't see any benefit in trying to prove believers that they are wrong.
That's a great question. A few years back I decided that my religion was probably untrue. I went through a lot of soul searching. During that time it did occur to me: what's the difference? If you believe you're going to Heaven, and it turns out there isn't one, well you'll never know that you were wrong and you can die happy.
So I definitely think that religion has done a lot of good (ie, useful). Once you realize it's false, the genie is out of the bottle, and you can't make yourself believe. But I don't see any benefit in trying to prove believers that they are wrong.
I don't think there's any benefit in trying to prove to believers that they are wrong...but that's a two way street.
Or it should be.
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