If you had a religion-erasing wand...

[Fnord]

Sorry, gotta do this ... and it's nothing personal ...

You can't choose to be religious or to have faith; you just do. I would personally remove that impulse.

If you remove the "religion impulse" then you remove all forms of obsessive and ritualistic behavior. Think of all those professional and collegiate sports programs that would go unfunded because there were no fans ("fanatics") left to spend $300 for a bowl game ticket! What would happen to them?

If you remove the "faith impulse" then you risk removing the primary motivating factor for investments. Imagine what would happen to the economy if there was no one left to have faith that the housing market would eventually recover! Would you take out a 30-year mortgage without an act of faith?

Religion may provide comfort, but it also provides evil, and it's my opinion that evil is more powerful than good.

A gun may provide food for the table (which is good), but it also provides death to crime victims (which is evil). Since (in your opinion) evil is more powerful than good, guns should be banned -- poofitty-poof!

Personally, I'd like to eliminate the obsessive bipolarism that predominates any "Us" versus "Not Us" institution, including organized sports, churches, temples, mosques, union halls, political parties, country clubs, gated communities, the Fox network ... et cetera.

 

[Darth Rotor]

I would not use the wand.

People need to avoid/escape religion on their own, or doing so has no value. The process is more important than the outcome.

If you keep making sense, you will spend a night in the box. (Well said.)

Since we are imagining magical wands here, I'd like one that I can use to cast the Polymorph Other spell from Dungeons and Dragons.

I could have so much fun with that.

DR

 

[Fnord]

Since we are imagining magical wands here, I'd like one that I can use to cast the Polymorph Other spell from Dungeons and Dragons.

Give me the Ring of Air Elemental Command. Imagine ... invisible flight ...

"LAX control, something just impacted our number three engine ... we must abort ... please clear a runway for emergency landing ..."

Then again, maybe not.

 

[triadboy]

If you remove the "religion impulse" then you remove all forms of obsessive and ritualistic behavior. Think of all those professional and collegiate sports programs that would go unfunded because there were no fans ("fanatics") left to spend $300 for a bowl game ticket! What would happen to them?

The Religion Impulse speaks to the "afterlife". That's what religion is - an explanation of the "afterlife". Obsessions, ritualistic behavior, sports, etc. don't apply.

If you remove the "faith impulse" then you risk removing the primary motivating factor for investments. Imagine what would happen to the economy if there was no one left to have faith that the housing market would eventually recover! Would you take out a 30-year mortgage without an act of faith?

You are confusing 'faith' and 'trust'.

Faith is believing what you know ain't so. (Mark Twain)

 

[Fnord]

The Religion Impulse speaks to the "afterlife". That's what religion is - an explanation of the "afterlife". Obsessions, ritualistic behavior, sports, etc. don't apply.

No, theistic and agnostic studies refer to the Afterlife as the Metaphysical Model. It transcendes religion, which is the socio-political application of faith.

You are confusing 'faith' and 'trust'.

No, I know that faith is the intellectualized belief in things unprovable, while trust has some form of emotional imprinting from similar past experiences involved.

 

[articulett]

I'd like to wave the want and get rid of the "faith is good" meme along with the "atheists are evil" meme.

 

[tsg]

I'd like to wave the want and get rid of the "faith is good" meme along with the "atheists are evil" meme.

I'm pretty sure that if you got rid of the first let the second would go away all on its own.

 

[Fnord]

May as well get rid of the "Atheists are good" and "Faith is evil" memes while you're at it. That would leave only the "Faith? Atheism? Whatever..." meme, thus eliminating the entire conflict.

 

[Cello Man]

* Poof. *

So does this thing work on nationalism and tribalism, too?

 

[tsg]

May as well get rid of the "Atheists are good" and "Faith is evil" memes while you're at it. That would leave only the "Faith? Atheism? Whatever..." meme, thus eliminating the entire conflict.

*POOOF*

 

[Darth Rotor]

* Poof. *

So does this thing work on nationalism and tribalism, too?

No, that wand is on back order. Sorry.

DR

 

[articulett]

*POOOF*

(what an evil atheist you are... I concur--pass me that wand.)

 

[Lord Muck oGentry]

A lot of people have talked about it being an obstruction to a person's right to make their own decision, and this makes me think, because people should be free to choose what they think is best.

The trouble for me is that I don't think religion does this. You can't choose to be religious or to have faith; you just do.

Reinhard,

I'm not sure what you are driving at here, so you may have to help me understand.

In the meantime, let me suggest- unless you tell me otherwise- that you may have run together two different senses in which we can be unfree to form beliefs.

In the first sense, we are not free to form beliefs that are inconsistent with what we take ( rightly or wrongly) to be sound argument or powerful evidence. For example, I am not free to form the opinion that the sides and the hypotenuse of a right isosceles triangle are commensurable, or that things let drop fall up rather than down. Similarly, a religious believer who is persuaded by ( thoroughly bad!) arguments from Anselm or Aquinas that a deity exists is not free to believe otherwise.

In the second sense, we are unfree to form beliefs where we are coerced. The magic wand is a splendid example. Its use entails no attempt to persuade by any means, good or bad: the will of the user settles the matter.

From the fact that a religious believer is unfree in the first sense it does not follow that he is unfree ( coerced) in the second.


You may have meant that religious belief is often inculcated by means that are no better than coercion- for example, in the indoctrination of children too young to have any critical resistance. If so, I shan't disagree, although it may be worth pointing out that autonomous adults sometimes pass from unbelief to belief under their own steam, as one of my friends recently did.


In the end, however, I suspect that what divides me from you and the current majority of voters is a view about acceptable methods of changing religious belief. If believers are to be won over, they deserve to be won over by argument and evidence.

 

[articulett]

But what good is argument and evidence for someone who believes that FAITH is the key to salvation-- and "biting from the tree of knowledge" can lead to damnation. If you're meme infected... that's just part of Satan's tools...

 

[wuschel]

OK, this one is for the anti-theists such as myself. If you received a magic wand that you could wave to instantly erase religion from the world, would you do it? To further define the effect of the wand, I'm talking of every single present and future human being on this planet having his or her belief in supernatural beings and afterlife vanish completely, instantly, and permanently. In short, it removes religion from the world forever.

Personally, I'd not use the wand. While you have the obvious benefit of religious nut jobs from the Pope to Usama vanishing, lots of ordinary moderates rely on the teachings and stories of mythology for comfort and guidance, and taking this away could do a lot of damage. Whether or not this damage would be compensated for by the end of Holy Wars and Religion-inspired terrorism, I do not know.

Elaborate on what you would want, and the reasons behind your choice.

The last time I used a magic wand, it would have made communism go away. I'm a bit skeptical about the anti-religion wand now, as the consequence likely would involve homeopaths with AK 47's flying jets into high rise buildings.

 

[triadboy]

No, theistic and agnostic studies refer to the Afterlife as the Metaphysical Model. It transcendes religion, which is the socio-political application of faith.

(That's a joke, right?)

**********

No, I know that faith is the intellectualized belief in things unprovable, while trust has some form of emotional imprinting from similar past experiences involved.

Do you have 'faith' the sun will rise tomorrow?

 

[Slimething]

(That's a joke, right?)

No, he got it out of his Book of Fnord's Made-Up For the Moment Facts. Wish I had one of those babies.

His posts may force me to change my vote and swing (the damned wand) for the fences. Without religion, no Fnord. Imagine there's no country...

 

[slingblade]

If you keep making sense, you will spend a night in the box. (Well said.)

Since we are imagining magical wands here, I'd like one that I can use to cast the Polymorph Other spell from Dungeons and Dragons.

I could have so much fun with that.

DR

Yes, yes, but for utility, you really need Bag of Holding.

 

[ThatSoundAgain]

Yes, yes, but for utility, you really need Bag of Holding.

Personally, I'd just go for the Trench Coat Effect as my shtick. Or maybe the Swashbuckler combined with a Bag of Holding would be cooler.

 

[-Fran-]

I would not use the wand.

People need to avoid/escape religion on their own, or doing so has no value. The process is more important than the outcome.

I'm not sure I understood the OP correctly, but if all belief in religion of all kinds was removed (magically as it seems ) wouldn't that kind of be the same thing as to also remove the need for religious beliefs, or it would just come back in other forms right away, as many already have noted.

I guess I am asking if the wand only removes the manifestations of religious behaviour and beliefs that we see today (such as all the religions that exists, and have existed). Or does it remove religious behaviour in itself?

If this magic wand then made the world into one where religious behaviour, or the need for it, have never existed at all, then there would be no need for people to get away from religion on their own, since it has never existed...

OK, I am confusing myself here...

Personally I would not grieve the disappearence of religion in itself, I am not very fond of it, to express myself mildly. Though it would be sad if all the religious architecture and art went with it. A cathedral, for example, is a wonderful thing, it would be very sad if it would go POOOF together with the beliefs, know what I mean?

Can I wave the wand to get rid of religious beliefs while all the art stays? It could be interesting to see people walk around wondering what those buildings are for