The "What should replace religion?" question

[dann]

The question for me is why do we need religions at all anymore?

What it the use of them, not much as far as I can tell, do we really need some old books to create a moral centre?

Before you ask yourself that question, you should make up your mind about who "we" are: Believers? Skeptics? Atheists? Wealthy Scandinavians? Empoverished Africans?
And when you add "anymore", you seem to imply that religions used to be necessary, but aren't today, so 1) which purpose did they serve when they were still needed? And 2) why do you think they no longer do so?

You seem to answer your own question the second time: They serve/served the purpose of 'creating a moral centre'? Why do you think so?
I think that you confuse one of the justifications of religion often heard from believers - in particular when they attack non-believers:

Let us consider a world without religion – people wouldn’t fear a God who’d punish them for their wrongdoings, so they’ll not hesitate from doing anything wrong for their own good. They’d believe that they’d get away. Crime rate will soar staggeringly. The society’s accountability & oversight measures are slapdash. We have already seen the limits of the accountability that governments provide – there are lords above the law, who wield enormous power and courts delay justice to the point of denying it. link

- with the reason why they actually choose to believe. And the idea is absurd! Imagine somebody thinking: 'I know that I would rape, steal and murder if left to my own judgment, so in order to save my fellow man from my own urges, I've decided to invent a supreme being to punish me when I'm dead!'

As always Acleron refuses to look at what constitutes religion. Instead he claims that, against their better judgment, the charisma of the representatives of religion lures believers into believing. And, of course, we all know that this is what characterises the average vicar more than anyhing else: his charisma! Oh, these devious manipulators!!!
Or Acleron points to the many things that religion has in common with almost any other ideology - or even hobby: If you change your mindset, you are going to lose the thing you had in common with people who still adhere to it, but when the Almighty Cherry Picker looks at religion, it takes on ominous proportions: "individuals who leave a particular cult can lose friends and even fall out with close relatives".
As if you won't risk losing friends or falling out with relatives if you decide that you no longer want to be an atheist, a Republican, an outlaw biker, a heterosexual, a hiphop fan - whatever!
However, I don't know if there's a support group for former Republicans whose income depended on the Republican party ....

 

[Acleron]

...

As always Acleron refuses to look at what constitutes religion.

As usual, you have no evidence for that statement and again as usual, you are wrong. It's been mentioned before, your mind reading skills are on about par with your ability to read what others are writing, ie zero.

Instead he claims that, against their better judgment, the charisma of the representatives of religion lures believers into believing. And, of course, we all know that this is what characterises the average vicar more than anyhing else: his charisma! Oh, these devious manipulators!!!

Just what do they use to attract people into irrationality, logic? Please tell us, because so far you have denied there is any indoctrination, now you denigrate any idea that it could be by force of personality, so what does convince people to believe in nonsense? We are all ears. And please don't say they need it, apart from being colossally patronising it doesn't explain why they become part of any specific nonsense.

Or Acleron points to the many things that religion has in common with almost any other ideology - or even hobby: If you change your mindset, you are going to lose the thing you had in common with people who still adhere to it, but when the Almighty Cherry Picker looks at religion, it takes on ominous proportions: "individuals who leave a particular cult can lose friends and even fall out with close relatives".
As if you won't risk losing friends or falling out with relatives if you decide that you no longer want to be an atheist, a Republican, an outlaw biker, a heterosexual, a hiphop fan - whatever!
However, I don't know if there's a support group for former Republicans whose income depended on the Republican party ....

You have obviously forgotten the OP.

The parallels with alt-med are striking, the high priests, the fervent and illogical reaction against any criticism (ibid), the rituals, in some cases they even have holy books which are re-interpreted to fit as needed and of course, the main reason for either of them, the money. People who have exited alt-med have similar problems to those who leave religion.

 

[dann]

As usual, you have no evidence for that statement and again as usual, you are wrong. It's been mentioned before, your mind reading skills are on about par with your ability to read what others are writing, ie zero.

Your posts so far are the evidence: You always identify religion with aspects that it shares with many other fields in life, e.g. manipulation, entertainment, charismatic leaders etc., and you always do this as cherry picking, i.e. all the bad stuff that you can think of, and for this reason you never hit the nail on the head, you never get down to what constitutes religion, and for this reason you will never amount to anything when criticizing religion because all you deliver is the cherry picked examples of the bad guys of religion. And any believer will be able to say: 'But that's not the way that my uncharismatic, unmanipulative and extremely unentertaining vicar behaves!' And the representatives of religion will be able to mimic your way of thinking and point at bad & greedy representatives of science and scientific medicine - and there are plenty of those to go around!
In so far, your arguments are an embarrassment to the critique of religion!

Just what do they use to attract people into irrationality, logic? Please tell us, because so far you have denied there is any indoctrination, now you denigrate any idea that it could be by force of personality, so what does convince people to believe in nonsense? We are all ears. And please don't say they need it, apart from being colossally patronising it doesn't explain why they become part of any specific nonsense.

You've bought into your own conspiracy theory of religion to the extent that you can't think outside of your own little box anymore. Since the need that drives people searching for a meaning of life beyond life is not and can never be a longing for rationality and logic, rationality and logic doesn't (and never could) attract them to religion. (Do you see how it's possible to completely leave out the bad guys from this sentence? The "they" who "attract people" into religion. That is because representatives of religion don't usually have to manipulate people to lure them into religion. The believers already want what they offer them. This, by the way, is yet another reason why Marx's metaphor "opium of the people" is so apt: Ordinary drug addicts also aren't usually manipulated into using or even ignorant of the consequences of using. Only the conspiracy theory of drug addiction claims that this is how it happens.)
The one who's patronizing is you: Believers, the poor suckers, don't decide to seek comfort in irrationality. They are victims of manipulators!

You have obviously forgotten the OP.

The parallels with alt-med are striking, the high priests, the fervent and illogical reaction against any criticism (ibid), the rituals, in some cases they even have holy books which are re-interpreted to fit as needed and of course, the main reason for either of them, the money. People who have exited alt-med have similar problems to those who leave religion.

Yes, the parallels with alt-med are actually striking, and even more so than you seem to think, because once again you cherry pick: Apparently you are unfamiliar with the many empoverished believers on both side of alt-med who don't make the headlines. The ones who need to believe that they have the power to help, and the ones who need to believe that alt-med can help them, either because they cannot come to terms with the fact they they or their loved ones have incurable diseases that scientific medicine cannot cure or because they don't have access to these cures. (In both cases logic and rationality don't help much, which, of course, is the reason why, as a skeptic, you should always consider whom you're dealing with.)
But these examples don't fit into your little bigoted world view, and therefore they don't exist! You see only bad people and their victims, and therefore you never even notice religion - or even why religion is actually bad.
Apparently your need to believe in a "beautifully (!) understandable universe" prevents you from dealing with the real world. When it doesn't work the way it ought to, at least according to your ideology, the charismatic, manipulative, money-grabbing bad guys must have ruined it for everybody else, right?

 

[dann]

PS
The bourgeois way of thinking finds it hard to accept the fact that even (!?) in modern society the living conditions of most citizens are so bad that they find it necessary to resort to either mind-altering subtances or the wishful thinking called religion in order to achieve peace of mind.
This is the primary reason why libertarian atheists need to discredit practioners of religion. The existence of religion disturbs the idealized view of society of bourgeois thinking: that we all live in a "beautifully understandable universe", which doesn't in any way encourage people to resort to escapism. For this reason, and for this reason only, do we have to listen to the fairy tales of baddies, the temptators, the satans of atheism, who lure people who are otherwise happy and content (and have every reason to be so) away from the right path and into religious congregations that are, of course, all fo them "sects".
That believers should rather concern themselves with overcoming the unpleasant conditions that incite them to believe weird things in the first place is a way of looking at religion that objects to the very essence of everthing that bourgeois thinking holds dear.
And that is what makes Marxist critique of religion revolutionary.

 

[Acleron]

You failed to produce any evidence for all these accusations, I wonder why that is?

People need to be irrational? So the religious 'education' has no effect at all. It raises the question, why do all these religions invest so much in doing it. Ah, I know the answer, because they are irrational. I suppose that makes sense to someone, it doesn't to me.

The accusations of cherry picking are getting tiresome, pointing out relevant features isn't cherry picking. However, quote mining, which you are certainly guilty of, is probably the only argument you have.

The comparison to other irrational belief systems is certainly relevant, argue against the comparisons if you can, but leave out the illogical and insulting comments, they just highlight the paucity of your thesis.

In the meantime, a return to the OP would be welcome and certainly more interesting than you.

 

[dann]

You appear to be chronically incapable of understanding even the simplest of arguments, so here we go again:
No, people don't need to be irrational. Generalisation.
In many respects the effect of religious education is similar to that of all other education. Some learners remember and accept what they're being taught, others ... not so much. Some discard whatever it is that they've learned (or 'learned') at a later date. And learners are not "irrational". Another generalisation. Three times strawman in one paragraph! Congratulations! I already dealt with this tendency of yours in post 161:

The one thing I do believe is that you can't seem to function without your strawman argument:
No, I don't think that people need to believe (I, for instance, don't). What I've argued the whole time is that people who believe need to believe. Otherwise they wouldn't! And as soon as they are able to lead fairly secure lives, religion tends to fade away. But since this fairly obvious truth about people and religion seems to make you uncomfortable, you (and many other skeptics) need to come up with your pathetic conspiracy theory of religion!

Pointing out 'relevant features' is not cherry picking. Pointing only at the ones that suit the purpose of diffamation and leaving out all the others is.
Point out to me where I 'quote mine' as you accuse me of. If you are talking about post 178, then I didn't 'quote mine', but merely pointed out your error of generalisation in your conclusion. I left the rest of your post to kirstenholme to deal with, to whom your post was addressed.
In the meantime, try to make your confused 'answers' to my arguments less obviously wrong ...

 

[crestfallensidekick]

I've found that an embrace of skepticism and critical thinking is just as comforting as whatever tenuous attachment I once had to religion or the paranormal. I'm not suggesting that it's faith based by any means, but there's something comforting about seeing the world as realistically as is possible.

Of course, one of the main selling points of religion is the notion of an afterlife, which isn't really analogous to anything in a secular worldview. I guess such would just have to be treated as an irrelevant antiquity.

 

[Acleron]

Here is what I wrote.

...
It all goes to show that relatively cheap education can improve the health of people without having to introduce a full health care system, not that the health care improvements should be delayed.
...

Fixed it for you! And I would be willing to sign it now!
And if you actually think that "the health care improvements should (not) be delayed", I wonder why it's so important to you to deny that a full health-care system is a precondition for the success of health education (e.g. overcoming the belief in witchdoctors) in most other cases?

This what you quote mined and changed. You tried to indicate that I was suggesting that health care be delayed. That was outrageous of you.

 

[gsmonks]

A common critique levelled against the "new atheists" is that they don't put forth a replacement for religion. For some reason this critique appears to be more common among atheist critics than religious critics.

Dawkins briefly deals with it in The God Delusion. How would you answer that question? If it is a bad question, then how would you explain it?

The "replacement" notion is a fallacy. Religion needs getting rid of, not replacing.

 

[deaman]

Illusion must go by the wayside.

Reality needs to be accepted and adhered to.

 

[dann]

Here is what I wrote.

This what you quote mined and changed. You tried to indicate that I was suggesting that health care be delayed. That was outrageous of you.

Yes, that is what you wrote, and these are the changes I made:

It all goes to show that, in the case of AIDS, relatively cheap education (and cheap, or even better: free condoms) can improve the health/prevent the risk of getting sick of people without having to introduce a full health care system, not that the health care improvements should be delayed.

And after the quotation I added: "Fixed it for you! And I would be willing to sign it now!
And if you actually think that "the health care improvements should (not) be delayed", I wonder why it's so important to you to deny that a full health-care system is a precondition for the success of health education (e.g. overcoming the belief in witchdoctors) in most other cases?", which you describe as "outrageous" of me.

You seem to be incapable of understanding even the simplest of arguments, but I will nevertheless make the attempt once again:
The additions to your quote are meant to point out to you the mistake of generalizing from your example. I pointed out to you, by means of my additions to your sentence, the extent of what can actually be deduced from your example.
And this is what makes you behave as if you've been seriously wronged by my argument.

So let me repeat what I wrote, but now in the form of a question:
Why is it so important to you to deny that a full health-care system is a precondition for the success of health education (e.g. overcoming the belief in witchdoctors) in most other cases?

 

[deaman]

No need to replace religion.

We need to become actively involved with principle's on an individual, local, and global basis.

Priniciple's such as tolerance, patience, giving, peace, friendship, understanding, kindness, love, etc....

And I am talking about actions, not words.

 

[Acleron]

Yes, that is what you wrote, and these are the changes I made:


And after the quotation I added: "Fixed it for you! And I would be willing to sign it now!
And if you actually think that "the health care improvements should (not) be delayed", I wonder why it's so important to you to deny that a full health-care system is a precondition for the success of health education (e.g. overcoming the belief in witchdoctors) in most other cases?", which you describe as "outrageous" of me.

You seem to be incapable of understanding even the simplest of arguments, but I will nevertheless make the attempt once again:
The additions to your quote are meant to point out to you the mistake of generalizing from your example. I pointed out to you, by means of my additions to your sentence, the extent of what can actually be deduced from your example.
And this is what makes you behave as if you've been seriously wronged by my argument.

So let me repeat what I wrote, but now in the form of a question:
Why is it so important to you to deny that a full health-care system is a precondition for the success of health education (e.g. overcoming the belief in witchdoctors) in most other cases?

That is unacceptable, by taking out 'not' from my sentence and putting it in later in parentheses you gave the impression I was saying the complete reverse of what I said and that you had corrected it. That is quote mining.

And the answer to your question is simply it isn't.

The practicalities are that you are not going to get full healthcare without education first. Education alone will improve life expectancy and quality if only through simple measures such as sanitation and avoidance of unproven and often dangerous practices supplied by uneducated quacks. Showing people how to skeptically evaluate evidence and ideas puts their destiny in their own hands. The idea that some people need to believe in nonsense is patronising and denigrating.

 

[dann]

That is unacceptable, by taking out 'not' from my sentence and putting it in later in parentheses you gave the impression I was saying the complete reverse of what I said and that you had corrected it. That is quote mining.

Won't you please stop your whining?! I did no such thing! When you take part of a sentence, "not that the health care improvements should be delayed", and place it in another sentence, this is what you do in order to get the sentence right, i.e. to say that you meant to say that "the health care improvements should (not) be delayed". I take the "not" from your own sentence and place it in a new position to give the same meaning in the new context. That your paranoia makes you think that I imply that the "not" isn't yours is insane!

And the answer to your question is simply it isn't.

The practicalities are that you are not going to get full healthcare without education first. Education alone will improve life expectancy and quality if only through simple measures such as sanitation and avoidance of unproven and often dangerous practices supplied by uneducated quacks. Showing people how to skeptically evaluate evidence and ideas puts their destiny in their own hands. The idea that some people need to believe in nonsense is patronising and denigrating.

You argue like a true fundamentalists, so let me spell it out for you: You appear to be aware of the fact that if people get health care they get health care, e.g. vaccinations. To this you add your: but not "full" health care, which can't be argued against, but with this argument you also can't argue against the fact that every little bit of actual health care that people get access to, e.g. vaccinations, with or without education is still health care.
And I guess that you also cannot argue against the fact that there is a difference between 1) simply telling people about the way that HIV is transferred from one individual to another one, and 2) telling them and at the same time supplying them with cheap (or even better: free!) condoms!
The second version is the one that the Pope would not approve of, the one where the only thing that people can do with their knowledge of the vector of the HIV virus is to abstain from having sex - and for some weird reason most people aren't too fond of believing in this solution. Condoms, however, will enable them to have sex and achieve a level of protection from HIV (and other STDs) almost as high as if they didn't have sex at all. (And of course this is the only practical solution to the problem of AIDS.

And, no, it is neither patronising nor denigrating to say that some people (and thank you for the "some", finally) need to believe:

People are often compelled to believe in the supernatural, a category that includes God and religion for Randi, he told LiveScience in a separate interview. "In many cases, they absolutely need to believe it," he said. "Because they believe it gives them some kind of way of controlling the way the world works." http://www.livescience.com/9066-magician-scientists-assume-infallibility.html

The theory is that people who want to believe, or "need to believe," as Randi says, will grasp onto the accuracy and forget the inaccuracy. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/2001-06-20-psychics.htm

This is not an argument for letting them continue to believe, as you seem to think. The same way that Marx's "opium of the people" wasn't followed by: 'Isn't it great?! And religion is so much cheaper than drugs!!!'
It was followed by the demand that the awful living and working conditions that make people need to believe be abolished. The sooner the better.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

 

[dann]

No need to replace religion.

We need to become actively involved with principle's on an individual, local, and global basis.

Priniciples such as tolerance, patience, giving, peace, friendship, understanding, kindness, love, etc....

And I am talking about actions, not words.

I agree with your first sentence, but the rest is too abstract for my tastes:
Active - doing what exactly?!
Your principles appear to be almost a parody of the old Christian values: Do you want to make peace with the oppressors? Befriend, understand, be kind to and love them??!
Stressing actions a second time doesn't make your manifesto more specific.
(And did you notice that you're using only words to tell us that? Is that wrong? Isn't that how you argue for something?)

 

[dann]

Illusion must go by the wayside.

Yes, that would be a very good idea.

Reality needs to be accepted and adhered to.

Are you saying that people should accept poverty, oppression and war?

 

[Acleron]

Won't you please stop your whining?! I did no such thing! When you take part of a sentence, "not that the health care improvements should be delayed", and place it in another sentence, this is what you do in order to get the sentence right, i.e. to say that you meant to say that "the health care improvements should (not) be delayed". I take the "not" from your own sentence and place it in a new position to give the same meaning in the new context. That your paranoia makes you think that I imply that the "not" isn't yours is insane!

You quote somebody, you don't change the quote. You did, unacceptable. If you don't like the complaint then don't change my words.

You argue like a true fundamentalists, so let me spell it out for you: You appear to be aware of the fact that if people get health care they get health care, e.g. vaccinations. To this you add your: but not "full" health care, which can't be argued against, but with this argument you also can't argue against the fact that every little bit of actual health care that people get access to, e.g. vaccinations, with or without education is still health care.

We already see that lack of education mitigates against even vaccination.

And I guess that you also cannot argue against the fact that there is a difference between 1) simply telling people about the way that HIV is transferred from one individual to another one, and 2) telling them and at the same time supplying them with cheap (or even better: free!) condoms!
The second version is the one that the Pope would not approve of, the one where the only thing that people can do with their knowledge of the vector of the HIV virus is to abstain from having sex - and for some weird reason most people aren't too fond of believing in this solution. Condoms, however, will enable them to have sex and achieve a level of protection from HIV (and other STDs) almost as high as if they didn't have sex at all. (And of course this is the only practical solution to the problem of AIDS.

So education is necessary to implement healthcare. Just supplying condoms without education enables nonsense spouting, murderous priests to give out misinformation. Yeah, they sure need that kind of belief.

And, no, it is neither patronising nor denigrating to say that some people (and thank you for the "some", finally) need to believe:

Well of course, you would say that wouldn't you. Nevertheless, huge numbers of people who are not indoctrinated from birth into believing that they need some irrational belief don't have an ache to acquire nonsense. So what is different about these people you claim need it?

This is not an argument for letting them continue to believe, as you seem to think. The same way that Marx's "opium of the people" wasn't followed by: 'Isn't it great?! And religion is so much cheaper than drugs!!!'
It was followed by the demand that the awful living and working conditions that make people need to believe be abolished. The sooner the better.

Ah, so you think if you are poor, you need to believe. Actually it is the other way around. The poor are targeted by the priests and shamans. When you have no morals and ethics it is easy to convince the vulnerable to believe in something that is not in their best interests. Education allows people to make up their own minds about what is best for them. That can be done without improving their standard of living. Again not that those improvements shouldn't be striven for as well.

 

[deaman]

Yes, that would be a very good idea.



Are you saying that people should accept poverty, oppression and war?

If they are facts of life, then yes. Acknowledge them and take action to eliminate them.

 

[dann]

If they are facts of life, then yes. Acknowledge them and take action to eliminate them.

OK, then I agree with you!

 

[dann]

You quote somebody, you don't change the quote. You did, unacceptable. If you don't like the complaint then don't change my words.

Yes, sometimes you do - as long as you don't change the meaning of the quotation, which, by the way, I would have done if I hadn't added your "not". Feel free to accuse me of the heinous crime of having used round (parentheses) instead of 'square' brackets!

We already see that lack of education mitigates against even vaccination.

A campaign of misinformation about vaccinations and "lack of education" are not the same thing.

So education is necessary to implement healthcare. Just supplying condoms without education enables nonsense spouting, murderous priests to give out misinformation. Yeah, they sure need that kind of belief.

Your talk of "murderous priests" really helps make everybody see how fond you are of hyperbole! Thank you. I'm pretty sure that it doesn't take much more 'education' than what you can write on a condom, "Protection against HIV and other STDs," to make people realize that it's not a cooking utensil ...

Well of course, you would say that wouldn't you. Nevertheless, huge numbers of people who are not indoctrinated from birth into believing that they need some irrational belief don't have an ache to acquire nonsense. So what is different about these people you claim need it?

And huge numbers of people who are indoctrinated from birth into believing that they need some irrational belief don't have to acquire nonsense. People differ. Some of them accept the nonsense, some of them reject it, and some of the people who weren't "indoctrinated" go on to invent their own brand of "irrational belief". But they wouldn't fit very well into your conspiracy theory of religion with murderous, indoctrinating priests.

Ah, so you think if you are poor, you need to believe. Actually it is the other way around. The poor are targeted by the priests and shamans. When you have no morals and ethics it is easy to convince the vulnerable to believe in something that is not in their best interests. Education allows people to make up their own minds about what is best for them. That can be done without improving their standard of living. Again not that those improvements shouldn't be striven for as well.

Yes, the priests and shamans of your fairy tales appear to be really stupid! Instead of targeting people with money, they choose to target the poor. (This, of course, is the reason why priests and shamans would never target people like Tom Cruise or Steve Jobs, right?) And, of course, in your fantasy world every (murderous?) priest and shaman lacks morals and ethics. However, I'm glad that you finally seem to have discovered that the poor actually are "vulnerable" in these matters! Thank you! You may grasp the truth of this field one day if only you let go of your conspiracy theory of religion.
And, yes, "Education allows people to make up their own minds about what is best for them," (I apologize for having changed your full stop to a comma!) but actual alternatives to their ****** lives, e.g. proper healthcare, enables them to change more than their minds, whereas pointing at alternatives that they don't have access to does absolutely nothing. This, by the way, is the reason why all your examples only work to the extent that these alternatives are already there (as in the case of HIV education), even though you conveniently leave out that fact in order to 'prove' your point ...
Dream on, Acleron, but try not to have too many nightmares about murderous, manipulative priests and shamans ...