Whither religion?
8/9/15 16:43![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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talkpoliticsWe've often heard of the Evangelical segment of the electorate. Or the Mormon segment. Or the Jewish segment. But little is being told of the second-largest segment in America, and arguably the fastest-growing: atheists, or more broadly, non-believers. And they're rising worldwide. And surprisingly or not, being an open atheist may no longer be a hindrance to getting elected to top office.
In fact, there's a process of polarization in the religious respect as well as in the political one: while religiosity might be growing overall worldwide, so is atheism. Of course, many religious people are worried by the latter trend. Some believe it poses a danger. As if the lack of belief in an imaginary celestial boss equals lack of moral and ethics. We've heard that argument so many times.
My point here is about the reasons for the rise of non-belief. One explanation could be that the world is gradually turning away from religion because for a long time people have been witnessing how religion is "lacking" in some important departments. Like this discrepancy that religions generally like to preach about peace and good will, while at the same time they have been used to justify and even encourage the wholesale slaughter of people who question them or refuse to adhere to them. Contrary to its purported purpose of helping man, religion has ended up generally being a factor for oppression (social and intellectual), and censorship of knowledge and intellectual independence.
And of course, many religions tend to have some ideas that are outright appalling, concerning how people should live their lives and what they can or cannot do with their own bodies.
Now, without the sword to enforce those backward ideas, religions tend to lose their tools, and gradually flounder in result. Thus, non-belief grows.
That doesn't mean the majority of people in the world do not remain followers of religion in some form and practice. Of course religion is not going anywhere any time soon, and it'll continue to be an important factor, probably as long as there are humans in the world.
The other possible explanation is rather that the key factor for gradual erosion of religion (particularly in the developed, secular parts of the world) is scientific and material progress. The thing is, people are less likely to believe in a god if rational explanations render it useless, and if progress makes real, tangible world betterment possible without living by the prescriptions of some invented myth. If that's the case, then, even if religion would likely remain to stay in some form forever, the tendency of its disappearance and replacement by an increasingly secular, humanist ideology based on better rational understanding, is likely to continue and expand. In fact, it turns out societal development and prosperity is the bane of irrationalism (religion included).
There are drawbacks to the advance of secularism, of course - extremities like communism and fascism may have failed to further that process, but that has not stopped the secular worldview from taking over.
We should make a distinction here, though. Belief and organized religion are not necessarily the same thing. While the latter may be on the wane for one or more of the reasons mentioned above, the former is not. There are psychological as well as social and economic factors at play here. The more economic strife a society is experiencing (and thus, social turmoil), the more people would be prone to resorting to irrational means to make sense of what's happening, and find comfort. There's also the so called "Pope Francis effect": many people are prone to believing whatever they're told by a popular authority, and are susceptible to inspiration (of any sort, and going in either direction). There are also factors like the growing proneness to seeking spiritual comfort as age advances and death nears (hence, the supposed higher likelihood of a person being atheist while they're young).
There are all sorts of factors for the waning of religion - some might like to add the decline in authority held by the family unit as a means of teaching its successors existential dogma; the many gaffes and outrages committed by religious institutions (think of the pedophile scandals rocking the Catholic church); and the way education is organized in many countries, causing major shifts in long-held belief systems that primarily stem out of identity (hence national and individual loss of spirituality); and of course the fact that the scientific method has been systematically amassing enormous evidence in its own favor, thus winning more hearts and minds over time. There's the avalanche effect of peer pressure (which works both ways actually - depends what community you grow up in, a secular or a religious one).
Even people who consider themselves religious are now increasingly viewing their own Scripture as a collection of parables functioning as useful ethical metaphors as opposed to an account of actual historical events. There are scientists believing in God, granted, and still acknowledging the veracity of Evolution. There are bishops who now openly say the Bible is just a beautiful story meant to teach people morals, instead of a historical testimony. And of course these contrast to the ever shrinking group of loud and obnoxious, or quietly ignorant fundamentalist religious literalists stubbornly clinging to their preferred dogma even in the face of piles of contradicting evidence.
On the other hand, religion might really be transforming as opposed to disappearing - roughly 1/6 of people do not practice any formal religion but still hold some religious beliefs, which shows that religion is really not going away, and people are not abandoning religion because of the advance of scientific and material progress - and the idea that science and rationalism is the destroyer of religion might be falling prey to the fallacious expectation that the purpose of religion is to provide conveniently simple explanations to complex existential questions. Religion might have more to do with community, and communal practice, and be perceived as a key factor for societal coherence as opposed to a source of spiritual comfort. Because most people seldom have time to ponder existential questions at all, or delve into the spiritual. From that standpoint, being simpler to understand and follow religion could be a more useful tool for holding communities together than the more complicated, often misunderstood scientific process, which on top of it all requires actual intellectual effort, and refuses to teach you that you're a special snowflake and the purpose of the whole universe is to accommodate you.
This, in a way, works fine for many people - exactly because they're not required to waste time and effort thinking too much - the Scripture has already been written, the local pastor has taught them the doctrine, and the rest of their closest people agree with how things are and support it - and that's all you need to know. This explains why the so called conflict between religion and science seems to be far more important to atheists and non-believers in general, and represents a major argument of theirs. In the meantime, religious folks don't seem to find much conflict there at all. The only religious folks who may feel truly threatened by science are the ones who insist on Bible inerrability. In their attempt to embrace this doctrine no matter what, they find themselves compelled to ignore the complexity existing around them in favor of a book written by far more primitive and ignorant people than themselves a couple thousand years ago.
Anyway. I shall cut this rambling here, and let you have your say on the matter. The point is this: is religion waning or merely transforming? And either way - why? What's your take?
In fact, there's a process of polarization in the religious respect as well as in the political one: while religiosity might be growing overall worldwide, so is atheism. Of course, many religious people are worried by the latter trend. Some believe it poses a danger. As if the lack of belief in an imaginary celestial boss equals lack of moral and ethics. We've heard that argument so many times.
My point here is about the reasons for the rise of non-belief. One explanation could be that the world is gradually turning away from religion because for a long time people have been witnessing how religion is "lacking" in some important departments. Like this discrepancy that religions generally like to preach about peace and good will, while at the same time they have been used to justify and even encourage the wholesale slaughter of people who question them or refuse to adhere to them. Contrary to its purported purpose of helping man, religion has ended up generally being a factor for oppression (social and intellectual), and censorship of knowledge and intellectual independence.
And of course, many religions tend to have some ideas that are outright appalling, concerning how people should live their lives and what they can or cannot do with their own bodies.
Now, without the sword to enforce those backward ideas, religions tend to lose their tools, and gradually flounder in result. Thus, non-belief grows.
That doesn't mean the majority of people in the world do not remain followers of religion in some form and practice. Of course religion is not going anywhere any time soon, and it'll continue to be an important factor, probably as long as there are humans in the world.
The other possible explanation is rather that the key factor for gradual erosion of religion (particularly in the developed, secular parts of the world) is scientific and material progress. The thing is, people are less likely to believe in a god if rational explanations render it useless, and if progress makes real, tangible world betterment possible without living by the prescriptions of some invented myth. If that's the case, then, even if religion would likely remain to stay in some form forever, the tendency of its disappearance and replacement by an increasingly secular, humanist ideology based on better rational understanding, is likely to continue and expand. In fact, it turns out societal development and prosperity is the bane of irrationalism (religion included).
There are drawbacks to the advance of secularism, of course - extremities like communism and fascism may have failed to further that process, but that has not stopped the secular worldview from taking over.
We should make a distinction here, though. Belief and organized religion are not necessarily the same thing. While the latter may be on the wane for one or more of the reasons mentioned above, the former is not. There are psychological as well as social and economic factors at play here. The more economic strife a society is experiencing (and thus, social turmoil), the more people would be prone to resorting to irrational means to make sense of what's happening, and find comfort. There's also the so called "Pope Francis effect": many people are prone to believing whatever they're told by a popular authority, and are susceptible to inspiration (of any sort, and going in either direction). There are also factors like the growing proneness to seeking spiritual comfort as age advances and death nears (hence, the supposed higher likelihood of a person being atheist while they're young).
There are all sorts of factors for the waning of religion - some might like to add the decline in authority held by the family unit as a means of teaching its successors existential dogma; the many gaffes and outrages committed by religious institutions (think of the pedophile scandals rocking the Catholic church); and the way education is organized in many countries, causing major shifts in long-held belief systems that primarily stem out of identity (hence national and individual loss of spirituality); and of course the fact that the scientific method has been systematically amassing enormous evidence in its own favor, thus winning more hearts and minds over time. There's the avalanche effect of peer pressure (which works both ways actually - depends what community you grow up in, a secular or a religious one).
Even people who consider themselves religious are now increasingly viewing their own Scripture as a collection of parables functioning as useful ethical metaphors as opposed to an account of actual historical events. There are scientists believing in God, granted, and still acknowledging the veracity of Evolution. There are bishops who now openly say the Bible is just a beautiful story meant to teach people morals, instead of a historical testimony. And of course these contrast to the ever shrinking group of loud and obnoxious, or quietly ignorant fundamentalist religious literalists stubbornly clinging to their preferred dogma even in the face of piles of contradicting evidence.
On the other hand, religion might really be transforming as opposed to disappearing - roughly 1/6 of people do not practice any formal religion but still hold some religious beliefs, which shows that religion is really not going away, and people are not abandoning religion because of the advance of scientific and material progress - and the idea that science and rationalism is the destroyer of religion might be falling prey to the fallacious expectation that the purpose of religion is to provide conveniently simple explanations to complex existential questions. Religion might have more to do with community, and communal practice, and be perceived as a key factor for societal coherence as opposed to a source of spiritual comfort. Because most people seldom have time to ponder existential questions at all, or delve into the spiritual. From that standpoint, being simpler to understand and follow religion could be a more useful tool for holding communities together than the more complicated, often misunderstood scientific process, which on top of it all requires actual intellectual effort, and refuses to teach you that you're a special snowflake and the purpose of the whole universe is to accommodate you.
This, in a way, works fine for many people - exactly because they're not required to waste time and effort thinking too much - the Scripture has already been written, the local pastor has taught them the doctrine, and the rest of their closest people agree with how things are and support it - and that's all you need to know. This explains why the so called conflict between religion and science seems to be far more important to atheists and non-believers in general, and represents a major argument of theirs. In the meantime, religious folks don't seem to find much conflict there at all. The only religious folks who may feel truly threatened by science are the ones who insist on Bible inerrability. In their attempt to embrace this doctrine no matter what, they find themselves compelled to ignore the complexity existing around them in favor of a book written by far more primitive and ignorant people than themselves a couple thousand years ago.
Anyway. I shall cut this rambling here, and let you have your say on the matter. The point is this: is religion waning or merely transforming? And either way - why? What's your take?
(no subject)
Date: 8/9/15 14:46 (UTC)Seeing that amount of patience from Dawkins was surprising. But he evidently kind of lost interest in the end, realizing what a wall he was trying to talk to. What astounded me the most was the blank looks in those faces, as they spouted whatever standard talking-points they had been spoon-fed by their parents. It's as if the barrier that was shutting the minds of those kids was almost physically visible.
And this is more wide-spread than we might like to think it is.
(no subject)
Date: 9/9/15 12:20 (UTC)Same goes to his opinions on the basic teachings of Christianity. If you're going to bash a doctrine, at least take the time to study it first to some extent. Otherwise you're doing a disservice to your own argument.
I'm not even talking about Dawkins' typical asshole-style way of asserting his views, which might have created an impression in many people (who could've otherwise been potential "converts" to his point of view) that he's essentially spouting his own type of dogma against the dogma of religious folks. Not saying he really is, but the way he's presenting his views as if to say that anyone who disagrees with them is an idiot, does ultimately drive people off.
While I am aware that he doesn't necessarily owe anybody any respect, be they thinking beings or dumb drones, just because they happen to walk on two legs and use thumbs to grab stuff, it's a fact that he really is not a good promoter of science, if that was ever his purpose. He's a preacher who preaches and asserts his opinions - and that brings him closer to a church-head yelling from the pulpit more than he probably hopes for. Or maybe he really just doesn't care at this point.
(no subject)
Date: 9/9/15 12:34 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14/9/15 10:58 (UTC)See, Bruce had a nice house in the Hollywood hills, and lots of people knew he was really legitimately good at kung-fu. There were also a whole lot of people who thought he was just an actor who pretended to know kung-fu, and so they wanted to "defend the honor" of their discipline - and boost their huge egos - by challenging him to a fight and winning.
People would recognize him and challenge him in the street. Even if he clearly didn't want to fight. People would hound him about it. And every now and then, someone would literally climb over Bruce's back wall and drop into his yard, and set upon him wherever he was.
Every now and then Bruce would lose his temper and hit these people REALLY REALLY hard.
Now, I'm not gonna say Dawkins is some kind of atheism kung-fu master. I wouldn't take this analogy that far. But what I would say is, his life has been Bruce Lee's life for a long time now. He just keeps getting hounded, and set upon, and propositioned for debates, and publicly denounced and slandered, by the same kind of person with all the same arguments he's already heard a thousand times already. I don't know about you, but if I was living that kind of life, I'd be happy to be rude to these people just to get them to go away faster.
BTW, have you read "The God Delusion"? He has studied the doctrine rather a lot, actually.
As far as being a good promoter of science, well, it depends on the yardstick you use. We can't all be Carl Sagan or Neil deGrasse Tyson. But I can credit the book "River Out Of Eden" for fascinating me so much that it redirected my whole career 5 years ago. His written work is amazing.
(no subject)
Date: 8/9/15 14:48 (UTC)'Nuff said.
(no subject)
Date: 8/9/15 14:51 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/9/15 16:06 (UTC)I would argue that atheism's growing representation on surveys like this both is, and is not, indicative of the growth of non-belief. I'll say that, yes, atheism is on the rise, but I think much of that growth can be attributed to folks who already did not believe, but who attend church anyway for reasons of tradition, social expectation, family obligation, etc. In the past, such folks merely disbelieved in silence. Now, there are (in some places) fewer social consequences to "coming out" of the atheist closet. I think we're also seeing that reflected in these surveys. So the number is increasing, but not as much as it seems. What instead is being revealed is that there always have been far more atheists than anyone was willing to admit.
(Side point, perhaps only tangentially related. Fred Clark, an evangelical Christian blogger - but of the "progressive" variety - often touches on some of the issues where a changing society is reacted to by religious leaders. Although his blog approaches these questions from the point of view of a believer, his political alignment with the left side of the aisle allows him to look at some of the phenomenon of modern organized belief not as an outsider looking to demolish, but as a fringe insider looking to reform. It allows even an atheist like myself to get a good appreciation for some of the sociology and anthropology going on that has shaped our modern belief structures - or that at least maybe explain some of how believers act. For anyone interested in some well written, thoughtful analysis of the intersection of religion and culture, his blog is well worth the subscription. (His years-long page-by-page dissection of the "Left Behind" series of books is also not to be missed.) The blog can be found at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/
(no subject)
Date: 8/9/15 17:56 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/9/15 22:57 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/9/15 20:28 (UTC)Same shit happened to boxing. If I asked you who the boxing champion was now - you'd either not know, or you'd have to ask which one. Countless champions for each division (although some Ukrainian fella seems to have most of the heavyweights, my point is true for the most part). The sport is in decline because - who are you supposed to follow? Which one matters?
Supposedly, most religions believe in the same God - but you have to have an extremely loose definition of 'same' to buy into that (still, most people do).
We are stubborn though. As much as we want the Creators blessing, we want to do what we want to do. The best way to do this is just make another religion. You want to drink whenever you want, go to church on Tuesdays instead, not hate gays, disagree with abortion but not obsess over it, have exactly four kids and have them make homemade butter every other day? There's a place for you somewhere. If not, it can be made easily. Then, when one of your followers decides they don't want homemade butter every other day, but would rather have homemade jelly every third day - screw you, they'll go make their own religion - the true one!
And here we are. Look at the origin of any religion. With few exceptions, they just got tired of doing shit the way someone else thought it should be done. No loyalty. Chalk it up to 'difference in interpretation', because you won't be taken as seriously if you just say that you really just wanted a cold beer and some barbecue ribs without feeling guilty.
(no subject)
Date: 8/9/15 22:54 (UTC)I think there's a new culture war coming; on one side all the religious are sucking up their pride and starting to talk to each other so they can protect their right to defer to a magical sky wizard for moral and social authority whilst on the other side the atheists are getting big enough to be actually saying "ah, no, you don't get to use that as an argument in a modern society, facts or STFU".
The terrorism coming from white Christians in the next 50 years is gonna make these fundy Muslamics look like the IRA.
(no subject)
Date: 12/9/15 23:55 (UTC)Hmm, I'm not sure on what you base that (totally irrational ;D) statement on; however, the wonderful thing about it is that only a few of us (generic us, since I won't be) will be around to point out how wrong you were.
Personally, I think that the 'Muslamics' will bring about the apocalypse way before then...oh say in about 25 years...but then it's highly unlikely I will still be around for you to tell me I'm wrong :D
(no subject)
Date: 13/9/15 09:51 (UTC)Most terrorism in the US is already white men.
I think islamic fundamentalism will largely wither and die over the next 25 years.