Religion

[Bee]

I was reading a social media thread this evening. The question asked was 'how would you describe your religious views in 3 words'?

My answer is straightforward: Controlling the masses (there's an additional pun there if you are Catholic)

But here's a screenshot of what others were saying:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/28p6z6dsmrq3j41/Screenshot 2019-07-13 23.07.16.png?dl=0

Apart from the odd dissenter, such as myself, most responses were of the 'love and kindness' variety. Now, it strikes me that religion does not have the monopoly on love and kindness, and then it led me to ask why had people answered in that way?

My conclusion is that there are 3 elements at play here when people think about religion:

1. Moral code (love and kindness)
2. Faith - a belief in something that you have no proof of and which defies conventional explanation. The nearest I can get to faith is hope - hope that something else happens after we die.
3. Religion.

And it seems to me that 1, 2, and 3 are not mutually exclusive. But what did stick out is that people responded to the question with a mainly answer 1 bias, with some answering in relation to a faith bias - when the question was actually about religion.

Separate to that, I began thinking about God. Firstly, let's assume there is a God - and for ease, I shall refer to God as he/him. In order to worship God, why do we need rituals to tell us how to do that? Surely he knows when we are praying and we don't need to demonstrate it to anyone other than him? So why do we have religions? There is no one religion which is more right (or conversely more wrong) than any other. Why can't humans let go of the notion?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Here's my three words: Sense of belonging.

Human life is often characterized by loneliness and a sense of isolation. Some of the nut-case shooters and bombers do what they do because they feel isolated and alone. Terrorists see themselves as isolated in their little sub-groups, vying for attention. Religion gives people a sense of belonging to something they see as greater than themselves - which is actually commonplace.

People fear isolation. They fear having to face things by themselves. Not that they can't, but it is a powerful fear that overwhelms some people. They huddle together to keep out that loneliness, to somehow gain power through numbers. Street gangs in hostile neighborhoods exemplify this recruitment method. Man is a gregarious animal and really desires to be in the gang / pack / herd / horde / mob.

The methods of religion are based on the concept of "extended family" and that is how they offer a sense of inclusion. But of course they can't offer that to everyone because then it is too big a group and the sense of inclusion is lost. I.e. everybody knows we are members of the human race, so saying that God loves EVERYONE doesn't increase our sense of belonging. That group (EVERYONE) is too diffuse. So they have to exclude some people. Like, people of any other religious denomination. People of the wrong color (depending on the congregation, of course). People of the wrong national origin. People of the wrong gender alignment. People who don't believe in God at all.

People aggregate for anthropological / evolutionary reasons. Religion is just one more pretext for aggregation. Each of us has a circle of friends with whom we feel comfortable. Doesn't matter whether that is a group you met at work, at school, in church, or in the corner bar. It is a group that doesn't raise your defenses quite so much when compared to random strangers in the street.

You asked: Why do we need the rituals? Well... we don't, but religion desperately needs them. Because the rituals are mindlessly repetitive! Repetition is a form of conditioning, particularly when no thought is involved. When you invest so much time in following the rituals so often, you develop a cognitive dissonance when someone tells you that you have been wasting your time on a meaningless pile of gobbledegook. So the best way to avoid the dissonance is to shun those who are different. Because if you didn't, you would lose that sense of belonging.

 

[Jon]

Drugged by propaganda. Reminds me a bit of Brave New World and doling out Soma, the drug for the masses.

 

[jen_etic_flaw]

I was reading a social media thread this evening. The question asked was 'how would you describe your religious views in 3 words'?

My answer is straightforward: Controlling the masses (there's an additional pun there if you are Catholic)

But here's a screenshot of what others were saying:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/28p6z6dsmrq3j41/Screenshot 2019-07-13 23.07.16.png?dl=0

Apart from the odd dissenter, such as myself, most responses were of the 'love and kindness' variety. Now, it strikes me that religion does not have the monopoly on love and kindness, and then it led me to ask why had people answered in that way?

My conclusion is that there are 3 elements at play here when people think about religion:

1. Moral code (love and kindness)
2. Faith - a belief in something that you have no proof of and which defies conventional explanation. The nearest I can get to faith is hope - hope that something else happens after we die.
3. Religion.

And it seems to me that 1, 2, and 3 are not mutually exclusive. But what did stick out is that people responded to the question with a mainly answer 1 bias, with some answering in relation to a faith bias - when the question was actually about religion.

Separate to that, I began thinking about God. Firstly, let's assume there is a God - and for ease, I shall refer to God as he/him. In order to worship God, why do we need rituals to tell us how to do that? Surely he knows when we are praying and we don't need to demonstrate it to anyone other than him? So why do we have religions? There is no one religion which is more right (or conversely more wrong) than any other. Why can't humans let go of the notion?

I agree with you. It’s particularly used to control women, in my opinion.

 

[Jon]

I agree with you to the extent that it applies to some religions more than others. For example, to my mind, in Islam, women seem to be more oppressed. Am I allowed to say that nowadays or have I broken hate-speech laws and Islamophobia rules? Or would that just be a new form of blasphemy laws?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Moral relativity strikes again. One man's truth is another man's blasphemy.

But Christianity, particularly after the advent of the King James Version of the Bible, is also oppressive. James was a know misogynist and also knew the golden rule better than any else. "Them that has the gold makes the rules." It is well known that he influenced the translators to pick anti-women translations where possible. So now we have letters from the apostles in the later part of the New Testament. Some of those letters admonish women to be silent during worship for only men are allowed to speak. Men are the lords and masters of their households. There are other things that put men over women every time. Man on top, woman on bottom. Why do you suppose that is called the "Missionary Position"?