I wouldn’t get rid of religion, I’d get rid of whatever makes humans feel the need to believe in utopian visions and an all-wise leader to follow. Because when humans abandon religion, they just redirect that very human instinct to believe in something and invest it in another human. That never ends well.
Even those atheists who are able to reject religion and avoid worshiping a man or an ideology often end up falling into the conceit that science and human progress can eradicate all human problems. As if our biology and instincts will cease to make us ugly little creatures when provoked or tempted simply because our technology gets better.
So you see national identity, properly taught, as a certain set of legal responsibilities and values, the latter of which people can feel free to agree or disagree with? Is there a way to properly raise children with a religious identity, do you think? Maybe by raising them a certain way with the understanding that they can decide for themselves when they reach adulthood?
I remember reading some of the texts cited in your passage and I think it describes a particular situation (Americans in recent times) rather than a general feature of human nature. Unfortunately the recent efforts to find data on conversions, such as parts of the PEW world religions reports, have some flaws in their methodology that makes me hesitant to cite them. Occasionally figures are bandied around showing that non-religious American households actually have almost the lowest retention rate (around 50%) but there’s some serious issues with that kind of statement. American culture is deeply affected by religion, just because someone doesn’t go to church or talk about God doesn’t mean they are not a part of that worldview. Someone like President Obama is an interesting case study for this.
There is also the difficulty of looking at a switch from Methodist to Lutheran versus a switch from Southern Baptist to Catholic versus Muslim to Buddhist etc. Or if an American liberal Presbyterian switches to Islam, is there a difference if they also become hyper-conservative, or if they stay liberal?
I liked the Stark and Finke book but I didn’t agree with all of the assumptions they made about what constitutes a rational act or its precise descriptions of what religious people are actually doing when they are being religious. For example, are they assenting to a list of statements of belief, or are they practicing something? And of course, the data is relatively clear (a lot of people convert because of marriage or family) but the implications are debatable. But these are my own objections to what goes on in religious studies academia and probably belong in another thread.
The Pew Forum study (“Changing Religious Landscape”) looks in to these sort of trends. The short answer is that Sage Rat is entirely wrong, changing one’s religious affiliation is actually extremely common.
“More than one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion - or no religion at all. If change in affiliation from one type of Protestantism to another is included, 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.”
It’s true that about 50% of people raised nonreligious end up practicing a religion as an adult, but that’s not quite the lowest retention rate. Congregationalists (UCC) and Presbyterians have among the lowest retention rates, with over 60% of people raised in the church leaving it as adults.
Also, observing that the children of highly religious people tend to be highly religious themselves, doesn’t really tell you that ‘being raised in a religious household makes you religious’. The more likely explanation is that it has to do with genetics. Religiosity in adults is around 50% heritable (much lower for children and teens, of course, as one would expect).
Good post, for some reason nobody wants to point out that religion is based on giving us access to a variety of feel good chemicals that we haven’t quite mastered the art of tapping into on our own. Your religion can become your drug dealer of sorts. Not really a bad thing if not over done. This does give preachers and gurus a huge opportunity to abuse those who seem to be craving those feel good chemicals we get.
Good education acknowledgeing the existence of these chemicals and the control they have over us might not be a bad thing. Those same chemicals can be a huge compontet to the quality of out lives, good active nuerons make us sharper, more creative, and generally nicer human beings. I say we are geneticaly pre disposed to be spiritual beings and it should not be discouraged.
That was my immediate reaction to the question. All those people who got saved while in jail and went on to lead a pious life, all those people with just a hint of restraint because of religion, all those people who actually do think WWJD before they act…I wouldn’t want them turned loose.
I don’t like when non-believers paint all of us believers with the broad brush of brainwashed stupidity…but for some people it’s true, and it works. I’d like to not upset their apple cart.
I didn’t say anything about a “national identity”. I said that you get thrown in jail if you don’t obey the law and that people should be allowed to think what they want about their country, without outside pressure.
Which? Agnostic? Shamanistic? Polytheistic? Monotheistic? Sacrifices animals? Sacrifices humans? Practices mutilation of some form?
Sociology and history courses in school go over the various religions, so I would expect children would encounter the fact of their existence and learn some things about them, all of which the child is able to think is awesome or stupid as he sees fit. But I don’t know how any of that is supposed to impose a particular identity on the child. If you can think of any way to give a child an identity, don’t.
This is a tough call for me. As a cultural geographer, I am naturally fascinated by the diversity of human thought, expression, and behavior. But I went with “yes,” as long as I can keep “philosophies” in the world. I know that’s a cop-out – the line between “philosophy” and “religion” is very fuzzy – I’m basically saying, “if JKellyMap likes it, it’s a ‘philosophy,’ and if he doesn’t, it’s a ‘religion’.”
To be honest, I don’t want that much responsibility resting on my shoulders. Who am I to fundamentally change the thought process of billions of human beings I’ve never met?
Beyond that, the aftereffects of the change would be weird - the type of weirdness determined by how the change is brought about. Like it or not, a significant percentage of the greatest art humanity’s ever produced is about God or gods (choral music, paintings, sculptures, poetry, etc). Would the idea of religion be “erased” from people’s minds, leaving them confused as to what all this stuff is about? Or would the memories of having religion remain but there’s no longer any underlying belief? Either way, I see huge problems. With the former, there would be mass confusion; eventually people would rediscover everything, and religion would start again. If your solution to this is to instantly destroy every work of art associated with religion with a snap of your fingers, then . . . no. With the latter, I don’t know how many people could deal with staring mortality in the face with no defense of belief. Couple that with the memories of having an afterlife to believe in, of having a God/gods you thought watched over you, and I’d predict tons of violence.
Birds of a feather stick together … all things are spiritual. The body is a spirit being trapped in a body till the day you die. It is this spirit that you speak of when it comes to religion passed down from generation to generation.
This spirit being doesn’t stop at religion being it’s only source of fulfillment … many children grow up in a liberal society/family permissive of sex, drugs and alcohol, not to mention rock and roll or even classical or the Polka and I bet 80% to 90% of their kind stay that way.
All things are spiritual, thus the family bond in many societies from Africa to the Orient is of the up most importance.
“Don’t throw Momma from the Train” is a popular song in an unnamed foreign culture lol
So basically if you are raised in a barn your will live like that …
If you are raised in a bar you will go to a pub or a bar for the rest of your life and urge your children to go when it is their time to make that all important decision on what to do with the rest of your life.
Religion is just another disciplined, organized way to serve God
The problem is that we don’t all have the same God.
I chose to accept the Lord Jesus as the true son of God and agreed that his blood paid for all of my sins on the cross at Calvary.
My church is full of people that are like minded having a Spirit filled personal relationship with Jesus on our way to heaven.
Forever started when we believed in Him being the true Son of God after that comes the testing of our faith.
Some of you reading this right now will kill Christians someday blaming them for their God sending down bad signs and wonders out of heaven.
Some of you will join with us and be humble even unto death.
Faith is just faith … you can’t explain what you don’t have, but both sides have faith and feel that they are doing the right thing.
If you don’t like religion try a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. You know the routine feel guilty for your sins … confess them and pray for the Lord to hear your prayer. You can do that all by yourselves, right?
Read the last chapter of Daniel 12 and let him or her with eyes see what has been prophesied: Dan 12-9-13 NLT
9But he said, “Go now, Daniel, for what I have said is kept secret and sealed until the time of the end.
10Many will be purified, cleansed, and refined by these trials. But the wicked will continue in their wickedness, and none of them will understand. Only those who are wise will know what it means.
11“From the time the daily sacrifice is stopped and the sacrilegious object that causes desecration* is set up to be worshiped, there will be 1,290 days.
12And blessed are those who wait and remain until the end of the 1,335 days!
13“As for you, go your way until the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days, you will rise again to receive the inheritance set aside for you.”
So what obvious gap do religions fill over philosophy, again (given that the very concept has ceased to exist in this hypothetical, and would have to be reinvented ex nihilo?)
No, and Dr. Strangelove absolutely nails it in post #2.
Religion came about for a sociologically definable reason. Magically taking away religion isn’t going to take away the underlying human need for religion, or something as close to it as needs no distinction.
This is what I would have posted, along with a more selfish concern. Although I’m agnostic (Don’t Know, Don’t Care), one of my favorite relatives and two of my oldest and closest friends are devout Christians. I think of them as “real” Christians, who seldom even mention their faith, much less proselytize or impose; instead, they simply live it. Theirs is the religion of Jesus, rather than a religion about him.
All three are kind, generous, non-judgemental, profoundly decent, and I cherish them just the way they are.
I would and I wouldn’t even hesitate. None of this pondering over the implications crap, this may be humanity’s only chance and I’m not going to waste it
The cost of that solace seems pretty high. The premise of most religions seems to be that this life is a test for the next. If this life is all there is, then we’re selling out what we have for a daydream of something we can’t have.
I’m not down for the idea that we shouldn’t just appreciate what’s right in front of us.