Okay, I know this flies in the face of everything science stands for. Science is about embracing change when new evidence comes to light (ideally). Religion, resists change to the point of wars waged in its name.
This was actually inspired by this thread. Where Czarcasm asks if you’d bring religion with you to a new planet you and 100 others are to colonize. Some put forth the idea that religion and humanity are inseparable. Even if you don’t bring a pre-canned religion with you, and sent up all atheists initially, eventually some sort of religion will evolve over time and generations.
Okay, let’s assume that’s true. How can we mitigate that?
Can we create a “surrogate religion” based on the tenants of science itself? Where would you start? How do you keep the integrity of science and its eternal quest of seeking empirical facts intact? How do you work in morals and ethics? What would science’s “Ten Commandments” be?
I’ll start things out by insisting this, of course, be a deity-less religion. More like buddhism or other philosophical religions, but with much less reliance on transcendence or mystical mumbo jumbo of anything preceding it. It wouldn’t require a figure head or any other idol of worship. I think a lot can be borrowed from humanism here, too.
*This might be more suitable for IMHO, but since it involves the topic of religion, I put it here. Mods, the ball’s in yer court!
If I was going to design an entirely new religion, I think I’d go for something that was more a code of practice than a dogma or a code of belief. The religion would also contain some sort of formula for amending the practice over time.
A sort of democratic bottom-up Confucianism or Judaism, emphasizing virtue and benevolence to others (avoiding the emphasis on hierarchy in Confucianism).
Science is not religion and religion is not science. Science is based on evidence; religion is based on faith.
Science does not seek to provide moral guidance on what people should do. Religion does not (or at least should not try to) explain how the universe works.
This, of course, is immensely understood. The premise of this thread falls under the idea that, if we could start a human society anew, under the assumption that it’s in human nature to develop religion, regardless of any effort to eradicate it initially, that one will eventually evolve over time and generations, can we try and preempt it by designing a “religion” based on something that is the closest thing humanity has ever had at “truth”.
It’s a great idea, and helps to mitigate all the unnecessary outrage against traditional and historical sayings and phrases of an otherwise religious nature, but used in an superficially official capacity.
But, if humans need something to “believe” in — starting from nothing, what would you give them? Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, etc…? Or can you start with something honest and unburdened of ritual and fear.
A religion based on doubt, rather than blind, arbitrary faith?
I expect that religionizing science will damage science. It won’t change the proportion of people that think rationally and consider evidence. Instead, it will create a church of scientists who cling to tradition and dogma.
Second grade science fairs are a close approximation of a religified science. All the teachers and all the kids know the words and the tune (hypothesis, procedure, results, conclusion) but at no point does anyone question their assumptions or do an experiment that has any chance of failing or learn any lessons except that a volcano filled with baking soda and vinegar looks cool. It looks exactly what science would look like if it was run by priests and art teachers (actually, priests would probably standardize the shape of the volcano).
Religion fulfills some genuine needs in society. You focus on its truth-seeking but neglect the more important need for tradition and community and mythology.
Let science be the vehicle for truth, but don’t burden it down with those other passengers. Create a different vehicle for tradition and community.
Ceremonial deism is much less threatening to atheists when you stop seeing it as loophole through which real religion can slip. Look at it, instead, as a way of fulfilling peoples needs for tradition and community and mythology without blindly following 3000 year old rule sets.
In my understanding of your OP, we are not starting from nothing - so I’d choose an existing religion and nerf it. I expect any of the major religions would be entirely suitable for the task. Hinduism is especially colourful and suited to the task. I expect that many adherents are already ‘believe’ it in a purely ceremonial sense - maybe even more that those the believe in Christianity ceremonially.
I’d choose Christianity as the foundation for my CD because I am familiar with it and we already have experience that it works well in places like English schools and American courtrooms.
I am not so sure that people really need to believe it for it to be powerful. Children - even after they know the truth - have a kind of half-belief in Halloween and Easter and Santa. They know it’s not true but pretend to believe so they can fully experience the sensations - like we all do with fiction of all kinds.
I think this kind of belief will prove perfectly adequate to satisfy people’s need to believe in something. There will be a spectrum of beliefs as there is from children’s belief in Santa to their parent’s mock-belief. No need for anything more.
Besides, they’ll be too busy learning about evidence-based morality to worry about the mythical kinds.
Ahh yes, discussion on how to provide a “religion” to appease the masses. Isn’t that what has been going on for thousands of years?
Differing religions crop up all the time. Why you might ask? There is always a question that science fails to address or answer and people need answers!
Science relies upon evidence to provide irrefutable evidence. What happens when the science as we know it is turned on it’s head. If the ‘laws’ of physics get proven false (think a universe in a vacuum) The laws we have here might not be laws on Saturn.
This idea has already been tried. I recall Martin Gardner mentioning in one of his books that Auguste Comte had created a new religion based on science, consisting basically of taking the tenets of Catholicism, removing anything mystical, and replacing all references to Jesus, the Apostles, and the Saints with references to famous scientists. He included scientific adaptations of public ceremonies and major holidays, appropriate garments, texts, and so forth. If you committed a major unscientific sin, you had to ask Isaac Newton for forgiveness.
But, doesn’t any belief in something not real, have negative and damaging outcomes? Sure, any religion you can point to has done a lot of good, but overall, delusion is unhealthy. Eventually, you’re going to get conservative extremists.
How can abstract concepts like “faith” and “belief” be redefined into something more healthy and useful to society?
Right, well, that’s because it was patently silly.
Obviously many religions change over the course of their history, but usually begrudgingly. Change is not a rule, so much as it is an ugly inconvenience.
Isn’t that a bit self-contradictory, though? If I know that I know nothing, I don’t know nothing; but then, I can’t know that I know nothing, since it’s not true that I know nothing.
I’ve always seen religion as “crowd control”. Come up with an all powerful God, create the concept of sin or some sort of afterlife punishment, and create a book of circular logic to provide the dogma. That ought’a keep people in line.
These sort of people aren’t concerned so much with “answers,” as they are with who is wrong, and what is right. They want a convenient white and black box to sort every issue into, so they can know what to love and what to hate. There, now they don’t have to think much for themselves.
Science does indeed rely on empirical evidence. That’s why if we found something that turned physics as we know it today on its head, the evidence must be appropriately irrefutable, as well as align with all the mountain of evidence already stacked up next to it. If everything finally checks out, the face of science will indeed change, and for the better as it will allow progress and new discovery.
