Sports or religions: What's more useful to society?

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
No, it doesn’t. How do you know the “higher authority” isn’t lying ? Or insane, or evil ? And what qualifies God as a “higher authority” ? Power ?

[/QUOTE]

Doesn’t matter. If one truely believes in a higher power, there is no reason to doubt their intentions. Why would you?

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]

Self interest provides a “logical framework” for morality, while religion does not.

[/QUOTE]

Nonsense. Following self interest is not morality in the true sense of the word. Taking a box of untraceable cash on the subway is self interest. Putting up a facade of morality while secretly stealing from the community is self interest.

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]

First, you NEVER “know for a fact” you won’t be caught. The prisons are full of people who were sure they wouldn’t get caught.

[/QUOTE]

Is it just your fear of authority that prevents you from stealing?

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]

Second, my moral code has absolutely nothing to do with religion. I regard religion as evil.

[/QUOTE]

I think cultural upbringing has a tremendous influence on morality. Judeo/Christian/Hinduism/etc values have a large influence on local culture. Hence, like it or not, your moral code probably has been influenced by religion.

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]

Third, my “biological sense of group morality” evolved for a reason; because it’s a better way to live. The idea that evil is superior and being good stupid is incorrect.

[/QUOTE]

On the individual scale, Evil is always superior,as long as Evil is never caught by the community . Good is only superior when you get to the “community” scale.

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]

Fourth, I DO have that sense of morality.

[/QUOTE]

I never suggested otherwise. However, where does it come from, logically? It’s not self interest.

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]

And fifth, “Morality is better for everyone” is a perfectly adequate reason to be moral.
[/QUOTE]

But why do you care about everyone? Why not just act in your own logical self-interest, and shut off all your moral inhibitions to the contrary (assuming science provides a way to do this one day)? Good and Evil don’t exist. “Good” is just an evolutionary carry-over of your brain’s makeup. It’s a hallucination. Why still cling to it, as if it is some sort of power greater than yourself?

42

[QUOTE=Abirode]
Now, is that *assumption * reasonable?
[/QUOTE]

He seems to believe so. I’d like to hear his reasoning.

43

[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
He seems to believe so. I’d like to hear his reasoning.
[/QUOTE]
My post was an attempt to keep this thread on track and not veer off into a debate about the existence of God, the value of faith, or the nature of evidence.

People believe in God because they feel that they are justified in doing so, and because almost everyone around them believes in God.
People follow sports because they enjoy doing so, and because many others do so. People participate in sports for a variety of reasons.
There’s an individual and social aspect to religion and to sports.

All sports sound silly if you reduce them to something like: You hit a ball with a stick.
All religions sound silly if you reduce them to: You believe in an imaginary guy.
And yet, intelligent adults can be religious and intelligent adults can be sports fans. Why? Because they don’t think that they are silly, and because the beliefs and activities meet some of their basic human needs.

But, not everyone watches or participates in sports, and not everyone belongs to a religion. Yeah, they’re not the same thing. But, there are similarities.

Although I enjoy watching some sports, and I enjoy playing some sports, I think that far too much time, energy, and resources are spent on spectator sports, and that the benefit to society is disproportionately small.

And, although I appreciate the good in many religious people and in some of their beliefs, I think that far too much time, energy, and resources are spent on religious activities, and that the benefit to society is disproportionately small, but slightly more than the benefits of spectator sports.

44

[QUOTE=YamatoTwinkie]
Doesn’t matter. If one truely believes in a higher power, there is no reason to doubt their intentions. Why would you?
[/quote]
Because the world and the design of humanity aren’t consistent with benevolence. And regardless of that, why would you assume that a being you can’t even provide evidence of is benevolent - something you also have no evidence of.

[QUOTE=YamatoTwinkie]
Nonsense. Following self interest is not morality in the true sense of the word. Taking a box of untraceable cash on the subway is self interest. Putting up a facade of morality while secretly stealing from the community is self interest.
[/quote]
Of course morality is based on self interest; if there was no such thing, there’d be no morality, any more than a storm or a rock has morality. Morality, at base, is the acknowledgement that the self interest of others is as important to yours. The desirability of morality is based on the principle that morality is better for everyone.

[QUOTE=YamatoTwinkie]
Is it just your fear of authority that prevents you from stealing?
[/quote]
No, but it’s a better motive than fear of god. God, being imaginary, lacks follow through.

[QUOTE=YamatoTwinkie]
I think cultural upbringing has a tremendous influence on morality. Judeo/Christian/Hinduism/etc values have a large influence on local culture. Hence, like it or not, your moral code probably has been influenced by religion.
[/quote]
And I overcame it, or I’d be the kind of monster religion is designed to produce.

[QUOTE=YamatoTwinkie]
On the individual scale, Evil is always superior,as long as Evil is never caught by the community . Good is only superior when you get to the “community” scale.
[/quote]
And evil tends to get caught, sooner or later.

[QUOTE=YamatoTwinkie]
I never suggested otherwise. However, where does it come from, logically? It’s not self interest.
[/quote]
Yes, it is self interest; I AM allowed to disagree with your claim that evil is the smart thing to do, you know. And biology, is another reason; morality in the long rug is the path of survival.

[QUOTE=YamatoTwinkie]
But why do you care about everyone? Why not just act in your own logical self-interest, and shut off all your moral inhibitions to the contrary (assuming science provides a way to do this one day)? Good and Evil don’t exist. “Good” is just an evolutionary carry-over of your brain’s makeup. It’s a hallucination. Why still cling to it, as if it is some sort of power greater than yourself?
[/QUOTE]
Because it works. Because it’s superior.

45

[QUOTE=Abirode]
Okay. Interesting opinion.
Or, something like this:

  1. Religions are bad.
  2. Sports are good.
  3. Something that is good is more useful than something that is bad.
  4. Therefore, sports are more useful than religions?#1 is an opinion based on personal observation. For #2, do you have a cite?
    [/QUOTE]

This is more or less where I was going, yes.

As to a cite for #2, my observation that sports are good is, I admit, purely speculative. They do seem to provide considerable utility.

However, in a comparative sense, I don’t need to establish that sports are “good” or “useful,” only that they provide more utility to our species than religion does. And until sports results in a Crusade, the mass oppression of women, widespread scientific ignorance, or contributes to the spread of AIDS, I am extremely confident sports is on the stronger side of the comparison.

Six of one and half a dozen of the other. I believe religion might provide a small amount of utility to society in the sense that it seems to provide some people with comfort. However,

  1. I believe this is massively, overwhelmingly outweighed, by orders or magnitude, by the destruction wrought by religion, and
  2. I believe its value is being wildly overstated, and that most people would be better off without it.

[QUOTE=Malthus]
To my mind, the main utility of religion, present-day, is that what is likely to replace established “religion” were it to disappear (suddenly or gradually) is not necessarily some form of advanced secular humanism, but rather some form of mass superstition, movement or cult - such as nationalism or communism, the scourges of the last century.
[/QUOTE]

That’s a good point. I really don’t buy your comment around superstition - religion IS superstitition, so you’re just replacing eggs with more eggs there - but there’s a valid argument to be made as to whether religion might not be replaced with something more sinister.

I think that’s possible in some cases, but overall I’m not sure I buy that the replacement would be total. It is interesting to note that in the two worst cases of extreme nationalism and communism of teh 20th century - Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union - fascism and communism did NOT fill a void created by a loss of religion, but rather moved into well-established Christian nations and attempted, mostly unsuccessfully, to push religion out of the way. It doesn’t necessarily follow from the fact that fascism and communism are incompatible with religion that the lack of religion will lead to fascism or communism.

It’s an interesting question to me, especially, because I’m Canadian. For most of the history of Canada, the “most religious” province, if you go by the general homogenity of the province’s faith and influence of ther relevant Church, was by far Quebec, which until the 1960s had the Roman Catholic Church as a virtual juggernaut in social and political affairs. Since the Quiet Revolution, however, that has compeltely reversed; Quebecers are now the least devout people in the country. And yet, Quebec’s probably more politically liberal NOW, relative to the rest of the country, than it ever was before.

But, one never knows. Since we’ve never tried a world without religion before it’s hard to say what might happen. I’ll tell ya what, though; I’d be willing to give it a try, because religion doesn’t have a lot of upside that I can see.

46

[QUOTE=RickJay]
As to a cite for #2, my observation that sports are good is, I admit, purely speculative. They do seem to provide considerable utility.
[/quote]
Perhaps it wasn’t clear. #2 was in your quote:

I was looking for a cite for your claim in point #2 above. Thanks.

God keep our land glorious and free!
And, God save the Queen. :wink:

47

There is a higher authority, the commissioner of baseball,
The idea that religion provides a moral compass to the masses does not explain why so many religious people commit crimes. I get bored with the religious claiming god is their compass as the loot the system for all it is worth. If you are truly religious you can not allow the masses to starve as you build mansion after mansion. There are so many hypocrites running religions and churches as they live the life of a millionaire.

48

[QUOTE=gonzomax]
The idea that religion provides a moral compass to the masses does not explain why so many religious people commit crimes.
[/quote]
The same way that people continued to get lost after the invention of the compass.

Also, when you say “so many”, what are you comparing it to?

Lucky for you, that’s not what this thread is about.

Seems like a good gig, if you can get. Why don’t you go for it?

Or are you a sports millionaire? :wink:

If you are, shouldn’t you be using all your money to eliminate religion?

49

[QUOTE=Abirode]

[QUOTE=RickJay]
2. Is inconsistent with almost any widespread measure you care to come up with - crime and generally crappy behaviour is not less common in highly religious places than less religious places, once you control for other factors
[/QUOTE]
I was looking for a cite for your claim in point #2 above. Thanks.
[/quote]
Societies worse off when God is on their side; Atheist doctors more likely to care for the poor than religious ones are two articles I have links handy to. You won’t find much hard data to compare the behavior of believers and unbelievers; who’s going to fund a study that will obviously make religion look bad ? Just a casual reading of history and the news shows just how incredibly destructive religion is; since most are believers, few people want to do a study that they know will underline that they follow something as evil as religion obviously is.

[QUOTE=Abirode]
Seems like a good gig, if you can get. Why don’t you go for it?

[/QUOTE]
Perhaps he/she isn’t willing to screw over the gullible for a profit.

50

Some good links.

Thanks. :slight_smile:

51

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]

And evil tends to get caught, sooner or later.

[/QUOTE]

“Tends to” being the key word here. Not all the time. Thus, under certain circumstances (I already gave a couple hypothetical examples, there are plenty of real-life ones as well) , it is better for an individual to be evil than good.

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]

Yes, it is self interest; I AM allowed to disagree with your claim that evil is the smart thing to do, you know. And biology, is another reason; morality in the long rug is the path of survival.
Because it works. Because it’s superior.
[/QUOTE]

If morality, in the long run is path of survival, then why are there still all the “evil” people out there? Why has it not been eliminated from the gene pool, if “good” gives the tremendous survival advantage as you are describing?

Besides, I’m not trying to argue that “being evil all the time” is the optimal route to take. You might be misunderstanding me. You are correct in that it is usually in your own self-interest to be good. I’ve already said as much. There’s no point in starting fights with your neighbors, kicking puppies, or stealing candy, just for the heck of it. I’m saying that under certain scenarios (when there is a real good chance you won’t get caught), taking the “evil” route is far better, and not doing so is against your own self-interest.

52

[QUOTE=YamatoTwinkie]
“Tends to” being the key word here. Not all the time. Thus, under certain circumstances (I already gave a couple hypothetical examples, there are plenty of real-life ones as well) , it is better for an individual to be evil than good.
[/quote]
And you never can be sure which is which, until well afterwards most of the time. As I said, prison is full of people who thought they wouldn’t get caught. Human judgement is demonstratedly terrible about when being bad is beneficial.

[QUOTE=YamatoTwinkie]
If morality, in the long run is path of survival, then why are there still all the “evil” people out there? Why has it not been eliminated from the gene pool, if “good” gives the tremendous survival advantage as you are describing?
[/quote]
Because people are often foolish, and your genes don’t care if you ultimately get killed, as long as you spread them first. Because humans are smart enough to override our instincts when we see an apparent opportunity, and stupid enough not to realize it will lead to long term disaster. And because humans evolve slowly. And to a large degree we HAVE evolved to be moral over the millennia; we have moralistic tendencies in our instincts, we are far less violent than the majority of animals ( more deadly, but less violent ), and so on.

[QUOTE=YamatoTwinkie]
" I’m saying that under certain scenarios (when there is a real good chance you won’t get caught), taking the “evil” route is far better, and not doing so is against your own self-interest.
[/QUOTE]
And you’ll figure out you were wrong about the time the bullet enters your skull, or the cell door slams shut.

And at any rate, if we all take the attitude that we’ll commit evil when we can get away with it, society dies and we die with it. So either way, it’s simply a poor idea.

53

[QUOTE=RickJay]

That’s a good point. I really don’t buy your comment around superstition - religion IS superstitition, so you’re just replacing eggs with more eggs there - but there’s a valid argument to be made as to whether religion might not be replaced with something more sinister.

I think that’s possible in some cases, but overall I’m not sure I buy that the replacement would be total. It is interesting to note that in the two worst cases of extreme nationalism and communism of teh 20th century - Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union - fascism and communism did NOT fill a void created by a loss of religion, but rather moved into well-established Christian nations and attempted, mostly unsuccessfully, to push religion out of the way. It doesn’t necessarily follow from the fact that fascism and communism are incompatible with religion that the lack of religion will lead to fascism or communism.

It’s an interesting question to me, especially, because I’m Canadian. For most of the history of Canada, the “most religious” province, if you go by the general homogenity of the province’s faith and influence of ther relevant Church, was by far Quebec, which until the 1960s had the Roman Catholic Church as a virtual juggernaut in social and political affairs. Since the Quiet Revolution, however, that has compeltely reversed; Quebecers are now the least devout people in the country. And yet, Quebec’s probably more politically liberal NOW, relative to the rest of the country, than it ever was before.

But, one never knows. Since we’ve never tried a world without religion before it’s hard to say what might happen. I’ll tell ya what, though; I’d be willing to give it a try, because religion doesn’t have a lot of upside that I can see.
[/QUOTE]

I have no doubt that religion is a form of superstition, but I disagree that this is just eggs replacing eggs.

Generally, in our society established religions are essentially conservative, not in the political sense, but in the sense of “preferring stability to innovation”. Most people on this board concentrate on the theological questions, like whether a god or God exists, which is actually the smallest part of a long-established religion - the majority of which really consists of ritual activity (the eternal round of baptisms, bar mitzvahs, weddings, funerals and the like), church and synagogue functions, local day care held in churches, charity fundrasers and the like; and going to church, synagogue or msoque once a week.

Now, no doubt most if not all of these activities can be done by non-religious organizations. But the fact is that in general these functions tend to be taken over by the state, because other secular volunteers and community-based organizations tend to be rare.

Which in turn may lead to the sort of alienation from local society which is the breeding-ground for new and more extreme forms of “superstition” that are not “conservative” in any way, but are more attracted to radical solutions.

Looking at historical examples, one can see that the sad history of the 20th century’s engagement with communism and fascism was preceeded by a massive loss of faith in traditional religions, and a massive failure of those that remained to speak out - though it is noteworthy that a large number of those who did (and who suffered for it) were in fact traditional religious types. The 19th century and early 20th century had brough massive doubt as to the moral correctness of religion - a doubt which was, in many ways, a very good thing - but that doubt combined with the disruptions caused by war and economic upheaval did leave the door open to new “revitalization” movements.

Now, looking specifically at Quebec, no doubt they are in many ways very liberal; but there are signs of concern there too:

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/columnists/story.html?id=6e2aa4a2-314f-417f-ad2f-96ee16e9eefb

The issue is to what extent ethnic nationalism simply moves into the void created by the decline of traditional religion.

An analogy may be useful: Canadians have long held onto the monarchy, not because we believe that a monarchy is really the best form of government, but as a kind of traditionalist innoculation against excessive political innovation - a constitutional monarchy provides political stability. So with traditional religion.

54

[QUOTE=Malthus]
Looking at historical examples, one can see that the sad history of the 20th century’s engagement with communism and fascism was preceeded by a massive loss of faith in traditional religions, and a massive failure of those that remained to speak out - though it is noteworthy that a large number of those who did (and who suffered for it) were in fact traditional religious types.
[/QUOTE]
Traditional religion tended to be pretty pro-fascist, not opposed as you imply.

55

[QUOTE=ITR champion]
It seems to be fairly obvious. Religion has had the most positive impact on society, since without religion there’d be no society. While baseball, football, et al are entertaining and sometimes enlightening it’s tough to credit them with bringing any part of the human race out of the stone age.
[/QUOTE]

WTF? Religion is still in the stone age. The bible (Koran, Torah) was written by cattle-sacrificing rustics barely able to understand dirt, much less science.