Sure. There are lots of ethical claims that apply to real-world facts — I’ve mentioned several in this thread already. Anything that can be expressed in terms of right or wrong, good or evil, ought or ought not, is an ethical claim. Political claims are an obvious example — should the law affirm a woman’s right to an abortion, or limit/control it, or prohibit it? Should we execute people convicted of grave crimes? Should the state provide universal healthcare at no charge to users? Regardless of which way you fall on any of those questions, your position is an ethical one.
Your belief that the death penalty does, or does not, deter crime is not an ethical belief — it can’t be expressed in “ought” or “ought not” terms, or in terms of anyone’s rights, or of “good” or “evil”. Obviously it might inform or shape your ethical belief about the death penalty, but that’s very different from validating it; proving that it is right or wrong. And we can see this very easily from the fact that someone might hypothetically accept that the death penalty does deter crime, and still opppose the death penalty, and we couldn’t say their position was irrational or inconsistent or refuted by the observed facts.
Rubbish. It’s easy to point to abundant examples of people who do evil things and justify them by pointing to claims which are factually true — people who do depraved things because they expect they will acquire money or power by doing so, and they do, for example.
It’s equally easy to point to people who do virtuous things on the basis of claims that are false or, at any rate, not obviously true. An atheist would offer the example of people who do virtuous things in the hope of a heavenly reward. And, again, there are many examples.
I don’t see any reason to think that there is any correlation between holding factually true beliefs and being virtuous. (Except, perhaps, to the extent that people arrive at factually true beliefs because they believe that the pursuit of truth is inherently virtuous, but that’s a special case.)
As a starting point, what are examples of successful and unsuccessful meme/philosophies? Bear in mind that ecologists grasp that ecosystems can support different successful species.
Successful
Christianity
Islam
Hinduism inside India
I would put Judaism in this list, or maybe somewhere in between
English
Scientific Method Pseudoskepticism
Western Secularism
Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) (aka WEIRD)
Buddhism
Market capitalism
driving cars
riding public transportation
Jazz / rock / classical music
The butter knife
Baha’i outside Iran
Less successful
Hinduism outside India Zorasterism (a little over 100,000 followers) Samaritanism about 900 followers Shakers 3 practitioners Endangered Languages
I think Communism has basically died out in all but name, outside of fringes
Riding horses on the street
chastity
The Ottavini, a keyboard instrument and type of Virginal, another keyboard instrument
Roman/Gaul Dodecahedrons
Baha’i inside Iran
Related to that: timing. I’ve seen it pointed out in the past that all the major successful religions originated during a particular range of history. The older religions all died out or nearly so, and younger ones have never gotten the same level of traction. I don’t have any real idea why, but it appears that originating within that time period was key to the long term success of a religion.
I’m sure there’s all sorts of other examples of the timing either being just right or the timing being wrong that helped a “meme” succeed or fail. In fact I can recall one offhand; assembly lines. The assembly line was actually invented in ancient Rome, a business devised a water-powered version. Thing is…nobody copied it, so the idea died and it became an obscure historical footnote. There wasn’t any effort to suppress the idea; the intellectual climate of the time just wasn’t right for businesses to look at an innovation like that and think that copying it was a good idea.
Mmm. I’m not completely convinced. If you consider Judaism and anything with more adherents that Judaism to be major world religions, then the range for the foundation dates of major world religions is roughtly 1500 BCE (Hinduism) - 1500 CE (Sikhism), or a period of 3,000 years, give or take. But that period only ended 500 years ago which means, really, that we can’t be sure it has ended; a recently founded religion or a religion yet to be founded could grow to be a major world religion.
I’ve often suggested that Scientology, or a derivative thereof, will be a major world religion in 300-500 years. That’s not a very scientific prediction, more of a joke really, but it’s not also not inconceivable.
As a duly ordained Dudeist priest, I’m amused by the thought that it might someday reach the heights of “major world religion.” Pretty sure it doesn’t aspire to, though.
Expanding on the OP’s discussion of what makes a successful religion, I’d say the following factors, in order:
Something supernatural, or at least “spiritual”, the more detailed the better but not so hard to understand that it can’t be spread by word of mouth.
Good emphasis on proselytizing, ideally by the sword. A more benign form might be community work while pushing the message.
Ultimate carrot and stick: join and go to heaven, leave and go to hell (as well as possibly being executed in this life)
Tribal belonging, which can be emphasized with arbitrary clothing or practices. Regular meet-ups are also really important.
No rules that result in expulsion. No matter what you do, you can still be a member of the club as long as you ask forgiveness.
I think there’s a slight conflict between (1) and (3)…successful religions try to sign up everyone, but it’s also exciting joining an exclusive group. So you get a whole mix of types and strategies among religions and communities in general. Arguably the splits into denominations / factions is one way you can have a mega religion that nonetheless presses tribal buttons.
That would be the Axial Age, " a term coined by the German philosopher Karl Jaspers. It refers to broad changes in religious and philosophical thought that occurred in a variety of locations from about the 8th to the 3rd century BCE." Yes, the founding of Christianity and Islam falls outside that window.
Why certain religions persisted could simply be a matter of path dependence (though I doubt that). A variety of that argument would be that the Roman emperor Constantine hired a lot of Christians, because a larger share of them were literate for religious reasons. Once Christianity was established as a state religion inertia could do the rest.
Again, dubious. Bertrand Russell believed that Christianity supplanted paganism because of its intolerance. Tolerant religions tend to morph over time until they become something else. Intolerant ones have a self-correcting mechanism, as are ones that are constrained by written documents (though not all religious documents have that function - some are more expositional). Stories like, “Zeus cheats on Hera”, persist in memory but don’t prop up a religious institution as well as, “Moses lays down the law.”
So if you want an idea to persist, tell a good yarn. If you want an institution to persist, embed it with antibodies and enforcement mechanisms as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam did.
Buddhism is propped by its philosophy: its logic is self-perpetuating and can be applied and re-applied by future practitioners. Sort of like the Pythagorean theorem (which was not invented by Pythagorous). Hinduism also did not take the antibody route, or did so to a lesser extent. Hindus think that Buddhism is a variety of Hinduism, albeit with some false doctrine. But I’m not aware of them conducting pograms, though Buddhism did die out in India for a while.