What would be better than religion?

Great Debates
1

I’ve been meaning to start this thread for a long time: it seems to me to be the unanswered question in the whole religion versus atheism debate. I don’t honestly expect to get the question put to rest here. I expect to see a lot of the same attacks I have seen a hundred or so times before. Maybe we’ll get lucky, though. I think this question deserves better and clearer and snappier writing than I’m going to give it, but here’s my shot.

For the purposes of this question, there are no deities – or, if there is/are, he/she/they/it does/do not care about what humanity believes or does. We are the ant farm, with or without someone to drop seeds in now and again. Let’s also assume religion is the belief in some sort of higher power, though there is certainly a place in this question for religion-like followings like Naziism.

Let’s talk, instead, about religion and why it is (or isn’t) useful. My hypothesis is simply that religion is natural to human development and built into human psychology. It is no more or less universal than love, violence, maternal instincts, or jealousy – it is just as basic as these, but any individual human may exhibit or even control in themselves any or all of these to greater or lesser extents.

Just as those traits, however, I think religion is almost as important as humanity’s inquisitive nature in molding human culture. I think it is important as a starting point and, as it develops, as a series of guidelines for civilized behavior. This is not to exclude violence and hatred, of course: they are as civilized as charity and probably more prevalent. I think it can be used for good and for bad, for love and intolerance.

It is unfortunately true that religion has some very bad sides. It also seems true that these bad traits spring from its good ones: for example, though a religion might preach repsonsibility for one’s community, thereby bringing one’s fellow religious under one umbrella, the Them outside the Us are almost inevitably a source of some level of disdain, whether at the level of ‘Poor misguided fools’ or ‘Kill the heathens!’ They seem as inextricably wound up in religion as they are in human nature.

But that’s my point and my question: would we really be better off without religion? More importantly, what would replace it, both now and in the past? Would an explanation of the scientific method work for early Man? It might explain where his fire comes from, but it might not explain why he should not kill his neighbor and steal his wife. “Because it’s the wrong thing to do” and “Because you’ll regret it” don’t even work on modern enlightened adults most of the time. What can we use to replace religion – again, both today and in the past – that would work better for morality, for art, for culture, for civilization?

For my own background: I grew up Lutheran until my mother realized nobody was forcing her to church anymore. She still believed in a higher order, so she and I dabbled in Wicca for a while. I went to Catholic school for a year and was the darling of the priests (why no, I never told them; they knew I was not Catholic but they might have been a little surprised to learn I was not a Lutheran). I went to high school and college and still self-identified as pagan until it wore away into agnosticism, to secular humanism, to a series of mind-blowing epiphanies that sent me scrambling for a religion. I chose to join the Episcopalians for, to be honest, traditional and aesthetic reasons, though a part of me found (and still finds) both Buddhism and Islam very appealing – naturally, for very different reasons.

And one little anecdote: I was having dinner with two dear, dear friends who happen to be Catholic. We were discussing religion’s place in our lives, it being one subject we can be civil about at the table. I will remember my friend’s eyes and the tension in his voice when he explained to me: “I need God. I need religion. I need to believe there is some final judgment at the end. If I didn’t believe in Heaven and Hell, I’d do whatever I wanted – lie, cheat, steal, kill, all to get what I wanted in the world if I figured I could get away from it. I could get away from people, but I couldn’t get away from God. I don’t know what I’d do without my beliefs.” You might agree this is a very sad state of affairs, but what would you do for people at this stage of development if religious thought never entered their lives?

2

I’m sorry, but you’re a fucking idiot if religion is the only thing keeping you from lying, cheating, stealing, and killing.

I’m an atheist and as righteous and moral as one can possibly be. OK, I’m not a saint, but I certainly don’t lie, cheat, steal, and kill in my everyday life.

Religion is fine for those who want it, nay need it. For the rest of us religion is folly. It’s blind faith in the invisible. It’s a very shallow and sheltered and bigoted way to live. YMMV.

3

Your question seems to have lots of different answers depending on the level being considered (i.e., humanity as a whole, nations, communities, and individuals).

With respect to humanity as a whole, the natural inclination to believe in religion shouldn’t suggest that something else would need to replace it for widespread religious belief to go away (or that something else should replace it if it did go away). One leading theory (which can be read at length in “The God Delusion”) is that religion is not a practice that people do because it benefits them but is sort of like a parasite that infects humanity. Under that view, the thought of replacing religion with anything else is absurd.

With respect to individuals, I humbly submit that those (like your friend) who say that they would rape and kill (or that others would) without religion are simply wrong. If your friend woke up one day lacking a god belief, I believe that she wouldn’t feel the need to do anything differently than she did before. In other words, in my view the impetus to not kill people is a natural human trait that is entirely separate than the apparent need among most people to believe in a higher power.

4

This has nothing to do with the question, which may have been asked poorly.

What is better? What would have been better at the beginning? Would we have a better culture now if we had no religion at the start? What could get us where we are now or better without religion? Could we have civilization without it?

I may need to pick up some Dawkins, then, even if I disagree with him on some main points. I found, um, The Science of Discworld 2 or 3, whichever one it was, pretty illuminating though. :smiley: Calling it a parasite is… odd, though it would do to have another point of view.

There’s a theory of psychology or sociology that I really can’t remember a great deal of. It was a progression of moral behavior and human development starting at “I must not do this thing because I will be punished” and progressing beyond that – or not progressing beyond that, as it were – to “I choose not to do this thing because it is wrong.” I don’t recall who came up with the theory, but I remember the teacher stating that some people stall in their moral development at the punishment or fear of authority stages. Do they stall because they can go no further or because they find a crutch in religion that tells them they don’t need to?

5

Ok, Im young (atheist) and while I attend a catholic school, Religion has never been a strong influence on me. My mother is Episcopalian and my father is a non-practicing Roman Catholic, and religion has never been prominent at our household.
That being said, I think it’s ridiculous to believe that religion is the one and ONLY factor stopping anyone who isn’t already mentally ill in some way from losing self-control and going on a spree of crime. When you think of stealing something, is the first thing that honestly comes to your head the consequences for your immortal soul, or is it things like the risk of being caught, the reprecussion that would occur at the hands of the law, or how it would affect who you are stealing from? When, in a fit of rage, your tempted to hurt someone, do you worry about God watching you or do you think about what would happen if you went to jail?

What keeps us from doing these things isn’t religion; It’s a combination of logic, self-interest, and concern for those we love and depend on.

If religion were to disappear over night, I’m sure the results would be chaotic at first and some people would be lost without it, but the VAST majority of the human population would move on as if nothing had changed. We would fall back on what serves us best, our group insinct. Thats why we have religion in the first place (political uses aside)! It’s a rallying flag for people. It offers us an opportunity to be part of a group greater than ourselves, and thats the part of religion that keeps some in check. We want to be in good standing with the group; we feel the need to be.
In the past religion has been important for the development of modern society. After the fall of rome, it served as a bastion of civilization in Europe and played a strong roll in history elswhere in the world as well. Up until the present day religion has played an important role in society, but it could, now, be easily eliminated if replaced by basic morals that are instilled outside of religion.
Anyway thats my go at your question, im interested to see how this thread turns out.

6

Buddhism would be better than religion.

But better still would be the religion, to wit, the One True Church!

7

Let me see if I am understanding the question: regardless of any religions’ “truth” or untruth, what purposes do religions serve for human societies and individuals and what other structures can serve those same purposes?

Is that pretty much it?

If so then I’d propose the following:[ol]
[li]Religions provide a basis for laws and no groups can function without rules. Yes societies can come to have secular axioms supplant the religious ones, but invariably the religious ones come first and are the progenitors of the secular ones. Still secular systems that transcend religious ones can serve both for individuals and societies quite well. And have for much of the world.[/li][li]Religions provide a glue for group identity. Initially these were tribal identities but Christianity in particular provided a glue for identity that transcended tribes and nations, perfect for a society that transcended those categories as well. Nationhood and a variety of other granfalloons also provide for group cohesiveness, but humans have an apparent need to have a them to hold up against the us. This seems to be a major function of religion in today’s world but religion is no more toxic a group divider than any other - the divisiveness which is part of human nature is the problem, not the means of the dividing.[/li][li]Religion provided an explanation for that which has been unexplained. Secular society now accepts the tools of science as the better means for addressing unresolved questions and accepts that that which is not known is not per se unknowable.[/li][li]Religion provides individuals with a means to satisfy an apparent need to feel that their lives have meaning greater than the hardscrabble in which they engage day to day - it can provide for a spiritual center, a grounding, that can give an inner peace. Do all need this? No. But for many it is useful and I know some atheists who envy believers the spiritual security that honest belief allows. Hell, as a believer in a very abstract God that cares not about me or this world (think a less intellectual Spinozaism), I envy those who can believe myself - just a little bit, but still. I may believe that doubt is the appropriate belief but it is not the easy belief.[/li][/ol]
Any other functions to add?

8

I think we would be a much more tolerant and accepting species without religion, but it’s impossible to prove that. Religion has been responsible for a lot of good in this world, but probably more bad.

Religion can be summed up thusly:

  • My parents gave birth to me.
  • Their parents gave birth to them.
  • Obviously someone or thing must have created all of us, and the wonderful world in which we live.
  • And besides, where does thunder, lightning, volcanic eruptions and rain come from if not from some divine creator?
  • This place didn’t just create itself, and we didn’t just appear by accident, therefore a creator was responsible.

About 5,000 years later we started to figure out the science behind it all. Sorry, it’s late at night and I’m in a bad mood already, but organized religion is a scam and the world would have been better off without any of it. Unfortunately it seemed to develop in most cultures regardless of geographic location.

9

I don’t agree; there are many people who lack the religious impulse. A minority, but they exist. It does seem to be at least partly built in, but it’s not universal.

Yes, I think we’d be better off without it; in the long run I don’t think our civilization can survive religion. We are becoming too powerful. As for what can replace it; I don’t think it needs replacing. I regard it as overwhelmingly more bad than good.

But religion doesn’t do that anyway. It just gives people new excuses and motivations to kill their neighbors. As for physical things like fire, “I don’t know, let’s try to figure it out” would have been better than dead-end religious explanations. Religious explanations for things are sterile - they can’t be extended or lead to new advances, and there’s nothing wrong with “I don’t know”.

Actually, they do; that’s why people behave in a civilized fashion, to the extent they do.

I don’t believe them, frankly. Oh, they might believe what they are saying but I doubt that their religion has any real restraining effect on them. “God”, being imaginary, will tell you to do or give you permission to do anything you desire. If they really WERE the sort who were held back only by “God” from lying, cheating, stealing, killing, and so on, then that’s exactly what they would be doing already. They’d just tell themselves God wanted them to. Religion is about self indulgence, not self control.

Kohlberg’s stages of moral development is what you mean I think. And I do think that religion does just that; it stunts people, morally and otherwise.

10

I think there are also people who lack the capacity for, say, love. I’d admit, though, that there are probably fewer people like that, and while I would consider that a defect I don’t think it’s a defect in humans to have no impulse to Big-B Believe. I think it’s something missing but not necessarily more terrible or more indicative of future pain than a missing tooth.

Right! Yes! So why do we do this? When the question is “How did that fire get there?” why is the impulse to say “The god of fire made it so!” rather than “Say, let’s find out?” We are such inquisitive creatures, so why do we have a tendency to find a supernatural answer, and what does it mean?

But you can’t blame people saying “I stole that because I wanted it and didn’t have it” or “I shot him because he cheated on me” on religion, not entirely. These are people who may know at some level they did something bad but they will go on doing it because they do not make their decisions based on a nebulous sense of right and wrong but instead because they do not fear punishment. There are adults who break laws of all stripes based on “If you don’t get caught, it isn’t illegal!”

It’s very… convenient to believe religion is the basis of all the bad things in the world but disbelieve firsthand testimony that it can be helpful. As a small child, I know I feared God and did or did not do things based on that fear.

I also know that I joined a religion specifically for self control. I suppose Buddhism might have been more logical, but I never pretended to logic. I saw myself becoming an increasingly nasty person with careless disregard for the people around me. I had no spiritual depth, and by this I mean I had no interest in anything beyond money and possessions and the vagaries of physical comfort and discomfort. I felt hollow and empty and one day I came to the thunderclap-realization that I needed some spirituality in my life.

Going to church, for me, feels like taking a cool shower after a long hot day. It’s like the feeling of a migraine breaking up into a mind no longer clouded. It’s like a plunge into a pool. You know that expression “That’ll feel great once it stops hurting?” It feels like the moment when pain stops hurting. Maybe it’s self-indulgent, but that feeling is enough to keep me going.

But more than that: I remember better to be more patient and more kind when I’ve been to church recently. I remember better that it’s inappropriate to be an asshole. I remember to not throw down on people who piss me off but instead either walk away from the fight or, if appropriate, very gently set them straight.

I know it’s anecdotal, but I also know I’m not the only one. I’m not going to deny there’s hypocrisy and all sorts of other sins among any religious group, but it’s hard to say they’d be better without

Kohlberg’s stages of moral development is what you mean I think. And I do think that religion does just that; it stunts people, morally and otherwise.
[/QUOTE]

Which is an interesting theory, but hard to prove.

DSeid, you have hit on just what I’m looking for. The Beatles song, you know the one, Imagine? I have trouble imagining that, in part because I am not sure all that stuff going away would be better.

11

But you live in a society where lying, cheating, stealing, and killing are easily caught and harshly punished, and moreover, where we are indoctrinated into thinking that they are bad things.

Do general moral principles compel you to keep Kosher? Of course not, you say; it is a system of meaningless regulations designed to show devotion to a non-existent man in the sky. You gain no benefit from following them, and doing so would require effort you could spend on other things. Since we do not live in ancient Israel, not keeping Kosher will not have you be seen an unclean being unworthy of respect.

I don’t see why you ignore that the same thing applies to what are now considered the basic rules of human interaction. If no one is going to catch me and no one is going to do the same to me (say because I’m the king or whatever hypothetical you suppose), why should I not kill you and take your stuff? Because it’s “wrong”? Who says? That Greek philosopher type over there? Why would the king go along with what he says? If I kill you and take your stuff, then I have more stuff, and things are better for me.

There are plenty of reasons for me not to kill you and take your stuff in the modern world (like the fact that I will be caught or the fact that I will feel guilty or the fact that I will no longer get to read your posts on the Dope), but they all come down to the fact that if I do, I will suffer for it. But when there is nothing in the world itself that will make me suffer for it, it comes down to the possibility that I may be punished for it by God. (I am a Deist, by the way, not a Christian.)

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

12

It means that a great many people have defective brains. As for why it’s so common; that’s really two questions; why is superstitious type thinking so common, and why is religion so common. As for the former; it’s because we have flawed and limited judgement and perceptions. We see patterns that don’t exist, indulge in wish fulfillment, believe unquestioningly what we were told as children and so forth. Basically; it’s bad design.

As for why religion is so widespread; that’s a deep-history question and hard to answer. IMHO, it’s largely because religion is a great motivator for war and murder, and a useful way for the elite to take and keep control. Between all the killing and the rape in wars and the tendency of a male elite to take all the women they can for themselves, you have a genetic trait that’s good at spreading itself and exterminating the competition. Especially when you add the tendency of believers to kill unbelievers; that too helps cut down on the number of people lacking the genes involved. That’s my theory as to why religious tendencies are so widespread; a gene complex that encourages rape and killing, spreading itself and killing the competition over millennia. Ruthless, but successful in a Darwinian sense.

No; but when religion excuses it I can blame it for aiding and abetting. And religion promotes any number of unpleasant behaviors that wouldn’t exist without it.

I don’t think that it’s “the basis of all bad things in the world”. I do think that it IS the worst single thing in the world, and that it makes other bad things worse.

A nice sounding theory, but in the real world the opposite happens. Instead, people declare that God or whatever blesses or even demands that they rob you or oppress you or kill you. They declare themselves king by divine right, or that their prosperity is a sign of divine/karmic favor and your misfortune a sign of your unworthiness, or that you don’t have a soul and can therefor be enslaved. Or that since you have a soul it’s OK to kill you and millions of others, because “God will sort them out”. In the real world, religion retards or outright undercuts morality.

13

Because it is people’s longer term better interest that they not do this. You only have to look at Zimbabwe to see what happens when they don’t. People and countries prosper when the follow the rule of law.

14

Simply because the tools (cultural and intellectual both) weren’t yet there to find out, yet the desire to have some potential means of understanding (even a false one) was there nonetheless.

Good luck with getting that conversation going then. I wouldn’t expect this get much past the usual talking points though. As you see this brings out the witnessers for both sides.

Religion serves some important human needs and desires and existed before other structures that could serve those needs did. To me it is easy to imagine a world without religion and on the whole it wouldn’t look much different (better or worse) than what we currently have. Human nature is what it is and these structures are more a reflection of that than anything else.

15

Religion (not every religion, necessarily) provides hope of a personal afterlife. That is one of the bases of Western civilization, and the general decline in belief in it is one of the great unsolved problems of modern times.

16

I think the basic moral philosophy of religion could work without the mythology. Buddhism strives to teach us how to live in harmony with the world around us and with each other. The teachings of Jesus are very similar.

Promoting the oneness of mankind and need for unity to promote peace and prosperity and a better world for future generations. I suppose that would be similar to the Enlightenment.

No need to please supreme being or to guess about an after life. Focus on how we as a race make the best of the here and now for ourselves and future generations.

17

It’s in society’s long-term interest for people to follow the law – not necessarily the individual’s.

I firmly believe in morality, but I think it’s foolish to say that people only need to be moral for the sake of society. That simply prompts the question, “Why should I care what happens to society?” If people can get away with immoral behavior at the expense of society, then – apart from the inherent value of morality itself – why should they feel obligated to place society above themselves?

18

Religion takes a lot more credit for morality than it deserves. My recollection of religious services is that they really doesn’t spend that much time on rules that have to do with caring about other people but spend a lot more time on how you should be impressed by God’s greatness, grovel before him, feel guilty about Jesus’s sacrifice, and generally devoting your whole life to the service of God (in such a way that favors the church as an institution). Another big theme is sexual and other taboos, which might include abortion, euthanasia, dietary rules, teaching evolution, or getting medical care. Often actually caring about others often seems like an afterthought.

In practice most morality is promoted by peer values. If the people around us who we respect greatly admire wealth, we’ll be motivated to try to get rich. If they’re upset about killing whales, we probably will too. Almost any culture needs to reject killing, theft, and other nastiness, at least to others within the culture, if it is to survive, so these are pretty universal.

I don’t think most people have a need for religion. Religions survive because they have very effective doctrines involving carrots and sticks and group loyalty and discourage use of evidence in favor of faith (which means believing what you are told). At least for me, about the only worthwhile thing about it was that it provided a social group. We should be able to substitute groups based on other principles that don’t involve a false view of reality.

19

The same trouble exists, namely that the meta-question ‘why should I care about future generations?’ remains unanswerable.

I have $100 in extra income, over and above my necessities. I could donate it to a food shelf and feed another family for a week, or I could spend it on porn for myself. All possible arguments in favor of donating the money, without any exceptions whatsoever, are faith-based. You simply have to take it for granted that food for the poor is better, on some level, than porn for me.

So the answer to the question 'what would be better than religion?" is ‘Nothing’. Because it is all the same thing.

Regards,
Shodan

20

There’s a seldom questioned myth in our society; that morality is stupid. That ethical behavior is some major self sacrifice, and that evil behavior is smarter and more effective. This results in all sorts of problems; such as our willingness to believe tyrants who claim to be more efficient than us ( the “At least the trains run on time” bit ), and our willingness to do evil things in the name of “practicality” and then being surprised when the results boomerang on us. US foreign policy to a large degree consists of trying to deal with the disasters caused by such “practical” decisions, by people who didn’t think that morality was smart.

Because they are part of society, and will tend to share in it’s fate. I’m reminded of something I read over at the Darwin Awards site IIRC, about some foolish teens who started dismantling one of those metal framework electrical towers from the ground up to sell for scrap, and were killed when it collapsed. When people start undercutting society for your own profit, you risk getting crushed by the results. To use a simple example, if robbing people is acceptable, you risk being one of the robbed.

Nonsense. “Because I like helping people” isn’t faith based. Nor is “It’s good for society, by decreasing the necessity of people stealing to survive”. Nor is “It’s tax deductible” for that matter, assuming it is. Nor is “My wife will approve of it”, assuming she does. There’s all sorts of non-faithed based reasons.

It’s a lot easier to come up with faith based reasons not to. “God must hate them, or they wouldn’t be poor”; “they are being punished for transgressions in a past life”; “God will send them aid if they are worthy”; “this life doesn’t matter, only the afterlife does, and suffering is good for the soul”; “helping others or oneself shows a lack of faith in God and is therefore sinful”; and so on. Religion tends to produce selfish, ruthless, predatory behavior; not charitable or moral behavior. Even the supposed “pro charity” argument you hear from religions tends to be based on selfishness, that you should do it for a better afterlife.