The need for the debasement of religion

[wynn]

I am not preaching against religion. Can you, as a theist or not, own up to the actual costs of religion in todays world? Do you understand the simple and ONLY point I am making here - that religious fundamentalism and dogmatism needs to go?

And you believe that by pursuing other forms of fundamentalism and dogmatism, you will destroy religious fundamentalism and dogmatism?


Although you apparently equate religion with fundamentalism and dogmatism anyway.

My point is that the mass media now makes it possible to destroy creationists like shooting fish in barrels while only the most elite scholars could do that a century before.

Those are just delusions of grandeur.

 

[Syne]

I am not preaching against religion. Can you, as a theist or not, own up to the actual costs of religion in todays world? Do you understand the simple and ONLY point I am making here - that religious fundamentalism and dogmatism needs to go?

And no, of course mass media has not taken over completely, and I hope it never will. My point is that the mass media now makes it possible to destroy creationists like shooting fish in barrels while only the most elite scholars could do that a century before. Similiarly, it has made it possible for us to have is conversation. That is what I mean about mass media "encroaching" upon religious socialization - sorry I didn't make it that clear in the OP.

And I love this site NOT because Non-believers or science oriented people are the majority - but because this site has smart, intelligent, well informed and honest people - which are the only people you can sensibly converse with on these topics.

There are plenty of fundamental and dogmatic people who are either not religious or not activists. Hasty generalizations never work, especially when they don't characterize a majority. Extremist activism needs to go, but that would include atheist spokesmen who make hasty generalizations as propaganda. Would you be as willing to give that up as you promote others doing?

Mass media doesn't help your cause much. Yes, it may allow atheists who wouldn't otherwise congregate to amass. But the long since refuted, and pseudo-intellectually aped "memes" they spread only reinforce the dichotomy, as I've said, of the religious who do tend to congregate.

And I said you value this forum for socialization with "like-minded people", whatever you may consider that to be.



So if this thread isn't about subversion, is it just a typical "freedom from religion" thread? If so, it still doesn't seem to belong in "Comparative Religion".

 

[aaqucnaona]

And you believe that by pursuing other forms of fundamentalism and dogmatism, you will destroy religious fundamentalism and dogmatism?

And what might those be?

Although you apparently equate religion with fundamentalism and dogmatism anyway.

No. Moderate religion = good. It gives, love, joy, gratitude, comfort and sympathy. I like that and that is important for us. Religion or something like it will probably be necessary for us at all times. However, fundamentalism and dogmatism is bad, and religion is the most common site where they are found. Hence my argument for moderation and secularisation, bot subversion or abolisment of religion and theism.

Those are just delusions of grandeur.

No, that is the power of human progress. A child today knows more demonstrably true facts about the world than did the best minds a 1500 years ago.

 

[aaqucnaona]

If that would be so, then acting in blind faith, dogmatically, intolerantly, with prejudice and violence would make a person religious. But it doesn't.

Yes it does. It does not make one in accordance with the teachings of great religious moral teachers, but religious, yes it does. Religion is an institution for the organisation of belief. Any set of dogmatic, faithful and intolerant beliefs in context of any interpretation of scrictures is being religious.

Why cant relgious people own up to their bad elements?

 

[Syne]

Yes it does. It does not make one in accordance with the teachings of great religious moral teachers, but religious, yes it does. Religion is an institution for the organisation of belief. Any set of dogmatic, faithful and intolerant beliefs in context of any interpretation of scrictures is being religious.

Why cant relgious people own up to their bad elements?

Demonstrably false.

"Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, or a particular group or organization[1]. It is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted, or diverged from, by the practitioners or believers." -wiki​

Police and armed forces are organizations which follow an authoritative doctrine (law, UCMJ, etc.) that is not to be disputed or diverged from. That does not make these religious.

 

[aaqucnaona]

There are plenty of fundamental and dogmatic people who are either not religious or not activists. Hasty generalizations never work, especially when they don't characterize a majority. Extremist activism needs to go, but that would include atheist spokesmen who make hasty generalizations as propaganda. Would you be as willing to give that up as you promote others doing?

Yes. If you look up my threads from the past [since the last 2 months, when I became an atheist], I am working towards exactly this.

Mass media doesn't help your cause much. Yes, it may allow atheists who wouldn't otherwise congregate to amass. But the long since refuted, and pseudo-intellectually aped "memes" they spread only reinforce the dichotomy, as I've said, of the religious who do tend to congregate.

People, socialisation or congregation have nothing to do with my point - my only point is that the mass media now allow massive and easy exchanges of information and knowledge as well as tools for socialisation - which was something religious institutions, cermonies, rituals, holidays, festivals, etc. had the monopoly on more most of the genereal population for most of history.

And I said you value this forum for socialization with "like-minded people", whatever you may consider that to be.

No, ANY site with ANY 'smart, intelligent, well informed and honest people' - theists or atheists, scientists or not, would be just as good for me for discussion and debate - which is the primary purpose of this site, not socialisation.

So if this thread isn't about subversion, is it just a typical "freedom from religion" thread? If so, it still doesn't seem to belong in "Comparative Religion"

It is a thread advocating only and nothing more than the need for religious moderation and cultural secularisation.

 

[aaqucnaona]

Demonstrably false.

"Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, or a particular group or organization[1]. It is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted, or diverged from, by the practitioners or believers." -wiki​

Police and armed forces are organizations which follow an authoritative doctrine (law, UCMJ, etc.) that is not to be disputed or diverged from. That does not make these religious.

Dogma exists outside religion. I agree.

But did you miss that it is religious only if it is "in context of any interpretation of scriptures"?

The soldiers of the crusades were religious. Modern police are not.

 

[aaqucnaona]

Relentlessly. An OCB crusade.

What? How do I make myself more clear that writing in stark red in font 5 - I am advocating religious moderation and cultural secularisation - not atheism or irreligion.

 

[aaqucnaona]

Btw, what's an "OCB crusade"?

 

[wynn]

Yes it does.

No, it does not.

I have acted in blind faith, dogmatically, intolerantly, with prejudice and violence - and I did not become religious.
There are other people who have the same experience like me.

It does not make one in accordance with the teachings of great religious moral teachers, but religious, yes it does. Religion is an institution for the organisation of belief. Any set of dogmatic, faithful and intolerant beliefs in context of any interpretation of scrictures is being religious.

Why cant relgious people own up to their bad elements?

First of all, they probably don't identify with your idea of what it means to be "religious" to begin with.

 

[aaqucnaona]

No, it does not.

I have acted in blind faith, dogmatically, intolerantly, with prejudice and violence - and I did not become religious.
There are other people who have the same experience like me.

I would agree that your experience is not spiritually or morally religious in a pure kinda sense. But if all of the above was for or in context of religious beliefs or scriptural interpretation, then it was religious in motivation and description.

First of all, they probably don't identify with your idea of what it means to be "religious" to begin with.

To be religious would traditionally be confinded to doing good things as per and due to religion, which suggests bad things are due to removal from religion.

I mean religious as in "Concerned with sacred matters, religion or religious institution" in which case all things due to and/or exclusively in context of religion are religious - creationism and jihad are religious in this sense. Religious in this sense is what it actually means and represents - not just the fruits of religion but anything that is resultant of any kind of religiosity - fundamental, extremist or even moderate.

 

[aaqucnaona]

We can't imagine a world in which there is no religion, nor one that has arrived there by a rationalization such as given here. Yet everytime religiosity rears its ugly head in the news, trying to usurp politics, to persuade people toward a right wing agenda, these small daily or weekly perturbations to the public psyche take their toll, dragging us down like broken old men who have forgotten how to stand up and fight for what they believe in. Really we just want to be left alone. It seems we can't have freedom of religion without losing our freedom from religion.

It's not the religion that we despise, since, in its pure form it will lift us up whenever oppression drags us down. If all religion did was shelter the homeless, feed the starving, etc., we would be grateful for it and probably want to enshrine it, say, carving those words on the wall of Grand Canyon, or maybe even on the moon in 200 mile long letters. The problem is with religiosity, which is religion's evil twin, constantly gunning for us. Religiosity is the wolf in sheep's clothing which rains down all the crap mentioned in the OP. We use the term religion and religiosity interchangeably because we have to, we've been backed into a corner by their incessant tampering with our daily affairs, and they themselves demand to be called a religion. So be it. Let Jesus be the poster boy for the NRA, the DoD, and maybe if you pray hard enough, just before the crucified scarecrow gives up the ghost, maybe he'll turn all the illegal aliens into pillars of salt. And, of course, send all the murderous whores who use contraception or abortion, immediately to a fiery lake with brimstone around the neck. That'll teach 'em.

I would be in favor of a public policy banning any group that deviates from its own established creed from keeping its non-profit status. House arrest and some mild harassment would be suitable. How about an ecumenical goon squad that tries them for heresy, and if found guilty, they get something more than 50 lashes with a wet noodle. These could be drawn from the experts - the Catholic Church, with all the other orthodoxies in tow, just to show we mean business. A team of expert historians could help recreate the spirit of the Inquisition - with a Revenge of the Nerds flavor. Payback. They could be sentenced, not just to community service, but also to dunking booths, pie throwing events, mild stuff like that, just to let them know how we really feel. And of course their community service should be to man a site that gives saunas and aroma therapy to traumatized illegals that had to endure an abortion out of fear and poverty. And the perps should have to wash their feet, and go to their houses and spruce them up and serve them spaghetti and play accordion for them, all of this to let the suffering women know they are sorry for being knuckleheaded bigots.

All we need is a movement. A constitutional amendment, repealing the freedom of religion clause for creed violators is about all that's required. It's not beyond the scope of law. A wave of referenda with the issue on the ballot, two thirds of the house and senate, three fourths of the state assemblies, and you're in like Flint.

Also, they should have to wear devil horns (anyone who steals my idea: please use spidergoat's as the model) which would serve as a serious deterrent. Imagine Sarah Palin, the minute she first announced she wanted to overturn Roe v Wade, dragged from the ABC studios with a spiked dog collar and chains, and taken straight across the street to the neighborhood office of the Federal Lord Inquisitor for summary judgement. And then everything that she had heaped on her after that would have been the subject the Sarah Palin Show, instead of some crap about her shooting moose. And the advertising proceeds would have gone to to support Planned Parenthood, so the other recent story wouldn't have shown up like a pimple on the face of our national self-esteem.

These things are not completely beyond our grasp. It just takes willpower. Hey I'll sign up. So yeah I think the OP has some good fodder for a whole new way to think about how to pull the thorn out of our collective ass.

Well said.

 

[wellwisher]

On the other hand, the down grading of religion in America, due to liberalism, has resulted in a drastic increase in social costs such as welfare. It has led to an increased cost due to preventable disease. It has also lowered the educational standards. The "mind control" of religion works both ways; for good and bad. If you can control one to be a rebel you can also control them to be good.

If we cut the social funding that artifically props up the negative results of the liberal way, the human tragedy would be more obvious. If we went back to educational funding available when religion was stronger in America, the decline in education would be far worse. We are able to create an illusion, if we don't normalize social cost but can force tax payers to foot the bill for the magic trick.

I am for an experiment that normalizes resources then and now and then compares to see which is the problem.This will get us past subjectivity and PC word games to create illusions. The liberals are just as manipulated as they project but without much in the way of a good side that does not cost the tax payer.

With religion you get charity work which does good but does not cost me anything unlessI choose to particulate. With liberalism we need a tax increase to force a bad program. This is worse to me since it takes way my liberty. I don't have that problem with religion since I have choice.

 

[Syne]

Yes. If you look up my threads from the past [since the last 2 months, when I became an atheist], I am working towards exactly this.

Perhaps you missed the point that you have made hasty generalizations in this very thread.

People, socialisation or congregation have nothing to do with my point - my only point is that the mass media now allow massive and easy exchanges of information and knowledge as well as tools for socialisation - which was something religious institutions, cermonies, rituals, holidays, festivals, etc. had the monopoly on more most of the genereal population for most of history.

Only means that the religious are as equally empowered by communication, which due to their number, makes any benefit to your view and goals marginal.

No, ANY site with ANY 'smart, intelligent, well informed and honest people' - theists or atheists, scientists or not, would be just as good for me for discussion and debate - which is the primary purpose of this site, not socialisation.

What part of "whatever you may consider that to be" don't you understand?

It is a thread advocating only and nothing more than the need for religious moderation and cultural secularisation.

"Cultural secularization" is merely the PC way of saying "freedom from religion". So I'll take that as a yes, and still not appropriate to "Comparative Religion", as you've yet to contrast/compare an specific religions at all.

You've just hastily generalized them all lumped together.

Dogma exists outside religion. I agree.

But did you miss that it is religious only if it is "in context of any interpretation of scriptures"?

The soldiers of the crusades were religious. Modern police are not.

If that would be so, then acting in blind faith, dogmatically, intolerantly, with prejudice and violence would make a person religious. But it doesn't.

Yes it does. It does not make one in accordance with the teachings of great religious moral teachers, but religious, yes it does. Religion is an institution for the organisation of belief. Any set of dogmatic, faithful and intolerant beliefs in context of any interpretation of scrictures is being religious.

"Scripture" is merely an equivocation. Either these traits alone constitute religion or you must agree with Wynn. Your reply to Wynn is conspicuously self-contradictory.

 

[Yazata]

The need for the debasement of religion

You know, for a guy who says that he's only been an atheist for a few weeks, you've become quite the militant all of a sudden.

Religion is one of the human endeavors - it was an extremely powerful and useful one for a large part of our history - credit must be given where it is due. But like all endeavours, it has a cost - the cost of blind faith, dogma, intolerance, prejudice and violence.

Does religion always involve blind faith, dogma, intolerance, prejudice and violence? A great deal of religion seems to be about peace, beauty and compassion. And are blind faith, dogma, intolerance, prejudice and violence unknown in human affairs outside the boundaries of religion?

Perhaps these things are defects of human society in general and religion simply partakes of them because it's a human product. If we are going to promote some opposition to religion, perhaps it should be addressed specifically towards particular kinds of problematic religious expression, not vaguely in the direction of 'religion' in general.

However, religion is the only costly endevear that cant pay for itself anymore - oil gives energy, power glues together societies and cultures, money gets goods, greed runs economies, women give sex^, territorialism gives some safety, nationalism gives pride - Religion does nothing that is greater than its harms.

So you're denying that countless people find beauty, peace and comfort in religion? You're denying that religion gives these people a sense of meaning and purpose?

Moreover, in such a idealist society as I described, there will have to be very few 'masses' or labourers, only specialists and experts, operatives and organisers.

You've just turned away from religion and you're already proposing some evangelical utopian program to transform all of society and mankind? That was quick.

How about just relaxing, letting people follow their own paths in life (you can't really stop them from doing that anyway) and just working to ensure that everyone enjoys the equal right to do the same thing? In real life, that's hard enough to accomplish. Transforming the entire planet to conform to a single utopian vision is probably going to be impossible. (To say nothing of undesirable.)

Education is the single most important thing we can do today

Maybe. But Bible colleges and Islamic madrasahs are education too.

we have our scientists, researchers and experts, but the public, the masses, the common man are far removed and often ignorant of what is happening at the cutting edge of our species' endeavours - this disconnect will become more and more pronounced and influential as numbers, ease of life and speed of development and progress increase - the result of which may hold back the intelligencia from ushering in the future.

So this "intelligencia" should have worldwide power to indoctrinate "the masses", even when those "masses" don't wish to be indoctrinated and would prefer to make their own choices in life? Isn't that a rather elitist and totalitarian prescription?

 

[aaqucnaona]

Perhaps you missed the point that you have made hasty generalizations in this very thread.

Where?

Only means that the religious are as equally empowered by communication, which due to their number, makes any benefit to your view and goals marginal.

Granted.

What part of "whatever you may consider that to be" don't you understand?

My bad.

"Cultural secularization" is merely the PC way of saying "freedom from religion". So I'll take that as a yes, and still not appropriate to "Comparative Religion", as you've yet to contrast/compare an specific religions at all.

You've just hastily generalized them all lumped together.

I get your point. Ok, then the Mods can move it to wherever see fit.

"Scripture" is merely an equivocation. Either these traits alone constitute religion or you must agree with Wynn. Your reply to Wynn is conspicuously self-contradictory.

First see post 31.

 

[aaqucnaona]

You know, for a guy who says that he's only been an atheist for a few weeks, you've become quite the militant all of a sudden.

I only suggested that religious fundamentalism and extremism give way to moderation and secularisation. Militant would be to say - theism must be killed.

Does religion always involve blind faith, dogma, intolerance, prejudice and violence? A great deal of religion seems to be about peace, beauty and compassion. And are blind faith, dogma, intolerance, prejudice and violence unknown in human affairs outside the boundaries of religion?

No. My problem is not with the moderates and I acknowledged its good effects. The costs of religion are limited to those against whom I am making a case - fundamentalists, evangelicals, dogmatists, jihadists, extremists and creationists. These costs are paid for in other places where they occur. But relgion by itself cannot do that anymore. Hence the need to debase - alter and adultrate religion with moderation and secular values.

Perhaps these things are defects of human society in general and religion
simply partakes of them because it's a human product. If we are going to promote some opposition to religion, perhaps it should be addressed specifically towards particular kinds of problematic religious expression, not vaguely in the direction of 'religion' in general.

Like I said. Even if that is true, for religion to remain as it is, it must pay for its costs. And costs [- what must be*given, done or undergone to obtain something] it does have that cannot be paid for anymore.

So you're denying that countless people find beauty, peace and comfort in religion? You're denying that religion gives these people a sense of meaning and purpose?

But is that really greater or more influential that the harms? Are the wars and terrors of religion burried under mountains of good deeds today?

You've just turned away from religion and you're already proposing some evangelical utopian program to transform all of society and mankind? That was quick.

No. I was just suggesting my vision. This paragraph is about my own reasoning for an additional argument for the debasement of religion. It is not a part of my suggestion.

How about just relaxing, letting people follow their own paths in life (you can't really stop them from doing that anyway) and just working to ensure that everyone enjoys the equal right to do the same thing? In real life, that's hard enough to accomplish. Transforming the entire planet to conform to a single utopian vision is probably going to be impossible. (To say nothing of undesirable.)

As long as we are trading visions - How if your suggestion may eventually lead to something like mine?

Maybe. But Bible colleges and Islamic madrasahs are education too.

Sure - but they dont have any practical significance if they are only religious. Telling children about evil atheists or heretic infidels is not enough. That is why these places teach other things as well as their dogmas. My point is that this dogma is like a parasite, it has not use by itself unless diluted by moderation and secularisation and that is necessary because we are becoming a very powerful global community.

So this "intelligencia" should have worldwide power to indoctrinate "the masses", even when those "masses" don't wish to be indoctrinated and would prefer to make their own choices in life? Isn't that a rather elitist and totalitarian prescription?

Where did I suggest that? I said specifically "become a part of better, advanced and more sophisticated enterprises within their chosen fields of the human endeavours." How is that elitist? How is that indoctrination? I merely suggested that the masses be exposed to the knowledge and methods of the intelligencia so that they can become adept experts in whatever choice they make for their life.

And the intelligencia are simply those who use their rational thinking capacities in the pursuit of knowledge, understand and constructive dialogues - scientists, doctors, philosophers, authors, professors, teachers and all the members of internet groups/activites like this are a part of it. The point is not to indoctrinate the masses but to have no masses at all - everyone would [at least strive to be] an expert in their own calling. No simpletons, no ignoramuses, no common man - every person on earth would try and be as good as the best of us. Its not important whether or not they actually succeed in this - the point is that this is a better ideal to pursue than to be a man of God or a conservative or a fundamentalist.

 

[Balerion]

Religion is one of the human endeavors - it was an extremely powerful and useful one for a large part of our history - credit must be given where it is due. But like all endeavours, it has a cost - the cost of blind faith, dogma, intolerance, prejudice and violence. Throughout history, cultural, social, political and scientific utilities of religion had paid for its cost. Today, this cost is most apparent in the political, ideological and military friction between the west and the middle east. Fundamentalism, evangelism, creationism, extremism are other examples of the cost of religion. Such friction can and does arise for many other reasons - oil, power, money, greed, women, territorialism and nationalism. These are different from other possible reasons for this, such as natural disasters, food failure or basic living standards - they are different because they represent faults or unpatched parts of our civilization.

However, religion is the only costly endevear that cant pay for itself anymore - oil gives energy, power glues together societies and cultures, money gets goods, greed runs economies, women give sex^, territorialism gives some safety, nationalism gives pride - Religion does nothing that is greater than its harms. Why? Because most of the previous uses of religion have been replaced - religion for socialization [Mass media], explainations [Science], treatment [medicine], applications [psychology] and guidance [philosophy]. Religion has truely become a relic, a dying zombie clutching onto anything that can help it survive for a little more before the belief in supernatural inevitably collapses in a progressing and developed post-capitalist/scientific/future society - this is why religions seems to be escalating, with fundamentalists and extremists having the second largest expansion in numbers [topped only by non-belief] in the last decade. This is also why it is becoming the single most unneccesary object that is also potentially harmful. Other of the failings of human civilisation have two important features that religions dont - they have practical uses and they are open to deliberation and compromise - this is why religion needs to recede, atleast into moderation. It is no something you want in large quantities when we are a global community, capable of massive annihilation of any or all parts of our planet.

Moreover, in such a idealist society as I described, there will have to be very few 'masses' or labourers, only specialists and experts, operatives and organisers. Only such a refined, developed and sophisticated society can 'let go of God" and only such a society can ensure safely, progress and happiness for all members of the species - a requiste for any global community. Education is the single most important thing we can do today - we have our scientists, researchers and experts, but the public, the masses, the common man are far removed and often ignorant of what is happening at the cutting edge of our species' endeavours - this disconnect will become more and more pronounced and influential as numbers, ease of life and speed of development and progress increase - the result of which may hold back the intelligencia from ushering in the future. Even in a space-faring species, the common and average representative is a person perhaps equivalent to the best of a couple centuries in the past - if we are to be a true "God species" the most dominant, successful, powerful, progressive and internally fully satisfied species on this planet, then the 6 - 6.5 billion of our 7 billion individuals have to become a part of better, advanced and more sophisticated enterprises within their chosen fields of the human endeavours.

An education which can do this can only be secular and has to be so. Such a drive to learn, to understand and know can never come to those who are certain of things they cannot even prove, explain or substantiate. High moderation and secularisation is only path I can think of that would not cause the technological and scientific infancy of a civilisation to destroy itself - because it can and because many willingly would. Fundamentism and strong theism* for a religious personal God cannot have a place in a safe, just and prosperous space-faring global community.

*My mom is the only weak theist I have ever met/communiated with. If pushed, she would fall as far back as deism and pantheism - a long way from religion and personal God. I wonder if Wynn or Jan consider themselves strong/weak theists/agnostics.

^no sexism intended

I'm curious why you say religion has been a useful endeavor in our history. I would be inclined to agree, but since you say that it no longer serves this (hidden, so far as I can tell) purpose, I don't believe we are talking about the same thing.

Religion was our first attempt at philosophy, but it wasn't particularly useful in that capacity. Where it has been something of a help is in how we cope with the awareness of our own mortality. Believing that our departed loved ones go to a better place after death--and indeed that death is something that can be altogether avoided through capitulation to a given god--is comforting, at least as long as one doesn't really examine what such a nirvana would be like.

But that is the only sense in which religion has ever served a good, tangible purpose to Man. Otherwise, religion has only set us back as a society. Every major technological or medical advancement has been achieved in the teeth of religious opposition. Just as a modern example, look at the backlash against the HPV vaccine in the US. The Religious Right, through disinformation and fear-mongering, have tried to prevent our young women from protecting themselves, because they'd rather have chastity than health. To these neanderthals, cancer is better than premarital sex.

So yes, I believe it would be best for society if religion continued its trend toward moderation. Even in a pious country such as the US, we largely view evangelicals as wackos and outsiders, and we collectively cringe when public figures wear their faith on their sleeve.

Secular education should be the only option for our children. If they want to enroll in bible study groups at their local church, fine, but we need to eliminate God from the classroom. Teaching creationism in biology class only puts us further behind the rest of the world than we already are. I don't know necessarily that secular education would lead to the utopia you think it would, because by and large our education already is secular, but there's no question it would make our society better. We should outgrow it in the same way we outgrew nomadic culture and living in caves. A 21st century society has no business believing in Bronze Age mythology.

And don't sweat the people calling you a militant. Fundamentalism in religion needs to be subverted, it needs to be treated like the idiot nonsense that it is. People like Jan who cry "SATANISM" at everything and everyone need to be identified at kooks whose paranoid and babyish faith has no place in modern society. That kind of crap deserve no respect, and you are not obligated to give it any.

 

[aaqucnaona]

I'm curious why you say religion has been a useful endeavor in our history. I would be inclined to agree, but since you say that it no longer serves this (hidden, so far as I can tell) purpose, I don't believe we are talking about the same thing.

It was the only explaination/had no alternative for things like psychology, medicine, culture, thought, facts etc - at least for the masses it was true. Unless you were born in the house of scientists or philosophers or rulers, you were likely to have nothing but religion in your life. Today, with the age of information has come the ability to procure massive amount knowledge and ideas, and religion cannot stand up to this challenge, thereby losing that which paid for its costs.

Religion was our first attempt at philosophy, but it wasn't particularly useful in that capacity. Where it has been something of a help is in how we cope with the awareness of our own mortality. Believing that our departed loved ones go to a better place after death--and indeed that death is something that can be altogether avoided through capitulation to a given god--is comforting, at least as long as one doesn't really examine what such a nirvana would be like.

Indeed. And agree with the rest.

But that is the only sense in which religion has ever served a good, tangible purpose to Man.

Agreed too. But in historic times, even if it served a bad purpose, it was the only contender for that purpose, which was enough to pay for it. But as science ushered in better alternatives into the free market of such ideas and purposes, religion began to crumble - Darwin, Hume and Freud onwards. Hence my prediction that belief in the supernatural would inevitably collapse.

Otherwise, religion has only set us back as a society. Every major technological or medical advancement has been achieved in the teeth of religious opposition. Just as a modern example, look at the backlash against the HPV vaccine in the US. The Religious Right, through disinformation and fear-mongering, have tried to prevent our young women from protecting themselves, because they'd rather have chastity than health. To these neanderthals, cancer is better than premarital sex.

Agreed. It has some good payments, but costs like these are just too much for it to sustain itself. The only way to do so would be for religion to become more important, more authoritain and relevant to all ascpects of life - and therein lies the thrust for radical christianity.

So yes, I believe it would be best for society if religion continued its trend toward moderation. Even in a pious country such as the US, we largely view evangelicals as wackos and outsiders, and we collectively cringe when public figures wear their faith on their sleeve.

If we have the audacity to extrapolate this into the future, we cant help but think, more like wish, that religion itself [and probably theism too] would lapse into the place were UFOlogy dwells.

Secular education should be the only option for our children. If they want to enroll in bible study groups at their local church, fine, but we need to eliminate God from the classroom. Teaching creationism in biology class only puts us further behind the rest of the world than we already are. I don't know necessarily that secular education would lead to the utopia you think it would, because by and large our education already is secular, but there's no question it would make our society better. We should outgrow it in the same way we outgrew nomadic culture and living in caves. A 21st century society has no business believing in Bronze Age mythology.

It would change the world - because I am not suggesting that the education be secularized - but that education be used as a platform to change the vision of life of the masses -

First is powerful and well-informed attack on things we know to be true - like evolution. Second is working towards removal of taboos, social acceptance of non-belief among the masses and open discussion and debate on issues of God and religion. The third is the secularisation of the Government and the economy - removing "God" from public addresses and campaigns and withdrawl of special economic previledges to religious institutions. The education is something to be worked on now, ASAP. First and second are already being done and must increase their outreach. When they reach a crtitical mass, the third step would become possible. The issue would then we essentially resolved - with absolute belief in god or religious dogmatism debased to the level of ufology. [I cant help but think that some theist would grab at this as the evil atheist conspiracy to take over the world].

And don't sweat the people calling you a militant. Fundamentalism in religion needs to be subverted, it needs to be treated like the idiot nonsense that it is. People like Jan who cry "SATANISM" at everything and everyone need to be identified as kooks whose paranoid and babyish faith has no place in modern society. That kind of crap deserve no respect, and you are not obligated to give it any.

Not unless it can be substantiated, no. You can say this to me, atheist to atheist, but we need to be tackful in conversations with theists, especially dogmatic or fundamental ones. We cannot tell them what to do, just give them a better option than their own. For this, trust and friendship is required.
As I said to Jan [on her accusation that anti-theism and militant strong atheism are my 'true colors']-

Its not true colors jan, its the tatical difference in [me] talking with an atheist [crunchy cat] and a theist [you].

I have to be respectful, not disparaging when talking with a theist. I have to remain professional, stick to objective logic in a debate with you or Sam. With Cat, I can loosen up a little and the spammer is indeed worthy of the ridicule, he was preaching, but you and other theists on Sciforums dont do so, so dont take offense. Besides, preachers, non-thinking theists and extremists [none of which describes you] indeed do "fly planes into buildings". I agree that my words were sharp, but my intention was well placed.

 

[Syne]

Where?

"blind faith, dogma, intolerance, prejudice and violence" & "Religion does nothing that is greater than its harms."

As Yazata said, you neglect to acknowledge the majority of religious people in your hasty generalization of an extreme minority. You need to remember that over 80% of the world is religious, so if your generalization held up, you should expect to be affected on a daily basis, and much more than just your sensibilities about people expressing their beliefs.

First see post 31.

"Intolerance, prejudice and violence" are not solely endemic to religion. These sorts of behavior will inevitably find other outlets if not for religion, and it can be argued that, for the most part, religion provides some restraint on these.