Spirituality is a human need, which atheism fails to meet. Terms like "deism," "spiritual but not religious," "cultural Christianity", or "Religion of Humanity" all mean the same thing: finding transcendent meaning in life, while still rejecting church dogma and rituals.
As always, a very useful framing of Mill. I suppose I can recognise the value of religion as an agent of social cohesion; I have a harder time with religion as the anchor in a personal therapeutic project, the same reason I find it hard to take much of psychotherapy seriously.
I've been trying to draft something consise in defense of religion and psychotherapy which also adds to your one pro of social cohesion and decided it must wait for some other venue. The problem are the caveats, religious experience is too varried. Some people use it as a catch-all salve for their terror of being conscious, others see it as an expression of psyche through symbols. Some of this is socially and mentally stifling and some isn't, but it's all religion which makes my thesis difficult.
I've been thinking of this Cultual Christianity like Cultural Judaism, though, and find the comparison fascinating. More to your point of social cohesion: Jewish people through a kind of social Judaism have remained a cohesive cohort over very disparate geography and beliefe systems. Seems like a kind of evolutionary advantage to me.
The evolutionary case does have logical consistency and elegance in its favour, though I don’t know how one would go about testing it. Jews definitely offer compelling evidence but it’s likely that the resilience of ‘cultural Judaism’ has a lot to do with persecution -- there is a self-fulfilling dynamic at work. Any serious examination of the role of religion, it seems to me, cannot overcome the hurdle of cognitive bias. The most credible defence of it, I think, is the conservative / Talebian one: since time is the most relentless stressor, any institution and set of cultural practices that has withstood it must have some value.
I don't have much of an argument here but thinking of time as the relentless stressor I think of Zoroastrianism. It's the oldest belief system still in practice and happens to be the world's first monotheistic religion (as far as we know). What's up with monotheism being such a long-lasting belief system? Polytheism has all but died out, in practice. Even though I think Polytheism is much more psychologically prescient, apparently it lacks some kind of memetic advantage.
I've seen this trend and have spent some time studying paganism. I think the term is too broad to be useful and frequently used as a discrediting tactic (the Christians were pagans in the Roman empire until Constantine's conversion, for example). My hot take is that the people claiming to be pagan are either trying to just be contrarian or prefer not to go into detail of what they believe.
One important factor is: for what purpose is religion used for. Religions do provide many types of teachings and values. But it ultimately comes down to how its followers choose to interpret those teachings and how they conduct their lives based on those teachings. Essentially, as we all know, religion can be used for great and also terrible things. It depends on the person.
I feel that in terms of religious beliefs and followers, people should be allowed to belief whatever they want to, cause that's their fundamental right and freedom, and thus, it should be respected.....as long as they don't cause harm to others and the environment around them. That should ultimately be the main principle in such matters concerning religious beliefs and acts.
Whether one is an atheist or agnostic, I believe understanding the stories and the precepts in the bible is fundamental to both an education and a grounding in a system of ethics. As a Jew, I hope that converts to Christianity like Ali will honor the Jewish foundation for Christianity and be able to reconcile a belief in the divinity of Jesus with the crucial role that Judaism played in the formation of Christian ethics.
Spirituality is a human need, which atheism fails to meet. Terms like "deism," "spiritual but not religious," "cultural Christianity", or "Religion of Humanity" all mean the same thing: finding transcendent meaning in life, while still rejecting church dogma and rituals.
As always, a very useful framing of Mill. I suppose I can recognise the value of religion as an agent of social cohesion; I have a harder time with religion as the anchor in a personal therapeutic project, the same reason I find it hard to take much of psychotherapy seriously.
I've been trying to draft something consise in defense of religion and psychotherapy which also adds to your one pro of social cohesion and decided it must wait for some other venue. The problem are the caveats, religious experience is too varried. Some people use it as a catch-all salve for their terror of being conscious, others see it as an expression of psyche through symbols. Some of this is socially and mentally stifling and some isn't, but it's all religion which makes my thesis difficult.
I've been thinking of this Cultual Christianity like Cultural Judaism, though, and find the comparison fascinating. More to your point of social cohesion: Jewish people through a kind of social Judaism have remained a cohesive cohort over very disparate geography and beliefe systems. Seems like a kind of evolutionary advantage to me.
The evolutionary case does have logical consistency and elegance in its favour, though I don’t know how one would go about testing it. Jews definitely offer compelling evidence but it’s likely that the resilience of ‘cultural Judaism’ has a lot to do with persecution -- there is a self-fulfilling dynamic at work. Any serious examination of the role of religion, it seems to me, cannot overcome the hurdle of cognitive bias. The most credible defence of it, I think, is the conservative / Talebian one: since time is the most relentless stressor, any institution and set of cultural practices that has withstood it must have some value.
I don't have much of an argument here but thinking of time as the relentless stressor I think of Zoroastrianism. It's the oldest belief system still in practice and happens to be the world's first monotheistic religion (as far as we know). What's up with monotheism being such a long-lasting belief system? Polytheism has all but died out, in practice. Even though I think Polytheism is much more psychologically prescient, apparently it lacks some kind of memetic advantage.
I have recently seen people claiming we are "Reverting to paganism"
I've seen this trend and have spent some time studying paganism. I think the term is too broad to be useful and frequently used as a discrediting tactic (the Christians were pagans in the Roman empire until Constantine's conversion, for example). My hot take is that the people claiming to be pagan are either trying to just be contrarian or prefer not to go into detail of what they believe.
Interesting article.
One important factor is: for what purpose is religion used for. Religions do provide many types of teachings and values. But it ultimately comes down to how its followers choose to interpret those teachings and how they conduct their lives based on those teachings. Essentially, as we all know, religion can be used for great and also terrible things. It depends on the person.
I feel that in terms of religious beliefs and followers, people should be allowed to belief whatever they want to, cause that's their fundamental right and freedom, and thus, it should be respected.....as long as they don't cause harm to others and the environment around them. That should ultimately be the main principle in such matters concerning religious beliefs and acts.
These are great words.
Thanks for this post and the link to Ali's essay.
Whether one is an atheist or agnostic, I believe understanding the stories and the precepts in the bible is fundamental to both an education and a grounding in a system of ethics. As a Jew, I hope that converts to Christianity like Ali will honor the Jewish foundation for Christianity and be able to reconcile a belief in the divinity of Jesus with the crucial role that Judaism played in the formation of Christian ethics.
robertsdavidn.substack.com/about (no Paywall)
I'm liking the 'How to Read...' GPT https://chat.openai.com/share/bd844d0d-d676-4905-9481-28ccf8a838d1
Nice!