Is there any reason, any religion should still exist?

Current Events Religion
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The question, as I read it was: Is/are there any reason/reasons, any religion(s) should still exist. The current contenders:

  1. God or religion arises whenever there are questions that seem to be unanswerable.
  2. [R]eligion still exists because it is adapting itself to the changes taking place around it.
  3. As StrictlyLogical pointed out in post #2, methods of acquiring beliefs by faith can be taught as readily as methods of acquiring knowledge by reason.
  4. Closely related to point 3, JASKN points out in post #13, (p)ersonally, I think the biggest damage religion inflicts is on how a person thinks. The notion that someone is watching over you at all times has vast implications on inner thought – problem solving, value choices, assigned importance on different life events, perceived self-efficacy, etc. etc. etc. 

 

There were couple of other points that validated the need for religion to some extent :

  1. DA’s arguement that children would be more rebellious if it were not for religion. – I personally think that there is some truth to the statement but only as long as religion remains unreplaced by philosophy.
  2. Repairman pointed out that religion may be the only answer to the reformation of criminal minds. --This may be true and I’m inclined to agree. Yet at the same time, it is worth noting the number of religious criminals out there : ISIS, Al qaeda, Taliban and the likes.
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To re-couch, or recast the question, it is altruistic in nature: What does it take for others to grasp such a position?

People need their lives to have meaning / purpose. For all their altruism and collectivism, religions retain an implicit individualism when they tell the believer to be concerned with his individual soul. They also retain an implicit (and often explicit) support for volition, when they tell the  believer he can do this or that to save his individual soul. People also need an abstract ethical foundation, which at least rationalizes their behavior (“I try my best to do good work, because…” “I try not to lie, because…” etc.). Religion has traditionally filled this role, offering a rationalization. Finally, religion has also filled a social role as local “meetup-group”. Adults have a place they can meet others, and socialize a bit, or at least find some friends. Their kids can do the same. Even if they become more deist and secular in their thinking, they still see a social role for a church. [Also, in its social role, religion becomes a useful tool for politics.]

 

Atheism on its own is a simple denial; so it offers none of the above. Instead, an atheist has to be something more than an atheist. He has to choose from various (often contradictory) choices within secular humanism. I doubt these alternate philosophies can replace religion unless they do a decent job on individualism and volition. There’s not much chance they’ll succeed if they take an attitude that life is essentially meaningless. I think this explains why some westerners, moving away from Christianity, opt for the more atheistic [mostly deistic] forms of Hinduism or Buddhism. [As an aside, the power of religion and the need for meaning can be seen in the westernized Muslim kids who head to Syria to fight and to be heroic, in their minds.]

 

If the past is evidence, religion isn’t going away anytime soon. With every generation, a few more people turn agnostic or atheist, but there’s no huge flow. Sometimes there are even localized counter-trends where people get still more serious about religion. Selfishly, I don’t think one can say it would be good for religion to disappear. Since there will always be a replacement, one has to weigh religion against the alternative that will fill the vacuum. In today’s context, I’m happy to have a certain segment of the population believe in religion as a counter-balance to the typical atheist/agnostic/secular-humanist.

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“Those contenders address why religion arose and why is hangs on. So, on the original question – is there any reason for it still to exist – there has been no rational answer.” ~ softwareNerd

 

Translation: There has been an explanation (a reason), but the explanation isn’t logical (a reason).

 

It’s gratifying to know that mainstream Objectivists aren’t above a little classic rug-pulling of their own when it suits their purpose.

 

So if a religious person says, “I have faith in God,” the word faith refers to a personal conviction about something that can’t be proven. And if that same person says, “I have faith in my pastor,” the word then refers to a personal conviction about a person’s character that can be proven; the former use being irrational and the latter use being rational by Objectivist standards, correct?

 

The thing is, if the question in this forum is reduced to, “Is religion logical?” is there any point in even discussing it here? But it may also worth considering, “If religion isn’t logical, why do people still practice it?” Particularily when there have been so many rational alternatives to religion in the past up to and including Objectivism. Could it be that even a heroic being might look wistfully towards the heavens for a sign of something greater than themselves?

 

*equivocation*

*fallicy*

*error*

*eol*

 

Being a heretic doesn’t qualify me to speak for religion any more that being a disident qualifies me to speak for Objectivism. But being a human does qualify me to speak for the necessary freedom of expression to be religious or not to, and to question either view. Perhaps atheism isn’t contraversial in this forum, because honestly what’s there to discuss?

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…

 

DA’s arguement that children would be more rebellious if it were not for religion…

…

 

??

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Since there will always be a replacement, one has to weigh religion against the alternative that will fill the vacuum. In today’s context, I’m happy to have a certain segment of the population believe in religion as a counter-balance to the typical atheist/agnostic/secular-humanist.

To clarify, did you mean “there will always be a replacement” to be included as part of “in today’s context”?

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“Those contenders address why religion arose and why is hangs on. So, on the original question – is there any reason for it still to exist – there has been no rational answer.” ~ softwareNerd

Translation: There has been an explanation (a reason), but the explanation isn’t logical (a reason).

It’s gratifying to know that mainstream Objectivists aren’t above a little classic rug-pulling of their own when it suits their purpose.

How? Logical/rational, tomato/tomato.

The thing is, if the question in this forum is reduced to, “Is religion logical?” is there any point in even discussing it here? But it may also worth considering, “If religion isn’t logical, why do people still practice it?” Particularily when there have been so many rational alternatives to religion in the past up to and including Objectivism. Could it be that even a heroic being might look wistfully towards the heavens for a sign of something greater than themselves?

I direct you toward the phenomena of lagging emotions following thought. Why don’t you state your arguments explicitly so that we may tear them down? Enough with the pro-religion vagueness.

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To clarify, did you mean “there will always be a replacement” to be included as part of “in today’s context”?

I meant that – since man needs to have meaning and purpose and he needs to have some form of philosophy – something will always serve that function, even among atheists. So, atheists can get rid of religion, but they need a replacement to serve the purposes that religion was previously serving. This would be true beyond today’s context.

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So, would you say that religion should disappear at some point, but not until most people are likely to replace it with something better?

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So if a religious person says, “I have faith in God,” the word faith refers to a personal conviction about something that can’t be proven. And if that same person says, “I have faith in my pastor,” the word then refers to a personal conviction about a person’s character that can be proven; the former use being irrational and the latter use being rational by Objectivist standards, correct?

 

 

“I have faith in my pastor”. Faith here is used in what sense ? Trust ? Like as in you trust your friend or buddy ? Well.. That should be okay. But I doubt you mean that. You are trying to raise your pastor to the level of God. Is he all-powerful and all-knowing ? Is he living up in the sky and watching you every minute of every day. And sends you to heaven if you live as per the ten commandments or to hell if you don’t ?

 

What I wrote about faith was not a definition but the limits of how much a man should rely on faith. 

 

“If religion isn’t logical, why do people still practice it?”

 

Since it appears to me that you are on the side of religion - I ask you and all others on that side. I question because I don’t know and yet I honestly want to; if not logic, does it have any spiritual significance or anything else ? Or is it just fear; just because most men are weak and want God or religion to covertly share their guilt ?

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How? Logical/rational, tomato/tomato.

I direct you toward the phenomena of lagging emotions following thought. Why don’t you state your arguments explicitly so that we may tear them down? Enough with the pro-religion vagueness.

 

definition of reason:

1.  a cause, explanation , or justification for an action or event.

2.  the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic.

reason/explanation ≠ reason/logic, or to state it explicitly. not all explanations are logical.

 

tear away

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There were couple of other points that validated the need for religion to some extent :

  1. DA’s arguement that children would be more rebellious if it were not for religion. – I personally think that there is some truth to the statement but only as long as religion remains unreplaced by philosophy.
  2. Repairman pointed out that religion may be the only answer to the reformation of criminal minds. --This may be true and I’m inclined to agree. Yet at the same time, it is worth noting the number of religious criminals out there : ISIS, Al qaeda, Taliban and the likes.

 

There were a couple of counterpoints in that thread that I thought undermined the rebellious aspect. My omission on this point would have to be along the lines that I don’t think religion, per se, is causal to rebelliousness.

 

I could have addressed the criminal mind though. Samenow’s book, Inside the Criminal Mind, revealed to me a mindset of an individual that would size a person up to see if they could get back to business as usual by playing the religion card.  He even included one story of a man who used his understanding of religion to operate from behind a false religious front.

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…

 

Since it appears to me that you are on the side of religion …

 

 

It also appears to you that I argue that children would be more rebellious if it were not for religion.  Wrong on both counts.  My interest is in religious philosophy and my participation in this thread is to account for its relevance today.

 

edit:  I really have enough trouble defending my own arguments.  Can someone please point to where this one came from??

 

>> children would be more rebellious if it were not for religion  << 

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It also appears to you that I argue that children would be more rebellious if it were not for religion. [..]

 

Please click.

 

My interest is in religious philosophy and my participation in this thread is to account for its relevance today.

 

“having an interest to account for its relevance” + “appreciating religious philosophy” =  You being on their side.

 

Please click this. And perhaps only _God _will know why you said this in post # 20

 

"“Do you (Objectivists) still hold any religious beliefs ? If so, why and does it help ?” ~ Anuj

LOL, there’s an invitation to enter the lions’ den.  I’ll pass"

 

EDIT – It bores me to do a search on you. Lets just stick to the topic in discussion.

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Those contenders address why religion arose and why is hangs on.

So, on the original question – is there any reason for it still to exist – there has been no rational answer.

 

I suppose this is the wrong place to ask. Objectivist forums see a lot of debates, but atheism is typically uncontroversial among self-declared Objectivists. 

 

SN - Sorry for pulling this out from way back but it raises an interesting philosophical question for me.

 

I had answered the question in the OP simply as if it asked “is there any reason why any religion exists today”, you rightly imply no answer has been provided for the question “is there any reason why any religion should exist today”.

 

Perhaps my filter was a bit too strong… but when I see the phrase “should exist” … part of me immediately wants to disregard the “should”.  Now this does not happen with phrases such as “should act” or “should do” or “should choose”.

 

This got me to thinking:

 

So now that Ayn Rand has written her philosophy down decades ago… essentially showing crime, generally, is not in anyone’s actual self-interest (Aside: “rational” selfishness is not a “higher” form of selfishness… it is plain selfishness, since irrationality is not in the interests of the self).

 

 

Is the following question cognitively valid:

 

Is there any reason why post Rand any criminals “should” exist?

 

What does it mean to ask whether a kind of person, a culture, a group, a belief system “should exist”?  I can ask myself, “should I become like person X, or should I adopt a belief system Y”   We can also look each person making up the group having the beliefs, and in a real sense they should not have those beleifs because they should have thought about things… etc.  and yes criminals should have thought through everything to the point they became non-criminals. 

 

Here the “should” is coherent as it pertains to the morality of an individual.  I’m not sure asking whether something, anything “should exist” is coherent.

 

You seemed to distinguish between my answer regarding reasons why religion exists versus answers to the question “should” it exist… what do you think of the cognitive status of claiming that something “should exist” or not?

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definition of reason:

  1. a cause, explanation , or justification for an action or event.

  2. the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic.

reason/explanation ≠ reason/logic, or to state it explicitly. not all explanations are logical.

tear away

sNerd said there were no rational reasons given. You pointlessly minced words instead of replying to his meaning – you could have made the point that the reasons listed were rational, or that there is no rational reason but so what. He wasn’t trying to conflate meanings as you did with the word “faith,” he was specifying.

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@ Anuj -

 

Post #20 was a welcome statement that responded an interest in exploring similarities between Buddhism and Objectivism. My response there was there’s not much to work with, and encouraged him to read Philosopy: Who Needs It?

 
Your conclusion that my reference to evidence indicating children of atheists rebel against their parents’ non-belief too, actually asserts that children would be more rebellious if it were not for religion, is a bit of a leap from what was actually said, isn’t it??

 
“having an interest to account for its relevance” + “appreciating religious philosophy” =  You being on their side."

 
False dichotomy, or bad math…

“Lets just stick to the topic in discussion”

 

Yes, let’s.  Anyway, I’ve responded to your 3 initial questions and your question from the Buddhism thread so it’s time to move on.

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I had answered the question in the OP simply as if it asked “is there any reason why any religion exists today”, you rightly imply no answer has been provided for the question “is there any reason why any religion should exist today”.

You were answering the question the way the OP meant it. I was not.

As for your more abstract question: I agree that if you assume something is wrong (“crime” in the example you gave), it is not coherent to ask if that thing should exist within the context of that assumption.

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You were answering the question the way the OP meant it. I was not.

As for your more abstract question: I agree that if you assume something is wrong (“crime” in the example you gave), it is not coherent to ask if that thing should exist within the context of that assumption.

 

I am flattered you agree but … I was still trying to make up mind so I assume you agree with the idea that it is not being coherent to say something “should” or “should not” exist.

 

There is a sloppy way of interpreting it which I am pondering.

 

Say I spent my life’s savings on some “magic beans”.  One month later I see a very normal bean plant, coming to its maximum height of less than a few feet.

 

I say to myself “I should not have done what I did”, “I should decide now never to do such a stupid thing, and I should be doing what I can to build up my savings again rather than sitting here looking at this plant” …

 

…can I in the moment say “That plant should not even be there … because I should not have planted it.. because I should not have spent my life’s savings on those stupid beans”?

 

After thinking about it, only if “that plant should not be there” is sloppy way of saying i.e. what I really mean to say IS “I should not have spent my life’s savings on those beans” then such a statement can be interpreted as having a valid meaning.. BUT technically speaking, taken literally, it is incoherent.

 

… now that I have made up my mind.. :slight_smile:   do you agree?

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After thinking about it, only if “that plant should not be there” is sloppy way of saying i.e. what I really mean to say IS “I should not have spent my life’s savings on those beans” then such a statement can be interpreted as having a valid meaning.. BUT technically speaking, taken literally, it is incoherent.

I guess the full form of “This should not exist” is “this should not exist any more”. It may mean that past actions were a mistake. Or, the thing (whatever it is) may have had a  reason to exist in the past, but no longer. If we’re speaking of something man-made, that other people think is still useful, then “this should not exist” means they have better alternatives. We can even apply it to something metaphysical: “the bump in the road should not exist… it was caused by the recent quake, and will be fixed soon”. 

 

Personally, I have no problem with the phrase.

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People need their lives to have meaning / purpose. For all their altruism and collectivism, religions retain an implicit individualism when they tell the believer to be concerned with his individual soul. They also retain an implicit (and often explicit) support for volition, when they tell the  believer he can do this or that to save his individual soul. People also need an abstract ethical foundation, which at least rationalizes their behavior (“I try my best to do good work, because…” “I try not to lie, because…” etc.). Religion has traditionally filled this role, offering a rationalization. Finally, religion has also filled a social role as local “meetup-group”. Adults have a place they can meet others, and socialize a bit, or at least find some friends. Their kids can do the same. Even if they become more deist and secular in their thinking, they still see a social role for a church. [Also, in its social role, religion becomes a useful tool for politics.]

 

Atheism on its own is a simple denial; so it offers none of the above. Instead, an atheist has to be something more than an atheist. He has to choose from various (often contradictory) choices within secular humanism. I doubt these alternate philosophies can replace religion unless they do a decent job on individualism and volition. There’s not much chance they’ll succeed if they take an attitude that life is essentially meaningless. I think this explains why some westerners, moving away from Christianity, opt for the more atheistic [mostly deistic] forms of Hinduism or Buddhism. [As an aside, the power of religion and the need for meaning can be seen in the westernized Muslim kids who head to Syria to fight and to be heroic, in their minds.]

 

If the past is evidence, religion isn’t going away anytime soon. With every generation, a few more people turn agnostic or atheist, but there’s no huge flow. Sometimes there are even localized counter-trends where people get still more serious about religion. Selfishly, I don’t think one can say it would be good for religion to disappear. Since there will always be a replacement, one has to weigh religion against the alternative that will fill the vacuum. In today’s context, I’m happy to have a certain segment of the population believe in religion as a counter-balance to the typical atheist/agnostic/secular-humanist.

I see much of what you wrote as an elegant unpacking of the following:

Religious philosophy intrigues me in-so-far as it is still philosophy, i.e., a power from which no man may escape. Still, StrictlyLogical suggests that there are some here who have escaped from the clutches of religion, I would submit, though, not from the power of philosophy.

Keying in on the “selfish” desire regarding one’s individual soul in a “hereafter”, the contradictory notion of volition from an omnipotent source, finding purpose apart from determining “God’s will” for one’s life, are things most contemporary philosophy does not address and adds weight to the point of religion serving as a counter-balance.

 

So Christianity and Judaism are more principled than pragmatism. How does this differ from the lesser of two evils?