The "What should replace religion?" question

asydhouse said:

You know dann, you seem to be debating ideas you have about what I said rather than what I actually said. I can't be bothered to correct your misapprehensions. If you were to dispassionately reread what I wrote in order to understand what I was saying instead of creating ducks for you to knock down, you might think a bit more clearly about what I said.

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Here come the strawmen ...

To answer your first question, I have heard on the news several times over the years the reports of deaths from exorcisms among African immigrants in Britain.

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Yes, so have I. What do you know about them? Were they mostly wealthy immigrants in posh neighborhoods?

You undermine your own thesis that all (!) it takes is an increase in material well-being when you mention that Scandinavia is full (!) of woo. Are you trying to say that only people in the relatively affluent poverty you cite are the believers in that woo? That's not true, though, is it?

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And where exactly do you see the alleged thesis? Quotation, please! I know a couple of very wealthy woos, so, no, I wouldn't claim that all rich people are secularized and all poor people are woos. Apparently you never read Zuckerberg - or even listen to his eight minutes on youtube.

All I'm saying is that criticism of superstition is always valid, but can only be "imposed" on a population you are also helping in material terms; and a necessary corollary to material aid is secular education. You seem to focus on only one aspect of interfering at a time. My argument is simply that it's more complicated than that, and a mere increase in physical well-being without a concomitant betterment of educational levels/contents will never succeed in enlightening the culture.

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More complicated than what? As you can see in the case of Denmark and Sweden, religion & superstition tend to die out with improved standards of living.

Witness the persistence of religion in affluent America. (Pax Zuckerman, where he says in that video you linked to that the wealthy nation of America has vast gaps between the rich and poor... true, but... some of the richest people are the Mormons, and other evangelical organisations, who are rolling in it, and yet maintain the hardest medieval lines of religiosity in the world!)

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In the USA, based as that society is on the market economy, free enterprise and the right to become piss poor, even the relatively wealthy appear to be more afraid of losing their affluence than people in countries with, among other things, free education and health care. Your argument seem to be that because you know examples of rich people who are religious, the argument does not hold true that to overcome religion and superstition people need to have access to good housing, food and health care.
I gues that you probably also know a poor atheist guy, which would furter disprove my alleged thesis that every single religious nut ball would be secularized if he became a millionaire - which it would, of course, but only because it's your own strawman.

Also, in Africa, I'd say your own assumptions that the only (!) victims of witchcraft are those in such (!) dire poverty that they are willing to dump their children on the street... well, that's to assume (!!!) that there are no functioning communities where relatively affluent people have viable economic countries/towns... (No, it isnt'! You're really making it up as you go along, arent´t you? DS) which is sort of almost a racist assumption! (Unconscious, I'm sure, before you get reactionary on me for saying that!)

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Why don't you simply stop fabricating the assumption, then?

Belief in witchcraft is rife all over, not just among the most poverty-ridden. All kinds of atrocities go on under the influence of its perversion of undestanding of how the world works: the belief that HIV can be cured by raping a virgin child, is just one of them.

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And it makes me very happy that you present such a compelling case for your belief that belief in witchcraft is rife all over.

Aid without education, and a forthright statement that superstition is plain wrong, is just as colonialist as any other interference. IMHO.

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Who's advocating aid without education? You seem to suffer from the misapprehension that when I point out that, for instance, access to health care is required for somebody to give up his or her belief in witchdoctors, i.e. it requires a viable alternative to treatments based on superstition for people to give up their superstitions in this field, I somehow imply that people shouldn't be educated.
By the way, I greatly admire your firm belief in the impact that a "forthright statement that superstition is plain wrong" would have!

PS Why didn't you attribute your quote to the guy who wrote it then? Normally when people post a link and then an unattributed quote, it's to share a bit of what's in the link! That was confusing how you did that.

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I didn't attribute it to the guy who didn't write it, you did, and I assumed that everybody was familiar with the opium-of-the-people phrase. My bad. It might have been a good idea for you to take a look at the link in the quotation box instead of assuming that the quotation was related to a completely different link.

Poverty fuelling witchcraft hysteria
Poverty and Witch Killing
Witchcraft claims against children in Congo DRC reflect curse of poverty

Yeah yeah, whatever.

You're just spoiling for a fight, aren't you?

I can't be bothered, mate. I was basically agreeing with you that material well-being needs to be increased, but also that it in itself is not sufficient.

I wasn't fighting with you, but simply expanding on what's needed. Your need to fight with me obscures your perception of what I'm driving at. You accuse me of straw men, when all I'm doing is reporting to you what your statements have made me think you mean to say. If I misunderstood you, it was not to create a straw man. Your attitude is that somehow I'm attacking you, so you are attacking me back.

I can't be bothered with it. I think my statements are clear enough to anyone without a raring to fight attitude. Good luck with your crusade. Bye.

dann said:

You may find that this desire is a rather natural feeling. It isn't, however.

The question in the OP is wrong! You should ask what religion replaces. A secure, pleasant, meaningful existence does not require comforting ideas of a meaning beyond reality, and therefore it also doesn't "develop into religion". See Zuckerman!

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I'm not sure I understand you but it sounds a bit like Marxism. I don't think you'll get rid of religion by providing material goods or whatever because religion has to do with belief in God and not the standard of living. People have always believed in God and always will, it's part of the human experience. Besises all you have is speculation, when attempts were made to remove religion it didn't work. What is the magic bullet that the communists missed when setting up their God-free society?

Gawdzilla said:

Are "Chick Tracts" art?

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Yes. Anything that strives to be art must be considered art. Of course, we can debate the quality, effectiveness, and significance of a work. In the case of Chick Tracts, aside from the obvious, they're far more likely to be remembered as ironic Internet humor when one looks back on them. The artist's intent really has little to do with it.

Frozenwolf150 said:

Yes. Anything that strives to be art must be considered art.

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Must be? Somebody would have a fight on their hands if they tried to enforce that with me. I don't give respect easily or cheaply.

Of course, we can debate the quality, effectiveness, and significance of a work. In the case of Chick Tracts, aside from the obvious, they're far more likely to be remembered as ironic Internet humor when one looks back on them. The artist's intent really has little to do with it.

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Chick is evil. That's the short answer. Evil art is evil.

Gawdzilla said:

Must be? Somebody would have a fight on their hands if they tried to enforce that with me. I don't give respect easily or cheaply.

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I assumed you were asking about art in terms of the raw definition. We still have a right to dislike a work of art; we can certainly categorize such art as terrible, ineffective, ugly, repulsive, or undeserving of respect. So I'm not disagreeing with you there.

Gawdzilla said:

Chick is evil. That's the short answer. Evil art is evil.

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I don't let Chick get to me. His work is some of the most unintentionally funny stuff out there, and some have suggested that he's doing his belief system more harm than good by turning himself into a caricature of an ignorant fundamentalist. At least have the temerity to laugh at him, or if that doesn't help, do a search for some of the parodies that skeptics have made of his tracts.

Peterson said:

I'm not sure I understand you but it sounds a bit like Marxism. I don't think you'll get rid of religion by providing material goods or whatever because religion has to do with belief in God and not the standard of living. People have always believed in God and always will, it's part of the human experience. Besises all you have is speculation, when attempts were made to remove religion it didn't work. What is the magic bullet that the communists missed when setting up their God-free society?

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1) It's not true that "religion has to do with belief in God". Christianity, for instance, is the belief in the (Christian) god.
2) No, people haven't "always believed in God". They used to believe in gods, and some of them still do. (I was married to a Cuban santera a couple of years ago.)
That religion"'s part of the human experience" (so was smallpox), doesn't mean that it's an indispensable part of the human experience. Some of us do quite well without it.
3) The attempts "made to remove religion" that you think of were wrong because they attempted to ban religion instead of rendering it moot, i.e. removing the need for religion. However, as you can see in the case of present-day Scandinavia where the attempt was never made, religion tends to die out, to become nothing more than cultural traditions, when people don't have to fear poverty (too much). A similar thing happened in Cuba between 1960 and 1991 when religion slowly faded away (along with prostitution, by the way) only to return with a vengeance with the renewed poverty (and prostitution) of the 1990s.

When Cuba's centralized system for providing basic social services began to erode in the early 1990s, Christian and Afro-Cuban religious groups took on new social and political responsibilities. They began to work openly with state institutions on projects such as .... https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/research/handle/10453/7790

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I was never a fan of the kind of socialism/communism in the Eastern European countries, but even so, they don't appear to have been as unsuccessful in their attempts at removing religion as you appear to think. Why Eastern Germany Is The Most Godless Place On Earth
My guess is that this had more to do with a feeling of being less vulnerable to the powers that controlled their lives - unlike the existential anxiety in the market economies where each individual is required to be competitive and responsible for making their own fortune in a mode of production where you risk bankruptcy, unemployment etc. But let me stress again that this is only my guess!

asydhouse said:

Yeah yeah, whatever.

You're just spoiling for a fight, aren't you?

I can't be bothered, mate. I was basically agreeing with you that material well-being needs to be increased, but also that it in itself is not sufficient.

I wasn't fighting with you, but simply expanding on what's needed. Your need to fight with me obscures your perception of what I'm driving at. You accuse me of straw men, when all I'm doing is reporting to you what your statements have made me think you mean to say. If I misunderstood you, it was not to create a straw man. Your attitude is that somehow I'm attacking you, so you are attacking me back.

I can't be bothered with it. I think my statements are clear enough to anyone without a raring to fight attitude. Good luck with your crusade. Bye.

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I'm sorry that you feel that way. I'd recommend that you try to read what people actually write instead of jumping to conclusions. If you try to be more specific (use quotations, for instance) instead of generalizing and attempting to summarize a whole post, you'll probably find it easier to understand the differences in opinion.

Gawdzilla said:

Evil art is evil.

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...But no less art.

dann said:

Telling somebody who doesn't have access to proper health care to stop being so superstitious is both stupid and cynical ...

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In what way is it stupid and cynical?

It seems far more stupid to think that the superstitions help or are harmless. It seems far more cynical to leave people to the clutches of superstition because they happen to be poor or to live in the wrong part of the world. People without healthcare need healthcare, not charlatans.

Correa Neto said:

Responsability, accountability, respect for life, the knowledge that each of us is unique, frail, precious and will live just for a very brief time.

Oh, and sex too. Especially sex, lots of it. Beats most religious rites.

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That sounds like a sweet manifesto!

Last of the Fraggles said:

People without healthcare need healthcare, not charlatans.

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My point exactly! And you seem to presume that they'd somehow get health care if only they'd stop being superstitious:

It seems far more cynical to leave people to the clutches of superstition because they happen to be poor or to live in the wrong part of the world.

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That is the idealist fiction that many skeptics seem to believe: If only Africans would stop going to the witch doctor, proper doctors would suddenly, magically, appear. In this case, however, "the clutches of superstition" aren't really the problem. The lack of (affordable) doctors are.

From a recent article:

The unaffordability (!) of superior health care and education forces (!) members of society to seek alternatives to modern medicine and traditional churches to (maintain the comforting illusion that they ... dann) have ailments cured and socio-economic situations improved. http://www.informante.web.na/index....roy-namibia-&catid=16:off-the-desk&Itemid=102

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By the way, the major objections of this guy seem to be that people tend to leave "traditional churches" in favour of the new ones with faith healers and witchdoctors, so it's no wonder that he doesn't see the "unaffordability of superior health care and education" as the major problem. Skeptics, however, should be able to come up with better suggestions than pastors ...

dann said:

I'm sorry that you feel that way. I'd recommend that you try to read what people actually write instead of jumping to conclusions. If you try to be more specific (use quotations, for instance) instead of generalizing and attempting to summarize a whole post, you'll probably find it easier to understand the differences in opinion.

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Take a look in the mirror.

Hokulele said:

To nitpick just a bit, most of these are examples of The Sliver Rule, not the Golden one. Personally, I have always preferred the Silver version.

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Yeah, but essentialy, the Silver Rule ("Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you") is just a variation upon the Golden Rule. (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you) It's actualy closely related to a part of the Hippocratic Oath. (Do no harm)

dann said:

My point exactly! And you seem to presume that they'd somehow get health care if only they'd stop being superstitious:


That is the idealist fiction that many skeptics seem to believe: If only Africans would stop going to the witch doctor, proper doctors would suddenly, magically, appear. In this case, however, "the clutches of superstition" aren't really the problem. The lack of (affordable) doctors are.

From a recent article:

By the way, the major objections of this guy seem to be that people tend to leave "traditional churches" in favour of the new ones with faith healers and witchdoctors, so it's no wonder that he doesn't see the "unaffordability of superior health care and education" as the major problem. Skeptics, however, should be able to come up with better suggestions than pastors ...

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Don't follow your own advice, I see. You just like to argue. Straw man after straw man. Do you really not see what you are doing?

PS "What have the Romans ever done for us?"

(OK, I'll elucidate: watch that scene in The Life of Brian, to recall the whole "splittist" arse-chasing behaviour of the old-style political Left... your style reminds me of that. It's off-putting and counter productive. Make of that what you will. In other words, ask yourself what you really want to achieve.)

Peterson said:

Religion has to do with a desire for God. Whatever replaces it will still develop into religion unless you can get people to stop believing in God

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Not necessarily.

A general 'belief in the existence of God' and 'being religious' can actualy be two different things. A religion is something that usualy involves a collection of particular beliefs about a deity and involves rituals and the commemoration or veneration of a deity or deities. Essentialy a religion is an organised cultural system, but one doesn't need to believe in the necessity of an organised religion to believe in the existence of a God. People can believe in the existence of God without believing in the necessity of worshipping him/her/it, or following a particular diet, or observing certain behaviours on certain days, or dressing a particular way, or knowing a particular text or story off by heart, etc, etc.

Look at it this way, if God did exist and was as 'all-powerful' as the religions make him out to be, we would be like bacteria are to us in comparison. Why would such a being care about the way we behave? We could well be completely beneath his notice, so there's really no reason to consider that such a God would require us to behave in any particular way any more than we should consider that bacterium should behave in a particular way.

dann said:

My point exactly! And you seem to presume that they'd somehow get health care if only they'd stop being superstitious:

That is the idealist fiction that many skeptics seem to believe: If only Africans would stop going to the witch doctor, proper doctors would suddenly, magically, appear. In this case, however, "the clutches of superstition" aren't really the problem. The lack of (affordable) doctors are.

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I'm struggling to understand your objection.

People can discard their superstitions and also be provided with proper healthcare. These two things aren't in opposition to each other.

Nobody said that if people stop going to witchdoctors they will magically get proper healthcare.

Having people in the clutches of superstition really is a problem. There may be other problems too but that doesn't mean that we need to ignore this one.

And, just like in the developed world, the prevalence and acceptance of witchdoctors and quackery actually do deter some people from seeking proper treatment even when they do have access to it.

Its neither cynical nor stupid to inform people that quackery is quackery.

Frozenwolf150 said:

I don't let Chick get to me. His work is some of the most unintentionally funny stuff out there, and some have suggested that he's doing his belief system more harm than good by turning himself into a caricature of an ignorant fundamentalist. At least have the temerity to laugh at him, or if that doesn't help, do a search for some of the parodies that skeptics have made of his tracts.

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Chick doesn't "get to me", I just consider him to be an evil *******.

Piscivore said:

...But no less art.

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Define "art" before we go on, please.

Golden rule, silver rule, whatever. Religions are full of rules supposed to be followed by their adepts and by following these rules, people are supposed to become better human beings.

However, those rules apply just to those within the religion's community, circle, group. When it comes down to those who do not follow their religion, or in many cases those who do not follow a particular leader from a given religion, all the rules can and probably will quickly become fire, brimstone, eternal damnation, blades and gunpowder.

Despite golden and silver rules, religions have one master rule- truth and the path to salvation are contained within their doctrines, tales, dogmas and codes. Everibody else is doomed, everibody else is lesser, everibody else quickly becomes a lesser human being and fair game.

Thats why religion will always be a source of conflict.