Entry 2217, on 2022-05-12 at 21:42:15 (Rating 4, Politics)
While I am an atheist (not a title I'm particularly attached to; I just don't think any gods exist) I recognise that religion has a certain amount of value. Some people even make convoluted arguments which try to say religious stories are "true" in some sense - usually a sense somewhat different from what we use to describe the truth of other phenomena - for example, Jordan Peterson. I find this approach very frustrating, but it is quite common.
So what are the valuable components of religion? Well, the primary one would be that it is a way to bind a group of people together by giving them common goals and beliefs. It also provides a way to establish simple moral truths (but be careful about the word truth in this context). And it creates a hierarchy where stable lines of command can be created.
You might have noticed that all of the reasons I listed above have positive and negative elements. So people might belong to a group based on common religious beliefs, but are there better groups they might have belonged to otherwise? And moral truths are great as long as they fit in with current societal norms, but many religious beliefs don't. Finally, the hierarchies are often abused to give great power and/or wealth to the people at the top at the expense of those further down.
Despite the obvious problems, the positives are moderately compelling. If you want to create a highly united group then having the members of that group join your religion is a great way to do it. Of course, there are potential complications, especially members of the group realising, after a period of time, that they have been manipulated and then leaving, or worse: creating a competing version of the religion. There are already hundreds (and possibly thousands, depending on how you count them) of Christian denominations, so it does happen.
So I think all religions are based on false myths and beliefs, but if they provide positives for their members anyway, and those members don't act irrationally based on the beliefs in mythology, then I'm OK with it.
But what about modern political movements which exist by invoking religious concepts? What am I talking about here?
Well, one common characteristic of religious belief is the concept of blasphemy. In other words, there are certain things you are not allowed to say, and words you cannot use. Why? Well, if you buy into the religion's narrative, it is because your god might not like you saying certain things, but in reality it is to protect the religion from reasonable criticism.
At this point you might be seeing the parallels in modern society, especially in relation to "cancel culture". How many people have been fired, locked out of social media, prosecuted, or physically or verbally abused because they "blasphemed"?
What are some examples of speech which is often seen as politically blasphemous? Well, what about criticism of gender diverse people, like people who are gay or trans? I have been involved in several debates on this; on some occasions defending people who have been cancelled as a result of their opinion on the subject.
The most ironic example of this is probably Israel Folau, who was an Australian rugby player kicked off the team because he made a comment on social media advising gay people that they were breaking God's laws. Yes, that is the irony: someone who belongs to a traditional religion (fundamentalist Christianity) was cancelled by members of a modern "religion" (woke social justice warriors) because their religious beliefs contradicted his. How messed up is that!
I am no fan of fundamentalist religion; in fact I am no fan of fundamentalist anything! But it seems to me that the social justice warriors who cancelled Folau were more tied up in extreme, irrational nonsense than even he was. And, in the West at least, religions don't have the power to enforce their dictates, but SJWs clearly do. To be fair, the penalties imposed by the Woke Religions aren't as bad as those which were imposed in the past by Christianity or still are by Islam, but the principle is the same.
Apart from penalties against speech which offends them, what other similarities are there between the two types of religion?
Well, both are often used by corrupt individuals to gain power and wealth. The stories of extremely wealthy pastors who insist the members of their church must pay for their lavish lifestyles is well know, but similar issues exist in the woke community. For example, the woman who founded Black Lives Matter (an organisation which acts just as badly as almost any religion) has managed to use the position to acquire large houses, servants, etc.
In Christianity, poor and disadvantaged people are celebrated and the Bible entreats the reader to give up their own wealth to help those who are disadvantaged. The parallel with many modern movements - especially those promoting Marxism - is obvious, but apparently forgoing the advantages of wealth is OK for the followers, but not so much for the leaders.
Original thinking is discouraged by religions: followers are expected to gain their knowledge from their church leaders or their holy books, and the same applies to members of the "Church of Woke". Listening to them discuss their views is quite revealing: they tend to all use the same phrases and statements, as if they were just robotically memorising and repeating what they have been told. Does that sound familiar?
But when members of either type of church debate their opponents they tend to be revealed as ignorant, because they just haven't even considered the points being used against them and have trouble responding to them.
In most cases, the corruption involved in these situations is obvious, so how do they get away with it? Well, religions are not driven by facts. They are based on myths and ideologies which aren't allowed to be disproved or even questioned once they are established. These myths are maintained by regular propaganda sessions. In a religion, people's beliefs are typically maintained by sermons, prayers, and religious readings. In modern political belief systems the equivalents are meetings, media propaganda, and books, web sites, etc.
Look at the way religions of every type behave, and think of the modern woke community as a religion, and it all makes sense. We shouldn't expect these people to be rational, or for their beliefs to be based on facts, and they aren't, because they are believers in a holy dogma, and that doesn't need to be true.
Comment 1 by Anonymous on 2022-05-26 at 15:57:38:
I remember that in this blog you criticise other people for calling things a religion which aren't actually a religion (like atheism). Are you being hypocritical?
Comment 2 by OJB on 2022-05-26 at 21:20:07:
I say atheism isn't a religion because it specifically rejects anything which vaguely resembles anything religious. But as I said in this post, many aspects of modern woke ideology are virtually indistinguishable from many of the less rational aspects of religion. It's a quite different situation.
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