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Modern Religions

Entry 2233, on 2022-08-29 at 22:09:45 (Rating 4, Politics)

My opposition to religion is well documented in this blog, but so is my opposition to a lot of other things, mostly related to political correctness and other modern political trends. What is the connection here? Well, I say many modern belief systems have a lot in common with religion, and might be an inevitable outcome when "real" religion becomes both less acceptable to the "power elite" and less less supported by others.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with religion as such, especially when it tries to provide social support to its members, do charitable work, and create an environment where elements of spirituality can be explored.

And I think there's also nothing wrong with the underlying ideas of political correctness when it tries to prevent oppression of minority groups, improve fairness and equity, and allow everyone to participate more equally in society.

But there are two problems with both of these worldviews: first, neither is fact based, because they both have a set of beliefs which are rarely questioned or revised; and second, neither really knows when to stop, because they reach a goal and then just continue on with more and more unreasonable demands.

I think most people need a framework to base their lives on, or a common philosophy allowing them to identify as a member of a group, or some narrative they can use to help them understand the world, and traditional religions provided all of these. But now that religion is dying (at least in the Western world) people need other ways to achieve these goals. So why not create a new type of religion? And that, in many ways, is what feminism, environmentalism, support for the trans community, climate change, and others are all about.

Note that I am not saying that any of these new "religions" are wrong, or unnecessary. I'm just saying that the majority of people included in these groups get involved for irrational reasons, or take the basic ideals too far, or are members just so that they can virtue signal their supposed moral superiority. In other words, they get involved for bad reasons, even when the raison d'etre for the group's existence is good.

Let's look at one modern "religion" which I particularly object to: Black Lives Matter.

First, note that it has a catchy name which few people could disagree with. Of course, black lives matter, just like lives of every culture, nationality, and race matter. But note that saying that is seen as a modern form of blasphemy. If I say "all lives matter" I will be attacked as if I had said black lives don't matter.

It's like their holy catchphrase has been used against them, and they don't like it. Sort of like saying "Sure, Jesus saves, but so does Mohammed, Buddha, Shiva, etc."

So BLM might be seen as a reaction to excessive police violence, but there is a lot of evidence showing that excessive violence doesn't really exist, or if it does, it applies to all races fairly equally. Of course, BLM must deny this or the reason for their existence becomes irrelevant. It's a bit like science showing Creation isn't true but fundamentalist Christians rejecting this because it makes what they want to believe less legitimate.

Like I said, it is very much like blasphemy. When Giordano Bruno supported the sun-centered, Copernican model of the Solar System he was burned at the stake, because the Catholic Church has already decided what it wanted to believe and the facts just got in the way of that. To be fair, the modern form of torture favoured by the zealots isn't quite as extreme as that, but being "cancelled" is the current equivalent.

What about ideas which have outlived their usefulness? Well, to some extent I would put feminism in that category. Women have equal rights in every area of modern life, and in some they have significant advantages. For example, men do most of the really dirty and dangerous jobs, they participate less in tertiary education, they die earlier, they are jailed far more often, they commit suicide more often, and are the victims of far more accidents. Where is the movement trying to redress this imbalance? It basically doesn't exist, yet feminists just demand more and more.

Before the scientific revolution, religion had a place explaining how the world worked, but as we discovered the real facts religion became less important. But many religious people cannot accept that continue to insist that old myths have some sort of factual basis. Like the feminists, it's time to move on.

I think this demonstrates that my two objections to religions (both traditional and what I claim as the modern equivalents) are real. Religion and modern political activist groups are both based on what seemed to be true when they were first created, but in reality are primarily about false perceptions and myths. And they both have achieved a lot but are still never satisfied, even when they seem to have fulfilled their initial goals.

Also, both are primarily about collectivist ideals. A true individualist, free thinker would never get involved with either because they are both very much about being told what to think and believe, rather than figuring it out for yourself. Libertarians don't tend to be either religious or to participate much with social activism groups.

I see myself as a libertarian to some extent, and even I can see the appeal of belonging to a group where everyone agrees and knows what is expected of them in terms of beliefs, but at the same time I value my independence too much to follow the temptation of joining a group like those I have been describing.

There is another element of this I should mention here too. It is that many people in these groups (of both types) are very hypocritical.

Is there anything more sickening than to see world leaders taking their private jets to an event where they lecture the rest of us on how we should be reducing our carbon emissions? And can you see the parallels with religions which preach that we should be helping the poor while the leaders live in luxury? Or where we see priests preaching about protecting children while thay abuse them? Hypocrisy isn't universal in these situations, but it is common.

Finally, there is the role of fear and hysteria. I have no doubt that many young people today live in fear of the world ending thanks to climate change. We are told there is a "climate emergency" (another convenient catchphrase) and that this is an existential crisis. Actually no, this is not an emergency, and there is nothing existential about it.

Climate change is a problem, but one which can be managed as long as we forget about the doctrinal material distributed by the "high priests" (I'm committed to this comparison of religion and political activism) of climate change and the hysteria conveyed by the charismatic purveyors of their ideas, like Greta Thunberg (yeah, I know she's an idiot, but she is charismatic to many people).

So maybe at this point I have shown you that whatever faults traditional religions might have, that the modern substitutes for them might be even worse.

It would be so much easier if people stopped looking for a new religion. If they really need one, join a moderate, traditional religion with positive ideals (Buddhism maybe?), but don't create a new political religion which is just as oppressive and out of touch as any traditional one was.

Comment 1 (7286) by Derek Ramsey on 2022-08-30 at 09:02:34:

OJB said: I say many modern belief systems have a lot in common with religion, and might be an inevitable outcome when "real" religion becomes both less acceptable to the "power elite" and less less supported by others.

Every single major Christian denomination is an arm of the global bureaucracy: all are proven anti-church, subservient to the secular State. Criticisms of religion are - by and large - criticisms of the secular sociopolitical systems (of which BLM is a part) that they serve. They are religious in the sense of a system of faith and worship. Like cogs in a machine.

OJB said: Also, both are primarily about collectivist ideals. A true individualist, free thinker would never get involved with either because they are both very much about being told what to think and believe, rather than figuring it out for yourself.

Interesting thing about Jesus, is that he saves you from slavery to sin. Freedom is the point, to which I certainly can attest. And there are no high priests in the "priesthood of believers".

Comment 2 (7287) by OJB on 2022-08-30 at 09:03:05:

But what is a church, what isn’t, and what is anti-church is very subjective. I didn’t see anything in the link you provided which really clarified the situation. It’s a bit like the socialist/Marxists who say “oh, that country wan’t real socialism, that’s why it failed”. Well what is true socialism? What is true religion? It’s a matter of opinion, unless you use a dictionary definition, in which case they all look like churches/religions.

Well whether Jesus saves or enslaves is also a matter of opinion. It seems to me that it is more enslaving than saving, but that might depend on your exact circumstances and the precise teachings you follow.

Comment 3 (7288) by Ken Spall on 2022-08-30 at 17:06:57:

It seems that religious and social movements start off with the best intentions but then develop into a means of control and influence benefiting what becomes an elite minority.

Comment 4 (7289) by OJB on 2022-08-30 at 21:53:28:

Exactly how I see it. BLM, MeToo, etc. All had some merit to begin with, but have since become corrupt and irrational.

Comment 5 (7292) by Derek Ramsey on 2022-09-06 at 09:45:03:

"But what is a church"

It strict terms of etymology, Church comes from the Greek word "ekklesia" and a congregation or assembly of people gathered together, originally an assembly of citizens in a city-state of Athens. Jesus used the same term in a similar way, including in a legal context. Later the word would be transliterated to the Latin ecclesia, and would eventually take on the additional meaning of "house of worship". The English word retains the same meanings, except it has lost the original secular and magisterial senses.

Anti-church is not the antonym of church. It's not even clear what an antonym of church would be, as it isn't a simple binary concept that can be trivially inverted. An anti-church is one which acts against its own interests and/or is subservient to "or an arm of" a secular entity.

To use a hypothetical political example, if a group of democratically elected rulers in a democracy try to abolish voting, we correctly identify them as anti-democracy, even if they use the democratic process to abolish voting.

Every major Christian denomination has proven objectively that it is anti-church. It has actively used its own authority to act against its own existence: quite literally closing its doors, shutting down its services, adding restrictions (barriers to entry) that went beyond strict legal requirements, penalizing members who didn’t approve of this, going against plain readings of their holy book of spells, and publicly praising themselves for these acts. Even the utilitarian argument works: these actions caused it to shed huge percentages of its membership.

They are Christians because they meet the definition of Christians. They are churches because they meet the definition of churches. But their actions prove that they are both anti-church and secular in nature, such that the fact that "modern belief systems have a lot in common with religions" is no accident or surprise.

Comment 6 (7293) by Derek Ramsey on 2022-09-06 at 09:45:25:

"But what is a church, what isn't, and what is anti-church is very subjective."

Tyranny like this happened all over the world:

"We will continue to be your single source of truth [..] Unless you hear it from us, it is not the truth." - Jacinda Ardern, 2020 re: covid

In my home state it was a series of mandates (including one to close churches) that were obviously unconstitutional at the time and were later proven to be so in court. But the churches just gave up without even a whimper. The government illegitimately said "jump" and the churches responded by saying "how high?"

These things were obviously false and I said so at the time on this very blog.

Comment 7 (7294) by Derek Ramsey on 2022-09-06 at 09:45:46:

"They are churches because they meet the definition of churches."

I need to clarify this.

If a church doesn't assemble, it is isn't an assembly, and thus isn't a church. In this, anti-church is a precise antonym of church and correctly describes the state of the church at the time. Or put another way, if no one worships at the house of worship, it is no longer a house of worship, but just a building.

Of course the majority of churches have resumed operations and so now meet the technical definition of church. But even the most pedantic person can recognize that willingly abolishing churches, for any significant length of time, at the government request is not pro-church.

Either way, would you sign up for a religion that willingly abolished itself? I wouldn't, which is why I switched to one of the very few churches that didn't abolish itself.

Comment 8 (7295) by OJB on 2022-09-06 at 09:46:02:

Well, the justification for the mandates was that they were for the greater public good, at that includes people who attend church. So saving the church members from dying from COVID so they could resume their worship in due course, could be seen as pro-church. Just to be clear, I don't necessarily believe this myself, and I am not in favour of unnecessary mandates. Just offering an alternative view that many people might hold.

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