Entry 2363, on 2024-09-20 at 12:04:19 (Rating 4, Philosophy)
Summary
I used to strongly oppose religion but now acknowledge that the alternatives may be worse. As traditional religions decline, new age beliefs like woke-ism and conspiracy theories are on the rise. While religion can offer positive guidance and a sense of community, it can also lead to harmful behaviors. Ultimately, the comparison is not between the religious right and the rational left, but rather between different forms of "religions". I now see the value in moderate religious beliefs, as extreme ideologies can be equally problematic.
Full Text
In my past blog posts I have made no secret of my general level of disdain towards religion, but I think I made an error on those occasions by not properly considering the alternatives. I am still an atheist, and don't consider there is good reason to think any god exists, but I am less dedicated now towards persuading people to give up their beliefs. So why?
Well, when I called for the end of religion it was sort of with the assumption that it would be replaced with no religion, but that's not really what is happening. As people give up traditional religions - and this is definitely happening in many advanced countries, including New Zealand - they are arguably replacing it with something much worse: "new age" superstitious beliefs, massive conspiracies, and (you guessed it) that ultimate scourge of rationality: woke-ism.
I have commented in the past on how many religious elements there are in the beliefs of many politically correct individuals and people on the extreme left. Sure, I agree, many people on the right also have a significant component of religiosity in their politics too, but in that case it is generally for conventional religions.
So the choice isn't really between the religious right and the rational left, it is between two sides which both have their "religions" in different forms. So the question is, which is better, conventional religions like Christianity or new-age religions like woke-ism? Well, it really depends on how far these things are taken. I have commented in the past that religion is fine as long as you don't take it too seriously, and I guess that applies to the "new religions" as much as the traditional ones.
There are positive aspects to religion too: it often gives people a positive view to guide their lives, it provides a social element (at church meetings, etc) , and it is comforting system of belief in a complex world. Note that some of these positives can theoretically apply to woke-ism as well, until it goes too far.
So Christianity in particular, when viewed the right way, has a lot of positive philosophy in it, although it can also be used to justify bad behaviour too, because there is a significant amount of contradictory material in the Bible. I do think that the overall Christian message is a good one though, especially compared with Islam which to me seems more negative, uncompromising, and violent.
So is it really worth giving up Christianity, only to be captured by some modern, pseudo-religious philosophy like new age spiritualism, neo-Marxism, woke-ism, political correctness, critical race theory, or postmodernism? Increasingly it seems the answer is "no", because the alternatives are worse than the original "problem".
The concept that people have a "god shaped hole" goes back to Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, and more recently through to Blaise Pascal, but the best quote I have seen in relation to what I am saying came from GK Chesterton when he said: "When people cease to believe in God, they do not believe in nothing; they believe in anything!"
I guess we all have to believe in something. Even if you see yourself as dedicated to rationality and science (as I do) there is no strong philosophical position to support that. But while there is no rigorous philosophy supporting science being better than any other epistemic system, all I would say is that the mechanism of science (hypothesise, test, confirm, revise, repeat) is just common sense, and that science gets results (most modern technology is based on it).
In summary, I am now much more accepting of religion, especially when it is of the more positive type, because I can see that the alternatives are often not good!
Comment 1 by Jim Cable on 2024-09-20 at 18:05:26:
I agree. The depth of today's non-pursuits -- whether inspired/compelled by laziness or apathy - is contributing substantially to the lessening of any sort of directive guidance in our lives. When compared to the '70s, when all the un-gluing of established moralities began to start unwinding, what we have today is nothing less than the elemental indications of the destruction of our once-solidsociety. And for what?
Nothing observable today has been worth the substance or what we once had - what was the concrete of our society. The influences that once held so many things together are no longer existent.
What have we gained? Absolutely nothing - compared to all that we have lost.
Comment 2 by OJB on 2024-09-20 at 22:06:00:
Yes, all political movements produce some gains, but the current trends have lead to a general degradation of society. Whether religion is true or not hardly matters, as long as it results in a more cohesive society. The fall of Christianity and rise of postmodernism has caused the near destruction of western society. It isn't good.
Comment 3 by EK on 2024-09-21 at 16:37:55:
I am glad you have seen the light. I have been “preaching” about the necessity of religious belief for years, though my understanding of it is a bit different from yours. (It’s also in my book “Understanding the past …”.) Man needs metaphysical speculations to make sense of their ontological existence. I consider religion meets an innate need of the human species to place itself within a larger framework beyond empirical/sensory comprehension. The job can be done by highly organised and instituted complex religious systems, or by home-spun “philosophy” like new age and other bizarre mental pirouettes. (Even atheism meets that need in that it emphatically rejects such metaphysical speculations. By the way, agnosticism is really rational, not atheism, since divine existence can neither be proved nor disproved.)Neanderthal probably already had "religious" thoughts.
As to religion being the glue of society, this is the old Durkheimian shtick (aka his functionalist theory of how society works). Has to be taken with a grain of salt. Religion often does inspire solidarity and thus works to generate cohesion, but perhaps just as often leads to the opposite like in multi-religious societies or in cases of sectarian divisions (see Shia-Sunni divisions, the religious wars in post-medieval Europe, etc.) Religion can be a pain in the netherregion (see Isis), lucky for us that Christianity has had a doctrinal heart change and now emphasises its charitable and kindly side. That wasn't always so.
There would be so much more to say. But basically, I don't disagree with what you say.
Comment 4 by OJB on 2024-09-21 at 18:37:52:
Yes, thanks for your thoughts. Just to clarify what I mean by "atheism": I don't say I know for sure no god exists, I just say there is no good evidence to think one does. While it is difficult to prove a negative, I think we can get to the point where we can say that believing in the supernatural is irrational given the current state of knowledge. I completely agree that religion brings both good and bad results. Currently Christianity is fairly well behaved, but that was not always the case.
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