Non-supernatural 'religion' and 'god'

[ruby sparks]

“The highest ideal that a person holds - either consciously or subconsciously - that is their god”

Discuss.

To get the ball rolling, consider.......rationality. Let's say a lot of people do (and have, perhaps especially many philosophers) considered this as something of an ideal, the idea of a rational man (person, obviously). Many atheists may be included here, I'm suggesting.

Of course, by 'god' we don't mean a supernatural, controlling entity, we mean something which might be called a 'drive' or a psychological force. Perhaps those aren't even the right words. But something that effectively acts in many of the same ways (perhaps not all) as a god, or indeed, in some ways, as a religion, as something...dare I say...revered, possibly even sacred (in a secular sense). Possibly even worshipped, no matter how controversial that may sound (and I'm sure it will, to some, it does even to me).

Now consider this. There is no such thing as a rational man. It does not exist.

Further, as Voltaire said, "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him". Well, what have some people been doing these last few centuries, if not trying to invent perfectly rational entities? Ok, perhaps machines and then computers are not exactly that, but virtual assistants like Amazon Alexa go a bit further than a computer. And then there's robots. How long have we been trying to create those? Heck, a lot of them even look like us.

I considered posting this in the religion forum or the existence of gods forum, and nearly did.

 

[rousseau]

One of the things I find interesting about rationality being revered, and specifically pointed out here, is that it's typically revered solely by people who think mathematically and logically. It's kind of a counter-point to the people who experience the world in an emotive (and usually religious) way.

And yet if you take reason too far it becomes devoid of feeling, in the same way if you take emotion too far it becomes devoid of logic. In other words the logical, and correct thing, isn't always the right one.

So maybe you're right that rationality acts as a kind of religion for the mathematically oriented, in the same way that agency/spirituality acts as a religion for those who are emotionally oriented.

Might be some room to meet in the middle and recognize that lived experience is sometimes more important than efficiency and relentless social change.

 

[steve_bank]

Rationality is based on circumstance and the chemical state of the brain.

Beyond a point in sexual stimulation we lose control. If we are being assaulted reason and logic give way to survival.

Being atheist,theist, or having any philosophy does mot necessarily equate to reason.From what I rember of Buddhism and Hinduism god is a state of being, a level of awareness.

 

[ruby sparks]

One of the things I find interesting about rationality being revered, and specifically pointed out here, is that it's typically revered solely by people who think mathematically and logically. It's kind of a counter-point to the people who experience the world in an emotive (and usually religious) way.

And yet if you take reason too far it becomes devoid of feeling, in the same way if you take emotion too far it becomes devoid of logic. In other words the logical, and correct thing, isn't always the right one.

So maybe you're right that rationality acts as a kind of religion for the mathematically oriented, in the same way that agency/spirituality acts as a religion for those who are emotionally oriented.

Might be some room to meet in the middle and recognize that lived experience is sometimes more important than efficiency and relentless social change.

Thanks. Interesting thoughts.

Yes, I would not say that rationality is everyone's ideal.

Now, how about this (and I apologise if my predilection for gender and sex issues is skewing my analysis here)...is it more of a male ideal, traditionally? I mean, most philosophers in history have been male, including, eventually most Natural Philosophers and after that most scientists (and mathematicians). Lots of things pertaining to what human society has aspired to have been largely directed by (skewed towards) male interests. And of course, men have traditionally controlled and defined both religion and god (and the early christian church fathers were especially fond of deploying what passed for reasoning at that time). Perhaps this can partly explain why the ideals of rationality have predominated. Or am I mainly thinking only of 'western' society, post-enlightenment? As steve has just pointed out, not all religions are as based on reason as ours have been in recent centuries.

 

[rousseau]

One of the things I find interesting about rationality being revered, and specifically pointed out here, is that it's typically revered solely by people who think mathematically and logically. It's kind of a counter-point to the people who experience the world in an emotive (and usually religious) way.

And yet if you take reason too far it becomes devoid of feeling, in the same way if you take emotion too far it becomes devoid of logic. In other words the logical, and correct thing, isn't always the right one.

So maybe you're right that rationality acts as a kind of religion for the mathematically oriented, in the same way that agency/spirituality acts as a religion for those who are emotionally oriented.

Might be some room to meet in the middle and recognize that lived experience is sometimes more important than efficiency and relentless social change.

Thanks. Interesting thoughts.

Yes, I would not say that rationality is everyone's ideal.

Now, how about this (and I apologise if my predilection for gender and sex issues is skewing my analysis here)...is it more of a male ideal, traditionally? I mean, most philosophers in history have been male, including, eventually most Natural Philosophers and after that most scientists (and mathematicians). Lots of things pertaining to what human society has aspired to have been largely directed by (skewed towards) male interests. And of course, men have traditionally controlled and defined both religion and god (and the early christian church fathers were especially fond of deploying what passed for reasoning at that time). Perhaps this can partly explain why the ideals of rationality have predominated. Or am I mainly thinking only of 'western' society, post-enlightenment? As steve has just pointed out, not all religions are as based on reason as ours have been in recent centuries.

As far as reason being predominant I'd call it less about being an ideal, and more about how gender roles have been precipitated. Traditional female and male gender roles exist, and as such women have historically been oriented to the home, while men have been oriented to society. The gender itself is arbitrary, but by necessity those in the home need to be good nurturers, while those outside the home need sharp reason and cunning to navigate the world and bring home the bacon, so to speak.

This has meant that the world of economics was built by and for men with the use of reason. While it might look like reason as an ideal built the world, it's really that reason was a necessity to navigate, create, and exploit it. Most of what exists is there because someone created it for profit.

Or I guess you could put it that reason 'as ideal' is the facade, while profit is the true motive.

 

[untermensche]

Natural means "It can happen".

If some god came along and did anything it would be natural if it happened.

 

[ruby sparks]

As far as reason being predominant I'd call it less about being an ideal, and more about how gender roles have been precipitated. Traditional female and male gender roles exist, and as such women have historically been oriented to the home, while men have been oriented to society. The gender itself is arbitrary, but by necessity those in the home need to be good nurturers, while those outside the home need sharp reason and cunning to navigate the world and bring home the bacon, so to speak.

This has meant that the world of economics was built by and for men with the use of reason. While it might look like reason as an ideal built the world, it's really that reason was a necessity to navigate, create, and exploit it. Most of what exists is there because someone created it for profit.

Or I guess you could put it that reason 'as ideal' is the facade, while profit is the true motive.

Well, it has often been said that for some people, money is god.

As to the gender thing, I am not sure how much to make of what I said or how much it relates to the OP quote, but I guess it may mean that women tend (to some extent, all these things vary on distribution curves which are mostly overlapping) for one reason or another to have slightly different ideals than men. But possibly too much emphasis can be put on the differences.

As far as reason or rationality being an ideal, I think for some people, perhaps especially some analytic philosophers, it actually is. I take all your points of course, and rationality was just the first candidate that sprang to my mind to get the ball rolling.

When we think of theistic gods, we often tend to think about the religion, but that is just the social structures built around each individual's personal (albeit also communally shared) idea of god. That's the sociological side of it if you like (and we could get into religion as sociology). If we think in individual terms, in terms of psychology, god is (imo) really only in our brains. As such, it seems quite plausible that our brains, all being roughly similar (I'm not sure anyone has found a neurological correlate for belief in god which is present in theists but not in atheists) that there is room for brains, and the people who have them, to operate in similar ways, have similar ideas, believe in different things, with different labels and expressed in different ways.

And as to the OP quote, perhaps it would be better to say that whatever is your ideal, that is the nearest thing to your god rather than is your god, and in some cases it might be close to being like a god and in other cases it might be quite far away.

As for myself, I'm not even sure what my highest ideal is, or whether I have more than one, so I'm having trouble working out what my god is, or if I have one. I tend to eschew being idealistic. I'm pretty apolitical for example and not very ambitious when it comes to money and its trappings. I flip flop quite a bit on most topics and tend to see everything as variegated and nuanced to the point that I often have trouble settling on fixed positions. Maybe I'm simply 'not much of a believer' generally.

What about you? What's your highest ideal, if you have one, the thing that you believe in the most. Allowing, for both of us, of course, that the person who said the OP quote wisely included that it might be subconscious.

 

[Lion IRC]

If the nature of reality can't be empirically attributed to natural/material causes prior to the Big Bang, then we should consider that supernatural causes are equally probable.

 

[ruby sparks]

I am sure you are right, and that untermensche was right a few posts ago, and I can't and don't want to dictate what people discuss, but personally I am hoping that the discussion does not veer into a discussion about the actual existence or otherwise of a supernatural god, because that is quite a different issue than I personally am interested in and not intended to be the subject of the OP, for which, in the main, it does not matter (albeit I personally am adopting the perspective that he/it probably doesn't exist).

Now I'm definitely glad I posted the OP in the philosophy forum instead of one of the religion fora. Although a psychology or social science forum would have been as appropriate.

You could do 'atheism as religion', if you prefer to do something intractable and contentious. That one usually gets the atheists going against the theists (and sometimes the atheists against the atheists). Though personally, I am not entirely averse to the suggestion. In some ways, and to risk turning the discussion into a well-worn conflagration, I think atheism can be seen as a worldview, a belief system, an ideology and possibly, in some ways, as a religion.

 

[rousseau]

What about you? What's your highest ideal, if you have one, the thing that you believe in the most. Allowing, for both of us, of course, that the person who said the OP quote wisely included that it might be subconscious.

For the past 10 - 15 years my highest ideal has been knowledge and the pursuit of it. Just living my life has never been enough, I have to know why things are the way they are and why they work the way they do. What I never expected was to get to a point where that curiosity and pursuit felt like it was sated, and I'd be able to go back to just living my life again. But that's where I'm at. I'm not omniscient, but there isn't much that I don't know that I feel I need to learn about.

So now it's less about knowledge, more about enjoying my life within the context of that understanding.

 

[ruby sparks]

For the past 10 - 15 years my highest ideal has been knowledge and the pursuit of it. Just living my life has never been enough, I have to know why things are the way they are and why they work the way they do. What I never expected was to get to a point where that curiosity and pursuit felt like it was sated, and I'd be able to go back to just living my life again. But that's where I'm at. I'm not omniscient, but there isn't much that I don't know that I feel I need to learn about.

So now it's less about knowledge, more about enjoying my life within the context of that understanding.

I have to say that that seems very..... evolved.

Sometimes I wish I could get to that point. It makes so much sense, First, no matter how much we learn, we will never understand anything completely (so it's ultimately pointless). Second, at some stage, if we don't die before our time, we're going to get to a stage of mental decrepitude where we forget it all. Third, we're going to die eventually, at which point it will not matter to us in the slightest what we knew. Fourth, by being inquisitive and pondering and such, we are actually wasting valuable time that could more rewardingly be occupied by trying to have as much fun, pleasure, happiness and enjoyment of the moment as possible while we're alive.

Hey, I think I just found my new god!

 

[rousseau]

Fourth, by being inquisitive and pondering and such, we are actually wasting valuable time that could more rewardingly be occupied by trying to have as much fun, pleasure, happiness and enjoyment of the moment as possible while we're alive.

Being inquisitive and pondering is fun for me, though, which is why I do it. A lot of it is a function of where you sit on the extraversion spectrum. For instance, for strong extroverts reading and learning is boring. It's not a conscious choice they make, it's a function of their brain. So you get a lot of extroverts who prize action and excitement over quiet study and reflection. It's just what makes them feel good.

Where for strong introverts like me reading and learning hits the excitement sweet spot. It makes me feel engaged to continuously understand the world and gradually become a better person. I don't do it because I think it's some kind of noble goal to pursue, I do it because it's what I value and enjoy doing.

ETA: the reason I am starting to move away learning is because at some point you start getting diminishing returns. Sure, in terms of pure data you could go on infinitely, but for most fields of study the most relevant facts aren't actually that broad, and given enough time a lot of them are knowable. So at this point I really don't need to go further down the road.