What is the Purpose of Religion

[bilby]

Even people who aren't ipso facto religious, are usually very much religious in perspective, and want nothing to do with any type of fact. I don't think these people are going to be comforted by a 'science but that's not the whole story' perspective. They want to see the beauty of the world, and nothing else.

"I have a friend who’s an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say “look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree. Then he says “I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing,” and I think that he’s kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is … I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts." - Richard Feynman

 

[rousseau]

Even people who aren't ipso facto religious, are usually very much religious in perspective, and want nothing to do with any type of fact. I don't think these people are going to be comforted by a 'science but that's not the whole story' perspective. They want to see the beauty of the world, and nothing else.

"I have a friend who’s an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say “look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree. Then he says “I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing,” and I think that he’s kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is … I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts." - Richard Feynman

I wonder if for many a deeper understanding just adds to the confusion and complexity when things are already going well.

For people like you and I, we manage to get by materially AND make time to understand / hold these views. But for some they're just distracting, unsexy, and irrelevant details at best, and at worst break down worldviews that are working fine.

 

[SIB]

The purpose? Whats the purpose of any club? No more than any other human devour. Its just that some can be taken to far.

 

[DBT]

Cushy work for priests, pastors, shaman and witchdoctors, respected by the community, steady income, accommodation....knowing the mysteries of the universe, having the answers to the big questions, being a representative of the gods, bestowing blessings upon the faithful....

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I wonder if for many a deeper understanding just adds to the confusion and complexity when things are already going well.

For people like you and I, we manage to get by materially AND make time to understand / hold these views. But for some they're just distracting, unsexy, and irrelevant details at best, and at worst break down worldviews that are working fine.

That's absolutely true and is why liberals and academics are always purged when populist revolutions occur. We are all different in our cognitive abilities. It's much easier and simpler to believe in a magic garden fable than to understand and appreciate evolution or cosmology.

 

[No Robots]

A new species is coming to dominate the biosphere, Homo illuminatus. All other humanoids are evolutionary dead ends. The essential characteristic of the new species is the developed soul. Over the past few millennia, there have been a few exemplars of the new species. They have arisen as isolates. The current environment is conducive to the appearance of specimens in large numbers. The key then is to establish a community that exists in counter-distinction to other variants.

 

[SLD]

Maybe I’m just too impatient. Slowly but surely we are throwing off the shackles of religious faith. But it is a recurrent meme that exists simply because it has in the past. People continue to believe because their parents believe and that’s the way it is. But more and more people are getting rid of it as science advances. I wonder if big science news really help, like the JWST. People are interested in science when it can take a pretty picture, or it becomes big news. And the more scientific they become the less religious they become.

I wonder as well, whether there comes a critical turning point where the belief collapses all together? That is it accelerates rapidly due to its inevitability. More and more people are exposed to a lack of religion. It becomes eventually accepted and then people simply and suddenly stop believing.

Maybe. Just musing.

 

[SLD]

Maybe we are close to a tipping point or are going threw it. This is only fourteen years of data. The gospel of science is spreading rapidly. Can we accelerate it further?

I also wonder to what extent millennialism has to do with it? I mean how far can Christianity keep up the fiction that Jesus is returning any day now? After 2,000 years are people really going to continue to believe that shit?

 

[No Robots]

More Americans now say they’re spiritual but not religious​

The decline of religion creates the conditions for spiritual emancipation, conscious evolution and development of the soul. The analytic/physicalist mentality struggles futilely against this rising tide.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Maybe we are close to a tipping point or are going threw it. This is only fourteen years of data. The gospel of science is spreading rapidly. Can we accelerate it further?

Probably the most constructive approach is to simply discuss the matter of religion openly when the opportunity happens. Do it in a rational way same as one would discuss any other subject like baking cookies.

Most of the churches in my area are gone. The buildings still exist but there are no more people gathering for services. A couple church buildings survived and are now non-denominational but I don't know anything about what kind of services they provide. That seems to be the new business model, I've seen it in different municipalities. If a church isn't making money for its owners it shuts down, that's the bottom line.

When those churches were active the membership was quite old, rarely anyone younger than fifty years old. In my family of eight children only two siblings are noticeably religious, and three so-so. But none of any of their children attend services and that's the kicker. I also know lots of folks who's kids are not baptized. Times have certainly changed for the better as far as religious sway. I doubt many job applicants are listing their pastors as references anymore.

 

[SLD]

Maybe we are close to a tipping point or are going threw it. This is only fourteen years of data. The gospel of science is spreading rapidly. Can we accelerate it further?

Probably the most constructive approach is to simply discuss the matter of religion openly when the opportunity happens. Do it in a rational way same as one would discuss any other subject like baking cookies.

Most of the churches in my area are gone. The buildings still exist but there are no more people gathering for services. A couple church buildings survived and are now non-denominational but I don't know anything about what kind of services they provide. That seems to be the new business model, I've seen it in different municipalities. If a church isn't making money for its owners it shuts down, that's the bottom line.

When those churches were active the membership was quite old, rarely anyone younger than fifty years old. In my family of eight children only two siblings are noticeably religious, and three so-so. But none of any of their children attend services and that's the kicker. I also know lots of folks who's kids are not baptized. Times have certainly changed for the better as far as religious sway. I doubt many job applicants are listing their pastors as references anymore.

Yeah, Pennsylvania is perhaps more advanced than Alabama. Just had breakfast with several guys who were talking about their mega church. Across from me is sitting a young, perhaps teenage, girl, with a sticker on her laptop:


So maybe it‘s just where I live. I’m just not necessarily seeing it. And I wish I was.
behind her though is someone with a hat with a liberal phrase on it. I guess the world is slowly changing.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Having lived in Alabama, Georgia and Texas I can understand those states being behind Pennsylvania. Its a demographic thing as well. But the day will come and those mega-churches will bleed membership same as in my state. The thing to do is keep the lines of communication open. Those businesses are extremely profitable for their owners and the members share the sense of identity and community. They certainly aren't living the message preached by their alleged gospel hero else they'd be helping the homeless with those millions of dollars. Mega-churches are basically country clubs whose beneficiaries are themselves but particularly their owners.