Societies don't have to be secular to be modern

[Valmy]

But you're right it doesn't provide the same group coherence and group mentality. I get that from supporting a football-team.

Yeah that is exactly what I said

[Berkut]

Malthus, the problem is one of credibility and power.

Religion that does not attempt to add in some kind of supernatural explanation for things tend to not be very powerful or compelling. What is more, I would argue that religion stripped of its supernatural jsutification isn't really religion anymore - it is just philosophy of a particular type.

If your religion is just about morality, without any of the "explanation"/goddidit/ claims, then why is it religion, as opposed to just some guy writing about how it would be cool if we weren't such dicks to one another?

If you stirp the bible of all the supernatural stuff, and are just left with the moral message (whether the good parts or the bad), then it isn't "special" anymore, it just becomes a book with some recommendations about how people should act. There are lots of those out there.

The problem with religion is that its proponents want there to be more force behind it - so it isn't just "Hey, lets act this way because that would be good for society and here is why..." it is "Hey, you better act this way or Yahweh is gonna be pissed and will send a flood/throw you in the lake of fire/kill your firstborn/burn your city...".

The anti-religious types focus on this because this is the problem of religion. Absent this, religion isn't really religion, and much of its danger has gone away.

While I agree that religion runs into problems when it tries to explain natural phenomenon, the real problem of religion is when it tries to tell people how they should treat one another, and often that message is horrific.

[Pat]

But you're right it doesn't provide the same group coherence and group mentality. I get that from supporting a football-team.

Yeah that is exactly what I said

Okay, sorry. Malthus did say something of that kind shortly afterwards though, so it's still a valid point.

[Berkut]

You think the US Government is imaginary?

There really isn't any basis for argument with someone holding that position.

You would argue that the US Government, the thing-in-itself has some kind of ability or force independent of the people and materials that believe in it? 

I think the US Government is not imaginary in any sense of the word as I understand it.

Beyond that, playing the "lets twist meanings of words around so we can equate things that aren't really similar" is not all that interesting.

Tell you what - you quit believing in the US Government, and decide to stop paying your taxes, and we will see if it has any "force".

[Viking]

You are confusing intangible with imaginary. Government, Art, Politics and Social Interactions are Intangible, they are not Imaginary.

I fail to see the meaningful distinction here.  People do not have inalienable rights.  Letters do not have meanings.  From the point of view of a true positivist both are untrue.  You make exceptions there, and not here.  I think the only argument to be made is the Utility of religion.

I tried to read the fountainhead

Yes, people do not have inalienable rights, unless enough people agree to agree what they are and enforce them. Once enough people agree what they are and to enforce them then they are real, but intangible. Naturally people can sit down and agree to some other (or none) rights. You can't touch positivism and you can't measure it. But it is real non the less. Positivism is an intagible, but real still.

[Malthus]

Right, and with such essentially secular "religions", which are really little more than philosophies, I have no quarrel.


edit: I think this is the third or fourth time I say this now.

I have no problem with any religion or philosophy that contains within its structure the possibility of questioning beliefs and modifying rituals.

I am wary of any philosophy that tends to the opposite - whether termed a "religion" or not.

Reformed Judaism is "better" than most forms of Marxism, even though the former is a "religion" and the latter is a "secular philosophy". 

[Valmy]

While spiritual experiences do often lead to realizations of certain moral principals that is not the primary focus of religion.

I have to call BS on that one.  Moral principals are indeed the "primary focus of religion".

Oh yes?  Please explain the moral principal behind: There is no God but God and Mohammed is his Prophet.

I see no moral  prinicipal there.

or:

"We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, of things visible and invisible.  And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the begotten of God the Father, the Only-begotten, that is of the essence of the Father.  God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten and not made; of the very same nature of the Father, by Whom all things came into being, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.  Who for us humanity and for our salvation came down from heaven, was incarnate, was made human, was born perfectly of the holy virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit.  By whom He took body, soul, and mind, and everything that is in man, truly and not in semblance.  He suffered, was crucified, was buried, rose again on the third day, ascended into heaven with the same body, [and] sat at the right hand of the Father.  He is to come with the same body and with the glory of the Father, to judge the living and the dead; of His kingdom there is no end.  We believe in the Holy Spirit, in the uncreated and the perfect; Who spoke through the Law, prophets, and Gospels; Who came down upon the Jordan, preached through the apostles, and lived in the saints.
We believe also in only One, Universal, Apostolic, and [Holy] Church; in one baptism in repentance, for the remission, and forgiveness of sins; and in the resurrection of the dead, in the everlasting judgement of souls and bodies, and the Kingdom of Heaven and in the everlasting life."

Now by embracing those ideas we may come to moral principals but to say it is primarily concerned with  moral philosophy is untrue.

[Malthus]

Malthus, the problem is one of credibility and power.

Religion that does not attempt to add in some kind of supernatural explanation for things tend to not be very powerful or compelling. What is more, I would argue that religion stripped of its supernatural jsutification isn't really religion anymore - it is just philosophy of a particular type.

If your religion is just about morality, without any of the "explanation"/goddidit/ claims, then why is it religion, as opposed to just some guy writing about how it would be cool if we weren't such dicks to one another?

If you stirp the bible of all the supernatural stuff, and are just left with the moral message (whether the good parts or the bad), then it isn't "special" anymore, it just becomes a book with some recommendations about how people should act. There are lots of those out there.

The problem with religion is that its proponents want there to be more force behind it - so it isn't just "Hey, lets act this way because that would be good for society and here is why..." it is "Hey, you better act this way or Yahweh is gonna be pissed and will send a flood/throw you in the lake of fire/kill your firstborn/burn your city...".

The anti-religious types focus on this because this is the problem of religion. Absent this, religion isn't really religion, and much of its danger has gone away.

While I agree that religion runs into problems when it tries to explain natural phenomenon, the real problem of religion is when it tries to tell people how they should treat one another, and often that message is horrific.

I don't agree at all. Take Marxism for example. No god-claims at all, but plenty of social compulsion to conform: its "credibility and power" come precisely because of its claim to "science-y" status. Disagree and you are not angering God, you are standing in the way of human progress, which is evidently just as likely to lead to pogroms. 

[Berkut]

I don't agree at all. Take Marxism for example. No god-claims at all, but plenty of social compulsion to conform: its "credibility and power" come precisely because of its claim to "science-y" status. Disagree and you are not angering God, you are standing in the way of human progress, which is evidently just as likely to lead to pogroms. 

I don't think I claimed that religion had a unique ability to force societal compulsion. Saying that it happens in non-religious contexts as well doesn't really excuse religion.

And I would argue that Marxism, to the extent that it becomes dangerous, does so for exactly the same reason religions become dangerous - the drive to create us-vs-them dynamics based on some enforced ideology.

Humans are suckers, for the most part. They buy into all kinds of idiotic things and then go kill each other over it. Religion hardly has a monopoly on that.

I would say that using religion to talk people into sending their money to some shyster religious figure is a bad thing, and one of the negatives that the power of religion allows. You can respond and say that Madoff does that as well, and you would be right - but that doesn't make it ok, or make my issue with the ability to religion to enable that kind of thing any less applicable.

[Valmy]

Okay, sorry. Malthus did say something of that kind shortly afterwards though, so it's still a valid point.

Religion is about reaching a state of transcending your self centered conciousness...meh these things are hard to put into words...for various reasons this happens most easily in a group setting.  That sort of combined emotional energy is something you do experience a bit of at sporting events, heck that is the main reason I attend them, but it is not for that purpose you attend those events nor does reaching that state necessarily provide you with a system similar to a philosopher.

Though, as I said, those sorts of things usually come out of it because you see things a bit differently.

[Pat]

Right, and with such essentially secular "religions", which are really little more than philosophies, I have no quarrel.


edit: I think this is the third or fourth time I say this now.

I have no problem with any religion or philosophy that contains within its structure the possibility of questioning beliefs and modifying rituals.

I am wary of any philosophy that tends to the opposite - whether termed a "religion" or not.

Reformed Judaism is "better" than most forms of Marxism, even though the former is a "religion" and the latter is a "secular philosophy".

Of course you can do bad things without being religious. Of course there can be secular authoritarianism of the mind as well as celestial authoritarianism of the mind. I don't see the relevance at all.

edit: changed dictatorship of the mind to authoritarianism of the mind, which is more what I was getting at

[Valmy]

the real problem of religion is when it tries to tell people how they should treat one another, and often that message is horrific.

Yeah that whole do unto others thing and all men are brothers and equal in the eyes of God stuff was pretty horrific.

[Valmy]

Yet another is to give form to mysticism; the intuitive sense of universalism.

In my experience this is whole source from which the rest of the stuff, good and bad, arises.  The attempt to form language and symbols and such around this rather intuitive and hard to explain experience is where we get all rest of stuff.

[Barrister]

Now by embracing those ideas we may come to moral principals but to say it is primarily concerned with  moral philosophy is untrue.

You linked to the "statements of faith", which are the explicit attempts to divide between Christianty and Islam, or whatever.

If you read the Bible (or the Koran), much of it does outline various rules, guidelines, and parables for how to live our lives.  That is the very definition of "moral philosophy".

[Barrister]

All of you attempting to draw aa bright line between philosophy and religion - what do you classify confucianism as?