The end of Religion is inevitable?

[Gorbles]

What evidence do we have of an afterlife?

That wasn't a part of your question to theists. It was presupposed. Try and not backtrack, now

 

[Joij21]

That wasn't a part of your question to theists. It was presupposed. Try and not backtrack, now

Let me make it simple.

1.) We don't have any evidence of an afterlife.

2.) Just through the simple observation of corpses generally not moving after death we can conclude it is more likely that nothing happens after death. That is counciousness ceases altogether.

3.) Therefore if consciousness ceases then it's a complete waste of energy and time to alter one's life choices via frivolous things such as ritual, prayer, meditation, etc.

4.) Therefore it would be wiser to spend more time partying, getting drunk, having sex cause you only live once and the time wasted doing religious activities is less time pleasuring yourself in the finite time you have to live. Get rich too as a side quest to fuel the coke binge.

 

[Hygro]

and yet the utilitarian optimal is doing the activities of stage 3

 

[Gorbles]

Let me make it simple.

1.) We don't have any evidence of an afterlife.

2.) Just through the simple observation of corpses generally not moving after death we can conclude it is more likely that nothing happens after death. That is counciousness ceases altogether.

3.) Therefore if consciousness ceases then it's a complete waste of energy and time to alter one's life choices via frivolous things such as ritual, prayer, meditation, etc.

4.) Therefore it would be wiser to spend more time partying, getting drunk, having sex cause you only live once and the time wasted doing religious activities is less time pleasuring yourself in the finite time you have to live. Get rich too as a side quest to fuel the coke binge.

I'm well aware of a variety of positions on the topic. Your original supposition was a theist getting an actual afterlife wrong in terms of choosing the wrong one - not there not being one at all. My point is none of us can tell (and this isn't an asking for proof - your logic was poor as is common with atheists looking to embarrass theists first and foremost).

I'm not here to raise up the arguments of theists. I just don't sit well with people acting like atheism is a fast track to being superior.

 

[Angst]

3.) Therefore if consciousness ceases then it's a complete waste of energy and time to alter one's life choices via frivolous things such as ritual, prayer, meditation, etc.

4.) Therefore it would be wiser to spend more time partying, getting drunk, having sex cause you only live once and the time wasted doing religious activities is less time pleasuring yourself in the finite time you have to live. Get rich too as a side quest to fuel the coke binge.

both of these are wasting energy for pleasure

 

[Gori the Grey]

the time wasted doing religious activities

The primary "religious activity" for Christians is not prayer or ritual or meditation, but just to care for other people.

Have you seen the psychological studies that show the level of satisfaction people take from helping other people?

Have you had that experience in your own life? When helping someone felt as good to you as, say, getting drunk does?

I wish Christianity didn't lead with the various forms of self-denial one can eventually be inspired to practice, but with the pleasurable thing that it centrally calls one to.

Anyway, as to the thread, I think we will see a continued drop-off, but not a complete disappearance. It will level off somewhere, with the number for whom it gives greater satisfaction in this life than getting drunk does.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I'm gonna make a wild guess and assume that the other two are Aron Ra, and T.J. Kirk ("The Amazing Atheist").

I've heard Aron Ra in several YouTube videos. He's not one of the group that Dawkins was part of. I might have seen or heard T.J. Kirk on some video, but can't bring anything to mind.

Have you had that experience in your own life? When helping someone felt as good to you as, say, getting drunk does?

Hm. Feeling good about helping people has no connection to the feeling of getting drunk, or at least that shouldn't be the reason people want to feel good by helping people. If someone needs help from me (assuming it's something I can actually help them with), my motivation should be in making them feel good, not myself. That's not to mean I'm not allowed to feel good, but my own feelings shouldn't be the main reason I'd help them.

Example from normal, ordinary life: Shopping. I can't reach stuff on the top shelf of the stores, and often have to ask a taller person to help me. Most of them don't mind. It's a polite few moments, I thank them, and I don't know if it makes them happy to have been of help, or if they were annoyed but did it anyway because it's the sort of polite thing Canadians usually do. I pay if forward to other people when I can, if there's someone in a wheelchair who can't reach something. I'm the taller one in those situations, and more mobile if a staff person has to be tracked down to help.

 

[Core Imposter]

What a frightful experience it must have been for your widow.

Ah, can't make a single slip. Nothing unpunished.

 

[sophie]

I've heard Aron Ra in several YouTube videos. He's not one of the group that Dawkins was part of. I might have seen or heard T.J. Kirk on some video, but can't bring anything to mind.

The four horsemen here are Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett

Harris is a doofus “intellectual” whose major claim to fame is having “solved” ethics by failing to understand Hume’s is/ought dilemma


Dennett I’m not as familiar with

 

[Core Imposter]

Cherubs guard the edge of life and death
None shall pass without first the looking glass,
And the summoning of our Lord to tell,
If the seal of the soul is His token,
A humble sheep broken,
Or property of the mayor of Hoboken.

Cherubs guard the edge of life and death, earth and heaven, and heaven and hell

The four horsemen here are Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett

I told you so.

 

[Joij21]

Your original supposition was a theist getting an actual afterlife wrong in terms of choosing the wrong one - not there not being one at all.

Yes it was there not being one at all. Therefore they'd get their afterlife wrong precisely because there ain't any afterlife.

both of these are wasting energy for pleasure

True, but one may gain more satisfaction through exerting one's energy towards pleasure then the boring, uninteresting pursuit of meaningless worship.

 

[Core Imposter]

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

 

[Gorbles]

Yes it was there not being one at all. Therefore they'd get their afterlife wrong precisely because there ain't any afterlife.

Which brings us back to the same question - what if we're wrong?

Can you exercise just a tiny amount of intellectual curiosity? Or is demonstrating your superiority over those silly theists more important?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

@Core Imposter: If you're quoting something, you're expected to cite the source.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Probably an original composition.

 

[Core Imposter]

True, but one may gain more satisfaction through exerting one's energy towards pleasure then the boring, uninteresting pursuit of meaningless worship.

Honestly, I don't want to pick you on you but what are you going on about? Christians live very happy and fulfilled lives. I don't know what kind of pleasures you think we are missing but I'd say that if I laid my life out now, in Christ, alongside my life without, the latter would seem small and tatty and sad. You seem misinformed.

If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

the Bible

 

[Farm Boy]

John 8:36 for those low-key following the Bible study tonight.

 

[Angst]

True, but one may gain more satisfaction through exerting one's energy towards pleasure then the boring, uninteresting pursuit of meaningless worship.

i think you underestimate how much peace, power or purpose worshippers can get out of it. even less zeal-esque worship has a sort of comfort in community. now, they may be mistaken - i think so too - but that's not actually the point. and it may not be your thing - it's not mine either. the gist is just that if your issue is with wasting energy "pointlessly"*, your issue isn't with religion. even when it makes them unhappy (which is not uncommon if not the default for some of them), it then equates to the logic of indulging in horror media or tragedy.

note that i do make a fine line here. i'm purely talking aesthetic experience in waste. i'm not talking about the politics.

*the pointlessness is also hard to delineate since like your example night of hedonism for example (which i do prefer) does have more ephemereal point in that it gives intensity of experience, presents a social space etc. there is a "point" to this waste. but i think we're both talking point in a more immediate, concrete way. most of the time, getting wasted doesn't produce an article (at least not a good one). this same issue of wasteful exchange for ephemereal social or aesthetic gain is the same logic in religious ritual.

 

[Voidwalkin]

Some musings I've pondered for a while. I'll leave it here.

I think many religions are increasingly detached from the times that spawned them, and that this is demoralizing believers and would-be believers.

I think(more than think, really, I also feel) Christian moral instruction is based on a set of best practices that were specifically tailored to the era of unsophisticated agriculture. These are arguably not best practices in the modern era.

When you add the creation story of it, and the knocks this has received from scientific thought, I think demoralization is going to lead to major weakness in the structure.

I see signs of it. As a means of social cohesion, Christianity can no longer provide. It's atomizing. Many hear its message but don't buy in. I know many who don't choose disbelief, but fall into it naturally. Churches are full of greyhairs. The communal aspect fades. This, to me, is critical: community and its social support is at or at least near the core of Christianity.
.
I think, if the current trends continue, that it may well cease to exist hundreds of years down the road. Demoralization can give way to collapse in a myriad of unexpected and improbable ways; this is true in more than one sphere.

Religion as a whole probably not. New ones will come that better square away science and best practices for the present time.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I htink the biggest challenge for conservative Christians tiday is that people are more educated and sophistocated now than in the past. Accepting a literal Bible is much harder to do now than in the past. The "rules" of accepting the Bible as wholly true can be difficult. What the evangelical churches do provide though is a sense of community and belonging.that is not found in other places. I suspect that we will see more splintering and diversity among christians.