The end of Religion is inevitable?

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

Yeah, your outputs to our conversations might as well be random noise for all I can tell, too.

Every time I read your stuff it's just

 

[Farm Boy]

I do love those old men.

 

[Farm Boy]

Ok, try again then. Simpler...simpler... uhhhh. Science and religions have coexisted side by side for longer than we've had written words. We have the surviving objects of our ancestors labors and loves.

They aren't uniquely in tension, are they? Religions, as practiced and organized, are social activities, though. If the tools of an age isolate the people socially, will not social interactions decline? That's not quite right though. It seems like there is a shallower, less tangible and useful sheen, on much of the social time that gets allocated. Our efforts are all finite, right? If Egon wants to reduce us to electrical dances on meat that's fine with me. That can probably ultimately be measured in calories over time, or something, if we want a unit to classify it.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

religious...but then India, seemingly is getting increasingly religious?

There's two different things: religion-as-faith and religion-as-identity. India isn't getting more religious, it's just that more angry young men are gravitating towards a fascistic chauvinist ideology. There's a lot of messed up stuff happening there, most of it outside of the purview of this thread, and while religious belief does play some part, it isn't the only factor at play, so you can't point to what's happening in India and say it's because people are getting more religious.

This religion-as-identity thing is happening in the Christian and Muslim worlds as well. While there are some people who genuinely believe in those faiths, they're balanced out by the those who fall out of them. But there is a not insignificant inflow of people who don't seem to enter into Christianity or Islam out of a genuine regard for the truth or genuine faith but simply because they identify with it, or in most cases with a warped version of it. Which is why you have this trad-cath phenomenon of young white people cosplaying as crusaders and conquistadors, hankering after a fanciful version of the past. And why you have Andrew Tate and his fan boys gravitating towards Islam because they believe it offers them an ideological framework for what they already believe. All of this happening because of the anxieties and feelings of alienation from wider society – but also some very messed-up beliefs (but which beliefs are not necessarily religious).

So religion is not going to die, ever. There will always be people who search for spiritual and moral truths, and there will always be people all too ready to join a religion because it aligns with what they believe should be.

I've also seen nation states flip flop between "Democracy" and "Despotic Nightmares" etc.

Which has nothing to do with religion?

Thoughts also on the rise and rise of Isis, Taliban, and other nauseating religious waves of terror and warfare.

ISIS is nothing more than a cynical recruitment program that preys on vulnerable young people with confused ideas. It has nothing to with increase in religiousness, whether as a cause or an effect.

The Taliban are something entirely different. Again, much of it is outside of the purview of this thread, but Afghanistan has always been religious and socially conservative. Look at its history as a whole, and you'll see that the socialist governments and the US-installed 'democratic' regime are just blimps in the history of the Afghans.

As for terror and warfare, they have existed before religion, and notably, terrorist tactics were common by the radical French Revolutionaries and the anarchists of the 19th century. There is also the elephant in the room you'll need to address that a lot of 'civilised', 'conventional' between states is pretty much terroristic too.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

There will always be religion in one form or another as long as people have lucky socks to wear to make their team win a game.

We're a superstitious bunch.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Ok, try again then. Simpler...simpler... uhhhh. Science and religions have coexisted side by side for longer than we've had written words. We have the surviving objects of our ancestors labors and loves.

Yes, exactly.

They aren't uniquely in tension, are they?

If you mean they don't have to be, then yes, I think that's probably so. They frequently have been in tension, but they also have frequently coexisted, as you say.

Religions, as practiced and organized, are social activities, though. If the tools of an age isolate the people socially, will not social interactions decline?

Indeed. If there's a general decline in social activities - as has been observed - then perhaps the decline in church attendance mentioned in that article is more about that than a decline in religious belief.

If Egon wants to reduce us to electrical dances on meat that's fine with me.

Just to clarify, I don't believe in souls or any afterlife. If that's reductive, so be it. I love the phrase "electrical dances on meat", though. I hope you don't mind if I borrow that.

So religion is not going to die, ever.

I agree. It doesn't seem plausible. That was always something that stuck in my craw about the future envisioned in Star Trek, more so than the magical technology or the "we don't use money" Federation or all of the aliens that looked just like Humans, but with funny foreheads. Deep Space Nine corrected that somewhat, by making religion a big part of their stories.

As for terror and warfare, they have existed before religion, and notably, terrorist tactics were common by the radical French Revolutionaries and the anarchists of the 19th century. There is also the elephant in the room you'll need to address that a lot of 'civilised', 'conventional' between states is pretty much terroristic too.

Right, violence is not unique to religion. It seems to be part of humanity, unfortunately. Violence exists within religion, but we can't say that it's a function of religion any more than we can say that morality is a function of religion. An individual's particular violence and/or particular morality might be drawn from or dictated by their religion, but that's not the same thing.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

There will always be religion in one form or another as long as people have lucky socks to wear to make their team win a game.

We're a superstitious bunch.

But are we less superstitious as we were 500 years ago. When will the last lucky sock remain?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

But are we less superstitious as we were 500 years ago. When will the last lucky sock remain?

When the Bruins win the Stanley Cup every year

Are we less superstitious, or are there fewer oportunities for superstition then there were 500 years ago?

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

There's two different things: religion-as-faith and religion-as-identity. India isn't getting more religious, it's just that more angry young men are gravitating towards a fascistic chauvinist ideology. There's a lot of messed up stuff happening there, most of it outside of the purview of this thread, and while religious belief does play some part, it isn't the only factor at play, so you can't point to what's happening in India and say it's because people are getting more religious.

So is there anywhere Religion is not dying out?

This religion-as-identity thing is happening in the Christian and Muslim worlds as well. While there are some people who genuinely believe in those faiths, they're balanced out by the those who fall out of them. But there is a not insignificant inflow of people who don't seem to enter into Christianity or Islam out of a genuine regard for the truth or genuine faith but simply because they identify with it, or in most cases with a warped version of it. Which is why you have this trad-cath phenomenon of young white people cosplaying as crusaders and conquistadors, hankering after a fanciful version of the past. And why you have Andrew Tate and his fan boys gravitating towards Islam because they believe it offers them an ideological framework for what they already believe. All of this happening because of the anxieties and feelings of alienation from wider society – but also some very messed-up beliefs (but which beliefs are not necessarily religious).

So religion is not going to die, ever. There will always be people who search for spiritual and moral truths, and there will always be people all too ready to join a religion because it aligns with what they believe should be.

A few outliers is not evidence. There were a lot more gravitating to religion a generation ago.

Which has nothing to do with religion?

You don't think the Iranian Revolution, or the Arab spring was to do with Religion?

ISIS is nothing more than a cynical recruitment program that preys on vulnerable young people with confused ideas. It has nothing to with increase in religiousness, whether as a cause or an effect.

"Cynical recruitment program that preys on vulnerable young people with confused ideas." is how I would describe religions.

The Taliban are something entirely different. Again, much of it is outside of the purview of this thread, but Afghanistan has always been religious and socially conservative. Look at its history as a whole, and you'll see that the socialist governments and the US-installed 'democratic' regime are just blimps in the history of the Afghans.

As for terror and warfare, they have existed before religion, and notably, terrorist tactics were common by the radical French Revolutionaries and the anarchists of the 19th century. There is also the elephant in the room you'll need to address that a lot of 'civilised', 'conventional' between states is pretty much terroristic too.

I'll need some evidence warfare pre-dates religion. Most ancient wars were because of religion.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

When the Bruins win the Stanley Cup every year

Are we less superstitious, or are there fewer opportunities for superstition then there were 500 years ago?

There are many more "things" happening today as 500 years ago, there's literally billions more of us. Black cats crossing your path, walking on three drain covers, 4 leaf clovers. A whole gamut of superstitious actives are dying out quickly too. They are reduced to dust under the relentless gaze of logic and science.

I agree humans culturally enjoy it. I have my "lucky" numbers, or blow on dice before I roll them. I think its more habit than any real belief. It also plays into the fun of the event.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I'll need some evidence warfare pre-dates religion. Most ancient wars were because of religion.

I was thinking about this, too. I think it depends how we define "war." If we define 'war' as any extended conflict between two groups of people, I suppose two families of proto-humans having two brawls on different days could be counted as a war. They don't even need to have had a spoken language, which I think might be a requirement for the stories that comprise religious beliefs. I think conflicts between groups of animals could be called wars, for instance. Two prides of lions, two troops of chimpanzees, etc. As long as it's two groups and not just individuals, and as long as it's multiple discreet instances of violence - a single instance of violence would just be a fight, even if it's between two groups - then I think we can call it a war.

Are there any animals that construct something like an idol or an icon? You wouldn't need spoken language for that, and that could constitute - or indicate - religious beliefs.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

I was thinking about this, too. I think it depends how we define "war." If we define 'war' as any extended conflict between two groups of people, I suppose two families of proto-humans having two brawls on different days could be counted as a war. They don't even need to have had a spoken language, which I think might be a requirement for the stories that comprise religious beliefs. I think conflicts between groups of animals could be called wars, for instance. Two prides of lions, two troops of chimpanzees, etc. As long as it's two groups and not just individuals, and as long as it's multiple discreet instances of violence - a single instance of violence would just be a fight, even if it's between two groups - then I think we can call it a war.

Aah but here we are spinning down the "When did civilization start" which really is off topic.

We are deliving backwards because is its where religion has some relevance. Can someone show me why religion is/will grow.. without it being due to immense human suffering?

 

[Farm Boy]

I hope you don't mind if I borrow that.

Please do. I do believe in those things and it's how I see our physical selves. Trippier yet if you consider how ephemeral those dances are, how they synch with each other, and that they have the power to burn the world with the power of the sun. But that's the least of what they can do, speeding the inevitable. They can make wholly new things too!

What is there to do but make the dance, which surely must end as all social events do, absolutely glorious?

 

[EgonSpengler]

Aah but here we are spinning down the "When did civilization start" which really is off topic.

We are deliving backwards because is its where religion has some relevance. Can someone show me why religion is/will grow.. without it being due to immense human suffering?

Yes, if one measure of human progress is a reduction in overall human suffering, then the question of whether violence is endemic, either to religion or to humanity, becomes crucial. I would think, for example, that any religion (or any belief system) that cannot abide those outside its boundaries cannot sustain human civilization. Religion or otherwise, if we cannot abide our differences, then we're doomed. One possible solution to the Fermi Paradox* is that intelligent species have a tendency to destroy themselves before making contact with other intelligence species, because they achieve the means to destroy their civilization** before they achieve the means of interstellar communication, and before they achieve the social & cultural traits that would stop them from destroying themselves. I think there's a term for this, the window within which humanity could destroy itself. We've already entered the window, with the invention of the atomic bomb (or maybe with the invention of the hydrogen bomb). We may not know we've exited the window until after we have. Star Trek envisions a future in which humanity has exited the window and is no longer in danger of obliterating itself.

So the question would be whether religion promotes our survival through that window or not. It might depend on which religions thrive. One can imagine that some religion might prove adaptive to human civilization, and help us progress. I don't know if any existing religions are strong candidates, but that doesn't mean it's not possible.




* The Fermi Paradox, basically, asks the question "where is everybody?" Wikipedia sums it up as "the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high likelihood of its existence."

** This wouldn't have to mean an extinction event. It could simply mean setting ourselves back socially and technologically, "resetting" ourselves back to before we had the means to destroy ourselves. Then, presumably, we would again invent the means to destroy our own civilization and would again face the crucible. iirc, Poul Anderson's novel Fire Time was a parable about that, where the alien civilization gets close to being wiped out by a periodic planetary disaster every N-thousand years, setting them back to an earlier era of their history and making them start again.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Thinking about Hindu nationalism, I think that's an interesting case-study of how a religion can be pluralistic and needn't demand that outsiders convert, to be bent to violence. As I understand it, one cannot convert to Hinduism. You're either born Hindu or you're not. So the violence promoted by Hindu nationalism isn't about spreading their religion. Or, if it is, it isn't about converting (or saving, or whatever) the heathens. I don't know yet whether India is inside that window, a civilization that is capable of destroying itself. I don't know if India and Pakistan have enough nuclear weapons yet that a nuclear war would be completely catastrophic, on a civilizational level. Several years ago, I heard Dexter Filkins talking about conversations he'd had with Pakistani and Indian military men who were firmly in the phase of the "winnable nuclear war", where the US and USSR were in the couple of decades after WWII, maybe as late as The Cuban Missile Crisis. Curtis LeMay was one of the last of those men, here. Filkins didn't know how long the Pakistanis and Indians would be in that phase, before they would progress to the notion of "MAD" - mutually-assured destruction. To some degree, it depends on the arsenals of the countries in question. It's possible those countries now have enough weapons that they recognize a winnable nuclear war is no longer feasible. Nevertheless, here we are, with religious violence seemingly on the rise, featuring at least one side - the side that's being the aggressive one, atm - that can't be motivated by wanting to convert the other side.


EDIT: And I'm not sure India and Pakistan have large enough arsenals to threaten humanity, or just themselves & each other. I think the Indian diaspora might be large enough that Indian civilization would survive outside India, even if the country itself were rendered a wasteland. The US and Russia may still be the only ones who represent a threat to everybody.

 

[Birdjaguar]

So is there anywhere Religion is not dying out?

A few outliers is not evidence. There were a lot more gravitating to religion a generation ago.

You don't think the Iranian Revolution, or the Arab spring was to do with Religion?

"Cynical recruitment program that preys on vulnerable young people with confused ideas." is how I would describe religions.

I'll need some evidence warfare pre-dates religion. Most ancient wars were because of religion.

I was thinking about this, too. I think it depends how we define "war." If we define 'war' as any extended conflict between two groups of people, I suppose two families of proto-humans having two brawls on different days could be counted as a war. They don't even need to have had a spoken language, which I think might be a requirement for the stories that comprise religious beliefs. I think conflicts between groups of animals could be called wars, for instance. Two prides of lions, two troops of chimpanzees, etc. As long as it's two groups and not just individuals, and as long as it's multiple discreet instances of violence - a single instance of violence would just be a fight, even if it's between two groups - then I think we can call it a war.

Are there any animals that construct something like an idol or an icon? You wouldn't need spoken language for that, and that could constitute - or indicate - religious beliefs.

I do not think most wars are based on religion. I would put the emphasis on greed and power. Religions vary by culture and geography and while two cultures may have differences, if they go to war, it will usually be for other reasons. Yes there are examples of religious wars as well as coexisitence. Religion can be the excuse to extend one's power and desire for more riches.

In the ME (Sumer) writing developed from accounting and when numbers were separted from words, religious ideas could be expressed in wrtitten form ending the reliance on oral traditons.

I would say that religions fulfill the human need for community and belonging to some larger group. They go beyond the more family, local, tribal, city, team, party, national, bonding that we also fall in sync with. Such groupng ebb and flow based on time, geography, politics, leadership etc. All such groupings though serve a similar purpose: they join people into a larger community of like-minded thinking. People like that. We need it too. Science can also be such a grouping. All of these groups express some level of "truth" accepted by its members. "Go Tar Heels!" "The rollings Stones are GOAT" and on and on.

Christianity is exploding in Africa and bigger in China than most want to recognize. the LDS church is expaning their bizaar version of Christianity world-wide. I suspect that organized religion on a large scale is diversifying and splintering as central controll gets harder and harder and individuals demand more and more adapting to their local/regional thoughts on basic principals. I don't see it going away any time soon. I think that to understand the big picture youhave to go beyond the US and Wetern Europe.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Can religions help Gen Z keep their jobs when AI takes over job market in next 5-10 years? If no, then why should we care?

They can always ask the AI for divine guidance ?

 

[dusters]

They can always ask the AI for divine guidance ?

AI and divine guidance does not compute, sir. Only beings with soul can divine.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I do not think most wars are based on religion. I would put the emphasis on greed and power. Religions vary by culture and geography and while two cultures may have differences, if they go to war, it will usually be for other reasons. Yes there are examples of religious wars as well as coexisitence. Religion can be the excuse to extend one's power and desire for more riches.

I agree:

Right, violence is not unique to religion. It seems to be part of humanity, unfortunately. Violence exists within religion, but we can't say that it's a function of religion any more than we can say that morality is a function of religion. An individual's particular violence and/or particular morality might be drawn from or dictated by their religion, but that's not the same thing.

I would say that religions fulfill the human need for community and belonging to some larger group. They go beyond the more family, local, tribal, city, team, party, national, bonding that we also fall in sync with. Such groupng ebb and flow based on time, geography, politics, leadership etc. All such groupings though serve a similar purpose: they join people into a larger community of like-minded thinking. People like that. We need it too. Science can also be such a grouping. All of these groups express some level of "truth" accepted by its members. "Go Tar Heels!" "The rollings Stones are GOAT" and on and on.

Right, the grouping effect of religion isn't unique to religion, either. And whatever means we use to group ourselves, religion or not, how we accept people of other groups could determine our survival. Anything that promotes acceptance of others could prove to be adaptive, and anything that promotes aggression toward others could prove maladaptive. If Tar Heels fans (a) became a dominant force in geopolitics, and (b) decided that fans of other sports teams cannot be accommodated, we ultimately might not survive the window in which we have the ability to destroy our own civilization.

Christianity is exploding in Africa and bigger in China than most want to recognize. the LDS church is expaning their bizaar version of Christianity world-wide. I suspect that organized religion on a large scale is diversifying and splintering as central controll gets harder and harder and individuals demand more and more adapting to their local/regional thoughts on basic principals. I don't see it going away any time soon. I think that to understand the big picture youhave to go beyond the US and Wetern Europe.

Right, LDS is one of the churches that proselytizes aggressively, but so far not violently, afaik. We can imagine a future in which multiple religions exist peacefully (and also peacefully with atheism and agnosticism). In fact, that may be the only viable future for us. A future in which one religion "wins" will almost certainly be one of a totalitarian government that demands conformity and obedience, which cannot sustain itself. A multiplicity of religions, each accepting of all the others, may be the only viable path for our species in the long term (or even in the medium term).

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

But are we less superstitious as we were 500 years ago. When will the last lucky sock remain?

When Science runs out questions to answer, which is never