Religion is fundamentally divisive. That's not helping!

[YoursTrue]

Well, yes. But the problem is this. You can't isolate with critical thinking religion as a special negative. Religion is a natural as atheism.

Of course you can. I do not believe atheism and religion are both natural. Critical thinking...note I said both natural. They are not.

 

[YoursTrue]

What ever.

Of course...lol...critical thinking.. whatever.

 

[YoursTrue]

Then we seem to be discussing 2 different things. My point was that you need to replace religion with "something else" and I was asking what this new less divisive ideology is and you responded with environment and golden rule.

If you weren’t offering these as a replacement, what would you say is the replacement for the divisiveness of religion?

Also, as you said religion is divisive and we should aim to replace it with something else, how would you explain this in the context of it not being a desire to change people towards your way of thinking?

I agree, we can work together with people with whom we share a common identity or common interests.

For complex, long term cooperation with those who you don't share an "irrational" bond of identity (or culturally defined obligation), you must share some "rational" common interests and also share the idea that any given cooperation is "fair and equitable" which is where the practice becomes much harder than the theory.

The problem is we rarely have such well aligned common interests, and without common identity we don’t want to continually and repeatedly sacrifice our own good for the benefit of others.




If we can cooperate with those who don’t share our values, why the need to highlight religion as a specific problem blocking this?

Karl Marx attempted to displace religion. It didn't work out that well. Meaning the displacement was ineffective.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Of course you can. I do not believe atheism and religion are both natural. Critical thinking...note I said both natural. They are not.

Yeah, I know. The natural causes the existence of the not natural.

 

[icehorse]

Here's the issue with that; what today is calles "identity politics" has always been around. Women's suffrage. Civil equality and rights for black people. It's why for decades now discriminate has been illegal based on things like military status, national origin, and religious creed.
Seems it's more a problem for those who want to pretend it's new and not share society.

I'm all for DEI as long as it's truly those things and the conversations and solutions are not dogmatic.

 

[YoursTrue]

Yeah, I know. The natural causes the existence of the not natural.

Lol my first out loud laugh of the day. What you say doesn't make sense. Unfortunately you didn't get the point. Meaning also, critically thinking, what you said doesn't add up. Take care.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Lol my first out loud laugh of the day. What you say doesn't make sense.

Well, if God is natural and atheism is unnatural, then God has caused something unnatural.

 

[Muffled]

Humanity is facing enormous problems these days. Climate change will likely displace a BILLION people from their homes in the next few decades. We're running out of fresh water and topsoil. We're likely to face huge crop failures and food shortages.

We need to work together, if we're to survive.

Religion is fundamentally divisive, not inclusive. Sure, there are exceptions. But mostly religion is divisive. Either you're a Muslim, or you're not. Either you're a Christian or you're not. This "us vs. them" worldview is exactly what we DO NOT NEED at this critical juncture.

We need inclusive, critical thinking. We do not need divisive, magical thinking.

And while I'm at it, most identity politics these days shares a lot in common with religion. The most important / destructive way in which this is true is in the establishment and defense of DOGMA. We need new dogma like we need a hole in the head.

Back in the 60s and 70s we used to say "question authority". It's still good advice, but I'd amend it a bit and say:

"Question authority and question dogma".

Politics is divisive also but the same applies, not everybody can be right about opposite views.

 

[Muffled]

I believe the Lord has other plans. Thank God!!! I believe all of existence will end before 2080 and begin again around 1980. However, I still do believe in keeping our planet healthy.

I believe beginning again is likely but not 1980.

 

[Muffled]

True, but keep one thing in mind: if you eliminated all the religions in the world right now, none of those problems would disappear. The reason for all the issues you listed is not religion. Bad management of resources comes from greed and corruption and the culprits are bad governments and corporations.
It's easy to say "religion is divisive, therefore religion is the problem". But being distracted from problems far greater than religion won't fix anything.

I believe greed and corruption are sins. That is a religious issue.

 

[YoursTrue]

I believe beginning again is likely but not 1980.

Also for @Moon yes what happened in 1980? I am not sure if Moon has already answered because I can't read all the posts but hopefully I'll see her answer soon about 1980. I can guess but I'd rather heat it from her.

 

[YoursTrue]

Well, if God is natural and atheism is unnatural, then God has caused something unnatural.

Who said God is natural? Did you?

 

[PureX]

Humanity is facing enormous problems these days. Climate change will likely displace a BILLION people from their homes in the next few decades. We're running out of fresh water and topsoil. We're likely to face huge crop failures and food shortages.

We need to work together, if we're to survive.

Religion is fundamentally divisive, not inclusive. Sure, there are exceptions. But mostly religion is divisive. Either you're a Muslim, or you're not. Either you're a Christian or you're not. This "us vs. them" worldview is exactly what we DO NOT NEED at this critical juncture.

We need inclusive, critical thinking. We do not need divisive, magical thinking.

And while I'm at it, most identity politics these days shares a lot in common with religion. The most important / destructive way in which this is true is in the establishment and defense of DOGMA. We need new dogma like we need a hole in the head.

Back in the 60s and 70s we used to say "question authority". It's still good advice, but I'd amend it a bit and say:

"Question authority and question dogma".

Greed is a whole lot more divisive and damaging than religion. So is ego; fostering all kinds of social bigotry and willful ignorance just to protect one's delusions of 'righteousness'. And yet who in our society is working to counteract these social poisons? I mean who as a large collective entity? That would be religion. It may fail more often than it succeeds, but at least it's there, and it's trying.

 

[Augustus]

Karl Marx attempted to displace religion. It didn't work out that well. Meaning the displacement was ineffective.

Any attempt to remove religion from society has ranged from being ineffectual to very oppressive.

Many people seem to think religion is something bad and can be removed like you would remove a stone in your shoe: what remains works better once you remove the 'bad' object.

The problem is religion is like a part of a complex machine that you don't really understand, you can't simply remove an existing component to make it better, you need to replace it with a different component. Previous attempts at replacing it showed those doing it understood their new component, but understood the machine less well than they thought they did.

Now people don't even see the need to offer a new component, let alone understand the machine.

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, 'I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away.' To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: 'If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.'

G. K. Chesterton - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Koldo]

Greed is a whole lot more divisive and damaging than religion. So is ego; fostering all kinds of social bigotry and willful ignorance just to protect one's delusions of 'righteousness'. And yet who in our society is working to counteract these social poisons? I mean who as a large collective entity? That would be religion. It may fail more often than it succeeds, but at least it's there, and it's trying.

I don't see it even trying, at least not in general.

 

[Jimmy]

Also for @Moon yes what happened in 1980? I am not sure if Moon has already answered because I can't read all the posts but hopefully I'll see her answer soon about 1980. I can guess but I'd rather heat it from her.

What do ya mean?

 

[PureX]

I don't see it even trying, at least not in general.

There are billions of people all around the world honestly using their religion to try and be better people. I don't think you're trying to see this. I think you're trying not to.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Who said God is natural? Did you?

I said if.

 

[icehorse]

1 - Then we seem to be discussing 2 different things. My point was that you need to replace religion with "something else" and I was asking what this new less divisive ideology is and you responded with environment and golden rule.

If you weren’t offering these as a replacement, what would you say is the replacement for the divisiveness of religion?

2 - Also, as you said religion is divisive and we should aim to replace it with something else, how would you explain this in the context of it not being a desire to change people towards your way of thinking?

I agree, we can work together with people with whom we share a common identity or common interests.

For complex, long term cooperation with those who you don't share an "irrational" bond of identity (or culturally defined obligation), you must share some "rational" common interests and also share the idea that any given cooperation is "fair and equitable" which is where the practice becomes much harder than the theory.

3 - The problem is we rarely have such well aligned common interests, and without common identity we don’t want to continually and repeatedly sacrifice our own good for the benefit of others.

I've numbered parts of your last post so that I can match my answers better. And if you feel I've skipped an important idea, let me know:

1 - I'll add a third possibility - wealth and income inequality. So I've offered three possibilities, when you include, the golden rule and climate change. Of those, I agree that the golden rule - while powerful - would probably be the hardest to get people to rally around.

That said, this feels like the old joke, "if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging". And that's really the point of this OP, to make explicit the idea that the status quo concerning religion is humanity continuing to dig a deeper hole.

2 - I would say there are degrees to which you can attempt to change people to your way of thinking. "stop digging" is still a very open-ended suggestion compared to something like "focus on the climate" which is much more constrained request.

As I've mentioned in other posts, I think a good general rule would be to challenge dogma and to support non-divisive projects. In other words some people might choose to fight climate change, others might tackle fresh water, others might try to defang oligarchs. Those are all first order problems, and if they're approached without using dogma as a tool, I'd say we'd be making progress.

3 - I think tackling environmental issues and economic issues can be viewed as selfish projects. Sure, they'll benefit others, but they'll also benefit "we the people", no?

 

[icehorse]

Greed is a whole lot more divisive and damaging than religion. So is ego; fostering all kinds of social bigotry and willful ignorance just to protect one's delusions of 'righteousness'. And yet who in our society is working to counteract these social poisons? I mean who as a large collective entity? That would be religion. It may fail more often than it succeeds, but at least it's there, and it's trying.

Largely agreed. I would say that environmental issues and the oligarchy are two first order problems, and religion is not.

BUT, anything that fosters divisiveness (like religion), is making solving these problems just that much harder. I can guarantee you that religion is the friend of the oligarch!