Friday, March 6, 2009
thought of the day.233
It isn’t love that fuels religion but fear. Fear of the unknown, death, loneliness and being unloved. But as Marie Curie said, “Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.” The more our knowledge about ourselves and the universe increases, and the more compassion, love, and reality-based hope we can fill the world with, the less need there’ll be for fear-based superstitious belief systems.
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8 comments:
I really believe this to be true. The problem is that the greatest existentialist fear of humankind is fear of death; of nothingness, of never seeing loved ones again. This is such a primal fear that it keeps religion going like the energizer bunny, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that it is based on fantasy.
Exactly. I think the great “calling” if you will, for me, and really for everyone, is to work toward dealing with these primal fears with reason rather than fantasy.
The traditional religions are very good at providing a community to deal with such fears. How to best deal with them in the absence of traditional religions is going to be the challenge of the new reality-based “church.”
I can't speak for other denominations, but I have to say that the protestant evangelical church does a p*ss-poor job of providing people with security (life insurance I guess). Because of the elusive definition of "salvation" (is it works? Belief? Faith? Works and faith? Repentance? Depends on where you look in the bible), I would venture to say that very few protestants are confident that they will not be considered backslidden or something that will land them square into the firey pit (or be left behind in the rapture - my parents were huge Tim LaHaye fans). Check out this article "Christian, are you sure you are going to get to heaven?"
http://www.geocities.com/fuzzyquark/sure_going_heaven.html
Thanks for the link, Janet. The whole Christian thing is just so much crazy-making stuff. It turns the brain to mush. And I need no help there!
So happy I broke free of that mindset!
John, remember our conversation about moral relativism? I claimed that there are moral absolutes; foundations of civilization. However, these "absolutes" tend to evolve over time, so if something is temporal can it be a moral absolute? Here's an article on that topic (you may have already seen this - I think it's a link from your website)
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/bill_schultz/criminal-god.html#JAG
Janet, Good article. I agree with pretty much everything he has to say up until he gets to the part about “absolutes” and “objective morality”. Where he wants to use these words I would use “common sense”. I have posted the relevant part of his essay below if anyone wants to chime in:
If "change" is to mean "progress," then there must be some sort of absolute scale upon which the morality of the past may be measured and declared to be inferior to the morality of the present. I would personally argue for some moral standards based upon the principles of evolutionary survival (for instance, we know that a gene pool needs diversity and strength to survive; a moral "meme pool" must also need those same kinds of characteristics). We now recognize that diversity in our genes and memes is part of our strength as the species of homo sapiens. We cannot obtain this diversity if we act in ways that force conformity upon everybody within the influence of our various governments. As these scientific principles emerge from the darkness of our prior ignorance of them, our moral principles are forced to evolve to accomodate an increasingly diverse population of humans at all levels. The ancients (and the moderns until very recently) sought to enslave and/or economically exploit the people of foreign nations. The ancients (and the moderns until very recently) sought to obtain a homogenous population of people who all worshipped the same God(s), believed in the same governmental systems, and pursued the same goals of conquest of others. As far back in history as you might care to go, it is "us" against "them" with the former always characterized as the "good guys" and the latter always characterized as the "bad guys." Today, we don't view the King of Sweden as having any more "inherent natural rights" than does an "untouchable" in India. We are increasingly viewing ourselves as the family of man, and that change clearly makes us more moral in how we interact with each other. [23]
It is always easy to be angry and to try to hurt those who are your "natural enemies." The smaller you form your group of "friends," the easier the whole business of morality becomes. The more "enemies" you have, the more people there are to "plunder" and "obtain advantage over." But those acts of taking advantage of others will generate resentment among those who are taken advantage of, and some day, the "chickens will come home to roost." There are many wisdom sayings in many cultures here on Earth which teach us not to take advantage of our fellow man. But we have always, in the past, seen this as a commandment only to behave with respect to those of us who are part of our "us" group. The "them" group was always "fair game." If there is a new basic morality working its way through humanity right now, it is based upon this concept of our having empathy for all humans, no matter what sort of human they might be. In other words, everybody is now part of the "us" group, and is to be protected, respected, and cherished, with the same moral privileges as anybody else we know. It is this exact overarching moral rule which is totally at odds with the whole Judeo-Christian God. The God who would send most of mankind to Hell for disbelieving in Him cannot command the respect of those who adhere to, or advocate, this new universal human morality. Accordingly, we must now be on the brink of the Humanist millennium, as there will be no place in the 21st century for the Christian bigots of the 20th century.
Some Conclusions
It is frankly apalling to see just how many people continue to blindly follow the amoral lead of the Judeo-Christian God. Frankly, it is only by ignoring issues like those presented herein that believers can continue to both believe in their God and consider themselves to be "moral actors" within the human population.
When you take a long view over past millennia of human history, two things become obvious. The first is the hopeful signs of human progress, as we have clearly evolved new moral standards and thereby improved our relationships to each other within the overall human community. The other is the realization that religious claims to moral truth cannot be true. Religion cannot be the foundation of human morality. Instead, human morality evolves over time, as history clearly demonstrates.
We seem to evolve new moral rules only long after we could really use them. It is like we have to be really sure that a new rule is needed, and to force ourselves to adopt that rule only when there is no other alternative. So it seems with our moral rules against racism and genocide. Still today, we struggle with the question of just what sorts of abhorrent conduct would justify a violation of national sovereignty by the nations of the world. Our current attitude is to only send troops into nations who ask for "peace keeping forces," such as in Bosnia. In other countries where human rights violations are rampant, we do not send troops, because to do so would be to violate that other currently inviolable rule: the sanctity of national sovereignty. So the spread of newly discovered moral rules is a slow (and for many people, painful) process. Can we guess what might be the next "universal moral rule" to be "discovered" in this same way?
A good candidate for a next "universal moral rule" would be some way of dealing with the possibility of the total destruction of humanity (and most other life forms here on Earth) through nuclear warfare. Most humans would probably see any moral rule that would prevent that occurrence as beneficial.
But the question as to what sorts of undiscovered moral rules actually exist is a troubling one to those of us who would like to adhere to the best possible moral standards right now. But there must be some strong impediment to thinking deeply about these moral standards. Perhaps our bias in favor of a God as a source of morality is preventing us from addressing these deeper moral issues (at least, until now). It surely seems that a formal study of ethics leaves us with far more questions than it gives us answers. In any case, we should not allow our current inability to formulate an "iron clad" ethical rule set as a moral foundation for modern or future humans to provide an opening for believers of the Holy Bible to drag us back to the immorality of its ancient declared rule set. [24] To discard three to four millennia of moral progress would truly be a tragedy for mankind!
Just how far can we carry the analogy between genes and memes? Is there a "design space" (a la Dennett) for our memes of morality? History would surely argue that some increasingly refined sense of morality is needed for people to live in larger and larger communities of increasingly diverse humans. Genetic and memetic homogeneity is possible only in very small groups. The larger the group, the less homogeneity there is, simply through the process of evolution through random chance.
But whatever ultimate answer for our moral questions might actually exist out there in the future of mankind, that answer will most likely be properly characterized as an objective moral rule (or rule set). And any such moral rule (or rule set) will most likely be viewed as a major advance over whatever moral rule (or rule set) has been set down by any God (or gods). Finally, any such universal and foundational moral rule (or rule set) will most likely be created from the people of the Earth (through "experience" for example), by the people of the Earth, and for the benefit of all the people here on Earth.
Good points John. And we can agree totally that whether or not there are moral absolutes, it is clear that morality does not come from God/Christianity. Using me as an example, in my christian days I was so worried about following the bible that I lost touch with my conscience. I think when we focus on externals, we lose our moral compass. "Externals" can include anything from the bible, the pope, physical beauty, the quest for perfection, etc. After it became crystal clear to me how absurd christianity, was, I could let go and find out who I was. I now have more empathy, compassion, and love - I've become a much, much better person. I remember the faces in my father's church when I was growing up - how "dead" most people looked. Very little animation, no joy. These were people who looked burdened. They made an effort to smile and look like the spirit of christ was shining through them, but the smiles didn't reach their eyes. Especially the women. I'm reminded of the passage in the bible on "the virtuous woman"; how incredibly destructive that is. This passage describes the ideal woman as a longsuffering slave; joyless, passionless, sexless. (I think I'm digressing here - just following my thoughts) Together with all the other terribly mysogenous verses in the bible, I would think any self-respecting woman would run screaming away from christianity. But in spite of this, many women are still sincere believers. I feel so grateful that I am no longer in bondage to this.
Yes, the harm done to women especially is despicable. I just read a great testimonial from a woman yesterday on the exchristian site that reminded me of your story to a degree. It’s going to take a generation of strong women to break the cycle, break the chains that do so much harm.
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