As a conscientious religious person, I think my generation is losing a great, deep heritage by embracing secularism

[onesteptwostep]

The weekend is here boys, let's talk about the intersections of religion, politics, economy, market, and history and morality. *cracks open beer*

I mean, secularism isn't bad per say, but I feel like we are losing a lot of history and cultural understanding by not tapping into the vast experience and human struggles that are born of religious endeavors. I think the category of faith and fidelity is being lost, and that the paradigm of virtue has shifted to a consumeristic, opportunistic, and lastly, an incrementally temporal race of status. Allegiance can be bought with wealth, and influence is power, and power being the absolute aspect and zenith of all human endeavors.

I'm aware that some of us on this forum come from a variety of hegemonic religious cultures (Burnout being from India, thus its hegemonic religion being Hinduism) but I think the case could be made that a lot of historical wisdom could be salvaged by looking into the historical conflicts these religious civilizations have begot and could be patched to certain ailing trends or situations of today. These religions don't span the great length of the democracies we so dearly uphold today- the best democratic nation on earth as is is only 250 years old, while the greatest religions outspan such polities by the hundreds and thousands of years.

Now, a religion isn't a political philosophy or a political structure, but such institutions have the same homosapien, the essence of which teaches us what happens when groups of people try and strive towards a certain goal. In a sense, religious organization is similar to a political structure, and the movement of people, the ideas and the alliances and the breaks and schisms and so on. The point is that these religious modes have the quality of faith- which our generation does not know. Not having faith I can understand and give a pass to, but not knowing the quality and earnestness of faith that drove our modern world is a great disservice to our historical knowledge. You can absolve from faith, but to be ignorant of it in any shape or form I feel is a dereliction of duty of man to know itself and his past.

Note, I am not saying to place faith on some pedestal or to take to it kindly, but understand it for what it is and what it meant to our ancestors. Empathy is key here.

Without an empathy to faith, I feel it is almost near impossible to understand what the trajectory of humankind was up until the modern age. Have faith? No, but understand it as it were in historical terms? I think that should be a given to all liberal minded men. What say ye old tired men of intpf? But first off, let me hand you a beer... <(''<)

 

[Hadoblado]

Modern humans are 300,000 years old. Most of all beliefs ever held are gone. I don't think the loss of religion is causal to any shift in the virtue paradigm. Rather, the entire ecosystem is different thanks to technology, and this both influences religion's expression and popularity, and shifts people's moral environment.

People were always consumers, they just didn't have the means to consume how we do. People were always opportunistic, they just didn't have the opportunities we do. People always chased status, but the means of doing so has changed.

I can have empathy for people with faith, but I cannot value it and I don't think it contains any meaningful wisdom beyond any other form of tradition. Faith is the memetic control of people through their informational environment and historically this has had both good and bad consequences.

When you say you want people to understand it in historical terms, what do you mean? I must admit I'm cynical about the ability of anyone of faith to talk about the value or wisdom of faith objectively. Our ancestors were ignorant and believed what they had to to survive.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

I think the most valuable thing that religion contributed to human advancement was the ability for humans to transcend the proximal tribe and allow relationships to be formed on the basis of an ideology.

When the purpose of that ideology is a robust social system that benefits the individual, is religion not outdated if not inadequate?

The biggest reason I hear people renouncing their faith is because they felt like they were lying to themselves. We have not failed religion, religion has failed us.

 

[BurnedOut]

The point is that these religious modes have the quality of faith- which our generation does not know. Not having faith I can understand and give a pass to, but not knowing the quality and earnestness of faith that drove our modern world is a great disservice to our historical knowledge. You can absolve from faith, but to be ignorant of it in any shape or form I feel is a dereliction of duty of man to know itself and his past.

What is the quality that these religious modes have? You are equating the philosophy in religious modes to religion itself. Religion in praxis is nothing that you are talking about. It is a simple social phenomenon which is just another association of people but it is called religion because it is legally sanctioned or does not violate the laws of society.

The propagation of religion and its popularity never had zilch to do with its philosophical underpinnings because that work was usually delegated to academicians not patricians. It had everything to do with the concept of security and power and functioning primarily on ingroup, outgroup bias which is stupid but somehow mentally stabilizes the religious individual. Things like Jesus coming out of an egg and Allah being some kind of ancient Hulk and Zoroaster being light is all fairytales. Nobody can seriously believe in it and live the way they do because if you think you can see gods coming out of eggs, you would not be doing a 9-5 job and being a protestant good boy who listens to the average churchgoer, you would not have used airplanes, etc, point being, ontologically all of us on this planet have accepted that God is nothing but the santa of the grown man. Santa is for kids. The characters are the same and so are the behaviours of their ilk. A kid is not going to stop going to school because Santa did not come through the chimney and burned his arse in fireplace to fetch you a multimillion dollar gift. The kid knows ontologically that their grandparents are dead, that Santa is an excuse and that God himself cannot do shit. We are secular by being and this whole religious and spiritual outlook is the work of people who have plenty of useless time tinkering with intangible phantasmas of exploitative priests who lived like kings and spat at the layman while writing about god and man being one (Bhakti) At the end of the day, religion is just a subenviron containing specific psychological influences and those influences can be analyzed. Despite the inherent secularity by simply existing as providence does not propel a living being, stimuli does and a being cannot continue functioning normally believing in a man named Jesus who started the zombie genre single handedly by bringing people back from the dead.

 

[onesteptwostep]

@Hadoblado
I think the difference between our perspective is that they were ignorant. I think we have the gift of hindsight to have acquired more technical knowledge through many trail and errors. Ignorant? To a more technological humankind in the next thousand years, we, to them, would be ignorant. If we placed ourselves on the spectrum of eternity rather than at our temporal frame, the whole endeavor of humankind might be ignorant, nothing but a dust in the wind... er.. cosmos- reality-thing. I'm sure you're familiar with Ecclesiastes. Boom, the Jews dealth with the aspect of nihilism a millenial before Nietzsche grew out his first 'stach.

How about the Psalms which David wrote? Existiential angst much more before Kierkegaard or Schopenhauer. Or creating some pseudo-Justice department where human sacrifice or human cruelty wasn't a thing? I mean Caleb did help 'modernize'.. er... current Palestine. The Jews are pretty much credited with wiping out myraid forms of polytheism, organizing a huge plot of land for themselves to sustain a twin dynasty that lasted quite a while. If it weren't for the fervent religious aspect of their culture we probably would have never have the records of Judah and Israel.

Even the Romans were outlasted by the Jews and the Christians- their sun gods and emperor worship didn't help them sustain their empire.

But even put aside all that bluster: the mere fact that they lived in that manner with the resources that were allotted to them, and that they earnestly sought for things that were ideal and just and free- just superimpose our life and onto theirs: there's something deceptively human and poetic about the life we've lived and are to live. If theirs were a simple life with fewer dimensions and factors in life to deal with than ours, the simple struggle is still the same. In some ways, faith, hope, love, the Pauline virtues: are they really different from one another? What is faith if not earnest hope? What is hope if not earnest love? What is love if not earnest faith?

 

[onesteptwostep]

I think the most valuable thing that religion contributed to human advancement was the ability for humans to transcend the proximal tribe and allow relationships to be formed on the basis of an ideology.

When the purpose of that ideology is a robust social system that benefits the individual, is religion not outdated if not inadequate?

The biggest reason I hear people renouncing their faith is because they felt like they were lying to themselves. We have not failed religion, religion has failed us.

Maybe they put religion in a box? To me, denotively 'a roboust social system' is 'political philosophy', or if we were to phrase it to our modern sensibility, 'democracy is an unfinished experiment?' Religion is much more deeper than any creation of some social culture. Or to phrase it better: the Bible is no more than stories of men who gave it their best shot but failed miserably at each turn, only to realize, holy shit, it's Jesus. It's literally a cosmic dad joke: It's me! I'm the answer, the question, the thing, the answer, the magic slip and slap tape! Like, it literally doesn't make sense, but at the same time, it makes perfect sense. The Christos! The Savior! The Answer! The *grasps hands* Which I've Been Looking For All My Life!

 

[onesteptwostep]

The point is that these religious modes have the quality of faith- which our generation does not know. Not having faith I can understand and give a pass to, but not knowing the quality and earnestness of faith that drove our modern world is a great disservice to our historical knowledge. You can absolve from faith, but to be ignorant of it in any shape or form I feel is a dereliction of duty of man to know itself and his past.

What is the quality that these religious modes have? You are equating the philosophy in religious modes to religion itself. Religion in praxis is nothing that you are talking about. It is a simple social phenomenon which is just another association of people but it is called religion because it is legally sanctioned or does not violate the laws of society.

The propagation of religion and its popularity never had zilch to do with its philosophical underpinnings because that work was usually delegated to academicians not patricians. It had everything to do with the concept of security and power and functioning primarily on ingroup, outgroup bias which is stupid but somehow mentally stabilizes the religious individual. Things like Jesus coming out of an egg and Allah being some kind of ancient Hulk and Zoroaster being light is all fairytales. Nobody can seriously believe in it and live the way they do because if you think you can see gods coming out of eggs, you would not be doing a 9-5 job and being a protestant good boy who listens to the average churchgoer, you would not have used airplanes, etc, point being, ontologically all of us on this planet have accepted that God is nothing but the santa of the grown man. Santa is for kids. The characters are the same and so are the behaviours of their ilk. A kid is not going to stop going to school because Santa did not come through the chimney and burned his arse in fireplace to fetch you a multimillion dollar gift. The kid knows ontologically that their grandparents are dead, that Santa is an excuse and that God himself cannot do shit. We are secular by being and this whole religious and spiritual outlook is the work of people who have plenty of useless time tinkering with intangible phantasmas of exploitative priests who lived like kings and spat at the layman while writing about god and man being one (Bhakti) At the end of the day, religion is just a subenviron containing specific psychological influences and those influences can be analyzed. Despite the inherent secularity by simply existing as providence does not propel a living being, stimuli does and a being cannot continue functioning normally believing in a man named Jesus who started the zombie genre single handedly by bringing people back from the dead.

I'm going to use a cheap shot because there's a lot of dispositions here, but... Max Weber? The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism?

Also I'm just curious, have you ever listened to a Christian sermon? Geuinuely wondering. I'm not really sure how Hindus would worship or practice their faith.

 

[Black Rose]

How do you measure a lack of faith and a rise in secularism? People have faith when they are holding onto the spiritual. People have faith in something. They use it as a spiritual energy source. Extraversion Inoversion.

people draw energy from somewhere along a spiritual plane.

a need makes most all humans spiritual.

 

[PiedPiper]

The weekend is here boys, let's talk about the intersections of religion, politics, economy, market, and history and morality. *cracks open beer*

I mean, secularism isn't bad per say, but I feel like we are losing a lot of history and cultural understanding by not tapping into the vast experience and human struggles that are born of religious endeavors. I think the category of faith and fidelity is being lost, and that the paradigm of virtue has shifted to a consumeristic, opportunistic, and lastly, an incrementally temporal race of status. Allegiance can be bought with wealth, and influence is power, and power being the absolute aspect and zenith of all human endeavors.

I'm aware that some of us on this forum come from a variety of hegemonic religious cultures (Burnout being from India, thus its hegemonic religion being Hinduism) but I think the case could be made that a lot of historical wisdom could be salvaged by looking into the historical conflicts these religious civilizations have begot and could be patched to certain ailing trends or situations of today. These religions don't span the great length of the democracies we so dearly uphold today- the best democratic nation on earth as is is only 250 years old, while the greatest religions outspan such polities by the hundreds and thousands of years.

Now, a religion isn't a political philosophy or a political structure, but such institutions have the same homosapien, the essence of which teaches us what happens when groups of people try and strive towards a certain goal. In a sense, religious organization is similar to a political structure, and the movement of people, the ideas and the alliances and the breaks and schisms and so on. The point is that these religious modes have the quality of faith- which our generation does not know. Not having faith I can understand and give a pass to, but not knowing the quality and earnestness of faith that drove our modern world is a great disservice to our historical knowledge. You can absolve from faith, but to be ignorant of it in any shape or form I feel is a dereliction of duty of man to know itself and his past.

Note, I am not saying to place faith on some pedestal or to take to it kindly, but understand it for what it is and what it meant to our ancestors. Empathy is key here.

Without an empathy to faith, I feel it is almost near impossible to understand what the trajectory of humankind was up until the modern age. Have faith? No, but understand it as it were in historical terms? I think that should be a given to all liberal minded men. What say ye old tired men of intpf? But first off, let me hand you a beer... <(''<)

What are you smoking? Hand me a puff.

There is no doubt that the religious culture we arise from has its place in history. At short it comes down to it's benefits and its drawbacks.
The long version I wish I was high enough for but I'll give it a shot, going off a slightly different take on the subject.


Religion has always sought to fill the gaping hole in our vessels with truth and light. I know of very few right hand paths and indeed even the left that refuse partake of varying forms of light being as their lord and savior/henceforth incorporated into spiritualism. The sun, the moon, the stars, the ray goddess, the golden skunk, the silver moon cow, the all encompassing jehovah who will return with trumpets and angels(light) to take us to the promised land forever and break us of these chains. All such things would require a degree of faith or trust in whoever/whatever the seeker is dedicating their energy to. Why? Because we are aware of the eternal darkness that surrounds us. The void in which our world resides. Religion desperately seeks to bring those tepid, depraved souls together as they quite rightly understand that more is accomplished with a greater energy force. What is it about light that so catches our curiosity, or do we even know what true light is. Perhaps we are already dead. Just perhaps.

Unironically that is exactly what christian views pinpoint, that our souls are rotted decay, that Jesus Christ, the savior, the light to the world, the bringer of redemption and the destroyer of sin is the answer. And yet where is the light? You see a blinding mass of scalding heat up in the sky and assume it is the absolute, the bar for all other forms of light. Where religion it brought peace and tranquility to the lost souls, it also begot great strife. Upon the pedestal of human delicacy we fathom not our great conundrum fully until death. And death is in our very lifeblood. It is the greatest mystery there ever was and ever will be. ..mysteries create very strange circumstances indeed. We desire to escape our truth with talk of life after death, hope, yearning, peace, reunion. Yet at the end of the day, we just don't know. Humans are actually very poorly equipped to handle the truth, and so we turn to drugs to numb out a majority of it. Religion is a drug, you can argue if you like, yet the fact remains. (Yes I am absolutely a hypocrite).

It is not of any small significance the necessity of religion in the lives of those who cherish it. No, it is God, their God, their truth and light, and their ultimate peace. Unfortunately when that peace is threatened by alternate views, it suddenly becomes a drug you must share with the whole world, much to their dismay many do not react in the same fashion. Perhaps their drug of choice is far greater than yours in their own eyes. Why argue? It's still a drug. As @Animekitty said, "People draw energy from somewhere". To recharge ourselves we simply cannot remain in the same mindset all the time. We must explore deeper meaning, and seek to find solace in our lives. This has not changed for centuries, as long as humans have been alive and conscious we have had existential dread. It simply shifts from one form to another.
I'm done ranting.

 

[Puffy]

I’m inclined towards agreeing with Spengler that cultures and ideologies have life-spans. As Hado said no culture from 300,000 years ago still survives. Like us they live and die. It’s hubris to assume that Christianity, on the historical plane at least, is immortal just because the vicar says so when every other culture around it dies.

Rome died as that culture was reaching an end parallel to the Christian culture being born. These days, at the very least in my home land, the evidence points towards the Christian culture reaching its final phases. I go into a church and there is no life or vitality there. People are just harping on about the connection to spirit other people had 2000 years ago.

In contrast even go to an ecstatic dance up the road and you can see that spirit has simply moved location. I don’t really see spirituality dieing out the cultural vessel it’s channelled through will simply change.

At least in terms of religion, I agree that preserving past wisdom is important. But it must be a living wisdom that still helps us in communing with the spiritual, otherwise it’s dead. If someone maintains a living relationship with the spiritual I trust that the wisdom they need for their spiritual life will come through that.

 

[Hadoblado]

@Hadoblado
I think the difference between our perspective is that they were ignorant. I think we have the gift of hindsight to have acquired more technical knowledge through many trail and errors. Ignorant? To a more technological humankind in the next thousand years, we, to them, would be ignorant. If we placed ourselves on the spectrum of eternity rather than at our temporal frame, the whole endeavor of humankind might be ignorant, nothing but a dust in the wind... er.. cosmos- reality-thing. I'm sure you're familiar with Ecclesiastes. Boom, the Jews dealth with the aspect of nihilism a millenial before Nietzsche grew out his first 'stach.

How about the Psalms which David wrote? Existiential angst much more before Kierkegaard or Schopenhauer. Or creating some pseudo-Justice department where human sacrifice or human cruelty wasn't a thing? I mean Caleb did help 'modernize'.. er... current Palestine. The Jews are pretty much credited with wiping out myraid forms of polytheism, organizing a huge plot of land for themselves to sustain a twin dynasty that lasted quite a while. If it weren't for the fervent religious aspect of their culture we probably would have never have the records of Judah and Israel.

Even the Romans were outlasted by the Jews and the Christians- their sun gods and emperor worship didn't help them sustain their empire.

But even put aside all that bluster: the mere fact that they lived in that manner with the resources that were allotted to them, and that they earnestly sought for things that were ideal and just and free- just superimpose our life and onto theirs: there's something deceptively human and poetic about the life we've lived and are to live. If theirs were a simple life with fewer dimensions and factors in life to deal with than ours, the simple struggle is still the same. In some ways, faith, hope, love, the Pauline virtues: are they really different from one another? What is faith if not earnest hope? What is hope if not earnest love? What is love if not earnest faith?

We are also ignorant, but within the scope of this comparison, we are not. Tautologically, everything we know that they knew, we also know or know to be wrong. We have them at a disadvantage.

Likewise, I live under the assumption of ignorance. It's hard to study the social sciences and not be painfully aware of how wrong many accepted conclusions likely are (though not knowing which ones). Just as our ancestors were ignorant relative to us, we are ignorant relative to future discovery. This isn't contradictory just because we don't know exactly in which ways we are ignorant.

Anyway, rn we're discussing the merits of knowledge between eras, not faith. I am already interested in primitive technology. What does a historical understanding of faith give me that I can't have otherwise, that doesn't itself rely on faith to ascribe its value?

 

[Cognisant]

I think what @onesteptwostep is getting at (and by all means correct me if I'm misinterpreting you) isn't so much religion per say but rather how the transition from modernism to post-modernism has come at the expense of a culturally unifying grand narrative, y'know that comforting sense of who we are, what we're doing, why we're doing it and what it is we're working towards.

To be concise, a sense of being part of something bigger than ourselves.

 

[dr froyd]

im sure religion is important in a historical context, as a component of the understanding of how civilization evolved and how we arrived where we are today. But as a cultural heritage to conserve and live by? How do you separate the bad ideas of it from the good ones - you mostly apply secular principles. I.e. you are distilling it down to what you think is right based on philosophical, humanistic, and scientific standards.

if one thinks of religion as meme (in the original Dawkins sense - not as funny gifs etc), one of the problems with religion is that it is an unstable virus; it can easily veer off into harmful and destructive strains (as we've seen constantly throughout history). Cult-like militant groups based on metaphysical beliefs are the cases where the virus diverged into its most extreme forms. Usually these strains die off by killings its own hosts. More stable strains that have survived millennia - like mainstream religions - provide perhaps some benefit to the host, but mostly (in my view) just have certain aspects that allow them to break the sense-brain barrier relatively easily.

 

[ZenRaiden]

It depends what people understand under Christian religion.
For instance bible is not a single source.
Bible interpretation is very local and very subjective.
The interpretation of bible is often culture divisive.
Many original writings of bible are with held form public and are not officially available, but that is also controversial subject.
The sources that do exists have been altered both because language transcription errors and culture and historical and political reasons.

So the bottom line is bible and Christian religious text are quiet unoriginal in ever sense of the word and paradoxically have been altered in what might be metaphorically compared to artistic license.

The actual act of interpreting bible is de facto artistic license.
Theology it self is based on shaky principals that amount to authority and consensus.

Therefore what Christians have is copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy.

Not to mention many ideas in Christianity have striking semblance with religions.

Therefore its reasonable to assume that many things in Christian traditions today and even in its origins are a mix of religious practices that have been integrated under various unknown or hard to understand circumstances.

I think then the biggest turn off from Christianity is its rather forceful and fairly ahistorical and disharmonious authority.

Not only does Christianity preach a rather paradoxical set of values, it indulges in quite ruthless enforcement of those values through a rather strong authoritarian model.

So rational people will probably be very dismissive of Christianity.
Emotional people will act in spirit, but probably will avoid anything in the bible that offends their sensitivity. Which for emotional people would be most of bible.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Just to finish my thoughts on this subject I would say there is nothing wrong about Christianity as such, but I would draw a red line with the Christian institutions. Being the Church and the people that represent it.
I think many people exercise false criticism when they act as if the people practicing Christianity are the same as the religious institutions that leech of the bible.
I can see why people find Christianity helpful as structure to life.
I cannot understand how they reconcile the biblical ideas with antichrist.
I certainly like the new Pope though. He seems like he is slowly bringing Church to the current century.

 

[scorpiomover]

Without an empathy to faith, I feel it is almost near impossible to understand what the trajectory of humankind was up until the modern age. Have faith? No, but understand it as it were in historical terms? I think that should be a given to all liberal minded men. What say ye old tired men of intpf?

Knowledge is power. The more knowledge humanity has, the more power humanity has to better humanity's lot. The knowledge of the ancients is a lot more than the knowledge of only what we know right now.

So I think we should read it, and learn what we can from it.

If we ditch previous knowledge because it didn't conform to our beliefs about religions, or our political views, or our values, we'll probably reject it all and thus end up with only this year's knowledge, as opposed to the knowledge of over 200,000 years, 200,000 times as much information, and 200,000 times as much power to improve humanity's situation.

Now, the knowledge of the ancients wasn't 100% perfect. But neither is our knowledge. So we have the same issues of sifting through our data, that we have with sifting through the ancients' data.

 

[onesteptwostep]

The weekend is here boys, let's talk about the intersections of religion, politics, economy, market, and history and morality. *cracks open beer*

I mean, secularism isn't bad per say, but I feel like we are losing a lot of history and cultural understanding by not tapping into the vast experience and human struggles that are born of religious endeavors. I think the category of faith and fidelity is being lost, and that the paradigm of virtue has shifted to a consumeristic, opportunistic, and lastly, an incrementally temporal race of status. Allegiance can be bought with wealth, and influence is power, and power being the absolute aspect and zenith of all human endeavors.

I'm aware that some of us on this forum come from a variety of hegemonic religious cultures (Burnout being from India, thus its hegemonic religion being Hinduism) but I think the case could be made that a lot of historical wisdom could be salvaged by looking into the historical conflicts these religious civilizations have begot and could be patched to certain ailing trends or situations of today. These religions don't span the great length of the democracies we so dearly uphold today- the best democratic nation on earth as is is only 250 years old, while the greatest religions outspan such polities by the hundreds and thousands of years.

Now, a religion isn't a political philosophy or a political structure, but such institutions have the same homosapien, the essence of which teaches us what happens when groups of people try and strive towards a certain goal. In a sense, religious organization is similar to a political structure, and the movement of people, the ideas and the alliances and the breaks and schisms and so on. The point is that these religious modes have the quality of faith- which our generation does not know. Not having faith I can understand and give a pass to, but not knowing the quality and earnestness of faith that drove our modern world is a great disservice to our historical knowledge. You can absolve from faith, but to be ignorant of it in any shape or form I feel is a dereliction of duty of man to know itself and his past.

Note, I am not saying to place faith on some pedestal or to take to it kindly, but understand it for what it is and what it meant to our ancestors. Empathy is key here.

Without an empathy to faith, I feel it is almost near impossible to understand what the trajectory of humankind was up until the modern age. Have faith? No, but understand it as it were in historical terms? I think that should be a given to all liberal minded men. What say ye old tired men of intpf? But first off, let me hand you a beer... <(''<)

What are you smoking? Hand me a puff.

There is no doubt that the religious culture we arise from has its place in history. At short it comes down to it's benefits and its drawbacks.
The long version I wish I was high enough for but I'll give it a shot, going off a slightly different take on the subject.


Religion has always sought to fill the gaping hole in our vessels with truth and light. I know of very few right hand paths and indeed even the left that refuse partake of varying forms of light being as their lord and savior/henceforth incorporated into spiritualism. The sun, the moon, the stars, the ray goddess, the golden skunk, the silver moon cow, the all encompassing jehovah who will return with trumpets and angels(light) to take us to the promised land forever and break us of these chains. All such things would require a degree of faith or trust in whoever/whatever the seeker is dedicating their energy to. Why? Because we are aware of the eternal darkness that surrounds us. The void in which our world resides. Religion desperately seeks to bring those tepid, depraved souls together as they quite rightly understand that more is accomplished with a greater energy force. What is it about light that so catches our curiosity, or do we even know what true light is. Perhaps we are already dead. Just perhaps.

Unironically that is exactly what christian views pinpoint, that our souls are rotted decay, that Jesus Christ, the savior, the light to the world, the bringer of redemption and the destroyer of sin is the answer. And yet where is the light? You see a blinding mass of scalding heat up in the sky and assume it is the absolute, the bar for all other forms of light. Where religion it brought peace and tranquility to the lost souls, it also begot great strife. Upon the pedestal of human delicacy we fathom not our great conundrum fully until death. And death is in our very lifeblood. It is the greatest mystery there ever was and ever will be. ..mysteries create very strange circumstances indeed. We desire to escape our truth with talk of life after death, hope, yearning, peace, reunion. Yet at the end of the day, we just don't know. Humans are actually very poorly equipped to handle the truth, and so we turn to drugs to numb out a majority of it. Religion is a drug, you can argue if you like, yet the fact remains. (Yes I am absolutely a hypocrite).

It is not of any small significance the necessity of religion in the lives of those who cherish it. No, it is God, their God, their truth and light, and their ultimate peace. Unfortunately when that peace is threatened by alternate views, it suddenly becomes a drug you must share with the whole world, much to their dismay many do not react in the same fashion. Perhaps their drug of choice is far greater than yours in their own eyes. Why argue? It's still a drug. As @Animekitty said, "People draw energy from somewhere". To recharge ourselves we simply cannot remain in the same mindset all the time. We must explore deeper meaning, and seek to find solace in our lives. This has not changed for centuries, as long as humans have been alive and conscious we have had existential dread. It simply shifts from one form to another.
I'm done ranting.

But it's just that: that the essence of faith allows those believers to circumvent any pessimism against the apparent nihilism in existence! It's perhaps a more modern take on faith, given that existential sentiments are more of a modern feeling. But! I would say that it's false to call faith or belief a type of drug. Saying that it's a drug implies at the atheistic disposition one has towards life, and that 'faith' is used as a crutch to ward off such reality. The actual essence of reality is something up for debate, and you either have to accept reality through faith or dogma. Reason here is actually powerless against the situation we're in!

 

[onesteptwostep]

I’m inclined towards agreeing with Spengler that cultures and ideologies have life-spans. As Hado said no culture from 300,000 years ago still survives. Like us they live and die. It’s hubris to assume that Christianity, on the historical plane at least, is immortal just because the vicar says so when every other culture around it dies.

Rome died as that culture was reaching an end parallel to the Christian culture being born. These days, at the very least in my home land, the evidence points towards the Christian culture reaching its final phases. I go into a church and there is no life or vitality there. People are just harping on about the connection to spirit other people had 2000 years ago.

In contrast even go to an ecstatic dance up the road and you can see that spirit has simply moved location. I don’t really see spirituality dieing out the cultural vessel it’s channelled through will simply change.

At least in terms of religion, I agree that preserving past wisdom is important. But it must be a living wisdom that still helps us in communing with the spiritual, otherwise it’s dead. If someone maintains a living relationship with the spiritual I trust that the wisdom they need for their spiritual life will come through that.

Sure, wisdom that's gained through some spiritual insight is good. The matter which I was discussing is more faith in its thousand year heritage, lived through the millions of its believers throughout vastly different cultures and situations, not that the spirituality itself has any power or insight in itself. We already have a colossal catalog of spiritual experiences that were lived through the millions of believers! That's the heritage I'm saying we should safeguard, not the spirituality itself. It's the knowledge and forbearance our ancestors went through, that history in it of itself. And to know that, you need to understand faith! Something like Augustine's Confessions or something less personal but theological like Luther's 95 Theses. Without understanding faith, what they wrote is just pure gibberish. Yet their writings defined their age and their spiritual situation.

 

[onesteptwostep]

@Hadoblado
I think the difference between our perspective is that they were ignorant. I think we have the gift of hindsight to have acquired more technical knowledge through many trail and errors. Ignorant? To a more technological humankind in the next thousand years, we, to them, would be ignorant. If we placed ourselves on the spectrum of eternity rather than at our temporal frame, the whole endeavor of humankind might be ignorant, nothing but a dust in the wind... er.. cosmos- reality-thing. I'm sure you're familiar with Ecclesiastes. Boom, the Jews dealth with the aspect of nihilism a millenial before Nietzsche grew out his first 'stach.

How about the Psalms which David wrote? Existiential angst much more before Kierkegaard or Schopenhauer. Or creating some pseudo-Justice department where human sacrifice or human cruelty wasn't a thing? I mean Caleb did help 'modernize'.. er... current Palestine. The Jews are pretty much credited with wiping out myraid forms of polytheism, organizing a huge plot of land for themselves to sustain a twin dynasty that lasted quite a while. If it weren't for the fervent religious aspect of their culture we probably would have never have the records of Judah and Israel.

Even the Romans were outlasted by the Jews and the Christians- their sun gods and emperor worship didn't help them sustain their empire.

But even put aside all that bluster: the mere fact that they lived in that manner with the resources that were allotted to them, and that they earnestly sought for things that were ideal and just and free- just superimpose our life and onto theirs: there's something deceptively human and poetic about the life we've lived and are to live. If theirs were a simple life with fewer dimensions and factors in life to deal with than ours, the simple struggle is still the same. In some ways, faith, hope, love, the Pauline virtues: are they really different from one another? What is faith if not earnest hope? What is hope if not earnest love? What is love if not earnest faith?

We are also ignorant, but within the scope of this comparison, we are not. Tautologically, everything we know that they knew, we also know or know to be wrong. We have them at a disadvantage.

Likewise, I live under the assumption of ignorance. It's hard to study the social sciences and not be painfully aware of how wrong many accepted conclusions likely are (though not knowing which ones). Just as our ancestors were ignorant relative to us, we are ignorant relative to future discovery. This isn't contradictory just because we don't know exactly in which ways we are ignorant.

Anyway, rn we're discussing the merits of knowledge between eras, not faith. I am already interested in primitive technology. What does a historical understanding of faith give me that I can't have otherwise, that doesn't itself rely on faith to ascribe its value?

Well, history in it of itself provides a lot of lessons on humanity, and the hardships our ancestors went through can provide some solace by their stories and perspectives resonating with us. We might have the same feelings on the course of life, and there's a massive category of people who spoke of such wary anxieties throughout the myriad of eras and even different cultures. Like, take the history of the Puritans who came to America, or the formation of modern Germany by the Calvinists and Lutherans. I think in a simplistic way, all I'm saying is that understanding history, especially European or American history, requires an understanding of faith beyond 'it is a religion'. Having that empathic understanding creates depth in how you engage in that historical cannon.

 

[onesteptwostep]

I think what @onesteptwostep is getting at (and by all means correct me if I'm misinterpreting you) isn't so much religion per say but rather how the transition from modernism to post-modernism has come at the expense of a culturally unifying grand narrative, y'know that comforting sense of who we are, what we're doing, why we're doing it and what it is we're working towards.

To be concise, a sense of being part of something bigger than ourselves.

Yup, pretty much! See, even Cog understands what I'm trying to say, and he's staunchly atheistic!

 

[onesteptwostep]

im sure religion is important in a historical context, as a component of the understanding of how civilization evolved and how we arrived where we are today. But as a cultural heritage to conserve and live by? How do you separate the bad ideas of it from the good ones - you mostly apply secular principles. I.e. you are distilling it down to what you think is right based on philosophical, humanistic, and scientific standards.

if one thinks of religion as meme (in the original Dawkins sense - not as funny gifs etc), one of the problems with religion is that it is an unstable virus; it can easily veer off into harmful and destructive strains (as we've seen constantly throughout history). Cult-like militant groups based on metaphysical beliefs are the cases where the virus diverged into its most extreme forms. Usually these strains die off by killings its own hosts. More stable strains that have survived millennia - like mainstream religions - provide perhaps some benefit to the host, but mostly (in my view) just have certain aspects that allow them to break the sense-brain barrier relatively easily.

Oh no, I'm not saying we should live by them, but to simply understand them. Not superficially, but having an amiability to faith without engaging it. In some ways you can say it's reverence to a historical notion which helped bring us to where we are today.

But yes, religions as a meme carrier and how it has survived thousands of years, that in itself is something to ponder and reflect on. The more you engage with it, the more interesting it becomes. I guess if you have an open curiosity, religion as a intersection of politics, society, nations, and narratives and so forth, is profoundly interesting.

 

[onesteptwostep]

Without an empathy to faith, I feel it is almost near impossible to understand what the trajectory of humankind was up until the modern age. Have faith? No, but understand it as it were in historical terms? I think that should be a given to all liberal minded men. What say ye old tired men of intpf?

Knowledge is power. The more knowledge humanity has, the more power humanity has to better humanity's lot. The knowledge of the ancients is a lot more than the knowledge of only what we know right now.

So I think we should read it, and learn what we can from it.

If we ditch previous knowledge because it didn't conform to our beliefs about religions, or our political views, or our values, we'll probably reject it all and thus end up with only this year's knowledge, as opposed to the knowledge of over 200,000 years, 200,000 times as much information, and 200,000 times as much power to improve humanity's situation.

Now, the knowledge of the ancients wasn't 100% perfect. But neither is our knowledge. So we have the same issues of sifting through our data, that we have with sifting through the ancients' data.

Right, I think of faith as a type of knowledge, in that it helps me understand the motivations of historical figures and the people back in more Christian societies. I think the mode of faith in the modern age, for believers is different now. I think people in my generation who are religious have a much more existential affinity with faith rather than something communal.

 

[PiedPiper]

The weekend is here boys, let's talk about the intersections of religion, politics, economy, market, and history and morality. *cracks open beer*

I mean, secularism isn't bad per say, but I feel like we are losing a lot of history and cultural understanding by not tapping into the vast experience and human struggles that are born of religious endeavors. I think the category of faith and fidelity is being lost, and that the paradigm of virtue has shifted to a consumeristic, opportunistic, and lastly, an incrementally temporal race of status. Allegiance can be bought with wealth, and influence is power, and power being the absolute aspect and zenith of all human endeavors.

I'm aware that some of us on this forum come from a variety of hegemonic religious cultures (Burnout being from India, thus its hegemonic religion being Hinduism) but I think the case could be made that a lot of historical wisdom could be salvaged by looking into the historical conflicts these religious civilizations have begot and could be patched to certain ailing trends or situations of today. These religions don't span the great length of the democracies we so dearly uphold today- the best democratic nation on earth as is is only 250 years old, while the greatest religions outspan such polities by the hundreds and thousands of years.

Now, a religion isn't a political philosophy or a political structure, but such institutions have the same homosapien, the essence of which teaches us what happens when groups of people try and strive towards a certain goal. In a sense, religious organization is similar to a political structure, and the movement of people, the ideas and the alliances and the breaks and schisms and so on. The point is that these religious modes have the quality of faith- which our generation does not know. Not having faith I can understand and give a pass to, but not knowing the quality and earnestness of faith that drove our modern world is a great disservice to our historical knowledge. You can absolve from faith, but to be ignorant of it in any shape or form I feel is a dereliction of duty of man to know itself and his past.

Note, I am not saying to place faith on some pedestal or to take to it kindly, but understand it for what it is and what it meant to our ancestors. Empathy is key here.

Without an empathy to faith, I feel it is almost near impossible to understand what the trajectory of humankind was up until the modern age. Have faith? No, but understand it as it were in historical terms? I think that should be a given to all liberal minded men. What say ye old tired men of intpf? But first off, let me hand you a beer... <(''<)

What are you smoking? Hand me a puff.

There is no doubt that the religious culture we arise from has its place in history. At short it comes down to it's benefits and its drawbacks.
The long version I wish I was high enough for but I'll give it a shot, going off a slightly different take on the subject.


Religion has always sought to fill the gaping hole in our vessels with truth and light. I know of very few right hand paths and indeed even the left that refuse partake of varying forms of light being as their lord and savior/henceforth incorporated into spiritualism. The sun, the moon, the stars, the ray goddess, the golden skunk, the silver moon cow, the all encompassing jehovah who will return with trumpets and angels(light) to take us to the promised land forever and break us of these chains. All such things would require a degree of faith or trust in whoever/whatever the seeker is dedicating their energy to. Why? Because we are aware of the eternal darkness that surrounds us. The void in which our world resides. Religion desperately seeks to bring those tepid, depraved souls together as they quite rightly understand that more is accomplished with a greater energy force. What is it about light that so catches our curiosity, or do we even know what true light is. Perhaps we are already dead. Just perhaps.

Unironically that is exactly what christian views pinpoint, that our souls are rotted decay, that Jesus Christ, the savior, the light to the world, the bringer of redemption and the destroyer of sin is the answer. And yet where is the light? You see a blinding mass of scalding heat up in the sky and assume it is the absolute, the bar for all other forms of light. Where religion it brought peace and tranquility to the lost souls, it also begot great strife. Upon the pedestal of human delicacy we fathom not our great conundrum fully until death. And death is in our very lifeblood. It is the greatest mystery there ever was and ever will be. ..mysteries create very strange circumstances indeed. We desire to escape our truth with talk of life after death, hope, yearning, peace, reunion. Yet at the end of the day, we just don't know. Humans are actually very poorly equipped to handle the truth, and so we turn to drugs to numb out a majority of it. Religion is a drug, you can argue if you like, yet the fact remains. (Yes I am absolutely a hypocrite).

It is not of any small significance the necessity of religion in the lives of those who cherish it. No, it is God, their God, their truth and light, and their ultimate peace. Unfortunately when that peace is threatened by alternate views, it suddenly becomes a drug you must share with the whole world, much to their dismay many do not react in the same fashion. Perhaps their drug of choice is far greater than yours in their own eyes. Why argue? It's still a drug. As @Animekitty said, "People draw energy from somewhere". To recharge ourselves we simply cannot remain in the same mindset all the time. We must explore deeper meaning, and seek to find solace in our lives. This has not changed for centuries, as long as humans have been alive and conscious we have had existential dread. It simply shifts from one form to another.
I'm done ranting.

But it's just that: that the essence of faith allows those believers to circumvent any pessimism against the apparent nihilism in existence! It's perhaps a more modern take on faith, given that existential sentiments are more of a modern feeling. But! I would say that it's false to call faith or belief a type of drug. Saying that it's a drug implies at the atheistic disposition one has towards life, and that 'faith' is used as a crutch to ward off such reality. The actual essence of reality is something up for debate, and you either have to accept reality through faith or dogma. Reason here is actually powerless against the situation we're in!

Yes, I suppose that is true. Like I said i'm a hypocrite. In my mind I will always see it as a drug coming from my worldview.

 

[Rook]

oxygen is a drug.

 

[Perfectly Normal Beast]

no one can have been more surprised than me to learn that the bible is literal truth. as someone else said "i used to watch christopher hitchens for fun"

satan rules this realm and is the "father of lies". you have been deceived all your life by fairy tales of monkey men and a spinning water ball, of a meaningless random infinity which serves to hide God from you; "professing themselves to be wise, they became fools". "the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour" and he is after your eternal soul. his short reign in the absence of grace is almost here and will be hell on earth

Jesus warned about "doctrines of devils" and of the tyranny and hypocrisy of false religions. most of the world's religions are of demonic/nephilim origin. your faith is between you and God, you don't need a middle man in a silly outfit and an absurd hat ("all ye are brethren...call no man your father upon the earth")

the age of grace is coming to an end very soon and judgement is coming on this earth for those who reject God and deny that Jesus Christ is Lord. repent your sins and call upon Jesus to forgive you and deliver you from the evil that is about to overcome the earth. "every one that is of the truth heareth my voice"

get saved today because time is running out. the invisible sky wizard loves you! please take this seriously because the fate of your soul is at stake. for great bible teachings watch rob skiba, dr gene kim, chuck missler

we are surrounded by evil. deception is everywhere and in everything, you must have an open mind to escape it. i'm praying for all of you <3

 

[Puffy]

no one can have been more surprised than me to learn that the bible is literal truth. as someone else said "i used to watch christopher hitchens for fun"

satan rules this realm and is the "father of lies". you have been deceived all your life by fairy tales of monkey men and a spinning water ball, of a meaningless random infinity which serves to hide God from you; "professing themselves to be wise, they became fools". "the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour" and he is after your eternal soul. his short reign in the absence of grace is almost here and will be hell on earth

Jesus warned about "doctrines of devils" and of the tyranny and hypocrisy of false religions. most of the world's religions are of demonic/nephilim origin. your faith is between you and God, you don't need a middle man in a silly outfit and an absurd hat ("all ye are brethren...call no man your father upon the earth")

the age of grace is coming to an end very soon and judgement is coming on this earth for those who reject God and deny that Jesus Christ is Lord. repent your sins and call upon Jesus to forgive you and deliver you from the evil that is about to overcome the earth. "every one that is of the truth heareth my voice"

get saved today because time is running out. the invisible sky wizard loves you! please take this seriously because the fate of your soul is at stake. for great bible teachings watch rob skiba, dr gene kim, chuck missler

we are surrounded by evil. deception is everywhere and in everything, you must have an open mind to escape it. i'm praying for all of you <3

Thank you for your prayers, PNB. You might find the book/author Dispelling Wetiko interesting on the concept of evil and it’s influence. It’s coming more from a place of Native American mythology but fits with some of the overall vibe of what you’re saying.

 

[Old Things]

Religion as a source of comfort
Is replaced by us becoming gods.
The capacity for good eludes the wise.
The residency of God becomes empty halls.
The time's past speaks of today.
We know not ourselves nor our maker.
God help us all.

 

[Black Rose]

I think my generation is losing a great, deep heritage by embracing secularism

Archaeology should be used to preserve priceless documents and historical virtual relics. But we are moving onto a new mysticism. Gates to the DMT machine elves.