Can't wait to see the reactions to this...
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Stan Shannon wrote:
If there were no religion, anywhere, and everyone subscribed bascially to the same materialistic views of nature, non religious civilization might be possible. But you would still need moral authority of some kind invested exclusively in a non-democratic political ruling elite of some sort (a supreme court, say).
No. All you'd need are laws, written laws of conduct based on common sense. Once those are established, there's no need for a "moral authority". You just need a system of government that abides by and enforces those laws, which is essentially what we have today.
Stan Shannon wrote:
So, that is not a social order I feel compelled to embrace.
You're embracing it now. You know the laws and you follow them -- regardless of religious scripture. Do you always rest on the Sabbath? Do you never eat pork? Do you attend church on a weekly basis? ..... Isn't it great that our society is not governed by a religious moral authority?
Stan Shannon wrote:
I'll take my chances with a source of moral authority (religion) which can be separated from the state.
And that's fine, as long as your religious morals don't lead you to break the law.
- Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. - Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. - Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil? - Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? Epicurus
Al Beback wrote:
No. All you'd need are laws, written laws of conduct based on common sense. Once those are established, there's no need for a "moral authority". You just need a system of government that abides by and enforces those laws, which is essentially what we have today.
I disagree. Without a source of moral authority the law becomes virtually impossible to administer without overwhelming power and force. People must view the law as a reflection and extension of their own grassroots morality or they will not voluntarily comply with it. If people are 'self-governed' by a common set of moral principles which they acknowledge as a common tradition, which is the role religion plays, the legal system will have a much less onerous presence in that society.
Al Beback wrote:
ou're embracing it now.
No I don't. I largely tolerate it because those who enforce it have more fire poewr than I do. Our system of government becomes more totalitarian as it becomes less religious.
Al Beback wrote:
And that's fine, as long as your religious morals don't lead you to break the law.
So a police state it is then after all, eh? I thought as much.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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I reckon that while a low intelligence will quite easily increase the probability of someone being a believer, the converse is not necessarily true, the converse is not necessarily true: Theism cannot be used as a reliable indicator of low intelligence.
Brady Kelly wrote:
I reckon that while a low intelligence will quite easily increase the probability of someone being a believer, the converse is not necessarily true, the converse is not necessarily true: Theism cannot be used as a reliable indicator of low intelligence.
If the probability of theism diminishes with rises in intelligence, then it is mathematically unavoidable that theists have lower intelligence on average than atheists. Of course, the population is not all located at the average. Some theists are quite brilliant, just as some are incredibly stupid. On average, they are less intelligent than atheists (at least according to the study --- and many other studies).
John Carson
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I subscribe to an entirely different theory. I think human beings possess an instinct for morality just as we possess an instinct for language. That is ultimately what allows us to live together in large complex social groups. We instinctively adhere to whatever moral principles that our society defines, or at least wish to be viewed as being capable of adhering to them. I think religion itself begins with the beginning of trade between far flung human settlements. If you wish to trade with other groups you need to be able to symbolically communicate to them that you observe the same basic moral principles which they do. That communicates that you are fair and trustworthy to people you might never have met before. That requires the etablishment of a ritualistic means of communicating a well defined moral code to other humans. Therefore, religion represents a synthesis of humanity's two instincts - morality and speech. Religion is at its most elemental form a means of communicating morality. The 'sky-god' merely represents that your society observes a higher authority to which it is self-obligated to submit (obviously linked to primitive perspectives on natural processess). And finally religion does begin to serve as a means of control of much larger and more complex human societies. People simply are not going to cooperate in the effort required to build a trully advanced civilization without some kind of coercion. The best way to achieve that is simply to make them believe that they are supposed to help out, an appeal to the underlieing instinct for morality.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
That's interesting and well thought out, but I'm not sure it's correct. Evidence from the neolithic suggests that religion arises from fertility and agricultural rites. That's why you find these carved statuettes of large-breasted "fertile" women and carved bulls. Cave drawings suggest hunting and agriculture played important roles as well - with a form of "religious" elite that would aid in communicating with gods to ensure good harvests and hunts. If you think about it, hunting, agriculture and fertility play far more important roles than trade; isolated hunter-gatherer societies would put 'trade' low down on the importance list.
I'm the ocean. I'm a giant undertow.
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That's interesting and well thought out, but I'm not sure it's correct. Evidence from the neolithic suggests that religion arises from fertility and agricultural rites. That's why you find these carved statuettes of large-breasted "fertile" women and carved bulls. Cave drawings suggest hunting and agriculture played important roles as well - with a form of "religious" elite that would aid in communicating with gods to ensure good harvests and hunts. If you think about it, hunting, agriculture and fertility play far more important roles than trade; isolated hunter-gatherer societies would put 'trade' low down on the importance list.
I'm the ocean. I'm a giant undertow.
73Zeppelin wrote:
Evidence from the neolithic suggests that religion arises from fertility and agricultural rites. That's why you find these carved statuettes of large-breasted "fertile" women and carved bulls. Cave drawings suggest hunting and agriculture played important roles as well - with a form of "religious" elite that would aid in communicating with gods to ensure good harvests and hunts.
ACtually, the first indications of extensive trade networks show up at almost exactly the same time as the first hints of religious symbolism. About 35,000 years ago, goods such as flint, sea shells, newer weapons and hunting technologies, etc, show up in areas many hundreds of miles from where they should have been expected to have been found, almost simultaneiously as cave paintings, fertility figures etc begin appearing over very wide areas. I think it is obvious that as trade of physical goods developed, technology and ideas went right along for the ride, leading to a sudden explosion in human cultural and social evolution. And, again, I think the very most rudimentary forms of religion would have been an important part of that both as a way of having some means of predicting and understanding natural phenomenon and as a means of easily communicating to other peoples your own moral standards and convictions.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.