"Belief in supernatural reward and punishment promotes social co-operation in a way nothing else can match.
Actually, any authoritarian system has the capacity to do that, until it turns on its populace...
The belief that we live under some kind of supernatural guidance is not a relic of superstition that might some day be left behind but an evolutionary adaptation that goes with being human.
Well, it's rather a byproduct of an evolutionary adaptation - the tendency to see and recognise patterns and presume agency in them, the same evolutionary adaptation that leads to the byproduct of science, too.
It’s a conclusion that is anathema to the current generation of atheists – Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and others – for whom religion is a poisonous concoction of lies and delusion. These “new atheists” are simple souls".
I can't speak for Daniel Dennett on this, but both Professor Dawkins and Sam Harris have publicly spoken on this root-cause of religious thinking in humanity, so to say that it's 'anathema' is rather obviously not true. What they don't accept that is that the tendency to identify patterns and presume agency need necessarily lead to religious thinking - the mere existence of atheists shows that it need not be the case.
I agree religion goes with being human....largely because spirituality is a basic reality.
We can tell that by the manifest incapacity to demonstrate it in any way, shape or form... 'Spirituality' is not a 'basic reality', it's an unevidenced assertion that lacks any sort of solid definition in order to have a meaning, let alone be demonstrated.
Science will never be able to understand and brings within its purview all aspects of spirituality...
I'd agree that this is entirely possible, but I'd suggest it's for exactly the same reason that science will never be able to understand or bring within it's purview the pots of gold at the end of the rainbow.
I think one day it will bring out the fact that the human mind and consciousness are not just a product of the brain and that spiritual experiences are not just a figment of human imagination.
If you don't have any evidence to support that contention at the moment, it's a bit rich describing it as a 'fact'.
After that, suitably evolved and modified religions or secular spirituality can take over and guide human life.
How do religions 'evolve'? Surely that's just the abandonment of a previous religion and new excuses made up for the adoption of a new one with some similar outcomes?
Why not let reason guide human life?
I don't think it's so much about reward and punishment, but of feeling a part of something and for many people I think it gives their lives a sense of worth.
But it's perfectly possible to be part of something without falling back on superstition. From families to football supporters, that sense of community doesn't have any prerequisites on the nature of the community.
It also can give a sense of structure with the festivals and routines.
Again, no need for religious bases for those, either.
It can lift people out of their worldly concerns, which can be a good thing.
But it can equally cause worldly concerns, or distract people from worldly concerns, which can be a bad thing, and there are other methods to 'lift people out of their worldly concerns' which don't require belief in unevidenced assertions.
For me,( and I think my " religion " is unique to me) it gives me something to aim for, and a way of tying in with organised religion if I want to.
Whilst I think there are differences between a faith position and a religion - a religion is a group of people advocating a particular faith position - some of the points work equally well against either.
I might not share exactly the same beliefs, but I can share many values in Christianity or other religions. The Good Samaritan for example. Or the value of giving.
Because they are values, and have merits of their own independent of any particular set of tenets. They work in any community, and are part of the foundations of the behaviour that allow communities to work. You don't need to believe in 'spiritual' to see the virtue in ethical behaviour.
Somehow, not having religion at all ( and I mean inner religion as well as organised religion) makes life a bit flat and pointless.
I don't find my life to be 'flat' or 'pointless', I'm sad for you that you think you need superstition to feel good about life.
I don't think so, because some people actually want to be religious/ have an order to their life.
People who've grown up in societies which teach that religion has merit and is a (or sometimes 'the') way to have order in their lives. If that happened less often, people would find other places to get order for their lives.
The more you push atheism the more they hang into their religion/ philosophy of life.
Oh, indeed. Most of the religions that have survived have instilled a sense of oppression into their back-story somewhere in order to generate a sense of community and to motivate their adherents when they are under attack (or, indeed, when they aren't). The way to see the end of religion is not to ban them, it's to just ignore them until people realise they don't actually add anything that can't be found elsewhere without the baggage.
Quote from the article.
Would you hesitate if someone asked you to put on a freshly laundered shirt worn by Hitler.
Not for the shirt itself, but for the fact that I know how some people would react (and the distaste for 1940s fashion
)
None of us will live to see that day.
That's almost certainly true, religion has been pernicious enough to last until now, it's not going to disappear quickly.
Atheism is shrinking world wide. It was 4.5% of the world pop. in 1970, 2% in 2010 and atheism continues to shrink as more atheists die off.
Atheism is growing in the developed world. Populations in the developing world are growing faster, and they are predominantly religious - if those developing nations fail to demonstrate cultural growth, the lack of atheism is going to be the least of our problems are primitive, barbaric cultures wield their fervent devotion to superstitions in wars.
Too funny, "why humans find it hard to do away..." Find it hard? Good grief, why try to, do away, if you have no reason or desire to drop your faith for the nothingness of atheism?
Why do you need the 'extra' of religions' made-up content when you have the majesty of reality to come to terms with?
O.
