history, supernaturalI once got into an email conversation with Matt Dilahunty, of the Austin Atheist Experience. I was making some statements about religion having some positive attributes and he was having nothing to do with that. He put the question to me in a similar fashion to how I ask it here. His version was more like: Is there anything that religions do or have done that couldn’t be done without it?
I argued that you could ask something similar about just about anything and arrive at a similar answer. The expansion of prosperity brought about by capitalism could have been done differently, maybe even better. Many wars could have been prevented by earlier political intervention. Free societies are often formed peacefully proving that violent revolution is not always necessary.
When put the way I put it here, it becomes nearly impossible to answer yes. I’m not claiming to have thought this up, but I don’t a have a source. The consequences of this leads to a different way of thinking:
Even if you are a proponent of religion’s positive role in history, if you answer no to this question, then anything previously labeled “religion” has to be relabeled. Label it sociology, evolutionary biology, or wisdom through the ages but don’t call it something that depends on a being that intervenes with nature.
It frees us to discuss those positive impacts of religion without relegating them to religion alone. If there are positive reasons for people getting together and singing once a week, then lets examine them and see how we can use them. If escalating a minor insult into a violent situation is bad, and a story about turning the other cheek is a way to teach that, then lets do it.
We don’t need to require that you recite the apostle’s creed at the end of the lesson, and no one gets to claim that they have exclusive rights to the story, or that it was their God that thought it up.
Edit: Change “do” to “accomplish”. That is anything tangible, art, war, ideas, cultural change, building a hospital, good or bad, doesn’t matter.
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I’m really following up on Jaskey13. Religions really have been a major organizing and inspirational source for most civilizations. I think about the emergence of serious science, and the development of technology, and I think the kind of religious tradition that was prevalent in the society has a profound influence. China did some amazing things early on, but Confusionism just didn’t make the development of a coherent body of scientific knowledge into a societal goal. So despite teh few superstars they had, just couldn’t spark a general revolution. The real advances came with Islam, and later Chritianity, where there was an intense desire on the part of some people, to know god better by studying nature. Until about a century and a half ago, most of the great scientists were very religious people. We would think of them as religious nutcases if we were able to meet them today. The motivation for a lot of what became the basis for the scientific/technological revolution was built because of religious motivation. Literacy was promoted, so people could read religious material. Universities were originally schools of theology. Printing was invented to enable the common man to own his own bible etc.
Could people have build big, famous and expensive buildings where they can meet without beliefs, like churches? Yes, they did, it where theaters, operas, concert halls, stadiums.
Of course a stadium isn’t a church, but sometimes abused as such. People wouldn’t have build stadiums without sport - except for big rock concerts, maybe. They would have been build better suited for rock-concerts, if they weren’t used for sports at all.
People do prayers for religious reasons, which wouldn’t be done without. They do pilgrims, and bring victims, and repeatedly read the same book over and over, while normal books are rarely read more than 1 or 2 times.
There are differences, which make the difference, but there is nothing I would miss. Hosianna!
Stonehenge, The Great Pyramids, the first forms of writing, the emergence of the Western world from the Dark Ages- these are just a few things that couldn’t have been done without religion. In distant times, it was the motivating factor, and precisely as you say- sociology. Man could not have done the big things in the distant past without a people united by common beliefs. And these beliefs were necessarily religious- the only thing, at that stage of universal knowledge, that could spread widely and among the common man hope and inspiration. Atheism could not have done this then, neither could science until the 1600’s. Regardless of what we believe today- these are the roots of our society. Do we value where we are today? If so, then how can we reject as worthless or worse the very thing that brought us here; the very thing that seeded our logical abilities to form our current viewpoints.
Maybe it’s not necessary now- maybe it does no good now. But a staunchness in our current belief (or non-belief) should not become an ignorance of anthropology, a blaspheming of history.
Some people claim that famous musicians who wrote religious works (Bach, Gospels) where inspired.
Well, I don’t believe so, but maybe for some works, the artist might needed to be in a certain mood. This mood or spirit can be present in a well done performance of that work, and I guess it would be lost, if we abandon religion.
On the other hand, think of human sacrifice. We wouldn’t like to save it as world cultural heritage, would we? There is a certain mood for sure, if a community kills a person in religious spirit - and this ceremony is (let’s get down on our knees and thank god!) gone and lost.
From an artificial neutral standpoint spirits and moods might be conserved and brought to the next generation or not. You can’t have that the same way without religion.
Of course I don’t judge Bach and Gospel songs vs. sacrifice or mutilation the same way. Nobody is harmed by the first, so there is no reason to ban the first ones.
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