You know, the memes about a world with no religion being more advanced, or libs quoting Lennon's Imagine, etc etc... well, I realized that they never question whether a world can actually be with no religion.
Now, I do not mean religion only as in organized religion like Catholicism or Islam or Buddhism, but simply as a faith shared by a group of people, a belief not grounded in "pure reason".
With this definition in mind, I don't think that Humans can exist in a world with no religion. Maybe some individuals might be able to exist in a state of complete disbelief and empiricism, but as a society as a whole, it is hard to envision.
And if we look closer to home, i.e. communist revolutions, for example the 21 years long fight in China by the CCP to take power, including the Long March, this cannot be driven by reason alone. To endure what they did, to continue for so long, these people must have had the kind of religious fervor that I doubt most "religious" people actually have.
I do not think it would be desirable for society to abandon all religion, i.e., unreasonable beliefs, which include hope, hope for something better (e.g. communism).
Oo, finally a post I can participate in. I've taken various classes on (roughly) this subject, and short answer, no, a world without religion can't really exist. Because basically, we (humans) are hardwired to be religious - it's just in our brains to seek out and engage in some form of religion or spirituality. Sure, there can be hardcore atheists out there, but for society as a whole, a form of agnosticism (and/or folk belief) is more common, outside of "institutionalized" religion that is. And if you expand your definition of "religious" a bit, you'll see that religion/ritual/belief is truly everywhere.
Religion and Marxism is something I've spent a long time thinking about. I do wonder what religion would like under socialism, and what it would truly mean to de-organize and "de-institutionalize" it. Because for so many religions, the "institution" is a natural part of it. All I know is that religion has to be there, in some form, and don't think throwing out all the old beliefs or making communism into a "religion" itself is the best course of action.
And if you expand your definition of “religious” a bit, you’ll see that religion/ritual/belief is truly everywhere.
When you begin analyzing the apparently 'secular' american culture through the lens of 'this is just exactly a religion but doesn't call itself that', the whole thing really makes a lot more sense.
Spirituality is arguably the only core human trait/need that a lot of the big-L Left think is inherently 'bad' and something we should attempt to 'abolish'. It's akin to seeking the abolition of thumbs, as far as I can see.
Incidentally, atheism is a religion haha and I don't just mean spiritual people who don't have a god as part of that. There is a fervent culture of atheists that run around proselytizing people in the streets. 'Hey, have you heard the good word that there is no god?' They have a shared worldview and public figures, and extremely firm beliefs on questions that, honestly, we simply are not able to answer hahaha
I think there are actually lots of 'good' spiritualities alive today, to touch on your question, much as marxists believe there was something like 'original communism' :)
I am fascinated by your knowledge and would read book-length posts about it, if you'd like hahahaha
Early Christianity could maybe be an example of institutionless religion (or rather, with weak institutions), I mean first century Christianity. Or maybe the piraha people who only believe you if you say something that you have experienced first hand?
thanks for this, out of interest, what do you mean by hard-wired?
if u don't mind expanding, why would you say religion has to be there? I don't necessarily disagree I just want to know what you think
Coming back to your answer, it makes me question one thing. At which point can we start considering then that machine learning systems, like neural networks, have become religious? Because the output of such a machine learning system is not a guaranteed truth right, it's only a form of "belief" on a possible result.
And I'd argue that it is non deterministic, since the order in which the training data is passed to the model, as well as its initialization both play a role in making the result of the training unique, which is quite comparable to humans
Once you accept that you can have a religion without a god or a suspension of science (i.e., faith) as still being within the definition of "religion" (and I do) -- then no I don't think it's possible to have a world without religion. Something like the Satanic Temple.
That's because ultimately "religion" to me is just a way to manifest shared beliefs. And as long as we have society we'll have shared beliefs.
I don't think you can have religion without faith though, but not necessarily a faith against science mind you. More a faith in our ability to push our understanding of the world, or simply faith about humanity being able to become a better version of itself. Transhumanism can be seen as a form of science compatible faith I think
I don't think I would define faith as "a god or a suspension of science".
First off, it is pretty easy to be religious without a God. Lots of Buddhists are.
Also, science should be understood as a particular way of investigating certain questions or topics. There are lots of areas where science doesn't tell us anything useful. How can I be a good person? Am I happy? How can I become happy? What will the future hold for me? Do other people feel the same way I do? What is truth? There are all questions that science cannot answer. Probably philosophy cannot answer them either, at least not perfectly. Various world religions, however, do provide answers for some of this stuff. Perhaps a devout Christian might think that they can become a good person through worship and study of Jesus's teachings. They might also think that truth is knowledge communicated to us by God. If they described these beliefs to you, you would say that they have faith. However much you may disagree with it, you cannot use science to show that they are wrong in these beliefs, at least no without making some non-scientific assumptions first.
Couldn't find it, did you read it? You wouldn't have a pdf by any chance...?
Appending my previous comment in a new comment because somehow the edit function doesn't seem to work in lemme
Anyway, it also reminds me of Robespierre's cult of reason, is there any idea filiation there ?
Can a world
with no religionexist?because it's not looking good right now
when you say a "belief not grounded in pure reason" what do you mean?
i'm wondering because i'd sort of assumed that within materialist thought, spirituality would be pure reason, as in not concrete or rooted in the material world?
or do you mean reason as only being empirical as it were?
I'm not trying to be pedantic or quibble i'm just wondering what your definition of reason is wrt spirituality - like when you write "abandon all religion, i.e., unreasonable beliefs", I interpret "reason" as simply having some kind of reasoning, i.e any given argument, before any judgements about validity/coherence etc.
That is a good point. In this case I guess we could say I mean that any thought needs to be produced from an empirical basis, and its conclusion can only be considered valid and true once it has also been verified empirically, and held as "mere" hypothesis until then.
But it's true that reason can perfectly be non empirical
right ok. so then i guess with religion, a lot of it can be verified empirically - not to everyone's standards of proof - but there are felt experiences associated with spirituality/religion that serve as an empirical justification for the religion, and also tangible artifacts of religion.
if you define spirituality as 'unreasonable' (not verified) beliefs then yeah it'd be impossible to abandon it, a lot of our thought even in hard sciences is unverified or currently unverifiable empirically.
but I think your op was mostly talking about faith/hope, so in your phrasing that would be an unreasonable (unverified) thought, because we don't know if things will get better, or if we will succeed?
i worry that this is a trap of inactivity. if we always wait empirical verification it will take to long. so we turn to spirituality, an old trusted method, in the absence of hard proofs in order to counter the fear of the future. but we can predict the future, and act on those predictions without having to wait for empirical proof, and without having to be ambiguous & enigmatic like the spiritualist.
can't we provide reasonably accurate material predictions of the future, and source hope and belief in that future without fairy tales? Sure we have to show the path to that future, but shouldn't it always be more persuasive & tangible than spiritualist motivations (like a murkily defined afterlife)?
No. Man is a creature who will create religion from his ordinary experience. This is why capeshit is so profitable, it replaces the mythological mind with super bitchin superheroes.
