Religion is psychologically necessary for human community. The challenge is to create rituals and doctrines and symbols that are compatible with scientific knowledge. The collapse of religion is a big part of the epidemic of depression and loneliness sweeping the world.

But religion will not suffice for many people. If there is to be some foundation for ritual and doctrine in my life, it must be based on something that does not have alternative meaning. My brain would simply reject it. I would want community events and a host of rituals best shown to satiate the human psyche. Meaning, a whole bunch of trial and error mixed with experimental psychology. I could sanctify such results because of their efficacy. I know they'd work for me. Placebo would be an added benefit. There would be no alternative meaning for people to abuse.

I'd say I'm in the same boat as many agnostics/atheists when I say I couldn't stomach participating in religion because of other people's misinterpretation of it. Indirectly, I'd feel my participation as enabling the extremes. When an edifice like religion has such extremes, you're better off ignoring the edifice rather than amputating or reforming the bad appendages. Because the zealotous niche you leave empty will be filled in no time. An empty niche within a belief system is like a conspiracy theory; it has attractive power.

The extremes will always exist as long as the edifice remains strong. They only type of reformation that could actually work would be to rewrite every copy of the bible, and leave not a single old copy behind. The stronger your attempts at suppression or reformation, the more attractive the suppressed niche becomes. You cannot eliminate the small percentage of people that commit atrocities in the name of religion. Even in the educated western world, there are countless such stories. If WBC could have been shamed/educated/forced into thinking they were wrong, it would have happened long ago. If they go under, some other institute will rise to fill the void.

The collapse of religion is a big part of the epidemic of depression and loneliness sweeping the world.

Sweeping the world?
collapse of religion?

What data do you have to support these melodramatic claims?

etudiant wrote: Have there been regimes where the driving ideology was godlessness? If you mean the old communist countries, I'd say their driving ideology was economic and social organization, and religion was just a sideshow. Right and wrong is not a function of religion, but of human philosophy. Horrors have been committed in the name of religion, and altruism committed in the name of humanism, and visa versa.

I screwed up there somehow, not sure how I came to make the statement about godlessness being the driving ideology. The primary aim of regimes such as the early Soviet Union and Mao's China was not to be atheistic. Thanks for pointing this out.

ant wrote:

The collapse of religion is a big part of the epidemic of depression and loneliness sweeping the world.

Sweeping the world?
collapse of religion?

What data do you have to support these melodramatic claims?

See for example on decline of religion
http://gawker.com/5950175/the-inevitabl ... in-america
http://www.americanhumanist.org/HNN/det ... god-worldw

And on the depression epidemic, http://melschwartz.com/AnEpidemicofDepression.html says "The plague of our times is a malady we call depression. In our society a tremendous percentage of the population will at some time experience depression. An industry has arisen around the treatment of depression and staggering numbers of pills are consumed to ward off the suffering imposed by this condition. We are quick to diagnose and seek treatments for depression. Yet, hardly anyone is asking, "Why is there an epidemic of depression?"

Yet, hardly anyone is asking, "Why is there an epidemic of depression?"

reminded me of an old mark heard lyric

The diggers and the bankers and the architects and fools
Got to work and you can't stop them with bitter tears or golden rules
It's a race to stay alive, baby, it's lawyers tax and steel
'Til the life that you are living is the thing you never feel

Babe they say that this world is better than the last
I wouldn't know, I have no way of living in the past
Where once there was a garden the streets have overflowed
From the Golden Gate to the East Block states
You can hear creation groan

Baby it's a long way down
Baby it's a long way to fall
Baby it's a long way down
Baby it's a big world after all

Robert Tulip wrote:

DWill wrote: You can tack up your own 95 Theses, but there's not going to be another Reformation.

Yes there will. We need a new covenant for a New Age, reconciling reason and faith by putting the story of Jesus Christ back at the centre of culture, but in a way that makes evidence and logic the highest values. John’s Gospel says Christ told Pilate he came into the world to bear witness to the truth. That does not mean to invent the truth, but rather to understand the reality of the world.

Martin Luther is one of my great heroes, but his 95 theses nailed to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral nearly 500 years ago do not make much sense. The Protestant concept of salvation remains magical and false, when what is needed is a theory of salvation based on scientific knowledge.

I know this is near and dear to you, but do you really believe there's a chance that the cultus of Christianity will be adopted with a radically new interpretation? If this were ever going to happen, surely it would have happened by now; surely we would be able to see at least an incipient form. If this has occurred, it's a great untold story. No, the evidence points to people leaving Christianity, some turning to atheism or agnosticism, some picking up other "spiritual" beliefs. There is nothing today that parallels conditions in late Medieval Europe when schism came to the fore, when Christianity split in two. Then, the meanings of the religion didn't change essentially. To expect them today to change to the degree you envision, yet to remain housed within the scriptures and liturgies, seems very dubious. People don't want to wear those old clothes.

yeah i'm fascinated to see what kind of pheonix rises from the ashes of the current millieu, would love to have a sneak peek of a couple of thousand years from now to see if the situation has improved at all re: spiritual traditions and metaphors, ways of relating to the more non-physical aspects of existence etc etc (reminds me of the movie "warm bodies" which BTW i thought was an excellent metaphor)

good luck humanity! for better or worse i am you.

My reply to DWill's comments on Christianity is at http://www.booktalk.org/topic14903.html A New Christian Reformation?

OK, so these guys weren't actually police, but they sure would have liked to have the power to arrest the sources of these devilish inventions!

http://io9.com/seven-insane-minutes-of- ... 1456419789

That's some good thinkin there, pastr!~

"Occultic"

"Necromology"

Darth Vader looks "Almost exactly like Odin"