the carrot of heaven, the stick of hell etc.
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Calilasseia wrote:The sort of people who actually need to feel they're being watched, in order to behave in something resembling a decent and humane manner toward others, are the reason we invented police. Though of course said invention immediately brought us into head on collision with the conundrum of quis custodiet ipsos custodies?.
Quite simply, those who claim that we need an invisible magic man in order to behave ourselves, are the very people I would suggest be kept a very long way away from even modest levels of power and responsibility. We are not lacking in precedents, with respect to the manner in which past individuals of this ilk visited all sorts of horrors on their fellows.
igorfrankensteen wrote:It is my OPINION, that one of the specific and purposeful reasons why many religions were invented, was because it was hoped that if people could be persuaded to believe in magic monitoring, that the people who wanted to force them to behave differently, might get more sleep, and would save money on guards.
Keep It Real wrote:Do you think theism is bad for civilisation?Not really, I think we still need it. Haven't you heard theists argue that without God everybody would be raping and murdering? They're talking about themselves when they say that. Not everyone can keep an even keel without the carrot of Heaven and the stick of Hell.
Rumraket wrote:Pertinent example: Scandinavia.
archibald wrote:I wonder though, if conditions in Scandinavia (a part of the world I hugely admire, to the point that I would like it to somehow take over the world) were to be swopped with conditions in, say, Burundi (with no offence intended to any Burundians present) in a 'Trading Places' (the movie) type of switcheroo....
Sendraks wrote:archibald wrote:I wonder though, if conditions in Scandinavia (a part of the world I hugely admire, to the point that I would like it to somehow take over the world) were to be swopped with conditions in, say, Burundi (with no offence intended to any Burundians present) in a 'Trading Places' (the movie) type of switcheroo....
And yet the population of Burundi is 80-90% Christian.
As long as you think that killing the other person is what god wants and you're doing "good" by engaging in that act, you're going to be able to justify the ongoing perpetration of violence against your fellow man.
To put it another way, people believing in god in Burundi appears to be achieving little in the way of "good."
archibald wrote:Yes, sure, but that's slightly different to asking why religiosity has not naturally waned there instead of Scandinavia.
Sendraks wrote:archibald wrote:Yes, sure, but that's slightly different to asking why religiosity has not naturally waned there instead of Scandinavia.
Its an interesting question but one that isn't going to be answered without years of research into the social, economic, political history of the region.
However, if I were to entertain the idea that there was a simple answer to that question, I would like to offer 'Europeans.'
Sendraks wrote:To put it another way, people believing in god in Burundi appears to be achieving little in the way of "good."
archibald wrote:Rumraket wrote:Pertinent example: Scandinavia.
I largely agree, in principle.
I wonder though, if conditions in Scandinavia (a part of the world I hugely admire, to the point that I would like it to somehow take over the world) were to be swopped with conditions in, say, Burundi (with no offence intended to any Burundians present) in a 'Trading Places' (the movie) type of switcheroo....
Iow, is the degree of 'need' for god related to circumstance and in that sense is atheism a sort of luxury commodity?
tuco wrote:Atheism possibly thrives in "luxury", I prefer to call it "welfare state" instead, but its not condition necessary. Atheism can also be (by)product of repression against religion, see communism and religion for example.
There is not one way to salvation
archibald wrote:tuco wrote:Atheism possibly thrives in "luxury", I prefer to call it "welfare state" instead, but its not condition necessary. Atheism can also be (by)product of repression against religion, see communism and religion for example.
There is not one way to salvation
Good point. I had forgotten about coercion.
Due to the success of the most well-developed welfare systems within the
democratic world (Einhorn and Logue 2003), the wealth in Scandinavia is shared to an
impressive degree throughout the nations’ populations; the gap between the rich and the
poor in Denmark and Sweden is smaller than in any other industrialized democracies.
archibald wrote:igorfrankensteen wrote:It is my OPINION, that one of the specific and purposeful reasons why many religions were invented, was because it was hoped that if people could be persuaded to believe in magic monitoring, that the people who wanted to force them to behave differently, might get more sleep, and would save money on guards.
Imo, there might be some truth in this, but it seems like too much of a cynical conspiracy theory.
An anthropologist once said "It seems apparent that one thing religion or belief helps us do is deal with problems of human life that are significant, persistent, and intolerable. One important way in which religious beliefs accomplish this is by providing a set of ideas about how and why the world is put together that allows people to accommodate anxieties and deal with misfortune".
https://www.quora.com/What-if-some-day- ... -worse-Why
Now, it may be that some clever people have deliberately decided to exploit this existential predicament/weakness in individuals for the purposes of either extending their power base and/or maintaining law and order.....but that might imply that the founders themselves did not truly believe.
I might however agree that kings and rulers have, invariably, exploited religions as a means of power and control, but that is a slightly different thing (having more to do with promotion rather than invention) though quite closely related.
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