SO, DOES THAT MEAN YOU ARE "DOWN" ON RELIGION?
IT HAS "NETTED" GOOD...
tba, very rough notes, but one can get the gist of them if one uses his/her higher brain
(This piece results from the question asked at the end of: The Unreal World We Believe In - It's all strictly mechanics and we made up the other stuff, such as "sin", etc.)
NETTING GOOD
No, I'm actually "up" for religion because of its great contribution. I measure the value of something for the result it produces, not the level of truth. (I note, however, that some of the great thinkers of our time believe it is harmful, such as Sam Harris, whom I greatly admire and who is an atheist who is also spiritual.)
However, I do think that we can improve on something that has a lot that is not true in it.
BUT, AT WHAT COST?
But there is a cost to unraveling religion, as people will at first feel insecure and we will need to quickly reeducate them to replace that information with something else that works (works better, in this case). Until it is replaced, things could get worse for the person going through the process. We have a huge timing problem, since we can't go "zap" and have everything changed in place all at once.
Religion (and religious "disciplines") is "re-ligio", as in ligament, a tying back to our nature or principles of what works. It has been devised very imperfectly, by man doing his best but sometimes making up things as they go or basing a new conclusion on a past conclusion it is based on, where the past conclusion just isn't correct.
TRUTH?
A "truth" based on a non-truth is not a truth. (Duh!)
If we believe human beings must be seven feet tall to be "tall enough to be powerful" (or whatever), and we get rid of all of those who are shorter and weaker believing that is good for society, the latter belief will not be true - which we can spot in this case, since the result is virtual extinction.
It is always the result that proves the belief is true or not - having a desired result means that the belief is workable to produce the desired result or not.
A SYSTEM, WITH RULES...
The beauty of religion is that it gave us a system, with rules, that overall, despite its excesses, contributed to our moral system which helped us survive better.
The rules and structure have been refined for 5000 years and have, mostly, I belief, gotten better and better, in general.
It is true that much of it was slanted to the benefit of the writers or the groups they represented and the penalties for "misbehavior" were designed to assure compliance and were often to the extreme so that compliance would be more assured. The Muslim religion still has many of these extremes, which are no longer appropriate for this current society - I am not saying how they should be revised, but I am saying that it should be looked at and rewritten to what truly is for the greater good of all involved - and made clearer and more specific so that extreme factions can't misrepresent it to mean something else.
A POWERFUL "STRUCTURE"
Religion provided structure, clear concepts to base life on,, and a place to go to learn and reinforce them. We have no other more powerful structure in place to teach "morals" (actually "what works", ethics). In fact, there is nothing close - though I think we need to cause that to happen - and that's a bit of what I am trying to do, but could I ever establish a religion of "practicality and happiness" that is more powerful - that, indeed , might be wishful thinking. D'ya think?!
I'M "FOR" IT!
Am I "for" religion?.
Yep, until we find a better replacement it is the best we have, though I think we need to also add on improvements. It is fine to want to believe in eternal life (and no one can disprove it) if that causes us to feel more secure and happier, but we have to be careful about buying into the stuff that hurts us. A "positive adaptation" is to not say "God will take care of it" (which is pretty much bullbleep) but to say "Trust in God, but row to the shore" or "God helps those that help themselves." - that way we are not so much into the highly damaging "dependency" and "the power is out there" beliefs.
TO GET TO THE GREATEST LIFE...
I believe that the only way to get to the greatest life is to use learning and critical thinking (and the scientific method) to devise what will work best, including right and true thinking and living. And we cannot do that if we cannot rise above our beliefs to, at least periodically, look at what is truth and what will serve us.
Some of the problems that occur in religions can be narrow thinking, feelings of guilt and shame that are unduly high, unrealistic assessments of how human beings' brains and bodies work and how the universe works. To solve certain psychological and effectiveness problems, one must establish and then operate from what is actually provably true. I think that the "absoluteness" of alot of faith may get in the way of using facts and critical thinking to solve emotional and other life problems. For instance, one must understand this and related pieces if we are to unravel such things as being a victim of your emotions or of "concepts" such as guilt, worthiness, etc.: What Is Reality? Know What It Is Or Suffer From Irreality.
To sum it up: May God bless religion and the seekers and believers who are using the good that it can do!
