The inevitable march of secularism? Not so fast

[Pelado]

Most of us believers don't want to cut your head off.

Emphasis on "most". He is a Ute, after all.

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[SeattleUte]

If that is the case, why bother trotting out the same old tired stereotypes illustrating the worst of religious history? If humanism is a religion that provides meaning to the universe, why is it necessary to trash a belief in God to make that point? Can't humanists and traditional believers coexist? Most of us believers don't want to cut your head off.

He talks a lot about how most of monotheism itself has been transmogrified into humanist creeds.

Interestingly enough, today even religious zealots adopt this humanistic discourse when they want to influence public opinion. For example, every year for the past decade the Israeli LGBT community has held a gay pride parade in the streets of Jerusalem. It’s a unique day of harmony in this conflict-riven city, because it is the one occasion when religious Jews, Muslims and Christians suddenly find a common cause –they all fume in accord against the gay parade. What’s really interesting, though, is the argument they use. They don’t say, ‘These sinners shouldn’t hold a gay parade because God forbids homosexuality.’ Rather, they explain to every available microphone and TV camera that ‘seeing a gay parade passing through the holy city of Jerusalem hurts our feelings. Just as gay people want us to respect their feelings, they should respect ours.’

On 7 January 2015 Muslim fanatics massacred several staff members of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, because the magazine published caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. In the following days, many Muslim organisations condemned the attack, yet some could not resist adding a ‘but’ clause. For example, the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate denounced the terrorists for their use of violence, but in the same breath denounced the magazine for ‘hurting the feelings of millions of Muslims across the world’. 2 Note that the Syndicate did not blame the magazine for disobeying God’s will. That’s what we call progress.

[creekster]

He talks a lot about how most of monotheism itself has been transmogrified into humanist creeds.

So I am struggling to understand the importance of the point here. So we replace God with our feelings. Or something like that. But we still have to have something. And choosing the wrong God does nothing to undermine the legitimacy of any other possible/actual God. Rather than speaking to replacing God, it seems to me he is showing how we tend to imagine God in our own image. If we are in a brutish and violent world, then God tends to be that way and approves of such actions or behaviors. Conversely if we are wealthy and tend to use a lot of hash and eat a lot of Gouda, our God has very little judgment of us, but is mellow and really just wants us to go with our feelings. But none of this shows that God doesn't exist, it only shows that if he does exist, we often fail to find him. So what, in the end, is the importance or value of his point? (I am not TRYING to be obtuse, btw, it comes to me naturally.)

[Walter Sobchak]

A modern woman (not traditionally religious) has sex outside marriage. She’s troubled because what she’s doing feels good and right, but she’s liable to hurt others, including her children. Who does she consult? Her analyst, a friend over coffee, etc. Now the focus is not God, but reconciling the woman’s own personal good feelings and satisfaction with the hurt these will cause others. This value system, albeit devoid of God, is still religion, according to Harari.

Cougarstadium is SU's religion!

[SeattleUte]

So I am struggling to understand the importance of the point here. So we replace God with our feelings. Or something like that. But we still have to have something. And choosing the wrong God does nothing to undermine the legitimacy of any other possible/actual God. Rather than speaking to replacing God, it seems to me he is showing how we tend to imagine God in our own image. If we are in a brutish and violent world, then God tends to be that way and approves of such actions or behaviors. Conversely if we are wealthy and tend to use a lot of hash and eat a lot of Gouda, our God has very little judgment of us, but is mellow and really just wants us to go with our feelings. But none of this shows that God doesn't exist, it only shows that if he does exist, we often fail to find him. So what, in the end, is the importance or value of his point? (I am not TRYING to be obtuse, btw, it comes to me naturally.)

The only point he makes in the passages I posted today is that humans do need “religion” or life has no purpose, they had to come up with a new one after what the Scientific Revolution has done with the old one, and humanism is it, whether you know it or not, and whether or not you call yourself an atheist.

You are misunderstanding his premise. He’s not saying there is or isn’t a God. He’s saying that the scientific revolution has obliterated the old religion. But he’s quite objective. He explains how one way that old religion has lost is that science has not been able to find soul; the duality of body and soul doesn’t seem to be true. On the other hand, one of the more amusing parts of the book is his analysis of how scientists have struggled and failed to explain stream of consciousness. He’s also quite hard on humanism (which, of course, owes much to the old religions). For example, he blames humanism as well as the old belief that animals don’t have souls for facatory farming and devastation of wildlife (he raises the question as to whether human life is any more precious than those of the animals they eat, in a very thought provoking way).

[creekster]

The only point he makes in the passages I posted today is that humans do need “religion” or life has no purpose, they had to come up with a new one after what the Scientific Revolution has done with the old one, and humanism is it, whether you know it or not, and whether or not you call yourself an atheist. .

You are misunderstanding his premise. He’s not saying there is or isn’t a God. He’s saying that the scientific revolution has obliterated the old religion. But he’s quite objective. He explains how one way that old religion has lost is that science has not been able to find soul; the duality of body and soul doesn’t seem to be true. On the other hand, one of the more amusing parts of the book is his analysis of how scientists have struggled and failed to explain stream of consciousness. He’s also quite hard on humanism (which, of course, owes much to the old religions). For example, he blames humanism as well as the old belief that animals don’t have souls for facatory farming and devastation of wildlife (he raises the question as to whether human life is any more precious than those of the animals they eat, in a very thought provoking way).

My comment about the existence of God was directed more towards what I understand to be the point of some or many of your posts here over time and a speculation about how you might use this analysis amongst us, your brethren.

What I understand, then, is that he proposes the march of science has not, in the slightest, eradicated religion. Instead, it has led the Dutch and others to replace a belief in a Supreme Being with a general belief in each other and our feelings. OK. This is a point that has been made here in this forum many times in the past. Anyone who carefully considers the human condition would, I think, reach a similar conclusion. Unlike the Age of Anger, which seemed intriguing and which I bought and have almost finished, this book doesn't seem as interesting.

[SeattleUte]

My comment about the existence of God was directed more towards what I understand to be the point of some or many of your posts here over time and a speculation about how you might use this analysis amongst us, your brethren.

What I understand, then, is that he proposes the march of science has not, in the slightest, eradicated religion. Instead, it has led the Dutch and others to replace a belief in a Supreme Being with a general belief in each other and our feelings. OK. This is a point that has been made here in this forum many times in the past. Anyone who carefully considers the human condition would, I think, reach a similar conclusion. Unlike the Age of Anger, which seemed intriguing and which I bought and have almost finished, this book doesn't seem as interesting.

I’ve never taken a position on the existence of god, not since the early eighties.

I’m glad you have liked Age of Anger. I loved it, for much the same reason I like Harari’s books, but also, unlike Harari’s books, there is a lot of information there I didn’t know but found fascinating. As I noted previously, Harari’s works are philosophical works disguised as historyl; we’re aware of most of what he says, especially the big picture; it’s the way he says it that makes it enjoyable. But I found myself disagreeing with Age of Anger a lot more than I disagreed with Harari. Still, it was disagreement that was provoked in a healthy way, making me regain my convictions after the author had made me reconsider them. I speculate that you may like Age of Anger better than my representations of Harari’s works because, unlike me, you are more in agreement with Age of Anger than Harari.

[tooblue]

SeattleUte: the quintessential postmodernist religionist. Who knew?

[Jeff Lebowski]

I’ve never taken a position on the existence of god, not since the early eighties.

[SeattleUte]

My comment about the existence of God was directed more towards what I understand to be the point of some or many of your posts here over time and a speculation about how you might use this analysis amongst us, your brethren.

What I understand, then, is that he proposes the march of science has not, in the slightest, eradicated religion. Instead, it has led the Dutch and others to replace a belief in a Supreme Being with a general belief in each other and our feelings. OK. This is a point that has been made here in this forum many times in the past. Anyone who carefully considers the human condition would, I think, reach a similar conclusion. Unlike the Age of Anger, which seemed intriguing and which I bought and have almost finished, this book doesn't seem as interesting.

There are many crossovers between Age of Anger and Harari’s books. When Harari says the Scientific Revolution, he means capitalism’s triumph too, because, as he notes, capitalism has driven the Scientific Revolution. Without capitalism, scientists would have no means to pursue science nor know what to do with it. And therefore it’s the Scientific Revolution that has led to all the anger that Age of Anger describes that has been mounting and manifesting itself in various ways through the last five hundred years and all over the world. Like Age of Anger, Harari does a good job of demonstrating that this Scientific Revolution has been at best a mixed bag for living things overall, and even humans. But overall I think Harari’s sympathies lie more with animals than humans including religious people who have not been on the winning end of the Scientific Revolution. Overall, Harari regards humans, including the poor and religious, to have in many ways been made better off by the Scientific Revolution. He does, however, raise the possibility that hunter gatherers were better off than factory workers in China or serfs or peasants. Animals, however, have gotten a very bad deal without mitigation—except for rats and cockroaches.

[CardiacCoug]

Except that it's absolute shit.

Ha ha! I like how he imagines there is nobody who believes in God between New Orleans and Montreal.

I’d give him Napierville to Montreal — but along the rest of that road a majority of people I think have a primitive, literal belief in God.

[wuapinmon]

Guys, life is meaningless. You'll only find happiness when you realize that there is no fucking point to anything.

[Moliere]

Guys, life is meaningless. You'll only find happiness when you realize that there is no fucking point to anything.

I still find it interesting that SU still needs to find meaning to his life to define himself.


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[creekster]

I still find it interesting that SU still needs to find meaning to his life to define himself.


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This was sort of my point. So, as SU, and the author he was quoting, see it, we all need something of a religious nature in our lives. Some might use organized traditional religions, others might hug trees on the weekends. Whatever it is, though, we all need it and our societies need it. But reaching this conclusion sheds no light on whether any of the religions are correct or mistaken, true or false. Indeed, even if one of them was correct, the fact tat some or almost all people had gone in a different direction wouldn't prove or disprove that fact. There are also other inferences one might draw from this apparent condition of humanity.

[wuapinmon]

This was sort of my point. So, as SU, and the author he was quoting, see it, we all need something of a religious nature in our lives. Some might use organized traditional religions, others might hug trees on the weekends. Whatever it is, though, we all need it and our societies need it. But reaching this conclusion sheds no light on whether any of the religions are correct or mistaken, true or false. Indeed, even if one of them was correct, the fact tat some or almost all people had gone in a different direction wouldn't prove or disprove that fact. There are also other inferences one might draw from this apparent condition of humanity.

I once had a shower thought that if we evolved to be spiritual, then there might be a biological imperative that needs scratching to keep all systems operational. But, there's no proof that we evolved spirituality, only that we have it, perhaps as a side effect of other evolutionary pressures.