Challenge to Athiests - is Religion a Pox on Mankind?

by jgnat 169 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  LisaRose

  This is the problem I had a a JW. After the big A failed to materialize in 1975, I started to feel like the field ministry was futile. I still believed on some level in the religion, but knocking on doors did not give any feeling of having done any thing worthwhile. By the time I left, I hated it and felt it was a waste of time. I began to realize I would rather have spent the time feeding the hungry or some other, more concrete, charitable works.

  I actually contemplated joining a church recently. Part of the reason is that this church was very active in feeding the hungry and other things. I am not sure about God, but as Ygnat said, good is good. It's not that I don't know that the church has done some terrible things, it's that I think that they can change and provide the good things (fellowship, support, good works) without the bad (dogma, ridiculous rules, hatred for non believers).
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  THE GLADIATOR

  I’m inclined to think that mankind is a pox on the planet, and religion is just one of many illusions that shape the human race. Bring back the dynasours.

  Do I sound cynical?
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  jgnat

  LisaRose, how about finding out who is running the local soup kitchen? A Lutheran church is running ours.
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  jgnat

  Gladiator, I must live in hope that we can pull out of our death-dive. That's something T-Rex wasn't wired to do.

  

  http://www.njsouth.com/airshowMay20002.html
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  Band on the Run

  Jgnat,

  Is there truly evidence that humans are hard-wired for good? I don't know and don't have time to read all the books cited. It would certainly be nice if this were true. Right now Political Theorists are popping into my head. It strikes me that this phenomena is studied from so many different angles. I wonder what cultural anthropolgists believe now. My rough guess is that there is evidence both ways. Most posters here focus on the bad elements of religion. They certainly exist. I see concern for others as an element of religion. This may sound funny but I also think of the efforts of Ben Franklin. Franklin was always the pragmatic scientist. He organized so many charitable causes in Philadelphia, America, and France, b/c he felt we could have better life styles by acting in community. His scientific experiments were never for science along. He developed lightning rods which saved thousands of lives each year. The Franklin Stove was safer and more effective. Of course, he hated religion. It sounds funny raising Franlin in such a discussion. There seems to be a human drive to help each other. On the same hand, the drive to destruction is present, too.
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  THE GLADIATOR

  “Is there truly evidence that humans are hard-wired for good?”

  Humans are both good and bad, depending on the definition of good. The problem is that humans are not hard-wired but evolved from apes; well some did, others are still trying to jump the gap, myself included.
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  Knowsnothing

  Religion need not be a pox. Just let it keep up with science, but don't let it interfere with progress. I like the study of religion, because it is part of our history, part of our humanity. Should it still hold relevance today? It will always hold relevance, to the poor, to the disillusioned, to the mentally unstable, or to those simply yearning for a better existence than this trivial, fleeting one. If these people cannot be provided for physically, emotionally, socially, then what other recourse do they have? Religion is the opium of the masses.
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  jgnat

  BOTR, I would say rather that people are hard-wired to a particular morality, to help us prosper in communities. Pinker has a list of "families of instincts" that I am sure I wrote down somewhere but I can't find now. Haidt has six morals that transcend cultures:

  1. Care/Harm
  2. Fairness/Cheating
  3. Liberty/Oppression
  4. Loyalty/Betrayal
  5. Authority/Subversion
  6. Sanctity/Degradation

  We have people who are born without these instincts of course, and they terrify us.
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  nicolaou

  jgnat, would you agree that the ultimate foundation of morality is truth?
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  jgnat

  *phew* found it.

  Pinker gives the following list of possible innate modules:

  1. Intuitive mechanics: knowledge of the motions, forces, and deformations that objects undergo.
  2. Intuitive biology: understanding of how plants and animals work.
  3. Number.
  4. Mental maps for large territories.
  5. Habitat selection: seeking of safe information-rich, productive environments, generally savannah-like.
  6. Danger, including the emotions of fear and caution, phobias for stimuli such as heights, confinement, risky social encounters, and venomous and predatory animals....
  7. Food: what is good to eat
  8. Contamination, including the emotion of disgust..... intuitions about contagion and disease.
  9. Monitoring of current well being.... happiness and sadness... contentment and restlessness.
  10. Intuitive psychology: predicting other peoples' behaviour from their beliefs and desires.
  11. A mental Rolodex: a database of individuals, with blanks for kinship, status, history of exchange of favours.
  12. Self-concept: ..organizing information about one's value to other people, and packaging it for others.
  13. Justice: sense of rights, obligations, .. including the emotions of anger and revenge.
  14. Kinship, including nepotism and parenting
  15. Mating, including feelings of sexual attraction, love, and intentions of fidelity and desertion.

  http://s-f-walker.org.uk/101evolintranet/pinkerslist.html

  You will see there is some crossover. I would relate the contamination/disgust reflex with Haidt's Sanctity/Degradation, and Justice with Fairness/Cheating.

  Pinker of course is not limiting himself to moral instincts.

  I think my profession comes out of instinct 4, mental maps.