Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (Rob) - 29 January 2012 04:32 AM

I think the further we remove ourselves from anything that sounds or looks like religion the better. I can still appreciate a Bach mass or a fresco on a church ceiling without any of the supernatural nonsense or the hierachy or the downright evil practices and muddled morality that goes with religion. And my sense of awe and wonder at the natural world far surpasses any feeling I got from the religious fairy tales that were drummed into me.

The only thing religion provides that we may miss is a sort of cosy community. But I get that in places like this and through the secular charitable organsiations I support and interact with. Religion has nothing I want. And much I don’t want. I think we should forget it like the bad dream it was and encourage others to also trash it.

I am hopeful and mildly confident that as the secualr and scientfic world-view spreads and takes hold religion will, over several generations, become irrelevant to most people. I think Mr De Botton is heading down a blind alley.

Learning not to reify religion is probably the first step to getting a sound grip on it, though. When we talk about religion we’re talking about nothing more than human psychology and behavior—it’s just an aspect of human nature. We can no more eliminate it than we can violence and anger. We can learn to manage such things appropriately, just as we have, overall, with violence and anger. Of course we haven’t eliminated violence or anger from the human condition, but if we don’t manage our anger to an appropriate degree and it manifests as violent behavior (physical or verbal) it’s not acceptable, very possibly criminal. So as long as we don’t impose our anger on others too much, we’re welcome to it, but as soon as we assault someone, verbally or physically, we can find ourselves in trouble with the law. Unfortunately our religious attitudes and behaviors are about a millennium behind the same regarding violence in terms of social development. But such things can change very quickly these days ... relatively speaking.

I think de Botton understands this even if he’s not fully aware of it, and he may be. I think we all understand this on some level. de Botton may be trying to hang onto the comfort that comes with short-sighted complacency regarding development—that’s also part of human nature (growth is generally uncomfortable, even painful), but I think he recognizes the good in religious practice just as you do, which is really just community.

Destination Immortality - 29 January 2012 01:08 AM

i find it troubling that so many people here (i.e. ymir and others) seem desperate to hold on to an institution that continues to fail humanity on a daily basis.

why not an atheist club? or an atheist magazine? an atheist organization?

what need have we of a religion of any kind?

the whole idea of an atheist religion stinks of people unable to provide themselves with a purpose.

people who need some “greater authority” to conjure it for them.

people who seemingly cannot help but crave indoctrination.

this is yet discounting that the very word “religion” goes virtually hand in hand with the idea that one believes in things for which one has no immediate evidence, but once that is factored in becomes an even more foul idea.

the establishment of an atheist religion would be a self-defeating purpose since, if instituted properly, the more it taught individuals to be better atheists the less those people would be interested in, and the less they would need, continual reinforcement of the foundations of secular thinking.

because secular thinking teaches a mind to be aware, alert, and active. it is the same atmosphere as the wild jungle. one always needs to be critical of any sound or movement, and one always has to have the most accurate information possible to stand a chance of survival. conversely religion teaches the mind to become addicted to a thoughtless trance-like state wherein no critical judgements are made, only vacuous acceptance of ideas.

I find it troubling that so many people have dug themselves into such a defensive position that the knee-jerk response triggered by the presence of words and phrases is the dominant form of reasoning. This is a well documented shortcoming though for almost all human being when it comes to holding a position and being very engaged in a particular cause.

Your entire post can essentially be rewritten into: “I find it troubling that ymir and others used the word religion, here are the list of things I associate with this word and why they are bad, I don’t understand why ymir regardless having never said that he is in support of these things I associate with the word would support them by using that word and thus by extension supporting all of my interpretations of the word. I basically talk about an organized philosophy of science and reason in no more ways extreme than any kind of organization in the world from James Randi foundation to a labor union but as I already correctly predicted in advance people get so stuck on the words that it is almost impossible to carry an actual discussion.

Never did I mention purpose, indoctrination or authority. In fact I even said I don’t like the word atheism at all to be involved I was quite obviously talking about the need for a deeply rooted globally shared philosophy or reason, skepticism and science and that spreading something like that in a very organized form is one out of thousands of weapons with which to spread it. I actually don’t think it will ever be done in time, I have essentially given up and am resigned to the fact that the world is already too dumbed down to realistically survive the next 100 years, and all of the small groups of skeptical organizations, the brights and so on and so fourth are way too few and way too lacking in numbers to not be drowned out by the sea of stupid.

But we should obviously ignore obvious ways of furthering skepticism and rationality on planet earth on principle. God forbid we should use a couple more tools to try and get even more people onto the light side. It is after all better to have the world irradiated by nuclear war than to have to compromise with semantics. It is the herding cats issue all over again and ultimately I think it is the reason why rationalism will never ever take a strong hold in the minds of the majority of people on earth.

I am exaggerating to make the point that we are all in this community (me included) way too partitioned about individualism to almost elitist proportions. This is where the herding cats arguments comes from really. The proposed solution to getting the world intelligent enough to survive its own technology is for everyone to figure out skepticism and rationality on their own simply through the presence of a strong secular society. Guess what, that is not enough to create rational people, a secular framework only fights back organized dogmatic religion but does little or nothing for actual critical thinking. Real critical thinking, rationality, skepticism and understanding of how we are tricked by our own brains and our own impressions is something that needs to be taught, and which is a long journey. I live in one of the most secular countries in the world. American atheists constantly raise Sweden as a utopia of rational society, which is an obvious mistake to make when looking only at theocracy because if you live in a land where god is in every sentence then you might be inclined to think that if you get rid of that then there is only reason left underneath. Sweden and most of secular western Europe is absolutely drowning in new age woo, post modernist thinking and a complete lack of skeptical society. The secularism has NO impact at all on all of the bullshit, it has not kept homeopathy from now being tax funded in almost every single western European country. Just recently massive amounts of tax payer money was wasted in several Swedish municipalities to get phone companies to reduce em radiation from their infrastructure and to reroute infrastructure around safe zones to protect people with “Electromagnetic hypersensitivity”, something that all credible science has deemed to not exist.

Society will never be rational if you just get rid of the things that makes us stupid. Humans are inherently irrational in so many ways unless we are actually taught to think critically. Unless you create a framework in society where people are directly taught not what to think but HOW to think then everything else is futile, one form of bullshit is replaced by another until we’ve made enough uninformed decisions to unmake our modern civilization. My argument that a “religion” that is based around teaching these methods of thinking is one more tool to add to educate more and more people. I don’t mind if anyone opposes this opinion but if you are talking about something else, if you are talking about dogma, indoctrination, spiritualism or anything else that you are reading into what I am talking about then don’t bother because we are not talking about the same thing.

This is the most predominant shortcoming in my opinion with the whole atheist community, there is a wide spread notion that if we just fight religion and superstition then we will get the Utopian world by default. This is simply not the case. What I suggest would help is an organization with a methodology to teach you all the tricks of skepticism, critical thinking and etc etc so an and so fourth to make you a real clear thinking individual. You can then liken or call it whatever you want, “religion”, “life philosophy”, “jedi code” or whatever the fuck. It doesn’t really matter,

/end of rant

Ymirheim - 29 January 2012 10:52 AM

[Society will never be rational if you just get rid of the things that makes us stupid. Humans are inherently irrational in so many ways unless we are actually taught to think critically. Unless you create a framework in society where people are directly taught not what to think but HOW to think then everything else is futile, one form of bullshit is replaced by another until we’ve made enough uninformed decisions to unmake our modern civilization. My argument that a “religion” that is based around teaching these methods of thinking is one more tool to add to educate more and more people. I don’t mind if anyone opposes this opinion but if you are talking about something else, if you are talking about dogma, indoctrination, spiritualism or anything else that you are reading into what I am talking about then don’t bother because we are not talking about the same thing.

I think that what de Botton is talking about is strategies to enlighten the masses, and that’s the intent of your vision as well.  In my own strategy, I have taken the basic concept of god or deity and transposed it into a completely secular, science-friendly notion and I go about trying to convince people that there is an alternative way of conceiving of “god” in an entirely non-theistic form.  I think most atheists outrightly reject this approach because instead of smashing god out of existence, my tact is to gently educate others as to how the “god-concept” was originally created and how it has become erroneously entrenched within our society.  But my strategy is not meant to convince atheists of anything, rather it is aimed at theists who are critically examining their faith, to them I am saying “There is an alternative explanation for the apparent existence of what you have accepted on faith.”

This is the most predominant shortcoming in my opinion with the whole atheist community, there is a wide spread notion that if we just fight religion and superstition then we will get the Utopian world by default. This is simply not the case. What I suggest would help is an organization with a methodology to teach you all the tricks of skepticism, critical thinking and etc etc so an and so fourth to make you a real clear thinking individual. You can then liken or call it whatever you want, “religion”, “life philosophy”, “jedi code” or whatever the fuck. It doesn’t really matter,

In your “rant” you mention the upsurge in new age remedies and pseudo-scientific therapies that grab hold of people in huge numbers when religious indoctrination loses its grip on the masses.  I think you’re right that it has to do with innate superstitious tendencies of human beings - as if they need something to fill that “void” of magical thinking in their lives. I was once talking to two ultra religious girls and their conversation went something like, “I’m pretty certain that if you eat too much rice then the ability of your body to absorb zinc will be destroyed.”  These women had no scientific knowledge whatsoever, neither had ever gone to school or learned anything except religious indoctrination, and yet they were talking like experts on digestive function and nutritional value. So I can see that even if their religious beliefs simply disappeared the next day, they would still be completely delusional and fully convinced about things that they knew absolutely nothing about.

Yes, it is about teaching people “how to think” and not so much about what they must believe or disbelieve.  I’m one of those with unreasonable? hope that the vast majority of people will be able to succeed at attaining critical thinking skills, but we should use every tool possible to bring that success into being.

Ymirheim - 29 January 2012 10:52 AM

Society will never be rational if you just get rid of the things that makes us stupid. Humans are inherently irrational in so many ways unless we are actually taught to think critically. Unless you create a framework in society where people are directly taught not what to think but HOW to think then everything else is futile, one form of bullshit is replaced by another until we’ve made enough uninformed decisions to unmake our modern civilization. My argument that a “religion” that is based around teaching these methods of thinking is one more tool to add to educate more and more people. I don’t mind if anyone opposes this opinion but if you are talking about something else, if you are talking about dogma, indoctrination, spiritualism or anything else that you are reading into what I am talking about then don’t bother because we are not talking about the same thing.

This is the most predominant shortcoming in my opinion with the whole atheist community, there is a wide spread notion that if we just fight religion and superstition then we will get the Utopian world by default. This is simply not the case. What I suggest would help is an organization with a methodology to teach you all the tricks of skepticism, critical thinking and etc etc so an and so fourth to make you a real clear thinking individual. You can then liken or call it whatever you want, “religion”, “life philosophy”, “jedi code” or whatever the fuck. It doesn’t really matter,

/end of rant

I think we may be talking past each other. I’m not sure what you’re talking about so I’m not sure how much I’m reading into it. But my critique is based on what I understand Alain de Botton is talking about. While I think I get the gist of it, most of us know what religion is all about and how it’s presented, thought and practiced. I think many of his points are a big stretch and not necessarily analagous to the secular and Atheism, nor superior.

For instance, education. He says that secular education or higher learning unlike religion is not in the business of guidance, consolation and morality, that its goal is not to make us better people. I couldn’t disagree more, except perhaps in the context of a strictly technical curricular sense. Otherwise, higher education takes on the elements requisite for just that, in combination with most every discipline offered. History, ethics, psychology, language arts, etc, etc, etc, all are designed to make us better people through the attainment of knowledge in these areas.  He says that religion views people as children because we need help and they are more effective because they communicate in the style of sermons with the intent of changing your life, while secular education delivers in the style of lectures to impart information only. That’s not exactly true. Secular education as an institution provides guidance, consolation/support, ethical considerations and choices for information-based morality decisions, and most importantly, the ideal of well-respected, accomplished and inspirational instructors/mentors. And what about the oratory? I find much more convincing a credible academic (hopefully interesting and engaging) intellectual style delivery than a totally theatrical delivery appealing only to the emotions in order to elicit frenzied conformity and a hail of Amens. We saw Rick Perry running for president doing his preacher style gestures and phrasing, hopping up on his toes, etc. What a turn-off. If we consider the population as children to surrender to an outside authority rather than thinking for themselves, we’ll be in more trouble. I see nothing there worth copying.

The same with rituals, art, travel/pilgrimages—nothing I see worth copying in the sense of Atheism and which don’t exist in the realm of secularism with respect to variety and choice. He appears to disagree with art for art’s sake and proposes that art should emulate the religious attitudes for art. I don’t get it, doesn’t make sense and doesn’t sit right with me. Much of the classic religious art was commissioned by the church for a specific purpose. What is specifically secular art supposed to look like? The organized themes and didactic messages of artists, groups of artists, galleries and museums, rather than propaganda per se, is already available.

I don’t see what’s left except the worship aspect of religion, including church and ritual, and the “time” aspect of repetition (eg, “praying 10 times a day”). What will we do, say you’re bad and some horrible punishment will befall you if you choose religion over non-religion? That’s what keeps them going to church as much as the praise and communal aspects. There are equally good secular humanistic community associations and organizations with which to be affiliated from the global right down to local communities. I think most of all these things are available as a matter of choice and variety, and perhaps advertising, marketing and exposure are the only things necessary to improve a wider change.

I just don’t see the need to copy religion in any way, just offer the alternatives in a positive and appealing light and work to remove the stigma that non-believers aren’t good people too and aren’t going to hell.

But if we ever do have to have a Pope, I vote for Sam Harris.

can zen - 29 January 2012 12:24 PM

I think that what de Botton is talking about is strategies to enlighten the masses, and that’s the intent of your vision as well.  In my own strategy, I have taken the basic concept of god or deity and transposed it into a completely secular, science-friendly notion and I go about trying to convince people that there is an alternative way of conceiving of “god” in an entirely non-theistic form.  I think most atheists outrightly reject this approach because instead of smashing god out of existence, my tact is to gently educate others as to how the “god-concept” was originally created and how it has become erroneously entrenched within our society.  But my strategy is not meant to convince atheists of anything, rather it is aimed at theists who are critically examining their faith, to them I am saying “There is an alternative explanation for the apparent existence of what you have accepted on faith.”

Yes, it is about teaching people “how to think” and not so much about what they must believe or disbelieve.  I’m one of those with unreasonable? hope that the vast majority of people will be able to succeed at attaining critical thinking skills, but we should use every tool possible to bring that success into being.

I think de Botton was off the mark, but you zen, are RIGHT ON. Very sensible thesis and strategy without adopting the trappings and fluff of religion.

I am very sympathetic to Mr. dB’s case. It might be a world someone’s grandkids could enjoy.

I cringed at some of the words he used. No, we don’t need a spirituality, but we do need a viscerality just like they do. That’s how they know their spirituality is working- when it’s visceral. As atheists, we can skip the first part, but may not want to skip the second. We shouldn’t let our own theistic-like thinking to get in the way.

As Mr. dB observes, our problem as atheists is with the religious narrative… Dave might call it “considered” religion as opposed to “visceral” religion. When we’re singing hymns or carols or otherwise getting immersed in the do-things of religion, it’s all a part of our primate lives below the Chunk Limit. It is important for families and communities to see each other and create bonds through interaction. Other people who are unfamiliar or different make us viscerally uncomfortable. Seeing them express themselves and making eye contact trains our facial recognition ability and social skills. Just seeing someone smile instantly teaches our brains all kinds of things about them… viscerally. Of course, that won’t tell you what kind of wacky narrative they’re walking around with in their heads. But when fun begins and the rhythms of the event take over, it hardly matters which details of the Big Holiday Tale are true or only truthy. Religion provides a framework for visceral interaction that acclimates us to the unfamiliar and makes connections of mutual support. Collective action and charity are easy when you care about those you are collectivized with.

We don’t get together and do the dance because of the Big Narrative. We have Big Narratives so we have a reason to show up for a dance.

Sure, doing the dance is tacitly endorsing the screwy religious narrative and any responsible atheist does not want to do that. Not for one second. It will send the wrong message. It will be a personal failure to live up to one’s own atheist narrative.

The tricky part is that this is exactly what the theists want us to believe. And this is why we are the generation that will never see anything like what Mr. dB. is suggesting. It’s an example of an atheist answer to a question that has been framed by theism. Can an atheist enjoy a religious holiday with his or her family while still rejecting the narrative behind it? Make it so. Make it possible. Put the question in an atheist framework. Why should doing things and speaking magic words means you actually believe something? This is the more productive example to set anyway. Make believers acclimate to the presence of those who do and say things without believing a word of it. The only difference between this example and half the congregation is that they haven’t come out of the closet yet. Show how easy it is to go along. This will spread suspicion. People’s narratives will be questioned. Bonfires will rage with heretics.

The other trick is that this is exactly what theists want us to do. They want us to reinforce the stereotype of the isolated, anti-social and argumentative atheist who doesn’t seem to care about caring for others. In primate terms, it’s sitting with your back to everyone. That may suit some us fine, but if a non-believer longed for social contact or just wanted to stretch their atheist legs, there shouldn’t be any reasoned philosophical debacle to stop them.

Sooner or later, you will want to spoil their fun. Why not pick a time when they are having much less fun to spoil? Until then… “Merry Ressurrection of the Xmas Bunny to All! Where’s the special eggnog?”