8 ms·

As someone who would deny having a religion, can you clarify what you mean by that?

keiferski 6y ago
Not the commenter you replied to, but I recommend the book A Secular Age by Charles Taylor as an 874-page answer to your question. The short version: modern secularity is really more like a new development, where new influences interact in a (still essentially) Christian, Western context, and not a mere subtraction of previous religious attitudes. Really fascinating book, I can't recommend it enough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Secular_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Secular_Age
- randlet 6y ago
  It's still not clear to me how that implies I have a religion. Being influenced, consciously or subconsciously does not mean I have a religion, but maybe I'm misunderstanding your point.
  - keiferski 6y ago
    Well, it basically comes down to how you are defining religion. The idea being that defining it as inherently supernatural is impossible and simply a linguistic reshuffling, when it's really more like "you've simply started calling your belief system something else, but it's actually still just Christian." Keep in mind here that Christianity, like all religions, is a really big tent. Put in other terms, the Western world in 2020 likes to act as if it reinvented itself afresh in the 1700-1800-1900s, but in reality, everything about "secular" knowledge has been formed in thousands of years of Christian culture. For example, the idea of universal human worth, human rights, and subsequently democracy (in the sense of every human being, not the Ancient Greek kind), is absolutely rooted in a Christian context. Had a different society had the industrial revolution first, things might be very different. Or to ask a different question: if your values and actions indicate you as a group of X, but you vehemently deny (only with words) being a member of X, what does that mean? Is expressed spoken belief the final decider? Or does action factor in too? This is a really long-winded way of saying that what "religion" is defined as is constantly changing. The book I recommended explains it much better than I can.
    - acqq 6y ago
      Attempting to redefine "religion" to include "all the values people have" is a poor trick in distraction. Exactly in the Western world "religion" really means the belief in a number of supernatural deities, at least one much more powerful than the others, and/or in some form of life after death and supernatural punishment, and the institutions and organizations supporting such beliefs, dependent on their active believers. Everything else is simply not "a religion." And I also have a whole book to cite: https://www.amazon.com/Faith-Versus-Fact-Religion-Incompatible/dp/0143108263 https://www.amazon.com/Faith-Versus-Fact-Religion-Incompatib... "Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible" by Jerry A. Coyne "Evolutionary biologist Jerry A. Coyne lays out in clear, dispassionate detail why the toolkit of science, based on reason and empirical study, is reliable, while that of religion—including faith, dogma, and revelation—leads to incorrect, untestable, or conflicting conclusions." Also, Merriam-Webster Dictionary: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion "Definition of religion 1a : the state of a religious (e.g. "a nun in her 20th year of religion") 1b(1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural 1b(2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance 2 : a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices 3 archaic : scrupulous conformity : conscientiousness 4 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith" If you think "4" fits with the bad attempt to redefine the real meaning, it in to explain the use in the sentence like "rock'n'roll is his religion."
    - quanticle 6y ago
      Put in other terms, the Western world in 2020 likes to act as if it reinvented itself afresh in the 1700-1800-1900s, but in reality, everything about "secular" knowledge has been formed in thousands of years of Christian culture. That makes sense only if you redefine "Christianity" to mean "respect for universal human rights". By that logic most everyone is a Christian. Most Hindus and Buddhists would be Christian too. The problem is that changing the definition of a word does not change boundaries in reality. I can call my automobile a "Leaf", but that doesn't mean my car does photosynthesis. Similarly, you can say that Christianity just means "respect for human rights", but that doesn't mean that everyone accepts the divinity of Jesus Christ.
  - kritiko 6y ago
    Your question reminded me of this quote from David Foster Wallace's This is Water: Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship–be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles–is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
    - lukevdp 6y ago
      > There is no such thing as not worshipping Yes there is
    - ADayOnEarth 6y ago
      This is bs. I don't worship anything. Where do I draw the "real meaning in life"? I don't think there is "a meaning in life", strictly speaking. I came to be because of laws of nature and biology, and keep living for a while, and then cease to exist. I do think everyone can decide for themselves their personal "meaning of life". I would like humans to colonize other planets, and eventually other star systems. I think I have contributed to that goal by writing software that is used by a lot of people for information processing. I also like to be happy and enjoy life. Having a family, friends, and doing things I like with them helps achieve those goals. Making an espresso is almost like a ritual, but I am not worshipping the bean, or electricty, water or the heat and pressure that makes it all work. All the steps are required to get coffee at the end, which I enjoy drinking. I am not worshipping the gods of wine and food when I drink and eat. I am not sending prayers to other car drivers when I am driving, or walking across the street. I am not praying for imaginary beings to keep my loved ones safe, or ask for divine help when they are sick. I admire people who have worked hard to achieve great things, but I do not worship them. I do not know everything, and some things which I think I know are probably wrong. And yet there is still no need for religion.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- mannykannot 6y ago
  Secular humanisn owes a lot to ethical principles developed in a religious context, but it does not follow that by adopting the ethics, one is also adopting the religion. Any attempt to push that proposition consistently is likely to devalue the overtly theistic aspects of the religion in question.
  - rrsmtz 6y ago
    > it does not follow that by adopting the ethics, one is also adopting the religion Those ethics were created from within a theistic worldview, they weren't born from reason. Adopting the ethics of a religious culture while denying the underlying assumptions is pretty unreasonable.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      > Adopting the ethics of a religious culture while denying the underlying assumptions is pretty unreasonable. Why is that unreasonable? I've "adopted" the basic idea of Newton's gravity but deny the fundamental assumptions regarding the flat spacetime and "gravity as just another force" because general relativity showed those to be incorrect.
    - Nacdor 6y ago
      > Those ethics were created from within a theistic worldview Animals behave ethically/morally and they have no religion. It's possible that ethics were first written within a theistic context but that has no bearing on how they were created.
    - FabHK 6y ago
      > Adopting the ethics of a religious culture while denying the underlying assumptions is pretty unreasonable. Why? Are you saying that just because Islam stresses peace, hospitality, and philanthropy, that one cannot be peaceful, hospitable, and philanthropic without reasonably adopting Islam?
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Those ethics were created from within a theistic worldview, they weren't born from reason. In many case, they were both; the existence of a theistic worldview does not prevent the application of reason. > Adopting the ethics of a religious culture while denying the underlying assumptions is pretty unreasonable. But we do adopt the relevant foundational assumptions, just not the irrelevant ones, where the conclusions are shared. Of course, the conclusions are often different, because post-Enlightenment society often rejects substantive, morally significant elements of its precursors (in some cases, pre-existing religions have adapted to this and adopted, in whole or in part, Enlightenment values as well.)
shoreofwonder 6y ago
Every decision you make is made under a great deal of uncertainty. A person typically holds overarching beliefs that govern those decisions. For example, how much value do you put into close relationships versus distant ones? Is charity worthwhile if it helps someone who can't help you back? Maybe someone who doesn't even know you?
- randlet 6y ago
  How does that imply I have a religion? Doesn't religion have some element of the supernatural by definition? edit: reworded.
  - narraturgy 6y ago
    No, it doesn't. While the discussion of the definition of religion would result in its own holy war, suffice to say that defining religion based of the involvement of the supernatural is cyclical logic used to discredit any opposing religion. "Pagans believe in the supernatural, the sun isn't a mythical being! Only belief in my God is grounded in reality" is not functionally different from "Theists believe in the supernatural, there is no mythical God! Only my belief in the lack of anything beyond my current understanding is grounded in reality."
    - randlet 6y ago
      If we can't agree on a definition for religion, then saying I belong to a religion is a fairly meaningless statement no?
      - animal_spirits 6y ago
        Linguistics are the crux of all philosophical discussions
    - username90 6y ago
      Atheists don't believe they know everything, they just believe that people are full of shit when they talk about Gods or similar. It doesn't require any belief in the existence of or lack of supernatural things, just figuring out that it is much more likely that people are manipulative liars than that they got some profound message from some higher being.
NikolaNovak 6y ago
My personal, perhaps cynical perspective: religious people expanding definition of "religion" into meaninglessness. In most languages, "religion" will imply an ordered belief in a supernatural entity and set of accompanying practices. It is NOT a synonym for all belief, philosophy, ethical framework, world paradigms, etc. If it does become a synonym, then we'll simply need a NEW word to distinguish between "belief in supernatural entity" vs "no belief in a supernatural entity"
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  Interestingly free will is one such supernatural entity. If you don’t believe we are zombies you hold a supernatural belief.
- brlewis 6y ago
  >In most languages, "religion" will imply an ordered belief in a supernatural entity and set of accompanying practices Buddhism is considered a religion and does not fit that description. Your emphatic capslock notwithstanding, there's no single defining element. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion
  - jhbadger 6y ago
    How so? Reincarnation is every bit as supernatural as Christian Heaven, and there are accompanying practices that are supposed to influence the outcome of that via karma.
    - brlewis 6y ago
      I did not think impersonal entities were what the gp post was talking about; apologies if they were. But even including impersonal supernatural entities, the wikipedia page I cited shows that's not a defining characteristic.
      - mannykannot 6y ago
        It does not follow, from the claim that belief in supernatural entities is not a defining characteristic of religion, that the rejection of supernatural entities is a religion. You might be able to argue that they are orthogonal issues, but then a lot of religious people would disagree vehemently with you!

Not the commenter you replied to, but I recommend the book A Secular Age by Charles Taylor as an 874-page answer to your question. The short version: modern secularity is really more like a new development, where new influences interact in a (still essentially) Christian, Western context, and not a mere subtraction of previous religious attitudes. Really fascinating book, I can't recommend it enough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Secular_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Secular_Age

randlet 6y ago
It's still not clear to me how that implies I have a religion. Being influenced, consciously or subconsciously does not mean I have a religion, but maybe I'm misunderstanding your point.
- keiferski 6y ago
  Well, it basically comes down to how you are defining religion. The idea being that defining it as inherently supernatural is impossible and simply a linguistic reshuffling, when it's really more like "you've simply started calling your belief system something else, but it's actually still just Christian." Keep in mind here that Christianity, like all religions, is a really big tent. Put in other terms, the Western world in 2020 likes to act as if it reinvented itself afresh in the 1700-1800-1900s, but in reality, everything about "secular" knowledge has been formed in thousands of years of Christian culture. For example, the idea of universal human worth, human rights, and subsequently democracy (in the sense of every human being, not the Ancient Greek kind), is absolutely rooted in a Christian context. Had a different society had the industrial revolution first, things might be very different. Or to ask a different question: if your values and actions indicate you as a group of X, but you vehemently deny (only with words) being a member of X, what does that mean? Is expressed spoken belief the final decider? Or does action factor in too? This is a really long-winded way of saying that what "religion" is defined as is constantly changing. The book I recommended explains it much better than I can.
  - acqq 6y ago
    Attempting to redefine "religion" to include "all the values people have" is a poor trick in distraction. Exactly in the Western world "religion" really means the belief in a number of supernatural deities, at least one much more powerful than the others, and/or in some form of life after death and supernatural punishment, and the institutions and organizations supporting such beliefs, dependent on their active believers. Everything else is simply not "a religion." And I also have a whole book to cite: https://www.amazon.com/Faith-Versus-Fact-Religion-Incompatible/dp/0143108263 https://www.amazon.com/Faith-Versus-Fact-Religion-Incompatib... "Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible" by Jerry A. Coyne "Evolutionary biologist Jerry A. Coyne lays out in clear, dispassionate detail why the toolkit of science, based on reason and empirical study, is reliable, while that of religion—including faith, dogma, and revelation—leads to incorrect, untestable, or conflicting conclusions." Also, Merriam-Webster Dictionary: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion "Definition of religion 1a : the state of a religious (e.g. "a nun in her 20th year of religion") 1b(1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural 1b(2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance 2 : a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices 3 archaic : scrupulous conformity : conscientiousness 4 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith" If you think "4" fits with the bad attempt to redefine the real meaning, it in to explain the use in the sentence like "rock'n'roll is his religion."
  - quanticle 6y ago
    Put in other terms, the Western world in 2020 likes to act as if it reinvented itself afresh in the 1700-1800-1900s, but in reality, everything about "secular" knowledge has been formed in thousands of years of Christian culture. That makes sense only if you redefine "Christianity" to mean "respect for universal human rights". By that logic most everyone is a Christian. Most Hindus and Buddhists would be Christian too. The problem is that changing the definition of a word does not change boundaries in reality. I can call my automobile a "Leaf", but that doesn't mean my car does photosynthesis. Similarly, you can say that Christianity just means "respect for human rights", but that doesn't mean that everyone accepts the divinity of Jesus Christ.
- kritiko 6y ago
  Your question reminded me of this quote from David Foster Wallace's This is Water: Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship–be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles–is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
  - lukevdp 6y ago
    > There is no such thing as not worshipping Yes there is
  - ADayOnEarth 6y ago
    This is bs. I don't worship anything. Where do I draw the "real meaning in life"? I don't think there is "a meaning in life", strictly speaking. I came to be because of laws of nature and biology, and keep living for a while, and then cease to exist. I do think everyone can decide for themselves their personal "meaning of life". I would like humans to colonize other planets, and eventually other star systems. I think I have contributed to that goal by writing software that is used by a lot of people for information processing. I also like to be happy and enjoy life. Having a family, friends, and doing things I like with them helps achieve those goals. Making an espresso is almost like a ritual, but I am not worshipping the bean, or electricty, water or the heat and pressure that makes it all work. All the steps are required to get coffee at the end, which I enjoy drinking. I am not worshipping the gods of wine and food when I drink and eat. I am not sending prayers to other car drivers when I am driving, or walking across the street. I am not praying for imaginary beings to keep my loved ones safe, or ask for divine help when they are sick. I admire people who have worked hard to achieve great things, but I do not worship them. I do not know everything, and some things which I think I know are probably wrong. And yet there is still no need for religion.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
mannykannot 6y ago
Secular humanisn owes a lot to ethical principles developed in a religious context, but it does not follow that by adopting the ethics, one is also adopting the religion. Any attempt to push that proposition consistently is likely to devalue the overtly theistic aspects of the religion in question.
- rrsmtz 6y ago
  > it does not follow that by adopting the ethics, one is also adopting the religion Those ethics were created from within a theistic worldview, they weren't born from reason. Adopting the ethics of a religious culture while denying the underlying assumptions is pretty unreasonable.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    > Adopting the ethics of a religious culture while denying the underlying assumptions is pretty unreasonable. Why is that unreasonable? I've "adopted" the basic idea of Newton's gravity but deny the fundamental assumptions regarding the flat spacetime and "gravity as just another force" because general relativity showed those to be incorrect.
  - Nacdor 6y ago
    > Those ethics were created from within a theistic worldview Animals behave ethically/morally and they have no religion. It's possible that ethics were first written within a theistic context but that has no bearing on how they were created.
  - FabHK 6y ago
    > Adopting the ethics of a religious culture while denying the underlying assumptions is pretty unreasonable. Why? Are you saying that just because Islam stresses peace, hospitality, and philanthropy, that one cannot be peaceful, hospitable, and philanthropic without reasonably adopting Islam?
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Those ethics were created from within a theistic worldview, they weren't born from reason. In many case, they were both; the existence of a theistic worldview does not prevent the application of reason. > Adopting the ethics of a religious culture while denying the underlying assumptions is pretty unreasonable. But we do adopt the relevant foundational assumptions, just not the irrelevant ones, where the conclusions are shared. Of course, the conclusions are often different, because post-Enlightenment society often rejects substantive, morally significant elements of its precursors (in some cases, pre-existing religions have adapted to this and adopted, in whole or in part, Enlightenment values as well.)

shoreofwonder 6y ago

Every decision you make is made under a great deal of uncertainty. A person typically holds overarching beliefs that govern those decisions. For example, how much value do you put into close relationships versus distant ones? Is charity worthwhile if it helps someone who can't help you back? Maybe someone who doesn't even know you?

randlet 6y ago
How does that imply I have a religion? Doesn't religion have some element of the supernatural by definition? edit: reworded.
- narraturgy 6y ago
  No, it doesn't. While the discussion of the definition of religion would result in its own holy war, suffice to say that defining religion based of the involvement of the supernatural is cyclical logic used to discredit any opposing religion. "Pagans believe in the supernatural, the sun isn't a mythical being! Only belief in my God is grounded in reality" is not functionally different from "Theists believe in the supernatural, there is no mythical God! Only my belief in the lack of anything beyond my current understanding is grounded in reality."
  - randlet 6y ago
    If we can't agree on a definition for religion, then saying I belong to a religion is a fairly meaningless statement no?
    - animal_spirits 6y ago
      Linguistics are the crux of all philosophical discussions
  - username90 6y ago
    Atheists don't believe they know everything, they just believe that people are full of shit when they talk about Gods or similar. It doesn't require any belief in the existence of or lack of supernatural things, just figuring out that it is much more likely that people are manipulative liars than that they got some profound message from some higher being.

NikolaNovak 6y ago

My personal, perhaps cynical perspective: religious people expanding definition of "religion" into meaninglessness. In most languages, "religion" will imply an ordered belief in a supernatural entity and set of accompanying practices. It is NOT a synonym for all belief, philosophy, ethical framework, world paradigms, etc. If it does become a synonym, then we'll simply need a NEW word to distinguish between "belief in supernatural entity" vs "no belief in a supernatural entity"

mensetmanusman 6y ago
Interestingly free will is one such supernatural entity. If you don’t believe we are zombies you hold a supernatural belief.
brlewis 6y ago
>In most languages, "religion" will imply an ordered belief in a supernatural entity and set of accompanying practices Buddhism is considered a religion and does not fit that description. Your emphatic capslock notwithstanding, there's no single defining element. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion
- jhbadger 6y ago
  How so? Reincarnation is every bit as supernatural as Christian Heaven, and there are accompanying practices that are supposed to influence the outcome of that via karma.
  - brlewis 6y ago
    I did not think impersonal entities were what the gp post was talking about; apologies if they were. But even including impersonal supernatural entities, the wikipedia page I cited shows that's not a defining characteristic.
    - mannykannot 6y ago
      It does not follow, from the claim that belief in supernatural entities is not a defining characteristic of religion, that the rejection of supernatural entities is a religion. You might be able to argue that they are orthogonal issues, but then a lot of religious people would disagree vehemently with you!