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As you said yourself, people do it to belong to a social circle. What are you replacing this extremely important function with? Vacuum?
by liaukovv 6y ago
As you said yourself, people do it to belong to a social circle.
What are you replacing this extremely important function with? Vacuum?
- WJW 6y agoSports, online forums, student fraternities, social clubs of every variety, etc. There are many ways to get active in society that don't involve beliefs in higher beings.
- da_big_ghey 6y agoin theories these are perhaps able to replace a religions activities. in reality we are notice large decreasing in socialisation in young people and so this replacement is maybe not working so well as in theories. even social clubs you have mention are on declining also. one go to rotary or others and it is all old persons. have a shared value system is making for great connecting between persons.
- Mertax 6y agoFew of these instill purpose and influence behavior of a person in the same way that religion does. You might disagree, but I would argue that the virtues extolled by the vast majority of religious organizations are good ideals to be striving for and wonder what is going to replace this?
- gregkerzhner 6y agoI would love to see stats on religious prevalence and incidence of crime, homocide, etc. My guess is that such stats won’t put religion (especially Christianity) in a favorable light.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- MisterBastahrd 6y agoYou mean self-righteousness and a superiority complex. The person who lives a decent life because it is right for everyone is morally superior to someone who lives a decent life because he fears of being cast into a lake of fire. And even then, Christians murder more people in the US than anyone, per-capita or otherwise.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- RankingMember 6y agoI can only speak for myself, but I try to treat the people I encounter well because people that don't are, in my experience, dicks. No higher power necessary. I've also found in my life that trying to derive purpose from some external motivator (religion, self-help books, etc.) is a recipe for temporary motivation only. Real, lasting change comes from self-discovery and discipline, in my opinion.
- ISL 6y agoThose activities don't help much when you encounter the really big challenges in life. Spirituality offers frameworks for dealing with, and often embracing, many of the questions for which there may never be a satisfactory answer. Whether you believe the postulates of a religion or not, there a ton of higher-level lessons to be learned from those who do.
- WJW 6y agoYou make it seem like religion is some sort of prerequisite for gaining wisdom, while at best it seems to be orthogonal. For example, reading philosophy from both modern and ancient sources can provide the framework you mention without ever getting all that close to the trappings of traditional religions. There are tons of higher level lessons to be learned from both religious and non-religious sources.
- encryptluks2 6y agoI'd even go as far to say the "wisdom" gained in church is often far less insightful than the wisdom gained from a pure moral and philosophical perspective.
- mantas 6y agoNone of these bring the whole (or even the majority of) community together. It's just social bubbles further fragmenting society.
- tiborsaas 6y agoThe problem is not with the goal, it's the quality of those circles. There are groups without much hypocrisy, mysticism and abuse.