Religion without belief
aeon.co
aeon.co
Personally, I think religion is a fine word for this. I'd rather keep it that way. Ritual without belief and concomitant warm fuzzies of doing the Right Thing is something else.
As an Indian, whose own mother tongue has been neglected by the neo-colonial state, and thus whose own epistemological roots are muddied up with those from an over-bearing English imposition, it has become very difficult for me to see the difference between Abrahamic traditions and the contemporary Indian ones (in the city atleast). The latter simply don't make sense anymore (which is likely why a lot of people are irreligious).
On the other hand, more than half of the traditional schools in India don't believe in a creator, and it's not clear if any of them actually believe the "devas" (godlings?) exist. Buddhism for instance borrows heavily from the Indian pantheon of devas, but expressedly keeps mum about their existence; those on the "Astika" side like Mimansa, while attesting the grounding of the Vedas, don't believe in the existence or literal use of many of the categories in contemporary Hindu life. Other than these, there was also a school of determinism (slaughtered off by Ashoka), a (much maligned) materialist school, along with who knows how many others - many of them were atheistic (in the Abrahamic sense). I'm not even sure what the semantics of "creator" is in the Sanskrit literature; there is a lot it, but its study is seen with utter contempt (centers of Indic study are now in N.Y, Heidelberg and Kyoto). Likewise, Yoga, meditation... gained mass appeal in India, after they took off in the West.
Edit: Updated for clarity.
It's almost a curse to be able to see all this, and be able to do very little to ameliorate it. Considering the poverty of my native tongue, it'd be very difficult for me to express it to the masses. Even if I learn the millennia old language, no one would understand it.
[1] http://www.cultuurwetenschap.be/pages/the-heathen
Edit: Update for clarity.
> with their jealous God
Does not even describe what many catholics actually believe. Does ignore polytheist and atheist religion.
> define clear in-groups and out-groups
Living in Japan, I was surprised to discover that religion is not considered exclusive. A lot of people go both to Shinto places and Buddhist places here. And that's ok. They also don't mind when tourists come to say hello to a kami. It is not disrespectful as it would be in a christian church.
> Personally, I think religion is a fine word for this.
Well it is called "Abrahamic religion". Buddhism and arguably taoism are atheist religion. Sikhism, hiduism (and even some forms of islam) recognize some other religions as being on the good path.
Asking every religion to have the same characteristics as abrahamic religions is a bit like saying that a language that do not use latin characters is not really a language.
Whereas if you're very loose about what you think is religion, you can't use the word by analogy any more. Any old ritual might be described as a religion. A morning commute might be a religion. I think that's too dry.
> Any old ritual might be described as a religion
Depends on the justification. Do you do that because of nostalgia or because of habit? Not religion. Do you do it because you think the ley lines will feed you energy for the day? Religion.
> A morning commute might be a religion
Are you doing your morning commute because you want a salary by the end of the moon (not a religion) or because you think that commute helps prevent the Ragnarok (religion)?
This is not an analogy, this is a pretty well-defined notion. And you need a wide encompassing definition if you want to be inclusive to all the religions usually recognized in the world. Jealous god, covenant and hell, these are far too restrictive christian-centric (protestant-centric actually) criterion, and would exclude the religion of at least a billion of believers.
Why not just use 'Abrahmic religions' then?
The fact that we apply the term religion to Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, etc. means that the conventional definition of the word does not coincide with those qualities of Abrahmic faiths that you described.
I've been finding it interesting to look even at the Abrahamic traditions - what parts of the ritual / lifestyle / faith are valuable, even if you assume the supernatural claims are bogus?
On this topic I've been enjoying the work of Peter Rollins [1]. One of the points he makes is that often we desire certainty in our beliefs, and feel safe with certainty. And it's interesting to watch someone swing from being certain of the existence of a god, to being certain of the non-existence. What they believe has changed ("A god does exist" / "A god does not exist") but how they believe it is much the same ("I'm sure of this because of _____").
I guess that's the difference between being an (a)theist and an agnostic.
Some examples:
- setting aside the Sabbath as a day of rest. Different from the rest of the days of the week. A day for analysis of the direction of your life, recommitment to your values, and taking a break from the burden of everyday responsibilities and work and play.
- ministering to neighbors. Watching out for and serving those around you. Having someone close by who cares and is willing to help.
- tithing - dedicating a fixed, significant percentage of income to charity.
- fasting - abstaining from food and drink for a day, and giving the money that would have been spent (and more if able) to help those in need. This has social benefit as well as personal physical and spiritual/emotional benefit.
Try going to your temple/etc and telling them that you gave already. You'll quickly learn that it's an in-group fee, not charity.
And yes, many people get a lot from mindfulness. Why do you feel that it's only appropriate on one day of the week?
And how do you get there without faith?
Not sure where you're getting this but that hasn't been my experience at all. From my upbringing in several Catholic churches you're expected to "tithe" as a general principle but no one follows up with you on your accounts. My family always set aside our tithing amounts each year, but we got to distribute it as we saw fit, some to the church, sure, but others to scholarships or charities that we wanted.
At the same time I have no idea if there aren't incredibly powerful beings somewhere that have the power to create whole universes that many would describe as gods. I also don't exclude the possibility that the universe is sentient or maybe even mankind or the entire earth is a sentient organism of some kind. Maybe the entire universe is a giant computer or simulation run by some more advanced beings. If those things were true they probably could be compared to religions believes. However, I have trouble calling myself agnostic. I think that that theoretically would make me agnostic. However, I have a hard time calling myself that because I am so repulsed by the naive fairy tales commonly associated with religion.
At the same time I also don't think it's worth devoting much effort to thinking about these things, since they are questions that tend to make no predictions that we can proof or disproof. I find it disturbing that society approves so much of asking childish questions like "where do we come from?", "where will we go?", etc. It's obviously just a mental rabbit hole and there are no real answers to these questions and anyone who claims to have answers to these is a liar or a fool. Unfortunately the big religions claim to have these answers. To me that makes any nuanced discussion about "religion" almost impossible with most people including myself, since I first and foremost want to distance myself from fairy tales.
Edit: Typo "there" -> "they" + clarification.
Theist/atheist refer to belief or lack of belief in a deity or deities.
Gnostic/agnostic refer to one's conviction of knowledge that there is or isn't a deity or deities.
In my personal case, I don't claim to know for sure that there are no gods but I don't believe that there are so I'd call myself an agnostic atheist.
Others I've met say "I believe that there is a god and I know this to be true" so I'd call them gnostic theists.
Still others say with conviction that they know there just aren't any gods so they'd be gnostic atheists.
Again, I don't claim that this is the only way these terms can be used or are used in practice but it works for me.
There's a technique, there's a mystery, you do the technique to address the mystery.
Techniques : meditation, fasting, hallucinogens.
Mysteries : God, Tao, Ultimate Reality.
Given the lack of technique in most of what we call religion these days, I think what we're looking at is a degenerate form of something that was pretty cool once upon a time. What we've got is basically fanfic.
Secular, obviously. If you believe the ritual negates this, you're redefining terms to suit your prejudices.
Agnostics can be considered atheists in practice but their definitions differ a bit.
The point is that whether people self-identify as being religious or not has basically zero correlation with whether or not people are actually religious. E.g. the media often claims that atheism/non-religious/SBNR is the fastest growing religion, but there isn't really any strong evidence to support that.
Orly? What's the truth?
This is based on a pretty specific set of jargon that most people probably don't even consider. I have a hard time believing that there's enough evidence either way to say whether more people who claim they're theists are actually deists, but it doesn't serve any purpose to conclude either way. As far as colloquial usage is concerned, there are a lot of people who are honest in their conviction as believers in "god" in some form or another, even if it isn't as specific as you'd like it to be for the purposes of that classification.
> And similarly you're not really an atheist unless you wouldn't believe in god even if you saw him
That's just... I don't even know how to address that. Your first claim was extremely specific and conforms pretty closely to very well defined criteria, but this one drifts much further from the same set of criteria.
> a position which even Richard Dawkins admits is untenable
I wouldn't be surprised. Literally no one would find it tenable. Not even Richard Dawkins, who is wrong about nearly everything he says outside his professional career.
I have a friend who prays before every meal, but has never held religious belief. Who the fuck is any one of us to tell them they believe something they don't?
> Who the fuck is any one of us to tell them they believe something they don't?
Who the fuck is any of us to kick down their door and yell it at them? Nobody here is doing that though. In fact, that's something religious people do to areligious people.
But who are we to use the correct terminology to ourselves? Thinking beings. What's it to you?
Maybe so. Do you know what that reason is? Are you confident in that knowledge? Would you be willing to contradict my friend if he said otherwise?
> But who are we to use the correct terminology to ourselves? Thinking beings. What's it to you?
How is correctness determined? If we are discussing what other people believe, we are not in a position to define it for them. We can do all sorts of other kinds of analysis: understanding how the specific beliefs affect the believer's actions; understanding the impact of those actions on the world; understanding the way those beliefs intersect with and influence other beliefs.
But it is not up to us to assign belief systems to others, even if what we perceive about their beliefs or their actions doesn't conform to our idea of how beliefs work.
I don't have to. But something motivated him to act, and if he's consistent he must believe it's important.
> Would you be willing to contradict my friend if he said otherwise?
Yeah. Of course. The same as if he said anything else obviously counterfactual. I don't care to, because your friend isn't my windmill, but...
> How is correctness determined? If we are discussing what other people believe, we are not in a position to define it for them.
We don't need to. The original goalposts are merely that your friend believes or not.
> But it is not up to us to assign belief systems to others,
"You, you'll be Muslim", "you, Hindu", etc. Funny, but that's not what we're doing. We're pointing to someone praying and saying there must be a reason.
Anything less would be denying your friend's humanity. I'm sure that he has what feels like a good reason for what he does...
So wait. You're saying my friend is religious? Or aren't you?
No. That he evidently believes in a purpose or he wouldn't perform the actions.
Habit is a reason. So is social conformity.
A lot of people don't think it's worth upsetting their closest loved ones and family just to make a strong point about their personal beliefs.
I personally have said grace when eating hosts who did, simply because I felt it was the polite thing to do. Doesn't make me religious though, and I don't think they would've been much bothered by the fact that I hadn't yet truly accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
your shitty attitude stems from the same function.
It's very easy to say this on HN.
I'd like to see you say that with a straight face to a war widow or a mother who just lost her child though.
e: 2016
A simpler scenario; I meet you and decide, for whatever reason, to kick you in the dick. In this moment, you are no longer an absurdist: your whole world is pain; pain is literally the only thing you can perceive. Now, post dick-kicking, when you eventually convince yourself again that nothing really matters, does your perception of me change? If so, why? If not, why? And why do you value your pain over the war widow's?
But yes, we can only follow our programming. Part of that programming is creating narratives and assigning value judgements to elements of those narratives and our sensory experience. Your narrative overvalues your understanding of basic structures you have a naive understanding of, while suppressing creation of those of a social level. If you find life absurd, its because your outlook leads to internal schisms.
You asked why we dance, and then referenced Ex Machina. Kyoko has no free will and is programmed to dance on command, and yet dancing seems like the one thing she actually enjoys. Is there meaning in her dancing?
And what if it isn't?
And if you choose to cause suffering for others in the belief that somehow it doesn't matter, then aren't you just shoving your beliefs down other people's throats?
edit: Maybe a better question is, what is the objective measure of silliness?
If I understood you correctly, your answer to "what is the objective measure of silliness" is essentially to say our best model of nature is of particles in spacetime adhering to certain rules. My, and what I assume is the common definition of silly, is inconsequential incoherence. Perhaps your definition is different? Nature is not silly, since the consequences of its rules are both measurable and consistent. If you're saying its absurd to think of human society in terms of physics, well sure. Don't do that, its the wrong layer of abstraction.
Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default-settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race"-the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.
See, the problem with going through the day this way is that it's difficult to express to anyone else, and then it doesn't really give you extra options for how to act. It's very rare that you are the one who can commit the small act of bureaucratic kindness, or that the awful woman in front of you can actually benefit from anything you might say or do.
Which is unfortunate, but on the other hand, I'm fairly sure that most people I meet would simply feel oppressed from constant exposure to the Force That Lit The Stars, like a room that's got too humid.
I don't see how worshipping is universally linked to the human experience - except if you define following the scientific process itself as 'worshipping'. The whole point of it is that previous knowledge can be overturned by evidence, so there should not be any dogma - and if you find any in your field, there is something deeply wrong with it. There does seem to exist an uncomfortable trend of going down deeply untestable rabbit holes in theoretical physics however - string theory is the best example currently.
Now, when it comes to Computer Science, this field seems to be still full of dogma - for me a sign that it isn't really a scientific field (yet) to begin with. E.g. "X considered harmful" type statements by certain influential people become way too dogmatic way too quickly, without actually requiring evidence outside of a few usage examples.