ILX Religiosity and Spirituality and Agnosticity and Atheicity Poll

Nor am I claiming it should. Again, it's getting at this "small group of believers" stuff.

Having taught philosophy of religion for several years now at a large public university in a red US state, I've found that my students rarely have any clear idea of what they believe re. religion, even if they're active-ish in churches. We spend lots of time trying to get clearer on such matters, but it's evident that this clarity isn't particularly important for what religion does for them in their lives, which is give them an identity & a vague sense that they live an orderly life.

At this point I have to believe that you're pathologically incapable of talking to people without lying about what they're saying.

s/"people"/"me
s/"they're"/"I'm"

it's evident that this clarity isn't particularly important for what religion does for them in their lives, which is give them an identity & a vague sense that they live an orderly life

^ most otm thing in this and all associated debates

^ most otm thing in this and all associated debates

YES!

i think exoteric religious traditions give one a sense of identity and tend to reify god

esoteric traditions are more about ruthlessly deconstructing one's sense of identity

i don't think either way is necessarily superior. you can be the most tradded-out religioner and still get to shake hands w/god or whatever

god just the aliens cultivating us anyhow, no?

sad that the west has no present-day shamanic tradition

you get people in charismatic pentacostal churches in throes of ecstasy, but i don't know if that's a healthy framework for engaging with the subtle body

You seem to *want* religion to be this horrible backwards thing so that you can blame "Religion" for the problems of your country - rather than actually blaming the conditions of greed, ignorance, etc. which people have manipulated in a quest for power.

I don't think this two things are as separate as that. Christianity has succeeded in the western world because of political expediency and its huge adaptability. Christian thought from the 6th century is very different from today's. This is a particular problem in America. The need for universal healthcare (not in any specific form, but rather just the 'concept') is something that would be morally correct if you read the Bible, but the current state of a lot of American Christianity believes the exact opposite. I think it's funny that many American Christians find Mormonism to be strange and even evil when it seems to be just to be the logical extension of American Christian thought. It's true that if you take religion out of the equation you won't get a bunch of free-thinking liberals, but taking away the supernatural justification/rationalization for so much odious behaviour couldn't hurt. The dangerous x factor in religion is that notion that a higher being/calling supersedes all worldly notions and conceptions of morality.

Yes, but neither all of Christianity, let alone all of American religion, believes in the Trinity.

RIP Arians. Missin u guys. <3

now, plz don't take this as me being a dick BUT...

a lot of the talk on this thread relates to people's personal experiences or feelings. but how does that have anything to do with whether a god exists or whether religion is a good thing for people as a whole? why do these experiences necessarily have to be tied up with any one particular set of beliefs? i've have some amazing, life changing experiences that you might call "mystical" or "spiritual", but i'd never try to explain them in terms of organised religion (or for that matter, psychology/neuroscience). is there a point where you think "well, this makes me feel better, i'm not gonna analyse it too much."

tradition?

some people need context to frame their experiences. i guess you don't, which is great. personally, i feel weird being in an empty sterile room sans window dressing, props, etc. like, i recognize that much of it may be bullshit, but it helps me navigate the world. to my mind most things in this life are built on flimsy ideas, anyhow. why should responses to the big questions be any different?

ok. but that "context" obviously brings a lot of baggage with it. and do religious people really think that god and jesus and the virgin birth is just a story like lord of the rings of whatever, but it's the best one to make sense of their lives? the very moderate catholics i grew up around believed that stuff as fact (weird mysterious fact, but true none the less). and i think the majority of religious people do, otherwise it wouldn't have such huge influence and power in worshipper's lives.

really just trying to understand the nature of these beliefs, don't want to come across as saying that religious people are ignorant or whatever. some of the people i respect the most are quite religious.

in my experience a majority of people believe it to be factually true. i've often found (and perhaps this is arrogant/condescending) that those that don't believe it literally don't really buy a lot of what the Bible says, but they're just incapable of letting it go on some level because they were raised with it. xpost

xposts
well, i think many people have an deeply-ingrained need for myth

and as has been pointed out upthread, if you really question ppl about what they believe, i think many of them will come up with vague nebulous answers. like, the catholics you bring up may have professed those ideas here and there, but if you were hanging out with them and getting into deep discussion late in the night i imagine that the cracks in their belief system might start showing fairly quickly

when it comes down to it, most people, as much as they would like to flatter themselves for having hard-nosed materialistic sensibilities, have only the barest grasp on their experience and insight into their sense of self. all we have to go on is present-moment experience, which is largely made up of fading memories (myth). so, expecting people to speak definitively about "the other" when they are on such shaky ground as concerns what is ostensibly most intimate to their own experience (sense of self) is something of a joke

've often found (and perhaps this is arrogant/condescending) that those that don't believe it literally don't really buy a lot of what the Bible says, but they're just incapable of letting it go on some level because they were raised with it

i don't think that's particularly condescending or whatever. ppl are not very rational creatures when it comes down to it. that's just kinda fact

A lot of x-posts obviously

That said, I'd like to hear from Karen disagreeing with this -- it seems like a really hard thing to disagree with, so I imagine Karen thinks the argument is really about something else. It could be one of those things where you two are talking past each other.

Talking past each other is certainly possible, because we certainly no longer seem to be talking to one another on any meaningful level.

On the idea of "personal vs. mechanistic" - I stated upthread already that I thought that probably the vast majority of people who identify as vaguely religious (and how we get figures like "70% of the country is religious" or whatever was quoted upthread) treat religion the same way that most people who are *not* serious obsessive music fans treat music. That they are happy to "listen to whatever is on the radio." That their religious identification is simply part of their cultural identity, like supporting a football team, and if they go to church at all, it's like going to a social club. I do not know if deep questions of theology ever cross their minds - I wouldn't presume to know - it's about *identity*, not about belief or disbelief.

I think that when you are dealing with people who have very full-on, deeply held views on religion, you are already dealing with a subset of the whole spectrum.

Within this subset, there are people who are full-on right wing authoritarians. This is my small subset of completely literal thinkers. Then there are people who are "seekers after truth" - some of these people will have the spiritual-experience-gene or whatever and become people of faith - some of these people will demand proof, find none, and become atheists.

I'm prepared to accept a dichotomy of "personal vs. mechanistic" that is about "people who have given it a lot of thought" vs. "people who don't really think about it and go with the cultural majority".

But that wasn't the question, the question was about whether churches encourage the kind of deep personal thought and questioning that leads people to become atheists or religions scholars according to their temperament - my personal experience is that a significant amount (whether they are bored, overeducated MDivs from YDS looking for someone to discuss theology with, or Quaker meeting houses or Tibetan Buddhist centres) *are* willing to engage in and encourage that kind of thought. Yes, they are there, if you are the kind of person who is open to that kind of experience in the first place. And I *was* taught, by the churches I worshipped at, and the religious schools I attended, to *ask* those questions.

Is my experience as a "seeker after truth" typical of all humans? No, the majority of humans "just listen to whatever's on their cultural radio."

Is my experience "typical" of a Person Of Faith - given that it's a small subset of people who actually *care* or are interested to ask those questions in the first place? I think that it *is* a valid example of A Religious Person.

didn't vote in this, but i have a problem with both the "atheist" and "agnostic" labels, even though my general views fall somewhere in line with one or both. i don't call myself "an atheist" because it seems weird to me to define myself on the basis of what i don't believe in. it's true that i don't believe in "god" or any particular entity or force or process that could be called such -- but there are an awful lot of things i don't believe in, and i don't go around labeling myself as an a-unicornist or whatever. for me, the question of god's existence just isn't very interesting. there are so many more fascinating things to talk and think about, in science and philosophy and aesthetics and whatever -- i mean, i think baseball is more interesting to talk about than god. so saying i'm "an atheist" suggests a level of concern with the topic that i really don't have, and invites exactly the kind of debates that i find pointless. and with "agnostic," there's this idea that you're "on the fence" or something, which i'm not. i'm not hedging any bets, i'm just going with what i know. if i run into a burning bush or a divine entity manifests himself inside an orb of light on my front lawn, i'll incorporate that into whatever i believe -- but i'm not sitting around waiting to see if that happens. i'm agnostic in the sense that i try not to make value judgments about other people's faiths, because i do think that faith can serve important roles and i recognize that my own way of seeing things is just a way that makes most sense to me and is not the only way to see them. on the other hand, when i don't like the negative consequences of other people's beliefs -- if they have harmful effects on me or on other people -- then i do think they need to be challenged. but that's really a social/political issue, not a theological one.

anyway. in general i'd rather read about astronomy or phenomenology or something.

my personal experience is that a significant amount (whether they are bored, overeducated MDivs from YDS looking for someone to discuss theology with, or Quaker meeting houses or Tibetan Buddhist centres) *are* willing to engage in and encourage that kind of thought.

I accept that this is your personal experience, but people that go to tibetan buddhist centres and quaker meeting houses are an extremely tiny minority in the US. those are the places that encourage that type of thinking, but the 40,000+ a week megachurch most definitely is not.

I think you're possibly right about the casual religious person in the UK, but I think the 'casual religious' person in the US is a lot different. The default isn't a benign "I sort of vaguely believe but I don't know what in particular I do". They might not ask questions about their personal beliefs or certainly not theology, but that's because they're hard-wired to accept it all as literal. I think this is the problem with your grouping. That 'subset' is not really a subset at all. It's a majority.
xpost to kate

OK, maybe I lived in a strange, tiny bubble when I lived in the States (and that strange tiny bubble was called New York and New England) but my experiences were really not atypical in that bubble.

Well, if more than 3 people around you knew "Common People" when it was released, then yes, that was an atypical bubble. :p

I like religion. It imbues all the boring day to day shit I have to do with cosmic importance.

Given that New York is, like, the third largest state in the US by population, it's a pretty big bubble, to be honest.

But yeah, given the vast cultural differences between different areas of the US, I have never understood why they didn't just divide it up into 4 or 5 autonomous zones and have done with it.

Personally, I can't imagine anything more mind-numbingly boring that discussing baseball, but then again, I find religion and spirituality and the vast differences between people's experiences of it so utterly fascinating that I'll waste my entire weekend debating it, so that's why there's chocolate and vanilla.

I have never understood why they didn't just divide it up into 4 or 5 autonomous zones and have done with it.

Because Abe Lincoln said we are not allowed to. (A sentiment that a majority of ILXers actually agrees with, if their responses in the politics thread when I brought up the idea of "Why don't Texas, Mississippi et al. just secede already?" are any indication.)

i would actually, sincerely be in favor of dividing the country. carve out nw based on that ecotopia book (no. california, oregon, washington). give gulf states (including all of florida) to fundamentalist christians. the main reason i would want to do this is b/c america's constant cheerleading for itself is so embarrassing. a breakup is in order.

in thirty years the white majority will have died off, and the young people of today who were raised on web 2.0, twitter, etc., will have grown into adults who could give a fuck about THE GAYS, GUNS, ABORTION and all of that other shit. then it will be safe to put the mess back together.

counterpoint, though

I would not, only out of vested interest, because Ohio, despite the Democratic stronghold of Cuyahoga County where I live*, would end up in "God, Guns and Gays" country for sure.

Here's how I understand the Virgin Birth:

You can try and try to find God and have union with God and meditate and pray and do good deeds and do all these things but ultimately there is nothing a human can do to achieve that union because it is literally a God-given fact. All that remains is for it to be realized. This is the Grace of God; it's effortless on the part of the human. Yet pride (and yes, especially spiritual pride) gets in the way. Jesus was a from a virgin birth because no MAN could have been responsible for delivering God thru Christ to the world. It's God's gift, it's Amazing Grace.

Of course, this kind of opens up the interesting territory where you have a deified Mary among certain Catholics...

well, yes, that's how I was raised. also raised with 'those fucking catholics and their false idols like Mary and the Saints...'

esp since Jesus isn't the immaculate conception -- Mary is

Jesus was a from a virgin birth because no MAN could have been responsible for delivering God thru Christ to the world. It's God's gift, it's Amazing Grace.

i think it's more b/c people's bodies are disgusting, influence of neo-platonism, etc.

Kind of more or less a feature of every organized religion.

Kinda also the writers of the Gospels cribbing from existing regional myths where virgin/miraculous births were pretty commonplace.

"Even if you COULD just flip a switch and make those right wing authoritarians stop believing in god, you would *not* get nice, freethinking liberals. You would get a bunch of right wing authoritarian super-dogmatic ATHEISTS instead."

Authoritarians need to derive their authority from something, and if this switch were truly flipped, they'd be incapable of being effective authoritarians. I'm trying to think of the worst group that leans atheist and I came up with Libertarians, who somehow manage to be pretty authoritarian in their anti-authoritarianism, which is an amazing trick, but I suspect religion is part of how they achieve this magic.

"Personally, I can't imagine anything more mind-numbingly boring that discussing baseball"

I used to think that way, but the entire game's been changed by people who are basically nerds, and that aspect is totally fascinating. This is very promising in that maybe nerds can pull a similar upheaval within religious life. I'm not sure how sabermetrics can be introduced into theology but it's worth pursuing!

Authoritarians need to derive their authority from something, and if this switch were truly flipped, they'd be incapable of being effective authoritarians. I'm trying to think of the worst group that leans atheist and I came up with Libertarians, who somehow manage to be pretty authoritarian in their anti-authoritarianism, which is an amazing trick, but I suspect religion is part of how they achieve this magic.

lulz x100 to be found here

just fyi, a quick glance at world history and i bet you'll be able to find some super authoritarian (fascistic even) atheist/secular governments and political movements

Back to being serious for a moment, though, there's a part of me (and it might be that "faith hope and charity" leftover Xian thinking) that thinks that 40,000+ a week megachurches are a kind of "cultural what's on the radio" rather than a sign that the entire South is comprised of unchangeable Right Wing Authoritarians. That people with an agenda have managed to get hold of the cultural radio. And I don't think that the response to this is to secede and let them go hang, but more to try and promote a wider variety of radio stations, and you do that through interfaith outreach, and trying to persuade people that there are radio stations where people can hear YDS liberals and Quaker meeting houses and Tibetan Buddhist retreats - that you don't have to become a scary godless atheist, you can have a wider view of Christianity and still retain that important Christian part of your identity since that's so culturally important.

But that could just be me being a total hippie, saying repeatedly that that the answer to intolerant religion isn't no religion, but showing religiously-minded people that they can have a different *kind* of religion.

it's not just about atheism, is it though? it's about being reasonable and rational. I get the impression that sweden is a good country to live in because they're logical about things, more than anything. high levels of non-belief are part of that, but it's not the whole picture.

like, if you abolish religion, but everybody has to hero-worship giant pictures of the great leader and his corny moustache, then that's not really in the spirit of free thinking and rational enquiry.

it's not just about atheism, is it though? it's about being reasonable and rational heterogeneity.

But that could just be me being a total hippie

DING DING DING

Your assumption is that these people have a natural desire for spirituality or Christianity, and that if presented with more reasonable/liberal/etc alternatives, they'll find they can fill that void. I don't think that's the case for a majority of them.

"just fyi, a quick glance at world history and i bet you'll be able to find some super authoritarian (fascistic even) atheist/secular governments and political movements"

making the state or dictator proxy for god strikes me as being secular in name only, and often times not even that.

Philip, I don't understand what you're saying anymore. If you got rid of god, authoritarians wouldn't have anything to hang their hats on -- except leaders as proxy for god? Yes, obv. Now take the next step: Gods and leaders both fill a role for X, such that getting rid of one manifestation of X doesn't get rid of X itself.

g. k . chesterton to thread

This magical switch gets rid of X (religion). gods, man-gods, and football are manifestations of X.
BTW I agree it's impossible to flip this switch.

Like, it would require an act of God.

it's not just about atheism, is it though? it's about being reasonable and rational heterogeneity.

― Mordy, Sunday, 19 September 2010 17:51 (13 minutes ago) Bookmark

but where does the idea that heterogeneity is a good thing come from? religious texts are not exactly big on it.

sweden is not more heterogenous than the united states, btw

Also I'm not joking w/r/t sabermetrics & religion. Professional sports are practically a religion and nerds (laity) were able to change the game -- change the frequency of the cultural radio as it were. There were all sorts of myths and long-ingrained beliefs about what mattered in baseball, and the nerds were able to change that. Why can't they do the same for the church?

lol sweden is incredibly un-heterogenuous, and, well, kinda swinging rightwards

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/7278532/Jews-leave-Swedish-city-after-sharp-rise-in-anti-Semitic-hate-crimes.html

Careful there - that story kind of suggests that heterogenity is causing the problem.