Religion and Individualism

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

As a convert from one religion to another, I am in a position to credibly say, "That's bull****." True for many people, but to make a generality of it is contrary to the experience of quite a few people.

True in the US, (and probably Canada), much less so elsewhere.

44% in America, according to Pew surveys, though that includes changes in Protestant denomination at 15% and Catholic to Protestant at 5% (Prod to Catholic is so small it gets lumped in with "others"), which wiki dismisses as mere "reaffiliation".

11% is from affiliated Catholic/Protestant to "unaffiliated", which may include many people who regard themselves still as Christian.

Overall, about 95% of people worldwide never change their religion- the overwhelming reason most people are Christian, Muslim, Hindu etc is that their parents were and they live surrounded by others of the same religion.

That's why on those knowledge polls atheists/agnostics do better- they're people who've actually thought about religious beliefs instead of just following family tradition.

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

To my mind, atheism is not a non-belief. It is a positive belief in the non-existence of God. Agnosticism, on the other hand, is a non-belief, since it neither believes in the existence nor the non-existence of God. Very Zen of it.

If atheism is a non-belief, how does it differ from agnosticism?

In the case of skeptical or weak atheism, not very much- I called myself agnostic for years before finally switching back to atheist.

I don't believe in God the same way you don't believe in Zeus, the FSM, or the existence of the Rigellian war-fleet hiding on the dark side of the Moon...ooops, I've said too much....

But you wouldn't go around defining yourself as a believer in the non-existence of Zeus.

A little bit about the history of the terms:

The rise of the label “agnostic” is connected with the strange fate of the term “atheism”. In the 1860s Thomas Henry Huxley recommended “agnosticism” – the contrary of “gnostic,” a Greek term for knowledge. An agnostic recommends admitting our lack of knowledge about any ultimate reality, such as a “supreme being” or whatever caused the universe. Huxley offered agnosticism as a reasonable stance towards not just any religion’s overconfident dogmas but also about any philosophy’s overreaching conclusions as well. Skeptical towards both theology and metaphysics, Huxley and many other rationalists adopted “agnosticism” as a convenient general category for their conservative philosophical stance. The agnostic is not a complete philosophical skeptic who claims to know nothing. The agnostic’s standard of knowledge is just our ordinary reliable (not perfect or infallible) knowledge of the natural world around us. While presently unable to know anything about ultimate reality using these empirical tools of intelligence, the agnostic, like everyone else, is able to know plenty of other things about the natural world, where ordinary human investigations yield practical and reliable results.

Since agnosticism’s conservative approach to belief is also the basis for atheism, confusion between atheism and agnosticism immediately ensued, and has not stopped since. What exactly is the relationship between agnosticism and atheism? An agnostic, like an atheist, does not accept supernaturalism, specifically, because no supernatural belief has yet passed the reasonable standard of empirical knowledge, and so a confession of ignorance is the only conclusion. Despite the obvious overlap between agnosticism and atheism, the impact of agnosticism in the 1800s and early 1900s had the rhetorical effect of clearing a middle ground between religious belief and atheism. This adjustment in turn affected the meaning of “atheism”. If the agnostic cannot know that supernaturalism is right, and if the atheist isn’t an agnostic, then the atheist must therefore be someone claiming to know something about the supernatural. What might an atheist claim to know? The common meaning of “atheism” began to shift towards “disbelief in god” and “the denial that god exists” so that many people began taking atheism to mean “it can be known that nothing supernatural exists”. The agnostic, on the other hand, could still be religious through other means besides the intellect (such as faith), so that there could be agnostic theists as well as agnostic atheists (see Flint 1903).

It is not easy to track dictionary definitions of “atheism” over the centuries, since this subject, so distasteful to Christians, rarely received its own entry. By the time the term began regularly appearing in dictionaries, around the turn of the twentieth century, the distinction between two kinds of atheism was already noticed. The eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911) was the earliest edition of that reference work to include atheism. It distinguishes between dogmatic atheism and skeptical atheism. Dogmatic atheism “denies the existence of god positively” while skeptical atheism “distrusts the capacity of the human mind to discover the existence of god”. The entry goes on to add that skeptical atheism hardly differs from agnosticism. But skeptical atheism kept fading from view, lost in the glare of its new cousins, agnosticism and dogmatic atheism. Dogmatic atheism is now widely taken to be the only kind of atheism, especially in the recent form of a “new atheism”. This new meaning for atheism has achieved common parlance, dictionary affirmation, and philosophical usage. Instead of being an ignorant skeptic about the divine, an atheist is now supposed to be just another overreaching gnostic possessing confident knowledge about ultimate reality. Agnosticism has now re-emerged into popular view as a nonbelief option to atheism’s dogmas and religion’s faith.

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/...m-and-atheism/

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

The need for religion, to put it more clearly.

Ah. That is more plausibe, but still problematic, since some people raised in religious households have no real connection with religion, and people raised in secular households sometimes do.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Ah. That is more plausibe, but still problematic, since some people raised in religious households have no real connection with religion, and people raised in secular households sometimes do.

I'd side with Grey on that... 95%, or something near that, follow the trend. The fact that some trend elsewhere can simply be chalked up to individual experience. If your neighbor happens to be an incredibly talented violinist, the possibility that you might take up the violin, or at least some musical instrument, would be vastly increased over the general population that may not have a virtuouso in the neighborhood.

But the occasional exeception does not prove the rule, it simply enforces it. Religion is a cultural inheritance that is occasionally picked up, or dropped, by those outside a give culture.

[GrayMouser]

Which has some pretty disturbing moral implications for those who hold an exclusivist position on salvation (aka The Problem of Emeth)

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I'd side with Grey on that... 95%, or something near that, follow the trend. The fact that some trend elsewhere can simply be chalked up to individual experience. If your neighbor happens to be an incredibly talented violinist, the possibility that you might take up the violin, or at least some musical instrument, would be vastly increased over the general population that may not have a virtuouso in the neighborhood.

But the occasional exeception does not prove the rule, it simply enforces it. Religion is a cultural inheritance that is occasionally picked up, or dropped, by those outside a give culture.

Probably no surprise that I disagree with you, but I have no taste for argument for its own sake (and our disagreement is fundamentally hermeneutical, which renders the disagreement practically impossible to argue), so I will just let the disagreement stand.

[GrayMouser]

I'm afraid I don't understnd what you're saying here, Gwai.

As far as I can see brownjenkins is simply saying that, for most people, their religious preference is something that is given by the culture they live in.

While some people change their religion, and others come to a deeper understanding of their religion on their own for whatever reason- proximity to an admired example, personal tendencies to spiritual matters. the grace of God etc.- for the vast majority, it's simply following the paths laid down by their community.

Otherwise, you'd have to say it's an incredible coincidence (or sign of spiritual failing) that the popuations of Muslim countries don't accept the truths of Christianity, and vice versa, and extended to all other religions and countries.

AFAIK Catholicism rejects the belief found in some Protestant denominations that only those who accept Jesus will be saved- Invincible ignorance, isn't it?

A person who is ignorant of the gospel of Christ through no fault of his own (or, by extension, through his merely venial fault) can be saved—if he otherwise does what is required for salvation, according to the level of opportunity, enlightenment, and grace God gives him (CCC 847, 1260).

In such cases, people are not saved apart from the true Church. Though they are not "fully incorporated" into the mystical Body of Christ, they are "joined" or "related" to the Church Vatican II's language) by the elements of saving grace God has given them. One might thus speak of them as having been "partially incorporated," though not obtaining membership in the proper sense (Pius XII, Mysitici Corporis 22).
...........
Second, the fact that someone is invincibly ignorant does not mean that they should not be evangelized. Even if they are not culpable for sins against faith, the fact they are ignorant of the true religion and do not have access to the sacraments means that they are more likely to commit mortal sin and thus more likely to be damned..

http://www.catholicculture.org/cultu...ew.cfm?id=1203

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I certainly wouldn't dispute that; doesn't even have to do with any religious idea, but is just a matter of having-eyes-open. But I thought BJ was talking, not about this religion vs. that religion, but about religion in general, a disposition towards whatever-you-want-to-call-it.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Interesting tidbit: I was talking to my brother, who's studying psychology, and apparently twin studies have revealed a genetic basis for religiosity.

[Jonathan]

Yep. It's nothing new though. Some research has shown that people with certain genetic predispositions are more inclined to experience spirituality.
This hypothesis has sloppily been given the name "the God gene", which you might have heard of.

[GrayMouser]

Ok, now I geddit (sometimes I'm a little slow on the nuances)

One thing I would question about that is what do we mean by religiosity. I've had this argument with other non-believers, who maintain religious people are authoritarians, followers, credulous etc.

I think that there are just so many ways of expressing religious/spiritual feelings that it makes the idea of some people being more 'religious' types too broad to be meaningful.

Contemplatives, fire-and-brimstone fundamentalists, social reformers, aesthetic traditionalists, cheery organizers- all these are found not only in religions but other worldview/ideologies as well.

I'd wonder if someone in a Marxist society who possesses the "God gene" would find it expresses itself as an awe-struck contemplation of the march of the dialectic through history, just as a spiritual Nazi would feel himself dissolving into the great Ocean of Being of the Aryan race?

[The Gaffer]

GM, surely you're not saying it's actually the "Gullible Gene"??

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Yep. It's nothing new though. Some research has shown that people with certain genetic predispositions are more inclined to experience spirituality.
This hypothesis has sloppily been given the name "the God gene", which you might have heard of.

Yeah but I think this "god gene" thing has been way overblown (partially By Dean Hammer who discovered the VMAT2 gene that is highly associated with individuals who exhibit what he calls "self-transcendence" and is now pushing his book about it that he wrote and released before he released his theory in any peer journals). Sure it can be a contributing factor but its kind of like saying LSD is the reason for religion. Yeah when you are tripping it may be more likely that you feel more in touch with the divine or more transcendent but i dont think LSD is the reason there are so many devout christians or muslims or hindus etc. etc. in the world.

In my book, there are other much better genetic reasons for the widespread need for religion among humans. To name one, the comfort of having an ultimate authority parent figure that can take care of us and protect us is certainly hardwired in children for survival reasons. I can see how this can be translated into the foundation of a god figure as we get older and our brains can conceptualize such an abstraction. And of course the social instinct to clump into groups, support our tribe members and mistrust those unlike ourselves doesnt hurt in reinforcing religion's grip on us psychologically. This seems to work even in the most extreme conditions where common sense should lead us to better choices (ie: nazis, death cult members, muslim extremists, cathoic inquisitioners, etc.). That tells me theres something more to it then simply an overt considered cerebral act of CHOOSING ones spiritual identity.

Now this isnt to say there isnt anything behind the curtain. Just saying there are ways of logically approaching the issue beyond simply the Most Unlikely Miracle explanation. But of course the self serving religious response to genetic components to religion is simply to say See! God even created in us the means to reach him! Isnt he great!! So chicken and egg...

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

I think that there are just so many ways of expressing religious/spiritual feelings that it makes the idea of some people being more 'religious' types too broad to be meaningful.

Absolutely! Those who want to trumpet how widespread belief in god is equate the refusal to say for sure that there may not be a god with feverent belief in god.

I do think though that religion is cutural/genetic. It's much like the love for one's own close family. There is no logical reason to put a sibling above anyone else we know, but we all do. And we do it because of our cultural/genetic inheritence.

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Absolutely! Those who want to trumpet how widespread belief in god is equate the refusal to say for sure that there may not be a god with feverent belief in god.

I agree with what you're saying here, but I don't think it's the point I was making.

I do think though that religion is cutural/genetic. It's much like the love for one's own close family. There is no logical reason to put a sibling above anyone else we know, but we all do. And we do it because of our cultural/genetic inheritence.

Yeah but... kinship altruism shows there is a logical reason for that; it's just not one we as individuals know or care about.

"Religion" covers such a wide area that I think it has to be split up before you can have any meaningful discussion of it.

For example, I think that mysticism in all religions is based on a commom human experience, sometimes called the oceanic feeling- when you lose the bonds of selfhood and feel yourself At One With It All- which may be caused by a temporary malfunction in the control system which informs us of the actual physical boundary of our body at any moment.
(Not that would make it necessarily less real)

This is different from the burning sense of outrage at the injustice of this world and a desire to conjure up a vision of a better world to balance it out, which is not only common to most religions- certainly the more developed ones- but persists in modern political ideology.

Psychologically, the prophet Amos has more in common with Karl Marx than with St John of the Cross.

[GrayMouser]

What you end up with are all these disparate ideas, thems, stories, purposes etc that all get lumped in together and called religion.

Which makes it sometimes confusing to say "religion is..."or "religious people are..."

[Midge]

Originally Posted by Tessar

I am somewhat in disbelief that you guys are arguing about whether a positive non-belief is different from a non-belief. Does it really make a difference in the scope of the argument? In my opinion whether you say, "I don't believe in God," or "I believe there is no God," you mean the exact same thing... people who aren't sure can either believe they're not sure, or not-believe in their ability to be sure.

Ah, but ARE they saying the same thing? Many times people use the term "believe" to mean "agree". For instance, when someone says, "I don't believe in divorce," they are not saying they they don't believe divorce exists. They're saying they don't agree with divorce, or that divorce has no meaning in their lives. So, one who claims to not believe in God may simply be voicing their disagreement with Him, while those who say they believe there is no god have no confusion. The phrase "I don't believe in God" might be followed by the question "What DO you believe in?" but "I believe there is no god" has already answered that. But that's just semantics, I suppose.

*sigh* It is so difficult to join in this kind of discussion, so that'll be my two cents.

[GrayMouser]

Yes, I see what you mean, but in this case I don't think that it applies, if I'm reading Tessar's original post correctly.

To me "I don't believe in God" means "I don't have sufficient evidence to believe God exists", whereas

"I believe there is no God" means "I have sufficient evidence to show that God does not exist".

[brownjenkins]

For most nonbelivers, I think it's mostly that belief or nonbelief isn't an important part of their lives. Strong belivers tend to have grown up in a culture that nurtures, and even requires, common belief. It's only those that grow up in more mixed cultures that delve into the philosophical choices of religion.

[Nerdanel]

*bump* and some fun news from austria!

Austrian driver's religious headgear strains credulity:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14135523