This bothers me as well. I don’t see why rejecting the mythology should be grounds for rejecting the institution and its many social functions that have yet to be replicated in any capacity by secular organisations.
My point is about understanding and analysis, not approval or rejection.
But if you mention the rejection angle, there I have a different fear: the general low sanity waterline means destroying other-wordly religion generates this-worldly ones and they are more dangerous. If people need to have wishful thinking, better put it into an other-world box and not apply it to the real world.
E.g. I think moderately religious people tend to be politically sane because they not need to invest their wishful thinking, hope, etc. into politics. They have a handy box called afterlife they can invest them into. Thus, they can afford to see politics in a sober way, not expecting much from it. They don’t expect political saviors etc.
Some religious social functions are denied to people who do not believe, or are unwilling to lie to their loved ones about their disbelief. It’s one thing to attend church services, quite another to participate in a baptism wherein you swear to the best of your ability to raise the baptized child in a belief you think is a flat lie.
Some religious social functions may be deemed socially harmful, for instance the inculcation of false material or social beliefs in children. (I don’t mean false beliefs of the form “Jesus loves you”, but of the form “experiencing lust corrupts your mind”, “listening to the Beatles will cause you to join a cult”, or “yoga is an occult practice and doing it will cause to become insane”.)
In many cases, the institution uses its access to members to advocate specific political and social positions which are opposed to humanist values; thus, the atheist humanist may see the organization as a political opponent.
or are unwilling to lie to their loved ones about their disbelief
I think this, again, is some kind of a very conservative Bible Belt thing. Outside that area in the Western world very few people do it because of real belief. For example my grandpa (Central Europe) went to church because everybody did, because it was the custom in the village. Nobody cared if he believes or not. How to put it… they were not as egalitarian as to ask a rural blacksmith to ponder about the mysteries of theism and atheism. It was more like, shut up and do the moves, and leave high thoughts to high ranking people. He never spent five minutes thinking if he is theist or atheist. He went to church, then had some kind of fallout with the priest, he disliked drunk people and the priest was drinking or something, and then just did not go anymore, basically withstood the social pressure from that on saying I don’t go there that guy is an ass. But beliefs never came into question. They were not exactly expected to think, only to behave as said. He did not think it is lie or truth. He was not supposed to think and did not care about thinking about it at all he literally said “The paternoster is the priest’s job. Mine is working with iron.”
In many cases, the institution uses its access to members to advocate specific political and social positions which are opposed to humanist values;
Humanism sounds like a dangerous thing. I am not entirely sure what it entails, however I have seen cases where people who were no longer able to pour their wishful thinking and hopefulness into other-wordly religions have invested them into this Earth and life and thus ended up making utopias and forcing and fighting others to comply to them, replaying the whole crap of religion: fighting heretics and unbeliveres, establishing theocracy etc. the most obvious example is communism.
Another issue was that for example when people stopped believing in original sin they started to believe in crap like “human nature is good only society makes us bad” which is obivously hugely unscientific. This went back as far as Rousseau and influenced modern history a lot.
So I would not base my values on the explicit rejection of religious values. If anything, I would borrow some out of it, like not investing much hope and wishful thinking into the world and society, considering it largely unredeemable and seeing society as something easily broken, and seeing human nature as something rife with factory bugs and not trusting much in the goodness of people.
I am afraid that humanism teaches optimism and that is the worst mistake of them all, because it leads to underestimating the costs of mistakes.
If anything, I would try to go back to pre-Christian value systems, like Stoicism.
This is generally a good idea. Christianity was originally a fringe utopian universalist pacifist world-hating, society-hating hippie stuff. Jesus was an SJW :-) The whole reason it could become solid, functional, and build the rather magnificent and efficiently organized Middle Ages is that it calmed down and learn a lot from pagan philosophy and pagan practices and customs. If pagans could make crazy Christians become wise and functional, maybe they can also make atheists become wise and functional. So that is where I would look for values—pagans.
very few people do it because of real belief [...] beliefs never came into question. They were not exactly expected to think
I think LW participants are probably much more troubled than the average about making public declarations that they believe something that they don’t actually believe. (I’m not sure I have very good reason for this, beyond the fact that I’m fairly sure it’s true of me and it seems handwavily like I’m fairly typical of LWers in this area.)
So if people here—or others who resemble people here—are more worked up about (ir)religion than you expect, this may be part of why: the attitude you describe that would make it easier not to get worked up doesn’t come naturally to those people.
Some religious social functions are denied to people who do not believe, or are unwilling to lie to their loved ones about their disbelief.
The exact same thing could be said about secular-humanist organisations—suggesting that there’s nothing inherently wrong about such a standard even from your perspective. Sure, they outwardly profess being much more open and accepting than institutions of traditional organised religion, but the overwhelming majority probably wouldn’t accept a creationist baptist or a wahhabi, for good reason—and the same goes for religious institutions. I don’t think anyone should be forced to associate with people who openly reject and oppose their world-view, which seems to be what you’re proposing.
This bothers me as well. I don’t see why rejecting the mythology should be grounds for rejecting the institution and its many social functions that have yet to be replicated in any capacity by secular organisations.
My point is about understanding and analysis, not approval or rejection.
But if you mention the rejection angle, there I have a different fear: the general low sanity waterline means destroying other-wordly religion generates this-worldly ones and they are more dangerous. If people need to have wishful thinking, better put it into an other-world box and not apply it to the real world.
E.g. I think moderately religious people tend to be politically sane because they not need to invest their wishful thinking, hope, etc. into politics. They have a handy box called afterlife they can invest them into. Thus, they can afford to see politics in a sober way, not expecting much from it. They don’t expect political saviors etc.
Some religious social functions are denied to people who do not believe, or are unwilling to lie to their loved ones about their disbelief. It’s one thing to attend church services, quite another to participate in a baptism wherein you swear to the best of your ability to raise the baptized child in a belief you think is a flat lie.
Some religious social functions may be deemed socially harmful, for instance the inculcation of false material or social beliefs in children. (I don’t mean false beliefs of the form “Jesus loves you”, but of the form “experiencing lust corrupts your mind”, “listening to the Beatles will cause you to join a cult”, or “yoga is an occult practice and doing it will cause to become insane”.)
In many cases, the institution uses its access to members to advocate specific political and social positions which are opposed to humanist values; thus, the atheist humanist may see the organization as a political opponent.
I think this, again, is some kind of a very conservative Bible Belt thing. Outside that area in the Western world very few people do it because of real belief. For example my grandpa (Central Europe) went to church because everybody did, because it was the custom in the village. Nobody cared if he believes or not. How to put it… they were not as egalitarian as to ask a rural blacksmith to ponder about the mysteries of theism and atheism. It was more like, shut up and do the moves, and leave high thoughts to high ranking people. He never spent five minutes thinking if he is theist or atheist. He went to church, then had some kind of fallout with the priest, he disliked drunk people and the priest was drinking or something, and then just did not go anymore, basically withstood the social pressure from that on saying I don’t go there that guy is an ass. But beliefs never came into question. They were not exactly expected to think, only to behave as said. He did not think it is lie or truth. He was not supposed to think and did not care about thinking about it at all he literally said “The paternoster is the priest’s job. Mine is working with iron.”
Humanism sounds like a dangerous thing. I am not entirely sure what it entails, however I have seen cases where people who were no longer able to pour their wishful thinking and hopefulness into other-wordly religions have invested them into this Earth and life and thus ended up making utopias and forcing and fighting others to comply to them, replaying the whole crap of religion: fighting heretics and unbeliveres, establishing theocracy etc. the most obvious example is communism.
Another issue was that for example when people stopped believing in original sin they started to believe in crap like “human nature is good only society makes us bad” which is obivously hugely unscientific. This went back as far as Rousseau and influenced modern history a lot.
So I would not base my values on the explicit rejection of religious values. If anything, I would borrow some out of it, like not investing much hope and wishful thinking into the world and society, considering it largely unredeemable and seeing society as something easily broken, and seeing human nature as something rife with factory bugs and not trusting much in the goodness of people.
I am afraid that humanism teaches optimism and that is the worst mistake of them all, because it leads to underestimating the costs of mistakes.
If anything, I would try to go back to pre-Christian value systems, like Stoicism.
This is generally a good idea. Christianity was originally a fringe utopian universalist pacifist world-hating, society-hating hippie stuff. Jesus was an SJW :-) The whole reason it could become solid, functional, and build the rather magnificent and efficiently organized Middle Ages is that it calmed down and learn a lot from pagan philosophy and pagan practices and customs. If pagans could make crazy Christians become wise and functional, maybe they can also make atheists become wise and functional. So that is where I would look for values—pagans.
I think LW participants are probably much more troubled than the average about making public declarations that they believe something that they don’t actually believe. (I’m not sure I have very good reason for this, beyond the fact that I’m fairly sure it’s true of me and it seems handwavily like I’m fairly typical of LWers in this area.)
So if people here—or others who resemble people here—are more worked up about (ir)religion than you expect, this may be part of why: the attitude you describe that would make it easier not to get worked up doesn’t come naturally to those people.
The exact same thing could be said about secular-humanist organisations—suggesting that there’s nothing inherently wrong about such a standard even from your perspective. Sure, they outwardly profess being much more open and accepting than institutions of traditional organised religion, but the overwhelming majority probably wouldn’t accept a creationist baptist or a wahhabi, for good reason—and the same goes for religious institutions. I don’t think anyone should be forced to associate with people who openly reject and oppose their world-view, which seems to be what you’re proposing.