I don’t much care about the “function” of religion; I care whether it is factually correct.
So, is Confucianism factually correct? Or shamanic animism, for that matter? Not all religions involve a cosmology (i.e. claims about what the real world is factually like)!
Shamanic animism is false; that’s a pretty easy one.
As I understand it, Confucianism is a collection of advice on how to live a good life and have a good society. That makes it harder to evaluate empirically; I imagine that some of it is true of people generally, some of it is true of ancient China, some of it is false, and some of it is not truth-apt.
Shamanic animism is false; that’s a pretty easy one.
So, you think that shamanic practices are not doing anything interesting? e.g. that altered states of consciousness, such as are claimed to be inherent in these practices, don’t really exist? (If so, that would seem to be falsified by the available evidence.) Or perhaps that practices and cognitive stances linked to shamanic animism are not in fact beneficial to those who pursue them (Such as the stance of striving to relate to the enduring ‘spirit’ of one’s ancestors, in order to heal a perceived psychological weakness or illness)?
is Confucianism factually correct? Or shamanic animism, for that matter? Not all religions involve a cosmology (i.e. claims about what the real world is factually like)!
There are multiple levels of claim to evaluate. For the religions I’ve paid any attention to, the surface factual claims which differ from standard atheist science are false, and the typically unstated underlying claims that their metaphors are “best” for some set of “proper” life goals is false or meaningless.
Can you give an example of a claim of Confucianism or shamanic animism that’s true and useful?
Note that I do care about the functions of religion, in the same way I care about the functions of political systems or the function of music. A lot of people claim to believe nonsensical things, and deconstructing claims and associations helps me understand them and myself better.
So, is Confucianism factually correct? Or shamanic animism, for that matter? Not all religions involve a cosmology (i.e. claims about what the real world is factually like)!
Shamanic animism is false; that’s a pretty easy one.
As I understand it, Confucianism is a collection of advice on how to live a good life and have a good society. That makes it harder to evaluate empirically; I imagine that some of it is true of people generally, some of it is true of ancient China, some of it is false, and some of it is not truth-apt.
So, you think that shamanic practices are not doing anything interesting? e.g. that altered states of consciousness, such as are claimed to be inherent in these practices, don’t really exist? (If so, that would seem to be falsified by the available evidence.) Or perhaps that practices and cognitive stances linked to shamanic animism are not in fact beneficial to those who pursue them (Such as the stance of striving to relate to the enduring ‘spirit’ of one’s ancestors, in order to heal a perceived psychological weakness or illness)?
Some of the practices may have effects, but generally not for the reasons claimed.
There are multiple levels of claim to evaluate. For the religions I’ve paid any attention to, the surface factual claims which differ from standard atheist science are false, and the typically unstated underlying claims that their metaphors are “best” for some set of “proper” life goals is false or meaningless.
Can you give an example of a claim of Confucianism or shamanic animism that’s true and useful?
Note that I do care about the functions of religion, in the same way I care about the functions of political systems or the function of music. A lot of people claim to believe nonsensical things, and deconstructing claims and associations helps me understand them and myself better.