Thursday, September 8, 2011

Religion in the 21st century

I went to a Simon Fraser University philosopher's cafe discussion on religion in Maple Ridge this evening.

The moderator Larry Green started off the discussion with what he thinks are the three characteristic of religion:

1.  That it offers a personal god for people to relate to, to appeal to, and to feel that someone is looking after them.

2.  That religion establishes a stable social order (the 10 commandments) by telling people how to behave.

3.  That it provides something that is sacred.  By that Larry meant something that is out of the understanding of our earthly world and something that we are not expected to know and cannot know.

Adam said that religion provides a sense of purpose for us.  Will felt that this purpose can be badly placed as in the case of the terrorist for 9/11.  Will also mentioned Christopher Hitchen's point that human society have been operating for thousands of years before Moses came down the mountain with the tablets.  There cannot be a society full of rape, murder, and stealing before the ten commandments as the social group will simply not last with that chaos.  Therefore religion is using what is already accepted as good social practice and turned it into the commandments.

Some thought that atheists are just as dogmatic and have faith in science instead of religion.

Will reminded us that the definition of faith is to believe without evidence, and trust is the expectation of future behaviour based on past experience.  Using science and logic as a method and procedure is based on observation and evidence.  If the evidence do not support the current scientific understanding,  then science based think will change to an explanation that will include the new evidence.  This is therefore the opposite of faith.

Religion is necessarily dogmatic in that it claims to know everything because god knows everything.  Therefore,  it is impossible for religion to change its position if it knows it was right all along.  For a previous pope to condemn Galileo and for the last pope to pardon him means one of the popes got it wrong.  If this means they are not dogmatic, it also means we cannot trust the judgement from the pope as the can no longer claim they are always right as they are the messengers of god.

Science start off not knowing and base knowing on observation and how it fit theories proposed. If new observations do not fit the existing theory, the theory is revised to include the new observation,  therefore science is not dogmatic as it is always changing as more evidence is gathered.

Some mentioned the good things that religion has given us such as the Salvation Army and other charitable organizations that have help the disadvantaged.  But there are also non religious charitable organizations doing good.  Good people do good things,  bad people do bad things.  Religion uses the incentive of heaven and the threat of hell to make less good people do good things.  But religion also use those incentives as reason for good people to do bad things such as the crusade, or converting others to their faith.

There is also the talk of the consoling aspect of religion,  that in times of trouble,  it is good to know that there is a god to look up to for help to get through the tough times.

The trouble is,  didn't god have something to do with the bad things happening?  Didn't he caused it to happen?  If it was the work of the devil, why did god allowed it?  If god was testing our will,  will appealing to him do any good?

Larry's three points on religion and Will's quote of Hitchens on social order before Moses and the 10 commandments make me think of the following comparison.

Imagine we are back in the second grade and playing in the playground.  There was a bully among our group and for him,  might is right.  The social order is based on the bully's might and the group survived, though perhaps uncomfortably.

One of the group members though comes forward and say that he has a brother in sixth grade and his older brother told him that the group should not listen to the bully but should follow a different set of rules as told by this sixth grader.  The bully was controlled on the threat of the sixth grader coming on his younger brother's bidding.  Besides, the rest of the second graders were also getting bolder because of this and though the bully can take each of them on,  he is hesitant to take them all on at once.

All the second graders now feel that there is a new better social order as the power is a bit more spread out than when the bully was the rule and that through one of them,  they can look to the sixth grader for protection and advise.

It is not necessary for the sixth grader to show up,  just the thought of the existence of this protector and the reinforcing comments from the leader was enough to build confidence among the second graders and console them when things don't work out.

They believe that some day,  they will individually get a chance to meet the sixth grader who, according to the leader, knows all about what is going on.  So they better all behave according to the rules set out by the leader.

Sixth grade is so far beyond second grade that it is impossible for the second graders to know the ways of the sixth grader.  It is sacred.

Maybe the leader of the second graders did not have a brother in sixth grade but made it up in order to control the bully and become the leader.

Maybe the leader dreamt or was deluded into thinking he had a brother in sixth grade.

It turned out that sixth grade is indeed different than second grade,  but not that much.

Mean while,  in the next school and playground,  a similar scene is played out, but the leader of the second graders has several brothers in higher grades and they have different specialities that the second graders can go to for advice.......

The two groups of grade twos met at a field trip and they both claim that their grade six protector(s) is(are) more powerful than the other group's and that theirs is the one with the true sacred powers and a fight erupted between the two groups, both confident that their own sixth grade protectors will show up to beat the other side up.

How much further should I go with this????

Are we out of the second grade yet?

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