What purpose should religion serve?

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

Moderators: AMod, iMod

Philosophy Explorer
Posts: 5621
Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2014 7:39 am

What purpose should religion serve?

Post by Philosophy Explorer »

Just trying to get down to the nitty-gritty.

PhilX
User avatar
Harbal
Posts: 9565
Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2013 10:03 pm
Location: Yorkshire
Contact:

Re: What purpose should religion serve?

Post by Harbal »

I think it's main purpose is to give nut jobs material to work with.
Skip
Posts: 2820
Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2011 1:34 pm

Re: What purpose should religion serve?

Post by Skip »

The purposes it has served in the past were:
- to unite one tribe and differentiate it from all other tribes
- to provide a narrative about the origin of peoples
- to give mankind a handle on natural phenomena --- by 'handle', I mean: a way to think about them, describe a relationship to them, and an illusion of control over at least some of them*
- to lend authority to the rules of behaviour#

* is most important from the believer's pov
# is most important from the ruler's pov

The main purposes it has in the present are:
- to differentiate one tribe from another, preferably with mutual suspicion and hostility
- * to standardize community morals and manners
- to regulate people's reproductive activity (i.e. keep making more little us than them)
- to support the entrenched hierarchy of status, power and wealth
- to raise revenue for charities
-# to make people subservient to undeserving masters through the exploitation of irrational fears and impossible hopes
Walker
Posts: 14280
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: What purpose should religion serve?

Post by Walker »

Also, to worship and practice devotion.

Religion channels this natural human tendency of worship and devotion into a common direction. Different religions provide maps in different ways.

Without religion, the common direction is conditioned into the secular culture by persuaders, via mass communication.

Many retailers have succeeded in channeling the need for religious devotion into products. Secular fundamentalists are known to gather in pre-dawn rituals, awaiting in the pre-dawn with religious devotion for the hidden keys to unlock the storefronts, those temples of all things electronic. Here, with religious devotion, in all kinds of weather, the worshipful energy of devotion that once greeted a religious holiday now greets the latest version of some electronic must-have.

Nature will have its way, whether or not it’s called religion.

Superbowl, politics, sneakers, the bottle. Religion, devotion. The child looking through the toy box for luv.
Skip
Posts: 2820
Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2011 1:34 pm

Re: What purpose should religion serve?

Post by Skip »

I'd like to take a survey of all those people waiting to buy electronics, or fighting over a stupid faddish toy:
- how many are practicing members of some established church
- how many think they've been redeemed by snuffing a carpenter 2000 years ago
- how many actually prayed to get the stupid toy
- how many pray for the outcome of the Superbowl -- after making a wager

There is no natural human tendency to worship. There is plenty of exploitable fear, exploitable greed, exploitable guilt; and there certainly is more than enough credulity to sell any amount of BS.
Last edited by Skip on Fri Feb 17, 2017 10:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Walker
Posts: 14280
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: What purpose should religion serve?

Post by Walker »

Skip wrote:I'd like to take a survey of all those people waiting to buy electronics, or fighting over a stupid faddish toy:
- how many are practicing members of some established church
- how many think they've been redeemed by snuffing a carpenter 2000 years ago
- how many actually prayed to get the stupid toy
- how many pray for the outcome of the Superbowl -- after making a wager
How many wished upon a star, Starbuck?

Rose Royce - Wishing On A Star
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGYpc7AuQjQ

:wink:
Skip
Posts: 2820
Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2011 1:34 pm

Re: What purpose should religion serve?

Post by Skip »

one third;
a third blew out a candle
and a third snapped a turkey clavicle
Walker
Posts: 14280
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: What purpose should religion serve?

Post by Walker »

Skip wrote: There is no natural human tendency to worship. There is plenty of exploitable fear, exploitable greed, exploitable guilt; and there certainly is more than enough credulity to sell any amount of BS.
:lol:

You may want to take a survey of world cultures.
Skip
Posts: 2820
Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2011 1:34 pm

Re: What purpose should religion serve?

Post by Skip »

I have. Thus, the above conclusions.
Any time, any place somebody is selling woo, the suckers line up 'round the block.
Walker
Posts: 14280
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: What purpose should religion serve?

Post by Walker »

Religion is a comfort for older people who have always known the religion.

Religion ties the past to the present in the context of an ordered structure, and this is important when keystones begin to crumble.

Religion holds the memories of all the beloved people and places. Because the religion is present, they too are as present in essence as they ever were at all the other times when they could not be touched with the senses.

Genuine comfort is important for peace of mind.

Peace of mind is important when all that first came into awareness and stayed, begins to leave, one person and thing at a time.

Religion is refuge from a cold world.

The comfort of religion is its permanence.

The only way to take away religion from one comforted by peace of mind, and true comfort is always peace of mind, is to take away the intermediary catalyst that is mind itself, for mind activates the principle of the religion.

Religion discovered by adults serves the same purpose as religion always known.

For converts, religion is the permanence that is the antidote to the worldly path of illusion.

Religion is also an attraction for the curious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKInH9Z-obI
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: What purpose should religion serve?

Post by Dontaskme »

Philosophy Explorer wrote:Just trying to get down to the nitty-gritty.

PhilX

Religion serves as a messenger via the pen, and the voice....as and through the only instrument available, the body of man... to escape the cycle of birth and death in the physical.... and to realign, come into phase with eternal Oneness that's without birth and death. Man is the handmaiden of God so to speak... That's all that religion is doing.. is trying to merge back with itself from it's apparent separation aka duality.

And now a really cool image to back that up.


Image

Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel them.


In other words...

We begin to think cosmically...
Skip
Posts: 2820
Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2011 1:34 pm

Re: What purpose should religion serve?

Post by Skip »

Community
is a comfort for older people who have always known [one].


History
ties the past to the present in the context of an ordered structure, and this is important
when keystones begin to crumble.
They should have used granite, not gingerbread.

Photo album
holds the memories of all the beloved people and places.

Genuine comfort is important for peace of mind.
If it were genuine!

A house
is refuge from a cold world.
The comfort of religion is its http://christianityinview.com/timeline.html permanence.
And that's just one religion. Think of all the wars and upheavals in all the other religions! Not to mention their clashes with one another.

Literacy, golf, chocolate, science, television....
discovered by adults serves the same purpose as [sic] always known.
For converts, [enlightenment] is the permanence that is the antidote to the [superstitious] path of illusion.
The Smithsonian
is also an attraction for the curious.
Walker
Posts: 14280
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: What purpose should religion serve?

Post by Walker »

You’ve named disparate things that can individually substitute for conceptually delineated aspects of religion. Each of those things contributes to a balanced life.

However, not every thing has the emotional, impactful connection upon perception of reality as the keystones that are the lives that have shaped your life, some of whom loved you into being, some of whom maybe hated you into being.

That one thing that holds all those characteristics of keystones and photo albums and museums, the one thing that gathers them all together for perpetual ever-existence in the mind-form, is religion.

As with all compounded things, religion is greater than the sum of its diverse parts, even those parts that are not geographically, geologically, or gingerbreadman dependent.
Skip
Posts: 2820
Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2011 1:34 pm

Re: What purpose should religion serve?

Post by Skip »

In your world-view, religion could be replaced by an overstuffed sofa.

Fact is, it brings comfort to few, while bringing anxiety, guilt, shame, hate, fear, plunder, torture and murder to many.
User avatar
Hobbes' Choice
Posts: 8364
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:45 am

Re: What purpose should religion serve?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

The only purpose religion should serve is its own self destruction.
Post Reply