Mises and "New Atheism"

[Taraz]

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You list an alternative, science, and then abruptly dismiss it. Why?

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First of all, your quote doesn't propose that science take the place of religion. And it's my contention that science can never take the place of religion. Religion and God serve an incredibly diverse set of needs and desires.

Most importantly, IMO, God and religion provide answers for things that science fundamentally cannot answer or at least cannot answer yet. If you've talked to any theists who deny evolution they always ask, "who created the universe if not God?" and they often say that they can't accept that something came from nothing. We are simply not advanced enough in our scientific thought to answer some of the seemingly impossible questions of life.

I think it would be much more fruitful to simply show theists where science can answer the claims of religion. Instead of asking that theists abandon God we should show them where God is unnecessary to explain things. We should attempt to massively reduce the size and scope of what God has "magical" control over. Eventually many theists would probably realize that their God is unnecessary for what they need Him for.

Basically I am advocating that we seek to educate without asking that people abandon the way they previously organized their lives. Religion provides an incredibly important social function and simply telling people to stop because it's wrong or dumb isn't going to work. We shouldn't claim that you have to be an idiot to believe in God. We should say, "oh, you don't need God to explain X . . . We actually learned that Y is explained by such and such mechanism . . . God isn't an adequate solution for problem Z because . . ." You don't have to attack religion or God as a whole, you simply have to aim smaller and strip away at it bit by bit.

So instead of doing away with God and religion at the outset, people will slowly realize that God doesn't hold any explanatory power for many things. Eventually they might decide that God is unnecessary. But we shouldn't make the mistake of suggesting that science holds all the answers because it clearly doesn't.

[SNOWBALL]

Replace religion with thought. This is pretty clear with everything Dawkins, et al., writes about. As for the role t hat religion plays in ceremonies, it would be horridly presumptuous for Dawkins or anyone else to come of with a uniform replacement. Replace it with whatever satisfies your mind. Hell, keep the priest and the church for your marriage if you want. It's all up to you. If you want to replace baptism with a horseback ride, fine. If you want to replace the priest/pastor at your wedding with a beatboxing MC, great.

I mean, we're not talking about ripping out your car engine here. This is more like quitting smoking. You don't actually "need" to replace tobacco with anything, because tobacco DOESN'T DO ANYTHING FOR YOU.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
Replace religion with thought. This is pretty clear with everything Dawkins, et al., writes about. As for the role t hat religion plays in ceremonies, it would be horridly presumptuous for Dawkins or anyone else to come of with a uniform replacement. Replace it with whatever satisfies your mind. Hell, keep the priest and the church for your marriage if you want. It's all up to you. If you want to replace baptism with a horseback ride, fine. If you want to replace the priest/pastor at your wedding with a beatboxing MC, great.

I mean, we're not talking about ripping out your car engine here. This is more like quitting smoking. You don't actually "need" to replace tobacco with anything, because tobacco DOESN'T DO ANYTHING FOR YOU.

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Smoking is an excellent metaphor, thank you.

[BeatUp]

If you need something to replace god I would suggest a teddy bear or maybe one of those pray-to-me Elmos.

[moorobot]

It simply isn't true that religion doesn't do anything for people.

1) It allows them to fear death less as well as to feel less saddened and get on with there lives when a relative dies.

2) It gives them a universal backing for beliefs that they hold e.g. morality.

3) It gives them a purpose/meaning in life.

4) It allows them to cope with not finding self-realization , happiness etc. in this world, as they will find it in the next.

5) It gives them a community.

[mosdef]

[ QUOTE ]
It simply isn't true that religion doesn't do anything for people.

1) It allows them to fear death less as well as to feel less saddened and get on with there lives when a relative dies through denial, which is well known to be a great coping mechanism.

2) It gives them a universal backing for beliefs that they hold e.g. morality, and an excuse for telling everyone else that their morality is wrong.

3) It gives them a purpose/meaning in life and the smugness to assess the purposefulness and meaningfulness of the lives of others.

4) It allows them to cope with not finding self-realization , happiness etc. in this world, as they will find it in the next in their imaginations, which is really a lot better than actually finding self-realization.

5) It gives them a community that pressures them to behave in a certain way and attack all those that behave in a certain way.

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Yay religion.

[moorobot]

Don't misinterpret my post as stating that I am a proponent of religion on pragmatic grounds. Far from it; religiosity in an individual is good for the person who believes in it but bad for the people that person interacts with, as the replies you gave in 2-3 and 5 illustrate.

[ QUOTE ]
1) It allows them to fear death less as well as to feel less saddened and get on with there lives when a relative dies through denial, which is well known to be a great coping mechanism.

[/ QUOTE ] I wouldn't say this is equal to denial. Denial in this case would be person X believing person Y is not really dead i.e. actually is alive in the non-afterlife. Religious people aren't walking around claiming that the corporeal body of true believers is still functioning.

[ QUOTE ]

4) It allows them to cope with not finding self-realization , happiness etc. in this world, as they will find it in the next in their imaginations, which is really a lot better than actually finding self-realization.

[/ QUOTE ] Actually finding self-realization, however, is a lot more difficult than simply positing that they will someday have it for many people. To illustrate why this is important via analogy, consider whether it is better to have a 90% chance of winning $100 or a 30% chance of winning $200.

[moorobot]

Furthermore, if religion doesn't have benefits for a person believing in it, why do so many people believe that religion X or Y is true when there are no good "truth reasons" to believe religion X or Y is true?

[vhawk01]

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Furthermore, if religion doesn't have benefits for a person believing in it, why do so many people believe that religion X or Y is true when there are no good "truth reasons" to believe religion X or Y is true?

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I will refer you to Snowball's smoking analogy.

[Taraz]

[ QUOTE ]
Replace religion with thought. This is pretty clear with everything Dawkins, et al., writes about. As for the role that religion plays in ceremonies, it would be horridly presumptuous for Dawkins or anyone else to come of with a uniform replacement. Replace it with whatever satisfies your mind. Hell, keep the priest and the church for your marriage if you want. It's all up to you. If you want to replace baptism with a horseback ride, fine. If you want to replace the priest/pastor at your wedding with a beatboxing MC, great.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is exactly my point though. We shouldn't suggest that people abandon religion, just that they abandon the more ridiculous parts of their religion. You don't need to "replace" religion with thought because if you teach people how to think a lot of the religion will fall away naturally. And there are some parts of religion that have nothing to do with thought. Those parts aren't really a threat to anybody and I don't see why we should force people to get rid of them.