Is humanity mature enough to manage without religion?

[Rum]

Just a thought which popped into my head. All the religion junkies of the world, relying on books and priests and experts to tell them how to think and live and that everything comes out OK in the end. The world is nuts enough as it is. I sometimes wonder how things would be without the 'opiate'.

All hypothetical of course, cos it ain't gonna happen any day soon.

[Feck]

Do you think overall the god-bods act better ?

It's not true in my limited experience of people of faith .....remember I don't know many .

[Ian]

Just a thought which popped into my head. All the religion junkies of the world, relying on books and priests and experts to tell them how to think and live and that everything comes out OK in the end. The world is nuts enough as it is. I sometimes wonder how things would be without the 'opiate'.

All hypothetical of course, cos it ain't gonna happen any day soon.

It's something I wonder about quite a bit. There's a lot to consider, but my final judgement is yes: the cure might be painful, but I have to believe it's better than the disease.

[Ironclad]

Yes I think so, if only it could be done.

[maiforpeace]

Well, there is a good amount of humanity that already manages quite nicely without religion, so it can be done.
As for the rest - it will still take centuries for us to be rid of religion I'm afraid, so I don't think that segment of humanity is mature enough.
I'm curious to see how things pan out with scandal in the Catholic Church. How many Catholics will deconvert? How many will convert to another religion?

[The Red Fox]

I think if humanity was mature enough to cope without religion it would have abandoned it already. Besides that, humans are very fickle, superstitious and stubborn creatures with an overwhelming need to believe in something, anything, as long as we have belief. Humanity is far from mature. Just take a look outside the window, we seldom act better than the animals we're so quick to separate ourselves from.

I'm optimistic for humanity's future. I think we have the potential to evolve into something truly great and wonderful. A peaceful, loving, rational, emotionally intelligent species with no need for superstition or violence. Until that hypothetical utopian paradise however, I'm going to continue perceiving our species negatively.

[FBM]

Rather than being either pessimistic or optimistic about it, I try to be as realistic as I can. It seems to me very likely that there will eventually be enough education in science and logical thinking that young people won't find religion very interesting or comforting anymore. The transition will be very slow, most likely, so I won't see it in my lifetime, but I think that's the overall trend. As we expand the human range to other planets, I think the archaic and obsolete nature of religious thinking will become more apparent.

[charlou]

Rather than being either pessimistic or optimistic about it, I try to be as realistic as I can. It seems to me very likely that there will eventually be enough education in science and logical thinking that young people won't find religion very interesting or comforting anymore. The transition will be very slow, most likely, so I won't see it in my lifetime, but I think that's the overall trend.

I'd like to think that were true ... I think it's an optimistic view rather than a realistic one, though, given all the other troubles the world is facing due to human behaviour and our rapidly changing environment. It's the sole reason I regret bringing children into the world, much as I love them. If only I had understood then ... Less indoctrination and the encouragement of more questioning of the social pressure to conform to traditional social mores and values, and a more skeptical regard of received wisdom would have been a better education in my formative years. That has been the least I can do for my children in the hope that they make better considered and informed decisions in their own lives.

As we expand the human range to other planets, I think the archaic and obsolete nature of religious thinking will become more apparent.

This, too, is optimistic ... and pretty pie in the sky stuff, I think.

[Hermit]

Religion started off as a proto-science by the means of which our ancestors endeavoured to explain the universe they lived in. It quickly became a tool for social control.

Science has done a lot to undermine religion, but neither it nor 'the light of reason' are sufficient to remove it altogether. As long as social structures require some sort of rationalisation to justify why it's ok to have a relatively few obscenely wealthy individuals lording it over the vast majority of populations living in abject poverty via the sector of middle class administrators and technicians, there will always be a need for ultimately religious fairy tales, be they notions of rule by divine right or free will. The brainwashing has become so pervasive and entrenched that the religious / ideological overburden will take a very long time to erode. It will not be completely gone until the social necessities for it no longer obtain.

[charlou]

Religion started off as a proto-science by the means of which our ancestors endeavoured to explain the universe they lived in. It quickly became a tool for social control.

I think it's likely these two traits of religion evolved/developed simultaneously.

[Twiglet]

Religion started off as a proto-science by the means of which our ancestors endeavoured to explain the universe they lived in. It quickly became a tool for social control.

I think it's likely these two traits of religion evolved/developed simultaneously.

I'm inclined to agree. Religion and law are closely intertwined, and communities generally involve both hierarchies (however flexible or context driven) and laws. Rules can be very useful when it's just too much hassle to explain and justify things. I think if we examine the purpose religion serves for many people, the non religious are having the same needs met in other ways. Humanism, altruism, empathy, coming to terms with death, dealing with important life events.

It's interesting to examine whats happened in some of the societies which sought to minimise or eradicate religion. Christianity was suppressed in Russia, discouraged strongly in Chinas cultural revolution, yet in both places the numbers of practicing Christians have grown vastly in recent years (or maybe they just kept quiet about it while it was forbidden). Either way, China and Russia both perceived religion as something which broadly opposed their objectives, and therefore, presumably, was competing for similar territory.

That converse could be mirrored by the perception of some Western nations as "Christian nations", and regardless of how many practicing Christians there might be in the UK or Australia, the laws and moral codes of both nations are strongly influenced by Christianity.

To return to the OP, I am not sure that rejection of religion is, per se, a sign of maturity, because as herd animals (or ones which form communities with leaders, if you want to be polite), most of us still need to have the same needs met by substitute, and the nature of that substitute is an open moral question. Were those who rhetorically followed Marx's doctrines after the Russian revolution replacing their religious zeal with just another kind of zeal?

I tend to think the problem really lies in a certain kind of fundamentalism and unwillingness to question, which can attach itself to any model, whether it's religious, political or even about the right way to cook a jam tart. The fundamentalists have more in common with each other by virtue of mindset - even if their propounded beliefs are diametrically opposed. They have the mindset, what the fundamentalism latches onto could as well be determined by the roll of a dice.

Religion is a useful thing for fundamentalism to attach to under some circumstances, and very destructive in others - but I wonder if the deep question is about how to deal with the need for certainty and structure. Something which many religions do very well.

[rachelbean]

yes.

[Trolldor]

Humanity ain't mature enough to do anything without fucking it up. Getting religion out of the picture only narrows the amount of fuck-ups we're capable of. A good thing, yes, but maturity is far out of the equation.

[FBM]

Rather than being either pessimistic or optimistic about it, I try to be as realistic as I can. It seems to me very likely that there will eventually be enough education in science and logical thinking that young people won't find religion very interesting or comforting anymore. The transition will be very slow, most likely, so I won't see it in my lifetime, but I think that's the overall trend.

I'd like to think that were true ... I think it's an optimistic view rather than a realistic one, though, given all the other troubles the world is facing due to human behaviour and our rapidly changing environment. It's the sole reason I regret bringing children into the world, much as I love them. If only I had understood then ... Less indoctrination and the encouragement of more questioning of the social pressure to conform to traditional social mores and values, and a more skeptical regard of received wisdom would have been a better education in my formative years. That has been the least I can do for my children in the hope that they make better considered and informed decisions in their own lives.

As we expand the human range to other planets, I think the archaic and obsolete nature of religious thinking will become more apparent.

This, too, is optimistic ... and pretty pie in the sky stuff, I think.

Maybe, but as I said, I don't expect this to happen anytime soon. I think as the Bronze Age passes further into the past, so will that sort of thinking fade and gradually, very gradually be replaced by something more productive. I don't mean this in a pie-in-the-sky way. I think it's a reasonable prediction for the very long-term future.

[CJ]