I agree with you. I remember studying the Enlightenment at university within the context of comparative religion and having it described as the apotheosis of Christian rationalist thought, severed from transcendence. Which of course made it doomed to fail (in the eyes of the lecturer).

I consider the idea that our culture’s quest for interstellar travel is really the sublimated longing for immortality. — Wayfarer

Agree. But there's a lot of sublimation going around, right? Some forms of extreme woke thinking seem to me to be what happens when religion is replaced by culture. But don't tell anyone...

This gets to an interesting question: by progress do we mean the metrics that technocrats tend to use: self reported well being, income, educational attainment, crime rates, etc. or do we mean subscribing to a specific set of beliefs and policy positions? Further, we might ask, is democratic participation a good in and of itself, even if it leads to regressive policies, or is democratic process only a means to progress?

This comes up in the real world, as when ballot measures to recognize gay marriage (a progressive good) were hurt by higher turn out among low income and minority voters (generally taken to be another progressive good). And it comes up when "progressive ends," are sought using highly regressive means.

Just to take one of your examples; isn't gun control simply a means to an end, fewer murders and assaults? We have plenty of areas of the US where gun ownership is extremely high and gun violence is extremely low. If religious observance reduces violent crime, isn't it already achieving the good we want (to some degree at least). I generally think the problem people have in accepting gun control is in being unable to generalize and identify with others. They are unable to see the negative effects of gun sales outside their lived context. That and they get too focused on liberal absolutes, the idea that, as a rule, freedoms shouldn't be taken away from the responsible due to other's responsibility.

I think this is a flawed way of looking at things; it fails to account for the way society functions as a whole, not a collection of individuals.

But my point here would be that various goods seem to cut against each other. In general, when progressives claim that low income individuals "vote against their own interests," the claim is that they are mislead, lacking in knowledge about what the "good is." Yet it is still assumed that they are seeking the good.

However, when the focus turns to outgroups, this assumption tends to go out the window. The pursuit of "bad policies" becomes tied to intrinsic qualities related to the outgroup (just see prior replies). The problem is then framed as intrinsic lack of intelligence, as opposed to contingent lack of knowledge or manipulation. The problem is wickedness, as opposed to differing opinions of the good.

But I'd tend to say that religion is regressive to the extent that it constrains knowledge or allows for manipulation, but can also be quite progressive to the extent that it leads to identification with others and a focus on rationally seeking the "good" and putting efforts towards that end.

Further, we could question how contingent the political-religous divide is. Religion has historically been a driving force on more "left-wing," political movements, and the current alignment in the West seems partly contingent to me. For example, early Christianity was unique in the roles it created for women. Saint Paul mentions female deacons, bishops, and apostles, and female prophets were a major part of early controversies in the Church. A return to the gender norms of the era only occured over future centuries of pushback.

Likewise, while many churches today are a force for enforcing traditional gender roles, they are also almost certainly the most common place where people go to hear women lecture on philosophical, spiritual, and moral issues. Philosophy as an academic discipline has a huge gender imbalance, whereas even denominations that don't allow for female head ministers (Baptists, etc.) frequently allow women to preach and lecture, and women are the decided majority in modern church life.[/b]

Hence, it is a blend in terms of influence. While churches may tend towards regression in political views, you're also far more likely to see women speaking than in academic settings. I don't think this is simply because the gender slant is reversed. Churches also speak much more often to classically defined "women's issues," than secular outlets for discussing philosophy. Not to mention that universities aren't called "ivory towers," without cause. You need a credential to speak in most cases, a credential largely awarded to males. Meanwhile, women from all walks of life might speak at a church, and often do. (And even in the academy, theology/divinity has a far more equal gender distribution than philosophy).

I wasn’t aware progress was a journey. Is that how you see it? — Tom Storm

It's pretty much what the word means.

If we hold women's rights or gay rights up as progressive issues we support, I don't think the next question should be, 'But where will that lead us?'

Why not??
Can you explain?
I think there are many unsaids here.

Qidquid agis, prudenter agas et respice finem.

My own view as an unremarkable, contemporary egalitarian Lefty, is that everyone should have the same (or similar) opportunities, freedoms and access to resources. If a society places restrictions on certain people - women, particular races, religions, the poor, gays, etc - from participating fully in community life and opportunities available, that's regressive.

I personally don't see progress as a journey since improvements in politics, environment, safety, rights, etc can be reversed just as quickly as they are initiated and there is no particular end point in mind. I have generally used the word to describe positive enhancements to equity and social justice. But this can be unpacked until the cows come home.

Qidquid agis, prudenter agas et respice finem. — baker

One might also say, Fiat justitia ruat caelum

This gets to an interesting question: by progress do we mean the metrics that technocrats tend to use: self reported well being, income, educational attainment, crime rates, etc. or do we mean subscribing to a specific set of beliefs and policy positions? Further, we might ask, is democratic participation a good in and of itself, even if it leads to regressive policies, or is democratic process only a means to progress? — Count Timothy von Icarus

People's values vary, which I have already stated. No doubt many Saudi Muslims would consider giving women more rights and autonomy to be a mistake and some may argue very reasonably for why this is the case. So?

For me progress is like morality. We might base it on presuppositions around notions of the flourishing or wellbeing of conscious creatures (as I do) but not everyone will agree on values. If you wish to defend, (for instance) that dictatorship is better than democracy then let's hear the argument.

Hence, it is a blend in terms of influence. While churches may tend towards regression in political views, you're also far more likely to see women speaking than in academic settings. — Count Timothy von Icarus

How many churches will let trans women speak? Again, no one is arguing that the academy is progressive. Academic circles are notoriously restrictive and sexist and regressive (perhaps because they grew out of the churches) - but it depends on the institution, the department and the personalities. It doesn't let religion off the hook to argue that there are other institutions who are also regressive.

Part of the problem is that religion makes special pleading for itself - its values are founded on what god wants and are transcendent. It's close to impossible to argue with someone who thinks gays should be jailed because homosexuality is against god.

Just to take one of your examples; isn't gun control simply a means to an end, fewer murders and assaults? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't know the ins and outs of the guns debate other than the fact that when large groups of people own guns there's a good chance they will be used on innocents. Fewer guns and more restrictions will always be progress to me. But that is an entire debate on its own.

As was previously pointed out more indirectly, we want to progress toward that end which we value—such that when we approach it, we deem this progress. We regress when we distance ourselves from that same end. Individuals will hold different goals in mind, as will different societies. Still, all this progress/regress analysis presupposes a true, or real, end (i.e., one that is ontologically actualizable at least in principle—rather than being a fiction imaginatively concocted by us which can never be obtained even in principle and which is thereby a deceitful/false/wrong/bad end to pursue … one that could be approached but then always results in failure and associated dolors), a real end which serves as that which is to be definitively valued by us sentient beings—this irrespective of one being religious or not. To this effect:

I consider the idea that our culture’s quest for interstellar travel is really the sublimated longing for immortality. Having substituted material progress for spiritual liberation, only by ‘slipping the surely bonds of earth’ is freedom to be found (pace Elon Musk’s desire to populate Mars). — Wayfarer

That sublimated drive for immortality you mention is almost nothing in comparison to what’s been coined “singularitarianism” … transhumanism 101 on steroids (probably nothing new here). I won’t bother with what I find to be the many unaddressed metaphysical underpinnings of scientism that are here taken on faith to be blatant truths. I’ll just say that if it’s metaphysically absurd to presume an Abrahamic Heaven wherein all immortal psyches forever therein interact with lack of any suffering on anyone’s part at any point in time (or else some eternal Hell wherein there is only dolor without any vacillations toward some states of happiness or pleasure, such as that of momentarily reduced dolor), then so too is absurd the notion of uploading our consciousnesses into some AI assisted cosmic mainframe—or some such—so as to obtain a blissful immortality (explicitly stated, this regarding the personal self as we empirically know it).

Here speaking in Eastern semantics, if there is ego, I-ness, then there will be samsara, necessitating both pleasures and pains of various degrees: same conflicts but in different, nonbiological makeup. No transcendent bliss to speak of. And I’ve yet to understand why, for example, one hard AI program could not lie to, steal from, or kill another hard AI program. So much for immortality. Yet the same underpinnings that drive some people toward the spiritual immortality supposed to occur in Heaven now drives many mostly secular folk toward this future state of immortal being via unification with machines. This being the exact same underlying drive toward immortality as end to progress toward that is expressed in different ways via different metaphysics.

In one possible contrast, there is no immortality of the ego to be had in the goal of actualizing what’s supposed to be the absolute bliss of Nirvana, else the absolute bliss entailed in the Western notion of henosis—these as only two examples from human history of a drive toward egoless being—for these states are deemed perfectly devoid of I-ness and, thus, of ego. This then being an utterly different goal-directed drive: one oriented at becoming selfless, this in contrast to the, well, selfish drive to hold on to the cherished aspects of one’s own empirically known self eternally.

Yet I’ve heard respectable scientists speak of such upcoming future transhumanist state when morning the natural death of their loved ones. Well, more precisely, one: a friend of the family’s relative, this when I when to the funeral.

Religion or no religion, the same underlying human drives toward future ends remain—toward which we either progress or don’t. And the end we individually pursue typically has a way of dictating the means we utilize in our want to get there. For one example, the want to never ever die as the ego one is aware of will often stand in the way of societal givens, such as that of altruism when looking death in the face (as a simplification of the issue: no soldiers going to war to defend one’s nation, no firefighters running into houses on fire to save others, no police chasing after bad guys with guns, etc.). Whereas the want for selflessness facilitates the altruism just mentioned.

I take it that most would deem selflessness to be a virtue and selfishness a vice.

So when we talk about progressiveness (progressives and the like) I tend to believe we’re generally thinking along the lines of progress toward a state of being that exhibits less selfishness and more selflessness. To me, there’s a lot to unpack here. Still, doesn’t secular notions of humanism and humanitarianism consist of drives such as those of greater compassion and less sectarian hatred, thereby being driven by an intended progression toward states of lesser ego?

[edited the first paragraph for better clarity, and added a bit more info to it]

For me progress is like morality. We might base it on presuppositions around notions of the flourishing or wellbeing of conscious creatures (as I do) but not everyone will agree on values. If you wish to defend, (for instance) that dictatorship is better than democracy then let's hear the argument.

Right, this is exactly my point re religious attendance. Based a wealth of research in the social sciences, religious attendance seems to boost the metrics we use to measure flourishing. And religious attendance also seems to boost a number of prosocial behaviors, like volunteering and charitable giving. Given its effect size, it's the sort of thing we would expect social scientists and policy folks to advocate in favor of, but for all its historical and political baggage.

And yet, as you rightly point out, religious attendance also tracks with a number of regressive attitudes. So it seems to me like it is a mixed bag, strongly progressive in some ways, and strongly regressive in others, and the principles that determine how strongly each factor presents itself transcends "religion" as a category.

How many churches will let trans women speak?

Many. You see rainbow and pink and blue trans flags on churches all the time. I would even wager they are the most common place to find such symbols on display. But this in no way contradicts the fact that most churches/mosques, etc. aren't open to trans individuals speaking.

It's a mix. The academy is extremely vocal in its efforts to promote diversity and equality. What broad industry puts more of a focus on diversity? In California, there were questions over whether an opening for a physics professor should have "track record of efforts to promote minority inclusion in the field," as a criteria for assessment alongside their ability to contribute to new research in the field, but the very fact that these are equal criteria speaks to the heavy focus on "inclusion."

And yet where is one more likely to find ethnic minorities and low income individuals, in the academy or in a Catholic church or mosque?

This is sort of like how progressives were angry that support was thrown behind Joe Biden in 2020, allowing him to defeat the more progressive Bernie Sanders. On the one hand, the administration would now be less progressive. On the other, the choice of Biden above Sanders reflected minorities' pick for the candidate more than white voters. Particularly, Biden was significantly more popular with African Americans, while Sanders won with white voters.

And this is where I think it gets tricky. Because self determination itself seems like a progressive good, and yet in many contexts it can also lead to regressive policy. Mosques in the West seem like a powerful progressive force in uniting the advocacy and political efforts of a minority group, and yet this advocacy can often lead to more regressive policy preferences. But religious institutions also motivate progressive reforms themselves (civil rights, the expansion of social welfare programs, universal education) and in this way the relationship doesn't seem straightforward to me.

This is true for less obviously political settings too. Without the YMCA and YWCA, or JCCs, some areas would have significantly less access to subsidized or free child care, enrichment programs, and women's shelters. The Catholic Church can push its followers to advocate for regressive policies on the one hand, and use donations to support refugee settlement on the other, settlement that people who see themselves as "highly progressive," often fight on account of Not In My Backyard sentiment ("yes, the Church settling refugees is fine, but not in my school district please. Low income housing? No thanks, put it down in the inner city.")

As a side note, there is some good evidence that refugee settlement works better in rural areas (Kentucky, Bosnians, Maine, Somalians), despite these places being more insular and conservative. It's an interesting phenomena.

Based a wealth of research in the social sciences, religious attendance seems to boost the metrics we use to measure flourishing. And religious attendance also seems to boost a number of prosocial behaviors, like volunteering and charitable giving. — Count Timothy von Icarus

My understanding of such studies are that it is community and being with people for a common cause promotes flourishing. I don’t think this is deniable. The theistic part of it is likely to be moot, but in today’s atomised culture, it is generally only sporting clubs or religious groups that still encourage and build community and no doubt people benefit. Has nothing to say about the truth of those beliefs - it’s likely more about the power of conformity (shared values) and tribalism.

But I think you could also say that being a Nazi in Germany in the 1930’s seemed to boost metrics of flourishing (for most) too. All that community building, sport, collaboration, infrastructure. Shared values and the promotion of a strong culture certainly seemed to benefit most of the citizens.

Does religion perpetuate and promote a regressive worldview? — Art48

Religion being a "way (or structure) of life perpetuated" the answer would be: depends on the religion.

If, like most people by "religion" you mean a simple compare and contrast of those who believe in creationism/intelligent design vs. evolution/haphazard intelligence then that's a bit different. But not by very much.

I'd delve into this topic in much greater detail but seeing as I'm short on time at the moment I want to pose a question or set of questions to you and anyone who happens to be reading. If religion (believing in God or a set of societal rules, codes, or covenants that absolutely must be followed lest one or one's society become destroyed) limits one's desire for scientific advancement, "advancement" that leads to the point our five human senses are just short of literally glued to inhuman devices and social communication becomes an unwanted chore (sound familiar?) ... by what measure do we judge if something is "regressive" or "progressive". I'll substitute these words with negative and positive, respectfully. You could take a snapshot of a situation, say a sports game and conclude, Team A is losing. This may be true, however in real life unlike sports games, there is no timer. As much as some people like to insist. Perhaps if you took a snapshot at a later time Team B would be losing, and never recover from this position (ie. Team A won despite appearing the opposite due to the limitations of human observation).

In short, I don't happen to find anything particularly "progressive" or "positive" about a society that results in true Nuclear holocaust where the entire planet becomes incapable of sustaining life, even if we do get to watch it all on our little iPhones or smartwatches before we succumb to radiation sickness. Do you? I'd much prefer the steady, predictable, and nuanced old world society where, sure things were simple - if not outright grueling at times - but at least humanity lived on whilst retaining the social communication skills that allowed society to progress in the first place. Wouldn't you? Seems like a reasonable opinion to hold but to each their own..

Humanity can become plenty neurotic contemplating the pains, struggles, and chasms of existence itself, no matter who or what you deem responsible or no matter how long you believe it lasts or continues.

This then being an utterly different goal-directed drive: one oriented at becoming selfless, this in contrast to the, well, selfish drive to hold on to the cherished aspects of one’s own empirically known self eternally. — javra

:100: Like I said, I'm sure much of the imagery in sci-fi and super-hero movies is grounded in the longing for immortality. In traditional culture, the folk stories imparted such wisdom against a religous background where there was a tacit acceptance of spiritual immortality, but with its rejection, all such grounding is lost and the stories become complete fantasy (except that now with the advent of technological transhumanism, people are beginning to believe that they might be real!)

I moved my question and your response about correlation of gun ownership and homicide to The American Gun Control Debate.

As a side note, there is some good evidence that refugee settlement works better in rural areas (Kentucky, Bosnians, Maine, Somalians), despite these places being more insular and conservative. It's an interesting phenomena. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There's a recent story about a Muslim city council in Hamtramck Michigan which banned pride flags. There's definitely a tension between Islam and gay rights, it has also surfaced here in Australia from time to time. It's discomfiting to progressives, who often champion both refugee rights and LGBTQ rights, to discover that re-settled Muslims will often denounce gay rights in strident terms.

In short, I don't happen to find anything particularly "progressive" or "positive" about a society that results in true Nuclear holocaust where the entire planet becomes incapable of sustaining life, even if we do get to watch it all on our little iPhones or smartwatches before we succumb to radiation sickness — Outlander

:clap:

In short, I don't happen to find anything particularly "progressive" or "positive" about a society that results in true Nuclear holocaust where the entire planet becomes incapable of sustaining life, even if we do get to watch it all on our little iPhones or smartwatches before we succumb to radiation sickness. Do you? I'd much prefer the steady, predictable, and nuanced old world society where, sure things were simple - if not outright grueling at times - but at least humanity lived on whilst retaining the social communication skills that allowed society to progress in the first place. Wouldn't you? Seems like a reasonable opinion to hold but to each their own.. — Outlander

Most scientific and technical innovations until the scientific revolution were achieved by societies organized by religious traditions. Ancient pagan, Islamic, and Christian scholars pioneered individual elements of the scientific method.

And back in the good’ol days when things were simpler, you may not have had the convenience of recording your neighbor being burned at the stake for witchcraft (whatever the orthodoxy found disagreeable) on an iPhone but you could could still enjoy the spectacle.

I think the question you are asking is important, though, the problem that is see in your question is that you mainly critique Christians (mainly fundamentalist Christians). It is true that there are many contradictions with science and taking the Bible literally. Though just because there are Christians who take the Bible literally does not mean that there isn't an entirely different group that is trying to synthesize what they believe with reality.

There are some truly remarkable works in philosophy of religion (especially Christianity). One of my current favorites is William Lane Craig, who is best know for his popularization of the Kalam cosmological argument, writes on the question "What is the bare minimum we need to believe in Christianity?" This does not mean that we discard what is improbable, rather, we should interpret it in a way that is meaningful and in alignment with necessary doctrines.

To answer your question as to whether religion perpetuates regression, it depends. I think the question that should be asked is "Which religions are perpetuating regression?" It is clear that there are religions that do not allow for certain freedoms regardless of their morality. It is not a religions job to keep us from performing actions, its job is to show us that we ought to keep from performing those certain actions. From my perspective I don't know if I can answer yes or no. I really think it depends on the religion in question and if it is willing to adhere to what we know to be real.

There are some truly remarkable works in philosophy of religion (especially Christianity). One of my current favorites is William Lane Craig, who is best know for his popularization of the Kalam cosmological argument, writes on the question "What is the bare minimum we need to believe in Christianity?" This does not mean that we discard what is improbable, rather, we should interpret it in a way that is meaningful and in alignment with necessary doctrines. — T4YLOR

Have you spent any time on WLC's forum? You might find WLC's arguments don't stand up so well.

In any case, what is the relevance of "the bare minimum we need to believe in Christianity"? That sounds like a criteria that someone who wants to cling to a belief would be concerned with.

I’d love to hear your thought on how his arguments don’t hold up!

To answer your other statement:

The Bible itself is a compilation of many books, from many author, in many periods of time and with many genres. Am I expected to take an aesthetic poem literally? I don’t think so, nor do a major population of christianity seem to think either. My point in my comment was to stress that a synthesis of what we know to be true (by i.e. science) and what God reveals is what should be sought after.

Progressive toward what? — baker

More at ProgressiveRegressive_Excerpt.docx

I’d love to hear your thought on how his arguments don’t hold up! — T4YLOR

Check YouTube for multiple criticisms of Craig's Kalam Argument.
(The Kalam is a Kalam-ity of an argument.)

Have you spent any time on WLC's forum? You might find WLC's arguments don't stand up so well. — wonderer1

Indeed. The Kalam doesn't support any particular brand of religion. Or religion at all for that matter.

The Bible itself is a compilation of many books, from many author, in many periods of time and with many genres — T4YLOR

Yep. As allegorical stories, one of our Baptist preachers used to say - 'I am insulted that anyone who would take the Bible stories literally.'

and what God reveals is what should be sought after. — T4YLOR

The problem here is the old; how do we demonstrate that there are gods and how do we know what gods reveal? On this the believers only have subjective interpretations.

I’d love to hear your thought on how his arguments don’t hold up! — T4YLOR

I'm afraid I'm not that interested in the topic these days, but you can find plenty of people to discuss WLC's arguments with at:

https://knowwhyyoubelieve.org/groups/reasonable-faith-forum/

More at ProgressiveRegressive_Excerpt.docx — Art48

I think that's a caricature. It would take a bit to unpack it all.

The problem here is the old; how do we demonstrate that there are gods and how do we know what gods reveal? — Tom Storm

You keep bringing this up. To no avail.

On this the believers only have subjective interpretations.

That's like saying, "I totally refuse to obtain a degree in X, but I still feel entitled to get a job for which a degree in X is necessary."

You won't be able to see "a demonstration of proof of God" unless you qualify yourself for it.

With so many things in life, people are okay with this scenario: "In order to get X, you need to qualify yourself for it." Whether it's about education and employment, or romantic partners, credit from a bank, doing anything successfully, really.

But not whern it comes to religion/spirituality. This is where most people demand that no qualification is necessary or no qualification should be necessary. What one currently has should suffice to get a definitive judgment on a religious/spiritual matter. Period.

But not whern it comes to religion/spirituality. This is where most people demand that no qualification is necessary or no qualification should be necessary. What one currently has should suffice to get a definitive judgment on a religious/spiritual matter. Period. — baker

I understand all that and my point is polemical. I still ask it because I like a world where demonstrations are provided. What is interesting however are the amount of formerly religious people who lose their faith when they begin reading the Bible or Koran in earnest. I've met quite a few former ministers, priests, and believers who came to atheism simply by asking the question, why do I believe in this?

This is where most people demand that no qualification is necessary or no qualification should be necessary. What one currently has should suffice to get a definitive judgment on a religious/spiritual matter. Period. — baker

This is largely true and this flaw is worth highlighting. Nevertheless, the secular community contains numerous members who were once devout. They found their way out.

I think that's a caricature. It would take a bit to unpack it all. — baker

It's certainly simplified but I don't think it's incorrect. An in-depth discussion might require an entire book of its own.

This is an excellent point. It used to be that people looking for spiritual truths would abandon everything they had to live with some great teacher. Rigorous study, ascetic practices, long periods of meditation — these are the norm in the Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist traditions.

To be sure, these traditions allowed for other roads to enlightenment or spontaneous revelation. But in general, the truth required a great deal of study and praxis to ascertain.

But now the general take is: "beliefs about the most central questions if what being is and how we should live should be summarizable in five minutes."

Saint Augustine makes a related point, which is that we can never learn anything without trusting others. Our parents might not be our real parents. Our kids might not be our real kids, they could have been switched at birth. Anything we are taught could be bunk.

And yet, if you don't put effort in, assuming your physics textbook might be able to shed some light on the world for you, then you'll never get anywhere in understanding the subject. The same is true for theology, which is up with philosophy for most abstract disciplines.

I find the focus on fundamentalists very common in critiques of religion. They are, in ways, a ready built, real life strawman.

But Saint Aquinas was not a fundementalist just as Rumi was not a jihadi.

There is a common misconception that, because fundementalist believe in very simplistic, literalist interpretations of Scripture, they must be closest to what the faith was like in earlier centuries. This isn't true. There was, if anything, a much stronger tendency to read Scripture allegorically or analogically in the ancient Church, and really the Middle Ages as well.

Fundementalist, and the more literalist turns of more mainstream Evangelical churches is a modern phenomena. It certainly has echoes in prior eras, e.g. the fideists ("knowledge of God by faith alone") who Aquinas jousted with, but the juxtaposition of romantic, irrational faith and faith undermining reason definitely only comes into its own in the 19th century.

But this isn't a good generalization. Fundamentalists are vocal, but a slim minority. "Evangelicals" (in the sense used in the US today) are a very small minority in Christianity, and they aren't even a majority of Christians in the US (just a quarter). Catholics are actually now the plurality in the US, suprisingly enough (34%, vs 69% in 1950)

Partly, this has to do with self sorting effects. Religion now predicts income even better than race (shocking given the large differences in the US). It also predicts educational attainment quite a bit. It seems like a sort of "hollowing out," of your more educated population could lead to a sort of self fulfilling feedback cycle, whereby people less open to literalism (which education would tend to affect) end up being pushed out, leading to ever more "ideological purity," for lack of a better term.

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/magazine/is-your-religion-your-financial-destiny.html#:~:text=Overall%2C%20Protestants%2C%20who%20together%20are,being%20richer%20than%20Catholic%20nations
Partly

Nevertheless, the secular community contains numerous members who were once devout. They found their way out. — Tom Storm

They were probaly never insiders, never "in it" to begin with. I used to make a point of reading people's exit stories from religion/spirituality. And in all cases I have seen, they had a poor knowledge of the religion/spirituality of which they claim to have been members of. So many former Catholics with such a shoddy knowledge of Catholic doctrine! Former Hare Krishnas, former Buddhists, former Mormons, all with really odd ideas about what their former religion teaches. Even if some of them have attained some positions of power and influence in their respective religious/spiritual groups.

These people were probably "members" in the sense that they were physically there in their religion's church or temple etc. But mentally, it was like they were on another planet.

What is interesting however are the amount of formerly religious people who lose their faith when they begin reading the Bible or Koran in earnest. — Tom Storm

Of course. If their initial "faith" didn't have much to do with the foundational texts of their proposed religion/spirituality to begin with, of course they will more likely experience those texts as alienating. (There are, of course, also those who buy a Bible and place it on a prominent spot in their home, and never read it.)

I've met quite a few former ministers, priests, and believers who came to atheism simply by asking the question, why do I believe in this?

Well, how silly of the church hierarchy to assume that the "believers" actually should know why they're there ...

Going through the motions with religious/spiritual belief is actually a phenomenon that is criticized in religion/spirituality.

Going through the motions with religious/spiritual belief is actually a phenomenon that is criticized in religion/spirituality. — baker

Of course. But when has spirituality been a factor in the mass support of religions?

They were probaly never insiders, never "in it" to begin with. I used to make a point of reading people's exit stories from religion/spirituality. And in all cases I have seen, they had a poor knowledge of the religion/spirituality of which they claim to have been members of. So many former Catholics with such a shoddy knowledge of Catholic doctrine — baker

The point is it is only when they acquire such knowledge that many realize they can't believe it any more. I've often thought it is much easier to accept a religion if you don't know much about it, if it's just part of your wallpaper and quotidian experience.

I also think that saying to an apostate, 'you were never a true Muslim or Christian' is an obvious and often false accusation religions use to defend their own weaknesses.

I also think that saying to an apostate, 'you were never a true Muslim or Christian' is an obvious and often false accusation religions use to defend their own weaknesses. — Tom Storm

Not to mention a no true Scotsman fallacy.

:up:

Going through the motions with religious/spiritual belief is actually a phenomenon that is criticized in religion/spirituality.
— baker

Of course. But when has spirituality been a factor in the mass support of religions? — Tom Storm

?
I think the distinction between religion and spirituality is mostly spurios, so I usually use a joint term.

I also think that saying to an apostate, 'you were never a true Muslim or Christian' is an obvious and often false accusation religions use to defend their own weaknesses.

It's the truth.

Some religious/spiritual people will actually say things to the effect "being born and raised into a religion only gives you a foot in the door, nothing more".

It would make little sense to tell children, "You're not really proper members of our religion yet". Have you ever noticed how in many religions, they talk about growing in faith, development, faith formation etc.?

The lines between insiders and outsiders, between members and non-members are sharp only for zealots, and, perhaps, secular religiologists, both of whom have characteristically low and abstract standards for what constitutes religious membership.

For those more serious, those lines are far less defined, certainly not defined in terms of "Tom Storm is not a member, but Nancy Crow is".

I think the distinction between religion and spirituality is mostly spurios, so I usually use a joint term. — baker

Perhaps 'should be' but you know as well as anyone that religion is often just a series of behaviours with no spirituality attached.

I also think that saying to an apostate, 'you were never a true Muslim or Christian' is an obvious and often false accusation religions use to defend their own weaknesses.
It's the truth. — baker

We won't agree on this. I don't think anyone true Christian or true Muslim. Such categories are pointless. You might be an inadequate Muslim or Christian, but so what? Who decides what counts? Surely it is God?

Not to mention a no true Scotsman fallacy. — wonderer1

People often call a NTS fallacy in situations where there is actually a genuine ambiguity at hand. As such, it's not a case of a fallacy at all.

Terms denoting religious, political, national, or racial identity are usually complex, multilayered, subject to debate. As such, it's no wonder different people can mean different things by the same word. This doesn't make anyone's input fallacious. But it does make those calling out a NTSF in such situations simpletons ...