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  • Philosophy is for questioning religion
    Enlightenment, understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters. — Adorno & Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment

    And religion is hellbent on making human beings as dependent as possible, necessarily limiting their moral development and any other sort of development that would result in more independent thought and action.
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    I've attended Zen groups here in Australia where there was virtually none of that. You commit the fallacy of over-generalizing.Janus

    There are all sorts of zen groups, and even some teachers who are less orthodox, such as Brad Warner, though they’re not well respected within the tradition. Indeed, Warner describes himself as an entertainer.

    I was not talking about the mindful ritualization of ordinary activities like eating, drinking and so on, which I don't count as "pomp and ceremony".Janus

    Never heard of the tea ‘ceremony’ or oryoki?
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?


    I’ve attended zen pomp and ceremony, just like in the picture that I posted. It’s actually far stricter and elaborate than a typical church service. Your characterization of that tradition is quite wrong. That’s my point.
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?


    That you’re very hard to impress when it comes to ceremony, I guess. It’s Vatican level or your puny “ceremony” is meaningless and don’t count.
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    when attracted to religious ideas it has been to teachings like Daoism and Zen, which are mostly without pomp and ceremony.Janus

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    :chin:
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    The materialistic consumer neoliberalist hell that we have is a result of this nihilism.Christoffer

    Some seem to think that the development of the state, capitalism, etc., lead to this nihilism. Not the other way around.

    I don’t think there’s any deficiency of non-religious traditions and rituals, btw. Social dance at a neighborhood nightclub, with a group of people dancing to the same beat in coordinated patterns, can be as zen as sitting still with a group at a temple. It’s all there, we’re saturated in meaning, purpose, community… anything a church could offer. To think that we need to be spoon fed like children is ridiculous, and actually impairs growth by design, because religion is designed to make followers dependent.
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    Some even question whether Daoism or Buddhism qualify as religions.Janus

    Many don’t realize the nature of religion.
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    I wonder too what counts as transcendence?Tom Storm


    Well, for instance, and to put it as simply as possible, I think that we're like fish in a fishbowl, limited and unable to see reality beyond the fishbowl. I also think (and have experienced to some degree) that we can alter our mental state and perceive... I'll say differently.

    Thus I am a religious person? :brow:
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    The belief in something transcendent is the essence of religion as I would define it. (Note, I draw a distinction between thinking the transcendental and believing in some form of transcendence).Janus

    Obviously, people can believe in something transcendent without belonging to a religion, without knowing anything about any religion. I suppose you would call that a personal religion?

    Religious thinking is always hierarchical thinking.

    Which indicates that its essence is about order and control.
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    I think the need to believe in something transcendant can only be satisfied by religion, and I think that need is inexplicably there in some people and absent in others. I think if you could somehow wipe out all existing religions and knowledge of them, religion would be reinvented.Janus

    You need to explain why religion is needed to believe in something transcendent.
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    Some people are simply attracted to that way of life, and others not.Janus

    I used drug as an analogy but it could have been anything. If we’ve never known something then we can’t miss it.

    The point being that religion is not the only way to fulfill human needs of any kind. We seem to agree about that.
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    As long as the need for religion is felt, humanity will not be better off without it. I doubt that need is going to disappear.Janus

    That’s like saying that if the need for a drug is felt humanity will not be better off without it. If the drug was never know it would not be missed.

    If you mean something else I think you may need to elaborate on the nature of the need that you mention, and why only a religion can fulfill it.
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    Let the world get rid of all of them - the requirement would remain.Wayfarer

    No loss then. :up:
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    You can't kill a religion. As beliefs are not killable. They resurface from natural thought, exploration and desire for fundamental answers.Benj96

    Of course you can, simply eliminate every trace of it, and that would include its adherents. Not that that would be easy, especially if it were a popular religion. As Janus pointed out though, you'd essentially be replacing one ideology for another, which is beside the point.

    By claiming that a religion is fundamental, natural, and discoverable with exploration, you're basically saying that it's true or that you're a believer.

    If everyone was a scientist, some of them would move away from science in a quest for an alternative. If everyone was religious, many of them would move away towards something alternative (science). Neither subjective nor objective views of reality can ever be fully eliminated (killed).Benj96

    You seem to be saying that religion and science merely fulfill a desire for an alternative view of the world. I think there's more to it than that.
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    Yep, I don't believe religion is going away any time soon. And I also don't hold the view that humanity would be better off without it.Janus

    I’m curious about your reasoning that humanity wouldn’t be better off without religion. Can you explain why?
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    Well, you could make it illegal I suppose, or brainwash people against religion from childhood. Might not be totally effective, but would no doubt vastly reduce the ranks of the faithful.Janus

    I honestly don't see the point of that, other than control, and control is the basic point of religion. It would essentially be replacing religion. I say let it die and DON'T TRY TO REPLACE IT.
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    I wasn't talking about killing people.Janus

    How else would one go about killing a religion?
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    What if it won't die? Kill it?Janus

    Killing people because of their beliefs is what religious folks do.
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    So science will not replace religion. But it would be an excellent development if ethics did.Banno

    You think it would be a good thing if ethics were based on faith and a social hierarchy?

    I say let religion die.
  • Karma. Anyone understand it?
    It’s like God, where people claim to know God but if you ask them about it they’ll eventually say that God is incomprehensible.
  • Bannings
    Midjourney
  • Bannings
    You got to stop posting pictures of Jordan Peterson, Prax. People will talk.Tom Storm

    They have an intimate relationship but are not one and the same, I think.

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  • Aesthetic reasons to believe
    Some folk will also highlight the importance of ritual and spiritual practice which further serves to intensify what appears to be a form of aestheticism. They seem to be saying that their experience of the world, transfigured through the veneration of the divine is deeper, richer and more beautiful than yours (atheist). They see, or hope for, transcendent beauty. You see, or live in, ghastly nihilism.Tom Storm

    Oddly, transcendent beauty transcends faith or any particular value system. Even “ghastly nihilism” can be seen aesthetically.
  • What is Conservatism?
    What do conservatives conserve or wish to conserve?Vera Mont

    Traditions.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Feels a bit like Christmas Eve.

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  • Welcome to The Philosophy Forum - an introduction thread
    Thanks praxis. Obelix had it rough from the get-go, but even he managed to eat his fill in the unlikeliest of situations, so no worries, I'll fill my belly here as well.Caerulea-Lawrence

    There’s abundant food for the ego in places like this. Meaning, on the other hand, is found in purpose and losing oneself in places and peoples larger than oneself. But don’t take my word for it, you’ll see for yourself soon enough.
  • share your AI generated art
    Same for Midjourney

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  • Welcome to The Philosophy Forum - an introduction thread
    Are there follow up questions as well, or is this application good enough to get a grasp of if I should be let loose on the innocent lambs in The philosophy forum or not?Caerulea-Lawrence

    The application suggests that the forum should not be let loose on someone so hungry for meaning, actually. You will not find it here.
  • Progress: an insufferable enthusiasm


    At the end of the day we’re all slaves to our conditioning and ideologies. If someone is clever enough to press our buttons they’ll press them, because that’s how the world is, wrapped in a swirl of power struggling. We’re fucked.
  • How Atheism Supports Religion


    My dog constantly wants to play, though I've known a dog that didn't have a playful bone in its body. I assume it got that way from human neglect.
  • Progress: an insufferable enthusiasm
    I don't disagree, but I'm not convinced that you aren't saying one is better than the other.Noble Dust

    I suppose that I could list all the traditions in life that I think are fine. It would be a long list.

    I'm not convinced that to be constrained is inherently a bad thing.Noble Dust

    I'm pretty sure that I suggested it can be bad when tradition is abused.

    How would that help you? I don't get it.Noble Dust

    You don't need to get it. I got it. I am my Ultimate Authority, and that's every bit as silly as it sounds.

    Now if you'll excuse me I have a train to catch.
  • Progress: an insufferable enthusiasm


    I finally get it, thanks! I'm my own Ultimate Authority.
  • Progress: an insufferable enthusiasm


    Maybe if it were possible for us to step back far enough we'd clearly see the Truth of Eternal Recurrence. Everyone's experienced déjà vu, after all. How much more proof do we need?

    Hey @Noble Dust Maybe Nietzsche is my Ultimate Authority?
  • Progress: an insufferable enthusiasm
    I said it was a rumor, not that it was God's Truth.