Is civilization something we just want to "sustain"? - like a party whose sole purpose is to keep people in the room, keep the glasses full, and keep the music playing? I guess I don't see the point of civilization for it's own sake. I'm not at all convinced that civilization is not intrinsically unstable; that irrational elements might simply be intrinsic to it - not unlike any natural ecosystem. If this is the case, then trying to "make the world more rational" might simply be a waste of time.
On the one hand, I don't know that there is a "purpose" to life, but on the other hand I'm not sure I want to live in a world of purely rational people spending their lives correcting each others punctuation and pointing out the slightest lapse in another's logical arguments. In the world of art, for example, creativity comes from all kinds of irrational places. I like raking leaves and shoveling snow. I have ABSOLUTELY NO RATIONAL REASON for that. I just do. Other people - for whatever reason - seem to be attracted to religion. Who says their attraction to religion is really any different to my attraction to raking leaves and shoveling snow? The only difference is that my raking leaves and shoveling snow doesn't have historical consequences. But if there is no purpose to the universe - so what?
If there really is no purpose in/for the "universe," then what difference does it make if people believe things that are untrue? For every example you can give of why religious belief is "dangerous," I can give examples of other irrational behavior is not merely not dangerous, but downright productive. It's easy to pick religion out of the bucket of irrational things people do and hold it up to ridicule, but I'm not sure we can blame them for being attracted to it any more than I can be blamed for liking raking leaves and shoveling snow. We can be clever and sarcastic and make snide comments about how stupid and credulous they are, but many of them are not stupid at all, lead very happy lives, and contribute greatly to the world. (I was just reading a book about the Wright brothers, and they were so religious they would not fly on the Sabbath. Their father was an officer of some kind in a national church organization. And yet he encouraged his children to read books about all kinds of things - religious and otherwise. They were esteemed (a word we don't use much any more) by virtually everyone they met. If we could have in some sense expunged the religious impulse out of the family, would they have done what they did? Would they have been the same people? I rather doubt it.)
I don't know that there is a purpose to the universe, and I don't know there isn't. In my mind, were all just flailing around in this life. I'm fortunate to be flailing around in a pretty nice life - much, if not most of which I can't take credit for. On the other hand, there might be a whole lot more to this "flailing" that it appears.
On the one hand, I don't know that there is a "purpose" to life, but on the other hand I'm not sure I want to live in a world of purely rational people spending their lives correcting each others punctuation and pointing out the slightest lapse in another's logical arguments. In the world of art, for example, creativity comes from all kinds of irrational places. I like raking leaves and shoveling snow. I have ABSOLUTELY NO RATIONAL REASON for that. I just do. Other people - for whatever reason - seem to be attracted to religion. Who says their attraction to religion is really any different to my attraction to raking leaves and shoveling snow? The only difference is that my raking leaves and shoveling snow doesn't have historical consequences. But if there is no purpose to the universe - so what?
If there really is no purpose in/for the "universe," then what difference does it make if people believe things that are untrue? For every example you can give of why religious belief is "dangerous," I can give examples of other irrational behavior is not merely not dangerous, but downright productive. It's easy to pick religion out of the bucket of irrational things people do and hold it up to ridicule, but I'm not sure we can blame them for being attracted to it any more than I can be blamed for liking raking leaves and shoveling snow. We can be clever and sarcastic and make snide comments about how stupid and credulous they are, but many of them are not stupid at all, lead very happy lives, and contribute greatly to the world. (I was just reading a book about the Wright brothers, and they were so religious they would not fly on the Sabbath. Their father was an officer of some kind in a national church organization. And yet he encouraged his children to read books about all kinds of things - religious and otherwise. They were esteemed (a word we don't use much any more) by virtually everyone they met. If we could have in some sense expunged the religious impulse out of the family, would they have done what they did? Would they have been the same people? I rather doubt it.)
I don't know that there is a purpose to the universe, and I don't know there isn't. In my mind, were all just flailing around in this life. I'm fortunate to be flailing around in a pretty nice life - much, if not most of which I can't take credit for. On the other hand, there might be a whole lot more to this "flailing" that it appears.
