RE: Why Atheism and Secular Humanism are Failed Philosophies
November 29, 2011 at 8:49 pm
(This post was last modified: November 29, 2011 at 8:50 pm by Epimethean.)
If we look at religion as any set of beliefs in a supernatural cause and effect based universe, I would say that humanity is showing some signs of growing out of it. It may not be a massive shift, but it is a palpable one. This group is evidence of it at a certain level. The stigma of nonbelief is not as gross, and even believers of the non-zealous factions are in part becoming open to having dialogues which question faith and seek to see the commonalities between the major religious sects in the world. The Unitarians are a bit of a halfway house in this way. I see groups like the Mormans and Scientologists to be signs of religious stupidity in a microcosm, and the fact that such groups serve to piss off the "truer" believers, ultimately revealing the idiocy of both religious sides.
I was discussing the Roman gods today in class, and the usual question came up: "How could they believe in these gods?" I asked the class whether there was one right religion. About half of them said, "No," and the discussion went from animism to modern day monotheism, as well as Hinduism. The point was made that faith is a term that is mutually incompatible with knowledge, and by the end of the class, many more students were admitting that, because they had faith in their religion, they could not say that they knew the religions of others were not true. I think that this kind of conversation is easier to have today than it would have been fifty years ago-certainly easier than 100 years ago, and I think it is a positive side to the media, the internet in particular, and our growing sense of the sum of man.
So, I do see us evolving in regard to religion. We started with everything as a source of divinity, moved to polytheistic anthropomorphic deities, mostly moved to monotheism from there, with atheism a slowly growing faction throughout. Will man ever outgrow supernatural gullibility or stupidity? Not likely, but I think we get further away from such over time.
I was discussing the Roman gods today in class, and the usual question came up: "How could they believe in these gods?" I asked the class whether there was one right religion. About half of them said, "No," and the discussion went from animism to modern day monotheism, as well as Hinduism. The point was made that faith is a term that is mutually incompatible with knowledge, and by the end of the class, many more students were admitting that, because they had faith in their religion, they could not say that they knew the religions of others were not true. I think that this kind of conversation is easier to have today than it would have been fifty years ago-certainly easier than 100 years ago, and I think it is a positive side to the media, the internet in particular, and our growing sense of the sum of man.
So, I do see us evolving in regard to religion. We started with everything as a source of divinity, moved to polytheistic anthropomorphic deities, mostly moved to monotheism from there, with atheism a slowly growing faction throughout. Will man ever outgrow supernatural gullibility or stupidity? Not likely, but I think we get further away from such over time.
Trying to update my sig ...
