RE: What is the function of religion?
May 16, 2014 at 5:57 pm
(This post was last modified: May 16, 2014 at 6:11 pm by Hegel.)
(May 16, 2014 at 4:33 am)Zidneya Wrote: And if you hadn't started to defend your point instead of hearing what atheists have to say and learn from it I would believed you.
So I should not defend my opinion of religion? That's pure nonsense.
The problem is that you have not grasped what I asked: I am talking about scientific understanding of religion as a phenomenon of nature. My standpoint is totally atheist: religion as social, natural, psychological phenomenon, and how to understand it as such. Get it?
On average, religous persons understand religion scientifically just as well as plants understand photosynthesis. If atheists come from fundamentalist backgrounds, that tells nothing about their understanding of it -- but more about their SES.
(May 15, 2014 at 4:53 pm)Confused Ape Wrote: I was speculating about shamanism in the dim and distant past because shamanism was around thousands of years before any kind of organised religion. The shamans' rituals could have had a placebo effect so people who believed in them might have had a better chance of recovering from some illnesses and injuries.
You're right. Magic works ... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voodoo_death
The question here is, what is the relation of magic to religion, is it one of its functions or is it foreign to it?
Magic is also basically the source of technology and science, where it has developed from.
But Durkheim, who makes these same points, claims religion and magic are distinct. He thought religion is all about defining the difference between sacred/profane, and that is its real function. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Durkheim
Quote: Humans, as a species, seem to have in inbuilt drive to worship something but this isn't confined to deities because we can put other humans on proverbial pedestals and idolise them. This can be manipulated into cults of personality for political leaders such as Stalin or Mao Zedong.
We're still tribal creatures in many ways and a lot of human history has involved wars for territory, resources and power etc. This dark side of our nature has resulted in the negative side of religion. Humans also have a tendency to get fanatical and this isn't confined to religion and ideologies - there have been many internet flame wars on the lines of "My favourite TV show is better than your TV show".
If religion disappeared tomorrow we'd still fight for territory, resources, power and ideologies.
I fully agree on all this. Tribalism. And religion is connected to it. Perhaps that's the way to build tribes larger than the "natural" unit of village, etc?
So, that would be adaptive. Many evolutionary psychologists hold this view; and they have also refound Durkheim.
