Why can't we just be "excellent" to each other?

[thool]

New to this forum, and thanks for all the welcomes in the Introductions sub-forum.

I'm curious about something. I understand that religions were created in the absence of science; it helped "explain" why certain things occurred, and to drive behaviors to satisfy a deity or deities. Now that science explains so much, we should be able to look back and snicker at how wrong religion really is.

But what I've observed could be considered reflexively following the habits of previous generations, partly to honor their beliefs, but also to not take any chances (i.e., "they might be right after all"). Not to single any religion out, but some orthodox religions are hardcore about ritual and continuing the beliefs of their predecessors. I know for a fact that some younger followers are told they are a link in a chain going all the way back to some figure they consider historic, and it would be a grave sin to break that link.

So why can't we simply accept what science has exposed to us, and huddle around core behaviors that represent civil society? This could be thought of as the new ten commandments, but there would be no higher power to administer and forgive. That would be the role of society. Could it be as simple as unifying behind simple "laws" such as:

1. Be nice to each other
   
2. Pay it forward: be generous by giving your time, money, and stuff to the less fortunate
   
3. Help out each other
   
4. Live a life you can be proud of, and tell others of those who lived well
   
5. Leave the earth in good shape while you're here
   
6. Support leaders and fellow citizens who live according to the above, and punish those who do not
   

I'm sure there are more, but all of those transcend religion. We don't need to carve out an hour every Sunday with ritual, decorative garments, and pomp and circumstance, do we?

[robvalue]

Agreed. It's common sense. And in most cases, it's doing what comes naturally.

I find some theists tend to refuse to believe that they themselves would care about anyone else if it wasn't for some magic force compelling them to do so. They are of course almost always wrong, and just don't understand the science of how empathy is an evolved trait. I find it sad that they have been indoctrinated into believing they are psycopaths on an invisible leash.

All the fucking around with rituals is just ridiculous. To think any actual "God" would be impressed by all that is rather insulting. It wouldn't impress me, and I'm a lowly human. It would impress a bunch of people 2000 years ago maybe. Religion hasn't moved on since then, and essentially never will.

[Ashground]

Welcome to the forum!  

Religions need people to believe that only by following a very specific organization -theirs- can they be good and that anything else falls short of true good. For every religion it's a matter of survival that people believe that the fate of their soul depends on membership of - and obedience to -  the cult. So they're willing to threaten ("You'll burn in hell") and manipulate ("Why are you angry with [insert deity]") to accomplish the 'greater good' of brown-nosing their deity.

Also, to me the most objectionable part of any cult is those that they indoctrinate their own children. I know people say "I can raise my children how I want", and maybe that's true. But I find it morally reprehensible that you would use your child's utter dependance on you to the benefit of any organization.

Theists don't need a religion to practice their beliefs, but their religion ain't going to point that out for them.

[Dystopia]

I only significantly disagree with the principle number 1. I live in a family where politeness is valued highly, but I don't like being nice to people who treat me poorly.

[Whateverist]

We're social animals. Acceptance and feeling useful are naturally gratifying. Of course, so is authenticity so we all have to find a balance between being for the general good and being who we are and dancing to our own drummer. I find it best to develop a diversified portfolio. Picking one dimension to emphasize above all others, such as charity/benevolence, will probably not satisfy in the long run.

[Chad32]

One of the key purposes of religion is control. Yes it provides an explanation for things, and makes people feel better about their lives, but it's also a tool for control. if you just take the nice things, and don't bother with other things, it's hard to keep the tithes coming. It's hard for religious leaders to control the masses. That's why conversion is so important, and why violence against everything different is so prevalent. You're not allowed to just live and let live, because that will cause some sheep to leave the flock. Sheep are there to be fleeced, after all.

[Thumpalumpacus]

[Waitingforthemothership]

Party on Dude!

Behaving as you are advocating could just be thought of as "being nice." However, it could also be defined as "being spiritual," in the sense of transcending the ego and (evolutionarily-defined) selfish and self-centered instincts. Even when people use the term "spirituality" in purely secular terms, they're typically talking about nothing more than warm/fuzzy feelings. Yet, the warm/fuzzy feelings that one experiences watching a beautiful sunset have little real value.

Modern science has provided us with unequivocal evidence that everything in the universe is interconnected and interdependent, that fish and rice plants are our relatives, that the entire biosphere is a single organic system, and that the physical universe can only really be understood in terms of field theory. If we ever do discover a unified field theory, it will only work because the entirety of the universe is one big super complex meta-fluctuation in the very fabric of space-time.

As humans, our perceptions and cognition are thoroughly defined by our genetic programming. No living organism can survive without a sense of self and other, or self and environment. Even a single-celled blob of protoplasm needs this convenient fiction in order to move across a lab slide, run from predators, chase after food, etc. Natural selection has used two principle strategies in shaping human interpersonal behavior. One is selfishness and the other is altruism. It continues to use these logically-incompatible strategies because both work extremely well, and because natural selection has no interest in logical constancy. So long as our altruism is primarily directed at individuals who are most closely related to use genetically, and our selfishness is primarily directed at less closely genetically-related people, they work extremely well.

Rationally-driven human spirituality is essentially an attempt to find harmony between these two, apparently logically incompatible, evolutionary strategies. That harmony is probably to be found in the fact that selfishness and violence work well when individuals and tribes are only loosely-connected and generally independent. Altruism and compassion work best among individuals who are tightly-connected and interdependent. Human "tribes" now contain hundreds of millions of individuals, and the world is rapidly moving towards becoming a single global tribe. War, exploitation, and cruelty just don't work as well as they used to. When one economy crashes, they all do; we can't afford to go to war with China because they make all our stuff. In functional, practical terms, selfishness and exploitation just aren't as effective as altruism and cooperation these days.

As a species, we're also too scientifically aware to continue to believe that such a thing as a "single human being" exists in any meaningful scientific way. A "single human being" exists in the same way as a "single human cell" or a "single tree leaf." Examine the DNA in the nucleus of a tree-leaf cell and you won't find instructions for making a leaf. You won't even find instructions for making a tree, because natural selection depends on POPULATIONS and GENE POOLS to work. The DNA inside a tree leaf contains instructions for making a forest, and the DNA inside a human cell contains instructions for making the human race. That's what we humans are-- leaves which can walk and talk and write poetry. We are organic vortices-- sucking in air, water, animal/plant matter, heat, information, and expelling gaseous, liquid, and solid waste products, heat, and information. A vortex doesn't have any real border; it's only a qualitatively-differentiated region of a larger system-- a larger whole. Though the convenient fictions that our instincts thrust upon us lead us to think of ourselves as separate, independent, autonomous and unchanging objects, the truth is that we are no more a separate object than a tornado or hurricane is. Tornadoes and hurricanes are regions of the atomosphere. They ARE things, but only in a very particular sense, and their region-ness far outstrips their thingness.

The point that I want to make is that there is a rational, logical, scientific foundation for altruism, ego transcendence, and spiritual experience. Religions would be ideal institutions for exploring and manifesting rational, logical, scientific altruism and self-transcendence, if only we humans weren't so frickin stupid and irrational. Religion doesn't have to be dumb or unscientific. "Faith" can be secular-- as in "I have faith that my country isn't going to allow itself to go down the drain" or "I have faith that the human race won't destroy the planet and itself." Faith doesn't have to be psychotic rejection of reality. It can just be FAITH.

The problem isn't religion. There's nothing wrong with religion. The problem is that they're all doing it wrong. And, by the way, gods exist. Lots of 'em. It's almost certain that the universe is full of them. But that doesn't really change anything, and we're still all going to die.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Actually, the DNA in a tree-leaf contains the codons for making the entire tree, but it can only create a forest when the genotype achieves phenotypic expression through a multitude of reproductive cycles.

And -- there's something terribly wrong with religion -- it's called groupthink.

As for gods, present your evidence.

[robvalue]

I'm not sure what "gods exist" means, since "God" is all but meaningless.

If we define things that already obviously exist as "Gods", then gods exist, of course.