Religions Role in Social Movements, Essential or Accidental?

[Neo-Scholastic]

The dilemma currently playing out on another thread is between whether religion is an essential or accidental motivation of human behavior. I would like to point out that as a general rule theists in general, and most Christians specifically, consider religion an essential motivator while most atheists consider religion an accidental one. In other words, do the actions of individuals and larger socio/cultural phenomena follow from religion's presence? These positions come forward when talking about any one of the following:

-The Scientific Revolution
-Civil Rights Movements
-Totalitarianism
-Personal Transformations, such as overcoming addictions

In each of the above, believers will generally say that religion played an essential role in cultivating positive social movements (American Revolution) and the lack of religion allowed some cultures to deteriorate into horror (Maoist China). In contrast to this, atheists would generally claim that the presence of religion was incidental in those movements. In similar movements like the Scientific Revolution, changes would have happened anyways and that once in full force they divest themselves of their religious trappings. Similarly, a recovering believer will attribute his new found freedom to a higher power working through him while a nonbeliever may simply say that he got the help and support he needed to turn his life around.

How many licks does it take to get to the center of Tootsie Roll Pop? The world may never know.

The notable exception to this list is war. Many atheists will speak of wars fought in the name of religion claiming that having different religions was often the prime source of conflict. Believers will respond that the vast majority of conflicts were based on other factors such as territorial disputes and that religion was used by people in power to manipulate the masses.

I would say that war in fact shows the complexity of the discerning the relative importance of various causal factors. Perhaps, as atheists might say, the initial argument between two adjacent societies may have been over territory but those rulers would have found it much more difficult to mobilize their forces without appealing to religious sentiments. Believers might counter that those peoples of differing religion could have peacefully coexisted and had there not been material stressors such an appeal would have been unnecessary. Maybe, maybe not. How do we explain this curious change in positions between believers and atheist when it comes to war? I don’t know. It’s an interesting question.

Where I stand…It seems to me obvious that religion is every bit a part of a people’s culture as its language, diet, familial traditions, and customs. For example, queuing is very much a part of some cultures and almost absent in others. It clearly has little if anything to do with religion. And yet queuing and the belief that people should wait their turn has been the cause of much righteous indignation and occasional violence. It seems odd to argue against the notion that strong culturally ingrained beliefs about queuing do not motivate people to act in certain ways, such as forming and patiently waiting in lines, as opposed to everyone bunching and shoving their way to the front. Why wouldn’t one expect a more powerful set of beliefs, like religious ones, to move people to think and act in certain ways?

[purplepurpose]

Even most ruthless dictators can't be compared to the God of the bible who tortures people for as long as He likes. Mao, Stalin, Hitler are nothing in comparison to God's Sadistic hobbies.

It's like a parent would create a torture chamber at the basement and would torture his kids for as long as he can to punish them for their crimes. Sounds f retarded.

[The Grand Nudger]

@OP Q

I'd say accidental, as accidental as a persons religion often is..even.  We might notice, for example..that any type of social movement a person might reference has played out in many cultures with many religions, and also in demographics constrained by their lack of religion.

If religion were essential, atheists would not be included.  If a specific religion were essential, we would not find a plurality of belief.  So we have three broad categories of people all doing the same things.  

I suspect that this has alot to do with the way that we drape our mundane concerns with the banner of divinity.  That a god wills something only matters to believers, and even further only to believers in -that- god (and this is a far more specific qualifier than someone simply identifying themselves as a christian, for example..since not all christians agree on a given issue). 

Those reasons beyond the will of a specific god are what appeals to the other two categories -and- the beliving set, simultaneously...and it's upon those reasons common to us all that some thing x stands or falls. Those, are the essential reasons. If a christian and a pagan decide upon something for reasons that an atheist can accept...you could switch out the faith of either believer and with respect to the item in question..nothing will have changed. Nor, for that matter, if you swapped either or both out for one or two more atheists.

[Foxaèr]

Religion does seem to be an essential motivator of human behavior. By that, I mean if all knowledge and physical evidence of religion was to be wiped out of existence, a later new evolution of man would most likely still imaginatively create religion, albeit not precisely the same form that existed in the past, because he tends to have this propensity to confuse seeking knowledge with having found it through a medium that offers mental and emotional comfort.

No doubt, religion played its role in shaping our current society. However, that is not necessarily a good thing. It never could be, because religion forsakes knowledge for a close-minded falsity that restricts and prevents proper intellectual cultivation.

[The Grand Nudger]

You just described religion as an effect, not an essential motivation. In a roundabout way, this is why I fully expect any given religion to conform to the motivations of whomever holds it.

[Drich]

Religion does seem to be an essential motivator of human behavior.  By that, I mean if all knowledge and physical evidence of religion was to be wiped out of existence, a later new evolution of man would most likely still imaginatively create religion, albeit not precisely the same form that existed in the past, because he tends to have this propensity to confuse seeking knowledge with having found it through a medium that offers mental and emotional comfort.

No doubt, religion played its role in shaping our current society.  However, that is not necessarily a good thing.  It never could be, because religion forsakes knowledge for a close-minded falsity that restricts and prevents proper intellectual cultivation.

we have current real world examples of evolved 'man' who never developed any religion what so ever, and only stuck with tribal hierarchy... they still live in mud huts and hunt and live as they always have. 

God is the great motivator, the worship of God has indeed pushed us in arts, technology, language, science and social advancement. you can not take one of the higher learning fields today and not trace it back to it's beginning and it not have been about extending the worship of God in someway.

[The Grand Nudger]

LOL, I rest my case.

[purplepurpose]

Japanese have one of the highest tech economy in the world and they are really far from religion. Chinese have strongest economy without God as well.

Although, Chinese having the strongest economy people there are very ruthless to one another having to work in overdrive for low amounts of money. As well as destroyed environment in many places.

[robvalue]

It’s kind of been inevitable that the religious will have been involved in historical social movements, because almost every fucker was religious.

Clearly a religion doesn’t have to be true to be part of effecting change, nor is there anything magically special about a religion's ability to achieve things; but again, historically religions were probably the biggest and best organised institutions, I guess.

[tahaadi]

Like socialists use Jesus as an example for socialism.
But Jesus was never socialist, if he ever existed.