Does religion have a place in a secular society as long as it is taken relatively?

I'm simply asking the question. I do have an opinion on the subject but I don't wish to offer it just yet and I'm also constantly reforming and changing my mind on the issue. I hope your input will give me a little more insight.

Essentially I want to know whether religion can exist in a secular society without harming our reason or our values (and in the end each other) as long as we respect personal autonomy.

 

provided that it isn't taken to extremist levels, yes.

 

I think religion as a symbol of the right to irrationality is absolutely essential to secular society. I think a lot of anti-religious people get carried away with the idea that if everyone just thought harder and was educated more, there'd be no religion, and that's one of the worst excesses of self-conscious rationalism.

 

Traditional ideas distract people from their material practice. They start thinking that ideas matter.

 

Religion has influenced us heavily and is an important part of our culture. As long as it's not taken seriously or literally, as long as it's not used as an excuse for war/killing etc, it's fine. Religion helps people make sense of life.

 

Ideas do matter. At least, if you believe that, from a human perspective (which is the only one we have), life has the opportunity and the motive to be seen as something more than a few accidental chemical processes.

From a purely scientific/semiotically "rational"* viewpoint, we should all accept what is and only what is. But even scientists have social lives. The human animal, whether by design or by fluke, is practically incapable of not having ideas that transcend its merest electrochemical origins. We feel depressed if we are rejected, even if it's by people we have no respect for, and that has an adverse effect on us physiologically. If ideas were not important to us, this reaction would not make sense. It is only because we have the idea of tribalism that it does make sense.

And so on. Rationalism is a good aspiration, but most people who think that they've attained it fall short of actually removing the personal from the equation. They tend to get incredibly frustrated if they can't prove things, which if they were wholly rational would not even be surprising. Those who have ideas about how life should be, ideas that don't require solid proof, are far more able to function, and often I think ideas as a whole are too harshly judged by those who focus only on the big, aggressive, destructive ideas to the exclusion of the simple ones that render life tolerable.

* i.e. trying to be purely scientific by acting how you imagine a scientist would and then thinking very hard.

 

I don't mean rationalism, at all. In fact, when I say ideas don't matter I'm saying reason doesn't matter.

 

Ew.

Anyway, God is a DJ. So... that's something, right?

 

Cherea, I don't get what you mean in your second post. Explain. Happiness is something that you do. An idea no?

Also, I was going to respond to your first post with the same sort of ideas as hoatzin but in a less eloquent way.

Anyway, here is my 2p: I feel that it has been demonstrated that people can have religious beliefs whilst being rational to the extent that it is possible, as well as maintain some sort of distance from their own sense of morality and justice (or in other words they don't place importance on objective truth). Some of the most tolerant, skeptical and realistic people I know are Christians. For that reason, the fact that some people use religion to justify their ignorance or cruelty is somewhat of an irrelavency. I also think that the idea of ridding the world of religion is futile and unrealistic.

 

What I wrote is an idea, of course. But now what happy people do to be happy. That isn't an idea.

 

The real question is, does the empty void of reductionism have a place in determining our future?

 

I hope not. I think this purely scientific thinking only appeals to certain robotic, unrealistic, mindless types of people. Reductionism is a little bit like religion, it can be a crutch for people who cannot accept the idea of an inherently meaningless or illogical universe.

 

Matter doesn't matter.

 

Nihilism can be a crutch for people who cannot accept the idea of an inherently meaningful or logical universe.

 

kk.

 

:cheers2:

 

It does seem like, if there was more in it than that, it would have more subscribers who've passed their early twenties.

 

Coming from a godless country, I can attest that people are quite capable of ignorance and cruelty in the absence of religion, and in direct opposition to it.

 

Yes.

 

I see no reason not to conduct one's personal and emotional life with the cold calculated precision that one would determine the atomic weight of a new element. XKCD SHOWS US THE WAY.