Opiate of the Masses

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{Promoted from diary -- tenacity}

Hey since I'm allowed to post a diary with no waiting period or anything here goes.

It's alarming that religion and in particular fundamentalist religion is having such a revival in the world today. The more we as a society know about how the world works the more religion turns its back on knowledge.

There are positive aspects to religion in that its a kind of community that people can join and everybody feels a need to belong to something. In this capacity however its no different than a bridge club or a bowling league.

On the other hand belief in god is nothing more than a defense mechanism against reality. One of the traits that people have is a intellectual curiosity which is part of our increadible learning behavior. A consequence of this behavior is that we ask too many questions about where we came from and why. People are not equipped to handle the truth that our existence is essentially meaningless. The univerase has existed for long before us and will exist long after us but if most people thought about that their heads would shut down.

God is a convenient delusion created by the mind to sidestep the reality and to prevent curiosity from destroying us. The problem is that people hold on too fast to that illusion and they fight wars over a figment of their imagination.

Why does it seem so often that religion is the enemy of progress?

Insidious's blog

Promoted
Submitted by thatgoodnight on 4 August, 2004 - 10:00pm.

I promoted this because I thought that this blog hasn't been controversial enough lately... This fit the bill.

Food for thought
Submitted by Alex on 5 August, 2004 - 11:56am.

I think there are a lot of questions here and not too many answers, but I think the main thing to think about is that religion is no way monolithic. I think religion is not so much a reaction to knowing more about the world, but more about feeling powerless in the world. Essentially fundamentalist religious beliefs are about evening out of power - the only thing that sets one person apart from another is their belief, not how much money they have, what situation they were born into, etc. The rejection of techonological advances and such can therefore be viewed as a rejection of those things that symbolize an imbalance of power. Essentially fundamentalism says "Yeah yeah, live it up guys, but come judgement day you all are gonna be fucked and I'm gonna be sitting pretty." People who don't have the ability to "live it up" to begin with are pretty happy to embrace this kind of ideology. Of course, this only explains some fraction of fundamentalist adherents. There is the desire for the feeling of belonging to something that is exclusive. There is indoctrination. All of these things play a role, but in my opinion power is the central component here. You can point to people like Osama bin Laden and say that he was a millionaire, etc. etc. etc., but I would argue he has more power now than he would have ever had as a "legitimate businessman" or whatever. It's not like you know any of the other bin Ladens. He's the man. I'll close with this thought - often religion functions as a way of crafting an identity, and often identity is crafted in relation to other identities around you. You embrace your religious identity as a way of saying who you are not: godless communist, that other religion that's not as good, not gay, whatever. OK, that's my two cents (and way too much probably). Good Day.

Drive-By?
Submitted by thatgoodnight on 6 August, 2004 - 11:34am.

Was this a "drive-by" diary-ing? Come back and defend yourself!