My thought exactly.

@Diogenes also reply to@JanGarber . If people thought like this before the time that religion came along then the good work that religion has done [and there has been plenty] would never have happened and we would be in a worse place now unable to think of a way of getting rid of religion...... which is what this thread is about.

@Mcflewster If logic and reason had preceded imagination and story we might also have green blood and pointed ears... ?

I think it would be good to curb many of the worst excesses associated with religion, but most of those pervade every other aspect of society too...

So I don't see any particular societal advantage to be gained by eradicating religion..

@Mcflewster I got your tag posted to me, but I see that there is a "Diogenes UK", and I am not in the UK, so I have no idea of what you are talking about. And Tristan, "Scientist that were believers". It is hard to explain compartmentalizing the brain. Either one believes in physics--- or you don't believe in physics. You either believe in walking on water--- or you don't believe in walking on water. You can't have it both ways.

@Diogenes @Mcflewster

A reply to me was tagged to you. Much merriment ensues.

So much for compartmentalisation.?

#cognitivedissonance

The only thing lacking in atheists is belief in the imaginary. It doesn't mean atheists don't have imagination, but that they understand the distinct difference between imagination and reality.

Exploring the unknown is actually about discovering the truth, not about making up more bullshit. Were I to present the same fallacy you employ, I could say that spiritual people don't want to be bound by religious restriction/dogma, but fear permanent, irreversible death

@JimG
My personal experience, with most atheist that fear going into any discussions with any depth about imagination and spiritual topics. They fear the out of mind experience. Meaning leading with the heart, that they would call just a muscle rather than a second brain. My daughter and I are fearless. Everyone dies yet not everyone lives. We don't fear death, it just this unknown spiritual world, that Religion claim to have found it.

“Religion is belief in someone else’s experience. Spirituality is having your own experience.” Spiritual meaning explore  the 99℅ unknown, until its manifest into our ego self. Everything I have ever achieved in life was all once imagined and the same for the history of of mankind.

Beauty is truth, we all lie, it just in degrees each of us lie. My only two simple rules is to not to harm and be honest, keeping it to the lowest degree. Bullshit is the worst kind of lying, you don't even care that you are lying. To claim a book to be the universal truth and knowledge, is the greatest Bullshit story ever told.

@Castlepaloma it's not fear of discussion; the fact is there's nothing to discuss. Religions mistake isn't claiming knowledge of the spiritual world but asserting that it exists at all. That's begging the question. Religious and spiritual people begin with an unproven premise. That's begging the question and it precludes logic.

The same is true for considering the heart to be a second brain. Nowhere in scientific or medical research is there any indication that the heart is anything other than a muscle.

I want to understand the world in which I live not make one up in order to pretend I have some special insight into it.

@JimG
It's interesting how the overrated mental brain of humans and Dolphins are. They are weaker than brain power of the gut and heart. Look at the jellyfish with no brain yet out survives all animals on earth.

@JimG I think the logic of religious people lies in
a) gaining comfort and reassurance of a future 'prize'
b) avoiding having the more difficult task of thinking of and alternative method of comfort and an alternative path when nothing exists after death.
It is our job to find alternative methods and comforts . Difficult I know, but at least we should try

@Mcflewster

My studies in Asia Taoism in the 70s taught me, we have 3 brains. One in the gut, the heart and the brain for our mental, physical and emotional health. This practice has giving me higher energy to achieve world ranking in athletic sport. Then later on a world renowned sculptor profession for 40 years.

Religion is not meaning being spiritual. Spiritual is different.

I am NOT an atheist, because I will not use my valuable time to argue about 'walking on water'- or anything else akin to such foolish nonsense.

We do not know the reason for the universe, and inventing gods is a moronic joke.

@Diogenes
Best thing about Religion for me, is the comedy material for my standup as Religion is so outrageous. Atheist and Religion I find both extreme and limited in overall thinking, yet atheist is harmless.

From building alot of history museums displays. I'm most impress with the greater number of great people throughout human history. That were more middle grounds thinking. Balance like agnostic , or spiritual sided rather than Religious.

I guess your reply was supposed to be funny- so "ha, ha".

Agree CONSTANTLY but chapter and verse on why they are incorrect

I agree that only people can change themselves. However perhaps if we put more effort into making assemblies of NON religious people more entertaining and inspiring we could get a few religious people to 'change side'. A lot of work needs doing on making alternatives to established religion. The 'Sunday Assembly, movement is doing great things in pockets all over the USA and UK.

@Mcflewster I think the problem is that a lot of unbelievers feel no particular need for such things -- they either see them as an activity they never liked to begin with and have been liberated from finally, or they can't separate the benefits of community / belonging / refuge from the religious tropes and feel like it's some kind of regressive activity.

I understand the sentiment -- I've followed Alain De Botton's talks on "Atheism 2.0" and his desire to borrow what he regards as the salubrious effects of religion and incorporate them somehow for appropriation by the areligious. I'm just skeptical and think it may be inherently doomed. To have any sort of community you need broad acceptance of some kind of shared narrative / tradition / ritual and atheism is just way too narrow to provide that. I note that Sunday Assembly seems to be distancing itself from atheism as a basis and having a broader humanistic emphasis ... selling it as a "woo free" environment for caring, yet thinking people. That might work better, I don't know.

I don't have Humanist Society or Sunday Assembly as options so I tried a UU congregation and found they seem to have a gravitational pull toward substituting political ideology / cliquishness for religious ideology / cliquishness. And even though I'm not that out of phase with them, it's kind of nosebleed liberal SJW activist territory that I'm put off by. For an introvert with modest social needs, it's just more effort than it's worth to me personally.

I ended up playing cards with some other oldsters at the local senior citizens center on Saturday mornings. It has the advantage of simplicity and low expectations. Others will prioritize differently than that, but it works for me.

Are you suggesting that one can never be evangelical about agnosticism?

@Mcflewster ...the person has to
take back their moral compass
(Conscience) & ask ,,,being a member
of this community help or hurt
society- some folks are just happy
with / can't make the sacrifices
needed?️to bride those divides

@Mcflewster One can be as evangelical as one likes about anything one wants. He must recognise, though, that by trying to change another's mind about something is saying that you know best and your moral philosophy or ideology, whatever is under scrutiny, should supercede the thinking of the recipient.

@Mcflewster

Evangelical agnosticism? That's an oxymoron! It's okay to admit that some things are unknowable. In the-philosophy-of-science jargon, some things simply cannot be falsified. And god is one of those things. One simply cannot know. Admittedly, as scientists expand their repertoire of tools, more and more things come under the umbrella of scientific scrutiny. But that is no reason for hubris! It's this hubris of science that alienates students, leading to an uninformed public! I think scientists like Richard Dawkins have done so much to alienate the public from science! My scientific hero is Darwin, who was humble in the face of his unknowing. So humble, that it took him years to publish the Origin of the Species!

@Mcflewster I wonder about things: if Nature has a conscience: or if it is cognitive, what was the reason of enabling animals that were carnivores or omnivores?

We have a whole advertising industry which is dedicated to make us think , often subliminally with a clever slogan and makes big bucks in doing so. Perhaps we should pay them to do the job for us. The politicians do.

@Mcflewster That would be intellectually dishonest and I, for one, would be totally against it. As much as I would love for more people to embrace rational thought and throw away those Bronze-Age myths, I absolutely do NOT want it to occur through dishonest means. I abhor subliminal messaging. It's wrong, period. The ends do not always justify the means.

Punctuation is really important. It took me a minute to figure out the question, too.

@KKGator oh yeah I see now lol regarding how to convince others to employ more reason, yeah if there’s a way I’m sure I don’t know it. Looking back on the people who tried to convince me of more reasonable attitudes when I was religious, none of it was effective. I had to remain intellectually curious and pursue the path on my own. I suppose you can gently become friends with them and try to be kind and lead by example for a start to help them along but you’ve gotta use a fair amount of patience and the Socratic method to allow them to realize their own inconsistencies. If you come at them trying to debate or with the least bit of aggression they will just dig in further, feeling persecuted and validated by their scriptures that tell them they will be.

I know that we are all trying and I am grateful for the contributors to this website for the variety and stamina they illustrate, but we are doing something wrong. Religion has and will continue to damage the world if we accept that nothing can be done. We need new and innovative initiatives . My efforts are in science teaching and I advocate a 'science for all approach, but there must be other methods. Has anyone a tale to relate where a particular application of logic and or reason changed the mind of someone who had otherwise been intransigent?

@Mcflewster yeah it’s frustrating. I’m convinced no single argument will open the mind and heart of someone determined by dogma and fear of hell, but it’s a game of winning very small battles that can amount to changing their mind over time.

One of the quickest arguments I ever had where I felt them have to logically give way to me was: a homophobic boss was railing about some same sex prom date controversy in the news at the time or something. I asked him: when you hit puberty did you have to decide “how am I going to play this hand?” Or were you just automatically attracted to women, nothing you could do or decide could change your mind?” He immediately had to admit that sexuality is not a choice.

Another great story I keep hearing on NPR and such is that: when people went around polling attitudes about abortion they found that a woman sharing her personal story about how she was 16 and the unfortunate reasons why she wound up needing an abortion could change someone from a 1 (being staunchly against) to a 10 (staunchly for the right to choose) in a matter of minutes. So when it comes to bigoted, ignorant ideas that allow the religious (and conservatives in general) to discriminate: we can change people’s minds by introducing them to real people so they can’t cling to their dehumanized ideals on the demographic.

When it comes to introducing them to larger concepts that no one person can embody, I still think it’s a very careful game of empathy and winning very small battles with the Socratic method that might encourage some (those that are ready; not all) to change their mind.

@Mcflewster
It's not within the purview of science to debate religion. Your students have a right to their religious stance.

Examining your assumptions is a good and reasonable way of altering your own life . Asking for reasons for any behaviour and being honest and patient enough with the person who is asking the question will assist you in helping others

@Wurlitzer Empathy is the key to understanding reason for bad behaviour and gives hope that the behaviour can be corrected