By
Joshua
Michail
3
November, 2012
What if I told you there was something
good about religion? You might ask, “Is it the sense of community
one gets from belonging to a church?” Or, “Is it the moral code?”
Perhaps, you might be wondering, “It's
the transcendence people feel, right?” Well, not exactly.
I know that some of you might be thinking I've lost my mind. And some
who are reading this might think I'm somehow a religious person. You
need to read on. The fact is that there is something valuable to us
that religions have to offer. Each of those points are actually
products of the singular thing of value, about which I'm teasing you.
Okay, so what it all boils down to is the worldview. Every religion
offers a worldview. But, I think we can be very
well served by having a
worldview as well. I know, I know. What am I thinking? “Religions have something good
about them?” Are you seriously saying this? Well, let me
explain.
Religions are bad. They are
the root of most – though honestly, not all – evil. Whenever someone
claims that religions do some good, they are trying to justify having
religions but the fact is that any good that religions do is far
outweighed by the harm they also do. Indeed religious worldviews are
seriously dangerous and hurtful to all of humanity, let alone the
world. And it's not a particular religion's worldview which I think is
good. Quite the contrary, actually. It's the idea of a worldview, the
idea of having a philosophical model by which we live our lives, which
I believe to be good.
Obviously religions have a very
seriously flawed premise on which each of them has based their
worldview. So, it's not that which is good, the premise I mean. The
idea that there exists any such thing outside of nature – a
supernatural realm, including a heaven or hell, and afterlife –, is
completely unsupported. As premises go, assertions that there is a
realm of existence – and beings living there, like gods, angels, souls
and whatever other fiction – which is not even hinted at by a single
shred of evidence is as bad as flawed premises for a worldview gets.
There are many types of worldviews, some of which are good or bad. Some
worldviews are also more seductive than others. Most worldviews have
some method to propagate them, which is built in. In Christianity, for
example, the believers are taught that “Only through believing in Jesus
can people be saved from hell.” It's clearly a contrived
scare tactic. They're taught that they ought to missionize for their
religion, to go out and tell people about it and try to convince others
to join them. In Judaism, though, missionizing wasn't really part of
the religion. Instead the idea was to have as many children as
possible. Christianity and Islam both ran with that same excessive
breeding policy, but each added their own twist as a secondary method
to propagate the religion. But, there are other ways to propagate a
worldview.
I believe that employing other means of
propagation can be far better than the approach the religions generally
take. There is a basis, in the religious worldview, for the reasoning
behind the breeding competition. They believe that some god created the
universe for them. In Christianity, the concept is called
“Dominionism”, in which they claim humans have a “god-given right” to
dominate the world. But, this view neglects reality. The world can only
support so many people. Earth is actually at it's full capacity for
humanity. So, in reality, breeding the worldview is not a tenable
practice. It is clear that there are so many children born, who are put
up for adoption. There is very real and desperate need. Adoption, as a
means to propagate a worldview can proverbially 'kill two birds with
one stone'. One could be to promote the adoption of children, instead
of breeding. By adopting children – likely born of religious people –
one can teach the child to be rational, instead of religious. Thereby
slightly diminishing the number of people who will have a backward and
harmful worldview. Clearly the impact could be great if many rational
people took this approach. Additionally, it would increase the number
who likely hold a progressive and good worldview. All the while, also
being a proactive measure toward curbing the overpopulation of our
planet. Another could be to set the example that inspires people to
take on the worldview. If your worldview directs you to be charitable,
to have a strong work-ethic, to be rational and logical, to be
honorable and moral, to pursue the truth scientifically, to be kind and
generous, to be intellectually honest, and to always improve yourself,
it will be noticeable. It will make you a model, by which others will
be inspired. Such a worldview, by your own behavior, would prove itself
to be worthwhile having. It should certainly speak for itself, that
religious worldviews push people to accept them with threats of eternal
suffering and promises of eternal rewards, compared to a worldview that
does no such a thing.
By this point you're probably wanting a
clarification of just what is a “worldview”. It's fundamentally a
uniform way of looking at the world and life. It's a personal outlook
on the world. It informs how a person interprets the actions and words
of others, and indeed all of the world. There's a reason why it's
called that, after-all. A worldview is a philosophical system, or a
model. It's a system of values, beliefs and attitudes, by which people
live their lives. The reason I'm interested in worldviews is that
everyone has one in some form or another, regardless of whether each
part of it is intelligibly connected. Fundamentally, every person
thinks philosophically to some degree. Granted most people are not
particularly active about it. Indeed, the large percent of people are
not even aware that they have a worldview, or what that means. Most
people tend to think about something in a philosophical manner only
once in a while, and then without it dawning on them that it is
philosophical. But, when they do they usually derive some principle
which guides them. Though, usually, when most people derive that
principle it doesn't occur to them how they're doing so. For most
people, the idea just comes as a realization or they encounter the idea
and like it. Since worldviews are a philosophical product, a serious
problem arises when people haven't coherently connected the various
parts. But, a worldview addresses many issues, like how it is that we
know what we know. That is, in philosophical terms, an epistemological
question. Religious answers tend to be that a supposed force outside of
nature reveals the information to the individual. Even if one doesn't
think about or realize that he/she has a worldview, that philosophy is
nonetheless illustrated when one says something like “God has a plan for you”.
Though a worldview can be bad, good or
indifferent in many ways, it's still useful. Even a bad worldview gives
structure of a sort to one's life. But, obviously I cannot morally
argue for holding bad philosophies, and that's what religions offer.
The religious worldviews often implicate themselves as immoral when the
opinion is that there is another chance to live again. The very idea of
a life after death necessarily diminishes the value, the sanctity, of
this life. It suggests that suffering is acceptable because those poor
victims, whom we've ignored, will be given paradise for eternity.
Unless, of course, they happened to not believe in the correct god. The
religious view is that ignorance is bliss. The religious view is that
religious belief is sacred. The religious view is that morality is
seriously concerned with pleasure and desire, our thoughts, our
self-agency and some deity's authority, rather than human suffering. At
the core of the problem with religious worldviews, inescapably, is the
premise that something outside of nature exists, let alone a god. It's
an unproven and unprovable, untenable and unsupported claim. And it is
that claim which is the basis of all of the rest of the worldview.
I believe a secular option can be
developed for non-believers to have the advantage of their own
worldview. A philosophical model which is based on science as the
foundational premise. I believe that worldviews are useful and
beneficial, but not just any will do. A good worldview would have to be
concerned with genuine morality, instead of unrealistic and delusional
claims of morality. A morality concerned with suffering rather than
satisfying the ego of a fictional character. A morality concerned with
improving the human condition for all, rather than suppressing mere
disagreement. Indeed, such a secular worldview would need to demand
that one's beliefs be based on evidence and logic, rather than
obedience and wishful thinking.
I have been working on such a secular
worldview. I believe a good philosophical model will help people to
live meaningful, healthy and happy lives. It must be the purpose of
such a worldview that people are not led to confusion, misery and
immorality. Religions have done that for thousands of years. It's time
that we have a philosophical model that gives us the benefits of the
structure and principles, but now based on reality instead of fantasy.
While there are other philosophies out there, which non-believers can
adopt, they all are limited in their scope. And some are just plainly
bad. Take Ayn Rand's so-called “Objectivism”, for example. A
philosophy, which is in reality just an attempt at justification for
“rational selfishness”, as even Rand, herself, had put her idea. On the
other hand, Humanism is a respectable and good Moral Philosophy. But,
it doesn't address issues of Epistemology or Metaphysics – the
questions of “What is
there to know?” and “How
do we know what we know?” Solipsism, while a Metaphysical
philosophy is rather absurd. Could anyone reasonably respect the idea
that all of the universe, including other people, are all in one's
head? A figment of one's imagination. While it is Subjectivism, in the
extreme, there are some people who favor the Objective view (not to be
confused with Ayn Rand's silliness). Though they take their conclusions
the other extreme. The idea that how one perceives the world around
them is not important. But, it really is ridiculous to make such a
suggestion. The reality is that it's true that the universe, and all
that is in it, objectively exist and that the facts are as they are,
regardless of personal opinion. While, at the same time, to deny the
importance of subjective perception in informing how we act is woefully
ignorant. After-all, it is only through one's particular individual
understanding of the world that one can operate.
Any worldview must encompass all aspects
of life and philosophy. Most philosophies, however, fail to cover the
multiple fields, or fail to connect intelligently the different
philosophies. Honestly, I can't see how one could support a humanist
moral philosophy with an exclusively Solipsistic view on what exists
and how we know anything. For that matter a Philosophy of the Mind, for
Solipsists would be rather simple, in that the mind would be the extent
of the universe. That is quite silly, and not much good really. Any
coherent, stable, useful and good worldview would necessarily have all
the positions on the various issues be able to point back to the
premises. The foundation of the life-philosophy should be able to draw
from reality and establish axioms that support the upper-level
conclusions. So that one can argue from the facts about the world,
including biology, to support our own evolutionary history. And that
from the evolution of humanity one can argue to support a secular moral
view based on the necessities of societies, as part of our species'
nature. This, and more, I believe is possible for those of us who do
not believe in supernatural claims. In fact, this has been my work for
the past several years. I've worked, and am still working, hard on this
because I believe that to have such a secular worldview is actually a
good thing. A good secular worldview provides the structure for our
values, beliefs, attitudes, actions and makes up a significant part of
who we are, individually.
Copyright © 2012 by Joshua
Michail
All
Rights Reserved.
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