h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes, Lionel Blue is a tonic. Often recommended to me also by a Catholic theologian friend (whom I admire, but bait fairly mercilessly).

Religion works for recovering alcoholics. Can't deny that. And doing God's will can be rephrased as aligning oneself with the creative activity in the universe, rather than bucking it; not a bad ambition?

Is the universe active? Well, it certainly is dynamic.

"I shall behave as God would want me to behave, were there a God"
(Character in 'Everything Is Illumimated' by Jonathan Safran Foer)

>>Religion works for recovering alcoholics.

Although...Al-Anon exists as an alternative for those who can't get on with the AA's 'Higher Power' malarkey.

Hooray for them, too

Actually...that raises some interesting questions. Clearly the god bit isn't central to the cure; as far as I understand it, Al-Anon's 12-step programme is not dissimilar to the AA's. Further...how does one account for (eg) alcoholic priests who presumably already have religion.

What is the active ingredient in the religion meme cluster?

Alcoholic priests? That's an easy one. The church is a refuge for sinners.

Active ingredient? That is harder. At the moment I feel like saying "cosmic view" which won't particularly please you I fear.

See, I suspect it's really something far more mundane. Mutual support networks. A non-judgemental environment. Access to alternative suggestions for how to live one's life. Perhaps in our emotionally repressed modern culture, the religious aspects simply provide a convenient excuse for lowering the barriers and going with it. (Or 'Trusting to your higher power').

I'm speculating. Not been there, not done that.

btw...you'll understand that 'mundane' is not perjorative in my dictionary.

Trouble is in defining something so pervasive, what are you after? The initial impulse? The fully-evolved beast? The mission statement? The average product? The over-riding upshot?

Religious apologists can hide themselves in the folds of many obscure curtains.

You can have an ideal definition, a pragmatic definition, a Devil's Dictionary definition . . .

I may have misunderstood your query . . . were you talking about defining religion or the efficacy of religion to straighten out alcoholics? Not been there either, thank . . . goodness.

I've long suspected that there's no difference between what the religious call 'god' and I call 'stuff'. The difference is in how we analyse it...and that can lead us to some very different conclusions.

>>I may have misunderstood your query . . . were you talking about defining religion or the efficacy of religion to straighten out alcoholics?

The latter. I suspect that the efficacious aspects of religion are equally available to atheists, albeit sometimes via slightly different routes. No surprise. The Atheist and the Theist can feel (what I suspect but can't say for sure is) the same sense of wonder in a cathedral. Only the Theist says that it's God they're sensing.

On the other hand....there are some parts of religion that I really don't get. Examples: Prayer and worship do nothing for me.

Healing is likely one of the distinguishing features of many religions. Numerous non/pre Christian examples abound, ranging from such rituals as drum and sweat lodge ceremonies to the incantations and charms of contemporary India, -- as in a recent 'purification' ceremony involving bovine urine!

I agree the 'active ingredient' in any of these is doubtless a combination of patient expectation and group support, rather than divine power, or magic piss

Prayer and worship comes in two flavours - private and public.

Public displays of worship are, I think, primarily social conditioning, in which the participants perform ritual actions designed to reinforce dogma: Catholics 'cross' themselves, kneel in prayerful adoration, etc. Muslims prostrate themselves in submission, Hassidic Jews rock to and fro in --- whatever.

Private prayer is more an internal dialogue, in which the confessedly unworthy attempt to subvert the divine plan

Let's face it, atheism is another religion: you just call the Absolute (or the Source of All) by a different name (stuff, or whatever). Me, I'm an agnostic.

One point on which Primack & Abrams http://www.viewfromthecenter.com/ differ strongly from Judaeo-Christian-Muslim theology is that they insist there is nothing out there (i.e. on a cosmic scale) with any resemblance whatever to a human. Makes sense.

'Atheism is another religion'. And bald is a hair colour.

Haven't we sufficiently flogged this dead horse?

Athe-ism is viewed as a religion only by theists too stupid to understand the concept: 'without belief in god(s)'

Call it whatever you please; non-belief is, by definition, not the same as belief.

I too really cannot buy this, and I'll return to it later, once I've given it more thought than I'd usually give to the same statement had it been made by a theist. I may well have a non-theistic religion equivalent...but atheism ain't it.

btw...

>>One point on which Primack & Abrams differ strongly from Judaeo-Christian-Muslim theology...

I don't believe that yer Muslims have ever anthropomorphicised their god. Somewhat the opposite, in fact. Allah is unknowable. The Recitation is merely a guide.

To claim Allah is unknowable, and yet simultaneously claim to know Allah's will seems rather contradictory, does it not?

Yet that is exactly what Muslims assert, implicitly in their actions and explicitly in their dogma.

In this they are no different from any other religion's arrogant pretense to exclusive 'revealed knowledge', despite devastating logical flaws and blatant contradiction

Now...it's not entirely clear to me that Muslims *do* claim to know Allah's will. Some would say that the nearest they can come is a 'best guess'. Even The Recitation was Mohammed's attempt to put into words the wordless revelations he received through the intermediacy of angels.

Of course...as I keep saying, religions tend to be pluralistic. Some Muslims may well claim there is but one, clearly apparent interpretation. One thing that intrigues me, though, is the historical Islamic approach towards science. Allah is represented in all things. We mortals can only guess his will, as manifest in the material world. We have a holy duty to scratch the surface to reveal glimpses of the underlying order (traditionally associated with the colour green). 'Order' is a possible translation of the Arabic 'Islam'.

But, hey, I'm no Islamic theologian.

Good observations; it's more true to say that Judaeo-Christian-Muslim theology (which is a continuum nonetheless) began with an anthropomorphic god walking in the garden with A & E and talking to them. As the story progresses the deity becomes more abstracted.

The old testament, Genesis and Exodus in particular, has some surprising uses of the word god. Sometimes it refers to an Egyptian priest. And the word angel seems to be used for wandering strangers who mosey into town.

About the taunt "atheist religion" -- it is justified by the def "faith system". I do have my tongue in my cheek to some extent, but it is one thing to say there is no anthropomorphic god (which does not qualify as atheism, as you point out) and another to assert that there is/are no gods at all. Somehow the argument goes down the drain; you're simply not talking about anything any more. Why talk at all about it?

My wish many years ago was to join a group united against the impoverishment of language: a wish that has been granted by my finding and entering this palace that is Hootoo. I wanted to retain the use of those terms that appeared to be denied to me. Religious language was among the taboo. But why? Who was refusing me permission to use the words other than myself? And what good was it doing me?

And so you find me here, arguing a corner that may seem to change colour frequently as you watch . . .