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

Seriously. I expect the question will upset some people. But seriously, what useful thing does religion do that no other aspect of human experience does as well or better?

I admit that I'm spurred to ask this question partly by the embassy burnings today in Damascus, but more powerfully by the firing and arrest of Jihad Momani.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2006/02/04/cartoon-controversy060204.html

Without religion, you can't have ritual. And without ritual, there is no "ritualistic cursing".

(not sure that it's true, however, that one can't have ritual without religion. There are patterned behaviors surrounding things such as winemaking, coffee brewing, and preparing for one's day in the morning which may readily be described as rituals. To claim that they are also religious certainly dilutes the definition of 'religious' to meaninglessness.)

perhaps, but perhaps it is the definition of ritual which has been diluted, and with a stricter definition of that, ritual would be (say 90% of the time) a religious event.

More importantly, without ritualistic cursing we'd be up the f*****g s***s creek without the proverbial m****r f*****g paddle.

I suspect we are pretty far up that particular creek in that particular state of equipage already, precisely due to religion.

Your example of 'ritualistic cursing' has little to do with religion.
Without religion there would be no profanities which are a bit different from cuss words and phrases.

I'm an anti-theist, I see little *useful* purpose to religion. But there are uses to sprituality and rituals but they can secularised. Tai Chi, yoga, tantric sex and the like... all quite useful. So, the pursuit of sprituality can be useful. The mindless adherence to dogma and scripture has no *useful* purpose.

I'm just going to say what came to me first on reading the question.

Which is that it has to do with death and consoling us for the fact (as far as I'm concerned) that we're mortal. That what religion does that is unique to it is persuade us that we don't die, but live on elsewhere afterwards, in another state; and that this helps us confront not only the inevitability of our own deaths, but the deaths of our loved ones.

(Sorry, the grin was for Arnie - that went quickly )

I feel the same, SO.

and

'what religion does that is unique to it is persuade us that we don't die, but live on elsewhere afterwards, in another state'

I'm not sure that such a pursuasion is particularly useful.

'this helps us confront not only the inevitability of our own deaths, but the deaths of our loved ones.'

non-religious things can offer the same help (even something as banal as 'He lived a full life'), so it's certainly not a uniquely religious benefit.

>>non-religious things can offer the same help <<

Indeed - but those are consolation for the fact of death: they're not 'cures' for it, in the way that a heaven or the idea of resurrection purport to be.

So, a useful purpose for religion is that it provides a cure for death? Amputation provides a cure for 'gangrene' but antibiotics let you keep your leg. This religious 'cure' seems as heartily unsatisfactory. If one can only carry on in this life in the face of the certitude of death by means of amputation and a crutch then I'd suggest one hadn't given enough attention to less radical 'cures'.

>>antibiotics let you keep your leg<<

Yes.

For a while

(Me, I know I'm going to die and that that's it. I don't find that much consolation in dwelling on it, or in any of the secular 'remedies'. I just think that's where a great deal of the attractions of religion lie and that there isn't a counterpart beyond them that extends the same sort of comfort).

I don't find thatI need consolation. I have trouble understanding what the big deal is for some people. A hundred years from now you won't exist. So what? A hundred years ago you didn't exist either.

I hardly think the feeble consolation or cure or whatever one wants to call it is worth the 'I'm going to kill you and everyone you know because you made fun of my crutch' that seems to go with the territory.

No, nor do I.

But not existing? I envy you your sang-froid on that one.

The 'consolation' idea reminded me of the lines from Philip Larkin:

"This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die"

So is the proudest boast of religion that it's a vast moth-eaten musical brocade created to pretend we never die?

< http://www.certando.net/larkin.html > for the poem.

SB

I think we need a religious person to come in here to explain things.

I've not much faith that anything convincing will come of it.

SB - believe it or not, I was thinking of Larkin's 'Aubade' when I first posted A *fantastic* poem.

(Probably a bit lost on those who don't mind dying though )

Did I say I didn't mind dying? No. I thought not.


I have simply found that I have been served well in this life by my personal motto:


Always expect the worst and your only surprises will be pleasant ones.

Oh, I know you didn't

As far as secular consolations go, that poem is one of mine.

As someone who has little use for religions which enforce their versions of the truth on people, but also belonging to a "religion" which I have "chosen", I think I can say what "A religion" has afforded me (not to be confused with what "religion" affords me).

I find in "a religion" a sense of belonging to a group with common ideals, similar spiritual and social values, and where I can share my personal spiritual feelings and also learn from others.

One doesn't get this simply from living... One can experience spiritual things and feel a sense of "the" spiritual but not find companionship on the spiritual journey.

I find the support and understanding of my beliefs and the associatin with others with the same values very important. I also find the experience of experiencing "rituals" (the coming together on Sunday morning, the act of meditating with others, the lighting of the chalice, the singing of hymns) to be rewarding and comforting. I enjoy participating in the services and listening to the ideas and experiences of others on their quest for the truth, whatever that may be for them and for me. I grow from my experiences that can only be gotten in the millieu of the Faith to which I belong.

I suspect that, aside from the differences in the actual beliefs and values, as well as the particular rituals and expectations of other "religions" or Faiths, my reasons for being in my religion is the same as those others.

A lot of people who don't "get" why someone would belong to an organized religion see only the ritual and the expectations placed on adherents as what makes religion (and/or the enforcement of specific moral imperitives of certain religions on society and history). Those make "A religion" but "religion" is the deeper mixture of all of the things I mentioned above.