To think it’s unwise to lose the idea of God(s) in society?

[Digita]

To think it’s unwise to lose the idea of God(s) in society?

Whenever I hear people arguing why faith in any sort of higher being is 'stupid' or 'delusional' I wonder if they've thought through the wider implications of a godless society. It might not be all that it's cracked up to be... the idea of higher beings might be invented but invented for a reason too. Is there a need for a philosophical concept of something more for accountability, law and order?

“Society needs reasons for people to tell the truth even when it is to their disadvantage.” Why swear on a Bible? The Courts have kept swearing an oath on religious texts because there’s still a psychological, moral force behind it.

"Co-operation is a key component in human interaction and also, according to new research from the University of British Columbia, the spread of civilisation. Not because for any altruistic reason, though; instead it might be directly down to a fear of a vengeful god." Fear of punitive gods linked to rise of human civilisation’

‘A new study published in the journal, Nature, tests the theory that communities are fair and cooperate with outsiders because of the fear of divine retribution.’ ‘Moralistic gods, supernatural punishment and the expansion of human sociality’

Way back in the days when i was studying this stuff someone told me that the Russians as a people like to be oppressed and that's why they went from absolute monarchy to absolute meglomaniac - but i don't think it is as simple as that. I agree that they really didn't have much chance to try anything else and that made even a "simple" revolution and rebuilding so diifficult. Add both world wars into the mix and it's a recipie for disaster.

you, I don’t think that’s true, but at the same time I don’t think that’s not true, either. There’s a strong fatalist quality to Russian culture, and almost a comforting sense of helplessness when it comes to challenging the powers that be. There’s a familiarity in knowing your place, and not challenging it.

it is more complex than that though. Stalin specifically purged the ‘thinking’ class in the late 30s, and those would have been the ones to ‘infect’ the general populace with ideas. If the progenitors and motivators have gone, so has the appetite for their ideals. Fear too plays a huge part, because it’s not like the outcome has historically been great for those that have challenged said powers, and nor has it been great for their families. Risking yourself is one thing, risking your wife, kids, and elderly parents is another.

Russia is a huge country, oppressively large, in fact. Its easy to feel inconsequential in the face of it. It’s also historically been very difficult to connect and coordinate a group of thinkers in Vladivostok to one’s in Saint Petersburg, for example.

it’s also not like the first forays in capitalism and democracy went particularly well, either. Russia in the 90s was a mess (economic collapse and Yeltsin’s gangster capitalism). It’s no wonder people were put off the idea of capitalism and democracy considering what their experience of it was. This video provides a bit of insight:

By all means, if you find solace and comfort in one who you call God, then it is absolutely fine for you to feel this way.
I imagine you are thinking of all the suffering going on at the moment. l am an atheist and I have to ask you, where is god at the moment? That faceless entity who is supposed to love us but allows all sorts of dreadful things to happen to people, children in particular,? Why is he allowing all this suffering, both at home and abroad? Why isn’t he in Ukraine? Why isn’t he in Downing Street, advising our leaders to show compassion? Why doesn’t he show himself to those who don’t believe?
There is much good work done in his name, but even that is limited by the humans doing it. If he’s supposed to be the Almighty, perhaps he should be a little less modest, and show himself once in a while.

People make Jesus out to be some kind of good guy, but he didn't distance himself from his mean old Dad, who murdered millions in the Bible and rained terror upon his detractors, not to mention the kittens drowned in the flood.

He wasn't always very nice to his mum either.

@Longleggedgiraffe

"Why doesn’t he show himself to those who don’t believe?"

I'd imagine a bit like the moving statues. By some miracle they showed up in Catholic Ireland!!

@goherbie , @ErrolTheDragon

"Wow. Did someone seriously just say that the Holocaust had 'nothing to do with religion'? Of course, religion wasn't the only factor, but to say it had nothing to do with it is astonishing."

Neither of you has obviously read this :- www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/holocaust-antisemitism/racism.html

@AhNowTed
"You know if it was a simple message of god is watching so you have to be good, I'd happily let them get on with it.

So you think it's up to you to decide what people 'get on with' according to your viewpoint? Who/what makes you the controller of others behaviour.

"It's fairly obvious who benefits from all this, and it ain't women.""

What in particular have you an issue with?

@ErrolTheDragon
"He wasn't always very nice to his mum either."

Please explain the reasoning for this statement.

@Brefugee
“currently 418 votes, 82% of which are YABU”

Ah. I misunderstood the Mumsnet message “You have one vote. All votes are anonymous.” Just realised that means I have one and all votes are anonymous. My bad. Sorry.

“It is there in front of everyone's eyes.”

And therefore must be true, like the wooden Trojan Horse just being a wooden horse, so let's accept it as it is. Nothing else beneath the surface?

The quantitative voting % is the tip of the iceberg. I’d like to go a bit deeper into why some people think YABU and others YANBU.

The OP asks a wisdom point, so it’s also a leap to assume voters are ‘wise’ enough to know what is or is not ‘unwise’ – and that’s why discussion is valuable to see what else is going on.

"I'm not asking people to stop talking about religion."

There are (now) 20 pages of discussion that shows a lot of people have conflated ‘god’ with ‘religion’ automatically as if the two are synonymous. Some people, it seems, can’t get their heads around separating the idea of a supernatural ‘god’ (something that requires imagination and intuition IMO) from the organisations of manmade ‘religion’. I’ve tried to explain that the OP is about the concept of a suprahuman being ‘watching’ to keep people in check, something that, according to research, has been useful for human civilisation.

The suprahuman concept doesn’t have to be ‘god’ either. It could be a 'fairy’ or just anything else that plays to the human curiosity of ‘something more’ that is capable of retribution if they’re caught in wrongdoing in order to keep people on their toes a bit. The OP questioned if society loses something valuable when it loses that concept of ‘god (or whatever) is watching’, especially in the justice system that requires people to tell the truth even if it’s at their disadvantage.

As a child, it was Santa. As an adult, it tends to be 'god'. Using imagination for discipline has its uses.

Humans have imaginations, and that is a sign of intelligence too. Using that imagination to help keep law and order has apparently worked for human civilisation. What would happen if we stopped using the imagination of an ‘unknowable god’ or whatever to society? (and I don’t mean religion, but I understand that the two become conflated as one in some people's minds)

"I am asking for it to be removed from public life and not to receive public funds."

Does that include the royal family? And a national anthem asking ‘god’ to save the head of state?

Then there’s the tourism point. The RF tourism appeal is the ‘magical’ fairy tale idea of ‘Queens’, ‘Kings’, Princes’ and ‘Princesses’. But strip away the suprahuman concept of the RF being chosen ‘by the grace of god’ and needing to be revered as ‘god’s representatives on earth’, then they are just regular humans like the rest of us and their claim to anything ‘more’ or ‘supernatural’ becomes untenable – not to mention ridiculous and delusional. No god, then no credible RF. Unless the RF use the disclaimer that they’re for ‘entertainment purposes only’ and the tourism income may continue flowing in – but I assume you expect that to be separate from public life and funds.

And now maybe you need to think about it a bit more. The centuries leading up to it. Racism was a strong element (Slavs, Roma etc as well as Jews) of course but to pretend that the particularly virulent hatred of the Jews wasn't cradled in centuries of religious intolerance is extremely odd.

@Thesefeetaremadeforwalking

No one is denying that the Nazis used multiple "justifications" for their racial ideology. Galton's eugenics, the protocols of the elders of Zion and many other sources. But many of the anti Semitic tropes in there, or in Hitler's Mein Kampf can be traced back to the antisemitic tropes that were put out by the Christian Church, such as the medieval blood libels. I would recommend this book to explain it further. I have a copy at home, should you be interested in borrowing it. It is a fascinating read.

store.yadvashem.org/en/the-holocaust-and-the-christian-world-16

Oh, I was being a bit flippant. I can't remember the chapter and verses off the top of my head but there's a couple of places where if you read them literally (which of course believers never do) wouldn't go down well on an MN AIBU thread.

No of course I'm not an arbitrator of what people believe. You know full well I meant I wouldn't bother to debate, or share my views if we were merely talking about a harmless watchful god without all the religion.

As to your second question, I can't believe you're serious, but I'll fire off a few for starters
Forced adoption
No contraception
Magdalen laundries
Mass baby "graves"
Mass baby septic tank "graves"
An appalling mortality rate in mother/baby homes
Child sex abuse on a massive scale
Sadistic physical abuse in religious schools

Further reading:
The Ferns report 2005
Commission to inquire into child abuse 2009
Murphy report 2009
Cloyne report 2011
Magdalene laundries report 2013
Mother and baby home report 2020

The suprahuman concept doesn’t have to be ‘god’ either. It could be a 'fairy’ or just anything else that plays to the human curiosity of ‘something more’ that is capable of retribution if they’re caught in wrongdoing in order to keep people on their toes a bit. The OP questioned if society loses something valuable when it loses that concept of ‘god (or whatever) is watching’, especially in the justice system that requires people to tell the truth even if it’s at their disadvantage.

I think the thread has gone off in other directions because people (at least some of us) did think about that, concluded that no, it wasn't valuable. And those ideas so often, in practice, do give rise to a whole load more baggage including organised religions. You can't just separate out the bit you want.

"It's fairly obvious who benefits from all this, and it ain't women.""
What in particular have you an issue with?

I should be pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain that organised religion benefits men. It gives them control of women's fertility (abortion rights), women's lives (the concept of Headship in fundamentalist Christianity and the absolute lack of independence for women in some Islamic countries and in ultra-orthodox Judaism, where for example men can withhold divorce from a woman with no recourse).

At the end of it all, organised religion feeds the patriarchy.

@ErrolTheDragon "religious intolerance"

The person named 'Greatest Leader of All Times' in a recent BBC World Histories poll was nominated for creating a modern empire of toleration. But you've probably not heard of him before, although you've probably seen the jewels taken from his kingdom in the Tower of London.

Historian Mark Lockwood: “Though certainly an imperialist, Ranjit Singh represented a different, more enlightened, more inclusive model of state-building, and a much-needed path towards unity and toleration. We could still benefit from his example.”

Editor of BBC World Histories, Matt Elton, said: “Ranjit Singh’s overwhelming success in our poll suggests that the qualities of his leadership continue to inspire people around the world in the 21st century.

“And, at a time of global political tensions, it’s telling that Singh’s rule is interpreted as representing ideals of tolerance, freedom and cooperation.”

I read up about him afterwards and liked something he said when someone asked him why he only had one eye. "God wanted me to look upon all religions with one eye, which is why he took away the light from the other".

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b075t5mn

@AhNowTed Sorry about the links and backing up evidence. Habits from essay writing die hard!

@Digita

"Some people, it seems, can’t get their heads around separating the idea of a supernatural ‘god’ (something that requires imagination and intuition IMO) from the organisations of manmade ‘religion’. I’ve tried to explain that the OP is about the concept of a suprahuman being ‘watching’ to keep people in check, something that, according to research, has been useful for human civilisation."

So if you're question is "does the idea of god watching over us with a disapproving eye make mankind behave?"

No would be my answer.

@pointythings I should be pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain that organised religion benefits men.

Please do not call into question the intelligence of those who disagree with you or who ask for more information.

Every person has an assertive right to be treated with respect, and the right to ask for information.

If you don't understand basic assertive principles then maybe you shouldn't be discussing/debating on this thread.

@AhNowTed
"As to your second question, I can't believe you're serious"

You start your response with a put-down which removes some credibility from your answer.

It seems like you are another poster who knows nothing about peoples' assertive rights.

Every person has an assertive right to be treated with respect, and the right to ask for information. They also have the right to say "I don't understand".

By contrast, aggressive behaviour is when you ignore or violate the rights of the other person by name-calling, criticizing, verbally attacking etc.

"Play the ball, not the man"

Ooooh, the thread police have arrived!

@Thesefeetaremadeforwalking if you ask a stupid question, you'll get a stupid answer. If it isn't obvious to you that men benefit from the controlling aspects of organised religion, maybe it's you who shouldn't be debating on this thread.

The person named 'Greatest Leader of All Times' in a recent BBC World Histories poll was nominated for creating a modern empire of toleration. But you've probably not heard of him before, although you've probably seen the jewels taken from his kingdom in the Tower of London.

here comes the patronising bollocks again.

Thanks to the erudite and brilliant posters on this thread, it has been fun. Unfortunately the patronising stuff is too much for me at this stage so I'm read only from now on.

@pointythings
"If it isn't obvious to you that men benefit from the controlling aspects of organised religion, maybe it's you who shouldn't be debating on this thread."

Thank you for confirming my previous post

Unfortunately, I think you are right, OP. Too many people would start lying, become unkind, and generally behave in a detrimental way to society, did they not feel pressure from a higher being. And I'm saying this as an atheist. Yes, lots of people can 'police' themselves, but many cannot.

I think you're wrong, what's more it's pretty insulting to those of us who don't believe.

@Thesefeetaremadeforwalking could you please post a picture of your official thread police badge? Thanks so much.