Mark said to Ron:
... My understanding of Theism from personal conversations from the Christian
side, is that it provides: meaning, purpose, morality, common purpose, a sense
of security, a personal sense of responsibility and morals, a possible
afterlife, a possibility of atonement in this life, forgiveness, redemption,
and the possibility of miracles. These sound like a lot of quality reasons to
choose it. It could be considered lying to oneself whatever position one
takes. What would be the reasons to choose anti-theism or atheism besides a
self-centered notion of knowing? In the end we really are talking about choice
I believe.
dmb says:
Actually, I posted the following nearly two years ago (Jan 13, 2009).
...Among psychologist and sociologists there is a thing called the deprivation
theory of religion.
This theory claims that religion caters to those who have been deprived of
certain emotional and psychological needs. You know, the sigh of the oppressed,
the opiate of he masses, the expression of infantile wishes and the fear of
death and, less grandly, people who just need love, acceptance, certainty and a
sense of meaning or purpose. I don't think the deprivation theory of religion
explains everything but it pretty well describes the psychological motives of
many, if not most, religious people.
The Christian myth no longer functions the way it is supposed to. The symbols
have been literalized, concretized and have lost their meaning AS symbols. As
Joe Campbell puts it, religion is a misinterpretation of myth. So the people
who continue to subscribe to traditional religion have more or less agreed to
believe lots of things that just aren't believable, things like actual virgin
births and literally coming back from the dead, etc.. Sadly, they take the
symbols literally and fail to understand that "the promised land is not about
real estate", as Campbell puts it.
Carl Jung disagreed with Freud almost entirely. Where Freud thought that
religious belief indicated an unhealthy mind, Jung thought spiritual
development was essential to human health. (Campbell was mostly a Jungian but
he takes Freud and other psychologists on board as well.) At the same time,
however, Jung saw a serious failure in the conventional forms of Christianity
such as in his own father's church. Even as a child, he saw that his father and
uncles preached sermons without having any actual religious experience. He
could see that they didn't know what they were talking about and hat they only
believed on basis of faith rather than knowing from their own experience. In
that sense, Jung thought, religion often prevents spiritual development. He
considered religious experience to be a psychological fact. Radical empiricists
would agree. Religious claims begin with such facts but the radical empiricist
insists that we ought not go beyond the experience to assert supernatu
ral entities as the cause of such experience.
The archetypal images that present themselves in such experience will always be
images that the experiencer can relate to, depending on one's particular
context, but this is not taken as proof of anything beyond the experience
itself. I mean, it doesn't matter if you have a vision of Jesus, Buddha or Bob.
The hero can wear a thousand different faces but it's essentially the same
vision. And the test of the "truth" of these kinds of experiences comes in
subsequent experience. Did the experience result in some kind of growth or
transformation of consciousness? Does this change lead to a difference in the
quality of life? A belief proves to be good (or not) depending on how we live
with it but it'll never be good in practice unless it also harmonizes with all
of your other beliefs. Pragmatic truth is very open and flexible but it's not
so loose and casual that we can just say, "hey, whatever works for you".
If that were the case, Pragmatism would provide justification for believers who
fit the deprivation theory of religion. They could say it "works" for them
simply because it provides emotional comfort. Opium feels good too but it will
take over your life and eventually kill you. Now (11/11/10) I'd also point out
that beliefs held because they provide such things as meaning, purpose,
security, an afterlife, atonement, forgiveness, redemption, and miracles are
beliefs that the believer NEEDS to believe. If a belief give you all that there
is no way in hell he's going to be open to criticism. If you dispute that
belief, from his point of view, you are not merely debating the merits of an
idea. You are a serious threat to his central coping mechanism. You are
challenging the very purpose and meaning of his life. In that kind of
situation, facts, reasons and evidence are viewed as demonic enemies rather
than material for reflection.
The deprivation theory of religion is relevant here, obviously, because we are
supposedly here for the very purpose of debating and discussing and changing
our beliefs. It is literally impossible to have a reasonable discussion with
anyone who needs to believe their beliefs that much. Remember what happened to
Jamie when he tried to take that doll away from Lila? That "baby" was her
religion, her religion of one. She didn't believe it because it made sense or
because it was harmonized so well or explained so much. She believed it because
she NEEDED to and when Jamie posed a threat to her religion she slashed him
across the face with a knife. Think about that scene the next time you see one
of our theist friends respond to any criticism of their theism. Then ask
yourself if that response is more like a knife in the face or more like a
reasonable engagement with the concepts in dispute. Does that response evade
the reasons and evidence with insults or does it intelligently comm
unicate an alternative point of view? Is that response intellectually
substantial or is it just anger and abuse? Obviously, there is no way to have a
meaningful conversation with those who respond with knives to the face and such
persons aren't really interested in philosophy anyway.
In a context like this, the presence of this kind of psychological
incorrigibility is very destructive. It's a wrench in the gears. It's not just
that these beliefs are incompatible with the MOQ. It's that such beliefs are
incompatible with any kind of open discussion because that's about as full as
any teacup ever gets.
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