Can The World Survive Without Religion (Yes or No) A Hindu P (General)

by dhw, Friday, November 26, 2010, 12:13 (5112 days ago) @ satyansh

SATYANSH: I am an atheist only till the extent that I agree that the chance of any god existing is very little. I do not agree with the thought which many atheists believe that by merely being an atheist you have automatically become rational.-First of all, welcome to the forum. This is the first time we've had a post from someone with, I presume, a Hindu background, and as I for one find it very difficult to understand what exactly Hinduism stands for, you will certainly be able to offer us new perspectives. From what I do know, there are so many different kinds of Hinduism that it can embrace virtually any faith or non-faith. You have mentioned "the basic teachings of tolerance of thought", and I see this as a huge advantage over the restrictions and prejudices of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.-What really intrigues me in your post, though, is the emphasis on rationalism, and I wonder to what extent you yourself think rationalism could eventually lead "to a better world without religion and its biases". I agree with you completely that being an atheist doesn't mean that a person is rational: on the contrary, atheism is based on the belief that all the mysteries of life and consciousness must be explicable in terms of the material world as we know it. That is not reason, but faith. Belief in some kind of conscious, supernatural being who created us and perhaps even cares for us is equally irrational. But I don't see reason as being a reliable guide to truth, since once we've satisfied our material needs, many of the experiences we tend to value most in life ... I'm thinking of love, sensual and aesthetic pleasures ... have nothing to do with reason, and can't be explained by it. What is rational about my love for my wife and children, or my pleasure at a Mahler symphony, a Hentschel painting, or a chocolate mousse?-You have suggested making a new version of all the religions, especially the Abrahamic variety. The latter are all rigidly bound by their texts, and therefore by the process of interpretation. The current split between the Anglicans over homosexuality and the ordination of women, the latest kerfuffle over the Pope's statements about condoms, and the terrible gulf between Muslim moderates and fundamentalists, all show that these religions will never agree amongst themselves, let alone with one another. -The question you have posed at the beginning of this post is whether the world can survive without religion. I think it could certainly survive without each of the individual religions, because none of them can claim any sort of authority. We don't need religion, in my view, for moral purposes, because society is perfectly capable of establishing moral laws and educating people to behave responsibly and considerately without the imposition of ethics from priests who are no more reliable than politicians. (Of course that doesn't mean that a humanistic society will stamp out evil. Religion can't do that either.) However, some people do need a power to look up to, worship, and also give them hope. The realities of life and death are too harsh for many to bear, so religion plays an essential and extremely valuable role that I think it will continue to play so long as the human world continues to suffer (which it will). So my answer to your question is that there are enough human beings who need religion for social and psychological reasons to ensure that it will survive. And for all we know, there may also be enough common truth in religion to justify its survival for cosmic reasons as well.