Why we need religion

[mr_engineer]

15 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Nope, that is New Age spirituality — spirituality separated from its traditional backdrop. Spirituality is the search for the highest value (God, Truth, Consciousness, Goodness, etc.), and there are many other practices than meditation that are required for getting there safely. What Leo is providing on the side (personal development, psychology, philosophy) are a few examples. Meditation doesn't address all human needs, and without a grand narrative that addresses all human needs, you have to construct your own on your free time, and that is a process filled with traps.

What is 'the highest value', though? That's a relative notion. 

In theory (of both religion and some LOA-based New-Age spirituality), God is the highest value. But, in practice, people disagree on this! 

From what I know about spirituality specifically, from a human standpoint, it is the talk about God and God exclusively. God as a metaphysical concept. And meditation is the most non-controversial way to get there. (Maybe not the fastest) 

And, for a billionaire, for whom money is everything, spirituality will not, in fact, be the search for 'the highest value'. That search, will be their business! Some people just worship money. Especially wage-slaves, especially the middle-class and poor. Because money pays your bills. 

[Gesundheit2]

39 minutes ago, mr_engineer said:

What is 'the highest value', though? That's a relative notion. 

Beauty is a relative notion, too. But you still crave it.

[Gesundheit2]

8 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

2000 years ago, you had religion

~3000 (probably even more) up to 400 years ago, you had endless religious wars.

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The death of God was very recent.

Don't you mean the death of dogma? 

Edited March 26, 2023 by Gesundheit2

[mr_engineer]

12 minutes ago, Gesundheit2 said:

Beauty is a relative notion, too. But you still crave it.

Yeah, but assuming that having a common ideology will take us to it, is the mistake. The problem is assuming that it's not relative, it's absolute. Which is what religion does. 

Edited March 26, 2023 by mr_engineer

[zurew]

13 hours ago, Nilsi said:

Apparently our incentives and goals are not alligned, so how do we allign them, if not through debate? 

if I would know a rigorous answer to that, I would probably be one of the smartest person alive. This is one question a lot of people struggle with and the concept of an antirivalrous world is about. As I said before, debating about it won't be sufficient enough, because debating is structurally limited for this, and here is why:

 

1. Debating already assumes an already agreed upon goal/goalpost where we will try to move towards during our debate, unless this is not established, we will talk past each other and we won't settle/get anywhere.
2. Debating is about using logic to get from A to B. Morals precedes logic and  sometimes if we have foundationally different morals, we won't be able to agree upon the goal/goalpost, therefore we won't even be able to begin our debate and won't be able to settle our disagreement(s) by debate

Therefore the argument would be , that we need to have a common set of foundational morals that we can all use and agree upon  (religion) and just after that we can start talking about debating certain topics. Once that foundation is established, that will give a structure to our debates and we can then debate about how to move towards certain goals within that structure.

You might say "yeaah, but there never was a universal religion that everyone agreed upon, and we still managed to survive and to move society forward" - that would be a good point, however the next part of the argument would be , that even though in the past we somewhat managed to do that (because we weren't that depended on each other and in the  past we could use might to get what we want), in the 21st century where everything is interconnected and we are depended on each other, some of these disagreements (that are at foundational moral level) needs to be settled to be able to solve some of our global problems and to be able to not live in constant fear that the other party will use their might (justifiably from their perspective) to defend their morals.

The weakest part of this argument is obviously about the "how". How could we get to a universal religion without war and actual fights? The answer to that question is incredibly complicated and I am not educated enough to talk on that, however, first we have to agree that there is a strong need for it, and then we can talk about the "hows" (notice that here we have to agree on the goalpost to be able to have a debate about it and to be productive).

[Carl-Richard]

5 hours ago, mr_engineer said:

What is 'the highest value', though? That's a relative notion. 

In theory (of both religion and some LOA-based New-Age spirituality), God is the highest value. But, in practice, people disagree on this!

Is food a relative value? Does something being relative change the fact that it's an universal human need? "The highest value" is a human need, and it can be manifested in many different forms. What that exactly looks like has only gotten a little weird because of things like postmodernism and capitalism.

 

5 hours ago, mr_engineer said:

From what I know about spirituality specifically, from a human standpoint, it is the talk about God and God exclusively. God as a metaphysical concept. And meditation is the most non-controversial way to get there. (Maybe not the fastest)

That's a relative notion, dogma in fact.

 

4 hours ago, mr_engineer said:

Yeah, but assuming that having a common ideology will take us to it, is the mistake. The problem is assuming that it's not relative, it's absolute. Which is what religion does. 

Distinguish between the need for religion as a general concept and a particular fundamentalist interpretation of an already existing religion.

Edited March 26, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, Gesundheit2 said:

~3000 (probably even more) up to 400 years ago, you had endless religious wars.

You only fight for things that are highly valueable.

 

3 hours ago, Gesundheit2 said:

Don't you mean the death of dogma? 

Hell no ? Richard Dawkins might be old, but he is still alive.

[UnbornTao]

 

[Gesundheit2]

28 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

You only fight for things that are highly valueable.

Or for things that you were brainwashed into thinking that they're highly valuable.

28 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Hell no ? Richard Dawkins might be old, but he is still alive.

?

[UnbornTao]

This is exactly one of my points: Who told you that a certain value is the highest one? You're believing stuff of which you have no personal experience in the matter. If you had, you wouldn't feel an urgent need to adopt what you've been told as true.

A religion is followed and is meant to create followers. That's what it does to people.

Edited April 2, 2023 by UnbornTao

[Danioover9000]

   So what's the consensus here so far? Religion needed or not?

[UnbornTao]

On 3/26/2023 at 1:52 PM, Danioover9000 said:

   So what's the consensus here so far? Religion needed or not?

In the context of enlightenment work, it gets in the way. Now, you may be tempted to believe what I said. But look into it for yourself.

Edited April 2, 2023 by UnbornTao

[Juan]

Don’t have 100 hours to watch a single Leo’s video? No hay problemo! 

 

[UnbornTao]

On 3/25/2023 at 3:46 PM, zurew said:

Some religion came from experiecing certain things, then building a framework for it and then teaching about it. (the very same way how Leo has his awakenings, then try to give a set of practices and a framework for it and then teach about it). 

You can experience a bunch of things, but an experience's truth value will be totally determined by you. You can experience infinite love, and then say, that it was just chemicals in my brain that made me feel that way. You can always doubt or blindly accept any experience, and how much truth value you will place on them will be grounded in subjectivity.

...

Gotama didn't invent Buddhism. He simply put forth and communicated his realizations from direct experience. His followers invented that religion by or through their actions -- believing in a guy's communication, putting it down on paper, holding the books as "sacred", performing rituals, making up a cosmology around it, adding and projecting stuff, etc. That, carried out for a long period of time, created what we call Buddhism. In any case, what awakened individuals like these had were insights, breakthroughs and enlightenments, not mere ideas.

The absolute is not a matter of jumping to conclusions or of being convinced. Even if it is a superficial glimpse, it is absolute and self-validating. Care should be taken not to fool oneself with stories about it, though.

What if the truth happens to be useless and to have no value? As a matter of fact, what's true must exist prior to value, since the latter is relative and is constructed by you. Saying that the absolute is the highest value doesn't sound right to me. What do you mean? What's value? Higher than what? Who's to say? Valuable to whom?

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The very notion, that ultimate truth can be experienced, in and of itself is a dogma here, that no one is allowed to question or contemplate.

It is offered as a possibility to be considered for oneself. Otherwise, what are you doing?

If a religion says so, then you're supposed to accept it on blind faith. When the purpose is realizing what's real, you'd be invited to freely question anything.

Edited April 4, 2023 by UnbornTao

[Carl-Richard]

6 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

Who told you that X or Y is the highest value? That's the issue. You're believing stuff.

All I'm saying is that seeking the highest value is a fundamental need within the human organism. I'm not saying what the expression of that has to look like. But what I am saying is that it's better to fulfill that need it in a way that also supports other human needs, like safety, belonging, etc., which is why I propose to you the need for religion.

You wouldn't go to a restaurant if they only served food but no drinks. You'll feel like you're missing something. And that is all religion truly is: spirituality without the obvious missing pieces. I don't see how discovering spirituality through some obscure YouTube video and meditating in your basement without anybody in your life knowing what the hell you are doing is just how things are meant to be.

 

6 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

A religion is followed. This shows its nature -- set of ideas and rituals to be adopted on faith.

A spiritual guru is followed, a spiritual path is followed, a spiritual concept is taken on faith until it's experienced. And instead of getting the concepts from a culture, you get it from a cult.

Edited March 26, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[zurew]

41 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

How come these guys awoke without religion?

Thats not the question, because no one here is denying that you can awaken without any religion.

The question is that whats more effective? Having an organized system where you can find all the teachings and methods and all the pitfalls and everything in an organised way with the combination of all the good parts of science to maximize the effectiveness or a world where people who want to awaken have to do all the investigative work alone by exploring many different kind of cults and by all that maximizing their chances of getting caught up in one and getting mislead by one?

Its almost the same as if we were talking about learning in a high conscious university (where all the knowledge is organised, and where many different kind of  highly educated people are at your disposal in one place vs you having a big need for collecting and trying out  and testing all the selfhelp books alone and wasting a lot of time and money by doing so)

47 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Saying that Love is the highest value sounds like BS to me. What do you mean? Higher than what? What's value? Who's to say? To whom is it valuable? Not to say that that is false or true but that in your experience you don't know.

I haven't said that that is the highest value, I just used it as an example to make a point.

The other thing that is relevant here  is that people on this forum are very fast with saying "everything is relative, and nothing has inherent value , and no value is higher than any other value" which btw isn't necessarily true, especially if you guys agree with Leo that Reality is Love,- but regardless of that - this is fine on a theoretical level, however no one here is living up to that nihilistic notion and the very fact that you guys are alive, proves that no one here lives up to it.

If we know that survival necessitates a hierarchy of values, then we might as well consciously construct a moral and a valuesystem that we could all collectively live up to.

56 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

It is offered as a possibility to be considered for oneself. Otherwise what are you doing? Go have a cup of tea, then.

You made an argument about how dogmas are necessarily bad (I disagree, because you can't escape certain dogmas and dogmas can have a very specific purpose - namely for example to make you take action), however, on this site we have dogmas as well, but these are harder to recognise. The very purpose of a dogma is to not question it, and I brought up an example of a dogma: "You can experience awakening/the Absolute if you do x methods, and you don't have to believe me, just try it for yourself!", if I question that dogma, then I can't start doing the work, but if I don't question it and I buy into it and use it as a method, then I can start doing the exploration/seeking/doing the work.

A person who wants to explore the absolute, first and foremost have to have a belief that it can be explored (prior to any other action). The very same way we could have a religion as I described above ,where you could find all the necessary tools, frameworks and methods in one place and all the best people that are in the field, that could help you to lead you to the explore absolute or to help you awaken.

[Nemra]

Guys, what you have been describing is not actual religion.

Have you all lived a religious life?

Being religious is like a lifestyle and it has its price. It's not about awakening even if people like to believe that.

[Carl-Richard]

2 minutes ago, Understander said:

Guys, what you have been describing is not actual religion.

Have you all lived a religious life?

Being religious is like a lifestyle and it has its price. It's not about awakening even if people like to believe that.

What is your definition of religion?

[Nemra]

@Carl-Richard

Religion is a set of dogmas that you follow without questioning it. It has its rituals and ceremonies. Generally, It's about praying and asking for forgiveness for your sins to God. And because you can't doubt it or question it, your ideas about the world will be very biased and untruthful. It's not about direct experience and open-mindedness. Your observation of reality is worthless. There is no deconstruction happening.

It affects how you relate to people and tells what kind of family is desirable.

I have been religious when I was young. I worked at the church.

[Carl-Richard]

On 26.3.2023 at 10:27 PM, Understander said:

@Carl-Richard

Religion is a set of dogmas that you follow without questioning it. Generally, It's about praying and asking for forgiveness for your sins to God. And because you can't doubt it or question it, your ideas about the world will be very biased and untruthful. It's not about direct experience and open-mindedness. Your observation of reality is worthless. There is no deconstruction happening.

By that definition, I became religious when I was 14 and found Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris on YouTube. What you described sounds more like religious fundamentalism: people who take a very literalist interpretation of holy scriptures (e.g. Adam and Eve literally existed) and an absolutist stance to their religion ("my religion is the only truth"). That is just one type of religiosity. Also, fundamentalism is not specific to religion either. When I was 14, I though that scientific theories were literally true, and that science was the only truth.

You can also take a symbolic and pluralistic interpretation of scriptures (i.e. not literal and not the only truth). For example, the story of the Fall can be interpreted as a metaphor for when humans became self-aware, which probably happened 30-50k years ago (we developed the ability think symbolically and self-reflect, remember the past and predict the future, which created the conscious egoic identity). When the ego was created, we were separated from God and "fell into sin". To transcend the ego is to reunite with God and clear yourself of sin. If you take that interpretation, just imagine what other kinds of wisdom is hidden in there.

Even so, fundamentalist religion is not incompatible with your favorite parts of spirituality either. You can still have direct experiences of the divine as a fundamentalist, but of course, it's generally a bit harder, particularly in Christianity (you can thank St. Augustine for that who started placing God outside of direct experience):

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Modern understandings of faith depend heavily on Augustine of Hippo, who defines it (De trin. 13.2.5) as fides quae and fides qua, belief in the body of Christian doctrine and the faith which takes place in the heart and mind of the believer.

https://www.classics.ox.ac.uk/invention-faith-pistis-and-fides-early-churches-and-later-roman-empire

 

@UnbornTao @Understander So what you guys are really opposed is neither religion in general nor religious fundamentalism, but rather something like the views of one theologian in one branch of Christianity.

Edited March 28, 2023 by Carl-Richard