What is the necessity of religious belief?

[Poonis]

Hi all,
First time poster on iidb, but long-time reader and poster on various other religious and philosophical forums. I have been thinking about this question for a few months now and have asked it elsewhere, but have not had any really deep comments on it, and hope some may be able to provide me new incite to think about.

What is the necessity of religious belief?

I am not asking "what is belief", as I am not interested in, nor do I care for, any specific belief at all, but rather, the necessity thereof.

To give a clearer understanding of my question, I have thought about what happens should I be without belief in a thing. Does that thing which I choose to believe in still exist with it's essense intact?

Observation:
I've noticed that with fundamentalist religions, and even more so with the fanatics, that they feel they must "fight" for their god and their religion. Such fighting may be in the form of:
1. peaceful active public preaching (prayer groups, mass prayer days, billy graham crusades, televangelizing, the move towards the 'mega-church', and so on), to
2. the threshold of fundamentalist extremism: religious activist groups trying to overtake the political arena, onto
3. hostile and violent means: including, for example, "homo-bashing" and all hostility towards others who do not agree with what they believe, on upto the fullblown and unrestrained religious war.

All of these things follow a common theme: it is humans who must carry out the 'Will' of their respective 'God'.

What should happen, then, if there were no Billy Graham Crusade, no religious activist groups trying to overtake government, and no religious wars? What would be if not one belief were excersized and followed in one's life?

From reflections upon this observation, I find that the 'fight for what I believe in' mentality is mostly to:
1. First define friend or foe
2. Get as many as possible on your side
3. Act out hate for enemy

In the usurpation of the necessity of believe, one is then left without enemies and without hate. Although not all hate and enemies are dissipated, but larger fronts that are based upon religion, as religion plays a big part in the world and it's history.

But nowhere have I seen it that a god has fulfilled a belief of mine (when I was a fundamentalist christian and did believe in something) and that it has always been myself that has carried out my belief.

Time has always shown the foolishness of the ways of mankind's ways.

Is it then that the necessity of belief is nothing more than to prevent the admission of ignorance, out of fear, as to admit ignorance is to reject the comfort of belief? Can a god exist without man fighting for it?

I'm not sure if this is fully expands on the question I am asking, and hope that someone may be able to weed through this rambling and help me understand the necessity of belief.

Thank you.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Welcome.

I am Quetzalcoatl god of the Inca.

Religious Beliefs ( http://www.nobeliefs.com/beliefs.htm) are an abomination.

[screwtape]

Necessity of religions:

1. To government or those otherwise in power: Control over the religious by developing concepts of right and wrong so that laws (the penal code, civil code, etc.) have a firm foundation in religion.

2. To self: Far too many to mention but here are a few (a) control over self conduct by establishing standards of conduct (b) a feeling of control over all things not human (essentially superiority over nature and its creatures) (c) a feeling of belonging to a "group" (d) a geniune search for the truth.

As to the latter, my experience with most tells me that the path to wisdom and freedom from religion (and I don't necessarily mean atheism) starts with religion and that may make the destination sweeter when one knows where one has been and the path one has taken. I would advocate that there is, at least, some level of necessity that was unintended but nevertheless productive.

S.

[TruthPrevails]

Quetzalcoatl, thanks for for the interesting article which i find very informative.

Whilst i agree that 'religious beliefs' should be weaned off from humanity, unfortunately as far as humanity development is concern we are relatively only a couple of months old in terms of galactic time. In was only a blink of an eye that organized religion came into the picture in relation of human evolution.
As such the majority of the 6 billions+ still need that religious belief 'dummy' to suck.

I agree with the article's listings of all the negatives that come with religious beliefs. Other than extremists and fundamentalists, I would not condemn the average person who need such beliefs as a crutch. To them, religious beliefs are critical basic necessities even though it may be ridiculous.

The question is how to wean these people off that religious 'dummy' while at the same time acknowledging and respect their practice.

Logic, critical thinking are useful tools to do the weaning. However, re Howard Gardner, humans are endowed with different multiple intelligence.
see: http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/mi/front_mi.htm

A person with heavy musical or kinesthetic intelligence may not jive with logic and critical thinking but prefer a free flow on creativity. In addition, there are other various permutations of inclinations for others.

Thus, to ensure effective weaning of the religious dummy, there must be specific approaches to cater for the different inclinations of the 6 billions+. At present Buddhism and Hinduism already have in place a range of practices(incl. logical) that cater for the different inclinations. What we need to do is to spice them up with some logic, critical thinking and tune them towards spirituality rather than religion.
Note: Christianity and Islam in general forces square pegs into round holes.

Meanwhile those with higher logical and critical thinking faculties should continue to expand exponentially.

I believe in the long run, religious beliefs will decline, but humans being human, it will not fade away.

[kaelcarp]

There's a certain minimal level of "belief" that is necessary for society. I mean, I believe in the validity of experience as a tool for determining truth. I believe that my senses are generally reliable, if flawed, ways of perceiving the world. Stuff like that.

When you get into the realm of religious belief, or more generally, ideological belief, things get more complicated.

In general, I think ideological belief is sort of an extension of our inherent need to believe in our parents. It's a sort of maladaption and it can be dangerous. Not all religious belief is necessarily ideological (some are just personal belief systems), though the vast majority is. Not all ideological belief is religious (see any of the various irreligious -isms floating around), but most of it is.

[whichphilosophy]

Taking things to basics, the difference between a belief in a Diety (or a prime source/mover)

OR the belief in no such thing but that we evolved from eternity,

OR disbelief

is a matter of viewpoint.

Religious rites and prayers are further down the chain of logical reasoning.

[jonesg]

Hi all,
What is the necessity of religious belief?

.

In a nutshell,

the humility to know I am not the center of the univerese .

[BlessNot]

What is the necessity of religious belief?

To develop a large population of ignorance within the human race.

:devil3:

[whichphilosophy]

To develop a large population of ignorance within the human race.

:devil3:

Of course to believe we either were the result of an ultimate cause or we are the result of a series of actions that stemmed from eternal matter (hence no prime cause) is hardly ignorent but how we see things.

[BruceWane]

In a nutshell,

the humility to know I am not the center of the univerese .

The question is what is the necessity of religion.

It is not necessary to have religion in order to realize that you are not the center of the universe.

In fact, those without religion realize that they are mere specks in the vast collection of stuff that is the universe. Relative to the universe, we are essentially inconsequential things that are gone in an instant. There's even a pretty good chance that we aren't even terribly unique.

(edited to add) In case you don't get it......your post implies that it is necessary to have religion in order to have this "humility". It thus also implies that those who do not have religion must therefore think that they are the center of the universe. That's entirely wrong, and it's a pretty damn rude thing to say.

Back to the OP, I think that religion basically arises from a human desire to have absolute answers for the big questions.

Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where will I go?

Many people just cannot accept "I don't know" as a valid answer. Even though, when all the evidence is tallied, it does not lead to a reasonable, logical conclusion - a situation where the only valid answer is "unknown" - people insist upon having the "closure", the certainty, of an absolute answer.

The varying levels of adamant defense result from the individuals need for the absolute answer. The less a person needs the absolute answer, the less worried they are about the answer they embrace being wrong.

[screwtape]

In a nutshell,

the humility to know I am not the center of the univerese .

You needed religious belief to tell you that YOU were not the center of the universe....brilliant. Did you also need the bible to know you weren't god?

[BlessNot]

Of course to believe we either were the result of an ultimate cause or we are the result of a series of actions that stemmed from eternal matter (hence no prime cause) is hardly ignorent but how we see things.

Do you really think religious belief is necessary?