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Quote by: Athena Myths, religious or otherwise, are essential to the civilizing process. Sometimes truth, reveals a myth as a false belief. This is clearly a threat to the civilization dependent on this mythology/religion for its order and civilizing of citizens. It means, the authorities who gave us these myths and who wrote our holy books, were only human and made errors. This puts everything they said to question, and whole fabric of civilization, be it Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or Hindu can unravel when the truth of their holy books and their religious authoriy is questioned. |
I agree with you in this perspective. The Bible (and every other book I can think of) was written by people with human limits to their knowledge and understanding of things and acknowledgement of this by religions is deemed a threat (likely true to an extent, at least in the short term structure of a religion).
And, as you said, these cultural influences serve to coordinate people in their beliefs and this can reduce the conflict between them. Without some common views on things, there's conflict. Also, some of the principles or morals taught can be a positive influence. Though there's no magic and blind faith can be a problem also, and I don't think all religious teachings are beneficial. There are possibly some indirect benefits to living in a society where people believe in a supernatural being, but it seems like those same beliefs could be condensed into what physical interactions people have between themselves under this view, analyzing why they are beneficial, and then instead of motivating people to use this as a model by the questionable threats of an eternity burning in hell
we can instead motivate them through the simple fact that it could be a more unanimously benefical manner in which to live (on a voluntary basis, of course
).
So I think religions should concentrate on extracting the real and tangible influences their beliefs have on peoples actions that benefit communitees and simple sell the ideas, not as something of mysterious value, but of tangible value that people can rationalize about.
Instead of saying - thou shalt not do X, Y, or Z because of fire and brimstone, they can instead say don't do X, Y or Z because if we can commit to following these rules between ourselves, we don't have to deal with problems A, B or C. This is something that most everyone can understand and leaves less opportunity for people to abuse a position of representing an authority that few can verify.
For example, what was possibly a beneficial moral to the story of Noah? I'd say it was that it's best to pack up what you need to survive and plan on being away for a while, if there's a big storm coming. Oh, and bring someone of the opposite sex, in the event the storm is bigger than expected!
And this avoids the need for hell fire to get across the idea. Who knows, maybe the value of religion is in the controversy and the debates it creates? (Either way, it needs to remain a voluntary institution)