Is religion relevant?

[cldaccordo]

There is an overwhelming amount of different personal religious beliefs. Many people might say that religions only cause wars, discrimination, and persecution. Is religion still relevant? The answer is yes. Although religion may cause problems and the amount of differing opinions may be intimidating, what one believes will always be labeled. Whether it be for psychological comfort or true faith, religion will always be a part of our world.

[FriedrichSeneca]

There is an overwhelming amount of different personal religious beliefs. Many people might say that religions only cause wars, discrimination, and persecution. Is religion still relevant? The answer is yes. Although religion may cause problems and the amount of differing opinions may be intimidating, what one believes will always be labeled. Whether it be for psychological comfort or true faith, religion will always be a part of our world.

It depends on what you mean by "relevant". Taking a consequentialist normative view on religion often doesn't take into account the variety of religious experience: saying that religion is above an epistemological point of view, something more akin to what we call fideism, is a christiano-centrist position. Few "religions" emphasize orthodoxy as much as christianity, most other religions favorize orthopraxy. While faith in Christ is what defines one as a christian, judaism is as much about ethnic identity (being a children of Israel); polytheistic faiths such as greek religions didn't care about what you believe, what defines you as a greek polytheist is the performing of rituals and sacrifices.

For exemple, which part of judaism is responsible for the bloody conquest of the promised land by Joshua: the "faith" element of judaism, or rather its "ethnic" element? It's quite hard to make the distinction between the two, and so it would be useless to judge a religion (understood as one's personnal faith) over such deeds.

Now, one also has to take into account the sociological role of religion: to use judaism as an exemple again, religion was indistinguishable from the hebrew law code. Levites had both a legal and a ritual role, but that doesn't mean that faith/rituals were the basis for its legal code: the two existed side by side (despite interacting with each other quite a bit), and what jews would have called religion included them both. What we call "religion" today in western culture, that is orthodoxy atthe personnal level, in the christian fashion, doesn't mean the same thing at all in space and time.

Even today in america, church's purposes are more than just religious education, it's an important socialization agent. Beside scaring unruly kids with the fear of hell, it's the place where many people will be taught how to behave in formal occasions, for exemple. While one could argue that the values and behaviors promoted in chuch and the means used to inculcate them aren't that good, the fact remain that religion has been a big part of the "education" process through the ages; so much so that madmen such as Auguste Comte had the idea to start a "secular religion" with its own rituals and such, because he felt that the sociological role of churches were too important.

Watered-down christianity such as "secular humanism" also represent such an attempt.

Now, in an of itself, more than being relevant or not, religion is rather the prism through which many people evaluate what is relevant or not. Of course religion is irrelevant to the atheist point of view, so is paganism to the islamic point of view. Religion is akin to a set of criterias by which one evaluate the world: that leads to the tautological thinking that one views islam or atheism as relevant because it is seen as such through the criterias and values of islam or atheism.

[Jack]

Religion as a personal belief will likely be with us for a long time to come, just like beliefs in fate, destiny, luck and other superstitions. It appears to be human nature to want to believe there's a higher force, someone or something that knows what's going on, has the big picture, cares about us and can provide guidance. Gods act in place of parents, they serve the same purpose in our lives that parents did when we were young.

But gods as excuses for the natural processes we don't understand are becoming more irrelevant the more we discover about our natural world. As ignorance decreases so does the need to believe in a god. When ignorance of nature and science increases, as we see in many parts of the world including lately the U.S., belief intensifies.

God as an explanation for the unknown and a comforter for our fears and doubts will continue on for the individual, and I have no problem with that. But attempts to enforce those beliefs on all people regardless of their personal opinions will continue to be met with resistance by free-thinkers and skeptics.

[FriedrichSeneca]

In before tl;dr.

[kjw47]

There is an overwhelming amount of different personal religious beliefs. Many people might say that religions only cause wars, discrimination, and persecution. Is religion still relevant? The answer is yes. Although religion may cause problems and the amount of differing opinions may be intimidating, what one believes will always be labeled. Whether it be for psychological comfort or true faith, religion will always be a part of our world.

I do believe-babylon the great represents- religion-- its about to fall--Gods word says this-- Like a swift pitch into the sea with a millstone around her neck, never to be again. And the merchants stand at a distance and mourn over this occurence. Why??? no one to buy their fully stocked shelves--Why??? no more religious holidays.

[neochronomo]

There is an overwhelming amount of different personal religious beliefs. Many people might say that religions only cause wars, discrimination, and persecution. Is religion still relevant? The answer is yes. Although religion may cause problems and the amount of differing opinions may be intimidating, what one believes will always be labeled. Whether it be for psychological comfort or true faith, religion will always be a part of our world.

If "relevant" is defined as having a measurable effect on the world, then unfortunately the answer is a big ol' "yes".

If "relevant" is defined as having a positive, tangible effect on the world that can't be obtained through other means, then the answer is a big ol' "no".

[crimethinker]

I see religion as a wider human tendency to invest great importance (so much that you'll fight over it) in symbols and symbolic systems. Political parties and, often, states themselves function as religions. To what extent this may some day be overcome -- science and technology seem to be doing some of the work -- I don't know, but I'm hopeful.

[Jack]

no one to buy their fully stocked shelves--Why??? no more religious holidays.

Many businesses are closed on holidays, so not many people are buying stuff off shelves on those days anyway. In addition, "holiday" is a contraction of "holy day" so "religious holidays" is redundant.

[Trojan_Ripper]

Many businesses are closed on holidays, so not many people are buying stuff off shelves on those days anyway

Do they buy stuff off shelves on Sunday? What about "Blue Laws" do they still have such a thing?

[Jack]

When I was last in Idaho they did. No liquor sales on Sunday.

[kjw47]

Many businesses are closed on holidays, so not many people are buying stuff off shelves on those days anyway. In addition, "holiday" is a contraction of "holy day" so "religious holidays" is redundant.

No more christmas or easter would be devastating to the overall economy-many jobs will be lost.

[Jack]

No more christmas or easter would be devastating to the overall economy-many jobs will be lost.

We're a nation devoted to consumerism, we'd find alternatives and adapt. Christmas was a pagan celebration before it was a Christian holiday. We could always go back to celebrating the solstice with big sales.

That's really not a good reason to sustain religious belief.