The concept of civil/civic religion is I think what you’re referring to there.
But yeah I think the idea of religion as this negative external influence doesn’t address how it functions as a social system, like it doesn’t explain very much.
I’m not sure what your last sentence means. Belief as a bare concept isn’t the problem. The problem is when people get together and start reinforcing beliefs that are based in nothing but “faith”.
Religion is bad because it teaches that faith is equivalent to or superior to knowledge. Just by the very act of institutionalizing faith-based beliefs, let alone all of the religions that DIRECTLY say faith is superior.
It’s just that this knowledge/faith dichotomy isn’t something that exists in our cognition, its an analytical framework to categorize, but in real life our minds don’t operate like this. What’s happening with both “knowledge” and “faith” beliefs in practice insofar as they impact human behavior isn’t that different. “Faith” as religions define it is basically a social behavior that has a rational basis, ie “knowledge” can rationally describe why people practice “faith.” The Marxian understanding of it is directly rooted to material conditions as well, as in the character faith embodies is contingent on material conditions.
A belief we could conceptualize as a civil religious one might be something like the “sovereign individual,” and we could look at the Declaration of Independence as a foundational religious text.
Yes, it’s not a dichotomy, that’s why people so easily fall victim to using it inappropriately. It’s why I said it’s part of human experience (somewhere in this thread anyways).
No one can know everything. No one can answer an endless sequence of, “why?”'s. Everyone uses faith.
It’s just some of us try to keep faith away from childish imaginations and moreso, “I think therefore I am.”.
The concept of civil/civic religion is I think what you’re referring to there.
But yeah I think the idea of religion as this negative external influence doesn’t address how it functions as a social system, like it doesn’t explain very much.
I’m not sure what your last sentence means. Belief as a bare concept isn’t the problem. The problem is when people get together and start reinforcing beliefs that are based in nothing but “faith”.
Religion is bad because it teaches that faith is equivalent to or superior to knowledge. Just by the very act of institutionalizing faith-based beliefs, let alone all of the religions that DIRECTLY say faith is superior.
It’s just that this knowledge/faith dichotomy isn’t something that exists in our cognition, its an analytical framework to categorize, but in real life our minds don’t operate like this. What’s happening with both “knowledge” and “faith” beliefs in practice insofar as they impact human behavior isn’t that different. “Faith” as religions define it is basically a social behavior that has a rational basis, ie “knowledge” can rationally describe why people practice “faith.” The Marxian understanding of it is directly rooted to material conditions as well, as in the character faith embodies is contingent on material conditions.
A belief we could conceptualize as a civil religious one might be something like the “sovereign individual,” and we could look at the Declaration of Independence as a foundational religious text.
Yes, it’s not a dichotomy, that’s why people so easily fall victim to using it inappropriately. It’s why I said it’s part of human experience (somewhere in this thread anyways).
No one can know everything. No one can answer an endless sequence of, “why?”'s. Everyone uses faith.
It’s just some of us try to keep faith away from childish imaginations and moreso, “I think therefore I am.”.