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God and religions are great restrictors. Religious beliefs taboo things and even same-sex marriage one of the religious debates.
I cannot imagine of a human society wherein everything is free and spontaneous, no laws – religious, moral, social and governmental. Maybe a primitive society before the birth of religion.
Today’s dos and don’ts would have no space and fewer books of tragedies would have been chronicled.
Savage society!
Man is totally living with his animal instincts..
Without in any way supporting God and Religion, I should say that religion aims to curb Man's animal instincts. So if you say Man is totally living with his animal instincts, religion will say that's because Man is drawing away from religion.Quote:
Originally Posted by osho
I don't think living with one's animal instincts conflicts with religious practice. The religious practice should fulfill those instincts or there is something wrong with the practice.
I see nothing wrong with same-sex marriages for example. Attraction for the same or the opposite sex was set in place before one was born and it is not determined by culture or morals. Nor should heterosexual sex be restricted to procreation. I don't know of anyone, religious or not, who restricts it to procreation.
If the dominant religious practice of one's culture prohibits such activities, one can switch religious practices to something better or ignore that portion of the religious practice. Rejection of religious practice entirely would be too extreme.
Osho, a society without gods is not a society without laws
The inventions of religion and God(s) are pretty convenient excuses, so that people don't have to take the responsibility of their actions themselves.
To believe and obey higher authorities is easier than using one's own brain.
In my opinion a human society without religion won't be free, it will even be more restricted because of this increased responsiblity. No one can do something in the name of any god anymore, but has to answer for it him/herself.
I think religion is part of the human condition, i.e., if the latter is both rational and emotional.
However, to put it in Fromm's terms, there seems to be a gap between that negative "freedom from" (namely, freedom from traditional bondages) and a positive "freedom to" (which implies an individual, authentic life project). Moral responsibility has too often been surrendered to some sort of secular "god" (i.e., history, nation, etc.), or narcotized by consumerism and mass-culture.Quote:
Originally Posted by loe
I think that people regardless of culture seek a moral authority.
It can be religion, the king, or the doctor. Religion is just the name we slap on an institution which makes a business out of morality. If it weren't religion, it would be something else.
osho... it sounds like you have been reading the ideals of Romantic and 19th century literature and political thought a bit too much (Rousseau, Marx, Tolstoy...) without recognizing the negatives wrought by many of these ideals. The atheistic states of the Soviet Union and the East Bloc along with Maoist China didn't bring about some fantasy state of freedom. I love Rousseau myself, but I recognize that Tennyson's view of nature ("Red in tooth and claw") might have been far more on the mark than Rousseau's fantasy of a world in which man was free to follow his animal instincts.
I agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ser Nevarc
A society without god is just another society just without the religious bits.
I would compare it to a cake without the double cream. Double cream is too rich and fattening.
In my opinion, although religion came about as a way of trying to understand the world (I think? Creation myths and all that), it has really turned into a way for priests and other religious figures to control people. Religion doesn't govern our morals, morals come from within you. If your religion said it was ok to go around killing peeps, would that make it ok?
Rousseau's myth has been put to the test in his own time (just remember Victor de l'Aveyron). The individual is only possible within a certain society, and so is morality. This is not to assume any form of social determinism, but to recognize ourselves as being situated in history (like Marx put it, man makes his own history, but he does not make it out of conditions chosen by himself). I believe that one of the main problems with revolutionary experiments like the ones mentioned above lies in the utter impossibility of making society as transparent as our concepts. I'm not advocating traditionalism and conservatism, don't get me wrong; I'm just saying we cannot jump over our own shadow.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
There are no morals what there is is people and the rest is made up. People are made to feel guilty for a reason and what better then a religion to cause it for you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Volya
In one sense religion is a "restrictor," but it can also work as the opposite of that, in that it can be used to justify one's own non-religious feelings and actions. For instance I think religion is as much a justification for, as much as it is a cause of, homophobia. If your desire is to conquer and plunder you can just go ahead and call it a crusade. The Bible is so vast and complex a work one could find support in it for almost any course of action.
To be fair, I think this has a lot to do with the fact that the goal of the people running those states was one of power and a totalitarian state. That said, no, even a non-religious and non-totalitarian state does not necessarily mean total freedom by default; even anarchists (the philosophers, at least) have consistently advocated for a society with rules.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
I think one also has to factor in cognitive and other psychological research which is currently leaning toward humans (and other higher apes) having a hardwired (if primitive) sense of morality.
Are you speaking to us or the world in general? Because people are out there killing others (and themselves) or plotting to kill people as we speak because they believe their religion indicates they should.Quote:
Originally Posted by Volya