What to do with the Redundant Churches After the Demise of Religion?

[rug]

Published July 26, 2013 | By Paul Troop

Some weeks ago I attended a lecture by Daniel Dennett at the Oxford Union on religion. As expected, it was a lively presentation that predicted the demise of religion. However, one matter that started me thinking was how Dennett concluded his lecture: he ended by pondering what we might do with all the redundant places of worship once his prophecy was fulfilled. His suggestion was that they might satisfy a secular purpose, as places where the community might come together to address the novel challenges of the modern world. I started me thinking as I wondered whether a belief in religion might be better than atheism for attaining this, or any other, goal. Some, such as Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind (2012)) have suggested that religion is a particularly effective force for bringing people together.

I would like to ask a broader question, which is whether religion is better than atheism for attaining any particular normative goal. The reason for this is that confining the question to which is best for promoting cohesion begs the question as to why cohesion is important. To attempt to avoid this problem, one could pose the question more broadly: given any chosen normative goal, is religion or atheism more condusive to attaining it?

I should probably add that I am an atheist myself, a great fan of Dennett, and very sceptical of religion. As such, I would suggest that I do not have an axe to grind, or at least the type of axe that Dennett worries about (Breaking the Spell (2006) p 32). Nonetheless, I struggle with the reasons behind the proposition that atheism is better than religion for attaining normative goals.

One consideration could be that religion causes people to believe things that are not true. Richard Dawkins, another of the ‘Four Atheists of the Apocalypse’, points out that the ‘beneficial effects in no way boost the truth value of religion’s claims.’ (The God Delusion (2007) p 194). Dawkins then quotes George Bernard Shaw: ‘The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is not more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.’ But I’m not convinced: it seems possible that a believer could be more likely to attain [insert your chosen normative goal here] than a sceptic, even if he believed things that were not true.

http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2013/07/what-to-do-with-the-redundant-churches-after-the-demise-of-religion/

[Jim__]

1. I'm not sure this is a topic for "Practical Ethics."

[rug]

2. The real topic is normative ethics.

[cbayer]

3. He uses an awful lot of words to come to no conclusion at all, imo.

Then again, he is at Oxford (just kidding muriel!!)

[rug]

4. He spells skeptic funny too.

[SwissTony]

5. Sceptic vs. skeptic

Sceptic vs. skeptic

In most of their senses, there is no difference between skeptic and sceptic. Skeptic is the preferred spelling in American and Canadian English, and sceptic is preferred in the main varieties of English from outside North America. This extends to all derivatives, including sceptical/skeptical and scepticism/skepticism. There is an exception, though: In reference to some 21st-century strains of scientific skepticism, writers and publications from outside North America often use the spellings with the k.

The word comes from the French sceptique,1 which in French is pronounced sep-teek. It has taken several spellings since coming to English in the 16th century, but the modern British spelling was settled by the early 19th century. The development of the k spelling is a natural result of English speakers altering the French pronunciation with the first-syllable k sound. The c is silent in many but by no means all English words containing sc, but writers outside North America never got on board with skeptic—that is, until recently, as the sk- usage appears to be growing outside the United States, perhaps with discussion of climate “skeptics” in the media. Moreover, British and Australian skeptical societies—groups that come together to promote science and critical thinking on subjects such as the paranormal—often used the sk- spelling.

http://grammarist.com/spelling/sceptic-skeptic/
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I spell it with a "k" although in general I use UK spellings in preference to US spellings.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Me, I went to Cambridge

I'm quite happy to see snark about Oxford - you only have to notice which one has produced more Nobel prize winners, and which more cabinet politicians, to see which one gets down to facts, and which is good at waffle ...

[cbayer]

7. Oops! I was mistaken.

They are all the same to me, but I am not surprised at the rivalry.

Glad I did not offend!

[Jim__]

9. IMHO, he does reach a conclusion.

Dennett is recommending studying religion to see how it works, and then deciding whether religion or a secular community would work better to achieve certain goals. Troop is saying that the study of religion could undermine its effects, and so the study itself might obviate religion's role as the better way to address these challenges.

[cbayer]

10. If you say so, lol.

I found it terribly difficult to discern his point, but that most certainly could be just me.

[skepticscott]

8. Another ignorant hack

who doesn't even grasp the elementary difference between atheism on the one hand and secularism and humanism on the other.

Surprised this didn't get a Great Read! (r) award...most articles like this do.

[struggle4progress]

11. The question seems premature to me. But I suppose folk can ask what should be done with

places like Lincoln Cathedral if religion ever vanishes



One option, of course, is simply to demolish them as symbols of a worldview one does not support



Another option is to raid them for building materials



In times of war, some might make splendid defensive outposts, at least until they're too damaged to serve further

[MissMarple]

12. This might help. This has Haidt, Myers, Hauser, Sloan Wilson, Sherman & Harris.

Reading the entire thing is probably best. I think it gives a good perspective of the broader on going discussion. I tend to hang out on Haidt's side. Religion fills a useful evolutionary purpose, for the most part. Actually believing in god or not is entirely up to the individual. How we express that, however, is becoming more important as the world grows closer and we are all looking over each other's fences and jumping into each other's backyards. I also don't think religious worship is going away any time soon.


http://www.edge.org/conversation/moral-psychology-and-the-misunderstanding-of-religion


"A few weeks after the comments of Wilson, Shermer, Harris, Myers, and Hauser were posted, I had the great fortune to attend a conference at the Salk Institute with four of them (all but Hauser), and with Dan Dennett too. The conference, "Beyond Belief 2," had a provocative subtitle: "Enlightenment 2.0." The theme was that Enlightenment 1.0, which threw off the mental shackles of religion and launched the scientific revolution, was a good start. But in true enlightenment spirit, if we think well, draw on the best available research, and place no idea off limits, we can make it better. We can re-invent and re-invigorate the Enlightenment for the difficult and still-religious century we now face.


Because the Enlightenment is defined by its rejection of religious authority, religion has always had a special place in the hearts of Enlightenmenters. The evils and stupidities of religion are our raison d'etre, and our raison d'etre raisonnable. But if we hope to update the Enlightenment and increase its appeal in a world where religion still holds a bigger market share, then we must do more than examine religion rationally and scientifically, as was done in Enlightenment 1.0. For Enlightenment 2.0 we must also examine ourselves examining religion, and we must lay bare our own motives and biases. People are extraordinarily good at reasoning their way to any conclusion they want to reach, so long as there is some ambiguity in the evidence. And when we want to reach a conclusion for moral reasons — when we are analyzing people or institutions that we think are evil — we are likely to conduct biased reviews of the evidence and reach incorrect conclusions about the motives and methods of our opponents. The commentators seemed to accept my portrayal of moral psychology as a generally passionate affair in which reasoning often follows intuition, and so I take it that we all agree that those who write about religion while angry about religion should have their work checked carefully by others."


This is Haidt on transcendence. It's also on TED.

[rug]

13. Thanks for the links. His four principles are a solid framework.

[dimbear]

14. Struggle4progress has hit the main uses----we see the phenomena in the mithraea,

building material, storehouses, landfill, tourist traps.

All in all not an insuperable problem in any way.

[mr blur]

15. Comedy Venues - most appropriate. After all, they're already sources of great hilarity.

[cbayer]

16. Oh, you card you!