Religion
In reply to the discussion: Religious?? ...............Who Cares?? [View all]DetlefK
(16,423 posts)1.
In primitive or anarchic societies, organized religion establishes a framework that a society can attach to and grow. If the "factual" parts of a society let you down (weak government, poverty, famine, no concept of laws...), then organized religion provides stability and hope.
Why do young Muslims become extremists? Because their life sucks.
Who kept the idea of democracy alive in socialist East-Germany? It was the community-councils of the churches.
2.
Organized religion provides a coherent philosophic framework in which ideas can be discussed, because all people use the same vocabulary when talking about the world. Imagine 10 people, where everyone has their own unique belief on what the cosmos is like. How are these people supposed to discuss and compare their ideas if they have nothing in common? If they use different definitions for "world", "god", "human", "soul", "mind"...
For example, the Ancient Egyptians believed that a human had 6 souls: 3 for the body and 3 for the mind. That's why they needed mummification: So the 3 body-souls could make it into the after-life.
For example, the Vikings had a cosmology where the world is a tree. The Egyptians had a Flat-Earth cosmology where Earth is a rectangular plate. (The Egyptians were obsessed with geometry.) How are these two supposed to compare their world-views?
It was this unified philosophical framework of organized religion that established the NOTION that something like universal laws of nature even exists.
Imagine a world where it is common and respected that everybody has their own opinion how the world works. The notion that there would be "laws of nature" that are true whether you believe in them or not, that would be outlandish.