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What Happens When Societies Stop Worshipping God?
Shoshin1
Veteran
Interesting....
2
Comments
Well, as a resident of one of the countries he cites, I’m not sure if I’d call the Netherlands strictly secular, more a kind of spiritual-but-not-religious. There is quite a bit of activity in highly segmented, small beliefs. Like one of our care ladies is universalist Sufi, which is a small enough belief not to be on the census. There are also a lot of something-ists, people who believe there is something that they cannot describe.
But it all hangs together through common decency and tolerance, those are kind of core values which everyone here adheres to.
The question that occurred to me was which comes first? Do less organically religious people create better societies or do better societies create less religious people? Or is it some sort of self reinforcing spiral?
He does talk about correlation and causation in the video, to a certain degree.
You might find interesting and illuminating the findings of the World Values Survey: https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp
To the best of my knowledge, this is some of the best stuff coming out of social science.
From what I remember, their findings are that while culture retains some significance, economic development is the predominant factor influencing values, including religious values.
When I studied political science, the main debate was as you framed it. Max Weber said that culture determines economics. Karl Marx said that economics determines culture. From my understanding of the World Values Survey, it turns out that Marx was much more right.
I did catch that and agreed that there is causation. My question is about the direction of that causation.
I'm hardly a Marx scholar, but my general impression is that he (or maybe its down to those implementing his ideas) misses the organic vs forced distinction in the video. The former being positive the latter a disaster. At any rate its a helpful place for me to try to sort the question out, thanks for the pointer.
@person I was not praising Marx overall and must confess I did not watch the video. I just remembered him as the most prominent (or just one of the first) to have the perspective that predominantly the economic system influences culture, rather than predominantly culture influencing the economic system.
For instance, Max Weber, the proponent of the contrary view, explained economic differences in Europe by looking at which country was protestant and which was catholic and claimed that these cultural/religious differences could explain the differences in economic development of these countries.
And for me at least, the World Values Survey confirms that Marx was right and Weber was wrong. Note that this does not mean that all of the ideas of Marx are right, just this one.
I like that WVS, I read through their long findings section. My quick take was that it did lean more toward what you're saying about economic development creating culture. But I'm not as convinced of the dominance of the causal direction. It seemed like there might be a bias in the language and assumptions being made and I only think they showed the strength of evidence how economics influences culture and didn't really put much in the way of studying how culture influences economics. Like the thing they study and put effort into is studying how economics influences culture so that is naturally going to be what their efforts show.
Obviously there's much more information out there, lets just say I wasn't immediately convinced of the unidirectionality and these are a couple areas of question I have in order to sway me still.
Edit: For example the chart showing clusters of countries also correlated Protestantism with economic development.
The data is interesting……my experience has been even more interesting, to me.
Growing up in a broke community fosters more community thought. We have to stick together to survive and to make it. You never know when you’ll need someone or something and you depend on the same thought process. Most folks come through and return favors and embrace tolerance and or acceptance of others. The common saying is “If I got it…..then you got it”. Some of that is the ‘blessing’ gospel, but that also is rooted in deep poverty and oppression.
The experience I have with people who make 3, 4 times the amount of average money I’m accustomed to , has been appalling in my adult years. They are the least likely to share, will argue over a few dollars and seem very self motivated. Group thought doesn’t come first to their mind. And why not? Bec you don’t need someone for basic resources. Until/if/when they do…..
I have a similar experience among my extended family on my mom's side. We all stay pretty close, spending half a dozen or so full days together a year camping or holiday or whatever get togethers. Compared to what I hear many others say, if they ever even see their aunts, uncles, cousins its for a few hours every few years.
Anyway, we all share and help each other out. Someone needs something done, like a roof replaced, family and friends come help and vis versa. It is limited to the closed circle of family and some friends rather than a wider community though.
In my work I work for mostly middle to upper middle class homeowners. By and large these people are good, generous people. Occasionally I do work for very wealthy people and they seem to fall into two camps. The super easy going and loose wallet type and the type you highlight, very assertive and tight fisted. My hypothesis is that there are two ways to accumulate that sort of wealth, one is through building people up or being a fortunate creative. The other is through asserting one's position with little regard to others and holding onto every advantage and scrap you gain.
The first are great to work for the latter a nightmare. Whenever I go to look at a job for someone with obvious wealth I pay attention to who it is and avoid the latter.
Interstingly, Israel is consumed by Palestine on that map and grouped under Islamic. I wonder if that's due to the current conflict....... Israel should fall under Judaism. Or at the very least Orthodox shrugs
Pretty sure the map is pre current conflict. Now I'm curious too as to where Israel falls. Perhaps on the WVS site they have a more detailed country list?
I might have remembered the details wrong, or conflated the findings with another resource, since I last really delved into the World Values Survey 15 years ago
Hence, please disregard my previous comments. I still find it very interesting and valuable and am glad that by your comments it seems you all are too.
I don't know that I'm right to disagree, just that I have yet to be convinced. Convincing information may be out there, I'm just not aware of it at the moment.
Further comments on the World Values Survey deleted by author due to the simple fact that I still have not delved deeper into the website and hence reminded myself of their findings.
Jim Palmer, writes:
"As you know, I once was an evangelical megachurch pastor and my pastoral career stretched over many years. Eventually, I could no longer teach my Christian doctrine with a good conscience and realized this teaching was not truly changing people’s lives… and so I walked away from the whole enchilada.
Below are 14 things that the misguided religious establishment doesn't want you to know. Speaking for myself and my personal experience, I was not able to see or admit these things to myself. I truly got into ministry initially because I wanted to make a difference and help people, and I relied upon the belief-system I learned as the proper framework to achieve this. It took a lot of post-religion reflection to see the ways this belief-system was hurting people.
I offer the below list in hopes that you might disentangle yourself from harmful beliefs and attitudes impacting your life.
14 things the misguided religious establishment doesn’t want you to know:
1. Toxic religion is rooted in fear, especially fear about the afterlife. It leverages the false doctrine of hell to win converts and demand holiness. The fear of God's disapproval, rejection, abandonment and punishment is another hallmark of toxic religion.
Clergy have no innate authority. Holding a church leadership position or having a theological degree does not imbue a person with special divine authority or superiority. The terms "anointed", "called", or "chosen" or titles such as "pastor", "priest", "bishop", "elder", "evangelist" or "apostle" do not confer any innate authority on an individual or group.
We hold sacred what we are taught to hold sacred, which is why what is sacred to one community is not sacred to another.
The stories in our sacred books aren’t history, nor were they meant to be. The authors of these books weren’t historians but writers of historical fiction: they used history (or pseudo history) as a context or pretext for their own ideas. Reading sacred texts as history may yield some nuggets of the past, but the real gold is in seeing these stories as myth and parable, and trying to unpack the possible meanings these parables and myths may hold.
Prayer doesn’t work the way you think it does. You can’t bribe God, or change God’s mind through obedience, devotion, or groveling. The underlying theistic premises of prayer are untenable.
Anything you claim to know about God, even the notion that there is a God, is a projection of your psyche. What you say about God—who God is, what God cares about, who God rewards, and who God punishes—says less about God and more about you. If you believe in an unconditionally loving God, you probably value unconditional love. If you believe in a God who divides people into chosen and not chosen, believers and infidels, saved and damned, high cast or low caste, etc. you are likely someone who divides people into in–groups and out–groups with you and your group as the quintessential in-group. God may or may not exist, but your idea of God mirrors yourself and your values.
Nobody is born Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Catholic, Protestant, etc. All humans are born Homo spaiens on planet earth. Our evolving species and planet are not innately religious. We are conditioned by narratives of race, culture, religion, gender, ethnicity, and nationality. If you were born in Nepal you are Hindu, if you were born in Nashville you are Christian, if you were born in Nazareth you are Jewish. People don't necessarily choose their religious belief-system, they are conditioned or enculturated into it. Christianity is not a superior religion just because it's your religion and you were born in the Bible Belt.
Evangelical theology isn’t the free search for truth, but rather a defense of an already held position. Evangelical theology is really apologetics, explaining why a belief is true rather than seeking out the truth in and of itself. All theological reasoning is circular, inevitably “proving” the truth of its own presupposition.
Becoming more religious cannot save us. Religion is a human invention reflecting the best and worst of humanity; becoming more religious will simply allow us to perpetuate compassion and cruelty in the name of religion. Because religion always carries the danger of fanaticism, becoming more religious may only heighten the risk of us becoming more fanatical.
1
Becoming less religious cannot save us. In fact, being against religion can become it’s own fanaticism. Becoming less religious will simply force us to perpetuate compassion and cruelty in the name of something else. Secular societies that actively suppress religion have proven no more just or compassionate than religious societies that suppress secularism or free thought. This is because neither religion nor the lack of religion solely nullifies our human potential to act out of ego, greed, fear, hostility, and hatred.
A healthy religion is one that helps us own and integrate the shadow side of human nature for the good of person and planet, something few clergy are trained to do. Clergy are trained to promote the religion they represent. They are apologists not liberators. If you want to be more just, compassionate, and loving, you must do the personal work within yourself, and free yourself from the conditions that lock you into injustice, cruelty, and hate, and this means you have to free yourself from all your narratives, including those you call “religious.”
Religious leaders claims that their particular understanding and interpretation of their sacred books should be universally accepted. Religious leaders often say, “My authority is the Bible.” It would be more accurate for them to say, “My authority is what they taught me at seminary the Bible means.” People start with flawed or false presuppositions about what the Bible is, such as: the Bible was meant to present a coherent theology about God or is a piece of doctrinal exposition; the Bible is the inerrant, infallible and sole message/"Word" of God to the world; the Bible is a blueprint for daily living. Too often religious leaders make God about having "correct theology." There are a lot of unhappy, broken, hurting, suffering, depressed, lonely people in church with church-approved theology.
If your livelihood depends on the success of your church as an organization, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that you will mostly define and reward Christianity as participation in church structures and programs. Christian living is mostly a decentralized reality or way of life, not a centralized or program-dependent phenomenon. Church attendance, tithing, membership, service, and devoted participation, become the hallmarks of Christian maturity.
You are capable of guiding your own spiritual path from the inside out and don't need to be told what to do. You naturally have the ability, capacity, tools and skills to guide and direct your life meaningfully, ethically and effectively. Through the use of your fundamental human faculties such as critical thinking, empathy, reason, conscience and intuition, you can capably lead your life. You have the choice to cultivate a spirituality that doesn’t require you to be inadequate, powerless, weak, and lacking, but one that empowers you toward strength, vitality, wholeness, and the fulfillment of your highest potentialities and possibilities.
I'll shut up now."
I’m beginning to like this Jim Palmer.
My bias is to look at history through a sort of evolutionary lens. The reason so many large and successful societies had hierarchical and strict religions is a sort of survival of the fittest. It was one of the most adaptive strategies to maintain larger and larger societies at the time.
Its a different world today, we are much more educated, civil and prosperous. We aren't so reliant on such stories to maintain an ordered society. So all the negative tradeoffs that came with said religions are now much more of an unneeded weight.
So, I think I'm in general agreement with Jim Palmer. Though I'd quibble on a few points like #3, I'd agree that we are taught what is sacred and that different cultures teach different things. But we are all still human living in roughly the same conditions, so some things really are still sacred apart from culture. And #7, I do think humans are innately religious, or maybe spiritual, we look for some sort of greater meaning. I believe there is plenty of archeological evidence indicating our pre civilization ancestors thought in this direction.
Yes.
If a society stops worshiping God, they would, in fairly short order, find something else to fill the space left by the absence of God, and worship that.
Anthropology examines the struture of society/culture, and the function of the various components of the structure. Religion is one of those components.
If a component is removed, the structure is weakened. The term here is "culture shock". The cure to culture shock is to replace the lost component and its function. So, if the worship of God (religion), is removed, the society/culture's structure is weekend and could even collapse entirely. A replacement must be found, and in this case a new object of worship needs to be found.
Is that a bad thing? A number of Western democratic countries who have (dare I say) seen the light and have filled the god-centric gap with a more humanistic society creating a fairer and more just society...
In the video he talks about the forced coercive' aka 'culture shock' change of for example, the Stalin and Pol Pot kind , verses the organic, free gradual change where society is not forced to believe in or not believe in a god, which many Western democratic countries are beginning to experience, some more faster than others...where there is more freedom of expression...
However I do think that countries like the US will have a harder time with the gradual shift away from a god-centric mindset ...
In the long run @IdleChater god-centric countries and non god-centric have one thing in common ... "humans beings" and wherever humans go...there they are ... warts and all... humans being humans...
No. That is, of course, dependent on your view of religion AND its function.
A couple examples?
Yes, and provided it happens. There is an assumption in what you wrote, that a "shift away from a god-centric mindset" is inevitable or actually happening in the here-and-now.
.........
As of the 2018 census, those who did not affiliate with a religion outnumbered those with a religion for the first time in NZ
Ricky Gervais's take on it.
And then, I will shut up now.
But "more just and fairer"?
What do you mean ?
Well, you wrote it.
You wrote that a more humanistic society is more just and fair.
I asked if there were a couple examples which you offered (thanx) and I asked if they were more just and fair. To put my question a different way, are these countries that have moved away from a god-centered society become more just and fair as a result, or are they simply less religious?
I would say they are more just and fair plus less religious, but not necessarily less spiritual ...
When I talk about a god-centric society I'm talking about the concept of the Abrahamic god and how the religious have in the past (and some still do) have laws based on their religion which more often than not discriminate against for example, minority groups, women, LGBTQI...
In a number of countries for example Australia, Aotearoa (NZ) the UK, the Netherlands Sweden people are becoming less 'religious' but not necessary less spiritual ..
Countries that have adopted a more secular governance structure often aim to separate religious institutions from political and legal systems. This separation is intended to ensure that laws and policies are based on principles that are not tied to a specific religious doctrine. The goal is to create a more inclusive and equitable society.
Secular societies may be more inclined to uphold human rights and equality, as they are less likely to be influenced by religious doctrines that might discriminate against certain groups based on beliefs, gender, or sexual orientation.
When I'm taking about humanism becoming the dominate force, I'm talking about a gradual free and natural change in mindset which tends to take time...
A well-written post @shoshin1… there is often a kind of alliance between humanism and universalist religion and the New Age, that there is a broad tolerance of other forms of religious expression, everything from shamanic circles to Christian churches to psychosynthesis.
So for those who do adhere to a supernatural view of the world there are these very open kinds of views, but people generally do not talk about their religious beliefs here. There is very little proselytising except by the Jehovahs Witnesses.
deleto
I hope that less domination by religion would result in less retributive criminal justice systems.
I've found that most people who criticize Marx have often have not actually read Marx. Marx did a lot of research into what would become the fields of sociology and political-economics. In particular, he researched and detailed the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and in Capital, details the logic of capitalism and its contradictions. And it's often assumed that Marx advocated a forced vs. organic economic transition. But a more accurate understanding of Marx on future transformation is to have working people consciously create something new and not simply be slaves to the whims of unequal social relations and ruling political and economic elites. That in and of itself is a long discussion on its own. However, one thing I'd like to address is the narrative that capitalism is basically an organic creation that sprung from all things good and consensual and quite naturally. But the fact of the matter is, capitalism has its fair share of 'forced' aspects in its origins.
Capitalism itself has its beginnings in violence, oppression, and theft as well as innovations and industriousness. Countries with emerging mercantile markets enclosed local common land; colonized other lands; stole land, wealth, and resources; and exploited slave labour in what Marx called the process of 'primitive accumulation.' Then after the industrial revolution, those in power further forced their own people off of communal land and into the cities to work in the factories under new social relations, one in which they were forced to sell their labour power to someone for a wage, not fully realizing that the person who now owns that labour power owns the products of that labour and all the extra value added by their labour, and in which they're pitted against one another for the jobs needed for their survival and comfort. And lets not forget the fact that it was also a system that was purposefully designed with and built specifically upon the oppression and subjugation of black people. Literal black bodies formed the basis of our national wealth at one point and fuelled burgeoning global, capitalists markets.
Capitalism has undoubtedly helped us reach a point of technological advancement and innovation sufficient to achieve material abundance through the colossal increases in the productive forces of social labour and the extension of our subjugation of nature's forces. But it certainly didn't have a peacefull organic beginning, and a fair share of force has been used to maintain it and its global markets.
@Jason, I really appreciate the insight. Capitalism is the macro version of everything that Buddhism guides people away from. It's craving and clinging on a worldwide scale. It's doomed to fail eventually, because all physical resources are finite, medicine's keeping old folks alive longer, and people happen to really enjoy making babies.