What
if I told you there was something good about religion? You might ask,
“is it the sense of community one gets from belonging to a church?”
Or, “is it the moral code?” Perhaps, you might be wondering,
“it's the transcendence people feel, right?” Well, not exactly. I
know that some of you might be thinking I've lost my mind. And some
who are reading this might think I'm somehow a religious person. You
need to read on. The fact is that there is something valuable to us
that religions have to offer. Each of those points are actually
products of the singular thing of value, about which I'm teasing you.
Okay, so what it all boils down to is the worldview. Every religion
offers a worldview. But, I think we can be very well served by having
a worldview as well. I know, I know. What am I thinking? “Religions
have something good about them?”
Are you seriously saying this? Well, let me explain.
Religions are bad. They are the root of most – though
honestly, not all – evil. Whenever someone claims that religions do
some good, they are trying to justify having religions but the fact
is that any good that religions do is far outweighed by the harm they
also do. Indeed religious worldviews are seriously dangerous and
hurtful to all of humanity, let alone the world. And it's not a
particular religion's worldview which I think is good. Quite the
contrary, actually. It's the idea of a worldview, the idea of having
a philosophical model by which we live our lives, which I believe to
be good.
Obviously
religions have a very seriously flawed premise on which each of them
has based their worldview. So, it's not that which is good, the
premise I mean. The idea that there exists any such thing outside of
nature – a supernatural realm, including a heaven or hell, and
afterlife –, is completely unsupported. As premises go, assertions
that there is a realm of existence – and beings living there, like
gods, angels, souls and whatever other fiction – which is not even
hinted at by a single shred of evidence is as bad as flawed premises
for a worldview gets. There are many types of worldviews, some of
which are good or bad. Some worldviews are also more seductive than
others. Most worldviews have some method to propagate them, which is
built in. In Christianity, for example, the believers are taught that
“only
through believing in Jesus can people be saved from hell.”
It's clearly a contrived scare tactic. They're taught that they ought
to missionize for their religion, to go out and tell people about it
and try to convince others to join them. In Judaism, though,
missionizing wasn't really part of the religion. Instead the idea was
to have as many children as possible. Christianity and Islam both ran
with that same excessive breeding policy, but each added their own
twist as a secondary method to propagate the religion. But, there are
other ways to propagate a worldview.
I
believe that employing other means of propagation can be far better
than the approach the religions generally take. There is a basis, in
the religious worldview, for the reasoning behind the breeding
competition. They believe that some god created the universe for
them. In Christianity, the concept is called “Dominionism”, in
which they claim humans have a “god-given
right”
to dominate the world. But, this view neglects reality. The world can
only support so many people. Earth is actually at it's full capacity
for humanity. So, in reality, breeding the worldview is not a tenable
practice. It is clear that there are so many children born, who are
put up for adoption. There is very real and desperate need. Adoption,
as a means to propagate a worldview can proverbially 'kill two birds
with one stone'. One could be to promote the adoption of children,
instead of breeding. By adopting children – likely born of
religious people – one can teach the child to be rational, instead
of religious. Thereby slightly diminishing the number of people who
will have a backward and harmful worldview. Clearly the impact could
be great if many rational people took this approach. Additionally, it
would increase the number who likely hold a progressive and good
worldview. All the while, also being a proactive measure toward
curbing the overpopulation of our planet. Another could be to set the
example that inspires people to take on the worldview. If your
worldview directs you to be charitable, to have a strong work-ethic,
to be rational and logical, to be honorable and moral, to pursue the
truth scientifically, to be kind and generous, to be intellectually
honest, and to always improve yourself, it will be noticeable. It
will make you a model, by which others will be inspired. Such a
worldview, by your own behavior, would prove itself to be worthwhile
having. It should certainly speak for itself, that religious
worldviews push people to accept them with threats of eternal
suffering and promises of eternal rewards, compared to a worldview
that does no such a thing.
By
this point you're probably wanting a clarification of just what is a
“worldview”. It's fundamentally a uniform way of looking at the
world and life. It's a personal outlook on the world. It informs how
a person interprets the actions and words of others, and indeed all
of the world. There's a reason why it's called that, after-all. A
worldview is a philosophical system, or a model. It's a system of
values, beliefs and attitudes, by which people live their lives. The
reason I'm interested in worldviews is that everyone has one in some
form or another, regardless of whether each part of it is
intelligibly connected. Fundamentally, every person thinks
philosophically to some degree. Granted most people are not
particularly active about it. Indeed, the large percent of people are
not even aware that they have a worldview, or what that means. Most
people tend to think about something in a philosophical manner only
once in a while, and then without it dawning on them that it is
philosophical. But, when they do they usually derive some principle
which guides them. Though, usually, when most people derive that
principle it doesn't occur to them how they're doing so. For most
people, the idea just comes as a realization or they encounter the
idea and like it. Since worldviews are a philosophical product, a
serious problem arises when people haven't coherently connected the
various parts. But, a worldview addresses many issues, like how it is
that we know what we know. That is, in philosophical terms, an
epistemological question. Religious answers tend to be that a
supposed force outside of nature reveals the information to the
individual. Even if one doesn't think about or realize that he/she
has a worldview, that philosophy is nonetheless illustrated when one
says something like “god
has a plan for you”.
Though a worldview can be bad, good or indifferent in
many ways, it's still useful. Even a bad worldview gives structure of
a sort to one's life. But, obviously I cannot morally argue for
holding bad philosophies, and that's what religions offer. The
religious worldviews often implicate themselves as immoral when the
opinion is that there is another chance to live again. The very idea
of a life after death necessarily diminishes the value, the sanctity,
of this life. It suggests that suffering is acceptable because those
poor victims, whom we've ignored, will be given paradise for
eternity. Unless, of course, they happened to not believe in the
correct god. The religious view is that ignorance is bliss. The
religious view is that religious belief is sacred. The religious view
is that morality is seriously concerned with pleasure and desire, our
thoughts, our self-agency and some deity's authority, rather than
human suffering. At the core of the problem with religious
worldviews, inescapably, is the premise that something outside of
nature exists, let alone a god. It's an unproven and unprovable,
untenable and unsupported claim. And it is that claim which is the
basis of all of the rest of the worldview.
I believe a secular option can be developed for
non-believers to have the advantage of their own worldview. A
philosophical model which is based on science as the foundational
premise. I believe that worldviews are useful and beneficial, but not
just any will do. A good worldview would have to be concerned with
genuine morality, instead of unrealistic and delusional claims of
morality. A morality concerned with suffering rather than satisfying
the ego of a fictional character. A morality concerned with improving
the human condition for all, rather than suppressing mere
disagreement. Indeed, such a secular worldview would need to demand
that one's beliefs be based on evidence and logic, rather than
obedience and wishful thinking.
I
have been working on such a secular worldview. I believe a good
philosophical model will help people to live meaningful, healthy and
happy lives. It must be the purpose of such a worldview that people
are not led to confusion, misery and immorality. Religions have done
that for thousands of years. It's time that we have a philosophical
model that gives us the benefits of the structure and principles, but
now based on reality instead of fantasy. While there are other
philosophies out there, which non-believers can adopt, they all are
limited in their scope. And some are just plainly bad. Take Ayn
Rand's so-called “Objectivism”, for example. A philosophy, which
is in reality just an attempt at justification for “rational
selfishness”,
as even Rand, herself, had put her idea. On the other hand, Humanism
is a respectable and good Moral Philosophy. But, it doesn't address
issues of Epistemology or Metaphysics – the questions of “what is
there to know?” and “how do we know what we know?” Solipsism,
while a Metaphysical philosophy is rather absurd. Could anyone
reasonably respect the idea that all of the universe, including other
people, are all in one's head? A figment of one's imagination. While
it is Subjectivism, in the extreme, there are some people who favor
the Objective view (not to be confused with Ayn Rand's silliness).
Though they take their conclusions the other extreme. The idea that
how one perceives the world around them is not important. But, it
really is ridiculous to make such a suggestion. The reality is that
it's true that the universe, and all that is in it, objectively exist
and that the facts are as they are, regardless of personal opinion.
While, at the same time, to deny the importance of subjective
perception in informing how we act is woefully ignorant. After-all, it is only through one's particular individual understanding of the world that one can operate.
Any worldview must encompass all aspects of life and
philosophy. Most philosophies, however, fail to cover the multiple
fields, or fail to connect intelligently the different philosophies.
Honestly, I can't see how one could support a humanist moral
philosophy with an exclusively Solipsistic view on what exists and
how we know anything. For that matter a Philosophy of the Mind, for
Solipsists would be rather simple, in that the mind would be the
extent of the universe. That is quite silly, and not much good
really. Any coherent, stable, useful and good worldview would
necessarily have all the positions on the various issues be able to
point back to the premises. The foundation of the life-philosophy
should be able to draw from reality and establish axioms that support
the upper-level conclusions. So that one can argue from the facts
about the world, including biology, to support our own evolutionary
history. And that from the evolution of humanity one can argue to
support a secular moral view based on the necessities of societies,
as part of our species' nature. This, and more, I believe is possible
for those of us who do not believe in supernatural claims. In fact,
this has been my work for the past several years. I've worked, and am
still working, hard on this because I believe that to have such a
secular worldview is actually a good thing. A good secular worldview
provides the structure for our values, beliefs, attitudes, actions
and makes up a significant part of who we are, individually.
Copyright
©
2012, Joshua Michail
