Religion and society

[Thufir Hawat]

I wasn't necessarily thinking of 'within the church' - or even in the context of religion.  I was looking at the possibility (tricky though I called it) of where else these benefits could/can be/are provided.  Religions/churches often supply these things, and it's sometimes convenient to leave them in that venue, but how could those same benefits be provided in a 'post-church' society?

Kind of a little bit of a world-building puzzle, if you will.

Well, the only post-Church societies I can point to don't have a great track record.

[Humble Scribe]

Well, the only post-Church societies I can point to don't have a great track record.

Depends on what you mean by a "post-Church society". Usually people mean communism, and specifically Soviet-style communism - as you're in Bulgaria I'm guessing that's what you're alluding to. I don't know that communism is necessarily about moral decline. Arguably state attitudes towards women and gay people were better in Soviet Russia than under the present regime, closely entwined as it is with the Orthodox Church. State communism does lend itself to authoritarian rule, which is bad. But having said that, our experience of authoritarian religious rule is not a good one either. Over here Cromwell's Puritans made themselves so unpopular we had to ask the monarchy to come back, and I'm not sure I.S. have endeared themselves to the people of eastern Syria and northern Iraq.

The UK is apparently approaching becoming a 'post-Christian' society, but I'm not seeing any real sense of moral decay. If anything, and in spite of some backsliding in the past few years (Brexit, various evil Tory home secretaries etc), I think we are much more open and tolerant as a society today than the society I remember growing up in in the 1970s. What Christianity is being replaced with, if anything, is a kind of fuzzy secular humanism that believes in universal human rights without really stopping to think about where that moral framework derives from. By the by - looking at the map on that page of where the fewest believers are, while Brighton is the capital of the UK's gay and more general alternative lifestyle scene, I am at a complete loss as to why people in the post-industrial Valleys of South Wales are also apparently so irreligious. I thought it was all Methodist Chapel there.

Disclaimer - I am an atheist and have been since my teenage years, and twenty years ago you might have got some sub-Dawkins guff from me on this subject. But my thinking on this has been very much shaped recently by reading Dominion by Tom Holland. He argues - convincingly to my mind - that the basic tenets and instincts of Christianity have become so firmly embedded in western cultural and intellectual life that it becomes like an ocean we swim in, and we end up espousing Christian values even when we think we're not. Hence he would argue that both communism and secular humanism are just in effect Christian heresies, replacing divine revealed truth with a different belief system but still claiming a monopoly on goodness and right.

[Oniya]

Depends on what you mean by a "post-Church society".

I mean a society where the institution of 'The Church' isn't the center of everything.  One where 'being excellent to each other' doesn't come out of some building vaguely redolent of incense.  Y'know 'Don't steal' because stealing hurts people.  'Feed the hungry' because people need to eat.  Not because $DEITY says so.

[MattMatt]

That is very difficult to predict Oniya.

But I think in the "post-church society" people are going to find alternatives. People took care of each other, we have been doing this for the entire history of mankind. So also before the great religions existed. We humans are social creatures by nature who like to help others. I don't think people's caring behavior is going to change just like that, with or without a church.

As Thufir Hawat pointed out, the Western world is built on Christian norms and values. Even if the church suddenly disappears, we just get an alternative to the church that is comparable. As a example, I already have this through my student association. That is not a church at all, but it still provides a nice alternative to the church for me. This student association is currently busy with donations to the food bank. So it already fulfills one of the roles that the church has.

[Azy]

You can look at societies that Western culture has not touched at all for an idea.  The Amazon rain forest has indigenous tribes still that have had very little or no contact with the outside world.  They aren't without religion, they have their own spiritual beliefs, but those beliefs weren't shaped by a book.  I see a little about them here and there on travel channel type shows.  They are still hunter/gatherer type societies, and don't trust the outside world much.  They don't live the way they do because of fear of hell, they depend on each other for survival.   

   

[Humble Scribe]

I mean a society where the institution of 'The Church' isn't the center of everything.  One where 'being excellent to each other' doesn't come out of some building vaguely redolent of incense.  Y'know 'Don't steal' because stealing hurts people.  'Feed the hungry' because people need to eat.  Not because $DEITY says so.

Well like I say - come to the UK, it's already here. And whatever the press may tell you, our society is doing fine.
We're just poor - because Brexit, covid, Ukraine etc. But I think our society is much more inclusive of different ethnicities, beliefs and sexualities than it was when I was growing up. And if that's associated with a decline in religious observance, then so be it.

[Thufir Hawat]

Depends on what you mean by a "post-Church society". Usually people mean communism, and specifically Soviet-style communism - as you're in Bulgaria I'm guessing that's what you're alluding to.

Actually no, I was thinking PRC-style "communism", North Korea, and the like. Those are getting closest, to it, since even Soviet-style communism didn't manage to destroy the Church.
So, as I said, not exactly a great track record.

Sorry, I simply can't comment on the UK society. I'm not really closely familiar with it, and it does seem to be experiencing changes - but my lack of familiarity means that I'd probably comment on what is "a past version" of it. I'd rather avoid wasting our time to begin with.

I mean a society where the institution of 'The Church' isn't the center of everything.  One where 'being excellent to each other' doesn't come out of some building vaguely redolent of incense.  Y'know 'Don't steal' because stealing hurts people.  'Feed the hungry' because people need to eat.  Not because $DEITY says so.

So, because the court says you need to ?

But the court is also a building. So is the incense so much of an issue?

Also, the biggest contribution of the Church and the religion isn't that they're helping to feed people. It's that they're making us all (ideally) care about feeding the hungry.

[Oniya]

So, because the court says you need to ?

So what you're saying is that in the absence of some authority telling people that they have to do a thing, humans are just content to let other people starve.

Right - that's enough cynicism for my entire life right now. 

[Thufir Hawat]

So what you're saying is that in the absence of some authority telling people that they have to do a thing, humans are just content to let other people starve.

Right - that's enough cynicism for my entire life right now.

Well, there's enough historical examples of people starving while others gorged, that I'm afraid that yes, we can assume that in the absence of some authority telling them otherwise, at least in some cases, the humans with greater access to resources other people are lacking would be content to let those that lack such access experience fully the consequences of the aforementioned deficit...i.e. starve .
Sorry if it spoils your mood.

Please note, sometimes even the authority telling them so isn't enough. Especially when said authority gets co-opted. But it's usually at least somewhat better when such an authority is present, IMO.

[GloomCookie]

I don't agree that humans are essentially assholes. SOME humans are assholes. Others are genuinely willingly to help those less fortunate. Christianity preaches this, even if they don't always follow it.

I think you can really gauge someone's overall goodness by whether they subscribe to the Shopping Cart Theory.

https://youtu.be/B55gpo3OgQk

Honestly, I think humans are inherently good to some degree. You can paint a million scenarios where humans are assholes, and I will go and find a million and one examples of humans being awesome to other humans and to animals and even inanimate objects because they project themselves onto a thing. People have some kernel of goodness inside of them.

[Thufir Hawat]

I don't agree that humans are essentially assholes. SOME humans are assholes. Others are genuinely willingly to help those less fortunate. Christianity preaches this, even if they don't always follow it.

Well, that's exactly what I said as well, if you look at my response. I actually formulated it carefully, if a bit overwrought, to mean exactly that.

But also, the more of those that ARE assholes that you can get to behave, the better. And with some assholes, the fear of supernatural, all-seeing retribution works where no other fear would reasonably even exist .

[Annaamarth]

... As a example, I already have this through my student association. That is not a church at all, but it still provides a nice alternative to the church for me. This student association is currently busy with donations to the food bank. So it already fulfills one of the roles that the church has.

I'm not sure whether your original question was more about the value of faith or the value of religion - I view those two things separately - but I think you've touched on something important here.

Not everyone has access to a student association.  Not everyone is conservative enough to join the local social club.  Most working adults live most of their lives in two places - the home and the job.  There may be a third place for some people - the pub or sports bar, where the regulars know you and you can watch the game, the gym or yoga club, what-have-you - and I think that third place is important.  I'm not alone in this.

Church is that third place for a lot of people.  Ideally, it's one that promotes positivity and healthy communities, but either way it is a way for people to get out of the default two boxes, which is healthy.  Is it the best way?  I wouldn't suggest it is - but alcohol is a poison, marijuana can promote psychosis, the internet is addicting, and people chafe at speed limits - though they add very little time cost to most travel and [ur=https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/transport/speed-limits-fuel-consumption-andl]help reduce emissions[/url].  I don't see any of those things going away any day soon - though the details of the vices involved are likely different in your region than my own, I think 'poor decision making' is pretty endemic to the human condition.

But to home in on the morality of it anyway:  Religion is not a vile evil, I think.  Christians have done evil, vile things in the name of religion, as have Muslims, Buddhists, and ancient followers of Tyr and Odin.  The Crusades were were undertaken for economic reasons with an ideological 'motivator' (c.f. the Russian Orthodox Church on Ukraine), but it didn't take religion for the Nazis to prosecute the Holocaust, or for the Soviet Union to drive the Holodomor.  It is my opinion that blaming faith or religion is missing the point - any social club will almost certainly be hierarchical on some level, and any hierarchy can be twisted and subverted to evil ends.  I wouldn't suggest that organization and community are bad - but I also would agree that governments do maintain a monopoly on violence, and state power is maintained and enforced through the threat or employment of violence, and that I generally consider violence bad.

As mentioned by Humble Scribe, religion is on the decline in most of the west, because Christianity tends to be conservative, and because people are leaning more strongly towards Reason.  I think this is a good thing.  Further, just because I see value in religion doesn't mean, for example, the Westboro Baptist Church or Russian Orthodox Church get a pass - they do not.  I judge those organizations individually, rather than with a broad stroke.  This doesn't mean that I think Faith should be extirpated in a conscious effort to promote Reason; in a world where people may have untreatable illnesses, from hallucinations and screaming voices surrounding you to cancer, and where terrible things happen, I see value in faith - I certainly doubt it's any worse an 'opiate of the masses' than the alcohol slung at a sports bar, or opium-derived drugs others turn to.  So, where faith exists, you will see organizations built around it - from small social clubs to churches to special groups with a distinctly faithful tone to their process.  I'm not comfortable saying those shouldn't exist.

Perhaps, though, that's a weakness of mine.  That would feel like forcing my way of life on others, and I am reluctant to do that.

These are only my opinions and perspectives, and I hope they make some sense to you, Mattmatt.

[Humble Scribe]

I agree with almost everything you say there, Annaamarth, with one small exception:

The Crusades were were undertaken for economic reasons with an ideological 'motivator' (c.f.

I think the First Crusade was undertaken almost entirely for ideological reasons, with the prospect of carving out your own little barony maybe an additional motivating factor for some of the Norman warlords. The fervour of the Peasants' Crusade is testimony to how powerful the idea was. The Second and Third Crusades were prestige political projects for Kings and Emperors, but how prestigious it was depended almost entirely on the project's religious virtue. It's true that as things went on, the increasing financial interests of the Italian merchant city states not only helped keep feeding new recruits into the meat grinder and maintain the western footprint in Palestine for decades longer than it might otherwise have done, but also eventually led to the Fourth Crusade being derailed as comprehensively as it was, but below the grand strategy level, the ideology was the dominant motivating force for most of the volunteers who made up the armies.

By the by, I think medieval Christianity gets a bad rap these days, and we have largely post-Reformation stereotypes of financial (and other) corruption and persecution of heretics and witches. But it was often the greatest moderating factor in the way people treated each other. Churchmen brokered truces and ceasefires, release of hostages, gave charitable support to the unfortunate and tried to alter the conduct of war in a way we would recognise today - they tried to ban crossbows and even longbows in much the same way we have tried to ban landmines or chemical weapons (and with as much success). The very idea of chivalry was an attempt to graft Christian values onto the way armoured warriors behaved, both in combat and out of it.