Comment by wat10000
4 months ago
Social groups serve those needs. I’ve seen no reason to think those groups must be centered on a mythology.
4 months ago
Social groups serve those needs. I’ve seen no reason to think those groups must be centered on a mythology.
Social groups not built on any kind of shared values or belief system don't actually serve the needs that religions do because they don't scale beyond the familiarity of the specific members of the group
Well, religion doesn’t serve the needs of people like me because we can’t believe in the core nonsense that religion centers on. So what then?
You don't have to believe, you just have to fit in. I once read somebody's theory on why atheist "churches" aren't very successful. In a real church, you have true-believers who are happy competent people with normal jobs and friends and families. They're there because of their belief, not to fill a need to belong to something. Their presence keeps the quality of the social group high so that weak or fake-believers can still participate and enjoy the benefits. If there's nothing for true-believers to believe in, then all you have is unhappy lonely people looking for company and they're not very good company for each other.
It may be hard for a religious person to say "Pretending to believe in God is more important than actually believing." so you may get the feeling that if you don't believe, it's not for you. But I think it kind of is like that. It's a useful lie that everyone silently agrees to perpetuate because it actually works better than anything truthful.
Why is it nonsense but the idea that life is invaluable and meaningless is not, despite the fact that no one, not even the most ardent defenders of this worldview, lives as if it is true?
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