Human Need for Religion

That's a rather naive, if popular, view of religion.Probably made even more popular by the fact that in the US any kind of fringe BS can pass as a religion, from Scientology to what have you.And by fringe I don't mean less true in the "god exists" way (well, he doesn't exist, at least not in any religious guise), but less historically established and having served an important societal role.Because religions were an early cultural framework for formulation of a

It could be because religion is useful

If all religions were gone tomorrow, the burden on society would still be there in another form. There are many people religious about global warming, Linux, the GNU, styles of politics and economics, etc. Even some political figures are followed religiously to a point (where logic and reason are out the door when you try to have a conversation questioning them).Religion isn't all bad. There are people that take it to the extremes, but many of the things in the bible teach you to be a bett

Humans wants religion, humans need religion, a lot of humans can't survive without religion. All those reports about religion decline in the world look misleading. It is just Christian God fell out of favor and a lot of people choose to worship Holy Technological Progress. You can easily recognize worshipers of his two main sects in threads like this.First one claims that you don't need to worry about Climate Change, Super AI, Antibiotic Resistance Pathogens etc because Holy Progres

Most people with religious beliefs and churches themselves don't reevaluate the things you mentioned.Otherwise the world would be a totally different place.Just because you can see ego min and max things in theory it doesn't mean it has a real influence in people.Religios people lifing a 'good' life and as soon as someone needs help all is gone.Plenty of sexual abuse have happened and is probably still happening.You yourself brought it up.And then we have th

Being religious isn't a weakness, it is an inevitability. A human mind is very limited and not up to the challenge of understanding everything - people have to accept most of their knowledge through social proof. Once social proof is involved religious-looking structures evolve rapidly. It isn't a matter of having or not having cognitive tools, it is that the tools necessary to avoid faith and community can't exist. At least without a level of change that shatters what it means to

Not many cultures have ever been free from widespread pervasive detachment from reality. By default, that's religion, though some political ideologies and superstitions have also filled that need. If you really don't like it, you probably don't like humans. And I tend to agree, humans have a fault in their brains causing irrational beliefs, but it probably serves some more valuable purpose than being right.

With a lack of religion, people naturally seek idols to look up to and create a focus in their lives. That said, it can go too far and look like a cult. The more I read about behaviour, history and psychology, the more I realise just how specialised religions were at keeping civilisations sane.

At least in my experience, as a gen-X person in the US:For at least a generation now, organized religions have been doing a poor job of addressing people's personal spiritual needs, while at the same time being the bastion of various sorts of social conservatism with justifications that often don't hold up in the context of modern scientific knowledge.Now, I do think this is sometimes quite unfortunate, as it sometimes leaves these people easy prey to even less rationalistic reli

Society has left religion behind but dogma is still with us