The Psychology of Religion

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

In my opinion, religion arose because of class structure; however, psychological reasons cause it to remain. Instead of pursuing healthy methods to deal with psychology problems, people, manipulated by the bourgeoisie, choose religion. As an end result, the class structure is perpetuated, and, because of this fact, the proletariat must eliminate religion to achieve an ideal world.

However, to deconstruct the need for religion, the proletariat must, with the assistance of intellectuals, cure the individual of needing religion. Therefore, I start this thread asking this, "What do people think religion provides, and how can we satisfy the proletariat so they disregard religion?"

[Noah]

I don't personally think religion can be abolished in the forseeable future due to the fact that there are so many unanswered questions. I am personally athiest.

I think it depends on a person's way of thinking.

I know people that have turned to religion because of fear, because they no one day they will die and then they begin to question themselves 'What if there if an afterlife and I go to hell?' and so on.

Also I know people that look in the bible for answers when they go through hardships in their lifes (because it's more sensible than going to the school councillor? :unsure: ) this is due to the fast that they believe the bible is a direct answer from God and will help them endure the multitude of hardships, life puts them through.

So basically a religion provides people with answers and it can also give people confidence in the things they do in their daily lives by knowing something great is protecting them.

I'm not religous so I'm saying this from the point of view of my teacher who is a nun.

[Xvall]

Psychology does play a significant role with religion, most specifically, it is used as a psychological weapon. During the Dark Ages, live was completely worthless, for the most part. You may very well have died before adulthood, assuming you managed to make it into adolescencce - but the peasants did little because their lords and kings and bishops managed to convince them that they didn't need to worry about bettering their life in this word, and that as long as they prayed to god, they would be assured a blissful existance afterwards... maybe.

It's also a way of coping with not understanding the universe, I suppose. It's easiery just to say, "God has it covered. Whatever!".

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

To get people to disregard there religion, they need to stop being taught it as a fact by their religious authorities (parents, priests, presidents, etc.) from the time they're born until they die. To get people to continue to become less religious, secular people need to help people open up their eyes. If a child is raised in a religious family and no one in their life says "hey, god is bullshit," they will have no reason to question it, but once they start to question it, they will realize that they don't need it.

[which doctor]

I believe religion arose because people asked questions about life. They could not come up with logical answers to their questions so they created religion. It solved the mysteries of life. It told people where they were going when they died, and why they were put on this world in the first place. Nowadays science has solved many of those mysteries, but others still remain unsolved. Those unsolved mysteries and other idiots still keep religion a live today.

[redstar2000]

Well, there are probably "a whole bunch" of "psychological factors" involved in any particular individual's superstitious beliefs.

But I'm skeptical that there's "anything to be gained" by concerning ourselves with them.

It is religion as a social phenomenon that's of real concern to us. We need to publicly discredit it as much as we can...and then let individuals reach atheist conclusions "on their own".

By forcing it out of public life, we force it back on its own "intellectual" and "psychological" resources...always feeble sources of strength.

Most rational people, even in primitive times, did not spend their lives worrying about "Heaven" or "Hell" or "the Nature of God", blah, blah, blah. They concerned themselves with survival and maybe even prosperity in this world.

"Ages of Faith" have always relied on very earthly forms of support...state power and state organs of repression and material wealth, for example. Not to mention social prestige and respectability.

Deprived of those things, superstition withers.

That's why there's no "Temple of Isis" in your neighborhood...or mine. :)

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[farleft]

Religion will eventually dissapear.

In England and Wales 7.7 million people state they have no religion (14.6 per cent in England and 18.5 per cent in Wales).

People with no religion formed the second largest group after christianity.

National Statistics 2001

15.5% 2002 est Religion Stats 2002 (http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/stats.html)

Secularisation Theory: Society will Continue to Reject Religion
Secularisation theory is the theory that as modern society advances it will become increasingly secular, and religion will become increasingly hollow.

Steve Bruce (p56-58) looks at the major comments made by those who do not believe that increasing secularisation is causing a decline in religious belief. "Despite the fuss made by a few sociologists keen to challenge the secularisation thesis, that consensus is very clear: our medieval past was considerably more religious than our modern present.". He looks at the assertion that although modern Church membership is plummeting "religious belief" is still just as strong and refutes it by showing the relevant stats, sociology and history.

The "trend is clear. Those marks of an enduring interest in religion that persist outside the churches are themselves becoming weaker and more rare. If one wants to call those residues 'implicit religion', then one has to recognize that the implicit is decaying in the same way as the explicit. It is not a compensating alternative"

He continues: "Secondly, it should be no surprise that, though there are more avowed atheists than there were twenty years ago, they remain rare. Self-conscious atheism and agnosticism are features of religious cultures and were at their height in the Victorian era. They are postures adopted in a world where people are keenly interested in religion"

Secularisation Theory is an Established Theory in Sociology:

"The three 'classical' sociological theorists, Marx, Durkheim and Weber. All "all thought that the significance of religion would decrease in modern times. Each believed that religion is in a fundamental sense an illusion. The advocates of different faiths may be wholly persuaded of the validity of the beliefs they hold and the rituals in which they participate, yet the very diversity of religions and their obvious connections to different types of society, the three thinkers held, make these claims inherently implausible."

[redstar2000]

Secularisation theory is the theory that as modern society advances it will become increasingly secular, and religion will become increasingly hollow...Secularisation theory is an established theory in sociology.

This has interesting implications for the controversy about how communists should deal with religion "after the revolution".

For example, I often "stir up a fuss" when I argue that all "religious architecture" should be demolished as quickly as possible.

But consider: suppose we find ourselves in a situation in which most or even nearly all churches have become unsafe buildings.

Their declining congregations were no longer able to afford the costs of building maintenance over the decades preceding the revolution...so now most churches will have become physically hazardous to enter.

Does anyone imagine that there will be wide-spread "public outrage" when these dangerous (and perhaps mostly abandoned) structures are torn down and replaced by secular structures or perhaps by public parks?

The superstitious reactionaries will no doubt howl in dismay...but who will then care what a small number of "stone-age cranks" think?

And if anyone suggests that public resources should be allocated to restoring those ancient monuments to servility and ignorance, I have no doubt at all that such a proposition would be contemptuously dismissed.

As it should be!

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[Martyr]

As long as there will be man there will be Religion. You want to have that Illusion of Religion and spirituality going bankrupt your going to have to shut down everyone's soul and imagination.

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by [email protected] 5 2005, 10:33 PM
As long as there will be man there will be Religion. You want to have that Illusion of Religion and spirituality going bankrupt your going to have to shut down everyone's soul and imagination.
nice job there, you havent proved why. shut down everyones soul? i dont recall any of us believing in souls. and since when has the church promoted imagination? :lol:

[Martyr]

Well Religion and Spirituality is a type of imagining all of you say Religion will disappear your also saying people's imagination will go away as well.

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by [email protected] 5 2005, 10:52 PM
Well Religion and Spirituality is a type of imagining all of you say Religion will disappear your also saying people's imagination will go away as well.
im sorry but since when does imagination require religion? i had a big imagination as a non religious kid. lots of great artists were atheists too. they seemed to have imagination. :)

[Delirium]

It is obvious that organized religion is an instrument of opression. Simply look at the caste system in india. Most people belive in this for the same reason that they believe in anything else, they are conditioned from birth that this is an unquestionable fact and to do so would send your soul straight to hell (along with the unbabtized babies).

To wither away organized religion we must remove thier tax-exempt status and treat them as any other buisness. We also must adress religion on a rational level (which is quite hard to do with a fundementalist). Finally we should have our educational systems treat it as any other myth that has been disreputed.