Dimentio
6th May 2008, 18:03
Religious people (except for Buddhists) often claim that without God, life would be meaningless and not worth of living. But one question is what kind of meaning "God" would provide except what people already could provide in terms of whacky totalitarian ideologies.
A sense of fullfillment?
The same thing accounts for all despotic regimes which have claimed an amount of considerable support.
A sense of belonging?
People would always find families, groups or friends to interact with and belong to.
I could agree that religion provides for a coherent worldview unifying moral and natural reality into one mythological existence, but at the cost of creativity and freedom of autonomy of the person. Moreover, at its worst. religion has often turned into nihilism, worshipping the distorted image of reality provided by religion, rather than the real world in itself as we could experience it.
A world without god is as meaningful or meaningless as a world with god... or maybe wait... more meaningful. There is more "meaning" in a world where each factor is an emergent existence co-existing in an intricate web of reactions, than a world where all diverse components making up our surroundings are filtered and reduced down to one meta-component (God) which prevents us from defining our own meaning.
A sense of fullfillment?
The same thing accounts for all despotic regimes which have claimed an amount of considerable support.
A sense of belonging?
People would always find families, groups or friends to interact with and belong to.
I could agree that religion provides for a coherent worldview unifying moral and natural reality into one mythological existence, but at the cost of creativity and freedom of autonomy of the person. Moreover, at its worst. religion has often turned into nihilism, worshipping the distorted image of reality provided by religion, rather than the real world in itself as we could experience it.
A world without god is as meaningful or meaningless as a world with god... or maybe wait... more meaningful. There is more "meaning" in a world where each factor is an emergent existence co-existing in an intricate web of reactions, than a world where all diverse components making up our surroundings are filtered and reduced down to one meta-component (God) which prevents us from defining our own meaning.