The Practical [as Opposed to the Ideological] Benefit of Religion

The number one reason why many relapse is because of the felt crushing banality of existence. Time weighs heavy on us, it is all so meaningless, and to escape this uncomfortable feeling/ thought we look for oblivion in pornography [the same dynamic often applies to alcohol and drug use]. It is arguably a form of suicide insofar as we want to obliterate our conscious/ rational self.

Now science can in no way help here for it is about 'facts' and not 'values'. It can not help us in our existential 'first person' feelings, which center on meaning.

What tries to help are the humanities such as literature, friendship, art and poetry etc. And no doubt they can help as they were, in cultural and historical terms, our 'half-way' house as society was secularized. But when we turn to religion proper, we have full-on dramatic meaning writ large. If you are once again 're-enchanted', and walk out into the world each day with the consciousness of life being a wondrous mystery... and you, a spiritual being, are to walk lightly on this earth.... what a difference it may make!

Herein lies a pragmatic, or psychological, argument for belief... besides all the ideological ones which attempt to prove its truth.

Also, consider that the conscious rational self now has further resources to subordinate the irrational self and its base desires.... for the conscious moral/ rational self is now subordinated to a higher intelligible reality... beyond the mere fragile ego. The Great Chain of Being principle.

 

And further, if we are looking to the practical benefit of religion, we think again about those other transcendental ideals that once kept Truth company. And then the concerns of Goodness, Unity, and Beauty also come to motivate us to live a better life. And somehow this modern obsession with self-manufactured truths becomes less significant, and we come to counter-balance our so-called certainties with a healthier and more desirable view of our lives.

What is true religion if it is not the collective art of our humanity.

 

I shall make a pilgrimage to Rome one day.

 

Well, I am in a foreign country on the continent of Asia at the moment, and so it makes it difficult for me to attend a Catholic cathedral. When I get back home, I shall recommence all religious observances immediately. I trust this is to your satisfaction.

 

I guess for the reason that many keep referring to science. It is the paradigm within which my language makes sense. One person will see one way of knowing/ being as valuable and prestigious, and another person will see another way as being so. Is this relativist? No, not if there is a hierarchy involved.

I think thinking itself is an art. When we understand it this way the nature of words changes. They are no longer to be pinned down in some scientific or ideological exercise. Nope, they are just like notes of a currency that have a certain value at a certain time and place due to their monetary value. But monetary value, the meaning of words, changes with different currencies. Think of a currency as a particular paradigm, a language game, a theory, or a body of science.

Scientific ideology is the attempt to create one single artificial currency [interpretation] and then identify that with money itself [meaning/ truth]. It wants to be money's sole representative.

Notice the use of figurative language and an extended metaphor. When we want to get at meaning, this is the way we use language. We see through a glass darkly.

 

Ah, but the scientist is still a person. At the end of the day, he has to go home, and sit in his armchair in front of the fire, and wonder what his own life is all about.

 

Well, some of the most mystical religious thought came out of the deserts. And there were whole sects of monks who retreated into the desert early on in the history of the church....

But say you were removed from society and in some state of nature like that. I'd say you'd have more, not less, of these kinds of philosophical thoughts about existence because you'd have more time and freedom to think them. You wouldn't be so busy commuting here and there... and even whilst commuting with nothing to do, you'd have your smart phone ever present to distract your thoughts....

Nope, the desert dweller will most likely have quite a religious outlook on life. Look how quickly Islam spread through the desert lands.

 

Stylite

A screaming wind
Across the waste
Wakes me from
My fitful sleep.

A Stylite am I,
With elements I vie,
My vigilance to keep
On a column high.

Nigh on two score years
With the desert beasts
That prowl beneath,
And odd souls for prayer,
And myself to mortify.

I rise with the heavened stars
That track the concaved black
Which wraps this orb...
But for the punctured points
Through which light pours.

The wind dies down,
And down I lie.
With the moon I float,
And in the infinite drown.

 

Sure, why not. Free will itself is a miracle from a naturalistic perspective. I believe in my own free will, that I am myself a supernatural miracle... so why wouldn't I believe in divine miracles??

 

Well, it helps to think of religion primarily in terms of meaning not morality. I think this shift reflects the unfortunate turn religion took in our culture with Puritanism.

When we think in terms of meaning, we ask what kind of life we should live. What is the good and excellent life etc. As moral beings we also ask ourselves what is right and wrong.... but this should not primarily be repressive but quite the opposite... that we can develop and realize our true nature.

 

Well it is 'miraculous' within the context of the world supposedly being a naturalistic machine. The reality we all know, in the first person, is that if this world is a natural machine than I am super-natural; I can choose to go out or stay home, to develop myself or regress, to be critical about what I believe or just follow the masses. Notice that all deterministic thought is mass thought and dehumanizing... it wants people to just remain like cogs in a machine. It is itself 'bad faith', people want to absolve themselves from taking responsibility for their own existence. Freedom is much desired in the abstract, but most people actually fear the concrete reality of it.

First person experience always trumps third person theories. If it doesn't, you have been brainwashed.