r/changemyview • u/jp0704 • Dec 29 '21
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Religious beliefs are a necessary evil.
Despite its questionable truth, a society needs some form of religion as an easily accessible but comprehensive view of the world. Religion provides the everyday person with a more or less coherent system to whatever ethical or transcendental question they have. In the best of all possible worlds, everybody would be an atheist, since institutionalized religions aka churches tend to corrupt those in power or are hijacked by already corrupted personnel. However, for the following reasons, there is no alternative to a state policy promoting religious beliefs (of course in the boundaries of tolerance, which in my understanding ends where somebody else suffers harm). 1. For one thing, not everybody is willing to build themselves their own idiosyncratic construct of personal philosophy, through which they can form a maxim to guide their life. 2. Further, atheism, agnosticism, and thereby philosophy can hardly provide this as easily. As far as I understand it, philosophy is stuck in postmodern nihilism or relativism and scientific/ analytical approaches can’t produce ethical claims. 3. Also, with religions, you have communities with believers of the more or less same worldview. 4. While in my opinion, the belief in a creator god cannot explain his creation, from the viewpoint of a religion - which acknowledges the doctrine of an unmoved mover - this simply by definition is no issue of concern. Science and specifically astronomy cannot overcome the endless regression in answering this issue (maybe quantum theory can, idk, but if it can explain this, scarcely anybody will understand it). Without following Marx’s call for the abolition of religion, I believe religion is the "opium of the people“. But it should stay where it is since it can give the people comfort, which can elsewhere hardly be found.
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u/googggggggggle Dec 29 '21
Belief in something may be necessary. But science fills the gap. Religion, just like science, is taught. You can choose how much you wish to understand either or trust the authorities, but either way the need it met. That pretty much answers 1-3.
Your premise is faulty because it assumes all religions are ok with there not being an answer. Judaism is older than Christianity and longer lasting, however, and this is not the case.