Why Religions Fail
Below is a video I made (less than 10 minutes) about why religions have failed to find the truth.
In short, religions disagree about what happens when I die, how to be saved, etc. Religions have had thousands of years to find the truth and have failed. The video show why. Comments (here or on YouTube) appreciated.
109 – Why Religions Fail https://youtu.be/L9uVUMw6C5U
In short, religions disagree about what happens when I die, how to be saved, etc. Religions have had thousands of years to find the truth and have failed. The video show why. Comments (here or on YouTube) appreciated.
109 – Why Religions Fail https://youtu.be/L9uVUMw6C5U
Comments (84)
It seems to me you can only make a blanket judgement like that if you already hold the view that religion is superstition that gets good people to do bad things, which is certainly a perspective, but not the only one.
Quoting Art48
I hope that helps.
Astrophel: "Religion is the redemptive and consummatory structure of our existence"
Hm. I'd call that word salad. But if you can give it some meaning, I expect existing religions will disagree about that, too.
I watched your video, where it repeats for 10 minutes:
1. No one knows what will happen after death, since:
2. Religions contradict each other
3. All religions are based on superhero stories
4. Science does not contradict itself
I propose another question: for what purpose did humanity ask the question "what will happen after death? . "Was the answer to this question important, or did the answer to this question justify ethics?
I think the man of that time did well, because he would be saved after death. In my opinion, the basis of the search for an answer to the question that after death is the justification of ethics. Of course, good and bad actions in different societies are different actions. Hence, in my opinion, such discrepancies. You say that religions are contradictory, but I think not really: do well and you will be saved, that's what they have in common. Another thing is that a different concept is good everywhere.
By the way, Zaroastrianism (the first monotheistic religion) argued 3 postulates: Good thought. Good word. Good deed. Little has changed in religions since then.
There’s a Buddhist anecdote that an elderly questioner once asked the Buddha, what is the core of his teaching? He replied, ‘Cease from evil, learn to do good, and purify the mind.’ Taken aback, the questioner said, ‘but a child knows that!’ ‘Yes’, was the reply, ‘but how many grown adults are able to live up it?’
Not really. I think "religions disagree" because they seek answers which rationalize or are permissible in accordance with prior conclusions (dogmas). To the degree different religions share prior conclusions, it seems their questions tend to converge on similar (or equivalent) "truths", and vice versa.
Cease from - means something was already going on that needs to cease.
Learn. To do. Good. - a life’s work.
Purify the mind.
Love it.
What do you take "purify the mind" to mean? A reference to the Noble Eightfold Path?
To me, it could suggest that we don't need to concern ourselves with metaphysics, philosophy, or even whether life has any inherent meaning: we just need to do what's outlined above. It's minimalist, but challenging in its own way.
Purification in Theravada Buddhism is to observe the precepts and learn to bring the mind to bear on wholesome states of mind. In addition there are various meditative disciplines such as kasina which is concentration on various shapes and designs and mindfulness training. These are aimed at ‘one-pointedness’ of mind culminating in states of jhana (meditative trance) of which there are eight gradations. But that is in turn predicated on the vinaya or the lay version of the precepts and the Buddhist way of life. It’s very different from and probably at odds with typical modern lifestyles in many ways (mine included.)
(I thought the portrayal of Thai Buddhism in the recent season of White Lotus was quite realistic in many ways. The idealistic young Piper Ratliff who had had her heart set on staying at the Wat for a year changed her mind after staying a week, largely because there was no air-conditioning and the diet was meager.)
Oh, I didn't know that there was the truth. How did you verify that religion (what is a religion?) failed to find the truth?
Obviously a lot has changed in religion since then.
Though I didn't watch the video my interpretation is that Are48 is essentially pointing out that religions fail because they are human inventions–no religion can be all-inclusive because no people can be all-inclusive.
Judging by the answer, you not only did not watch the video, but also did not read what I wrote.
The author criticizes religion for the lack of a uniform approach to such concepts as life after death, achieving it, and also for the fact that in all religions there is a certain superhero who gives the truth.
I suggested a new layer: what if the idea of ??life after death is, first of all, an attempt to justify ethics. you behave well, after death you get a continuation of life in heaven. the concept of behaving well for different times and societies has different content. hence the different ways to get to "heaven" in different religions.
I only said that as a tool for justifying good behavior, religions do not contradict each other.
For example, the Wheel of Samsara in Hinduism served as one of the ideological justifications for the caste system, explaining social inequality through karma and motivating people to follow caste duties for the sake of a better rebirth. the idea of Valhalla for the Vikings justified courage, heroism and risk for warriors. the idea of humility in the name of heaven in Christianity made it easier for the lowest classes to accept their oppression.
The list goes on and on. The main idea is that the justification through the afterlife (or rebirth) has always served for ethic
My point is simply that religions are inherently exclusive and fail the excluded. Your example illustrates this well. In Orthodox Brahmanical Hinduism the untouchables were denied even spiritual mobility—were excluded within their own culture and religious tradition by no fault of their own.
Your example also shows how religions change as untouchability and caste discrimination has been banned for many years.
Instead, it seems to be just garden variety Reddit atheist stuff from the 2000s.
I went to watch the video and got this message:
Video unavailable
This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.
Is there a new link?
Yes, I've moved the videos to Vimeo.
Here's a link to the video in question.
109 – Why Religions Fail https://vimeo.com/1135038855
And here's a link to the entire catalog of Natural Theology videos.
https://adamford.com/catalog_naturaltheology/
Unlike finding the truth religions typically declare what's true by reference to scripture, priests, traditions, blind belief etc.
So you come to the conclusion that the superior faith is "faith in truth itself, and in the reasonable and goodness of the universe", better than believing in the ancient stories that traditional religions give us.
First of all. I thin it's naive to think that religions are about truth. They aren't. Sure, they proclaim that they are the truth, yet notice what answer they give: that it's faith, not reason. Religions give us a moral compass on just what is right and what is wrong. They do give us also creation stories and tell us what happens after we die, yet especially the part what happens after we die is still linked to how we live our life (and hence is about doing the good and not bad).
These moral questions are SUBJECTIVE. Now how can one or any religion justify that it's answers on moral questions are correct? Well, as the question are subjective and not objective, their answer is universal: it's a question of faith. You don't deduce from facts that a God or Gods exist, you take him (or them) as an issue of faith. Never does ANY religion say that you will find God, if you just use your brain enough. What religions say is that they have to be taken into ones heart. Hence religions even themselves understand that the questions of what is right or wrong, good or bad, cannot be answered in an objective way using logic.
Also, note that religions when giving answer to moral/ethical question that are inherently subjective attempt to give an objective answer by having the ultimate subjective, God (or Gods). So why is something good or bad? Because God says so. God (or Gods) are all powerful, so that's your "objective" answer.
Furthermore, you are falling into a trap where many atheists fall when you assume that "the universe is good". What science just says is that "the universe exists". Existence isn't good or bad. Questions on just what is good or bad are different form the question what exists in reality and what doesn't. There simply is a reason just why Ethics and Moral Philosophy is a different branch from Logic. You cannot simply combine them! Yet many atheists just assume that "goodness" simply emerges from humanity.
Truth itself is something that needs objectivity, you have to have logical premises to make a model of reality, where you can then in the logical system state if things are true or false. Science is one system like that, it gives models about reality, but note that science doesn't at all answer to what would be good and what bad. That's a question for religion, and faith. This is an error that many atheists do when believing that science can give us answers on ethical questions.
Secondly, where does this assumption of the goodness of the universe come from? It's quite out there as is the "ancient stories" you mock religions give. Well, the dominant religions of the present emerged in the time of Antiquity, so it's obvious that the writings were for an audience for a past time. Yet the message that holds on even today are the answers that religions give to ethical questions.
I’m sympathetic to this line of thinking, but I don’t think we have good reason to assume that any religion has a single, unified goal. One of my close friends is a priest who regards the Vatican as corrupt and “not the real Church,” and I have met many Catholics who hold similar views, which makes it hard to see how the Vatican and its shifting political perspectives could simply be identified with Catholicism itself. For the same reason, I’m not convinced we can say that the aim of organised religion is the consolidation of power, because it isn’t even clear what “organised religion” consists of: it is mothers and fathers, radicals and reactionaries, good people and bad people, institutions and dissenters, shared traditions and internal conflicts, all pulling in different directions for different reasons, making any claim about a single purpose or intention seems like an oversimplification.
Agree. And that method of determining truth (what I call the "superhero/storybook" method) has failed to find the truth even after thousands of years.
“I think it's naive to think that religions are about truth. They aren't.”
OK, we agree about that. But many religious people think otherwise.
“You are falling into a trap where many atheists fall when you assume that ‘the universe is good’.”
When I say I believe the universe is fundamentally good I am merely the superiority of a FAITH in truth and the ultimate goodness of the universe with the inferior FAITH in some book that has a talking serpent and a talking donkey. They are both types of faith.
Agree. Christianity is a product of the Roman Empire, approved and made Rome's official religion by Roman emperors. It make spirituality serve this-world goals.
But who are these originators? Can you actually sketch the process because it seems a bit vague? The founders are not generally in this vein: the Buddha, or Jesus (if he was a historical person), were not empire-builders. If we take Christianity, who exactly are the originators to whom this claim is meant to apply; Paul, Constantine, the Roman Empire, the First Vatican Council? Does this apply to Judaism and Sikhism as well, or only to one or two religions?
Sorry, I didn't understand this part.
I'm not sure I have faith in truth or ultimate goodness. A talking serpent and donkey wound almost as plausible.
I wonder what ultimate goodness means other than a god surrogate. Maybe the word ultimate is the problem. Maybe it is easier to believe in goodness when it's contrasted with badness?
Quoting Art48
Or perhaps just evil (do we need ultimate?).
It sounds like you might be recovering from a harsh form of Protestant Christianity and, like many others, are trying to salvage part of the story by reframing some notion of the divine within an ethical system you can fully accept. If not, I apologise for this assumption. Not all Christians have believed that hell entails everlasting punishment. As David Bentley Hart reminds us (That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation), there were many strands of early Christian thought that held a universalist view: that ultimately all are saved, and that hell functions less as retribution than as a process of moral purification or the re-acquisition of virtue.
The Christianity I grew up with described hell not as a place of torment, but as a state or condition defined by the absence of God. We were taught that the Bible is largely a collection of pre-scientific myths and narratives, best understood allegorically rather than literally.
I was never able to accept or comprehend the idea of a god. From the moment I first encountered it, I completely lacked any sensus divinitatis, as Calvin might have it. The idea doesn’t help me with sense-making or everyday living, but I still find it very interesting.
'Beyond the vicissitudes' is preferable. On the plane of born existence, all goods have their opposite - pleasure and pain, life and death, good and bad. But the One is said to be 'the good that has no opposite.' Paired with that is the doctrine of 'evil as the privation of the good': evil has no inherent reality but is the consequence of privation of the Good. Realising the 'good that has no opposite' is, in philosophical spirituality, the end of the search.
I think you are correct. Just look how problematic ultimates like infinity are still in math and logic.
What is good and what is bad? You and I may agree on individual examples, but we also may not. The answer depends on us, it is a subjective answer.
No objective information just what reality is will answer this. So what's the solution for this that humans have come up with? That there's an ultimate subjective: God. How do you accept this then? By faith.
The phrase in my mind occurs in the context of faith.
There's a faith that is fearful: if I don't do (or believe) the right thing something bad (perhaps very, very bad) is going to happen to me. So I'd better believe what I'm told about God, etc. and not question and not think too deeply about it because that might lead to questioning.
And there's a faith that has more confidence "in the inherent goodness of the universe" where the person questions, thinks for themselves, and isn't afraid to call out (or, at least, privately disbelieve) obvious B.S.
Here's a video that discusses those two types of faith.
32 – A Clean, Well- Lighted Place https://vimeo.com/1135111091
:up:
Deus, sive natura (Tat Tvam Asi)
Sub specie aeternitatis, too.
The originators of spirituality were ordinary folks seeking answers to unanswerable (with the level of knowledge at the time) questions. But my original commentary pertained to organized religion specifically (as opposed to spirituality). So the goals of those who parlayed individual beliefs in the metaphysical into an institutional heirachy (which, they would lead, naturally) centered on the topic of spirituality, is what you're seeking. My guess is those folks sought personal power and wealth. I'm not so cynical to not acknowledge they didn't also personally believe they were leading society to a better place and individuals to eternal life etc. Rather that they were pursuing both goals.
Individuals who make cold lemonade from scratch in their kitchen do it to quench thirst. Those who create bottling companies, do it to make a profit, regardless of their interest in quenching the thirst of their customers.
Abbe Arthur Mugnier, a French divine, was asked if he believed in hell. He replied, "Yes, because it is a dogma of the church -- but I don't believe anyone is in it."
Perhaps. But other theories abound. The "myth and ritual" school in anthropology argues for the primacy of ritual. Attempts to influence the natural world through ritual lead to myths explaining the rituals. Of course nobody knows for sure -- but this explanation makes sense since non-verbal animals practice rituals, and, with the development of language, it would make sense to explain them.
James Frazer, in "the Golden Bough" suggests that in many cultures' rituals remained constant, while in preliterate societies myths were constantly changing. IN the famous opening of that book he describes how the ritual surrounding the kingship of the lake at Nemi was explained by the "dying and rising God" stories.
IN the U.S., with so many sole scriptura Protestants, primacy has been given to myth, and with the advent of written stories, myth became more constant. However, in other religions (like Buddhism) rituals (practices) retain importance.
IN addition, most preliterate societies do not differentiate between "myth" and "history". Story tellers tell tales about the past and are doubtless motivated to embellish to entertain their listeners. The notion that myths are a form of "primitive science" seems less correct than that they are a "primitive (oral) history".
OK fair enough, but am I right about the initial impression? Is this just garden variety Reddit atheism from the 2000s or do you have a thesis which is actually new, or even somehow develops that premise further than others?
By the way, it's not required for your position to be new in order to have merit for someone else. Just for me to be interested in it personally.
It's not atheism at all. The video I mentioned in the OP
>> 109 – Why Religions Fail https://vimeo.com/1135038855
is an excerpt from a much longer video
>> 108 - Religion 2.0 (Science+Religion) https://vimeo.com/1135038281
which explains my points in greater detail. The video rejects the "superhero/storybook" epistemological method of most religions and advocates applying something like science's epistemological method to the claims of the mystics (of any and no religion) to build a worldview that integrates science and religion.
Quoting BenMcLean
Religion 2.0 (as the video makes clear) is built upon the age-old Perennial Philosophy. In that respect, it's not new. It is new, I believe, in the way it applies the age-old ideas to create something that hasn't existed before (although it certainly contains many older ideas and points of similarity).
The 108 video is long (51 minutes). I'd love to get feedback on its ideas, especially because I'll be presenting its content (using its slides for a talk) this March at a local Quaker meeting I attend. I'm looking forward to the event with anticipation and some trepidation.
Religions are inconsistent precisely because they are human artefacts: they manage fear, create meaning, and develop codes of conduct. It would be surprising if they were otherwise.
The idea that there is One Truth is itself part of the reason religions diverge. The attempt to codify doctrine pushes each group or sect to develop what it takes to be the correct path.
This is also how we arrive at perennial philosophy: yet another attempt to identify the truth that supposedly underlies them all. Perennialists themselves are divided into schisms in this same, ultimately vain, search for a single truth.
Perennial philosophy is itself neither unified nor internally consistent. Once one attempts to isolate a supposed “single truth” underlying religious and philosophical traditions, one is forced into acts of selection and curation that vary from thinker to thinker. Huxley’s experiential and psychologised perennialism stands in clear tension with Plotinus’ rigorously metaphysical hierarchy of being, while both diverge sharply from traditionalist accounts that insist on fixed metaphysical and social orders. In some cases, most notable in the work of Julius Evola, appeals to a perennial truth are tied up with explicitly reactionary, hierarchical, and fascist-adjacent politics.
Rather than revealing deep unity, perennial philosophy itself generates a family of competing constructions, unified more by aspiration than by substance. In this they are just like religions.
I would say a religion that has contradictory teachings about how to be saved fails. Suppose I really believed in hell. Then how to avoid eternal torment would be an important question to me. I was told as a Catholic I needed a Catholic baptism and all mortal sins forgiven at time of death. Some Baptists say Catholics are in need of salvation. I once heard a radio preacher say baptism by immersion is required to be saved. It's a ridiculous situation.And that's just Christianity.
Ask religions in general what happens after death and you get a variety of contradictory answers.
The video mentioned in the OP goes into greater detail but it's no longer on YouTube. It's here if interested.
109 – Why Religions Fail https://vimeo.com/1135038855
Perennialism doesn’t avoid this either - the work of finding the One Truth generates a multiplicity of responses, as noted above.
Restorationism is common as well, where new religions spring up, but are presented as returns to previously uncorrupted states. For example, a Mormon would not admit his "truths" began in the 19th century, but instead those truths have always existed just been lost and now rediscovered.
If you assert departure from perennial beliefs leads to the death of religion, you are likely within a tradition that has convinced you its beliefs are perennial.
Religions are social systems and they tend to last longer that most other social systems, like nations and particular governments. They tend to change less over time than does political party doctrine, for example (compare a Republican from the 1980s to today).
It does seem though that conservative religions are more stable than liberal ones, meaning having clearly defined moral codes and behavioral norms is important, but a failure to adapt will be just as problematic for survival.
Which religions are the liberal ones?
I'm distinguishing between liberal and orthodox, where the former are those more inclined to change and the latter more committed to tradition.. So, within Judaism, Reform would be liberal, Orthodox (capital O) would be orthodox. In Christianity, Episcopal, certain Lutherans would be liberal. Roman Catholic, evangelicals would be orthodox. I'm less familiar with Islam and Hinduism, etc., but I'm sure there are similar divisions.
Don’t you mean heterodox rather than liberal? Liberal seems too ideologically divergent.
Whatever word you like best.
I will, thanks.
A Baptist told me that liberal Christians don't care about denomination, or even the divide between Christianity and Judaism. Conservative Christians care about divisions.
There's some kind of syndrome that causes that. I don't know what it us, though. :grin:
One of Heidegger's biographers accused him of sadism due to his easy attitude toward violence and even genocide. If someone is happy with the concept of humans being tortured eternally, maybe there's some sadism to it?
Is that accurate? Is that Black Notebokk stuff?
Quoting frank
Well if God is happy with this who are we not to share the enthusiasm?
No, that's Steiner in 1979. The black notebooks just put an end to any possibility of apology.
Quoting Tom Storm
Well, it's just that most of us would be filled with horror at the thought of lighting a golden retriever on fire. We're better than God?
Ah huh! Good line by the way.
Quoting frank
These days it seems that some people are more uncomfortable with golden retrievers on fire than people.
misanthropy, yep
That's because conservatives adhere to orthodoxy by definition and don't accept variation, which does require them to either ignore or explain away their own modifications that occur over time.
Orthodox Judaism modifies by becoming more strict, so not all change is towards leniency.
The Amish control themselves by adhering to the rule that increasing one's humility is showing off and therefore not humble. Like if I tried to prove myself a super Amish man by having a goat pull me on a rolling chair instead of a fancy horse and buggy.
That's the best example I could think of, but there might be others.
But for the perfect Amish woman, would you go all out with goat and what not? This is a test for how conservative you are.
We need to think about what religions try to achieve. If we agree that religions aim to achieve converting the ordinary folks in the streets into their cults and sectors giving false promise and illusion for afterlife and reincarnation, then they have been successful, because there are many believers in the teachings.
If the would-be followers turn to sceptic on the religions doubting if the teachings are true, the religions still succeed, because then the sceptic will turn to a philosopher reading philosophy of religion not quite committing himself to the teachings, but still thinking about and going over the teachings.
And sooner or later, the non-belivers and agnostics tend to turn to religions when they get older.
Whether religions actually offer the real afterlife or reincarnation remains mystery, which belong to the realm of faith.
I don't think religion tries to achieve that; that’s a specific description a sceptic might provide. Firstly, there are religions that do not work around conversion. But in essence, most religion works to build community around a shared notion of the transcendent.
Quoting Corvus
It goes in reverse too. I worked in palliative care and watched people die, many of whom were religious, including priests, nuns, ministers, and monks. Many of them confessed that they no longer believed in God, not because they were dying, but because, as they were dying, they reviewed their beliefs and felt God lacking real traction.
Building community sounds like recruiting the disciples and converting folks. but in different wordings.
Quoting Tom Storm
I read the opposite stories - Please have a read on the life of A. J. Ayer his final days.
I have done more than read, I've seen it. And as I said, there are some who behave as you say but it often goes in reverse.
Quoting Corvus
No, it isn’t different wording; it’s a fundamentally different lens. Your example is a common secular view of religion that uses pejorative language to describe aims. See below.
Quoting Corvus
I'd say religions aims for truth not false promises or illusions. What you are describing is not the aim of religion but a skeptic's view of religions aims.
My points were from my experience of observing the church members when attending the churches in my teens.
Quoting Tom Storm
There are many different types and sectors in religions. They may operate and behave all differently. Not saying your points are wrong.
So are you saying this is your interpretation of what you saw? Or are you saying that your church members and church leaders also aimed to provide false promises or illusions?
I would agree with you that many of religion’s claims are dubious but its members tend to be sincere. Isn’t this the tragedy? That’s certainly what I found growing up in the Baptist tradition.
It was obvious from the observations, many members were there for increasing their business, making more contacts preferably richer older folks, and they were told to bring more friends or whoever into the church, and they will have more blessing from God. Some were attending the church because they were lonely, and wanted to find partner. Of course, it wouldn't be all 100% of them were like that, but quite a lot of them were like that.
Many people think this, but there's probably a very good argument to the contrary.
The aim of the video series is to describe the world as it really is. This video gives the "big picture". "108 - Religion 2.0 (Science+Religion)" https://vimeo.com/1135038281
Quoting EnPassant
Different "spiritual" traditions (i.e. religions, cults, superstitions, etc) promote different – often mutually exclusive – "ways of life" – ritual practices, not "truth".
Without circular reasoning, please explain how you (we) "really know" this.
Afaik, every person who rescues a child from sexual abuse by clergy is morally good in contrast to the immoral indifference (or sadism) of a "God" that does not.
Understanding comes from God. God teaches and guides those who desire the good. Goodness is ultimately obedience to God. It is not the same for everyone.
Quoting 180 Proof
There is basic morality and there is deeper faith. There are degrees of goodness.