A Natural Religion

The above by Ellis is merely beating around the bushes.
What is most natural than the fact of inevitable DOOM?

If you have read and have a reasonable understanding of all the main religions you will note the concept of DOOM is the pivot cause for the natural emergence, rise and acceptance of religions.

The central motivation of all the Abrahamic religions is about the DOOM, the fear of an eternal death thus the hope of salvation for an eternal life in Heaven and avoiding Hell.
The main drive of the whole Buddhism is centered on the mother of all sufferings, i.e. the fear of Death, i.e. the Buddha Story of the sick-man, the old man as potential to be a corpse.
The same central theme of the fear of death is represented in Hinduism, Jainism and other religion. Taoism is not very explicitly about death but upon deeper research it is reduced to the fear of death.

The rest of the features in all religions are merely window dressings to the main issue and concern of that DOOM.

I find Buddhism very effective where it identify the problem very specifically and introduced solutions to deal with it directly, effectively and efficiently. Buddhism has its share of the ‘window dressing’ stuffs but the learned Buddhists will understand the central point and leverage of Buddhism is pivoted on the DOOM. Once the DOOM is managed effectively the rest of human life will flow effectively without its major hindrance and constraints.

The fact is the 7 billion or the 100% of humans on Earth are represented by a range of mental inclinations and proclivities, spiritual intelligence, etc. of various degrees from low 1/100 to 99/100 high.

Theistic related dogmas, practices and rituals as in religions are necessary for the majority of humans who only has low levels of spiritual intelligence, say 30% or less.

If fear of death is the current mother of all religions, why could there not be a religion based of Life, on human events in the here and now. Does death define everything we think and feel?
I just thought it would be pleasant to consider a religion not based on rewards and punishments in some afterlife, a religion based instead on what it means to be alive at this very moment.
Is there no religion or idea of a religion that does not owe to imagining the extremes of Doom or pie in the sky?

I think that every religion and every ‘philosophy of life’ has to answer the question of what happens after death.

You gave two examples in the OP - ecosystems and eugenics. Eugenics is so loaded with negative history and associations that it’s a non-starter.
I’m not sure how ecosystems would be used as a basis for religion. In an ecosystem, predators eat prey, there are parasitic animals, there is slavery. Surely, that could be used to create a master-slave religion or a religion where exploitation is justified.

You can say that about Buddhism. Judaism originally had no hell or afterlife.

Epicureans believed that the gods where completely indifferent to humans and that there was no afterlife. The Stoics also did not believe in an afterlife.

The “mother and father” of all religions is the Perception of Hope and Threat, PHT. You see the extremes explicated in the religions because it is by PHT that ALL living creatures guide their behavior (thus the god of the Media). The stronger the PHT involved, the stronger and more enduring is the associated behavior. Heaven and Hell depict the extremes of PHT. That is why they appeared in the religions.

In everyday, “Earthly”, life, there are very few perceptions of hope or threat with which to guide one’s behavior. And without a solid PHT, there is no guidance. Chaos, misery, and death usually follow. Governance methods tend to emphasize the perception of threats (laws, terrorism, reputation,…). Religions more often emphasize the perception of hopes. Both use real, exaggerated, and imaginary perceptions.

Today, the most common perception of hope would be the potential to acquire vast monetary wealth. It is no accident that such is the case. Thus a very few will ever achieve their perception of hope, very many will strive for it, and most will never even come close to achieving it. In the mean time, as the strive, their perception of military or reputation threat is keeping them from going too far astray.

Today, money forms the new-age religion because it is controlled, thus giving power to the Godwannabes. Wealth is the perceived hope, as poverty is the perceived threat of Human Secularism (the new-age Earthly religion).

You really do not know what knowledge is. No wonder: you are not modern. Modern people know that nobody can tell them what happens when they are dead. They want to know it now, but they know that there is no single one who knows it now. As long as there is no knowledge about it, modern people do not care about it.

In addiion, they know that they live and have to live in this world, not in a “world” beyond this world, and so they live according to the conditions and principles of this world …:

Yes. Most of the modern people want to live according to a principle that can guarantee them a wealthy life. They want promises in this world, thus not in a “world” beyond this world, because they know that nobody currently knows whether there is a “world” beyond this world. And they believe that money is the best one of those promises.

A principle of the new religion, Human Secularism, is to emphasize insecurity in the masses causing them to not have confidence in anything other than the most immediately threatening (“clear and present danger”), the governance.

Agreed.

This :

then this :

“Most of the modern people want to live according to a principle that can guarantee then a wealthy life” . If that is true , then you are right … I am not a modern. I don’t think that money is the best ‘good’. Thanks for the compliment. :wink:

Yes, you are not a modern - in any case.

Never mind. :wink:

The primary purpose of all religions should be resolving and providing solutions to that dreaded DOOM.
A religion can provide guidance for living successfully and many religions has done that and making a mess of it when their guides [commands, Laws and rules] are made immutable which cannot adapt to inevitable changes, e.g. the Abrahamic religions.

That unavoidable dreaded DOOM and its existential angst need not be managed by religions forever [which was useful and its shelf-life is expiring very soon]. The more effective approaches to deal with that DOOM in the future would be progressive spirituality rather than religiosity with its negative baggage.

Once the DOOM is managed and stabilized life can progress optimally with so many other approaches such a philosophy and other self-development approaches. There is no need for religiosity and religions especially those with immutable holy books that straight-jacket believers to one era of time and thus allow no potentials to cope with inevitable changes in time,

The answer there is nothing that can happen to ‘no thing’ or no soul after physical death.
There is no soul that survives after physical death.

The effective solution is to manage that unavoidable subliminal fear of death in the present - the NOW.
Most people will state they do not fear death, i.e. thanotophobia and that is not the fear we are talking about.
The “fear” we are concern with, i.e. the DOOM that is pulsating and oozing subliminally into existential angst without a spot to scratch and manifesting all sorts of secondary sufferings and pains that are alleviated by submission to a belief as done by the majority.

The concept of god, divinity, and spirit is alien or foreign to that of nature.

These concepts are merely names given for various psychological experiences in human growth and development. Any other names will do. So, what is it that lies beneath the idea of knowing by naming?

And what is your view of the inflexible, never changing laws of nature?

Let’s try to find the existential roots of religion without referring to the Abrahamic deity.
J. Huxley speaks of two types of experiences known by those who claim to have had a spiritual awakening. One type is “the dark night of the soul” in which one feels a sense of total disconnect from God. The other is the sense of being at one with all that exists, of being totally connected to God. These experiences appear to express the ultimate poles of what is often found in a heartfelt search for enlightenment. Yet they may indicate stages of spiritual development, not necessarily any final outcome.

Books are needed to pass on the knowledge.
Stability is one on the useful features of religion. Otherwise, it all just becomes one fad after another - ‘flavor of the month’ religion - what do you want to believe this month? What are the powerful pushing this month?

Two spring to mind - lack of control over that happens in the world and uncertainty about how one ought to act or react.

The only constant is change.

Books are acceptable and I agree with the need for stability.
The point is whatever ‘book’ that is to be introduced must not be made immutable, e.g. in Islam and the Quran;

Quran 50:29. The sentence [word, l-qawlu الْقَوْلُ ق و ل ] that cometh from Me [Allah] cannot be changed,

18:27 There is none who can change His [Allah’s] words, and thou wilt find no refuge beside Him.

Quran 30:30 There is no altering (the laws [revelations] of) Allah’s creation. That is the right religion, but most men know not.

Quran 10:64 There is no changing the Words of Allah that is the Supreme Triumph.

Quran 6:115. Perfected [watammat: perfect, complete, fulfil] is the Word [Quran] of thy Lord in truth and justice. There is naught that can change His words [the Quran].

What is wrong with Islam [in part] is the Quran contain loads of evil elements that can influence and inspire SOME evil prone Muslims to commit terrible evils and violence around the world. Such a doctrine of evil is made immutable and thus eternal within Islam.The evidence of the actualization and reality of the above is very glaring.

Religions are a critical necessity for the majority of humans but that is only for a certain era and not meant to be eternal.